006 - It's Okay, I Got Better (Some)

In today's episode, I struggle with my mental health in front of a live microphone for half an hour.

If you need me, find me.

Transcript

Russell: 0:01

My name is Russell Stuart brown. I'm probably not through us. So you're looking for, but I'm the one you've got right now. These are some things I've learned. One of the things that I've learned. Is that some things last forever. And that's. Perhaps paradoxical. Seems to be the theme. But. When I say forever from a personal frame point, there is a forever. There is a, a for every day. I'm here. And obviously on a. A long enough timeline. Everyone's survival rate. Eventually does struck to zero. But there are certain things. It will stick with you. Forever. There are certain things that. R. Intrinsic. Neither the wiring. Or. The conditioning. That we receive and they will last. For the rest of, of your life? I think, I think the best way. That I've seen this expressed. In an external. Frame point is. Alcoholics anonymous. You never stopped being an alcoholic. It's been X, Y, Z days. Since your last drink. But you never stop. Being an alcoholic.'cause that. Urge to drink. It is both physically and mentally. That's why. For all of the drugs that are illegal. It's so crazy that alcoholics is allowed because. It's one of the only ones to like, Physically and mentally got you. There's a lot of things you can become dependent on. Mentally addicted to. But. They aren't going to give you tremors. If you quit them immediately. Or at least not the kind of tremors. I don't know if people know this. This part, but I think, I think it's fairly common knowledge that. Alcohol is one of the drugs that can kill you. If you go into withdrawal with it. You go cold Turkey from. A lot of alcohol today? Absolutely. None. It can kill you. And. A lot of other drugs, they don't actually have that. You will go into withdrawal. And it will be suffering. Putt. There's some light. To the people. Watching you from outside the room. That That, that withdrawal and. But with alcohol. There are there. There are nurses stations that have to be equipped with. Whether it be a can of beer or, or a bottle of whiskey. And they will get a prescription dose. Amount of alcohol to give someone. And that amount is working to cut down the amount that is in their body. But it is necessary. No. I'm sure that there is. Probably also a. More the official isn't the right word. I'm sure there's another way of providing alcohol to the body. But from what I understand in emergency departments, It's often the easiest way to source it is by. I'm getting it. From a shop, you know what I mean? In cans and bottles. I got a wonder. Did they put it into a different cup? They got it. Cause. Could you imagine if you were in the hospital, you looks across the way. And anyone was sipping from a can. Like, I don't even drink. But if I knew there were cans going and I was in the hospital, all my. Where's mine. I have, I have a very, yeah. A very bad relationship with hospitals. I I don't do well in them and I feel really bad for any nurse that's ever had to deal with me. I feel bad for so much. There's there's so many people I. Couldn't even apologize. Two. When she's actually, Hey, since that's the theme, that's another really great point about alcoholics anonymous. This is something that. This is something that. I think people are somewhat familiar with. But one of the steps of the 12 step program is the apology step. But what I don't think everyone knows about. Is that, that step calls you to apologize and atone. Except for in situations where doing so would harm the other person more. I think that's a really, really important thing. To consider with Impala. I have a horrible reputation for. Being able to give good apologies. I say horrible because like everything, it sounds like. Another one of my, like, Another one of my doublespeak things. It sounds like I know what I need to say. But honestly, no. If you want to apologize, I'm going to break it down right here. Okay. First of all. In any good apology. You have to understand what you're apologizing for and what you did wrong. This has been something that's actually caused me problems because I don't like to give a fake apology. I don't want to apologize just. Two. You know, near. I this, I hate to say. This is very much a school thing, but like there's been other avenues in my life where it's like, okay, well, if you just say, sorry, we'll keep going. And I'm like, Well, hang on. I would like to know why. I've what I've done. Because if I know what I've done, I can avoid doing it later down the line. If I just say, sorry, now. I'm going to accidentally do it again because I haven't identified which part of the behavior it was. So I might have difficulty. In that case. And. I'll look like a real, real, real jerk for having. Been like, I'll look like a jerk because I apologize for doing something. And yet here I am doing it again. So there's been times where I've been like, stubborn about not apologizing. Until I know exactly why. And I feel like that's created a lot of difficult conversations because when someone is looking for an apology there they're quite emotional usually. And from my situation, I was quite. Rational. And when I say rational, I don't mean not in the positive sense in that, like, my decisions were rational is in like, the way I was thinking was with the rational side of my brain. Like I was thinking like, oh, okay. I need to know what I did wrong. Because, like I said, by this, the first thing you need to know what you're doing is what you're apologizing for. And sometimes. A lot of the times people apologize without really knowing that. A lot of the time people are cold reading. You. They want to know exactly what's upset. You. So that they can apologize. They can apologize for that. But. The only reason they want the details. So that the apology can. Check the boxes. So. Unfortunately, this is one of those scenarios where. It looks from an external perspective. Like your. A bad actor. Even if you're being a good actor. I don't mean. Acting as, as in you have bad intentions. The same sort of, I need to know what to apologize for question. We can come from two different types of people, the people who just want to tick the boxes and the people who need some now. But. In a lot of situations, you do know what you. Should be apologizing for. And then you have to apologize for it. And again, that sounds really basic, but. If you really analyzed. I mean, you don't even have to analyze it. You know, you know what a, an insincere apology feels like. The stereotype is the idea of. I'm sorry that you feel this way. And it's like, no, no, no, no. I it. Like I'll put it this way. I don't know if it's people over formalizing it or trying to avoid it. But if you. Our writing an apology. And the sentence you were about to write is I'm sorry that you feel hurt. Then not apology actually needs to be. I'm sorry that I hurt you. And switching that voice is very important. Not only for the person you're apologizing to. But also, because you need to, you need to admit that you need to know. What you're apologizing for. If, if you, if you don't know what you're apologizing for, you can't actually move on with the steps that come after the apology. Th th the actual bettering of yourself. So if, if you don't. No, what you're apologizing for. Or you can't say it. Those are the, the two most basic steps. And then there's the next part of the apology? And that's the part where you listen. And you don't you stop writing at that point? I know you have more to say. I know, I understand that you, you have more to say. And apologies. You can tell how much I'm on computers. Like when I talk about apologies, I talk about writing and type again. Sending it whatnot. But in the case of a conversation, you, you, after apologizing, you stop. You just, you let the person. Do what they will. You never have entitled. To forgiveness. There are situations where. It might be easy to assume. That maybe something you're apologizing for is, is something that. It's simple enough that, that you could be forgiven for making a mistake or something like that. But in the case of a serious apology, You know, if it's a, if it's a genuine apology for something that, that has. When I say serious, I don't, I don't just mean to earnest when I. You know, I think I'm over explaining that part a little bit. But what I mean to say here is that you, you don't offer excuses. And I think that's a funny one because I think I usually offer excuses. Reflexively. I think a lot of us offer excuses, reflexively. What excuses to you never feel like excuses. Or at least they don't, to me. I don't think I'm giving excuses. I think I'm giving reasons. Because there's a reason why something didn't happen. There's a reason why something happened to a certain way. But you Joan. Need to do that. As part of an apology. And you definitely don't need to do it at the beginning. Because because the most important things you can do is acknowledge what you've done wrong and apologize for it. Also, if you lie about any of this, I mean, you're invalidating it. Like. I shouldn't say that part of the process is finding what you did wrong and working to correct it. But I'll talk about that at the end. But. If someone accepts an apology or not. Depending on the tone of the conversation. Should the conversation look that it's going to continue. There is a point there where. There is an opportunity for reasons to come in. But again, part of your apology needs to be figuring out what you did wrong. Maybe, maybe finding out the reason you did it, but then explaining how your identification of that thing. It's going to help you avoid this in the future. So if you give, I had this reason to do what I did. That only works in the context of. I will be working on not letting this reason. Influenced me in the future. And this is. Something that has someone I have, like, I have a lot of alphabets. And my name, not that, not the LGBTQ. Spectrum of alphabets, but like ASD. Got BPD at one point. I feel like I want to self-diagnose myself as a narcissist. But I'm the most charming patient I've ever had. So. I couldn't give myself that label. But With a couple of these. And I think autism is the one I see the most commonly there are people who have say autism. As their reason for a lot of the things they do. And the idea is that autism is something they will live with for the rest of their lives. Autism. Is forever. Some things are forever. And with autism as well. Autism. It's very complete in that. I haven't never known a time where I wasn't autistic. I've known times where it was undiagnosed. But I've always been autistic. I will always be autistic. There are things I can change. And improve. That. Other people might. I won't say, take for granted, but pick up intuitively. But. If something about my autism leads me to hurt. Another person. That is my fault. And there's a lot of times where it was the autism. Or, or with a lot of neuro diverse topics, but say with autism, And I have experience. So I have experience with borderline personality disorder. But. I honestly, I mean, Of complicated relationship with diagnoses. Because I don't know if I still have all the diagnoses. His diagnoses that I have ever had. But I've had a wide range of them. The sort of cycled. It kind of felt like one of those What's the most popular thing to diagnose people with. But I responded really well to some of the BPD therapy. So. I think I definitely had BPD like traits if. If I, if I didn't actually have BPD. But I think that receiving my autism diagnosis later. May overwrite that diagnosis because I think a lot of the traits. That they give me that diagnosis for are also traits that are related to the autism diagnosis. So I actually don't. You know, the way you go back and like clear out your computers, a cycle bed. Here, your email spam box or something. I can have it go into my doctor and just say, Hey, can I, can we cross any of my insanities off the list? But Oh, how did I even come on to that? We were talking about BVD. Oh yeah. BPD. BPD and autism. Again, this is a trait that I think. Identified me as is. Within. One of the umbrellas. Is that sometimes your rational mind will. Like I said earlier, your rational, as opposed to your emotional mind, your rational mind will take over and you won't even realize your emotional mind is like working overtime. Getting worked up. Especially, if you can focus on a Sudoku. Or like a crossword puzzle or something. I think that's why distraction is very dangerous as a technique for people with BPD. Cause I think sometimes. You can put that energy. Into you can put it into a net. And an energy that isn't healthy, but feels like it is. Like w. One of the things is, is that. Is that something I would've done. Once I got into a lot more arguments online. About things. I do still get into arguments online. But like I get into a lot less and. I definitely conduct myself a lot differently because what I was doing was I was using my rational mind to debate people. But I was actually working up the energy. So that my emotional mind, when it took over, I had had the energy to steam roll, whatever my current life situation was. And. For autism. That can trigger it, various things. And for BPD, I think it's, it's stereotypically triggered by a feeling of rejection. And it's the feeling of. I mean without, without putting. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here. It's the feeling that you're going to die. Not not. You're not going to, I know, like I know that part. But. And, oh, sorry. I want to also preface all of this. These are all just my, my experiences with my mental illness. I'm prescribing a lot to, a lot of people I've argued with on the internet. Over the past three decades. A lot of arguments I've seen other people have where they were referenced some of these things. So when I come to the point, I should. Preface that not everyone of a certain. Not everyone on every spectrum is fully representative of everything on that spectrum. That'll either be a second thing for today or next week's thing. But I'll get back to that. But. It is the feeling. Of it's your survival reflex. If you've ever had a panic attack. I mean really out of panic attack. Sorry. I. That's a horrible thing for me to say, I've had many, I've had levels of panic attacks. Over the years. I have had three. I mean, honestly, I've had, I've had two and one where. It came close, but I've had, yeah. So I've had two panic attacks. Where. I have needed to call someone. And in the first case, it was the emergency hotline. Like the. I'm pretty sure I dialed 1, 1, 2, just to be super European. Yeah. Like I called the hospital. Or the emergency line and I'm like, I'm really sorry, I'm having a panic attack and I could not breathe at, and I had never, actually, while I had had attacks of panic before that had had very physical reactions, this was the one where. I didn't think I was inhaling enough oxygen. I thought I was genuinely like going to suffocate. Because of how shallow my breath store. And that level of panic. Like let's call that a hundred on a scale. Like you get a brief spike up towards like very high on the scale, but very, very brief. When you get triggered in this emotional way, where for just an instant, you feel threatened. I feel threatened just for an incident I need to feel threatened. And then once I'm, once I get that boom. Most of mine takes over and. If, if I've been letting it stew. It can be explosive. But what I see a lot of people online. Do. Is explain how. They have difficulties because of. Their autism. Are there BBD. And I get that. Not everyone has access to the same levels of care. And some of the, some of the care. That I've received. It has come from unlikely sources. But The kind of people who use the label. And then we'll say this explains my behavior. If you have the capacity to say that. Afterwards. You have the capacity to work on that? But until you develop that capacity. You can get triggered to the point where. Like I said, it feels for a very brief moment that. Maybe death. Isn't the right word. But it feels like you're going to get kicked out of the tribe. Like really a really primal instinct. Of of animal togetherness. Like, like that's what gets triggered. And it in autism. In my version of autism, it can get triggered for certain reasons and BPD it's. I believe it's that you maladaptive. To trauma early on, but I'm not a doctor. I'm not a lawyer. No one ever asked me to be a doctor or a lawyer. I mean if maybe if people asked me to be a doctor, a lawyer, instead of Batman all the time, I would have had an actual career instead of dressing up at night, going around on rooftop. I've said too much. So, yeah, some things are forever. Autism being one of them. And those were the three parts of the apology, by the way. I guess if I want to distill those into three steps, It's acknowledge what you did. Acknowledge and Ono. Step one. Step two. Listen. Step three. Optional. Explain. Or assure the person. That it will not happen again. Or that you were doing your absolute best. And if you can identify reasons that happened. And you can also identify how you can use those reasons as ways. Because if it happened once. You got to look out for, because it's going to happen again. And if you, if you repeatedly. Hurt other people. Through these same actions. And then points. At a diagnosis. And say, well, that's my. My condition does this. To the people who have it. I may be wrong, but I feel like it creates a stigma. For everyone else. Who has that condition? Knows the same. Feelings that you have on some level. It's a spectrum. Not everyone's the same. And works on it. Like for everyone who's doing that. It makes their job like a little bit harder. Something. Another thing I've learned. And actually a. Where are my notes? No smell. It's notes. Ah, this was a conversation with, from. Fi gore. Feed warning from Iceland rights in. I think that's B gore. It could be vigor, but like without the, you, you know, Probably think. Fi I. VI gore. Fees are bigger. I'm sorry if I've been saying this wrong. And Vigo writes in from the part of Iceland where they filmed. The good parts of the last season of game of Thrones. Okay. And Viegler and I had a bit of a back and forth. And. At one point, the metaphor that come up about autism. The metaphor. Which actually that's a quick thing I should say for I'm obsessed with metaphors. I love them. I think they are the best thing in the world. There's nothing more like if you can relate one of my interests. To another one of my interests and a metaphor, I will pop huge. Like, like that's a wrestling reference. But like, I mean, if you like, like, when someone says that, like, Coda booshie is like real life Goku. Or you know, there's probably better examples. But when you can come up with like some. Metaphors. We've got dogs in the background there. Sorry. When you can come up with a really good metaphor. I just think it's great. When you can explain what the thing. By using another analogy. But it came up at one point where I think I used the, well, I definitely use the word. I stressed the eye as if, as if there was a chance. I, at one point referred to different species of autism. And I immediately stopped talking because. I don't always hear things. Before I say them. In the same way as I hear them after I've said them out loud. But I came up with a better metaphor. And the metaphor I ended up going with was there are different flavors. Hold on. There are different flavors across the spectrum. And I was really proud of it because the metaphor ends up coming up with. What was that? The flavor of chocolate. And the flavor of pistachio. Are very different flavors. They both go well in ice cream. And not everybody who likes pistachio is going to like chocolate and not everybody likes chocolate is going to like pistachio. A lot of people. Myself included will, will only like one and not like the other. To the fairly extreme degree. But then. You got to remind yourself they're both ice cream. And Hey. For those people that are somewhere in between. The chocolate and pistachio spectrum. Well, there's mint chocolate. Turn around the corner. You got Nia policeman over there. Okay. I wonder is it offensive if I started. Assigning. Different. Yeah, it's definitely offensive. It's definitely offensive. So I won't, but I'm going to say that I almost started trying to diagnose the different flavors of ice cream with, with different. Personality disorders Yeah. The ice cream experience is different for everyone. And you know what works on an ice cream won't work in a cake. Or at least not always. And what works in a cake might work better in a cupcake or a muffin or a Bodner, et cetera, et cetera. You. We could go on, but. Oh, and I just remembered. I didn't come up with it. Didn't come up as different species of autism. I tried to say was. You know, You have as much. Friday between different people with autism. As you do between different dogs. And I genuinely thought that that was an okay thing to say, like just good to having an entire, an entire group of people. I guess I'm in the group, but that doesn't mean I can like, you know, just because I'm on the Titanic, doesn't mean I can steer towards an iceberg. So unfair. But also see, now I really want to go into that metaphor because it was really great because. Some dogs, some spots and some dogs, hips. All right. I got to stop there. Cause I don't think dogs actually have stripes. Guys, I'm going to call it there. We got pretty personal, so I haven't checked the time, but I either Blab too much or I give too much away too early. Either way I did have fun. And I hope you did too. Really genuinely. It might've felt like a bit of a downer at the beginning. But Listen. It's really good too. To like. Say in here, those things know that other people. Go through them. And. You know, if this leads to anyone wanting to share. Their own stories or advice for those situations, then dots, that's a net positive and you know, it didn't get it. Didn't get too bad. So I'm hoping it doesn't bring down anybody's day. But either way. I will try to lighten up for the next. Next week's episode. But I have had fun. I hope you have too. I fives all around.