I just realized that my sweater says sun and this is going up on a Tuesday Lazy Sunday's well podcast Sundays roll the intro.

Now, are you ready? Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome back to Well Tonight, our weekly podcast hosted by myself and DIY and my boyfriend, Dermo, that's me.

Dahmer just sounds my favorite part of every review press synopsis ever. It's just like boyfriend.

Oh, yeah. Hosted by Lauren Remak, DIY and boyfriend, a laundromat killer, DIY, 14 times champion of this for three billion.

There's a multi continental international superstar boyfriend and boyfriend, Jeremy.

I mean, it could be worse. No, yeah, it could definitely be worse, yeah, I mean, so yeah, and boyfriend's so welcome and boy could not be dating you, which would be that that sounds horrific. Horrific stories.

Yeah. Mm hmm. And then I was stopped after. All right. The podcast, subscribe and follow on your plaid flip flop. Applaud Klatt, platform of choice, platform of choice, your podcast streaming platform of choice. So we just want to make a quick disclaimer before we hop into this episode.

If you're here for conversations around Dick Sex Graceville between Jeremy being a fuck boy, we need you to head on back to the other episodes.

We're not fully caught up or set in the law for next week's episode because not that this is like a serious well, I guess it is kind of serious. I mean, not not serious.

It's not not serious conversation around mental health. So. Well, so welcome to the mental health episode. I'm just like eating all my words today.

You're eloquent as always. Yeah. This is a good start for me for sure.

Say it all skew of great things, but not because I don't SLU skew.

I wish you had even put that word out there because now it's like at the front of my brain. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, let's try and find a way to make this not I mean, there's so much of my anxiety journey that I look back at now and is highly entertaining just because of, like anxiety. I mean, at its core is a fear of something irrational typically. So, I mean, there's lots of stories that I can look back at and find the light in and the entertainment value in because it wasn't OK then, but I was OK and I still am OK.

And I'm here to tell the story of that journey.

You know, next time that we're, you know, entering into a bout of anxiety, I'll just enter in with that. Hey, by the way, this was really irrational. Time's passed. Yeah, just remember that now. And if you want to maybe just fast forward through this, we can just pop on back to the the rational side of our conversation.

I mean, do you do you know how much I would love to hit a fast forward button on an anxiety attack? Just you let's just skip the fast forward of my life.

If I said that and that would be it.

Yeah, that's an exaggeration. Don't be a drama queen. But I really do wish that I could hit a fast forward. But no anxiety attacks like just, you know, let's skip the dizziness. Let's skip the the rapid heart rate. Let's skip the hyperventilation. Let's skip the nausea, the disorientation. Yeah, all of it. I would just. Yeah. You know, it's part of your character and really is it is a big part of me.

So it's a fun story is that I had an anxiety attack on like our fourth or fifth date, I think it was. And we were on a double date with another couple friends. Friend, couple. Right. Friend couple.

Yeah, a couple. A couple of friends.

That happened to be a couple, a couple of two people who were dating.

We're our company for dinner and I just had a full blown anxiety attack. And I feel like I've been super open publicly about my anxiety journey. But for those of us who are just joining us now on the podcast and having watched me have my life fall apart multiple times and have many mental breakdowns online in the public eye through anxiety, I'm I'm like here for the cause. Like, I'm so down to be as transparent as possible about my experience because I have just had so many meaningful conversations with viewers and subscribers who have related and learned and just got an insight about the type of anxiety, because it's so I mean, topical, literally.

And I think and I think it's important to have a voice for normalizing it and destigmatizing mental health in general.

And I'll be here as someone who doesn't have anxiety but lives with someone with anxiety. And so let's remember that. Take my advice and my perspective with a grain of salt. This is not someone who deals with the same types of issues.

I feel like I think for the sake of the conversation, though, it's super helpful and it's a good balance to hear how you think about things and how you process things to someone who doesn't, you know, kind of suffer or experience anxiety.

Right. And I have my own bag of things that I could stress the fuck out about. And we can talk about that, too. I think it'd be helpful if similar to how you did for me, I feel like in the beginning stages when I was like, what is this? Why do you do the things you do? Why do I why do I do that?

Yeah, you do that. You keep doing that thing. Yeah. We talk about it's not rational. Know like what is for people at home. What is anxiety.

I just remember that I literally started being like, oh my God, guys, fun story. I had an anxiety attack on our fourth date and then never told the story back to that story.

So I'll hit these in both. OK, so fourth or fifth date, I started to feel weird, went to the bathroom to go like when I'm having anxiety attack and start feeling anxious.

I can't. I can't. A conversation I totally dissociate and like and so in my own head and cannot be a part of any of my surroundings like I am, just like a bag of bones and blood at that point, like I am contributing nothing to the conversations around me.

A really pretty bag of bones. Thanks, babe. Thanks.

So I went to the bathroom to go like, oh, my God, am I going to die? What's happening? I mean, not what's happening. I knew what was happening. I'm having an anxiety attack. And I went to the bathroom, took a few minutes to breathe and was gone for a longer amount of time than you would like to be on a fourth or fifth date.

And I was like, oh, he thinks I'm shitting for sure.

For sure. And I mean, at this point, like, actually, this was the night that you announced to everyone that you had deleted all of your dating apps. That was another member at the table.

The rest of you were out that you were like, yeah, I deleted all the ads and this happened that I downloaded them again. Right. Right.

And then you're like, oh, this girl took off that I enjoy Tinder.

So I came back and I was like, hey, I'm having an anxiety attack. I need to just go outside and get some air. And you handled that night like a fucking champion.

And it said so much about just the other experiences that I had had with significant others and anxiety and had barely even gotten to know you.

I mean, we hung out four or five times, and the way that you handled it was a plus. Thank you.

I'd like to say it was planned and I had it all in my head and I was going to figure it out. But we just I just did what came to mind because I feel like I didn't have a plan like plan.

Have you have you been a relationship or had friends who are super anxious? Never.

And it's actually I had like friends, I'm sure that deal with anxiety, but I've never had a girlfriend or a close friend that dealt with anxiety. And I think a lot of my exes were like in the performing arts. Right. I feel like that's it. That's they don't get anxious, but like they live almost on the edge.

Oh, yeah. Like you walk out into like. Oh yeah. Crowds and perform and not feel comfortable in the uncomfortable at someone personally who came from that world as well. I feel like that was not the type of stress and anxiety that I was used to.

But here's the thing too, is that I want to stop you right there is that stress and anxieties are a very, very different thing.

And I always explain this to people who are not like new, but are just like starting to learn about mental health. Is that like nerves and nervousness, different from stress, stress different from anxiety.

So my dad was one of the first people that I like learned to have this conversation with where he was like, I just don't get how you can go in front of ten thousand people and go public speak.

But like on and you're not anxious about that, but about this, this and this, you're anxious about it. I'm like, those are two different things.

They absolutely are all connected and can be triggers for one or the other, but they are so completely different and I feel like that's like a great place to start.

And understanding the different kind of like pillars of mental health, the human condition, the human condition, my condition, the we finish that long story. Yeah.

I mean, and then you just handled it like a champ and I was like nice and was like I wasn't pooping. I was just like nice. OK, cool. Wasn't shitting, was in the bathroom for a long time trying to like get my life back together. Couldn't do it. Needed air. Got past the anxiety attack. You were great about it. And we went on another date after. Well remember I took you outside.

Yeah. We went outside and it was like fine. But I remember that being not like a make or break moment.

But had you handled that very poorly, that would have been the last time that I saw you. Right. So congratulations. You passed the test. Thank you.

Phil failed every single one since. But that way now, when we passed that one, we pass.

So to define anxiety, I probably should have looked this up and got like the Webster's and like. But anyone can do that.

They're not they're not coming here. You're right. You're right. You're a scientific definition. I am the I mean, to you, I'm the case study group.

It's a fear of something irrational. And it's like a reaction to something that you perceive, whether rational or not.

And it's your reaction of something that you foresee to be stressful or unsafe or you don't have control over. And so my specific anxiety is just like a general anxiety disorder, but specifically emetophobia. So I have an irrational fear of throwing up.

And that sounds so random. Some people are like, oh, my God, yes. Like, that's that's me as well. But for those of you who have never heard of that, it's for me personally, it's the anxiety around the lack of control. So it's like the same thing as a sneeze, like you think about how that's an uncontrollable bodily function that like when your body needs a sneeze, like it just does it. Like, yes, you can, like, plug your nose and like try and do things to make it stop.

But like, at the end of day, if your body wants to sneeze, like it's going to do it and being anxious about hiccups, oh my God, I would die.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I think there's something wrong with my diaphragm because I get the hiccups more than anyone. I know nothing wrong with you, my life.

So for some reason, my well, actually, after many years of therapy, I do know the reason, but. And we'll get into that. But my brain has wired itself to have an irrational fear around this loss of control of a bodily function that is throwing up for a while. Well, I mean, again, we'll get into the reason. But so whenever I start feeling sick or someone around me feel sick or I am thinking or I'm headed to go do something that could make me feel sick, like a roller coaster or getting like motion sick or something, I get anxious about the possibility of being sick, which I really have only thrown up maybe three times in my entire life, which is something that I've, you know, worked through a lot in therapy.

It's like not something it's not a reaction that my body frequently goes to. And maybe that's a part of the problem, that if I threw up more often, I'd be less scared of it. But that's what a metal phobia is. I don't really have much to add to that. Yes, yes. And you know what?

It sucks because I feel so bad because when like just say like a girlfriend is like too drunk and it's like throwing up and like you always see in the movies, like holding her hair back, I can't be that bitch.

I can't as much as I am a good friend. And I pride myself on being such a good friend.

If you're throwing up, I got to go. I got to be in a different room. I literally start getting I shouldn't have to, like, plug my ears. Like, it's not a cute look on me as a friend.

And also to like if Jeremy's ever been sick from definitely not drinking too much alcohol consumption or even when Jeremy is ill from like actual things or self-induced on New Year's Eve or self-induced intoxication to the point of illness, self-induced intoxication, it's usually self-induced.

I mean, no, but like, if you had food poisoning, I still wouldn't be able to, like, rub your back and hold your quaff.

I distinctly, well, vaguely, distinctly. Remember, it was New Year's Eve this year. Yeah, it was. We had a house party here recovered. And I got the lady knew the problem was that you didn't actually drink that much.

You just had a ton of champagne.

And I feel like it was just the mix of the bubbles and the whiskey and the beer and the like. It's like the mixing and the bubbly.

I feel like it was just it was in it for, you know, I have this uncanny ability and it wasn't always this way, but I don't know is like twenty to twenty three. It's uncanny ability, no matter how much I've had to drink, if I can make it to bed, if I can fall asleep, I'm good. It's insane.

Literally Jeremy will drunkenly be like, oh I don't feel well, they don't feel well. And then yes, as soon as he's out and I feel the twitch and I hear the snore, I'm like, oh we're good, we're good to go.

And I'm literally anxious.

On the other side of the bed, under the door, I'm getting anxious. I'm like, oh, you can get sick if you get sick. Right. And so anyway, so New Years, go ahead.

I was like, oh, of too bad or whatever. I don't go to bed and go to bed and you go to bed. And so I ran upstairs like, like getting half naked, like fall in the bed or whatever and I could get in and remember I get there and like when I'm drunk or whatever and I fall asleep in seven seconds or whatever kind of problem.

This time I remember feeling like I got this, the bed spins the spins. And I remember I was like, no, no, no, no, no, you can do this.

Go to sleep cause you've got to sleep. And my eyes like shot open and I go, I have seconds. I have I have a few seconds.

No, this is not how it happened. You were out for half an hour. I was out. You were out for half an hour. We'll see.

When I saw you, I distinctly remember. I distinctly, vaguely remember. Why don't you go out from there?

Because I think that's when that's when my brain said good bye bye.

Your brain was out. Yeah. So I fell asleep. And so you fell asleep. My anxiousness is like great drug. Jeremy is out. I'm good to go to sleep now. I'm in the clear. We made it. So you're sleeping and all of a sudden I wake up to Jeremy like struggling to unlock our balcony door, which leads out to like a balcony that overlooks our front garden. The front of our house are like front like bay window on the like the low floor.

And he's struggling with the lock. You just like always keep it locked, obviously. And it's 2:00 in the morning. Bust the door open. Finally, both hands gripping the side of the railing of this balcony. Projectile vomit straight off of the balcony into the gutters. Down the window below is on the bay window. Oh, my God. It was. It was. Now, it's hilarious. It's one of the funniest things that you've ever done in our relationship and that story, OK?

And like fun fact and fun and so and so we live across from a place that has twenty four hour security.

And like the best part of this story is just like thinking about being that security guard at 2:00 in the morning, seeing Jeremy just like throw up his insides, projecting it from the second story because his job is probably so boring.

I mean maybe on New Year's Eve is a little more late, but like to see that from across the street is the funniest fucking thing I've ever thought of. You can log off now.

And I remember then, like going into, like, the bathroom area. Yeah, I come back, I knew I couldn't make it to bathroom. I knew that there was the drunk. Jeremy Yeah. I looked at his options and he did his flight path. And you realized he had better luck making it to the balcony than like getting up and getting into our bathroom, which is like around the corner or another car anyways.

And then I walked back and I was like, oh, good Lord. Of course, he's like, are you OK? What's going on? I was going on, you OK? I'm like, Yeah, I'm going or whatever. And I just, like, parked myself by the toilet. Another guy puked anymore. No, you didn't.

Yeah, but like, we definitely thought that there was more. And so, like, I got you water and I got you a blanket and I, like, tucked you in in the bathroom. And I was like, all right, I'll see you.

But I go around the corner like like anxiously like everything.

OK, OK then you'll be fine from around the corner.

But even like Drunken Jeremy then was like, you need to be able to at least lie to her and say that you're OK, otherwise I'm lying.

You were like, baby, please hang out with me, ok?

Please go and see that you are super manly. Took care of it. It was a theme. I remember this part.

This is a life. All right, so I got back eventually. Yeah, not the end of it, so, yeah, I just, like, don't do well around throw ups and luckily you're not much of a puker, and I am not either.

I also hate puking, but I mean, there's not very many people I admire the people like Remy who like when they know they're too drunk, can just let go and pull the trigger and make those call Remillard like that because she's like, that's a boss bitch move.

Are you kidding? I wish I could do that. It's admirable.

Our friend, our drunk friend, Remy, she's great about it.

She also sounds like a like a hilariously, like, delicate gag reflex.

Like we'll be brushing your teeth at a sleepover just like that. And it makes it makes me a little anxious because I just the whole throwing up thing makes me makes me nervous anyway.

Anyway, so after many years of therapy and I mean, I probably didn't need to look this in words to connect this all together because again, like just everything in your life is always connected. But I dated someone for four years who had severe epilepsy, and that's tough for our video viewers.

Jeremy has just spilled on myself.

Oh, yeah, you're fine. You're fine. That will dry up by the end of the episode. Don't worry. But yeah.

So I was in a relationship with someone for four years who had severe epilepsy, and it was to the point where they would have seizures on a weekly basis.

We could go anywhere from having only like one a month to like 40 a month. It could be ten in one day or it could be ten. But it totally fluctuated and I think experiencing and seeing seizures was just the epitome of feeling like you are not in control because there is no way to stop a seizure. There is no way to prevent a seizure from happening once like the brain is headed in that direction. So a procedure symptom is called an aura.

And so when someone's having an aura, there's like a few things you can do to help prevent it.

But typically, if you're having an aura, it going to happen. And it was just like the loss of control over and over and over again that I didn't properly learn how to process that somehow connected.

It solves that that's somehow wired itself in my brain to make me anxious around a specific bodily function, which you have no control over.

So figure that out through therapy for sure.

But it it I mean, even anxiety is like that's very traumatic and something that I should have been in therapy for, for sure. So like the first seizure that my boyfriend had, he went to a coma for four days and I was the only one there when he had that very first seizure and super, super traumatic like don't wish that on anyone.

And probably that is the day that I probably should have started therapy to process what had happened, process that it was not my full process.

No one goes into like a trauma like that and is immediately like I should probably start seeking some help immediately to curve this off in the future. Like maybe no one thinks that way.

I guess. I guess. Yes, you're already in therapy unless you're already in therapy and you're very self aware, you're very self aware, teenager is like, I think it's time to seek professional help. Right. And so that was that happened in grade 12. And that was the beginning kind of of all of my anxiety struggles and journey.

And so when I moved to Toronto for college, after I graduated of university, I think there was also the trigger of just like having a very large life change that made me highly anxious.

And there was like all these new factors that also felt like mildly out of control. So I think it's a combination of having, like, this trauma that was recurring and then also just like new things to be stressed about. And again, the combination of nerve, stress, anxiety, I was just overwhelmed to the point of eventually seeking help from my doctor.

And so I started taking medication and I started therapy.

I've been with a lot of different therapists and the first few were not the right fit for me. And I mean, therapy after this before is like dating.

Like you need to find the right therapist for you. Flashback to Jeremy finding his therapist that told him to go be a fuck boy safely. But no.

Why you're being if I don't talk about me.

Well, no, it's just like that's a great case in point about how you found a therapist that you just buy with a back to your story.

Um, I mean, there's nothing wrong with going to therapy and having it confirmed that you should be a fuck boy. But listen to the by episode.

It's very entertaining, just throwing that out there out of context and hoping that everybody do that.

Anyways, I started a small dose of a drug called Celexa. And over the course of maybe three months, it does take your body a little bit of time to get adjusted it just like a cloud, just like dissolved or dissipated or what's the what's the proper science cloud term when it evaporates?

Science. But this cloud, this cloud of like anxiety and not being able to like, leave my room and walk down the street, go to the mall, go to parties like do anything, go to class, like the amount of class that I skipped my first year of university because I was too anxious to get out of bed, to even go downstairs and get food in the cafeteria, like I was completely trapped in this lifestyle and could not get out.

And and getting and getting on medication was truly like the turning point for me, being able to do a 180 with my life and start like literally living again like I was I was living life at probably 10 percent capacity and it felt like one hundred.

And you couldn't give anymore. Oh, absolutely. 100. I was like, this is all I have to give right now. And it total. That's such a good way to put it. And yeah, getting on medication was the best thing that I could have ever done. And again, medication is not for everyone. Talk to your doctor and find, you know, what the best fit for you is.

But for me, it was genuinely life changing. And I want to be super clear. And again, this is just my journey. But medication is not like the magic fix to everything, anxiety and stress and depression related. But for me personally, it just kind of cleared that cloud.

Again, going back to my very accurate and scientific cloud metaphore, it cleared the clouds that I could see more clearly and go to therapy and have meaningful conversations and kind of go back through the past traumas and figure out and make connections and learn more about anxiety in general. And also like what I had been through and how it all connects.

So. So so as much as I would love to just take one pill a day and make it all go away forever and be magically cured, it's so much more than that. And anxiety is something that I am prepared and have just, like, accepted and feel OK about, honestly. It took me a long time to get to this place.

OK, you say that, but let me challenge that in the sense of the first time it came up with us. Right. I think the first thing your brain went to outside of clearing the air for, like, let me breathe again is, oh, he's going to he's going to be so turned off by this. It's like there's still insecurities there.

You're definitely going to come across people in your life who are not going to react and treat you the way that, you know, you deserve to be treated just because you do struggle with anxiety. And so, I mean, again, like not that I mean, it really was make or break, actually. I say that it's not make or break, but it totally was like had you not reacted well to that, I would have been super bummed because things had been going so well between us.

And I was like, oh man. Like crazy bachelor like damn like this is me just like putting it all out there on date four or five. But did you actually think there's pros to that? Because it was a conversation that naturally just came up because that had happened. And we got to have that conversation probably much earlier on the relationship than we would have had that not happened.

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I think it's important and as someone who certainly is not an expert at this, I'm just someone who lives with you and has learned from the past that not every problem is ripe for fixing a future. I think that past Jeremy would have especially his pastor, I mean, someone who did not deal with anxiety would have struggled to not be able to come up with a logical solution in the moment at the time, and would have then been frustrated with the situation or himself or you or whatever in indirect ways, because, well, you're not going to be sick.

There's no reason to fear being sick. Let me show you all the reasons as to why you're not being sick. That's not helpful. And I think that guys often times are trying to come up with it when they're when their girlfriend or significant other or family member comes to them with a problem or something's happening. They're so quick to have an answer to that when really sometimes people are just coming to them to talk and you want to have someone next to them or feel hurt or if you understood.

So that's way more important. And I think that the biggest thing that I've learned and it's just what I do and what I feel like every time that you say I'm just I don't feel good. I feel like I'm starting to have an anxiety attack as opposed to saying, OK, let me give you this or let me fix this or whatever. It's very much a what can I do to help? Right. And the reason I ask that question is how or what can I do to help is because it then forces that other person to as opposed to think to themselves of like, OK, do this, do this, or I'm going to do this.

It's what can you give me to help?

And if it's nothing, there's no answer. And that's OK. Just sit there.

Just be there existed there. Don't add more stress to it. What's wrong. What are you feeling. How can I help. It's not about that. How are you feeling. What can I do to help. That simple question is enough to get us to the next phase.

Right.

And that's such a good I feel a piece of advice for significant others who are experiencing like being on your end of like the anxiety relationship, because I feel like people do always want to help and they want to help in the way that they think is the best.

And it might not be the best fit, especially the mothers who feel like they go into that fight or flight of wanting to help. And it's a very much a what can I do to help? What are you feeling? And it's like they want to attack the problem of like, well, let's get it fixed, that it's really just like, OK, you're having an anxiety attack.

The other person's not you should not be Dobi adding stress.

You're the children right now.

We all we all know parents that in good intentions, but that just like Hubbard kind of recover well, just like helicopter over issues because they want to fix it.

But that's not actually going to fix an irrational problem in the first place.

And I mean, I think I think there's so many different scenarios. I think there's like the helicopter or hovering parent who wants to fix it. And it all comes from good intentions. But I also think that there are so many adults and parents, especially of our generation, who don't believe in mental health, you know, because I feel like now it's such an honest and open and transparent conversation for our generation, but for our parents, our grandparents, it wasn't like that back then.

And so I talked to a lot of young people who struggle to have that conversation with their parents because they don't think that, like, anxiety and depression are real. They're like, suck it up and just work hard, work harder, try harder, just be happy. Like, why you just can't you why can't you just see that?

Well, I think therapy in general was taboo for so long because you're going to a therapist. That means there's something wrong with you. Right. It's like well, like whether it's like a marital therapist or relationship it or any type of therapy means things wrong. And people don't want to admit it's wrong in the first place. Like I distinctly remember as a kid when my mom would get when she was driving somewhere and this is before GPS existed. I remember she would get very, very anxious when she didn't know where she was going to turn the music down all the time and her voice to get really short and she'd get right thing and be like, what's wrong?

Like, we're just we just don't know. We're going over the side of the road. We'll figure it out. But for her, it was like this loss of control, I remember for sure.

I remember she turned to me a few times, like, you'll understand when you're older, when, when, when when you're in my position.

I don't because that's not my that's not what I get anxious about that that impacts me. But it does her.

And I think it's just a different conversation that hopefully in 20 or 30 years will be a lot smarter and open about for.

And I mean, I think there's been so much progress, like so so, so much progress.

I have very seldom had comments that say, except for a few select pieces of shit on the Internet and I'm not going to name them to give them the clout that genuinely advocate for the idea that mental health is like not a real thing. But for the most part, I seldom get comments that are negative towards mental health.

And people are very open and honest and appreciative of the transparency of the conversation.

I mean, I think people just don't understand and they fear that or they are quick to dismiss something that they don't understand.

I mean, I think it's I think it's also difficult to understand things that you don't experience. And so for someone like you who doesn't get anxious and so you don't get stressed and upset and angry, like those emotions are very real.

But for someone who doesn't experience specifically anxiety, you have to make a conscious effort to learn about it and to understand it and to have the conversations with someone like me who needs support from someone who doesn't experience it.

So if you don't make the effort to understand, you're never going to get there, understand and accept and accept for sure. Acceptance is a huge part of it.

Yeah. I mean, it's not I don't get stressed. It's just that I think the things that that put me on edge are very different than what put you on edge. And I think that's probably a good thing that we were balanced out, for instance, that the way that I deal with my issues are very different.

But yeah, anxiety is also just like such a learning process, like learning the different triggers and how to not only understand them, accept them, sometimes avoid them, but just like, for example, when someone has a seizure, they make like this really terrible choking sound because you're not breathing.

And it's one of the worst sounds in the entire world. And the way that my body reacts to that is it's just like it's the trigger of hearing that sound and putting my brain back into the scenario, having no control. So even if someone in their sleep, like, chokes on spit for a quick second, like and then rolls over and goes back to sleep and everything's fine or so chokes on a piece of food for a second and dislodges it and they're totally fine.

That one second of that choking sound is such a trigger that immediately can put me back into a place from eight years ago.

And it's so crazy how our brains are wired like that. And it's just something that it'll probably always happen.

Obviously, it probably gets a little dimmer and dimmer every year, but it's something that I but it's nothing I know will continually happen. But it's the way that I react to it happening that's changed and improved over the years.

I think anything any memory that's tied to an emotional reaction for sure is nearly unforgettable.

Absolutely. For sure. I think there's just so many things that like in our brain, it gets marked as a specific thing.

And there's the links to it and it brings you right back, good or bad, that goes in the permanent folder, right? Right. Good or bad, good or bad. And actually a really interesting metaphor that one of my therapists, one of the better therapists that I worked with, explained to me that when I had the trauma of all these seizures and the coma and like the lack of control, my brain took that memory and that trauma and filed it into the wrong folder in my brain when it was organizing and trying to heal and recover from it.

She was like, your brain doesn't know what to do with trauma. We're not built and we're not we're not built and conditioned to really handle trauma. And so sometimes your brain just doesn't know what to do with it. And so for me to be irrationally scared of throwing up is just how my brain reacted and it went into the wrong folder.

Eventually, I'm sure Ellen will invent something to that. You had to put that folder and reorganize it properly. I have a whole another slew of problems then, but.

Yeah, or maybe I can just have like an offsite hard drive to store the trauma memories on the cloud and about in the cloud. Is it when you want to write.

Yeah. Right, right. For the Bems. For the memes. I've been super lucky with my anxiety and my family. They've always been super accepting and understanding, like if we're having dinner and I need to go home or something, there's never any pushback. I like they're both super down to accommodate me when I need to do something that's not normal of the night.

And to be clear, it's inconvenient. Of course, it's very it's it's absolute shit for someone who doesn't accept or understand. Right. To if you're not willing to accept, understand that it's a real thing, it would come off as like. So we're going to end our night because of some irrational thing that you're dealing with.

We have for someone who doesn't understand, they'd be like, oh, so your shoelace untied. And that means we have to end our entire fun night. Like, that's that's like the level of severity is in their mind, a. They don't when they don't understand, right, and that lack of understanding is so stressful for people who do struggle with anxiety, because my biggest fear is inconveniencing others. My biggest fear is ruining someone's night or ending someone's like fun time or putting a damper on activities because of my anxiety or something that I have to do because of my anxiety.

Like, if we go out and I have to go home and my friends don't want to stay at the bar and they want to come home with me, I just feel bad. And it's like it's such a cycle of getting anxious about it. I get anxious about getting anxiety and inconveniencing others. And it's a cycle that I feel like a lot of people with anxiety, experience. And if you don't have the right people around you that, you know, are very accepting of that and understanding it can make your your situation so much worse on a whirlwind.

It's it's yeah. It's a big old cycle.

But I think parents are so they they want to see the best in their kids and they're the best for their kids. And I think to a degree, so many of them go into this as well. It's probably just a. It's probably just a phase, it's probably just a thing this place will move on, this will be a transition that we can kind of get through. So as long as we just don't really acknowledge it that way.

We don't want this to become a thing. Right. Right.

And like, you get where they're coming to the situation in good intentions. Yeah. They're just not seeing the bigger picture. Right, right.

Right. And I mean, a lot of times, if it gets neglected, it's it just gets worse. It just gets worse. It does not go away. You don't just forget about it. It doesn't just magically disappear one day. And it's it's something that needs to be addressed individually, obviously with support.

I mean, I'm painfully, like painfully. And I think that it's so, so, so common, yet so taboo. And to agree that I. Who knows what I would have been like academically had I been like a prescribed and been diagnosed earlier, but all I know is after I went to the doctor finally and fought tooth and nail to even get to the doctor and was old enough to be able to make those decisions myself, my academic career, night and day.

Oh, so you made the decision. You didn't get diagnosed until you were allowed to, like, sign your own papers and take yourself there, correct? Oh, well, I feel like you hear so many stories about kids, especially like young kids having ADD or ADHD and their teachers and parents just like won't take them to the doctor because they're like, your kid does not accept that.

I bet you do. Right. And you're like, it's a high energy kid. They'll grow out of it. They're just immature. You need to exercise your child more like you hear so many stories about that. And just like and it's such a complicated situation because you need the adults to validate that, I guess because you're the doctor without it. Yeah. When you're in grade one, like, you can't go and be like, hi, I have ADHD.

And I mean, you know, my kids are so smart now. It's such a young age. Maybe they do. Maybe they do. But I mean, like when we were growing up, like there were so many kids who sometimes we get held back a grade because they said that their brain wasn't mature enough to focus and have attention. Right.

And it's this very frustrating thing as a kid, because there's so much when you're an adult, you don't have to do as as many mentally challenging things that you might not be interested in. But like, I'll never have to do geometry again. Right. I'm not going to have to learn French unless I want to learn French. And I think as a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grader, it's very easy to, you know, come up with an excuse not to do something.

And I think your your parents can you just focus can you figure it out and running with ADHD, they'll they'll relate to the sense that when you look at something you're not interested in, it does not there's no passion here, but you have to do it and you start doing it and you then realize a minute to three minutes later that you've already trailed off on the next thing in your head, whether you're making some story up or your imagination is going or going on to a task that is slightly less boring.

And you do that just in cycles, for hours and hours and hours. You don't get anything done. And I'm sure that's frustrating. It is frustrating.

And what's what's even more frustrating is that once you are able to seek help and whether that's medication, whether that's some form of therapy, your brain's unlocked in a way that is, you know, I can actually do all of the work. It's not that it's above my cognitive ability. It's just something that, like my brain has such a difficult time honing in on right from start to finish that I never actually get to show how smart I am in the first place.

Right. Or an adult. Not a problem. You know, I'm going to be thirty and a couple of years. I don't think that I will ever be able to, like, get over being eighty. There's just not a world where that's something that is just going to be something that I'm healed or learn enough from. I need that that help from from the medication side. That might not be the case for everybody, totally, but I think it's so, so difficult.

And I urge parents of kids to figure out how to at least be a little bit more open and honest to all the realm of possibilities before you just decide which ones you're going to accept or not.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think trusting a health care professional is probably the move instead of just, you know, going by your own judgment and ideas.

I mean, to put a button on that last portion, it's very much just like the things that I deal with that you deal with and everything are all relative. Right? We all have our own specific issues in the way that that they start and on the trigger side, a way that we we deal and cope or learn to get better from them. I think the important piece is to remember that nobody else is fix is going to be the same fix for you.

You might have a similar one, but there's no one size fits all. Absolutely. And I think that it's a combination of many things. And I don't think there's one specific change and then everything got better. Maybe that would be the case for some people. It's not for me. It's not for you. But to understand it like you probably aren't perfect in check all boxes. That's OK. Have a unique approach to it and figure out what works for you and then continue to evolve on that so that you continue to get better or understand better or feel more safe or comfortable during your everyday life for sure.

And I have been really open about like the types of ways that I've, you know, used therapy and medication and different meditation.

And I talk about things that I've tried.

I think it's almost more important to talk about the normalization of it and the understanding the acceptance side of it, because like you said, like my journey is going to be so different from everyone else's, like it's so specific, the trauma that I had not to say that there aren't people who had significant others with epilepsy, but just like everything is so connected to like the way you were raised, the the police, the place in time your traumas happened with who you were with, who you saw after your trauma.

Like every scenario is so, so individual.

And I try and use my platform to destigmatize the conversation around mental health rather than offer cures for people. Because, again, that's not my expertise. That's not. What I went to school for and again, like there's great apps out there that I love that people that other people might love, but it's just not one size fits all. Unfortunately, what works for me might not work for everyone else. Definitely.

And I think the whole point is just to try and do your best and not try to have all the answers. My journey has also been like 11 years and my coping mechanisms have been a combination of so many different things over those years.

Like I got on medication in 2000 and 11 or 12, and I've been on that same medication actually for about nine years.

And I just recently switched. It was rough. Oh my God, your girl was not OK.

And so anyways, I just a couple of weeks. Yes. There's a rough couple of weeks transitioning off of that med and then onto a new one. But I felt like I had metabolized my body. I felt like my body had sort of metabolizing that medication just because I'd been on it for so long. I was at maximum dose and I was like, OK, time to try something new without my doctor. I got on a new medication.

So that first medication has been part of my, you know, healing and coping journey the entire time. But it's been it's been in and out of therapy, working with different therapists, trying different types of therapy and also things more on like the natural side of like using CBT and massage, meditation and so many different things.

And so I think it also depends on like what point of your life you're at as well to know what you need and like new things to try and when it's time to maybe not revamp, but try something new if you're not feeling your best. And so that's how I was feeling a couple of months ago when I when I talked with my doctor about not feeling the maximum benefits that I had once felt from the original medication. So she prescribed me something that I could also take on a day when I was feeling crazy anxious and could not get it under control.

So I've got two different types of medication now.

So it's definitely been an evolving process that's always kind of changing a little bit and tailoring depending on how I'm feeling. And I think this also brings me to my next point in that this will always be in waves like I would love to feel great all the time and just like have my set of coping mechanisms that are great and always work. But I mean, that's just not the reality of life, like. So as much as I would love that, whatever the combination of coping mechanisms I have right now to make me feel better, every single day like that would be ideal.

That's the dream.

I think my lifestyle is not one that is crazy, predictable and consistent because partially because of the industry I'm in and I mean even just like the climate of the world like that pertains to everyone is that like things don't stay the same every single day.

So being able to be flexible with how you treat your symptoms I think is so important and understanding that there's no end all be all solution that's going to work forever.

Hey, everybody, I'm RJ and I'm Blay. We're two best friends who weirdly have no common interests. So we're starting a brand new podcast about friendship called Hear Me Out Each Week on Hear Me Out. One of us brings up a subject that we're passionate about that the other person just doesn't understand. For instance, I love camping and I hate everything outdoors, especially camping, using personal anecdotes, painstaking Wikipedia research and a guest expert's opinion. I would then try to convince blader like camping, which will never work because raccoons scare me.

We may not always agree in the things we like, but I think it's clear this podcast is sure to make us better friends or mortal enemies.

So check us out on Hear Me Out, a brand new podcast about friendship, cool stuff we like and lots and lots of name calling available now on Apple podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, hear me out. You just might like it unless it's camping.

Let's talk about fucking stress and stress. I'm the queen of stress conversation, I feel like I started to stress you. I literally I'm sweating I on every podcast, actually.

You begin sweating. I know. I think it just hot in here. Also a combination of that. I would love for it to be an ice box. Don't don't invite that.

I know. And I don't I don't know if I want that either. I don't know if that one to just see I can turn it down.

I I've noticed as I've gotten older that I'm literally eroding my teeth away because I clench my jaw so hard during the day and also when I sleep.

And so this is like really inconvenient because my dentist wants me to wear a mouth guard at night and like one until we're married. I can't do that to either of us. Like, that's just like a step that you don't take until you're 40 and have been married for 15 years.

Identity while still seven. Seven, right. Well, TOSTEVIN with a mouth guard and sex will be scheduled on our Gmail calendars, right? Yeah, I love that for us.

But yeah. So my dentist is so so my dentist has like highly recommended that I should wear a mouth guard before I crack my teeth open and I can see in my front teeth where like I line my bottom teeth, like to dig into my front teeth and every morning I look at it being like it's today, the day I crack my front tooth open for Hollywood veneer soon.

I mean, this is what I think about is like if I were to crack my front tooth, it's like, would I just get one veneer on that tooth or what? I just go for it all and just shave them all down to little nubs and do veneers on the whole on the whole mouth. Let's wait till our 30s.

Oh God. What if I find this stressed at twenty seven and my teeth are in this shape. I don't know if I've gotten to the thirties.

I mean I think stress is so once again very relative and stress is something that like I don't experience anxiety very often. Like I you know, I get anxious once a quarter but I get stressed out all the time. But when I get stressed, I definitely like I feel the weight of that. And I think it's so people are very unfair in the way that they assign and merit other stress. And I think it's very easy for someone else to say, well, that I have more on my plate or I I have a harder life, no doubt.

And that that does sound terrible. I can only speak from my perspective. Yeah. And I think that it's the same from exactly the same for stress and that yes. It's not to say that you should sit there and complain all the time about how terrible your life is because yes, someone probably has a much harder life, don't get me wrong.

But that doesn't invalidate the fact that you have stress the first place.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it's the same thing is how like I wouldn't look down at high school me and be like that's stressed about that massive project. Doesn't matter because your life is about to get way more like you wouldn't do that to yourself was the most stressful thing right now to look back and laugh because you got through it.

I think that. Looking back on my friends that didn't know how to deal with stress, didn't have an outlet for that stress or the ones that silently kept piling on more and more and more. Yeah, ignored it and in some cases went as far to take their own life. And it's it's so. It's so clear to see in hindsight, right? It's just so difficult at the time to figure out if your friend is carefree when they've got a lot going on.

Right. Or they're truly not dealing with any of it.

I mean, I think people, the way that they handle it is so different. You don't know if they're projecting it inward or outward. And it can be really hard to tell if they don't reach out and ask for help. Right.

Which I think is the last thing that some people are wired to do. Absolutely.

Oh, my God. Absolutely. The the boyfriend that had epilepsy was the last person to ever ask for help.

And it was it was something that he really struggled with because he did need help, obviously, like sometimes it was a matter of his life on the line and literally needed to ask for help.

And he just hated it so much because, you know, pride, ego and just like the way that he's wired, he hated the idea of potentially inconveniencing someone to help him.

Right. And I think that that everyone has their own stress points. And obviously it's because of what we're dealt with and what we have to work with. But it's so relative going back to the things that stress us out, the things that stress me out in high school, we're obviously different from college, college to real life. And beyond that, I say real life in the sense of just like you don't have the same type of stressors when you're still at your parent's house and not supporting yourself.

Right. Some of those stressors are almost even in some cases harder to deal with because you feel you don't have the freedom to to make those choices anyway. If you don't have the ability to whether it's seek help or offload this or stop doing something because because I said so and you're living in my house and until you pay rent and all those things, I actually think that I'm much know for a fact I am much less stressed now than I was in high school and college because I pay my bills.

Right. And it's not a matter of like I'm not waiting for someone to let me know what I can and can't do. I can go to this place. I can't go to this place. I need to be home by this. I got to I can't do this because of this paycheck or or you need to do this for me so that I can do this. It's not to say that we don't have a similar thing with you got to go to work.

You got to get paid. You got to pay your bills. You got you know, things will come up, but it's not it's much more in my control than it was 10 years ago. Right.

And I think we're both similar in that when we feel like we're in control of things, it's more relaxing and less stressful for sure.

OK, so now in your current situation, how do you deal with stress poorly, honestly, when Jeremy's like stress, especially like when he's like in the middle of a career change or like a job transition, he literally stays up until 4:00 in the morning just by himself watching TV in the dark with moose on the couch. And I've already slept for four hours until he comes to bed.

Yeah, I, I have a hard time turning my brain off when you're I feel like when you're making lots of like hardcore decisions that could not put a fork in your life decisions, but like when you're making a decision on a new path. Right.

And I think that my the things that stress me out when I got out of college were very much like when I was broke and have money. So I was very much how do I pay for my existence. Right. Right.

And that comes with some serious fucking baggage, like I think ninety nine point nine percent of the people on this earth have been broke before.

And we'll be broke again. And and God knows I could be broke again.

And you're looking at things and moves of like, will that pay for this thing or will I be able to pay off that credit card debt or will I ever be able to pay back student loans? All of the things just like you just pile more shit on. Right. And moving away from that, like the student loans, you know, they're paid and, you know, I got money for rent and all these things, like you start to think, OK, I've got that taken care of.

And you'd think that you go, OK, great things are taken care of now, except for now you are going to add new artificial goals and barriers in your life.

Right. And it's very easy to say don't do that. But now, as opposed to me, the last time I made a career change, I was thinking of myself not like, OK, great, this one pays better than my last job. Let's take it, because that would in the first mindset. But now it's like, OK, this one pays better, that one pays less, but opens you up to new doors. This one I get equity back and there's so many different pieces and there's no is that anyone you could turn to and say, hey, what's what's the best?

What happened? Should I go with. Right. Just like shake the magic eight ball. Right.

And I will take these problems over my old ones any day. Not being able to afford food sucks, not being able to report rent sucks. Not being able to have the freedom to do what you think are the bare minimum to survive and exist and not feel like you're constantly just like looking over your back for more debt can be done sucks.

But when your brain gets into that place of like, OK, how are you going to reach these imaginary goals put in for yourself. My brain personally stays on.

It literally doesn't turn off until you've reached or come to like a concrete decision around the next step.

Netflix actually understands my stress periods better than anybody because they can look at my new consumption and he's going for one or two episodes a week to two to three seasons because I'm not like I'm sitting there staring. They're just like watching Schmidt be strong. It it just like I'm like, OK, I could take that, I could take that, and I'll just start researching other companies and industries and things that are open, however, and it's it's fucking sucks.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm the type of person that has a quarterly mental breakdown for sure. But I also am a big fan of list making and like TASC prioritizing and this is very type A of me, but it's truly like what keeps me sane.

I have never been more busy than when I was in my fourth year of university and also doing YouTube at like a full time rate.

And the organization and time management skills that I had taking a full course load and making one or two videos a week and editing themselves and doing social media for myself and like trying to get my brand, my channel off the ground, like I create a brand.

Oh, my God, I was that is the hardest that I have ever grinded in my entire life. Like I was probably working. And by the way, not the smartest. Just working the hardest.

Just working the hardest. Yeah. Yeah, 100 percent. And it was like it was so insane. And so I feel like that year in particular taught me so much about time management and learning how to prioritize my tasks. So like, I definitely have a full mental breakdown first when I'm crazy stressed and I'm so overwhelmed that I can't do anything, which is the total opposite of productivity.

Like I need to have a moment where I like crash and feel so out of control and everything spiraling. And I have my breakdown and then I take a deep breath.

I pull my shit together and I make a list of all the things that need to be done when the due dates are like what I owe to who and the priority of all of it and how much time everything is going to take and work it into my schedule and figure it out and I can always get it done.

I feel like it's very important that we point out the fact that it's it's a luxury that we were able to do this and figure it out and like, you know, move on from it. We'll have these periods again. Can you imagine going through just as much work and having a kid do it?

Literally, when I think of people who have children, like parents, like even just thinking like right now, like a miss, like the current situation of like the pandemic in so many and so many parents having to do home schooling with their kids doing online school. Yeah. I cannot imagine being a parent in this situation where you're working a full time job, you're taking care of kids, you're trying to help them through school, your cooking meals, clean the house like running errands, taking kids wherever they need to go.

But the the shitty thing is they can do all these things. There's always something more that needs to be done. Yeah. Half the time, especially when you're in the beginning part of your career or sometimes when you're through on the latter half of your career, you're not making enough to make ends meet.

And everything feels like you are failing at everything when you're giving your when you're giving your all totally, totally.

And I think it's easy to if like if you're feeling weaker in one area, I feel like it's easy for that to like, leak into all the other things that you might still be succeeding.

Why is it that our brains are so quick to find the thing that we suck at? Right. And that will then plague all the things that. Yep, yep. One hundred percent insane. And that's why to me, it's like I will never be able to to criticize what I can criticize. I should never rightfully criticize the way that I was brought up knowing that like single moms are doing everything everybody else is and then they're going home and doing it again.

Right. Right. I know.

I can't even imagine. It's like single moms are single parents, just in general are superheroes like actual superheroes.

The wild card that I think it's so obvious no one throws up and talks about now. But the wild card for stress and anxiety is that although I think that. Do you want to swallow a couple more times? Sorry, sorry. I yeah.

That was really like I don't want my Swallow's are much lighter than normal. Can you swallow the microphone with a glass of water please.

I just need we just need to measure this really quick for science. Why was this always quiet, the mind body? There's no way they were going to put this in the podcast. Yes, we are going to get Zimpher science wise. Well, someone tell me, why am I swallowing so much louder than the normal? Is my throat broken?

Uh, Lauren has a disputed symptom, and I can tell you that because every morning it wakes up to the like it's a choir.

I was like, oh, I have I have a slight nose whistle every morning. It's like a choir. Honestly, you were welcome for that performance. I just like I don't want to get my face busted open and my nose broken and reset or whatever that means for deviated septum. I don't want to do that. And also, I don't want to have the cameras shoved up my nose to confirm that I have a deviated septum in the first place.

So this is just like an ignorance is bliss situation. I want to just keep that door shut for a very long time. Probably forever is loud in the morning.

You know what? You can just suck it up. You can just suck it up. You know what? I usually only wake up maybe 15, 20 minutes before you if I wake up before you at all.

So it's fine. You're fine.

OK, anyway, back to stress and anxiety. I think that the wild card here is that the Internet has if if it's not anything positive for this specific topic, it has, I think, shined a light on an enlightenment of the fact that we should there are more people out there that deal with this than I think were previously allowed to have a platform.

Ten, twenty three. Right? Oh, my God. Yeah.

When I first started talking about anxiety, I when I when I first when I first started looking into anxiety and started like, you know, diving into WebMD, which, you know, always tells you that you're about to die, you don't do that highly, highly recommended. You got death. Death.

Yeah. Your left finger, your left second finger hurts death like it always leads to death. But when I started looking into emetophobia and really figuring out like, what my specific triggers were and based on my traumas and my symptoms, I learned about emetophobia through the Internet, not from my therapist. I showed up in therapy being like, hi, I have a general anxiety, I have a general anxiety disorder and I have a phobia and sometimes agoraphobia. And so I went into my therapy sessions like armed with knowledge because of how much information is available on the Internet.

And it wasn't even the informational pieces that really resonated with me. It was the forums of it was the forums of people who went through similar experiences that meant the most to me. And it made me feel like I wasn't isolated in these problems that felt like they were just absolutely controlling my life.

And that's the positive side, the negative side.

Every single one of those positive forums, there's 14 fucking ridiculous ones where people are absolute trash. Humans that are the fond of each other are pointing out all the mistakes and the issue. I think God knows the Internet. I mean, it's a hard for me.

And unfortunately, we haven't figured out that balance of having to be like nice people. But like, you know, my my whole point, this was like there's definitely been enlightenment period since the Internet. Yes. There's also been a world of you could be doing better. This is what this person is doing. This is how you should compare yourself. Oh, yeah.

And it's just like this like constant balance of like trying to figure out how to, like, not be ignorant to the rest of the world. And you. Great resource. Yeah.

Without having it be a virtual dick measuring cup.

Right. Of like, I mean Instagram I feel like has been, you know, something that everyone needs to learn how to mentally balance and figure out how to use it as a platform that's enjoyable and an expression of art and photography and just like fun content versus being like, oh my God, this person is vacationing here.

Look how flat their stomach is. Her hair looks great.

Like it's such a tough it can be it can be such a tough platform for comparison.

And I mean, we could do a whole episode on, like how social media can be good or bad, but it definitely but it definitely goes hand in hand with, you know, tending to your mental health and making sure that social media isn't playing into the negative sides of it.

I mean, the comparison is the thief of joy.

Oh, my God, I've seen that on Pinterest forty five hundred times. And if it ain't the truth, is there any fun stories we can end this podcast with?

I'm trying to be annoying. Oh, well, OK. So this was just like a crazy thing that it's like not I mean, anxiety attacks are not funny. Like you literally feel like you're on the edge of death. Like you're like, I'm never coming out of this. This is the end of my life. And I mean, no exaggeration by that, truly.

But one time in when I lived in Toronto still and I was a couple months out from moving to L.A., so again, like another massive transition period coming into my life, like anxiety high, lots of other things in my life, too, that were like a little unstable, graduated from college, like about to move like lots of things, lots of moving parts. So very anxious, very stressed, high pressure period of my life.

I learned how incredibly powerful brains are like, OK, yeah. Like brains are powerful and smart, like no fucking shit like.

But I, I had an anxiety attack where my entire spine went numb and that's not typically one of the symptoms I experienced in my personal anxiety talks. It may be something that's totally normal for someone else, but I mean, like the spine to me is like a really scary part of your body because like, you know, I don't unless my back hurts.

Yeah. My spine and I, we coexist without really thinking about each other.

You don't think your spine ever know. Oh, my God, that's so crazy. I think about my spinal cord all the time. You know what it was, though? I think in high school I had one of my high school get into a really bad diving accident and they lost motion feeling quadriplegic. And it was it was just like a crazy traumatic thing for, I think, everyone at our school to see, like he was an incredible competitive athlete in so many different things.

And like, maybe that's part of like the connection there.

But anyway, so I just think about how, like, all the different parts of your spine connect different parts of your body. You don't think about your spine. Why would I?

I mean, yes. You're not saying it's not true. I got out like this is true, but I don't think about my heartbeat either.

Oh, my God. Really? I think my heartbeat all the time.

I have a little bit of a rhythm, and I think, though, so maybe that's why you also think about a lot of things you don't need to think about. Definitely a lot of things you probably should think about. Now you don't think about. Yeah. Anyways, my entire spine went numb from this anxiety attack and I put myself in an Uber at 3:00 in the morning after calling my mom being like, move with me, which means anything to your mother.

I know my poor mother.

She truly has texted me and been on FaceTime with me at ungodly hours of the night when I've been having anxiety attacks, bless her soul.

And so I put myself in an Uber and took myself to E.R. Thank God that health care is free in Canada. We love that for me. I don't have health insurance there anymore. But at the time it was great.

And I wanted to talk myself to the E.R. just to make sure that everything was OK. But that was just like a moment where I was like whole. You're telling me that I got I got nervous and anxious and my brain told my spine to just just take a little break. Just dip out piece. We don't need you right now.

Obviously didn't go anywhere, but like feeling was gone. I had no spine, no vertebras. They're just completely on vacation in Cabo. Like, who knows? But it was it was incredible.

I was like, damn brain you really out here being powerful and shit.

And then when did you find your spine again? And then I've always found a few hours later, I'm honest. I'm surprised they didn't give me a Xanax and send me home, but they did run.

So why would you say that? My spine. It doesn't I can't feel my spine is in Kabul. I think, like, no, I went in being, like, very awkward for this one.

Yeah. Yeah. I went in.

I went and being very transparent about exactly like what I thought had happened. And I was like I had a very severe anxiety attack. I did not have any like following injuries.

Like I can still wiggle everything. But they did do a solid amount of just like movement tests and stuff to make sure everything was OK. And even just like that level of care was enough for me to be like, OK, I'm fine, I can go home now.

It's now 6:00 in the morning. Thank God this was free.

And I can go back to bed. In America, that would be the case. I mean, like, well, what's your insurance? Six thousand dollars. Young lady, you've got to pay cash, OK? Oh my God.

I don't even know what that means. Oh, my God. So to sum up that story, I've only been to Cabo once, but apparently my spine has been to Cabo twice.

So I don't think that's the summary for this story, not the summary for the story. OK, well, I mean, this was this was an honest, transparent, hopefully slightly eloquent conversation.

I don't know if it's any of those things, but we'll be back to debate next week.

Yeah, well, back to dig regular dig things next week. I think we should do an episode on social media like the different social media platforms.

Like, I have so much to say. I don't have much to say. I have lots to say.

OK, so anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I mean, this is this is something that truly is such a massive part of my life.

And now Jeremy's thanks for your support.

But I mean, it's something that is so prevalent in my day to day life and probably will be for the rest of my life.

And if you'd like to share a story that is similar in the comments have been very, very insightful. I think it's really, really impactful when you see. People that are interested in watching the same things as you, that deal with similar struggles and just like how many people have something that's going on, I think we're very it's very easy to look past or forget or not think about other people's struggles because we're too busy doing their own. Yeah, but it's almost like it's crazy to me when you think of like, oh, I'm a fan of this and I deal with this and just somebody else who is also a fan of the same content or team or league or whatever it is like.

The struggle has been similar. Yeah, it feels enlightening. So let's use the Internet for good.

Right. And share a story if you're comfortable.

I mean, genuinely, after the very first time that I shared something about mental health and anxiety, reading the comments and hearing how well received it was and hearing the personal anecdotes that people had left was like the stamp of was like the green light for me to be like, oh, my God.

Like, this is going to be a massive part of what I do on the Internet. Like, it was so incredible to see such a positive community and conversation.

Yeah, it's crazy that we think that no one would care about this yet. It's the things that are probably the most impactful or are determinant of like your future path. Totally. Yeah. For talking about it shouldn't be such a it might not be as exciting as X, Y, Z.

Maybe we should stop chasing dicks just like sex, life and experience. Yeah.

Anyway, so back to Dick's next week. Stop to roll, rate the podcast, subscribe and follow and we'll be back next week for your your weekly Digg appointment by.

It's a podcast about dicks, Robbie said something to my customer. Yeah, she asked me if this was the Prius of trucks and I said, no. Oh no, it's not. You want me to just lie to a customer?

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