530 - Something Simple to Do When Mental Health Derails You with Frannerd

0:00This is a huge episode because longtime friend of the show, Franerd is back after a six year hiatus it wasn't on purpose that we didn't do an episode together in that time we actually had had calls and talked a little bit and caught up with each other in that break but uh i am so thrilled to have fran back on the show um we have similar creative journey in some ways but over the past five years or so we've both been through a lot but fran has had a lot of big personal shifts and um shifts in her creative journey and how she relates to her creativity and I was just really excited to reconnect and walk through what she's been going through and learning.

0:45We talk about self-love and how it relates to your creativity. We talk about a lot of mental health stuff, things like depression and anxiety and what it's like trying to fit creativity within that. And so if you struggle with those things, I hope that this episode is a balm for that and hopefully can make you feel less alone and then maybe even find some things that help you manage a little bit of that. We talk about loving your past work and when you get at a creative crossroads and you have to let go of something legitimately and choose something else and really double down. We talk a little bit about aging and a relationship to creativity and it was just a great chat, a great reconnection and I hope that Fran comes back on the show again soon.

1:35If you don't know Franard, I recommend checking out her comics on Instagram at Franard. Also, you can search Franard on YouTube and check out her channel or check the show notes for the link. She's got an amazing YouTube channel. I've been doing that for a long time. Hope that this conversation just gives you some relief and some pep and some refreshment creatively and then stick around to the end. I'm going to be back with a quick little creative call to adventure, something that you can do with the information from this episode. It's called the Backpack Repack, and it's meant to help ease the load a little bit and hopefully give you a little pep on where to direct your attention in a way that's going to be a life giving in this moment that you find yourself in.

2:25All right. Without further ado, here is my chat with Fran. on the creative journey it's easy to get lost but don't worry you'll lift off sometimes you just need a creative pep talk

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4:09Now available in Canada too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash p-e-p-t-a-l-k. Free shipping in 365 day returns. Quince.com slash pep talk. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. I freaking love having Squarespace as a sponsor because it's easy to sell it when you love something this much. I'm a big fan. Squarespace is an all-in-one website platform designed to help you succeed online. Here's what I love about Squarespace. They're intuitive and super versatile drag-and-drop tools, meaning you can make a custom website without knowledge of code that makes people say, whoa, who made that for you?

4:53Looks like you built that from scratch. People have really said stuff like that to me about my site and I built it myself quite easily with Squarespace. You can check it out at AndyJPizza.com if you wanna check that out, what I did with it. It doesn't look templaty and it screams my creative brand. I also love that I have all of my domains through Squarespace now, which makes it seamless and easy to manage. I know the first thing us creative folks do when we get an idea is to grab that URL. Now you can keep track of all your websites and your domains in one place that's super intuitive and easy to manage.

5:24Head to squarespace.com slash peptalk for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use promo code peptalk, all one word, to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain. So I'm super pumped to talk to you. It's been a while since we've had a podcast episode. We've caught up a couple times. but uh do you have a guess of when the last time you were on the show was oh my god was this pre-pandemic it was oh it must have been 2019 that was 2019 wow i know isn't that crazy andy i was a different person same last time i so if anyone wants to be like oh i'm just gonna listen to france episodes on create a pet talk they're gonna be like who is this that's someone else sorry can i can i curse you can curse yeah wow 2019 2018 i was wow i was married i was straight um i had an online store what was 2019 andy like i was uh the height of my ambition i would say that was i went to eat the world i wanted to and i thought i could and i i felt pretty invincible at that time um i had a right when the pandemic hit i had a bunch of stuff in the works that were like very very exciting that all kind of disappeared there's a bunch of other stuff that maybe we'll get into but i i feel and i'm sure and you've had some huge markers and and changes but i feel like um no matter who you are who's listening to this everyone will have experienced some level of that Oh, yeah.

7:08Some level of metamorphosis. Yes. And I wanted that was the next question I was going to ask is because I felt like when I was thinking about you and knowing the journey that you've been on, I thought, OK, what happened in the pandemic? And the image that came to mind that I don't even have a specific reason, but I thought it feels like, I don't know if you had this when you were a kid at school, but where the class is going crazy. We're all in primal mode. Everyone's screaming, shouting, and then the teacher would turn the light off. And everyone's like, oh, it's serious now. Like, wait, what was going on?

7:50What were we doing? Like, that's what I feel like the pandemic on some level, it felt like that where everyone's and that, you know, including the ambition thing of like, when that hit, yes, some of those things dissolved. But then I also I went to therapy for two years. I'd already just started it. But I it was a for me, a thing of stepping back like, wait, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Is this where I want to go? Is this, you know, so does that feel right to you? Absolutely. It was a forced, unconsensual, introspective period for everybody. It was. And I resonated a lot with what you said around just like the limitations and like the who we were prior to the pandemic and who we are today.

8:40Because I was in a very similar path before the pandemic of like having all of these projects and all of these things that I wanted to do. And I think the things that have changed since then is accepting that there are kind of like a myriad of limitations, whether that's the pandemic or your body, things that you can control in ways that you have to readjust and reset and recalibrate your expectations. And that has been such a difficult lesson for me to learn and to kind of like cope and navigate. Because I think like the major, I mean, like, oh my God, we could be talking about this until tomorrow for everything that changed.

9:30But something that I'm working on right now, like struggling with right now is wanting to do everything, Andy. And my body presents right now the biggest limitation, which is like my mental health and being and feeling very frustrated and impatient. because I think like, and I'm sure you relate when you're struggling with ADHD as you do, or when you're suffering from depression, as I do, mixed with generalized anxiety disorder. It's just like, it's, they're like this like mental weights that you have to lift every morning and be like, okay, what do I want to prioritize? What am I able to do? That's why like, this is called a disability and it's been so hard to accept this and the of like as your as our bodies are aging as the the the circumstances are changing it's been very just like frustrating to put this into the mix you know it seems like prior pandemic we were I don't I don't want to say unstoppable because there's also like a time in a freelancer's career when you have to reset your expectations and now because of other circumstances life circumstances you're like no you have to actually prioritize what you want to do and what you can and you're able to do do Do you relate to this?

11:07Very much so. And what comes to mind for me is the way that the pandemic, whenever it hit, like watching my kids and the life stages they were at, which when you're kids, we have about a three-year gap between the three kids each. So like when you're that age, every few years is a very different life stage because you have elementary school, middle school, high school. They're very different zones. And so I'm just thinking about how we personalize the pandemic or how it might get confused with also just life stage stuff. It definitely had a massive effect on me and everyone I know. The world is completely different.

11:56There's no doubt about that. But as you're saying that, I'm thinking about how I was going from mid-30s to late-30s in that time, and I was already moving from the feeling for a lot of people, not everybody, but a lot of people, 20s and early 30s, that's when you probably feel most unstoppable anyway. That's when you're feeling ambitious. That's when you're – and then as you're moving forward, whether it's body or mental health or circumstance, you start hitting. Circumstances also tend to come in those times where you're like, shit, like this – like everything's real and it's causing you to kind of pause, which is interesting.

12:35Just to go back to what you said about the weight that you're holding with anxiety, depression, and I've had the worst anxiety and depression that I've ever had over the past two years. And very, some really bad bouts. I talked a little bit about it on the show a year ago. Last summer was particularly bad, probably the worst depression I've ever had. There's a lot of different factors that I haven't really felt comfortable talking about. But, but I like what you said about the weight thing of these are weights that you have to carry around. I think the interesting thing for me is the hard thing is that they're always a different – it's like you're picking up a backpack, but you never know how much it's going to weigh that day.

13:22Oh, yes. You know? Yeah. Because it just – it fluctuates and there's so many factors that you can't – no matter what you do, you can't fully figure it out. What has helped with coming to terms with that? Oh, man. Um, I think one of the biggest, I mean, so many lessons I learned in therapy, but it's trying not to be judgmental of my depression. Yeah. I think being judgmental, even though it's valid and I'm trying to be like, oh, it's okay to feel frustration and to be angry at feeling depressed, of having to slow down once again, of having to reassess and reshift your expectations. I found myself that when I feel judgmental against this thing that it's beyond me it doesn't help me in any way it doesn't make me feel better in any way it's almost like when you're going through a cold and you're like no no I'm gonna suck it up and go outside and live my life the only thing you're doing is prolongating making the cold last longer so I'm like the only thing that I can do right now is heal as much as I can and try to accept that this is where I'm at I think the beautiful thing about acceptance is that not because you're accepting something it means that you're agree agreeing with what is happening you can disagree with what it's happening and accept at the same time and I think understanding that dialectic around acceptance and trying to be like, okay, radically accept this is where I'm at right now.

15:09What can I do in this state? And so I've prioritized, for example, anything that's urgent and important, I will do it. And I think this is why I've been reading so much this year, Andy, because it's one of the things that I can do as I'm laying on my couch. yeah uh because even like being vertical you know like sitting straight it takes so much of my energy and uh the the trying to work hand in hand with fatigue like acute fatigue it's been really challenging and so I've been trying to be like okay I do want to start writing how can what can I do right now in this in this current state that will allow me to nurture myself uh within reason like within reason and I found myself like reading has been a great outlet not only like for escapism and trying to run away from this reality that we're currently in uh but also because it's not physically demanding and also i've been i've been reading andy so many books on writing on like like uh non-fiction on writing and like stephen king for example i haven't read that writing but i've heard it's really great if you like stephen king i really recommend it that was weirdly my first ever stephen king book and so i don't i've never read a stephen king novel so okay yeah but If you're a huge fan, I will say the book is meant for you because he walks you through behind the stage of what was like writing Carrie and what was his childhood and all of that.

16:53And so I think like if you like his work, this is like a great window into his life and like the way he approaches writing and his creative routine, I guess. but so I've been reading a lot of books on writing and I guess like one of the things that all of the writers agree is that if you want to write you have to read and so I'm like okay this is I guess the year that I will do reading the year of reading for me and so that's the way I've been navigating depression right now yeah that makes tons of sense I it mirrors my experience almost Exactly. What you said is my exact experience where the best thing to do was for the longest time, if I picked up the backpack and it was way heavier that day, I would be like, shit, no, no.

17:49How did I get here? How do I stop it? What do I, you know, all of those feelings. And it would actually make everything worse, make the anxiety worse, make the depression worse. everything would be worse and just like you said the thing that helped me the most was if i picked up the backpack and it was super heavy that day the first thing i would do would be kind to that thing and be like yeah okay so it's a heavy day all right what kind of just like you said my wife actually told me this same thing she's like think about what can you do on days like that um i agree And it's totally, totally true.

18:26And that just that I feel like there's a kindness to yourself of this is real. This is a, you know, and like you said, there were a lot of things, pretty much almost everything that I had to do, I did. So it's not like I – and I was lucky enough to be well enough to do that because not everybody is. But I totally, totally agree. And I've talked so much on this show over the past couple of years on this obsession I have with the studies around some super interesting to me studies about how – I always say to me because I'm like, I don't know. I've never – I don't feel like I've ever met anybody that has shared my enthusiasm for this.

19:11I just don't know. Okay, hit me, hit me. There's a lot of studies around how, so there's good stress and there's bad stress. So you need good stress. I've heard the same. And there's bad stress, which hurts you and can have all these different effects on you. And these are peer reviewed studies. These are the good shit. And so much about whether it is good or bad stress in your body, so much of it is whether you accept it or reject it. So it's about how you relate to it. Yeah. And so I feel like that's at play here with your mental health stuff is like if you reject it, if you're like, nope, I'm not depressed.

19:56I don't have any of this stuff. There is a way in which it becomes, I think, probably worse stress. Whereas if you're like, oh, okay, this is a thing that I have to figure out how, how do I accommodate for this thing? Fascinating. And it actually changes how, how your body experiences the stress, the effect the stress has on you. Yeah. Anyway. So I love what you said about that. Same. And can I go back to what you said around, because I, I struggle with the same disease, Andy, of like intellectualizing or like over intellectualizing. Yep. And I remember saying this year has like I spent so many hours just like trying to figure out why am I depressed?

20:38You know, and there's a lot of self-invalidation comments that I'm like, but my life is so beautiful. Look at where I live and what I do. And I have I feel so privileged with all of this and like especially with what is happening in the world. There's a contrast of other people's reality in my reality. And I'm like, so why am I so sad if I have all of this, you know? And even when explaining this to people of like, I'm going back on antidepressants. I am trying to slow down work-wise. All of this is happening. And my mom, for example, has been really keen on like, but what is the source of this sadness?

21:23Like, can you tell me when did it begin? And I'm like, I, I like, I'm, I'm still puzzle around this idea of like, what is the source? And I think, because I, I think there's this massive solace, Andy, or this hope that if we figure out the source, if we figure out the nugget, the answer, we're going to be healed. It's going to be like a cathartic relief. Oh my God, I'm, I'm cured. You know, I figure out the secret. So it's good. but unfortunately with a lot of things uh not knowing I mean knowing the source won't make us feel any better long term necessarily and also intellectualizing i.e like wondering over and over again what was the reason what happened at least to me and I'm speaking on on behalf of myself, but like it removes me from feeling the feelings.

22:21And I think part of the, I guess the strategy when it comes to mental health is just like noticing your feelings again, not non-judgmentally, just noticing where you feel them in your body. Can you tell I've been on therapy for seven years? but it's been like truly revelatory because I've been spending so much time trying to understand which is a good thing but when it's preventing you from feeling or from noticing what is happening again you're just delaying the cold longer and longer and so this that's the I guess the anxiety that I felt all this time it's like people are asking me what is the source of this and because I don't have an answer I'm like there's something wrong with me why don't have a reason and then you go on this spiral of why do I feel sad if this is my reality you know yeah and just accept sometimes I've had to learn the hard way that depression and anxiety most of the times they're like a retroactive there's from things that you've been caring for a long as time probably.

23:34And like you said, you might not get the answer years from now, like looking at far ahead that you're like, Oh, this is what was going on. And I, I was too close to the forest to see the trees, you know? Yeah. Uh, okay. I have so many, so many little threads to pull out, but one was, this is a really delicate thing because for me, cause I, as we're talking through this, I'm thinking, I feel like there's a way to engage with this stuff where you accept it and you acknowledge it and you don't run from it like we're saying, and then also do what you can to heal and grow and all that. So it's a weird tightrope because like I said earlier, if I fall too far off on the side of how do I fix this?

24:34What's wrong with me? I, I end up really in a worse place. So I, and the next thing I wanted to talk about is maybe over in that camp. So I was just trying to acknowledge it because the thing that made me think about my experience that is maybe one contributing factor. And it's something I wanted to ask you about. I've labeled it the dark side of the dream. And this is what I mean by that is, uh, sounds like very Pink Floyd, by the way. I know. Yeah. Uh, it's like the one factor that I've wondered if it was a contributing element is being a freelance artist is you're so isolated. So I have my wife and kids, which, you know, are around me a lot.

25:26Um, and that is definitely, I'm a big deal, uh, to not feeling as isolated, but I can go, I think it's hard for people to understand that don't either really work remotely, but not even remotely because I'm, I'm only doing a couple of meetings a week and I'm pretty introverted and I like doing all the art that I make. Um, but I think like what you said to you started today, I don't think it was, I think it was before we were recording of, I'm the first person you talked to today. So we're like warming up and I have exactly the same thing. I was at the hardware store today and I was, I had my headphones in, I was listening to audio book and I'm like thinking if someone asked me a question or if I have to ask someone a question.

26:14I am unpracticed and I'm going to be weird. I'm going to, I'm about to be weird. I got to really think about what would the person say in that circumstance? It's anxiety and it's all these different things. But I think one thought I had, cause I've also read a bunch of self-help books again. I always have done that. That's just kind of, I don't know, my disease for some reason. But one of the things I've come across a ton is all of the literature and books around this huge Harvard study that's the longest study of all time. And the result is just like, you need people. You need lots of people in your life that you can measure the quality of your life by how many strong connections you have and da da da da da.

27:07And that's what I mean by the dark side of the dream of wanting to be an artist full time is that there are ways. Yeah. That you are spending tons of time alone, even if you are in a vibrant community. And I, so I didn't, I felt like this veered a little bit close to, we're trying to solve it. And I didn't want to, I didn't want to propose it like that, but that's what came up for me is you and I, I assume, live pretty similar lives in certain ways. There's obviously some differences because I'm married and I have kids, but that's been a lot. That's in my mind a ton. And for people that aspire to make books and do art and all that stuff, it's one element that I just don't see talked about a lot.

27:56So how do you feel about all that? Because it's kind of, that's my experience. It, uh, going back to like reading books on writing, that's something that also a lot of writers, uh, have to struggle with, or, or I guess like, uh, endure. It's like being alone, being a writer and being, uh, an artist, you, you're kind of like accepting a life of solitude. I think this is why it's so important to like yourself Andy like I I I think like a couple of years ago I didn't like myself I was my worst enemy and isn't that interesting how one is so kind to others to your relatives to friends and yet when it comes down to mistakes that you make or uh there there's like a an extra inch of like scrutiny that it comes down to when you treat yourself and I'm like why is this happening to me and I think like and going back to like mental health as way how how much it affects your creative routine I will say yeah but um something that I really wanted to work on was, okay, how can I befriend myself?

29:17How can I actually like myself and be like, Hey, if I actually went to a party and I will meet my myself, I, I will say now, absolutely. I will be my, my own friend, but because you're, we're, we're committing to a life of solitude and I'm saying solitude in terms of like work from home, working by yourself, being your own boss yeah setting your own schedule I think it's paramount it's so it will be great if you could enjoy your own company um which like it's uh for a lot of people it's like oh of course but it's not a given when you're telling yourself like for example especially when you're a content creator as well and you have to edit yourself your voice your your face witnessing yourself aging online is an act of bravery Andy because we're surrounded ourselves with like younger younger generations that are doing like so like such an interesting things and at the same time is scary as well like we have a decade plus online and all of these different versions of ourselves are online all of the things that we said 15 years ago all of the weird advice that we gave that we don't relate anymore are there for everybody to see and so the act of accepting not only our present self but feeling compassion with older versions of ourselves that are still out and living online yeah it's a lot it's a lot And so I'm not even going to start if you speak on another language online, which, by the way, when you edit, like my first language is Spanish.

31:09And so like sometimes I have to edit videos and I'm like, God, that was not the word I had to use. So like there's an extra layer when you're an immigrant and you're speaking another language. You have an accent probably that you want to erase, which, by the way, don't. like I think accents are endearing yeah uh they make you stand out and unique so don't change your accent um but yeah I I don't know if I answer your question Andy but like acceptance is so important when you are going to spend so much time with yourself yeah 100 % I totally totally agree. And the last year I did a series, um, and it's been the center of a talk that I've been, I had been working on for a long time, which is about ADHD and my mom and all that.

32:01Um, so the listeners of the show have heard me say this a billion times, but for the sake of the conversation, I'll just very quickly insert that idea of I've, I have come to the same conclusion for different reasons of the central foundation of your creative practice being a loving relationship with yourself. And the way that I wrote it for the series was this idea that art is self-expression. And if you want to love your art, you can't hate the thing that it's an expression of. If you hate yourself, you're never going to love your self-expression. You have to have a relationship. And not only that, it sounds almost trite or like a platitude, but it's very real in that.

32:48Why would you, if you really were an enemy of yourself, why would you do the things necessary to put yourself out into the world? Why, like putting it onto the page, putting it on, like, what you won't, you'll stop yourself because you don't, you believe it'd be better if there was less of you, not more and, you know, expressed. So I totally agree. Yeah, it's a mirror. Yeah. I was going to ask you about, because we haven't talked on the podcast in 2019, it made me realize that you have the same experience that I have, which is I have at least a decade of myself on the record. And it's so painful.

33:32It's so painful. And I used to take off – every time we hit 100 episodes, I'd take off 100 episodes off the internet. And then when I moved to the podcast network, they were like, you should just put all those up because it's open inventory and there could be ads on there and all this stuff. And I don't think it will earn me much money. But it forced me into this position to be like – I think – like Sophie, my wife, talked about how everything you're talking about is a creative journey. and there's probably value to keeping it up there, even though it's really uncomfortable for you. How can you be all about the journey with, and also trying to hide your journey, but it's so, so I agree with Sophie.

34:18Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel about that? Because you, like you said, you've had all these different iterations and these big revelations and you've changed in so ways how do you how do how do you feel about that I mean that's what's preventing me from hiding all of my videos and previous Instagram posts I will say because in a way I want people the there's such a like a vulnerable thing of of allowing someone to see a such up close a version of yourself that you're no longer and i feel very naked and i'm like oh they're it's almost like they're they're witnessing like a an onion that had too many layers you know and now i'm a different onion i don't know how to explain it

35:11But in a way, it's again, going back to acceptance. I don't I don't agree with past friend in so many ways. But at the same time, I agree with Sophie that if we want to if we want to convey the beautiful thing that is going on a journey and changing and no one likes change. uh but it is the only content constant thing um part of the i think like the decision that you have to make as a content creator is whether you want people to see where you come from and how much you have evolved and change as well uh and part of that means like sometimes people are going to see like videos where i was in a relationship with a man you know uh living in another country, having different set of values of what I, for example, like something that pains, I mean, I don't know if pains me as a word, but like something that I struggle right now, it's how much I, I treasured productivity.

36:18And I love being productive and getting things done. But I remember because I was coming from a place of very low self-esteem, my productivity was very intertwined with my self-worth. And now I wish I could have like a footnote on every one of those videos of being like, this is a valid route, but I don't agree with this friend anymore. Which is something that I wish I could do with every piece of content that is like prior pandemic. And also sometimes the anguish that comes from, sometimes I don't know like looking at yourself and I wonder if this happens to you Andy and being like wow I don't recognize myself like this I don't know who this person is and it's it's it's kind of scary sometimes um and do you feel that way when you listen to your like old episodes of the podcast yeah I think I don't know if I would phrase it that way but sometimes we try to, sometimes we'll replay an episode.