Posts by Christy Haussler

137: BEST OF: The Sex Ed You Should Have Gotten with Rachel Coler Mulholland

Today, we are covering an important topic today, but maybe not in the way you expect. I’m joined by Rachel Mulholland (aka Shug CM), a therapist whom I met on TikTok because of her incredible content around sex education for children. Today’s focus is on how our lives as adults are impacted if we don’t get comprehensive sex education as children. Join us for the conversation!

Show Highlights:

How KC’s story from her teenage years illustrates the gaps that most people have in their education about sex and the fact that sex ed is NOT a one-time conversation
How “purity culture” is impacting teenagers in certain places in the US in damaging ways
How even most comprehensive sex ed doesn’t address the pleasurable side of sex–and (for females) that the pleasure doesn’t have to come from another person
How sexual predators take advantage of the lack of information in sex ed from SAFE places
Why parents have real fear about talking to their kids about sex ed
The effects of NOT educating kids that sex and pleasure don’t always go together
Rachel’s Four Pillars of Safe Sex: confirmation, communication, lubrication, and enthusiastic participation
Why parents should be aware when their kids are ready to hear and learn–and begin at the most basic level appropriate for their age
How to answer those first little-kid questions around, “Where do babies come from?”
Why curiosity is a foundational part of body talk for kids–not just around sexuality
How parents can work through their own feelings around sex ed with their children
Why Rachel’s next project is a book about body talk

Resources:

Connect with Rachel: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Website (coming soon!)

Recommended by Rachel: How Do You Make A Baby by Anna Fiske

Connect with KC: TikTok, Instagram, and Website

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

KC Davis 0:05
Hello. Sentient ball of stardust Welcome to Struggle care the podcast about mental health by me KC Davis, eventually I'll have a tagline that sticks also, by the way, I somebody told me, like way early on, that I don't pronounce sentient correctly. And I looked it up and they were correct. So apparently the American pronunciation is sentient. I guess the British still say sentient. But I just want, dear listener, you to know that I am totally 100% aware that I don't pronounce it at the correct us pronunciation, and I will not be. I think it sounds weird, and I will not I want to stick with sentient. My guest today is Rachel, who is a therapist. I met her on Tiktok because she makes really incredible content about sex education for children. And before you swipe away if you're not a parent, we're only going to talk about parenting stuff at the very end, because I want to talk more about what the effect is as adults when we don't get comprehensive sex education. So Rachel, say hello, introduce yourself.
Rachel 1:04
Hi everybody. I'm Rachel. You might also know me as Shug from Tiktok. So Rachel,
KC Davis 1:09
I want to start by telling you a story. Alright, let's hear it. So by the way, Mom and Dad, you may not want to hear the story, but whatever my I don't remember sex education in school at all. No recollection of it. I do remember my mother, which I thought she did a good job. She sat down when I was in early grade school and explained to me how babies were made, and she drew the ovaries and the uterus and, you know, the vaginal canal, and she talked about the sperm going up through the vet the vaginal canal and meeting the egg and it coming down, like she get, she drew it out the whole picture, and that's what I remember. And at the time, and for a long time, I thought, like, wow, like, my mom really, like, did so much more than school did. And then fast forward, I was 16 years old, and I lost my virginity in the backseat of a minivan at like, 3am it was very romantic. And the next day. So I'm talking like 29 hours later, I was with my friend, who, incidentally, was that person's younger sister, and I went to the bathroom, and I sat down on the toilet, and this gush of blood came out, and it was not period blood, right? Like it was watery. It was a gush, and I panicked, and I called a friend, obviously not their friend, whose house I was at, because I just slept with her brother. And I said to her, this is embarrassing to this day, I said I had sex and I think I got pregnant and just had a miscarriage, because at 16 years old, that was I didn't know anything else except for those mechanics of like the sperm meets the egg, and that's what happens. It's so funny to me to this day of poor little 16 year old thinking that 24 hours later I had gotten pregnant and then had a bloody miscarriage, because I had no idea what happened. I know today that I must have had a hymen that broke like hours later, and a little bit of blood came out. But I just wanted to share that with you and maybe use that as a jumping off point for how what we think is really comprehensive is not that comprehensive, well. And you touched
Rachel 3:11
on a really important theme. We've touched on several, actually, and the biggest one is that this is not a one time conversation, right? So many of us can point back to that one time we had the talk, right? I will never forget mine was sitting on the front step with my dad, because for some reason I was much more comfortable talking about that kind of stuff with my dad, and he was, you know, going to have the talk with me. And was like, Well, you know, when this, and I pretty sure, blacked out, because I don't remember a single thing he said. And then after that, it was like it was never talked about again, and there was never any discussion about the interpersonal part of it, which is another thing you're talking about, right? Like the fact that you felt like you had to hide the fact that you've had sex from this one friend. Like, we never discuss the consent piece, the interpersonal piece, the timeline. We put so much pressure, right? You made an off the cuff remark about how, you know, oh, how romantic. In the backseat of event, like, there's so much pressure on the first time, right? There's so many themes that you've touched on. But the biggest one here that we should probably discuss is this idea that, like, you have the talk about the mechanics, then you never discuss it again, and you'll just figure it out. And from an adult perspective, right? You're wanting to talk about how this impacts as adults, that's the piece, right? Because we spend so much of our early adulthood fumbling around and trying to find this information through trial and error and through misinformation of our friends, trial and errors, and that's one of the biggest negative impacts you can have about not getting comprehensive sex ed. And
KC Davis 4:37
I even think about fast forwarding to being in my late 20s, I was married, and we were trying to have a baby. We were trying to conceive, and we were having fertility issues, and so that drove me and my little ADHD brain into this, like hyper focus of learning about how conception really happens, and learning that you're only fertile, like four or five days. Days out of the month, and that it happens at this time, and it takes this many days for and I remember being like I was never taught any of this. I had to learn what fertility meant. And my husband and I kind of joked about how our whole, like teenage and early 20s years was spent really thinking that, like getting pregnant was so easy that, like we had to constantly be terrified about it, only to find that, like it's actually kind of hard for some people, and feeling very like no one prepared us for this, I can't believe we didn't know this. And it also makes me think about how, you know, I am someone who considers themselves sort of what we call an ex evangelical. So I still am in sort of a progressive Protestant Christian faith, but I talk a lot with friends about what the effect of purity culture has on us like so if listeners aren't familiar, like in the US church, particularly in the south, there's this real emphasis on sexual purity. It's particularly only for women, really. And there's a lot of conversations about how damaging that is, and that's sort of a conversation for another day. But what I think is so interesting is that even those of us who would not consider ourselves as growing up in purity culture, there's still this like, well, this is not something I can talk to my parents about. And the conversations that my mom had with me about sex were about mechanics. And I was sort of given this impression that it's okay to ask about mechanics, it's okay to learn about mechanics, but when it came to pleasure, that's not okay to know, like to learn about, that you just have to that's
Rachel 6:48
not even the thing we talk about, yeah, like ever even once you're sexually active, like it is a recent development that even adult people talk to each other about, not just Like, whether it was good or bad, but like, this was an enjoyable thing. I'm doing this because it's an enjoyable thing. I don't want to have children, you know, they're like, that's a recent development in the way that we talk about sex,
KC Davis 7:12
and I think it really does create even if you're not growing up in sort of a religious context that shame culture around your body and your pleasure and the way that your body works. And it's wild to me that we can know so much and learn so much about our bodies, and that somehow everything below the waist and above the knees, it has to be like mysterious.
Rachel 7:35
What's really interesting, too, when you talk about the concept of pleasure, and the way that we introduce that idea is like, even if you have the comprehensive discussion like this is between two people who are really into each other, and it does feel good. We also leave out the idea that, like, the pleasure doesn't come from the other person. The pleasure is innate in you, and the pleasure is something that you can do for yourself, and we especially fail to do that for little for people who are born with uteruses and vulvas and vaginas, like we don't talk about that. It's like, ingrained in the culture to acknowledge that people with penises are just going to explore themselves. But we never, like, we don't touch on that subject for people who are born with vaginas ever and so like, even again, even if you have the conversation about pleasure, even if you were lucky enough to have a parent who was comprehensive enough to say, Well, yeah, you know, you can have sex without having babies, because it feels good. We don't like that gives the that gives children, and then again, young adults that the idea that the pleasure comes from the other person, it has to be initiated by the other person. It has to be created and serviced and maintained by the other person. It
KC Davis 8:41
totally reminds me of another funny thing, which is that I remember being young, and I'm talking like I must have been like a toddler, like I was sleeping with a stuffed animal, and I had just discovered masturbation, and I was in bed with my mother. I mean, that's how young I was right. And my mom was like, What do you wear on vacation or something? She's like, What are you doing? Why? Like, what are you moving around? And I was like, I'm touching myself here. And she just kind of rolled over and looked at me and went, Okay, well, that's something that you do in private. And then, like, rolled over and went to sleep. And so, like, my mom really did have, especially, think, for the when I was growing up, like a pretty open matter of fact, non shaming conversation or like attitude about it. And yet, fast forward, like around that time or a year later, I remember listening to that Christmas song where it's like, you better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pow. I'm telling you why. Listen, this is how young I was. I didn't know what the word pout meant, and for some reason, I decided in my head, I think that means what I'm doing when I touch myself. I think that must be what pouting is, and Santa doesn't want me to do that. And I remember getting really frightened. Yeah, so it's just so funny to me to like, have what I've always considered like a parent with kind of progressive, open ideas about that, and yet, culturally, still having these, like, formative memories about being like, wait, I shouldn't do that. And I think here's my question, really, is that I think when we talk about, Hey, kids need comprehensive sex ed, and we talk about like, they need to understand how sex works mechanically. I think a lot of people are totally down with that, like, yes, they need to understand. But even the most progressive people that I know, when you start talking about, talking about children, about pleasure, all of the sudden we are so uncomfortable, is that something that you've experienced,
Rachel 10:45
Oh, absolutely. One of the very first videos that I had kind of blow up really big was when I proposed that we should not only encourage our young people to explore their own bodies, but that we should encourage them to explore their own bodies as a way to keep them safe, because if you understand how your body works and what your body likes and what your body needs, and you know that that's okay, and you can focus on yourself, and you can say, I'm not really down to explore your body yet, because I'm really still learning about my own that's a safeguard for them. That's a way for them to say, you know, I know that I'm not really all the way sure about how my own body works, so like, let's not go there yet, right? A lot of the ways that predators leverage their power against children is by giving them information that they haven't gotten from somewhere safe. So they start with answering questions for them that the kids have been told they can't answer, you know, they can't ask, or they don't feel comfortable asking their caregivers. And, you know, it's pretty nonchalant. It's pretty non threatening. And then it escalates. And then it goes from answering questions to offering information, and that information is where we start to, you know, get into the dangerous stuff. And when they offer that information. Like, hey, if you do this, it feels good. And you know, I won't tell even you know it's okay to feel that. Like, can you hear like, how that becomes a way for this person to not only gain their trust and their confidence, but to then prepare them to move into things that is absolutely not okay. Whereas, if we take a kid and we say, You know what, you're absolutely allowed to explore your body, and you're going to find spots that feel really good to touch, and you can go in your bedroom, or you can go in the bathroom, and you can do those things with clean hands by yourself, that's totally okay. You're allowed to explore your body, and you should explore your body and find out the things that you like, and when you're older and when you're ready and you're done, exploring your body, and you understand it and you know it, then when you're bigger, you can start to explore it with other people who are safe,
KC Davis 12:50
yeah, because it really it deals in the the sort of like it is dealing in the trait of pleasure. Because we're told pleasure is sort of a taboo subject to talk about. And so when there's this person who's going to talk to you about pleasure, and it's the only person that will, and I mean, that's certainly how there's a reason why trust and credibility is so easily offered to teachers, because people that teach you things right, like, that's honestly even I have never thought of it that way. Because even though I agree, I still feel those feelings of, like, really, talk to my four year old about how it feels good, really, like, talk to my 678, year old. And I'm trying even to identify, like, what is my fear, right? And so that's kind of what I want to talk about next. And but I want to pause just for a second, and then we'll come right back. Okay? We're back with Rachel, who's a therapist that talks about, basically, BodyTalk sex ed. What is the effect that not getting sex ed has on us as adults? How should we talk to kids about sex? And so I wanted to come back to this point about how you said that not only talking about the mechanics, but about pleasure, and how that's actually a safeguard, because I think that something in me, My gut feeling feels the opposite. I feel like it's like, scary or dangerous, or like I might accidentally open something up that's like, not going to be good for my kids. Like, where does that come from? Well,
Rachel 14:13
I think that's, you know, touching back into the idea of purity culture, right? We're steeped in the US, in this idea that sex and pleasure are intricately interwoven. There we go, inextricably tied, right? They're stuck together. There is no separation. How
KC Davis 14:28
is that easier for you to say,
Rachel 14:32
Listen, my ADHD brain works one way. I can't explain it. It's just how it's gonna go.
KC Davis 14:37
That's amazing. Okay, so it's tied in an untieable way,
Rachel 14:40
exactly. You can't take them apart from each other, which is, of course, not true, like I said before, to what I miss the to what sex and pleasure? Yes, okay, they have to come together, right? There's that idea that sex is the only way to be pleasurable, and because sex is an adult thing, that means pleasure is an adult thing. It's. Not for young children. It's not for people growing up, even though it's literally your biology.
KC Davis 15:05
And I'm having like such an epiphany moment right now, because when I think about my first sexual experiences, they were not pleasurable, and I thought that was normal. I thought that was fine, like the effect of no one talking to me about sex and pleasure being inextricably linked meant that my first sexual experience as a, I guess, a preschooler, where the little boy wanted me to go under the table and say, I'll show me yours if you show me mine. And nothing about that was enjoyable. In fact, I was uncomfortable, but I just kind of let him do it, and it was a peer, right? And then moving forward, right? Like when the first time that I gave oral sex, and it was sort of this, like, I'll do you if you do me, and it was not pleasurable at all for me. But yet, when I thought about like experimenting, no part of me expected that it was supposed to be pleasurable. And yet, when I think about every male on the other side, they actually were experiencing pleasure. Right. Fast forward to losing my virginity was not pleasurable
Rachel 16:05
because had they been given the opportunity to explore their own bodies, to figure out what their bodies liked? It's again, it's a cultural norm that we just expect that.
KC Davis 16:14
So we're literally setting our girls up for not believing that their sexual encounters should be pleasurable, and that's like a big reason why so many of us and so many of our daughters would grow up to be like to partake in this culture where, like, my pleasure doesn't matter, and it really just matters about the man. And I'm just doing it so that he like, oh my god, this is such a light bulb moment.
Rachel 16:43
Yeah, we never label it. We don't name that. We don't talk about the idea that we're not talking about pleasure because we don't want to talk about sex like we have never that doesn't come up. And then so, like, you know, you feel uncomfortable talking to little kids about it. You don't want to say, This feels good, it's and then the next step of that is it feels good when you do it to yourself and it should feel good when you get to a partner. And that's where, like the next video, one of the next ones that I had blow up was my four pillars discussion, the four pillars of safe sex, because safe sex isn't just about protection. So what are the four pillars? So the four pillars are confirmation, making sure that both partners are really excited to be doing this. You need to confirm explicitly that both of you are jazzed about this happening. Then you have to have communication checking in beforehand. What do you want to try? What are you excited about checking out, like checking in during? Hey, is this good? Are you liking this? Do we want to try something different and then checking in after? How do you feel? Do you want to cuddle? Do you need a glass of water? Do you want to go for a walk? How was it? And then the third pillar is lubrication. Nobody talks about that. It's a whole, I mean, that's a whole nother podcast. But like making sure that you are able to do this in a way that doesn't hurt, right? There's a very low percentage of people that can have sex without additional lubrication and actually enjoy it. Weirdly enough, I keep smacking there.
KC Davis 18:05
I recently saw a Tiktok that was like nobody had ever put it this way. And he showed a picture, a D model of a clitoris, and where it showed that, like it's not just that little nub, like it's this big kind of organ that goes, you know, all sorts of ways. And he specifically talked about the part of it that comes around the outside of the vaginal canal. And he was like, here's the thing, there are no nerves like on the inside, like in much of your vaginal canal. And so what makes penetration pleasurable is when you get aroused, blood flows into this part of the clitoris, and that changes what's and it pushes in on the walls and creates sensation. And so he was like, when we talk about lubrication, we're not just talking about so that it goes in easy. We're talking about so that it's actually pleasurable for you, not just the absence of pain and irritation and friction, but that foreplay, getting those areas ready, right? It's as integral to a woman as like getting an erection is for a man, like it won't work. There will be no pleasure otherwise. Yep,
Rachel 19:16
you're absolutely right. Like that is, it is essentially, when you think about it, a female erection, getting that part of the clitoris warmed up is vital. You said it beautifully.
KC Davis 19:27
And he also, by the way, for any men listening, he said that is typically best done by not touching the clitoris. He was like, you can't just like, go in. It's like, this is the mood setting, right? So that's fascinating. So it's confirmation, communication, lubrication, what's the fourth one? And
Rachel 19:42
now my brain just turned off. So this is I'm all like, God, I
KC Davis 19:45
love that so much.
Rachel 19:47
My favorite part about being ADHD, I talk about this literally all the time. This
KC Davis 19:52
is such a safe space to do that. Just blank. It's fine. We'll come back to it. Yeah,
Rachel 19:56
yeah. It's just gone. It's not there. I made them up. Made a Tiktok. Can't think of it.
KC Davis 20:03
So I think that what I find myself as a parent being afraid of is like, what if I teach my kid things about her body that her brain is not ready to contextualize or make decisions about?
Rachel 20:20
So that's where my the kind of foundations of BodyTalk come from. That's where you have that requirement. I call it consent for knowledge, touching base and making sure that your kids are driving this bus, that they're letting you know when they're ready to hear this information. Touch is saying, you know, hey, this answer to this question or this topic that I'm going to bring up might make you feel some things. Might make you feel a little weird, or make you have some more questions. Are you ready to hear this? Do you want to know the answer? Because sometimes they're going to say, No. They'll be like, actually, I don't really want to know that. And then you say, Okay, I'll table this, and we can talk about it later. And what that does is it allows you to know like, Okay, this is something that they've been thinking about, or they've been hearing from someone, or they heard a joke in a movie, or whatever. And I need to come back to this, because it's clearly something that is brewing, right? But it also gives them the ability to say, I'm not ready for this yet, right? If I'm going to feel some things, I need to be in a different place.
KC Davis 21:23
So what would you say to a parent that says I don't want to talk to my young child? They're asking me where babies come from. They're asking me how babies get into the tummy. But I'm really afraid that if I tell my kid about penises going into vaginas, they're going to go to school and ask some kid to put their penis into the vagina because they don't have they don't understand cognitively that, like they need to not do that well,
Rachel 21:48
and that's where. So if your kid is asking the question, you start with the minimum answer possible, right? You always start with the most base level. So where do babies come from? Oh, babies come from uteruses. Oh, okay, okay,
KC Davis 22:02
so let's, let me ask you this in real life, because this has happened to me. The first time that my kid asked, Where do babies come from? I said, mommy's tummy. Yeah. I said, Okay, all right. The next time she asked, and I had actually already been watching your tech talk, so I was, like, trying really hard to and then the next time she said, this was like, you know, I can't remember if it was like, months or a year later or a year later or something? And she kind of stopped doing, how did the babies get into the mommy's tummy? And so I said, well, the daddy's put them there. This may not have been the right answer, but I was, I was trying to go with, like, I'm gonna be honest, but, and then she was like, oh, okay, like, whatever. Then the next question, and when I say they were, like, months, if not years, in between these questions, right? She goes, how did the daddies put a baby into mommy's tummy? And that's when I realized I'm not ready to have this conversation. And I was like, I'll tell you later. So like, and I mean, she was four when she asked that. So how do you first of all, how should I have done that differently? And then how would I answer that question of, how does the daddy put the like? So you
Rachel 23:05
didn't, I mean, to make you feel better. You didn't handle it poorly, right? You didn't shut her down and say, You can't know that you're that's too much of a grown up question. Like, you didn't shut her down. You said, Oh, I'll answer that a little bit later, right? We're all. We all have moments where we're busy or where we need to gather our like our thoughts, it is better to say in the moment, can we talk about this? Can we table this? Can we put a pin in it and I'll come back to it and then do that? Right? Obviously, you've got to make good than to freak out and be like, you can't talk about that, right? We don't want to add shame to the conversation. We just want to say, we'll talk about that in a minute, right? We'll give that a second. But that's the perfect time for you to throw in that consent for knowledge piece. So I'm going to tell you how the baby gets in there, but it might make you feel some big things and make you have a lot of questions. Are you sure you want to know? Because it's very possible that she's like, Yeah. And then what you do is you start again, minimal information. So you know that babies grow in my tummy, but there's a special organ called a uterus. That's where they grow. It's like a room that's only made for babies to grow. And what happens is there's these things called ovaries, and the egg comes out of the ovaries, and then the sperm meets the egg in the fallopian tube, and that's where the cells combine, and the DNA zips together and starts the process of making a baby. And the cells divide and divide and divide, and like, when you get to that again, that very mechanical explanation, the sperm and the egg, that's enough information, if you really don't want to talk about the penis and the vagina and that whole thing yet, start with the biology of where the baby actually forms, because that's so much, wait a minute, there's two. They have to Whoa. And it's entirely possible that's enough for her to chew on that, how the sperm gets in there? Not even there, not even thinking about it
KC Davis 24:44
yet, sure. Okay, well, is there like, a minimum age, or is it like different for all kids? Like, when you start,
Rachel 24:51
it's different for all kids. So, like, my oldest was probably seven. He probably took the longest to be like, how does. Get in there, which, incidentally, was really comfortable, because it was right after we told him that he was having a baby sister. He was like, Wait, how did she get in there? And I was like, Cool. All right, well, I guess I'll tell you. And then my middle was probably three and a half, because she was getting a baby sister. And she was like, how did she get in there? I was like, Do you want to know? And she's like, Yeah. And again, to them, it's like, putting Legos together, right? It's not some sort of big, scary, puritanical, you know, oh, I'm gonna go try this. Right? It's like, oh, that's a cool thing that you could do. Interesting. And then what you were saying, like, I'm scared that my kid's gonna go to school and be like, let's try this. You at the end of this conversation, or even peppered throughout you, throw in this is a thing that grown ups do when they're feeling like they want to have a baby, because when they're little, like that pleasure is not about you're not talking about two people having pleasure, yet you can, you can say that it feels good, I guess, but like, I've never bothered because I don't want them thinking about like, it's pleasure and it's baby. Because for them, they're just thinking about the baby. They're like, Where do babies come from? Where is human life springing forth from? And then the pleasure part is a separate conversation, just for themselves, in my experience, anyway. So
KC Davis 26:13
when would it behoove a parent to have this conversation with a kid that maybe is not bringing it up? So
Rachel 26:20
I that's another one where another foundation is encouraging curiosity. So curiosity is a foundational part of BodyTalk, and not just curiosity about sex, but curiosity about your body in general. So if you want to pepper scientific facts through their whole lives about their body, did you know that scabs, they fall off? Guaranteed within two weeks, because your skin, your whole outside of your skin, replaces itself every 28 days. Did you know that isn't that cool? Did you know that your body has a mail carrier like the mailman outside your body has that they're called hormones, and peppering those kind of facts throughout your day to make curiosity and information sharing a standard so that if you notice that your child hasn't asked the question, you can say, Isn't it interesting that babies are the result of two cells from two different people coming together to make a human? Did you know that? Isn't that cool? And you can spark that curiosity just by sharing non scary facts that are interesting about the human because we're miraculous, right? The way the human body works is fascinating, and there are things about us that we still don't understand. We've been wandering this earth for 1000s of years, and there are processes we don't get, but we're like, we're still figuring it out, and so making the knowledge of the human body commonplace but still fascinating, is a huge part of making BodyTalk non threatening.
KC Davis 27:48
Okay, so when we come back, I have two questions for you. Okay, so here are my two questions. I want to talk about how hard these conversations can be for us as parents when we maybe didn't get those types of conversations as kids, like, how do we address and I love earlier when you said, like, it's okay to punt the question. But what was interesting to me is that punting the question was about me not being ready, not about them not being ready. I mean, how do you help someone get over maybe some of those fears. Oh yeah, what if they're corrupted, or, what if they, you know, go say this to some other kid. What if they, you know, start experimenting, and it's, you know, how do we work through our own feelings of those sort of things? So
Rachel 28:34
that's the kind of, the reason why I started my platform, right? Is this idea that working through your own feelings, just like when you're doing gentle parenting, just like when you're trying to get into a healthy adult relationship. So much of this comes from doing your own internal work, and the easiest way is to start or to think about them ahead of time, right? Don't wait to think about this until your kid is asked the question, right? Start thinking about, how am I going to talk about this? What do I want to say? What are some scripts that I can use, right? And then, like you were saying, Where does this come from in me? Why am I uncomfortable about this? What about this conversation gives me the ick and thinking about, Okay, is there a time when I was little that I asked a question and got shut down. Was there a moment where I realized that if I had known this, I would have been a safer person and thinking about those things like that's so much of this is forethought. It requires thinking ahead. And kids don't often let us do that. They love to blindside us with things that we never thought about.
KC Davis 29:40
That was such a powerful thing you said, when you said, If I had known this, I would have been safer. And I think that even if you don't have kids, there's something really powerful about the permission to grieve. I mean, the title of this episode is the sex ed you should have had. And I. There should have been someone that could talk to you about this, and maybe it was no one's fault. A lot of people are, you know, we're all products of our time and our culture and the way we were raised, and I think most people are doing the best we can, but it's okay to grieve that like that might have hit some people like a ton of bricks, like you had you had this information, had you had an adult that could have taught you the way you deserve to be taught you might have been safer. You might
Rachel 30:26
have been able to avoid you know, I look back on my own youth and again, very much like you. I had parents who were way more open than any of my peers. Parents, right? Like I very distinctly remember, like my book opens with me flipping through the vellum pages of the World Book, encyclopedia, anatomy section, and looking at the systems, and being hyper focused on the reproductive systems, and being like, this is fascinating. And my parents were just like, yeah, if you've got questions, you can ask them. But my parents were married for 31 years. They met my mom's freshman year of college, my dad had been engaged before, when he was in Vietnam, and my mom had dated a couple of people, but, like, there was no there was never a discussion about what healthy dating looks like and what it looks like to, you know, try people on for size, etc, etc. It was just kind of this expectation that when you get old enough, you'll meet somebody that you want to partner up with, and then, you know, that'll be the thing. And so I think about my early 20s, where I dated some really great guys, and I went on some really dangerous dates, like where I had I had my own self interest in mind, even in the slightest, I would never would have gone. And I'm really lucky that being who I am, I was able to get out of those dates without being hurt. But, you know, I think about if those conversations had been more commonplace, how I might have been able to avoid that? And you're absolutely right, grieving and recognizing, like it's okay to be sad that I had to experience those things, and then remembering the reason I'm having these conversations is to help my kids avoid the really dangerous stuff. You're not going to help them avoid heartache. Everybody has heartache. Everybody has those moments where they're like, shoot. That did not go to plan, but hopefully avoiding those situations where they come home and they're like, I'm I'm hurt
KC Davis 32:17
well. And the thing that I think's ironic about my sort of gut reaction, fears of like, what if they go do this? What if they go do this? Are all things that like kids are doing when they don't have the right information. Like, those things are happening anyways.
Rachel 32:33
I will never forget Samantha s at the base of the curly slide on the elementary playground being like, I saw some sperm. You could see him swimming around in the hand. And I was like, Whoa, no, you can't they're microscopic. Like, that's not a thing. She's literally talking about tadpoles or minnows or something, and just calling them sperm. But like, it is in just seared into my brain, and that is another one of those driving forces, like, I will be sharing the information with my child that you can't see them, and if a grownup is showing you sperm, you need to tell mom. Well, listen,
KC Davis 33:03
that was my first thought was, like, if you had the kind of relationship with your parents where you that kind of thing was an open topic, and you were sort of taught about happening between adults. And some one did say to you on the playground, I had sperm in my hand, then that would be something that I immediately would be like, I'm gonna say that. I'm gonna tell my mom about that, because that kind of sounds weird, right?
Rachel 33:27
Exactly like I think back on that, and I'm like, because I didn't tell my parents. It like I knew how babies were made. But the concept, like, why would you it never went there for me that like, why are you as a fourth grader talking about, this, is this a flex? And what's really ironic is, my dad was a social worker, so if I had told him, it would have been an immediate like, oh, boy, we gotta check in on this. And it never even occurred to me, because the like, I knew that it was a grown up thing, but I never like and we're not supposed to know and we're not supposed
KC Davis 33:59
so do you have any, like, favorite books that parents could use or that you like?
Rachel 34:07
So I don't, I know there's
KC Davis 34:11
one I should have asked that. I didn't even ask that ahead of time. It's okay. There is
Rachel 34:15
one, I think there's one that's called How to make a baby, that's very cut and dry, right? It's very explicit. It's very there's diagrams. It's very clinical with how it comes together, and it's pretty straightforward. And it's a picture book. It's meant for small children that you can and you can show them the pages you want to show them, and you can show them, you know, the pages you don't want to show them. But as far as like, handbooks and guides, I'm working on one,
KC Davis 34:38
oh, cool. Is the one you mentioned how to make a baby, is that the one that's really inclusive? Yeah, about, like, the different ways that it doesn't just talk about penetrative sex between a man and a woman.
Rachel 34:50
Yes, yep. And that's part of the reason I like it. So I like that it discusses IVF. I like that it discusses, you know, the fact that sex doesn't just happen to be about a baby. Baby, but it, you know, we're focusing on babies again, because this is the question you're asking me. But yeah, that's that it is very inclusive, if I recall,
KC Davis 35:07
because I think I might get that one. Because, you know, when we were talking about, like, how do you bring that up to a kid that maybe is getting to the age where you should know, but they haven't asked, like, maybe that's a good way of being like, we're just gonna read
Rachel 35:19
this book. You totally good with the idea of, like, if you get uncomfy, this book has lots of really good information, but if you get uncomfy, please tell me and we'll stop.
KC Davis 35:27
Okay, well, I can't wait for your book. What do you have a title yet? It's
Rachel 35:32
only got my working title, which is BodyTalk, but it's a collection of stories that are then attached to, kind of the foundational pieces of the sex ed that we should have had, right? Like the how this could look different for people if we give them the information
KC Davis 35:46
well, so tell us where people can find you now if they want to follow you. So I'm
Rachel 35:51
primarily on Tiktok. My handle is lack of impulse control, which is a callback to my ADHD self. I'm also on Instagram, same handle, lack of impulse control. I'll be launching a YouTube channel here and a Facebook page in the next two weeks,
KC Davis 36:04
which by the time this episode comes out, that will be out. Yes, okay, cool.
Rachel 36:08
And then I'm actually working with a developer to get my website launched with the URL of which will be safe kidsno stuff.com.
KC Davis 36:14
Safe Kids, no stuff. No stuff. Oh, no. Like, K N, O, W, K N, O, W, yep, because Safe Kids know stuff. Okay, we'll link all that in the show notes. This has been really great, and I want to thank you so much. I feel like this is such a gap in parenting content when it comes to helping us know how to raise our kids, and especially because when we want to do something different than what was done to us, and that's no judgment, it's just you decide, you know, but it's like when you don't have a model for the way that you want to do it, or even the way you don't want to do it, because it's not like, well, I don't want to do what my parents did. I mean, they did fine, but I don't know how to do anything different without a model. And that's why I think that what you talk about is so vital, and the way that you do your videos is vital. So I want to thank you.
Rachel 37:09
Thank you. I remember the fourth pillar, by the way. What is it? It's enthusiastic participation. Nice if your partner or yourself is not in it enthusiastically, you should probably touch base. There's that communication piece again and stop enthusiastic participation. Sorry. ADHD, woo. The
KC Davis 37:28
amount of times I've been on a podcast and people have been like, what are your seven pillars? And I've like, said them. By the way, there's not seven, they're six. They already did it. And I'll, like, forget them say the wrong number of times there are. It's amazing. I have just really learned to embrace that about myself like that's fine. All right, cool. Well, thank you dear listeners for joining us. I hope that you guys have a really soft and compassionate day. You.

Christy HausslerApril 7, 2025

136: BEST OF: Eco-Shame with Rebecca Gray

You have probably heard me say, “You can’t save the rainforest if you are depressed.” The truth is that eco-shame and eco-perfectionism can get in the way of our taking steps toward better functioning. If you have ever felt guilty for not being “eco-friendly enough,” this episode is for you!

Rebecca Gray is an environmental epidemiologist. With her master’s degree in public health, she studies disease, the patterns of disease, and health at population levels within communities and countries. She also studies how factors in the environment impact health by causing and promoting disease. Rebecca works with government agencies like the EPA and CDC to develop water guidelines to keep pollutants out of the water supply.

Show Highlights:

How Rebecca has experienced forms of eco-shame in her profession
How some people push the environmental movement in ways that are able-ist
The trap we fall into to “embody the archetype” of the space we occupy
How social media plays into the eco-perfectionism pressure we feel
Why functionality matters more than the morality of what we do in care tasks, eating, the environment, etc.
Rebecca’s view of today’s environmental movement
Why we should ask ourselves how an eco-behavior affects our health and well being
What really does need to happen to prevent climate change
How our capitalistic society colors what we can do to be eco-friendly
How differing narratives make us feel pressured to make individual changes and collective changes to “save the world”
How to identify what we need to function well, fill in gaps with eco-friendly behaviors, and learn how to conserve our energy
How to take a more reasonable–and less stressful–view of sustainability swaps
Actions that have the least impact and the most impact on environmentalism
Rebecca’s advice about letting ourselves off the hook for the decisions we make

Links & Resources:

Connect with Rebecca: LinkedIn

Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram

Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning

KC Davis 0:00
Okay. Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. I'm KC Davis. And this is struggle care, the mental health podcast that does not expect you to save the rainforest when you're depressed. Today, I'm talking to Rebecca Gray, who's an environmental epidemiologist, and we're going to talk about eco perfectionism and eco shame. So if you've ever felt guilty for not being eco friendly enough, this one is for you. Hello, and thank you for joining me today. One of the things that I've talked about a lot in my channels, and I talked about in my book is my principle, you can't save the rainforest if you're depressed. And it's basically talking about how eco shame and eco perfectionism really can get in the way of us taking steps towards better functioning. And I wanted to do a couple of episodes on this. And the guests that I have today is Rebecca gray. She's an environmental epidemiologist, and I'm gonna let her introduce herself. Rebecca, tell us your sort of background and what you do for a living?
Rebecca Gray 1:01
Yeah, great. Thank you so much for having me, I'm really excited to be here. So first of all, I have my master's degree in public health, which means that I look at disease and health at a population level. So if medicine were the individual, I look at communities, countries, etc. And I'm an environmental epidemiologist. So I feel like the word epidemiology has gotten a lot of press during the pandemic. But essentially, it is the study of patterns of disease in human populations. And the environmental part comes in because I study how things in the environment impact our health either promote it or cause disease. So that could be chemical pollutants and our air or our drinking water. Or it could be more physical characteristics of our environment, like temperature, or extreme weather events, etc. So obviously, climate change overlaps with that quite a bit. That is like kind of the overall gist of environmental epidemiology. In my job, specifically, I work with government agencies. So I've worked with the Centers for Disease Control, and the environmental protection agency to help develop water guidelines for different pollutants in our water to keep the community safe from getting sick from bad things in our water.
KC Davis 2:13
Awesome. So you and I connected when I actually made a tick tock that said, I want to talk to someone who is an environmentalist that can talk about, you know, eco shame, eco perfection. And you know, you and I connected and you reached out. And what I really was drawn to is that you not only had professional experience, and environmentalism and knowledge, but you also have quite a bit of personal experience and sort of what I've been calling environmental perfectionism. Can you share a little bit about that?
Rebecca Gray 2:42
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say, as a college student, and then a graduate student who was training to be not only an environmental scientist, but also an environmental scientist focused on human health, I felt an immense amount of pressure to be kind of a poster child for both eco conservation and a picture of human health. Obviously, both of those things are unattainable. But in terms of, you know, from standpoint of eco perfectionism, it was things like feeling really compulsive and obsessive about reducing my carbon footprint, not using single use plastic, not creating food waste. And obviously, I was never able to have not been able to achieve any of those things perfectly, which caused a lot of like, very crippling anxiety and guilt. And that really fed into again, a lot of this pressure I felt to be perfectly healthy person. So I really struggled with an eating disorder called orthorexia, which is unhealthy fixation on kind of eating the quote unquote, right foods or a fear of eating the quote unquote, wrong foods and contamination. And I really, you know, for several years, the level to which my anxiety about being an imposter, as both an environmentalist and a health scientist was debilitating and did interfere with my ability to do my job and live my life productively.
KC Davis 4:05
So yeah, it was so interesting is, you know, the study of how the environment affects our health. And there's also this sort of, like, you're kind of in the upside down where it's like, this is an example of environment affecting housing health. Yeah. But it's like all of the good things about being an environmentalist, it's trying to achieve a good thing to perfection ends up having this really negative impact.
Rebecca Gray 4:32
Absolutely. And, you know, I say that, as a person who has a lot of privileges that actually make it I think, very easy for me to fit into the environmental movement. I am a white person, I am a thin person, I'm an able bodied person, a middle class person. So all of those things give me access to these spaces and having, you know, more marginalized identities on top of that, I think, I imagine would make it even more difficult. So yeah, I don't know the idea of like a poster. child or a perfect embodiment of these values definitely has weighed on me in my life and is
KC Davis 5:07
I recently had Imani Barbara and on and she's a disability activist. And we talked about the intersection between disability and environmentalism. And she was sharing with me about how much of the environmental movement is ableist. Or at least the ways in which people are pushing environmentalism can be ablest can be anti black. And it was a fascinating conversation. Because when I think about, you know, what you're describing is like the poster child for environmentalism, I do always picture like a thin white woman who is like drinking out of a ball mason jar, right. And like, who is, you know, biking to her job that allows that is somehow close enough to bike to, but as paying her enough that she can buy things that are more expensive, because they're more sustainable. And it's truly it's such a nuanced intersection. And so I think it's really interesting to talk to you and hear you say, you know, I kind of am someone with these privileges that fit into that mold. And even for you, it was damaging.
Rebecca Gray 6:18
Yeah, absolutely. And I think something that I love about your content, and the work that you do is separating morality and functionality. And I think such a contributor for me personally, and for a lot of people is the feeling that embodying this archetype is moral, but archetypes of people don't have morality attached to them. And, you know, while individual behaviors can absolutely be productive, and moral and contributing, engaging in everything all the time looking and being a certain way, all of the time is not a good measure of our worth, or our contribution as people because we are always going to fall short of that.
KC Davis 7:00
Let me tell you, when you said the words, embodying the archetype, I got chills, like I got goosebumps. And I almost feel a little choked up. Because I feel as though you've put into words, something that I've experienced my whole life, I've occupied several different spaces. You know, I occupied the recovery space when I was in recovery from drug addiction, sort of the 12 step space, the absolute space space, I've occupied, you know, the evangelical space at a time in my life, I have occupied the mental health space. And I really resonate with what you're saying, even when I was in my addiction. For me, when I was having this root fear of not being enough of not being worthy of love, what I always sort of tried to do to fix that was to look for whatever space I was occupying, be it culture, institution, subculture, I was always striving to be the perfect embodiment of the archetype. So when I was using it was, how do I be cooler? How do I get better drugs? How do I be perceived as, you know a badass how to why and I was striving for that, and I felt I could not reach it. And then I get sober. And I learned so many things. And there were so many really great ways that I became healthier. But that route of feeling unworthy of love, just at some point shifted its focus to now I need to embody the archetype of recovery woman. And that imposter syndrome that you're talking about remained right, I move into the church and I find myself I want to stand in the front and I want to be a missionary, and I want to be on staff and I want to be an recognizing and actually did become a missionary and then had sort of a crisis of faith fall apart during it. And it was around this idea where I realized, so much of what I've been striving for isn't actually fueled by my real beliefs. It's fueled by this promise, this intangible promise that if I can embody the archetype of this space, I will finally be good enough, I will finally get love. I will finally like myself and others will like me too. I just have never really been able to put that into words before so I thank you. That's, I think, like a gift that's gonna stick with me forever. And it applies here, too, right? When we start to occupy spaces that we actually might really believe in with causes that we really do care about, but we can kind of get hijacked by that primal human need to be loved and to be worthy and to belong.
Rebecca Gray 9:39
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I mean, you're gonna thank me for putting into the word into where it's like, I'm gonna thank you for putting into words care tasks are functional, not moral. I mean, I think that so much of like my growth and learning and recovery from an eating disorder and an anxiety disorder came from honest sleeves social media seeing people who had done this and had spent time thinking about it put feelings that I had into words that helped me understand them. That happened to me, you know, when I was getting recovering from orthorexia. I hadn't found like the term intuitive eating yet, but I was like starting to think it I remember telling friends, like, it's just easier if I don't like think too much about what I'm eating. And then like a year later, I'm on Instagram and like, kids eating color is like, it's it's called intuitive eating, and things like that, which I think, I don't know, social media is like such a great tool. I love social media.
KC Davis 10:37
Me too. I always laugh if you've ever seen like, sometimes every once in a while, it happens a lot. Some artists will draw like these kind of metaphorical representations of like the evils of technology, and it'll be like two people in a room, but they're looking at their phones. Yeah. And I'm always like, where's the artists who's gonna draw like the woman suffering from postpartum depression? Who's like Lifeline is coming through that social media? Yeah,
Rebecca Gray 11:03
I'm like, people want to knock Instagram infographics, as if I haven't learned like, most of my like activism from Instagram and Tiktok,
KC Davis 11:13
I have I have learned most of my activism from tick tock, and tick tock in particular, has put me in touch with creators that I would never have come across. Like I just I live in a very white space, I live in a very abled space. And sometimes, you know, the value of not just being surrounded by that, but at the same time, purposefully, trying to be friend, a person of color, because they're a person of color is also like, not, not it, not it right. And so there is this sort of how do I diversify my mind? How do I decolonize my views and social media has been the way that's happened by following these creators that I never would have been able to cross paths with in real life. And so I totally get you there. And, you know, it's interesting, because that aspect of social media has been so helpful. And I'm sure that social media has also been part of the issue with eco perfectionism. You know, because we do see people post only their best moments.
Rebecca Gray 12:15
Absolutely. And I think, you know, I would say, like four years ago, I don't know about anybody else. But my Instagram was filled with, again, the archetype of a zero waste girl, a slow fashion girl, like mainly white women, mainly thin women with expensive, sustainable clothing, with plastic free bathrooms with I don't know, who had time to like bake bread twice a week, and like, filming Instagram video of it. And I was like, in grad school, and technically, my income was below the poverty line. And I'm like, Well, I guess I'm doing it wrong,
KC Davis 12:51
even when I like so I have an online shop, I sell a lot of digital downloads, but I also sell some physical products. And as I'm moving into this space, where I want to start selling like workbooks and planners and things like that, there is the option of like, sustainable packaging, and all these sorts of things. And as I look into it, it's like, it's more expensive. And I know that the majority of my demographic like, probably can't afford so I'm always trying to look for how can I make this the most accessible resource or the most accessible product, while still keeping the business running? And you have to choose between the two sometimes, right? And I think one of the other things that you said that really hit me was when you were talking about intuitive eating. So I actually read the bucket diet by Caroline donor a few years ago, and I've been, you know, my philosophies and struggle care have been supremely influenced by the intuitive eating anti diet movement, where we're taking the morality out of food. And so, you know, taking the morality out of care tasks, was something that I started talking about, especially with people who are struggling with mental health, chronic illness. And one of the ways when I stopped thinking it was this moral obligation, I realized that there also weren't any rules. And then I could kind of get creative about how can I make these rhythms and rituals of care tasking work for me, and for me, as a person that was, you know, I was at home, I had some postpartum depression, I had ADHD, I was finding these what I call adaptive routines, like, okay, my dishes are going days and days and days, and I'm getting bugs because I can't and then I'm overwhelmed. But if I put my dishes in the dishwasher at seven o'clock every night and I run the dishwasher, that's more manageable. And then I found that if I do it a half a load, like if I don't wait until the dishwasher is full, I'm less overwhelmed. I'm less paralyzed. I don't. And so when I started talking to people about these adaptive routines, I would get comments and they were usually pretty cruel about I guess you don't care about the environment. If you're going to wastewater like that. I talked one time about how, you know all calories are good calories when you're grieving. And, you know, I had a radical vegan comment about how you know, we were killing other mothers just to save human mothers. And there's this like visceral cruelty with environmentalism that is really pretty horrifying and toxic. Yeah. And so I'm curious to hear as an environmentalist, you know, what kinds of things do you think that the environmental movement, as it stands today? What things are we doing well, that are actually helping? And what ways is some of the avenues we're taking the environmental movement not being helpful? Or maybe even being oppressive?
Rebecca Gray 15:39
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think like your example of the dishwasher is such a good one, because it's like, okay, it helps you be a lot more functional and taking care of yourself and your family. And it used twice as much water. So like, obviously, there's a cost environmentally there. But I think an exercise that I have tried to work on doing over the past few years that I would really encourage other people to do is when thinking about like an eco behavior or sustainability behavior, asking yourself and being really honest with yourself, can I engage in this behavior and honor my health and well being? And that answer is going to be different depending on the person and the behavior. So something that you bring up that I really like is, I think it's like 1000, unseen privileges and barriers. So like, for example, for years, I was a vegetarian, because I was like, Well, I have an understanding that vegetarianism is good for the environment, and it's good for my health. Actually, turns out being a vegetarian and restricting my food is not good for my health, because I'm a person with a history of Ed, for other people, vegetarianism is a great way to engage in an eco behavior and reduce their carbon footprint, and it works really well for their health. That wasn't true for me, it was not a behavior that I could engage in healthfully, like on the flip side of that, I really like to walk places when I can, instead of driving, that reduces my carbon footprint, I have a lot of privileges that make that accessible to me, you know, I'm able bodied, I have the relative luxury of time, I live in a really walkable community, and I enjoy doing it. So that fits into my life, it might not for somebody else with different privileges and barriers. And, you know, sometimes it's even more clear cut than that there are people with chronic health conditions or injuries who need single use plastic to stay alive. Not that it has to be a question of, you know, yes or no survival, but a question of, I think your functionality and your happiness, and the only person you can really have that conversation with is yourself. So like in on the topic of which behaviors are really good and work and which don't, I think it is so nuanced, and so personal. And I also genuinely think that, you know, humans are pretty inclined to be moral and contributing. And when the answer is yes, this behavior does fit into my life, people are pretty inclined to engage with it, of their own freewill. I mean, most of us do use washable reusable dishes instead of single use ones unless circumstances make it challenging to do that. So I think the pressure on the individual to perform perfectly is a real negative of the environmental movement. And I don't know, like the idea that each of us individually is responsible for changing the outcome of climate change, or the trajectory of the world by remembering our reusable bags every day is a pretty unrealistic myth.
KC Davis 18:34
Yeah, one of the things that I have found interesting is this hyper focus on the individual, like, you know, it's up to all of us to not use straws to save the world. And, you know, this is not my area of expertise. But what I'm learning is that there's a lot of misplaced impetus on who is really capable of saving or damming the world. And, you know, I don't want to move into a space where we think oh, because, you know, since what I do doesn't matter, who cares, but there's got to be some sort of nuance that we can wrap our heads around, like, what really does need to happen to prevent climate change?
Rebecca Gray 19:15
Great question. Yeah. Well, I think what you're getting at too is in America, we live under capitalism, capitalism places, the onus on the individual for their success. And capitalism has placed a lot of the onus on us, the individuals to stop climate change, and a lot of that time that involves us buying things to be or look sustainable, or investing our time and energy which are limited.
KC Davis 19:40
So I just have to say that again, what you just said, you said, you know, we live under a capitalistic society. That's just a neutral statement. It's just a truth. And a lot of the environmentalism that we are taught or given is based around us purchasing something because that's what keeps capitalism going or Having the time and energy to engage in behaviors or activism, time and energy that is typically only available to people in upper classes in a capitalistic society?
Rebecca Gray 20:12
Absolutely. I mean, having the time to walk somewhere to wash and reuse something, too, like buy food in bulk, and prepare meals at home time is a limited commodity, especially where we are in society right now.
KC Davis 20:29
Well, on top of that, this idea that production is morally superior to rest, where we feel like, you know, if you say, Well, it's a luxury to have the time to do this. I think there's a lot of people that think, well, I, I technically have the time, you know, if I didn't have hobbies, or rest, or look at tick tock. And there, we feel like there's this moral imperative to produce, produce, produce, produce produce. And so we feel like resting, relaxing, recreating our indulgences, they're disposables. And that if we're doing something like that, you know, unless we're replacing every minute of our day, with something productive, we still have time. And so if we're not using that time to do A, B, and C, we feel guilty.
Rebecca Gray 21:14
Yes. And, I mean, I think that's true from an environmentalism lens. From what I'm not a parent, but I understand that to be true about parenting, about our academic lives, our work lives, our relationships, we are constantly being pressured to produce and churn something out and move forward. But in terms of I mean, who is collectively responsible for fixing climate change, there are like 100 corporations in the world that are responsible for like 70% of climate emissions. I mean, who is responsible for climate change? It is like enormous corporations, it is the US Department of Defense, it is huge entities that are, for the most part out of our individual control. And I don't say that to be nihilistic. Because another kind of myth that I think we've been sold about climate change is that it's something that is going to happen, that's going to be catastrophic event, like at some point where we're going to go over a cliff, and suddenly life will change. But the reality of climate change is that climate change is already damaging people's health, it already takes lives every year, it is the result of it are already some people's reality, and have been people's reality. And if you are in a position to not be directly feeling it, it's probably because you are living in a place of relative privilege. And so it's not really helpful to think about it as like this doomsday kind of thing that we all have to band together before a certain point, or we're all going to get blown off the face of the earth. You can think of it as small actions in your community, smaller initiatives organizing, and kind of, what am I talking about progress over a big sweeping change?
KC Davis 22:53
Yeah, so when we talk about these 100, corporations, and so we recognize, okay, this is kind of where the make or break, change will happen. And I feel like there's kind of two ways in which that could change. One narrative that we're given is, if we all band together, and stop the demand of these plastics, waterways, blah, blah, blah, right? Like we all band together and stop buying water bottles, then these companies will have to change. That's one narrative that I've heard. And then the other narrative is, if we all band together, and place collective political pressure on our government, to regulate, you know, industries that are within our country's control, that is the way to go. And so I'm just curious, from your perspective, which of those narratives is more accurate? Which of those narratives should we be focusing on? Which one's more realistic?
Rebecca Gray 23:50
I think that they both have their place. And in terms of the first question, which kind of a boycott economy, right, let's keep our money, realizing that that is not always realistic, again, due to personal finances, what people need to live like plastic water bottles have their place, other forms of single use plastic have their place, political action, I do think is important and effective. And something that I learned working as a contractor for the EPA and the CDC, for the past four years, you know, I worked for those agencies under the Trump administration. And what was interesting is there were a lot of really good scientists and activists at those organizations doing their best to chug along and perform good science and get things done. And so I think that continuous political pressure is worthwhile. Especially, you know, we tend to think of things at the national level, what's the presidential administration doing? What is our Congress doing, but at the state and local levels as well, organizing and pressuring politicians does work and does have an impact and voting for people to put in office? Who will protect and promote programs and social services that align with your values does have an impact. And as important,
KC Davis 25:09
I think what the majority of people that I talked to that are really struggling when you know, they're looking at, okay, when I don't buy prepackaged food, I tend to not eat that day. Or when I, you know, my dishes pile up in the sink, my anxiety goes nuts, and I don't have the capacity to engage right now at this time without kind of like selling my mental health soul, so to speak, right? And so when these people are asking themselves, you know, what can I do? And I like how you sort of painted this picture of start with, you know, what do you need to function, and then fill in the gaps with more compatible, eco friendly behaviors that work in your life. And I also want to encourage people, you know, I think that especially when it comes to mental health disability, sometimes because we're struggling with perfectionism, we can't, by ourselves, determine what do we really need, because we're always thinking what we really need is just us being lazy, right? And so I think talking to a therapist, or a counselor, or even just a friend that you trust, allowing someone to have some input on to know, Casey, just buy some paper plates, like you need to eat, right, like letting someone else that you trust, have a voice in that conversation, because I think that we tend to have just the right amount of self loathing to say, Oh, if you, you don't really need that you're just being lazy. And a lot of times, that's not true. And so getting someone else to help you with that conversation on what adaptive routines Do I really need to live and thrive in my life? And once you sort of realize that, how can I then fill in the gaps with some eco friendly behaviors? In that moment, when we talk about how can I fill in the gaps with eco friendly behaviors? I feel as though we are sort of drawn to the boycott economy narrative as like, that's where we should go first, like, okay, how can I have less plastic? How can I do this? And those things are all good behaviors. But if it's true that the more impactful behavior might be getting involved politically to make those changes, then would you say that it's valid for a person to say if I have this limited capacity leftover, the best use of that capacity is not getting, you know, obsessive, or worrying about how much plastics in my house, but is using that energy instead? To see what's going on with my city council or something like that?
Rebecca Gray 27:39
Yes, I think energy is, again, it's such a limited resource. And you know, things like voting, think voting is very important. Voting takes like a lot of energy. In some states, you can't register on the same day, you might have to find time off of work, you know, find childcare, this takes a lot of energy. And like if voting and being involved politically aligned with your values, then conserving energy in order to engage with that, instead of, I don't know, cooking all week to make sure that you don't have any food waste at the end of it has value, especially I think, in terms of conserving energy, something that I find useful is to remember to conserve energy when I have it. So like, oh, it's like a Saturday afternoon, I've had my little iced coffee, I'm feeling really good. And I'm thinking to myself, Okay, it's time to clean the house top to bottom or get ahead on any other tasks, thinking to myself, What would two hours of lazing around, like do for me right now, it might do a lot, and it might give me a little bit more Go Go juice for the rest of the day or the week or whatever.
KC Davis 28:48
I love that. And I mean, I'm even thinking about, you know, you can even get smaller than, you know, city level. I mean, there are parents who might be able to participate in a PTA, where they can bring up, you know, is there a way we could send home digital announcements instead of paper announcements, right, where, you know, it might be that using paper plates for dinner gives you the capacity to attend a PTA meeting, where you can push for what's going to be a much bigger impact of, you know, a school, even just one school, reducing their paper usage or something like that.
Rebecca Gray 29:26
Absolutely. And I also think that specifically in terms of, I think, a lot of sustainability swaps center on food, like what should we be buying? What bags should we be using? How should we be cooking? What plates should we be using? And I just want to like, let everybody buddy know, give them some peace of mind from an epidemiologist. The biggest way that food impacts yours and your family's health is the importance of getting enough of it and getting enough variety. And so if eating off paper plates if ordering in if buying Less expensive produce that wasn't produced sustainably allows you to feed yourself and your family in a way that satisfying and you know, bonus if you get to meet all your nutritional needs, like that has inherent value, it's going to make our bodies more resilient to any kind of environmental stressors. This is especially important, you know, communities that are experiencing the most intense effects of climate change, are tend to be communities that are poor, that are of color that already faced food insecurity and nutritional deficiencies. And, you know, our very basic human needs of food and you know, shelter, etc. Those usurp our need to engage in environmentalism.
KC Davis 30:41
So when we were emailing back and forth, I was asking you sort of like, what do you view as sort of the most the actions that have the most impact and perhaps the Eco actions that have the least impact? And one of the things you said that was surprising to me, as you said, using the social programs that are available to you is one of the most impactful things you can do in terms of environmental behaviors. Can you talk about that for a minute?
Rebecca Gray 31:03
Yeah, sure. So when I say using social programs that are available to you, I mean, things like Medicaid, if you have any food related benefits, so snap, or chip, or WIC, these are programs that the government puts money into to make sure that your basic human needs are met, they are imperfect, and a lot of the time, they are not successful at meeting everybody's basic needs. But the government uses the amount of money spent on those programs year to year to budget for them. So essentially, if you qualify for those programs, and you use them, not only is it hopefully going to benefit yourself and your family, it's going to tell the government, okay, this community needs this investment, it's using this investment. And that's really important, especially because, again, the communities most impacted by pollution and climate change, tend to be communities that have a lot of people in them who qualify for those programs. So, you know, for example, a low income community might live near a highway, they might have higher rates of air pollution, adequate nutrition in that community is going to help make their bodies more resilient to examine environmental stressors. And making use of those programs is going to tell the government that these things that meet basic human needs need to be prioritized.
KC Davis 32:22
So are you saying that when we use social programs that we social sort of safety programs that we qualify for like this, that we're not just saying, Oh, this is affecting my family, but that in doing that, we're actually communicating back to the government, which communities need the most assistance, even in other areas.
Rebecca Gray 32:42
Sometimes, the government definitely has research initiatives, where we look at the kinds of communities and the socio economic characteristics of people who require and use services, but even more, so it will help the government to understand the needs of your personal community.
KC Davis 33:01
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. And then you talked about limiting air travel.
Rebecca Gray 33:07
Yeah. So this is, I'm not here to tell anybody that they can't get on a plane. First of all, there are lots of good and valid reasons for air travel, you know, maybe your loved ones are far away, or I don't know, I like vacation as much as the next person. But if you are truly feeling overwhelmed, and having shame around your carbon footprint, I just am here to let you know that all of the little actions day to day that you may engage in are really barely making a dent against the amount of carbon that is emitted from taking a single flight. So if you can find opportunity, if you're really looking for environmental behaviors, to engage in finding opportunities to forego air travel, is, it's a lot of bang for your buck.
KC Davis 33:52
I love that. So it's not something to necessarily beat yourself up over if you're taking airplanes. But it's a lot of bang for your buck in terms of I'm having a really hard time functioning this year. And if I could just replace one vacation that we would travel on an airplane with a road trip to a closer location, then maybe that gives somebody sort of the sigh of relief of I'm doing my part. And now I can just kind of focus on getting kind of surviving the rest of the year. Yeah, absolutely.
Rebecca Gray 34:23
It's really just, again, give yourself that peace of mind if you are experiencing intense shame or intense guilt, because I don't know, you talk a lot in your content about how those feelings don't actually lead us to functionality or productivity. So any tool in the toolbox to combat guilt and shame. I'm a fan of
KC Davis 34:45
Yeah. And then in terms of the behaviors that have the least amount of impact, you talk about, you know how some conservation behaviors are just naturally rewarding. But, you know, your approach to environmentalism is really Human health focus. And so I love that you talk about giving people permission to prioritize their own health and happiness. You talk about that, too. I mean, we've kind of been talking about that the whole time. But
Rebecca Gray 35:10
yeah, absolutely. I think in terms of behaviors that have the least impact, again, like I mentioned, any time that you are feeling that little Goblin and your brand, say, I need to go out and buy this thing. In order to be more sustainable, I need to buy this jar, I need to buy this water bottle, etc. Just take a breath, and ask yourself, Do I already own something that could fulfill that purpose, like plastic takeout containers, I mean, like things in your house, they don't have to look photogenic, it does not have to look like a zero waste Instagram page in order to be sustainable. So I would say like, you know, rushing out or to like buy sustainable fashion pieces, which I have been guilty of in the past, like, it's okay to just wear your fast fashion pieces that you own, and you love they're already made. You're not creating waste by doing that. And I think, again, in terms of honoring your own health and well being while engaging in environmentalism, when you think about a behavior just clocking, am I feeling excited about this? Does it feel doable and accessible to me? Or is it giving me a really bad feeling in my gut of like, I already know that I'm not going to be able to sustain this commitment. And I'm already experiencing shame about it, I would invite everybody to just take a deep breath and ask themselves, why am I feeling this? antagonizing shame? It's probably related to barriers in your life, either due to circumstance or your health or your identities and releasing yourself. Easier said than done. Right. Okay.
KC Davis 36:44
The other thing that you said was was so great, you said if the government is allowed to consider practically when setting environmental health regulations, then you're allowed to do the same when thinking about your own behavior. So the government is asking themselves questions like, can I afford this? Can we do this program and still be able to do the other programs we need? And so your point is kind of like, you know, you as a person get those same sort of Li ways?
Rebecca Gray 37:12
Yeah, absolutely. Again, I work on setting drinking water guidelines for the EPA. And on every project, every drinking water guideline, we have a dedicated team of economists saying, what is it going to take to enforce this? Can we reasonably ask people to do this? Can we follow through? Again? Do we have the money? Those are questions that you are allowed to ask yourself? And the answer is allowed to be? No,
KC Davis 37:36
it's okay, if you do not embody the archetype of eco warrior.
Rebecca Gray 37:41
That is okay. I don't know that any of us ever do. So.
KC Davis 37:46
Awesome. Well, I love everything that you've said, I think this picture of seeing sort of eco friendly behaviors as a buffet, where, you know, you can pick and choose ones that are complementary to your life that match your capacity at the time. And even if there's a period of time where somebody is truly focusing on surviving, you know, your period of survival is not going to make or break us
Rebecca Gray 38:16
know, also, in service of that, when you're going through your period of survival. There are other people out there that are remembering their reusable bags and not using the paper plates. And, you know, maybe your circumstances change at some point, and you're able to engage with those behaviors. Maybe they don't, that's also fine.
KC Davis 38:33
And for me, I feel like that motive would work even better to me where it's like, okay, if I have the opportunity to, like, do the extra thing, being like, you know what, I'm going to do the extra thing today, you know, so that someone out there can eat that pre packaged salad. That's what they need.
Rebecca Gray 38:49
Yeah, exactly. And I like, I don't know, something that I've noticed in your closing duties videos you're like, and the last thing I do for closing duties to set myself up for success is I brew cold brew, because I want that in the morning. But then sometimes you're like, actually, I was surviving. And I decided I'm gonna get Starbucks tomorrow. Yeah. And then living in peace with that decision. Getting Starbucks on Friday allows you to, again, maybe then you have the energy to make your coffee at home the rest of the week.
KC Davis 39:16
Awesome. Well, Rebecca, thank you so much for spending the time with us. And is there anything that you want to say in closing?
Rebecca Gray 39:24
Oh, gosh, I would love for everybody to just let themselves a little bit more off the hook, then. I think we are inclined to do just take a deep breath. It's okay. I feel like as an environmental scientist, sometimes it feels like taboo to say like, it's okay. But it is and taking care of yourself is okay and allowed.
KC Davis 39:47
We have better things to do today then hate ourselves over a bag of clothes. We can't manage to get to the donation bin.
Rebecca Gray 39:53
We absolutely do. So many better things.
KC Davis 39:56
Awesome. Well, thank you Rebecca, so much

Christy HausslerMarch 31, 2025

135: BEST OF: Is Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria Real? with Dr. Lesley Cook

I’m back with one of my favorite guests who is always up for the challenge of a podcast–no matter what the topic is! I want to explore the term rejection sensitivity dysphoria and get Dr. Lesley Cook’s take on it because I have so many questions. Let’s learn more together!

Dr. Lesley Cook is a psychologist who works with those with ADHD and other kinds of neurodivergence. Born and raised in Hawaii, she now lives in Virginia and works with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families.

Show Highlights:

● What RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria) is and how it is manifested

● KC’s personal experience with RSD and feelings of worthlessness

● How RSD is different from sensory sensitivity and autism

● Thoughts about the strong word dysphoria in RSD

● KC’s personal experience with RSD and being told she is “too sensitive”

● How we can grow, change, and find regulatory strategies for RSD

● Why it is difficult to communicate the facets and nuances of RSD and other interpersonal difficulties

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dr. Lesley Cook: TikTok

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
Music. Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle. Care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and I have one of my favorite guests back in the studio, virtually, of course, Dr. Lesley Cook. Lesley, thank you for being here.
Dr. Lesley Cook 0:17
It is always a pleasure. I'm excited every time I'm here. I've recently started doing
KC Davis 0:21
this thing where I actually meet with people before a podcast, recording for 15 minutes, and come up with, like, an outline of things we can talk about. And I'm like, This is so great. And not only did I not do that with you, I haven't even told you what the topic is today. I said, Do you want to do another podcast? And you were like, Yeah, this is my wheelhouse. I love that. I love that I just, what I learned was not everybody likes that or can do that. And so I went through a couple of interviews where I was like, oh, I need to start planning things so that I can help, like, guide the Leslie. I want to talk about rejection, sensitivity, just for you. Yeah, don't we all? And here's my like, whatever that word is that you say. But the disclaimer, I want 100% I'm like, totally down for any term that someone identifies with that describes their experience, that makes sense of their experience for them and helps them navigate in a world where they can ask for what they need and create accommodations in their life and learn and grow and have self compassion for themselves and like, I'm so down for that. Like, I'm never one of those people that like wants to take terms away from people or like, that's not the right to like, who cares you like it. You got it. It's fine. I'm disclaimering that only because I have so many questions about this term, and sometimes, in order for me to understand something, I go to this, like, devil's advocate place of like, these are, like, the objections that come up in me, and I'm not voicing them because I think they're necessarily right, but because I have to get these answered for me to fully feel like I understand something. Yeah,
Dr. Lesley Cook 1:59
absolutely. I was just talking to another mental health clinician about how, like in the evolution of social media, mental health professionals, I did start as the person that was like, that's not the right term. Don't use it that way. And there's some merit to that in some cases. But one of the things I've learned, and I needed to learn by so much exposure to the consumers of our services and our content is that disclaimer is that number one, people only create and communities only create words when there's a vacuum. So there's nothing here that describes what I'm trying to say, and so everyone is just dismissing it. And I think that term the biggest thing it did is it encapsulated quickly, something that we could all go, oh yeah, yeah, I've had that. Like, that's a real experience, yeah, it's a real thing. And you share it. It's something that brings people together into more understanding of each other. And I think it's less pathologizing than just don't be so sensitive. So I share that disclaimer, but you know, semi colon, I also have concerns with some of the terms that were adopted, and I think it's because of the fact that things grow and change, and so the original intent of that word, I wonder if we have strayed away from that
KC Davis 3:14
interesting that you brought that up. So people ask me sometimes if I struggle with rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, and for anyone that's like, What the hell is that? It's a painful experience that you have when you are rejected, or you perceive you're being rejected. So it often comes up with criticism, even like, healthy kind criticism. And it's the idea that, like, I basically, like, cannot tolerate anything that feels as though I've done something wrong or I'm being rejected. And I'm extremely sensitive to basically interpreting all criticism, critique, pushback, mistake, as being rejected, and that my nervous system sort of has this really overblown response to that, where I feel panicky, I feel like I'm in pain, I feel like I'm drowning, I feel all these things. So that's the colloquial, like layman's understanding of that. So people ask, and it's talked about a lot as a something that happens in people with ADHD. It's not officially a part of the diagnosis. It's not a formal clinical term. It's not in the DSM. And to my knowledge, I have not seen any research on it. Have you
Dr. Lesley Cook 4:30
not necessarily. And I think again, social media is moving so much faster than our science can catch up. It takes years to like, select a group and then do some testing, and so I haven't seen specific, you know, outcome research of what is this, but I have seen articles and periodicals and shared experience publications that talk about the fact that this does seem to be something that is relatively unique as an experience, specifically for ADHD, found in every person to. Some extent, but overrepresented for the ADHD crowd. But I think it's unclear where it comes from, or how we would encapsulate it. So
KC Davis 5:08
I actually looked up, like an article on it, and this is from like the attitude magazine, which is like the ADHD publication that comes out. And it says, What is rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, and it goes on to say, like, it's not a formal diagnosis, it's just like a common, under researched symptom of ADHD. We don't actually know if it is or not, but it is experientially, very common. Noticeably, the first thing they say is, RSD is not thought to be caused by trauma, and this is one of the hardest things. Is like, if you ask me, Do you have rejection sensitivity dysphoria? And then you say, it's what I just described. Like, sometimes you'll be like, Yeah, it's like, man, really being impacted by the feeling of rejection. And so there's a part of me that's like, is that not just having your feelings hurt? Like, isn't that everybody, like, nobody likes to be rejected. But I will say that most of my childhood, I do feel like I had an extra sensitivity to feeling worthless, like I struggled with feeling worthless a lot, and so getting rejected felt more painful to me than it seemed like it felt to others. And the only reason that I know that is because through being institutionalized and having to go through a lot of, like, confrontational therapy that, like, forced me to grow some ego strength and then also doing some, like, having some own, like, growth around some spirituality stuff. There was literally this weird day, and I won't go into it because it's a very weird woo, woo story, but let's just say that I had a run in with this woman at my work that bullied me and like it tore me up on the inside, like I would literally reacted that day in the middle of an all staff meeting by screaming at her because she like made a face at me. That was kind of like a meant to make me feel stupid. And like, ran out of the room and then cried, and then went to my car and was trying to drive home, and then a pullover. And anyways, I at that time, was like, looking into some of my own, like spiritual texts, right? And I, like, read this thing, and it was really meant something to me, and I felt this, like physical shift in my chest. And then all of a sudden it got lighter. And it was such a weird sensation that I described my friends as it feel. It felt like something Let go of me and left me, and I had this shift where from then on, and I mean, I also was getting so much therapy, so I feel like it was almost this culmination of, like, a lot of therapy work, a lot of spiritual work, a lot of sort of, like meaningful things for me, where, when I would get rejected or get criticized, it still hurt. It still didn't feel good, but what was gone was this like darkness that would like slither up the back of my throat and whisper in my ear. See, I told you you were a piece of shit. I told you no one was gonna love you like that previous to that like day. That was my experience of rejection. It was intolerable. It was painful. It was more painful than just this hurts right now. I had never heard the term rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, right? And I think the differentiating factor that when you hear people talk about is they say one, it is not thought to be trauma. I would have told you that reaction in me was trauma, and I know what it's trauma from. It's trauma from some family of origin shit. So I wouldn't have ever said that, because specifically they say RSD is a nervous system difference that is not related to trauma. Now I think I had a nervous system difference related to trauma, and then I got a bunch of therapy and also had, like, this bizarre spiritual experience. And now experience, and now I don't feel that anymore. So personally, it's hard for me to contextualize that, because when you describe it, yes, I remember feeling that way, but then when you needle down on it's not trauma, it's a nervous system difference, it's, I'm like, Oh, well, how would we even know, like, In what world does somebody with ADHD not have traumatic experience by the time they're an adult.
Dr. Lesley Cook 9:03
And I think that is the core of where I think we're still kind of trying to develop a way to conceptualize this thing that we're calling RSD, and we're not quite there. And I think to piggyback on that I agree and disagree and love how they described it and absolutely hate it at the same time. So we know that ADHD comes with this list of dysregulations, and it's not just as we all know, as we all in the club know, it's not just our attention and focus, it's also our ability to control, up regulating our emotions, sometimes getting excited or motivated, sometimes down regulating it's hard to inhibit our impulses. And so one of the most famous pieces of research that gets quoted a lot is kids with ADHD hear their name called in a negative way by I think it's age 18, like 20,000 times that. It's a huge number more than other kids. And so we could look at it through one lens and say, well, that's not. Necessarily trauma. That's just the interaction of a nervous system that has trouble with this and the environment, however, that's also another way to look at trauma is that it's the interaction of so I think it's almost a non sequitur, like, is it due to trauma? Is it not that almost doesn't matter. I think, I think what really matters is to look at all of these kids, especially these undiagnosed kids who are growing up hearing, sit down, stop it, go away. You're too much. You're not enough. If you could just focus. That builds this sense that of impending doom, that every side glance, every missed text is about, rejection is on the horizon. And I don't love the description, but I love the description of it climbing up your throat. I immediately identify with that experience. I even had one experience as a teenager where a friend that I had had since kindergarten, I guess I was probably being too much and too loud getting on the bus, and she turned around and said, Don't you get it? We don't really like when you hang out with us, and that was my up the throat, realizing, like, oh, it's me. They don't want me. And that was a formative experience, too. Now, would that have happened had I been dysregulated less? Maybe not. But those things I think, you know, are part of the same phenomenon.
KC Davis 11:21
Yeah, yeah, there is this interesting, like, hyper vigilance to rejection that you develop because of that. And that's the thing that I was trying to express at the beginning. Like, I'm not saying that the experience that we're all describing when someone says rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, is, like, not real. Like, I believe it is. I'm more interested in, like, when you get down to this question of, is it an environmental like, is it an experience that is just describing something we already knew about, ADHD, the different factors of, you know, we knew these symptoms, so this symptom intertwining with this environment, creating this kind of, you know, traumatic experience, causes this experience, versus people who will talk about it As a symptom, like, No no out of the womb, something with your nervous system and your brain wiring, like, even if you never had a negative experience, like, is overly sensitive to rejection, because that was my other thing was, like, when I read I was like, is that not just emotional dysregulation? I think
Dr. Lesley Cook 12:19
you could phrase it that way. You could look at it as, functionally speaking, this is an emotional dysregulation that happens faster and more intensely for those of us with this neurotype, with this neurological difference, I think you could also say maybe for most ADHD people, it's so common of an experience that it might as well be a symptom. I think the danger in that for me, and this is like a bee in my bonnet as a clinician for years, is that when we start believing that this thing, I'm holding up a little air pods case, that this thing, RSD, is like inside of me, like it's part of me, then it's always going to be here. And there's a tendency to think, then when it happens, oh, it's RST, Yeah, that happens. Versus, if it's something that that I'm holding, that I can look at, that I can examine, there might be a way for me to figure out how to maybe put it down a little more, how to learn how to get that cognitive thinking part of our brain online. To say, Is this really rejection. And you know this because we've talked, you know, off of the online space, but I have friends where I try to actively practice, here's what I'm feeling, am I literally making this up? And I have some amazing friends that will say, Yes, you are making that up. That is, your brain has created that story. That's not what's happening, and that has decreased that feeling of fear of rejection by probably 80%
KC Davis 13:47
Yeah, I think when I hear people talk about it as an innate thing and to your metaphor, I think it's when we try to put it in the same category as like, sensory sensitivity and autism, like that's in your brain. You came out the womb with that like. And not every autistic person has the same sensory or even any sensory sensitivities, but it's like, that is a sensory sensitivity that has to do with the wiring of your brain. There's no like, cognitive restructuring that you could do to make yourself not be icked or in pain over that sensory thing. Like, it is not a social construct. It is not an interaction between some other autistic symptom and your environment. Like, it is just straight up a neurological response to something that would happen in a vacuum. And I see a lot of people talk about RSD moving in that direction as is, like, No, this is an innate symptom separate from other symptoms that would happen even in a vacuum, and that's the one where I'm always like, Hmm, I'm not sure, and I'm not sure if it is, maybe it is, but if it's not, and we put it there, will we be doing ourselves a disservice? And that's, I think what you were saying is like, well, here it is. You know, deal with it. It just sucks forever,
Dr. Lesley Cook 14:56
right? Like this, just what we have. And I do think there are. Yeah, some other pitfalls with that as well, because it could be weaponized and not Could I see this a lot with kids. So if you have a child who, like, let's say, a teenager who is actually experiencing rejection, and they have ADHD, I have seen it, you know, well, that's your RSD, you know, it's possible that that can be weaponized against kids and adults, like, I
KC Davis 15:23
don't have to take your hurt feelings seriously because your feelings are just an indicator that you can't control yourself. They're not an indicator. They're not couldn't possibly be a reflection that I hurt you or that that thing really hurt you. It's just this, you know? And I mean, I have some friends that have borderline personality disorder, and they talk about that exact scenario with them. They're like, you know, I'm and they're really healthy people, like, really mature and healthy around their borderline. And they'll say, like, the thing that sucks the most is, like, really, actually having someone do something shitty to you, and, like, try to talk to your loved ones about it. And they either say or imply, like, well, like, Could this be the borderline? And you're like, No, like, it actually was a really hurtful thing they did. And, like, it's valid for you to be hurt, yeah.
Dr. Lesley Cook 16:07
And I think sometimes that's what happens when terms start out meaning something, and then they get so blurry, is that they circle all the way back around to the thing they were supposed to replace. So understanding BPD was supposed to be helpful and therapeutic so that we don't stigmatize folks that are struggling with that understanding RSD was supposed to help us get away from you're just too sensitive. But unfortunately, when we use it in this way, it becomes, oh, that's just your RSD. It becomes, you're just too sensitive. And I think the other piece is distinguishing between I think the use of the word dysphoria in it is really hard for me, and that is the one as a clinician that I'm probably too much of a stickler for. I probably need to get over it, but I struggle, because there's something it's like when people talk about pathological demand avoidance, and I refer to it just as demand avoidance, because when we add pathological and when we add dysphoria, those words mean something. Dysphoria means I'm feeling not right based on something that is not necessarily acknowledged by everyone. Right? That's a really imperfect definition of dysphoria, but really it's just being highly, highly sensitive to and reactive to real or perceived rejection. But that's not a super fun descriptive term. It's like twice as many words.
KC Davis 17:24
This article talked about the word dysphoria. It says dysphoria is the Greek word, meaning unbearable. Its use emphasizes the severe physical and emotional pain suffered by people with RSD when they encounter real or perceived rejection, criticism or teasing. The emotional intensity of RSD is described by my patients as a wound. The response is well beyond all proportion to the nature of the event that triggered it.
Dr. Lesley Cook 17:47
And so that's where I struggle, right? Because who gets to judge whether it's out of proportion? And that's what that kind of what I was trying to capture. And that's much more elegant way of saying it, is that my reaction is out of proportion for what's happening when we start going down that road for some of these symptoms, I think, and traits, we get into messy territory, not only who gets to determine whether it's out of proportion, but also, if you heard your name called 20,000 more times by the time you're 18, why would your fear of an anticipation of rejection be out of proportion. To me, that's a perfectly proportionate response, but you are highly sensitive,
KC Davis 18:25
yeah. Like, in proportion to what, in proportion to the thing that just happened, or in proportion to your experience, your lifetime of experience, about what that means about you, and what that message is about you. You know, what's interesting about all of this is that, you know, at the beginning I asked, like, is there any research on this yet? And sometimes, like, you said, well, all times, like, the world of psychology moves faster than the science of psychology. And so like, you can't say, like, Well, if there's no research, then it's not valid, because, again, it moves faster. But one of the things that I think people don't always appreciate about research. It's not just this, like, well, we need a bunch of white men scientists to say it's real for it to be real. It's like, when we do research, like, No person is just their diagnosis, right? And so if we were to say, well, let's get a bunch of people with ADHD together and like, see how prevalent this description of this thing called RSD is, well, that seems simple, but like, when's the last time you met somebody that had ADHD and no trauma or no other diagnosis? So even if you know wow, 30% or 60% say they have this, okay, but how do we know the RSD that they all have is stemming from the ADHD, because again, a lot of this sounds like stuff that comes up in bipolar. A lot of this stuff sounds like stuff that comes up in trauma. So you have to do so much research and so many different control groups, and you know, people that only have this one diagnosis, and then of them like, what's their educational background? What's their emotional background, what's their race, what's their. Right, like you have to do so much of that to make sure that the symptom you're looking at truly is only coming from this one disorder. And think about how impossible that is with how high the rates of comorbidity is between ADHD and other things.
Dr. Lesley Cook 20:15
Yeah, it's incredibly difficult. And I think if we look through an intersectional lens too, it probably is going to look and feel and be conceptualized in very radically different ways, behaviorally for a black American teenager and a white 44 year old psychologist lady, right? So my experience of that is going to be very different, because I also haven't had to hide and shift and mask other parts of myself that other people had. So this is also where to get a little nerdy for you for a second, where I think I really see people not grabbing or going to the qualitative research. And if you're, if you don't, haven't heard that term before, quantitative research is more when we're doing what we're talking about now. So we have control groups. We're trying to isolate variables. We're trying to look at, does this thing cause this thing? Qualitative research looks at storytelling and common factors and common experiences. It's a wonderful way to learn. It's, it's highly scientific, it's highly rigorous, and we don't, we just don't talk about it, I think enough in regular media. So I wonder, and this is me wondering, because I haven't thought about it, I wonder if there is some some data in more the qualitative area. I'm going to write that down.
KC Davis 21:34
I did do, like a cursory Google search to see if I could find any, you know, research data, the PubMed data, the things like that. But maybe there is stuff out there that I just haven't found. So found. So I'll leave that obviously as an option. When you were talking about, like, what could be the downside of over pathologizing the rejection response is that, like, I know, for me, there were so many clinical interventions that went into both clinical interventions and just like personal work that went into getting to a place where I don't feel like my world is ending, when I feel rejected, and my own experience, I think, was too far in the other direction, where I was kind of made to feel as though, like that is a personal failing in me, like You're too sensitive and you're not tough enough, and you need to get a grip. Like, get a grip. Now, luckily, I mean, that wasn't the solution. Like, that's how they pose. The problem is, like, you need to get a grip. But luckily, I had access to resources where I could work on, like, Okay, this is trauma. Where's it coming from? How can I heal that trauma? How can I learn distress tolerance? How can I widen my window of tolerance? How can I hang on to myself in those moments? How can I work on some cognitive restructuring where I can talk to a friend and be like, Okay, this is what I'm telling myself, and they can either go like, yeah, that just happened, or like, no, that sounds like, you bud, and like, I'm so grateful that I was able to work on that experience so that I don't have to live that way every day. And I think back to your point is like, if that just gets classified as like, well, you know, that's just a thing and it will never go away. It's like, I don't want people to feel like shame about having it, or that it's some sort of like character failing, but at the same time, like, you don't want people to feel like they just have to live with this incredible pain.
Dr. Lesley Cook 23:18
And I do think that's where I have concerns about some of these. And there's other terms too, but that we use for these diagnoses, because they don't necessarily allow for the opportunity for growth, and we need that. Another thing we know about ADHD brains, in addition to the things that are kind of always going to be there, is that our brains do continue. Well, everyone's brains continue to grow and change, but some of the development of that frontal lobes, lobe system is just delayed. So some of our treatment as ADHD, or is life, is continuing like literally growing up. Yes, keep going. It's going to take us longer to find these regulatory strategies. And so if you tell someone who's eight, this is something you have in terms of RSD, not ADHD, and that's it. There's nothing we can do. I wonder if there are opportunities to learn that we can survive some of these challenges and that you can reach out and have support people that you can check with your friends and they'll be honest with you. I wonder if we deprive them of that. I didn't have access to any of that. I had to learn that as an adult well,
KC Davis 24:22
and I think most people that I've heard use the term RSD are using it in I would literally say, like 95% use it to describe, oh, my God, I'm not broken. This is a part of my experience. This is why it's so painful. I'm not weak or stupid or any of these things, like, I just have a pretty unique neurology, whether that is always innate, or whether that was environmentally shaped, like, whatever it is like, this is the thing. This is why this is happening to me, or maybe like, this is why this is harder for me 5% of the time. I hear it used to say, because. Is harder for me for reasons that are not my control. I don't have to work that hard to address the impact it has on others, and that is just a human thing, like we all don't, you know, it's hard to look at yourself, it's hard to take accountability. And I think that, like, you know, it takes a scalpel to really kind of draw that line between like, I always like, My example is always like, I am sometimes late to things because of my ADHD, and what I learned was like, the proper place for it's okay, it's just my ADHD. That's something I tell myself. That's never something I tell the person being impacted by me being late like That's for me to not hate myself, to not feel shame. It's not for me like that's to address my feelings of being upset at me. It's not to address your feelings of being upset at me. I definitely
Dr. Lesley Cook 25:54
forgot what I was gonna tell you, and I love that this is like a real world example of, like, some of the things that can happen when you have space to be authentic. But I was going to say is that also doesn't mean that we're not allowed to reach out for supports or ask for accommodations or let people know that we struggle with something. But I 100% agree with you that there is a balance point of what I tell myself. It's kind of like when we talk to kids about inside thoughts and outside thoughts and learning which are which can make profound differences, I think, for ourself, but also our relationships, so that others feel comfortable to say when we have impacted them and
KC Davis 26:29
like feeling bad about something is also nuanced, like I don't feel like. So for example, I was 30 minutes late to a really important podcast recording, because when I read it, I read that, see 930 CT, not 930 et, so I hit the time, but whatever showed up 30 minutes late, everyone's calling me. So I don't hate myself for that. I don't think that I'm a bad person. I know that has nothing to do with me being irresponsible. I still feel bad that it impacted the people who were waiting for me and their day, like their day also matters. And so, like, I think that that's the other like, fine point in there is like, I know that's due to my disability, and I sometimes will communicate that to people, not because I want them to change their feelings of aggravation, but because I want them to know that I did not intend for them. I don't think I better than you. I know your day is important, and sometimes that's part of the wound of someone being inconsiderate in your mind is like they think that I don't matter. And I want you to know like I do think you matter. I do think your time is as important in mind. That's why I want you to know that this was a disability related, you know, flub, not just me being entitled, and I think that it takes a lot of nuance to communicate that in a way that says, I want you to know that I do care and I'm sorry and not you don't get to have feelings about this, and I don't have to address this. I
Dr. Lesley Cook 27:53
think even this particular part of our discussion really eliminates why talking about RSD is so hard because all of these different facets of the nuance and understanding. And I think what, what always kind of brings it home for me is that it for this particular experience, I don't know that we've quite gotten it yet. I don't know that we've quite nailed it. What is this thing? How is it, you know, happening conceptually? Because it's so hard to talk about. There's all of these facets.
KC Davis 28:22
Do you find that that's particularly hard when it comes to any symptom that primarily expresses itself interpersonally? Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, like being late is kind of interpersonally, but, I mean, like, you know, there's this RSD, but then with borderline personality disorder, there's this, you know, maybe push and pull, or being mean or feeling, you know, what people would say is being dramatic, somebody that maybe has PTSD and that is showing up as anger, like you don't even like things that emotionally come into play interpersonally, like, I wonder if that's why it's so hard. I agree
Dr. Lesley Cook 28:56
100% I think that's how we arrive at the difficulty when we talk about things like weaponizes incompetence, and why that's so hard to talk about is because it's just this overlay. Anytime you have an exchange of communication in some way, it gets really hard. And I guess that's where a part of me always gets hesitant to label something, boom, that oh, that's RSD, because I think I know from my work and also my personal life, just because I'm so different than a lot of the people that I'm in relation to, that it's just not that simple. As soon as we add the dynamics of someone else, everything gets murky, and we have to consider all of it.
KC Davis 29:34
I think that's also what makes the large scale communication about these topics so difficult, just like, personally, as a content creator, as an author, because if I'm interacting with someone specifically like, I can ask enough questions to understand the nuances and then give a piece of insight or a statement or whatever. But what usually happens when I'm making content about something like, let's say I make it about RSD and. And you know, you'll have this person, or this huge group of people, that will be like, you know, I'm a good person, and I try so hard to love the people well, and I feel so deeply ashamed that I can't live up to the neurotypical standards. And the people around me are always telling me that, you know, I'm not good enough because I can't do this, and thinking that my inability to regulate emotionally like everybody else is due to me being bratty or not caring. And it's like that's so painful. And so you want to talk to that about like, this is not a moral failing. This is this is a disability. But for every group of people in that bucket, you have a group of people in a bucket going, yeah, like my husband or my partner or my friend or my parent was a horrible fucking person and either abused me or mistreated me or constantly hurt me in some way, and refused to take accountability because they had fill in the blank of whatever disability it is, and it makes it difficult to talk in general terms about the two competing truths of like, disability is not a moral failing and it's not an excuse to mistreat people. Yeah, I think it's one of and that's an easy thing to say out loud, but if you go any further than that, you know there's no other sentence you could say except for that one before you feel like the people who were married to an abuser that had a disability are being discounted, or the people that were always demonized for having this disability feel discounted, and it makes it a really weird, hard line to walk.
Dr. Lesley Cook 31:31
It does. And I think the most common response that I get when I also make content like that, or have discussions like that, is, well, then how do I know the difference and the fact that there is no answer for that. How do I know if I have RSD? How do I know if I have sensory dysfunction due to this? Because we're all actual like human blobs, and we have all of this stuff going on, it's incredibly hard to give that answer, especially in these kind of short, sound bitey ways. And I think when you're someone so say you're in my position, it's so easy to talk about the nuance. When you're someone who is consuming that content because they are in daily pain, it is very hard to hear. I think, I don't know, I don't know. You would have to look at the entirety of your relationship. You would have to compare it to this. So I understand the frustration, and I wish it was simpler than it is. Yeah,
KC Davis 32:23
well, Leslie, we are at time, and I can't tell you how great of a conversation this is. It's always a great conversation with all of the pre planning that I've been doing, it tickles me pink to have somebody that I can schedule a podcast episode with and not even tell them what the topic is going to be. I myself thought of the topic about 15 minutes before I logged on, because I was like, Wait, have we not talked about a topic? But this has been great. You want to tell people where they can find you if they want to hear some of your sound bits, wisdom of sound bits. Sound bits of wisdom. Yep, I don't know about
Dr. Lesley Cook 32:51
the wisdom, but I've got lots of sound bits right now. I'm just on the tick tock at Leslie Psy. D, so it's L, E, S, L, E, y, p, s, y, d,
KC Davis 33:00
nice. Thank you so much. Thank you Applause.

Christy HausslerMarch 24, 2025

134: Clutterbug: Your Organizing Style with Cas

What’s your organizing style? Are you a bee, ladybug, cricket, or butterfly? Find out in today’s episode as professional organizer, Cassandra Aarssen explains how to tidy and organize according to your natural organizational style. Cas is a self-proclaimed “recovering super slob” on a mission to help other families who struggle with disorganization and clutter. Join us!

Show Highlights:

Cas’s journey to Chief Clutterbug status
Four organizational types, according to how you naturally sort and store your everyday things:
Butterfly: You are a visual person who wants simple, quick, and easy organizational systems.
Bee: You love visual and organizational abundance and are meticulous and detail-oriented, preferring to see your everyday items instead of hiding them away.
Cricket: You love visual simplicity and organizational abundance, wanting to hide items out of sight, but you are detail-oriented and methodical.
Ladybug: You love visual and organizational simplicity and prefer all your items hidden out of view with fast, easy solutions.
Find your balance between wanting to put things away easily and wanting to find things easily. (You can’t have it both ways!)
Parenting challenges in helping your kids learn to organize
Cas’s best organizing advice for butterflies: Use plastic bins, baskets, buckets, and labels.
Consider your “valuable real estate” from waist to eye level.
Establish a “drop zone” in your home.
Best tips from Cas and KC for keeping and organizing all the kids’ papers and artwork
Cas’s best organizing advice for bees: Use clear, stacking bins and pegboards for meticulous organization. (Fun fact: Most hoarders are actually bees!)
Cas’s best organizing advice for crickets: Use lots of styles for traditional organization.
Cas’s best organizing advice for ladybugs: Use drawer dividers, bins, and baskets (with no lids).

Resources and Links:

Connect with Cas: Website (and Resources)

Preorder my new book: Struggle Care Website, Amazon, and Bookshop

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
Hi friends. Before we get started, I want to let you know that my new book, who deserves your love is now available for pre order. It'll be out on Tuesday, May 6, and the subtitle is how to create boundaries to start strengthen or end any relationship. And yeah, I do mean any. This is for family relationships, platonic relationships, romantic relationships. It's sensible, it's practical. It's going to help you think through why you might be experiencing issues in your relationships. It has a decision tree that helps you make important relationship decisions, and there's a new take on boundaries. It's going to help you make those value based decisions and carry them out. Is love conditional? How do you navigate a relationship where someone's best efforts are hurting you. When should you step away? It's plain spoken. It's powerful. We're going to talk about vulnerability, trauma, disability, personal history, boundaries, and how to conflict well, and how to emotionally regulate, and all of these things packed into a little punch of a book. So check out who deserves your love. You can pre order on bookshop.org, Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Hello. You sent to get balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle. Care. I'm your host, Casey Davis, and today we are with Cass from clutterbug. Some of you might know clutterbug. It is all about how to tidy and organize your space according to your type, as in, we're all different, as in, not everything works for everyone. And I've heard a little bit about clutterbug Through the years, people will often kind of comment on my stuff and say, like, oh, this reminds me of clutterbug. Or like, oh, you would love clutterbug. So I'm just so glad to have you here, Cass and thank you so much. Give us a little intro about how you became clutterbug.
Cas 1:44
Ah, thanks for having me. I'm really excited. I'm actually a huge fan. I just I find you like a breath of fresh air. So a little bit about me. I'm a recovering super slob. I feel like I don't know what else to call myself, like I, in my core, will always be a messy person. And I don't know if anyone understands this, but that's okay.
KC Davis 2:03
I do
Cas 2:06
like all the practice in the world. It I can create new habits and I can create muscle memory, but at my core, I am messy. I'm a disaster. I have ADHD and I lived in a home for the majority of my adult life that was wrecked. Let's just get real. I was always cleaning and tidying, and I felt like, by the next day, it was trashed again, and I'm I was like, am I a stupid person? Why is this so hard for me? This shouldn't be this hard, but I really cued in. For me, it came from I had to go with a less organized approach to organization. I can't do filing cabinets. I can't do lots of details. I have to toss my things away like it's a basketball and have it go into a labeled bin. And when I started doing this, my kids were young. I was running a daycare. Things started staying tidy, and then I was like, I'm a genius. So I started helping friends and family who were chronically disorganized with this less organized approach. I used dish pans from the dollar store, if I'm being honest, because this was a million years ago, and I was real broke, and that's what was available. And then it started growing. And I thought, could I organize people's homes for a living, so I started doing this part time, and that's when I realized that there wasn't just two ways to organize, that some people were actually really visual too, and the normal way to organize is put everything behind closed doors, shove it in drawers, in cabinets, have everything Perfect and not seen. And if you're a visual person, this is impossible for you, because out of sight, out of mind, you will literally forget you own things. But also subconsciously, you're leaving things out because it's more convenient you want to use it again later, today or tomorrow. So the traditional way to organize actually doesn't work for the majority of people, so I gave them, like, cute bug names, you know, I call it clutter bug, and there's like, butterflies and bees and crickets and and ladybugs. But you know what the truth is? What really matters is that you know how you manage your own belongings and that you set up your home to catch it. Yeah,
KC Davis 4:23
I love how you've stylized your approach with, like, the different little bugs, because early on in making cleaning content, I would have people be like, Casey. I think you're a butterfly. You should go over to clutterbug and check it out. I love that you have a quiz. And I just it's so there's something that, like, it scratches something in my brain, like, I've always been a big, like, personality quiz girl, like, I love the, you know, the MBTI, or whatever it is. Like, I'm an ENFJ I've taken all that, like, who doesn't love just like talking about themselves in a quiz. And I think that there's something so validate. Thing about seeing yourself in a profile and going, Oh, I'm not broken, I'm not behind the curve. I'm just this other type. And I think that, I think as someone who has that kind of pattern recognition brain that is always kind of sorting things into categories. It's just such a genius approach, and I've never seen anyone else really do that in the cleaning space, like, there's lots of people offering lots of tips that can be helpful. But this idea of, it's like the morally neutral hack of, like, no, look at all of these different like types. So can you take us through the types and sort of tell us about each one.
Cas 5:43
Yes, I would love to, but I first want to say how I know this works. So I started doing my little business on the side. And my marketing tagline was very I have ADHD. I'm like, You know what would be so great is if I tell people, if it doesn't stay organized for 30 days, I'll come back and do it for free. And that was I put it on everything. I put it on all my posters I was doing. And guess what? People called me back and I had to go back and do it for free. So I had to adapt and figure out why the why? Why is this working for Susan and not for Janine? What is different about these people? So basically, your organizing style comes down to a combination of how you naturally sort and how you naturally store your everyday things. And so are you a really detailed person, not in your brain? Usually it goes with both.
KC Davis 6:39
I was gonna say it's funny, because sometimes when you ask those questions, like, the way that I am about information is totally different than the way I am about objects.
Cas 6:49
Yes, so it's about like, objects are you a detailed person in that you don't mind taking the time to put something away in a detail, you'll lift a lid, you'll you want to find it again quickly next time, so you'll stop and take the time to put it away in a detailed way. Or do you just need to put it away fast? You don't mind taking time later to dig through a bin. You got to put it away real quick. So I call it like detailed and non detailed. But don't confuse that with how your brain works, because you might be like all up in your perfectionist but not when it comes to your home and managing your belongings. So there's a big difference there. So that's the one half, and then the other side is how you naturally store your belongings. So are you a person who prefers to store out of sight, you want to hide your things away, or are you like super visual, out of sight, out of mind? This does not mean you like clutter. Nobody likes clutter and to see their stuff. This means do you want the things you touch every day to be easily accessible out and you want to see it so you don't forget reminders, important documents, but also maybe your everyday bathroom products. It's more convenient to leave them out. So this combination makes up your styles. So you are a butterfly, I watch your content, and I'm like screaming on my phone, you're a butterfly, which means you're really visual. You want to see your things. You need to see your everyday things, but also you're not a detailed person when it comes to putting things away, it's you need quick, easy, simple solutions. A bee is someone who is very visual, but also very meticulous, very detailed when it comes to their things. And we think about the bug a bee, and we've never seen their hives, they're like, they're methodical up in there. So that is the B organizer. Then we have a cricket who is someone that wants to hide their things. And they're very detailed, though. And I chose the cricket bug because you never really see crickets, but you hear them. And did you know when they rub their legs together? It's mathematical perfection.
KC Davis 9:01
Oh, I did not know that. Yes, it's like the part.
Cas 9:05
So when I think of perfection detailed someone who's very methodical but also doesn't want to see things, that's a cricket. And last we have a ladybug. So a ladybug, if you think about the actual insect, is like, pretty and shiny and perfect on the outside, but when they open up their wings, have you, it's like it was like a hot mess under there.
KC Davis 9:31
They're so cute to me. And the first time, my kids were like, I was like, they're so sweet, but then you actually look at them open and I was like, Oh, that's a little terrifying.
Cas 9:38
That's a mess. And that's basically a ladybug organizing style as well. So non detailed, laid back. They don't want to see their things, but they toss it away quickly. So usually drawers, closets are like but on the outside you're like this. She has her life together. She does not, she does not. She's hiding it. Out of sight, and so knowing this about yourself helps you set up your home with systems that complement how your brain organizes your things. But it's also important to understand other people who live in the home and their organizing style so that we can compromise so it works for everyone.
KC Davis 10:20
I love that. And I remember, like, some of these kind of coming to some of these conclusions when trying to look at MySpace and when you talk about, like, being detail oriented and putting things away and taking things out. I remember the day it occurred to me that most of the organizational systems that I had tried or that were sold to me are high effort, put away, low effort, take out. So, like, I remember buying, like, all of the clear shoe boxes, I mean, like, 100 clear shoe boxes. And it was like, This is so great. I'll put every shoe in a clear shoe box so I can see them all. And then I just had to take it out. And it wasn't until I put it wasn't until I put it together that I realized, like, Wait, if I'm taking one out from the bottom, like, I have to take it all the way out, I have to open it up, I have to do all this and but putting it away. And so I had, like, even with like, shoe, I went to, like, a shoe, you know, I noticed that we were all taking our shoes off by, like, the front door. So it's like, oh, we need a shoe shelf, right? Like, everyone's getting those shoe shelves. But even then, it was like, none of us were using it, they were still piled on the floor. So it wasn't until I went to baskets by our front door. And so we have three baskets, one for me, one for my husband, and one for our kids. And I was telling people about this online, of like, this works for us. It's actually a funny story, not even by our door. It's actually in the middle of not like the dead center, but it's in our living room, because, for some reason, that's where everybody was going to take was going to take their shoes off, but it's also equidistant from all of the outside doors, so everyone can kind of just keep their shoes on until they get there. And I remember people commenting, this is silly, like, now you have to dig through the basket to get out a shoe from the bottom. And I remember, like, trying to explain it to people, and finally, being like, but I'm willing to do that like. I am willing like, and I think there's probably a lot of people with ADHD that might relate to this aspect of it, like, because our motivation systems are different, and we're not motivated by priority and things like that. We're motivated by urgency. When I need to go, I need to find the shoe, and there is no problem initiating the movement and to, you know, look through the shoe basket. But when I'm coming home and I need to take my shoes off, I am in the middle of being motivated to do something else, right? I'm coming home to feed lunch to my kids. I'm coming home and I've got groceries and so I don't it's such a burden to me in that moment to, like, interrupt my attention to go and do something else. So I need that low effort put away, just like, toss it into the basket, because I know about myself that I never have a problem motivating myself or even being bothered by looking through it. And you know it when people started saying, like, I'm the opposite, I'm the opposite. And I think that's why what you do is so genius, because it is just different types. Like some people want to be able to they would say, well, when I'm walking out the door, I want to be able to grab my shoes because I'm thinking about something else. And thinking about something else. And it's like, sure, but I have to like, if the other option is the other thing is about like options. When I'm coming home and taking my shoes off, the options are, toss them to the side, which is easy, or put them away nicely, which just has more effort. When I want to go somewhere, the option is put your shoes on and go, or don't go at all. So, like, that's just an easier thing for me to, like, motivate myself to do, you
Cas 13:47
know what I love that you're describing, like, exactly how butterflies should organize and how ladybugs organize, but they would actually put it in a closet, right, and kick their shoes in. And it is really hard for people who have their brain works the opposite to understand. It's hard for me to understand too, but when you get it, I love that you just intuitively know yourself, because what you're describing is exactly the butterfly philosophy, which is like a laid back organizer their brain has already moved on. It's not like we're purposely making this decision, oh, it'd be too much work to put our shoes on the shelf. I'm just gonna kick them. What are you talking about? We're not even thinking about our shoes. We're not thinking about anything. We're done with something our brain has moved on. So we need to just catch that stuff so we can go back and get it later. The problem with a lot of butterflies and ladybugs like me is when we don't have those systems, like the basket in place, now we're just putting it, we're dropping it everywhere, and everything's a disaster, and we we have to hunt for it to find it. So the real genius in organization is the bins in the baskets to catch we're. Where you're putting things. Keep things separate from other things, so we can find it as quickly as possible. So yeah, do you want to put it away fast, or do you want to find it fast? And often, people will say, I want to do both. I'm like, sorry, babes, you can't have both. You can't, you can't, wouldn't
KC Davis 15:15
we all love that. Let me ask you this. I found that you know, like you have always been a messy person, and I've always been like a butterfly type, and things didn't become unmanageable for me until I had children. And I don't know if that's just universal, or if other types, you know, maybe feel different about that, or maybe there's just unique challenges for each type, because kids are naturally butterflies, right? Like they all start as butterflies, just toss it, leave it, throw it, whatever. And, you know, so it's me going around doing that. And now when my kids start to walk, now they're doing that. And it's like, okay, I used to be able to do no pickup all week long. And then, you know, roll up my sleeves on a Sunday morning for an hour and kind of put everything back in place. But now suddenly, you know, the cycle of how long it takes my space to become unusable when there's more of us doing that is like 24 hours, but I still don't have the skills or systems in place to do it more frequently. And so now it's like, it's livable for a day, and then we're going six days right of just stress before we get it livable again. And I'm curious if you've had that experience with your clients, like is for people that have kids, like, is that kind of a pinch point, or a turning point, or like is that is a landmark that kind of pushes people towards you, of like that, becoming unmanageable.
Cas 16:43
Yeah, absolutely. Because not only now do you have way more stuff, but now you have other little people who are putting things down, not how you're putting things down. So you, I think, as a even butterflies and ladybugs, like, we're, yes, we're naturally messy, but we adapt. We adapt. We're like, it's a pain point. Oh, I can't find my keys. I can't find my keys. Okay, eventually we'll have like, a bowl or a hook or something. And so we kind of adapt our space to catch it a little bit, which makes it more manageable. But now we have, like, all these little creatures who are not able to come up with systems to drop their stuff, and also, now we're in charge of knowing how they naturally put their things down. And like, of course it's chaos. Of course it's chaos because there aren't systems in place, and that is so tough, especially as a new mom, like I had postpartum depression, and I was running a daycare. At one point, I had nine children in my house. It was just Toys R Us, vomited everywhere, and I would cry myself to sleep every night, like I'm working so hard and I can't keep up. But when I started thinking, Okay, I just need to catch their mess too, in a way that their brain works in a butterfly way, and it literally we just lined up like these bins on the floor. We put picture labels on them so children as young as 18 months can recognize balls go in the ball bin, dolls go in the doll bin, and then, like, magically, it was I didn't have to pick up toys, like I could adapt my home. So even little ones were subconsciously picking up after themselves. I mean, we had to be like, Okay, it's tidy up time. But they could do it without me very young, because we had the right butterfly systems in place. So it makes sense that you were super struggling. And I wish, like, I could help all new moms make it a little bit easier and just like, hey, man, try this. Works well, and there's hard enough, there's
KC Davis 18:42
so much kind of romanticized about having a baby that the other thing is, you know, we end up hyper fixating on what the nursery looks like, and all the cute organizational pieces and hanging every little piece and and I think that makes it harder. It's like we kind of romanticize and organize and nest and do this, but if you don't do that according to your type, it's like all of a sudden, now I'm doing laundry, and none of these little onesies are getting hung up again, and now I feel like a failure, absolutely.
Cas 19:09
Yeah, I remember being pregnant like folding and refolding all the little all the little onesies and pairing all the socks, no zipper, zipper onesies from head to toe and chuck them in a bin beside the beside the change table. But you you know, there's a there's expectations that are unrealistic. And again, if you're looking at this beautiful Pinterest poster, following someone on Instagram who organizes the opposite of you, it's hard enough to create new habits and new systems. Trying to set one up that goes against how your brain works makes it impossible. So
KC Davis 19:48
if I'm a butterfly and I'm looking at my space and I want to put in some like organizational things, like, what do I need in my spaces? It's. So
Cas 20:00
right off the bat, for butterflies, I say ditch the dresser. Dressers do not work for butterflies because you need to be able to toss your clothing away quickly. Most butterflies, I would also encourage not to fold. I think that's a friction and barrier from just putting stuff away. So I like going with cube shelving. Calyx is great for IKEA. It's really inexpensive. So many of those, my gosh, you see, you intuitively, know, and then great inserts
KC Davis 20:27
too. Like they're and they're getting better and better. We use them for kids. We use the tro fast bins in a lot of the account stuff. We they're, they make now, like, inserts to half them, inserts to put files in them. And like, there's just so great you
Cas 20:42
could put legs on them to make them look nicer, and stuff like, there is, there's so many great options. And I would say, like, stay away from the fabric Canvas bins, because those just bend and warp when you're you know, go with something like hard and plastic. And then if you have little ones labels, I know everyone's like, I don't want my house to look like a kindergarten classroom. I'm like, Well, do you want it to look like it's wrecked? Because, you know, there is something really magical about picture label for children, because it and even for grown ups. I'm sorry, a lot of people are anti labels. It like without you thinking, because, as ADHD ers, our brain is thinking about all these other things, but the label, we're seeing it in the corner of our eye, and we're actually putting things in the right component, instead of setting it on top or tossing it just anywhere when there's a label. So right off the bat, I would say that the other thing is, it's really important to look around and let your clutter tell you where you're naturally putting things down and put the system there. So if you are always throwing your dirty clothes in the same spot on the floor, that's where you put a laundry hamper with no lid, right there. Don't try to force yourself to put it in the closet or somewhere else. And the same thing is like the clutter on your counter. If you're coming in and you have bills and mail that you have to go through and you're dumping it. That's where your kitchen command center should be. That's where you should have the spot where you're dumping in your papers to go through. And I love hooks on the walls. I love bucket systems, especially in the bathroom. So you're getting things off the counter, but you're still keeping it really visual, and it's just as easy to put it down, but now when you have to actually clean. You don't have to move anything. So,
KC Davis 22:23
yeah, you also mentioned to me one time about it being eye level, which I thought, which I thought was interesting.
Cas 22:29
Yeah. So we call that the valuable real estate. So anything from waist to eye level is the most important spots in your home. And so you need to store things you use every day in those spots. And when I go into a client's home and I look around, what I see a lot of the times is like, things they never use are in their valuable real estate, and then the things they use all the time don't have a spot to go in that valuable real estate, so they're kind of left out as clutters. Oh, that's so
KC Davis 22:57
true. Like, I have a coffee pot sitting on our like, coffee bar. I haven't made coffee in nine months. Like, we're, that's, we're just not a big, like, pot of coffee, people. And I'm constantly, it's like, that's the space where I'm constantly dropping things in my kitchen that are not kitchen related, the mail, you know, that's where I'm charging the iPad, like, that's where I'm doing this. And it just occurred to me, like, how much of that real estate I'm using with, like, my coffee pot, because we also have a Keurig, because it was, like, my husband and I will do the one shot, just because I just drank one cup of coffee a day. But we have guests. And then, you know, the few times a year we had guests, we wanted the coffee pot. And now I'm just thinking, like, how silly that the coffee pot is still taking up that real estate in that prime area, especially
Cas 23:40
that's your drop zone. You have your brain is like, that's my drop zone, and it should be a drop zone. It has decided. It has decided. The other thing that butterflies do and visual organizers do is they spread. So they're like, making piles, and they're spreading on surfaces, but a shelf is also a surface, and so I would actually encourage you to get more shelving on the walls. I've seen, like, in your dining area, behind your table, there's nothing is it's bare knit, and I look at it of like, get some shelving friend, because if we're putting them in bins and baskets, it can still look neat and tidy. We can get, like, a bin and basket on there, but it gives you the ability to have, like, easy reach, access to the things that you're probably setting on the kitchen table, so now you can set there. And the other thing that I especially I know you have kids, anyone who has kids, what's so important is a memory catcher right somewhere in your drop zone, somewhere when you come in the house, because we all probably have places for long term memories, hopefully, like report cards and things like that. But it is a it's a fuck. We got to make an effort to put it there. So a memory catcher is a one stop drop for photos, for little trophies, for the report cards, for the drawing. Is that your kids come home with from school that you're like, do I keep this? Do I not? We toss it all into one bin, and then once a year we go through and we intentionally, like, save the best stuff in a long term place. Yeah, I'm
KC Davis 25:13
so glad you said that, because I have intuitively done that. That's like, one thing I've done. We have a little like, mud kitchen esque built in by one of our doors. And there's like, one shelf of it that I just started tossing the girls, like, the stuff they come home with, the pictures and the worksheets and things like that. And what I started doing, because people would ask me all the time, like, what do I do with all of the like, paper clutter when it comes to my kids, all their artwork, all their this and that, that, whatever. And I did find a few solutions that have really worked for me. One is that we have four of those frames, the storage frames, where you can have one picture showing through the frame, but you can open the frame up and it's like a thick kind of box behind it to keep a bunch of stuff. So we're always doing that for like, four things at a time. But the other thing is that we are kind of throwing everything into that little spot, and then once a year, I take it out. We go through it, we throw away things that are kind of like obvious things, right? And I have my kids pick out along with me, like the ones we want to keep and save, and I take a picture of every single thing that they are proud of, that they like, and I upload those pictures to a digital frame that sits in our kitchen. So we have two digital frames because I had, I one was given to me as a gift, and then I got another one like from the company. And at the time, I was like, well, I already have one. And then I had this idea of, okay, well, I'm putting pictures in one like photographs, the other one is displaying artwork. And so it would go through that artwork, and then I would take some of those pictures. And I've been making a book every year. So, like every year for Christmas, my kids get a photo book that goes month by month, and there are some pick photographs in it, and there are their artwork is in it, and just like a line or two about, maybe, like things about that month. So it is simple, right? It's like we went on this vacation. You were this for, for whatever, and then I pick, like, maybe six pieces of physical artwork to keep, and I have an accordion file folder for every grade, and I throw all the rest of it away. And I know that kind of sounds like a lot, but when you do it once a year, it's not. And it was perfect, because my kids always feel like I'm proud of them, because their stuff is always being displayed digitally through the thing, or there's like four of them in the frame. They are getting a book every year that commemorates, you know, dozens of pictures they've done. And I feel like as like, as an adult who has now received some of her like, childhood stuff, it really gives you perspective about like, how much you actually want to look at like, if my parents were to give me a box of my like stuff, like artwork, but my dad, one time gave me a file folder of like, 12 things I had done before the age of nine. And I was like, This is great. This is exactly the amount of things that I want to look back on. So now there's just, like a tiny bit of physical stuff that they can kind of have when they're older. But anyways, it just makes me so happy to hear you say that, because I was like, Oh, I nailed that one. You
Cas 28:31
did you? I mean, you're nailing it. And that, I think, is, as a mom, we're like, oh, I should be doing all this. But when we say to ourselves, we only have to do it one day a year. You know what? We could toss it all in one bin, and then one day a year, that's our intentional day to, like, do something special. And I'm you're way more extra than me. I'm so lazy. Here's what I do. I have one bin, like a big Rubbermaid tote per family member and their names on it, and then anything that's like worthy of the memory bin, I say we I literally toss it in. I don't, it's not, it's like a mess in there, but I call them my the memory treasure bins, and I was throwing them in the basement, but then I'm like, no, wait a minute, this is like, our bestest and most treasured things. So I moved they. I decluttered a bunch of stuff. I move them into a clutter closet in my office, my kids go through these bins all the time. They're just like, they'll drag it out. They'll open it up. There's like, pictures mixed with report cards mixed with, you know, their first outfit they wore home, and little trophies. But it's almost nice to have this, like, Discovery kind of bin where you go through and pull out all these beautiful memories, but it also makes it really easy to add to it. You just toss it in like a basketball so it feels, it feels like I'm doing something great, but I'm not having to put forth effort, and then feel like a failure when I am missing a few years and not keeping up with things. It's like. You know,
KC Davis 30:00
yeah, totally.
So let's talk then about bees. What do bees need that might be slightly different,
Cas 30:15
so just like a butterfly, they need lots of visual storage, but they are a little bit more meticulous, so they want to take the time to put things. So you talked about those clear shoe boxes that stack bees should be kind of maximizing space a little bit more and getting a little Jenga. So go ahead and opt for clear stacking bins. Pegboards work really good for bees, because they're like, this is where the scissors go in this, especially in crafting areas. You know, they want to take advantage of the wall space, but they want to have it meticulous. So pegboards really, really work. The big challenge for bees is that this sounds like really awful, but I feel like they need to practice doing things. Can I swear shitty. They need to honestly practice, like letting go a little bit, because the biggest issue that bees and crickets have is I'm gonna pile till later. So even though they're detailed and they're perfectionist and they're meticulous, they still have a mess, because they're like, I'm gonna get to that when I can do it right, when I can set up this perfect system. So what I would challenge bees to do is, like, in really embrace good enough, knowing that when everything has a home, you can go back and get micro and detailed and get your little be on then, but not wait until. Yeah, the perfect time.
KC Davis 31:38
So I'm a kid who, starting in probably about high school, like, got really, really bad grades. And even before then, I never did homework or anything like that. And I remember the first time someone said to me, oh, you're a perfectionist. And I was like, Oh no, no, no, I don't, I don't try at anything. And then being like, yeah, that's a lot of perfectionists. And they did this thing where, and I don't know if this is totally accurate, but it was a helpful way to think about it. And they said, you know, perfectionists and Idealists are similar, she said, but the difference is, a perfectionist won't stop. They will keep going and going and going and going and going on in the search of it being perfect, an idealist also wants things to be perfect, but is so overwhelmed by the idea of it being perfect, they just won't start. So they were, like, an idealist won't start something because it won't be perfect, and a perfectionist won't stop it until it is perfect. Like both of them are in pursuit of perfection. And it really struck me, and it wasn't until I was older and I was able to do some deep reflection where I was, like, that is why I didn't try hard in a lot of school. Like, some of it was the ADHD in the organization, but some of it was, if I don't try and I'm failing, I still get to tell myself at the end of the day that I'm smart and that I would have succeeded if I would have tried, whereas if I try really hard and fail, well then maybe I'm just not smart. Maybe I'm just not good. And I feel like that is so true in our spaces, like, when you mentioned, like, okay, the organization needs to be perfect. So in the meantime, I'll just pile it up here, you know. Or
Cas 33:12
if I'm not totally done with something, I'm gonna leave it out till I'm 100% done with that project before I pack up all the supplies. And one of the huge, like, the biggest challenges for a bee is that perfectionist, Idealist mindset also tends to like they will buy every craft supply they want to do, all the things they or they want to be woodworkers, or they want to do new hobbies, or, if they're working out, they're buying every piece of exercise equipment. And so they have a lot of stuff, and they really struggle to let go, because visual organizers have more of an emotional attachment when they see things. I don't know why this is bizarre, but if you're a visual person, you see something, it evokes like memories. It evokes like an emotional response, and also that logical perfectionist brain is saying, I could turn this into this. Well, it would be this much to replace it. Well, what if, and and your brain is like overthinking, and now you don't want to get rid of anything. So most hoarders are actually bees, which is really fascinating to me to have, like this perfectionist, detailed, logical, practical brain filling their home where they can't even use rooms in their home. It
KC Davis 34:27
actually makes sense, because when you were talking about some of those things, that's what I began to think of like when we look at people with hoarding disorder, one of the things that that kind of dominates a lot of people's thought process is, I can't get rid of that. I'm going to sell it later. I can't get rid of that. I'll put it in a memory book later. I can't get rid of that. That's something that I might be able to use if I ever get this thing over here done. And so, like, that's a really common so it makes sense that they would be aligned like that. So what kind. So you met, okay, so you mentioned pegboards. You mentioned things like that. What's the talk about crickets, our little musically perfect organizers tell me about them. So
Cas 35:09
crickets, like a bee, tend to pile till later. So the even though they don't want to see their stuff, they're like little perfectionist, Idealist brain does kind of override that sometimes, so you'll see, like, neat, stacky piles I'm gonna get to later. But unlike a bee, they will not let it overwhelm their home, because they still like, realize this stresses me out and causes me a lot of anxieties. I always look like, like, oh, you're a cricket. That sounds so bad. But like, they genuinely are a traditional organizer. They are adaptable. They can use lots of styles. Marie Kondo is a classic cricket. Crickets generally really don't struggle with organization or a lot of excess, except when it comes to paper. Most crickets struggle the most with paperwork because they really want to micro it down and get these, like, detailed, insane systems, and that is very time consuming. So they'll pile that till later, or something specific, like tools or something they have an excess of that they want in a really meticulous way, but clothing all those other things they tend to be like, you know, they have a pretty good handle on it. Kids
KC Davis 36:21
artwork, I bet is one, yes, it's like the kryptonite for a cricket, right? Because it's like, meaningful and sentimental, and you could keep all of it, and you could organize all of it into very specific
Cas 36:32
and I should probably scrapbook, or I should probably set up this really insane system. And what if my kids are gonna, like, think of a bad parent one day? Yeah. So for sure, things that like require time, and you can get real in the weeds, in the details, that's definitely a struggle for
KC Davis 36:49
crickets, okay? And then ladybugs. Did you mention you're a ladybug? Yeah, I'm a ladybug. Okay, tell me about ladybugs and what they need. So ladybugs
Cas 36:58
get really stressed out by seeing a lot of things. They're really visual, and they also are not detailed. They need fast, easy, simple solutions. You know, you're a ladybug. If you are hiding everything, if your family's like, wait, I just put that glass down. I wasn't even done drinking. And you're like, you're thrown in the sink. Or, you know, you come home with the bills, and your spouse will, like, put them and you're shoving them in a drawer where you know, because you're like, don't want to see the pile, but you have no idea tomorrow where those bills are. They could be check every drawer in the house. They could be anywhere. So the struggle for a ladybug is it's like this Heidi hoarder cycle. So they will shove things in all the hidden spots, but then when they need something, they have to pull everything out to make a mess and then shove it back again, which is extremely time consuming. So what we do for ladybugs is we just use like drawer dividers so you can still toss it but it's divided lots of bins and baskets behind closed doors, no lids, no stacking, as big as you can get, so you can still shove and hide, but it's going into a like segregated home. And what I suggest for paper for you too, listen, hold on to your hats. You're gonna hate this, okay, but I'm just gonna say it anyways. It's like a basket that says paid bills, 2025 you know, or paper, 2025 and you literally shove all the paper in there and here's and before you shot is like, Oh, that's horrible. Listen, it's kind of filing because the bottom is January, and then February, and then March, and then April. You know, I'm saying, if you really need something, you can go through. But the truth is, 90% of the paper we don't need to keep, but we're not sure. So one day a year, at tax time you go through and sort it then and deal with the paper. So I only Touch Paper one day a year, and that works very well for butterflies and ladybugs. Bees and crickets are dying there right now. They're like the shock, and that would be like a nightmare for them. So we do set up, you know, a less simplified, a little more detailed system for them. But again, I want to encourage bees and crickets to let go of the extreme detailedness and kind of like, relax, chill, chill a little bit bro. Chill a little bit bro. So
KC Davis 39:16
fascinating. The you know, they that that phrase, like Great minds think alike, like the core of kind of like discovering how our brains work best. And I just love the way that you have organized it, and the way that you have packaged it, and the way that you talk about it. And you have quite a few resources on your website where you tell people, kind of like, if they're listening and they're going, oh my gosh, this seems super helpful to me. Like, what kinds of things do you offer that might be helpful for their next step? Yeah,
Cas 39:44
so you can go to clutterbug.com and you can take the quiz to identify your organizing style. I would just suggest we're not taking the quiz based on fantasy selves, okay? Like real life right now, answer it not how you want to be. About how you are, and you don't have to enter your email or anything. It'll tell you what your organizing style is. And then there's so many examples. I have a free like ebook you can download that gives you, like Pinterest boards, full of different organized examples that work specifically for you, and also how to combine styles, because that's tough, right? So all free on the website, and then I have a lot of videos that show me making over spaces on YouTube, it's just at clutterbug, and show you exactly how to set up systems for different organizing styles.
KC Davis 40:34
Well, Cass, thank you so much. I super appreciate your time, and I just think that my audience is going to get so much out of your resources. Thank
Cas 40:43
you so much for having me. You.

Christy HausslerMarch 17, 2025

133: BEST OF: Is Too Much Self-Compassion a Bad Thing? with Dr. Lesley Cook

We’re bringing back one of our most insightful and impactful episodes! In our very first episode, you heard my conversation with Dr. Lesley Cook about executive functioning. She had so much wisdom to share that I couldn’t wait to have her back—this time, to explore the topic of self-compassion.

Is it possible to have too much self-compassion? How do we find the balance between being kind to ourselves while still striving for progress? Dr. Lesley shares her expertise, breaking down the complexities of self-compassion and how it plays a crucial role in our personal growth.

About Our Guest:

Dr. Lesley Cook is a psychologist specializing in ADHD and neurodivergence. Born and raised in Hawaii, she now lives in Virginia, where she works with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families.

Show Highlights:

✅ Finding the balance between self-compassion and personal growth

✅ Understanding self-compassion through Dr. Kristin Neff’s work

✅ The role of shame and how it connects to self-compassion

✅ Strategies for shifting from shame to self-compassion

✅ How self-compassion can become a learned behavior we pass down to our children

Link and Resources:

Connect with Dr. Lesley: TikTok and Instagram

Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram

Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning

KC Davis 0:00
Casey, hello, you Sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to the struggle care podcast. I'm your host, Casey Davis, and this is the podcast that doesn't care if you wash your face. I'm here with my good friend, Dr Leslie cook.
Lesley PsyD 0:16
Say hello, Leslie, hey, it's nice to be here again.
KC Davis 0:19
If you're tuning in with us. You probably heard Dr Leslie COVID Last week, because I had her on to talk about executive functioning, and I invited her back. And I had this great idea that we were going to talk about weaponized incompetence. And then as we got closer to the recording, I remembered we already did a recording on weaponized incompetence, and so I'm going to call an audible and pepper Leslie with Q and A's that we're going to answer
Lesley PsyD 0:43
together. I kind of love that. It sounds great. I cannot wait. Excellent.
KC Davis 0:47
Okay, so I just want to jump right in, because I've got some fascinating ones. Here we go. So as you know, much of my I'm just going to start with a real spicy one. Is that? Okay? Yeah, that sounds great. All right. So as you know, my my content on Tiktok is primarily about home care, self care, mental health and self compassion, right? All about sort of recognizing how many things in our life we feel like failures about, and then being able to internalize like that. Struggling with that thing doesn't make me a failure. What often happens when I talk about this is I get a lot of feedback that says like, Oh, thank you. I feel so much better. Thank you. I'm operating so much better in my home. Thank you. This really helps, but I occasionally will get people that have a similar reaction to this commenter, okay, and so she actually commented twice, and the first time was when I asked for people who wanted to do Q and A's, and this is what she said. I think it's great to help people get past feelings of failing for not doing maximum levels of housework, but I hope you also teach that when someone is using these struggle care techniques to survive, they need to also be facing how to get out of crisis not having more kids or adding to their load while they forgive themselves from us and allowing for doing less. They need to also get real about getting their life to a more manageable place. All right, so here's the second comment. This was on a different video. Your videos have me spiraling this week, because I'm worried some people, not you, are getting the message to forgive themselves too much and really not doing enough, really failing their kids. I hope you'll keep reinforcing the part about how to do what needs to be done, versus doing too much or nothing. And this comment, first of all, thank you to this commenter for commenting this, because I can tell that she's having a legitimate sort of emotional reaction. She's not trying to be any type of way, right? And I just it's been rattling around in my brain, and I've been having trouble finding the words for what it brings up or what I'm seeing in it. So I'm just curious your thoughts off the top of your head.
Lesley PsyD 2:58
I think in both of those comments, I do a lot of parenting work, and I almost feel like I hear a version of some of these early parenting messages that perhaps people receive when they're younger and when we are under stress, a lot of those early messages tend to just come out all of a sudden. So when I hear that, I almost hear, you know it's okay to take a break on your homework today, but don't forget, you can't get too far behind, so you need to keep going to reach this optimal level. So part of me wonders if that's an old message. And the other part of me wonders, when we work with very young children, especially during their developmental period, we always meet them where they are, right? So if a child's learning to walk, our first statement isn't, you know, it's okay that you're crawling, but we gotta, we gotta get to this walking phase. We have this understanding that crawling, you know, rolling, leads to creeping, leads to crawling, leads to walking. But as adults, I think sometimes we forget that, that it's okay to meet ourselves with compassion where we are today, even if where we are today is non functional. That doesn't stop our progress. In fact, it's an incredibly important starting point, and it can be freeing to do that.
KC Davis 4:14
I hear a lot of fear in this comment, and my initial reaction when I saw this comment was that this person is perhaps either a child who was not cared for in the way that they deserve by their parents, or is perhaps someone that knows someone who is not giving an adequate or functional amount of care to their children, right? Like, I really didn't read this as someone who's like, I really want permission to be judgmental, because sometimes that's what people mean, right? They feel like it's okay to extend compassion or teach people self compassion up to a point, but they have this like line in their head where. Like, but if you're doing x you are. You should not be using self compassion on yourself. You should be feeling shame, which I think just goes back to this idea that ultimately, as much as we say that shame is not a good motivator long term, that that shame isn't the best change agent that we have, and in fact, it most often backfires and stalls out change that I think underlying belief is really hard to root out, and I feel like this is where it comes to the surface. Yeah, it's like, okay, it's okay for us to be self compassionate about not getting our dishes done. But what about that mom who just left their kid in a dirty diaper for 12 hours, and now they have, you know, open sores on their bottom, like they're not allowed to be self compassionate, right? And so we get into this place of, well, what do we mean by self compassion? What do we think self compassion does? And that's kind of where my brain goes with it.
Lesley PsyD 5:59
Yeah, I think, I think what I'm hearing in what you're saying too, is there's some belief that's tied up with fear if I have compassion for myself, I'm afraid that I could become that person if I let myself versus I think one of the messages from from your content across all platforms is giving yourself Self Compassion radically, unequivocally, where you are is less likely to lead you there, that it's more likely to free you to imagine where you could be next.
KC Davis 6:32
So let's just take a minute and actually talk about like a definition of self compassion. Because probably there's people listening that are going, well, I don't even know what that is, okay, so I'm gonna read you a definition of self compassion. This is from Dr Christy Neff. She's sort of the pioneer of a self compassion research. Let me see here, she talks about the three elements of self compassion. So number one is self kindness versus self judgment. It says self compassion entails being warm and understanding towards ourselves when we suffer fail feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self criticism. Self compassionate people recognize that being imperfect, failing and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable, so they tend to be gentle with themselves when confronted with painful experiences, rather than getting angry when life falls short of set ideals, people cannot always be or get exactly what they want when this reality is denied or fought against, suffering increases in the form of stress, frustration and self criticism. When this reality is accepted with sympathy and self kindness, greater emotional equanimity is experienced. Number two, common humanity versus isolation. So frustration at not having things exactly what you want is often accompanied by an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation, as if I were the only person suffering or making mistakes all humans suffer. The very definition of Being human means that one is mortal, vulnerable and imperfect. Therefore self compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience. It doesn't just happen to me alone. And then number three, mindfulness versus over identification. Self Compassion also requires taking a balanced approach to our negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. This equilibrium stance stems from process of relating personal experiences to those who are also suffering and thus putting ourselves in a larger perspective. It also stems from the willingness to observe our negative thoughts and emotions with openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness. Mindfulness is a non judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are without trying to suppress or deny them. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time, at the same time, mindfulness requires that we not be over identified. So self compassion, I think part of what I'm sort of hearing in this is that I think some people misconstrue that self compassion means permission for the behavior you're experiencing.
Lesley PsyD 9:08
And when you think about permission, that's an attachment to something, not this kind of observational lens that we're talking about. So if it's there's cups all over my house that have old coffee in them, and I'm allowed to do that, and I give myself permission, and I don't care what impact that has on me or anybody else. That's a that's an anxious attachment to that as a way to not have to feel, as a way to get away from my feelings, or standing back and being an observer that is not attached to that. I can come from a place of compassion, which is like, wow, this is really a challenge for me. Here's the story of how this impacts me and other people. And there's no attachment. There's no end to that story. I'm free, so I love that. I also love that detached observer well,
KC Davis 9:55
and I'm just curious, like the actual definition of compassion. Let's look it up. Okay, let's see. Let's see. Pity, all right, sympathetic pity. I don't love the word pity, but let's go with it, and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. Ooh, I love the sympathetic concern for the sufferings of others. So what? What we're talking about when we say self compassion is a sympathetic and I would say sympathetic by nature, is gentle, right, a gentle concern for the suffering of ourselves, right? And I also just think about compassion in general, like this idea that compassion has to be permission, or that it will give permission if we're too compassionate, but like, I have felt compassion for people and permission at the same time, right? Like I've looked at moms who are struggling, or young men who are struggling, or really anyone, and been like they're giving themselves too hard of a time. They actually should be giving themselves permission to rest, right? But I think sometimes we don't recognize that we're doing two things at once. I'm having compassion for their struggle, and I'm feeling sort of permissive, or wanting to give them the the quote, unquote permission to rest or do whatever or let go of the dishes in the sink, right? But I don't know about you, but like, I can, I have had compassion for people that I was not giving permission to like I've listened to actually, I just heard one recently, and I don't know how accurate the facts of the story is, but I'm just reacting to as if the facts of the story were what I heard. It was this woman who was talking in a court case, and I'm going to do it just a trigger warning, because I'm going to talk about some child abuse, but I'm not gonna be graphic. She was describing to the judge, in graphic details, how she had abused one of her children and horrible ways, and she's crying as she says it, and at first you're just like horrified, and then you learn that what's happening is that this child was doing the same thing, or abusing her younger baby, like in really horrific, sadistic ways. And this mom is sort of like crumbling in the courtroom saying, like I was trying to say, you know, you don't like it when someone does this to you and then doing it to him. This child eventually died from the abuse. Now no part of that do I feel is acceptable, permissive, okay? And yet, I found myself listening to this mom who was clearly in pain, who was like thinking about her infant being harmed and tortured continuously, and was kind of at her wits end, and was clearly not equipped mentally, not supported, like I felt compassion.
Lesley PsyD 12:51
I think that that's an area that we really struggle with, at least in our culture at this time, is the duality of many things that you can be this and that at the same time. And in fact, that's important to be able to separate our compassion and whether we are signing on to something or saying, Oh yeah, we throw our hands up. That's fine. I do find that a lot of folks are really struggle with that, with others, but especially with themselves well.
KC Davis 13:19
And I mean, I also felt compassion for that child that had passed away, right? Like that should not have happened to him. He deserved better, right? And you have compassion for this tiny little infant, right, who has no one to protect them except the person that's protecting him in a way that's like, not functional at all. Yeah. So those are kind of things that it brings to mind, and specifically going back, like, let's talk about, I saw a video recently of a person who kind of was saying, Gosh, I'm my neighbor's kids. Like, keep hanging out outside on the stairwell. They're like, two and three, and nobody's watching them. And she goes out with her video camera and sees and one of the little boys has a diaper that's kind of almost falling off, covered with equal matter, and you're just thinking What mother could do this? And I think that's where people's minds go. When they go we can't give that mother permission to be self compassionate.
Lesley PsyD 14:15
Yeah, but I think that one of the points you made earlier so important that that focusing on permission separates us from other people. It does protect us a little bit from having to contemplate that. Well, I could never be. I could never do that. I don't give permission. I don't I don't make excuses, because that's a whole other thing that I'll never do. Compassion requires that we see our connection. Compassion requires that we see ourselves in that person. And imagine what would have had to have happened to take place in order to end there. And I think that that's hard if you didn't learn that as a child or an adolescent. It's hard to be asked to find yourself in someone who is struggling at that level
KC Davis 14:55
well, and the idea that compassion and accountability can't be that. Together and and here's what it also brings to me, there are people out there that for whatever reason, whether it is psychological or moral, there they and it's probably a small percentage, but like they're just they are doing outright evil things, and they do not care whether they do not care because they have some sort of psychological, whatever going on that prevents them from tapping into that empathy, or they just don't that exists. And I think what a lot of people worry is that, what if, you know my mother who mistreated me horribly? What if she was listening to Casey Davis and Casey Davis was saying, Oh, let yourself off the hook. Not all moms are perfect. You know you're doing your best like then that would have given my mom permission to like feel right. But in my experience, people who are doing like, evil, abusive things to people don't need permission to do them. Not only do they not need permission to do them, like they're going to do them either way, but you know, they also aren't stopped by shame. They aren't permitted by permission, and they're not stopped by shame. So at some at some level, like, I don't actually worry that much about some sociopathic person you know, getting permission, quote, unquote, because, like, they're gonna get that permission from themselves, from somewhere else. It doesn't matter. I worry more about the person, like the woman that was my client a while back, who relapsed on heroin while she was pregnant, and she sat in that group therapy every day, and she could not stop beating herself up. She could not stop being consumed with a feeling of failure and worthlessness. She recognized, I have done this horribly harmful thing to my child. She recognized, yes, I have a brain disorder of addiction, and she felt 100% accountable. And I can tell you that sitting in that group over and over and over, the majority of the way in which she was not able to show up for her child, the way her child needed at that time was not related to the fact that she used heroin when she was pregnant. It was related to the fact that she now hated herself to such a degree she had basically frozen herself psychologically with how worthless she felt. And we all know what kind of life choices we make when we feel like we're worthless, right? We get with the wrong people. We self sabotage ourselves at work. You know, we don't put in effort to maybe making progress in therapy, because at some point that motive of, I want to get better, but when you're saddled with I don't deserve to be better, right? And so that, of course, is compromising her sobriety and putting at risk, not only not showing up for her kid the way she needs to, but dying if she relapses again. And I'll never forget her, because we're so afraid that if we were to give this mom permission to have self compassion on herself, to gently look upon her suffering with concern and kindness, that that would lead to her sort of, quote, unquote, letting herself off the hook, not taking accountability, not learning how to change her behaviors. But in my experience, we've really got it flip flopped. It is that radical self compassion that allows that mom to stand up and start to recognize what her values are, how her behavior in the past hasn't matched to those values, and not be too ashamed to ask for help changing herself so that she can live up to those values in the future. Yeah,
Lesley PsyD 19:03
I think, you know, shame is a closed door. It's a period at the end of a sentence. There's nothing that comes after shame. Shame is the reason, right, because I'm bad, because I can't help it, because I'm broken. But self compassion leads us to questions like, how did it get here, and what would have to happen for this to be different. It's an open door. It's it's multiple open doors, in fact. And if we can learn to view ourselves in that way and each other, I think we start asking the questions that actually do get us moving and are motivating. It's interesting. Shame really does feel motivating, even though it isn't that's an interesting phenomena. It always has been for me, and so can be hard to break away from that pattern.
KC Davis 19:45
You know, have this weird theory about shame. Have I ever told you this? So most of the therapists that I practice with talk about how there's really only seven primary emotions, like, if you think like a. Color Wheel, there's like untold, you know, different hues, but they all kind of come back to one of seven emotions. So there's fear, anger, pain, loneliness, joy, guilt and shame. Now, I actually would replace shame with disgust, right? Like disgust, because we feel that for lots of things, and Disgust is this really interesting beast, because it's both an emotion and like a sense, like, you know, like touch, smell, disgust. And so when we think about, like, what the role of disgust is, when I think about things that disgust me. You think of like poop and vomit and pus and open sores and like, what's interesting about that, and is that almost exclusively like or almost a unanimous, whatever word I'm looking for, it's like all human beings of all cultures experience disgust at these things, almost like it's biological, right? Yeah, and it's smart, because when I feel disgust, I want to get away from something. And it's really smart for human beings to have this sense of disgust towards things that could get them sick. And I think that some of that overlaps socially, right? Like, what we feel discussed at socially is typically what society is rejecting or pushing out. And so we don't want to associate with that. We don't want to mate with that. We don't want to get sort of looped into the same category. And this is why, like, I think when you look at a lot of the phobias, like homophobia, fat phobia, there's a real element of disgust in it, and we want to get we want to put that thing as far away from we want to separate ourselves from it, because that's the thing that is going to be pushed out. And we don't want to do that. And I really believe that shame is just disgust at oneself and
Lesley PsyD 21:58
but you, you can't get away from the things you're disgusted by.
KC Davis 22:02
Exactly you cannot get away from yourself. You believe yourself to be something that is should be put out, should be rejected, and yet the other part of you is fighting for what is on a very basic level, life and death, which is inclusion in your pack, yeah, and, and so it feel like it feels motivating. Oh god, I gotta, I gotta stop this. I gotta get away from this. I gotta fix this, or I'm gonna it's not motivating. It's just panic. Panic feels like motivation, yeah, but I haven't really seen, I mean, you can get a little movement right? Like, when I scream at my kids and I feel shame afterwards, there's that this isn't my values. Like, that's like, the gift of shame is it tells me when I'm not behaving in line with my values. But that's it, like, it's just information. Shame can give you information, and if we take that information and then practice self compassion, we can then do something with that information to actually change, but it can only give you information. It can't give you momentum. It can't create change. And so what we do with that information matters, right? Like we depending on what we believe about ourselves, we can either bury the information, oh my God, I don't act within my values. I must be a piece of shit. I just screamed at my kid. I can't let anyone know that I do this. I'm gonna go drink to not feel about it, right? And then it gets worse and worse. Or we can go, wow, that's not the kind of parent I want to be. And I'm probably experiencing a universal experience right now, and I'm going to reach out for help, and I'm going to get support, and I'm going to figure out what's going wrong so that I can be different.
Lesley PsyD 23:47
And that's the small shifts I think that compassion allows us to have, and maybe that's another piece of this is, I think it may be difficult for folks to imagine going from a place of shame based behavior to a place of self compassion. Those seem like poles, but in actuality, self compassion just enables you to make 1000 tiny shifts, and they don't always have to be in one direction. So I still experience I do this for a living. I talk to amazing people like you. I still experience shame. I'm looking at a side of a room right now that does not bring me joy. But when you practice self compassion enough that shift becomes very quick, and what you what happens, starts to happen is I notice the shame, and I gently shift towards self compassion. It becomes just a learned behavior that you can then pass down to children. I
KC Davis 24:38
love it. Thank you so much. This was so wonderful. Thank you for having me. Of course, you.

Christy HausslerMarch 10, 2025

132: A Big Announcement and A Sneak Peek Ahead

I have big news! Starting now, we will follow a new release schedule for the podcast, going to twice-a-month releases on the first and third Mondays. We’ve done weekly episodes for a couple of years now, and I need to free up some time for exciting upcoming projects. My new book releases on May 6 and is available now for preorder: Who Deserves Your Love? How to Create Boundaries that Start, Strengthen, or End Any Relationship. My next project is a cookbook that focuses on easy, stress-free meals and gentle nutrition with my compassionate philosophy. I’m also trying my hand at fiction writing with my first draft of a fantasy romance novel. I want every project to reflect my full passion and energy, and I feel strongly that it’s time to reallocate my focus toward these other endeavors. I’ll stick to the twice-monthly podcast release schedule for March, April, and May. The last episode in May will be the final episode of the Struggle Care podcast—for now. You never know what might happen in the future! Let’s keep in touch! Sign up for my newsletter at Struggle Care, and I promise not to overload your inbox!

Show Highlights:

An exclusive sneak peek into my new book, Who Deserves Your Love? How to Create Boundaries that Start, Strengthen, or End Any Relationship
My second book has the same disability advocacy perspective as my first book.
You’ll find counter-culture messaging for communication and relationships.
My book avoids standard attachment types and the language of codependency.
An overview of the three parts of my book
Listen as I read ch. 7 about The Decision Tree.
It’s tricky to occupy the space between wanting to have compassion and grace for people while still having boundaries for yourself.

Resources and Links:

Preorder my new book: Struggle Care Website, Amazon, and Bookshop

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
Hi friends. Before we get started, I want to let you know that my new book, who deserves your love is now available for pre order. It'll be out on Tuesday, May 6, and the subtitle is how to create boundaries to start strengthen or end any relationship. And yeah, I do mean any. This is for family relationships, platonic relationships, romantic relationships. It's sensible, it's practical. It's going to help you think through why you might be experiencing issues in your relationships. It has a decision tree that helps you make important relationship decisions, and there's a new take on boundaries. It's going to help you make those value based decisions and carry them out. Is love conditional? How do you navigate a relationship where someone's best efforts are hurting you. When should you step away? It's plain spoken. It's powerful. We're going to talk about vulnerability, trauma, disability, personal history, boundaries, and how to conflict well, and how to emotionally regulate, and all of these things packed into a little punch of a book. So check out who deserves your love. You can pre order on bookshop.org, Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Hello, you. Cynthia balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle. Care. I'm your host, Casey Davis, and I'm gonna give you some news first, and then we'll talk about today's episode. So the news is that starting in March, which should be March. Now, I'm going to be moving to a new release schedule for the podcast, where, instead of weekly episodes, I'm going to release episodes twice a month on the first and the third Mondays. This is the 100 and 32nd episode that you're listening to right now of struggle care, and I've been releasing an episode a week for a couple of years now. And while I've loved making this podcast, I need to lighten up my schedule to get ready for some upcoming projects that I am just super excited about. You know that ADHD urge, when you can just feel your passion and energy begging you to move to the next thing. Well, that's basically what's happening to me. My new book, which you can pre order now, is called who deserves your love, how to create boundaries that start strengthen or end any relationship. And it releases on May 6, and I'm ramping up press and marketing efforts for the book, while still working on my next project for you, which is actually a cookbook. So my cookbook is something I'm really excited about. I have a book deal for the cookbook, and it's going to focus on easy, stress free meals and gentle nutrition information, and it's going to bring that same compassionate philosophy to taking care of yourself and feeding yourself as my other books do on cleaning and relationships on top of that, just hobby wise, I have been trying my hand at fiction writing. Most of you guys know that I'm obsessed with romanticy and I consume romantic books like crazy, so I'm really a horrible fiction writer, but I've been having so much fun learning about it and trying my hand at it, and I'm currently in the middle of my first draft of a fantasy romance novel, so I'm having so much fun with that. But all that to say, I want everything that I produce for y'all to be something that I'm proud of, that I feel like my energy and focus is 100% in and I can just feel that it's time to reallocate my energy to these new things. So as I mentioned, I'm going to be going dropping down to a release schedule where I do two episodes a month, starting now in March. I'm going to do that for March, April and May, and then on May 19, that will be the last episode of the struggle care podcast, and I will officially wrap up podcasting for now. Who knows what will happen in the future? If you haven't already be sure that you are signed up for my newsletter, which you can do at struggle care.com I'm very judicious when it comes to my use of newsletters. I am someone who gets overwhelmed with my email and my text message is very easy, so trust me when I say that I will not be overloading your inbox. I truly only send out a newsletter when I have something to say, usually when there's like a new project happening or some new opportunity that I want you to know about. I think I sent a total of like, five or six newsletters in the whole last year. I never sell your data, and again, I'm super mindful about not overloading you, so your email is safe with me. If you want to keep on top of what I'm doing and the new fun things that come out, you you. So that's the big news. And for today's episode, I wanted to do something a little different and give you an exclusive sneak peek into my new book. I want to read you a chapter. So as I mentioned, who deserves your love is about relationships, but it's a unique. Book, because, first of all, I know there's a million self help books out there about relationships, but I want to tell you a little bit about what's different in mine, and then I'm going to read you a chapter. First of all, it's the same kind of disability advocacy that I have in my first book, like recognizing that the struggles we have in relationships aren't just about our personal moral failings, but are about a combination of the way we were raised and the systemic barriers that we experience, while at the same time having to explore issues of accountability and agency. And you know, how do we make changes in relationships, both for yourself, how you do that, but also, how do you deal with someone else who you want them to make changes, because something they're doing is not working for you or is hurting you. And you know, how do you assess a relationship where maybe someone is not doing their best and you can't get them to do differently, or maybe they're doing their best and their best is still hurting you? That's what this book is about, and it is about all relationships. It's not just about romance or partners. It's about friendships. It's about family relationships, it's about community members. And so it's a book that I think can apply to everyone and all your different types of relationships that we have. It also has what I believe to be some really important kind of counter cultural messaging in there, this idea that, like, I don't owe anyone, anyone is kind of popular right now in self help, and there's a part of my book where I specifically talk about how that's not true. We do, in fact, owe each other things, especially when we're in a community with someone, and even more, especially when we're in a relationship with someone, but how do we balance that with what I think a lot of us experience as feeling the tendency to over extend ourselves in relationships, or to give too much in a relationship, or to not really know when to draw the line, you know when to have a hard boundary and and so this book is going to address that. The other part of book, this book that I like is that I don't use the word codependency. I don't talk about attachment types. There are books about those, if you want to read those, but I think that there's a better way for us, at this point in our culture, to talk about that feeling of being over dependent emotionally on someone that I think we're trying to refer to when we talk about codependency, things like people pleasing and feeling as though your stability is like linked with somebody else's approval with you. And I'm going to talk about that in a different way that I think is going to be more helpful in this book. Same with attachment types, there's nothing wrong with attachment types. They can be helpful, but it's a very individualistic way of looking at things. And the first this, the book has three parts. The first part is called How to work on relationships. And instead of talking about things like attachment types, love languages, those sort of things, we're going to look at a concept called the vulnerability cycle, which is understanding not just what happens in you because of things that you've gone through, but what happens between two people bringing their own unique issues together. How do we get kind of locked in repetitive cycles with people, and how can we break those cycles with some communication skills and some emotional regulation? The second part of this book, and I'm super excited about this, is a decision tree. So you may have seen me talk about my decision tree on some of my online content, but basically it's this idea that, you know, if you were a client of mine and I was your therapist, and we were sitting in my office and you had a relationship and you didn't know what to do about that relationship, it takes you through a series of questions that help you determine what you want to do with a relationship, and it takes into consideration Lots of different issues, and it kind of gives you an answer at the end, like, it's almost literally like a choose your own adventure quiz that will kind of give you an answer at the end, like, should you continue to engage in this relationship, or should you maybe put some distance in this relationship? But in that these categories of stay or engage are very nuanced. I don't do cut off culture. This isn't a book where I'm going to tell you and now end that relationship, see you later, cancel them, never talk to them again. I'm not saying that that might never be appropriate, but the reality is, is that we are interdependent people, and you can't always do that, nor I think should we always be doing that. So the third section of the book is about boundaries, and I re explain boundaries in a way that's different than what a lot of people talk about with boundaries, that I think is going to be more helpful for us in learning how to stay in relationships with protection and boundaries, or to disengage with people with safety according to our values and integrity and with boundaries. So I'm really proud of it. It's made with the same sort of like accessibility as how to keep house. If, as far as text and things like that, easy to read. There is an audio book I just recorded it. It's in my voice. And I'm really proud of it. And I think you guys will love it too. You.
Music. So I want to read you a little part of it. Now I'm going to read from Chapter Seven, which is the first chapter in that second part of the book about the decision tree. And this is the chapter that leads into decision tree, chapter seven. Compassionate stories do not justify harmful behavior. And the context of this, by the way, is that we talk a lot in the first part of the book about sort of like changing the story you tell yourself about people. Understandable behavior and acceptable behavior are not the same thing. The vulnerability cycle demonstrates that the stories you tell yourself about people are powerful. When you challenge those stories about another person's behavior, you can positively impact your relationships and your ability to emotionally regulate in challenging situations. Simply making room for the possibility that other stories exist can help slow down the vulnerability cycle and make us more open and thoughtful people. However, sometimes adopting a compassionate story about someone's motives gets us into trouble. Many find it hard to distinguish mistreatment or abuse from garden variety disagreement. When you challenge your story about why the person is harming you, be mindful that you do not justify mistreatment by telling yourself things like he's really trying, she's doing her best. She isn't a bad person. She's just really had a bad childhood and never learned the skills to be a good mother. They have a disorder. They can't help it. He's really sorry, although some of these statements may be true, a better understanding of why people behave in ways that upset or harm you does not mean denying the impact of their actions. It does not mean their behavior is okay. Their actions still have consequences. No one gets a free pass to lose control over their behavior just because they struggle with emotional regulation when you change the story that you tell yourself about your mother in law who constantly undermines your parenting in front of your husband and your children, it will look something like this, the initial story, this woman is a psycho who is out to get me. The new story, this woman is terrified of not being the center of her son's world and doesn't have the skills to deal with her own fears of abandonment that have likely been triggered by his transition to adulthood. The new story doesn't let her off the hook. You aren't saying that her behavior is acceptable or that you aren't allowed to stand up for yourself, nor are you obligated to heal her or be delicate with her. Instead, the goal is to stop making yourself the subject of her story. This helps to prevent your own insecurities from being activated by hers. You are adopting a new story that removes you from the center of the narrative. She is not picking on you because you are a bad parent or because she is out to get you personally, but because she struggles with her own insecurities and sensitivities, now you can decide how you want to respond rather than simply reacting. You can stop exhausting yourself trying to gain her approval or taking the bait when she lures you into a power struggle. Instead of exhibiting a knee jerk response to your own pain, you are now opened up to the freedom of choices. The choices are not limited to accept this behavior or never speak again, but include a spectrum of how or how not to engage with this person to help you make these decisions and see a path forward, you need to ask yourself a series of questions, and the decision tree can help you organize your thinking about what to do next. The takeaway, just because you understand where someone is coming from doesn't mean you approve of where they're going. And that's the end of the chapter. If you've read my other book, you know I'm a fan of short chapters. I'm a fan of getting to the point. I'm a fan of, you know, giving lots of examples that are of lots of different variations. So that example was someone and their mother in law, but there's examples in here of romantic relationships, of friendships, of conflict between siblings, of conflicts between friends. We're going to talk on issues of abuse. We're going to talk on issues of you know, what do I do if I can't leave a relationship with someone and I still want to have boundaries, or I need to make some decisions? And I'm hoping that this will be a book that is really practical for you and can help guide you, and can talk about something that I think has been missing in a lot of self help spaces about relationships, which is that disability part most of us have something going on in our lives. Lots of people are disabled, whether that is a physical disability, an emotional disability, a neurological. Disability, and I find that there's a lot of relationship advice out there that doesn't quite fit. It doesn't quite tell you. How do I deal with a partner that's experiencing depression? How do I deal with my relationship when I'm the one that has ADHD? How do I deal with the fact that you know my loved one is trying their best and things that are hurting me are maybe not their fault, but also I can't just continue to exist like this. So we're going to address that, you and me together in this book. We're going to do it with compassion. We're going to do it with boundaries, and we're going to talk about that tricky space of wanting to have compassion and grace for people while still having boundaries for yourself. So I hope you enjoyed that little sneak peek. And you can go and pre order the book now. You can pre order it on Amazon. You can pre order it on Barnes and Noble. You can go to book shop.org. If you would like to support an independent bookstore, and if you want to look at your various options you can go to struggle, care.com/books, believe right now, the US and the UK version are both available for pre order, and I would expect that other languages and regions will come slightly later. They're usually have a different release date than the US and UK versions. So again, who deserves your love, how to create boundaries to start strengthen or end any relationship. I hope you guys have a wonderful day, and I will see you in two weeks. You.

Christy HausslerMarch 3, 2025

131: God Didn’t Make Us To Hate Us with Rev. Lizzie

I’m excited to have Rev. Lizzie return to the show today to discuss her new book, God Didn't Make Us To Hate Us. Rev. Lizzie is an Episcopal priest who has become a good friend–and is always a fun guest! Join us!

Show Highlights:

Rev. Lizzie’s new book—and why she wrote it
Considering the question, “Why do I believe what I believe?”
The truth about Christianity means telling the WHOLE story.
The comfort in being loved by God when we’ve been told by people that we are “bad and broken”
Living in joy is THE goal.
The four parts of Rev. Lizzie’s book
A list of books which are foundational pieces of Rev. Lizzie’s faith journey
Listen in while Rev. Lizzie reads a moving excerpt from her book about her birthing experience, sin, and God’s perfect love.

Resources and Links:

Connect with Rev. Lizzie: TikTok, Instagram, and God Didn't Make Us To Hate Us

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.struggl ecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
Music. Hello, sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to Struggle Care. I am your host, KC Davis, and we are back in the studio today with Rev Lizzie. Thank you so much for coming back to talk
Rev. Lizzie 0:13
to us. Oh my God, my joy, my pleasure. It's so good to see you, and I'm so glad to be back. Thanks for having me. So
KC Davis 0:19
we're gonna be talking about your new book today, but if, in case, any of our listeners don't know, you give me a short little intro.
Rev. Lizzie 0:25
Yeah, so I'm Lizzy. I use she her pronouns. You can call me Lizzy or father Lizzie or rev Lizzie, and I'm an Episcopal priest. The Episcopal Church is kind of a funny blend of Catholic and Protestant. So if you've ever been to a Catholic mass, if you were to walk through the doors of my church here in North Austin Jubilee, you'd be like, Oh, this is pretty familiar smells and bells and chausables and all sorts of fancy, really old stuff that we do. But we are also known to be a denomination that ordains and affirms queer leadership, women in leadership. If you've seen those fantastic that fantastic sermon by Bishop buddy, she's one of ours at the Washington National Cathedral, love a win for the home team. And I'm also now an author. And I wrote a book called God didn't make us to hate us 40 devotions to liberate your faith from fear and reconnect with joy. And I wrote it because of Tiktok, because I had been asked 1000s of times, not only questions about, you know, theology and spirituality and faith. And you know, how can I be a queer woman who loves Jesus and works for the church? That seems to be a continual mystery for many people, but also because I knew that there weren't like the devotional market is just so flooded with really shallow theology, but it is also such an accessible entry point for so many people to practice their faith and to have that like daily connection and time with God and within themselves. And so I wanted to offer something that could interrupt that space with hopefully a little bit more meat on the bone, so to speak, theologically, and also a whole lot of love and liberation for folks to know that God actually made us for joy and for flourishing. I
KC Davis 1:59
love that. And I have such a sort of nostalgia with meditation books. Because when I was in rehab, when I was like, 16, that was a big thing, like, we were made to, like, meditate every morning and pray, and I was agnostic and so but I appreciated, like, some of the meditation books for, like, being comforting, and that was, like, a big part of my spirituality for a long time was just like various meditation books, especially because it's like a small little snippet, you know, every day, and not some big long read. And so that, like meditation books, I think, were probably a big part of, like, building a foundation of thinking about who I thought God was. And it's interesting you mentioned, like, the questions that you get online about, like, how can you be religious, you know, how can you, you know, subscribe to Christianity? I get similar questions. Like, people will often ask, like, you know, how can you be a part of a religion that has been a part of colonizing and death and oppression and these things? And I think a lot of people expect for me to have, like, come back to that. And, I mean, my answer is always like, yeah, I get it. Like, I would have different religion if I was picking, you know, if you're like, Well, how can you still believe? And I'm like, I don't believe. Wasn't a choice, really for me. I could no more unbelieve The things that I believe about, like, God in the universe that I, as I could, like, decide to believe in, Santa Claus. Like my husband and I talk about all the time where we kind of laugh about, like, if belief was, I mean, I think, like, adherence is a choice, right? You're what you do with your actions is a choice. But like, at the end of the day, what you believe? Like, if I had a choice, I wouldn't have picked this one. There are, it's problematic. Yeah,
Rev. Lizzie 3:42
it is. I cherish you sharing that for a lot of reasons. One, because I get those same questions. And two, I clearly did choose, right? Like, it like I didn't. Just wasn't born a priest. You know, although we do joke that my family's full of Levites because my mother's a Methodist pastor, and actually going, like, way back generations and generations back. I have Catholic priests for uncles. I have Presbyterian clergy ancestors. So like, clearly it is, like, we joke the family business, but I teach a confirmation class, which in the Episcopal Church, that's kind of our moment of I like to say, it's saying yes to God's Yes. It's us saying, You know what, yeah, I am committing and making these promises for myself, and not just committing to God, but also committing to the church, and not to the church as a perfect, unblemished institution, but for all of her flaws, saying, I want to be a part of all that we are, and to be a part of God moving through the church. And I do happen to believe God is perfect, even if people aren't. And one of the things I teach when I'm teaching the history portion of that class, because the Episcopal church comes out of the Church of England, which was born, kind of because Henry the Eighth, who sucked, wanted a divorce. You know, what a terrible origin story,
KC Davis 4:52
not the holiest of beginnings, no, but,
Rev. Lizzie 4:54
and there's like a little bit, as there tends to be, there's like more historical complexity than that, but that is the sort of. Quick answer. But the thing I always, I actually asked people at the start of the class, I'm like, for a fun little icebreaker, I'm like, Tell me about a celebrity you've met, not someone you, like, saw in concert, like you have to have had a conversation with them. They don't have to remember you, but you have to have met them. And so that's always, like, a fun little icebreaker. And then as we go through the sort of like, here's the history, here's Henry the Eighth, here's sort of the big figures of how this church came to be. I'm like now, remember that celebrity question, Henry the Eighth was a celebrity, and while certainly his actions had an impact on us, even today, the reality is is most people were living their everyday, ordinary faith with little to no care for who he was and what he was doing, because God was still moving in their lives. You know, people were still seeking God for their healing. People were still having babies and getting those babies baptized. People were having babies and losing them and praying to God to be with them, praying to Our Lady who knows what it is to lose a child. I mean, like the everyday faith of people, the everyday faith of oppressed people, the everyday faith of colonized people also matters to me, and I think it is disrespectful to their faith and their work and their legacy. Think about that a lot right now, fresh from Martin Luther King Day, you know, he was a man of great faith who was descended from people who had been told that God wanted them to be slaves, and yet he was a Christian preacher fighting against segregation and racism in this country because of his faith, I think it's disrespectful to say that Christianity is only a religion of colonizers and problematic people, even as hear me, like we need to tell the truth about that, like that's a problem. I'm not a co signing on Christian imperialism or Christian nationalism, but I think if we're going to tell the whole story, we got to tell the whole story, we got to tell the whole story. You
KC Davis 6:46
know, I'm with you. And I think also, like, like I mentioned, like, adherence is definitely a choice. But what I find interesting, like as a therapist, is I'll talk to people who are not religious, and, you know, but maybe they grew up in a kind of either a religious environment, or at least a religious society like, I think there are still a lot of puritanism in like American society. And yes, one of the things that they'll struggle with was we'll be in these deep conversations about how much shame they feel. And, okay, well, why do you feel this shame? Well, I just, you know, I'm broken. Well, I made these choices, and they were so bad, and how can I accept love now? Because I'm so bad and I'm so broken, and I feel like I was just inherently broke. And what people don't often realize, as they're saying, is that they are speaking theology. They are telling me what theology they believe. And wouldn't it be great if you could just go, I'm just gonna decide today that I'm not a piece of shit. I'm just going to decide today that I can forgive myself for the things that I done. But the reality is, most of us, when we have those kinds of hang ups, they are theological hang ups. And even if we don't believe in God, those beliefs came from a either a religious system or a religious person or religious influence on culture that we either they were either wrong and we rightly understood them, or perhaps some people were, you know, correct, but we misunderstood them. But the point is, is that that feeling of, I can't just decide to not hate myself is the same conundrum of me saying like, I can't just decide that I don't believe about, you know, the world and its deities the way that I do now. I can choose what I do about that. I can go through a process of being open to questions and being open to growth and being open to learning, and sometimes that journey will change what we believe. But yeah, my husband and I kind of joke all the time, like, when we see things happen in our country, you know, with either Christian nationalism or someone's just saying something, and we're just like, just making us look bad. Like and like, sometimes we deserve it, but like, other times it's for sure. I'm so embarrassed by the way a lot of Christians act. This would not be I would love to pretend to associate with someone else. Oh, my God, hard, same. But yeah, I mean, I think belief is interesting, and I'm glad that you wrote the meditation book you did, because I think for me also, like, because I went through drug addiction at such a young age. And like, when we talk about, sort of the part of Christian theology that talks about, like, original sin, or like you're born bad, or you're born broken, and God, you know, just deigns to come down and talk to you, even though you're, you know, the best thing you can do is worth filthy rags. What I find kind of interesting about that theology is that either feels incredibly oppressive and hateful and. Shameful, or it feels very, very comforting, and it depends on kind of like, how you view yourself, or like, what like. Because for me, even though I can recognize and I have lots of friends that like, Hey, I was grown I was grew up being told you're bad, you're wrong at your core and hearing just like how that really screwed with them. And I don't believe that's the right way to talk about God to anybody, especially children, but it was interesting the difference that I had with that same similar idea, because, like, by the time I washed up in rehab at 16, I already believed that I was bad, wrong and broken and rotten to my core, and had done things that could never be forgivable. And so, like the idea that there would be a god that already knew that was sort of like, Wait, you mean you already know that I'm screwed up, because I know that you I cannot be talked out of that, right? But you know that, and I'm still not unacceptable to you, was a very comforting thing for me at that time, and this feeling of, you know, I could possibly be loved into being something different than I am right now, not because I'm not worthy of love right now, but because I don't want to live this way anymore. And I just think that when, like, if I'd have seen a meditation book that said God didn't make us to hate us, it would have been the first one I picked up. Did that was that, like, talk to me a minute about that, because I feel like that's often like the sticking point for a lot of people that grew up in an environment that was influenced by Christianity. What is that sort of like? Am I bad to begin with, or at my core? And you know what was, what was going through your mind when you decided to write a meditation book that would number one, like, obviously, you want to be you want to honor, like theology and biblical texts and things like that. But at the same time, I think you're someone who understands, like, where people are when they kind of come to this sort of book.
Rev. Lizzie 12:15
My god, thank you for all of that. Casey, wow. So the process that came the process by which this book came out of me, which it really was a, like a divine eruption. You know what? I mean, like I had, I, in many ways, I'd like, very strategically, for a long time, I wanted to write a book. I mean, I've wanted to write a sort of more popular minded theology book, like, since I was an undergraduate studying religion, because, because I was so sick of all the crappy theology that was out there, and I wanted something that I could hand to my peers and also something that I could read myself. So it's something I'd wanted for a while. But when I started making content on Tiktok in 2020 I, like very self consciously, came on there as at the time, I was a deacon, and then I became a priest, which is its own sort of internal Episcopal thing. But I came on there as a minister, as clerk, a minister, as clergy, and I had some really clear values that I had for myself that were going to be my guiding principles for how I made content and how I responded, because I knew I was going to get trolled like I like. I just knew. And one of my deepest values in my life as like a mom, as a person, as a Christian, as a spouse, but also one of my deepest values as a leader is joy. And drawing from Nehemiah, the joy of the Lord is my strength. And I knew that because I had seen such crappy, what I call billboard theology in the book, right like anywhere in America, New York City or rural South Carolina, there are horrendous billboards that say, basically, if you died tonight, where would you go? Or the really horrific anti abortion billboards that are just like, so cruel in their tone and their intent. And so I had seen all of this, like, really, really vitriolic Christian messaging, but I also had seen how, like, candidly, a lot of progressive Christians, one, weren't great at, like, explaining why we believed what we believed. And two, were just not joyful spaces, right? And if end of where we are striving for is not a part of the means by which we get there, like, what is the point, my friends? And so if we are not living into joy as resistance, if we are not living into generosity and grace and compassion with one another. I'm not saying that there's no accountability. I'm not saying that we don't have like, call outs and call ins, but what I am saying is like, you can't come in with that energy being the first thing, right? Because that's also not how Jesus comes in to speak with us. And so I knew that going into making content, but then I was even knowing all of these things, even having been, you know, a queer Christian woman in the world, I was so sad at how many comments I got saying, I can't believe this. I always thought God hated me. Or, you know, I'm not religious anymore, but I feel safe with you. Or. Which the implication in that is that I never felt safe, I never felt safe, I never felt wanted, I never felt secure. And so as I started, you know, I was first approached by a publishing house to write this book, and I had just had a baby, and I was like, No, thank you, but please come back. Please come back when I'm like, you know, not postpartum and depressed and trying to plant a church. So I had some time to think about it. And I actually went through, and I know you, of all people, will appreciate, like, how involved this is. I went through every single comment I had ever received, I mean, and I took months doing this, and I started to catalog them. Of like, what are the top questions I'm being asked? What are the questions that I see that I'm like, I would really love to answer that, but video form is just not like it's gonna get some of the way there, but, but this is that's a question that you need to pray about, that you need to you need some space within yourself. So how can I offer something that's a bit more long form, that's also not on this, like addictive social media screen, like something, you know, a book. So I went through every comment, every question, and I categorized them, and like, the theme that I just kept getting back to over and over and over is, I'm like, I feel like all bad theology is rooted in this idea that God made us to hate us, that God is vindictive, God is cruel, God is small, I mean. And that is also the root of thinking like God is some white dude in the sky. That is the root of thinking that God punishes us. That is the root of homophobia, of transphobia, of racism, of misogyny, of not caring about the climate, right? Like all of this is rooted in this idea that like God just has this barely contained wrath for us, right? And you were saying like the best we can do is not worth a filthy rag. And I was like that, frankly, is not what Scripture says. You know, there are plenty of times that God is like, girl, get it together. I mean, there are plenty of times, right, where there is this, you know, I think about that great hymn, how Firm a Foundation where it's like, when, through fiery trials, I cause thee to go, I only designed thy dross to consume and the gold to refine. Dross is like an old fashioned word for rubbish. And I think about the passage that's in a lot of the Gospels, but where, usually it's attributed to John the Baptist, saying, you know, Jesus is coming and His winnowing fork is in His hand and he's going to separate the wheat from the chaff. Well, I didn't grow up on a farm, so I had to look up what that means. Chaff is a husk. It's a peel, right? So it's the, you know, it's something that protected the seed, the germ, the wheat, so it could grow. But then it has to come away. There has to be this, like, almost forcible peeling, a way of this hard armor that protected us for a time, right? There are absolutely dimensions and aspects of God reaching into our life and pulling away some things that are we are reticent to let go of, but God does that. I mean, as you said, out of love. It's not out of this, like vindictive boredom. Yeah,
KC Davis 17:55
yeah. I, you know, it's interesting when I sort of came to faith through rehab. And I actually didn't become a Christian until a couple years after. I believed that there was a God. There was like, a first step, like, okay, there's a God. And but part of that, I read everything. I read a bunch of Buddhist texts. I read some sort of, like, sciencey, sort of physicsy stuff. I read some Taoism. I read some Bible, and the parts in the Bible that drew me were the parts where I would watch or read Jesus interacting with women, like I just really I would read those parts over and over and over. And, you know, one of my favorite verses is talking about, like, what a prophet of the Lord will be like, and it says, a smoldering wick he will not quench, and A bruised reed he will not break. And I was like, Who are we talking about? This isn't like any religious person like, what are we reading the same text here? But that gentleness, I think, is what sort of rooted me in a faith in God and sort of feeling as though I was meeting a very gentle God. And so it wasn't until, you know what, I had some friends that invited me to a church a few years later, and the pastor was preaching through the book of Hosea, and this idea of, like God wooing you, like gently and kindly and with comfort and patience. And it wasn't so much like, Okay, I believe in God, but actually now I think this is the real God. It was like, Wait a second, I think you're talking about who I met on that bench when I thought I was gonna die. You know what I mean? And but it was very much that same kind of like beckoning, sort of like theme about, like, God being gentle with people who are broken, and because I already felt so broken, that was something that I sort of like moved towards, and it was something that I didn't get as much of in, like other texts that I was reading, which I just, I can't help but think that you're like. Your book would have been right there with it. And there was another question I had for you, and now it is flown out of my head. Oh, I know what it was when you were talking about, like, categorizing all of your comments, I was like, the song of my people, like, because when I wrote how to keep house while drowning, and then with this upcoming book, who deserves your love, which is about relationships, like, my books are always written to objections like, that's like, the benefit of being on Tiktok. It's like, you get so much real time feedback about like, what people's objections are to the things that you say, and what their follow up questions are and what they're not understanding. That when I sit down to write books, I like, I just find like, especially when I work with my editors, like, I'm different than other authors, because the book is written and where it's like, here's the concept. Now I know you're thinking this, so here's what I'm saying. Now I know you're thinking this, but here's what I'm saying. Now I know where you're gonna go from here, and here's what I say to that. And sometimes it looks like a little too much, you know, doth protest, too much, almost. And it's like, no, because I know, like, where so many people's minds are going to go, Okay, well, what about this? I'm trying to apply this, right? So when you said that, I was like, Oh my gosh, it's like a universal experience. I think, like spending so much time on Tiktok and getting used to having not just one way conversations like, I think if you're used to making more long term, long form content, you don't get that much, like, real time feedback interaction, yes, yes,
Rev. Lizzie 21:24
the feedback loop is just, it's such a grace. And, like, I say to people like this. I mean, the book is dedicated first to my husband and then to all the beloved babies of God who asked, who trusted me enough to ask these questions? Because I really cherish that trust, right? Like, I like, there are so many people who have, I mean, I hear horror stories. I mean, truly horror stories of what people have experienced in faith spaces and religious spaces. And believe me, I have my own church trauma, some of which I talk about in the book, some of which I never will, but I hear things that like, I mean, they just take me out, you know. And I thought I've heard it all, because that's my whole job, is to hear it all. And yet they still ask. And it is, it's such a, you know, insiders in theology world will look at this book and see, oh, she's doing a systematic theology, because I have four sections, and each section is, I structure it to be a myth and then a mystery, and so which I try to move from, like myth fact. Because, yes, there are facts I believe about God, right? And they're facts that we can know about scripture. But I think a deeper invitation to a liberated faith, the sort of faith that comes during and after deconstruction, so to speak, is actually embracing the discomfort of living with mystery and embracing that God is a divine mystery, and that a life of faith is not getting more and more answers. It's not like we accrue more answers. It's that we fall more in love and more into what I call vis a vis Sarah Cokely, the dazzling darkness. But like the core structures, the four parts of my book are. The first one is reimagining God, redeeming the Bible, liberating Jesus and the great hereafter, and so literally, I'm like, All right, let's start with like, Okay, we think God is a literal dude. The thing that horrifies me to no end is how, when I make content saying, hey, guess what? God's not a man. The number of people who are like, Yes, he is. He's a father. And I'm like, Oh, Jesus Christ, that's like, literally, the most conservative seminaries in America will tell you that God is not a literal dude. Yeah, my guy
KC Davis 23:19
can confirm, can confirm, genderless, genderless.
Rev. Lizzie 23:24
So let's start there, right? Okay, and we're gonna start. We're gonna start. And that's, like, the huge sum of it all, okay, but now that we've gotten, like, really mysterious, and we're like, Oh, my God, God is triune in a divine mystery, and like, let's, like, start to get into the Bible, and let's start in Genesis. And I literally do go through, like, obviously, not the entirety of the Bible. That's not possible with 40 devotions, but, but sort of the whole scope of it, with starting with the Old Testament, then moving into the New Testament with Jesus and the great hereafter being the heaven be hell, debate. So it is, it's I so agree with you that, like that live feedback loop is, like, really helpful. And I hope our readers know it's like, we really do write this for you. Like, I wrote it for my own health. I mean, I did, but, but, but I also wrote it for y'all. I
KC Davis 24:09
love what you said about mystery, because there's a lot of times where people will ask, like, you know, the hard questions about, like, Okay, if you believe X, then like, what do you do about y? And like, I there's a couple of ways to answer that. Like, one I can answer, like, according to who I know the character of God to be like that part, to me, is not, like, super mysterious, because I think that's like, the most clear part is that, like, the Bible is a story about God's character, and everything you need to know about God's character you can find there. But when people want a more specific, almost like philosophical resolution to something like, my favorite answer is always like, that's above my pay grade. Like, no, I don't know. I'm with you. That doesn't make sense to me. Well, why? Why would Paul say that to me? Like, I don't know. Man, hope to ask him one day. Seems weird to me, too. Yeah. Seems like a dick to me. But listen, I don't know. I'll ask one day, but that is above my pay grade. I don't know. I don't know why that's there. That just doesn't seem I'm with you. Yeah, I, you know, run my life according to who I know God to be, and try to be like him and but I just think that's funny, just that idea of like, it really like, it's a mystery. I don't know. Here's my next question, what we're talking about your book, and how I think your book is going to be foundational for people. I'm curious, what were your foundational books for
Rev. Lizzie 25:25
writing the book, or along my faith journey, just along your faith
KC Davis 25:29
journey, like books that kind of cracked it open for you at various stages of your faith? Yeah,
Rev. Lizzie 25:33
thank you for asking. What a great question. So the first one that comes to mind, which was kind of the first book I read, and I said, Oh, I want to write a book like this one day. That's mine, but has this energy, this esprit was past tricks by Nadia bulls Weber, the cranky faith of a sinner and a saint, I think, is the subtitle. So Nadia Bolz Weber is, she's a Lutheran pastor. She's like, super covered in tattoos and really cool, also sober, and she kind of got her start, I think, actually writing for working preacher, which is, like, preachers, like, we have lots of resources that we turn to when we're, like, trying to write sermons that sort of help, you know, guide the way. And so she was a regular writer on this blog that's like, well, this is the Text this Week. So you could go in this direction, you could go in that direction. And then she kind of grew her platform from there, at least. That's how I was first introduced her, because my mom read her column when preparing for her sermons every week. And so my mom had always been like, I really think you're gonna like her book. I really think you're gonna like her book. And being a teenager and a pastor's kid, I was like, No. And then I got to college, and I was like, I'm not gonna go to church anymore. And then that lasted for a few weeks. And that's how I kind of found my way into an Episcopal Church because it was the church I could walk to. And then I found my way into being a religion major. And I tell a little bit of that story in this book, but her book, pastrix, is like, I've only, I think, ever gotten one pastrix comment, and I screenshotted it, and I almost framed it, because I'm like, Ah, I've made it. They say a lot of other nasty things on the internet streets these days, but it's sort of this, like, Oh, you're not a pastor. You're a pastorx, you're a lady temptress and you're faking it and you're not real, remember? So she got a lot of that nonsense. Still does. And so she wrote this book that was a memoir of her journey of faith. And, I mean, she, like, swears all the time. She tells her story of addiction. She talks about being queer. I mean, like, it's just, it's a beautiful, really authentic portrait of life that is also a beautiful love letter to God. And reading it, even though I myself am not sober, I her energy and like her as she says, her like cranky misanthropy, even though probably am not a cranky misanthropist, but like reading, it was the first time that I read a theology book that didn't feel like polished, or like, like pretty, like she was a preacher who, she was a preacher, a priest, who was not presenting herself as polished. And I had read a lot of really amazing kind of, like, raw academic theology that was more willing to wrestle with God, with the nature of God, with questions about Bible and and misogyny and racism, etc. But she was the first person who I saw doing that, as someone who was clearly of the institution, meaning of the church. And so it's kind of wild to me that, like she was a church planter. She planted a church called the house for all sinners and saints in Denver, Colorado. And I read that book in college, and I was like, I want to go be an academic, and I want to study theology. And that is what I started out doing, and then I God had other plans for me, and I pivoted because God called me to be a priest, and then God called me to be a church planter, which is not something that I ever, ever thought like the acts 29 bros in Divinity School, not my crowd. Oh my gosh,
KC Davis 28:36
I went to school with so many acts 29 guys.
Rev. Lizzie 28:41
Yeah. No, Barbie priest was not hanging out with him, but, but it's funny how, like there's so many parallels in our lives that, like She's just someone I really admire. So that book was was huge. Some other books that I think have really shaped me and also are in this devotional has more footnotes than I think any devotional ever but this book, you can see it's like so tab, no future without forgiveness, by Desmond Tutu, is probably the book that I would say has shaped me the most, which I also read in college. And then a really spicy book called Beyond God the Father, by Mary Daly, very spicy lesbian separatist who, like carried a battle ax to her classes. She lectured at a Catholic College in Boston. I love that
KC Davis 29:29
you said spicy, because I'm sure you mean feisty, but I'm on book talk, so I was like, Damn Lizzy, okay. I was like, Oh, that's not she doesn't mean that kind of spicy. Well,
Rev. Lizzie 29:40
there is indecent theology by Marcella ituza Read, which is another great book. And is that spicy? But also theologically, yes, and we stand romance novels. We do. Actually, I quote Elisa clay pinoble in my book. It's like an I don't even like, it's just, it's just there, and it's like, well, now y'all know, now you. Know, my little easter egg. And then a couple other books I have, laughing at the devil, seeing the world with Julian of Norwich by Amy Laura Hall. This is, I recommend this book all the time. Julian of Norwich is my favorite saint, and she lived during a plague, AKA a pandemic, you know, the Black Plague. But still, I think influential. And then books, probably the most influential book that I read in high school was The Color Purple by Alice Walker and womanist theological work. So everything by like Dolores Williams and Jacqueline grant and ebony Marshall Terman Coleman, like all of these scholars, have really, really, really shaped me and, and I guess I'll say lastly, Sarah Coakley is, she's like, a very proper British scholar who does, like, really, really, like, I was gonna say spicy, but now I'm like, feisty.
Unknown Speaker 30:49
Let's go feisty,
Rev. Lizzie 30:51
feisty, feisty theology. But she's part of why I use the term father. I go by Father Lizzie, because she has this great chapter in her book called God sexuality in the self, about how can. The question she poses is, can a feminist call God Father? And the ultimate conclusion, she says is, like she does, lots of sort of problem ties and wandering through the weeds of that, but she's ultimately says yes, because feminism is going to help us understand the complexity of a gender full image of father. Feminism is going to help us dismantle misogynistic, human, hewn images of toxic masculinity that we project onto God and and ultimately, it's like kind of a feminist job to call God Father. Not saying that like you can't call God other things, but reading that chapter for me when I was in Divinity School was like, Oh, see,
KC Davis 31:40
that's spicy. Spicy would be, can we call God daddy? And I don't think that's what you mean. Also walked right into that one. I know I was so excited your your influential books are? You are so cultured. I'm suddenly overly aware that my influential books were both written by white men. But listen, that's where I was at the time. Yeah, mine are. So I read blue like, jazz, oh, it's a great book in college, which I don't know if it would be one of my like, I don't think it would be like, an influential book to me now, but for where I was at the time, it was kind of life changing. And then I read CS Lewis books. So I read Mere Christianity and the great divorce and screw
Rev. Lizzie 32:23
tape letters. Screw tape letters so good, if someone's
KC Davis 32:28
listening, they don't know what screw tape letters are. C S Lewis, who wrote Narnia, wrote this book. That is. The entire book is just letters between a demon and his like, demon mentor and the like, the demon is assigned to this one guy he's supposed to corrupt. And he's like writing back and forth the demon mentor. And the demon mentor has like advice on how to corrupt this person. And the reason it was so good is because it was sort of like the most intelligent sort of treaties on, like, what evil really is, like, it wasn't this, like, black and white that I'd heard from church all my life. Of like, this is doing bad and this is doing good. And, like, you know, there was entire, you know, there's a whole few letters where the little demon is, like, I'm so discouraged because he's decided to go to church. And the like demon mentors, like, No, this is good. This is good. You could use this. You can make him so evil this way, if you do it like ABC, and you make him think he's better than people and it and so it was just like a very it was more complex than I'd ever thought about things before. So anyways, those were mine. But wait,
Rev. Lizzie 33:35
Casey, I just want to pause and say, those are great books, and this is partly why I've written a devotional. Because all the books that I talked about with, like, one, maybe two exceptions, are, like, very, very academic, and they're brilliant, and I read them in either college or grad school. And so part of why I'm trying to interrupt the devotional market is because most of what is out there for people to just pick up and read when they're in the moment of faith crisis is, I mean, CS, Lewis, blue like that. Also, they're great books, but, but there's plenty of others on the shelves of Barnes and Noble that I'm like, Oh God, you know. And I don't see a lot of my like, you know, feminist theology, 500 level seminar books out there, for some good reasons, right? And so I'm trying, you know, understanding my social location, I cannot speak for all people. And there's a reason that this book is fat with footnotes, because I'm like, I'm just trying to interrupt these shelves with something that's like, actually, there's, like, a whole there's a whole lot more out there. And there's a whole lot of people who've been talking about Jesus for a long time in ways that are not, you know, white supremacist Christian nationalism,
KC Davis 34:41
well. And so circling back to, like, what we sort of started talking about, what, which is like when people online will often kind of be like, Okay, I like you and I like what you're saying, but like, how can you continue to be aligned with a faith that admittedly has done ABC did it, and you had talked about, like, loving the church. The people in it, and being, you know, honoring of people's face. And I think that, like in all of that, is probably the reason why, like, my favorite parable was, like the pair, I don't know what they call it now, but the one about the field, where Jesus says, like a man comes across a treasure buried in a field, and he covers it back up, and he goes and he buys the field. And I never understood that until I was like in my late 20s, and it's become my favorite parable, because the whole point is that he finds this treasure in this field. And the idea is like the field is barren, it is worthless, and he covers it back. He covers that treasure, back up and goes and does he sell everything he has to think so, yeah, sells everything he has to buy this worthless feel and people think he's crazy. Sells everything he owns to buy this, like barren plot of land that is completely worthless. And I just sort of started to resonate with this idea that, like people who knew me and people who kind of watched me come to faith, that there was this thing of, like, I can't believe you have sold out so hard for such a worthless concept, for such a problematic religion, for such a deeply disturbingly problematic history, and people involved in it that, you know, I know that you don't agree with, but how could you associate like, that kind of thing? And I was like, I mean, the only way to describe it is, like, it's the Baron because, like, it's the barren field, like it's the worthless field that you're right, like, nobody would want to buy, but I know that inside of it is a treasure, like, there is something real buried there, and that's why that's always been my favorite
Rev. Lizzie 36:42
parable. Well, Dan Casey, when are you gonna write your theology book? Listen, maybe
KC Davis 36:47
that'll be my next one.
Unknown Speaker 36:50
I'm here for that. Well,
KC Davis 36:52
Lizzie, thank you so much for taking the time and tell us one more time, name of your book and where everybody can find it, and then where they can find you on social media, if they want to follow along.
Rev. Lizzie 37:01
You want me to read a little excerpt from it, please? Okay, so I am rev Lizzy everywhere. I'm even on blue sky. Now I deleted Twitter in 2015 because I was too overwhelmed. But like with everything on the social internet being what it is, now, just look for me at revlizzi, or revlizzi.com and the book is called, God didn't make us to hate us. 40 devotions to liberate your faith from fear. And it's out February 18. Everywhere, anywhere you buy books, and there is an audio book, and I did record it, and like not to pull too much of a plug for it, but I loved recording that book. And you know, a lot of these chapters were in one form or another, a sermon at one point. So I do think the audiobook is, like, maybe my favorite way for folks to experience it, but I'm going to read a little section. Chapter Two, we were born homesick. If all goes well, she should be screaming. I can't remember if it was a midwife or a birthing book or a friend who said that, but I knew when my daughter was born, if all was well, she would be screaming, throat raw, howling when they lowered the surgical drape for me to see them extract her from my exhausted womb via cesarean section, I felt cleaved in two. Love split me open as they took my heart from my gut, but then I was in and out of focus, and the nurse was stroking my hair, and my husband was over by the doctors, all because my baby was quiet, too quiet and purple. And then mercifully, she began to scream. I have never been so grateful for the sounds of agony in my life when we are born, if all goes well, we should be screaming. The only thing a baby has ever known is the dark safety of a womb, and now they are catapulted into the brutal light of the world. Maybe this is why so many people have said we are born in sin. Birth is terrifying, and we tend to label scary things or things we don't understand as sin, or maybe it's because birth is so connected with women and sexuality, despite the fact that birthing people's bodies are life cradling wonders, our society is so uncomfortable with the realities of the reproductive process that we've created a variety of awful names to call women who engage in it in ways we don't approve of. We associate birth with sinful femininity so strongly that we think of birthing pains as part of Eve's punishment. This is a wayward definition of sin. Sin is not as my colleague, Reverend Kelly Joyce puts it fun, stuff you're not allowed to do, and especially with your body, especially if your body is not the kind of body the church wants it to be. This is what I think most people mean when they say sin. But over and over, the Bible shows us that sin is more fundamental than fun stuff you're not allowed to do. Sin is anything that separates us from God and from one another. Sin is the nothing in the face of God's abundance, and I certainly felt the encroaching nothing the body. Less fear of what if on that operating table. But sometimes, I think we use the word sin when what we really mean is death, and by death we mean the inescapable reality of our humanity, of our limits. We are merely human, and only God is God, and sin and death are connected in the Christian tradition, but they are not the same. In that moment when my baby was too quiet, I knew death was threatening, all that was good and right and holy in that space, but was my baby being born in sin, or was I reckoning with my humanity now that she was not a part of my body? My friend Suz long offers this alternative. We were not born in sin, we were born homesick. It's the opening line of the song, born homesick from her band, hard workers, EP, the awful rowing. My baby was not born in sin. She was born homesick when I finally got to hold her hours later and put her to my breast, where she knew how to eat, despite never having used her mouth to eat before. We were not quite one flesh again, but we were not lonely for each other, strangers, but blood kin, bound, Soul tied, and I will never feed her to eternal fullness like God will. But in some ways, her homesickness was sated. My love for her is from God, but only God loves perfectly, and my job is to receive that perfect love and do my best to live in that love, extend that love, give that love, knowing I will never love as God does. This is what I hear in the phrase, we were born, homesick, we are born and remain Lizzie, that was
KC Davis 41:42
beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm so glad that you recorded the audiobook, because your voice is lovely. Oh, thank you like you say it exactly the way it should be said. So oh my goodness. Okay. Well, you guys go out, get this book, follow Reverend Lizzie and just be well. And I hope you guys have a great day. Thank you, thanks. KC, you.

Christy HausslerFebruary 10, 2025

130: You Don’t Need a Budget with Dana Miranda

Money, money, money—-today’s show is all about money! I’m joined by Dana Miranda, the author of You Don't Need a Budget: Stop Worrying about Debt, Spend without Shame, and Manage Money with Ease. Dana is here to discuss debt from a refreshing perspective, and she shares her best advice about how to proceed after finding your financial footing. Having a budget is NOT the answer to all of your money problems. Join us for expert advice from Dana!

Show Highlights:

Dana’s path to the work she does today
Money decisions are not purely black and white.
What it means to be “Healthy Rich” (Check out Dana’s podcast: Healthy Rich.)
Financial education is more than the demonization of debt.
The fascination with shame as a way to bring behavior change around money (Does it really help to yell at people?)
A healthy (and different) approach to debt
Debt is strategic for the wealthiest 1%?? How?
Understanding how debt products work and impact your credit score
With debt, negotiation is always a possibility. Give it a try.
Dana’s advice about debt products and red flags to look for
Societal attitudes toward “acceptable debt”
Addressing the gaps in financial knowledge for the typical American who finally achieves financial stability
Accessible financial advice is available—where to look and who to trust
Dana’s book: Who is it for and how can it help?

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dana Miranda: Healthy Rich podcast and You Don't Need a Budget book

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.struggl ecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
Hi friends. Before we get started, I want to let you know that my new book, who deserves your love is now available for pre order. It'll be out on Tuesday, May 6, and the subtitle is how to create boundaries to start strengthen or end any relationship. And yeah, I do mean any. This is for family relationships, platonic relationships, romantic relationships. It's sensible, it's practical. It's going to help you think through why you might be experiencing issues in your relationships. It has a decision tree that helps you make important relationship decisions, and there's a new take on boundaries. It's going to help you make those value based decisions and carry them out. Is love conditional? How do you navigate a relationship where someone's best efforts are hurting you. When should you step away? It's plain spoken. It's powerful. We're going to talk about vulnerability, trauma, disability, personal history, boundaries, and how to conflict well, and how to emotionally regulate, and all of these things packed into a little punch of a book. So check out who deserves your love. You can pre order on bookshop.org, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble. Hello. you sentient ball of stardust Tshirt. Welcome to struggle. Care. I am your host, Casey Davis, and we're going to talk about money, money, money. Today I have Dana Miranda here. She is the author of you don't need a budget. Stop worrying about debt spending without shame and manage money with ease. And we've talked about money before on my podcast, but I really wanted to specifically talk about a couple of things that I didn't get to in that first podcast, which is talking about debt, and also talking about, like, what do you do after you kind of hit a semi stable place. So Dana, thank you for being here so much. Yeah, so tell me a little bit about your background, like, what brought you to writing a book like this? I kind
Dana Miranda 1:50
of stumbled into writing about personal finance. I had been working as a freelance writer, trying to find my way, mostly as kind of a creative writer, trying to figure out how to be a blogger and making very little money, like struggling to make $1,000 a month, and I had an opportunity to apply for a full time writing job, and loved the people that I would be working with and the woman who was doing the hiring, and really wanted the opportunity to work with them, but it was for a personal finance media startup, And so I thought that was kind of a compromise, that I was like, okay, it would be cool to have a full time writing job, so I'll do that, and then I'll commit to it for a year and see how I like it. And I ended up really loving writing about money. I loved everything that I was learning because I growing up in a working class community and a working class family had really not learned about our financial systems and products and how, you know, debt products or investing products or bank accounts or anything work, those things had really not been presented as like for me or for people like me or my community. And so I was able to start learning about them. And they were, they're fascinating how all of these things work, and it was fantastic to also break them down and try to explain them to other people who had had that same lack of financial education and kind of lack of access to that information. So I stuck with it, and it's been almost 10 years now that I've been writing about money. And after I left that job, after about four years, I started freelancing and writing for other personal finance sites. And what I realized in that time was how kind of homogenous the advice was. Everything was very one size fits all, and it was also very prescriptive. We were looking for what was the right way and the wrong way to use money, what were the right decisions and the wrong decisions, and how could we make more of the right decisions and avoid the wrong ones, and it just was very black and white to me, and didn't speak to experiences that I had, experiences I was hearing about from other people. And so I wanted to expand that conversation a little bit, so I started my blog and newsletter, healthy, rich, to start to invite people to share their experiences. I started with, like personal essays of people sharing experiences with more diverse perspectives, women and people of color, people with disabilities and LGBT people and their experiences with work and money, and then started to from what I was learning from their perspectives, and just kind of the ways that I was starting to critique the personal finance industry myself. I started to kind of break down the things that weren't making sense for me, and that's what I started writing about. It healthy rich, this kind of budget free approach and critiquing budget culture. And the book was born from that.
KC Davis 4:36
So I Love You know, I noticed that when you describe healthy rich on your website, you call it a newsletter about how capitalism impacts the way we think, teach and talk about money. And I feel like when you're describing kind of how you notice that all the financial advice was very homogenous, like that really rang for me as someone who, like, I'm not good with numbers, and I've never. Good with budgets. And I'm a word person. I'm not a number person. And I also feel as though, you know, when I was growing up, or when I was in my early 20s, there was kind of like the one approach was almost like, always the Dave Ramsey approach, that was like the one thing for like, middle to upper middle class, sort of like working people, professionals or whatever. And it was always done through a church around me, like there was a very heavy evangelical tinge to it. And I remember there being a lot of demonization of debt, and like, don't go into debt no matter what, and keeping your cash and envelopes and things like that. And to be fair, like I did have some friends that felt like they were greatly helped by that, but I often wonder, like, Well, that was kind of the only thing there. Like, maybe, kind of anything is better than nothing for some people. But it really did, you know. And I talked on the other podcast episode about finance, about how, like, everything's about budgeting. And I was just never good at that, and it was almost like kind of restriction based so tell me, kind of what are some of the things in your approach that are different? Oh, I know what I was gonna say. The other thing was, like, everything was individualistic. There was never any reflection on systems or capitalism or things like that. So if I'm someone who's going okay, I have unsuccessfully tried to budget for years and years and years, but I know that I need to do something different, because, like, two and two is not equaling four here in terms of trying to survive financially. What about sort of the things that you've learned are going to be different than that, like kind of Dave Ramsey, hyper individualistic. Don't go into debt, no matter what approach. The biggest
Dana Miranda 6:47
difference, I think, is removing the shame and the 100% individual responsibility. I think that's a really important first step. And I can hear that individualism in the way, even that you're talking about it and saying that I'm have just never been good at budgeting, when really I think it's that budgeting just doesn't work for you. You know, budgeting is not a good fit for a lot of people. A lot of data shows that budgeting doesn't work toward the goals that we promise it's going to work toward, and we twist that around to say, like, I'm not good with numbers, so I'm not good with money. You know, in my experience, my personal experience, I was trying to be a creative person, and I thought that I had to choose between enjoying the work I did and making a lot of money. And I chose to enjoy the work that I did so and I made very little money, and I had this attitude that I'm doomed to make very little money, and that means I'm bad with money. I'm going to bury my head in the sand. I'm not going to think about it and try to improve my financial circumstances. So breaking out of that narrative can help you take the those first steps into realizing like you don't have to do it in the one way that you're being told in the one Dave Ramsey kind of restrictive, individualistic way, and you can still find financial circumstances and a life and an experience that is comfortable and happy and luxurious for you.
KC Davis 8:15
So Dave Ramsey, some people might not know that name, or some people do, and he's maybe a little old school, but I feel like that approach still shows up other places. Like, I don't know if you've ever run into Caleb hammer on Tiktok, but he often goes viral. It's this, like, guy that talks about finances, and he goes viral for talking to people about their finances. And he'll sit down and like, look at the People's like transactions, and then he'll like, relate. But like, the ones that I always see are, he like looks, and he's like, okay, so you have this much debt, and you only work this amount, and you spent $300 on, you know, DoorDash last month, and they'll kind of be like, yeah. And he'll just kind of like, flip on them and be like, What are you thinking? This is so stupid. This is so like, I'm gonna play a little clip for the audience that maybe isn't familiar with him. It's so mean, it is
Clip 9:14
McDonald hold on hold on hold on to be very clear. To be incredibly fucking clear. You're not going to McDonald's for yourself either. Girly, it ain't happening. No more sweet treats. No more girl math. It's not you just not getting stuff for him. You're not getting stuff for you. You can't afford it. But I get hungry. Oh my, I'm gonna
KC Davis 9:45
so that's one of his, like, more unhinged moments, but it's often this sort of like, and I been, like, obsessed with watching these, and here's why, I think, from my own background of talking about shame and behavior change, it's Fauci. Fascinating to me, why people love to watch these because all of his guests, at least the ones that go like viral on Tiktok, those moments, so there might be more happening than those viral moments, is usually the same like type of person. It's someone working class who's spending too much money on subscriptions or Netflix or DoorDash or McDonald's or whatever, and he just kind of yells at them for being so irresponsible and so stupid and so this and so that. And I've thought a lot about, like, why do people love to watch this? And I really feel like it has to do with this, like, deep desire for us as a society to like, see other people punished that we view as being irresponsible or lazy or morally wrong. But specifically, I think it's even not about money for a lot of us. I think that sometimes when you see someone sit there and they've been doing something that doesn't, quote, unquote, add up, like spending all this money on DoorDash even though they have debt or they can't pay their rent or whatever, there's kind of this element of like, he's making them be accountable for these decisions, and kind of holding their feet to the fire. And I think a lot of us have so many moments in our life where we've been maybe hurt by someone or affected by someone, and sort of the fantasy is that this person who is doing this unjust thing or just this illogical thing, or this thing that doesn't make sense, because maybe it's not even someone that hurts you, maybe it's you have a good friend that keeps dating the guy that's toxic or whatever. There's like, this fantasy of, I want to see this person's feet held to the flame, and it's so interesting to me, because I don't see any of these people getting helped by being yelled at, but that's how we feel. They'll be helped, like, if somebody would just make them face reality that will lead to behavior change.
Dana Miranda 12:04
Yeah, I think there's probably a bit of self deprecation in people's interest in watching that kind of thing too, that people walk away from really kind of aggressive personal finance conversations thinking, Oh, that really made me think about how I'm spending money right, like I'm everyone has their version of that, eating at McDonald's, if when they can't pay their rent or something. And anyone who's struggling with money or not being able to kind of make things add up, has something like that. And our culture of money, and our approach to money has that shame so embedded in it that we sort of feel like in order to hold ourselves accountable, that we need to feel that shame, that we need to be, that we need to have our feet held to the fire. And I think people see that happening as well, and for some people, there's probably also the well, at least I'm not as bad as this person. So, you know, you can also kind of justify your choices. I think there's a lot there, but I definitely want to acknowledge the fact that the way that we just think about money as a society just embeds shame in all of us individually, and we just see that kind of as part of our relationship with money.
KC Davis 13:28
Yeah, it's interesting to me how you know, if I'm struggling to quote, unquote curve expenses, and I'm almost asking myself, like, why am I continuing to do this. Why can't I figure this out? And maybe it's a motivation problem. And I think just as a culture, we're so used to reaching for shame as the main motivator, you know, if I could just feel bad enough about this, I'll make myself change. So what is the answer? And I want to kind of specifically talk about debt, because it does seem like, Okay, I've met whether it's credit card debt or medical debt, you know, what is the approach to this that would be different than kind of what we've always known? And that's my first question. And then so I don't forget the second question. I want to not forget to talk about how debt is only bad for the middle class and but if you are like, you know, top 1% all of a sudden, debt is strategic, yes. So can you talk about both of those things?
Dana Miranda 14:31
Yeah. So the kind of tying into what we were talking about with individualism, like the example of someone overspending on things that seem frivolous to us, but not being able to pay rent, and we feel like people need to be held accountable for those choices. That is taking an individualist approach, like we do not hold people's feet to the fire as much when they are the landlord, the management company or the private equity company. Company that owns the buildings that we're renting, that is making housing unaffordable, that makes it so hard to pay our rent, that makes it so we can't eat out at McDonald's, right, and be able to pay rent at the same time, or, you know, or the people who make decisions about food costs at McDonald's, right? We're not the people with actual power to change our financial situations. We don't hold them accountable in the same way that we attempt to hold individuals accountable for all of the challenges that we're struggling with. And I think that same mindset shift can change sort of how you approach debt as well. We talk about carrying debt as an individual failing, and a lot of times we talk about it as a moral failing, like you borrowed money, you have a moral responsibility to pay it back, but really it's just a transaction. The lenders and the credit card companies that are shaping debt products are shaping those and lending to you in a way that's just a financial transaction. It's just numbers to them. They're just trying to come out ahead. And so we should be able to do the same thing without all of the shame that comes attached to it. Why is it not just a financial decision for us, when we allow it to be just a financial decision for the companies? Right? Why do we not shame a bank for taking somebody's house away? That seems like a really serious moral infraction that we should be questioning, but we don't we shame someone for not paying their mortgage because they agreed to pay that debt. So I think that we need to flip that a little bit and understand that it's in the interest of the most powerful and the most wealthy people and entities in our culture to keep that focus on individuals and keep individuals feeling ashamed and feeling like they need to be held accountable so that we don't look up to what they're doing. And
KC Davis 16:55
so where does that leave me as an individual, if I find myself with a bunch of debt. So
Dana Miranda 17:02
it's important to understand how your debt products work, and of course, ideally, this would be before you make that transaction, before you make the agreement, use the credit card or take out the loan, so that you can have a perfect plan in advance on how you're going to deal with that. But you can do that retroactively, once you're carrying debt as well, instead of kind of, which I did for years, which a lot of people do, just feeling like you're buried under this mountain of debt, and kind of burying your head in the sand and not looking at it because you're so ashamed of it, you're so afraid of the consequences. You know, come out into the sunlight and take a look at it, find out how those products work. What kind of interest are you being charged on a credit card? When will you face late fees? What kind of fees have been added to your balance already? What are your options for repaying student loans that might not be such a burden on your monthly budget? Understanding how those products work, and then also how they impact your credit score, because that a lot of times, is the motivation for people to pay off debt, because we're terrified of having a bad credit score, because then we don't have access to that resource in the future. So understanding all of those things can then help you make a decision about how to deal with the debt in your life. And that doesn't have to be the most optimized, fastest way to pay it off, or even the least amount of interest in your payoff plan, anything like that. It can just be the way that gives that creates the least amount of burden on your day to day life, or in your you know, on your monthly resources, so that you can enjoy your life without feeling ashamed of the debt, without feeling stressed out about it, but you don't have to necessarily follow the debt payoff plans that you're seeing from personal finance experts. You can consider like, maybe you're fine with your credit score going down right now because you don't have any goals that that is necessary for in the near future, or maybe you're fine declaring bankruptcy. Maybe you're fine ignoring debt collector calls. Like a lot of us make these decisions out of necessity, and I'm kind of bringing that like personal finance advice tends to come from the middle class, where people are just sort of coming from that place of relative comfort and then trying to strive for a little bit more comfort and stability, but my experience and the voices that I'm trying to bring into this conversation are those of us who have always lived paycheck to paycheck. Have never had easy access to debt products, you know, have so we've always had to make these kinds of trade offs and decisions and just say, like, am I going to pay rent this month or am I going to pay off the credit card bill, right? Well, if I don't pay rent, I get kicked out of my apartment. If I don't pay the credit card bill, I have to deal with calls from a debt collector, and you just decide which one you want to live with in your life. So I want to start to frame dealing with debt more in that as. More of a financial transaction, a financial decision, and less of a moral one, and definitely less of an obligation. It's
KC Davis 20:07
interesting to me, like calling it a debt product, because I think there's this idea that like a debt is like, either an irresponsibility on your part, or it's this kind of like you said, like this. It's this moral obligation, like, Oh man, I owe this person, and I'm in their debt. And what it hearkens do is this idea that, like, if I borrow money from a friend, like my friend has done, like an altruistic thing to me, and so me not paying it back is me being shitty, and it's me, you know, I owe this person not just in financial but I owe them even some sort of moral debt, you know. And but when you call it a debt product, it really puts into perspective that this isn't a friend that loaned you money out of the goodness of their heart because you needed it, and they had it, and you would kind of be shitty if you didn't make this a priority, or you'd be taking advantage or whatever, like, this is a business. This is a capitalistic business who makes money by, you know, having a credit cards or having bills or being a for profit, you know, medical system or insurance system, or all these things, or doing student loans and, like, it's the thing you bought, this debt product, which really, like you said, kind of changes the way that you're thinking about it. Because I do feel like, growing up, I believed that, like, the only way to deal with debt is to see how you could pay it off the best you can. Or, I mean, I think I knew about bankruptcy, but that was like, if you really failed, and then you just kind of put your hands up. It wasn't until later that I started to learn about, like, other things I should be doing with debt, like calling and asking them to make it smaller, calling and asking for, you know, can I pay off this amount, and can we get rid of the rest? Figuring out whether or not paying this debt with a credit card that had a smaller interest rate was a better way to like, to like, move debt or transfer debt like it was never that stuff was never taught to me or and, you know, I think when we think about the decision between paying my credit card bill and paying my rent, you know, it kind of seems obvious, but when it was okay, I have a credit card bill and a medical bill due like, and I don't know enough about what the difference in those debt products is to decide what to do. That's a really
Dana Miranda 22:35
great point. Is where that understanding makes a huge difference, and knowing that we actually have laws in place that medical debt cannot be reported to credit bureaus, and I know that has just changed recently, because there was a time limit on it, and I think maybe that even doesn't exist anymore, but medical debt has a much lower impact on your credit score and your Credit history than credit card debt does. Student loan debt is similar. I don't know what the regulations are. I just know that looking at credit scores, student loan debt, even though the balance is often enormous, it doesn't have that proportional impact on your credit score, right? And so feel free to take all of your options, to take as long to pay that off as possible, if you're not concerned about optimizing for as little interest as possible, because that can reduce the burden that it puts on your day to day life, and the impact on your financial future is not as scary as that kind of just pay off debt at all cost. Attitude, what have you think?
KC Davis 23:39
Yeah, and I think it was so bizarre to me the first time someone said, like, have you tried calling and just offering a percentage for them to like, say, Never mind. And I was like, but it doesn't work that way, because this is what I owe, and how, why would anybody like? I can't believe that there's not more people talking about that.
Dana Miranda 23:57
Yeah, I would like to see that more. It's and I have to imagine this is like sort of getting into big conspiracy territory, but I have to imagine that narrative continues to be supported by financial companies because it only benefits them to think like, well, you can't offer a percentage to pay off your debt, which is already way more than the amount of money that you borrowed from them. You've already so many people have stories where they have repaid a loan or a credit card balance in you know, two or three times of what they had actually spent. And so the credit card company has already made a ton of money off of you, and you still feel this obligation to repay whatever balance they are showing on your statement every month. So that's where starting to think of that as just a transaction. And how can you make that transaction work for you can sort of flip that switch, and you can start thinking about, how can I negotiate this? How can I get this out of my life? And you can. Always just ask, right what? In negotiations like always just make an offer and see what they'll take. Because often they will, because they also want it off of their balance sheet, and if they've already made money off of you, they're happy to move on.
KC Davis 25:11
So let's talk about some other debt products. We talked a little bit about medical and student loan and how does it affect your credit? What kind of things would you want people to know about debt products, as far as things that are way riskier or things that are predatory, because we're not always taught. You know the difference between, you know, we hear, take out a loan, and it's like, Well, okay, take out a loan. Take out a loan. Take a loan. Well, there's a place on my corner that says that I can take out a loan, right? Like, what's the big deal? And my dad has a loan. My you know that businessman has a loan? Are there debt products that you think people should, in general, be very wary of? I think
Dana Miranda 25:49
the ones that are the most risky, like you mentioned the shop on the corner, so like a payday loan, I think people using those products actually are very aware of how risky they are, and they're using them because they generally don't have another option, because they can't qualify for a credit card or take out a loan. So people do go into that knowing that it's going to be risky and just end up in a tough situation because they don't have a plan for mitigating that risk, because you just might not. You might just be in a situation where you need that resource in this moment, and that's what you're doing. So that one, I don't think, I think the personal finance space likes to warn people a lot about payday loans, but I think people know some things that I think are kind of interesting in just kind of writing about debt products in the personal finance space are personal loans that are dressed up for specific purposes. So most loans that you encounter that aren't like, specifically student loans or mortgage or something like that, are basically some kind of personal loan, which is just a cash loan, is what your parents might have called it. It's just an unsecured loan that a bank is just giving you cash, and they will be presented as like a remodeling loan, or have been out of the space and writing about them for a while. So I can't remember all the kinds of terms, but a vacation loan or a wedding loan, or, you know, like, they'll actually be given that name, as if this, like, you know, financial company specializes in this kind of lending, and what you're really getting and dealing with is a personal loan. But because it's dressed up in that way, it can be kind of difficult to just know the type of product that you're taking out. So it's becomes a little bit more, maybe predatory, but it's more of a marketing tactic to just tell you, like this loan exists for this specific purpose. So in the same way that you take out loans to go to school and you take out a loan to buy a house, it makes sense to you know a wedding loan exists. So this must be a thing that people are borrowing money for. I think kind of is a way of encouraging people to borrow money for that. If you just called it a cash loan or a personal loan, people might be more hesitant to use debt for certain purposes. That's just kind of a guess. As a marketer, that's how I would frame it. I would say, Well, what if you just called it a construction loan and then, but really, anything to do at the house is probably more of like a second mortgage. It's, you know, you're borrowing against your house, but they give it these different names, and it makes you feel more comfortable, kind of taking it out. But what you need to know is, actually, this is a personal loan, and here's how personal loans work, or this is an extension on your mortgage, and here's how that works and and how long you have to pay it off, and the implications that it has for your housing, security, things like that. So is
KC Davis 28:22
the risk that a personal loan functions differently than a mortgage or student loans, or is the risk just that we might be more likely to take a loan, or the risk of a loan if we feel like, well, this is just a normal part of life. Everyone goes and gets some mortgage to get a house. That's how it's done. It's like, oh, well, you know, they're our wedding like, like, it just over normalizes instead of making you kind of consider other options. What's the risk there?
Dana Miranda 28:50
I think both. I think because you might be more likely to take on debt, that you might be overextending yourself. But probably the bigger risk is that it makes it harder to understand what the product is, so it's harder to make a plan for how that debt fits into your life if you don't know what you're actually dealing with. That's kind of what I always encourage, rather than discouraging taking the debt, like if you want to borrow or even use credit cards or whatever it is to pay for your wedding, because that's an important thing for you. Go ahead and do it, but know how the products work, so that you know how that's gonna fit in your life. If you're gonna use credit cards to pay for your wedding and then declare bankruptcy, you know, like, I don't discourage that, I don't shame it. I just want people to understand exactly what that means and how that works, and the implication that that has for your finances in the short and long term. So you've
KC Davis 29:37
mentioned like, you know, going in with a plan, and also, like understanding how they work. Do you have any suggestions for one, like, what does that mean? Like, what would be an example of having a plan? And then two, like, Is there somewhere that we could learn about debt products? Because, I think for me, one of the parts that was, it's overwhelming, because. Is it felt like, if I'm learning about a debt product from the person trying to sell me a debt product, they have a vested interest in sort of talking up all the pros and not really being clear about the cons. But if I then go to like, just Google it well, now I have so much information I don't know where to look. And some financial people are, you know, maybe you're looking on social media that talk about things that they don't really know what they're talking about, and others are just trying to sell you a course. So what is the best thing to do if I wanted to learn about a debt product from an objective source here pros and cons and things like that,
Dana Miranda 30:39
that is all very true, and it's kind of unfortunate that I don't think that there is any one source of truth for any of these products. You made a really good point that the person that we would be most likely probably to turn to if we have questions about our mortgage is the mortgage broker or the loan officer at the bank who sold it to us, but they have an interest in selling us that loan, so they kind of want to push it through. A lot of us, I think, have had that experience borrowing to finance a car and getting getting the loan at the dealer. They really just want to push that through, and they're going to make it happen because it's in their interest to make the sale, but that's a sales person that's not an educator, and thankfully, especially with mortgages, and hopefully, we're seeing the need for this in auto lending too, that we can regulate what they're able to do, so that even if they're not able to educate us well on those products, they can be limited in what they're able to sell us without our better understanding. So that's a good question on so where do we go to find out about this? I think it has to be a little bit piecemeal, and you have to go into it with a little bit of skepticism. Understand that a mortgage broker or a loan officer, someone at your bank is a really good person to sit down with to ask whatever questions you have, because a lot of times there's someone who's in your community, you can sit across from them at a desk and ask questions like a human, and that could be a really good way to get some answers and just understand that their goal is to sell You a mortgage and so filter their responses through that reality, and then go Google and read some more and try to keep eyes wide open about whether or not what you're reading is a review site that has affiliate links to mortgage marketplaces online or something like that. So it's more about just kind of being aware of people's motivations, because everyone has like pieces of the information, and that can be really good to absorb. But I also think that especially with something like mortgages, which are so complex, especially once you get into like everything that happened with the housing crisis and the the investments and all of this that I suspect there might not be any single person or type of person or profession that actually understands how these products work from top to bottom. I think some people understand how they impact the bank. I think some people understand how they fit into an investment portfolio. Some people understand how they can fit in with your personal finances, but I have yet to find someone who can really break that down from start to finish, so it's a little bit tricky, and that is all by design, so that we, instead of asking how things work and trying to empower ourselves with information, we are just looking for a set of rules on the right things to do, which is, I have become an adult. It's time for me to buy a house. I'm going to get a loan, and then I pay off my mortgage as quickly as possible, because then that eliminates that scary and confusing thing in my life.
KC Davis 33:55
Yeah, well, and you talked about going and having a plan, and you know, I want you to maybe give a couple of examples of what that might look like, but it strikes me as it's not just specifically that, you know, okay, it's a great plan. I mean, hopefully we have a good plan. But also, just like the view of walking into debt, like, there's this, I feel like, for the middle class, there's this, like, we've been talking about, like, this shame aspect of, like, Okay, I'm here out of desperation, and so, you know, I need to do this, and I'll have to deal with it, versus, like, what the way that debt is like, sold to upper class echelons where it's like, oh, it's strategic. And, I mean, obviously there's, there's a difference, if you're financially stable and want to take your money, make more money, versus, you know, I'm sort of in a desperate spot, and I've got to do something. But that viewpoint of, I'm being strategic, pat myself on the back, because I'm, you know, going to take on some debt because that's going to alleviate but it's not different. And function, right? It's. So let me take on this debt here, because that will alleviate this need here and maybe free up these funds here to use these funds more wisely towards this, because that'll be a better long term like it's the same type of strategizing for coming out with the best financial you know, whether you're going from, you know, a deficit to stability, or whether you're going from stability to surplus, it's not different going in and going, this is a product that I can use to my advantage in this moment and feeling as though you're being responsible by strategizing as wisely as you can within your limits, versus the way it kind of gets sold to us when we're going, Okay, well, I guess I've really screwed some things up, and now I need to look at, you know, how I deal with this debt, or how I go into debt? Yeah,
Dana Miranda 35:46
absolutely. We seem to be allowed to treat certain instances of using debt and certain types of debt products as a financial transaction and a reasonable money move, and others. We have to treat with shame and avoid them at all costs. And a lot of times, that's like you said, it's when wealthy people are using debt to move money around and make financial decisions to be come more wealthy. But it's also, you know, I live in a working class town, a lot of people are small business owners, and they're not wealthy by any means, but it's a lot easier to get a business loan a lot of times than it is to get a personal loan, even when it's the same person and it's the same finances, the idea that you are using this somehow to make money seems to make taking on debt. Okay, a lot of small business owners are just constantly in some amount of debt, and we just accept that that is part of doing business. Almost every homeowner in the United States uses a mortgage to take out that uses a mortgage to purchase a home, and we don't question that. It's an enormous amount of debt. It's probably the biggest amount of debt that most of us will take in our lifetime. And we have just decided that home ownership is a cultural value, and so we allow people to borrow enormous amounts of money in order to make that happen, and that's just a financial decision. That's just saying I do not have a few $100,000 right now to buy a home, so I'm going to borrow to be able to buy a home, knowing that I'm probably going to pay the bank back twice what it cost me to buy this home over the lifetime, and it's going to be 30 years or more. You know, if I extend that mortgage further in the future, I will just be paying for this for the rest of my life. And we don't shame people for that decision. It's a huge debt decision, and we just don't really include that. It just is a normal part of how people live in homes and own homes and property. So I think extending that idea to other types of financial decisions and products could help to kind of make that shift. And there are things to consider, because other like a personal loan or a credit card has a much higher interest rate than a mortgage does. They also have a lot less regulation on them. But if you're thinking about, you know, I'm going to spend $2,000 this month on my credit card, it does seem a little bit silly that we treat that as a less responsible decision than digging out a $300,000 mortgage that you're that's going to take you 30 years to pay off to buy a home.
KC Davis 38:30
It's interesting to me how when the housing market crashed, when you know when the bubble popped, I feel like that was a time when there was a lot of focus on blaming systems. Like, okay, we've sort of done all of these things. And, I mean, I don't, I barely understand what happened, so I'm not gonna embarrass myself by trying to do it. But there was this sort of top, I mean, if you saw, like, The Big Short the movie,
Dana Miranda 38:54
right? I was gonna say that was, like, if you want to know a little bit, yeah, you feel like you kind of understand. That's a great place to start. But there
KC Davis 39:00
was some attention brought to, okay, this was sort of like business greed that created the scenario where all these people could no longer pay their mortgages. And it's not to say that. I mean, sure, maybe some people did, do make a decision in that, in hindsight, maybe wasn't wise for what they but there was a lot more at play than just personal decisions. There was people overselling things. There were people giving out mortgages that should not have been giving them out to people and and so it's interesting to me how those same things, where it's like buying a house with a huge amount of debt is so normal that it's not seen as a bad decision. And then when we had all these people that then couldn't pay their mortgages. There was a lot of focus on this being the fault of the systems and the mortgage companies. But when it comes to student debt, I feel like it doesn't go down quite like that, like I still see so many people sort of sneering at individuals for not paying back their student. Loans, or you just made a stupid decision by taking out that much in loans, when, in reality, like going to college is just as much of a cultural expectation as owning a house when it comes to sort of like the American dream, and college even more so you're told like you can't succeed unless you go to college. And yet, going into massive debt to go to college that you might be paying off forever and ever and ever is kind of looked at like, Well, that was a dumb decision that you made, by the way, at 18 years old, with zero information about it would mean, yeah, it's interesting, like, those things are comparable in terms of kind of what we're told and but it's interesting to me that the house is normalized, as you know, worth going into big debt, and college isn't, and we kind of still see people sneering at people that haven't been able to pay off their student loans. So I just think that's interesting. Okay, so what I want to ask about next is, you know, I feel like there's a lot of financial advice out there for maybe somebody that is struggling, or someone who's making hard decisions, someone who's trying to get, like, it's like, there's this lot of advice for going from unstable to stable. And then I see a lot of advice out there by like, podcast bros, where it's like, what you're gonna do is you're gonna buy 14 apartment complexes, and we're gonna turn all into Airbnbs, and then we're gonna do this kind of, it's like, this sort of, like, let's get rich kind of thing. But I don't, at least run into a lot of sound advice about like, so what do I do if I do get to a stable place, and I'm maybe I don't have debt that is consuming me or making me have to make sort of, you know, survival cuts. But I was never, there was never any place where anyone ever taught me like, Okay, I have a checking account and I have a savings account, and at some point I think I'm supposed to have a 401, K for retirement, but there's not a lot of education out there for, you know, how do I sort of use money to make money when I start to get stable? And so I'm curious if you have any, like, even just like, quick rundowns about, like, what are things to look into if we get to a plug and I've got a little bit of money and savings, I'm not worried about not being able to afford a vet bill. What do I start looking at then? So
Dana Miranda 42:28
the first question that I would encourage people to ask is, what are you trying to achieve, which is probably what any financial planner would, you know, what are the goals that you're trying to reach, you know, I'm hearing you say, like, so I'm financially stable. I'm not struggling. But what do I do next? And there's a lot that can be done, and I will talk about that, but first I do want to say, like, ask that question. Why are you asking what to do next? What is unsatisfactory in
KC Davis 42:58
your financial situation?
Dana Miranda 43:02
Are you asking that question? Because we have this culture of money that tells you you should always be trying to optimize more. You should always be trying to do more. You should always be trying to accumulate more. I see that message coming a lot from the personal finance space that says, you know, if once you're stable, here's how you should be investing to make more money, then, like you said, make your money. Make more money. If you feel like you're stable, why are you doing that? I think that's a really important question to ask to break this mindset that we have in our culture of thinking that we just always need to be optimizing and accumulating more. I don't think that that's necessary, but I also understand that sort of the condition of, like middle class kind of financial stability is constantly working to maintain that you're not at that position where you can just make bets on investments and buy, you know, like you said, buy a bunch of apartment buildings and just start accumulating more wealth. You are always needing to make decisions to maintain that stability, because you could lose it at any moment. When, you know, we saw that again with the recession, with the housing crisis.
KC Davis 44:18
Yeah, it's like, well, I might be stable, but I'm one broken leg away from not being able to work. You know, my job that requires me to be able to physically walk around or whatever. I think for me, when I think about, you know, what makes me want to talk about those kind of things? I think part of it is this understanding that it's almost as if, for the Uber wealthy, there's like, a whole different world. Yeah, of like, making your money make more money that is purposefully kept opaque from the working class. So for me, I think it's like, well, I feel like more people should know about those things, because it doesn't. You don't have to be at the level of, let me just take out a three. Million dollar loan and buy an apartment building. You know what I mean? Like, there's, there's other things we can be doing, but not like, you know, you're scrolling through Tiktok, and you hear people be like, Well, what you should do is get a high yield savings account. Well, what you should do is put it in a CD. Well, what you should do is not just have your 401 K, but, you know, what if you also open up a Roth IRA or, well, what if you, you know, started buying up real estate. And it's like, I think as you get to a place where, okay, I might actually have enough money to try and invest some of this, or you're like, oh, put it in the stock market, it's like, well, I don't know what that means. Thank you. You know, like, it's so confusing and overwhelming and opaque that that even if you maybe have enough of a nest egg to invest part of it. It's like, well, I don't know where to start. Like, even, what? Where do I even start looking to learn about things if I've just never really heard of anything, and you
Dana Miranda 45:53
could really fall into a trap of the kind of advice that's like, here are the secrets that the wealthy don't want you to know that are really trying to just take advice that works for someone who has just an extra $3 million to throw around. That is not really realistic, if that's not your situation, but you're not gonna hack your way into it, absolutely. Yeah, and things like stock picks, and things like, every once in a while, some like meme stock gets a couple of people lucky, but that's really rare. It's unlikely. So actually, you know, following specific stocks and stuff and feeling like that is being smart with your money is actually pretty detrimental. It's a lot of like, basically casting bets with your money, and that's something that much wealthier people can do because they have the money to lose, so they can kind of make those bets and hopefully win more than they lose. But when you don't have that money to lose, you should be looking at more stable options, so you pretty much mention them, a high yield savings account, a certificate of deposit, a CD retirement investment accounts, and then when you're thinking about investing, most experts recommend an index fund because they're low cost. The fees are very low, so they're not eating away at a lot of your savings. And the money is basically spread out across a bunch of industries and a bunch of companies and sectors, so that you're not making one big bet on any any individual company or sector, that if something goes wrong there, you could lose a bunch. It's really spread out and just kind of follows the growth of the market. So you can kind of benefit from that kind of stability. So a lot of the things that you can do are, like, pretty boring. They're not exciting. Like finding individual stocks, or, you know, meme stocks, or becoming a landlord, things like that. They're very small things that you can do. So a high yield savings account is just a savings account that has a higher interest rate than what's typical, because a typical savings account at a bank yields like point zero 1% interest, which, at the end of the year, kind of regardless of how much money you have in there is very little. But high yield savings accounts, depending on what's going on with the market rate can yield four or 5% or even when that rate is low, it's, you know, more like one to two or 3% so it's a lot more. If you have that money in savings anyway, you can make a little bit of money off of it every month. You know, let it grow a few $100 so that's a small way to optimize with something that you're already doing, and banks are really competitive with that stuff right now, so it's pretty easy to find a high yield savings account. It's not like a really rare product anymore, so you should be able to find it kind of at any bank. If your money is just sitting in like a point zero 1% account, you could move that money somewhere pretty easily. Certificates of Deposit are something that people kind of follow a little bit more closely, because their benefits depend on what's going on with the interest rate, the market interest rate. So that's something where, like, if you're following personal finance advice, like I want to say, we I write for CNET, and we talk about this, sometimes that C NET with rates, Motley Fool talks about rates, sometimes investing, and things where they're getting into a little bit detail, they'll sort of tell you, like, here's what's happening with the Fed rate, and here's what that means for whether or not you should invest in a CD and how long it should be. So it's just a way. It's essentially a really short term investment with a fixed interest rate. So you put money in, it stays in for a year, or two years, five years, something like that, and you have a guaranteed interest rate for that entire time, as long as you don't take the money out, and you will have to pay a fee if you pull the money out early. So there's an incentive to just keep the money in there, and it's guaranteed to grow with that rate. So savings accounts and CDs are good in that way, because you can't lose money the way that you can with investments, even in a retirement account, because that money is invested in the market, that can lose money, so there's a little bit of risk there. But people recommend like a 401, K or an IRA, because those also come with tax advantages, so you can sort of maximize the. Amount of money that you can save in that way, and then it's just a matter of determining which vehicles are right for you. And if you want to get into something more than just your like, company's 401, K and you have that money to work with, I would recommend working with a financial planner, because then they can explain, like, what a Roth IRA is to you and what the benefit of using it would be. And you can look for a fee only financial planner, so it doesn't have to be a super expensive thing. Look for a fiduciary, because they are bound to only give you advice that's in your best financial interest, unlike some investment advisors, who can recommend investments to you because they make a commission off it or something that it benefits them. There are people who are allowed to do that. So look for a fee only fiduciary financial planner to guide your any investment advice that's sort of more complex than just your company retirement account. That's great
KC Davis 50:57
advice. Yeah. When I first learned what financial advisors were. I was like, Oh, great. Someone for advice. And then I realized that, oh, they make money because they're gonna take, like, a cut of everything that they invest for me. And you know, that makes sense if I had a ton of money to invest, but you know, when you're just have a little bit, it was like, Oh, this isn't really a lot of money, and I don't want a percentage taken away, because it's already not a lot of money. And of money. And also it's not like a big benefit for someone to want to give me a bunch of advice about this, because it's, you know, they had probably bigger fish to fry. So I think when I learned about, like, how to look for a fee only financial advisor, was a huge turn of like, Oh, someone can just sit down and explain some of this stuff to me, and I can just pay them for the hours of that I'm meeting with them for their advice and go from there. So I think that's helpful. Yeah,
Dana Miranda 51:48
I'm really happy to see that cropping up. But it's kind of this more accessible level of financial advice that used to be, you know, we used to have just these big like investment or wealth management firms, and you had to really have a lot of money to work with. And now we're seeing that like, you know, when you're in your 30s and you're kind of just starting your career, it can make sense to talk with a fee only financial planner that's almost like a higher level financial coach that can do a little bit more for you on the investment side.
KC Davis 52:16
So as we sort of land the plane here, tell us a little bit more about your book and like, who is your book for and what are, kind of, like, the big things that they can take away from it, so
Dana Miranda 52:27
through you don't need a budget, I set out to investigate our cultural relationship with money that I call budget culture. And it's kind of that some of the things that I've mentioned that kind of focus on wealth accumulation, restriction and shame, and what that means for our personal relationships with money. And then I get into sort of more specifically. Then, given that understanding, how do you survive under this system? How do you manage your money in a way that makes sense for you, if you're not necessarily going to follow all of the rules that budget culture sets arbitrarily. And I wrote it for the people like me and the people that I've had sort of writing for healthy rich who have experiences that are not well represented in the personal finance space, we're seeing a lot of middle class white men a lot of times giving advice in the space, not exclusively. I know that there is growing diversity, for sure, but a lot of it either is directly coming from that demographic, or it's influenced by their experience of what we decide is right or wrong with money. And there are so many of us who have been seeing that advice and knowing that it just is not going to fit into our lives. That kind of restriction, the focus on wealth accumulation, the caring about paying off debt, caring about your credit score, that kind of stuff for some people, that just doesn't make sense with the kind of experience that we want to have in life. And so I wrote the book to let you know that if that's how you've been feeling when you hear personal finance advice, that that's okay and you can do it differently. And I don't offer just an alternative method to say, like, don't do. You need a budget. Don't do. Dave Ramsey, you know, don't do. Don't listen to these other gurus Listen to me, but instead to start asking some questions, to prompt you out of the mindset that budget culture puts us in and that approach to money that is just sort of ingrained in us, and to understand that doing it differently is okay, and there's some education in there too. I talk about some specific debt products and how those work, how they impact your credit score, how some investment products work, and why people recommend some over others, and things like that. To help you start to get that understanding and break away from just a set of rules for here's what to do at this point in your life. Here's what to do next. Here's what to do next instead, to understand. And what are your options, and how will they impact your life, and what kind of choices will you make with that broader understanding?
KC Davis 55:09
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Dana. And again, it is called, you don't need a budget, and you can get it at Amazon. You can get at Barnes and Noble. You can go to bookshop.org and support independent bookstores, and I hope you guys go out and get it. Thanks again. Thank you, Casey, you.

Christy HausslerFebruary 3, 2025

129: Surviving Jeffrey Epstein with Lisa Phillips

Today’s episode is about surviving abuse, and I’m joined by Lisa Phillips, an abuse survivor. She shares her horrifying experience of surviving abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, along with so many other young girls. Lisa hosts a podcast called From Now On, where she dives headfirst into stories of abuse and recovery. Join us.

Show Highlights:

Lisa’s experience with Jeffrey Epstein when she was a young model in NYC
Understanding the scope of sex trafficking and sexual predators
Common questions survivors ask themselves: “Am I the crazy one? How could I not have known? How could I have been so stupid?”
Red flags, boundaries, predators, and “the switch”
Look out for “love bombers”!
The irony of sharing a history of sexual abuse with a partner (“They want to abuse you in the same way you were abused.”)
It’s hard to leave a relationship if you are trauma-bonded to that partner.
Abuse makes you more at risk of being abused again.
Lisa’s podcast guests, their stories, and universal experiences of abuse
Talking to our kids about evil people and “bad guys”
The main danger is NOT from strangers.

Resources and Links:

Connect with Lisa Phillips: Instagram, From Now On Podcast, Podcast Instagram, Podcast TikTok, and From Now On YouTube

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:04
Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. This is struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and today we're going to be talking about surviving abuse. And I have Lisa Phillips here, who is an abuse survivor. Most notably, you talk about surviving Jeffrey Epstein, and so you are a host of a podcast called From now on, where you dive head first into stories about abuse and recovery. And I'm just excited to kind of jump in with you. Lisa, thank you for being here.
Lisa Phillips 0:32
You're so welcome. So happy to be here and talk about this very important information.
KC Davis 0:38
So you know, can you start by telling us, like a small sketch of your experience with Jeffrey Epstein, so that listeners kind of know where you're coming from. And then I want to quickly, kind of dive into honestly, like, what your podcast references, which is, you know, moving forward from now on. You know, what does that look like going forward? So, yeah, tell us what happened. So
Lisa Phillips 1:01
Jeffrey Epstein had a very deep, expansive sex trafficking ring, and most people are aware that the trouble that he got in originally was for underage girls with Ghislaine Maxwell in Florida. But a lot of people don't know that there was tons of girls over 18 and still very young under, I would say, 2324 that were part of this whole web that he pulled you into, and he groomed and manipulated many young women under the guise of being very charming and like a mentor. He wasn't a playboy, he just was a mentor. And he helped a lot of women, but he brought them into this web that he would traffic you to others. And so I was looking for, you know, hanging out with these types of people when I was young. And I was a model in New York City. I was just on an island doing a photo shoot, and one of the other young women that was on the shoot, she invited me to go to an island of a friend of hers, and we had the day off. And so, you know, I trusted her. She was also quite young, beautiful, blonde, tall, gorgeous blonde from Poland. And I was like, Sure, let's go, you know, just innocently thinking, you know, it was probably going to be like other times around, kind of older men, younger women, but like, usually, nothing crazy happens. So we took the boat over to Jeffrey. I've seen the island little St James, and so, you know, we just had a lovely time with the other girls there, playing in the pool. And, you know, went to dinner. And that's when I met Jeffrey. And during that time my life, I was almost at the height of my modeling career. I was doing really well. I've already traveled around the world, very cultured. Grew up in Europe half my life, and so I kind of bonded with him a little bit. I mean, that was probably part of his charm and his grooming. But, I mean, I didn't know at the time, he asked me questions about my family, and he really got into my psyche and what I loved and what I how I grew up, and things that goals and my ambitions for life, and it was just this really wonderful conversation where I was like, Wow, this like, older, wealthy guy is interested in little me, and so, you know, I felt good about him. And I was talking to the other girls and everyone else there was, I found out later there were some that were under age, but I thought they were the same age as me at the time, and besides that, everything seemed pretty normal. And then, you know, got ready for bed. We ended up sleeping over that night because it got laid and we couldn't get a boat back. So we ended up sleeping over that night. We got, like, our pajamas and ready for bed with the other model, and there was a knock at the door, and one of the other young girls said, Oh, Jeff was ready for his massage. And that's when I looked at the other girl, the Polish girl, and I was like, What are you talking about massage? Like, I don't know how to do a massage. And she's like, Oh, well, we kind of have to. I'm like, What do you mean we have to? She's like, well, just, I guess, just follow what I do. And so, you know, she led me over to, like, his bedroom. We went in, and it was a massage. He did actually teach us massage techniques, things like that, but eventually it turned into touching and salt with myself and the other girl. And so after that, you know, we went back to the quarters, and, you know, I stayed up all night, like wondering what the heck has gone on. And it just was a really confusing time in my life. I went back to New York, and I really felt like nothing was really ever the same. I felt really, you know, used, violated, assaulted, and I didn't really have any words to describe it, or anyone to talk to around that time. And I also felt like maybe I was only one, you know, and when I would see that other model out of castings or at events and things like that, she just didn't talk about it. It was almost like she didn't want to say anything about it. And so I just suppressed it and just kept it to myself. And over those months, you know, his secretary would call me all the time, like, Jeffrey wants to see you. Jeffrey really liked you. Jeffrey thought you were amazing. Being intelligent, gave me all these compliments, but I was just like, No freaking way. Am I going back and seeing that man? So that's how it started. So one of
KC Davis 5:09
the things that kind of sticks out to me is that, you know, I think when people hear the term sex trafficking, there's this really specific, like, image that they get in their minds. And it's like that. You know the movie Taken right? Some Eastern European men are going to bust down your hotel room or stock you in the Target parking lot and swipe you off your feet, and you're gonna stand up on a stage and be auctioned off in chains. And I mean, sadly, that does exist in the world, but I think that's kind of like the first thing that I would imagine being difficult about being a survivor is like, that's kind of the picture we have about sex trafficking, and yet the sex trafficking that is much more widespread is closer to what you experienced. I didn't even know it at the time, yeah, and I'm wondering how much that contributes to that sort of like, am I the crazy one? Yeah. I
Lisa Phillips 6:03
mean, I definitely thought like that for many years. I would just suppress it and not think about it because I didn't really understand what had gone on. I just thought, oh, it's bad luck that these men would why is it? Every time I go to an audition, this man would try to abuse me, you know, just thought. I just thought, Oh, it's just the business, and it really is the business too. But there's this whole thing that we're learning now, like with Puff Daddy, Sean Combs and his sex trafficking ring and many others, it's systemic. It's this thing where they bring you on and then they send you to people you're thinking, it's for a music career or an audition, or you're an ambitious young woman, or you just look up to the person, he's a mentor, and you go along with this, but you're not knowing that they're actually sending you there for a reason. So I didn't even understand that until after Jeffrey died, and I started speaking out and wanting to connect with other survivors, because there were so many, I was like, I want to know what happened to me. Like, I'm so confused about the situation, and everyone was so hush hush. A lot of my girlfriends that knew him at the time didn't want to talk about it, or, you know, they're married now, and, you know, they don't want to bring that stuff up, so, but I am, you know, I'm a single woman here. I tried, well, I was in a relationship at the time, and I tried to talk to my boyfriend at the time that I lived with, and I thought I was going to share the rest of my life with, but he didn't want to talk to me. He just was like, No, I don't want to hear about it. And I'm like, Well, how am I supposed to figure this out? I have no one to talk to, and I didn't have a supportive family, so I just started reaching out to survivors and a lot of the young ones and a lot of the over 18 months, and the stories are all the same, whether you're 15 or you're 23 so and we know the brain doesn't develop fully until you're 26 so these predators know that, that's why they're usually under 2625 years old. I don't know if this
KC Davis 7:56
has been your experience, but the times in my life that I've encountered predators like that. One of the things that I didn't expect was that they didn't abuse everyone. And so there would be people who would be in a similar situation in terms of power dynamic, or in terms of relationship, who would be like, singing that person's praises, and be like, well, I, you know, am that person. They never touched me, and they've always listened to me. And it not only like cast doubt on everyone, like, you know, any of the survivors, but it also like, makes you cast doubt on yourself. Like, Oh, for sure, that's what happened. You know, what is it? Something about me? Did I misread something? Did I ever blow something? And I finally just learned that? Like, no, that's actually, and I don't know how conscious of a tactic it is, but like that is part of the game is like all of the you know, gathering people around you, but not abusing every single one that you quote, unquote. Could, I guess? Because it creates that web of loyalty, and it casts that doubt. And I think that that really changed a lot of my perception when I would hear in news stories and things like that, you know. And for example, like one of the big one is when the survivors of Michael Jackson came out, one of the first people to speak out was Macaulay Culkin. Well, I slept in bed with him and nothing happened. Well, I was friends with him for years, and nothing happened Well, right? And everyone was either kind of like, well, he's telling the truth, or like, no, he's lying. He was abused too, but nobody really talked about that third option, of like, maybe he's telling the truth. And Michael Jackson did abuse those other boys. And I think that that it's really difficult. I think unless you've listened to survivors to appreciate how complex and almost like gas lighty and maddening and like murky the whole situation is just
Lisa Phillips 9:50
because, of course, they're not gonna abuse everyone. There's two different different ways of looking at it. They're going to abuse the ones that are vulnerable, the ones that they. That's why they ask a lot of questions and they get to know you a little bit, because they this one is going to be easier. And McCoy Culkin is already a big, huge star. Why would you abuse him? You know, you're going to abuse, you know, the young boys who are looking up to him and admire him and maybe want a singing career, whatever it is. But with Jeffrey, I mean, he knew that I didn't have a strong father figure, you know? And he knew I had ambition, and I know he probably saw vulnerability in me. There was plenty of young women that Jeffrey did not abuse, right? So, and with every predator, there's something that they either find vulnerable and they know that you're gonna be an easier target, or the second thing is, every guy has a type, you know what I mean. So, like, I mean, I know with Jeffrey Epstein, he loved blonde women, beautiful blonde women, I can't speak on the underage girls, because those were girls that came from a tough background and poor. And him and Ghislaine were abusing these victims in a very different way. But the girls in New York were all very intelligent, very ambitious, tall and beautiful. And he saw something in them, you know, where he was helping them. So with their art school, or putting them through acting school, or I had friends he put through college, got them the biggest jobs, auditions, things like that, you know, Ty's victoria secret. So he was actually coming through on everything. But he was very particular of what he liked. And I wasn't blonde, but I definitely had grown up in Europe, and I had a certain way about me. Was very cultured and very smart, and I know that he picked up on that.
KC Davis 11:37
Did you struggle with that in the aftermath of your own intelligence, because it strikes me that there's this thing we do to ourselves when we think, like, how could I have been so stupid? And yet it strikes me as this is, like a weird way to say this, but in some ways, being intelligent can make you an easier victim, because you will immediately go, I am just so ashamed. I didn't pick up on this. I should have seen this. I should have known this. I should have, I should have, I should have. I'm so competent in every other area of my life. How could I have fallen into this?
Lisa Phillips 12:09
Well, everybody says that. How could you have not known why didn't you see the red flags? Why did you go back? I mean, even women attack survivors all the time. But the problem is, with predators, they're just so good at what they do. They're so normal, charming and good looking, and they're charming everyone else, just like you said, they're abusing certain people, but being wonderful to everybody else. When I was around people in New York, parties, agency owners, charity events, everyone spoke highly of Jeffrey Epstein. He was friends with everybody. Everyone said, I love Jeffrey. Even, probably the girls that were abusing would say, Oh yeah, Jeffrey's great, you know, because they were those girls were groomed into thinking, because he was helping them, that he was great, like the young girl who took me to meet with him, that's what she would say, Oh, he's amazing. He's great, you know, while he's abusing her, but she's not letting me know that part of it, no as to say there's so many people through those years that praised Jeffrey Epstein. They're quiet now, because we now we know who he is, but there were so many people that were friends with him.
KC Davis 13:09
You know, I'm also wondering, I feel like there's this really, this path that would be so tempting to take in the aftermath of it being really difficult to trust anyone. And it seems like, you know, with what you talk about on your podcast, there's almost this needle of threading. You know, we don't have to move into just, I won't trust anyone, I won't get close to anyone, I won't take opportunities, but learning really what predators look like, learning about what those red flags are. Because I don't think even as a woman, I've had enough people talk to me about those kinds of red flags. I mean, we kind of talk about red flags and dating, but it's more about like, ah, that guy is a piece of shit. Don't date him. He's a bum. He's a whatever.
Lisa Phillips 13:53
Yeah, he's checking the girls out. Obviously, you know, you don't want to date him. Just simple things like that.
KC Davis 13:57
Yeah. But I think when we're talking about someone who is, like, a full blown, you know, narcissistic predator. Those are different red flags. And so can you share some of those things I mean, and I what made me think of this as, you know, you mentioned that asking questions thing, and it reminded me of an experience I had one time with the guy that I kind of worked with that wanted to do some, like, professional stuff with me, and we had this, like, lovely day visiting a professional something or another. And he texted me on the way home and said that was so great. I just love talking to you. And, yeah, that's nice. But I called a friend of mine and I was like, Maybe I'm being crazy or like, and I was afraid that even I would be like, accused of, like, thinking too highly of myself, because I was like, there was just something about the way he said that that felt kind of like emotionally intimate, and it made me feel like I was married at the time. So I was like, and I just, am I reading into this? Is this too, you know, am I just being ridiculous, or am I whatever? And I'm so glad of the friends. That I called because what they said to me was they validated like, hey, maybe it's nothing. Some people are just kind of, you know, real emotionally touchy feely people, they said. But one thing to keep out to know is that there are these fishing questions that people will throw out there and that some men will throw out there and ask, and depending on how you respond to those, they either sort of back up or they come closer. And I don't mean to paint this as like it's our fault if we answer a question wrong, or something like that, but yes. And fast forward, wouldn't you know, a bunch of shit came out about this guy. And I looked back, and I was like, that's what that what that testing of boundaries. So can you talk a little bit about, like, things that you now read as red flags that you maybe wouldn't have before? Mm, hmm.
Lisa Phillips 15:51
Well, again, when it comes to predators, especially sadists, narcissists, these types, they want to hurt you in a lot of ways. They get pleasure out of hurting you, and they don't have any empathy for you. So you have to understand you're dealing with not a normal guy who's just has normal red flags, right? You want to stay away from that guy, like, oh, he has some red flags. You talk about your girlfriend, you don't want to go out with him again, or you go on the second date. Notice more red flags. You don't go out with him again. Predators are very different. They're there to fool you, and they're very good at it. I started my podcast because I was fooled again by a man, and it just like shattered my way of thinking. I don't have the shame. I've let go of the shame of what happened to the Jeffrey Epstein back in 2002 1004 I was young, you know, and he was very good, and he followed through on everything that he said, you know, he pulled me in, but he got into my psyche to figure out who I was, and everything worked. That's just, he was just such a brilliant man in that way. So it's gonna be really tough for most women who met him to not fall under his spell, if he wanted to. But like in the dating world, I thought, you know, I couldn't be fooled, especially as we hit, you know, our 30s and 40s. I'm in my 40s now. I like I didn't think I could be fooled by a man, but it was also when I was going through the most vulnerable time of my life. I started speaking out about Jeffrey Epstein in 2020 and I was in a bad relationship with a man I was madly in love with, but paid me no you know, he was a bit of a narcissist in the way that, you know, we got together very quickly, and then he was in the discard stage, devaluing everywhere I went with him, not three out of 10 times, 10 out of 10 times. He was just checking out everybody, you know, making me feel like I was worthless. I just, I just didn't feel good about myself. And I just wanted to get away from this man so bad. And then also, I was speaking out about Jeffrey Epstein, and he wouldn't listen. He didn't want to hear me. He didn't ask any questions, and he sees me on documentaries, but pays was almost like, Oh, you're still worthless, like, I don't want to talk to you, like it's not worth my time to get to know you on a deeper level. And I was just so devastated, because I love this man, and so this is pay attention here, because I'm going to tell you with red flags with men who are, you know, predatory. You have to watch out for this type of man, because they are looking for the vulnerable side of you so they can prey on you. That's what they get off on. So when I was going through a really hard time with the boyfriend, I started speaking out. And I was on a documentary on lifetime, and a man, tons of men, actually reached out to me, but this one particular man, he lived in Boston, he was reaching out to me, and he came at me from a religious angle, and said, I'm a Christian man, and I understand what you're going through, and I feel for you, and I just want to be here for you. I have some devotionals I want to read to you, you know. And I wasn't defined as a Christian. You know, I've gone to church and things like that. But, you know, here I live here in Los Angeles, and we're just more spiritual here, and I had that spiritual side to me, but I was, like, open to it. And so I needed something, and I'm like, wow, here's maybe somebody I can talk to. And so I formed this relationship with this man, just speaking on the phone for like, three months, and he would read me devotionals. And I was like, wow, this guy really cares about me. You know, that's the love bombing stage. So much attention. He asked so many questions to get into who I was. And I would share things with him, building that bond with Me, and then went out to meet him, and, you know, didn't try to have sex with me. I'm a good Christian man, you know, like just trying to make me feel like I was loved and adored and taken care of. Were you devotionals with me? And I started liking these devotionals because they were deep talks, and I didn't have that with my prior boyfriend, and I just he was giving me all that support that I needed. So when I finally went to Boston to spend some time with him and get to know him. You know, start dating this man. Met his family. This man was nothing like he was for four months. He wasn't the good Christian man. He literally, from the time we were intimate, switched on me and said, couldn't kiss me and he couldn't make love like a. Guy. He was choking me, spitting on me, telling me he wanted threesomes, trying to use a vibrator on me, and like, I was like, What are you doing? I was completely fooled by this man. That is the reason why I created this podcast. Was because we need to look out for these types of men. He wanted to be a Jeffrey Epstein. I told him, for four months, the abuse I had with Jeffrey Epstein in the beginning was a threesome and vibrator, and I have trauma and triggers from that kind of stuff. Don't want nothing to do with it. And on the night that he met, the night that we were supposed to be intimate after knowing of four months, that's what he wanted from me, and I just shook me to the core. I was like, I can almost start crying about it right now. It was so devastating to have given my like heart to someone, and he was like my best friend, and he was just wanted to destroy me, hurt me, devalue me, and get his kicks off at me. And you
KC Davis 20:54
know, what's wild is that that's not the first time I've heard that, that I've heard that specific story of I shared past sexual abuse trauma with my partner, and then they asked if we could do that thing exactly.
Lisa Phillips 21:08
They get off on it. It's a weird thing, but a lot of men who are predators, they want to abuse you in the same way you were abused. A lot of survivors have had men reach out to them weird on a documentary talking about your bit of sexually abused and they reach out and they reach out to them. I mean, why would a man find me interesting that I'm talking about sexual assault? I mean, wouldn't there be another you know, it's just weird. And my friend said at the time, you know, he saw you on a documentary you were talking about sexual assault. So why would he be turned on by that? She they were right, and they knew the red flags from the start. But I was like, he cares about me. He was be devotionals at
KC Davis 21:42
night. Well, and we, you know, we talk so much about, like, you know, red flags and things like this. And sometimes someone will be talking about their relationship and and you'll hear people, or you'll, you know, whether there's an online video and people comment, they'll be like, well, you know, why didn't you think about that before you got married to him? Why didn't you see this? Why would you do that? Blah, blah, blah, blah, and like, I don't think people appreciate that. Like, yes, there are many times when we will ignore red flags, or we make an unwise relationship decision because we're we really want something from them, or we're kind of hoping against hope, and being very unwise. Yes, that happens, but I have known friends who have gone all the way to the altar and gotten into marriage with someone, and they literally come home one day, and it's like a switch flips, and they are a different person. And I don't think we talk about that enough, because yes, we want to be wise in our decisions, but like that is real, but, but it does make you as the woman, feel like, well, am I the dumb one? Should I have seen this coming? And no, if people really do switch like that, predators,
Lisa Phillips 22:54
at least, yeah, he was a witch. I didn't even know who that man was anymore, but it was like, when they trap you they had. I was trapped. And then when they have you, or you're engaged, or you're married, and then they don't have to, oh, you're pregnant, that's
KC Davis 23:07
the big one too. Like a lot a lot of men, the switch happens when you get pregnant. And I also think, or I can imagine, that makes it harder, because there was this version of that person that was real to you, and how easy and normal it would be to go, Okay, can we just, how can we just get back to that person like that is a person you fell in love with?
Lisa Phillips 23:29
Yeah, you're always fighting to get that person back, but that person never existed. Yeah, that's the importance of speaking about this and speaking out about our experiences, because it just educates as soon as you hear someone else's story, you're like, Okay, now I know look out for that, or that's happening to me right now. And women, we need to come into our power and understand that we don't have to put up with it. A lot of women think, Oh, well, I'm never gonna find anyone better. Well, he's not good. Like, what do you mean? Find anyone better? Yeah, probably every other man is better, so you have to let go of that emotional side. Yeah, exactly that, that emotional side of us that's connected a lot of times, trauma bonded to the man that I was in love with. I was trauma bonded to him. It was very hard for me to leave him, because I felt like that was the only love that I'd ever experienced. It was never a good love.
KC Davis 24:19
Oh gosh, this always happens to me, like the thought, like flies out of my head right before I go to say it. I've heard people talk before about like, how being abused makes you at higher risk to be abused again by someone else. Oh, absolutely. I think most of us have heard that. But one of the ways that that gets talked about a lot is almost a little like victim Blamey, where it's like, oh, we don't know how to make good choices, or we get so broken that we'll just take any old sock that comes around, blah, blah, blah. But people don't talk enough about part of the reason why it makes you more at risk is because predators will literally seek you out, like it's through no fault of your own. Oh
Lisa Phillips 25:00
yeah. I mean, even with my podcast right now and being on TV, well, YouTube, you know, the amount of men that have reached out to me. You know, I can't trust any of them. There might be a nice guy in there, there might be a future husband in there, but I'm not going out with you if you saw me on my podcast.
KC Davis 25:14
So talk to me about what that kind of I think that's also the part that's hardest for people to understand, is kind of the getting sucked back in well after that horrible
Lisa Phillips 25:24
relationship, I just, you know, I haven't been dating up until more recently, I'm a little more open, because I'm out and about and networking, and I want to trust men. I know there's really great men out there. I'm raising great men, and I know they exist because I have girlfriends that have phenomenal husbands. But you're right when you have been an abuse survivor, someone like Jeffrey Epstein, and what I went through and being lent out, I guess, to meet with directors, I think I'm going for an audition and having that abuse. And then my husband, you know, our relationship ended after four years, and then I had this Boston guy who was, like, the worst of all of them, I just was thinking, just like you said, you're abused, I'm more prone to it, and I'm not a victim, but because you have been abused, we're more vulnerable, and we want to make the better choices. But because we're more vulnerable, predators, they sniff it out, they know it. So a lot of times it could be a normal man approaching me, but a lot of times the predators are still going to approach how
KC Davis 26:26
do you keep from hating your own vulnerability?
Lisa Phillips 26:31
Well, for many years, I did hate kind of like that part of me that fell for that kind of world and or fell for that bad relationship, I had a lot of shame around it, because I'm like, I went into everything, just like, with a good heart. You know, I've been a good person. And maybe I was ambition. Maybe I was ambitious back then, or maybe I just wanted love, or I wanted a friendship. You know, there's nothing wrong with any of that, and but people make you feel like it's all your fault. You should have known. And the horrible things people say even family members. You know, I got a text message from my own mother saying, I'm ashamed of you, and I'm like, Really, and you're not ashamed of him. You know, there I have pictures of eight girls under age that he was having sex with, giving them money, but I'm the shameful one. You know, it's like people that are so when it comes to these charming men, they just get pulled in. And it's not us, the victim or the survivor, it's everyone else around them too. They're flying monkeys that they pull in. It's like, oh, she's got the problems. I'm great, you know, I try to help her, and I try to do this and this and that, and they believe the charming one because, oh, he looks so nice. You know, he could never do any wrong, because these things are done behind closed doors. When he's choking you and stuff, nobody sees it. So it's crazy world out there, but that's why the podcast exists. It's just to educate it really is, and to also empower those who've gone through it, or those that are going through it now. So
KC Davis 27:54
tell me about some of the guests that you've had on your podcast, and some of the things that you related to that you found are, you know, kind of universal in these experiences?
Lisa Phillips 28:03
Well, yeah, a lot of guests stories have been very triggering for me, and it's awesome to connect the dots sometimes when you know what, Jordan Weber, the gymnast who was abused by Larry Nassar, you know, tons of young women were abused by him. And she said to me that, you know, I used to hang around the other girls, and we used to all say is Larry doing something to you, touching you? Kind of weird. And they all kind of talked about it, but no one identified it as abuse, because he's their gymnast, and they all looked up to him. All the parents loved him. Everyone loved and adored this man. That's what he that's what they create. Is this world of trust. And so the young girls that are being abused, it's like, is he doing that to you? But no one really says, Oh, this isn't right. This doesn't feel right. This is not okay, because they think it's under treatment. Same with Jeffrey Epstein, everyone thought they were doing a massage, you know, that turned into just a little bit of touching or a vibrator or abuse. It wasn't like hardcore raping, you know, like Larry Nassar. These are Bill Cosby giving a pill to everyone, you know, and they're unconscious. God, it's horrible. They're unconscious while he's doing, God knows what, to their body, you know. But they don't really know, because they wake up and it's like, what happened, you know? So some of these predators are just, they're so good at fooling everyone while they just get their little kicks off and their hots off, whatever it is of abuse. So it's very different for someone just, you're jogging in Central Park and someone grabs you in the bush and rapes you. It's very different. So I try to focus on these serial predators, just so people understand that it's not all black and white and abuse survivors. They don't understand what happened to them, usually, until they talk to the other 3050, 100 girls that it happened to them as well. And it's like, Oh, that makes sense. He's doing that to me. He's doing that to you, too. And this is abuse. So it wasn't until I started speaking to all these. Survivors, I'm like, Oh my gosh, you all went through the same thing I went through, and I can define it now, as I was assaulted by this man where before, for those years, I was just confused, like, why is he touching me? Am I the only one who's getting touched like that? You know, that's hard
KC Davis 30:16
to do the big deal when you finally allowed yourself to say that it was assault.
Lisa Phillips 30:21
Yeah, it was a big deal. It didn't feel good. It had a lot of shame around it. I've, you know, been in therapy about it because, yeah, I wanted to paint the picture like Jeffrey was great. You know, he helped me out in a lot of ways. I always wanted to paint that picture for many, many years, just like, just like the other girls used to say, because it's like, you trick your mind a little bit to be like, No, he was good, and you don't ever want to think about the other things.
KC Davis 30:48
Yeah, it's interesting. This is such a random tangent. But my girls, I have a four and a six year old, and they're in that phase where, like, things are still magical and imaginary, and they want to know, like, are unicorns real or like that? And one of the things that one of them asked me the other day, the four year old said she really likes bad guys from like, cartoons and things like that, right? Really? And she asked me, are bad guys real? And, you know, I told her no. And part of the reason I said NO is because I know what she's thinking of when she thinks of bad guys is like the Green Goblin from Spidey and friends that she's watching on Disney plus, right? And so I said to her, you know, bad guys like you see on cartoons are not real, but there are people that do bad things, and they're, you know, there are people that do good things and people that do bad things, and there are tricky people that might be nice to you and want to play with you, but then ask you to do something unsafe. And there's been a lot of talk and answer, yeah. There's been a lot of talk in the parenting world about kind of using this term tricky people, yeah, because they don't understand manipulative Right, right? And it's because when we're kids, we have this idea that, like, the bad guy is really obvious, like the bad guy is ugly because they always are in cartoons, right? Or deformed or mean, or cackling like a witch, right? Like they're obvious by the way that they act, by the way that they treat everyone. And so, you know, no wonder we kind of grow up with this idea that that's what a bad person looks like, that. That's what a predator looks like, that. That's what someone evil looks like. And it's no wonder that it's so confusing to us to sort of navigate a world where that's not how the most evil people operate, even a little and it just, it made me think about that kind of turn we're taking, even as we talk to our children, sort of preparing them for a world at a developmentally appropriate level, right of like, Man, I don't want them to think that like smoke and Shadows is gonna billow out behind somebody before they ask you something you know awful, or before they do something bad. Because, as we see, it's like a lifelong, you know thing to wrestle with about, what does it mean to encounter a predator, and what does it mean to avoid a predator, and what does it mean to know when a predator has you in their grasp? I'm
Lisa Phillips 33:16
like that with my 13 year old boy too. He used to ride his bike like just the Starbucks a couple blocks away, and I would say, you know, please don't talk to strangers. Don't talk to anybody that you don't know. It's like, Come on, Mom, I'm a boy. Like, they don't kidnap boys. I'm like, yes, they do. Jasper, yes they do. And he's like, Well, I could fight them off. And I'm like, well, they're always gonna be stronger than you, you know. And I just like, sometimes these boys, the boys think that there's they're completely safe, you know, and as we know, they're not. So yeah, it's we have to have these conversations with our kids pretty young. I mean, four to six is a great age to start well. And
KC Davis 33:50
the idea that, like, it's funny that your son would say that, because I think, and I don't know why this was just said to, like us as kids, or if it's always been this way, but like, I grew up under the impression that, like, the main danger was going to be from strangers, and yet we see that, like, the majority of predators are actually entering people's lives through relationship, right? It's gonna be your coach or a teacher or your uncle or a friend or a big brother's friend, you know what I mean, and even that, like, lines up so perfectly with what you've been raising awareness of. You know, it's not going to look the way you think. We have to rely on something else when we kind of start to get into that tricky territory, yeah. And
Lisa Phillips 34:29
it's also really good to know, especially nowadays, predators always use a woman and because, you know, they always like Jeffrey with Ghislaine. You know, all those young girls came because of Glen Maxwell, yeah, and they Puff Daddy, like they have these women around that make them feel safe. I mean, well, Jeffrey also, it was always the younger girls bringing their friends, you know? So it's like they try to get the girls to under to they try to get girls to reach out to other girls, to bring them into the web, right? So you. Have to be careful. Sometimes we're like, don't talk to guys or go find a woman at the mall. And most likely, if you're in an unsafe situation or you can't find your parents somewhere, yes, you go to a woman, but if a woman approaches you, still you can be, of course, nicer to a woman, but you know, don't go anywhere with someone. You know. Just don't go anywhere with anybody you
KC Davis 35:25
Yeah, I remember listening to, I forget her name, but she was a pop star that was a survivor of Puff Daddy and one of the other ones, but she told her story, and she went to a party with her agent, who was a woman, and so she thought, Well, I'm fine. And she noticed that something was getting spiked in the drinks, and she was, like, trying to get her agent's attention to be like, don't drink the drinks. Don't drink. Like, thinking they're in there together. And all of a sudden, you know, fast forward, and kind of everyone's left, but her and her agent, and these men and her agent is like, Okay, I'm gonna go to the bathroom now. And it like dawns on her. Oh, my God. She knows what's happening. She brought me here, and she says, You know, I they're like the producer was there. And she said, I, you know, I make con they're like assaulting me. And I'm making eye contact with this producer, thinking, Surely he's gonna say something. Surely he's gonna stop it. I've talked to this guy about his children, for goodness sake, and he just turns around to the mixing board. And I think that that's like, it's terrifying, but I think that is empowering to talk about the truth of you know, we would think that we were safe because of ABC, or we think that we're impervious because of these things that we know. And I think there's something really scary, but I think there's also something maybe comforting in a grieving type of way to know that, like, if somebody wants to overpower you, you can't stop them. So there's no, there's no like, well, if I would have, if I could have, if I should have, like, these are people who have made it their life's goal to track people and outwit outsmart, you know, bring the power systems around them. What is a 22 year old or a 30 year old, or even a 40 year old woman supposed to do against someone who has made it their profession to do this? It's very
Lisa Phillips 37:13
difficult, and it's so crazy that you just said that story, because, in my experience as a model, there was tons of agents that would take me to parties with older men, organized dinners or charity events, and it was always us young girls, and there were these older guys. And in particular, I didn't tell you how I got reeled back in to, well, lured back in with Jeffrey. He had called me one day. This is after months and months of his secretary calling me, and I said, Nope, not coming back to meet that man. He called me and he said, I remembered what you said on the island, you know about your missions as a model. And he said, I know Katie Ford at the Ford model agency. And he was like, Do you want to meet her? I was just like, Oh, my God, you're kidding me. Like that was my goal. I'd already tried to get with that agency twice and been denied. And you know, he sent me over there to meet with her, and I know I got signed up with that agency and had a long career with Ford models, but when you just said that, it triggered something in me, because I have an NDA with a celebrity, and Jeffrey had told me to go to a party. This is in 2001 and I went to that party, and the owner of four models was there with a bunch of models, and the celebrity was all over me. And I was kept saying, there's actually, like, a Getty image of me, like, ew, get away from me to, you know, that was a picture that was taken that was published of me with that person. So they couldn't deny that they didn't know me. And so, you know, the Jeffrey had told me to go to this party, and I'm thinking, Oh, I just get to go to this great movie premiere party, you know, with my friends, and that celebrity made a beeline towards me, wouldn't leave me that entire night. And I kept like, saying, no, no, no, get off of me. And then I talked to the agency owner and some friends, and she was just like, oh yeah, come with me. We're gonna go to a couple parties. And I was like, okay, thinking everything was normal. And I went with her to another party and super high end party. It was really nice, and had a good time. And then about an hour later, she's like, Oh, we're gonna go to another party. And I was like, Okay, I was getting tired and stuff, and she takes me to that celebrities hotel room, and he's got this big suite. And I'm just like, that's the guy that would leave me alone at the restaurant. And like, I don't want to be here. She said, Oh, we're just gonna hang out here. And it was me and another girl and the celebrity. And so I was kind of like, sitting in the corner, just like, kind of my mining business, just waiting until she wanted to leave. And then I went into the bathroom. And when I came out of the bathroom, the women were gone, the agency owner was gone, and I was just like, looking around. I was like, trying to grab my bag and leave. And the celebrity came out, and this is the big celebrity, one of the biggest in the world. And I was just like, Oh, shit. Are you kidding me? Like, I'm now trapped here with this guy who I knew what he wanted, because he talked about it the whole time at the restaurant. And after that, I was just like. Why would she leave me? You know, when you said the agent who left the music, the musician, she left me just like that with this. She knew what was going on and so, and she was also had the ties with Jeffrey Epstein, and so I don't know what was going on between Jeffrey, that celebrity, and her, but she left me there knowing I didn't want to be there. And I was assaulted that night, and I had kept that with me for so long, and I would never have spoken out about it or like I'm doing right now. I have an NDA, so I can't say his name, but when I was going through depositions and going through court hearings with my attorneys from 2020 to 2024 earlier this year, I would speak about this incident, and that's when my attorneys were like, oh, we need to do something about this. And I'm like, Oh, no way am I speaking out. I remember last year, survivors of assault from 20 years ago or beyond had a short window to file, and I my attorneys sent them a letter saying we were going to file, and they immediately ties to Epstein. Ties them all agency owner, they wanted to talk, and we had a picture from 2001 with me sitting with him at the restaurant. So he couldn't say, Oh, I don't know this girl. He knew exactly who I was, and probably wouldn't think 20 years later it was going to come back. But you know, that was very empowering to me, because I never thought I would stand up to somebody like that. But yeah, women, agents can set you up. You know, it's not just men,
KC Davis 41:23
yeah, it's a network. It truly is a network and a system. And, gosh, well, Lisa, thank you so much for God just the tremendous amount of work that you have done to be able to talk about this publicly and to be able to help people with your story. And I just, it's really touching, and I'm just, I don't know, it makes me feel like, proud to be a woman, you know what I mean, in like, kind of a, in a mood, in a in a way
Lisa Phillips 41:48
we are, we're powerful women. Yeah, can
KC Davis 41:50
you share with people? You know, where they can find you if they want to follow you or they want to keep up with you? I know you have a book coming out soon. Very
Lisa Phillips 41:57
excited about that. I've been wanting to write a book for so many years, and this is just the right timing, because I do want to empower and help women through this process. So I'm on Instagram at, I am Lisa Phillips and at, from now on pod on Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube, awesome. And what's the name of your does your book have a title yet? It's an empowering title for women, like stepping into your power, it's what I love to talk about, and it's
KC Davis 42:24
gonna be good, awesome. Well, I will look forward to that. Thank you so much, Lisa, thank you, Casey. You.

Christy HausslerJanuary 27, 2025

128: Your Latina Nutritionist Doesn’t Want You to Demonize Cultural Foods

Food rules, pop culture messaging, pressure, and the demonization of certain foods have huge impacts on the meals being eaten every day across the US. There is a better way to ensure we get the nutrition we need without beating ourselves up over the meals we eat. Dalina Soto, Your Latina Nutritionist, joins us for this eye-opening conversation. Join us!

Show Highlights:

Including your culture is an important part of nutrition.
Racial bias, demonized foods (like white rice), and pop culture messaging
Food IS fuel—but there’s more to it than nutrition!
Rethinking your nutritional hierarchy
Decision-making fatigue in meal planning
Reevaluating the “food rules” we follow
The “eating out” vs. “buying more groceries” dilemma for American families
Dalina’s top tips for quick meals and easy hacks (An air fryer saves the day!)
We, as women, put much of the pressure around nutrition on ourselves.
Dealing with kids: the key is to keep offering new fruits and vegetables
The beauty in finding a good nutritionist who doesn’t demonize cultural foods
Dalina’s new book, coming in March: The Latina Anti-Diet

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dalina Soto: TikTok, Website, and The Latina Anti-Diet book

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
Hi friends. Before we get started, I want to let you know that my new book, who deserves your love is now available for pre order. It'll be out on Tuesday, May 6, and the subtitle is how to create boundaries to start strengthen or end any relationship. And yeah, I do mean any. This is for family relationships, platonic relationships, romantic relationships. It's sensible, it's practical. It's going to help you think through why you might be experiencing issues in your relationships. It has a decision tree that helps you make important relationship decisions, and there's a new take on boundaries. It's going to help you make those value based decisions and carry them out. Is love conditional? How do you navigate a relationship where someone's best efforts are hurting you. When should you step away? It's plain spoken. It's powerful. We're going to talk about vulnerability, trauma, disability, personal history, boundaries, and how to conflict well, and how to emotionally regulate, and all of these things packed into a little punch of a book. So check out who deserves your love. You can pre order on bookshop.org, Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Hello, you. Sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to struggle. Care. I'm your host, K Davis, and today I am with your Latina nutritionist. That is Delina. Soto. Delina, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. So let's start here. I've been following you for a while on Tiktok. I love your content first of all, and you know your brand is is very emphatic about including your identity as a Latina. And I'm curious if you could sort of start there with like, why was that so important to you when talking about nutrition? Yeah,
Dalina Soto 1:47
so I think it's because there's not a lot of dietitians that look like me in the space. I think last I checked, 9% of dieticians identify as Latina or Latina or Latinx, whatever term they're using. And so I think for me, it was very important to talk about nutrition from that lens, because I didn't have that when I was in school and when I became a dietitian, and then I started practicing. So many of my clients, so many of my patients were like, nobody's ever explained food to me in this way. And so it was just very apparent to me the minute I became a dietitian, I was out in the field, that someone had to talk about our foods in a positive way, as opposed to what we usually see, which is a more negative light. So, you know, the interwebs just became the place where I started, yeah, yeah.
KC Davis 2:44
I do feel like and I didn't really even think about this until I started following your content. But you know, when you listen to most dietitians nutritionists, especially like the closer they are to diet culture or to kind of like the wellness grift, the more they all kind of sound the same. So I think, you know, you know, 1020 years ago, it was kind of like this demonization of fat, and now we have kind of, like the demonization of carbs and refined carbs. And, you know, the rice debate about white rice and brown rice and no rice at all and and all this. And then, you know, I feel as though it really wasn't until I started watching your content that I realized how much racial bias was happening in this sort of like wellness push about clean foods. And I mean, I'd always kind of seen it and learned about it from the perspective of, sort of like intuitive eating, or like healthism, and sort of thinking that like, oh, being healthy is more moral. But I think you were the person that really opened my eyes to like, oh no. This is, like, really specific along the lines of some racial bias about, like, what foods are healthy and what foods we kind of demonize. So can you talk to us a little bit about, like, what are some of those things, if someone's listening that they maybe haven't realized before, about some, like, pop culture messaging about health that's kind of coming in conflict with people's culture?
Dalina Soto 4:20
Yeah. So I think white rice is the perfect example. I think the global south all eats white rice, and there's obviously a history for it. We can, you know, go throughout history and talk about how it got certain places and why we got to white rice. But I think it's really important for people to understand all white rice starts off as brown rice, right? Like brown rice is a whole grain because it has all parts of the grain, right? So when we think about whole grain, we think about wheat, right? We think about barley, we think about oats. These are grains that basically have every part of the grain attached to it, and we consume it that way when it comes to white rice, though, because when it has that brand. That tough brown shell over it. It's really hard to cook with. I think we can all agree that brown rice takes a lot longer to cook, takes a lot longer to take on flavors. So throughout the years, you know, people realize that, and so they started refining rice by taking off the brand. And actually, white rice used to be consumed by like royalty, as opposed to, you know, because it took so much more labor to utilize it. And, you know, the poor people were the ones that were eating brown rice. And then that sort of shifted with technology, where we had the ability to refine it quicker, take that brand off quicker. And then that became like what we have now, right? And there are, you know, 1000s of varieties of rice. If you did not know that, people, but the majority of people eat some sort of white rice, whether it's basami, basmati, oh, my god, Basa me. Oh, my God, you could leave that in there, because that's funny, basmati rice, jasmine rice, we have the long grain, we have the short grain. So, like, it comes in all different types of variety, but it just means that we're taking that shell off. And, you know, people demonize it, because I think that in the wellness world, in diet culture, we have this idea that everything has to be perfect and give us the most nutrition. So if you're comparing white rice with brown rice, yes, brown rice is going to have a little bit more of fiber in it because it has that whole brand attached to it, but it is very minimal. Like, honestly, on average it's about one gram. Some of them have, like, 1.8 grams of fiber more, depending on the grain, depending on the type of rice. But to me, that's like, negligent like, white rice is a great vehicle to add nutrition. Nobody. And listen, if you are eating just white rice, I'm not going to shame you for it, but like, most people are adding other stuff to their rice, right? They're adding some sort of protein. A lot of time we're adding veggie to it. We're creating a full meal. So that little bit of fiber that you lose from taking the brand off, we're adding a crap ton of nutrition to it. So it's like, why are we forcing ourselves to eat something that doesn't hold on to flavor that great, takes so much to cook, and we're not going to enjoy it as much.
KC Davis 7:18
I certainly don't enjoy it as much. And also, like, if you are only eating white rice, probably there's, like, other problems happening in your life that you need some help with. Yeah, like, you're under struggle, like some financials, or, you know, maybe there's some sensory stuff going on, but, yeah, I think, you know, hearing you say that's so refreshing to hear someone say, like, oh, yeah, sure. Like, you know, there's probably a slight nutritional edge here, but, like, it's minimal. And I think that when we think about food, one of the things that, like, our wellness culture loves to do is, like, strip it down to be fuel only. There's kind of that, like, Food is fuel. Think of food as fuel. And it does seem like when you look at, okay, here's the benefit of this food over that food, and maybe something is a little bit nutritionally, you know better. But nutrition isn't the only purpose that food serves in our life. And I think that when we think about culturally, like, What food does in our lives, that I think it's really great that you're giving people permission to look at that as a valid benefit when you're doing your kind of like benefit analysis on choices, yeah.
Dalina Soto 8:37
And I think I mean, obviously your whole platform is like doing what you have to do right when you're not feeling so great, or just like prioritizing what's best, as you know, think earlier said, like struggle bus. But when I think of people being on the struggle bus, like, sometimes you are depressed, sometimes you have a crap ton of anxiety, sometimes you're not feeling your best. And if white rice is going to be something that's going to give you some sort of nutrition. It's better than nothing, right? So I got a lot of people, especially, you know, from the US, that will be like, well, white rice with butter is like, one of my favorite things. And I'm like, awesome, if that's all that you can get in right now at this moment, great. But I want you to think about like every meal every day is a new beginning. If you only had white rice and butter for lunch, because that's all that you could afford, all that you could have, all that was available to you. How can we add nutrition the next time that you eat right? Like, what is available to you? That we can add some nutrition to your day? And I think if you can change your mentality of like, every meal has to be perfect, every meal has to be like Christy and top of the line, give me all the nutrition. If you are able to shift your perspective from that and just say, like, what's going to taste better, right? Like, what's going to taste good, right? Now, what can I add to this that's going to enhance the flavor, enhance the texture, enhance the nutrition. Every time you have a meal, if you can ask yourself that you're going. Gonna add something that's gonna give you some sort of nutrition. And this isn't, you know, a sprint, this is a long race we're gonna be eating for the rest of our lives. It's okay.
KC Davis 10:16
Yeah, I feel like one thing that really shifted for me was that I realized that, like, my hierarchy in my mind was such that it was like, eat, you know, don't eat bad things. Was like the number one hierarchy. And so I would go to my pantry or my fridge and I'd kind of freeze, and I'd be like, I'm hungry, but I don't have anything right here that feels like it's like, the quote, unquote, right choice, yeah, right. It's not a healthy choice. It's not a healthy you know. And so I just wouldn't eat, yeah? Because I feel like I would feel more guilty if I ate. The thing that, you know, in my head was like, that's not ideal, that's not healthy, that's not whatever. And it really did make a huge difference when I kind of, like, addressed that hierarchy and made, like, the number one hierarchy, just eat enough that, like, actually, if I'm sitting there and I'm going, Okay, I'm hungry and this is all I have, or just like, Okay, I'm hungry and I really don't want that thing in the fridge that I know is like the best nutritional option. So I just won't eat anything. And it's like, Wait, if I want to go by priority, it's like number one, eat number two, eat enough. And it was, it really dropped to like number three, where it was like, try to make choices about, like, the food that's going to meet my nutritional like benefits, and then I didn't feel like I was failing if I wasn't choosing like the nutritionally optimal choice, I felt like I was still succeeding, because it was, like, my only job, if all else fails, is just to eat.
Dalina Soto 11:57
Yeah, and I think again, most people have a hierarchy of individual ingredients, instead of thinking of like a meal, right? And so it's really important for us to think of like not one ingredient, not one food, is going to make or break you, right? When we eat, we should, we should try to have complete meals, right? And like, a complete meal should include a carb, a fiber, a protein, fat, right? So that you have the satiety, so that you have enough nutrition so it can carry you over for the next time that you eat, right? And snacks are usually going to be, you know, a carbon of protein for the most part. You know, most snacks are going to be a carpet of protein, or, like, protein and fiber, because those are just like the snacky foods that are, like, available to most people, or just like in our in America, right? Like, if we're going to go to the supermarket, if we're going to go, you know, to your local store in Philly, so like Wawa is like, the place that we're gonna stop if we need a snack, I'm gonna probably grab, you know, a bag of chips, or, you know, fruit and, like a string cheese. Like, there's gonna be a bunch of different things, but it's always gonna be like a carb or protein, right? So I think it's important for us to understand that, like, if I grab a bag of chips, which I often do. I am not a I'm not a bad person. Like, why I'm allowed to enjoy food without it having to have a nutrition purpose to it, right? Like, not all food is going to be the epitome of nutrition. Like, it's okay to have something sweet just because you want something sweet. But I think the bigger priority is, are you nourishing yourself enough throughout the day? Right? Like, are you eating enough throughout the day? Are you getting a variety? And once you get to a point where you have that kind of relationship with food, chips are no longer going to be like a bad thing to you. You're getting enough of everything throughout the day. So, like, chips are just that, something salty and tasty. So, like, I think it's about re thinking, like you said, the hierarchy of, like, what food is that? Yes, Food is fuel, but food is also connection, food is also satisfaction, food is also pleasure, food is community, food is family, many things. It's not just calories in, calories out,
KC Davis 14:23
well, and I think, you know, I'd gotten to the point where I'd heard the like, eat what you want, add what you need, and trying to think of like meals as more than just like the value of every ingredient. But I don't even think that I had taken that step where, because when you just said, like, you had chip like, not every meal, like, even widening that and looking at the day like, Oh, wait. Like the day is the unit of, like, trying to get the nutrition that I need, not, like, every instance of putting food in my mouth, yeah,
Dalina Soto 14:56
yeah, it's 24 hours you got, I. Yeah, you can eat a lot in 24 hours. And if you're not restricting, if you're not purposely restricting to eat the most minimal amount, you're going to be able to, like, you're going to have multiple snacks in a day. You're going to have multiple meals in a day. And every time that you eat is, again, a time where you can have something that's going to be delicious to you. I think people don't realize that, like, when we eat and we eat food that we like and we enjoy, we produce more gastric juices, right? Like, we're able to digest it better, because we're going to be salivating. We're going to have more enzymes in our saliva, our stomach juices are going to be, like, more activated, more enzymes. It's going to go into our gut, and it's going to be even more activated with, like, all the enzymes that you know are working on the food, because we're actually enjoying it. And I think in the United States, we have created this idea that food, again, like you said, is just fuel, and so people have, like, no pleasure from it. It's just like, Oh, I just ate today. Or I can meal prep on Sunday, eat the same exact thing every single day. And it's like, what is the fun in that? Like, where does that like, oh, you feel Yeah, we feel guilty if we enjoy it, yeah, and you shouldn't because, like, that's why the pleasure sensors light up in your brain. It's supposed to be pleasurable, it's supposed to taste good, right? It's supposed to hit the spot every once in a while. And I'm not saying that, like every meal is gonna be like that. Sometimes you're gonna eat meals that suck. They do. Sometimes I get and I get very angry, trust me, when I'm like, dang, I thought this meal was gonna be so good and it's nasty, but that's all right, my next meal is gonna be better.
KC Davis 16:37
Yeah, that honestly, yeah, like, but that honestly was another freeing part for me, was that, like, the first step was kind of realizing, like, it's okay for food to be pleasurable. But it was honestly, like a totally another, like, separate revelation when it was like, not every meal needs to be bombastic. Like, in fact, Emily and because I do kind of feel like I eat for pleasure, 24/7, right? And so I would make something, and I'd be like, oh, it just isn't great. But there was kind of this almost like, importance. And I mean, like, from a mental health perspective, like it's important for us to be okay with discomfort. And it was kind of that where it was like, it is okay if there's a meal that let you go, you know what? Like, it doesn't taste great, but like, it's got some good nutrition in it, and I'm just gonna do it, and it's like, there's also some power in that, where it's like, it's almost kind of like a mindful non judgment, where it's like, we don't have to, like, demonize something for being pleasurable, or stay away from pleasure, or be like, you know about that, but at the same time, like, it's okay if it's not great every single time.
Dalina Soto 17:46
Yeah. I mean, it's really hard because I think again, we've grown up in a society with so all or nothing. There's like, no nuance when we talk about food. And to have a good relationship with food, you have to be able to discern a lot, and also you have to be able to, like, do what's best for you at that particular moment in time when you're eating. And that is very hard for people to do, because they have a lot. You know, the fatigue with decision making is hard. So I do understand people that are like, I'm just gonna meal prep, and I'm just gonna, you know, have everything available for the week so that I don't have to make the choice. That is probably, like, the number one thing I hear from clients is like, I don't want to make the choice anymore. Tell me what to eat, and I'm like, but that no longer. It's like, you're not in control anymore. You have, there's no, like, looking forward to a meal anymore, where you do that. So, like, for me when I talk to my clients, you know, I'm like, you can prep certain things. You could have veggies cut up. You could have proteins available, but you can create different meals from the same ingredients, like you don't have to, you know, create, cook, you know, brown rice, chicken and broccoli, which is like, and have it divided in a little container five times so that you can eat it, you know, Monday through Friday. Like you don't have to. You can create the chicken. I mean, you can cook the chicken. You can add different sauces to it. You can have it with potatoes, you can have with pasta. You can have it with rice. You can have it in a wrap, like you can prep certain things to make your life easier, and then have different meals with it. It doesn't have to be so like, rigid and strict. And I feel like people have such a hard time with that, because we've been told that we had to be perfect and rigid and strict with our health. That's not healthy either, because it takes you to the different extreme.
KC Davis 19:35
Yeah. And I think what has been the most difficult thing for me, as I've like, tried to deprogram from diet culture, is it was probably like, you know, six or seven years ago when I came across kind of this idea of anti diet, of intuitive eating, of getting rid of food rules, and how, like, food rules can be really restrictive and they can be really oppressive, and they can be they can cause a lot of disordered eating. And. And things like that. But one of the things that I kind of ran into as I was trying to unpack those go, Okay, no more food rules. You know, we're just gonna, you know, make choices. I don't know if it's my ADHD or what, but I found that, like the mental load of making food choices got so much bigger when I got rid of food rules, because although I understood that the food rules I had weren't healthy, they were too rigid. There's something about just having a bunch of rules to follow that makes it easy and automatic, and you don't have to, like, think, because now I feel like I go to the fridge and it's like, okay, I'm hungry. It's important to eat, and what am I going to choose? And it needs to be satiating. And let me make sure it has the proteins I need, but let me make sure that I'm not just doing that, just thinking about this meal. I don't want to be too rigid, okay, what if i Let's get something that's full. Okay, what if it like, I just feel like it's like, I have to now think about so much, and it's exhausting, especially if there's other things going on where it's like, okay, I really want to eat that, but I know that would be better for me. Okay. Well, I don't want to be, you know, food really, and only eat what I want to eat. Okay, well, but I don't want to just not think about my health and eat this thing. Well, I can put them together, but I don't actually want to put them together. Okay. Well, what if I did that? And it's like, so I find myself almost like, missing the food rules, or like thinking about clients saying, like, just tell me what to eat. Like, I remember saying that to a dietitian, and it wasn't she was like, No, it's about no rules. And I was like, I just want to do something just to be easy. And I think that's the hardest part, is it's like our intuition about food has been so damaged that it's like it works overtime now, yeah,
Dalina Soto 21:52
and I think again, you know, if I'm very if I'm being very candid, right? I think that that's one of the bigger issues with intuitive eating, is that a lot of people read the books, follow these lists that are posted on social media, but there's no one there to guide them through it. And then there's also the fact that, like, a lot of dietitians come in and they're like, I'm going to be intuitive eating. But then they also have their own sets of rules. And like, I talk about this in my book, not to plug it in. But I talk about like, why Intuitive Eating is so hard, and why so many people kind of like, take the food rules that they had before and kind of like, flip flop it for the intuitive eating principles and create another list of rules. So it's really, really hard, and I hold space for that, and it takes time to connect with yourself, connect with your body, so that you don't have to feel overwhelmed like that anymore. But sometimes you do need to have, you know, things available to you that you can put together. Sometimes you have to prep like, I think it doesn't again. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, because a lot of people throw the rules away and say, Screw this and then go to, like, a very unhealthy place, right? Where they're like, my dietitian said I could eat whatever I want, so I'm gonna eat three sleeves of Oreo cookies, and then I'm like, and then how did you feel afterwards? Because that wasn't a good feeling either, right? So you have to find a balance. It's not just eat all of the cookies or just eat only kale. It's, How are we going to live a life where food is in ruining your everyday because all you do is think sometimes, for that, for those purposes, you have to eat practically. Sometimes you do eat for taste, right? You eat for like, Oh, my God, this looks amazing. I might not be hungry right now, but like, I have just opened my fridge and I saw, like, a piece of cake, and I want to have a little slice of it. Sometimes you're going to do that, and that's okay. Sometimes you're going to prep ahead and have things available to you. Like, I just made violets, dense bean salad the first time. It was so good I'm going to eat it for lunch after this. But I'm like, Oh, I'm excited to eat because it's actually very delicious, and I prep that, and I've been eating it all week, like she said. And so it's working with somebody that's gonna understand you, right? You have ADHD. You need to work with somebody that's gonna help you, right, figure out what's best for you, not for the masses, but, like, what's gonna work for Casey, like, all right, maybe for you, we need to have a little bit more rigidity, not rigidity. Oh, my God, I can't even speak
KC Davis 24:27
English. Like, more guidance, though, you
don't have more guidance,
a bit more of a pattern, right?
Dalina Soto 24:32
Yeah, yeah, something that is beneficial for you, right? And we do see that a lot like, you know, many of us have a lot of ADHD symptoms. I am not going to self diagnose myself, but I think we do live in a world where it's just again. We're bombarded with a lot of decisions. So having some sort of guide is important, but it might not work for everybody, like for some people, meal prep doesn't work at all. So I'm just like, okay, what can we have? In your fridge that's no cook that we could just throw together for a meal or throw together for a snack. For other people, it's like, all right, you can actually afford to order out. So if you can afford to order out, why are you stressing? Because I can afford to order out. And I will tell you that I utilize that to my advantage a lot, because I have two kids, and they have soccer and they have dance and we're running around like crazy, and sometimes I'm like, we're just gonna order Thai food today, and it has a lot of veggies, it has protein and it has nutrition, and we're gonna eat it because that's what's available right now. And we gotta go. Or sometimes that, you know, there's a local company that does like meal prepping. If I like the menu for the week, I'll order and just have, like, you know, the breaded chicken already ready, the pasta already right? I'm like, throwing these meals together that a chef prepped, and we can do that, but I can afford that. I have that privilege. Not everybody has that privilege. So my job as a dietitian is trying to figure out, okay, what can we do to help you, right? And so that's why these, like, blanket statements of just like, eat, where you want eat, where you're hungry. Prep, this prep that is, like, that's not beneficial for everybody. And some people are gonna go off the deep end, and it's not gonna be.
KC Davis 26:11
I remember, like, the dietitian I was working with that did a lot of intuitive eating, you know, we kept trying to talk about, like, well, how does your body feel after you eat? You know, chicken versus a Big Mac. And I kept being like, yeah, it doesn't feel any different.
Dalina Soto 26:26
I was like, that Big Mac probably hit the spot.
KC Davis 26:30
Like, I'll admit that, you know, sure, maybe energy level, whatever. But I was like, but I just like, truly, I don't feel any different. And she finally, after we, like, kind of did that investigation for a while, was like, I mean, honestly, some people don't and, like, intuitive eating sometimes overstates the importance of, like, you know, just, you know, close your eyes and how does it feel, and eat it. And I'm like, I don't feel I always like a Big Mac
Dalina Soto 27:03
Exactly, exactly. It
KC Davis 27:05
was, in fact, like life changing. The first like, and this was actually like a piece of financial advice. I heard someone say where they were talking about how most of us are in this cycle where it's like, we're eating out too much, and we're like, okay, we're spending too much money, so we need to, like, stop eating out and just buy the groceries at home. But then, like, what we realistically do is we buy the groceries and then we still eat out, and we're all and the thing, and every week, we're like, I need to eat out less. I need to eat out less. And finally, I heard this person be like, I mean, let's be real. Just stop buying the groceries. Yeah, because they're going to waste. Because that's like, if we kind of look, and I just feel like that really felt good with, like, my whole approach to everything, and like, house cleaning and things like that. It's like, let's look at what we're doing and be realistic that. Like, if we were to look at our real patterns, like, the actual way to save some money here would be to, like, quit buying those things that are like turning into a puddle in the refrigerator every single week because we're just buying them as a way of atoning for how bad we feel for all of the takeout when, in reality, maybe there are some takeout choices I could shift for nutritional purposes or financial purposes, right? And then I'll stop buying the food that's like, going to waste in my fridge. And then, like, I actually still could address my money and my nutrition in a more realistic way,
Dalina Soto 28:36
yeah. And I think for me, like, I know my kids love fresh fruit. So we have all the fresh fruits. We have strawberries, we have blueberries, we have raspberries, Mango bananas, you know, apples, like mandarins. We have everything in my house at all times, but veggies. Veggies are not their favorite things. And you know, we're working on it. They're seven and 10. So I buy a lot of frozen veggies. Most of my veggies are frozen, except for lettuce, that's only I even buy frozen avocados. And people are like, what I'm like, Yeah, I just throw them in a blender, you know, or like, you thaw it out when you need them. But almost everything that I know is gonna potentially go bad easily, I'm gonna buy frozen so I, you know, buy my onions and peppers frozen, already cut up. That's a lifesaver. Because when I'm cooking and I'm making proteins and I want to add veggies to it, I'm like, dumping that in, right? I'm usually here alone for lunch, and I love pasta and peas, like, like, I go through, like, petite sweet peas, like crazy. Because any pasta that I'm if it's a creamy pasta, I'm like, oh, peas. I'm adding peas to this. So, you know, I love that. I mean, I love Aldi, I do. And so I buy their green beans. They have, like the fancy green beans. My kids do love those. So I buy them frozen, and I roast them in the air fryer, and they taste like they're fresh, because they actually. Hold more nutrition. I don't think people realize that veggies and fruits are flash frozen at their peak brightness, so that nutrition is intact while they're frozen, as opposed to, like, the fresh stuff that's at the supermarket loses nutritional value daily as it's sitting there. And again, nothing wrong with it. I'm not telling people not to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, but I'm saying that, like, you could have a little bit of both, and if it's going to be more cost effective, if it's going to be less waste, buy frozen and the air fryer is, like the most amazing piece.
KC Davis 30:32
I live by my there. I have never met a frozen food that I can't put it 350 for like, six minutes. That's
Dalina Soto 30:43
right, that's right.
KC Davis 30:43
That's where my green beans go. I don't even read the directions anymore. No, it's like, it's that or 12 minutes. It depends on if it's like a chicken breast, it's like, oh, that's a 12 minute. That's a 12 minute item right there. If it's smaller than that, it's like, oh, yeah, that's a six minute item. 356 minutes. I don't know why I started doing it with broccoli, frozen broccoli. I mean, everything
Dalina Soto 31:05
I do it with everything, I don't even use my my oven anymore, because that's what it technically is. It's a small convection oven that's just like tiny, and rotates the air quicker and hotter and dehydrates quicker. So it makes everything like crunchy. So that's why, I guess that like fry effect. But, like, I love to buy again. I go to Wegmans a lot. I don't know if people have Wegmans, but Wegmans has a lot of, like, pre prepped proteins. So my kids love breaded chicken. And yes, I could bread it myself. I could totally be Nora here and breaded myself, but I don't want to, and I can afford buying, you know, a six pack of, like, huge, you know, fresh patties that are just frozen and breaded, and I just have to throw them in the air fryer. They're raw. So I throw them in the air fryer and, boom, my daughter loves steak. It's so expensive. So I buy it and I freeze it and, you know, I'll air fry it when you know she wants to have it. So like I think, we have to start thinking outside of the box when it comes to nutrition and doing what's best for us, because cooking everything from scratch is not it, unless you want to love that for you, if you want to do that, and we have to lean into convenience, because cooking from scratch was created for the woman that was at home while the husband was at work. You know, 40 hours a week you're home, you're cleaning, you're cooking, we're all working now.
KC Davis 32:33
We don't have time for it, so we're gonna
Dalina Soto 32:36
lean into frozen things.
KC Davis 32:37
I forgot who it was that was talking about like, I think they were looking at like England, like through the ages, and they were like, the thing you don't realize is that like, this idea of like people cooking for themselves every day is like, a very new thing, because either there was, like, one person in your family who was cooking all day, or She was talking about how, like, the way that inns used to be set up, like, there's a reason why, you know, when you read your like books, or I always read, like, fantasy books that are kind of set in, like that England ish era. It's always like a tavern where you can rent a room, but there's also, like, someone serving food, you know, get your like, gruel or whatever, and they're like, that's how a lot of people ate, yeah. And I think, like, you were eating something someone else was cooking all day, like somebody, it had to be someone's full time job,
Dalina Soto 33:29
yeah. And I think, I also think in Latin America, right, a lot of people that were well off hired, they had somebody that was there, right? Like, the idea of, like, the Latina made, right? A lot of it comes from the fact that, like, you know, that was a job that a lot of women did for the wealthier families, or, like, the middle class families, like they had help, they had someone that was cleaning and cooking, even if they themselves weren't working. That was a sign of you being, you know, what's the word? Like, not rich, but like, just, you know, yeah,
KC Davis 34:06
somebody
Dalina Soto 34:07
privileged. You were somebody in somebody's town, you were married to the doctor, to the lawyer, you had help. And it's very, I think it's very new. It's a very new concept that now we're working, and then now we also have to do the eight hours of work at home as well. Like, give yourself some grace.
KC Davis 34:28
I haven't cooked. Like, I cook a little, but like, the full out, like, really make the protein and the two sides and some roll. Like, I haven't done that consistently and so long I do it when I think it's fun or when I really have a hankering for, like, a dish that's really nostalgic for me, but I will just never forget. Like, I had been married for five, six years, and I was making dinner every night. And like, first of all, I like, god bless my husband, who like. Since the day I met him, the words like, what's for dinner have never come out of his mouth. And I realized this one day, because, like, he came home and I was like, I'm so sorry I cooked dinner. And he was like, I don't care. And he was like, let's just order something. And then I started kind of, like, paying attention. And I realized that when he was asking about dinner, it was always, what do you want to do for dinner? Yeah, that's what we asked. I was the one responding, I'm gonna cook meatloaf. And he was like, Cool, right? And so, like, you know, five, six years in, and I'm just had a baby, and I'm like, cooking dinner. And I finally was like, I don't think I can do this anymore, and he's like, okay, like, I realized, like, Oh my God. Like, I have put this on myself. Yeah. I mean, society teaches that. Like, this man has never cared about whether or not we were eating dinner. And so, like, I quit. And so now I did. So now, like, I feed our kids at like, six o'clock, and you know, they're at that age where they're not eating big, huge meals anyway, so like, making their stuff is pretty simple, and then, like, I'll either eat what they're eating or I'll feed myself something. He gets home later, and if I've already eaten, he just fends for himself. And if I'm still hungry, we go, Hey, let's order something. And it's just, you know, I think that there's a lot of really important stuff to say about division of labor and the entitlement of men and the way that, you know society, sort of, you know, the disempowerment of women under the weight. But I do think it's important to point out that we sometimes put some of that weight on ourselves. We do. I mean, like, 100% the people in our lives can absolutely do that. So I'm not trying to say, like, it's our fault. We can just believe in ourselves and throw off the chains like but I do think that like, to a degree, sometimes, you know, the call is coming from inside the house on the whole like, I'm a failure of a adult or a mom if I'm not, like, cooking a dinner every night. Yeah,
Dalina Soto 37:08
yeah. And I think, you know, I remember before I had kids, I would be like, you know, because you go to school to be a dietitian, and they're like, everybody eats the same meal. Everybody says, you want to set these standards for your kids. I'm sure you learned that and there. And now I'm like, I'm sorry, but if my kids are like, I want pasta and chicken for dinner, and that's not what I want, I'm gonna make the pasta takes 12 minutes.
KC Davis 37:33
Thank you. I'm
Dalina Soto 37:35
gonna make them that chicken, and then I'm gonna have a meal I want. And you know what? We'll all sit together. You know, for the most part, my kids call it juicy chicken, but it's literally just like, I make chicken in the wok and it has like, soy sauce, and I make it with like, chicken broth, and it's just like a little like, has a little more wetness to it. It's juicy, they say. So they love that they could eat that every single day. So most of the time, like I said, like, I have the chicken cubed and prepped, like, I'll buy it, I'll cube and prep it. I put it in a big container, I'll season it, and then when they want juicy chicken, I'm just throwing it in the wok with all the ingredients, and then I'm giving them fruit. They always want pasta. They want pasta every day. And I'm like, that's fine. You could have pasta every day. I'm not having pasta, but we sit together, we have dinner. They have their pasta and juicy chicken, and they're, you know, fruit or veggie. And then, you know, my husband and I have whatever it is that we decided to eat that night for dinner, you know. But I think we also, I was very naive when I first started the diet. I would tell my patients this, like, no, your kids should be eating a yes, they should be, for the most part, you shouldn't be a short order cook, but pasta is not going to take that long, right? Like the chicken I'm making is not taking that long. Why am I going to fight with them?
KC Davis 39:01
I mean, little kids have so little control over their life as it is, you know, it's like, this is like, the one meal a day that it's like, yeah, babe, if you want pasta and chicken, I will make you pasta and chicken. I'll make it every night
Dalina Soto 39:14
of the week exactly. You want pasta chicken or strawberries. Here you go. You want some green beans in there. Love that for you capacity to fight. I mean, when they're babies, you obviously want to offer them a lot of more variety, and that's more when they're eating the same things that you are, right, because they don't have the ability to vocalize their choice yet. But I think I've also learned that we take the choice away from our kids in everything. It makes me sad. Like, you know, they're little humans too. They should have autonomy, and sometimes they don't like certain foods, and that's all right. Like, you don't have to force them. I think, as a parent, our job is to offer things, and they get to decide whether they like it or not, but we also have to offer it a lot, and I know parents get very discouraged, like, my kid doesn't eat it. Any veggies my kids doesn't need to do this. And I'm like, literally, you have to offer it, like, what, 2030, times for them to accept it. And it's like, my son is seven. He you could offer him all the green beans. He's still not there yet. But he did tell me. He's like, you know, Mom, you know you told me to try at lunch, like, to grab like, the cucumbers or the carrots. He's like, I actually got the carrots and I really like them. I'm like, Cool. So now when you buy lunch at school, you could have the carrots and an apple. He's like, Yeah, I think I could do that. Boom, done. He's eating carrots. Now,
KC Davis 40:33
yeah, they talk a lot about, like, oh, you expose them. You expose them. You know, you have them. Try it. You have them. Try it. But I feel like what we found is that nobody ever really talks about the actual first step, which is it just tolerating it on your plate. Yes, that too, yeah. Like, that's our only rule is, like, you don't even have to try it, yeah, but it is gonna stay on your plate away. You can't take it off your plate and put it on the table like it does need to stay on your plate. Like, listen for a four year old, like, that's actually a pretty big step that has to happen before you come around to the like, I guess I'm willing to take a bite or whatever so or
Dalina Soto 41:10
smell it, yeah, or touch it or lick it.
KC Davis 41:13
Well, that's yeah, like, looking at it and smelling it like is a part of the process. And so they are habituating to foods, even if they're not even before they're tasting them,
Dalina Soto 41:23
yeah, yeah. And having some sort of, like routine with it too, right? Like, I think, is also important, like, having them, know, like, I'm always going to put like, a veggie on here, or I'm always going to put a fruit, and again, knowing that, like, it's okay if your kid doesn't like the broccoli, like, there's a ton of other vegetables out there. You know, broccoli is not the only one. And I'm like, you know, why do we want kids eating fruits and vegetables, for the vitamins, for the fiber, right? For the minerals? If my kid isn't eating broccoli, I really don't care, because he's literally housing a quart of strawberries a day.
KC Davis 42:01
Seriously, I am keeping the strawberry business like
Dalina Soto 42:05
he goes to the blueberry pines of blueberries. Yeah, yeah. We do. We keep the Yes, yes. And, you know, I'm like, as long as he's eating fiber, and I know he's eating fiber because I see how much he poops, we're okay. I'm okay. He's getting enough protein, he's getting enough carbs, he's getting enough fiber, he's getting his vitamins. You know,
KC Davis 42:24
we're good. So before we end, I want to kind of loop back to where we started. Was the importance of people being able to connect with dietitians and nutritionists that at least respect people's connection to their cultural foods and all these things that we've been talking about, about, you know, food having more value than just fuel, and not getting caught up in food rules and things like that. I'm curious if you could just share like, have you seen people have clients come to you that have been with previous dietitians or are consumed previous sort of like, try self study about stuff. Like, what is the difference it makes to them to have someone not demonize foods that are culturally significant to them that, like, maybe, like white wellness culture would kind of demonize
Dalina Soto 43:21
I mean, yeah, we I know I have people break down in sessions all the time crying, because nobody's ever explained it to them in that way, right? I think the mainstream media, mainstream dietetics, is not going to look like me. It's going to look more like you, right? So when people find someone that's talking about it in a different way, they definitely gravitate towards it, and they just feel seen and heard. And you know how important that is when you're working towards, you know, any goals or any health, you know, values. So, yeah, I mean, I have seven dietitians on my team, and they all experience the same thing, right? Like, we all have people just kind of, like, it's like, they're able to stop the code switching. They're able to, like, kind of like, take the load off and be themselves during sessions without being judged. I think a lot of the times, you know, we hear from patients like, well, you know, I told them I ate, you know, Mexican food, and then the first thing they say is, don't eat tortillas anymore. And it's like, Well, really, I'm not eating tortillas every day, but thanks. There's a lot of like biases connected to our food. So I think when they get to work with somebody who like, can see food differently, especially from that cultural standpoint. And listen, we work with people from all over the world, and sometimes I don't know what their food is, and the first thing I say is, like, can you explain it to me? I've never heard of that. Like, can you tell me what it is like? Can you break it down for me? Because we don't eat food separately. So sometimes they're telling me about a dish, and I'm like, Oh my God, that's fiber. Oh my god, that has a ton of vitamin A. Oh my god, that is like, a full protein. And. Like, what nobody's ever told me that I'm like, Yeah, because they're not thinking of nutrition in that way, because that's not how we're taught in dietetics. Unfortunately, that could be a whole nother episode, but I think that when you work with somebody who understands your food and you and your goals and understands just that, like cultural context, it does make a huge difference.
KC Davis 45:24
Yeah, well, please plug your book for us and tell us where people can follow you, where they can find your book. Yeah.
Dalina Soto 45:30
So my book is coming out March 18 of next year. It's called the Latina anti diet, and it is available now for pre order, so you can get it anywhere books are sold. And, yeah, all my handles are you're Latina nutritionist on Instagram and on tick tock and on threads. But on threads, I'm not talking nutrition. On threads, I'm on head
KC Davis 45:52
coach. And, well, Delena, thank you so much for your time and for just dropping a whole lot of wisdom on us in regards to food, so yeah, thank you so much.
Dalina Soto 46:03
Thank you for having me. You.

Christy HausslerJanuary 18, 2025

127: Addiction Treatment is a Cesspool; Here’s How I Would Navigate It with Heidi Voet

Where can you turn when a loved one is in the throes of addiction and needs help? How do you know what professionals to trust and if a treatment center is reputable? So many questions surround the topic of addiction treatment, and it’s a murky industry. We are discussing the seedy underbelly of the addiction industry with my guest. Heidi Voet, LPC, is a longtime mental health professional and the owner of Chapter House Counseling and Sober Living. Heidi and I take on this important topic and explain why, despite the problems, we would still send a loved one into treatment. Join us to learn more!

Show Highlights:

Heidi’s take on the ugliness of the treatment industry
Understanding the medical model of treatment vs. the community model
12-step programs, legalism, insurance corruption, and integrity
The truth: Exploitation has bled into addiction treatment.
The real dilemma for family members
The struggle for political correctness while trying to intervene for an addict
Heidi’s advice to families who want to intervene:
Don’t intervene too fast.
Find the lowest level of appropriate care (think of a ladder of options).
Be wise and ask questions of the consultant, case manager, or interventionist. (“Are you on the payroll of a treatment center?”)
Speak to current clients, alumni, and families of the center.
Red flags in your interaction with a treatment center and helpful questions to ask
The need to consider gender-specific treatment
Why KC would never recommend a wilderness treatment center
Assessing a center’s approach to trauma, medications, and religious philosophies/affiliations

Resources and Links:

Connect with Heidi Voet and Chapter House Counseling: Website

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:05
Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I am your host, KC Davis, and today I have Heidi boett here in the studio with me. Heidi is the owner of chapter house counseling and sober living, and we're going to talk today about the seedy underbelly of the addiction industry and why we would still probably send someone that we love to treatment. Hi, Heidi. Hello. Thanks for having me. So you know, I feel like you and I, like, get on the phone sometimes and have like, gab sessions about, like, how much we hate the treatment industry, despite the fact that, like, I worked in it for a long time, and you still work in it and and so I wish we could, like, talk about some of these things, but I find it ironic that, like, when I talk about the treatment industry, and people are like, so then, like, what would you do if your child had an addiction, or, like, your partner needed rehab, and I'd be like, I mean, I'd send them to rehab. Like, I would still send them
Heidi Smith 1:00
to me, like, unfortunately, there's a need, you know, I mean, and I find myself, too, being really conflicted on my opinions, like you said. I mean, obviously I work in this industry, and there's times that, like, even in my head, I'll go back and forth to, you know, thinking, you know, how trashy this industry can be, you know, and how it's crazy. It can almost be kind of political, too. It's like all addiction treatment should be free. This is crazy that people are having to pay money and that people can't access good treatment if they don't have money, you know, all that stuff. But then, on the other hand, as a mental health professional who's worked really hard to educate myself and build a career, I also feel like mental health professionals deserve to be paid well, you know. So there's this, like, it's like, this double edged sword of, like, addiction treatment camp. I mean, how do you give good care for something and have the professionals that are doing it not be getting paid, you know? And so it's kind of a spiral down, you know, of the systems in place, especially in the United States, around healthcare and, you know, reimbursement rates and all of that, which I know is for another day, but it's all plays into, I think, why? Sometimes this industry can be really ugly,
KC Davis 2:08
yeah, and I think in my head there's like, you know, when I was coming up in the industry, a lot of the treatment centers really utilize, like, the medical model of addiction, where it's like, all we need to do is get you sober and give you some tips and tricks and then send you on your way. This is all we need to do. And there were other places that were doing more of like a community model, where they were really looking at, like bio, psycho social, like holistic healing. And I was like, see, that's what we need to be doing. We need to be doing community model. We need to move away from the medical model, and like theoretically, I still believe that. But the problem was, was that what seemed to be happening is that in the community model, it was like they were turning into little cults like you often the staff were themselves in recovery, and they were like, really married to their own kind of version of recovery. And a lot of the staff that were actually administering the treatment were just like 24 year olds with two years of sobriety that were being underpaid, and they're passionate, but underpaid. You
Heidi Smith 3:22
know, that's the other thing. Unique thing about this industry is that, you know, it's staffed almost exclusively by people in recovery themselves, and so, you know, and I mean, I know we're not talking necessarily about the troubled teen industry, but obviously there's an overlap. And I have that same and I know you've spoken to it a lot on Tiktok, but, I mean, I have the same conflicts around I mean, when I've watched some of those exposes on Netflix and whatnot, I sit there and I think, oh my gosh, this is so awful. But there's another part of me that, as a professional in this industry who's worked at facilities and been passionate about, you know, holding clients feet to the fire and, you know, and having a passionate philosophy of how to run a program and what was really best for the clients, and finding myself oddly feeling, you know, compassion for the programs that are being exposed, and thinking to myself, like, gosh, I think they were trying to help, like, I think they believed in what they were doing. It's like, it just, it can fall off a cliff real fast. So it's a lot of complexities
KC Davis 4:23
well, and I think to that, and it's not like, I mean, part of the irony of like dealing with an industry where so many of the professionals are themselves in recovery, is that, like a lot of people in my life, are in recovery from drugs and alcohol, and I feel like there's very few just like average, like people of average integrity. Like, if you just took like a section of the population, you would find some people that have, like, great integrity and are on, like a, you know, a spiritual path of growth, and, you know, being a better person. And then you. Have people who are just like malignant narcissists, who are bad, you know, people who are bad people, people who are here to like, you know, be deceitful and just get all for themselves, and they're sick and toxic. But I feel like the majority of the population are just like, you know, in the middle, like we're all selfish sometimes, but we all have good in us sometimes, and yada and maybe I'm biased, but I feel like all of the people I know in recovery, there's like, a very small portion that are of that, like, average integrity. It's like they're either super committed to integrity, or they're kind of pieces of shit, crap,
Heidi Smith 5:36
absolutely, absolutely because, yeah, because, I mean, if you kind of buy into the principles of the 12 steps in recovery. There's this legalism that comes with that, you know, the idea that, like, you really have to hold yourself to this very high standard if you want to not die, you know? And so, so, yeah, there is this kind of upper echelon of of high moral standards and high integrity. Or it's just, it's like, a bunch of guys with anti social personality disorder running treatment
KC Davis 6:06
centers, yeah. And so, like, you know, going into the industry, I was so, like, bright eyed and Bucha tailed, and, you know, I was like, This is gonna be great, because, like, we know what it's like to go through addiction. Like, we know what people really need, and and I'm gonna get educated, and we're gonna come together and we're gonna have and, like, it appeared to be that way, like people, you know, even staff, would talk about, you know, being accountable and having integrity, and, but then, like, the longer I stayed in the industry, I started to see just how, like, the dark side of, like, people who were in recovery, but like, weren't actually doing any personal growth work. And I'm not just talking about, like, relapse. I'm just talking about people who, like, they got sober, but like, they continued to be, like, morally bankrupt.
Heidi Smith 6:59
It's so unfortunate, because it ends up really, really affecting the lives of the people that are there to get help. Like, I will never forget,
KC Davis 7:07
like, being in, like, working in a treatment center and having, like, someone on the leadership come to me and be like, listen, there's this, like, client who is ready to discharge. But I think I like, I want you to figure out a way to keep her longer, because her insurance is paying us so much money for her drug test. And this was at the time where this was, like a big part of the addiction industry, where we, you know, you mentioned low reimbursement rates, like, it is truly a crime, how low insurance pays for treatment, and so what a lot of facilities figured out? And I truly believe, again, it was like, split like, I think some people figured it out of a
Heidi Smith 7:55
almost like a benevolent workaround. It was like, I'm passionate figure out how we can get more money to help more people. You know, yes,
KC Davis 8:02
like, I want to keep the doors open. I want it to be affordable. Let's figure out how to get these crooked insurance to pay. Like, here's a loophole. And the loophole they found was that, although there were tons of like, checks and balances and regulations around how much insurance would pay for, like, a therapy session or, like an intensive outpatient, some policies were paying like, hundreds or 1000s of dollars for a drug test, like you could bill them for every drug test at these insane rates. And then, of course, you had like, the dark side of it, where people were just like, I can get rich.
Heidi Smith 8:36
Oh yeah. I mean, it became an absolute phenomenon, you know. And what happened is that, you know, there was, it was all these very specific lab tests that everybody figured out, you know, kind of the medical end of your insurance, you know, people's insurance would pay astronomical rates, and you could do them, you know, five days a week. So, I mean, somebody could be in treatment for 45 days, and you could bill, you know, five days a week, insane amount of money. And you'd be people were making millions of dollars, sometimes off of clients lab tests. So then what treatment owners would do is they would start their own lab. So they realized, like, we could have our own lab. And so then there became a lot of ethical gray area, you know, around this whole drug test scheme, the federal government got involved, and I mean a lot, most of it's been shut down at this point. So
KC Davis 9:32
it was straight up fraud in a lot of ways. Because, like, it wasn't just the kind of test you would like send away to a lab. It was like, literally, the $3 cup from Walgreens, and you could bill insurance, you know, $3,000 for you dip in that. Like you could pay a 20 year old with two years of sobriety, like, $12 an hour to, like, dip P sticks into the $3 cups, and then bill insurance $4,000 and again. Yeah. There is this, you know, when it was people who were like, and then we take that money and we scholarship clients, or we pay therapists, yeah,
Heidi Smith 10:08
or we keep the people for longer we're able to extend their stay. Or, you know, yeah,
KC Davis 10:12
there was kind of this sentiment amongst the industry, which was like, I mean, fuck the insurance. Who cares? It's kind of like, when you see people be like, Rob from Walmart,
Heidi Smith 10:22
yeah, absolutely. And they're not, we're not making a sustainable income source, you know, from just the regular billing. So let's figure out some sideline stuff,
KC Davis 10:31
yeah? But then one of the things that started to also happen was that you'd get these guys who would open up sober livings
Heidi Smith 10:40
and and then they'd start a lab,
KC Davis 10:43
and then they'd start a lab. And so it's like, there's no clinical services. They're just literally people living in a house, calling it sober living. Maybe there's like a house manager that lives there, and they're drug testing 20 guys, you know, five days a week, and making 1000s of dollars and not putting that money, like, back into the program at all, just getting rich, just getting rich. Anyways, that was a bizarre
Heidi Smith 11:10
and at that point, if you if they relapsed, it would actually be better, because then you could just keep, you know, bring them back in and, you know, so that's where that kind of human trafficking, body brokering thing, you know, it's like, if somebody had good insurance, you know, you could almost sell them, you know, metaphorically, you know, to programs like, Hey, I got this guy, he's been shooting heroin, and he's got, but he's got great insurance, you know. And then it's like, hey, go pick him up on the side of the street and put him in your program. No one even cares if he's getting sober. You just care if he's his insurance is active, and you can bang his insurance for, you know, 12 drug tests a week. So it got really ugly,
KC Davis 11:49
yeah, like, body brokering was the term that we always use. But it like, it is straight up human trafficking. Like, Absolutely, it got so bad that people sober Livingston treatment centers would pay their like, I say this in quotes, but like marketers to go to 12 step meetings and, like, find the ones that were relapsing. And there were even, I mean, there were some rumors of, like, really corrupt places down in Florida that were, like, purposefully relapsing their clients.
Heidi Smith 12:21
I mean, it was absolutely insane. I guess the good news is, is that a lot of that has stopped, you know, and there have been a lot of protections that have come on the scene, you know, through the federal government and various, you know, credentialing that's required and things like that. But, I mean, it's a double edged sword, too, because, you know, it used to be with treatment. You either went to a treatment center, like you either had money to pay for treatment, or you had to go to kind of like a homeless shelter, indigent program. There was really not much in between. But once Obamacare came in and all the parity laws came in, insurance is now required to cover behavioral health and addiction treatment. So now that opened up this whole other Middle World where treatment centers can bill insurance. And so what's happened is, over the last 10 years, 10 to 15 years, the amount of treatment centers that have popped up in every city, I mean, it is exponentially larger than it was 15 years ago. So I mean, there's a treatment center on every corner, almost because insurance is required to cover it at the same they do for medical issues. So which is great. I mean, that was needed, that was needed, you know. But now back to the kind of the point of the podcast. I think it, it's like, how do you know which ones are good? And how do you know, what do you do when you need to send your loved one somewhere. And how do you figure out, you know, everyone says they're great online, but what does that really mean? And what do you look for? And it can leave it really confusing for the consumer. Yeah,
KC Davis 13:49
and I think, like, you know, there's even like, This is so weird, but I mean, men just suck sometimes, a lot of times, most of the time, and I'm so sorry if you're a man listening to this. Like, I have a lot of man in my life that I love, but men in general, like all of the like, systemic problems that we see men participate in politics and education. Like it's no different in the addiction industry, like it was commonplace for there to be some kind of big wig, and you would just find out, and you would just know on the down low, like, this guy is screwing clients. Like this guy is, like, I knew of like a CEO type one time who flew in a client from a different state under the guise of, like, she went to a program that, you know, I ran out there, and now she's relapsed, and I just want to bring her here a scholarship her. And then, like, you know, fast forward a few years, and it's like, oh, we realized that he was, like, sexually assaulting her. Yeah.
Heidi Smith 14:59
Yeah, yeah. It's like, unfortunately, it's like, the oldest story in the book, right? It's like, it's such a easy way. I mean, women and men that are, you know, in this compromised position of being sick with addiction, you know, a lot of times really lacking in resources. And you know, some ways it's like a breeding ground for people to come in and exploit them. And so it's a really unfortunate part of, I think, just the world in general, but it definitely bleeds into addiction treatment. I mean, yeah, like you said. I mean, there's a million stories. If you've worked in this industry, you know that you hear left and right so of sexual misconduct and
KC Davis 15:36
a lot of the stuff that came out about the troubled teen industry, where there was, like, these rehabs that were wilderness camps, where they would take teenagers to, like, hike through the wilderness, and come to find out there was a lot of physical abuse and neglect and clinical abuse, but I mean, even the facility, like the facility that I went to, wasn't a wilderness facility, but there was still some, like, pretty questionable interventions. Like, we weren't, like, starved or neglected, like, I think everyone that worked in my facility really wanted to help us, but again, the staff were, they were kind of going off book, like, just really intense interventions, lot of isolation, a lot of things that cause trauma. And I think what's really confusing for parents and loved ones is that they hear about like these horrors, and they think like, Well, how could anyone ever send their child to one of these places? And I think there's also like this comparison to like conversion therapy, where it's like, you know, it is horrible and traumatic and wrong to, like, send someone to conversion therapy, but where the metaphor breaks down is like, there's nothing damaging about being gay. Like gay doesn't need to be treated. Like addiction does actually need to be treated. Oh, yeah.
Heidi Smith 17:01
Well, I, I mean, I can't tell you how many phone calls I get from parents who, like, nobody wants to send their child to treatment, but, but they're crying on the phone and saying, but he can't stay here anymore. Like we have other children in the house. We have younger siblings. Like, he can't be here. He's out of control. So, like, I mean, you end up in a position where it's like, the lesser of the evils. He has to go somewhere, he has to get help. He's not well. It's not safe. It's not safe for my other children. And so, yeah, I mean, given choices of like, obviously, you know, your child doing great, and not having to send them anywhere, and then sending us. I mean, of course, nobody wants to do that, right? I mean, every kind of fork in the road like this is is in a really unfortunate situation where there's no good choices. But you know, I mean, there is still absolute need, you know, to be able to get a child or young adult or anybody you know, removed from their current living situation in their current environment to go get help. Like, I think that's always, there's always going to be a need for that. That's that's not going away. And so all the exposes in the world like, aren't going to remove the need,
KC Davis 18:12
yeah, and I think it's difficult when they're like, the theoretical conversations about, like, this should never happen, and no one should ever do this. And it's like, but then when you're actually a family member looking at your very real choices of like, okay, they can't stay here. I guess I could just kick them out, or go hide from them and have them on the street, but like, the reality is, it's like, if you have someone who needs help, you're forced to interface with the addiction treatment and all of its glorious potential and downside and dark side and upside. And the truth is, is that, like people do, go to rehab and get sober and get helped, and sometimes it at places that are kind of shitty, they get better. And sometimes people go to the best places in the most ethical places in the world, and don't get sober
Heidi Smith 19:04
well, and sometimes the path to getting freedom from addiction is traumatic, you know, I mean, I even think about your story. I mean, it's like, and I know you've shared some of it, you know, publicly, but it's like, I know there's a lot of it that was very traumatic. And is like, you look but it's like, I mean, here you are. That
KC Davis 19:22
was, what was there? Like, yeah, that. I mean, there is kind of this, like, you gotta break a bone to set it idea. And when people ask me, like, how are you not angry at your parents, I'm always like, I mean, what else should they have done? Like, they put me in therapy and I still used, and then they put me in outpatient and I still used, and then they put me in partial hospitalization, and I still used like I was gonna die, and like they had to choose between, like the trauma of me living in active addiction and dying, or like the trauma of me going to a place that, like I might still die, but there's a chance that maybe. I would get better, or that I would at least be like, held long enough to come to my senses or whatever. And it's a weird thing to make sense of, because on the one hand, like, I could say yes, it was traumatic and I deserved better, but like, look at me now. I'm sober and I'm happy and healthy, but at the same time, like, there are many girls that I went through with that are not that back in relapse, possibly with even more trauma, ones that killed themselves, ones that just, you know what I mean, and it's kind of like, it's almost like, when you're trying to diagnose someone, like on paper, you can talk all day long about the difference between autism and ADHD, or, like, what's bipolar and what's just, like, you know, a different thing, what is a narcissistic personality disorder, versus like, what's just a shitty human being? But like, those theoretical differences, like, it's that's a really different than looking at a human being that likely has, like, multiple overlapping factors in their life. So it's not as easy to pull apart, like it was bad and it shouldn't have happened, and therefore, I'm mad it happened, versus like it should have been better, but it's all there was. And I'm glad something worked, but it didn't work for every it's kind of like there's a bazillion things happening and there's not like a straight correlation.
Heidi Smith 21:15
Well, yeah, that, and that's what I think that that's why it's such a hard topic, because we can't pretend when you're trying to change somebody who's out of control, right? Like, let's go with the parent, somebody who's behaviorally out of control and then out of control with using substances. Like, that's not the same as treating somebody with a broken leg. Like, you know what I mean? Like you're dealing with somebody who actively has essentially a thought disorder. Like they they cannot, they're clearly not making correct decisions in their life, like they're and so it's like, ultimately, like, you know, even like the program you went to, it's like, the design kind of is to break your spirit. I mean, a little bit, it's like, and, I mean, no matter how much I feel like, you know, we've studied, you know, the process of change and human behavior, like that's not a perfect process, and so it's impossible to walk the line perfectly of balancing like unconditional positive regard for a person's autonomy and choices while they're suffering from a disease that's affecting their ability to make choices and their ability to think properly and to make proper choices for their own well being. And as much as I think, you know, we struggle with like, I think the political correctness of that, you know, of like, of how much are we allowed to intervene, you know, on someone's behalf, you know, it's just, it's a very hard industry, and I think we don't talk about that enough. Well,
KC Davis 22:38
what's ironic is that you'll see, like on social media, you know, an out of control teenager or, you know, like, I'll see a mom post, and you know that kid will swing on her, and the general feedback is like people criticizing the parent, and they say things like, you can't let him do that. You can't tolerate that. You can't stand for that. And what's always been interesting to me is like, the very thing they keep saying, like the parent needs to do, is very similar to what people often criticize facilities for doing, which is like, what do you all think that looks like to quote, unquote, not tolerate,
Heidi Smith 23:17
right? Like when you run a facility and like, one of the 16 year olds, like, spits in the face of the group facilitator. What are you supposed to do with
KC Davis 23:25
that? And it's that's not to say that we don't need like, we get it. We're a therapist. We understand the like, you know, all behaviors, communication, like, I know that you still have to manage the population, you still have to hold people accountable. You still have to, you know, address the straight up, like anti social behavior that happens. And I mean, I feel confident saying that as someone who exhibited a lot of that behavior, you know what I mean? But it's messy. And so that's a good way to put it. It is messy. And so here's the question that always gets posed to me when I talk about my experience in a teen industry is, what would you do? What will you do if one of your children needs treatment? And I just think that that's probably the most helpful question, because the reality is, like, there is no perfect solution out there, and even if there was, there wouldn't be a guarantee that it would work. So I just wanted to kind of talk, because, like, we're both parents, and we both have people in our life that we love, that are in recovery, and kind of, you know what, from our sort of, like, unique perspective of knowing how bad it can be, like, how we would navigate that system, absolutely, maybe an easy way to ask is like, start at The let's start at the beginning. Like, let's talk intervention, like that kind of realm, and tell me things that you like would and wouldn't do. So
Heidi Smith 24:48
I mean, the first thing, and again, this isn't going to apply to everybody, but I do think one mistake that I see is, I think there is a trend where families intervene. In too hard, too fast. So, I mean, that's one thing. I mean, I like, I've talked to, you know, my son's father, we've talked about this a lot, you know, like, we're only going to send, you know, hopefully we don't end there. But it's like, we're not going to do this whole sending him to treatment 10 times, you know what? I mean, like, if we're going to ever send him to treatment, we want to make sure he's willing and ready for it, you know? And it's like kind of hit a place of willingness and doneness. And so what I think happens is that there is a certain sect of parents that panic, you know, when their kids dabbling in drugs and they just immediately rip them out of school and throw them in treatment. I mean, that's one thing. And obviously there's a lot of nuances we'd have to, you know, you'd have to dive in as a professional to the whole story and everything. So, I mean, this is obviously, like, a very, very and
KC Davis 25:45
whether there's other, like, mental health issues with standing but yeah, the first time you catch Jared smoking weed at a Friday night football game, like, is not the time to, like, jump to an intervention, absolutely.
Heidi Smith 25:56
So I mean, that's honestly, like, where I would start kind of with your question is, like, making sure that, like, we appropriately intervene from the beginning with, like, the lowest and most appropriate level of care, if that makes sense. So I mean, I think one mistake that a lot of families make is is jumping the gun. And again, that would be very individual and specific for me to be able to kind of know who how that's happening, but I do see that, you know, so and it almost kind of blows your wad too soon, you know? I mean, it's like, you know, it kind of ruins the opportunity. So if you throw them and treat them when they're 16, then it's like, you kind of, I mean, then when they're 25 and they're really ready, it's like, well, now they have so much prejudice against treatment and so much hatred and trauma about treatment, it's like, and you kind of the money's
KC Davis 26:45
out. They know the game, yeah. So I'm curious if you think that there's like, because I think parents can make the opposite like, I totally agree with you. And I think some parents make the opposite mistake of, like, not intervening when they actually have like, the legal power to do so, yes, and you know, because sometimes you'll see parents, and it's like, they're coming to you, and the kids 19, and it's like, okay, this kid's been smoking crack since they were 15,
Heidi Smith 27:12
right? Like, geez, this would have been nice too.
KC Davis 27:15
Yeah, you like, you can't make this kid get mental health care anymore. And I do think that a lot of it to me, at least if I were to, and I know that's like, not helpful to be like, son, not too late, not too early. Don't get it wrong, or they'll fucking die. Get the timing right. Yeah. No, I think that there are some, like, tangible flags we could, like, lay down. Which one is like, I think the existence of mental health, especially if there are mental health issues that have predated substances Absolutely. Like, if you've had depression, anxiety, thought disorders, behavior disorders that predate the substances, like that would be a situation where I wouldn't wait, like, maybe they'll grow out of it, right?
Heidi Smith 27:54
Yeah? Like, that's a downward spiral that's probably not going to end well, you know, if we've already been struggling for years with other stuff. You know, that's gonna the escalation is gonna be significant. So, yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. And I also think
KC Davis 28:09
in if I had a daughter that I believed was at risk of being trafficked, which happened a lot, like if she's hanging out with 25 year olds, things like that. Like, I might actually pull the trigger on that, but I might some do some things first. Like, I might just move my family first. Like, that's another thing is, like, sometimes a kid does just need to be, like, put in a different situation, yeah? Like, taking a new Yeah, yeah. Like, I think there were some things even that I asked my like, I asked my parents to take me out of the private school that I was because I hated it I hated it. I wanted to go to the performing arts school. I wanted to and they really resisted a lot of those things. And I think obviously Hindsight is 2020 but like, I think there were ways that if I had been my parent, I think I would have listened a little more, like, who knows what could have been different if I could have gotten situated in a different peer group, in a different place, where I could have explored some passions, which I'm not saying, like, go super controlling about who they can and can't hang out with, because that always backfires. But like, I think, like before I sent my kid away to a like, long term residential treatment, or any treatment. I think the first thing I would do is move my family to a different state, like that would kind of be like, let's see if this, like, exhaust
Heidi Smith 29:28
all your options. I mean, there would be like, I mean, you definitely want to, you know, kind of like, climb the ladder of the options. I mean, to me, sending away is at the very top of the ladder, you know. So it's like, you know, like you said, I mean, yeah, do we need to move schools? Do we need to move, you know, cities? Do we need to move state? Do we need to, you know, remove ourselves from our current situation? Do we need to, you know, try this therapist. We need to try medication. Do we need, I mean, like, there's a million things you can do from home. And the nice thing is, is that these days is a lot more, I think. Because of this whole trouble teen industry, the idea of having case managers and kind of like in home social workers, has become much more accessible, like there's that's become its own industry of its own, where you can really hire a mentor, a case manager, who will get involved with your loved one while they're still living at home. You know, income and consultant, mentor and all of that. And so there's a lot of options now that are way outside, you know, above and beyond, having to remove them from the home. And so, I mean, I think that's and most of the professionals I work with are going to exhaust all those efforts, you know, especially someone who's under 18 before they send them out of
KC Davis 30:39
the home. And I think for any age, when you talk about, like, having an intervention and hiring an interventionist, I think that's fine. Like, I think it's fine to, like, want a third party that can, like, inform you about the industry and like, tell you about because the whole point is, like, some, like, every treatment center is going to tell you that they're the best treatment center, like they are sales people, literally, right? So like, be aware that when you're talking to a treatment center, and yes, they are going to make sure they meet criteria, and they will, you know, some places will say, like, Ah, they're not a good fit for us, but like, at the end of the day, they are sales people. And so like, I totally get and understand and think it's valid to go. I want someone to make a referral. I want someone to help us navigate this, but the thing that I would do is that if I was working with like a family manager or an interventionist or a case manager, I would ask specifically if that person gets any type of payment or like remuneration for referrals, meaning there are people. And this is really unethical, but it happens, who a treatment center will come to an interventionist and be like, Listen, you know, we'll pay you 1000 bucks for every person you refer to us. Yeah? And so, like, I would ask that outright. I mean, I know some people will lie, but I'd ask it.
Heidi Smith 31:57
Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's a baseline question for any kind of consultant, case manager, interventionist, it's like, are you on payroll of treatment centers, you know, are you getting kind of pay for play, you know, do you get, you know, and really asking them their process of how they do treatment placement, and, you know, have they, I mean, another one is, you know, a lot of, there's a whole kind of industry called education consultants, And so, you know, a lot of and therapeutic consultants, and so a lot of them will not refer to a program that they haven't visited in person. And so, I mean, I think there's a lot of criteria you can ask, like, if you know, how do you decide how you refer, you know, and what are your ethical boundaries around, you know, being paid for referrals and things like that. And I just, I don't think anything can beat. I mean, I guess this kind of just jump in the gun, even to placement of treatment, nothing can beat, you know, like individual conversations of people who have worked with that person or been to that treatment center, like there's Google reviews are all paid for. And, you know, that's all. I don't trust anything on Google, you know, I mean, and so the first thing I would do if I was going to work with an interventionist or a consultant, or work with or want to send my son to treatment, the first thing I would say is, can I speak to some current clients, some alumni? Can I speak to some families? You know, of current clients, moms and dads or families of alumni. I mean, that is one of my favorite things, is when I'm talking to a family and they ask for referrals, I think it's like, just the most raw, beautiful thing to ask, like, you know, what can I talk to another mom whose son is there? Absolutely, it's like, the smartest question you could ask me. You know, because
KC Davis 33:41
the thing about like, the online reviews is that if they're good, you'll never know if they're just paid for, and if they're bad, you never know if that's just a disgruntled client, like, who has, like, severe issues and like, the amount of clients that like because I held them accountable, or because I, like, refuse to allow them to, like, enact violence on someone, or because I wouldn't put up with their bullshit. Like, who will then turn around and be like, she is abusive, she's an incompetent counselor. I mean, like, obviously, that's how that goes. And so you don't really know how much of the criticism is just, sort of just gruntled ex clients, how much of it, or how much of it is real, and I almost trust,
Heidi Smith 34:23
I mean, when a treatment center has some bad reviews, I mean ones that just have 5005 star reviews, like, that's sketchy, you know. I mean, that's almost I'd rather have an authentic, you know, platform where it seems like people are, you know, are authentically leaving reviews. But, yeah, no, absolutely. And that's the hard thing is, you've got a lot of clients that are, you know, in the grips of addiction, you know, maybe they were kicked out, they were sent back to jail, you know, they lost relationships or whatever, and they're pissed.
KC Davis 34:51
I want a three star review, like, I want someone who can be like,
Heidi Smith 34:55
yeah, that was good. You know, there could have been some were better, but they were kind or, you know. So, yeah, absolutely.
KC Davis 35:01
So tell me what your like red flags would be if you were, like, interacting with a treatment center. So
Heidi Smith 35:09
I mean, one of my, and this may not be popular, one of my things that I would inform somebody about the treatment industry these days is that there are treatment centers that are owned by huge corporations. Like, you know, they're managed by, like, these big hedge fund conglomerates. I don't know all the right words, but you know, like, you know, money people, you know, our banks own them, basically, you know, and and then there's treatment centers that are still owned by individuals who are passionate about helping people. And so I can tell you hands down, if I had to send my son to treatment, I would send him to a program that was individually owned, you know, by a person, a couple, a family, you know, who was passionate about working and helping people, as opposed to a program that was owned by like a huge, a big conglomerate or corporation, and that may be controversial, and I'm not saying that those programs can't provide good treatment. I You're asking me what I would look at for my son, you know, I would go to more of kind of a private, individually owned, smaller program. So I don't know what your thoughts are on that Casey, but so
KC Davis 36:23
yeah, I think I mostly agree with you. I might even try to, like, ferret out like a third option of, like, a non profit owned, yeah, or, like a foundation owned, which there are fewer of those, only because, in my mind, like the downside to the ones that are owned by the hedge funds it's like, usually what happens is, they come along, they either start it up or they buy it from somebody else, and they gut it and they streamline it. And everything is about efficiency. Everything is about the bottom line, and they lose a lot of like, good treatment that way. So, like, that would be my hesitation of why I wouldn't want to do that. For that reason. I think it is better to get an individually owned or family owned place, but I think that I would still have my own personal like, I want to know, like, what's their deal? What's your philosophy? What's their deal? What's your philosophy, you know, and if you're the owner, it's like, what's your involvement? Like, I want to know that the people who are mostly making clinical decisions are, like, licensed clinical practitioners. They're therapists, their social workers, things like that, like,
Heidi Smith 37:25
are you state licensed? Are you accreditation body? I mean, there's, yeah. I mean, there's definitely questions you can ask. I want that to make there's accountability, you know, there's, you know, people don't even know to ask that kind of stuff. So, yeah, what are the licenses of your counselors, organizations do you belong to? What accrediting bodies or provide oversight? What, what city, county and state, you know, licenses do you have? You know, what kind of inspections does your facility have? All of that, you know. So I think I mean, and it's a lot, but, yeah, absolutely, because you don't want it to be too much of a mom and pop program too, you know, like a legit program that's that's well run. So I think that finding that balance is important. I
KC Davis 38:12
think what is helpful to do in those cases of when you're talking to someone is, I always think asking to see their policy or asking what their policy is. So it's like, what's your policy when you know there's a relapse? What's your policy if there's like, because I don't want someone who's like, oh yeah, what we do is like, I want someone who can be like, well, here is like, on paper. Show you like, what happens, or, you know, what happens if there's a fire in the building? Like, what do you do with the clients? What happens if they run what happens if you know whatever, like, I would want to know those things. I also if it was a child, like, one of the things that happened when I was in treatment was that there was about six months where they wouldn't allow me to talk to my family. Oh, God. And they convinced my family that that's what was best for me. And here's the thing, this one's hard because, like, I have occasionally gotten clients where the family was so toxic, you genuinely felt as though, like this person is going to be better without the influence of their family. But as a parent, I would never allow a facility to block access to me from my child or vice versa,
Heidi Smith 39:17
and as much as like and the truth, I've kind of gone full circle with that. I mean, I've been in this industry for over 20 years and I mean, again, like, there's actually, I mean, therapeutically, I think that's beneficial a lot of times, to have separation and communication. I think a lot of times the client's toxic for the family, and the client is, you know, bullying the family and screaming at them and being really emotionally and verbally abusive and terrorizing them. And there's all kinds of like, legitimate reasons why I think not communicating would be like a great therapeutic intervention, but in this day and age, I just don't think it's an approach. It's an appropriate thing to do for longer than a couple weeks. I mean, like, there's no way that I would send my son to a treatment center that didn't let me regularly. At least once a week, right? Like, have just, are you okay? Are you being fed? Are you, I mean, are you safe? Do you feel okay? Do you need anything? I understand that, like, you've got to submit to kind of the treatment program and all of that. But, yeah, having that level of isolation, I just, I've come full circle with that, and I'm just not on board with it. I just don't think you can do that.
KC Davis 40:22
Yeah, speaking of isolation, I think one thing that I would ask is that I would ask the clinical like, what are your interventions, in terms of, like, do you use behavior contracts? Like, do you use isolation? Do you use like, I'm trying to think of the best way to put this, like, I don't want there to be a situation where someone's deciding, like, the therapeutic move here is that, like, we're not going to allow anyone to talk to you, right?
Heidi Smith 40:52
Like we're going to alienate you and make you sit at a table by yourself for a week and no one can talk to you. Or, yeah,
KC Davis 40:58
I'm not into that. I'm not into that. Like, I want it to be clinical and professional, and I'm fine with people being very, you know, they don't, they don't need to, like, talk all fancy, like, if you need to tell my, you know, kid, they're full of shit, great. But like, I'm not down with any of that weird or,
Heidi Smith 41:17
like, some psychotherapeutic and psycho dynamic and psycho dramatic interventions, right? Like, I think, think there's a place for doing some really, like, interesting therapeutic work that involves, like, hey, let's have a funeral for your, like, ego. Or, you know, like, I mean, death can be great, but, like, when it crosses over into alienation and isolation, yeah, I mean, and, I mean, most states, I'll have clear guidelines about that too. I mean, that's, you know, like, you know, when you have a state license. I mean, there's very clear cut guidelines about that stuff, but, but it is, I mean, and that's where, like, I get it, like, kind of, as a clinician who likes psychodynamic therapeutic interventions, like, I see both sides of it, I get that kind of 70s Gestalt, you know, kind of, like, I don't know, like, kind of being able to create experiences for somebody, you know, that carry
KC Davis 42:09
this rock around and you're not allowed to put it down. And then we'll talk about how you won't let go of things like,
Heidi Smith 42:14
like, put the bricks in your backpack and don't talk, you know, all that. I mean, I can get with it, you know. But like, there's just a certain point at which there's, there's lines you just can't cross. There just are, I mean, there's just lines you can't cross. And sometimes it kind of sucks as a therapist to be like, Man, that would be really powerful if we could do that. And the rest of the team's just like, Yeah, but we can't. Like, we can't,
KC Davis 42:35
yeah, my thing about those, like, kind of creative things. And another example would be, like, there's a facility out in Montana that has, like, a ropes course that they make you do blind, and it's all about, like, letting go of control, like, I'm talking about, like, kind of, like, weird, creative stuff like that, right? I think some other examples were, like, carrying the rock around, putting the brick in your backpack, you know, having to write everything down in a notebook before you say it out loud, like, all that kind of stuff. I think for me, it really comes down to two things, and like, one is time limit and the other is consent. Yes, absolutely. Like, I think if you want to do something like hippy dippy, like that, as a clinician, I'm okay with 48 hours of that, and I'm okay if my child says, Yes, I will do this. I'm willing to do this to see what it looks like. And I think if
Heidi Smith 43:21
it's a minor, obviously the parents have to be on board too. And I would add to it is their humiliation involved. You know, that's like that old school, right? Like, where you even, I think, on some movies about treatment, where the person's having to wear like, a sign around their neck that says, like, Don't speak to me, or, you know, like, you know, that kind of stuff. Like, when it involves humiliation, I think that's where you start walking that fine line. And again, I completely agree. It's like, that's where there's consent involved. There's it's just that stuff has to be handled very, very, very carefully,
KC Davis 43:51
basically, like anything outside of just talking, yeah,
Heidi Smith 43:55
and I love that stuff. I mean, that's like, the thing, and that's that part of me that's like, ah, you know, like, when I watch these exposes and stuff like, and they're talking about things they did as the other part of me is like, I think I know what the team was trying to do. You know what I mean? And I get that when they're describing it, it sounds so abusive. But like, from my perspective, I'm like, I think they were trying to, like, do this therapeutic intervention, and it just fell flat, and again, ended up being really abused or but like, there's part of me that really can see both sides. So
KC Davis 44:26
I mean, listen when I talk about how in treatment, I was made to write down on newspaper, like, all the things I wouldn't let go of, like friends and drugs and art, like images and whatever, like things about, like, a drug subculture, and put it in a big trash bag, and I had to carry it around with me. And then they put, like bricks and balls in it, so it was heavy and big, and I wasn't allowed to put it down. And the whole shtick was like, you know, it's gonna be hard for you to, like, move throughout the day, but this is, like, a representation of, like, all. This stuff you're carrying around with you that you won't let go of, that's really hindering you. And, like, I don't necessarily, like, have an issue with that. Conceptually, the problem was I was not given a choice. Yeah, I was given that as a punishment for having been caught cheating on schoolwork. I was not given a choice, and they made me carry it for six months, oh gosh. Like, oh my gosh, even on like, family visitor day, where I was, like, humiliated because I was like, the girl with the trash bag, yeah, never could I put it down during meals, when I slept, it was in the bed with me. Like, I think that is what made that traumatic and humiliating and not a creative, interesting experience that really could have stretched and grown or whatever. I just think you can't force that stuff on people as much as you want to. Absolutely,
Heidi Smith 45:47
it's such a good way to put it. I mean, six months is crazy, yeah. I mean, the other thing you know that I would say is really considering you know whether you need gender specific treatment. If I had a daughter, I think, you know, if I had a 22 year old daughter that I needed to send a treatment like I'd probably want to send her to a women's only program. And maybe I have some personal bias or whatever, you know, to unpack there. But I mean, that's just for just kind of and just I don't know. I just know too much. I just know. I know what happens at co ed programs a lot of times, if they're not run, I mean, extremely well. I mean, I think you can pull off good co Ed treatment if you have, I mean, if you're, you know, that's the other thing I would ask. It's like, if it's a co Ed facility, like, how are we, you know, protecting, you know, from frat organization, because otherwise that will become the entire purpose of the client's existence is just to figure out how to date and treatment, and it's just kind of a waste. So
KC Davis 46:53
I also think, like a big thing for me, would be asking about how trauma informed the approaches, and I would want a really specific answer to that, like, I wouldn't want, like, a vague answer. I would want to know how they identify trauma, how they assess for trauma, how they treat trauma. Because, like, there just isn't, there just isn't going to be hardly anyone seeking out, like, addiction treatment that doesn't also have trauma, and I think that part of the things that I've seen turn like unethical or abusive. Sometimes they do so because someone is just genuinely trying to be abusive because they're a bad person, but oftentimes it is more a result of like, either a clinician or a non clinical staff, like kind of going off the rails and not being trauma informed, not having an appreciation for what trauma is, or understanding trauma. I also, and I know people are going to call me snobby for this, but I want to know what level of licensure the clinical staff has, because I know it takes an associate's degree and some studying to have, like, a chemical dependency licensure in a lot of states, and I just wouldn't send and I'm not saying that there aren't people out there that have that that are kick ass clinicians. I'm just saying, if I don't know you, I want someone that has a graduate degree. I want someone with a master's level clinical degree? Yeah,
Heidi Smith 48:23
absolutely. I mean, we used to joke, there's some, you know, licensures out there, that it's like, it all it takes to get is two proofs of purchase and a letter from your mom, you know. And it's, you know, like, it's like, you'd like to know that the person has some education, some experience and but, you know, I can't be missed, even when you just said, some people might call you snobby, like just I think it's important even this whole conversation. It's not lost on me that this whole conversation is assuming their privilege. You know what? I mean, that like that we have the people we're speaking to have choices about the treatment center that they send their child to, you know, and that they're going to be able to be real picky, and that they're going to be able to be able to call and interview and ask all these questions and like, you know, it's sad that mean a lot of people just they're going to have to go to the program that's a network with their insurance, or they have to go to the program that's free and covered by the state. And so I just want to acknowledge that I don't have even have a solution to it, but I just want to acknowledge that the idea that somebody can be so picky and have all these questions and all these interview questions and all these criteria is assuming some level of privilege, you know, that you're going to have really kind of the pick of the litter, you know, and choices where you send your child and, you know, maybe you can send them out of state, and maybe you can afford to private pay and like, you can do all these things where a lot of people don't have those choices. Yeah,
KC Davis 49:42
and I think that's it's important to acknowledge, and it's important to acknowledge that, like, there are very few nevers like, Honestly, the only never on my list is that I would never, ever, ever send a client to a wilderness treatment center that's like, one of my never. Like. If I had to choose between wilderness or nothing, I would choose nothing. And that's saying something, because I don't think if you asked me, like, should you send your kid to the place that's like, you know, I don't know, Bill in their P tests, if that's truly the only option, I'd be like, Yeah, send them right? Like, I would send someone to a shitty place, if the option was a shitty place or nothing, because at least there's going to be some exposure to some recovery language, recovery concepts, recovery world, so that you know, they would know kind of how or when to reach out to those types of people. And I even know that people talk about, like, oh, we sent my sister away. She came back worse. Or, like, I went to treatment and learned about how to do harder drugs. I don't necessarily, I mean, again, like you said at the beginning, like, if you've jumped the gun way too early, and you just, like, have a kid that's smoking pot. Like, yeah, that could happen. But I know for me, like, I mean, I was hanging out with people that were, like, smoking crystal meth, like I wasn't, like, learning about hard drugs in rehab. Like, wasn't really, it's not like I wasn't learning about them anyways, like I was going to learn about them. I was hanging out with people doing those drugs,
Heidi Smith 51:16
I would say nine times out of 10 when it's a manipulation that, you know, a kid calls their mom and dad on their Sunday phone call and whispers in the phone and says, there's all these big bad guys here that are teaching me more about drugs than I ever knew. Usually, like, that's a that's attempt to get Mom and Dad scared, you know, and get them to pull you out of treatment. But I mean that again, that's, there's some bias there, but, but, yeah, like you said, I mean, you don't land yourself there, you know, because you're like, innocent snowflake, you know. And so that's usually a technique that I see. You know, guys in my program, and programs I've worked in use to scare mom and dad into bringing them home,
KC Davis 51:56
yeah. And I do think that's why, like, I want to have my kid assessed by a therapist or someone before I ask someone who is related to a treatment center, do you think they need treatment?
Heidi Smith 52:10
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, unfortunately, it's like, yeah, as we're talking about this. I mean, I keep being reminded of like that. I mean, if you have resources. I mean, in a lot of ways, you do get what you pay for, you know, like, when I think hiring an education consultant or a therapeutic consultant, like, can be very valuable, you know, to help like that out and get, like, really good testing, you know, like, and get really good assessments, and, you know, and really, like, find the right fit. And, you know, based on their trauma and based on this, do they need gender specific? Do they need, you know? And there's amazing resources out there for that. It's just not something everybody can access. So, but yeah, I'm trying to think what else would be a big part of what I would ask, yeah, I'd be real curious, too, about medication management. We get a lot of guys that come, what I would call, like, out of shitty treatment centers that it's astounding, like the mismanagement of medication, like they show up and they're put on like, seven different psychiatric medications that don't even make sense, you know, they're like, a 30 day treatment, and they leave with, Like, you know, seven prescriptions for just an outrageous combination of medications. So I would say that would be another huge thing that I would kind of be on the lookout for, is, you know what their philosophy is around that,
KC Davis 53:32
I think also on the topic of medication, one of my like, that's one of my big ones, is like, if they're over medicating, which I know is kind of hard to ask, but just asking about medication in general. But another flag for me is if they have medications that they and I'm not talking about like a sober living or a place where, like, that client's gonna, like, have their medication on them, but like a place where they're handling medications, if they have, like, an automatic No, like, medications that a person is on, that's honestly a red flag for me, and I know that that's hard, because a lot of places have it, but like, a lot of the places that I worked, it was like, Yeah, we don't allow Adderall. You can't take your Adderall here. And as someone who has, like, a late diagnosis ADHD that just wouldn't fly. Like, you're not taking my child off the medication that they need. Oh, yeah, because you're afraid that they're, you know, it's gonna get whatever or like, if when you have chronic pain patients, when you have ADHD medication, like, I also, personally would want a place that is open to medication managed recovery if somebody's on opiates, like, I don't want a place that's religious in their abstinence. Like, I don't want them like zealous about, like, Oh, we're abstinence only, meaning, you know, no medications or only certain types of. Occasions, or you can't be on Suboxone or methadone, or any of that kind of stuff.
Heidi Smith 55:04
Yeah, it's like, it's the idea that, like, we have a box that all the clients have to fit into, versus, like, Hey, we're going to be individualized enough to kind of build a box around each specific client to what makes sense to them. And I think that's a lot of you know, and I think at the same time, like, I think, you know, owners of treatment centers like, have the autonomy to have their philosophy, and they get to have, you know, their way of doing treatment, you know, obviously, if it's ethical. But I also think that, like you said, I mean, I think making sure that you ask those questions, and if somebody that that's like, there's your sign, you know what? I mean, if they're like, Oh, well, you can't take Adderall here, it's like, well, clearly this isn't the right place for my child or, you know, but I do, I think that's also, I mean, I do think it's a red flag of like, of really being able to realize, especially when you're working with adolescents and people with dual diagnosis, you know, it people are really close minded to like their one philosophy, you know, and that you have to fit inside this very specific box, and that's just information that it may not be the best place for you or your child.
KC Davis 56:06
And I also think that it would behoove people to ask about like, whether they use 12 step, whether there is like, spirituality or religion, not because I think that there's like one right answer, but because I think if you feel strongly about those things, I don't think you want to accidentally discover that, like they're talking about God,
Heidi Smith 56:25
yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, I think that's why, like, it's very important for families like to take their value system and find the program that fits for them, you know. I mean, I know my parents, you know, were conservative Christians, and you know, if they had looked at a treatment center for me or my sister, like it would have been very important for them to find a program that was not it minimum wasn't working against their Christian value system, you know, like, I just know them, I know they wouldn't have wanted to send us to some kind of, like spiritual Why can't I think of it, you Know, Like witch doctor place in like Santa Fe I'm not maybe, you know, like, where there's like, shamans, and you know, that wouldn't have worked for my parents. My parents would have been petrified and terrified that, you know, whereas another family, you know, that might be exactly what they want. And so it's like, yeah, it's just knowing, like, based on your value systems, like, what questions do you need to ask?
KC Davis 57:19
So Well, I think that is, I could have, like, a more comprehensive or easier checklist, but I think that that's a pretty good summary. The Heidi, thank you so much for the time. And do you want to plug yourself and your place? If anybody is looking for somewhere? Oh, sure.
Heidi Smith 57:35
I mean, you know, we're in Dallas, and our program is called chapter house. Our website is chapter house recovery.com. We work with young adult men, and you know, even if that's not what you need, I'm always happy to be a resource. You know, for anyone, especially in Texas, that's looking for treatment or has questions about sending their children to treatment, you can always email me. My email is on our website. You

Christy HausslerJanuary 11, 2025

126: Your Sensory Health Matters with Virginia Spielmann, Ph.D.

Sensory health goes far beyond discomfort with a scratchy fabric or loud noises. If you are not familiar with sensory health, this episode will be full of new concepts and revelations for you. You WILL realize how important sensory health is for each of us! My guest is Virginia Spielmann, an occupational therapist who did a TEDx Talk on this topic. She explains sensory health, why it’s important, and how it matters in every area of life. Join us to learn more!

Show Highlights:

Virginia’s background and journey to her work today
Sensory health: “how” we feel, what we do with it, and why it connects to everything about our psychological well-being
Understanding sensory health as the bridge between mental and physical health
Active lifestyles and exercise don’t look the same for everyone.
Differences in sensory processing
How we unintentionally gaslight our kids’ sensory reactions
The importance of being curious as a parent
Finding a balance between accommodating and exposure/growth
Understanding systematic desensitization
Comfort AND challenge—not comfort OR challenge
The #1 intervention for improved mental health? Dance and other forms of big play
An overview of the STAR Institute’s programs, services, and events

Resources and Links:

Connect with Virginia Spielmann and the STAR Institute: Website and TEDx Talk

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:04
Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle. Care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and today I have Virginia Spielman in the recording studio with me. She did a TED talk called your sensory health matters. Here's why, Virginia, thank you so much for being here.
Virginia Spielmann 0:19
Such a pleasure. Thank you so much, of course. So before
KC Davis 0:24
we get into I have so many questions. My first question is like, what do you mean by sensory health? But even before we get to the first question, why don't you tell us why this is an area of interest and a little bit of your background. I
Virginia Spielmann 0:38
am British occupational therapist by training? Well, I wasn't trained to be British, I guess I was, but I started in my journey in the UK, and very quickly within the field of occupational therapy, found this specialist area about sensory integration, which is really simply put, the science of how we feel, what we feel, and then what we do with it. And it's connected to everything. It's this bizarre piece of information that should be common knowledge, and yet it has this sort of strange mystery about it. I suppose people who are neurodivergent often have differences in how they feel and what they feel and what they do with it. And of course, it varies tremendously from person to person anyway, irrespective of where you fall in the bell curve. So it was something I discovered very early in my journey as an occupational therapist, and captured my fascination and attention. I so I studied at undergraduate level, did my dissertation on it and looked at it, have looked at it since then, sort of studied it since then, and my masters, my PhD, yeah, and it's still slightly shrouded in mystery. You know, we still only get taught about five senses at school, and it's just a huge part of psychological well being. There's, it's hard to find aspects of life that aren't touched by this, and it's so poorly understood. So it's captured my fascination for a long time. Of course, it's not just cognitive, though. It's also because I am neurodivergent. I discovered a few years ago, much to many people's complete, unsurprised and differences myself in how I sense and feel things. And so you sort of start off thinking interesting and academic and intellectual, and then you go, well, it's also about me. I'm learning about me. So, yeah, that's sort of a journey of self discovery buried in there somewhere as well.
KC Davis 3:01
I feel like we're always the last person to be surprised by discovering that we're neurodivergent in some way. And I like when you talked about you had this small reference just then where you said, and you know, it's not just neurodivergent people, like everyone can experience, sort of like a range of the way that they interact with their senses. And I always find it helpful to like keep reminding especially audiences, that like, the point of the term like neurodiversity isn't that there's this like, hard line between like, neurodivergent people and neurotypical people, but that like within the realm of just peopleing, it's normal for even a quote, unquote, neurotypical person, or, let's just say, like a non autistic, non ADHD person, to have differences in a spectrum of how they experience the world from a sensory perspective. And I think that that is you're kind of one of the first people that I've heard talk about that to a broader audience, other than just, you know, someone who's neuro divergent. And so let's start there. Like, what do you consider sensory health?
Virginia Spielmann 4:16
Yeah, I love everything you just said, I mean, and also remembering that the spectrum is, you know, not a linear it's not a binary line from black to white with it's this three dimensional spectrum of, you know, color and variation. And you know what we sort of have, of course, you know, reduced how we view being human down. It's we have this very reductive perception, and we have this idea that there's one right way to be human, and there's, do you know, I just it's probably the worst quote in the world, but it always pops in my head Morgan Freeman in that awful Robin Hood movie with. Evan Costner, and the child calls to him, why did God paint your face? And he says, Because Allah loves wondrous variety. And for some reason that stuck with me as just very profound statement. And you know, it's a beautiful thing about being human, that we are so different and we show up so differently, and we perceive things so differently, and yet we're always looking for the binary, even with health, right? We can have a one dimensional view of health, or maybe, you know, we are very evolved, and we think about physical health and mental health, which, you know, is still an argument and shouldn't be. But then you have this other aspect of how we feel, and I feel there's something about sensory health that is has huge overlap with embodiment. And you know, this drive to be in our bodies again, connect to the wisdom of our bodies, and the idea that, well, we can't just learn things in our brain. We need to have embodied experiences of things to really master them. There's that sensory piece for me, and it really almost bridges between mental health and physical health. This how we feel, what we feel, what we do in response to it. Sensory health is optimizing the processes that help you make sense of your day to day, make sense of what you sense. Make sense of your relationships. Make sense of moving around in space and in childhood, and I mean, in adulthood, hopefully we've mastered that a bit more, some of us, more than others. Well, it's
KC Davis 6:38
interesting. I feel like my met this age where my doctor is like, hey, like, if you've never really been like, a super active person, like a physically active person, he's like, now is the age where I need you to become one like this will be really important for your health, going your physical health, going forward. And one of the things that I've been thinking about my, like, lifelong hatred of exercise is that, like a lot of that is kind of a sensory aversion, like I am very temperature sensitive. I don't regulate heat very well. Once I get hot, it takes me a very, very long time to cool down. Like my husband laughs because I sleep on we have to have like a mattress cooler that circulates like 50 degree water underneath me. Otherwise, the body heat between my body and the mattress wakes me up. And listen, I've had like hormones tested. It's not like a hormone problem, but you know, for me, it's always like sweating and being hot and the feeling of movement when you're like, moving in an uncomfortable manner. I always used to joke that, like, exercise combines the three things I hate the most, which is being hot, being sweaty and being like, no, it's being hot, being bored and being in pain. Oh, no. Like, how can anyone like this? But I just think it's interesting that number one, when we think about physical activity, like our brain always just goes to exercise, and that's like one specific thing, right? But it occurs to me that perhaps I should be approaching this idea of like moving through space and moving one's body more from or with care to a sensory health perspective, and whether that could kind of change my approach. And I'm curious if you have thoughts on that
Virginia Spielmann 8:23
totally as you started sharing. You know, I have a kind of be in my bonnet about the way we think about exercise anyway, because we do tend to have a few formulaic approaches to healthy, active lifestyles that don't mesh with everybody. You know, a lot of neurodivergent people have resistance to exercise. And you know, any sort of heavy cardio load can be really detrimental to them. And you know, there's this excellent sort of trifecta that often accompanies neurodivergence, which is, is hypermobile Ehlers, danlos, mast cell activation syndrome and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or just under this umbrella term dysautonomia. And so, you know, there are reasons beyond it doesn't feel good that some we all need to find the activity, the active lifestyle ingredients that suit us. And so having nuance in these conversations is really, really helpful. You know, strength, focusing on strength, walking. You know, do there's ways and ways of doing Pilates and yoga and different things that don't cause distress and disorder, sensations of being disorganized and actually almost in conflict in your own body. And so adding, diversifying the way we think about what an active lifestyle looks like, you know, becomes really important, but there's still this. Thrive in research and research driven conversations to find the one right answer. We found it. We found what you need to do. Everybody benefits from this much cardio every day. Everybody benefits from, you know, and we've heard a million versions of that statement as the, you know, pop culture or the main media outlets try to report what research is looking at, but there's always this urge to oversimplify, and I think, freedom to discover a million different ways that your active lifestyle could look, you know, it's gonna benefit everybody.
KC Davis 10:48
And you talk in your Ted, talk about how, you know, okay, so, yes, it's a diversity, but you can kind of fall on that spectrum, in a place that we would consider like a disordered way of sensory processing where, you know, it's not just, hey, there are certain things that feel good to me, certain things that irritate me, like, Oh, I'm a little sound sensitive. But like some people, can really have a difference in sensory processing that massively impacts their daily functioning. And I'm curious if you can talk about that for a little bit, because you would think like, oh, it'd be obvious if you knew that that's what was going on. But in my experience, it's not always obvious to people. Like, I'll be talking to someone about why they're struggling with cleaning, or why they're struggling with hygiene, and no one's ever really stopped to give them the permission to say, like, what is it about a shower that you hate and that you always procrastinate and after and they have to think about it for a while. And what's funny, it's like, you'll get people that'll say, oh, it's kind of boring, or there's too many steps, or, you know, I just it's like, I don't have enough time, so I have to choose that or eating. But there's always a subsection of people that will say things like the temperature change between being hot in the shower and being cold afterwards is so miserable, or the feeling of my hair being wet against my skin makes me want to crawl out of my skin. And these are big reactions, but it's like no one's ever given them permission to actually get curious about what the aversion is and legitimize the aversion. Because, you know, I think probably most of us had that experience of being a kid and being like, Oh, my shoes uncomfortable, and you're in, you know, a parent being like, get over it. Okay. Just we have to go. So talk to me for a minute about like, how might somebody maybe even recognize, like, Oh, wait. You mean everyone isn't feeling it like this, right?
Virginia Spielmann 12:46
Well, I think, you know, you hit on a lot of things there. You know, first of all, I would say there is, or I don't want to use the word spectrum, but you know, there is this. You could think of it as a progression, I suppose, of differences in sensory integration and processing. Like we all experience sensation uniquely and similarly. And then there are some people whose experience is quite noticeably different, if you know what you're looking for, but can be accommodated within the environment with a bit of flexibility, with some strategies they find adaptive ways of coping. And then there are people for whom it really is a physical difference in their body that sort of influences many, many other aspects of well being, so very, very much wired to your emotional well being. And it's always going to be that way, and really they need very specialist supports. And then I would say there's even another layer of people who have such profound differences in sensory integration and processing that it's experienced as a profound physical disability all the time, every day. And to say it's not is really doing that population a disservice. But you know, some people, for some people, touch is painful, light touch is painful, but they've been told, you know, not to reject their grandma's kisses. And you know, like you said, like as children, we tend to have a sort of, oh, you're fine, just get on with it, attitude. And so the way we learn about what's painful and what's not is generally in those relationships with our caregivers in childhood, right? So as an infant, your stomach gurgles, you get a look of terror on your face, but your caregiver says it's okay. It's just your stomach. It's just your stomach, right? And you start to go, okay. That's what this sensation means. And then you know how adults tend to react when children get a very obvious injury. Oh, no, look. Oh owie. And they blow on it. And. They nurture it, and then you go, Oh, this is, this is a serious thing. I did need attention for this, right? You start to get coded in the database in a very specific and sensory is something we tend to gaslight a bit out of our kids, you know, like even temperatures as a you know, it's hard for caregivers to realize just because I'm cold. My child might not be, you know. And so we tell them to wear a coat based on how we feel temperature. We tell them to put the shoes on, because we know those shoes aren't going to harm them, but their nervous system might be saying, you know, DEF CON one, these shoes are a nightmare. We can't have these on all day, because it's going to feel like our feet are being damaged for the entire day, right? And then I'm going to spend the day in a state of DEF CON one. But I won't know that this is a unique experience to me, because you haven't told me that. Nobody's told me that, and so we tend to internalize that kind of gas lighting. It's unintentional, it's well meaning, and it goes into our into our reference book for safe, unsafe. You know, until someone, like an occupational therapist, hopefully, sort of digs into it and you realize, Wait, every time someone brushes past you in the cafeteria, you experience it as pain. That's pretty significant. This nine year old child who's been told you're a problem child and you have behavioral difficulties, we don't want you experiencing pain just to get your lunch. Let's, let's take a problem solving approach to this. Now imagine nine years of just thinking I have this, like, weird, defunct body, it's harder to be in space, and I'm failing. I'm just failing all the time. You know,
KC Davis 16:50
it gets a weakness. Everybody else is just stronger than me, or everybody else is tougher than me, and I think it's hard as a parent, because in some ways, like you said, like it's our job to right size their feelings for them, so I don't want to overreact to every maybe tiny little boo boo, so that they get the impression that it's a huge deal every time, right? But it's can be difficult as a parent to know, okay, what is the right size to react to this too, because, you know, we want our kids to have resilience, and we want our kids to have some measure of toughness and not be afraid of challenge and not be afraid of discomfort. But how you balance that?
Virginia Spielmann 17:32
Yeah, I think one of the main things there, though, that you really nailed it, just not sure you realized you did, but it's like your perception of the size of the problem, or the thing, isn't it actually in this moment, and so pausing and being curious so that you can be the detective who helps figure out, whoa, that does feel really bad for your body, doesn't it? Okay? Now we learn something about your body, or, you know, those sorts of things. And so having that moment of curiosity first, and I remember, you know, being a young parent. My kids are older now, you know, and realizing that when my son fell over, I needed to pause before rushing in to soothe, which communicated to him, oh my gosh, this is a potential catastrophe, and I needed to sort of see how he's going to react first. And I wish I'd known this about food as a young parent, right? Like, that's a huge one from a sensory perspective. And our second child we adopted and had been in an institution for the first 10 months. And, you know, when came home, he came home with this binder of his favorite foods, his schedule, all of these different things. I was in this mode of doing this perfectly. I was going to do this perfectly, and so I was going to follow the schedule. We're going to get his favorite foods. And I went, you know, above and beyond, and then I learned, I realized, but it took me a minute, this wasn't actually his schedule at all. It was the schedule of the sort of Ward he had lived in. And these weren't even his favorite foods. They were just what had been available in the ward, and he didn't like any of it. It was all off whack and spat out the food and all these things and but my drive was to very primitive sort of, I must feed him. I must keep him alive. I must. And so I had no sympathy, I had no curiosity for this infant. I wasn't able. It took me a bit too long. It took me a beat too long, and there are things I wish I hadn't felt the pressure to do, like get X amount of calories in him come hell or high water, right? And instead be curious and believe him when he gags, believe his body when it says, No, mate, that's. Not for me, you know. And then be curious, and then find the thing, do the thing, collaborate with him to figure out his foods.
KC Davis 20:08
I'm curious. As an occupational therapist, how do you think about the balance between I know they're not opposing, right, but this sort of balance between accommodating and sort of exposure and growth,
Virginia Spielmann 20:25
such an amazing and timely question. I cannot tell you. This is a huge debate within our field at the moment. You know, what is neuro diversity affirming practice as an OT do and when you want, if you're doing anything habilitative or sort of, you know, that might be called intervention or treatment. Is it that oppressive? Are you trying to change a person's neurology? And this is, I think, particularly star Institute, the nonprofit here that in Colorado that I run, and where we work on sensory health. It's something we almost talk about every week. But here's where we're at, all the accommodations. Take all the accommodations and really try and build flexibility into the world of each individual, because it benefits everyone. It benefits everyone in the classroom when there are standing desk options, when there are noise defenders and music options and chewing options. You know, we allow these things in adult learning, but not in our childhood learning settings. It's very strange, but it benefits everyone when we support bodies being in different states of arousal and try to optimize learning environment with a sensory health lens. It's good news. It doesn't just even benefit all the students. It benefits every body in that building. And your brain changes when you learn a new phone number. You know brain change is neuroplasticity is available all the way through the life. It's how we learn new skills. It's how we mature. And when there is this massive mismatch with the way, especially our childhood experiences and environments have been constructed and what neurodivergent bodies need, then there's a need for intervention. But the intervention is that experience isn't going to be organizing for this child, so we're going to provide a specialist experience, and we're going to try and create repeated multitude of experiences where this child, like has, develops mastery, develops bodily autonomy, learns they can move through space on their own terms without it being painful and uncomfortable. You know, they can cause effect in their body and in the world, and they can experience agency, and agency starts in the body. And if I just provide a child with accommodations in the most extreme form I would be putting infants in wheelchairs and depriving them of the learning to walk and become ambulant. Right? There's this very extreme version of accommodations that deprives people of the organized, nurturing, nourishing experiences they need to have optimal sensory health, bodily autonomy, motor mastery. So the philosophy behind what you do is kind of the drive there is, am I taking this approach and trying to make someone more fit in more Am I trying to help them be more appropriate. Am I trying to shape their behaviors? That's all my agenda. But if I'm about helping this person become their favorite selves in the world and develop as much bodily autonomy as they can and with listen to the wisdom of their own body, then the type of intervention I'm doing is very different, and it's, it's, it moves in a very different direction. And on top of all of that, there is this myth that sensory integration therapy is the same as systematic desensitization, and they're completely different approaches.
KC Davis 24:19
Okay, talk about that, because I've never heard of either of those, but I have a feeling that if you started to talk about it, I would probably recognize what you're talking about.
Virginia Spielmann 24:27
Yes, there's nothing. Actually, I haven't got a beef with systematic desensitization itself. I think when it's done by a trauma informed, very skilled therapist and the client has self selected to do it, it can be great. And so, you know, if I wanted to, I can't swim in the sea because I have a huge phobia of I can't see what's underneath me. There is definitely a shark that's going to eat me. And if I wanted to deal with that, if it was really important. Uh, for me and I chose to do some systematic desensitization. We would gradually expose me to the thing that I have this big nervous system reaction to, and at the same time expose me to some things that would calm and soothe my body. And we try and do it at such a pace it almost wouldn't trigger my fear response. It
KC Davis 25:24
kind of keeps you in that window of tolerance. Yeah,
Virginia Spielmann 25:27
and I don't know that many occupational therapists do it. I think it's normally psychologists and people like that that do it. And so the idea there, yeah, desensitization is this gradual exposure to sensory stimuli, and so it is aiming to change what's happening in your neurology and your nervous system. It operates on the principles of habituation, which is the nervous system's ability to diminish responses to stimuli that's familiar and non threatening. So you know, the first time the buzzy bee comes into your space, you orient to it. You have a little bit of a protective reaction to it, like, is this a bee or a fly? Am I about to get stung, or is this just an irritant? And then for some people, they are able to notice it's something innocuous, and almost immediately filter it out. They habituate to it very easily, and then they selectively attend to the important stimuli in the room. People with differences in sensory modulation might not ever completely filter it out, but and it can be quite effortful for them to do so, because that habituation doesn't come as easily. I
KC Davis 26:44
said it's like being nose blind. Like, you know, how sometimes you'll walk into a room and you'll smell something, but if you spend enough time in that room, you actually, like, can't smell it anymore. Yes, you've had, yeah, you become nose blind to it. And it's interesting the idea that, like, we do that with our other senses, like, you know, you can have something in your clothing that, like, doesn't feel quite comfortable that day, right? But if I go about my business, I'll just kind of habituate to it, or I'll go, like, sensory blind to it, and I just won't think about it, right? But for some people, they can't do yes,
Virginia Spielmann 27:21
yes, and that is what desensitization is trying to leverage. So there's this gradual exposure. The familiar is heavily COVID as non threatening. You want to get familiar with it. You can imagine, like maybe being scared of dogs. You know, this would be maybe an approach that would be recommended, because, as if it's successful, as there's this gradual exposure over time, starting in those low intensity levels and gradually increasing, the nervous system and the brain adapts and is less responsive, less reactive, And the distress just isn't experienced in that somatic Body, Whole body level.
KC Davis 28:04
I remember listening to someone make a Tiktok once, and I think it was Caitlin Powell, but she's autistic. And she was talking about kind of that same example of, sometimes I put on a shirt and it just feels wrong. It feels wrong, and I'll change it, I'll change it and I'll change it and I'll change it. And she was talking about how she was working with her therapist on sort of desensitizing to some of these things. And I loved the way she talked about it, because it wasn't super black and white. She's like, you know, on the one hand, like, I don't want to stay at home for an hour doing it change after change after change after change after change, just kind of like trying to find what feels right, but at the same time, you know, saying we'll deal with it, you know, figure it out, go on. Just go through your day like I won't habituate to it. So, but one of the things that she did was she was like, the step I'm at with my therapist is that I bring a second sweater with me, so I don't change the sweater. I bring a second sweater with me, and I go about my day. And as she was doing that, she was like, you know, there are some days where I will just forget about it and but if I don't, I'm totally allowed to go and, like, change the second sweater. But it kind of reminds me of what you're talking about, where it's like this. And again, she as an adult, and she opted into that. And it's not this sort of like pressure of like, get over it. Take this with you. And I think we sometimes have this idea that comfort and challenge are opposites when it comes to either our own sensory stuff or our kids sensory stuff, where it's like, okay, the option is either comfort that the discomfort so it's okay, and let's get an accommodation, and let's make it better, or challenge it, which is like, keep going, you know, push through, suck it up. And, you know, I think, I think we would all be better by thinking about comfort and challenge. Is not having to be separate. It in sort of like moving forward, because it is true that, like, if you over shelter, like, I think we can get so focused on comfort that we do ourselves a disservice, even from a sensory perspective, you know, but at the same time, you know, you can't just throw someone, throw yourself in the deep end and say, hopefully I'll figure it out, you know? And so it really is kind of like weaving the thread.
Virginia Spielmann 30:27
I love that, yeah. And then I mean, and then what you've got with sensory integration therapy is trying to support the natural development of the nervous system by providing the just right experiences, if it's done right, that's what it should look like, and it should look like play in childhood. We do do it with adults here, and it can look a bit more like trial and error, and sometimes if it looks a bit like CrossFit. And you know, you're building this sensory lifestyle with the adults. But you know, with our sort of under 18 population, we're really wanting to optimize the natural development of the nervous system by providing the right experiences for that brain and body through play. So there's definitely, you know with what we want to see is the development of what we want to see, what we imagine we would see if we could look at the brain, would be the development of beautiful neural connections that support this person's mastery and autonomy in their own body. I can move through space the way I want. I can make a plan. I have ideas of how to move my body, and I can make it happen, and I'm going to do it again, and I'm experiencing success and joy and play again and again and again. And so these neural pathways are becoming highways, and it's so efficient. And you know, maybe even we might see some neural pathways become discarded that weren't serving us before. They're not the same thing. Desensitization and the sensory integration therapy are quite different. But I think because people talk about the treatment plan, the intervention, the program, sensory integration therapy, and it's also been done poorly, so so very often, that it's sort of been bucketed as another oppressive approach that's about changing the person to fit in, versus self actualization of the individual.
KC Davis 32:33
Yeah, I feel like I'm thinking back through some of those interventions that that I've heard of as a parent, and it feels like the desensitization ones have an intervention that's, like, pretty clearly linked to whatever the issue is. If that makes sense, like, oh, we have trouble with touching. Okay. Well, here's a brush. We're gonna brush the skin and desensitize whereas, like, I felt like, whenever OTS were doing more integration stuff, I would find myself being like, Okay, you want her to, like, swing on the swing. So that is more emotionally, right? And you're just like, what do these things have to do with each other? And they'd be like, trust us. We want her to, you know, cross the midlines. We want her to put these, you know, we want her to move these body, her body in this certain way. And so that's kind of always how those buckets happened in my head, where it was like, decent, I can't say, you know, I'm talking about that bucket was always like, like, you said, like, okay, the goal is to get in the water and we'll fart, we'll start with a little water, and then more water, and then more water. And it's always like, very connected. And then there was this whole other bucket of interventions that I was like, I mean, I guess I just trust you, because this doesn't make any like intuitive sense, how learning to stand on our head was going to help us. You know, with our picky eating or whatever it is,
Virginia Spielmann 33:49
that's a common, I think, challenge that we face as a field, and we have to do better parent education and caregiver education like this, knowledge can't, shouldn't be so mysterious, you know, like, Why does playing and big movements and cross body movements and excited play? Why does, like, I had one of the OTS here yesterday running around the building in a silly hat with the child chasing him, and the mother not far behind in her own silly hat, you know, and the work they're doing is on this child's emotional regulation. You know, she can be very invested in controlling the agenda in the classroom, and can get sort of very controlling with her peers. And, you know, how does us running around the building in silly hats even remotely? How do we join the dots with what's going on in the classroom? And I can what we need as therapists who can answer that question
KC Davis 34:47
is that only for kids like do we stop ever being at a developmental level where that big, excited whole body play like rewires the brain in good ways, because. I don't know the last time I've done that as an adult, yeah,
Virginia Spielmann 35:02
no. I mean, I love to get adults playing. It's just way harder. But, you know, I think, you know, and I play Dungeons and Dragons, that's one of my ways of doing it. And I love going to, you know, the packs conventions, where they've got all the cosplay and the games and the board games. And I think adult play is incredibly important for you know, why isn't your doctor asking you if you play as well as asking you if you have an active lifestyle? Well,
KC Davis 35:29
you know? What it reminds me of is that study they did about various interventions for depression, and it was like cognitive behavioral therapy, this type of therapy, this type of therapy, and then just random activities, exercise, dance, things like that, and SSRIs, I'm talking all of it. And I saw this post, and it was like, the interesting thing is not that, like dancing was the best form of exercise for depression, it was that dancing ranked better than every single intervention, including medication, including therapy, include, literally, including every clinically based, evidence based therapy. The number one intervention that seemed to have the biggest impact was dance. And I can't help but think, yes, there's probably kind of a I don't mean spiritual in a religious sense. I just mean like, in a play sense, of like, Oh, it's good for your mental health to be light and playful and whatever. But I can't help but think how much of that has to do with what you're talking about with this sensory health, where it's like, I know my daughter is better regulated when she has the room to run and spin and jump and do these things and that that like really talks to her nervous system. But I can't help but wonder, like, it's not like we hit 18 and all of a sudden childhood's over, and our bodies don't need that anymore. And maybe there really is something to that about these like gross motor movements and sensory integration and sensory sensitivity and mental health, and that's what it reminds me of. And I wonder if, like, when, you know, when you talk about sensory health, and when I hear the term sensory health, I think my initial thoughts were quite basic, quite Oh, you know, Is there too much sound? Is that bothering me? Do I need some headphones? Do I write and I find myself as I'm talking to you, realizing like, Oh my God. Like sensory health isn't just about like, what in my environment irritates me or overwhelms me, it's about like, Have I fed my vestibular system today, and is that connected to my self defeating thoughts and my toxic behaviors that I want to change well.
Virginia Spielmann 37:44
And you know what I was thinking while you were sharing about that study, the dance thing wasn't skilled dance, right? There's no you didn't mention, yeah, how great these dances were. And I'm pretty sure there would have been tremendous variety, right? But, and I think that's one of the things that holds us back, right as adults, right? Like, I won't do dance as my hobby as an adult, because that's a bit sad, isn't it, I'm not a professional dancer. It's gonna be
KC Davis 38:13
me and a bunch of six year olds going to dance class the level one class.
Virginia Spielmann 38:17
Yeah, and, actually, yes, go to dance class at 45 like, you know, find the thing, play the game. You
KC Davis 38:26
know, that was my so I have a theater degree. And when you get to your last there's this one class. And the big project of the year is called the wildness project. And you are tasked to go out and do something wild, something totally taboo, something that really pushes you out of your comfort zone. And what's so funny is that, like a lot of people would use that project to go do something like going and doing mushrooms was always like a big thing that people would do with it, or they'd go and you were allowed to do like you could come in and talk about that. You did not care if you broke laws or did any of that. I had a friend that sat for a nude painting, like she volunteered in the art department to sit for a nude painting, like all these things. And of course, here I am right, and I'm like, Okay, I have, like, a few years of sobriety, actually, at that point. And I'm like, I've already done all of this wild shit that you guys are doing. So my wildness project was to take an entry level ballet class at like a studio, because it terrified me to do so I felt so awkward, so uncomfortable, and that was, like, my version of pushing myself. But anyways, that's neither here nor there. I just think, like, totally plugs in with what you're saying, which is like, Yep, I
Virginia Spielmann 39:37
think that's spot on. We just, you know, and we design our lifestyles in this very adult way as well, where we move for an hour in the gym, and we sit for eight hours at work and we talk about our emotions in this space, and we've siloed these things out in. Such a way that we're really not cultivating sensory health, quite the opposite. So, yeah, I think, and, you know, there's so I love the idea of this dance thing, because in dance, there's sensation, motion, emotion, there's, you know, you stretch your nervous system, because you you know, there are moments of dance that are fast and maybe, you know, powerful and impactful, and then there can be quiet, and there's so much range. Yeah, I think that concept, AZ didn't talk about self actualization, the founder of sensory integration therapy, she talked about self organization. And you know that I'm in my body, I'm functioning well, you know? I'm in flow. Things feel good. I feel nourished. I'm self organized. We don't think about that.
KC Davis 40:53
Those are actually the terms that I've used, and I never heard anybody use those terms that I would talk about, like when I am struggling to communicate something that I'm experiencing, and then, like, I'll be in a situation where it just seems like everything inside of me kind of like, lines up, like aligns, and all of a sudden I have the words right. Or those are the words I use. I'm like, it feels like everything kind of organized for a moment, or if I experience something that, kind of like, throws me off, and then I can't, quite like, kind of get it back together. That's the term that I resonate the most with, which, like, that was a very disorganizing event. And so I love those terms. That's
Virginia Spielmann 41:34
so cool. I haven't heard someone sort of use them. Think that's the way they were intended to be used in sensory integration as well. You know, that's what integration. What is integration? It's that everything's aligned, everything's working together. I'm in an optimal state of function right now, you know. And then that I'm an inch taller than when I'm disorganized. Bring it right and, you know. And then when you focus on that, and that's what drives the work that you do. It changes everything about how you deliver your therapeutic supports and right goals, and, you know, all of those pieces, and it becomes about helping children be classroom citizens, because they get it, because they want to, and because they have something tremendous to contribute, and the class would, you know, would miss out if they didn't, rather than, you know, fitting in and being convenient students who look the same as everyone else, which is not, you know, helpful for anyone? Yeah.
KC Davis 42:36
Well, Virginia, thank you so much for your time. Can you go ahead and plug your organization if you wanted to learn more about it?
Virginia Spielmann 42:45
Yeah. Star Institute is a non profit based in Centennial, Colorado. Our website is sensory health, dot O, R, G, and we do research, provide education, and also provide therapeutic programming all the way through the lifespan. People travel from around the world to us for programs. We run conferences and events all the way throughout the year for allied health professionals, educators, caregivers and neurodivergent individuals who want to learn more. We really love sharing what we do, because we really want it to stop being a mystery. Our vision is sensory health for the nation, state and the world. I said that the wrong way around sensory Health for the state, the nation and the world. And yeah. So what we, you know, we have this sort of idea that people will know enough about this stuff that over coffee, talking about something, you know, I've been on the struggle bus for a couple of weeks. And, you know, I'm talking about why I'm on the struggle bus. And my friend says, Have you thought about and up comes some concept related to sensory health, right? You know, really liberating us to tune back into our bodies and to find our flow and what it feels like to be self organized.
KC Davis 44:03
Thank you so much. You.

Christy HausslerJanuary 4, 2025

126: Almond Moms, Metabolic Diseases, and Pediatric Obesity (Part 2) with Dr. Karla Lester

This episode is the second part to my conversation with Dr. Karla Lester about food shaming, weight bias, metabolic diseases, “almond moms,” and more. Dr. Karla lends her professional expertise to the discussion of these important topics. Join us!

Show Highlights:

The effect of “almond mom” parenting on kids: food shaming, eating disorders, and more
The start of binge eating disorder in very young kids
Guarding against “opposite” mistakes with your kids in making good food choices
From KC, a parent’s perspective on food choices and neurodivergent kids
A switch from compliance to compassion
The goal in feeding kids should start with a focus on intentional, daily protein intake (Start with protein at breakfast!)
Aim for habit change in a positive direction.
Understanding “food noise” and what it means to bust common food myths
Dr. Karla’s advice to parents: “Get to neutral.”
Red flags for parents to look for in their kids’ food behaviors
Responding as a parent to your child’s weight gain/loss
The truth about insulin resistance: “It is an epidemic that we cannot ignore!”
Understanding the term healthism

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dr. Karla Lester: IME Community, Dr. Karla, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Dr. Karla's radio show

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:05
So what are some of the like? What's some of the damage? You know, if, because we're still kind of talking about this first mistake of, kind of the almond moms, of, kind of weaponizing thinness and believing in this sort of myth of calories in, calories out, and that, you know, as long as you're thin, you must be healthy, and any means necessarily, what's the effect of that kind of parenting that you're seeing in kids? Well,
Dr. Karla Lester 0:28
what I've learned is there's a ton of food shaming. There's eating disorders that are perpetuated or caused by those kinds of actions parents have maybe good intentions, but sometimes we can cause harm even with good intentions. See, I knew that from my work, like I can develop a whole nonprofit and do some amazing things I'm proud of, and at the end of the day, I feel like we were too BMI focused. I feel like I had really great intentions. I did a ton of work, but let's face it, like I contributed to some harm. So I don't, I don't want to do that anymore. So that's the thing that I don't think parents understand. They think that when they say, Oh, why are you going for seconds when you just ate, or their kid goes to the cabinet after they had dinner and they're just activated. Maybe their child has gained weight, and that kind of weight talk is very intergenerational. There's a study I talked about on my radio show last week about InterGen, generational parent weight talk and how it affects kids. They did a study in age five to nine looked at different ethnicities, races, and they found that you know how you talk, when you talk to your kids about weight, even if you have intention to focus on health, most of the time, parents are bringing that toxicity that they've learned in to their home, and they're causing, like, a broad range of harm. So it can be that the parents are going to get into more like restrictive eating. So the kids going to restrict, and then they're always going to binge okay? And that's one thing I've learned too on Tiktok from people who are adults who grew up, you know, they were singled out, they were restricted with their intake, and their binge eating started really young, so maybe even six to eight. So we in practice screen. We have adolescent binge eating disorder screening. Well, we need to talk about it earlier so the kids really confused. They get into what I call food shaming, so they don't know what to eat. They're food policing themselves. And I all say, you know, amazing parents who really want the best. They're very educated. I'll talk to their kid, and I said, Why can't you get seconds? And they're like, Oh, I could never do that. Why not? Oh, my mom would give my dad a look, or my mom would give me a look. And so some parents, luckily, who I work with, they want to do the work to deconstruct that, because I'm like that, stop that. Can you stop that? What's coming up in you? You know, like, what is coming up in you? Or they'll say, my kid's a lazy eater. There's Oreos there. They'll eat the Oreos. Well, yeah, if I've cut up vegetables, they'll eat that. And so they say, my kid's a lazy eater. No, they're not. They're just, you know, environment predicts behaviors. They're just doing their kid thing. So, and I've seen parents who have had, I worked with parents and teens who have different perspectives on the same experience. So I had a mom who I love working with her, but she's, like, very compliance based person. She's like, really, like, gets a lot of stuff done. Let's fix this, you know. And she's that way with her daughter, who's struggling with really severe eating disorders. And so with her daughter, she said she did amazing during the pandemic. She with her weight and her eating. Well, I go and talk to the daughter. She's awesome, hilarious. Prefer working with the teens, and she's like, I was dying during the pandemic, like I was eating less than 500 calories a day. I watched my mom just like, let people praise me on my weight loss. And I was literally dying. And, you know, to be honest, obviously, I'm like, put on my pediatrician hat, you know. Let's stop here. Talk to mom like, this is somebody who needs treatment, probably inpatient, you know. But it was just so interesting to see that, you know, mom is like, so feeling like her daughter, who was literally dying, was doing so, great, yeah. So that's an extreme.
KC Davis 4:55
It still illustrates like, what the issue is. And. With that kind of those myths and how damaging they can be if we don't unpack them from ourselves. Carla, side note, we're at the top of the hour. I want to be respectful of your time. I We haven't really even gotten into the second half of it. Do you have time to keep going? Or would you like to reschedule to Okay? I feel like that's a really good setup for kind of this second, or the opposite mistake, which is kind of where I find myself as a parent, right? Like, I know all of those things that we just unpack. I don't want to make weight comments, I don't want to make food comments. I've done all the things that they've said to do. You know, don't make sweets taboo, and don't make them you know, have to eat their broccoli before their dessert. And, you know, now I have kids that only want cake, right? And then also, like, learning about my own stuff with PCOS and ADHD and how, like, it actually doesn't work to just say no rules at all. Eat whatever you feel like, eating like that's not helping me. That's causing some health issues for me. So I need to make some diet changes, but I don't have any tools for making diet changes that didn't come from diet culture, right? And so that's where I am personally. And I'm looking at my kids, and it's like I'm at a loss of what language to use with my kids so that I can equip them to make good choices, to eat food that will fuel their body to because, you know, I ate everything and anything I wanted, and my metabolism in my youth, like made it so that it looked, didn't look like there were any effects of that. And now, you know, I have some health stuff, and I'm being told to eat differently, and I don't know how, and it's like this, the ADHD and the PCOS and the food noise kind of clashing with this. Oh, there are no food rules. And it's like, I need something else. And so I guess I'm just curious, like, how it's making me do this sort of reactive like, just don't say anything about food, you know. And I'm curious, like, where, what does it look like when we kind of do this opposite mistake of, okay, I'm so afraid to say anything that I might not be giving them the tools that they need.
Dr. Karla Lester 6:57
Yeah, this is such a great question. And first of all, I want to tell you that you are doing a lot. I mean, you're interviewing me, but you have so much information about your children's health. You know them so well. You know what works, you know what could cause harm, you know what's going on with them. I mean, you're totally engaged, and you know a ton about your own health, and you really know a lot about the science, so that is going to be like you, I can tell you, debunked and kind of let go and challenged a lot of the myths and recognizing the harm that and also really want you to understand that it's not just all on you. Okay, you don't cause and you don't control everything. So what we can do first is to reclaim health and a definition of health and how you think about health. And I think it's very challenging. It's even hard for me as a physician, is like it was the absence of disease, prevention of disease. You know, what does it mean to you? And then think about that, like, for your family, leave weight out of it. Okay? We don't want to food police. So we don't want to have like, here's good food, here's healthy choices. You know, think about the language that can be really triggering, and we don't want to do that. We also don't want to like, I don't know if you're familiar with the work of Ellen Satter. She's a dietitian who's been around for decades, and she has a division of responsibility, which I think is really amazing work. Her work is beautiful, but it's like, parents, you know, you bring the food into the home, and you provide some routine and structure and some positive experiences around eating, and then the kids decide what and if they eat, you
KC Davis 8:35
know, oh, I have heard of that, that kind of split of responsibility, yeah, that was one. That's one that I've tried really hard to do, where it's like we I put the food on the plate, and then you decide what you are aren't going to eat. And so I think that's beautiful, this idea of that way, I don't argue about what you do eat, what you don't eat, all this kind of stuff. Here's what I ran into as a parent, is I ended up having neuro divergent children that have safe foods, children that will break down in tears if you're asked to try a food that is slightly different than another food. And I think it's hard when you have that. And it's like, you see your kids palette kind of narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, and you're going, well, like that may not be like, the healthiest thing for like, your whole palette to be just these foods, but at the same time, you know, I think we find ourselves as parents starting with this idea of, oh, yeah, I'll put it on the plate and you'll it's like, well, sometimes my kids just wouldn't need anything on there. Like, it's not true for all kids, that they'll eat if they're hungry, right?
Dr. Karla Lester 9:34
Yeah, it's kind of like the intuitive eating, you know? It's like, that's great in theory. Okay, so what we want to do, what I do is it comes from the coaching principles of so a lot of diet culture is like compliance based. And what we do as physicians, too is like me telling you kind of authoritatively what to do. And so then parents do that to their kids, and then that's why they resist. And it's like you've put up this, like, demand. Avoidance type situation, which you're going to especially have when you have neurodivergent children. But so what we want to do is switch from compliance to more compassion. Compassion doesn't mean that we're not doing anything, okay? Compassion means we're working on our relational health. We're working on it together. So what we want to do is get positive emotion activation, so we want it to be a positive thing. So for you, your work is probably going to be around like, what's our why, like, what's my why for doing this? And do some work around that, because that's going to be really epically powerful to keep you motivated. And then we get into the how, and it's really adding in the positive, so we're not restricting or taking anything away. And so some things that we maybe think about that our diet culture are really not and are just really helpful for taking action and health behavior change. So those are things like making decisions ahead of time about food. It doesn't mean we have to meal prep and everything, unless that's helpful. But you know, I'll do that like for a week, and then I drop. But anyway, yeah, whatever. Anyway. So what I always do is we add in protein first, because what do we want to do? We want to decrease glycemic variability. We want to stabilize blood sugars. So whether we have a weight issue, whether we have insulin resistance, when you know, I have patients who did a CGM, actually, and he went off his anxiety medication because he was finding that his anxiety was related to blood sugar fluctuations from some of the foods that He had been eating in different times a day, and the irritability and things like that. So, okay, so what we want to do is balance our blood sugars decrease. Blood sugar is going up and down, so we've got to do daily intentional protein intake. And then when you look at, you know, if you look at how damaging with our toddlers, it's like, oh, they're snacking all the time, all the snack foods. Look at what it was and what's marketed to us, and then we're heroes as parents. Is a high carbohydrate, a lot of processed stuff, and low fat. They need fat for their brains to develop. I mean, it's an amazing energy source, and so we add in protein first. You don't have to count macros, but it's just like every time we're eating even a snack, we're gonna have protein daily intentional protein intake. You don't even have to tell your kids. But with my patients, I actually like working. I've paid several patients who are on the autism spectrum, and I love working with them, because they choose. You know, like, here your power of choice, agency, autonomy. Here's why. What are five protein options that you like? And we get them in every time, and we're not going to talk about it. It gets boring over time. We don't need to duplicate and keep redoing this work. That's what diet culture tells us, you know, it's not on or off, you know. And it's like, do a seven day habit challenge this week. We're gonna add in protein at breakfast, and that's gonna start your day. You're gonna focus better, you're gonna have energy. I mean, your good blood sugars are gonna be more balanced. And then, and you usually have to think ahead of time to get protein in at breakfast. And then, you know, what do you reflect on that, you know, and maybe as a parent, depending on your kid's age and where they are developmentally, you're the one who's reflecting on it. Like, how hard was that, that was? We want to have it, stack it, okay, then you're going to add in other things, you know, fiber is a little bit more tricky. Like, what are we doing? Fruits and vegetables. We're not going to demonize or we're not going to push things. You're going to do a 20, maybe 50% on that habit change in the positive direction. Okay, maybe it's sleep. What's the biggest problem in front of you? You know that's what you're going to address first. Okay, you're developing self trust. You have the evidence tracking too. Is not diet, culture, self monitoring. Now, unless you're gonna, like, put it in a it depends on what you're using. Like, I don't like tracking, unless I do, like, three days and I don't have time for it, I get an idea, and then I know, like, this is what I'm getting, and I can have an idea of, like, how much protein I'm getting, and I it's too boring for me. Yeah, I never count my
KC Davis 14:27
total, not a lifestyle, you know, I like what you're saying here, because it reminds me of, kind of that approach, of, like, eat what you want, add what you need, so that it's not kind of this restrictive, but it's just making sure and that I feel a little bit better, kind of a my approach first, personally with my kids, because that's kind of what I've been trying to do. I've noticed that, you know, the reality is, is that the type of food I eat does affect some of my health conditions, and I've learned that prioritizing protein. And what happened was, for a long time, I had doctors telling me to do low carb, do low carb, do low. Carb, and it never, ever, ever worked. And I could not sustain it until I finally had a doctor say, I want you to prioritize protein. And what happened was, naturally, when I was prioritizing protein, I was just eating, like refined carbs, but it wasn't a restricting, and I realized that's what it was. Was I would say, Okay, I'm not gonna eat that carb. Not gonna eat that carb. But then I was just I was just hungry all the time, and when I started prioritizing protein, it was like the protein was giving me more of what I needed. It was helping with satiation. I would there was no restriction. And so I've been trying to do that, and what I've noticed is I'm running into some of that, like, you know, I call it food noise, but I think you refer to it as, like, food cue reactivity.
Dr. Karla Lester 15:43
Yeah, that's a scientific term for food noise. And,
KC Davis 15:46
you know, it's difficult, because I'm trying to make these diet changes, and I'm doing things that my doctor is asking, and I'm finding that I'm really struggling with, okay, I can do this, and my brain won't turn off, and it's weird to be like, I think I know enough about anti diet to know, like, this isn't a willpower problem, so I'm not gonna move in the direction of, oh, you know, try harder, try harder. But it's weird because it's like, I don't know how else to support myself when I feel this, you know, and I think sometimes people say food noise, and you see in there that they're on a really restrictive diet, and you're like, maybe that's just hunger. Like, you're gonna think about food all the time if you're not eating enough, but like, I am truly talking about something very different around like, the way that my brain sort of, like perseverates around certain foods, because regardless of whether I'm full or hungry or any of that, and it's difficult to go, I think I need support here and again, I don't want to go in the diet culture direction, but it's kind of like I don't know where else there is to go.
Dr. Karla Lester 16:54
Well, it's a medical issue. It's in your brain. There's nothing wrong with your brain. You're just getting some data. Okay, so those cravings are real, or food noise are maybe your body is telling you to, you know, what happens if you're making some changes, if your body's changing, your body is just trying to keep status quo. And so it's like that we might activate more of the, you know, food scarcity, but also like cravings, so that it gets your body back up to where was. It's also really hard in our society, because we're very visual people. You know, our senses are activated. So food noise is so easy. It's all around us. So if you're doing, I mean, it's so hard when doctors say, eat low carb, but there, I mean, it takes so much support to help somebody navigate that in our culture, and there's different degrees of it, and your body eventually will become what's called like fat adapted to where you'll be able to mobilize your energy stores. And it sounds like you were noticing some of that Casey, like you were noticing that your body was having less cravings. You were probably becoming more insulin sensitive and more insulin responsive. Things were starting to work how they were. But you have a long history of, you know, these, like any food, maybe feeling restriction creates a scarcity mindset that creates more cravings and more food noise, you know for
KC Davis 18:36
sure, and I've done the work of like, I know that like, carbs have been demonized, and brain needs glucose, like you need the like, carbs are not the enemy, but so that's why it feels weird to be in this spot where it's like, I don't want to get, like, eaten alive for like, engaging in some sort of, you know, myth about carbs. But like, the reality is, even after I've unpacked all of that, I am struggling to have a diet that supports my health. It's really not about, you know, fat phobia. It's not about, you know, diet culture, or any of those things, which I guess I'm just saying all of that to say that I really appreciate your platform and what you're talking about and recognizing that there is this ideological importance of talking about sort of busting these diet myths. But then there's still individual people struggling with things that need support. And it's not as easy as just saying, You know what? No food rules. Just intuitively eat everything. And I know part of intuitive eating is eating for health, but there's not really a mechanism that explains how to do that when you're really struggling. Yeah,
Dr. Karla Lester 19:46
it's individualized. It's very individualized, as you're seeing. So we don't have to even think about, you know, for you like, what would it be like for you to create what would be your preferred future? So. So we don't have to stay attached to things that haven't been serving us. So you don't have to keep pinging back and forth every time you eat. You know, it's like, oh my gosh. You know, you're just being super hard on yourself, I can tell. So you can step back, be a little more curious, but also come up with some mantra that's going to help you, that resonates that you really believe that's like, you know, you're I'm doing enough. I am enough. You know, I'm working it out. You know, I'm working it out like there's nothing going wrong here. You know, it's just like something to get to neutral. You know, I tell parents that like get to neutral, don't say and you believe this. You know, you're beautiful. You're when your kids hating on their body, or they don't have clothes to wear, and they're you're noticing they're doing body checking, or maybe find wrappers, and they're binging, and you know, it's just so horribly activating for us as parents to go through that, or to see that, and we don't know how to help, but it's like, we don't want To get into the where we're, like, trying to convince them of something that they don't believe. Okay, so it's like, you don't say, Oh, you're beautiful. Don't say that. But be like, You got a body. Everybody is different. Everybody is different. Every body is different. Get to neutral. Get to just neutral with everything. So
KC Davis 21:20
in that vein of getting to neutral, you know, I think we talked a little bit about, like, things as a parent that I don't want to be reacting to, like, Oh, they've gained weight, there's a problem, or they're going back for seconds. We can't allow that and but I don't want to over correct and, like, not look at anything health wise. What would you say to a parent, like, what are some of the signs that should actually be cueing my curiosity around food or diet or weight with children. That's not coming from this reactive fat phobia, weight stigma, thin privilege, but it might genuinely be, hey, let's investigate this. Let's make sure we're taking healthy steps around this. Let's maybe see a doctor about this. What kind of steps would you say that? What kind of like, little flags should we be looking for as parents? And I just thought that when you mentioned the like, the candy wrappers. So, yeah, share this. Well,
Dr. Karla Lester 22:12
first of all, you're gonna be the one that knows your kid and that sees the behaviors. And so whether it's things like maybe they're binge eating, or they're restricting food, or they're saying things about their body that are negative. Because the reality is, when you look at body image, body dissatisfaction, which teens are so stuck in, that happens really young, and when you look at all the influences on that, you know, with phone, social media, everything that's out there, even really young kids are exposed to so much like negative body image, and they just, it's really hard for parents, so we don't fully control that. So you may be seeing that in young kids, and it may be very activating. And you may be like, I don't know where this is coming from. Obviously, if you notice that they're gaining weight in a short period of time, maybe they have more stress at school. Let's just think about, like, what could be going on at school? Are they being bullied? Do they have don't ignore things and focus on weight that are going on so, like, food can be a very powerful coping mechanism. It can be so helpful when you're stressed. And I've even had patients and coaching clients where I've said we can be grateful to food for helping us get through these really toxic times, but is something going on at school, like they have a learning issue in a specific area, and we need to address that? Don't be afraid of addressing what's really going on, talking to teachers and learning. You know, what could be, maybe the cause for some of this. So then the other thing is, you know, I wish that we as pediatricians had been more open and less weight biased and less BMI focused, because a lot of parents will be like, well, I took them in, and then they said they're fine, and they made me feel weight shamed this whole time. And then now that I know that they meet the criteria for the medication, the GLP, one medication, now that I go in and mention that, then I'm seen as like this almond mom, so they can't win, but there are a lot of amazing pediatricians out there. So looking at, I think it's more helpful to look at weight, separate from height and then follow trends. So, you know, obviously weight gain most likely can be just a part of normal, healthy growth and development for a child. But let's see. You know, what are those causes, comorbidities, potentially going on and contributing factors? Is there a medication? Is there? Yeah, some sort of disordered eating, some new stressor. I mean, there's so many different possibilities for what could be causing, you know, is there something genetic going on? And then, you know, getting the data to see, you know, do we need to screen their. Fasting lipid profile. Do we need to screen their hemoglobin, a 1c get a cmp to check for fatty liver disease, and their blood sugar levels and thyroid, you know, looking at their height, some things that might affect their height, you know, are they having pubertal development early or delayed? I mean, there's, it's very complex. It's different than adults, and so getting to the pediatrician is going to be really helpful, too. And
KC Davis 25:27
I would also guess, you know, thinking back on that story you told us, is that if we see the inverse, like, if we see rapid weight loss, because I do think there's probably a lot of parents that might initially respond to that as like, Oh, this is great. They're getting healthier, they're making better choices. But I kind of hear you saying, like, you know, don't like, you said, like, separate it, take it as a data point and make sure that we're not just projecting our own sort of, like, cultural biases onto that. So we don't want to see weight gain and go, This is bad. There must be no health. But we also don't want to see weight loss and go, Oh, this is great. They must be making great choices. It could be, it could be those things. So we don't want to also just like, over correct, and go, like, I It's fine. Every body is fine. So we're just not going to look into this at all. But I think that's a helpful thing for parents of you, saying, like, you know, disconnect it from sort of, maybe your cultural projection onto what it means. But also don't ignore it completely, exactly.
Dr. Karla Lester 26:29
And the main thing, though, is, if the restriction is happening and you're seeing weight loss in a child, you really need to get in. I mean, I think that's just, do not pass go, go straight to the pediatrician. That is, you know, once that cycle starts, that just becomes so powerful, it's so protected, and yes, parents cannot ignore that. That's extremely dangerous. It
KC Davis 26:53
sounds like you would be more concerned with a child losing weight than you are with the child gaining weight. Absolutely.
Dr Carla, I want to kind of land the plane with this. One of the things that you've talked about is insulin resistance. And what's funny is that I found myself having kind of a reaction to that term, because that term has also, like, made itself, like made its way into what I call, like the wellness grifter buzzword. And this is what happens a lot of times, I think, with like wellness culture and wellness Grifters, where they're selling, they're trying to sell you something, some tea, some ridiculous whatever, and they really are trying to get to this part of our insecurity, where we go I don't like the way I look or the way I feel, and it's this promise of this quick fix. And I see this all the time, and I see it with things like cortisol face, like, you're not overweight, you have cortisol face. We can fix it if just drink this tea, right? Or like, oh, you know, are you stressed? Do you have brain fog? It's probably the MTHFR gene mutation, or whatever. And what I think is really unfortunate. See this with the MTHFR gene mutation. I see it with insulin resistance. I see it with cortisol phase. I see it with mast cell activation syndrome, where it's like these real terms that are real medical issues, but once the like Grifters get a hold of them, it's like they become this kind of like stereotype, this sort of like woo, woo, like snake oil, selling whatever. And there's two things that are really unfortunate about that. The first is obviously all of us now kind of believing we have some health condition that we don't have, so that we can buy some ridiculous detox tea or food plan or hire some trainer to do something. But I think the second really unfortunate effect of that is that it delegitimizes the very real medical issues that those things can be. So we kind of have, like this overreaction to it, where it's like, you know, oh, everyone has cortisol face, and it's like, no, I've legitimately had my cortisol tested, and I just have a round face, you know what I mean? But then it's like, what if someone does have cortisol face? And we're all going, No, that's not a real thing. It's like, no, wait, slow down. So can you talk to us a little bit about like, that term of insulin resistance, and how it's maybe, like, it's made its way into that wellness grift. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's not real.
Dr. Karla Lester 29:36
Yeah, insulin resistance is real. It is the epidemic that I think we absolutely should be worried about, especially when I'm looking at teens. And we look at a study called the today two study. It's today in all caps, everybody should check it out and talks about how type two diabetes in adolescents is different. It's more severe, and they have early cardiovascular disease within. One to two years of diagnosing it, and once a hemoglobin, a 1c reaches 6.3% it's hard to turn it around. So I mean, it's, to me, it's like this metabolic health emergency. And so I had a friend say, Carla, I just can't believe it, you've talked about insulin resistance. You're like the expert on this. You've been on Tiktok talking about it, and now everyone is just talking about insulin resistance. And I'm like, Oh, I know. I mean, it's just the way of the world. In America, it's what we are. We're consumers. Everything is a market. You know, every and diet culture teaches us that, you know, we can buy something, look for the singular fix and solve. Oh, here's what's broken with me. And then we can, with certainty, buy this thing. And then we think that we can cause and control it. It makes us feel safe. I mean, there's a lot going on in the world. I have to give parents a break too. I mean, it's a scary place. And for teens, you know, there's a lot going on. And so this is something that we can believe that we can cause and control and is causing us harm. So I get it. I get kind of into dogma too, and wanting to buy things and the latest and greatest, but just recognize that cortisol face can be a part of Cushing's. I've never heard the term cortisol face until I got on tick tock. But yeah, there are patients who have Cushing's disease, and they're going, it's very severe or Cushing syndrome, and taking care of several and over the years, and it's not something you're going to find out on the internet. Of parents be like, do you think they have Cushing's and they have cortisol face? I'll be like, no. But anyway, okay, work with your doctor if you think you have Cushing's disease or syndrome. Okay, so part of it is healthism. Okay, so you can look at the kind of separate out. What is healthism? Healthism is where we put and this actually started in the 80s. It's so interesting. Healthism is when we feel like we can that our health is up to the individual is in control the individual and can be blamed. And so we really get into that. We get kind of wacky. And then in America, with our consumerism that we're addicted to, we want to look for the singular fix and solve that's, I can buy it. This has certainty, and we want certainty, right? This is gonna work, and then we don't have to blame ourselves, because the other side of things has been this, like, harmful, dis, uncomfortable. You know, once we get into the health behavior change that maybe we want to make it's so uncomfortable, and some of us get and I a victim of this, I get into, like, a more restrictive thinking space that can kind of feel kind of safe to me, but I'm going to over function on that. And so that's one reason why I don't do anything. So then we get into healthism and believing that our that we can control it and fix it, this problem. And then the other thing is that with social media, especially experts, are not listened to. And so it's that, it's this kind of weird thing that I see, and I look at the comments of some of these influencers who are glorifying eating disorders, basically, and these people who have then privilege and who are using it as creators and her selling you stuff, these people want to be like them. And they just like, believe that if I buy this, I'm going to look like that, you know, whether it's a dress or, you know, so we want to stay out of the extremes of like, the diet culture and then like the do nothing. But it's also staying out of this extreme of like, thinking that nothing we do is going to improve our health or make us feel better, improve our well being, or over here with healthism, consumerism, singular fix and solve. And I'm almost lately, I've been thinking about that kind of shift, and that's kind of almost more helpful to me, because it kind of leaves weight out of it. Well,
KC Davis 34:01
Dr Carl, I really appreciate all of your help. I feel like there's a lot of people out there that need to hear these truths about the way that we have thought that weight and health is connected for so long, and the way we've been told for so long that that that is not accurate. And then I think there's also a lot of us that need to hear that as we deconstruct from those things, to not be afraid, to have to address, you know, our health struggles. You know, because we're we have this fear that we're gonna, you know, go back to the dark side, and it's like, no, there really is an empowered way forward. And I really appreciate that. Can you share how people can watch your content, but just kind of plug yourself? Oh,
Dr. Karla Lester 34:45
thank you. And this has been a great discussion. It's just brilliant. Your questions, okay? So you can find me at I m, e community.com, so the power of the individual and support of a community, and you can find. Find me on my other website, Dr Carla, with the kmd.com and that's where you'll find coaching. And I have a course called Health yourself, which is a reverse your insulin resistance course that I do in group coaching. And I have a metabolic telehealth practice that's for ages five up to age 21 that's licensed in 15 states. You can find me on Tiktok at ime community or Dr Carla MD, and I'm on Instagram and Facebook, but mainly on Tiktok. And then I have my weekly radio show, and that is 80s mixtape with Dr Carla at Casey u m.org let's see this week, I talked about bullying yesterday on my show and I played, we're not going to take it by Twisted Sister. So very cool.
KC Davis 35:47
All right. Well, thank you so much, and this has been delightful. Thank you. You.

Christy HausslerDecember 30, 2024

125: Almond Moms, Metabolic Diseases, and Pediatric Obesity (Part 1) with Dr. Karla Lester

Today’s topic arouses a host of different feelings and reactions around the term “pediatric obesity.” Dr. Karla Lester joins us to share her expertise as a medical professional and her perspective as a concerned parent. Discussing food and eating habits for us and our kids can send us down a rabbit hole with many tangents. Let’s get some balance and clarity in today’s episode.

Show Highlights:

Parents are victims of diet myths and bad science—and it carries over to our kids.
Having food rules doesn’t mean a commitment to restrictive eating.
How Dr. Karla came to the work she does today
“Almond moms” and “thin privilege” in our society
Fact: It is more difficult to navigate the world in a larger body, and parents fear this for their kids.
Health myths that “almond moms” believe and pass on to their kids
Does thinner always mean healthy? “No, you can be metabolically healthy, or unhealthy, at any weight.”
Comorbidities between addictions and eating disorders
Myths about obesity causing many health issues
Understanding insulin resistance and its causes
A look at the COVID-19 epidemic in a different light

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dr. Karla Lester: IME Community, Dr. Karla, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Dr. Karla's radio show

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
,Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and today we're going to talk about something that, let's be frank, absolutely, like arouses a lot of feelings and reactions to the term, which is pediatric obesity. Now that's obviously medical language, and there's a good reason why we all feel a reaction to that, but I have in the studio today, Dr Carla Lester and Dr Carla first, I want to say thank you for being here. Thank
Dr. Karla Lester 0:33
you for having me. I've been following you since I got on Tiktok, and your platform has been super helpful to me as a parent. Well,
KC Davis 0:41
your platform has been super helpful to me, and one of the reasons why I really wanted to have you on the podcast is because I feel like as parents, particularly at my experience as a parent, where I've been really in my own journey, kind of situated pretty firmly in the anti diet movement for a while now, when it came to some of the realities of, like, trying to help my kids make choices that are healthy, and I don't want to be an almond mom and I don't want to do diet culture, what I found was there's a little bit more here than just everything. Can be intuitive eating, and it totally doesn't matter. And, you know, and I even recognize, like, with my own ADHD, like, I have some challenges in the way that I eat that, you know, I couldn't find answers to those, just in kind of the intuitive eating side of it, but I don't want to go into the diet side of it. And so I'm kind of, like, I don't even know what to do with my own self. And that kind of also brings this gap for, I think, when we're looking at our kids, where I don't want to be harmful, and I know that weight isn't a measure of health, but at the same time, I think sometimes we look at our kids and there's some real health issues happening, and weight is either causally or tangentially related. And I think as parents, we're like, really afraid. We don't want to do harm, but we don't know what to do. And so I think you thread that needle really well. So I'm hoping that we can talk about that today.
Dr. Karla Lester 2:06
Perfect. That is what I do. So my whole philosophy is, let's meet in the middle, because what I found when I started my platform Miami community, and then I have a metabolic telehealth practice, it's licensed in 15 states, is that parents are stuck pinging back and forth between the extremes, and it makes sense because of how we grew up, all the myths, the bad science we've been taught. So they're either in the which kudos to you for being anti diet, and more in the body positivity and Health at Every Size. You know that's where we want to be to avoid harm, but the ping back and forth between that and believing falsely that that means that we're not addressing health or also ignoring, like you said, that there are some comorbidities and health issues related. We could talk about insulin resistance, but you know, what are the actual health issues that are going on? So there's the kind of do nothing, I'm not going to cause any harm, or the pinging back and forth between, like restrictive diet culture, I'm going to be an almond mom. And diet culture teaches us that it's all or nothing. It's going to be painful, it's horrible. And so what I do is I'm like, we kind of have to just drop everything, erase everything, deconstruct and do that work, because we have internalized weight bias. And so what do we want to do? We want to learn what are the actual health issues that my child or teen is facing? And start with relational health. So you can be like me, be like a soft place to land. Operate with compassion, not compliance. Don't look for a singular fix and solve to your child's body, accept them fully. That's your job, and love them and then also accept you want to make some changes. That's okay.
KC Davis 3:53
Yeah, I think part of what's hard is, like as a parent, we can't teach something that we ourselves have not been taught, and we can't impart something that we haven't internalized. And, you know, it was really important for me to find the anti diet movement and to find intuitive eating, and to find Health at Every Size which, if anyone's listening and they're not familiar with those, you know, we don't really have time to unpack all of them, but one of the things that I do know is that all of those kind of movements, they are about health like, none of them are denying that. Like you might need to make changes in your diet, in your activity level, you might need to look at health markers. None of them are denying that. So I don't want to seem as though I'm saying that. I'm just saying that me as the person navigating those movements. What I found was I was like, Okay, this is great. Get rid of dieting, get rid of food rules, get rid of all these things. And I really pushed into intuitive eating. And I met with dietitians, and we talked a lot about, okay, you know, how does your body feel when you eat X, Y, or when you eat a, b, c? And I kept being like, I feel nothing. I. I feel nothing. And we, oh, okay, well, we just can't hear. You can't hear. Let's get in. And we kind of kind like, literally, after a couple of dieticians, we got to the point where one finally went, I mean, you've mentioned that you have ADHD, and we know that, historically, that can come with some interoception problems. The truth is, not everybody feels a difference when they eat one thing over the other. And she finally was like you might and that's what it kind of came down to, for me, was I don't want to be in diet culture. But at the same time, I hit my mid 30s and was told I have a fatty liver, and was told that I had some other like health risk factors for some insulin stuff, and was told by a doctor, I need you to make some of these diet changes. And I was like, okay, my only experience with quote, unquote, food rules is this restrictive diet place, and my only experience with Health at Every Size was this, sort of like, throw all the rules out. And I truly didn't know what to do. Okay, she wants me to eat less sugar, she wants me to eat different kinds of carbs, she wants me to do protein. And I don't know how to do that. And I realized in looking at my kids, okay, I'm doing all of the anti diet stuff. I'm serving dessert with dinner. I'm not making them, you know, eat this before that. I'm not doing taboo, I'm not doing whatever. And then I realized, like, my kids might be a little bit like me. And my kids, all they want is sugar all the time, despite the fact that I have done all of the things I was told to do, to not make sugar the number one thing they want. And so then I'm like, Okay, now we actually kind of maybe need some rules around this, but I don't want to do the bad rules, but I need some rules, and I don't, I don't want my kids to grow up and be like me and not have a way. So I know I just kind of like verbally vomited on you, Dr Carla, but all that to say, I feel like you are such a necessary person to thread this needle, and I want to go a little bit into your background. Because what I really want to do with you is I want to kind of talk about these two polar opposite mistakes we can make, about kind of like almond mom diet culture, but then also kind of like saying everything and anything goes and not having any structure. But I want to start because I think it's important for the audience to know your background, and so tell us a little bit about your background and how you kind of got to this place.
Dr. Karla Lester 7:13
Okay. And thanks for sharing what you shared, too. I just want to say, when you have insulin resistance, you know Intuitive Eating is not going to work. Okay? These are med makes me feel these are medical issues. These are medical issues. And also, there's, I did a radio show on, I have a radio show on insulin resistance is central, so it's in your brain. So you've got all these things going on in our brain with central insulin resistance that contributes to the fatty liver or the mash, and then you've got ADHD. And so we have our food system. So as parents, please understand we don't cause and control. We've been blamed and shamed, and we have as parents, there's so much pressure on us, but we live in this really messed up food system. There's powerful neuro marketing tactics. There's so much food cue reactivity and food noise, so let's just have a lot of compassion. These are medical issues. My background is that I Well, I'm a pediatrician. I'm a mom of three. I get all this. I've had to deconstruct a lot of this stuff myself. I've gone through a lot of health changes myself and growing up, I had a high aces score. So I really feel like, once I got to a certain age, I'm 55 now that my body just like wore my trauma. I mean, it's like that stress just has to go somewhere. So I'm a big advocate in my community if people want to advocate, because I think, you know, once we address these issues in our home and feel more agency around these health issues with our own children, then we can be advocates in the community. But I was on the board of the food bank, but with my nonprofit, my office was at the Health Department's a big public health advocacy I'm at the capital. Most people know me not as like just the childhood obesity doctor. They know me as a fears advocate for children on all sorts of issues, gun violence prevention, Medicaid access, and, you know, it's been an awesome career. I'm glad that I've been able to do all this stuff, but I really noticed with my practice, all these issues, these kids with aces, these kids with looking at social determinants of health, looking at health disparities that have become worse in the pandemic. And what happened for me was I had built my career up to where I was a leader of a population health center and founder at the Children's Hospital here, ended up having really intense whistleblower retaliation, and my attorney said, you're out, you're going to resign. It was effective immediately. That was five years ago, and then I got offered these jobs to build that for us, and I said, You know what? Like I have to get back. I haven't been helpful enough, especially for teens, because it. You look at the data and the media framing of especially adolescent obesity, it's like the severity of it keeps going up, and then they witch it, and the media blames. They'll tell a story, maybe about a teen, and it's this just weight blame and shame, and it shifts it onto them, and it's like we're not getting anywhere. And I knew in clinic teens, they don't show up, they drop off, they don't adhere, and they share nothing, you know. So once I started coaching them, I was like, Wow. I mean, they're in pain, like they are suffering, with hours on end of body, judging, almost dysmorphia, focusing on their stomach or their arms. Anyway, I found this food noise constantly. They feel like I shouldn't be eating. They've told me that time and time again I shouldn't be eating. They restrict, they binge. And I was like, this is way more severe than I ever knew about doing all this work. So I kind of had to, like, I'm asking parents to do recognize we're at a loss, kind of erase everything we've done. Yeah, sure, I can say, Oh, I'm proud of this. I'm proud of that, but the reality is, we're kind of at a loss. And so then I started seeing parents who were like, Oh, my daughter is body confident. She's size six, she dances, she has tons of friends, but I just can't help but think she wouldn't be better at a size zero. And I was like, What's going on, you know? And then I found out, I'm like, I think the parents have untreated issues. And then I saw the almond mom thing with Yolanda Hadid, and I was like, Whoa. You know, they're like subsuming their teen into this. You know, what they say is health, but is really a pursuit of thin privilege, the social capital of thinness, and it's so hard for parents, because that exists in our society.
KC Davis 11:58
That gave me goosebumps when you said that, because I feel like part of what's so difficult about having to help our kids navigate food choices, and you know health choices, is that, like, we have so much as parents, we have to deconstruct, and there's something really powerful when you said, like, we can watch a child, and I think a lot of parents will watch A child maybe put on a lot of weight or even some weight, and feel fear. And like you said, there is a social capital of thinness, and a lot of parents their quote, unquote, health fears have a lot less to do with health and a lot more to do with I don't want my child to lose thin privilege. Now I will stop and say, I think that there are two sides to this. There's kind of like a malevolent side, and then there's kind of like a side that I have a little bit more empathy for. Like, I think we hear that and we think, Oh, these superficial moms, these, you know, they have undiagnosed eating disorders, and they're being so they're pushing this on their kids, and I totally understand that. But I think as a parent, I understand that, like it is, in fact, more difficult to navigate the world in a larger body, like there is more discrimination, there is more stigma, there is more pain, and I don't think that every parent that feels fear around watching their child gain weight is necessarily just acting out of this kind of superficial I think there's this fear of, I don't want my kid to get bullied. I don't want my now that doesn't obviously justify doing something harmful and engaging in diet culture, but, but yeah, so let's start there. Let's start with almond moms and kind of this fat phobia and this and so if anyone doesn't know this thing about almond moms was people started posting online on tick tock videos of their moms, of kind of like, what their moms would eat in a day. And the joke was that, like, the mom would eat a handful of almonds and then be like, No, I'm good. I'm full. Or they'd go to a restaurant and they'd be like, This is what I'm eating. It'd be like a burger and fries. Be like, this is my mom's eating. And the mom would have, like a burger, no bun, and they'd be cutting, like the tiniest little sliver of meat and eat. And they like, I'm just so full. And I think it was kind of an awakening, like people realizing I thought this was normal, or I thought this was just my mom and kind of realizing, like, oh, fully grown ass women are not supposed to just be eating a handful of almonds, and realizing how many of our mothers were disordered. I mean, I feel privileged that my mom wasn't an almond mom, but tell me a little bit about some of the health myths that almond moms believe and perpetuate with their kids.
Dr. Karla Lester 14:45
Well, they're very tied into the energy balance theory. So that's the calories in, calories out. So we, you know, have to give ourselves a major break and have gentleness and compassion, because we were taught that in 1970 Seven Dietary Guidelines for Americans came out, and they pushed the false lipid hypothesis of Ancel Keys and who was responsible for BMI as well. So thanks, and that taught us to those guidelines were developed by politicians, but said, you know, let's demonize cholesterol. Let's demonize dietary fats. Eat low fat and high carbohydrate. And then we had, you know, the food pyramid came along. And so, you know, our bodies, we were taught are just like a, you know, calories in, calories out, machine, and I'm Gen X, and I talk on my radio show about how to deconstruct toxic 80s diet culture. And a lot of this stuff did come from the 80s. And then I play epic 80s music. So that one thing is they're very stuck in that. So it's very much about cause and control and like cause and effect. And then the myth is that, you know, a lot of these people have metabolic health privilege. Give me a break, you know. And a lot of it is like, you know, thinness is better, and they've, I'm sure they have had privileges, and a lot of it is tied into patriarchy keeping women silent. And you know, when you look at the body positive movement Health at Every Size, I mean, it's rooted in making sure that the silencing stops of marginalized voices. And
KC Davis 16:20
it does seem to be two things, right? Like, there's that social stuff of it's like this myth that thinner is better, thinner is more beautiful, that thinner always means healthy, that health is morally superior in all instances, right? And so it's like, okay, if I believe that socially, and I've been sold this lie scientifically, right, that all I need to do is eat fewer calories than I'm expending to maintain that thinness. And I would also guess that, like if I had those beliefs then and I was eating a certain amount of food, and I wasn't either maintaining thinness or losing weight, then the only conclusion I would have to draw is I should be taking in fewer calories. I should be taking in fewer calories, or I should, or should be exercising more. And so you get people moms in these bodies where they are or are not thin, but they've kind of like whittled themselves down to these, like, 912,000 1200 calorie days, right? Because that's what they have to do to kind of maintain that plate. So it makes sense to me that there's, like the social myths and the scientific myths. And I saw a tick tock one time that I thought was really funny, where it was talking about moms being really overly concerned with their daughters not being petite like they are. But the punch line was, she was like, it's always this petite woman who married this, like, linebacker Mom Dad, that's then, like, shocked that their daughter doesn't come out super petite. That's like, You married a linebacker, and that's neither here nor there. I just thought that was a funny observation. So observation.
Dr. Karla Lester 18:02
I've seen this. I get those parents,
KC Davis 18:07
yeah, I've heard you say before this kind of you bust this myth by basically saying that you can be metabolically healthy at any weight.
Dr. Karla Lester 18:16
Yeah, yes, you can be metabolically healthy at any way. You can be metabolically unhealthy at any way. You can have insulin resistance and be thin. You can have type two. I mean, some people produce more insulin. Some people, it's super interesting science. Some people produce more, you know, glucose, and so they're going to be more like, have more diabesogenic or obesogenic. And so when you look at genetics and risk factors, you shouldn't base it on weight as much as you should say, does anybody have type two diabetes? Did they have pre diabetes? Did they have fatty liver disease? They have metabolic syndrome? Did they have hypertension of early cardiovascular disease? You know, let's just get into the actual health issues, and then what are your metabolic health numbers? You know, what's showing up on your exam, but also what's the data? And then, what are the causes, comorbidities, contributing factors? That's what I focus on in my practice. It's different for everybody, and it changes over time too. And so it's much more interesting way of practicing. And obviously it's not going to be a singular fix and solve. So we look at all sorts of ways that we work on it. But the thing is, it's healthism, right? The almond moms get into what's healthism, and a lot of people, I've seen a lot of videos that say my mom's an almond mom, and they're actually just kind of a healthy, health conscious person, which is fine, and they absolutely don't even put it on their their daughter or their child at all. So they're like, do you? And they. Cook and this stuff. So I'm like, I've put in the comments they're not an almond mom, you know. And then some mom and mom people say, Yeah, my mom's an almond mom during the day, but then she binges at night, you know, in secret. And then some have absolutely, that's an eating disorder, it is. And that's a lot have. These are just, you know, is it really parent who has an untreated eating disorder, and then they're subsuming their child into it, because that's very attractive, and it's with this is my main concern with the compounded meds. That's what we're seeing. It's my biggest fear right now is that these almond moms are getting these compounded meds for their adolescents and maybe even younger children, and some nefarious companies are giving them out. And it's just very scary. Yeah,
KC Davis 20:51
let's talk about that for a second. You know, I worked in addiction for a really long time, and there's a lot of comorbidity between addiction and eating disorders, and we, what we know is that the most lethal mental health disorder in the world are eating disorders. That is the most deadly mental health issue that you can have. And what's frustrating to me around the discourse of GLP one medications is it's I don't think that they're a panacea. I don't think that they're evil. I don't think anything about that. I just wish there was more conversation about the risk factor of the interplay between those medications and eating disorders, because using medications in eating disorder is not new. We had tons of clients that were using tons of laxatives that would drink a ton of coffee for the appetite suppressant of the caffeine that would get on certain medications on purpose for the appetite suppressant. Like, those things aren't new. And what's so interesting to me, like, I went to the doctor one time, like, so I have an addiction history and one of the most but I also have a problem with one of the discs in my back, and every once in a while, like once a year or whatever, it compresses a nerve and gives me like, level 10 pain, and it is so incredibly difficult for me to access pain meds. And I have 20 years of sobriety, and it literally took me 15 years before I was even willing to go on pain meds for surgeries, right? And it is so difficult to access pain meds, even when you need them, when you are disabled, when you have chronic pain, when you are post surgery, especially as a woman, because nobody believes women about pain and the roadblocks that I had to go through to try and access needed pain medication. And here's the thing, it was like, I get it because it's a reaction right to the opioid epidemic that we caused when we were not being thoughtful about prescribing narcotic medication, but we've almost like over corrected. And what I think is interesting is that it is so difficult for me to access narcotics when I legitimately need them, and I've had multiple doctors offer me GLP ones without doing any lab work first. Wow. And it's kind of bananas, right? And listen, what like this was me kind of talking about some like, hormonal issues that I have, some metabolic issues that I have, and that's come up in conversation, and I don't have a like fundamental feeling for or against using them, and I'm willing to have that conversation. But it was wild to me that you know you could jump on an app and in 30 seconds somebody will prescribe it to you. You can have a doctor offer it to you and not even do lab work first. And I'm like, How are we not making the connection? I can't get pain meds when I need them, and yet this medication has been being offered to me before we're even getting to the point of trying to figure out if I need it. And it's like, Well, what we're probably going to do, honestly, is eventually when we realize, culturally, what's happening. I'm afraid we're going to do the same thing we've done with the opioid epidemic, and overcorrect and now people that need the medic like it's just really frustrating, and it was so ironic to look at the interplay. And they're similar in some ways, in terms of they serve a medical purpose, but we need to be aware that they can be used detrimentally in the course of a lot of mental health issues. Anyways, I forgot why I brought that up, but I think we were kind of talking about the science myths that almond moms kind of cling to, and this idea that skin, if thinner, is always healthier, then that means that anything you do in pursuit of thinness, like, ergo, that's okay, and that's healthy, and that's not going to be detrimental. And then can you talk a little bit about, because I feel like one that I was raised with that is that, like, it kind of goes with, like, I always thought that weight gain is what caused type two diabetes. And so when doctors would say, like, you really need to lose some weight, otherwise you're going to get type two diabetes, this idea that like weight gain is causing and you'll see it, they'll be like, oh, people who have this much adipose tissue are this much more risk. And it's almost like this conflation of cause and correlation. And can you unpack that a little bit? Because that was a big turning point for me. Yeah, such
Dr. Karla Lester 24:56
a great question. I do want to clear. Verify that. I do have several patients who do really well, and the parents do on the medication, and it does help address their metabolic health issues, and we're looking at biomarkers, and it's reversing their insulin resistance. They're more responsive, and weight loss can be there or not, but we anyway so it can be. And the also, the cost of the medications is a huge barrier to access. And I think we're in this toxic consumerism. I mean, everything is consumerism, singular fix and certainty, right? And
KC Davis 25:41
I think one of the myths that I think is kind of central to talking about what almond moms believe, is that like weight gain causes health issues, and that like obesity causes and by the way, I want to just side note I'm using the term obesity because that is like what the medical language uses, and it has like a medical definition. I am aware that it is not a term that many of the movements that I associate with, like, used. So I just wanted to say, like, I'm aware of that I'm not intending to offend or not be nuanced. But I just feel like, you know, talking to a doctor trying to refer to, like, the medical definition, this belief that it is the cause of type two diabetes, or, you know, I've even been told, because I have PCOS, that like losing weight cure my PCOS, right? And so talk to us a little bit about how those are myths,
Dr. Karla Lester 26:29
yeah. So the cause of type two diabetes is insulin resistance. And there was a scientist, Gerald ravine. He was at, I think that's his name. He was at Stanford, and he won the Nobel Prize for his research that showed that showed metabolic syndrome X that became insulin resistance. Metabolic Syndrome is the cause of these metabolic diseases and cardiovascular disease. And it's so interesting to see, if you follow the literature and you know how these myths take hold, and the attachment to energy balance theory, I fight the gym bros on tick tock about this, because they're obsessed with it. Get a new calorie deficit, calories in, calories out. And you just need to lose weight to resolve these issues. It's just really interesting to see how that in the medical field, especially in healthcare I find still today, a lot of even specialists endocrinologist they don't address insulin resistance in patients, and they don't know enough about insulin resistance. We talk about how doctors we don't get any training in nutrition, which is true in medical school or residency, but that we don't have training in insulin resistance. We don't have training in focusing on what are the actual metabolic health issues that are happening? And then we give out, eat less, move more advice. Bullet point, like compliance advice and like BMI, for instance, we've used that as this just one that was chosen in, I think, 1994 so that we would have a screening tool so we could assess and that was recommended by the expert panel for pediatrics to follow BMI. So everything was put on it as a screening tool, and then you would be based upon the percentile of BMI that would determine your risk factors, like what labs are ordered, and then BMI decreasing BMI is the goal, and it just, I have to say, it's a horrible way to practice medicine, because, you know, I was following these expert committee recommendations for years, and nobody was getting better. It's exhausting. You're doing these notes. You're like, why am I here?
KC Davis 29:00
And is it true that the weight itself is what causes things like type two diabetes or cardiovascular disease? Or do we have that relationship? Wrong?
Dr. Karla Lester 29:10
I believe that no type two diabetes is caused by insulin resistance, okay,
KC Davis 29:16
but is gaining weight what causes insulin resistance?
Dr. Karla Lester 29:19
No, it perpetuates a cycle. So what happens is it starts. So if you have a genetic predisposition, which is the most powerful thing, then we've had bad recommendations for what to eat, and we have our food system with high processed carbohydrates, refined sugars, trans fats and salt, and they created this addictive trifecta, and there's a lot of food politics that goes into this. And then what happens is we've been eating low fat, high carbohydrate, which has and then we should eat frequently. That's what we've been taught. And so that's what's contributed if we didn't have our food system and the lousy. Is advice and a bad science, then we wouldn't have as many people struggling with insulin resistance. So insulin resistance, so Insulin is a hormone we think about when you think about blood sugar. Insulin resistance is an adaptation of the body. The body can adapt. We just want to keep status quo. That's what our body wants status quo. There's no agenda that our body has. So when we eat anything, our blood sugar goes up. Blood glucose goes up. Insulin is released from the pancreas to connect to insulin receptors on the cell membrane, and then opens up a channel the blood sugar, blood glucose is led into the cell so that we can make ATP, our body's energy source. When the blood sugar goes down, there's a feedback loop, so then the pancreas is kicked in to stop releasing insulin. It's how it's supposed to work. We're insulin sensitive. We're insulin responsive when we have insulin resistance, so maybe we have a genetic predisposition, and there have been some, a ton of studies on insulin resistance. It's just interesting, like what gets out in the media, what's taken hold in healthcare. We could have had it differently. We could have had a more effective way of approaching it, and it makes me sick, but anyway, we're doing better now. So what happens is, when we are told to eat high carbohydrates, so more insulin is going to be released when we eat sugar, right? And then it's going to spike up, and then our blood sugar is going to crash, and then we're going to feel like, like one donut begets another donut, right? It's like the sugar Chase. And so we're going to eat and then, so eat more, and then, so what's going to happen is Insulin is a powerful storage hormone, and what if we have high insulin levels around all the time? Well, we're going to be very dangerously hypoglycemic, because insulin lowers blood sugar. So what happens is there's a change on the of the receptor on the cell membrane, so it's just not as responsive. It doesn't let as many glucose molecules in to flood the cell, and you're not dangerously hypoglycemic. So then in your bloodstream, you have higher levels of insulin and you have higher blood sugar. So what does your pancreas do? It kicks out more insulin to overcome it. Then that kicks in the obesity cycle, because insulin is a powerful storage hormone. It stores everything is fat and keeps your fat stores on a lockdown. The best book is the obesity code by Dr Jason Fung. I mean, if you want to learn about all the hormonal stuff, because, you know, a lot of my viral posts are on it's hormonal. It's not simply caloric. It's not You're not a calories and calories out machine. Once the cycle starts, then you get the effects of obesity on your body too. So then we're getting inflammation. We have more risk for cancers and some of the chronic issues and diseases that are associated with obesity. So, but it starts with, you know, and it can be really complex interplay,
KC Davis 32:55
yeah. And I'm curious like, how many of those health things, like, I'm thinking back to COVID, where they used to talk about, you know, people who had a certain amount of body fat percentage were more likely to have these high risk factors. And I remember there was this discourse around, you know, that everyone took that to mean, C It's unhealthy to have a bigger body. But nobody was really talking about, like, You talk a lot about weight stigma in, like, the medical world that, like, it genuinely affects the quality of medical care that you get, so that, like, a good percentage of that isn't, oh, their body is just, you know, more broken and is going to get COVID, like, going to die from COVID. It's like they're not getting the same quality of care that a person in a thinner body is getting when they have COVID. And that actually might be the main risk factor, right? Or that, you know, there are underlying health issues that are causing the weight gain, and it's those underlying health issues that are the risk factor, not the literal amount of, like, body fat composition someone has,
Dr. Karla Lester 34:04
yeah, I mean, it's tricky, because there are definitely issues. I mean, we're looking at, like, with COVID, there's so many pulmonary I mean, it's a virus that affects your lungs. You know, that was an issue. And so for people who have obesity and struggle with that, that's really tough. That made it really hard. That was my first really viral post was medical gaslighting due to weight stigma and bias during COVID is dangerous because there was a comedian on Tiktok who went in thought he had COVID. It was before we had vaccines or anything, and so he was he said, Why is everything any super funny? I had been following him. Why is everything about weight, you know, just watch the weight with the doc. He's like, Doc, I gotta, you know, I got a fever, I got a cough, I can't breathe, you know, it's like, everything looks good. Just watch the weight. You know, it's like, I'm not gonna test you for COVID. I'm not gonna. And I was like, Wait, that's like, wrong. I mean, that was weight bias. And so, yeah, I mean, our society. Agriculture, we shouldn't be surprised, unfortunately, and even in the medical system that they're going to weaponize it. I mean, there's so much weight bias. And my daughter and I actually did a kind of a qualitative study on that viral Tik Tok post about medical gas lighting. And because I woke up to, like, 1000 comments of similar experiences due to weight, and a lot of them were gender based during pregnancy with, like, postpartum depression. They were saying, you know, they were really struggling. And they were like, you just need to lose your postpartum weight, your baby weight, COVID, PCOS, you know? I mean, it's just like, on and on and on, these really chronic people with lupus who had been ignored, people with cancers, who had been told you just need to lose weight and then your problems will go away. And they ended up having, you know, some advanced cancer. And so I think we're obviously very messed up there. Yeah,

Christy HausslerDecember 23, 2024

124: A Tale of Two Birders and Other Niche Tea

This is a lighthearted episode–because we all can use a break from all the heaviness around us. I’m welcoming Caroline, “The Niche Tea Lady,” to the show. Join us!

Show Highlights:

Understanding “niche tea”
Caroline’s favorite story of niche tea: the amazing tale of two birders
The biggest plot twist in a niche tea deep dive
Memorable niche tea surprise endings
Pyramids, video games, and the nuances of content creation
Everyone loves an underdog story!
“Discords” and weirdo behavior
The funniest niche tea in Caroline’s experience: a published back-and-forth between two high-level academics
The most viral niche tea stories in Caroline’s experience: birding and beekeeping

Resources and Links:

Connect with Caroline: TikTok, X, Instagram, and YouTube

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
Casey, hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to Struggle. Care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and today we're gonna have a little bit of a light hearted episode. I feel like we all deserve a little break from the heaviness, and so I'm here with a very special guest, the niche tea lady Caroline, thank you for being here.
Caroline 0:21
Thank you for having me.
KC Davis 0:24
Okay, so you run a Tiktok account where you post about niche tea. Can you explain what that is to those of us above 35
Caroline 0:33
got it? Yes. Niche tea is think of it as like if you hyper focus on drama, and you jump from story to story. It's that but each story is based around a different hobby or online community or niche, basically anything you could call it a niche. So something that I found myself doing a lot on my own was just usually on YouTube. I'll find some hole of content to fall into, where it's relating to something, right, something that I probably haven't engaged with before, but I'm very interested in kind of just getting people's opinions about it. And when that happens with drama, I found myself with no one to talk to about it, because it was always so specific, and there's all this background on it. And so I made niche tea as a way to just talk about those things as I hyper focus on them and jump from thing to thing. Yeah,
KC Davis 1:25
this is like, I'll find myself in like, a YouTube rabbit hole, and then my husband will come home, and I'll be like, there is so much drama between people that like to quilt in quilting circles and people that feel like quilting should be an A one, you know, a solo hobby. And I'll just, like, force him to listen to it. He'll be like, I don't care about quilting drama at all, exactly,
Caroline 1:44
and neither do I necessarily, or at least, I don't care about quilting, but I care about this,
KC Davis 1:51
but when the tea is hot, yeah, the tea is hot. Okay, so, Caroline, I just, I invited you here today because I genuinely just wanted you to regale, regale us with, like your top favorite stories of niche tea. Got it paint us a word picture.
Caroline 2:08
Oh, my God, that's a tricky one. I think one easy one that I could choose actually would be the episode about bird watching, from the bird watching community, from that one so many people were interested in. That one I love. A big part of what I love is what loving the response I get from people about these things. But that particular one involved, it was basically a story of two men who reached the world record for bird sighting. I believe it was specifically sightings, because sometimes they count. I've learned bird calls as count as like. That's like the difference between birding and bird watching. Birding includes if you hear them, apparently, right? And so basically, there's one guy in the field in the hobby who's been big into the hobby. He's well known throughout the community, and he was going to break the world record for the most, let's say, seen birds in the world, different species. And then he was planning it out, like a year in advance. He was He knew what his plans were going to be and which birds he was going to hit and what the plan was. And then a couple months before, it out of nowhere, this challenger shows up. Who when you watch birds. When you do bird watching, it's not something like, everybody knows everybody, because you're only not that many people are like, routinely logging their bird sightings and talking about it and doing all that. So first of
KC Davis 3:32
all, where are they logging their bird sightings? Like, do they have to take a picture of it? There
Caroline 3:35
are, there's no like, Review Board of whether or not,
KC Davis 3:39
is this the honor system. Caroline, is this the honor system? Yes, there are
Caroline 3:43
a number of different websites that are neutral, kind of third party, you know, places where people can come log their sightings, and then also discussion boards and things along those lines. So this guy comes out of nowhere and just logs like nearly 10,000 birds in like a couple days or something, and claims that he's just been he claimed he was just, he's been doing this his life, too. He just hadn't put it anywhere online. And no one has ever heard of him, and it's very hard to find any record of him. I looked into it. And so the original guy who was building toward this, the one the community knew. He said, You know what? Instead of debating whether or not this new guy, I believe his name is Jason, and whether or not Jason was is real or not, you know, I'm just gonna assume he is, and I'm gonna adjust my timetable accordingly, like he even openly said that he's like, so now I'm going to, you know, I'm gonna treat this as though it is real, because I can, you know, like, and I can adjust things if I need to. So
KC Davis 4:45
is Jason's claim that he's been, like, analog tracking his birds, and that he just uploaded them all, like, logged them all into the website at once.
Caroline 4:55
Yes, that he's been doing this for years and years and years, just like. Uh, just like the main guy, who was a diplomat, and I'm trying to remember his name, but so the primary guy decides to move up a bunch of his travel and he starts, he's a diplomat, actually, so that helps him get to different places across the world. But he ends up meeting the getting that 10,000th watch like he as he moved his timetable up, Jason did too. So he kept seeing, you know, he would originally go, I cannot remember his name. I'm gonna call him Michael. He would originally go to a location, and then he'd find out Jason had just gone to a different location, or a similar thing, you know. And it was, ended up being this neck and neck thing, and about six months, at least earlier than when the primary guy was going to finalize his, you know, actually do the whole thing, have his friends and family there, you know, and see his 10,000 stop.
KC Davis 5:53
He had, like, a, he had, like, a little award ceremony, like he was gonna, like, see his 10,000th bird, with his, like, family and friends around, yeah,
Caroline 6:01
because it's like, a, it's like, a lifetime achievement, like, it's a big deal. Like, people were all like, very, you know, it was a thing that he'd worked toward for such a long time.
KC Davis 6:09
And is the diplomat showing his work? Like, is he taking pictures, or he's also on the honor system, also
Caroline 6:14
on the honor system, but he's well, but we believe him. We yes, there's nobody's doubted him that I seen is my understanding of reputation, yes, and he's also been
KC Davis 6:25
mainstay of the Birding community. Exactly, he's a pillar, so pillar of the Birding community. We can trust
Caroline 6:33
one person. We can trust him. There's no reason to question him. He's somebody who would have people with him. You know, while he's going on these hunts for a particular bird, he's somebody who travels very frequently for his job, and there's enough evidence to corroborate that he's telling the truth. I'm sure there's potentially one or two that maybe people couldn't like, weren't physically there for. But generally, he's trusted. We're not worried about him. But for the Jason guy, we don't know anything about him. Nobody knows him. Nobody knows anything about you know what his theoretical fines were. And so there are people though, the diplomat is moving forward, and he's like, I'm just going to assume you know. And like I said, he ended up getting there about six months earlier than he had originally planned, and he wasn't able to make it kind of a celebration of this lifetime achievement the way he wanted, because he had to change his plans, and where he ended up finding his last bird was not anywhere local, so it was something that he had to do last minute, and wouldn't have been able to organize other people for. But even so, Jason claimed to have beat him by like eight hours.
KC Davis 7:40
So he's just dogging his steps. Yes, really
Caroline 7:44
hard. And even so, again, the diplomat is very diplomatic. Shocking. He posts, you know, a statement about, you know, reaping his 10,000th and that regardless of whatever else is going on, this is a big achievement for him. He is very proud. He said, thank you to a bunch of people like his wife and like people in the community who've been very supportive and whom he's built relationships with over the years. Meanwhile, there was a single article on a website for a traveling like guide tour company in South America, and it said congratulations to Jason for for beating the world record
and seeing 10,000 being the first person in the world to hit 10,000 and do the whole thing. And it was written by him, if you look at the up,
and people are like, what is this? So by the time I get into this, people are going through, you know, people have been going through for the last several months his bird list in addition to this. And so by the time I jump into this, that article is gone from that website, I can find traces of it. You know, like Google will hold caches of things. So something hip, if people ask me a lot like, how I find some of my information, especially for stuff that's gone the way, that machine is obviously a really good tool to use. If people aren't familiar with what that is, it's a website where you can put in a URL for a page, and then it'll archive the state of that page as many times as you want to do it. So if you want to archive something for the future because you think it might change, you can go there and have a manual archive done of it, and then if anything changes on that web page, you can go back to this website, the Wayback Machine, find the URL, pick the date, and you'll see a living state of what it was at that time. But another easy one for stuff that gets deleted real fast is simply that Google search engine doesn't live look up everything on every website all the time. It's storing it everyone smiles. Think of it, the same as Google Maps when you do street view. That's not your house yesterday, that's. Your house the last time the Google car came through and took a picture of your house, right? So it's the same thing on the search engine. And so when things have changed like, oh, they 404, that page last night, if you need to see something on that page, you can still search it, and you won't be able to click the link when it comes up, but it will still come up with some details. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So the preview, if there's a Featured Snippet, anything along those, like those standard things that help you from SEO, those things get cashed. So I've had situations where people are like, Oh, I can't see, you know, I can't tell what the name of this he was associated with this person, and I can't find like he took it down? Well, I've searched people's websites and found like, for example, like their PR page that still had details on it, because it's the cache of it. So I could find, if I look up somebody's name, and potentially, like their web, like this person, whatever PR this you can get to a point where the preview will show you what you searched for. So you can see in the preview that name might be listed under a bunch of lists of names. And now you can say, so for your website, you had this page. Now when I click on it, it goes to a 404, or it's changed. But at the time, you can see that it was here that you've changed that it's kind of a neat thing. So by the time I go to do that, the article is gone, but I could still see the 404, of it, basically, and confirm that he did write that. And then right at the same time, I'm also seeing that the bird community's kind of investigators, the people who've chosen to go through the 10,000 bird list, found a whole host of different birds that were improbable, like very improbable, and then a whole other host that it would be shocking if they were not wrong or false some way, like birds that were have been assumed to have gone extinct, birds that would have it would have been a newsworthy event for a confirmed sighting, that type of stuff, like last seen in the 30s. You know, that type of stuff. So, in combination with so there's that coming out about Jason, also this only, the only place this gets reported on is this one travel website. People are like, What do you mean? What's happening? Who are these people? What's happening? Apparently, the travel website just got company, just got inundated, and they ended up putting out a separate statement that was like, We did work with this man. He came to us, we do bird tours. He did one with us, and then later he wrote that article, and he gave it to us, and said, Would you publish this on your website? And we were like, yeah, he's worked with us before, so yeah, but we're not trying to say anything. I can't tell whether or not to feel bad for them. I kind of do, though, because I think they were just like a client wanted this fine, you know. So I felt a little bad for them. They had to put out a separate statement, Jason still didn't. He posted like, one or two direct responses to people on birding websites, but for the most part, he does not have an active social presence in any way that you can figure out. So he's just gone silent. He's been silent. That's what I'm saying, is like, didn't exist. Like he when I say he came out of nowhere. I don't mean like, oh, we just weren't paying attention. And look, this guy's got pictures of birds all over his Instagram. And it turns out he's been logging like, he doesn't have social profiles that I was able to find, or anything that where he talks about any of this, or if, like, they're very locked down. If so, so he's not someone who's out there, like on his Twitter talking about his side of it. He literally, like, doesn't he's not part of the conversation, except in these very controlled, weird little areas where it's like, I'm gonna put my birds here and then leave them, and then I'm not seeing back and forth with him talking with anyone, and then him say, like, releasing an article on a website, but not posting anything on social media, or like, doing, Like, just the vehicles he's using to talk about these things, every move is bizarre, is the point. I still only vaguely believe he's a real person. Supposedly, though he emails the diplomat and concedes because of some of the questions relating to, again, newsworthy, extinct birds, and he kind of throws out, like a yeah, maybe, you know, I he's like, he kind of throws some wishy washy I'm gonna let this go because, you know, I'm taking the high road. And yeah, I, you know, he said I'm gonna be the bigger man, right? That that was the tone of the email to the diplomat. And the diplomat was like, he just posted. He's very, again, very communicative with, like, his friends, family, fans, whatever, community. And so he posts on his Facebook like, you know, I got this, you know, this is a nice email from Jason. It's very kind of him, whatever. And everybody's like, you're being nice. Just it was very funny. He is very much a diplomat, but
KC Davis 14:56
that is a wild I feel really bad for the diplomat. Can you imagine, just like, being some guy that, like, that's just your life? Is you just a birder, and some dude comes out of nowhere and just totally like, yucks your yum and rains on your parade? I mean, the man wanted his friends and family there when he saw his last bird. Yeah,
Caroline 15:15
I know. And that was a big sentiment that a lot of people had coming off of this story, that comment I got a lot like, man, that's rough, you know, and he was still so gracious about it, given everything. And as loathe as I am to support government entities in specific situations, I'm gonna give him this because, yeah, he just seemed like a guy who just likes birds. And why would you do this, even if this was real, even if you take everything he says at face value, even if that was me, I feel like I would still hesitate, because, man, that's rough. Let the
KC Davis 15:49
man have his win. So okay, here's so that makes me think of this question, what's like the biggest plot twist you've ever had in a niche T deep dive, the
Caroline 15:58
one that I think had a good twist to it. Was the, I guess the whole story was kind of the twist, but it was, I like the academic ones, and there's one those are some of the really fun ones, because usually people don't hear those unless they're close to it, right? Like, it's not a thing that you necessarily hear a lot about, is what's happening in academia. But there was one about it turned out there was this, like, big discovery or claim that had come out about the oldest pyramid in the world being in it, think it was in the Philippines, and the paper behind it, and it was a whole discussion about that. And that had been something, there was this big paper that had come out, and had been something that had been very highly regarded in the archeology field. It had been peer reviewed. It had, like, all of this stuff. And then basically it turned out way later that all of these different things, that this initial group of people, led by this one particular guy, the researcher, had claimed everything they had discovered could be explained by other reasons. And then it also came out that the peer reviewers weren't archeologists, they were all different, or weren't geologists, like they weren't correct in the field that they were in. And that was such a weird one, because it was just like 20 years later, like it was a significant amount of time, and that was just crazy, honestly, like that whole situation, like the idea that it could go through, because there's so much rigor around academic papers, that one was just such a weird it was bonkers to hear every single thing that was in this particular piece of research that took so long, took so much manpower, took all of these different things, and all of it falling kind of apart, was just a little a little bonkers to be able to hear about from the people who actually were in this area. And it throws off so much about what people thought of, what archeology was like, it changes some of the developmental pieces of what we think humanity went through, like, what our actual timeline looks like. That's like a big deal, right? So like, because we thought that, like, in order for it to be a man made pyramid where it was, it implies a level of technological like ability of humans, right? Like that just would not have made sense at that time. And it implies a lot about the area and the what people would have lived, and whether or not it would have been something like we were at a point where we were able to do that there, and how that would impact everything in that area. So it's the difference between it being, like, I think it was some massive, like, 20,000 years old to like, Oh no, actually, the oldest pyramid is like 5000 years old, maybe somewhere in that range. Okay,
KC Davis 18:51
so my next question is, like, Tell me some niche tea that had, like, the best twist to it, or, like, the best, like, surprise ending. Yeah,
Caroline 19:00
something about niche tea. That is, I think people get frustrated about but something that is that I is something that's kind of inherent to it, is that there's almost never part two. I moved I've moved on. I try and wait until there's something really interesting to talk about, or I lead people to other places where they can continue to dive into it. But, you know, it's an ADHD rabbit hole. I have now expelled that energy and I'm leaving one of the few times that I've done a follow up was because there was a twist when entirely against what the original video was, and I was, I felt lied to and irritated. And that was one that was, it was about genshin impact, which is this, it's a gotcha game. It's like, I think they're, I can't tell if they're mostly mobile or not, but it's a video game. Doesn't matter. People play it online. People make content around it. And so the original story was, there are a lot of YouTubers who make content around genshin, and they are people who work with the company that owns this game. And. So the company will give you know, contracts to certain people to talk about it, which is obviously very helpful if you are a full time content creator, if you're somebody who and especially if you're specific to this video game for the most part, then yeah, you want to get in with the company, because that's going to help promote your ability to continue making money doing this thing. The original conversation was, and the original video was about the company released something for the game. People in the community who make content about the game had mixed opinions on like, like, some people thought it was, we're saying, Oh yeah, we love this. Some people, a lot of people, were saying, We've been not only is this bad, it's been bad, and they keep doing things that are bad, and we're getting frustrated. Somebody just casually made a joke about that, like said, it was a tweet that it said the duality of man, and it was, it showed two screenshots from YouTube, of one saying, this is the best update ever. I love it. And the next one like, this is the worst update ever, I hate and so it's just a really funny like, Look at this. But this tweet, this tweet started an absolute Apocalypse within the community, because everybody started jumping in and saying, Yeah, everybody who are posting positive content about this update are shills. They've been paid off. They're not people you can rely on. They're not people who you can actually like. They're not going to give real criticism because they're paid to do this, and very likely they have a non disparagement, or at the very least, they're not going to get they know. They're more likely to get more contracts with the company if they say good things about about the so it
KC Davis 21:37
wasn't like so people didn't think that it was genuinely a split opinion, like, Oh, it's just a polarizing game feature. Like, people kind of immediately went to, like, oh, the people who are giving positive reviews are because they're on comp. Now, do we know did we know that? Did we know that only the Okay, so that was just our assumption. Yeah.
Caroline 21:55
So that was the assumption. And the stupid thing about that is, like, this is a jumping off point to the actual thing. So like, this is, we're not even there. We're not even there yet. This was such a hard one to do because, like, I had to go down, like, real into the into the weeds on this one to figure it out. Yes, oh my god. So this is
KC Davis 22:11
like me explaining, like, sometimes I come across a tick tock video that is so funny, like
Caroline 22:16
a ninth tier meme, yes, and
KC Davis 22:18
I really want to show my husband, and he's not even on tick tock. He doesn't even have a Facebook so, like, I literally, I will sometimes go and, like, save other videos, and there'll be, like, six videos before I get to the video I actually wanted to laugh at. So be like, Okay, so there's this trend. Here's what it looks like, but then, like, there was this iteration of the trend that looked like this. Now there's this person that nobody likes, but, and it's like, I have to explain all nine layers, and it's never funny by the time I get to, like, that point, but I insist on doing it anyways. I feel justified.
Caroline 22:50
And like, No, trust me. Like, next time, next time, you'll get it. Share this joy with me, damn it, right? I always think about, when I think about that, not to stay on the tangent, but like, I always think about the memes, like in April, where it's like, you know, like, it's like, right now and it shows rain, but soon, and it's ramen, and it's just an uncooked block of ramen. Gonna be May, it's gonna be May. So, like, you either get it or you don't get and, like, how do I explain that? Would that be still being funny? Like, it's funny inherently, but you have to get there on your own, yeah? So we've got people now going back and forth, saying, yeah, and there's actually two full camps. So a little bit to what you said. They're the people who were aligning to the guy who was complaining about the things that they didn't like about this was a patch to this game, because it's an online games. It was a series of updates things the guy who was saying, you know, and the people who aligned with the guy who was negative were like, you all are shills. Nobody's legitimately criticizing this game. These are bad things. Like, even if you want to be positive, even if you want to, you know, make positive content, like, we should get better from these companies. And they keep getting away with it because people like this keep making this type of content, reviewing it when you're not giving a good faith assessment of what's going on. And then people on the other side are like, I just want to play the game that I enjoy and see people talk about it in a joyful way. I don't want to be this is my escape. This is whatever. Like, yeah, not everything's perfect, but like, I don't want it to be a hateful space. It's a gotcha game, you know. Like, I just want to let me have fun with this and not worry about these things. And, yeah, if we can't change the frustration, then let's just keep a positive spin on it. I enjoy the content more that way. So that's what it originally started as. And the people who made those videos that were excited have no issue with each other, not really like they were, pretty much. One of them was known to be a guy who does positive spins on things, and I don't know, he wasn't considered necessarily to be a shill, but he was considered be somebody who was positive in nature. But because of this, people started taking sides. People were also still mad at the company for different reasons. This is a community of, like, a ton of people. People go back and forth. It just keeps escalating. And then people start getting mad at the content creators and start trying to out them for different stuff and all. All of that ends up coming to two completely different people. One of them comes out and says, so you've got atsu, and then you've got braxophone. Is the name of the other guy. Brax the phone atsu is well known within the community. He's one of the leading content creators, and he is well known to have connections within the company, like his roommate worked there, or, like, that type of stuff. No one in his family, but he's friends with these people, so that's also, it's not really contested that he gets benefits from that, right? He comes out and he's like, Hey guys, can we all, like, calm this down? And he's talking to the guy who's very negative, who's kind of riling people up and calling everybody shills. And he's like, Hey, look, I know you don't like me. I know you know we don't get along whatever. I think we can bring this all down. I'd love to talk to you because I think I know why you don't like me. Because this other person has told, I think someone's told you some negative things about me. I'd love to have a conversation with you because, like, I promise you a lot of that's not true. In response to that Brax, the phone comes out and like, Hey, I'm that guy that you're referring to. Here's an eight page Google document about how I think you have been specifically sabotaging my entire career in this space as a content creator because of you don't like me and you have connections. He basically says they had a series of interactions as he got bigger in the space as a content creator, he met this guy at SU, so braxophone was up and coming at SU is already very well established and has good connections. Brax the phone basically says, like, I was trying to get to know you, and like we had these misunderstandings at these parties, like I was trying to do XYZ thing, it didn't come off well. Basically, they just kind of didn't vibe. Braxton really wanted to be closer to atsu, and basically said, atsu decided he didn't like me. He had a click. He's been actively sabotaging my career, and he's blacklisted me. He's gotten me blacklisted with the company so that I can't get contracts. This was, like, a big deal to me, because I'm like, oh, like, that's okay. That's like a thing that's actually right. Like, Okay, now we're not just complaining because, like, we're YouTubers yelling at each other, like, guys spend time in commentary YouTube spheres like I'm used to, that that's normal. This is, that's, this is, this is another level of
KC Davis 27:06
whatever. This is, IRL
Caroline 27:08
in real life, exactly. This is bottom line type of stuff, you know. So atsu responds to this, but by the time he does, atsu is pretty well not like it seems like, by a lot of other content creators, and so a lot of people came like, had come forward and were like, at manipulative. Like, atsu is really Clicky. He does have his group of people that he hangs out with, and he was really exclusionary to this guy. And this does suck. And it just kind of kept going. And atsu basically got kind of nuked by this, like, he just kind of stepped back and he tried to defend himself. People didn't really pay attention. Everybody kind of was like, out to was one of a bunch of people who all kind of got negative feedback, because everyone's like, all of you suck. Like, all of this comes together to suck for all of for everyone involved. So, like, we're just over it, come to find out. So like, three months later, Azu had, okay, that's the original. That's kind of how it ended. And it was just like, okay, like nobody, like people were kind of basically on Brax the phone side, like, this is, what an awful thing to do. Like, you're, you're hurting someone's career because you don't like them. And, you know, Brax, the phones document outlined, like the times they met, and the reasons things were awkward, and you talked about being, I believe, I believe you talked about being autistic and having struggling with the social cues and that type of thing. So, you know, it looked bad, as far as otse was concerned. That's pretty much where it kind of just fizzled out from there. But I was just like, this was a lot that came out of something very small, like, literally, a patch, update on a game. Got it so good? Atsu, this major player kind of like, disappears. He's just like, okay, yeah, he just steps back and kind of falls into the background, while the other guys kind of just keep on trucking right. Several months later, atsu comes forward and is like, I'm quitting. This whole thing destroyed my life. My wife of 10 years had been cheating on me. I am now getting divorced, like unrelated, like these things. Just he drops this bomb and is like, this all sucked, and he talked in it was literally like a 40 some page Google that there are just so many Google Docs and they're all so long. But in this next one, in this, I
KC Davis 29:20
mean, that's so dorky. I love it so much. People like battling online with Google Docs. It's
Caroline 29:25
so common. The joke, Mr. President, another Google doc has hit the tower is, like, actually, super common.
KC Davis 29:33
That is a fun I feel
Caroline 29:34
like a horrible person, but I actually, like, find anything where it turns into like, oh, it's the Pentagon. Like, no, they have the Pentagon.
KC Davis 29:39
Like, no, listen, the rule about 911 jokes is that if you were sitting in a classroom, like, if you were in school when you had to hear that news, and it like, rocked your child, you now get to make the 911 jokes.
Caroline 29:54
That's what I thought. I was like my dad worked, like, right near the Pentagon, and I had to, like, go make sure he was alive. And. Come home and, like, I remember,
KC Davis 30:01
yeah, like, if you were pulled out of freshman English with that were under a terrorist attack and had to hide in the locker room, you get to just make the funny joke about Mr. President. Another google doc has hit,
Caroline 30:14
okay, it's just so funny. So in this new one, I'm kind of going through it, he's talking about his wife. I feel bad, you know, and he's going back through and explaining stuff. He goes back to talk to Brax the phone again, and he's like, here's the thing, though, you and I, there's one section in this doc where he says, You and I both understand that you currently have a contract with the company, and you have and you and I both know that, and I didn't come forward and out you as having this, because I kept thinking you were gonna make the right decision and do this and say that this is the case. And like to me that I feel like that hit me harder than everyone else. Like, what do you mean? He has a contract with them right now. Dude, does do words not have meaning anymore? Like black ball has a very specific meaning, and because I was coming from the position looking back on it, you are just upset that he doesn't like you and doesn't want to invite you to parties with him. You're upset about that. And you then tried to add in this idea, like, because then he came back again and said, Sorry after Aussies document, Brax, the phone came back again and said there was, like, one of his first sentences was, I'm not going to pretend everything I said in my first document was true with no clarification.
KC Davis 31:38
He just dropped that line. And was like, listen, he just
Caroline 31:40
dropped it and kept it pushing. And I was like, hello. And then also he says, you know, talking to atzu, you know that I had an NDA, and that part of the NBA was that I wasn't allowed to talk about the fact that I had a contract or an NDA, which my husband and I get into fights about this all the time, about the legality of whether that would hold up in court, because there are situations where you have to be able to acknowledge, wait,
KC Davis 32:04
it's hilarious that he that, like, it has accidentally gone full circle to, like, proving the original people's point that, like, yes, people aren't disclosing that they have these contracts when they're giving these reviews and pretending to be, like, neutral about it. Oh my god. And you know what? It really does make so much sense, because everyone loves like, that story of like, I'm the underdog, the up and comer and like this person who's already made it that has all these privileges, you know, is like, secretly a really shitty person like that. I feel like that narrative, we eat it up like we love to hear some celebrity is secretly, like, shitty and like, now we really like this underdog, and for some reason, I find it such a delicious twist to find out, like the underdog sucks,
Caroline 32:47
right? And that's the thing. Like, this was an easy one to do, too, because again, atsu had always been fairly polarizing and had been seen to be fairly Clicky. The way he describes it in his follow up that happened later is the second one that I'm talking about in this same document. He's like, Look, I've had people who have clung on to me because they knew that my friends, like I have connections there that I had before I got into this content space. Like, I didn't make these like friends, at least not all of them, like a lot of them, are just people I was already friends with, and this is just how things played out. And I've had people use me for this and cling to me for that, and I really have a distaste for it. So when I see people listen,
KC Davis 33:26
no new friends. You know what I mean? I know a lot of YouTubers, or
Caroline 33:29
I hear a lot of YouTubers saying, No, I don't have a discord. No. And personally, oh my God, never I think that's the worst decision, complete tangent. But don't make a discord. It's going to be, there will be minors in it, terrible things will happen in it. It will be your fault, and I need you don't make a discord. But
KC Davis 33:46
that's such a weird choice to me. Like, the only time I've ever participated in a discord was like, when, so when my book launched, I did like a book club, like my publisher set up a little book club, and we, like, had people sign up, and so we did it through like discord, because that was just the easy was just the easiest way to do it. But I mean, it lasted like, six weeks where we would, like, read the book and come together and, like, talk about the chapter whatever, like, whatever. But outside of that, like, I know of content creators that have discords with their fans, and it's such weirdo behavior to me. I
Caroline 34:19
agree, like I've never had I think about all these, you know, because a lot of the stuff I consume is heavier stuff that I don't, you know, utilize for niche key, because it's not tea. And so every time you hear about another YouTuber has been exposed for XYZ, inappropriate slash, criminally implicating behavior. I always think, like, how do you fall into these traps? Like, I get DM requests. I get all this stuff you can easily, like, I just don't hold back and forth conversations with people who I am not able to physically like, look at you and verify. Like, I know that you are not a child. I know you. Know what I mean? Like, I don't know, yeah. So I that whole thing. That's a pretty good twist, pretty weird, yeah. So that twist threw me off a lot because, oh, so he's literally correct, because you went out of your way to use the word black ball. You went out of your way that words have meaning. Can we not do this? Because now I feel manipulated. Is what I said. Like, do I believe that atsu is like, based on this whole thing and the way he talked to people? Because then, of course, when his document came out, some of his friends were coming out and sharing screenshots from discord about him, saying, like, he doesn't like Brax a phone, but literally, even in that same thing, he's like, I'm not a big fan of the guy, but please don't not hang out with him because of me. Like, I'm not telling anyone else to not hang out with him. I'm just not interested. He's, you know, whatever, he doesn't owe you like friendships, simply because he doesn't have to like you. He doesn't have to give you extra opportunities, just because he has the ability to do so like but I do believe that all of these people are very like emotionally immature, and I hope that I know Otzi said he's stepping away, but I'm more on his side. I hope he just goes to therapy and, you know, is able to kind of maybe find something else that's less intense to get into. But yeah, I was just, I was so mad, like, What do you mean? What do you mean? Because I don't care if he didn't invite you to parties, I What, what do you mean?
KC Davis 36:20
Yeah, okay, that's a good one. Let me ask you this, what tell us about, like, the funniest tea that you've ever had.
Caroline 36:27
I had to think about this a bit, and it's not so much any it's a class, a class of tea That's the funniest. And the class is academic. Academic is so funny because usually you're talking about PhD level, just nerd people and, like, you know, as a math person, these are my people. I understand. I'm fully in support, but they are just the way they engage in drama with each other, especially because a lot of times we're talking about, like, if it's big enough that it makes it into niche tea, it always ends up being like you're talking about, like front of their field, PhD, publishing, research level stuff. Two stories come to mind. One I had mentioned to you previously, that was the one about the a guy made an entire he was a geologist, and it was in Indonesia, and he found there was a basically, he was claiming that this structure on a mountain was a pyramid. And then he was, he wrote up, he did a whole series of, you know, over almost a year, you know, worth of research, where he went on site and with teams and did digging and did all the stuff and wrote up a whole thing. And his conclusions, though, were that this was definitely a pyramid, and that based on the dating he did of the stuff around it, like the soil, the raw you know, all the context is what they call it. It was like 20, 30,000 years old. That is insane. Before that, we would have thought the oldest pyramid was that we've confirmed the man made pyramid is like five to 10,000 years old. So, like, that's a significant difference. And also in Indonesia, like, that's a totally different place, yeah,
KC Davis 38:04
that's like a rewriting history, kind of like, Babe thing. It was
Caroline 38:07
huge. It was huge, huge, huge. And about a year after that paper, when that paper got released, eventually, a bunch of people and it was peer reviewed, is the thing. It was published through Wiley. This is not one of those quick turn places. Like, there's another place called archive, where you can kind of just put up whatever you want. And it turns out that, you know, a lot of people were really challenging it, to the point where Wiley got involved, and, like, a year later, came back to them and said, Hey guys, a lot of questions. How do you respond to these things? And then this email back and forth is one of the funniest things I've seen like this, watching this descend, because they end up retracting the paper. And so this guy, it starts this email chain that starts in like, November of like, 2023, and like, goes into January, just back and forth between the main representative at the publishing company, Wiley, and the main researcher on this thing. And by the end, it's basically like, Hello, I hope you're having a great day. Go fuck yourself. Like they are so mad, like they're just, they're like, I really don't understand. And I would love to, you know, like in the mass per our last email, you piece of shit, yeah, yeah. Like, and it's just watching the anger, like, but they have to stay professional, because this is what we're doing, you know, go back and forth. So, like, similarly, we had one. It's like the
KC Davis 39:21
definition of white on white crime Exactly. Although neither of these people are white, I think, like, because this guy, but just like the clinging to, like, politeness, yes, as they descend into just like, full on loathing of each other. And
Caroline 39:35
because the guy who's in charge of this too, the researcher, he, his name is Dr nataway dia and he then also started posting these massive rant on like Facebook. He eventually, once it got retracted, he started claiming that he was being suppressed, and basically that there was, like a archeology mafia that is like, not allowing him to bring
KC Davis 39:55
out the truth. Oh, like the archeology Illuminati, sure, sure, sure, exactly would.
Caroline 39:59
Is some serious coke that was really, really funny to watch. And meanwhile, the rest of the academic community is like, hey, so I we're more worried about the fact that when this paper came out, this was a really big deal, because obviously, it literally changes so much about human history and this retraction. Can we be that loud? Can we be that loud on the retraction? Because, like, not people aren't really understanding this, because we
KC Davis 40:20
need to change it back now. Yeah, we need people to stop quoting. We need to change history back now.
Caroline 40:24
And you can't just quietly retract the thing. You've gotta, we've gotta, like, get this circulating too, you know, but the way that they descend, like they're, I think, to your point, like the facade of kindness, while you're just like, I hate you so much. And there was another one that was for physics, and it was basically these two groups of people who theoretical physics. We're talking like, literally, conceptual level stuff, nowhere near the point of even being taught, like in any kind of school. It's just PhD level people writing papers at each other. And these papers are different. They're not peer reviewed, so they can just kind of upload it and go back and forth if they need to. And that ended up happening in this case, since guy came forward and was like, I have this new idea for how gravity might work. I won't it doesn't matter, and doesn't
KC Davis 41:10
matter, I wouldn't understand it, even if you explained it
Caroline 41:13
doesn't matter and not proven very theoretical, still, still. And he put out a couple different papers, and he where he was exploring different aspects of what might support this idea that he has around gravity. And then these other guys came forward and started writing, like counter papers to his paper and basically saying, like, this doesn't make any sense. This doesn't explain the things you say. It does like, kind of just coming out and saying that. And the thing that I this is when I first realized, like, oh, where normally most people will go to Twitter and start, like, going back and forth on Twitter. These guys don't do that. They literally just keep publishing at each they're publishing at each other, but it's a paper. So then the first guy comes back is like, actually, like, and there's so much passive, aggressive sassiness that sounds like a teenager, like a 14 year old girl writing a note to her friend that she knows another friend is gonna read, you know, like, that kind of thing. Like it
KC Davis 42:07
starts. It's like, despite the erroneous conclusions by Alfred at all, no,
Caroline 42:13
literally. It's like, we can see here why this might have been this is the reason we think this was incorrectly assumed and then utilized incorrectly. It's like you would under the phrasing that was in there, like you would notice this if you worked with these on any regularity, like, if you understood that, like this, we understand how these mistakes can be made, like that type of stuff. Like here, why don't we break this down? Like there was one part where it's like, we understand how you got to this point, and they're both doing it back and forth. I don't remember who said this to who, but it was like, to who, but it was like, you know, we understand. You know how? You know, this was confusing, so we're gonna go into it in in more depth, which is like, why don't I say it again for you, but slower? Would that help? It
KC Davis 42:53
reminds me of like posh Lords fighting by like slapping each other with their gloves,
Caroline 42:58
like getting not even just that. It's the it's the posturing, it's the stand up in a huff. You walk over, you raise your hand, you finger by finger, take off your glove, slap across the face like, you know, it's a 20 minute lead up type of thing, like the pomp and circumstance of it. And I remember I got one of my favorite comments ever in that video, because so the guy who came up with the new thing. It was this idea he's calling cotton gravity, again, doesn't matter. And then one of the responses from the other guys, the title of the paper was farewell to cotton gravity. And someone who icons is like, farewell to cotton gravity is fighting words. Actually, people get so they have no idea. These are people. This is like, that's a 14 year old girl who knows, you know what I mean. Like, that perfectly encapsulated. Like, oh, excuse me, do we need to have a talk? Like, I didn't know anything about this before today, but now I'm invested. Like, it's because it's a sort of thing where I describe it as, like, if these guys, like, yeah, they're not on social media for the most part, and when they are, you can see that they're just as insane. Like, same thing with the geologist who was climbing the pyramid. Like, when he's on given a platform on Facebook or any other anywhere else, he just rambles. And you were like, Oh, this guy might be crazy, you know, but for the most part, we don't see that. And so to see it in these really, like, academic places and have it highlighted, and to know that, like, if these guys met in a bar, they made spike. Like, that's so funny. You picture these old men who just, like, teach in a paper, and then they see a guy and then,
KC Davis 44:26
like, it's on site, academic conference. I
Caroline 44:29
love that. I love that stuff that makes me laugh so much. Okay, so
KC Davis 44:33
I want to end by having you tell us, like, what the most viral niche tea has been.
Caroline 44:39
That definitely was bird watching one. It was definitely that I went, I went back and triple checked, and that one, it's got like, three some million views. Any honorable mentions? Oh, honorable mention would be Flow Hive, another one that I put the bird watching one, and the Flow Hive in kind of the same, in the same genre, in. The sense that it's a niche that people have a lot of interest in, but there's also a lot of neat information. So it's like a fairly people really, like, find it to be interesting in a way that I wasn't prepared for. Like, people love beekeeping. Nobody's a beekeeper, but people love beekeeping. You know what I mean? Like, like, nobody. Like, think of the woman who saves another day, saving the bees. Like, I don't know there's something about bee content. Or
KC Davis 45:26
the woman that, like, scoops the bees with her bare hands. Yeah,
Caroline 45:29
that's the same woman I was, Oh yeah, yeah, getting the bees her. I do think there's
KC Davis 45:34
something sort of like, as someone who reads a lot of fantasy books, there is something like primal about watching someone interact with bees, where you're like, This is magic. There's no other explanation. The
Caroline 45:44
same thing with the bird watching, where it's like, I feel like the sea glass video I did was similar where it's like, just about people who collect sea glass from beaches. That's it. You know, it's because it's such innocuous outdoor It sounds very peaceful type of stuff. And because, I think again, same thing with the bird watching. You picture like, this man that's like, in his 60s or 70s, right? And you just, you're like, Oh, I bet he wanted to fight that guy. That's
KC Davis 46:12
how I feel when there's, like, tea about, like, knitting patterns. There's
Caroline 46:15
another one. I is always good knitting drama. I just never, I haven't found one that's like, really, really juicy. But knitting is one of those ones that I never people constantly say they're like, the knitting community goes wild. The stuff that people get upset about in the knitting community, the drama there goes insane, like with patterns, and certainly, AI has created, I'm waiting for a really good knitting story. It's I like to check off niches. And if it's a new a net new one, I'm way more interested, you know, and knitting is one of those ones I really meant to but yeah, I'd say the beekeeping one, that one had to do with a beekeeper on tick tock, who was he was testing a new hive from a company called flow, and basically explaining his concerns with some of the back and forths he had with them and their customer service because of some recommendations they made to him, that he's like, Hey, if I did this, my bees would die, and that's not good. And he was theorizing that the reason for that would be because flow is based in Australia, and he is in the Midwest of the US. And so, you know, winter is a real thing. It's the Midwest, in a really serious way, that it's not the same in Australia. And he's like, here's the thing. I know enough to know that that recommendation, those recommendations they made, wouldn't make sense, and all he was doing was a product review. He wasn't coming out to, you know, come after them, or anything like he said, from beginning, I'm gonna try this hive, because I keep hearing about it, and I'm gonna take you guys on this journey with me. He has a whole series that he goes through. I think part of the reason people like those, beyond just the topic, is that people are really interested in learning about that. Because part of what I try and do is lay a groundwork so that as you come away from it, you have an understanding of, like, what is this thing? What's the basic history behind it? How do things work? So, like, I was explaining the difference between traditional beehives and the Flow Hive and how it works, and like, what it and people love, love that, like the kind of the history of and again, with bird watching, like, What do you mean, where? Where do people love birds? Is there a committee? Is there oversight? Is there? Are there? They're famous birders. Like, I mean, I
KC Davis 48:18
truly feel like you do, like a humanitarian service, because, especially right now, everything post election is so stressful and like, things really matter that, like, there's kind of and like, Yes, I do want spaces where, you know, it's like, oh, it's, you know, you don't have to think about anything, but like, there's some kind of, like, weird need that niche T fills, where it's like, I want to feel something about something that doesn't matter.
Caroline 48:42
Yeah, it's fun because it's just, it's like, an indulgence. It's like, it's the same reason I love reality TV. Well, yes, like, there's
KC Davis 48:50
things that matter that you feel about, and then there's things that don't matter that you don't feel anything about. And it's like, sometimes you need that, like things I can feel about that don't matter. Probably why I like books exactly
Caroline 48:59
like, yeah, you want to hear about how the, you know, princesses are, the princess community is beefing over the way they wear dresses, you know, whatever.
KC Davis 49:08
Oh, that happens. There's some real tea in the like Disney community about the changes they made to the Disney princesses. Exactly. Well, Caroline tell us where we can look you up, where people can follow niche tea. I
Caroline 49:19
am predominantly on Tiktok, but I'm also I try to have a presence pretty much everywhere. I'm on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, I repost to Instagram and YouTube. You can find me any of those places, just trying to make it easy for people to follow me. I'm Arith girl, A, E, R, i, t, h, g, I R, L, everywhere. So I should be easy enough to find. And I use the same profile
KC Davis 49:41
photo, so I'm making it as easy as I can. Awesome. Well, Caroline, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It was great talking to you. You.

Christy HausslerDecember 16, 2024

123: Are You an Introvert or is it Social Anxiety? with Natasha Daniels

Social anxiety is an interesting topic. Natasha Daniels is a social anxiety therapist and mom who joined us recently to discuss OCD and kids; today, we are exploring another form of anxiety as Natasha helps us understand social anxiety. She wrote a memoir, Out of My Shell, detailing her personal experience.

Show Highlights:

Natasha’s background, personal experience, and book about social anxiety
The neuro-divergent affirming movement
The difference between social anxiety and introversion
Do we ALL have some degree of social anxiety?
Thoughts on “bed rot,” social anxiety, and what’s “normal”
Social anxiety as a defense mechanism
The isolation that comes with social anxiety
OCD, social anxiety, and autism—a common connection?
“A paralyzing fear of others’ perceptions and a preoccupation with managing those perceptions”
The difference between a defense mechanism and a personality trait
An overview of Natasha’s experience with social anxiety and why she wrote her book
Social anxiety is NOT a self-esteem issue.
Outsmarting the negative critic in your head
Dr. Kristin Neff’s concept of “fierce self-compassion,” which is “a feistiness of advocacy”

Resources and Links:

Future Fans:Helping little kids become BIG fans

Connect with Natasha Daniels: Website (and book) and Instagram

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
Music. Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and today we're going to talk about social anxiety. I actually have Natasha Daniels back in the studio with us. Last time Natasha was here, we were talking about OCD in kids. And now we're going to talk about a different kind of anxiety, which is social anxiety. Natasha, thank you for coming back. Oh,
Natasha Daniels 0:23
thanks for having me again. I appreciate it.
KC Davis 0:25
So Okay, the last episode about OCD, you kind of talked to us about what you know about OCD, but talk to us a little bit about kind of who you are and how that relates to social anxiety. And I understand you actually wrote a book as well on this topic.
Natasha Daniels 0:39
I did. I wrote a memoir. So I am an anxiety and OCD child therapist, and I'm also the mom to three kids with anxiety and OCD, and all three have social anxiety, and I also have struggled with just generalized anxiety disorder and predominantly social anxiety. And so yeah, I get social anxiety on a very deep, personal and clinical level.
KC Davis 0:59
So what is the name of your book?
Natasha Daniels 1:01
It's out of my shell, overcoming social anxiety from childhood to adulthood. I gotta think about that for a second.
KC Davis 1:07
So here's one of the things that I'm really excited to listen to this because I am firmly situated in sort of like the neuro divergent affirming movement, where we are trying to just like, normalize that people have different neurotypes, they have different personalities, they have different ways of socially interacting, and also trying to kind of normalize like that a good portion that is going to be disabling for the rest of our lives, you know, and that there might be accommodations we need for the rest of our lives. And there's kind of this long history, especially when it comes to autism, and somewhat with ADHD, where all the therapies around autism and ADHD were really focused on just making those kids act more, quote, unquote, normal, right? So making autistic kids make eye contact, making ADHD kids, you know, stop interrupting because and so a lot of us carry a lot of this shame from childhood, and are now really being empowered with this idea of like, Oh, I'm not wrong. I'm not bad. This is just the way that my brain works. And I think that there that that movement is really important and really good. And one of the things that I like as a therapist, and just my personal and professional experience, like, have begun to think about is kind of this, I wouldn't say, like guardrail, but it's kind of like this parallel truth that I think is really important to have in this movement, where there are things about our brains and our bodies working differently, that there's nothing wrong with them, and maybe They don't need to be fixed. And I think sometimes we need to remember that there are also disorders that are inherently debilitating, and are things that can and we should be seeking to overcome, that we can live differently that they aren't or don't have to be a part of our core personality or identity or experience, and that's why I really find your experience with social anxiety really captivating and important. Because, you know, and I want to kind of start here with like, the difference between introversion and social anxiety, because there's nothing wrong with being an introvert. There's nothing there to fix. But I'm wondering how many people maybe actually have social anxiety that just think they're an introvert and they're maybe missing an opportunity to grow in a direction that would make their life more fulfilling, happier, more meaningful?
Natasha Daniels 3:38
Yeah, and I love that question, because I really feel like that has been a big part of my journey, which has been, how do I love and accept the introvert part of me and get the social anxiety much, much smaller and how they are separated? Because I think that one is to accept who you are, and that was part of my journey, because I think social anxiety is really good at getting you to give yourself a narrative that's not true, you know, to make you feel like it's not a disorder. It's just that people don't like you, or that you repel people, or that you're just an introvert. And really social anxiety is the fear of rejection criticism, the feeling that you are going to embarrass yourself or be found out, or that you're not enough. I mean, I think that's the core fear under social anxiety for most people, is I'm not enough in some category, and I get my value by you validating me. And so there's this panic, if I'm not validated externally in some way, then I'm not good enough. And that's different than being an introvert. I mean, you can be an extrovert and have social anxiety. I've got one of those at my house, and she, I mean, she wore a banana suit to a Hawaiian dance. I was like, I think you got the wrong she's like, No, I want to be different, like she was, I'm sure she was the only banana dancing in the Hawaiian dance party. But it's not about being an introvert extrovert. I mean, a lot of people with social anxiety are introverted. Sometimes. Maybe not organically. Maybe it happens that way. And some people are shy, but some people aren't shy, and some people have social skills and some people don't. It's not a lack of social skills, per se, it's just that fear of judgment and criticism that dominates it, and it's, it is debilitating, and it, it does squash your ability to live a full life. And it, it can be worked on.
KC Davis 5:20
So, you know, when you talk about the root of it, I mean, I remember feeling that as a teenager, like really needing people's validation, really being afraid of rejection. And I think that's a normal sort of developmental space. But at the same time, I wouldn't describe, like, my behaviors or fears around that as social anxiety, because, like, although I was afraid of being judged, I don't know if I just like, I felt like I knew how not to be, if that makes sense or like, I never, I didn't have like. I was always out. I always wanted to be with people. I always, I guess in my head, it was like, I'm good at getting people's validation. So yes, I'm still afraid of not having it, but I don't have any anxiety about my ability to gain it. You know what? I mean, it's almost like kind of tending towards narcissism, almost,
Natasha Daniels 6:07
yeah, and I think it is developmentally appropriate, especially middle school and high school, you know, your tween and your teen years, to feel like you're living in a fish bowl and to feel, you know, that real. I mean, it's developmentally appropriate, like, I want my peers to love and support me. I want to people have people like me. And I think it's also a human condition. I think with social anxiety is the acuity, it's the level of debilitation that goes with it. And most people's social anxiety don't have that tenacity to say, I'm good at it. I think it's the opposite. It's like, I'm bad at it, and I should avoid it.
KC Davis 6:40
So is that really, I mean, you said in the podcast about OCD that avoidance is the fuel of anxiety. Is that the difference between like, maybe what makes because you could have a lot of people that have that fear of rejection or that needing of validity, and you know, some people that might express, as, you know, I'm, you know, almost narcissistic. Some people, it might just be I'm really clingy, or I'm really needy, or I'm kind of a pick me, or I'm real insecure, or I'm real manipulative to people, because I really need everyone to like me. Is what distinguishes the social anxiety, the avoidance aspect of it, that that fear kind of causes an avoidance.
Natasha Daniels 7:17
I think that's one component for sure. I mean, I think avoidance fuels all anxiety disorders, and so do I avoid my, you know, avoid putting myself in situations that are going to be uncomfortable? Do I avoid talking to people, you know? So, yes, avoidance is a component of it. I think there's other elements too. There's checking in a non OCD way, like, am I blushing, or am I sweating, or am I is my voice shaking, or, you know, Do I look okay? Or whatever your theme is, it does show up differently for each person. We all tend to hyper focus on specific things, and that's different for each person. But then also it's the ruminating. And so let's just, you know, analyze that conversation for the next 24 hours, and what I should have said, or what I could have said, or so there's a lot of ruminating that also happens, and then a lot of times, a lot of anxiety attacks. You know, you're in a situation that you couldn't avoid or that you had tried to do, and then it's that's not going well, because your inner critic is telling you, oh my gosh, this is really sucking right now, and then full blown panic. And so having those anxiety attacks is also sometimes a hallmark of it.
KC Davis 8:21
Yeah, and I wonder, you know, I think one of the things, there's a few disorders that are some like this in that one of the things that I think makes social anxiety a little bit difficult to I talk about in the abstract, like, it's probably not hard as a clinician to identify when you see it, but it's hard to talk about in the abstract because, like, to a certain degree, all of these behaviors are just like typical behaviors. And we all have had a conversation where we're kicking ourselves going, Oh, I must have looked so stupid. I can't stop thinking about it. You know, we all have situations where, you know, maybe you're sweating and you're thinking, oh, gosh, I got probably an armpit water left. And so, you know, it is part of this, the frequency of those things. Because, I mean, I have interactions where I can't stop thinking about for days because it was, you know, I did or said something stupid. But I also think that, like in those situations, I have, in fact, done or said something stupid, you know what I mean, as opposed to, maybe there's not anything identifiably wrong at that moment, but then later, you know, you start second guessing, and you start, like, that kind of thing.
Natasha Daniels 9:25
Yeah, I think that's why a lot of people's social anxiety aren't diagnosed. Don't even recognize they have it, because it is, like this severity of it. It's the volume of it that creates the disorder. And I know even when I was talking to, like my brother about it, you know, and I was writing my memoir, he's and I was like, explaining stuff, and he's like, Well, don't we all have that? And actually, my uncle too, he was like, don't we all feel that way? And I felt really discounted. It's like, read my book, but when they did, it's interesting, because that was both of their reactions. And then when they read my book, they were like, Oh my gosh, I did. Realize you were suffering like that internally. And I have a friend who's really outgoing, and she's like, I didn't realize people think this way or struggle this way. And so I think it's in the detail of what's going on in our head and the severity of what we avoid, or how much we like ruminate and think about it, that becomes the disorder.
KC Davis 10:17
Yeah. And I think you know, as much as we even say, like, some of these are normal fears and feelings and things to do. You know, in adolescents, they're still even there. Like, you know, when you have a kid that is crying every morning before school because they're afraid that they, you know, won't be liked, or they like even then, like, you can see the outliers where it's like, okay, yes, a degree of that is normal. But here we have a kid that is, like, damn near not functioning. And it's not just the I'm afraid to get on stage for this presentation, or what if I don't have friends, though, the first couple of weeks, whatever, it's kind of like things beyond that at a different frequency and intensity and even like a benignness, even the benign ones are really heightened.
Natasha Daniels 11:02
Yeah, exactly. I mean, even when I think about my kids or my own childhood, it's like throwing up before going to school every day, like that was the norm. Or, you know, for my daughter, having to take, you know, medication to calm her before she goes to a birthday party, because otherwise she feels like she's gonna throw up or pass out, or my son even, like, we went to a pumpkin patch thing the other day, and he is in online school, and I was like, Oh, he needs to get out. And he has social anxiety, so that's definitely not helpful. And just the panic, and him just standing in the line, you know, I'm trying to dance a little bit, and he's like, stop it. Just stop it, you know? And I'm like, we're in the dark. No one can see me, and everyone's dancing like, why is this a problem? But that level of feeling like you're in the spotlight, and that level of panic is definitely more extreme than your your average kid. You
KC Davis 11:54
know, one of the things that I think is kind of funny that happens on social medias is there's kind of this, like normalizing, like, they call it like bed rotting. We feel like this. My favorite place is my bed. I just want to be in bed with my treats and a good show and binge watch TV. And the thing is, is like, I agree, like, I love a good bed rot day. Like, I've always been a person that, like, that's my day. That's my idea of like, a day off and but then, like, as a therapist, my mind always goes to, like, those bumper rails of like, we've got to have some bumper rails on this conversation, on this trend, on, on a kind of trending towards, like, normalizing, not always having to be out and doing things. Because I do think that it would be easy for someone with social anxiety to go, yeah. See, it's normal to always want to be in, to never want to be out, to not like anyone, to, you know, not and, and there is some pushback that I'm seeing, you know, in at least in the spaces that I exist, where people are like, hey, like, it's not normal to hate everyone, right? It's, it's not normal. Like, it's okay to be like, I'm not a people person, and then like, but like, that's different than like, I, you know, vehemently dislike participating in communal spaces because I don't like other people. You know what I mean, like, and I'm just curious, like, if you have any thoughts about that, about like, things that you know, maybe even that you personally kind of justified as well. This is just normal, or this is my personality, or it's okay, and that you later realized, like, Oh no, that was me being in distress. Yeah,
Natasha Daniels 13:25
it is really it feels better to just be like, I just don't like people. Or people suck. And, yeah, some of them really do. But I think there's a defense mechanism that happens with social anxiety that I definitely was part of in my teens. I was just like, Oh, I'm going to be anti establishment. I'm going to like, you know, I'm going to go goth, I'm going to go Nine Inch Nails. And there was like, liberation in that, because I was like, Okay, now I can, like, not like people, and be very overt about it, and I don't want to fit in. I don't want to be with you. And I really feel like, not only was that a phase, that was a defense mechanism, although, you know, I still like the music. And then as I got older, again, still not recognizing that I had social anxiety, I would always make excuses like, oh, well, I'm new here, you know, or this is a new thing, or maybe next time, I'll make friends. And then it was just like, I don't fit in with these people, like they're too wealthy, or they're too this, or they're too that. And I would always find a reason why I was excluded. And then I just doubled down, really, in my 30s and 40s, I was like, I just don't get along with people and so, and that's okay, I'm just gonna stay here and just be best friends with my husband. And that was unproductive, because that wasn't really the whole story. I mean, I was avoiding because I didn't know how to make connections, and I was afraid of rejection, and I felt like the minute I left my house, I was there's a spotlight on me, and so avoidance was just an easier way. I
KC Davis 14:43
remember when I was in rehab, they had me do this, like one exercise about, I can't remember what it was about, but it was during, like a family processing therapy session. And I read this thing where I talked about how every time I move. I don't see my body moving from my point of view, from like first person that, like, I see everything I do in third person. So I'm thinking, How did my body look as it moved in that way? And how did that sound as somebody heard it, and that even when I was alone, it was like being in The Truman Show, like, in my head, it was just kind of like, always a performance, and it was specifically related to, it wasn't related to like, I don't know how to act, or like, I don't get social cues. It was specifically related to the judgment of the people around me and making sure that I was liked, that I looked cool, or that I looked okay, or that I looked and that like that was like this preoccupation that, like, I couldn't do anything, everything I did and said I observed in third person. And that was kind of like my primary preoccupation was, how is this going to be taken? How is this going to be observed? How is this going to pass? Even if I was in public and no one was looking at me, it still mattered to me. And I remember thinking, like, Man, this is a really, like, broken part of me. This is like, a really disordered, maybe part of my addiction, part of me being, like, very different. And my sister, who's 12 years older than me, so she was, like, in her late 20s at the time, was like, Well, I remember feeling that when I was a teenager. And I remember that at the time, feeling a little confused, because I was like, Wait, am I not that unique? But then also being like, oh, that's kind of relieving, because she, like, didn't have addiction problems, but she was like, I mean, I remember feeling that as a teenager, and ever since then, that has really been kind of this really important memory, because it seems like at least from my understanding of, like, social anxiety from that aspect of it. It's like, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong. It's kind of like a normal phase, but you don't ever grow out of it. Like, if you kind of get, like, stuck in that, I can only ever think in public, in this, like, 3d Truman Show, what am I looking whatever. And then that's causing this, like, almost like, it's debilitating to think that way, and so I can't really, I don't know what you think about that, but I just, I'm trying to thread that needle, even for myself, between, like, it would be normal to experience some of this stuff at like, certain phases of life or certain heightened experiences, but that, like, I did, kind of just pass through that, like, I don't, I don't. Now, in my, you know, 30s, experience the world that way, yeah,
Natasha Daniels 17:27
well, and I think, like, okay, during your tween and teen years, if we had, like, a radio dial, you know, it's at like a nine, you know, normally for, like, developmentally appropriate, you know, phase of life, and when you have social anxiety, it's at like a 20. And then as you get older, you know everyone else's dial goes down to maybe, like a five, and yours is still at a 20. And so because the level of intensity that I felt starting in eighth grade was still so above and beyond. I mean throwing up every day before going to school, and then not your typical just like, I feel like I'm on stage when I go into the cafeteria. You know, it was like It dominated. And then I started having anxiety attacks in eighth grade, because we had this one teacher who was lazy and would just make everybody read again. Nobody likes reading. It can be embarrassing to read in public, but for me, like I would get stuck on it. I would think about that one hour, and I would worry about it, and then I would have an anxiety attack reading. I would run out of breath, and I would start to panic that I was going to pass out, and then for the rest of the day and the night, I would like lament on, I have to go back. And, you know, everyone saw me. Everyone thinks I'm an idiot. Everyone heard me mispronounce a word, and so I think it's like that volume button is at a really dysfunctional level.
KC Davis 18:45
It also seems like when your description of it, what strikes me about that is you just seem very alone. And I think my experience of those kind of developmentally appropriate experiences of like self you know, what is like self consciousness? I didn't experience those as feeling alone, like they were still very much in the context of connections that I was feeling with other people, if that makes sense, like there wasn't like a love, there wasn't an anxiety or a worry or avoid there was definitely, like, maybe a preoccupation, or a little bit of like, I really care, or I'm a little afraid of this, but I think when I hear your experience, it makes me feel very much sad about how alone and kind of almost like disconnected from the reality of kind of what was going on around you. Yeah,
Natasha Daniels 19:32
and I think that is an earmark for social anxiety. Is this isolation and feeling like you are alone? And I think that's also why people don't recognize they have it is they think I'm the only one that has these thoughts. I'm the only one that worries about these things. I always felt like I was on the outside looking in in any area of my life, even in my family, I thought, you know, they don't like me that much. You know, they don't call me enough as an adult, my work environment once I became a mom. Oh my gosh, that just like, like, social anxiety to the power of two, because now my kids are embarrassing me, or people are judging me about my parenting. On top of that, I don't fit into my community. I don't fit into my work, and so it's and for some people, it's just one area. It might just be their work. They feel like, you know, they're not good enough, and they're worried they're gonna blush and they're worried they're gonna shake. And for me, it's ironically, the other way around. I feel pretty confident in work. If I'm wearing a professional hat, I can have a conversation all day, but throw me in a party where it's unscripted and, like, I have to actually, like, find out who I'm gonna talk to. I rather die. Like, that's a tent for me. And so it's different for each person with social anxiety. One
KC Davis 20:35
of the things that is standing out to me, you know, in contrast to the conversation we had about OCD is that, like, I could for sure see someone who is OCD and has social anxiety as getting diagnosed autistic, because they'd go, oh, you know you worry in social situations. You're uncomfortable in social situations. You know you miss social cues. But again, that's your like self report about thinking that you're missing social cues, or you don't get what's going on you always feel on the outside, and then you have these obsessions and compulsions that maybe get seem like restrictive and repetitive behavior. And I can also see the opposite, right? Like, maybe someone who is autistic just kind of going to a therapist that isn't familiar with autism and being like, Oh man, this looks like OCD and social anxiety, and it is making me think about because I have so many autistic people in my life like I think sometimes we hear a lot from people in the autism community that experience, that feeling, way they talk about they call it social deficits, which I'm not a huge fan of, the deficit language, but that's what it's referred to. A lot of times I'll hear people express that experience as this sort of like, I'm always worried that I'm not doing something right socially. I'm always overly concerned that, you know, I don't know when it's the right time to leave. And I'm always worried that, you know, what, if people don't like me here and I can't pick up on it. But I think sometimes, you know, there are just as many autistic people who experience their social symptoms as like, the opposite, if that makes sense, where it's like, I don't worry. I don't think about it. I don't, you know, there's this, for lack of a better term, kind of like, an obliviousness of like, this isn't something I worry about at all, and that's part of the symptomology. And I guess I'm just wondering, like, you know, it seems like it would be difficult as a parent to figure out what's going on, or even as a person, but it also strikes me like, how many autistic adults also have social anxiety, but because they are autistic, or because they have an autism diagnosis, maybe are thinking like, well, this is just a part of my autism. There's nothing that can be done about it. And are, like, really trying to, like, drum up some self acceptance for this part of them that maybe isn't so central to their identity as they have previously thought, like, maybe this is social anxiety, not saying you're not autistic, but maybe part of this is social anxiety that actually can be, you know, drastically minimized, and increase your experience of life like so I'm just curious your thoughts on that. Yeah,
Natasha Daniels 23:13
you know, I think sometimes there is an overlap. I think when you take social anxiety without the autistic element, a lot of times, what drives it is that you are too aware of people's cues. And so like, I can tell that someone's uncomfortable, like, a mile away, I could be in a room and I could be like, Why is that guy in the corner? Like, looking uncomfortable, and now I'm uncomfortable for him. Like, I can read subtle cues to the point where it's a deficit, because I can tell when someone's not interested in what I'm saying, and I think I'm accurate a lot of the time, because I'm so clued in, I'm like, hyper fixating on their eye contact. Where are they moving their eyes? How are they participating in this conversation? And so it adds to the narrative I'm picking up on things that I think the average person doesn't pick up on and so they can live in Oblivion, which I wish I could when you're dealing with an autistic person. They may or may not, they may struggle reading social cues or truly having like the reciprocity of the back and forthness. And so the skills might make them struggle. And then, though the social anxiety can add to it, like I need their approval, that that narrative underneath of I need them to like me. I'm not good enough if they don't accept me, that part can be worked on, where I can stumble on my words, or I can not fit in, and I can do these things anyway and be okay with them not liking me, and that there's room for growth in that area, no matter what,
KC Davis 24:45
yeah, it seems like I mean, or I can. Maybe this is a question like, is the core of social anxiety, kind of like a paralyzing fear of others perception, and that causes. Like a preoccupation with needing to manage that, which, in turn, often results in just an avoidance of social situations when at all possible.
Natasha Daniels 25:10
Yeah, I think it's a really good way to summarize it. Yeah, exactly. Okay, cool.
KC Davis 25:16
That's a helpful way to think of it, because I think that helps me distinguish, like, okay, although I relate to some things that I've heard people talk about in social anxiety, I don't relate to this core sort of like thing happening, if that makes sense, yeah, and I like what you said about basically, like, the difference between a defense mechanism and a personality trait, right? Like, we can be introverted, or we can prefer to have a quiet time by ourselves, and then that's different than social anxiety, which kind of is like a defense mechanism. So what are some of the things in your experience? And if I remember correctly, the book is like a memoir of your sort of like coming through social anxiety. So what were some of the key points for you, or maybe some of the key interventions that actually helped you? And I'm curious, like, What have you discovered about your personality that you didn't know before, because it was kind of being covered up by the social anxiety? Yeah,
Natasha Daniels 26:14
you know, I the book goes back and forth to, like, my childhood and then my present, and then in between, I'm doing actually therapy sessions with my younger self, and trying to get my younger selves to realize that it's social anxiety and not kind of the stories that I was telling myself. But I so I did start to develop like a hierarchy. It's like a first batch of working on my social anxiety. And then I revisit it back in my 40s. I'm not that old. I'm in my I'm like, 52 but because it's a good daily practice. But to speak on, like, introvert versus social anxiety, one of the things that I did as an exposure was I signed up for this conference. It was like, an entrepreneur conference or whatever, and I was like, we're gonna go alone in it's another state. And then I even, like, I kind of developed because I named my social anxiety para, because it makes me feel really paranoid. And so I kind of personified it as an element of myself that I didn't want that was this negative critic. And then there was this Natasha 2.0 who was like, this, like, annoying cheerleader, who was like, You got to go to this conference, and you got to, you know, sign up and go and and then she was like, you should get a roommate, you know, which really pushed me over the edge. And so let's get a stranger, you know, who's going to the conference. Going to the conference too. Because people were looking for roommates. The roommate was, I couldn't decide, and this is in the book. I was like, trying to figure out, like, do I want to diagnose her? Like, she's definitely quiet, you know, does she have social anxiety too? And so we had dinner, and she's like, you know, not talking, and she's distracted or whatever. And so I thought, Oh, I think she might have social anxiety as well. And then I meet this other girl randomly who just walks up to me, thank goodness, because I was like, overwhelmed, and she's outgoing, and she's an extrovert, and she, like, just takes me under her wing. And so the whole weekend, I'm like, learning I'm watching her, like, how she's talking to these strangers, and I see my roommate who was very like, not friendly and wasn't really engaged. She read a book at night, and I eventually, I was like, I think she's an introvert. Like, I wouldn't sit there and read a book. She doesn't seem to care. But I saw her when we were, you know, taking a lunch break, and there's a sea of people, and she's just sitting there on the grass reading. And I was like, that's a comfortable introvert. That's the difference, you know, I have social anxiety. I'm totally aware, and she is in the middle of the sea of people, and just wanting to recharge sitting there. And that eventually became my goal, like, I want to accept who I am. But the problem was, if I'm sitting in like, let's say I'm sitting in an auditorium with a sea of people, my social anxiety is like, oh my gosh, you're the biggest loser. People are staring at you, grab your phone, look busy. This is so awkward. Everybody else has friends. Look at them talking over there, and it will it's non stop. And I realized I don't want to be sitting with a group of people, but I want to be able to sit there and be like, I'm cool. This is fine. This is who I am. I'm not the life of the party, and so it's rectifying that, and that's what I learned about myself in the book, was, like, I am a solid introvert. I don't know if I would have been I wanted to be an actress when I was in fourth grade, and I was really loud, so I don't know if, like, the bullying in middle school, like, shut that down, but I know now, like, I'm a solid introvert, and my goal wasn't to have a large group of friends. My goal was, Can I sit in public, in groups and not feel like there's a spotlight.
KC Davis 29:24
You know, one of the things that strikes me, and I say this as a morally neutral term, but just as an observation, like, there's quite a bit of self absorption in social anxiety, of like, self preoccupation, and I wonder how much, how many people are trying to fix their social anxiety by treating it like a self esteem issue. Like, well, I just need to think better about myself. I need to like myself more. I need to like that kind of thing. But it seems like all you wanted to do was just. Think about yourself less, like, that's what you saw in the lady reading the book. It wasn't that she, like, liked herself more than you. She just, like, was able to sit in a place and not have to overthink how everyone in that place was thinking about her and, like, whether it was weird to be reading a book, or whether anyone was judging her reading a book, or something like that. And I mentioned that just because I feel like that's one of, like, I feel like my life lessons was that, like, there were so many issues that I tried to treat as I can solve this if I just like myself more. And then I realized, like, no actually, like, I can solve this by just like, learning how to think about myself less frequently. You know what I mean. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, I can just go whether it was like body issues or insecurities or any of those kind of things, because it seems like that's the freedom, not that you have to be socially suave, or that everyone has to like you, or that you have to like yourself, but just that you could exist in a public place without feeling like all eyes are on you, or having to like think In that kind of third person, yeah,
Natasha Daniels 31:02
I mean, I did feel like I for me, like I had to accept the reality that people may not like me and that I was okay with that. And for me, I did have to become as cliched as it sounds like. I had to become my own best friend and my own advocate, where it was like this, screw you. I don't care if you like me attitude. And once I got that, when I was like, I'm gonna put myself in situations. So one time, one of my exposures was, if I see that I'm doing something that's bothering other people, I'm gonna keep doing it. It was like, just this mental game I was playing with myself. And so I was in this gym in my community, and I was somebody was on this exercise machine that was squeaking, and it was squeaking, and it was super annoying. And we were all getting annoyed. I could tell everyone it was a very small gym and and I couldn't tell what exercise equipment was doing that. And so, like, 10 minutes later, I found it because I'm on it and it's like, er and squeaking. And I was like, No, you were gonna do 50 reps. You have to finish the 50 reps. And I was like, mortified, but I was doing it because I wanted to put myself in situations where it wasn't going to be a positive response. Like, can I put myself in situations where I might have a confrontation, or I might be annoying people, or people legitimately don't like me in that moment? And can I accept that? I think sometimes on the surface, we do social anxiety exposures, like, let's prove that people are going to be nice to you, or let's prove that you can get along with people, or that it's going to go well. And that was not my goal. My goal was like, Can I care less about what people think? And actually, ironically, care more about what I think? And so my self esteem did grow. I think the more I worked on my exposures, because I was, like, rooting for myself, but it
KC Davis 32:41
seems like that was the result, not the like. Because I think what you just said is kind of what I was, what I was trying to say, which is, like it wasn't, let's prove that I'm so likable and that I'm not that I that it's not true, that people aren't going to be annoyed with me. It almost seems like you approached it more like a distress tolerance exercise, rather than like a self love exercise. And when you learn the distress tolerance of, yeah, people might be judging me, or like, Oh, I'm not being liked right now, like that led to you having higher self esteem.
Natasha Daniels 33:17
It got smushy, yeah, I don't know. I feel like it's smooshy. I feel like I started to really, like, pay attention to the negative, like critic in my head. And then I started, like, I forced myself I did, like, a lot of mental exercises. I would force myself to not, like, negate what I was saying. Like, if I was like, Oh my gosh, like, you look like such an idiot, it would be like, what's another way to say that to myself? Or what it's something I do like about myself, and not in a very trivial way, but like, can we double down on liking your quirks, you know? And then somebody said, like, gave me a compliment, I always have to negate it. Like, if someone says, Oh, I like your shoes, I'd be like, Oh, I got them at pay less, like they really were like, or got them at, like, goodwill, like, I always had to, like, put myself down. And so I made this mental rule, like, if someone compliments you, you just have to say thank you, which was so uncomfortable. Just be like, thank you. Oh, I appreciate that. So I did a lot of games, but I really feel like, along with the exposure, because I don't think the exposure would have worked if I wasn't like, you know what? Honestly, it was like this screw you attitude that came before the exposure. I was like, I'm so tired of what everyone thinks. I'm like, Screw everybody. Like, I love myself, I'm quirky, I'm not your flavor. That's a you problem, not a me problem. I got kind of feisty and angry about it, and I was like, I don't care if my hair doesn't look good, or I don't care if you don't want to be my friend, or I don't care if I sit here in this auditorium and you're worried about that. That's a you problem. And so I got a little feisty, and then, at the same time, was putting myself in exposures. And so I think it was a two for up for me, yeah,
KC Davis 34:42
well, it does. It sounds like it goes hand in hand, but I do like the distinction you made where it was like, I do think a lot of us make the mistake that, like, we first need to, like, sit in our closet and convince ourselves we're worthy, and then we can go out and do things, as opposed to Yes. And I think. So what I hear you saying is a lot of even kind of like self compassion. And Christy Neff actually makes a distinction where she talks about self compassion and she talks about fierce self compassion. And fierce self compassion is angry. It is fu it is, I don't care. It is this, like, feistiness of advocacy. And so I like, I mean, it kind of sounds like exactly the same thing, which is funny, because, like, you know, when I wrote how to keep house while drowning, that was kind of the backbone of that book, was we have to do these at the same time. Like, we have to have this, like, gentle skill building, where, yes, we're looking for accommodations, but we're also like, doing the thing right, and we have to have this like, emotional skill of self compassion, where we're like identifying when we're being critical and we are, you know, trying to change the way we're talking about that. And like giving ourselves permission to be human, and giving ourselves permission to, you know, not always be perfect. And I just, I feel like, the older I get, the more I feel like that's like most issues, right? Is like that double approach of like gentle skill building that has to balance accommodating and, you know, challenging exposure and those, like emotional skills, like they really does have to be both,
Natasha Daniels 36:26
yeah, it does. And, I mean, and even it's a daily practice, like, even, you know, currently, I have to ask myself some, some of the time, like, do I do I want to go there, you know? Or am I forcing myself to go there just because I think I'm avoiding because of my social anxiety, or do I just not care and I don't want to, you know? And so it's like, because you want to be true to yourself, and it's not just about throwing yourself off the cliff all the time, which is what I did initially. It's like, you know, sometimes I don't really want to go there, or I actually learned how to say no more with my social anxiety, you know, like I often said yes because I didn't want to hurt someone else's feelings, or I felt like I wanted them to like me. And so I'm saying no to a lot more stuff as well, because, like, that is my authentic self, yeah.
KC Davis 37:10
I mean, people pleasing has a lot of forms, yeah? And in some ways, you know, I can see how much more of a boundary person you would become in that process, yeah,
Natasha Daniels 37:21
to protect because you become your friend. You know, you're like, I Natasha, doesn't want to
KC Davis 37:28
go, you know? Well, Natasha, this has been another great conversation. Can you tell everybody? Tell us again, the name of your book and where we can find it.
Natasha Daniels 37:35
Yeah, you can. It's called out of my shell, and it's where books are sold online, you can go to social anxiety reality.com. Is the website for it, and I did create a separate Instagram account just for social anxiety, which is social anxiety reality, where I do reels, and I just like they're embarrassing, I try not to watch them. That's my daily struggle. So yeah, if you want to be voyeuristic, you can check that out. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. You.

Christy HausslerDecember 8, 2024

122: Addressing Sexual Violence on College Campuses is Easier than You Think with Nicole Bedera

Today’s topic carries a degree of sensitivity, so consider this a trigger warning if you are sensitive to discussions about sexual assault and sexual harassment. Our focus is on how universities and workplaces are dealing with these issues–and how they can do it better. My guest is Nicole Bedera, a sociologist and author with a Ph.D. Her upcoming debut book is On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Predators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence.

Show Highlights:

Nicole’s background as a victim advocate in the criminal justice system
College as the entry point into an adulthood of privilege for perpetrators of violence
The biggest challenges for universities regarding sexual violence
Title IX: where it all began in 1980
Punishing perpetrators AND meeting the needs of survivors—can we do both?
Power, punishment, and consequences
Nicole’s surprise when she dug deeper into sexual assault cases
The myth: Sexual violence only happens from evil men.
White supremacy history and sexual assault
Barriers to justice and societal norms
The truth: Perpetrators rarely change their behavior.
The research shows that a lot of men will stop perpetrating IF they know there will be negative consequences.
There is little accountability on college campuses for perpetrators.
The need to create safe spaces for survivors over perpetrators
The Brett Kavanaugh scenario
What we CAN fix to have huge ripple effects

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dr. Nicole Bedera: Website, Twitter, and On the Wrong Side book

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

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KC Davis 0:05
Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle. Care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and today we are going to talk about something that is a little bit of a sensitive topic. So just sort of putting a trigger warning out there, if you couldn't tell by the title, we're going to be talking about sexual assault, specifically sexual assault sexual harassment, and how universities and workplaces are dealing with it and how they can deal with it better. And our guest today is Nicole Bedera. She has a PhD. She's a sociologist and an author. She has an upcoming book called on the wrong side, how universities protect perpetrators and betray survivors of sexual violence. Nicole, thank you for being here.
Nicole Bedera 0:43
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
KC Davis 0:45
So tell us a little bit about yourself, like, how did this kind of become your area of expertise?
Nicole Bedera 0:50
Yeah, so I started out as a victim advocate, actually, and I was working inside the criminal justice system, specifically in the hospitals with meeting with victims during forensic exams, which you might know was a rape kit. So a lot of the time, I was one of the first people that a survivor was asking very basic questions about what happened to them. Why is sexual assault so common? Why is it happening to so many people? Why did it happen to me? Is it something I did? And for a lot of people, it was their first window into what happens if you try to report and it doesn't look the way people expect. If you watch a lot of SVU, you're pretty horrified when you see the way it actually works. And so they would ask these really simple questions around, why does it work this way, and is this a good way to do it? I'm kind of surprised by what's going on. And at the time, this was about 10 years ago, a little more than that, the academic literature wasn't very well developed to answer those questions. The questions that we had were mostly victim blaming, or the answers that we had were mostly victim blaming, they were things like, well, here are the risky behaviors you behaved in, and this is why you are in the situation you're in. And it just didn't feel right to answer that way. We were not trained to answer that way either for what it's worth, but the other response of saying we just don't know didn't feel satisfying either. So I decided to get a PhD and study how sexual violence happens in our society, why it's so predictable, why so many of these cases look the same, and also why our responses just aren't working for survivors, and why it's so rare for survivors to get their needs met when they come forward. I ended up on college campuses mostly just because college is the entry point for the most privileged adults in our society to learn the norms of adulthood. So if violence is normal on a college campus, it's gonna feel normal in a workplace, if it's normal for your school to sweep things under the rug, you'll expect that in your family, and you might that might be something you teach your own kids. And that's why I focus on college campuses, not because I think they're particularly unique, but because it is that entry point for the most powerful people in our society to be thinking about violence and thinking about their role in violence perpetration and violence response and in being victims too.
KC Davis 3:01
Okay, thank you. Here's kind of where I wanted to start, right? Because you're talking about how universities can be responding differently, and I want to start with like, what are some of the challenges that universities face when they're trying to address these issues of sexual violence? Because I think that one of the things that I think about a lot is I'm someone who like when someone tells me you know I was victimized, I believe them, but I also am not a person in charge of punishing the person that victimized them, and so just as a member of society, I've almost never met someone who says that they were sexually victimized that I didn't believe because, yeah, yes, I believe you. We believe victims, but if you are actually a person in charge of, like, handing down decisions that change people's lives, you know that's why we have, like, a court system when it comes to actually doing those sort of things. And it strikes me that, like, universities are in this weird in between where they're not a court system, but at the same time, they are making decisions that are affecting people's lives and futures and and I guess I just want to kind of start with what are some of the challenges that universities are facing when they're trying to deal with these things. I think
Nicole Bedera 4:20
one of the biggest challenges is exactly what you're talking about, which is they see a survivor coming forward as something that's bad for a perpetrator, and they see survivors as an object as evidence, which a part of how they've ended up in this place is not because the law requires them to do this. I want to be really clear about this. Everything I say today, schools could do better tomorrow, if they want to. They have so much flexibility in how they implement federal regulations around Title Nine and sexual violence and sexual harassment. But the issue is, they've been trying to mimic the criminal justice system. You. Even though the reason our schools are supposed to care about sexual violence is totally different than the criminal justice system. So the criminal justice system is focused on punishment, but if you look at the law of Title Nine, and it's the same thing in your workplaces too, but schools and workplaces are supposed to care about sexual assault, because if they don't do something about it, it creates a hostile environment for other women who cannot be safe in that space, and for the victims, we know that if, for example, they are forced to share space on campus with a perpetrator that really negatively impacts their academics and the academic opportunities that are open to them. So the entire title nine process on paper isn't supposed to be about punishment. It's about civil rights. It's about making sure that just because you were sexually assaulted doesn't mean that then you have to change your major, or you have to be the one to move out of your dorm to get away from this violent person, or that you have to be the one to sacrifice all of these opportunities. The original court case that about Title Nine, that said that schools have to care about sexual violence, was actually about these issues. So in this court case, it's called Alexander V L, if there any nerds that want to look it up, and it's from 1980 so it's been around for a while. And what happened in this case is that there was this culture of sexual harassment at Yale University, where professors would ask women for sexual favors in exchange for high grades. And it happened to such a degree that even women who had not received that kind of solicitation didn't feel like they could go to office hours, felt like something unsafe might happen. And that is the court case in which the judge at the time, you know, declined to hear the case because all of the students had left campus by that time. It's one of the big challenges in this particular field, as students move through pretty quickly. But he did write that it was really reasonable that if sexual violence is happening on college campuses to the point that victims and women more broadly, have to have a smaller experience, and they have to avoid some of the opportunities that then are open to only men as a result, that that's a form of sex discrimination. And so the biggest issue that I think campuses are dealing with right now is they're still thinking about what they should be doing in terms of the perpetrator and punishing the perpetrator and using the victim as evidence, as an object in the perpetrators story, where they're the main character and the victim is the side character who's trying to keep them from graduating. But that's not why victims come forward, and that's not the way they should be thinking about sexual assault. They should really be thinking about how this type of violence and having to share space with a perpetrator can make it hard to complete an education. And if they thought about it from that perspective, we'd have a really different system than the one we have right
KC Davis 7:45
now. And do you think that there's a way to you've said, like, okay, it's they treat it like it's about punishing the perpetrator. Do you think that if universities treated it not as punishing the perpetrator, but more as meeting the needs of the survivor? Is that separate from punishing the perpetrator, like if a survivor's needs is, I need to not see this person, or I need to be in safe you know that, like one of us has to move? Is there overlap there? It depends
Nicole Bedera 8:12
on how you think about punishment. And I actually think that abolitionists are the people we should look to, because they're very clear on what is punishment and what is consequences? And I think sometimes we think of things as punishment for perpetrators when they're actually just the natural consequences of committing an act of violence. And so one of the things that Maria Macapa writes that I think is really great. If you're not familiar with her work, you should get familiar. And it's worth noting that she started her work as an activist about campus sexual assault. That is where her beginnings come from. So she's very, very well aware of these issues, and one of the things that she says is that expecting a perpetrator to give up a position of power is not a punishment. They might not like it, but it's a consequence, and that in comparison to punishments which are inflicting suffering and cruelty. The intention is to sort of teach someone a lesson or to make them hurt for what they've done to someone else. A consequence is just recognizing, you know, we really can't trust you in this position of power anymore, because if we leave you in this position of power, you might hurt more people, or you need this position of power to perpetrate abuse, which is something that we don't think about it very much that way, but that's really true that one of the most common types of sexual violence that happens on college campuses is a professor sexually assaulting or harassing a graduate student, where they're their advisor. And so for anybody who hasn't been through a PhD program, it's really different than an academic advisor in an undergraduate setting, your PhD advisor literally decides when or if you graduate, and they have so much power over that decision that if they can hold that over you, they can get you to do a lot of things that you wouldn't agree to otherwise. And so in this case, saying, you know if you're sexually harassing students, we can't trust you with advising graduate students. It's not. Much about teaching the perpetrator a lesson. It's a form of harm reduction. It's a form of saying, We don't want you to be in this powerful position that you are abusing to hurt other people. So to go back to some of the examples we've been talking about before, things like switching dorms. You know, I don't really think of it as a punishment to say that if you perpetrate a sexual assault, you have to live in a different dorm, or that you can't live on campus at all. I see that as a consequence, which is that if we don't do this, the victim will be the one who feels like they have to leave. And that's another thing that I think a lot of the time, whether it's a college campus or workplace or wherever, people aren't thinking about quite the right way when it comes to sexual violence, they seem. I think the most generous read is to say that they want to be able to keep both people to say, you know, violence has happened. Can the victim and the perpetrator just both find a way to stay in this workplace, to be nice to each other? But that isn't something that is physiologically possible for the victim. It's never safe for a victim to remain around their perpetrator, and victims do it, let's be clear, victims do it, but it always brings on a series of harms, things like being more stressed out. Victims that are forced to share space with their perpetrator are more likely to have PTSD, anxiety, depression, sleep difficulties. They're more likely to develop chronic stress related conditions like migraines, back pain, heart disease and cancer. So even though people can do it, it's with a cost that most victims will eventually opt out once it's safe for them to do so. And so the decision we're really making is not, how can we keep both people? It's Which one do you want to keep? And that's where I really hesitate to think about these interventions as a punishment for the perpetrator, because it's just a natural consequence of violence, and we're deciding, is that borne by the victim? Are we going to keep making things harder and harder for the victim? Are we going to say this is just the way things are now the perpetrator is the one who made the decision to be violent, and they're the one who should bear the consequences of being violent.
KC Davis 12:06
And I feel like all that makes sense, and but I want I'm wondering is, like, there's nothing that you're saying that I disagree with at all, especially when we're talking in the theoretical where, like, we definitely know in our theoretical like, who the perpetrator is who the victim is. And, like I said, I don't think I've ever met a woman I didn't believe, but I'm thinking as a university like, do you think that that's why the universities, sort of, like, mistakenly try to replicate the justice system, not only from the punishment perspective, but from the like, what are we supposed to do if, you know, one person is saying it happened and the other person is saying it didn't, and now we have to choose who are we going to keep and they're like, I would assume they're equally worried about, like, what if I make the wrong decision on either side of those things? And so is there a way that I can almost like, you know, soft peddle, some in between solution, right, where I'm keeping them both, or I'm making them compromised so that I can avoid having to basically, like, pronounce who I think is telling the truth. Like, how do universities handle, you know, that aspect of it? Because that's kind of the part where it seems like they're trying to be the court system, where they're, like, looking for the evidence and trying to figure out what really happened. And I guess I'm wondering, like, does that have to be a step in order to serve a survivor? Or, like, how are universities handling that aspect of it? So I want to answer
Nicole Bedera 13:37
that two different ways, because I think that there are two different answers. I want to be clear from the beginning that there are a lot of things that survivors need that don't involve a perpetrator, that we don't need to adjudicate whether or not they're being truthful. We know the research is so clear that overwhelmingly they are, that when people make false allegations, researchers like me, we know what they look like. And one of the one of the things that people don't realize is that most false allegations do not name a perpetrator, and so for the most part, when a victim is coming forward about a specific person, that is a trustworthy claim, the big exception to that is when perpetrators who are facing accountability proceedings accuse their victim of violence, which is something that's been on the rise. Debt the herd is a really good example of this, but that too experts, which I think it's fair to say that our HR departments, our title nine offices, they should become experts on these issues. We can recognize these patterns. We know what they look like. And so in the case of these types of retaliatory complaints, it's that there is a victim who is speaking out first, and that the perpetrator is really trying to recast their self defense or things that they are doing, like speaking out in the first place as defamation, as violence, even though that's not the victim's goal. One of the things that we look for when we tell apart victims and perpetrators is is this person trying to get away from someone and maintain their autonomy, or are they looking to control? Someone and control what they're allowed to do. And sometimes, to an untrained eye, those things can look similar, but to a trained expert, they're very, very easy to tell apart. And so in a lot of scenarios, we should just believe victims and we should give them what they want. I think in the context of things like workplace accommodations, like something that really helps victims of stalking is to be able to be late to work sometimes, so if their stalker is outside their door, they don't have to walk past their stalker or else they'll lose their job. And that can actually make it harder for stalkers to stalk. If the victim is no longer going to be leaving there outside the front of their door at the same time every day, then they can't predictably be there to have an interaction with the victim, right? Something like that. I don't think we need to even adjudicate whether or not something happened. It's an easy thing to be more flexible. We should just be more flexible in cases where the perpetrator is involved, where we're asking for something like for the perpetrator to be removed from a specific place. My personal opinion, an expert opinion, is that we should err on the side of believing victims, that in this period where we're figuring out what happened, we should put protections in place. And those may need to be temporary for a period of time, but we already, you know, it's funny, we actually kind of already do this in the criminal justice system with things like protective orders. We there's a temporary period where the protection is so life saving and so crucial that we put it in place immediately and then revisit it later. And there are a lot of things that I think schools should be doing that way, and it's worth noting that they already do this for other disciplinary procedures. If a straight cisgender man punches a straight cisgender man on campus, they put that person on suspension until the case is over. That is the way a lot of schools already handle this. We're making an exception for sexual assault and treating it differently than other cases of violence on campus.
KC Davis 16:48
Well, I would imagine there's probably quite a bit of misogyny that goes with that, right, which is like, Well, women aren't as trustworthy, women are hysterical, women are vengeful, all these things. And I do think that, like when you say, you know, universities are trying to mimic the court system. They don't need to do that. I feel like your answer really illustrated that you have to deconstruct that on several levels, right? Like, your first point of like, it's not about like, it's not about the perpetrators on trial and the victim is the evidence, right? It is, there is a survivor that we are serving, and we need to think of it that way. But even deeper than that, when you were talking about how there are so many things that don't have anything to do with whether or not you are aren't doing anything with the perpetrator, like so many needs that you can meet. And then I think your third point of like there are things that you can do in the interim that err on the side of safety, and we should probably always err on the side of safety. And it seems like if Title Nine has made it legally a university's job to address these issues, then they are beholden to have experts, or to learn the expertise that you know in order to make those kind of decisions about, you know, what does it look like when someone reports, and how can we go about this in the safest way possible? Yeah,
Nicole Bedera 18:17
and I want to say too that underlying all of this is this myth that school administrators and the criminal justice system really want us to believe, which is that all cases of sexual assault or He Said, She Said, and that there's not enough evidence to be able to make a good decision. But one of the things that I was really surprised by during my year at a university, which is what the book is about, I spent a year observing these processes from the inside, interviewing the victims, the perpetrators and the school administrators. So I really got to see all sides of this issue. And one of the things I was most surprised by is how much evidence there actually is in a lot of these cases. It's the digital age. People are not just talking in person. There are text messages, there are emails in cases of sexual harassment, especially, you know, I did all this work before the pandemic, but I could imagine even more so in 2020 when a lot of classroom interactions were moving on to zooms that were being recorded, that you have all of these messages that are right there. There's no question about what happened a lot of the time. And I actually start the book with a case like that. So there was a case of a graduate student who she attended a networking event on campus, and the keynote speaker took a real interest in her somehow dug up her email address, she doesn't know how, and started offering to be her mentor. And over a course of text messages and emails, it escalated into sexual harassment and some actions that started to resemble stalking, that he was not leaving her alone. When she was saying she wanted to be left alone, there was some escalating threats and those sorts of language, and she was worried he was going to start showing up at her house and things like that. In this case, the title nine office sort of replied by saying, we can't possibly know what happened. We would need. Interview him, we would need to know his side of the story, but everything happened in text messages and emails, so there's actually no question about what happened. And I was surprised by how many cases look like that. Now, I think maybe there was some truth in the past that it was hard to find evidence in these cases, but that really isn't the case anymore, and even in cases where a victim and perpetrator went into one space alone, and that's where the violence took place, I was really stunned by how often the perpetrators narratives of what happened mimicked the victims, but they had been trying to convince investigators that what they did should just be considered okay and that it's not that bad. And this makes me think of research I did in the past where I interviewed young men about how they seek consent, and this phrase kept coming up, which was, well, it wasn't rape, it's just non consensual. And so what they would do when they were saying that something was just non consensual is they would come up with reasons that a victim deserved what happened to them. And so if we can cut through that victim blaming and say there is no scenario in which something non consensual is okay, there is no victim who deserves this, well then it's a lot easier to make the right decision. You know, one of the cases I talk about in a lot of depth in the book is one where I did interview everybody involved, and at the very beginning of both the victim and the perpetrator's statement, they both recognized that before the sexual assault occurred, the victim had clearly communicated she did not want to have sex, and the perpetrator agreed that they would not have sex, and yet that case still ended in what the school calls insufficient evidence, because They were looking for all of these complexities. And there's actually a term by another researcher named Jackie Cruz, who I work with very closely. She's very smart, but she calls that. That's what she calls it. She calls it orchestrating complexity, looking at cases that are clear, cut and straightforward, and trying to find reasons to justify inaction. Because it makes us feel guilty. It makes us feel like the bearer of bad news to be the one who says to a perpetrator, you know what, you have violated our Code of Conduct. You are not someone who is safe to be in this community, and we actually think you should leave people feel guilty about it, and a lot of the reason they feel guilty about it is because so many of us have been socialized our whole lives, that men are valuable, that men's space needs to be protected at all costs, and that we need to find a way to, you know, lead them in the right direction, as opposed to setting firm boundaries with them well. And I
KC Davis 22:34
wonder if that's connected to not only are we socialized to think all of that, but we're also, I think, historically, socialized to believe that sexual violence only happens from evil men, like it's only like conditioned to believe that sexual violence is so abhorrent that it only happens from an evil person. And so then you're looking at this person, and you're going, well, they don't seem evil. And you're looking at even some of those areas where you know we have this idea that rape is holding a woman down while she screams. And I just wonder how many people you know when you get in the position to have to navigate these you're in a position of leadership when you come across realizing that, like most of these cases, are not like that, and they're not ready to sort of look at the reality that like no like people that you might relate to do things like this. And I even wonder if part of it is like people in power needing to distance themselves from the idea that they could ever be capable of something like this, like it needs to be this crime that only people who are completely othered would ever do. And it's a little too close to comfort to realize, oh shit, this is a mistake I could have made right in college, right? Or maybe I have made well,
Nicole Bedera 23:59
and I want to shift the framing on that a little bit, because the research is pretty clear, people do not sexually assault people on accident. We've known that for 40 years that and it gets back to the same thinking that I talked about in my research before, that when men are confronted with things they've done that they know that they hurt somebody, they know it wasn't great behavior, they'll make these artificial distinctions of it's not rape, it's just non consensual. That's what that looks like, where somebody will say, I know I was hurting that person, but I thought I was allowed to do that.
KC Davis 24:28
And that's what I mean, is it's not that, like I thought rape was okay, and it's not that I thought what I was doing was okay. It's I knew what I was doing wasn't okay, but in my head, it wasn't rape, it was this other non okay thing that I could justify as not being the taboo thing that I should be punished for. So you shouldn't really punish me.
Nicole Bedera 24:49
That's exactly right, and that's where the white supremacy history comes into play, right? Because this idea of rape being something that comes from a stranger in the bushes is really a racialized. Class history intended to cut down on what was considered to be loitering by free black men. After the abolition of slavery, there was an idea of, if they're public, they're dangerous, but there was nowhere private for them to go. They didn't have private property because of slavery, right? And so that's where a lot of our modern ideologies about sexual violence and who its perpetrators are come from. It's this idea of black men, poor black men in particular, are who we think of as perpetrators of sexual assault, whereas wealthy white men who are doing the same thing to their spouses, to their children, well, we want to exempt that. And so that's where we get this distinction that a lot of us, we don't talk about it in a racialized way a lot of the time, but that distinction between stranger rape versus acquaintance rape, that's a way of saying, if we're the insiders, if we're the ones in position of power, if you know us, then it doesn't count. This is a way that we can treat women and children and transgender and non binary people as well, while also being able to hold this double standard for men of color in particular. And you see that dynamic on college campuses too. There's a real sense I heard this rhetoric around the stranger in the bushes or the creeper in the bushes from a lot of administrators saying that's what we thought all of sexual assault was, which, again, is a real indication that these administrators are not the experts they need to be, because that is sort of sexual violence, rape culture, 101 stuff is that stranger rape is really rare, and the most sexual violence happens between people who know each other. I learned that on my very first day in victim advocacy training, probably in the first 10 minutes, and I knew it before I got to that space too. And so it's a reflection of how little they know, but it's also their way of saying, you know, if somebody has the class privilege to be able to afford to be on our campus, they're not the kind of person we expect would commit sexual assault at all. And that really is the way they're thinking about it. Is anybody who has any kind of privilege, you know, that's the only kind of person that we admit. And so if they're here by default, we don't think that they could do something like this, and that's part of why school administrators feel so guilty. It is exactly what you're talking about. It's not what they expect it to look like. And I was really stunned by how many of them didn't expect that sexual violence was a real problem on college campuses at all. There's a lot of research. Well, there's a little research on this that when we do surveys of people who work in higher education, they don't think of campus sexual violence being a real issue despite all of the conversation in the media. And even if they think it happens at other schools, they think it doesn't happen at theirs. And so if that's the mindset of the person who's adjudicating a sexual assault, of course, their response is to be shocked and to have a hard time believing it. And that's a really big theme. And what I saw is just this disbelief of Wait, people really act like this here. If it were this bad and this violent, wouldn't I know? But it's just so normal that, no, we don't see it very clearly well. When
KC Davis 27:52
you said at the beginning of our conversation, you know, to be clear, these are things that could change tomorrow. Like, I think that when you know, as someone that really doesn't know a lot about the inner workings of how colleges are handling these cases, or what the data looks like of these cases. I know from my perspective. You know, if you ask me, like, what do you think the biggest barrier was? Like, I would say, I think it would be hard to try and figure out what's really going on and feeling this burden. Like, you don't want to unfairly punish someone, but you also don't want to ignore a victim. And what if you make a mistake this way? What do you make? And I think that that it seems like that's a myth, yeah, like that is not the barrier. Like, the barrier is not it's difficult for us to know what's going on. The barrier is truly things that could be changed if people just wanted them to change enough, and if people would get educated, and if college campuses would just, like, take five minutes to figure out the best evidence based way to approach this.
Nicole Bedera 28:53
I think that's exactly right, that, yeah, the problem isn't that we don't know what's going on. It's that we don't want it to be true, and that the perpetrators aren't the people that we hoped they would be. This is the way I feel about the metoo movement in general, and a lot of our conversations about sexual violence in society. Something I say to my students a lot is that everybody thinks sexual assault is wrong. Everybody thinks rape is wrong up until the perpetrator is someone they already know and love, and then there's a real hesitancy to support survivors. And I see this at my research with survivors all the time. If they do something like just tweet out me too, I've been sexually assaulted, they'll get support from everyone in their lives. But if they name a perpetrator, and the perpetrator is someone who is in their family or in their friend group, they will find themselves pushed out because people have a really hard time grappling with it, and people just they don't. A lot of people don't think that this is a good reason to stop being friends with somebody. A lot of people just don't think that sexual assault is a good reason for someone to be expelled from school. And I think that's our biggest challenge, is making the really strong case that it actually is a very good. Reason to end your friendship with somebody if they've committed a sexual assault, especially if you are friends with the survivor too, and if the survivor can't be safe and can't spend time around you, if every time you have a birthday party, you're inviting their rapist, you can't really be surprised that then they're the one who's gonna end up leaving their social situation. And that's one of the things that we're increasingly finding as sexual violence researchers, is that how sexually or how traumatic sexual assault is isn't determined by the physical violence itself. The thing that determines how traumatic sexual assault is is how the victim is treated once it's over, and a lot of victims their entire life unravels because everyone in their lives is focusing on being fair to the perpetrator. And I put fair and big air quotes there, because saying you can't be friends with me is a pretty fair boundary to set. There's this real there's this myth that when somebody is accused of sexual assault, it will ruin their lives, and that everyone in society will shun them and turn away from them. They'll lose out on every opportunity. Researchers actually find it's the opposite, that being accused of sexual assault confers benefits on perpetrators, that everybody is sort of thinking the same way, thinking everybody else is going to take the side of the victim, so I'm going to be the one person who takes the side of the perpetrator, but everybody is thinking that everybody is protecting the perpetrator, and before long, it's the victim who's the one who disappears. One of the studies that, you know, I can never unread it, and I'm glad I read it, but I hope other people feel the same way, because it feels like something that's fundamentally unfair. There's this study where they it's called an audit study. So what they do is they create these fake resumes that are identical, except for a couple of different you know, the name will be different, and then a couple of different details, and they will show them to participants and say, Would you hire this person? How much money do you think they deserve? And in this case, the detail that was different was that one person had been accused of sexual harassment in their last job, and the other person had been the victim of sexual harassment in their last job, and participants overwhelmingly preferred to hire the perpetrator and to pay them more money. And so that is actually the normative view in our society, is that we really do side with perpetrators, thinking that we are giving them a second chance. And I just want to be clear that, because that's such a norm in our society, perpetrators really change their behavior. They have no incentive to do so. They have a lot of people giving them credit for something they haven't done, and it's really, really important that we do hold them accountable in meaningful ways. And I say this not just from a moral perspective if it feels like the right thing to do, but also from a pragmatic perspective. One of the things that we also know in the research is that the places that are safe where sexual violence doesn't occur are just places where it isn't tolerated, and one of the reasons that that happens is because most perpetrators of sexual violence are looking to impress other men. Most perpetrators are men, and they're looking to impress other men. So if they're in a place where, when they sexually harass someone, a co worker says, You know what? That's funny. I think that's hilarious. I want to work with you on more projects. I want to promote you. Then, of course, that's going to quickly turn into an environment where a lot of sexual harassment is happening, and that is the main reason that men commit these acts is to bond with other men. The Kavanaugh case is a really clear example of this, where we haven't heard of many stories, not to say they don't exist, but we haven't heard of many stories of Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulting women privately. We hear stories of him doing it publicly to entertain other men who are laughing. And so when we instead of giving benefits to perpetrators, when we instead say, that's the kind of person I'm not inviting back to this party, that's the thing that creates safe places. And one of the things we see in the research is that a lot of men will stop perpetrating if they know there will be negative consequences, instead of positive ones, because they feel kind of ambivalent about the violence itself. So
KC Davis 34:06
you know, even if you are someone who is worried about or thinks it's important to give second chances, what I hear you saying is the best way to give someone a second chance, the best way to give someone the opportunity to change and grow is to have zero tolerance. Yeah,
Nicole Bedera 34:24
I say this a lot to people who, again, coming from a very well intentioned, well meaning place, they find out that a friend of theirs has committed sexual assault, and they say, but if they don't have support, how will they ever change? One of the things I say most often is, well, you were in their life when they committed this act of sexual violence, and so the presumption that you're the right person to push them in that direction, you know, it's a big assumption. Are you maybe somebody who tolerated their violence? Are you somebody who, you know, if you keep them around, are you sending them the message that this is an okay thing to do and this isn't a deal breaker for you? I. And we don't have a lot of studies on what happens to individual perpetrators when they face boundaries, in part because it's so rare, it's hard to study. You would be really hard pressed to find a group of men who committed acts of sexual violence and did not benefit from that violence. So it's an open question, but I do think it's worth trying. I do think that the research we have so far around organizations that are safe would tell us that if a perpetrator going back to the college campus, example, if they're expelled and they have to go to another school, at least, they have to make new friends when they get there. And because of the way a lot of our campus organizations work, they might make really different friends. You know, it can be difficult to rush a fraternity as a junior. It can be difficult to join an athletic team as a senior, if you've already completed so much of your education. And so we know that the perpetrators on college campuses, they're really concentrated in a few places that they are overwhelmingly places that are very masculine or male, only that they are competitive and that they're hierarchical. So places like you know exactly where I was talking about before fraternities, where you have a hierarchy within them, and the rushing process is competitive. Football teams where there's a captain, there's a hierarchy of which string are you on. But also places like the marching band have pretty high rates of sexual violence perpetration too, even there, where you have individual sections being male dominated, and there's a hierarchy of first chair to whatever it's chair. So knowing that a lot of these organizations, because they are so hierarchical, you have to start at the bottom and move up, having a perpetrator start in the middle often means they have to go somewhere without that kind of hierarchy, and they might make different kinds of relationships that might be safer for them. The best predictor of whether or not a man will be violent is whether or not he is friends with men who are misogynistic and so disrupting those friend groups is a pretty good idea. Actually, it is a good way to potentially give somebody a second chance, which
KC Davis 37:08
I do think you know, back to your conversation about punishments and consequences, I think that is exactly those two things to marry together. I think are exactly how we should be thinking about things like dispelling fraternities. You know, there's been lots of cases where, you know, a survivor comes forward and says, you know, this happened at a fraternity house or at a fraternity party, and the college has disbanded the fraternity or kicked them off campus for however many years until basically nobody who's involved in that fraternity would be around when they were allowed back on campus. And you know, you hear kind of that side of, well, what about people that didn't do anything, and what about it's important for how men need to bond, and they need the support or whatever. And but I think going back to what you just said, which is, like, disrupting those social groups is the most beneficial thing you can do for the survivors, for the community at large. And it sounds like even for people who are in that social group to prevent them from perpetrating or from kind of going in that direction. And I think when we think about consequences versus punishment, that I think that's another helpful way, because when we talk about punishment, we have this big thing about like, Well, you shouldn't be punished if you're not the perpetrator. But consequences are different. You can suffer a consequence of someone else's actions. Victims
Nicole Bedera 38:28
do it all the time, and we're really comfortable putting that on victims
KC Davis 38:32
exactly like if you're participating in a in a group, in a culture, then yeah, you might suffer the consequences of the perpetrator being from that group or that culture. And again, like disbanding those groups, not as a punishment, but as a like a risk, honestly, like a restorative, a restoration of community of like, the best thing we can do, because we know that there is some toxicity being bred here, is to disrupt it
Nicole Bedera 39:01
exactly. And you know, another thing that is sort of lurking in the background of this conversation is when we talk about something like disbanding a fraternity, we don't usually talk about all of the other opportunities for connection that will open up for its members. We think about it as you know, if you're expelled from this one university, then that is the end of your education. But it's not one of the things that I think is a strength of the work that I did is I got to interview the perpetrators too, including, you know, the one perpetrator who was expelled that year. And this is just a fact, I like to sneak into as many interviews as possible, but people are really concerned that the campus sexual violence proceedings are unfair to perpetrators, but your average university expels one perpetrator every three years. It's actually really, really rare for them to hold a perpetrator accountable in any meaningful way. When they do hold perpetrators accountable, still, the most common way they do that is by deferring sanctioning until after graduation and by. Saying you will be suspended, but only after you graduate, which is a non sanction, right? It's which is nothing. It's nothing, and it offers the victim nothing. Because often what happens in those cases is it's not safe for the victim to be on campus, so the victim takes a leave of absence, and the victim is the one who acted as if they had been suspended for two or three or however many years. And so that's sort of the reality of things right now. But to get back to what I was originally saying on this point, which is that there's this idea that when somebody is expelled, which again, is really, really rare, that this is the end of the road for them, that they will never get into another school. That wasn't true, that is not true, the perpetrators just go somewhere else. And that's upsetting in its own way, that the perpetrators just go somewhere else, and that there's no sort of the stigma that we think will be there for perpetrators of violence doesn't exist, and that schools aren't thinking about the safety of other students that schools really do. They don't hesitate to bring these men back onto campus. They often think they do a lot of victim blaming. They'll say, Oh, well, the particular victim who led them to violence, who made them act violently, they won't be here, so they'll be safe in this space, which is victim blaming. And it's not true. The one perpetrator who was removed school that I studied, he'd been removed from at least one other university before that, and so the idea that he would go somewhere else and be safe somewhere else. That was certainly not true. But all this being said when
KC Davis 41:23
we see this in other places too, like you see the police officers get fired and just go get hired by another, you know, police department. You see doctors who get lose a license, move to a different state, and
Nicole Bedera 41:34
part of the reason for that is because we don't have a lot of schools that have different social norms, and so they go into a school that kind of acts the exact same way. They fall in with similar people. So a big part of this whole thing I'm thinking of working is that we have to have schools that are committed to safety and to holding a different standard of their students. And that's a big part of making this type of change, too, on the prevention side. But the thing that I find kind of freeing about this reality, because we know what's horrible about it, but the thing that's kind of freeing about it is I don't think we have to worry too much about what happens to the perpetrator. Will their life be ruined? Because overwhelmingly, they're welcomed with opened arms wherever else they go. And so we really can think from an abundance mindset, when we say we're going to disband this fraternity, well, those men will be able to find other friends. They'll be able to find other social groups. The whole world is huge, and I think this is most visible when we talk about a really common thing that victims want. Actually, the most common thing that victims want in studies is to never see their perpetrator again, to never be in the same place as them again. And people will get really caught up in thinking That's so unfair, because what if the perpetrator wants to be where the victim is? And my response to that, after conducting this study, is they can be literally anywhere else in the world. If we're saying they can't be in the place where the victim is, that is one place at any given time that they can't go. And so we're getting really fixated on this one place when the whole rest of the world is still open to them and they are okay. And I think it helps us a lot to remember to be accurate about that and to stay grounded in reality, that when we hold a perpetrator accountable, we tend to feel guilty thinking, What if everybody else does what I do? But that's not the world we're living in. The world we're living in where this is maybe the only place they're going to be held accountable, and the rest of the world is open to them. So don't think about that. Think about the part that's only in your control, and the part that's in your control is things like creating a safe place for survivors so that they can stay instead of the perpetrator being the one to push them out.
KC Davis 43:38
Well, and the idea that college campuses are privileged people's first introduction to how the world is going to treat them is obviously very powerful when you think about a survivor, but when you think about a perpetrator, and I mean, is there some, you know, degree of men that probably are straight up sociopathic evil, like the kind of sure, but I think the majority of cases, it actually is kind of hopeful. That's not the majority of cases, because what that means is it's not about creating a society that has this really specific mode of identifying and punishing and segregating. And you know, what do we do about this? But it is the case that we might actually be able to prevent people from becoming perpetrators, if we get them at this developmental time in life where the institutions have no tolerance for it. How many of these men go on to be serial perpetrators, as you said, because the first time it happened, they're fine, and the men around them like it, and there is no fallout. And it's like, well, sweet, I like this experience. I can continue to do this right. Like, and how many times have we heard of cases where. But you couldn't find that person's first perpetration in their early adulthood. And to me, that's kind of hopeful, as if you are someone who wants to think from a restorative justice standpoint of like, this isn't like we could prevent this,
Nicole Bedera 45:16
right? And it makes me hopeful for that reason, for sure that taking a sociological perspective, because that's what I am. I'm a sociologist, one of the reasons I was drawn to thinking about violence sociologically is it feels like a losing battle if our form of sexual assault prevention is trying to change the hearts and minds of individual rapists who are getting benefited from committing violence and who are in positions of power in our society. Again, thinking about Brett Kavanaugh as an example, there is no world in which I over here on my little spot, am I going to be influencing the way he thinks and the way he acts? He's so powerful in this society. And that's, I think, one of the realities we don't think about very much when it comes to sexual violence. We tend to think about it when people are young, because that's when perpetrators tend to be sexually assaulting people who they are not married to. But when we think about sort of the next phase of violence as something that happens privately, in the home or in workplaces, where there's such a big power imbalance, people can't come forward, you know, it is really important to think about catching people early and teaching them that this is not an appropriate way to behave, and thinking about it sociologically, it just feels a lot more doable to me than having like a new round of potential perpetrators come up and going to them one by one and saying, We know that you'll be rewarded if you do this, but we hope you won't. Please don't. It just doesn't seem like it's gonna happen. But the other thing that I find really helpful about all of this, and that makes me feel very grounded, is that a lot of the time, people throw their hands in the air and get overwhelmed after violence has happened, and they say when they feel backed into a corner where they don't know what to do, what they'll eventually say is it would be better if we prevented it altogether. It's too late to help this victim. There are no good outcomes. And one of the things I like about this way of thinking about it is we never reach that place. We never reach that place where it's too late, because there's recognition that how damaging the sexual assault is is still up in the air for the victim, and that we can actually make violence less traumatic for victims if we give them support and inclusion and we try to keep their life from unraveling. And so for me, that feels helpful because it gives us an agenda like gives us a clear directive about what to do. And so we're not just coming up with what do we think is the right response that feels punitive enough or harsh enough against perpetrators, but instead, we're letting our response be guided by what will give a tangible benefit to the victim, what will make this better, and that, to me, also feels more hopeful. So we have the hopefulness around the prevention of perpetration, but also the hopefulness around restoring access to society for victims, making sexual assault less damaging, retaining women in places where currently we are hemorrhaging women. And there's one study that finds that one of the best predictors of whether or not a woman will complete a major in a STEM degree is whether or not they have a sexual violence history, and that it kind of makes sense when you think about all the stress structures that are involved that a lot of our STEM degrees in college, they include weed out classes, and if you were sexually assaulted the same semester you take organic chemistry and the perpetrator is in your class, then, yeah, there's a good chance you're going to fail that class, and there's a good chance that you're going to have to change your Major, and you're going to probably have to go into a major that's more female dominated, because those majors tend to be more flexible and more understanding about the types of things you're going through, whereas all the other majors that mostly cater to men just aren't really thinking about what survivors need. You know, you start to see very quickly how when this violence is happening with adolescent women, queer and trans people, that it leads to a lot of other segregation in society too. And that gives me a lot of hope as well. To say, Wow, if we could fix this one thing, if we could move in this one direction, the ripple effects might be a lot bigger than we think.
KC Davis 49:17
Yeah. And I think to your point, that just because the assault has already occurred doesn't mean you've missed the window of prevention, because preventing Fallout, preventing the post traumatic issues like you still. We're still in the world of prevention, with still so much that we can do,
Nicole Bedera 49:38
and we actually know a lot about what to do. We know a lot about what survivors need in the aftermath of violence. They need agency because sexual violence, it's not traumatic because it causes physical injury. Most of the time it doesn't the reason it's traumatic is because there's a loss of bodily autonomy, and that is inherently one of the most traumatic things. We can experience. And so part of how we heal it is giving survivors power back, respecting their agency, respecting the things they say they need. And so part of why survivors are traumatized by sexual assault in its aftermath is because when they go to their friends and say, I really need you to not invite my perpetrator to your birthday party, because I want to go and the thing they hear back is, well, I'm going to prioritize that person ahead of you. That's again, denying that agency. It's denying their assertion of what they need to be okay. And so we know that that kind of stuff makes a huge difference, and that the more that we create stability in survivors lives, the more that we tell them that they're valuable, that they are valued members of our society, and that we will put them first, the better they do. And it's something you can see really clearly in this college context, especially when students are trying to report there's this academic concept that's so useful, created by Jennifer fried, called institutional betrayal. And institutional betrayal is defined as actions or inactions taken by an institution that exacerbate trauma. And there's a list, and I have the list in the book. If you want to see the whole list, it's in the book, but there's a list of the things that we know exacerbate survivors trauma when we respond that way, and they are things like mishandling a reporting process, responding in ways that make sexual violence seem more likely in the future, responding in ways that tell the victim that they are not valuable, or they're not as valuable as another person, very commonly, their perpetrator. And the thing about institutional betrayal is it's not that it's just a bad thing or that exacerbates trauma a little bit. We actually find in the research that when victims experience these types of reactions, it exacerbates their trauma at the same severity as the violence itself. So another way of putting this is that survivors who experience institutional betrayal look the same on surveys as someone who was sexually assaulted twice in a very short period of time. And so when we're talking about how much we can take these burdens off of survivors, it's really significant. We're talking about reducing the trauma by half, or more than half. That's a huge thing to be able to make, just make it easier for somebody who's experienced sexual violence, to be able to show up the way they want in their lives, to be able to fully participate in our society. And again, that makes me really hopeful, because that's something we can do. We don't have to be going to perpetrators and trying to get convince them to do something different. We can just make their violence less damaging on our own without trying to involve them at all. And I say that not because I think it should be our job, but because I'm realistic about who is most committed to this work. I know that we are the ones who are most committed to this work, and so it feels nice when we can do it without needing the permission of the people who are causing harm. Well, Nicole,
KC Davis 52:53
this has been such a great conversation. I feel like I just took like a master class in such a difference in what I knew before this hour and what I know now. If you guys want to check out the book again, it's called on the wrong side, how universities protect perpetrators and betray survivors of sexual violence. Nicole, where can we find you if we wanted to do you have a website? Do you have kind of ways to follow your journey and your work?
Nicole Bedera 53:18
I do. I have a website. It's just my name. Nicole badera.com, I'm also on Twitter and trying out blue sky. I'm really, really trying this time, because I don't know how much longer I can stomach Twitter. But the other thing that I just want to plug here is that if you are someone who this all sounds really good to you, and you're involved in an organization that's trying to end violence within it, no matter what type of organization it is, we know all types of organizations have violence within them. The other place you can find me is I just founded a consulting group called Beyond Compliance consulting. We're very selective with our clients. We like to work with people who don't just want to meet the bare legal minimums for helping survivors and addressing sexual violence and gender discrimination. We work specifically with people who want to end it, and that is their goal. And so if you want to meet us for that, we'd love that too, and we're just beyond compliance consulting. Awesome. Well, thank
KC Davis 54:06
you again.
Nicole Bedera 54:07
Thank you for having me. You.

Christy HausslerDecember 2, 2024

121: What if Children Designed Cities? with Mara Mintzer

What if our cities were designed with children participating in the process? What they would prioritize might surprise us all! My guest, Mara Mintzer, did a TEDx talk on the topic of including children in the city planning process, and she’s been involved in this kind of unique child-friendly endeavor in Boulder, Colorado, as the co-founder and Executive Director of Growing Up Boulder. Join us as we take a look at this topic!

Show Highlights:

Mara’s background and current role in Boulder, CO
Public spaces aren’t often designed for children (and mothers).
The United Nations guidelines for human rights for those under 18 years of age
Wisdom from the tiniest voices about slowing down, enjoying the world around us, and noticing our experiences on life’s journey
The Nature Everywhere Initiative in cities across the US
Are we supporting kids’ development with our public spaces?
The value in having culturally relevant third spaces for kids
What would a teen-friendly park look like?
Hearing the voices of many diverse groups that have been traditionally excluded
Feedback from people about what they want in their communities
Promoting involvement from kids to understand their issues and craft workable solutions
A few unexpected things that kids want in their spaces
The dilemma for parents in kid-friendly restaurants with “adult food” AND “kid food”
More relaxed parenting in other countries and better work-life balance

Resources and Links:

Connect with Mara Mintzer: Growing Up Boulder

Mentioned in this episode: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

KC Davis 0:00
Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle. Care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and today we're going to talk about designing cities with children in mind, but not just about designing them with children in mind, but actually designing them with children participating in the process of design. I'm here with Mara Mintzer, and I just recently watched her TED talk about this idea of including children in the design of cities. And Merrick, tell me who you are, and then let's talk about this, because you have actually done this in Boulder involved children in the planning process. So tell me a little bit of your background, absolutely.
Mara Mintzer 0:41
And I'll tell you my background, and I'll also say that when I first heard about child friendly cities, I also thought it was designing cities that would support young people, it didn't occur to me that it was with them. So I even had a learning curve. But My name is Mara Mintzer, and I am a co founder and executive director of growing up Boulder, we are now a nonprofit program. We were originally based at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and what we do is we elevate the voices of young people to make our communities more equitable and sustainable for everybody. For my career, I have been running programs for and with underserved young people. They are caregivers and parents for many years, both in New York City and in California, before I moved to Colorado. And when I moved to Colorado, I did some networking, and I heard this idea of child friendly cities, which I'd never heard of before. And I said, this has my name written all over it. I want to be a part of that. The
KC Davis 1:39
reason why this topic is so interesting to me is I had this experience probably about a year ago. My daughter was attending a preschool at the time, and I had gone to some parent involved thing, and she had to go the bathroom. So I went into the bathroom with her, and I noticed that all the sinks were really low and all of the little potties were really low, because it was like a preschool. And I was like, That's so clever. Of course, they would do that in the preschool. And I watched her independently go to the bathroom and wash her hands and get paper towels and do this whole routine that I didn't even know she could do independently. Because every time we go somewhere, I have to help her with it. I have to physically pick her up. You know, she gets water all over her clothes because she can't reach the sink. And after that, I started noticing all the places that we went. And it never occurred to me before that even the places that were made for children didn't have these features. Like, we were at the Children's Museum, we were at the zoo, we were at, you know, public parks with playgrounds. But I started noticing like, huh, isn't it interesting that even when they make something for children, designing for children in mind, doesn't reach the bathroom. And so that kind of opened me up to this thinking about how we don't really design public spaces to be hospitable for children, and in turn, they're not hospitable for mothers and parents. And when I talk about this on the internet, you know, you get this huge surge of parents kind of agreeing with me, but then you get this, like, kind of minority but vocal section of adults that are like, well, I don't want to have to look at children. And it's just an interesting you know, children really are a marginalized group, and I think it's so interesting that your approach is including them. So how did that even come about? Because that would not occur to me, I'm sad to say,
Mara Mintzer 3:31
Yeah, well, I mean, and you know, children are, and have always been, and will always be, a part of our society, and some societies are much more open to just having kids integrated and everything. So for instance, when I lived in Argentina, kids would come out to dinner, they would participate. There weren't adult and Kid activities. And so part of it is a mind shift of like there being kid things and adult things, when, in fact, that's really an artificial boundary that I think we create, but yeah, so the way I first learned about this concept was I met this professor, Willem von fleet, in at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and he had founded this children youth and Environment Center. And he explained that there were these child friendly city initiatives around the world. And if you take a step back, and this is going to get a little intellectual, but I think it's actually really important for us to know. So the United Nations has this treaty that's been signed by all the countries in the United Nations, except for the United States, but this treaty has been signed that says there are certain human rights that we need to respect for anyone under the age of 18, and they're different, like some are the same, but some are different from the human rights we think about for adults, like, for instance, the right to schooling, the right to assemble with your friends. You know, things that are not a given everywhere and all these cities work with UNICEF to create these child for. Family cities, and a way to do this is with the young people themselves. That's a key part, is youth participation and child participation. And I actually hadn't specifically done that before, but when we started this program in Boulder, it turns out there are so many ways we can be including young people, and we often think of only teens as being able to be included, but we've worked with preschool kids. Like, one of my favorite stories that always makes people chuckle is we wanted to hear from preschoolers about the transportation master plan for our city so that, like, why go to preschool or care about that? But what we wanted to understand is like, how do they get around, and what do they need to get around safely? And so we put GoPros on their heads, and the preschool classes went out with their teachers, and the teachers are Reggio Emilia trained teachers, which means that they take careful notes and observations of the children. And what we learned from those videos and the notes from the teachers is that the kids felt really unsafe trying to cross the street, even where there was a crosswalk, the cars were just going too fast and they weren't seeing the kids. And so that leads us to think about, well, what are some interventions we can do for areas where there are high levels of children to really slow down traffic and really make it safer to cross the road. And we learned that from, you know, two to four year olds. So it's really, it's eye opening, and it's so beautiful. Yeah,
KC Davis 6:30
I was going to ask, you know, along those lines, like, what were some of the things? Because I know in your talk, you talk about a park and including all these different ages in how this park was going to get redesigned. And I loved the comment you made about noticing that toddlers wanted to stop and look at the leaves in the ditch. And I'm just curious from those littlest voices, like, what were some things that surprised you? Because I think as adults, we think, Oh, they're going to really love the slide. They're going to really love this, like, the features that we think they're really going to love, and it's not like they don't love slides, but what were some of the things that were kind of aha moments for you from some of those littlest voices?
Mara Mintzer 7:08
Yeah, definitely the slowing down. Like I always say that toddlers are our Zen masters, if we will listen, they force you to slow down and just again, think about that journey. And what are you seeing on that journey, and what are you experiencing? You know, kids bodies. They kids breathe more quickly than adults do, and so they're actually taking in more of the air around us, and so air pollution is much more concentrated for them. So just thinking about like, if they're having tons of cars come by and there's no green barrier between the little kids and the road, they're inhaling all of that. And not only is it not good for them, but it's really unpleasant and much less joyful. But what if we create those green barriers between the sidewalk and the road, and then even have cycling there too, so you're even farther from the cars? Those sorts of things came from, you know, there's research about it, but also just the observations. They also taught us to kind of look for the really interesting things along the way. We were doing a walking field trip with a group of second grade English language learner students, and they noticed things that we adults never would have noticed there were little dinosaurs, like plastic dinosaurs hidden under a giant pine tree that we didn't notice, but they found right away because they were closer to the ground. And so when we designed a little walking route that was child friendly, it had all these joyful elements that we adults had completely missed, and it was just delightful.
KC Davis 8:46
I love that. I also love it because I think that the idea of remodeling a park or turning a green space into, you know, a park, it seems like it would be a very expensive endeavor, and I'm sure it is, but it also seems like our heads go right to, okay, we need play structures that you know are probably going to be very expensive, and we need, you know, very manicured spaces, and we think about having to kind of, like, equip the space. And it sounds like, you know, these kids are more interested in just an opportunity to be where they are
Mara Mintzer 9:23
absolutely and I am so lucky because I am working with an amazing team of parks planners at the City of Boulder right now, and we have a pretty unified vision of bringing well. And it's also with the National League of Cities, and it's called the nature everywhere initiative that the National League of Cities there children cities, connecting children to Nature Network is rolling out in different cities. But what we are doing is we are looking to include nature play and nature experiences and nature learning all over the city. And to get to your point, Casey. Right? It doesn't have to be that expensive. For instance, one area that we were looking at right now, there's something that's kind of falling apart. It was a first attempt at nature play well, what we figured out is, if we put just like a very loose fence around that area, and then ask the parks department, you know, don't mow the grass inside, right? They won't mind that, because it's less area to mow, let's let the grass go really tall and wild. We'll put in a few nature plate elements just to update them and make sure they are really safe. And then we're also going to put in things that allows kids who might be using a wheelchair to access the spaces as well, so that there are multiple ways for multiple kids to engage. This will likely not be very expensive. It's much cheaper than buying ready made, plastic and metal pieces, and it can hold children's attention for so much longer because it's free play. It's imaginative, and this is what we need more of. Yeah,
KC Davis 10:56
you know, when I had the first place that we lived, when we moved here in Houston, there was a park near us that was, you know, obviously everything here is, like wooded before you bulldoze it down. But instead of leveling all the trees, and like building this really manicured Park, they had just gone through and bulldozed a path through the trees. And that was literally the only thing in this park, and it was my kids favorite park. And it had me reflecting on, gosh, we do so much for the average park where we have to put in, we make it like a lawn, right? Like a Suburban Lawn, like grass that has to be watered and, you know, maybe some play equipment, and this, that and the other. And here was this spot of land, and I think, you know, they had even sort of named a nature reserves that nobody could bulldoze it down, but it literally had nothing else in it. And not only did my kids like it better, but it was also just more family friendly. First of all, we're in Houston, there was shade. You could go when it was windy, you could go when it was hot, you could even go if it was sprinkling a little bit. And they just never ran out of things to do. And they eventually added a few things here and there about, I think there was, like, a QR code that you could scan to hear about, like, what kinds of birds typically were there. That was one of the points for me that really got me thinking about looking at the spaces that I was visiting with my kids. And I think it's interesting we think about that section of the population that's like, well, I don't like sharing a space with kids, and I think a big part of that is just being a curmudgeon, right? But another part of it is when you have to force kids to be in a space that does not accommodate them, they are going to act and behave in ways that are not going to be, you know, like they're going to be more disruptive, they're going to be more energetic, they're going to be more frustrating and impatient. It's like, that's not just, oh, I don't like kids. That's there's not a way for a child to be in a restaurant where anyone's thinking about their needs. And so do you not like kids, or do you not like how we've designed these spaces to exclude children? That's
Mara Mintzer 13:05
exactly right. And in fact, an example of that is right. So some cities, over time, have used these really high pitched noise makers that only teenagers can hear. We can't hear them, and it tries to stop teenagers from loitering. And it's often in front of, like a store, it's some area that they feel like the kids are engaging in anti social behavior. But I like to turn that around and think, what aren't we offering to our young people as ways that are supportive of their development? So you know, a lot of the behaviors, I think, that we find annoying, as you said are just we're not creating those outlets, that space for them to do what they're supposed to do. And so what is a teenager supposed to do? They're supposed to be social. They're hanging out with their peers. They like to see and be seen just a little bit and be up a little bit higher and watch everything. If we build those spaces, they also want thrill seeking, right? Like, thrill seeking is a part of that age. That's why younger people are sort of more prone to fights or those other pieces. They do have this piece of them that needs an outlet. But like, what if we design spaces that allow that thrill seeking, that adrenaline rush, in a pro social way, and that teens have helped create, that they're then going to go to. Can you imagine what a decline there would be in, you know, graffiti, where we don't want it, and just behaviors that as a society, we've said we do not want, and it's because we're not creating those opportunities for them
KC Davis 14:35
well. And you know, you hear people complaining about, oh, these, you know, kids going into Sephora, and they're too young, and they're into tumblers, and it's, I think there's a big thing about this to talk about when we talk about the absence of third places for adults, but I find that as I've grown it's the absence of third places for teenagers that I think are hit hardest, because, like, when I was growing up, we had malls. Yeah. Even if you didn't have money to buy things, like you would go to the mall, and your friends would be the mall, and there'd be a safe place to walk around. There would be things to look at, there would be things to you know, a couple of things that you could do. And like, malls are dying, right? And think about it like you try to loiter in in front of a store in the way we used to loiter in the mall, and, like you said, they're turning on high pitch noises to get you to leave and then, and I still remember, even with parks, you know, when we would go to parks as teenagers, there was always kind of this side eye of like, this is for little children. You must be doing nefarious things here, and that's kind of where you get this, okay, we're all driving around aimlessly looking for, I guess, someone's house to go, whose parents aren't home. And the very few places, you know, where there was maybe a skate park or something, where that was a little more oriented to teenagers, even when I was a teenager, those were hard to find. And it does make you sort of reflect on, you know, when we find ourselves frustrated by the way teenagers or children behave. It's like some of that we just need to get over, because we've all been children, right? It's important for them to go through those phases. But how much of that are we creating by not treating them like full citizens that have the right to gather and have places to go and just exist. Because, you know, I think I would want my kids socializing in public, instead of driving in them into these private nooks and crannies that they're finding where nobody's watching, nobody's around,
Mara Mintzer 16:38
completely and and, you know, the other thing is, when we think about spaces having culturally relevant third spaces, so one of my colleagues here in Boulder, I just love his vision, but he has this vision for a youth center where it would be created by a variety of nonprofits. So it's not just one nonprofit, but it's a space where there's a place for performances, there's a place for art making, there's a place for group work. There's a place for individual like therapy or coaching. It's staffed by people from the community, for the community, and also it's celebrating these amazing cultures that we're lucky to have in our communities, instead of sort of only showing one version of what a culture and age is supposed to look like. Can you imagine if you're being seen like that and having these spaces where there are other adults that you can work with or be mentored by? I think that would just make such a difference to every teen. What were
KC Davis 17:39
some of the insights that the teenagers had that surprised you about like, what they how they experience spaces?
Mara Mintzer 17:49
Yeah, well, it shouldn't have surprised me, but it similar to what you were saying. We did this project on what would a teen friendly Park look like, and it came out of one of my colleagues when her son was about 10 or 11, he started getting yelled at by the mothers on the playground, being like, get off the equipment. You know, you're too old to be here. You're scaring our little kids. And he said, like, where am I supposed to go? What am I still want to play? And actually, I see this in our middle schools all of the time, and it's heartbreaking. And I actually remember experiencing this. So our kids go from being in elementary school, we get recessed once or twice a day, and there's stuff to play with, and you have free time, and suddenly in middle school, there's nothing to play on. And it turns out that developmentally, they still want to play. They really do and so, but it's this sadness of like everything kind of closes down for these middle school aged kids. And so it was a reminder to me of that need to play. Still, I didn't know that that was normal and part of development, and when I experienced it myself, I was kind of ashamed of like, Oh, I'm 11. I'm not supposed to play. Actually, you are. And so like, we need to bring that back out into the open. We need to give our kids more free time to be able to play and meet without adults hovering over them and choosing all their activities for them and just being unstructured. And that really goes across the ages. And Jonathan heights new book The anxious generation, which I'm sure many of your listeners, and maybe you have read it was, it was heartbreaking and it was exciting, because when I read it, I said every single thing he's talking about in this book is what growing up older my nonprofit does. We have been addressing this for 15 years, and now people are starting to understand why it matters. And before we would talk about it, and people didn't really understand it, but now they're really getting it, and so I think there's an opportunity right now to change things. Yeah, I
KC Davis 19:46
hadn't even really thought about this until now, but I mean, when I think back to middle school, when we had recess, it was like, post like, right after lunch, they did just send us out to the football field, like we weren't going to the. Playground anymore. We were going to the football field, where we were either sitting on the bleachers talking, maybe some boys were running around, and we might have had, like, Foursquare, like, maybe a few balls, but it's interesting, right? Because you're right, we didn't stop playing. We would go home and play. You know, you still invite your friends over and play mermaids in the pool, but you just there really aren't those spaces for those kinds of kids. I thought it was interesting. One of the things that you mentioned in your TED talk that you got from the kids is separating the walking paths and the biking paths. My husband always gripes about the people that like to bike in our neighborhood because it slows down traffic so much. And he asked me one time, like, why don't they bike on the sidewalk? And I was like, well, interesting fact that I just happen to know that bikes are more dangerous to pedestrians than cars are to bikes, which is why bikes legally are supposed to be riding on the road. But in a lot of our parks around here, we have these big, wide concrete kind of like trails, for lack of a better term, and you are allowed to bike on them. But as someone who now has kids who like to walk and sometimes run, you can't really take children on a path that has bikes on them, and so I thought it was so interesting to hear them talk about wanting to separate, you know, where people were riding and where people were walking. But even so, you know, okay, bikes are supposed to be on the road. What about children? My children know how to ride bikes now, and I don't want them to ride in the road. Where do I take them to ride bicycles and things like that. And I just think this is such an interesting concept, because as much, and you know, you what I love that you say at the end of your TED talk is that, you know, this is just the beginning, and when we learn to listen to children, it has a broader implication to listening to people of color, to listening to people who are indigenous, to the space, to listening to people who are disabled, that it's not just about children, it's about including those voices who previously haven't been included. And I love that phrase, you know, nothing about us, without us, and it just really got me thinking about how we don't consider children marginalized, and how the marginalization of children is so connected to even the marginalization of women and mothers still. But I'd love to hear from you also like, how have you seen that ripple effect, like when you center children, how has that rippled in the community, or even in the design to better listening to all kinds of voices.
Mara Mintzer 22:21
What we often see is that the same approaches, the same techniques we use for listening to kids, work really well for listening to groups that have been excluded in the past. So I'll just give you an example, and I learned this somewhat through trial and error. At one point earlier on in growing up boulders history, we tried to create a youth group, and we would have the kids come to us, and we were going to create all these things together. And I reached out to all these organizations, and I was so excited. And who showed up, but only the adult representatives, not one teenager showed up. And so it was a moment to think about, okay, well, what isn't working here? And the answer was we needed to go to them instead of them coming to us in our university towers where they maybe weren't familiar or comfortable. And so instead, we started going to after school programs, or we went to school classrooms that were set up in a way that our programs could work, that changed everything because it was on their territory, they already felt comfortable, and then we could ask good questions, and if we were good listeners, get really insightful information. That same thing works for hearing from adults. And so we've been working to become a recognized, UNICEF, child friendly city, which is a multi year process which ends in official recognition. And one of the pieces of that is called community conversations, and that really is having conversations with our community. Well, what's so exciting is we partnered with over 30 nonprofits, government programs for kids, all sorts of spaces where young people and their parents were and we said, look, this is our goal. We want to hear certain things, but what? And here are a few different ways that you might approach this. Choose what works for your community. So in one of our partner nonprofits that works primarily with Latinx families, they wanted to use storytelling. Right? Instead of filling out a survey, they wanted to do storytelling, and so it was facilitated by their own leader in Spanish using a storytelling method, and the data and information we got from that was so rich and so useful, and that was primarily adults we were hearing from, but we were doing it in a way that worked for them, and really honoring what the community was telling us. And if we take the time to do that, we can create such better spaces and policies, but it does take more time. And so again, it's a really different way of approaching engaging with children or adults. And so, you know, it's a whole change, but I think it's worth the time and energy. And
KC Davis 24:56
you didn't just like, ask people questions, like. So there were some really cool things that you did about the park that you talked about in your TED Talk, where it wasn't just like asking kids questions like you. I mean, these kids were holding clipboards like these kids were walking through parks and taking pictures of the things that interested them and the things that they thought were problems, and even like really young kids, you know, we're making model, you know, model parks out of, you know, Ed cartons and candy and things like that. And talking about these things, can you talk a little bit about how much we are perhaps underestimating children's ability to understand issues and come up with creative solutions.
Mara Mintzer 25:43
I mean, the kids never cease to amaze me with their insights. I was just at a meeting that we ran two nights ago where a group of teenagers, you know, maybe 13 to 18 were they were running the whole meeting. They were so amazing. And by the end of the meeting, they had typed up an entire plan for and divided up. Okay, everyone's reaching out to three organizations. Here's your name and here's what you're committing to. Because, again, they're experts on their own lives. They knew which organizations they could reach out to to get a variety of demographics to come to a meeting that we're having no The other thing we do with young people is, when they were at that civic area Park in my TEDx talk, they were using their five senses, right? And so we weren't just asking them visually what to do, but like, what do you want to experience with your body, with your sense of smell, your taste? And so all of that then feeds into how you design a space like, for instance, we've heard from kids over time they've wanted sort of edible gardens, and I mean, and forests. And I'm really excited. I think this is more coincidental, but our open space department is looking to design some forests now that are have all sorts of edible plants in them. And so kids really are thinking outside the box when they're creating their spaces.
KC Davis 27:08
Would you say that there were things that you went into that project, or any projects you've done, like, what are some of the things that you went in thinking, like, Oh, this is going to be perfect for kids, that when you actually brought kids into the conversation, you realize, like, Oh, this is actually not something that, like is the best thing to do here. Because I feel like we often have in and I mean, even as a parent, you're like, Oh, they're gonna love this. And then they're like, No, we really, like, she said, like we wanted to stare at leaves in the gutter. Like, were there any of those kind of surprises about like things that you assumed children would be most drawn to in public spaces or in parks and playgrounds that you were kind of surprised to hear? They weren't.
Mara Mintzer 27:52
You know, it's been so long now that I don't, I can't think of anything because, and there might have been at one point, but the themes, actually, that kids are asking for now are pretty similar most times. And actually, when I've compared it across cultures and looked at other countries, it actually is somewhat similar, although the way that they might roll it out for a specific space changes. So they constantly want interaction with water, play with water. They want nature and beauty and flowers and color around them.
KC Davis 28:24
It's like the opposite of most parks. Most parks are a big, open green field, maybe a playground,
Mara Mintzer 28:31
yeah. And, you know, I think of sort of the also the junkyard type spaces, like in in Wales, where they have the land, or in New York City, where they've got on governance island that kind of wild and free and Dangerous play with like hammers and fire and all this. And really, that is what kids often prefers, this messy play, and not the neat, manicured play that we create and parks, there's like one little surprising thing, but it wasn't. It wasn't so surprising. We were working with second grade students on a bus route, like looking at a bus route and how to make it more child friendly. And so the two things that they came up with were, one, they were really kind of bored and disengaged when they were waiting for the bus and on the bus. So they designed playful sort of signs for all the busses inside the bus that it was count the number of bunnies, hidden bunnies. And so the kids had actually drawn the artwork, and then for other kids to have something to play with and do while they were on the bus, to make taking public transit more fun. So I thought that was so clever. And the other piece was they get really tired when they were waiting for the bus to come, so they installed a bench there. And of course, I've been noticing around town how frequently adults and kids will use benches if you put them there. So I hadn't thought of that, and it really made a lot of sense when the kids raised those ideas.
KC Davis 29:56
I really love the note about like being bored at the bus stop, because I. Like a lot of adults would hear that quote, unquote complaint and be like, Okay, we'll get over it. Parts of life are boring, like, you don't need to be entertained all the time. Yada yada ya, right. However, when I think about adult design, I think about and I notice how much boredom is taken as a real issue that deserves to be addressed. Like when I'm sitting in a waiting room waiting for my oil to be changed, there is always a TV. There are always magazines on the table when I am waiting at the doctor's office, again, there are always magazines on the table. Like these are things that we dismiss in children that I don't think we realize we design around as legitimate needs for adults. I've never been I really like wait in a place where someone hasn't given one at least one thought to what can I do to entertain myself? And now we all have phones, but even so, like there aren't a lot of waiting places for children that, unless it's specifically a pediatrician that are thinking, how can we help children wait here
Mara Mintzer 31:09
Absolutely and you know, sometimes we think that these things have to be a certain way, but they're all human designed. These are not things that have always existed. So there's no reason to say that having something interesting for adults to look at is more important than having kids have something to look at or to do. And again, that goes back to that adults who don't want kids around, if we are designing spaces that are keeping kids in mind, it really changes it. And so like when I lived in Australia, there were all these cafes that had sections set up for kids. You know, there were chalkboards they could write on. They had toys there, and so then you could spend many hours eating and drinking at this cafe with your kid also having great opportunities for socialization. It's not that hard to do, but it's a different mind. You Yeah.
KC Davis 32:04
Like, one of my biggest if I could, like, wave a magic wand as a parent and get is that, like, it's not that there aren't restaurants that are accommodating children. It's that the food is never good at those restaurants. Like, it's fine. But, like, I'm not thinking, like, you know what, I would love to go, man, it would just be so great to go and have a sit down meal at Wendy's, right? Like this, just, you know, there's, we have one restaurant in my neighborhood that has an out gated outdoor play area with some playground equipment. And they even do like, a bouncy house on the weekends. And we go there all the time, because when my kids can run around and expend some energy, they don't mind waiting. It's easier for them to sit down and eat. And they'll even do the thing where they'll eat a little pop up, go play. Eat a little pop up, go play. And there's also some TVs on the sports for parents. And so you have a more relaxing experience, and you never really have despite the fact that kids are running around even more chaotically because of the play place. You almost never see child parent conflict. You never see anyone being disrupted at their other tables, even though the kids are running around because it is designed for them and the food sucks. It sucks so bad. And, you know, if I want that experience of being able to sit down and eat a meal and not have to worry about, you know, my kids ability to sit for, you know, 3040, minutes. You know, those are the kind of places we want to go. I have always yearned because I spent some time in Guatemala City when I was in my early 20s. And there was this one restaurant that my friends who had kids would always take me, and it had, like, kind of an old school McDonald's esque, like indoor playground. But the restaurant was like, a la Madeleine, like, that's the closest I can think to it. And we would it like it was an adult restaurant with a child's play place, and this is where all of these mothers would go to actually sit down and have a conversation, actually sit down and do a book club. And again, there was very little conflict between patrons and children. And I just ever since, and I've always noticed that like restaurants that accommodate or cater to children are like you said they're like, children specific, they're not also trying to make a good adult experience, and so that we have that separation of like, oh, we have adult restaurants and children's restaurants, versus just like a restaurant where anyone could go, where everyone might be accommodated. And I just wish that there were more places like that, I completely agree,
Mara Mintzer 34:41
and there's absolutely no need for that dichotomy. Actually, one of the things I feel really strongly about also is actually in terms of food. So when we think about again the way our American society works, we think of adults food versus kids' food, when, in fact, if you look at cultures all over the world. There's no need for that. Like you don't have kids in other parts of the world saying, I'm not going to eat this. I'm only going to eat chicken nuggets. No, if you eat antelope for dinner and your parents eat that, that's what you eat too. And so you know, what? If there were restaurants that had just kid sized portions of the same adult food, and then things that kids could do again, that could give them a break, or have other ways of being at dinner, we could really transform the way our society works. And the other benefit is it would reduce stress and anxiety for parents. Because again, you know this is sort of the hot topic now, and I know our Surgeon General just talked about this crisis in parenting and in the US, how stressful parenting is, and it is absolutely true. There was a great book I read that looked at parenting in Denmark and how much more relaxing it is, and the reasons for that are the following. One, they have universal child care and after school programs so that it doesn't matter what your income is there, that is just a given that you will have that time. There is better parental leave. There's also a better work life balance, right? Like you're not working as many hours. And then there's the expectation that adults and kids have other activities they engage in. And so when each when the parents and the children are getting to be seen as whole people, and there are supports in place, and the kids are also expected to help out at home, it's just what you do, you set the table, and no one asks questions about it, it reduces stress so much for parents, and it's more enjoyable. And so I think there is a possibility for us to do this, but we have to really change the systems around us and also our own expectations and beliefs and what we think kids can do like they can do so much more than we allow them to do, and that's another change I'd love to see in our country. Yeah,
KC Davis 36:55
it reminds me, you know, full circle to like watching my tiny little preschooler do like, a full independent bathtub routine, and it was like this whole time, it's not that she wasn't capable of doing it, it's that she had never been in a space that had empowered her to do it on her own. And how many parents are overloaded with how much we have to do for our kids, especially out in public, when, like, half the problem is that there just aren't spaces that are thinking about how a child could exist in those space and she has it, there's a psychology aspect to it, right? Like, when it is accessible to my kids, they feel like they feel more of a responsibility to do it, as opposed to, well, you know, I can't pick me up. Like there's kind of this challenge to them that they sense in the environment of, oh, I'm expected to do this. And I think that matters. I also think that some of the things that I've heard my kids voice, it's not the big things, right? Like, some of the things you've talked about are kind of big, like, big parks and bus stops and things like that. But like, I'll never forget my daughter like commenting to me one time, like, I wish more restaurants got the crayons that didn't roll away, because there's a couple of restaurants around us that have crayons that are, like, hexagonal, if that makes sense, like they have flat sides, so they're their triangle, so that when they're coloring on the table, they don't roll off the table. And that's always stuck with me about like, what a small thing that if we were listening to children, we would hear, you know, I am more engaged in a restaurant when I have something to color, but more than that, because that's what parent with, what adults think, right? Oh, well, give them something to color, but it's specific to when my crayons don't run away.
Mara Mintzer 38:38
Yeah, you know, Allison gopnik is a professor who does work around child development, and one of the research studies she's done has to do with children actually being better problem solvers than adults, even. And these are, I think, young children, maybe like four or five, and what happens is, the reason they can be better problem solvers is that as we get older, we have frameworks that help us understand the world, because there is so much information out there, and it makes sense that we have to have some way of wrestling all this information into submission and to be usable. But kids don't yet have those restrictions, and so they can look at a problem and actually solve it more quickly or more creatively, because they just are literally thinking without such rigid framework. The crayon example is a great idea. Maybe there are other things we haven't even thought of. If we brought kids in for our randd team to help come up with answers, yeah.
KC Davis 39:37
And then the other short one that I'll share with you before we end our time is, you know, one of my daughters is four, and what's really difficult for her we go on airplanes is she kicks the seat in front of her, and we spend the whole flight really kind of managing that. Now, part of that is, you know, she's neuro divergent, and she's, you know, kind of squiggly wiggly, but a big part of it is that she doesn't fit. Sit in the seat, and so she's constantly pushing on the seat in front of her to push her body back up in to the seat, because where her knees hit the seat, she can't really sit comfortably. So she's always kind of like slowly sliding down. And that's like, one of the biggest complaints that people have on airplanes, ah, Kid kick in the back of my seat, and it's like, okay, well, some of that is okay, yeah, kids are restless. They want to swing their feet and they're not as aware. That's fine, but some of that is, and I can say this as a short person who also, like, my knees genuinely hurt when I sit on long flights, like, there's nowhere to prop my feet up, and that has to do with, like my body being comfortable and aligned. And how many of these kids, you know, how simple would it be to think about, where are kids legs and feet hitting in an airplane seat, and is there a simple way for them to put have a foot rest, to put their feet on something, to have a booster seat or something kind of built in. And again, you would think, Oh, look, this is so much. But like, I don't know, they just unveiled that, like, brand new Southwest Airlines, you like, whatever. And like, part of it is like, there's TVs in the back that we thought about people's entertainment. And the other part is, like, that little part of the headrest that kind of folds forward to support your head if you want to sleep. That's not necessary. That's luxury. Like, that's not like, we could have just told adults, like, get over it. It's a flight. It's not supposed to be comfortable. But we didn't. We thought about, how do we make people be able to watch TV on flights easier? How do we support their heads so they're more comfortable? Why can't we think, why is where a child's knees and feet hit on the seat, not as valid as you wanting to rest your head again, like it's just kind of something to think about. You're very
Mara Mintzer 41:51
welcome. No, I was gonna say the thing is, right, the kids aren't the ones with the wallets and voters, and I think that is why they so often get ignored, is that they're not seen as constituents. But in fact, I think we should be. And I love your example, it wouldn't be that hard of a fix, but if we have to start thinking about it first,
KC Davis 42:10
yeah, well, thank you so much. And where can people go to learn more about your organization and the cool things that you've done there?
Mara Mintzer 42:18
Absolutely so they can go to our website, which is growing up, Boulder, B, O, U, L, D, E, r.org, and if they want to support us, there's opportunities for donation. There are also ways to support with skills that they have, and all the resources that we've discussed are on there, and we've written a book, and there's my TED Talk. So there are a variety of ways, if you want to learn more and take some of this into your own communities. Our goal is for others to be doing this as well and then teach us while we go along. Awesome.
KC Davis 42:51
Thank you so much. Thanks. you.

Christy HausslerNovember 25, 2024

Going Back To School as an (ADHD) Adult

Returning to school as a neurodivergent adult brings unique challenges, and we are discussing all aspects of this topic in today’s episode. I’m joined by “The Neuro-Spicy Student,” Amber, to share her experience and perspective on this topic. Join us!

Show Highlights:

Amber’s “alphabet soup” of diagnoses, misdiagnoses, and disabilities
Amber’s childhood experience in school
Two sides of the coin for most neurodivergent students
Amber’s story of multiple attempts at college and (finally) earning multiple degrees
Internal barriers in returning to school as an adult
A common experience for adults with ADHD: Learning and learning and learning—without formal degrees to show for it
Differences in going to school as an older student with accommodations
Finding empowerment in advocating for yourself–and healing your younger self
Specific accommodations you can ask for in college
Amber’s parting words for listeners considering a return to school

Resources and Links:

Connect with Amber: LinkedIn

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

KC Davis 0:00
Hello you sentient balls of stardust. Welcome to struggle. Care. I'm your host, KC Davis, and today we're going to be talking with the neuro spicy student. I have Amber here with me in the studio, and we're going to talk about going back to school as a neurodivergent adult. Amber. Thank you so much for being here.
Amber Anthony 0:21
Thank you for allowing me to be here.
KC Davis 0:24
So tell me what your alphabet soup is of diagnoses.
Amber Anthony 0:29
That's a long list. We do have ADHD that one is formally diagnosed, and then we have the self diagnosis for autism, but I have been misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which I feel like that is something that a lot of other Audi HD ers have in common, and I've also been diagnosed with bipolar type two. Believe that one is also a misdiagnosis. I do agree with the OCD diagnosis, because that's pretty on par for some of my struggles, but I also do have a couple of physical disabilities, hot Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, ethos Danlos Syndrome, the hypermobility. I think that is something that is very much shared amongst neurodivergent folks, that just something that we all sort of have in common, that those are some struggles we all go through, and they very much impact being able to go to school, stay in school, and find success in school throughout all like from the youngest years to back to college. So
KC Davis 1:36
what was your experience in school like as a child? Rough,
Amber Anthony 1:40
very, very rough. There was a lot of hyper variability as a little kid. I mean, I spoke in complete sentences by the time that I was about 1618, months talking about that I was going to be rich and famous one day. That was my big goal as an 18 month old. But I definitely found a lot of struggle with math. In particular, I am dysgraphic as well as dyscalculia. So any kind of math, it's just going to create so much anxiety, so much stress. And there has been exactly one teacher out there, Mr. Jim Roman, shout out to my grandpa. He's not my actual grandpa, but he is, after this many years, he is the only person that sat down with me and got me to understand algebra two, which no other person has ever been able to have him since, but that man, he's a real teacher, because he actually cares. So I had to shout him
KC Davis 2:40
out. I feel like it's super common for people, whether they had a diagnosis or they weren't diagnosed till later, like to have really adverse experiences in school because of neurodivergence, whether it's a learning disability or ADHD or autism. Like it's just so common for us to have these early experiences, and it's kind of two sides of the same coin. But like, there's kind of, like the group of people that, because of some executive functioning stuff, some attention stuff, like we, at an early age, just kind of conclude that we must be stupid, and then like, the other side of the coin are those of us who maybe trend towards, like, what was considered gifted, and so all of our issues were kind of like fell through the cracks until it was too late, right? And it was like, Oh, they're smart. Who cares if they can't ever do their homework or ever stay organized, or ever whatever. And we get to a certain level of school where we just absolutely crash out, because it becomes obvious that these skills that we weren't building along the way are not there.
Amber Anthony 3:40
That was college for me. Which of those categories did
KC Davis 3:44
you fall into?
Amber Anthony 3:45
That was absolutely college. I mean, I very much struggled in elementary school, but it was internal struggle. It was very much she's a delight to have in class, a little chatty, but she's so smart, she's so precocious. She has this great vocabulary words that you know, kids her age just don't know and are reading, you know level that's up in high school and college level when I'm still in elementary and I mean, I had decent, well, no, I didn't get good grades, really, until about middle school, because that's when it counted. I was supposed to go to a very prestigious, all girls Catholic high school that gets you ready for college. And I was also supposed to be a legacy student that did not work out. One might say that those nuns at the school did not like my mother after the six years that they are no eight years they had already had her at that point. So they're like, We can't do this anymore, guys, I cannot do this again. And they only had three years because my sister and I would have actually been at the same time. Oh
KC Davis 4:47
my gosh. But so did you finish undergrad?
Amber Anthony 4:50
I have actually finished four associates at this point, but that is my second attempt of college, my first attempt of college. Was actually three weeks after I graduated high school, I went to summer school and started online classes before never completing any other sort of summer before college. And that did not work out. Schedules did not work out. I had just turned 18. I had no time management skills. And I am a youngest child, yeah,
KC Davis 5:23
yeah, my crash out was in high school, and I actually funny. You should mention, I actually went to a private all girls Catholic prep school, and I was there the first year, and and then I got expelled my second year. And you know, my grades went from like A's and B's to like when I in the eighth grade, to like D's and F's, and I didn't change. I didn't do anything different. I just, all of a sudden the homework mattered, and they weren't going over everything in class. There was like, stuff that you were supposed to be doing on your own, and it became obvious I didn't have those skills. And I mean, I was like, Well, I guess I can't do school anymore, right? And I feel like that is so common with people who are neurodivergent, like, just realize we have such a bad experience with school that we start hating and I hated school. It's weird, like, I loved aspects of school when it came to learning and socializing and things like that, but I hated the grading part. Yes, I learned. I
Amber Anthony 6:30
always said that I love learning. Don't grade me. I hate
KC Davis 6:34
grading unless it's gonna be like you teach me something and immediately ask me to talk about it, because then I'll get good grades. But don't ask me to go home and structure shit by myself. By myself. So how long was it before you decided to go back to school?
Amber Anthony 6:48
It was a little bit back and forth a few different times. So from age 18 until 20, I went pretty consistently, but that's also when some of my physical issues really started amping up. I got mono for like eight months when I was 18 years old, and that just wrecked my health. I got my tonsils removed. I missed a bunch of class because the professors were asking me to leave because I looked like I was dying in class and like I don't want a lawsuit on my hands. If you die in my class, get out. So I missed a bunch of stuff. I had to drop a bunch of courses, and it did not work out the first time around, I started again at 24 I tried for a semester, and I just, I took random classes. I take gerontology, for some reason, that is the study of aging, the psychology of aging. Oh, interesting. And like geriatrics, okay, yes, yes. So of the elderly people do I have any interest in elderly care? No, no, I don't
KC Davis 8:00
that sounds like me. People are always like, Oh my God, how many degrees do you have? And I'm like, Oh no, I only have two. But I changed my major 1000 times and took a bunch of coursework that didn't even relate to my major, and like, years worth of coursework to not end in a degree.
Amber Anthony 8:17
Ask me my first major. What was your first major? Mortuary science.
KC Davis 8:22
Oh, mine was philosophy that lasted a semester. What was your second major?
Amber Anthony 8:26
I went to English, which actually is now my one of my current majors, one of I'm a double
KC Davis 8:33
I went to meteorology as someone who was also dyscalculic. For some reason I thought meteorology would work because I could chase tornadoes, but then there was so much math that I switched to theater. Oh,
Amber Anthony 8:44
I did, taken a few theater classes. I was definitely a theater kid, especially because, you know, I'm rather I'm rather theatrical.
KC Davis 8:55
So when you made the decision to go back, or like all the times you've made the decision, what kind of internal barriers did you have to get over or like did you have to process or, or or deal with? Because I feel like when we have these bad experiences in school, and then we get older and we perceive ourselves as being like outside the age group that like should be in school, there's a lot of internal like barriers and almost like stigma and trauma to like work through. So like, what did that look like for you?
Amber Anthony 9:27
I had to do it for me, instead of who I was trying to please, which was very much, I mean, very familial. My oldest sister is a polyglot times six, so there's that she has either one or two masters at this point, she has traveled the world so that there's living up to that my middle sister is a pastry chef. She went to the Culinary Institute of America, and she is a very accomplished mother and pastry chef. And. And very successful in that, as well as my other sister, very accomplished mother. She is fantastic. So going back for myself and not having to live up to familial standards, and deciding that I just want to do this for me as well as the people I want to help, because that's really what brought me back. I know that to be a librarian and to be a social worker, I have to have those degrees to get into those buildings and to fill those gaps, because that's what I want to do. That's who I want to be.
KC Davis 10:36
I feel like that is such a powerful point to speak to, because there is this feeling, you know, and I the audience knows that I had a pretty bad drug addiction when I was in my teens, and so when I came out of rehab, you know, I was a senior in high school, and I went to, like, a special high school with a contained class, and you know, then I went to community college for my first year, and there was kind of that feeling of like I've been left behind, like I'm not going and doing what everyone else is doing. And I remember like waiting tables to put myself through grad school. And I waited tables in kind of like a rich part of town, and there was, like more than one occasion where I would end up waiting on the mothers of, like former classmates that I'd gone to prep school with and I remember feeling so ashamed, even though, like, I know intellectually, there's nothing shameful about waiting tables. And I was literally waiting tables to put myself through a really rigorous graduate degree. And yet, the pressure and the feeling of, I really want to tell them, I'm getting a degree too. I'm getting a degree too, because, and I think that can get muddied, like, there probably are some of us out there that, like, we feel like we should go back to school to finish that degree, but it's mostly being pushed by just like the societal standard, like, I'll be more worthy, I'll be more respected. And I think your point to having to realize that, like, that's not motivation that's going to carry long term. Like, there really has to be a personal motivation. Of it doesn't matter what anybody thinks. It doesn't matter how old I am. It doesn't matter like, all those kinds of things. Like, I have to do it because at the end of this road is something that I want for me in my life. Yes, so 100%
Amber Anthony 12:26
yes. Just have seen the amount of people out there that are not spoken for and that are suffering because they have no one to speak for them, whether it is because of being a marginalized human or just not being able to advocate for themselves. And I just, I can't let it keep going on. I can't be participating in a system that does not work for all humans. Yeah,
KC Davis 12:56
did you struggle at all with like? Because I know for a time I was thinking about, like, doing more schooling, and one of the things that I struggled with was, like, doing the math of how old I was gonna be by the time I graduated. Yeah, yeah. Did you struggle with that at all? Oh, no. 100%
Amber Anthony 13:14
I did that math. And like, how did you get through that? So by the end of this, I will be between 36 and 37 at the end of all of this, granted, I would have been, I think, 35 if I had stopped adding so many things to the plate.
KC Davis 13:30
That's the ADHD tax, though, but that's part of it. Is like you feel like, No, I've lived 1000 lives. I really am very knowledgeable, I really am very competent, but I've learned so many things, but I have no degrees to my name. For 75% of it,
Amber Anthony 13:44
that is the worst part of my schooling, everything that I have learned up until this point that I've gotten all my degrees, I have early childhood education associates, I have social science associates, I have a library science associates, I have an English Associates, and I'm working on a social work transfer associate. And I also have five different certificates in early childhood education, being a specialist in disabled students and infants and toddlers. Yeah, of course. Because why wouldn't I?
KC Davis 14:10
I feel like the most powerful thing I heard someone say was they were talking to somebody who said, Well, you know, well, you know, if I go back to school now, I'll be 40 when I finish. And they said, You know what the time will pass.
Amber Anthony 14:23
Anyways, it will and if you do it until you retire, which they keep trying to hike that age up, you could do it for 20 years. You start at 40, you have 20 years of doing a profession that fulfills you, that you love and that God willing, helps people.
KC Davis 14:43
And like, this idea of like, oh, but in four years, I'll be 42 and it's like, yeah, no, but like, I'll be 42 in four years no matter what, even if I don't go back to school, right? Like, the time will pass anyways, no matter exactly. And so like, yes, it's gonna take a long time. But again, that long time is going to happen no matter what. It's just like, we may or may not have a degree at the end of it,
Amber Anthony 15:05
exactly. So
KC Davis 15:06
tell me then, like, let's shift to like, what has been different this time about going back to school? You mentioned before we hopped on like that you've been dealing with accommodations, and I feel like that's a big one for people who are late diagnosed. Like, part of our adverse experiences in school is that we had not been diagnosed or recognized and we didn't have accommodations at those times. And so what has it been like to go back to school and this time advocate for accommodations?
Amber Anthony 15:32
I would say that being older, I just feel like I have more of a voice. For some reason, when you get right out of high school, everyone is telling you what to do, where to go, how to be. And I'm also a military kid. Twice over, I was raised by two sailors, so I say I have a filthy fucking mouth because and my dad's from Jersey, so that should explain a myriad of it.
KC Davis 15:58
Well, yeah, out of high school, you still feel a little bit like a child. And so professors are these, like, far away experts. They're the real adults. And I would imagine, like, going back to school in your, like, late 20s or your 30s, you kind of see a professor as a peer. It's like, I'm older than another adult, yeah? Like, I'm paying you for a service, yeah, 100
Amber Anthony 16:21
No, I have very much been like, Ah, no. Like, I want us to be respectful, but you are going to, like, hear what I have to say, and I'm gonna talk a lot, and you will keep listening, or I'll go to the dean, because I have, and he heard me talk a lot too. And
KC Davis 16:38
so what has that process been like? Have you hit bumps in the road? Have you found successes because of accommodations that you you know didn't get in other situations or other tries? I
Amber Anthony 16:50
am still currently in a fight with the Los Rios Sacramento college, community colleges, specifically Folsom Lake, they say a lot of nice words, and they make things look really, really nice. Put a beautiful little bow on it and tell you really nice things. But when it comes down to actually enacting those accommodations and getting professors who are tenured and have been there a very long time and might have a very specific world view. They don't always want to be on your side. They don't want to, I have said multiple times to DSPs officers, the director of DSPs and also the dean of literature, that the rounded curve helps all people. So why are we making specific accommodations for, you know, just one student here, one student there. Why can't we make an accessible class overall? Here's how we can do that. No, we just need to go straight to accessibility for just the student, just specific students make their accommodations. Because if we make accommodations for everyone. It makes it too easy. If it's accessible to everyone, easier to learn, that sounds like a good thing, doesn't it for everyone to learn a little easier and not have to struggle.
KC Davis 18:16
Do you think that process? Because although it sounds like a headache, it sounds like it could be very frustrating, and even it seems like it could feel very defeating. But has there been an aspect of it that has been empowering to you, to have this almost it's not practice. I mean, it's real life, but I mean to like really go in and advocate hard for yourself, even if it doesn't always end fairly
Amber Anthony 18:42
I have always said I would rather it be me than some kids straight out of high school who does not know the things to say as well as have the background, sort of be able to back them up and say, No, I actually do know what I'm talking about here, and this is what's right and you aren't following Through with everything that you told me you would follow through with and keeping other people accountable for what they're saying, that they're going to do and how they're going to help. And I do feel powerful from that. Do
KC Davis 19:11
you feel like, I mean, I'm also curious if any of that has been healing, like to your own inner child, like, I think we all remember being whether we were young children or, you know, I had moments in grad school that I look back and I think, like, God, I wish. I wish somebody would have advocated for me, because I didn't even know to advocate for myself. And I could just see that being like a very corrective emotional experience. It
Amber Anthony 19:34
has been really nice to be able to, even when it doesn't work out, just know that I have said what I need to say, and they know that I'm not backing down, because I keep going to the next step, and I know how to bring it to the next step. And another shout out to Dr Douglas, see if you miss she works with it, creators on Tik Tok. Also, she has been a fantastic. Person that I have communicated with on several different times, that she has helped me sort of navigate some of what I have not known how to get through the administration and but of the red tape where some of my rights I still did not know how to advocate for, but I did know who to look for to find out what I needed to do, instead of just being like, well, I guess I'll just try again later, or I guess I'm the wrong one. But no, I am allowed to
KC Davis 20:27
have this. And you know, even though I haven't had that experience in school, and I don't like have a boss like, but I do, like, run a business, and I do have business partnerships and contracts and things like that. And I find that even in that world, like I have done some things recently that have been like, about accessibility for me, and it's funny how you'll do it and then you'll be like, Why haven't I done this before? Why haven't I asked for this before? And there was this weird subconscious, like, you didn't, it's not, not that you didn't need it, but almost like, well, it's supposed to be hard. You're not, like, it's not supposed to be too easy. Like, the one I did recently is like, when I do brand deals, and I don't do a ton of them, but what typically happens is, like, whatever, like, nice person working in the marketing department is usually not like, the top of the food chain, right? And so they're sending an email of, like, hey, we would love to have you do some stuff for us. You're like, Okay, what? And they're like, Well, we have this product, and we would love for you to do one Tiktok reel, and also a story, at least three pains in the story, 15 seconds each. And we, you know, here are the three talking points, and here's the call to action. You have to say it verbally, but make sure you don't say these words here. Can you have this to us by next Tuesday, and then we can post on Thursday, but make sure you send it in, and it's like, so many details, and those details will often come in spread over multiple emails. So like, there's the initial email of, like, here's what we're looking for. You'll be like, Yeah, let's do it. And then you'll start to get a bunch of other details filtered in. And then sometimes you'll also get like, Okay. And then here's the brief, and but the brief will be written generally for, like, all influencer stuff, and so you have to go in and figure out which ones are yours. And, like, it's so funny, because you guys can't see Amber, but she's, like, visibly hyperventilating thinking about it. It really is that stressful. I
Amber Anthony 22:13
can see, like, just how many directions you would have to be pulled in to try and I'm just like, this is working in the infant room at my school, yes, and
KC Davis 22:21
it almost reminded me also of like having a syllabus, but worse, right? And so what I did recently was I was like, You know what like? Because there's things that, like you have to say to get it right, but it's like, wasn't all written in the same place. So I went in and made myself a Google form that basically said, like, check which, like, which of these contents. Are you wanting? Are you wanting? Tik, Tok, this, whatever the next one was like, what are the talking points? Copy and paste them. When is the due date? The due date must be at least 14 days after I received this form for a proof like, when do you want the draft? Okay, after you get the draft, when do you want it posted? That date must be four business days from approval, including re like, I had to spell it out right, and then it had to be like, you know, now, put the call to action verbatim in this line. And I think what feels weird is that you're basically asking people to do more work. And you think, well, there it's my job to do all of that work, but, like, I literally have a disability, like, I need information in a specific, you know, format in order for me to do the job you have hired me for. And it's weird, because you're like, This is so simple, like, this is so much easier. Now this is so much more. This is literally accessible now, and you're like, why didn't I ask for this before?
Amber Anthony 23:46
Because you don't want to be a burden. Because society teaches us we are all just burdens when we need something, especially if we are female, identifying, it's just ingrained into us.
KC Davis 23:59
So what are some of the specific accommodations that you have? Because one of the things that I know is that a lot of people, who they totally get the idea of accommodations, but they don't know what to ask for. And it's not like the school gives you a list of options.
Amber Anthony 24:12
Oh no, they will not give you a specific list, because they have to be specific to your disability. But you also have to prove why you deserve them, like how you will actually be using them, and why it won't give you an unfair disadvantage over everyone else, which is something that I have very much come into contact with. Of them not wanting to allow for my accommodations, one of which being, I am not allowed to use the accommodation of Grammarly go because there is an AI aspect to it. And unfortunately, there are a fair amount of colleges out there that still use Turnitin, which is a faulty also AI to. Tracking system to see if you are using AI to write your papers. I understand why they are using it, but I think there just needs to be a little bit more critical thinking on the people grading stuff. Part. You can tell AI writing like very different. It's very dry, it's all the same. It all comes out very much sounding the same, and it has no voice to it. So that's something I'm not allowed to use. The reason I was using it, I have a very difficult time, especially in writing, to be able to figure out what kind of tone I'm using. And Grammarly go allows you to figure out is this coming off impassioned or combative, because more often than not, when I am fired up and really excited about something, people are like, Girl, drink water. Calm down. Why are you mad? I'm like, I'm not I'm just excited. I'm very excited. So there's always been confusion there, and I tried to use that as a way to mitigate that. And unfortunately, that was not an accommodation that I was allowed to use. There are professors that, thankfully, I do talk to them, they allow me to use it. They understand why I'm using it, and I also keep a lot of notes to show them exactly how I am writing my papers, to show that I am not cheating. And unfortunately, that's another thing that I have to burden on myself to show that I'm using accommodations properly and I don't have an unfair advantage over everybody else. So
KC Davis 26:31
what are some of the accommodations that you do have that work? Well, I'd like to give people ideas about what they can ask for. Oh yes,
Amber Anthony 26:37
I would say double time would be great. Double time for tests and quizzes. That's great also when professors let you do it, because sometimes they'll say you don't need that. You do fine without it, but sitting preferential seating, so either sitting close in front, or if you prefer to be in the back of the class, so that you're able to see the full board, or being able to take frequent breaks, standing up in the classroom, fully, leaving the classroom for a few minutes being if you have the in person classes, not having to have your camera on for a zoom. Course, because being perceived is very difficult on some days, I found that a very, very helpful one. This is very much up to professors, but I have up to the discretion of the professor an allowance to have late work within a certain time frame, just because deadlines can get very difficult, especially once you add in the physical disabilities with I also do have chronic migraines. I forgot to mention that one, those are fun, so those throw things off
KC Davis 27:40
a lot. That's probably like the number one thing I wish that I would have had. And for me, it wasn't even about like I was procrastinating or I got sick, like it was truly that, like I looked at the syllabus 1000 times, and I literally saw a 15 when it was a five, like it's due on the fifth, and my brain saw a 15, and every time I looked at it, I just couldn't see something different, like the amount of like hits that I took to grades when I was, like, fully working hard on something and managing my time and doing all like and I just screwed up the dates and and I would have some professors that were chill about it because they knew me, and they were like, I don't think she's like bullshitting, but I had others that just would not budge. And I also think, like when I was younger, I really wish I would have had an accommodation about writing down what the homework was. I don't know why that was so difficult. What got lost in translation. Every day I would look at the board, and they'd be like, homework is this? And I'd be like, cool, I'll remember that. And then I didn't, and I'm like, 12, so like, every day I'm not doing my homework, and I just, man, I wish that the teacher would have just written it in my planner, and then when I went home, my mom would have opened up my planner with me and shown it to me. I think that that would have solved all of my problems.
Amber Anthony 29:00
They did that for me, really, gosh, you're so that was what they did that my school, once I got to it was actually a public school instead of a private school. In elementary I did not have to ask for accommodations. They just saw who I was, and they accommodated me. They were like, Oh, she seems to struggle with focus, so let's keep her towards the front of the class. This person seems to be her friend, so we're not going to put her next to her, because she's going to talk to her. Yeah, I also had times where I didn't even know I was receiving extra help. That's how good they were. I was being taken out of the classroom to a separate place, and they were giving me, like a tutoring during school hours. I had no idea that they were helping me, because I was just like, Oh, I'm going to my little school thing. And everyone does this, right? No, they don't. They were just helping me because that's what I needed. My mom never even. Had to sign me up for it. It was fantastic. They just saw me and accommodated me. That's
KC Davis 30:06
amazing. Well, Amber, I really appreciate just kind of hearing your first person experience. And then I'm curious if you have any kind of like parting words for listeners at home that maybe have been considering going back to school and whether or not they should do that. And the fears that they have around that, you know, what would you say to someone who's considering it?
Amber Anthony 30:24
I'd say, jump in. Just jump in. It is not a sit around and think about it and go back and forth and make a pro. I mean, if you're a pro and conless person, do it. But, I mean, I think it's going to come out in the favor of jump in. Do it, because if you find out that's not what you like, change your major again. It doesn't matter. Just find something that you love, and if at the end of it, you're like, you know what? School wasn't it, but you make a bunch of friends, you make contacts, you network. Something can still come out of it, even if it's not a degree. Something really beautiful can happen when you just decide to be part of more than what you are right now.
KC Davis 31:04
Yeah, that's great. Well, Amber, thank you so much, and we'll throw some helpful links into the show notes for anybody that wants to look up stuff about accommodations. And I hope you guys all have a great day.
Amber Anthony 31:16
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Christy HausslerNovember 18, 2024

119: How to Have the Best Fight of Your Life with Lindley Gentile, LMFT

How are your fighting skills? Most couples could use a LOT of work in this area, and I have just the person to help us! I’m thrilled to be joined by a great friend, Lindley Gentile, for today’s episode. She’s a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who recently wrote an ebook titled, How to Have the Best Fight of Your Life. Listen to our conversation about this thought-provoking topic and learn why looking for right and wrong is the WORST way to handle conflict.

Show Highlights:

Lindley’s motivation to write this book? Because many (most!) couples seek therapy around communication issues
Fighting well leads to being seen well.
The need to uplevel your fighting skill set beyond being “right or wrong”
Ways in which we are fighting wrong
Making the shift from arguing about who’s right to witnessing one another
The fable of the elephant can teach us about being open to another’s experience.
The value of “I” statements over “You” statements
Withdrawing physically and emotionally during conflict vs. the skill of asking for a pause
Fight, flight, or freeze
The WWC framework: witness, witness, and collaborate

Resources and Links:

Connect with Lindley Gentile and Austin Couples Concierge: Website, Instagram, and book

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

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KC 0:05
Hello, you sentient balls of stardust. This is your host, KC Davis. This is the struggle care podcast, and I am really excited to have Len Lee Gentile back in the studio with me today. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She is one of my best friends for a long time, and I still feel like I never know if I'm pronouncing your name, your married name, correctly, because you got married a few years ago. Yes, you are. It's beautiful. Okay, all right. Well, Lindley Gentile, I asked you to come on today because you have recently written this sort of like mini book, and it's called how to fight. What is it called? I'm very prepared, as you can tell.
Lindley 0:57
okay.
KC 0:57
So I've brought Lily on today because she has recently written a little mini ebook, and it's called How to have the best fight of your life, which I love the title of that. And I'm curious, like, as a marriage therapist, like, what led you to write this little book? Like, did you just because, to me as a therapist, the only time I've ever, like, gone to write down things is because it is something I have had to repeat to every single client over and over and over. And over and over. And I just wanted to be like, here read this. So I'm curious if something has come up. You just hit the nail on the head.
Lindley 1:28
It is the number one reason clients reach out for therapy, and they use it under the words, we need to learn how to better communicate. What they really mean is we need to learn how to talk about things that are uncomfortable. We don't know how to communicate about things that are uncomfortable, about opposing views, about uncomfortable emotions. And so my business partner, Jessica Worthington, and I, we've been doing this for a long time with couples, and we came up with this recipe that just works. It just works. And I started teaching clients, fighting is the way that you fall in love. What led you to fall in love in the beginning is you felt seen. You felt heard my partner gets me. That's what leads to love in the beginning, right? And when we don't know how to fight well, we don't know how to be seen well, we don't know how to validate our partners Well, which means we're not taking these opportunities to fall in love again and again and again. So yes, it'll save you from uncomfortable conversations now. But the real point in learning how to fight well is you want to continue to fall in love with your partner again and again and again over time. This is really making sense to me, because you fall in love because you come to someone and you don't know them, and then you get to know them, and you learn new things about them, and in that though you feel seen and accepted, but once you know someone and you know them, well, there is no new like novelty and Discovery, except when there's a disagreement,
KC 3:21
because those are really your prime opportunities to go, I don't get this. Let me go through the process of understanding you and seeing you and learning about you and then deciding to love what I see, which makes sense. That's
Speaker 1 3:37
a learned skill set, and I find that 99% of the couples that come to see me, they've not up leveled that skill set yet, right? We up level so many things in our lives. We up level the foods we eat, the drinks we drink, our investments, our careers, but we so rarely up level our tool set and marriage. And so most people are still fighting the very, I'm going to say, juvenile way, right? But it's just like the way that occurs to most humans, which is right or wrong, who is right, who is wrong, right? And so we get lost in trying to over explain ourselves and to justify why we did what we did, we get defensive, and that really robs us of this opportunity to be curious and learn about our partner.
KC 4:33
So you have, in your book, you have four ways that we are fighting wrong, like four ways we're doing it wrong, four ways we are, like, getting in our own way, and I want to kind of talk about that. So the first one is, you say ignoring the problem. And I love that this is what you start with, because I do think that there's this idea that, Oh, we never fight, so we must be good because we never conflict, so that must be a good relationship, right? But how many times is it that we're actually just. Uh, avoiding issues and burying things and just harboring resentment or, like, not having boundaries. Like, is that kind of what you were alluding to
Speaker 1 5:08
there? Yeah, it's most people have gotten it into their minds. The most common analogy I hear, it feels like I am an attorney who's going to have to give a closing argument, and I've got to get my facts correct and my data in line, and I've got to get all my points and, you know, Cross my T's and.my i's and before I kind of sit down with my partner and tell them why I did what I did or defend what I did, and that is so overwhelming to me that I would prefer to sweep the problem under the rug and move on. That's just easier. Let me
KC 5:42
tell you that that really resonates with me. I think it especially resonates with people who are partnered with someone who is smarter than them,
Lindley 5:52
or just better at arguing. Yeah, I
KC 5:53
guess that's what I mean. I don't mean smart like, I'm a smart person and I'm good at arguing. Michael is better. Is an attorney. He is, like, gifted IQ, like he is always going to out argue me, just on, like, the points and the closing argument, or whatever, whatever. And so I do feel that temptation of like, I would honestly just rather say I'm sorry for something that isn't even my fault so we can reconcile the relationship and move on. Because I'm overwhelmed with the idea of having to, like, in PowerPoint presentation, closing argument together in such a water tight way that he can't poke you know what I mean? And like, so I do. I don't even sometimes bother to, like, bring something up that actually matters to me.
Speaker 1 6:33
And here's the thing, we are no longer going to have to present a closing argument, because the point of arguing in this new up leveled way is witnessing one another. It's not about right or wrong. There isn't such thing as a right or wrong. There are always many realities that live side by side. So when you can get out of this idea of right or wrong and move into the point of this argument is actually witnessing one another. You no longer have to gather that closing argument. So
KC 7:07
that really helps me on the flip side of it, because, you know, it's funny, like when I talk about, okay, Michael can out argue me, but at the same time, like I can out argue many of my friends and family members. So like, people have told me the same thing about me. It's like, I don't want to tell you something bothered me because we have to have an inquisition about it. And in my head, though, I'm not thinking I need to be right, what I'm thinking is I'm happy to believe the truth, but like, you're gonna have to demonstrate it to me. And so I'm pushing back really hard, not even necessarily because I'm trying to be like a butt head, but because I'm like, but you're not making the case. Well, how can I switch my opinion if you're not making the case? Of course, I care about you, but like, you're not making the case. And my poor friend is just like, I'm it's just exhausted, Casey, I don't know like, and so for me, when I'm that person hearing that, my job isn't to change my mind or to like accept their reality over mine, but is just to witness their reality. Also helps me when I'm the person that is like doing too much of the closing argument, if that makes sense,
Speaker 1 8:15
absolutely, we want to move people away from finding a singular truth, and instead understanding that many truths can hold hands, the point is not finding the one truth, it's witnessing all the truths that live side by side.
KC 8:37
So then your second tip really hit me between the eyes. Okay, this is the next mistake that people make. You say, offering additional information to clarify what really happened. If they only knew X, they wouldn't be so upset. And it's you say, although this may be true, they will not be able to integrate the information you are offering until they feel heard. I always think this, and this is also why, like, we'll have a disagreement, and the disagreement would be over. But then I'll get to my bedroom and I'll be like, but wait a second, and I'll think of my next point, and I'll like, barge back in over and over, because I really do think, like, Wait, if I just give you this one more piece of information about, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. And that one really struck me, like, this urge, or almost compulsion, to clarify, clarify, clarify. And I get stuck with this. Like, okay, if you're not understanding me, I must just not be like, saying it clear enough. So let me say it harder, louder, clearer. Like, yes,
Speaker 1 9:33
I heard this story once on the internet. It was such a great analogy. The man was talking about, imagine you walk up on your partner or a loved one or a friend, and they're currently drowning in a body of water, and they are in crisis mode. They're going, they're bobbing up and down, and you're saying, didn't you read the rules on this sign? Let me read the. Rules to you, had you have known the rules, you wouldn't be in this situation. And don't you know that it's not smart to swim after 10pm Surely, if you understand that it's not good to swim at dark, you wouldn't be in this situation. Meanwhile, our partner, right? They don't need more facts. They actually don't need any of that data. They don't need you to recount any of that to them. They would like you to see that they are struggling and to throw them a life raft at best. All right, your
KC 10:28
next tip is have a grown up tantrum. And I feel like you put this so well, because as someone who just wrote a whole book about relationships, I was struggling to put this in the succinct of a way, and you basically just say, yeah, like having a grown up tantrum, yelling, name calling, pouting, they won't lead to a mature relationship, and they won't evoke the admiration of your partner. God, that sentence is so powerful. It's like it's not effective. It's not only not effective in changing someone's mind, but like, the way that it wears down the trust and admiration when we lash out like that,
Speaker 1 11:02
absolutely I like the word admiration. I also want to use the word attraction. We often think it's our job. It's our partner's job to remain attracted to us. It's their job to remain attracted to me. It's their job to admire me. It's their job to respect me. I like to think it's my job to be admirable. It's my job to be respectful. It's my job to be attractive so that my partner wants to draw near me. It's really hard to expect our partners to maintain the desire to want to draw near us when that's what we're modeling
KC 11:44
when we're shitty, to be near Correct, yeah, okay, I love that. And then their last one is toxic positivity. So talk to us about that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 11:55
Well, you and I had many discussions about this, but I actually believe that the point of an emotion is to give you a gift. It is to give you direction and information on where to go next in life and how to advocate for your needs. If you expect to only feel comfortable ones, right? I only want to there's a spectrum of emotions, but I only want to stay on this end, happy, silly, playful, and I only want my partner to be happy, silly, playful. We are not answering the door for many, many other important messengers, right? We can still gifts from pain, shame, anxiousness, anger. They're all here to give us really important data. The most mentally healthy people allow themselves to feel all the emotions on the spectrum, right? We don't want to just focus on those super pleasant ones. We want to welcome even the unpleasant because they have a very important purpose in our life. They're like a GPS. They direct us where to go next. And Dr Susan, David, she's an incredible writer. She's an amazing TED talk. Um, she says, you know, the price of admission to a meaningful life is being uncomfortable. It's feeling those uncomfortable emotions. So if we know that they create meaning and they give us gifts, why would we want to shut them down in our partner or rob our partner of having that experience, and why would we want to shut them down on ourselves?
KC 13:27
Yeah, that's good. Okay, so I said four. I know the list is more than four. There's like six other ones here, but you'll have to go get the ebook to read the rest of them, because I want to ask some questions. Moving on to sort of like solutions, right? So, okay, those are some strategies that don't work. Of course, there are more of them, but I want to kind of move into this idea of witnessing. Can you talk to us about, like, where, how that's different than how a lot of us go into you mentioned like, like, how do like shifting from, you know, who's right? Let's prove it to each other to witnessing. What does that transition look
Speaker 1 14:03
like? Absolutely. Let me start with a story. It's an old fable that I think will really help people understand witnessing. There is an old, ancient fable about an elephant, a village who has never experienced an elephant. They can see an elephant coming from a very far distance through the forest and a group of brothers. They're adventurers. They say, Hey, how about we go check out the elephant in the forest and we'll report back to the village what an elephant is like. The three brothers take off for the forest. What's important to know about the three brothers is that they're without sight, so they are exploring the elephant, taking in, you know, with their hands and sensory information. And one of the brothers says an elephant is exactly like a long thin rope, just like a long thin rope. And brother number two begins yelling at him, that is not the truth. The truth is that the elephant. Is like a sturdy tree trunk. And they're going back and forth about who has the right truth. And the third brother comes in and says, You guys are idiots. An elephant is like a thin paper fan. So obviously, what's happening is we have one brother at the tell, one at the trunk, one at the ear. Everybody is screaming about who has the truth. And in reality, everybody has a piece of the truth, but it takes curiosity and it takes openness to hear what the partner is experiencing to get the complete truth right. So I always ask people to embrace this fable of the elephant and remember that multiple realities are true at once. It depends on your childhood, right? It depends on your life experiences, and if you're at the tail or the trunk or the ear, what information you're taking in. But when you can be curious about how do I talk about the ear and also witness my partner explaining the tell, because when we have both of these parts, then we have a more complete truth. So that
KC 16:07
makes sense to me. I want to kind of explore a connected sort of part to that. That you talk about is you talk about using I statements. And I feel like this is one of those, like old therapy advices about, you know, like, always use I statements, nobody can make you feel anything. And it's one of those advices that, like, I think has some really important truth, but it's been so over prescribed that people's eyes kind of glaze over. So can you talk about, like, what is the real purpose of using the I statements, like, what does that mean? Are there ways that we can, like, Use I statements that, like, kind of defeats the purpose and like, what really is the heart or the intention of that? So first explain what it is, in case someone doesn't know, sure. So
Speaker 1 16:53
let's just talk about the elephant, right? An I statement is, I am experiencing a long, thin rope. I can't possibly tell my partner what they are experiencing. They're at a different part of the elephant that wouldn't be productive. I don't know what they're experiencing. I actually need to open my ears to know that, right? So that's what it is, is we only say the word I I felt embarrassed when this statement was said. We do not say You humiliated me when you made that joke, right? So we only want to talk about the part of the elephant we are personally experiencing. So we say the word I now throw away all the old therapy language, and just think about it like this, when we say the word you, we unintentionally activate our partners amygdala. It's the part of their brain that wants to defend, defend, defend, defend, defend. Okay, so we just immediately and subconsciously, we're not aware of it, and they're not aware of it, but immediately our partners defense system will come online, and they will now have no choice but to defend when we say, I am experiencing this, I am feeling this, I am noticing this, it actually triggers The part of our partner's brain that wants to care give and wants to step closer to us. So we're inviting them to come closer when we use you statements, you did this, and this was your reality, and this is why you did it. We are inviting them to push away.
KC 18:40
And, you know, one of the things that I appreciate about I statements, that I think has gotten lost when it comes to pop psychology is that people envision that when you use I statements, that it basically like, permits mistreatment and abuse. Because, like, you know that I think the first thing that comes up is like, Okay, but what if they were, like, purposefully humiliating me? And I'm trying to point out that, like, that's not okay behavior yet, like, but to me, what I have noticed is that, like, best case scenario, right? Let's say I'm at a dinner party and my husband makes a joke, and he thinks he's being funny. He thinks that this is going to be light hearted, and it really embarrasses me. Best case scenario, me saying I was really embarrassed, like you said that because he loves me, that clicks in this caregiving, like, oh my god, the person I love is in pain, and it allows him to go, oh gosh, I participated in that pain, and I didn't mean to, and I'm so sorry, but if I say like, you embarrass me. Even though he loves me, even though he's a good man, and even though I know he has the maturity and the skills to hear past that and put his defensiveness down, he's still going to feel that like, oh gosh, she's against. And it kicks in his own, like, I want to be loved, she's going to reject me. And I'm not saying like, Oh, it's my responsibility to take care of that stuff for her, but I'm just saying, like, best case scenario, this is a person that I love who loves me, and I know that I can help them hear me by using this language, and that will allow us to come closer. Now it even works in the worst case scenario, because what if I'm married to someone who is genuinely malicious, and they knew they were saying something to humiliate me, and it was maybe even like the language they used, no court of law in the land would ever be like, there's no way he didn't intend to humiliate you, even in that scenario, if I lead with you, purposefully humiliated me. I have now put us exactly where he wants us to be, which is in a you prove it, I prove it. You're always coming after me. You always do like I'm setting up the kind of conflict that a malicious person is very good at having, very good at manipulating, very good at gaslighting through but like, if I say I was so embarrassed when you said that, and I have laid myself out vulnerably and said I'm in pain, and his reaction to that is, well, that's your fault. That tells me everything I need to know about this person's character. There's nothing I can do to, like, force them to care about my pain, no matter how much, like you said, clarifying information I give. But it's just a powerful boundaries, because he, if he's malicious, if he's manipulative, he's gonna try and drag me into those conflicts. Well, you're just too sensitive, maybe, but it really, really hurt me. Well, that's not my fault. Didn't say it was I said it really, really embarrassed me. Well, all I'm doing, you know, you always do this. I don't know what that means, but I'm just saying, like, if you keep it on the subject of, I'm not even saying what you did didn't motive. Like, I'm not even saying any of that stuff to, like, throw us into this big fight. I'm literally just restating I was really hurt by that, and you watch them flounder on the line of being incapable of empathy, of being unwilling to be loving, and there's nothing they can do, you've literally just held up this mirror, and that way, it is more powerful to address things that are obviously malicious by not going there and staying on the I statements, I
Speaker 1 22:28
agree wholeheartedly. We're either going to lead ourselves to a productive conflict or we're going to reveal information about our partner that we desperately need anyways to make some tough decisions.
KC 22:41
Yeah, it's like we're either gonna lead ourselves to a productive resolution or we're gonna lead ourselves to a productive non resolution. Yes, that's the power of i statements like I refuse to be thrown into other arguments, to where by the time we're done arguing, I don't even know what we've started talking about, and we never actually address you know what I mean? So I just, man, I really, like when you really do understand the purpose of the i statement, it's really much more powerful than what pop psychology has made it about. You know? Well, I can't make you feel anything. Didn't say you could. I just said that I did. And in fact, most of the time when you make jokes about me, I feel that same
Lindley 23:19
way. I wholeheartedly agree.
KC 23:21
So like, one of your mistakes that we make is withdrawing physically or emotionally during an argument. So like, we hang up the phone, or we walk away or whatever, but then later you talk about the skill of asking for a pause, because maybe, like, our brains really activated, and I'm wondering if you could explain kind of the difference between one of those, like, basically, like, one of those things being a mistake, but the other one being like a tool, sure.
Speaker 1 23:46
So one of the foundations that we ask you to have in place before you use our conflict recipe. You know, we've talked about multiple realities. We've talked about I statements. The other really important ingredient is having the full brain system online. We have a part of the brain called the amygdala that is constantly scanning for danger now, because we no longer live in the age of saber tooth tigers chasing us. Our brain, our amygdala, is quite bored, right? And when it picks up on any sense of danger, so now it may just be a partner who's unhappy with us, we immediately go into fight or flight. Fight, flight, freeze, Bond, right? This is survival responses. What happens is our frontal lobe tends to power down the blood flow that would have gone to our frontal lobe begins to go to other areas of our body to help us fight, flight or freeze. This is not a good time to have a productive conflict if we don't have access to logical brain. This is when we say things we don't mean, like Fu and your mom and the horse she rode in on. And I wish I would have never right. No, we don't have access to logical thought. We are currently. At an elevated heart rate, we're focusing on defending or shutting down. This is not an appropriate time when we sense this with ourselves or our partner. The best thing we can do is take a break right now. The way we do that incorrectly is saying, Peace out. I'm out of here, and we get into our car and disappear. That can feel like abandonment to our partner. They may interpret that as my partner doesn't care about my pain. They don't care about this issue that's important to me, and they're running away instead, if we can say my brain flipped right. I'm in fight or flight, whatever you want to call it, right? Like I had a couple one time who used to say pickles. I don't know why, but that was the word pickles. Like I'm there. I'm at a place where I don't have access to my logical brain. If we find a way to communicate that to our partners, hey, I'm not in a place I don't have access to my brain, right? I need to step away. I care about this. I'll come back. Right? Let them know when you're going to come back. I'm going to be really honest. I've been teaching this for 11 years. I need 24 hours period. I am not the type of person that can ground myself instantly and be able to keep my brain online and talk about the conflict. I need 12 hours. 24 hours. In really difficult cases, I need 48
Lindley 26:34
and it was hard for my husband to get on board with that in the beginning, I would say, I need to step away. I'm not in a place where I can have, you know, productive conflict. I've lost my logical brain. I'm gonna go lay down. Let's talk about this tomorrow. Let's reconvene. I do care about it. And I would go into our room, and he would march right behind me and open the door up and say, No, we're gonna finish this right now. Right? So it's really letting your partner know I care. I've got to pause. We are going to do this later. I find that most people need 24 hours. It is okay to go to bed angry. I don't know what crazy person invented that stupid line of, never go to bed. Angry. Me. I'm like, always, always go to bed angry. Get some sleep. Let the blood flow return to your logical center. Talk about it the next day when you have access to your full brain, or when your partner has access to your full brain, this is not a one night stand. They're not going anywhere. You're married or you're in a committed relationship, right? You've got plenty of time to work this out. And I say, you know, as long as we've come back to the table within 48 hours or so, I think that that's a good timeline.
KC Davis 27:52
I like that. Okay, so then explain to us what your process is for witnessing? Yeah,
Speaker 1 28:02
we like to tell people WWC, witness, witness, collaborate. Okay, so there is a story in the book about a pair of clients who, just like you said, they were at a dinner party, and the husband cracked a joke about their sex life, like, Hey, we've got little kids, our sex life is is in the toilet, like, it's terrible. And then he made some sort of joke, and everybody at the dinner party starts laughing, and the wife
KC 28:33
is humiliated, right? The typical way humiliation shows up is anger and rage, right? We know that, right? The outward expression of humiliation is often anger. So she's pissed, the kind of pissed where you leave your body, you're so angry, right? She's like, dissociated from her body now, but she's using our principles, and she knows now is not a good time to talk about it. I don't have all the brain systems online. I'm gonna go home, we're gonna go to bed, I'm gonna shower, I'll bring it up tomorrow. So at about noon the next day, she has all of her brain systems online, and she starts the process, WWC, witness, witness, collaborate. And she says, Hey baby, I just want to let you know that I felt really humiliated when this comment was said last night.
Speaker 1 29:20
Okay, she never said the word you. She started it out beautifully with her I statement. Now, husband knows we're going to start the recipe now, witness, witness, collaborate, and he says, baby, oh my goodness, I am so sorry. I see that you're embarrassed, right? So the first thing we want to do we witness someone is just like, mirror back, mirror back. What you hear? Oh, my goodness, you're embarrassed. Oh my goodness, you're humiliated, right? He is seeing her. He is hearing her. I always tell people ask a question so that they really feel hurt. He asked the question. What part of the elephant are you at? Right? Like, what are you experiencing? Explain it to me, that's, that's what he's doing there. So she is able to say what I'm experiencing is I felt embarrassed because it felt like maybe it was my fault that our sex life is struggling, when, in reality, I think it's the season of life we're at. We've got small babies, and the schedule is hard for both of us. And he says, I hear you. I see you. He repeats back to her, what he heard, is there anything else you want me to know? And she says, No, I feel seen. I feel heard. And he says, Okay, would it be possible for you to witness me now? And she says, Absolutely. And he says, Okay, so this is the part of the elephant I was at, right? I was really worried about our friends. We know they're having a super tough time in their marriage. They feel very isolated. They feel like they're broken. I thought if I could throw ourselves under the bus a little bit, that maybe they would feel more normal, and they would feel like they're not in this struggle, season alone. And so, you know, the wife witnessed him. Oh, baby, that big heart of yours, right? Like I can tell you were trying to use that big heart of yours. What was your biggest hope or what was your biggest goal there, right? And he says, I just want to save their marriage, like I want them to know they're not in this alone. Don't give up. And she's like, Oh, baby, I had no idea. That's why you made the joke, right? So now he feels seen. He feels understood. We have now witnessed each other. We had very different realities. Both realities walked side by side. We didn't need to figure out a singular truth or a right or a wrong. There was no closing argument that need to be had. It was two people who were curious, what are you experiencing? What are you experiencing? And now they said, collaborate, right? WWC, what do we do moving forward, knowing that you really love to help people feel normal, and then I really feel sensitive about this topic of sex. And he said, Well, you know what? Like, how about we throw ourselves under the bus in, like, lots of areas, but maybe not the sex area, right? Like, maybe until we fully work through this one ourselves, we kind of keep this one private. And she said, Baby, I would love that. That would make me feel really respected and supported. Immediately after that, they were like, Hey, let's meet up for lunch, right? Let's go meet up for lunch and let's hang out. They had a wonderful lunch together before they up, leveled their conflict skills. This is what it would have sounded like. She would have come home that night, right? And she would have been furious, rageful, embarrassed, angry You embarrassed me. How dare you make a joke about our sex lives right now, right? This would have triggered his amygdala, his fight or flight, and he would have immediately gone into a defensive state. You're so sensitive. You're always so sensitive. I'm sure everyone else there laughed. Why can't you laugh? Right? And now we would have been off to the races back and forth about who was right, who was wrong, who's sensitive, who
KC 33:24
you always do this.
Speaker 1 33:25
You always do this right, which would have turned into an explosion. They would have gone to bed, you know, not speaking, and then likely would have not spoken for the next day or two, until finally, one of them cracked a joke and they just moved on. Would have happened is they would have missed the opportunity to fall in love. They would have missed the opportunity to see and hear each other.
KC 33:50
I love that that's really helpful. And I really like the way, you know, in the little book, or whatever you lay out, like very specifically what words you can use, and what steps you can take to do this process, which, you know, maybe not everybody wants to use, you know, an exact formula, but I think for a lot of people, that kind of formula is really, really helpful.
Speaker 1 34:11
Yes, absolutely. To me, if I have a few sentences that I can grab onto in the beginning until the concept really absorbs. I know that that helps me a lot. So I wanted to give people like, hey, try these few phrases that seem to work really well. Just start here.
KC 34:32
That's awesome. So if people want to download this, where can they go to find it? Do you guys have a website?
Speaker 1 34:39
I think the easiest way to find the book is to visit our website, Austin couples concierge.com, we also are relaunching our Instagram. Austin couples concierge, it'll be in the bio there, and they can follow the link and download it at home. They can do this. They can practice this from the comfort of their home. Oh. Awesome.
KC 35:00
Well, thank you so much for your time, and as always, it's been such a great conversation. Thank
Lindley 35:05
you. You.

Christy HausslerNovember 11, 2024

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Resources and Links:

Trancript

Resources and Links:

Transcript

Transcript

Resources and Links:

Transcript

Resources and Links:

Transcript

Resources and Links:

Transcript

Resources and Links:

Transcript

Transcript