#146: Lindsey Fishman: How talking to the walls cured my depression

0:00Lindsey, what does unk mean? Old. Uncle. Do you know that? Yeah, but why do people call you unk? I don't know. I don't know. It started happening. I had three comments and then I went to a coffee shop in Chicago and somebody was like, good morning, unk. And then it just kept going. It started around Chicago and then it just kept flowing into this new life that I have. There's got to be something. Every time you put a story up, I see under the week there's just unk, unk, unk. I don't know why that was like the golden nickname for me. Like there's so many other things that you could call me. Like a nickname, like a fish boy.

0:37Like that's what my best friend calls me. Like fish man, like fish girl, like anything but unk. I have no idea. It's random. It started from bots, the incels. The ones that come in hideous too. It started from that and now you've got all these fanboys that call you unk. I guess so. And Trevor's always like, you should lean into it. And I'm like, no. Like, I don't identify with being unk and chopped. Like, sorry. It's not me. Do you think it's crazy how much your life has just changed? Yeah. I was telling you this earlier. Like, I talk to the walls a lot because I always have a lot of thoughts and, like, things to say.

1:15And that's a way, like, since I was little, that's how I've, like, processed stuff. Talk to walls? Like, I just talk to, like, before I'm going to bed, I'll, like, talk to the walls for, like, an hour. Like, about my day, about, like, the things that I was thinking, things that I was feeling. just to like get it out there somewhere because even a therapist wouldn't want to hear this many words like in an hour. So I talked to the wolves and I just tried to figure it out. And it's taken a really long, like I still don't, it's not real. Like it's still catching up to me. In the background. Do you ever like get concerned that you could speak to the wolves for an hour?

1:50No. I love it. It's so therapeutic and so nice and nobody's there to judge you. so so do you talk for the wall talk to it like like when you talk do you do you give its responses or do you just like brain dump like honestly i presented the walls are like a ted talk it's like how would i present these thoughts in a critical thinking way with critical thinking skills to actually process something and it's like if i were to have the opportunity to talk to somebody about this how would i talk through it essentially and that's like what helps me have realizations and like epiphany is about like the thoughts that I'm having that are stuck.

2:25And then I let them out. And it's like, okay, here, here's where we go from there. And then the next thing comes around. Do you like struggle to fall asleep after that? Like, how do you see that? That is another great question that you have. And I'll give you a very deep answer. Yes, but it hasn't always been this way. I'm coming up on six years of having like a brain tumor, like a brain tumor of having a brain tumor removed so what they did is they took out the tumor in like my pineal gland which is the part of your brain that's responsible for sleep and like your circadian rhythm and producing melatonin so i can't sleep unless i take a shit ton of melatonin but i don't let myself take it until i've got all the thoughts out right so this is how you can talk so long i feel like you're the reason maybe the comedies come so well is because you think so much like for me from my show right like the best way for me to understand a thought is like to write a poem or something about it like and so you're basically like okay i'm i'm trying to dissect what's going on in here so that someone else can understand it but really like you're just trying to understand it yourself yeah and you're just going to keep talking until you understand it yes and because you've practiced so much speaking to no one that's why you can talk so much shit yeah but then also when i'm like trying to process these things my the part of my personality that can be funny will chime in and then i'm like okay i'm processing this really heavy emotion but also this is absolutely hilarious let me really joke really quick and there's just a lot going on before bed a lot and then there's like personal things like let me answer a text and that prompts something else and i'm like oh my god i hate my best friend right now so i have to talk that thing too it's a lot that goes on but when it comes to comedy and writing i struggle with it a lot because i do have so many thoughts it's like i can have a premise for something but i have no idea where i want to take it because i have so many options and ideas and my brain thinks faster than like being able to write or type or whatever so sometimes it just goes nowhere Do you feel like, because you have so many thoughts, this is why these shorts work so well and why you're able to blow up so quickly.

4:40Because you have this way of thinking about it on your own. So then when it comes to delivering it, you can really master the delivery. Because I think when I look at your videos, the delivery of it is the best. You're like, guys, I'm going to be really mad if I don't get any food right now. and then you like growl or something and I just go like where did that come from but like I'm so here like I'm so here this that's a very basic one but it was like in the moment if I have something that that one I didn't even think through but if there's something that goes on my on in my head and I'm actively listening to it and I laugh out loud I'm like maybe I should whip out my phone and say it out loud for the first time I'll never record something that I've tried to do or I'll never post something that I've tried to record twice I'm like that's not worth it it's not funny anymore if i've had a thought and i laugh out loud i whip out my phone i say it into existence and then i post it and then hopefully it does well views are down though um so views are down yeah views are down down bad it's not looking good i blame oracle you blame oracle i blame oracle i blame elon musk i blame kevin o 'leary and his fuck ass telling people that lunch isn't 28 dollars are you kidding me what are your thoughts on that what kevin did you see that i didn't is shark tank guy what do you do he was like these stupid fuck ass kids are making 70k a year and they think that they can go out and buy a 28 lunch and it's like do you not understand like he's building all these data centers and i'm like you're analyzing data all day every single day for everything that goes on the world you don't know that lunch is like 30 bucks nowadays are you stupid and he ever like he's ripping people a new one i'm like you're dumb like the local ihop the only place that i could go to get 6.99 eggs just closed i'm forced to go to air one you're so stupid oh my god do you think like like well like is it just like a matter of oh fuck we need to get to work we need to make more money crazy concept that's like the like the idea of making more money is like it turns into printing more money and then it turns into inception or like black mirror i can't think that way because it's not real like it's not possible like how do you even make more money i don't know work ethic i have i have some so tell me what do you say like i blame it on all these people views are down bad like what goes on in your mind is it like is there a mental is there a mental thing that you go through because like you fucking blew blew up like i remember i think i met when i met you at gold's gym shout out i got robbed there you got rubs there yeah anyway you got rubbed at girls jam yeah rubbed what a sneaky robber actually they went into my stuff took my wallet but left me like my idea my credit cards i was like you could make so much money by putting me in debt why did you leave my credit card why'd you leave my debit card and the the slip that's in my wallet that has my pen you are so that was the worst robber why is there a slip of your pin in your wallet did you speak to the wall about that or no no i should have i actually i put it on my spam account about that i was like if you're the stupid bitch that just robbed me you're stupid because you could have had all my money all my ten dollars anyway what was the question i don't even know but that's what it's all part of the plan when we met you probably had like i don't know like you maybe had posted like four videos you blew up straight straight away like like yeah I think you'd post like a few videos and I remember Sasha who I was with like I was like oh she makes these like really funny videos and I watched the video and then me and Elliot were just hooked we were like we were like this is this is phenomenal and then next minute it's like MGK like like all this stuff going on like do you speak to the wall about that a bit like do you speak to your wall about how crazy your life is right now those ones are a little bit heavier than the other thoughts that I have so I have to talk it out with friend really but why they're heavy because it's like I grew up around like for example like MGK I grew up in the same hometown as him and I remember being in sixth grade and he was just like walking around the mall being like hot shit or whatever and I was like fangirling at the age of 12 and I'll be like MGK and he'd be like fuck you like leave me alone no pictures and then for him to reach out to me a couple months ago and say like oh you're from cleveland like we should do something together because i want all the cleveland homies to like come up and like blow up and this that and the other and like to first meet he was like come over to the stew like i got an idea for you this was months ago and we talked about something else but i was like what the fuck come over to the stew i'm like i'm listening to unreleased music like are you kidding me like this is my little kid girl dream like that's insane and i i got shy i didn't talk surprisingly in that moment um but when you got there you didn't talk yeah no i got scared but the second time around i saw him on the music video set he had a director and producer that trevor's friends with and he reached out to trevor and was like yo does your girlfriend want to do this and he's like why don't you text her why doesn't he text her like yeah she wants to do it and he's like okay just wanted to make sure that you approve and trevor's like of course i approve he's like one of those um one of those dudes i'll just leave it at that he's just like a who is a dude the producer of the director he was like but let me run this by you like you're okay with like lindsey being a love interest in the music video he's like one of those guys like alpha male like protective over like women and stuff but then when i got there i talked to him more wizz khalifa i got scared and I was like my voice of Wiz Khalifa that one was really crazy that was a very surreal moment and yesterday I don't remember where I was but somewhere that I frequent often and the girl was like wait you're the girl from the MGK music video and I was like you saw that I texted everyone that I knew for that one I haven't talked to the walls yet though I was busy last night so why do you need to speak to friends about those stuff when you laugh You said the ones where your life changed so much, you've got to speak to your friends.

10:59I can't put my finger on it, but I think I just want, like, maybe it's a way to keep myself in check. Like, is this a big deal or is it not a big deal? It's like, can I get excited about this with my friends and them, like, be excited with me and, like, for me? Or is it, like, shut the fuck up? Like, you're just being an egotistical, narcissistic bitch, like, gloating about this. And I think some of the things keep me in check. But like it was the DJ Khaled commercial that I talked to my friends about and then the MGK music video. And I think like that's it. Everything else I talked to the Bulls.

11:30That kind of makes me sound like a bitch though. It's like let me just flex to my friends and I did these two things. Damn. That's crazy, eh? It is pretty crazy. I don't know who I got anywhere. It was never my intention to do this. You know, it's funny though because I don't know if you can see it and surely Trevor can see it. when you're in the space for enough time and i've only been been like doing this for a few years but like you can just see people that are going to do well like it's very day and night you know like you can like just tell when like someone's gonna do do well like it's just kind of the whole package of everything and you just go like they're gonna crush it so they're gonna crush it um i just remember just watching the video i'm just like ellie and i was watching this It's like, what fat ass ordered this?

12:21Like these stupid things. It was the greatest thing. It was like, what is going on here? It was crazy. But I surveyed my audience and like the majority of the audience that watch the show, they're single fat obese men in their 50s. How did you get that information out of them? And when I told them that I was interviewing you, the main thing they wanted to know from you was like when they're having a bad day, like what can they do? Like, what can someone in that state that's, like, obese in their 50s, single and a man, like, do to cheer himself off on a bad day? Hmm. Depends on what they're thinking about, but I think you know my answer.

13:01What is it? Talk to the walls. Really? Yeah. It helps me through literally anything because say that I'm upset about, it doesn't even have to be anything, like, specific. It's just, like, I have a feeling and it's, like, I can't figure out what this feeling is. if I talk to the walls long enough and I know it sounds so dumb but eventually like I can pinpoint where it's like coming from like there's days where you know maybe I'll have like dinner or something and I'll start to feel like really unwell and then I can spiral into like depression or anxiety and it feels like everything feels heavy and I'm thinking about everything under the sun maybe it just comes back to like I didn't work out that day my body feels like very fatigued like I feel like shit and like the next day I like pick myself up and I go to the gym it's like it sounds dumb and it sounds really trivial and it sounds stupid as fuck but like it helps me so much but say the question again the majority of my audience is obese single men in their 50s what advice can you give them on a bad day

14:04damn hip replacement i don't know like how do you get going from there you're fucked no you're not fucked you're not fucked at all okay by any means my ground was like kind of big yeah her legs didn't work very much she was like depressed and then she like went on wave watchers and now she can like run but then she got cancer so oh shit she's really trying to get back into it even her she's like 90 a little bit chunky has cancer and she's like let me get outside get outside touch grass yeah figure it out take it day by day don't put so much on yourself to figure it out all at once but it's like figure out what's work what works best for you my opinion but also like it's all through trial and error in my opinion like i've tried so many things to help myself get out of like misery if i was like overweight or like teetering like an image that i didn't really like and it didn't help me feel good i i went through everything that i could like cut out fucking gluten like a bitch sorry to gluten-free people i know that's like a sensitive topic right now but i don't know it's just like going through all the things that you could to figure out what works best for you and like how to get out of it okay cool we're testing the waters my audience is not single man in their 50s i was just trying to see what your answer was is it deep as a lie i was gonna ask you like is this a prank but i think it shows i can be a little bit what's the word light-hearted and then also get the fuck out of bed and like get a hip replacement anyway the versatility of a woman i guess okay all right well we're testing the waters here right my audience is not 50 year old single fat men do you get a lot of hate online yeah i mean like you just watched a podcast of me like talking about how men and women can't be friends like nope everyone's gonna love that but to be honest australia doesn't like me they're very sensitive australia is very sensitive australia likes me yeah they love you they would love you Because you're funny, lighthearted, and, like, they take what I say, like, literally, like, it's how I think the whole world goes around.

16:03And then they, like, twist it and bend it. And then, like, next minute I'm, like, flamed as, like, whatever they want to call me. But just depending on how they're feeling on the day. But they don't really love me. But that's okay. Go back to the, you said that growing up you were an ugly child. You were like, I literally got, like, no praise as a kid. That's what you said just before. Yeah, you didn't. At all. None. If anything, I got in trouble for just, like, being weird and ugly. You got in trouble for being ugly? Yeah. Well, maybe not ugly, but, like, I was definitely ugly duckling, and the teachers found it easy to almost just, like, pick on me, too.

16:46Like, teachers didn't like me growing up. Damn. But also, I didn't fucking talk to anyone growing up. So they picked on you anyway, though. I just didn't understand rules. Rules? Yeah. Do you understand them now or not? I've learned my lesson, I guess. There was a time when I was in first grade. And do you remember, I don't know if they did this where you're from, but you would like sit in a semicircle and the teacher would like read to you. And then she would ask you questions about the book that she was reading. And like example, we're reading a book about Texas. And she's like, OK, class, like everyone give a noun like about what reminds you of Texas.

17:22I didn't care like at all. And I would wait for when she wasn't looking and I would just leave and like go hang out in the bathroom or like the halls. But there was a day that I went missing, I guess. That's what they called it. I was gone for too long. And they put alerts throughout the school, like the fire alarm, just to look for me because they couldn't find me. And I walked back so scared. I was like, we're about to all burn in hell because this school is so shit. And I get back and they're like, where were you? And I was like, the bathroom. They're like, you didn't tell anybody that you're going to the bathroom.

17:52The alert was for you. And I go, I'm a lot of trouble. So the alert was like, ugly young kid missing out of class. If they said that, I would have sprinted. But instead, I walked. I had no will to live in the first grade either. Did you hop around schools? You stayed in the same school? I went to the same school from like kindergarten until eighth grade. And then I transferred to a public school, ninth grade to twelfth grade. Yeah, because I had teachers bully me as well. Really? I don't think it was because of looks. I think I was just loud and annoying. But I got bullied by the teachers. They'd like send me into like the class.

18:31They'd like, we had like these, like they put strikes on the board. Oh, I love that. You love that? Yes. Because if I would walk into school that day and it was green, I would be like, I'm winning. But the second it turned to red, I would like buy a noose from like Home Depot. Or I would like makeshift one out like in my bedroom. I know I can't say that, but. Like you would what? Buy a noose. Do you know what that is? Of course I know what that is. I'm sorry. You would buy a noose for your bedroom. Just on a tough day. I was 10. I had no money.

19:19So that's why you didn't buy the news. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Well, I got picked on by the teachers. I think it was because I, like, was just trying to fit in and I was changing schools and moving around and trying to be, like, extra loud to be liked. Yeah. Yeah. I've been there, too. I was, like, nonverbal from kindergarten until fourth grade and then I was very extroverted and I was kicked out of class all the time. Non-verbal? Yeah, like I didn't speak. I was like, I had a lot of anxiety growing up and I just laid low. I think like anything that would come out of my mouth, I would think about it for hours or days and just reflect and be like, you stupid fucking idiot, like don't talk.

20:07So I just didn't. So the anxiety would be like crippling? Yeah, very crippling, awful, terrible. It was not very fun as a kid. But I didn't have my first anxiety attack until I was in like fourth grade. I was just like chronically anxious. And then it like all came out and I was in a state of panic attack for two years. What did that look like? Like talk to me about that. Oh, it was like I remember the day that it happened because I feel like anxiety is a baseline feeling. If you have anxiety, I'm sure that you know what I'm talking about. It's kind of always there, just like infiltrating a couple of thoughts throughout the day, but you feel a bit on edge.

20:49But the actual like panic attack or anxiety attack is almost like you don't have any control over yourself. But I didn't know that these existed. And it was I was going into fourth grade. So summer from third grade to fourth grade and nothing had happened. I just walked downstairs and I did what I did every single day. I played on like the GameCube every morning or the DS. And I was doing that sitting on the couch and all of a sudden like I couldn't breathe. and I was like did I eat something weird for breakfast like am I allergic to something I I was having thoughts of an adult as like a fourth grader but like going through and checking all the boxes like trying to figure out what was going on and I couldn't figure it out and I went up to my mom and I was like I think I'm dying and then my parents took me to the doctor and the doctor were I feel like mental health was not as normalized as it is now and the doctors basically said your kid is batshit crazy like put her on xanax and lithium and call it a day but my parents were like we're not going to do that um but then i just had that anxiety attack for two years and it manifested into ocd too which is not just like being obsessed with if something is clean or not it's like compulsive thoughts like if i don't touch my fingers 10 times within like two seconds everyone's going to die and then um do you know ARFID is ARFID is like um a food avoidance disorder so I always thought I was going to choke on food or I was going to be allergic to food so I just didn't eat either but I outgrew them I still have anxiety but OCD and ARFID I luckily was able to outgrow how so like what does that even look like how do you outgrow that Is a big part of the labeling and all of the things that they tell you as a young kid?

22:39See, I don't know how I was able to do it. And I don't know how I was able to get out of that two-year-long panic slash anxiety attack. But my sister was really young at the time. Me and my sister are nine years apart. So it was like a year after she was born. And she was born with two ducks from her kidneys to her bladder. Two what? Like ducks. like not d-u-c-k but like d-u-c-t-s like the tubes from your kidneys to your bladders or bladder single singular and she was in the hospital all the time and as an infant like you can't really tell anyone like you're in pain or what's going on with you so she was just in and out of there and she was in pain all of the time like anytime my parents put her down for like a nap or to rest for the night she would wake she wouldn't wake up she would just start screaming and crying and have like nightmares it seemed like but it was because she was in pain and the only thing that would wake her up is like if she threw up and then she would choke and like the amount of times we had to call like an ambulance to save her was more than I could ever count on my fingers and I think that's where I started to develop like a fear of like choking and then it manifested it into like food but the older she got and the more treatment she got for what was wrong with her um i think the easier it was for me to like kind of outgrow the art like restrictive food issues and i'm like ocd too when it came came to food damn see it just goes to show that it's all experience like what you've had and what you've been exposed to and everything and how that influenced the way that you act yeah i think like even as a kid you're very impressionable to the things that are around you and you're not super conscious of like what's going on internally you just know like I'm scared and it's hard to also communicate as a kid with an adult those things because there's kind of like a barrier between like connectedness and it was just something that I had to like other things in life like you can grow out of them and it was just something like the older I got and the more I experienced or lack thereof like I wasn't my sister was getting healthier it was a lot easier for me to like overcome these almost like attachments to my anxiety but the anxiety never left but the other things did luckily so like anxiety is an interesting one like the feeling of being anxious or like genuinely having anxiety like a lot of people would feel anxious all the time but then there's other people that would like say that like they have anxiety yeah like for you when you feel that creeping in is it like and you said earlier in the in the combo around like oh like maybe i didn't train today maybe i didn't do this like did you start to develop routine and different things in your life to help resolve that or combat those negative like spirals that you put yourself in yeah but it wasn't until how many years ago maybe be like four or five years ago because as a result of my brain tumor I developed a nervous system disorder which essentially puts my body in like fight or flight all the time so I'm at a base level anxiety because I have it since I was a kid and then I have this additive layer of being anxious from the disorder that I have the nervous system disorder that puts me in fight or flight and essentially trying to navigate like the differences between those was a challenge for me for two years I think while I still had a brain tumor in my head but when it was removed I started to feel some relief but because I have like this baseline and this additive layer when something makes me anxious that is external it skyrockets so it's really hard for me to contain it but I have to like pinpoint why i utilize talking to the walls so much like pinpoint what the actual root of my problem is so then to go from here i can like take it down level by level and also almost like self-soothe like some of this anxiety that you're having is because of a physical reaction that you can't control but what you can control is what's actually making you anxious externally and work through those thoughts and i hope that answers the question because i forgot it yeah i mean i mean there's no questions here we're just we're just chatting so like i'm fascinated by this wall thing this is a new discovery if you've never heard someone just talk to the wall for an hour every night um interesting right i wonder how trevor feels when he's trying to sleep and you just hear it i don't do it when i'm it's it's like a it's a by myself type of thing it's like i'm in my space take uh ayahuasca in the jungle it's like that just every day yeah yeah but i don't do drugs yeah okay i don't think you need to i think you're i think you're good i think you've got that i think you've got the energy what'd you just pick up there my sunny angels so talk to me about these things um i developed a obsession i guess when i was in japan these are japanese things super kawaii i think is what they call them and they're blind boxes and they come in different series this is like a whale series and then grape fruit series and you don't know what you're gonna get um and then you pay like 50 for them for this and then you just keep trying to get more and more and more and collect them all like pokemon um i'm just waiting to get one of the special ones that nobody has because i have them all i put up uh shelves for them the other day actually do you want to see sure let's go So I feel there's a, there's like, I'm fascinated by all of this.

28:28Like the things that kind of keep you amused, the things that, the things that like, like what does Trevor think of these things? Okay. I'm just intrigued. Before I say my two cents, like what does Trevor think of these things? He was getting really frustrated with me in Japan because I was looking for like. Is he in Japan with you? Yeah. We went together. um but that was not a rough time by any means but a point of a pinpoint of frustration for him at first because he was like what the fuck is wrong with my girlfriend why is she so obsessed with something that's child like it literally is naked with a penis he he just didn't get it and he would be like oh let's go get like this matcha and i'm like but is there a sunny angel store like close by like yes or no um but then i explained it to him like i've always been into this kind of stuff like do you know animal crossing no animal crossing it's like a video game and in one way or another it's like not similar at all but like you can group them together it's whatever um but i was in like discords for that like trading and all about shit whatever and i explained it to him it's just like it's like webkins like it makes you feel like youthful and like a kid again and i i like them um so now he gets it and he helped me put up shelves to store them.

29:49And it looks like this. Oh, you have a lot of these things? Okay. This is my most prized possession one, though. It's like, it has an outfit. You're going to send me this photo so we can put it up on the screen. That is hilarious. For anyone that can't see these, we've got these little characters going on here. And, like, this is a woman but has a penis. So I'm a little bit confused what is going on here. It's very DEI. It's very like... DI? Yeah, well, what's the DI diversity thing I'm up on? The LGBTQ plus, all the stuff. This is white. Sorry. Yeah, but you never know what's going on with these guys.

30:32I'm very confused. Oh, I can agree with that. This is my most prized one from today, though. If anyone can see, I've been trying to get this whale for like a month. So you used to be in a big girl job. Oh, yeah. You used to, like, work in an office and stuff. Did you not? Or was it remote? I mean, I worked in consulting, so I would have to travel all the time. Yuck. So I guess some days it was, like, an office, but it was a hospital. Yeah, so, like, because this is what's interesting is to be a comedian, you've actually got to be quite intelligent. Like, I think, like, to be able to improvise and stuff, right, like, you've actually got to be quite a smart person.

31:15You can't do that on the fly, I feel. You've got to have something going on up here to be able to, like, to do that stuff. And so, like, you were, like, in a serious big girl job and then now you, like, say jokes on the internet. It's so fucking pathetic. It's, like, people's dream. Like, I'm sure your parents are proud. No. No. They're very proud. Well, my dream job since, like, high school was to be a neurosurgeon. But then, obviously, career path changed because it's pretty ironic to be a neurosurgeon when you have a brain tumor yourself. But then working in consulting, like, you know, my parents, like, set me up on this path.

32:07They're like, oh, she's going to be a doctor. And then, like, things changed. And I was like, okay, I'll be a clinical neuropsychologist. And then that was basically that job is like you're a therapist for people who have any or any sort of like cognitive deficit, whether it comes from like a brain tumor or a stroke or other types of like neurological disorders. and I was working in a lab for two years studying cognition and researching it, publishing papers and all that kind of stuff. But then it started to hit a little bit too close to home. So I swerved from being like boots on the ground healthcare to consulting at hospitals.

32:51And I had a pretty stable, good job. And now I don't. Like that's I think where they're like frustrated. They're like, they see things very back and away, especially coming from the Midwest. It's like you have to be a lawyer, a doctor, things like that, because they don't understand that there's a life outside of it. So they don't always like it, but some of them do. Like my aunt, once removed, likes it. What was too close to home when you were doing the studies? I was working with people that either had like an inoperable brain tumor and studying their cognition through various types of tests.

33:34Like it's you're sitting with them for like seven hours a day or or like stroke or things like that. But just seeing people in a state that could have been me and me being on the chair right across from them feeling very guilty and sad and not being able to help in a way that could change their life. I'm there to help understand them. It felt really shitty. Because I didn't have any power to put them in my seat again. And I didn't like it. Yeah. And then like you felt their pain because you were there to some degree. Yeah, yeah. And it's like I, you know, you're, it's a pretty strict environment because your job is just to get like data out of them, understand and analyze their brain so you can have data for your research study.

34:32And you can't necessarily connect with them and talk about anything relatable or share. Like I was in your position once or like how you feel. It was just so black and white and I felt very guilty and sad and wanted to like swap seats with them almost. Really? Yeah. Just like you felt helpless in a sense. Just like, okay, well, like I'm here for you, but really I'm not. Yeah, it's like my hands are tied. I can't do anything to help you. I think that was the biggest part that was, you just had to like sit there and watch. And it was really sad. And some of these people were so, like such beautiful people too.

35:18And it's like, why was I like not plagued with what you have? Like, why was I one of the people that was able to, you know, push myself and recover and be where I am like today sitting in front of you? I couldn't understand it. And it was a lot of like, self reflection as opposed to what was always in front of me like I was thinking outside of like sitting in front of them it was like then it started to spiral into like why am I here like why was I given the opportunity to actually like walk and talk and eat and think like again I it was tough it was a really tough time it's crazy the mind and how much of a journey it takes you on just like like i mean you would have studied it so you know a lot more than than than i like i do um but like you go into these spirals and they're all internal yeah did you learn anything about any of like why do we overthink and why do we go down did you like seek to understand any of that stuff or have some good chats to the wall about it In school, what they teach you is mostly just textbook.

36:32But then when you do boots on the ground research, you hear stories and you can kind of like infer things. And then I also have like gone to therapy before, but they don't really educate you on it. It's like something that you have to seek out to like understand. Nobody's going to really tell you like why you're spiraling. They're going to tell you how to stop it in its tracks. So I don't know. all that much but i've figured out talking to the walls you can grab one thought and like work through it from there and then stop it then finally sleep and then do you going back to this wall do you shut your eyes and do you look at it look at the wall i make sure that the room is like pitch black my eyes are open and i just talk into an abyss sometimes i close my eyes and sometimes i'll just like visualize things um i am like very much a visual learner too i've always been um sorry i'm just like burping i did this last time when i did grace on my always podcast i was like burping it's because i had three diet cokes today anyway sorry i've not heard you burp once by the way so it was like rattling in my chest it's like a death rattle like if i if i if i just kept it there i would have exploded um i don't even know what i was saying now i'm like thinking am I am I gonna burp again hopefully not okay do you feel like your openness on social media where does that come from like you you say like you say the most rogue stuff just off the fly and what I've learned is you don't prepare it you just do it but but like it's it's like you say stuff and I just go yeah I mean sure like it's hilarious but like most people just wouldn't share yeah they would keep it in in in their head um but i i think like that's that's something that i struggle so much with because if i just kept everything in there i would go insane like i have to talk it out there's it's like i can't even hear my own thoughts sometimes because everything is moving so fast and i feel like i have six parts of my brain that are telling me a billion things at once um and then i also like really struggle to like keep up with conversation because my brain takes me in so many different ways and I don't even know where I was going with that one now so where are you going right now like what's the where's your brain taking you I have not because now I'm like trying to figure out like where did I even start this thought and like where was I going with it like half the time I don't even know what I'm saying at all yeah I feel like I feel like that's I mean maybe it's not standard but I feel like oftentimes I say stuff and I kind of don't really know what I was getting at.

39:14And then I listen to it back and I go, oh, that actually made sense. Yeah. I feel like we like overanalyze in the moment. I agree with that. But then when we actually listen back, it's like, oh, it's actually somewhat pieced together. Sometimes I feel like I'm just on autopilot a little bit and it's like whatever. You definitely are. If I think too much about it, then I just don't talk. And I just like let it come out, I guess. like it just it's like a pipeline almost now because if i think too much like i just won't say anything at all but then sometimes i will watch something back and i'm like actually what the fuck was i doing what was i saying where was i going with that like that was just a bunch of garbage and there's people in my comments too on the internet that's like i don't even know what the fuck she just said but that was annoying and a waste of my time and i'm like you know what you're right like good for you do you want a medal i hate theater i got i got um i got dumb i got stitched up really really they did a very good job like recently a couple weeks ago what um it's just some haters in australia or whatever but you get it but they like got me stuttering and then they like kept replaying it and then they like put like dramatic music over the background and like they like watched it on their pod because of a stutter but it was like a it was a decent stutter jack stitched me up by leaving it in but it was a decent stutter and it was like oh i forgot that quote what was it um it was a it was they like stitched it all up and then they put like dramatic music over it while they watched it and like the video went viral and i was like i was like fair play like they got me really good here wait i want to see it i mean my phone's dead i don't even know where i'm gonna be able to piece together it is convenient they got they got me really good though and sometimes you've got to like laugh at the haters like they do really well sometimes yeah like sometimes they get you they get you really good i was not like who the fuck is doing that like who has that much time on their hands yeah and the thing was is it was at the very very end of a podcast so it was like 90 minutes it was 90 minutes into a show and so i'm here going like you don't like me but you just listen to 90 minutes to try and find a moment and it was the very, very end, I'm talking like the last two minutes of the show, I was stuttering.

41:32And then you clip that to then put it on your podcast and play it out loud and then clip it up. And I was just like, and they're like talking about how like how bad the pod was. And I was like, you literally watched the whole thing. What the fuck? Like who doesn't like a pod and then listens to it for 90 minutes? So their job is they also do podcasting. Yeah. But like, it's just one of those ones where they like try and rip it, like piece of it. They're like, just try and find moments for people and pay them out. Oh, so they're miserable. It's very Australian. Yeah, it's very common. Yeah, yeah.

42:03There's an Australian show that I love. There's a lot of like, sorry? There's an Australian show that I love. Oh, no, who? I'll talk about it later. No, no, tell me. I don't remember what it's called. No, is it a woman? No, it's a cartoon. Oh, it's a cartoon show. Oh, okay. I thought it was like a podcast. No, no, no. I need to hold this thought and ask you later. Okay. Okay, keep going. It's an Australian cartoon. Anyway, but like Australians, they do it a lot. Like they just want to like pay people out. But it's funny though, right? Because like I've been thinking about it because like I kind of say some, I say some, I don't really have a lot of filters going on here.

42:34Like I kind of like think something and I just say it. So sometimes it can get me in trouble, but also it's the very thing that like makes a lot of the stuff go viral as well. So I just go take the good with the bad, right? But sometimes I say things that are like not that acceptable and they're a bit taboo. But if a comedian said it, they're fine. So I'm almost going like, maybe I just put in my Instagram bio, comedian, not podcaster. And then all of a sudden I can say any joke I want, I get away with it. Like comedians could get away with the most, like they can say anything. But if I'm a self-help podcast that's talking about how you can better your life and then I say a joke that offends people, then they get mad.

43:19So I'm like, well, maybe if I just become a comedian. They can help you come out unscathed. Yeah, I could just like. But also like the most annoying thing about the Internet is that they take everything at face value. If they've seen you like three times. Actually, I think there's a statistic behind it. It's like if somebody sees you three or six or seven times, they have like a representation of you in their head and what they're expecting from you in the future. And if you say something that is not aligned with their perception of you, they are going to start taking it like the absolute opposite direction.

43:55It's like, even for example, I won't name names, but there was a comedian that went on like a very girly podcast. It was a for the girls type of thing. The comedian's like wife is very into like pop culture and is seen as like an icon or whatever. so her wife was on this girly podcast and she said something about like being gluten-free isn't real you guys need to like grow the fuck up and it's like a joke but people that watch this girly podcast who are gluten-free are like you're ableist like who are you going to tell me that i need to grow up because i'm gluten-free like i go to erwan like like just like losing their minds over the fact that somebody like made a joke and it's like i'll double down on that because Trevor is gluten-free and if I ever have to share a cake with that man one day if you know what I mean that bitch will not be gluten-free like that is my worst nightmare but again like people like someone could take that out of context and be like oh she's a bitch like she is such a narcissist like has she ever heard of like sharing maybe they could do like half and half like fucking obviously but they're gonna see it at face value and be like degrading somebody for being gluten-free and being like, you're a bitch.

45:08Like, it's a joke. It's a fucking joke. But they just see you like in one light. And it really depends on like what area of like the internet you're in. So that's fucking ridiculous that people are like ripping you a new one. Yeah, I feel we're in a world of people trying to misunderstand others, not understand others. I agree with that. So they're not going to even look for the good in the message. They will just discredit it however they can. Yeah. Like, how can I misunderstand what you're saying? That's what people are doing. And then we actually develop a default of that. So then straight away, we're trying to misunderstand and not understand.

45:48So you can actually never win. Yeah. Like, one of the really big ones that blew up and went crazy was around, like, me saying a personal desire of mine is to be able to, like, provide for my partner and give her the freedom of choice to make her decisions on, like, passion and desire. diet and not survival in need. Now I was explaining it. And in, in the reference, I was saying that like, I don't really care what she does. I just want her to be happy and passionate and excited. I don't care if she makes millions or she plaits Barbie dolls and goes on hot girl walks every day. I don't care. I just want her to be happy.

46:25Then they take it and go, Chris doesn't want women working and doesn't think they should. And that they should just plait Barbie dolls and go on hot girl walks what does he think we are two and then they amplify that on their audience and then everyone that sees them that doesn't even have context of me and what i actually said in the long form podcast goes chris hates women what and then i have all these titles of like misogyny and all this stuff and then it's like it's like well no i actually frankly quite love women and i want them to be happy and have the best of them and i want to work my ass off to be I'd have enabled my partner to do that, but whatever, right?

47:05And so anyway, so like besides the point of the actual specifics, but more so like we're actually in a world of trying to misunderstand. Yeah. And so like if that's the case, you actually can't win because they don't even care about your intent. They're just trying to pick it apart. Yeah, but I think it's a very important concept, but I think it's mostly highlighted when it comes to the internet because the internet has progressed so much and I personally think in like a negative way because we are so jaded to everything that we're consuming on the internet and nothing is interesting unless it's controversial or like even seeing like war footage the amount of people that like go on reddit to look up like war footage to like get something out of it because it's not what they typically see it's like interesting is insane that I know it's like a crazy juxtaposition between them and like a crazy comparison as well but it's like all we want to do is just like find something that actually makes us think that's controversial that's not like a typical get ready with me or like a girl filming like a hot girl walk but also to that point it's like that's one thing that you said when we see something on the internet we don't like have any critical thinking skills because one might take that which is like easy for somebody to pick up and be like oh he's a misogynist like he's sexist like all this stuff but realistically it's just like I don't care what she does she can do whatever she wants I want her to be happy but also that can come with like maybe because I want to prioritize like family or something like that it's like maybe I have this opportunity to make enough and like meet all of our ends so we can care about what's like most important that's not on the internet and is real to people because also if you're like talking to anybody that's normal in the real world nobody's gonna say any of those things to your face if they had the opportunity to get to know you.