Lisa Damour (on the emotion of teenagers)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert experts on expert.

[1] I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[2] Hi.

[3] Good afternoon morning.

[4] Midnight if you're listening to Midnight.

[5] Oh, gross.

[6] Teenagers.

[7] Yeah, I was trying to be one for a second, but I forgot how.

[8] That's your new character.

[9] Yeah.

[10] We have Dr. Lisa DeMoron and of course Lisa DeMore is a clinical psychologist and bestselling author.

[11] Her books include Under Pressure Untangled.

[12] But the reason Monica was going to do her teenager.

[13] character is that her new book is called The Emotional Lives of Teenagers.

[14] We're super blessed and that we get really great submissions and we're always trying to decide what is the thing that's interesting to people.

[15] And I do think of any stage of development for children.

[16] I think the one that raises the most anxiety with parents is teenage years, right?

[17] Yeah.

[18] There's a lot of hype around it.

[19] There's a lot of hype, which is interesting because I loved my teenage years.

[20] They were so fun.

[21] So did I, but I was pretty mean to my parents.

[22] You were.

[23] But they deserved it.

[24] I guess you get one or the other.

[25] Like, I got into trouble, but I was really nice to my parents.

[26] And you got in no trouble, but you were mean to your parents.

[27] Yeah.

[28] What would you pick if you had a kid?

[29] I would definitely pick.

[30] Mean to me. Oh, interesting.

[31] And I would pick nice to me and get into some trouble.

[32] I think in this episode, you say differently.

[33] I do.

[34] But, yeah.

[35] Okay.

[36] We'll see.

[37] Well, listen, in addition to the emotional lives of teenagers, Lisa also has a podcast out now called Ask Lisa, The Psychology of Parenting.

[38] So also an incredibly useful resource if you're a parent.

[39] So check that out as well.

[40] Please enjoy Dr. Lisa D 'Amore.

[41] You're going to have to scoot over a little bit.

[42] Get in that corner.

[43] And then you know how to use headphones.

[44] And you have a water.

[45] No, you don't.

[46] Let me get your water.

[47] Okay, great.

[48] Thank you.

[49] Unless you want to use Maisie Williams's water.

[50] Yes, you want to have a sip of Aria Star.

[51] Yeah.

[52] Then feel free.

[53] Thank you so much.

[54] Did you watch Game of Thrones?

[55] This could be a great icebreaker because we think scientists and we think stuffy, but maybe if we found out you were a...

[56] Uh -oh.

[57] Uh -oh.

[58] I'm a compulsively honest person, so you're going to get the truth.

[59] So we were watching.

[60] And one of the things that happened not rarely in that show was rape.

[61] Oh, uh -huh.

[62] Yep.

[63] I am a psychologist.

[64] I have cared for people who have been raped.

[65] And it's hard for me to watch.

[66] the depiction of rape in the context of entertainment and also without any explication of the aftermath.

[67] Uh -huh.

[68] And so we were watching it and watching it and enjoying it.

[69] And then after one, I was like, I can't do it anymore.

[70] That's a good reason.

[71] So I liked it.

[72] If you found it unpleasant to watch, then why would you watch it?

[73] You know what happened to us is we were midway through?

[74] That was eight years long, I think.

[75] And we had children in the middle of that.

[76] And previously, this is like Bader Meinhoff, frequency illusion, our favorite saying on here.

[77] I didn't realize how many kids they killed on that show.

[78] But as soon as I had kids, I was like, my God, they go through a lot of kids on this show.

[79] Yes.

[80] Those got hard to watch.

[81] No, I remember a moment when my older daughter was a baby.

[82] And we were watching a movie.

[83] I can't remember the title.

[84] It had Nicole Kidman and it was about somebody returning home from the Civil War.

[85] Oh, yeah, Cold Mountain.

[86] Yes.

[87] And there was a scene where there was a baby lying on the ground crying.

[88] And I ran to the second floor of our house.

[89] house and yelled down to my husband.

[90] I'm like, tell me when it's over.

[91] Tell me what it's over.

[92] All the way upstairs.

[93] I couldn't, before having a kid, would have been a scene.

[94] So those things change.

[95] There's also fun, and of course, you have all the data.

[96] So this is a very lopsided dance, as Adam Grant would say.

[97] But what are your thoughts on playing out fears in art?

[98] I also think there's something compelling and valid about that as well.

[99] Why do people like horror?

[100] Why do women like rape pornography?

[101] BDSM.

[102] Yeah, why do we explore these things we're terrified of and it's a safe place to exercise those.

[103] So I see some validity to it, too.

[104] What do you think about that?

[105] So I'll tell you a story that I think we'll answer your question.

[106] So when I was a graduate student at the University of Michigan, ding, ding, ding.

[107] I'm so excited.

[108] I had a little boy I cared for and his number one fear was of tornadoes.

[109] He would, this was in the mid -90s, compulsively watch the weather channel.

[110] Well, no, you're right.

[111] You're right.

[112] But in his day to day, he would compulsively watch the weather channel for any evidence that there was a tornado, any Anywhere near where we were.

[113] His favorite movie was Twister, and he watched it over and over and over again.

[114] And I think for him, it was that he could start it.

[115] He could stop it.

[116] He could control it.

[117] He had total say.

[118] He survived the ending.

[119] So totally phobic of tornadoes and obsessed with the movie Twister.

[120] I have a very similar story.

[121] A patient of mine during COVID watched Contagion 20 times?

[122] I watched it so many times.

[123] I was obsessed with it.

[124] Yes.

[125] If we gave it out of 10, how scared you were of the pandemic.

[126] It was above five.

[127] For sure.

[128] Because this was early days, too.

[129] We were wiping the groceries with chloroxal lives.

[130] It was that time where I found it very comforting.

[131] Yeah.

[132] And I had just had a seizure and she had a seizure in it.

[133] That was part of it too.

[134] There was a double whammy for you.

[135] It really was.

[136] Hitting two birds.

[137] Yeah.

[138] That was like part of the pandemic because they were all having seizures.

[139] Right.

[140] And then I was seeing it.

[141] Yeah, that was one of the symptoms of the contagion.

[142] Yeah.

[143] Okay, so you're originally from Denver.

[144] And what did mom and dad do?

[145] My mom has actually always worked in politics.

[146] Oh, really?

[147] She's always worked for politicians.

[148] So when I was growing up, she ran the governor's mansion in Colorado.

[149] And would you get to go there as a little kid?

[150] I hung out there a lot.

[151] My parents divorced when I was three.

[152] And so there was a juncture, especially from three to six, before my mom remarried, where my mom was a single mom.

[153] And she was working to support us as a family, just the two of us.

[154] And so she would pick me up from school, take me back to work.

[155] We interviewed so many smart people, so many experts.

[156] They dedicate their life to studying something.

[157] They're all brilliant.

[158] I think for me, I'm almost more interested in why the thing they studied is somehow soothing the thing they were.

[159] So.

[160] You're on the right track.

[161] Okay, great.

[162] I want to be transparent.

[163] No, I appreciate it.

[164] Okay.

[165] My mom remarried to my stepfather, who's served as my father my whole life.

[166] He's American, but he was living in London.

[167] And so we moved to London.

[168] I was six, and we left when I was seven.

[169] And I know it sounds glamorous, and it's not unglamorous.

[170] And I've grown up with a lot of privilege.

[171] There's no getting.

[172] around that.

[173] It wasn't as fun as it sounds.

[174] No, it doesn't sound fun to be six and moved to a different country.

[175] It was a lot of disruption.

[176] And then we moved back to the U .S. and my dad was working for an American bank that was based in Chicago.

[177] So that's why we went to Chicago.

[178] But to your question, actually, that was the moment when I decided to become a psychologist.

[179] When you were seven?

[180] When I was six and seven.

[181] Yeah.

[182] So wild coincidence, the same week that we moved from Denver to London, a friend of a friend made the same move to start studying with Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud's daughter.

[183] Wow.

[184] Way.

[185] Welcome to 1976.

[186] Bingo.

[187] Anna Freud worked out child and adolescent psychology.

[188] So my parents were newly married, sorting out this new marriage.

[189] You got a strange dude in your life all of a sudden.

[190] Brand new stepfather, wonderful human being.

[191] Yeah, even if they're great, though.

[192] Yeah, but brand new.

[193] You and mom were making all the decisions, and now there's a third party on the scene that has a lot of say, clearly, you're living somewhere else.

[194] Yep, and it's just a lot of disruption in a short period of time.

[195] So my parents would travel a fair bit, and they would have me stay with, Carla, the graduate student, and she was 26.

[196] She's totally cool.

[197] And I became obsessed with what she was learning.

[198] And so we would sit in her tiny little flat in Hampstead England, right, by Anna Ford's Clinic, and I'd be like, why do the kids come to you?

[199] And what do they say?

[200] And how does what you say make it better?

[201] And she was so good to me, took my questions, answered them thoroughly, but appropriately.

[202] I came home back to our flat, and I was like, I'm going to do Carla's job.

[203] And Carla and I are still close.

[204] She's in her 70s.

[205] And when I look back, I'm like, you know, it's probably not an accident that given all of the disruption that had happened in my life up to that point, I was like, the inner worlds of children.

[206] I am interested.

[207] And there are people who are interested in this all the time.

[208] So that's how I understand it at this point in my life.

[209] Also, just talk about the high level of coincidence in someone's life.

[210] You stay with her while your parents travel and she is into architecture.

[211] We don't know.

[212] Right.

[213] But all of my books start with a quote from Anna Freud.

[214] Oh, they do?

[215] Yeah.

[216] So despite Sigmund obviously having quite a black mark on his name currently, her work that's still standing up to some degree?

[217] It does.

[218] And of course, it's all historically bound.

[219] They were working the time they were working.

[220] They were thinking the way people then were thinking.

[221] We don't think that way now.

[222] But in 100 years, people are going to turn around and have a very hard time with how we're thinking about things.

[223] No one seems to have that humility.

[224] Well, no, I'm very clear on that.

[225] I feel that feels very clear to me. Everything we say under the lens.

[226] Like, holy moly, how could you even think that?

[227] Yes.

[228] What is so beautiful about Anna Freud's work and what I've really worked to hold on to and hopefully try to bring across in the way I do my work, especially around teenagers, is that she talks about the stage and the stresses that are inherent in it.

[229] Well, it's a metamorphosis, right?

[230] So anything in life that's going through an enormous change has embedded in it some discomfort.

[231] Change equals stress.

[232] Yeah.

[233] It's a done deal.

[234] Was there any element of these transplants?

[235] Now you go then to Chicago.

[236] Then we go to Chicago for three years and then we go back to Denver.

[237] Also, you're lovely.

[238] You're a great conversationalist.

[239] Oh, thank you.

[240] But I could imagine you as a kid being a little more on the shy side.

[241] I would imagine those big parachute into an existing culture where everyone knows each other.

[242] It wasn't the most comfortable.

[243] Is that a fair guess or not a fair guest?

[244] I guess what I would say.

[245] Is you're a bad psychologist.

[246] You shouldn't lead the witness.

[247] You shouldn't say you have patience when you don't have a practice also.

[248] That was awesome.

[249] I have a patient.

[250] I'm not claiming of patience.

[251] I've had the good fortune of being a school person.

[252] When I think about kids and the kids in my care, some kids, you know, just by endowment, school is a place that's very happy and comfortable for them.

[253] In that you excelled and the teachers liked you.

[254] A little bit frictionless.

[255] Yeah, school was designed for my particular neurology.

[256] It's not designed for every kid.

[257] It rewards a very narrow range of talents.

[258] My talents happen to fall in that range.

[259] You put me in a school, I could find my way.

[260] And what's interesting, I'm actually still close with my third grade teacher from Chicago.

[261] Really?

[262] So that's the grade you started when you moved.

[263] Yeah.

[264] So I was second grade in London.

[265] And then we moved to Chicago.

[266] And I stay with her when I am in Chicago.

[267] Oh, that's so low.

[268] Like I would just make my home at school.

[269] You know, I had good friends.

[270] And you were highly validated there.

[271] Yeah.

[272] But talk about like a nature and nurture moment.

[273] How lucky for me in the context of all this disruption that the place I had to spend eight hours a day was a place that was really well designed for me. I care for kids.

[274] where school is miserable for them and they feel lousy all day.

[275] I actually think of how many teachers I owe apologies to, recognize how difficult I probably was.

[276] A few of them broke through and I do have relationships with some of them.

[277] But I guess what I think sometimes is that were any of them to ever hear this show, I think they'd be like, how did that happen?

[278] Because I didn't think that's where he was heading.

[279] I feel like I just owe them all a big apology.

[280] Yeah, but you're sort of this incredible example of extraordinary, intelligence that is not rewarded by conventional school.

[281] It's very convenient because so much of the work you do is kind of embracing the many varieties.

[282] Shyness is one of them.

[283] My wife loved that aspect of your book, which is parents have this inclination to like knock their kids out of shyness.

[284] For obvious reasons, there's so many incentives that we're so social.

[285] It is a way you excel.

[286] I get the fear.

[287] But at the same time, it's like, who cares if someone shy?

[288] You know?

[289] I mean, where was the thing?

[290] I think it was a bit of an inconvenient.

[291] Like, I was a very shy kid, and my mom was just like, you're just always by me, go do something else.

[292] Go make some friends.

[293] Yeah, like, I need to take a nap.

[294] I think it was more of that.

[295] Okay.

[296] On her end.

[297] For her end.

[298] I hear in L .A., I think people are like, oh, fuck, how are they going to ever build a social network that will result in a job?

[299] They're not going to pledge a sorority with this personality.

[300] Can we talk about China's for a second?

[301] Of course.

[302] You know, what are the virtues and why should parents not be as stressed about this particular?

[303] disposition.

[304] Okay.

[305] So going back to where we were, we really do ascribe a lot of shyness to temperament, and temperament's what we call inborn personality.

[306] When we think about temperament, we actually have three categories that we sort kids into.

[307] One label, we probably would not use the same term again, which is difficult.

[308] Temperament.

[309] Today, we would come up with a better...

[310] We call DAX.

[311] Then there's easy temperament, and then there's slow to warm up.

[312] So difficult are kids who are reactive, maybe not that routinized in their habits.

[313] Maybe they have very high activity levels in a way that is challenging.

[314] Easy kids are easy you're going.

[315] The bad kids would be disruptive, I imagine, in a classroom.

[316] They can be.

[317] Classrooms do reward.

[318] Kids who are able to sit, follow routines easily, transition effectively, right?

[319] There's a reason we call Easy Kids Easy.

[320] And then slow to warm up are kids who are shy.

[321] Now, Monica, thinking about what you said about your mom.

[322] What's really cool in this research is that no one temperament predicts to outcomes.

[323] What predicts is actually goodness of fit with the parent.

[324] So the parent who has a very high tolerance for a kid being slow to warm up, who's like, you can stay by my leg until you feel ready, goes great.

[325] The parent who's like, get in there, get in there, get in there.

[326] That's where you see challenging outcomes.

[327] And even sometimes with so -called difficult, it's unfortunate.

[328] But again, And things are bound by the historical moment in which they're created.

[329] They can absolutely strive with a parent who's like, okay, you need a lot of warning if we're going to make a transition and you have a strong reaction to things.

[330] Really quick, that's worth exploring because I think the parents need your fear is by accommodating this behavior, the world's not going to accommodate this behavior.

[331] So I'll be the best version of this they're ever going to get.

[332] I got to bring them up to speed.

[333] Would you guess that's like the altruistic fantasy?

[334] There's a very, very limited set of behaviors in parents that I think are not well -meaning.

[335] Like, I think it's very rare.

[336] I mean, it happens, right?

[337] There are terrible people who do terrible things.

[338] No question.

[339] One of the incredible gifts of getting to be a psychologist who cares for people and cares for families over time is that you see people doing the absolute best with what they've got.

[340] No one is coming in this trying to mess things up.

[341] And things don't always go well.

[342] A good example of a kid with a difficult temperament, and I'm using finger quotes now, just because I don't love using that word.

[343] They can feel sometimes the tag on their shirt, and it's making them bananas.

[344] What we know to be a goodness of it is to say, like, well, let's just get you shirts without tags.

[345] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[346] But it's also you could see a parent who's like, you're going to have to get used to discomfort in the world.

[347] Right, that's the most uncomfortable thing you're getting experienced.

[348] Yeah, you've got to be able to handle this.

[349] So it's hard.

[350] It is, and I deeply relate to the fear.

[351] I'll give you an anecdote, but it's like your deepest fear is that they would enter the world.

[352] and be unsafe and not be able to protect themselves and or be self -sufficient.

[353] This terrible fear of by me being soft or coddling or accommodating that ultimately I'm going to do so much more damage to them, it's kind of a leap of faith.

[354] I'm glad there's studies that we can say, no, no, this isn't going to perpetuate some kind of frailty.

[355] You can be accommodating in some ways.

[356] The thing I was really wrestling with was our oldest daughter, she and I are very similar, have these fears that would pop up.

[357] you she rides a dirt bike she does a lot of things she'll climb anything she's not afraid of heights but she would have these fears pop up and i found myself in a pattern of trying to tell her how to get over them or push through them again because that's what liberated me and i had a weird breakthrough i was hiking and i just thought you know this is weirdly the best compliment i could get is that this household is safe to be afraid in she doesn't have to rise up to this threat but man i was finding it for so long And then once it occurred to me, like, no, no, this is really beautiful.

[358] This is a place where it's scary.

[359] And I was scared.

[360] And it's a bummer.

[361] I had to get over it so quick.

[362] But I had to step over a lot of bad approaches before I realize, no, this is a good signal.

[363] You know, it's funny.

[364] What you're making me think about, there's so much we try to tell parents and so much we want parents to know.

[365] But if you had to sum up all of our research, everything we know, if you put it like in a giant machine that could drop out, what really matters, what we find over and over again is warrant.

[366] and structure.

[367] The two together.

[368] I think the biggest challenge in parenting is you can't get an A -plus on both simultaneously.

[369] Warmth is, oh my God, this movie is so great.

[370] Like, let's stay up late and watch it.

[371] Yes.

[372] And structure is, it's your bedtime.

[373] We're turning it off.

[374] And so the challenge, and I think this is what you're talking through, is you want to have expectations and hold kids to them, and they need to feel not just loved, but really liked and supported.

[375] And so my thinking, in my own parenting, I'm like, I'm going for a B minus average on both.

[376] Over the course of a week, that's what I'm going for.

[377] Well, this paradigm, by the way, is the one that keeps striking us over the head nonstop, which is we are constantly servicing, often conflicting, and contradictory objectives.

[378] The country is liberty and equality.

[379] These are diametrically opposed at times.

[380] So all of us who want 100 % on everything or want it black and white, you can only have that if you have a singular goal in life.

[381] But if you're trying to service multiple things, the best you're going to be able to do is a B minus and a B minus, and that's an A. Yeah, that's what's hard.

[382] Sitting in tension is very hard.

[383] We want it this way or that way.

[384] Yeah.

[385] You go to Yale.

[386] Where I would not get in today.

[387] I know who I was in high school.

[388] I know what kids are doing now.

[389] So let me just be clear.

[390] I have a similar disclaimer.

[391] I got into UCLA through community college.

[392] I could have never got in there out of high school.

[393] And I certainly could never get in there now.

[394] That's a whole other side bar.

[395] What's happening?

[396] What's the reward?

[397] Given that I care for teenagers, I always love to throw that disclaimer on it because it's just a very different scene.

[398] Yes.

[399] But when you went there, you're on the path that you've been pursuing since six.

[400] Is it rewarding?

[401] Do you ever think about deviating or you're just go, go, go, or getting closer?

[402] It was pretty straight line.

[403] I signed up for developmental psychology first semester.

[404] I knew what I was going to do.

[405] There was about five minutes where I was like, maybe I'll be a pediatrician.

[406] And so I was taking bio with, you know, all the pre -men kids.

[407] I was like, ah, I don't want to do this.

[408] So I went back to psychology.

[409] And then this is just, again, great good fortune and not appreciating it at the time.

[410] Yale has the Yale Child Study Center, which is one of the most phenomenal resources in the country and doing incredible work at a very high level.

[411] And so I started working for them when I was a college sophomore.

[412] This would have been like 88 -ish?

[413] 89 -90.

[414] What was the flavor of the day in 89?

[415] Theoretically?

[416] Yeah, because I want to go through the different cycles in first.

[417] fads of psychology and especially popular psychology.

[418] And I'm curious, another way would be like, what was the moral panic of the day, maybe?

[419] What was being studied that had to be figured out at that time?

[420] Because now neurodivergence is such a big field and feels like we need to understand this now, but obviously that wasn't a thing in 89.

[421] Actually, one of the benefits probably of the Yale Child Study Center is that it worked across the tri -state area in this very concentrated population.

[422] And so we actually did take care of a lot of highly specialized concerns.

[423] So at that time, My work was not in this area, but my work sometimes touched on it.

[424] If you had a question about an autism diagnosis or a kid on the spectrum, the best place you could go was the L. Child Study Center, incredible specialists who were seeing 20 kids a week making those sort of evaluation.

[425] So the level was very high.

[426] Can I ask you quickly.

[427] When was that put on the DSM?

[428] How old is that diagnosis?

[429] Oh, it's been around for a while.

[430] The names have changed.

[431] And we've shifted, you know, we had autism and then Asperger's and then we have autistic spectrum disorders.

[432] But it's long been recognized.

[433] Okay.

[434] very identifiable.

[435] So in the moment where I happened to be, I got to see incredible depth around actually what are comparatively rare concerns.

[436] If you were suffering from depression or anxiety, you didn't need to come to the El Child Study Center.

[437] Lots of people can care for that.

[438] Right.

[439] It was highly specialized.

[440] Yeah.

[441] And so I got, I didn't appreciate it at the time, but this amazing exposure.

[442] And then I kept working for them through college.

[443] And then my first job after college was a full -time job there.

[444] I had written my senior essay down there and then my boss hired me. And so I stayed and I ran a bunch of research studies.

[445] But the kinds of things that were made available to me. And again, you know, I was just like, this is what I'm just doing.

[446] It's a Wednesday.

[447] You leave and you're like, oh my gosh.

[448] Like I got so lucky.

[449] So the director at the time was a guy named Donald Cohen.

[450] And he was just this old psychiatrist.

[451] You know, he's been around forever, gifted clinician.

[452] And one of his seminars that he taught to all the medical students and all the psychiatry residents and the psychology fellows, was that he interviewed children of ascending ages in front of an audience.

[453] And he was so skilled.

[454] And my boss was so good to me. He's like, why don't you go to those meetings?

[455] I mean, I was just a research grant.

[456] Like, I didn't have any right to be in the room.

[457] And so he was such a skilled interviewer.

[458] And it was all done with consent.

[459] And these weren't patients.

[460] It was a teaching moment all above board that he could sit with a kid and ask them questions.

[461] And the kid would forget that there were 30 of us watching.

[462] And I got to watch Dr. Cohen, ask them about their lives, get them to tell us about seventh grade.

[463] And I still clinically use things.

[464] I learned.

[465] The techniques.

[466] Yeah.

[467] Like he, I remember he would say, when a kid would say something, he would never say, well, why?

[468] He'd say, how come?

[469] Right.

[470] And he's like, I'll tell you how come.

[471] And so I was 21 years old, right, at this time.

[472] And I just get to be in this room.

[473] I got really lucky.

[474] How has your optimism changed from that 21 -year -old till now and how effective the techniques can be.

[475] I guess I would say my belief has gone down two paths simultaneously.

[476] So there are some things where it just is so frustrating that we can't do more.

[477] I have a workwife, a colleague who I share my private practice suite with, so we share the waiting room, and then we each have our own offices within it.

[478] And she had just done an evaluation on a kid who's very severely ADHD.

[479] And we were talking about it, and we were like, you've got to wake up every morning and just say, how lucky if you get dealt a particular neurological hand.

[480] Like, it's just luck.

[481] I think that part I can feel very aware, like I wish we could do more.

[482] The other part, and this is the really fun thing about being 53 and mid -career, is I've gotten to watch the field make phenomenal advancements.

[483] So I got my PhD in 96, and since then, we have come into a completely new world about how we care for eating disorders.

[484] We're able to get results we were never able to get before.

[485] That's encouraging.

[486] Yeah.

[487] The treatments have improved dramatically.

[488] On what order of magnitude?

[489] What was it and where are we?

[490] It used to be that eating disorders were the most lethal psychiatric disorder.

[491] unfortunately, the opioid crisis has overtaken that.

[492] Right.

[493] I mean, and these are sort of rough and dirty numbers, but it used to be if you suffered from an eating disorder, the outcomes were a third, a third, a third of people recover, a third of people never recover, either live severely eating disorder for the rest of their life or die from the eating disorder.

[494] And a third of people kind of recover.

[495] They're not really ever out of the woods, but they're not going to die from the eating disorder that day.

[496] So those are terrible numbers.

[497] They're not great.

[498] Only surpassed by alcoholism, but continue.

[499] Yeah, I mean, like, not good.

[500] And then treatment advanced.

[501] Family -based treatment is really now the gold standard.

[502] I don't want to quote numbers that aren't accurate, but what I will say is dramatically improved.

[503] Full recovery, dramatically improved great long -term outcomes.

[504] So that's exciting.

[505] Same with trauma.

[506] When I was leaving graduate school, we sort of had a fingernail grip on treating trauma.

[507] The treatments on that has advanced so far in terms of psychotherapeutic interventions that really work.

[508] So I think I feel both at once.

[509] I wish there were more we could do, and it's so exciting to see the field make headway.

[510] How much of the latter was driven by new techniques that were then systematically evaluated?

[511] And how much has been us having fMRI and all these different biological components that we understand about neurotransmitters and all these other things?

[512] What's driving it or to what degree?

[513] I think it's probably both, right?

[514] The psychotherapeutic techniques have changed in advance.

[515] We're trying things we didn't use to try.

[516] We keep doing the ones that are working.

[517] Yeah.

[518] And then on the medical intervention side, and I'm not a psychiatrist, but what I will tell you is the drugs are proliferate.

[519] massively in the time since I finished my training.

[520] And this complicated question of what's okay and what's not okay, but for people who are helped by medication, the fact that there are many, many choices, and if this one isn't the right one for you, we can give you a try on this one.

[521] I watch it save people's lives.

[522] Well, there's that.

[523] And then there's also just observing the brain in different states of being and learning, even if it weren't pharmacological, we would go, okay, we understand the amygdala now, we understand the cortex.

[524] We know how to breathe in a way that can get you back.

[525] We know how to do some talk therapy that can reroute some stuff.

[526] There's also non -pharmacological techniques that we did learn from being able to actually see what happens in the brain now.

[527] It is true what I'm smiling about.

[528] So I used to teach abnormal psychology the course.

[529] I know you wrote in the textbook.

[530] I wrote a textbook in it.

[531] I wrote a textbook on it.

[532] That's always what I took.

[533] I always wanted to see the freakiest thing.

[534] What's the craziest thing?

[535] Or criminality.

[536] I know that was that class.

[537] I would get to.

[538] to the connection between mind and body, and this was in the late 90s, I'd say, okay, all the stuff that we used to think was woo -woo, California stuff, we have now documented it in the FMRI, right?

[539] And so I think that it's almost like the field finally acknowledged or once it could put some science behind things that were actually established elsewhere, bringing it under the tent.

[540] So some of it we invented within the shop, some of it was brought into the shop.

[541] Okay, so you get out.

[542] When do you start writing?

[543] Because you've been a prolific writer.

[544] So first, you get out of graduate school and you do have a practice.

[545] You still have a practice.

[546] Did that start right away?

[547] It did.

[548] So I got my PhD in 96, state in Michigan, did two -year postdoc, taking care of people, set up a practice there.

[549] So I started writing, actually, right after I finished my dissertation, one of my closest friends is an English professor.

[550] She's actually a linguist.

[551] We are so horny for linguists.

[552] Oh, well.

[553] We just had one on.

[554] There's no one more fun to talk to them.

[555] Okay.

[556] Well, she has a book coming out in March called Says Who, which is a fabulous book.

[557] Her name is Anne Curzanne.

[558] Absolutely fabulous.

[559] Perfect.

[560] So, Anne and I, dear friends, since back then, we were at a dinner party with someone who's like, if you two were to write a book, what would you write?

[561] And we were like, we would write the book that we wish had been handed to us when we started teaching college students.

[562] And so the friend said, you should do it.

[563] It was like half a dare.

[564] So Anne and I co -authored this book that is in its third edition.

[565] I mean, this is like ancient history.

[566] This came out in 1999.

[567] Quarter century.

[568] Yeah, exactly.

[569] It was really.

[570] Like a long time ago.

[571] It's called First Day to Final Grade, a Graduate Student's Guide to Teaching.

[572] I mean, it's just this wonky little book.

[573] And then because I had written that book, I then went on the Michigan faculty.

[574] I was teaching abnormal psychology.

[575] An older colleague of mine, a dear mentor of mine, said, I'm thinking about writing a textbook in abnormal psychology.

[576] Do you want to co -author it?

[577] And I was like, sure.

[578] I didn't know what I was getting myself into.

[579] So Jim, Hansel, and I co -authored a textbook in abnormal psychology, and we did it twice.

[580] Did a second edition.

[581] So without meaning to be a person who was writing books, I was writing books.

[582] What year was that?

[583] I'm wondering if that's the one I read.

[584] Me too.

[585] I feel like it probably was.

[586] Wouldn't that be fun?

[587] Yeah.

[588] No, I think it came out in like 2000.

[589] I was just leaving college.

[590] I promised what you probably read it.

[591] That's like my era.

[592] That would have meant a great deal to me. Wow.

[593] That would be so cool.

[594] Sidebar.

[595] I love a textbook.

[596] It just hit me the other day.

[597] It's like, I left college and then that was the end of textbooks.

[598] But they're so condensed and perfect.

[599] Western Siv, sit down and learn all of Western Siv and 350 pages with pictures.

[600] Why aren't I doing that with more topics?

[601] It's not that fun to write a textbook.

[602] I will tell you.

[603] Oh, I can't imagine.

[604] It's unbelievably tedious.

[605] And my half of the manuscript was 800 pages.

[606] Whoa.

[607] And it's just an ungodly amount of writing.

[608] It's not all together bad do have written one.

[609] Because even though I work in one area in my field, I love the whole field.

[610] There's nothing in my field that doesn't interest me. And so, you know, I got my training.

[611] And then you turn around and write a textbook.

[612] You get another training.

[613] So then we moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio, where I live now.

[614] I'm practicing.

[615] I'm taking care of a lot of teenagers and their families.

[616] It just happens that way.

[617] So here's what happened.

[618] First of all, I like teenagers and love caring for them.

[619] Why do you like them?

[620] They have, I think, a clarity.

[621] You say they have great bullshit detectors.

[622] That's my name for it.

[623] They can sniff out a lie, you say.

[624] Exactly.

[625] And there's something I just am sort of compulsively honest myself, and I love being around what's true.

[626] And teenagers, man, if you ask them, they will lay it out for you.

[627] Right.

[628] And I love that about that.

[629] We're not afraid to get canceled either.

[630] No. They're just like, here's where it's at.

[631] Except for when they're very afraid.

[632] I think sometimes.

[633] Yeah, exactly.

[634] Yeah.

[635] And the word I'll use is plastic.

[636] They're so dynamic.

[637] Like they can change so quickly, right?

[638] It's so fun to care for teenagers because you can have a kid who's not going to school of smoking tons of weed and then they get excited about something.

[639] And then like, bam, they're going to class.

[640] Very rewarding.

[641] So you look like a great clinician because like this kid does a huge 180 in six months that you never see an adult.

[642] My friend son just did this.

[643] He's like, I don't know if he's ever going to not play video games 15 hours a day.

[644] He got a job at Dairy Queen.

[645] Change his life.

[646] All of a sudden, he's like on fire to be an adult.

[647] It's so rewarding.

[648] But the other thing that happened, so by the time I set up my practice in Shaker Heights, I was about 30 years old.

[649] When I looked back still on that clinical work, I'm like, ugh, I was really green.

[650] But I had been working for a while.

[651] I had been practicing for a while.

[652] I started to get calls from parents saying, we hear that you're a solid clinician, and we hear that you look young.

[653] So we think our teenager will talk to you.

[654] That makes sense.

[655] Yeah, I was in this funny little sweet spot.

[656] And one thing that's very funny, and I think I did look young, I started my career wearing really doughty clothes because I was trying to actually.

[657] To look teeny.

[658] No, to look professional.

[659] For the parents.

[660] I don't know what doughty.

[661] We just found out I don't know what doughty means.

[662] It's like grandmotherly, but not a hip grandma.

[663] Just sort of shapeless.

[664] I'm in the amygdala now.

[665] It's okay.

[666] Don't worry about it.

[667] You learned something.

[668] Yeah, learning is good.

[669] Yeah.

[670] And so actually it's been fun as my career has progressed like I can wear.

[671] Yeah, you look great.

[672] Good outfit.

[673] Less doughty clothes.

[674] Yes.

[675] So I ended up with this bumper crop of teenagers, both because I love them and also because the word got out that I was working with teenagers and teenagers would talk to me. So I'm sitting there and I'm thinking.

[676] so much to write a book about the patterns of adolescent development because these poor parents are coming and thinking this is just happening in their house.

[677] It's happening everywhere.

[678] And since I'd written on the academic side, I was like, I'll just write that book.

[679] So I started drafting untangled, guiding teenage girls through the seven transitions into adulthood.

[680] 80 % applies to kids of all genders, no question, but it's just sort of here are the stages of adolescent.

[681] Here's what kids got to do.

[682] I was just doing it on my own time because I'd written other books.

[683] I was like, yeah, I know how to structure a book.

[684] Like, I can just get going.

[685] One day I was looking at, there was an old blog in the New York Times called Motherload.

[686] That sounds familiar.

[687] A long time ago was when the Times like had tons and tons of blogs and hadn't quite consolidated all the digital into the paper as it is now.

[688] And I saw an article that was titled like the best advice I got as a parent.

[689] And I was like, oh, I have thoughts on that.

[690] So I wrote a little essay and I sent it in cold to the editor at Motherload.

[691] And then I forgot about it.

[692] And then about six weeks later, she was like, is this still available?

[693] And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, you can have it.

[694] I only sent it to you.

[695] I only sent it to you.

[696] So I forgot about it.

[697] You can have it.

[698] And I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to be in the book.

[699] the time.

[700] It's like, oh, my God.

[701] So exciting.

[702] Okay, but nothing really happened.

[703] My folks read it.

[704] They were like, good job.

[705] They did.

[706] They don't make it in.

[707] It got published.

[708] Yeah, it got published.

[709] I went back to working on Untangle and taking care of my patients and doing my work.

[710] And then I had another idea for a piece.

[711] And so I sent it in.

[712] And she's like, oh, this is going to blow up.

[713] And it did.

[714] Then editors and agents started calling me. What was that?

[715] It was about the childhood roots of adult well -being.

[716] Everybody wants their kids to grow up to be happy.

[717] What we actually know when we look at the research is that it's not professional achievement, it's not economic success.

[718] It's three things.

[719] Having good relationships.

[720] Doing work you find meaningful and feeling competent at that work.

[721] That's where adult well -being hangs.

[722] And if you backwards engineer it, the childhood trait is conscientiousness.

[723] Like being upright, being a good person.

[724] So it was just about that.

[725] So these editors and agents were calling saying, you want to do a book on this.

[726] I was like, no, no. I already did it.

[727] That's what I had to say.

[728] That's what I had to say about it.

[729] Yeah, exactly.

[730] I said, I do have this other manuscript I'm sitting on.

[731] So I got swept into commercial publishing.

[732] And it was a bestseller.

[733] It did very well.

[734] Actually, it still continues to sell hundreds of copies a week.

[735] Then the rest just kind of unfolded from there.

[736] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[737] Okay, so back to teenagers for one second.

[738] The other sweet spot about them is they're old enough to be cognizant of a lot of the things you're trying to say.

[739] And to your point, high plasticity still.

[740] So it's almost like this glorious zone where they could enact some strategies.

[741] They're not eight and confused by what you're saying.

[742] They can comprehend it.

[743] And yet they're still malleable.

[744] They're new to autonomy.

[745] They have more say.

[746] They have options.

[747] There have been times when I've been caring for younger kids who are maybe 8, 9, 10, who are in really, really difficult family situations.

[748] And you're just supporting them.

[749] You're just trying to get them through.

[750] And it's so different when you're caring for 15, 16 year old coming in and being like, my family's bad.

[751] And you're like, okay.

[752] Okay, well, what are you going to do to set yourself up with as many options as possible?

[753] And it's fun because teenagers are like, yeah.

[754] They don't feel overwhelmed by it.

[755] It's just exciting.

[756] Well, yeah, it's like more agency.

[757] They're going to have more agency over their life.

[758] It's what they're craving at that moment.

[759] And here's a tool set to get you that agency.

[760] Yeah, and we can make it happen here.

[761] Would I be right to guess that's probably also the highest volume of patients that parents bring in?

[762] I would imagine kids become teenagers and the parents are like, I don't recognize this person.

[763] I'm scared.

[764] That 100%.

[765] That's what a lot of my work has been about is nobody's broken.

[766] Nobody's doing this wrong.

[767] Right?

[768] This is the natural course of adolescence and all of these things your kid is doing that feel very uncomfortable or very strange, have a purpose, serve a function.

[769] They're not nearly as personal as it feels.

[770] And in fact, the absence of which might be proof of something to be concerned about.

[771] Exactly.

[772] We expect friction.

[773] We want to see friction.

[774] There's all this value in it.

[775] In terms of volume, one of the things that I think has gone unaddressed, right?

[776] So we've talked about the adolescent mental health crisis a lot, which is real.

[777] It's a two -part crisis.

[778] One was where you're seeing rising rates of depression and anxiety and teenagers prior to the pandemic, then along comes the pandemic.

[779] Worse thing for teenagers.

[780] How significant is the change?

[781] Is that data even in enough?

[782] You would probably still bring in the data in, but it was bad for everybody.

[783] Teenagers have two jobs, right, to become increasingly independent and to be with their friends as much as possible.

[784] And the pandemic just totally kneecapped their capacity to do those things.

[785] So it was really bad for them.

[786] So this huge surge in emotional pain in teenagers.

[787] But the other thing we don't talk about enough is we don't have the workforce to care for them.

[788] Caring for teenagers is highly specialized.

[789] Not a lot of us do it.

[790] And so it wasn't just that we had so many more kids who needed care.

[791] It's that we don't have the care force to do the work.

[792] And scaling it up is not something that can be done quickly.

[793] The training takes a really long time.

[794] Very few people want to see teenagers.

[795] So it's that question of volume, though you do see heightened distress in teenagers in terms of like the lifespan we don't have the clinicians right this was going to be a question towards at the end but this now feels like the right time to ask you there was this incredible work that came out of johns hopkins two years ago three years ago you would definitely know about it it was a program where initially they decided to give therapy to the parent and the child to see if that would increase the outcomes and it did mildly and then someone thought what if we only gave therapy to the parents and they had the biggest increases yep so when i read these terrifying numbers that are everywhere you look it's telling us this.

[796] And then we're looking at them as well, what's new about this generation?

[797] And to me, given that John Hopkins thing, I think, isn't that really just a reflection of us?

[798] Aren't we looking in the wrong direction?

[799] What do you think about that?

[800] How much of this is them and how much of it is us?

[801] I'm so glad that you're asking this question.

[802] I mean, all I've done is care for teenagers.

[803] The last few years have just been, but the thing that just grounds me and makes me feel like we can do this is that we have established so clearly in the literature that the single most powerful force for adolescent mental health is strong relationships with caring adults.

[804] It's about the adults around the teenager.

[805] And so when I think about my work, I don't share public content for teenagers.

[806] My work is entirely around supporting the adults around the teenager so that they understand what's happening, do not take it as personally as it feels, feel like they've got some ways to respond that will deepen the connection, keep the relationship going.

[807] For me, it's all about the adults around the kid.

[808] Yeah.

[809] And then in that way, yes, we don't have a ton of specialized teenage therapists, but we have a ton of adult therapists.

[810] Absolutely.

[811] And so I do feel like we're a little bit looking at the wrong variable.

[812] I don't know that the crisis is the teenage crisis as much as it's the adult crisis raising the teenagers, which we do seem to have the capacity for.

[813] Or adults need more support around this.

[814] And I think a lot of that support is actually just understanding what's happening and why.

[815] And I think one of the things that hasn't helped adults in general, but especially people who are raising teenagers, is that there's been a bit of a move in the culture to this idea that you're supposed to feel good a lot of the time.

[816] And also in the vast universe of parent guidance, some expert, some self -declared expert, right?

[817] I mean, there's a lot out there.

[818] I think there's sort of this suggestion that, like, if you just do this ninja move, and that ninja move and this ninja move, parenting will be pleasant and easy.

[819] Right, right, right, yeah, yeah.

[820] I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. There is no, no, no, no, no. Development is really challenging.

[821] The more we can understand it, the better the soul goes.

[822] Yeah.

[823] I think a lot of parents would naturally want to know where the line between just adolescent angst and a serious mental health concern.

[824] What is that line?

[825] It's actually pretty straightforward, which I'm glad to say, that we can actually label that pretty quickly.

[826] So let's start with what mental health is.

[827] and get really clear on that point, because there's a lot of murkiness around this right now.

[828] There is a lot of messaging, traditional media, social media, all around us, suggesting wrongly that mental health is about feeling good or relaxed or calm or happy, right?

[829] You feel that way, your kid feels that way, that's how you know you have mental health.

[830] It's great to feel good.

[831] I have no problem with that.

[832] That is not what mental health is.

[833] Yeah, and probably suffering from using the same terminology to say physical health.

[834] So for physical health, we would say not having aches, right?

[835] So it's not specific enough wordage.

[836] No, it's not.

[837] But if we actually pursue that as a model, physically healthy people get sick, but they recover.

[838] And that's how we know they're a healthy person.

[839] It's not that they never get a cold.

[840] Brilliant.

[841] Well, not my thinking.

[842] I mean, this has been around before.

[843] But so the same analogy, mental health, the way I define it, it's about having feelings to fit the situation and then managing those feelings well.

[844] Right.

[845] So your best friend moves, you're going to be really upset.

[846] This is a giant emotional cold.

[847] Where the rubber hits the road is, do you manage it by having a good cry, going from?

[848] a run, putting on your sad playlist.

[849] A teenager said to me the other day, force cuddling my cat.

[850] I was like, yeah, force cuddling.

[851] That's exactly it.

[852] Or do you say, oh my gosh, I'm so upset.

[853] I'm going to smoke a ton of weed.

[854] I'm going to be a total beast to be around.

[855] I'm going to turn this against myself and hate myself for making this choice.

[856] So it's not the presence or absence of distress that psychologists are assessing.

[857] It's how it gets managed.

[858] If a teenager is having a big bad day and they get very upset and they manage it in ways that bring relief do no harm.

[859] That's the picture of health in my book.

[860] Two things that made me think of.

[861] One is we do a show with Wendy Mogle.

[862] Do you know Dr. Wendy Mogle?

[863] She actually wrote one of the kindest blurbs ever for my first book.

[864] Oh, wonderful.

[865] We love her so much.

[866] She has given us a bazillion little nuggets that are genius.

[867] But one of the things I loved hearing her say is a parent will come in, the kids doing this, this and this.

[868] And her first question is, what do they do at school?

[869] What do the teachers think?

[870] What she'll find almost all the time is that they're fine.

[871] at school.

[872] So they're not broken.

[873] They can do it when they need to.

[874] And then when they get home, it's pent up.

[875] You're going to get all that.

[876] You want to hear my corny phrase for that?

[877] Yeah.

[878] School gets the best of them.

[879] We get the rest of them.

[880] Yeah, that's great.

[881] And wouldn't we want it that way?

[882] Yes, forget me. I'd want the most loving patient person in their life to deal with the worst version of them.

[883] Yeah.

[884] And not the most stressed and overwhelmed person.

[885] So that's just the reality.

[886] Okay.

[887] So luxury.

[888] Oh, can I have the second thought?

[889] Yes, absolutely.

[890] It's an anthro thing.

[891] One of the fun things I learned about is many regions of the world, but specifically I remember sub -Saharan Africa.

[892] Even the way we talk about mental health issues and labels we have, the language is phrase, you're schizophrenic, you're bipolar.

[893] That's a permanent, a cold is temporary.

[894] And that in sub -Sahara Africa, all these mental issues are colds.

[895] There's no implication that they're permanent.

[896] And that's just a fascinating thing culturally that I think is somehow in the mix of what we're talking about right now.

[897] It is.

[898] Let's rest on it for a minute.

[899] And then I do want to define how we know when to worry about a teenager.

[900] Okay, great.

[901] In the time I've been practicing, I have seen more of a shift to talking about certain things as though they are factory settings.

[902] Like, I have anxiety.

[903] I have OCD.

[904] Sometimes I won't disagree with this.

[905] If a person has clinical depression, that's like having diabetes.

[906] You don't ever wipe it out, right?

[907] But you manage it well, ideally, and you live a rich full life.

[908] Things like anxiety disorders, we're really good at treating.

[909] Phobias, OCD, I mean, even sometimes various fear.

[910] We can make it go away when it gets to the disorder level.

[911] Everybody feels anxiety.

[912] Anxiety is a normal healthy function that helps us stay safe in the world.

[913] But one of the things I'm finding myself especially with teenagers who will sometimes trade in this language of like, oh, I have this, I can't do anything about it.

[914] And you're like, no, no, no, we can trade it.

[915] So sometimes it's true.

[916] Sometimes it's not.

[917] But in the last, I'd say, 15 years, the general population is moving more things into the factory setting category than psychologists know.

[918] to be true.

[919] Have you noticed a recent uptick in the diagnosis of ADHD among adult women or adults in general?

[920] I feel like I'm hearing it so often.

[921] I was just diagnosed with ADHD as an adult.

[922] I don't like it.

[923] Okay.

[924] You've got your questions.

[925] You're like, I don't think you have ADHD.

[926] But you've lived a whole life not thinking that unless there's something debilitating happening.

[927] going in and you're like, I can't handle this.

[928] And then they tell you, oh, it's probably because you have ADHD.

[929] You should do this, this, or this.

[930] But for a few of these cases, that's not it.

[931] They just are talking to their doctor and they're like, you hit the markers for ADHD.

[932] I don't like that.

[933] No, you're asking an incredibly important and wildly complex question.

[934] Let me just start by saying, I think there are people who we miss the diagnosis.

[935] It flies under the radar for years.

[936] And then finally, when they're an adult, somebody gets it right and changes their life.

[937] Like, I don't have any question that that happened.

[938] There's also a question of when we look at the symptoms of ADHD, there's a lot of roads that can lead you to that path.

[939] If you're not sleeping, you're going to look like you've got a lot of those symptoms, like you can't focus, you're highly distractible.

[940] Delineating who has a genetic propensity versus who has an environmental.

[941] Environmental factors that may be at work.

[942] Yeah.

[943] Well, it does.

[944] And it is quick.

[945] It is inexpensive.

[946] It's easier to find than a therapist.

[947] So a lot comes into this that makes it kind of murky.

[948] Okay, for Aryan pet peeves, here's my kind of overall, discomfort with the DSM is a it's kind of the tail wagging the dog in that I know to have these things covered through insurance we're required to have this clear diagnoses I get it but I think it weirdly worked backwards and now we actually think in terms of how the insurance company wants us to think one thing that I'm suspicious is bullshit is that a lot of these categories are insanely arbitrary and yet we take them on in popular vernacular as really known conditions like diabetes.

[949] If you're looking at someone with ADHD and OCD, you're looking at a spectrum of a human being and you're parsing out or betting most on one thing, but really it's not uniquely that thing.

[950] It's some weird combination of things and we just have to arbitrarily put them in these categories.

[951] But the categories are pretty arbitrary.

[952] 100%.

[953] I'm racking my brain.

[954] I'm not going to remember who said this.

[955] But there's a wonderful quote, which is, diagnosis does not cleave nature at its joints.

[956] Right?

[957] diagnosis is a very double -edged sword.

[958] My training is you do a really good job of evaluation.

[959] You look very deep and wide to try to figure out what's going on.

[960] What's bringing this person and what accounts for the concern.

[961] Get a clear sense of what's happening so that you can make the best possible treatment choices.

[962] That is absolutely essential to the field.

[963] There's also tremendous downside to diagnosis.

[964] First of all, people do not fit cleanly into these boxes.

[965] When I was teaching abnormal psychology, I used to make this elaborate drawing on the board of dots on a graph.

[966] and you get a cluster of dots.

[967] And so then I'd circle, I was like, so we call this depression.

[968] Right.

[969] And you get a cluster over here.

[970] So we'll call this something else.

[971] And there's all these other random dots.

[972] And the cluster may be 51 % of the dots.

[973] And then there's all these dots all over the board, right, that don't fit cleanly.

[974] So that is tricky in that we don't capture people well all the time.

[975] And then the other thing is, and especially caring for teenagers, questions of identity can get wrapped up in that, right?

[976] And so one of the things that we're seeing with teenagers, And I have a podcast where we answer questions from parents.

[977] What's the name of it?

[978] It's a shout out.

[979] It's called Ask Lisa, the psychology of parenting.

[980] Wonderful, Ask Lisa.

[981] And we recently took a question from a parent, but I'm hearing this a lot, about kids diagnosing themselves on TikTok.

[982] Oh, my God.

[983] This is very big.

[984] And this is very worrisome for me. And for me, the worrisome piece is I've cared for kids who are like, I have depression, and then they organize an identity around something that is treatable and manageable.

[985] And at other points in life, it may not change the course of things so much.

[986] In a teenager, it can.

[987] So we want to be careful.

[988] And it's self -fulfilling prophecy in some ways.

[989] You're looking for it.

[990] And I'm going to add, I'm part of the problem.

[991] So what's also interesting is we've had this wonderful evolution, I think, where people like me will come on and publicly say I'm an addict.

[992] I think that's helpful.

[993] I'll say I was molested.

[994] I'll say my A score was that.

[995] There's a lot of famous young actresses who are very open about their mental health.

[996] This wonderful thing's happening where the shame has been reduced and people are speaking about it in media, which is great.

[997] But the downside is these are also people.

[998] people's idols.

[999] So you can understand how someone who wants to be identical to Taylor Swift, we have to acknowledge there as a cultural force also at play.

[1000] It can absolutely come into that.

[1001] And I think there may be kids who are doing a good job of diagnosing themselves.

[1002] I'm not going to take that off the table.

[1003] But then let's get you the care you deserve so that you can live as richly and fully as possible.

[1004] You know, so there's no version of this where it's always wrong or it's always right.

[1005] Yes.

[1006] But as someone who's cared for teenagers over the long haul, the problem with what happens on TikTok or these sort of public places is that all symptoms occur on a continuum.

[1007] Of course, we're going to identify with pieces and parts of actually any variety of disorders.

[1008] It's almost like a horoscope.

[1009] Sometimes it's going to hit.

[1010] Sometimes it's not.

[1011] Exactly.

[1012] I would be so tempted if I were you and I was treating the kid, I would want to say, is this a diagnosis you want to hold on to?

[1013] That's probably a bad question, but I guess I would need to know that.

[1014] The same way someone who wants to get sober, my first question would be, do you want to get sober?

[1015] Are you here for your wife?

[1016] Because it generally doesn't work when you're here for your wife.

[1017] Or do you really want help?

[1018] Yeah, do you want to?

[1019] So it'd be hard for me to treat a kid who had self -diagnosed a certain condition, and maybe they're right, temporarily.

[1020] And if you want to hold on to that as an identity, that's very hard for me to work with.

[1021] Well, I guess the way I would go at it.

[1022] So if a teenager says, I have depression, but I'd say, like, tell me about it.

[1023] And then really find out what they're describing.

[1024] As they run it down for me, I may be like, indeed you do, right?

[1025] Like, you're hitting the diagnostic criteria.

[1026] We recognize as you have gotten yourself to the right place.

[1027] They may also be very, very sad.

[1028] Yes.

[1029] And you get a community out of this.

[1030] Well, there can be this sort of additional support that comes alongside of it.

[1031] And again, none of this is definitely good or definitely bad.

[1032] Right.

[1033] It's also complicated.

[1034] It's terrible gray areas that are real people and real kids.

[1035] But what's so cool about teenagers is they actually are really interested in mental health.

[1036] And so my experience is if you take them seriously and ask real questions and try to get to the bottom of how they came to this conclusion, even if the conversation goes in a place where I get to say, I have good news.

[1037] I actually don't think you're suffering from depression, but you are describing sadness.

[1038] And here's how we as clinicians make the distinction.

[1039] And if I treat them as the intelligent, thoughtful, caring people they are, then we're having a great experience together.

[1040] And within there, also, there's this incredibly sympathetic thing, which is, I think a lot of kids don't feel worthy of help unless it were something permanent and clinical.

[1041] And that's very heartbreaking.

[1042] For me, who has a hard time asking for help, it makes it easier if I'm dyslexic, I need more time.

[1043] I might have need more time, period.

[1044] Also, sadness sucks.

[1045] It can feel debilitating.

[1046] It can feel permanent when you're in it.

[1047] So, of course, what I'm feeling can't just be sadness.

[1048] That feels very like, who cares?

[1049] What I'm feeling is depression because it is heavy, but it's not.

[1050] It's not, but we can take your sadness very seriously.

[1051] I'll tell you one of the things that happens with teenagers sometimes is they'll say, like, oh, I could kill myself.

[1052] They'll sort of throw that out there.

[1053] And so when that comes up in my work, I'll say, is that something you're really thinking about or is that you telling me how upset you are right now?

[1054] And usually they'll say, no, no, no, I'm not thinking about it.

[1055] I'm just really upset.

[1056] And then the key thing in that moment is not to be like, okay, well, good.

[1057] The key thing is to say, what's got you so upset?

[1058] Let's go all in on that.

[1059] So I think you're right.

[1060] Sometimes kids can feel like no one's going to really hear me unless I bring it with this formal terminology.

[1061] Or that I would be a baby if I need to help getting over sadness.

[1062] It'd be fine to get over sadness.

[1063] with your assistance.

[1064] Yeah.

[1065] So I think if we can just honor that sometimes kids do have diagnoses and sometimes they just need a lot of love and support and they deserve whatever.

[1066] By the way, it's kind of the same thing regardless, right?

[1067] They need a lot of love and support.

[1068] And care.

[1069] So let's get to this question of when is it time to worry, right?

[1070] Because if we're saying typical adolescents will have a lot of negative moods and they may do quirky things to help themselves feel better, which are totally fine if no one's getting hurt.

[1071] There's two things I want adults to watch for.

[1072] So one thing is we worry not if a teenager's mood is all over the place.

[1073] Teenagers' moods are up and down all day long.

[1074] That's just natural.

[1075] We worry if their mood goes to a worrisome place and stays there.

[1076] If their mood goes to a dark place or an incredibly cranky, unpleasant place, or very, very blank, despondent, right?

[1077] And they're there for 36 hours is a long time in the life of a teenager.

[1078] If you know your kid, well, you might be like 24 hours is like not my kid.

[1079] If you have that like, this isn't my kid, their mood does not rest in this kind of space for this long, that's a flag.

[1080] In 36 hours.

[1081] I mean, it's kind of arbitrary.

[1082] Well, that's the kind of thing, though, that we really need to know.

[1083] Because even as you're ramping up to make this point, I'm trying to guess what you're going to say.

[1084] Is it two weeks of feeling that way?

[1085] Is it 12 hours?

[1086] But it's kid to kid.

[1087] Kid to kid and knowing your kid.

[1088] But again, I might guess two.

[1089] So even if it's minimally a ballpark of 36 hours, that's very helpful.

[1090] To be practical about all the time.

[1091] Which is just to say, time is different for teenagers.

[1092] I've always said, like, teenagers are like dog years.

[1093] One year to them is seven years to us.

[1094] Like a lot happens.

[1095] So in adults, if you're actually being very technical about it, you have to feel really lousy for two weeks for us to consider a depression diagnosis.

[1096] But I'm like, if you know your kid and you're like, this is not my kid, and it's been a day or a day and a half, and I am worried, worried, then take that very seriously.

[1097] The other thing we look for is what I'll call costly coping.

[1098] So they're managing the feelings, but they're managing in a way that is destructive or will be problematic.

[1099] So they're managing, but they're abusing substances.

[1100] Or they're managing and they are self -harming.

[1101] Or they're managing and they're being awful to people or changing their body as a response.

[1102] So those are the big things to worry about.

[1103] But what I wish we, on the clinical side, we're doing a better job of is helping adults understand the teenagers' moods go up and down.

[1104] They're very intense.

[1105] Distress is not on its own grounds for concern.

[1106] It's really about how it gets managed and that it comes and goes.

[1107] Yeah, so let's go through some myths of adolescent emotions, one being the misconception that negative emotions are harmful to teens.

[1108] people worry that painful emotions are going to hurt their kid.

[1109] And this is also something I will say, though, as a parent, I get it.

[1110] Teenagers' feelings are so powerful and so intense, and they ramp up very quickly.

[1111] So between ages like 6 to 10 or 11, kids are often pretty easygoing.

[1112] And then adolescence begins actually around 11, which is much earlier than people think.

[1113] And it's because it's driven by puberty, and most kids are in puberty by about that time.

[1114] And suddenly, your easygoing kid is like in a fetal position on the kitchen floor.

[1115] over something that happened at school.

[1116] And as a parent, you're like, this can't be good.

[1117] This might be harming my child.

[1118] And it is scary.

[1119] What is typical, though, is that then a really fun text comes through and the kid pops up, doesn't remember what was wrong.

[1120] Like, that's adolescence.

[1121] They recover quickly.

[1122] That's what we want to see.

[1123] So I think we don't want to work with the assumption that if my kid is in pain, it's going to hurt them.

[1124] Because then what happens, the upshot of that is you are playing like linebacker between your kid and the world.

[1125] Yeah, now you start buffering them from reality.

[1126] Yeah.

[1127] What about the misconception that emotions cloud judgment?

[1128] So they can, but by and large, they should inform our thinking.

[1129] And I talk in my book about a colleague of mine, Terry, who has this fabulous analogy she shared with me, which is that we should think of our emotions as one member of our personal board of directors.

[1130] So we all have a personal board of directors that helps with decision making, and maybe on that border like financial concerns, logistical concerns, ethics, interests, obligations, and also our feelings.

[1131] And the way my colleague tells it, she says, they don't share the board and they almost never have the deciding vote.

[1132] So feelings shouldn't be calling the shots.

[1133] It should be very rare that that happens.

[1134] But they can help inform.

[1135] Should I do this?

[1136] Do I want to do this?

[1137] What's my next move?

[1138] So they have a place, but we want them in their place.

[1139] Yeah, they should be taken seriously and also not be given the steering wheel.

[1140] Nope.

[1141] I mean, if you are paralyzed by anxiety, anxiety is winning.

[1142] That's not the way to live.

[1143] Right.

[1144] Now, of course, social media is, I don't know.

[1145] I have thoughts.

[1146] I do feel like there's some very serious and real problems with it.

[1147] I also think it's our moral panic.

[1148] I think it is the thing that's new.

[1149] I'm always trying to like push against knowing I'm as susceptible to moral panic and I will live through a generation that'll have its own.

[1150] And that's that.

[1151] So I'm always trying to just check it against that.

[1152] But what is harmful?

[1153] What should we watch for?

[1154] I'm with you.

[1155] I try to take a more, let's look at the whole picture here.

[1156] There are things I definitely worry about for kids on social media.

[1157] They are exposed to all sorts of toxic content that is not good for kids, right?

[1158] It can be either hate content or body image content or any variety of things.

[1159] The body image stuff is really crazy when you learn the algorithm at YouTube was taking you further and further down that.

[1160] This is the worry.

[1161] So all kids are seeing it and a lot of kids, to their credit, and I ask kids about this all the time, they work hard to ignore it to withstand it.

[1162] Think about the energy in that, right?

[1163] You're a kid who's like, I'm not looking at that.

[1164] But then, of course, if it's in front of you, some kids are like, wait, what is this?

[1165] The first search is something you wouldn't be concerned about most of the time.

[1166] It's like, I don't know, bathing suit, whatever, it's kind of an innocuous.

[1167] And then the algorithm's like, okay.

[1168] And so then the problem, and this is the thing I worry about with teenagers, especially, teenagers are vulnerable to norms, that their behavior has changed by what they think to be the norm around them.

[1169] So right now, my Instagram feed, I don't know why, but I'm loving it, is hacks for folding clothing.

[1170] I just love watching them.

[1171] It has not changed how I fold clothes at all.

[1172] Right.

[1173] I just like looking at it.

[1174] Yeah, yeah.

[1175] It's soothing for some reason.

[1176] Yeah, some reason I like it.

[1177] Whereas teenagers, if you see body after body after body after body that is ultra fin or ultra fit, what we'll see is suddenly the ship will start to turn.

[1178] And that kid will be like, this is what bodies look like, this is what my body should look like, and then behavior will change.

[1179] Same with hate content.

[1180] So that piece is very worrisome.

[1181] It's not just the seeing at once.

[1182] It's the algorithm that then gives this way lopsided version of the world that you're looking at over and over again.

[1183] So that worries me. There's also this weird phenomena.

[1184] remember learning it in an anthro paper about suicides in Tahiti.

[1185] Do you remember any of this?

[1186] There was like a suicide epidemic in the, I'm guessing, it was like 80s.

[1187] And quickly they found a very obvious correlation that when it was on the news, pretty immediately thereafter, you'd see a swell of it.

[1188] And then their ultimate solution was just to not report it because it was sticky.

[1189] It was transferable.

[1190] Norms matter for teenagers.

[1191] And actually some of the better substance abuse interventions actually just tell kids the level setting because, you know, the kids who are using in schools tend to have like a very high social profile.

[1192] Everybody knows what they're up to.

[1193] But when we actually look at the percentage of kids who are using, it's comparatively small.

[1194] And so there's very smart substance abuse interventions that are like, hey, only 14 % of kids are smoking weed.

[1195] Those numbers help kids be like, oh, okay, so they may get the headlines in the high school.

[1196] I'm not the only person not smoking weed.

[1197] In fact, I'm in the majority.

[1198] Right.

[1199] So norms really matter.

[1200] And the algorithms make me enormously anxious because they can shift to kids norms.

[1201] So I worry about that.

[1202] I would say the other thing, and this gets to the, what should we be really anxious about question, is sleep matters.

[1203] So the data on the causal connection between social media and mental health concerns is messy.

[1204] And we can't slam dunk say, parse out what is what.

[1205] Yeah, exactly.

[1206] The data on poor sleep and mental health concerns is not messy.

[1207] It's one to one, and we can do studies where we manipulate variables and can see what's driving what.

[1208] So I think for a lot of kids, it's not necessarily social media per se.

[1209] It's that they have their phone in their room at night and then this is very engaging or very upsetting or very upsetting or something.

[1210] Stimulating.

[1211] And then they're not sleeping.

[1212] For adults, too.

[1213] Exactly.

[1214] So if you're going to worry about things, sleep is the thing to worry about.

[1215] And if digital technology is undermining a kid's sleep, that is a problem and should be treated in that way.

[1216] So on the social media stuff, I mean, the reality is it's also a lot of phone for kids.

[1217] And also it's where they get their mindless entertainment.

[1218] And I watched so much Gilligan's Island as a kid, right?

[1219] And these kids are working so much harder than we ever worked.

[1220] They should have mindless entertainment, too.

[1221] So if their algorithm is cat videos or sports clips, fine.

[1222] So what do you do?

[1223] You grab your kid's phone at some point and see what trajectory their algorithm is on?

[1224] I think you do want to have a sense.

[1225] And can you reset the algorithm?

[1226] Yeah.

[1227] I think there are ways to do that.

[1228] I mean, what you need to do is find a 14 -year -old who can explain how to do this, right?

[1229] Which they will.

[1230] Sneaking their phone and click on cat videos for two hours and then put it away around.

[1231] This is, I think, really tricky, but none of us really should have tech in our rooms overnight.

[1232] We know that from the research.

[1233] It's easier to set this up.

[1234] I know.

[1235] I know.

[1236] I know.

[1237] No one likes to hear that.

[1238] Me too.

[1239] No one likes to hear it.

[1240] But when we look at the data.

[1241] I can't make fun of myself.

[1242] What about the alarm?

[1243] You hear your alarm from the kitchen.

[1244] All right.

[1245] If I'm late for work.

[1246] You can't get mad at me. All have bigger concerns.

[1247] What I would say is, if sleep's not an issue, it doesn't matter where your phone is.

[1248] Yeah.

[1249] Right.

[1250] If it's an issue, that's a place to consider starting.

[1251] And what I will say is for parents when they hand over tech to kids, the beautiful thing about the kid who's asking for tech is that they will agree to anything.

[1252] It's the ultimate leverage.

[1253] So when, depending on your community, 9, 10, 11, 12, a kid is like, hey, can I have a phone?

[1254] If you're agreeable, I would say, first of all, they do not need a browser or social media apps.

[1255] They need as much tech as is required to be in touch with their friends.

[1256] Often that is texting.

[1257] So you can say it'll be texting.

[1258] And this device doesn't.

[1259] not go in your room.

[1260] And the kid will be like, what am I getting it?

[1261] And so set those rules up.

[1262] So it's not the hardest thing at all to set up.

[1263] It is harder to walk back.

[1264] Oh yeah.

[1265] I had engraved on my daughter's iPod, no games.

[1266] Oh yeah.

[1267] Because that was the agreement I said.

[1268] And she's like fun.

[1269] Yeah.

[1270] How does gender shape the way teens express their feelings and experience their feelings?

[1271] Our research makes it pretty clear that this is socialized.

[1272] Right.

[1273] So back to the nature, nurture debate.

[1274] This is almost all nurture that we have different rules.

[1275] And sort of going with the gender binary because that's where the research sits right now.

[1276] Girls as a group are given a lot more latitude in our culture to express emotion, a wide range of emotions.

[1277] Boys is a group.

[1278] Well, I'll tell you what the research says, and then I'll tell you what I've come to believe.

[1279] So what the research says, and this is not entirely untrue, is that in terms of culturally sanctioned emotions for boys, there's two.

[1280] Anger and pleasure at someone else's expense.

[1281] Whereas girls enjoy a very wide emotional highway with many lanes.

[1282] So here's something I've been thinking about a lot.

[1283] I'm like, except for the domains where boys get to express tons of feelings.

[1284] And there's many.

[1285] I'll choose sports as an example.

[1286] Boys will cry.

[1287] They'll hug each other.

[1288] They'll smack each other on the ass.

[1289] They'll get so excited.

[1290] They'll be so happy.

[1291] If you want to see like the full blooming color of emotional experience, we have pockets in our world where boys and men are given full latitude.

[1292] And so I've gotten a little frustrated with the narrative of like, oh, guys are so two -dimensional about their emotions and women have this fabulous 3D experience.

[1293] I'm like, no, they're only allowed by the culture in certain areas.

[1294] Yeah.

[1295] And I think more the question we should be asking is, it's not that they don't or can't have these feelings, is that something gets in the way of feeling that they can have them everywhere else.

[1296] Yeah.

[1297] Yeah, I have this realization not long ago where I would, of course, explain my profound interest in girls being my hormones and my attraction.

[1298] But I really was thinking the other day, I was like, you know what it was?

[1299] It was the most enormous deep breath that this was a human I could act any way I wanted in front of, and I wouldn't be called weak.

[1300] That maybe was my primary attraction to women, is that you're permitted to have a much wider range of emotions.

[1301] I thought it was just like a call to mate, but I actually think it was like the reprieve from the fucking straight jacket of masculinity.

[1302] Here's something I've observed clinically, just to sort of play this out a little bit.

[1303] So I've cared for teenagers who are in very intense heterosexual relationships.

[1304] And teenage romances, they're like 30 -year marriages, right?

[1305] I know, I would love to go back.

[1306] Nothing is as heightened.

[1307] Nothing is as heightened.

[1308] And then, of course, today's teenagers, they're in touch 24 hours a day.

[1309] I mean, like, it's really, really powerful.

[1310] Often it would be like kids are going off to college or something, so they break up.

[1311] And for the boy, very deep.

[1312] So the girl can turn to her girlfriends and get tons of support around the pain of this relationship.

[1313] The boy is high and dry.

[1314] The friends go, yeah, she was a bitch.

[1315] Next thing.

[1316] Exactly.

[1317] Cural.

[1318] Now you're free.

[1319] Yeah.

[1320] But he is suffering so much.

[1321] This is a Wendy thing, too.

[1322] Boys get broken up with way more than boys break up with.

[1323] I bet that's right.

[1324] But then what happens clinically is he'll keep reaching out to the girlfriend for support because she's the one.

[1325] She's the one.

[1326] Who else are you going to share these feelings with?

[1327] I've seen those patterns so many times.

[1328] And I'm like, oh, these guys.

[1329] Like, I wish they could take care of their own.

[1330] Whereas the girls got more support than she knows what to do with.

[1331] So I know what you're talking about.

[1332] Yeah.

[1333] Oh, what a good point that their only outlet is now the person that they shouldn't be communicating.

[1334] Yeah, and so it's so messy because she's trying to move on and he's trying to stay afloat.

[1335] Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[1336] Oh, boy.

[1337] Okay.

[1338] What did my earmark?

[1339] Oh, I earmarked as someone has been doing it now for quite a while, seeing different movements in, I don't know what you want to.

[1340] label it i'm asking you for the label but there's the layman psychology maybe i'm wrong i don't remember in the 80s this enormous interest in psychology i don't remember as many psychologists being on tv all the time we talked to a ton of them were fascinated with it and i just wonder what your thoughts are and they're being a fad element to it and do you feel like that bastardized like we're just what are your feelings again we had a happiness movement that became then toxic happy Now we have a new model of success.

[1341] It's just constantly every six months, two years, whatever it is.

[1342] It feels like there's a new paradigm we click into and everyone pursues it like crazy.

[1343] And I just wonder what your thoughts on it being such a popular thing.

[1344] I think it's mixed.

[1345] I feel that way about the adolescent mental health crisis.

[1346] Like on the one hand, I'm so glad we're talking about teen mental health.

[1347] But on the other hand, I think, gosh, if you're a parent of a teenager and you're seeing headline after headline after headline about the adolescent mental health crisis, that's really frightening.

[1348] Especially if your kids having a fetal position meltdown in your kitchen, right?

[1349] which I have known to be natural to 13 -year -olds forever.

[1350] So I think it can really be double -sided.

[1351] I'm really grateful for people who do a very good job of translating the science effectively, of bringing it across, because the problem is a lot of times scientists just talk to other scientists.

[1352] We have all of these really interesting things, and we just share them with each other and leave everybody out.

[1353] At a Ramada Inn conference center somewhere in Boise.

[1354] With our posters and our presentations.

[1355] So I'm always grateful for people who are, good on the translational side.

[1356] I do worry sometimes that there can be the next thing that we're chasing.

[1357] It's starting to mirror diet crisis.

[1358] Again, longevity.

[1359] Optimization.

[1360] Again, longevity.

[1361] It's like we have to be perfect.

[1362] Optimization, I'm really frustrated with it.

[1363] I love it.

[1364] Do you?

[1365] Yeah.

[1366] Just physically.

[1367] I think there's ways we can take really good care of our bodies.

[1368] Yeah.

[1369] I do worry that adults and then also kids are getting the sense of like you have this exact number of minutes in a day.

[1370] Are you using them all as well as Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1371] This gets normed on social media, and then kids feel like they're so not keeping up.

[1372] They're lazy.

[1373] Yeah, yeah.

[1374] Oh, there was a great BBC series called The New Gurus.

[1375] It profiled different gurus, and I wouldn't have even thought of that.

[1376] But once it came up, I was like, oh, yeah, time management gurus is a whole sector of the economy.

[1377] I've never been pulled to it, so I've never watched someone telling me how to get the most out of my day.

[1378] But, yes, that's an enormous field.

[1379] Yeah, I don't know.

[1380] I just don't want to, I shouldn't play on people's sense of inadequacy.

[1381] Like, whatever you're doing.

[1382] People want to feel better.

[1383] They should get to feel better.

[1384] But do we help them feel better by saying, like, here's all the things you could be doing that you're not?

[1385] Or do we help them feel better by saying, here's how to understand why sometimes you run into trouble and here are some options that you can try when you do.

[1386] There's different ways to go about it.

[1387] There's just a lot of over -promising.

[1388] Again, none of these things, back to the A plus or the B, it's like, if it were framed more like you might be able to raise the standard of your existence by 15 % with these tools, that to me feels responsible.

[1389] I agree.

[1390] There's been other work about, evaluating just the overall macro success of self -help books in that there's quite a bit evidence that sets an objective that's unobtainable for people.

[1391] And they almost choked to death.

[1392] And they come out of it feeling even worse than they do when they bought the book because they weren't able to enact the policy that would have led to their happiness.

[1393] I believe that.

[1394] The thought I'm having is there's also some real downsides of focusing on the self.

[1395] Okay, great.

[1396] You're circling what I actually wrote down in this.

[1397] What I really meant is like, are we a little too obsessed with our psychology?

[1398] Oh, probably.

[1399] And there's value in an outward focus.

[1400] There is value in caring for others.

[1401] I think about that boy you talk about who had the job at Dairy Queen that changed his life.

[1402] I have never seen anything do more for teenagers than a job job job.

[1403] Old -fashioned job job.

[1404] A job job.

[1405] Not like the cushy internship.

[1406] A jab job where you are taking care of customers.

[1407] Eating shit.

[1408] Exactly.

[1409] Dealing with challenges, doing work that is sometimes pretty tedious, right?

[1410] The amount of growth that fosters, the sense of capacity.

[1411] the skill sets that are developed, it's interesting, the longer I've practiced, my idea of what constitutes a therapeutic option for a kid, for some kids, I'm like, that kids needs therapy.

[1412] For some kids, I'm like, that kid needs a job job, or that can needs to join the school play, or get them in a sport.

[1413] I do worry that the more we worry about ourselves, the more we worry about ourselves.

[1414] Yeah.

[1415] And that we can work outward sometimes.

[1416] So much of this focus is thinking and more time in your head and more introspection and more evaluation.

[1417] In fact, perhaps the best medicine is go do something physical for a way.

[1418] while and get distracted from your own navel gazing, and lo and behold, you'll be happier somehow.

[1419] I mentioned this in the emotional lives of teenagers.

[1420] I had a teenager described this perfectly.

[1421] She came one afternoon.

[1422] She's like, okay, I had the weirdest day.

[1423] She said, so I got a bad test back this morning.

[1424] I was so upset about it at the start of school.

[1425] You know, it was first period, and it bothered me all day.

[1426] And then I went to practice, and I couldn't think about it for two hours.

[1427] And then when I remembered it, I was like, why was I so upset about that?

[1428] Oh, yes.

[1429] And I'm like, distraction has a place in our lives.

[1430] Yeah, you don't have to frame it as like running or ignoring or all these things.

[1431] It's like, no, no, no. Well, as you know, my wife just thinks you're the second coming.

[1432] I don't think she's ever liked reading a book as much as, I guess it was the last one under pressure.

[1433] So the second book was under pressure.

[1434] So untangled under pressure and then the emotional lives of teenagers.

[1435] Emotional lives of teenagers was the last book.

[1436] Is my most recent.

[1437] Is the one that's out right now.

[1438] Yeah.

[1439] I want to say that she read under pressure.

[1440] And she liked that.

[1441] It was bananas for it.

[1442] And then she reached out to you personally, right?

[1443] Yeah.

[1444] I love all this.

[1445] I think it's one of the scarier moments for parents.

[1446] It might be the most high stakes, at least in their head, five or six years that they'll have with their kids.

[1447] It's kind of heartbreaking, too, that it comes right at the end of your ride with them.

[1448] But it doesn't.

[1449] I can say, as a mom of a college age kid, you get to keep being their parent for a long, long time.

[1450] Yeah.

[1451] I guess it's just the under your roof situation.

[1452] So lovely.

[1453] It is so lovely.

[1454] Oh, somebody just sent me this article.

[1455] It was like a fellow parent.

[1456] They're like, look at the statistic.

[1457] 30 % of kids under 28 are living at home.

[1458] moment.

[1459] I'm like, God willing.

[1460] Well, Lisa, this has been wonderful.

[1461] I hope everyone checks out the emotional lives of teenagers.

[1462] By God, if you have a teenager or you're about to have one, we're about to have one.

[1463] And I think the more we can right -size our fears and actually be able to identify what is problematic.

[1464] Well, it's hopeful to know what's coming.

[1465] And not just feel like it's happening out of nowhere.

[1466] Yeah.

[1467] So if you're expecting it's some craziness and it arrives, you're like, all right.

[1468] This is how it's supposed to unfold.

[1469] Yes.

[1470] Absolutely.

[1471] All right.

[1472] Well, good luck with everything this has been a pleasure and i hope you'll come back when you write your next book i would love to stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong how you doing pretty good pretty good how was your weekend my weekend was great um i went to a really great play oh was it a musical it was a musical oh my god i did too you did was your play great mine was excellent it was so good i went twice Wow.

[1473] Uh -huh.

[1474] Yes, your children were in a play.

[1475] Yeah, they were in newsies.

[1476] 1 p .m. showing on Saturday, 5 p .m. showing.

[1477] I went to the 1 p .m. Yes.

[1478] It got tighter.

[1479] It got tighter.

[1480] The 5 p .m. got tighter.

[1481] Okay.

[1482] Less mistakes.

[1483] Oh, well, I'm glad I saw the ones.

[1484] But the audience wasn't as good.

[1485] Oh, interesting.

[1486] Yeah, there was an enthusiasm to that first showing that was really fun.

[1487] Well, okay.

[1488] Do you think most of it was?

[1489] just the same parents and so they had already seen it and quite possibly yeah a little less similar turnout i thought oh well the five will be packed same turnout yeah yeah mostly parents of course just parents who's going to go see that play although leslie win and she didn't have a child in it i thought her kid did go to that school she does but she's not she wasn't performing in the oh i see they just wanted to support that's so maybe other parents in the school school, maybe checked it out.

[1490] Yeah.

[1491] Oh, my God, was it great.

[1492] I mean, it was so cute.

[1493] I don't know why I didn't predict how adorable six to 10 year olds in 1890s newsy clothes would be.

[1494] Even the way the play opens, of course, I've never seen that musical prior to that.

[1495] But it opens with like six kids on stage and they're all selling newspapers and they're like, you know.

[1496] Doing a voice.

[1497] Yeah, and they're like, they're giving you news like, the wing ducks win the Stanley Cop read all about it.

[1498] And then the next person's like, war is imminent, blah, blah, blah.

[1499] They're shouting headlines.

[1500] They're just children.

[1501] It was so funny.

[1502] It was really, really adorable.

[1503] And there were, of course, mix -ups is there's bound to be.

[1504] They've only, in fact, what we saw is the very first time that had ever been run all at once.

[1505] Oh, no. I was wondering that.

[1506] I was like, how many full dress rehearsals did they do?

[1507] I don't know that they ever did a dress rehearsal.

[1508] I know they had a blocking rehearsal, but it was very butchered up.

[1509] You know, it's not like it was, I think that was their first beginning to end.

[1510] Wow.

[1511] And there's a lot of cues.

[1512] People got anner.

[1513] Sure.

[1514] It was so funny because most regularly, someone would not be there.

[1515] Like, they're supposed to be a fourth or fifth person in the scene.

[1516] And everyone's just standing there.

[1517] And people are going like, what do you do?

[1518] Stand me. Just say it.

[1519] No, you say it.

[1520] And they're mic so you can hear them.

[1521] Yeah.

[1522] Well, we talked about this during Matilda because this is, okay, this is now the second show I've been to.

[1523] Yeah.

[1524] This was much better than.

[1525] It was.

[1526] It was they had fixed a lot of the issues.

[1527] One being, they figured out the lighting this time.

[1528] Yep, lighting was great.

[1529] Lighting was great.

[1530] Big step up.

[1531] The mics are the mics.

[1532] There's like 30 kids with mics and there's only two poor guys running the whole show.

[1533] So it's like it's only going to be so good.

[1534] It's just tricky because you can hear them all backstage.

[1535] Yeah, breathing.

[1536] And like chit -chatting.

[1537] And it is, it is so funny.

[1538] But man, was it cute?

[1539] You got to look at the winds.

[1540] like luckily Jack's mic always worked jack's carrying the whole play mind you jack is a woman is being played by yeah so it's not the performer jack but the character jack who's got the most amount of lines their mic was always hot on yeah yeah that's true it was great oh man it was very very very and then lincoln had a solo she did she did such a good job it was very sweet and delta was in the chorus delta made herself the star of the show she was in the chorus she was in the chorus she waved to us sure she did whatever she wanted yeah sometimes she would sing the songs well they weren't her songs but she would sing along yep you could tell when she totally zoned out yeah didn't care didn't care to be there anymore and then she would turn it like a light switch and then she'd be the most dynamic person so funny i was thinking watching her like wow she ever decides like she's not she doesn't really give a shit she just like she didn't want to do it and somehow she ended up doing it she's only got one line and then but she's in the course and then she's got to take a picture and then but Lincoln had to come tell her like it's go you take the picture oh yeah both both times because she got so carried away dancing and having fun yeah it is funny I agree like she has so much charisma you know she's so magnetic and I don't I don't think she's not drawn to it like no after the first showed she came she was like she ran immediately off and ran over and was like I don't want to do a second show.

[1541] Yeah, and she was actually saying it in a manner of, like, can I not?

[1542] Like, she was looking for permission to just pull a no show for the same.

[1543] We're like, absolutely not.

[1544] You got to be.

[1545] Yeah, I got to show up.

[1546] Who's going to say, you can count on me. That's her big line.

[1547] You can count on me. And she makes her fist.

[1548] Yeah.

[1549] Who's going to take that picture?

[1550] Oh, it's so cute.

[1551] Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy.

[1552] Oh, boy.

[1553] And then Lincoln, yeah, she had a couple moments where her voice just had this truly beautiful.

[1554] full tone.

[1555] Or I was like, oh, man, she got it.

[1556] Like, she got it.

[1557] It was so cute.

[1558] And I was sitting next to Kristen's dad.

[1559] All I could think many times, well, for one, it was very sweet.

[1560] He facetined Kelly, his wife.

[1561] So she was watching it, which I thought was so cute and so sweet.

[1562] But I kept thinking, and Kristen's mom was at Matilda.

[1563] And I thought the same thing.

[1564] It must be such a mom.

[1565] mind fuck for them to be sitting there watching these little girls and it must feel like 10 minutes ago that they were just watching Kristen do that and they look like her but they're their grandkids I mean it's like such a time warp for them it isn't but I imagine it has to feel so sweet like the experience for me is just out of this world to see them try yeah to put themselves, I'm particularly Lincoln, let's be honest, really go for it, have a solo, work really hard.

[1566] I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude that they're like, they're go -getters.

[1567] Yes.

[1568] And, you know, and then I guess the next stage is you have, it's like they have kids you wish the best for their kids.

[1569] So yeah, so if you're Tom, my father -in -law, and you're like, your little girl's two seats down and she made it.

[1570] Yeah, and she's super successful at this thing.

[1571] Yeah, and then here's her little girl and she's on fire for it.

[1572] I don't know.

[1573] Yeah, I got to imagine that's a pretty unique and fun experience to be a grandpa there.

[1574] I mean, I think being a grandparent, you get those moments a lot, probably, but this arena is so specific because seeing Kristen at that age doing that and then becoming what she's become based off of it.

[1575] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1576] And And, like, they have spent so much time in those seats watching their kid do that.

[1577] Yep.

[1578] And now for it to be like, yeah, round two, so bonkers.

[1579] It is.

[1580] And probably, well, I wonder.

[1581] It's beautiful.

[1582] I wonder if they had anxiety like, oh, God, she's going to try to do this.

[1583] It's impossible to do this.

[1584] Right.

[1585] But then probably that whole elements relieved by the time you're a grandparent.

[1586] Because, A, it's not his problem.

[1587] Yes.

[1588] And then B, this is proven to be something that can be done weird.

[1589] Yeah.

[1590] Yeah, I don't know.

[1591] It was all very interesting.

[1592] Yeah.

[1593] But I just think it's cool.

[1594] You know, it was like pandemonium in the house getting them ready for the thing, drop off at 10, this and that, went to the performance.

[1595] Liz had a birthday party, shoot over there for 20 minutes, then straight back to the theater.

[1596] So now selfishly, it's like, ooh, that was the all of Saturday.

[1597] That just blew by.

[1598] Yeah.

[1599] I need some rest.

[1600] Because the last week was a big week for us.

[1601] Big week, yeah.

[1602] I needed a little rest.

[1603] And I was like, okay, great.

[1604] Sunday, I'm going to blah, blah, blah.

[1605] And then right before I went to bed, I was like, oh, my God, I have to go play paintball tomorrow for Ace's birthday party with Lincoln.

[1606] I'm like, Lincoln, we got to go.

[1607] And she's like, oh, okay.

[1608] Like she's excited to do that.

[1609] But also, she's, of course, completely spent from doing the two shows.

[1610] Yeah.

[1611] So then Sunday was all was paintball.

[1612] How was paintball?

[1613] Fucking awesome.

[1614] Great.

[1615] Again, I was like braddy going like, oh, my God, now Sunday's going to be, I'm going to go straight into money and be working.

[1616] Tough shit, that's a parent's life.

[1617] But it was a very kid weekend.

[1618] But anyways, it was an hour drive out there.

[1619] And I just had the most lovely ride with Lincoln.

[1620] We held hands the whole time and listened to Yacht Rock.

[1621] Fun.

[1622] And she was singing, and she knows the words to every Yacht Rock song.

[1623] And so I was just, you know, really euphoric with that.

[1624] And then she was nervous, of course.

[1625] It was all boys.

[1626] She was the only girl invited to, and there was 18 boys.

[1627] Whoa.

[1628] Yeah, it was like most of his class and a couple friends.

[1629] from baseball and so she got there and there's like dudes walking around in military gear there's fully like 10 different fields going and there's like guys with that's their life oh like grown -ass men with beards and they're the mildly militia looking you know dudes so she's and she says you know like I'm pretty nervous and I'm like I totally understand how could you not be it's like all these men and there's guns and you don't like guns and then it's all boys and they're and the boys are already like they're in a war movie the little boys they're like they're bumping each other's chas and i'm gonna you know they're they're boys they're like getting revved up for this and i said to her um you know of of course you are look at this this is a sausage party and it's crazy i said but you're gonna be fucking better than all of them at this like i'm just saying if you if you can get out there one time and i'll be out there too yeah and so Erica and charlie also played and i played oh fun the second it starts it is so much fun it's incredible And so Lincoln and I were a little two -man team And there's all these things to hide behind And you're going And so the first one was really fun At some point I realized If I run as fast as I can Or on the outside I can get behind everyone as they advance No you're never looking behind you You're like looking forward And you're behind all these things And Lincoln and I got behind everyone And we just had an unstoppable A moment Lincoln killed Charlie She snuck up behind him He had his back to her And she ran And what's really cute is they told us the rules where if you come around the corner and you have someone like you're right on them close range you can yell surrender and if they lift their gun up then they've surrendered but if they point they're gun at you then you're free to shoot them so lincoln was running at charlie firing and screaming surrender oh that's funny and she blasted him can i show you can i send you a pitcher oh she was so proud of herself as she should be for taking out the biggest boy there Yeah, that's a big deal.

[1630] Yeah, no one's getting Charlie.

[1631] Yeah, you know, we have all these, these pod babies.

[1632] Yeah.

[1633] And they're all growing up together, and it's really sweet.

[1634] And they were planning this paintball party for Ace.

[1635] And it was like, I think I was just going to be like school friends.

[1636] And it's going to be boys only.

[1637] And then Ace said, but I think Linkett should come because I think she'll be better than everyone.

[1638] Yeah.

[1639] And that flattered her enough to get her there.

[1640] Yeah.

[1641] Like, oh my God, he wanted to, he wanted to show her off.

[1642] Like, I have this friend who's a girl, but she plays like the boy.

[1643] She rides dirt bikes.

[1644] Yeah.

[1645] And I think that's, it's so sweet for all these kids.

[1646] It's so familial.

[1647] But that's why I, oh, wow.

[1648] She got them, huh?

[1649] Is that a bruise or is that paint?

[1650] No, no, that's through a shirt.

[1651] Yeah, that's like a welt.

[1652] Oh, my God.

[1653] Yeah.

[1654] Ow.

[1655] Yeah, she lit them up.

[1656] That's pretty violent.

[1657] Yeah, I was bleeding.

[1658] Oh, I still have the mark.

[1659] I was bleeding on my hand and on my wrist.

[1660] I thought it was like, didn't hurt.

[1661] No, no, it leaves well.

[1662] But it doesn't hurt that bad.

[1663] It's a perfect amount of hurt.

[1664] You don't want to get hit.

[1665] You're motivated to not get hit.

[1666] Oh, okay.

[1667] You know, it's great, though, so we played four different rounds of it.

[1668] I got killed twice.

[1669] Lincoln only got killed one time.

[1670] Wow.

[1671] Yeah.

[1672] Pretty fun.

[1673] But yeah, I like, I like that these kids have, that's a little family.

[1674] Yeah, I do too.

[1675] I do too.

[1676] And then we'll take, we'll take A's to Disneyland.

[1677] Oh, fun.

[1678] Her birthday is coming up.

[1679] Mm -hmm.

[1680] And she'll be 11.

[1681] Yes.

[1682] Crazy.

[1683] Isn't that?

[1684] Does it feel crazy?

[1685] It doesn't, it doesn't.

[1686] She still feels like a kid, but in five seconds, she's going to feel like someone about to leave the house.

[1687] Ding, ding, ding.

[1688] What?

[1689] This is for Lisa.

[1690] more on teenagers basically.

[1691] Oh, yes.

[1692] What timing?

[1693] Yeah, it's weird.

[1694] I mean, it feels like I've been with there for 11 years.

[1695] Yeah.

[1696] And at the same time, there's never enough time.

[1697] Yeah.

[1698] It's way more than halfway over until she's an adult.

[1699] Until she's an adult.

[1700] But the adult doesn't mean over.

[1701] That's very true.

[1702] But you do get, you know, there's a reality to life, which is her life will get bigger and bigger and my involvement in it will get smaller.

[1703] Yeah.

[1704] And that's a very hard.

[1705] It is.

[1706] It mirrors life in general, right?

[1707] Like, life's a tragedy.

[1708] It is.

[1709] It's just like one heartbreak after another.

[1710] Yeah, but you just got to have comedy along the way or it'd be insufferable.

[1711] It does feel like life is, for the first part, it's a series of getting, and then the second part is a series of losses.

[1712] It's tough to start realizing that.

[1713] Yeah, it's not set up in the beautiful three -act structure of a movie where the end is you reap all the rewards but again Tom was at that thing this weekend and I'm sure very much for him watching these two generations that he created he was at what the play we were just talking about sorry I thought you meant Tom Hanson oh no no no yeah yeah my father -in -law you know he's very much he invented Kristen there was no such thing as a Kristen exactly he made her I know I know and she made Lincoln I know And so he made both those people.

[1714] To see it all.

[1715] I think there are rewards.

[1716] Yeah, yeah.

[1717] Or also like we will all have a million moments when we're all old farts and we're together playing cards in someone's backyard and we'll go like, oh yeah, we didn't do this alone.

[1718] This is lovely.

[1719] We all shared this whole thing together.

[1720] I think there's like beauty and there's poignancy that comes with age, obviously.

[1721] But actively things are.

[1722] Things are slipping through.

[1723] Yeah, you end your career, you end your this, you downsize, you sell things.

[1724] Your family grows up.

[1725] People start dying.

[1726] Yeah, it's fucking.

[1727] It's pretty brutal.

[1728] You just got to ignore it as long as you can.

[1729] I know, I know.

[1730] So you wake up dead.

[1731] It's best to be in denial.

[1732] It is.

[1733] That's all coming whether you focus on it or not.

[1734] Yeah.

[1735] I think that's right.

[1736] Well, it is right.

[1737] Well, in fact, it is correct.

[1738] I just checked that fact.

[1739] What did you do yesterday?

[1740] How long did you stay at Liz's party?

[1741] I don't know, an hour, an hour and a half or so.

[1742] And then I went to Callie's birthday party.

[1743] Oh, no kidding.

[1744] Where was hers?

[1745] It's a big time for birthdays.

[1746] She had a dinner at a cute restaurant.

[1747] That's also an interesting thing.

[1748] Callie and I have been celebrating birthdays together since we were 14.

[1749] Yeah.

[1750] And she just turned 37.

[1751] And it's so...

[1752] You've celebrated way more birthdays together than apart.

[1753] Yeah.

[1754] Odd.

[1755] Just like so strange and so special.

[1756] Like it's that dualistic.

[1757] It feels sad a little bit and it feels really lucky.

[1758] Bittersweet.

[1759] Yeah, and I don't want to use it because it's just so cliche.

[1760] It is.

[1761] Should I stop using that word?

[1762] Life is a cliche though.

[1763] Who are we kidding?

[1764] No. No, go ahead and use it.

[1765] Does that like Ben there done that?

[1766] No, I love been there done that.

[1767] Oh, you do.

[1768] BD -D -T.

[1769] Yeah, but you say B -D -T -D -T.

[1770] Oh, B -T -D -T -D -T.

[1771] Oh, B -T -D -T -D -T.

[1772] There should be a boy band called BTD.

[1773] Well, there is one called...

[1774] No, it is BD.

[1775] Ben, no, it's not.

[1776] It's definitely not.

[1777] You're right.

[1778] So that was very fun.

[1779] And then I went to, I went home, I ate life cereal.

[1780] Oh, fun.

[1781] That's a good cereal.

[1782] Cinnamon or regs?

[1783] No, I go, I'm regs.

[1784] Okay.

[1785] I'm always regs.

[1786] And...

[1787] Do you put sugar on top?

[1788] No, it's pretty...

[1789] It's sugary.

[1790] Yeah, yeah.

[1791] I eat it as a dessert.

[1792] And it's satisfying.

[1793] buying as a dessert.

[1794] But when you're a kid, when I used to eat life as a kid, I would pour sugar all over it.

[1795] Oh, yeah.

[1796] I'd put sugar all over Cheerios and stuff.

[1797] Wow.

[1798] Yeah.

[1799] I didn't know about life until my later years.

[1800] I didn't really know about it until call.

[1801] Like I knew about it, but I would never have picked it.

[1802] It looked boring.

[1803] Yeah.

[1804] Little did I know.

[1805] It's the best cereal.

[1806] It also had a really curious ad campaign, which was Mikey likes it.

[1807] They would trick this kid into eating it because everyone was, no one wanted to eat it, all the older kids.

[1808] And they would make Mikey the little kid eat.

[1809] it, and then they go, Mikey likes it.

[1810] That's from life?

[1811] That's from life.

[1812] I know that lie.

[1813] Everyone knows Mikey likes it.

[1814] That's from life, but the subtext is like, this is a very unappealing cereal.

[1815] We're going to acknowledge it.

[1816] No one would want to eat it.

[1817] So a child has to be bullied into eating it.

[1818] But if they do, they're actually going to like it.

[1819] Not even love it.

[1820] He likes it.

[1821] Oh, man. But then they feel jealous of Mikey.

[1822] Then they eat it all.

[1823] I just remember him being like shithead teenagers Yeah Poor Mikey Was that related to life with Mikey The Michael J. Fox Movie?

[1824] That's a great Oh Because he was like a child star Yeah it might have even been The premise might have been That he was Mikey in the commercial But I don't know But you should look that out That is Was it Michael J. Fox in the commercial?

[1825] No But someone who looked like him Surely Yeah he was a cute little brown hair boy Wow Oh boy Oh baby A little white boy A 70s sitcom star, now grown up, that runs a talent agency for child stars.

[1826] Okay.

[1827] Wait, what?

[1828] That's the premise of the movie.

[1829] Oh, of the movie, okay.

[1830] Also, there's just like Mike, that's a Michael Jordan thing.

[1831] Oh.

[1832] With Little Bowen, right?

[1833] Like Mike?

[1834] Just like Mike?

[1835] Oh, yeah.

[1836] Just like Mike Jordan likes it.

[1837] Anywho.

[1838] Okay, so yesterday.

[1839] Oh, yeah.

[1840] Okay, so I also was, I was sleepy.

[1841] I had been, I was supposed to get wine on Friday.

[1842] and I canceled.

[1843] Oh, my God.

[1844] That's how tired I was.

[1845] I know.

[1846] Whoa.

[1847] I know.

[1848] And then Sunday I went to Houston's for lunch.

[1849] Did you get your grilled cheese and tomato soup?

[1850] I did.

[1851] Oh, and there was a very sweet arm cherry there.

[1852] There was?

[1853] Shout out.

[1854] Shout out.

[1855] She was so nice.

[1856] Who were you there with?

[1857] Anna and Julia.

[1858] Oh, fun.

[1859] Yeah, we had a nice long lunch.

[1860] Oh, martini.

[1861] Oh, my gosh.

[1862] Decadette.

[1863] And then Jess got home.

[1864] Jess has been out of town for 17 days.

[1865] Where?

[1866] Florida.

[1867] What the fuck is he doing in Florida?

[1868] He's working.

[1869] Oh.

[1870] And so he's been O -O -T.

[1871] Okay.

[1872] O -O -T, out of town, okay.

[1873] Okay.

[1874] Okay, he's been out of town.

[1875] So he got home and we decided to all hang out.

[1876] We were going to go to the valleys.

[1877] We all drove to the valley.

[1878] After Husties.

[1879] Yes.

[1880] Then we remembered St. Patrick's Day.

[1881] Yikes.

[1882] And the valley is wild.

[1883] Wild on St. Patty.

[1884] Sure.

[1885] And we normally in the valley go to Foreman's, which is an Irish bar.

[1886] So we went, I walked through and right on out.

[1887] And I texted them.

[1888] I said, nope.

[1889] We need a new plan.

[1890] Yeah.

[1891] We got to go to an Italian place.

[1892] While we were waiting, exactly.

[1893] While we were waiting, I stopped at Trader Joe's and I got some flowers.

[1894] And then I got a milkshake from big boys.

[1895] Oh, you did.

[1896] Yeah.

[1897] And then we went to Mess Hall.

[1898] Oh.

[1899] And there were some redheads there because that was the day that the redheads came out.

[1900] Because the Irish.

[1901] Sure.

[1902] Normally they live in caves.

[1903] Oh, okay.

[1904] And then they have one day a year where they come out.

[1905] That's why they're so pale.

[1906] Oh, that makes a lot of fun.

[1907] You didn't mess hell Sunday?

[1908] Yeah.

[1909] Are you there?

[1910] What time?

[1911] At like 5 .30 for dinner.

[1912] We just missed you.

[1913] We just missed you.

[1914] Were you inside or outside?

[1915] We were going to be inside, but we had friends outside also there, so we went outside.

[1916] Wow.

[1917] I must have literally just missed you.

[1918] You got there at, what, 6 already?

[1919] No, we were before.

[1920] You were before.

[1921] Okay.

[1922] Dang.

[1923] You got a lot done.

[1924] You're at Houston's, and you went to the Valley, and you went to big boys, and you got flowers and went shopping, and you were at Messel before 4.

[1925] I know.

[1926] My God.

[1927] We do what we call stovetop.

[1928] It means stovetop stuffing.

[1929] Right.

[1930] which is a Mandela.

[1931] Which is a Mandela effect.

[1932] But also Jess invented the phrase stovetop after stove top stuffing because of the commercial.

[1933] On the commercial ding ding dingin commercial, Mikey likes it.

[1934] A kid maneuvers his way into having two servings of stovet's house and then his mom's house.

[1935] Exactly.

[1936] It's dinner with his mom's stove top stuffing.

[1937] And then he goes to his buddy's house and gets a second round of stovetop stuffing.

[1938] She did the system.

[1939] So when we do multiple places, we call it stove top.

[1940] Right.

[1941] And so it was a stove top.

[1942] Oh, fun.

[1943] It was really fun.

[1944] We'd all been apart, so it was a really nice reunion.

[1945] And did you sleep like a brick?

[1946] I had a headache.

[1947] Because I haven't drank that much this week.

[1948] Uh -huh.

[1949] And so it was, it was.

[1950] You're out of practice.

[1951] I was a little out of practice.

[1952] Out of shape.

[1953] Mm -hmm.

[1954] And I had a headache.

[1955] Uh -oh.

[1956] But eventually I slept.

[1957] I think.

[1958] TBD.

[1959] Yeah.

[1960] So it was a nice weekend.

[1961] Was there anything else?

[1962] What did you pin?

[1963] Oh, yeah.

[1964] Oh, well, we were going to do connections.

[1965] Oh, right.

[1966] And do you want to do it live?

[1967] Let's see, yeah.

[1968] Let's see if I can find it and everything.

[1969] So I have a New York Times app.

[1970] Yeah, I wonder if I kept the game at.

[1971] Let me search NYT.

[1972] Because I just realized that I've only done a half.

[1973] I took it off and I'm putting it back on.

[1974] Okay, put it back on.

[1975] 5G.

[1976] Should I switch back over now?

[1977] Here it comes.

[1978] Here it comes.

[1979] Open.

[1980] It's down a little bit.

[1981] Okay, I see spelling bee.

[1982] Yep.

[1983] Connections.

[1984] You're going to have to help me how this works.

[1985] So play.

[1986] Yes.

[1987] Play.

[1988] How to play.

[1989] I'm going to X that out because you have an expert here.

[1990] That's right.

[1991] Okay, so there's a bunch of words.

[1992] I see them.

[1993] You have 16 words, and you're trying to group them into groups of four.

[1994] Four groups of four.

[1995] Four groups of four.

[1996] And so you'll click on four that you think is a category.

[1997] But remember, be careful because...

[1998] Yeah, not too fast.

[1999] I try to trick you.

[2000] They do.

[2001] They try to trick.

[2002] And I've done two out of the four so far.

[2003] I need to...

[2004] Yeah, like we've got cycle, cyclone, cyclops.

[2005] Cygnus.

[2006] Right.

[2007] So you're tempted to think those four together, right?

[2008] You are tempted.

[2009] And there's unicycle also.

[2010] Okay, wait, we have, okay, I'm going to do, I'm going to go.

[2011] I'm going to do four right now, submit.

[2012] Oh, that was fast.

[2013] Did you get it?

[2014] What's it say?

[2015] One away.

[2016] Okay, so what did you click?

[2017] Orion Galaxy Gemini Pegasus.

[2018] Okay.

[2019] You're one away.

[2020] One of those is wrong.

[2021] So then how do I?

[2022] So deselect.

[2023] Or what do you think it could be instead of one of them?

[2024] It means three of those are correct in that.

[2025] I mean, I really know that I feel like Orion and Galaxy are definitely the real deal together.

[2026] Yes, you don't.

[2027] So these are constellations.

[2028] Uh -huh.

[2029] Okay, so I'm going to get rid of Galaxy because that's not a constellation.

[2030] Exactly.

[2031] And then the maybe Singus.

[2032] I'm going to go with Singus.

[2033] I'm going to submit.

[2034] constellations you got it i got one okay so i have one error you have one error but okay you have one done um now what oh so then yeah so i'm going to go solitaire unicycle cyclops um cycle monologue i'm going to submit associated with one you got it i got it okay now we're cut up Those are the two also that I did.

[2035] Okay.

[2036] So those were for dumb -dums.

[2037] No. I mean, they were the most obvious.

[2038] Not necessarily.

[2039] Purple sometimes is not.

[2040] Is that hot as fuck in here?

[2041] Isn't me?

[2042] I'm not hot.

[2043] I'm not hot.

[2044] It's not a great sign.

[2045] Okay, now let's do the next ones together.

[2046] I like this.

[2047] I like doing it as a team.

[2048] Well, cycle and phase.

[2049] I like being on your team.

[2050] Me too.

[2051] I like, hi, teammate.

[2052] Hi.

[2053] So cycle and phase.

[2054] Uh -huh.

[2055] Stage.

[2056] Yep, I had that And then it was like What's the fourth?

[2057] Cycle phase Stage round?

[2058] Yeah I guess I can't say too much Because I've tried a couple things Okay But not round So rounds probably not right Snail I think I did But I don't remember I wish it would tell me what I did It'll tell you if you guessed it already I know but it won't like have it listed Well, I can do shuffle.

[2059] I'm going to shuffle.

[2060] Uh -huh.

[2061] Sometimes it's nice to shuffle.

[2062] They do like to do like blank word a lot.

[2063] Exactly.

[2064] Or word blank.

[2065] So like gel, oh.

[2066] What?

[2067] Yeah, like the word would be gel and another word would be, um.

[2068] Oh, something tricky.

[2069] Yeah, and then it's all like words that have oh at the end.

[2070] Or like compound words that all share the second word.

[2071] Yeah, they definitely have throwoffs.

[2072] Okay, so galaxy is the one that's sticking out It's like it wouldn't fit with any of these So something.

[2073] Well, I said, okay, I thought maybe Maybe things that were circular Which I was like snail, round, sunflower, cyclone.

[2074] You already tried that?

[2075] But I'm pretty sure I tried it and it didn't work.

[2076] Yeah, I would be nervous about that.

[2077] Sunflower's so weird.

[2078] Like, it can't mean sunflower with all these other words here.

[2079] Sunflower oil.

[2080] Could they be types of oil?

[2081] Snail oil?

[2082] Cyclone oil, galaxy oil?

[2083] Or snails.

[2084] Sunflower seed?

[2085] Snail seed cyclones, round seed, galaxy seed.

[2086] Round features?

[2087] I don't see any other features on here.

[2088] Cycle seed.

[2089] I mean, stage phase.

[2090] Cycle.

[2091] I know.

[2092] It's so annoying because...

[2093] I'm going to do it.

[2094] I'm going to do stage, phase, cycle, and round.

[2095] Okay, let's see if I've done that before.

[2096] Go ahead.

[2097] Okay, submit segment of progress.

[2098] It works?

[2099] Yep, I got it.

[2100] Oh, I thought I tried it.

[2101] This is a problem.

[2102] Okay, now we know the others.

[2103] So snail, cyclone, galaxy, and sunflower.

[2104] Before I hit submit, I want to figure out why they're together.

[2105] Okay.

[2106] Could it be like clone, nail, flower, or gala?

[2107] That they all have...

[2108] It was a fun game.

[2109] Isn't it fun?

[2110] Yeah.

[2111] I don't know how fun it'll be to listen to us to it, but it's a very fun game.

[2112] Yeah, I'll probably cut it.

[2113] Especially for a week old version of it.

[2114] But it had to be a week because I didn't want it to be.

[2115] Piss people off.

[2116] Cyclone is...

[2117] I mean, it could...

[2118] I thought for a second I had it, but it's not.

[2119] I thought a Ford.

[2120] There's a Galaxy Ford.

[2121] There might have been a Cyclone Ford.

[2122] Not a Sun.

[2123] Snail.

[2124] Is it like male?

[2125] You're right.

[2126] But no. I'm submitting.

[2127] Oh, wow.

[2128] You gave in.

[2129] Yeah.

[2130] Does it seem like you could get the explanation?

[2131] Should I quit?

[2132] Is it too hard?

[2133] Or is it doable?

[2134] I mean...

[2135] It's not doable.

[2136] It's not that satisfying.

[2137] Okay.

[2138] I'm going to submit.

[2139] I submitted.

[2140] You were kind of there.

[2141] Yeah.

[2142] Spirals in nature.

[2143] Spiral circles.

[2144] That's what I said.

[2145] Next puzzle.

[2146] But Galaxy, I didn't love this one, Wina, Wina.

[2147] Her name's Wina, I think.

[2148] Let me see if I...

[2149] Yeah, Wina Lou.

[2150] What do you do?

[2151] I'm trying to remember if I have Callie's.

[2152] Oh, you want to get added to the group?

[2153] With my friend Robbie and Max.

[2154] So is one mistake good?

[2155] Yeah, that's pretty good.

[2156] You're looking for zero.

[2157] Yeah, we're hoping.

[2158] How often is it zero?

[2159] I bet pretty high, but not today.

[2160] Okay.

[2161] I made a lot of mistakes today.

[2162] How many mistakes did you make?

[2163] Let's see.

[2164] Did I beat you on my first time?

[2165] I mean, I don't want to point that out, but I'm curious.

[2166] Okay, well, it was a little confusing because we did it together.

[2167] Purple is the trickiest one.

[2168] Yeah, normally right?

[2169] I did that one on my own.

[2170] I just bowled a head.

[2171] Maybe I don't think you should be in our group.

[2172] Okay.

[2173] I'm not liking the way this is heading.

[2174] This is like Spades.

[2175] She finds it really easy and then it gets frustrating.

[2176] Ossetting.

[2177] Like, oh, okay.

[2178] What I actually really like about the sharing with the group is seeing the order that we all do it.

[2179] Because it's always different.

[2180] And so it's fun to me to see what's quick for people and what takes.

[2181] It tells you what order I got you.

[2182] Yeah.

[2183] Oh, yeah.

[2184] Like, we got those two in the same order.

[2185] I want to play all these now.

[2186] I know.

[2187] This is exciting.

[2188] Wordle.

[2189] Do you do wordle?

[2190] I did wordle today.

[2191] Oh, my God.

[2192] You do it all.

[2193] Spelling Bee you do?

[2194] I don't do spelling bee.

[2195] Make as many words as you can.

[2196] with seven letters.

[2197] That's fun.

[2198] I'm like a grandpa or something.

[2199] Yeah, we just just don't, but it's not great for an audio medium.

[2200] But you guys are having a real chuckle over that.

[2201] Well, only because I thought maybe we'd have another 10 minutes doing spelling bee.

[2202] Oh, okay, okay.

[2203] All right, all right, okay.

[2204] So let's go to our expert.

[2205] Okay, so Lisa.

[2206] Yeah, Lisa.

[2207] Anyway, I hope everyone plays connections.

[2208] Bill taught us that, Callie taught us that.

[2209] Yeah, now we're playing.

[2210] Now we're in.

[2211] I was late again.

[2212] I'm always last to these games.

[2213] I don't know what it is.

[2214] Yeah, I was last to spades.

[2215] Well, that one, you really were hung up.

[2216] You didn't want to do it.

[2217] I know.

[2218] I know.

[2219] And what is it?

[2220] Is it because you're worried, like, be vulnerable.

[2221] Is it because you're worried you'll be bad?

[2222] It's like, when a group of people do something, my knee -jerk reaction is like, that's not for me. Probably because I don't, from childhood or something.

[2223] Like, I'm not going to be included, so I'm just going to exclude myself.

[2224] Right.

[2225] But even though, even though it's weird because you are being included, it's like, why don't Why don't you play?

[2226] Why don't you play?

[2227] It doesn't make any sense.

[2228] I'm like, I'm not defending it.

[2229] And I see it in other people.

[2230] I see other people have that disposition too.

[2231] I don't play games as a declaration.

[2232] There's a lot of those people.

[2233] Yeah.

[2234] But to me it means like because you're afraid you're going to, not you're going to, not you're going to be bad at it and you're not comfortable being bad at things or you're afraid you're going to lose.

[2235] Well, I think there's a I think there's a lot of things going on actually.

[2236] I think there's like I have a hard time being a follower.

[2237] So if everyone's done it before me, I have a hard time being a follower.

[2238] Two, I do get anxiety about learning something new.

[2239] I still do.

[2240] Like, if I already know how to do something, I get this tinge of, like, anxiety that just about learning it.

[2241] Yeah.

[2242] That I won't be able to comprehend it.

[2243] Yeah.

[2244] Which is preposterous, but just like I'm afraid of men, but I'm big now.

[2245] You know, it doesn't make sense.

[2246] It's also, I think more than it's preposterous that you want.

[2247] wouldn't understand it, it's more preposterous that you would take that as a marker of your value or intelligence.

[2248] There are things I don't understand.

[2249] I'm not going downriver to be embarrassed about it.

[2250] I'm going, I'm going straight to that I'm going to be really frustrated and everyone else is going to be getting it and I'm going to be really frustrated.

[2251] It's like it's back in elementary school.

[2252] It's like watching people get something and I'm not getting it is so frustrating.

[2253] Forget the embarrassment of it, which I'm sure is in the mix.

[2254] But not embarrassment for other people.

[2255] but it's like a personal, it's like, I can't do this thing that other people can do.

[2256] I link it to frustration.

[2257] Like, I'm going to be frustrated as this is getting explained to me that I don't understand it.

[2258] Yeah.

[2259] Like, I want to know, I want to learn bridge really bad.

[2260] But I don't know why I don't already know how to play it.

[2261] It makes no sense.

[2262] I've wanted to learn how to play it.

[2263] Well, someone has to teach us.

[2264] Five, six years.

[2265] And yet I have not instigated learning to do it because I do also have some fear that I'm not going to understand how to do it.

[2266] Right.

[2267] I have that.

[2268] I have a lot of, if I'm not, like, even with connections today, when I got those two and then I tried one and it didn't work, I had like, you know, I made a mistake and I was like, oh, I hope, I don't want to make any more mistakes.

[2269] Like, I felt very scared of making any more.

[2270] And then I put it down and then I forgot.

[2271] I forgot about it until just, you know, when we were recording earlier.

[2272] But I have that, but then I can get myself fairly quickly to like, who cares?

[2273] And then you die.

[2274] Who cares?

[2275] You've proven yourself to be smart in this world.

[2276] It's fine.

[2277] Yeah.

[2278] And it's good for me sometimes to just be like, I don't get it.

[2279] Listen, I'm embarrassingly vain.

[2280] I see it all the time.

[2281] Like, here's an example.

[2282] Peter T .M. makes these videos.

[2283] I love them.

[2284] I watch every video he makes.

[2285] He'll be talking for 20 minutes about what protein powder supplements he likes.

[2286] And he always starts with like, I'm not an investor in any of these companies.

[2287] I'm not being bad.

[2288] I'm just going to tell you what I'm eating.

[2289] Yeah.

[2290] And like, I'll watch it and I find it so interesting.

[2291] My first thought is, I should review shit.

[2292] This is so fun.

[2293] because I, like, reviewed the airplane food once.

[2294] But the truth is, what keeps me from doing that is I think I look so bad when I'm filming myself.

[2295] Oh.

[2296] Like, I'm like, it would take me so long to set the camera up in a way that I wouldn't be insecure making this video, which is, again, so silly I was an actor for 20 years.

[2297] Yeah.

[2298] I should be fine with this.

[2299] But, like, I'm really vain.

[2300] Yeah.

[2301] And, by the way, he doesn't look bad.

[2302] What is clear is he doesn't even think about it, which is very very.

[2303] attractive.

[2304] So I'm also smart enough to know, like, as long as you're, you know, whatever.

[2305] And then you had to be bad at something as scary to me and look bad.

[2306] Yeah.

[2307] It's shameful, but here we are.

[2308] It's not shameful.

[2309] I think it's human.

[2310] Well, I think there's varying levels.

[2311] Like, some people seem to be not very vain and it's attractive.

[2312] Like, Delta's not vain.

[2313] She's just like, she doesn't, she's the least self -conscious person.

[2314] Yeah, she's not.

[2315] I'm very self -conscious.

[2316] Me too, but aren't you at sort of like, fuck it?

[2317] Yeah, and so much of, I do overcome it on so many levels.

[2318] Like I still post the pictures of us doing the interview because I got it.

[2319] Yeah, exactly.

[2320] And I just live with it.

[2321] But then it's like taking on more.

[2322] I generally am not like trying to take on more of those moments where I'm going to feel like I look old and whatever.

[2323] Yeah, that's fine.

[2324] You also don't have to.

[2325] Yeah.

[2326] But it is fun.

[2327] I enjoy his.

[2328] And I think like, well, that's the.

[2329] kind of content I actually enjoy.

[2330] Oh, another thing happens.

[2331] I've never noticed that I lost followers.

[2332] And I noticed today, I noticed that I'd gone from $4 million to $3 .9 million.

[2333] And then I was like, well, my first insecurity was like, I did something wrong.

[2334] People have, like, I've offended people.

[2335] Piss people off.

[2336] Yes, I pissed people off.

[2337] But then I was like, actually, probably more accurately, all I do is post photos from our episodes.

[2338] That's a pretty boring follower.

[2339] If you're not like an arm cherry, which clearly a lot of the people that followed me, a lot of them followed me before we ever had this podcast.

[2340] So I'm like, yeah, I would probably unfollow me too if it was only about this podcast and I don't listen to the podcast.

[2341] And then I was like, God, I just, I don't ever take enough pictures.

[2342] And I'm like, I should have different things on there than just that.

[2343] Like, look, on one level, you could go, who gives a fuck.

[2344] On another level, you can go, if you're going to do something, you should try to do it well.

[2345] I have this account.

[2346] But well is very subjective.

[2347] Well, what do I enjoy of other people?

[2348] So, right, if Peter posts a still of him in an interview he did, I'm not that interested in that.

[2349] But when he tells me about protein powder, I love it.

[2350] Or when Charlie reviews protein bars in the car with Wilder, like, I love it.

[2351] It's fun content.

[2352] And so if I'm going to do it, I should attempt to, like, make it entertaining.

[2353] I am an entertainer.

[2354] I can't pretend I'm like, I make my living welding.

[2355] So there's a lot to evaluate.

[2356] Yeah.

[2357] I can't act over it and use it, you know?

[2358] I can't act like I'm too...

[2359] No, you can use it in the way that you want to use it.

[2360] Like, you don't have to use it in the way that...

[2361] But it feels a little takey, you know?

[2362] It's like, I'm only just promoting this thing.

[2363] So what?

[2364] That's, to me, that's the most earnest way.

[2365] I'm not saying I do that.

[2366] I don't.

[2367] But I actually, I think it's great people who are just using it for exposure for their thing.

[2368] And most people aren't doing that.

[2369] I'm not doing that.

[2370] But I wish I was.

[2371] There's a part of me that was like, let me be clear, though.

[2372] I don't, I don't have a desire to like start posting some really attractive manicured life.

[2373] I don't have that impulse.

[2374] But yeah, if you're following me, I should put some fun stuff up every now and then.

[2375] Yeah, if you want.

[2376] Okay.

[2377] So this is for Lisa.

[2378] And there's a few facts.

[2379] The percentage of women who like rape porn, I thought this is.

[2380] was interesting because we just did an armchair anonymous.

[2381] There was like a porn thing that came up.

[2382] This is an Easter egg.

[2383] Yeah.

[2384] And I thought it was interesting because the armchair story is about a young person who finds porn.

[2385] Yeah.

[2386] Who seeks out porn.

[2387] Yeah.

[2388] And I just looked at this this morning and I was like, oh, weird.

[2389] So there's, there was a questionnaire completed by 187 female undergraduate psychology students for a study designed to test the idea that women's attitudes and fantasies about rape are partially a function of their socialization to accept sexual aggression as normative.

[2390] Self -reported early exposure to pornography was associated with women's latter attitudes and fantasies about rape as hypothesized.

[2391] Of 187 women, 86, 46%, reported direct exposure to pornography as a child.

[2392] This exposure was significantly related to subsequent adult rape fantasies and rape supportive beliefs, which kind of, I get, like the earlier on you're exposed to aggression, the more you're going to think that's hot.

[2393] Like these early days, these early fantasies stick with, I mean, they stick with you.

[2394] Right.

[2395] I mean, I've always in my mind explained it by like, why do boys like watching war movies?

[2396] Well, because.

[2397] Well, yeah, that was this episode.

[2398] Oh, I die.

[2399] I probably already said all this.

[2400] Yeah.

[2401] Yeah.

[2402] Like, can script.

[2403] has been a reality of most boys' life forever.

[2404] So, like, they have a legitimate fear of having to go to war at some point.

[2405] So they kind of want to see this fear play out.

[2406] Yeah, that was what we were talking about on the show.

[2407] So that's what made me look into it.

[2408] And then I thought this was actually very interesting that it might be more chicken or the egg that start out seeing those things.

[2409] And then you develop a proclivity towards it.

[2410] Yeah, I would love to see pre -internet data.

[2411] Everyone my age, who has those fantasies, who wasn't, obviously, you couldn't see porn online.

[2412] Yeah.

[2413] Also, the study about giving therapy to parents instead of their children, you credit to Johns Hopkins.

[2414] It's actually Yale.

[2415] Oh, okay.

[2416] You know, I wasn't certain, but, you know, when you're in a pinch, I think the highest probability is to say Johns Hopkins.

[2417] What do you think?

[2418] You just like saying it.

[2419] Well, no, I actually hate saying it, as we've discussed.

[2420] I can't stand that it's plural Johns.

[2421] I know, but it's like immersion therapy for you.

[2422] Uh -huh.

[2423] You just want to say it so many times.

[2424] I'm trying to act out my fear of saying that.

[2425] Yeah, exactly.

[2426] But if you have to take the highest percentage shot of where you heard that the study came from, what's your go -to?

[2427] Do you have a go -to?

[2428] I think a lot of people say Harvard.

[2429] I would say Harvard or Yale.

[2430] Uh -huh.

[2431] You wouldn't say Johns Hopkins.

[2432] If it's a tech study, I'd say MIT.

[2433] Oh.

[2434] I would not say Johns Hopkins.

[2435] I should.

[2436] I should add that into the mix, but it's not.

[2437] I do feel like that I'm, I hear an in an ordinant amount of it.

[2438] of things coming out of there.

[2439] Well, this was Yale.

[2440] I tipped my hat to you, Yale.

[2441] Yeah.

[2442] Oh, the ghost.

[2443] The ghost just went potty again.

[2444] So I was looking up the suicide epidemic in you said Tahiti.

[2445] Yeah, I think Tahiti.

[2446] I couldn't find that.

[2447] No. But it's fine.

[2448] I then, you know, pivoted and went into like the contagion of suicidal behavior.

[2449] Okay.

[2450] There's a lot on it.

[2451] There's a lot on it.

[2452] There's definitely.

[2453] support that it's contagious that suicidal behavior is contagious and like the impact of media reporting on suicide can increase suicidal behavior which i've been disappointed ever since i left college most of these anthropological papers i read they weren't headlines right you know yeah well also okay were there syndrome oh what's worther syndrome were there syndrome not not the candy okay don't do that okay because the candy will be upset i love the candy they're very Very good candy.

[2454] Slow candy.

[2455] It's slow.

[2456] It's the opposite of chewy.

[2457] Uh -huh.

[2458] That's why I love it.

[2459] Yeah, it's a good one.

[2460] The Werther's syndrome, also known as the copycat syndrome or copycat effect, is a phenomenon in which a person commits suicide after being exposed to media coverage about another person's suicide.

[2461] I wonder if they understand.

[2462] Suicide clusters.

[2463] Yeah.

[2464] What's happening?

[2465] What the thought process is.

[2466] Suicide clusters, especially mass clusters, might occur through a process of contagion.

[2467] Suicide contagion occurs when the exposure to suicide or.

[2468] suicidal behavior of one or more people influences others to attempt suicide.

[2469] By the way, it's the premise of Heather's.

[2470] I wonder if they had read about one of those things.

[2471] Maybe.

[2472] I haven't seen it.

[2473] You haven't seen the original Heather's?

[2474] I haven't, but I don't think I want to knowing that.

[2475] Oh, it's very good movie.

[2476] It's very funny.

[2477] I know.

[2478] But you know, I guess it's relevant.

[2479] That's where my anxiety first developed was around a suicidal event.

[2480] I knew someone who attempted suicide, and I became obsessed with feeling like it was going to happen to me. Mm -hmm.

[2481] It was that phrasing.

[2482] All of a sudden, I was going to have, like, look down and I will have done it.

[2483] Oh, right.

[2484] You personally.

[2485] Yeah.

[2486] Yeah, yeah.

[2487] Because it was so unpredictable in the person that you experienced it with.

[2488] Yes.

[2489] Yeah.

[2490] I get this.

[2491] It really infill—like, then when Robin Williams died, I had another major spike of, Full panic, like for months.

[2492] Yeah.

[2493] It really just exemplifies how different people are.

[2494] Because, like, my mom tried twice.

[2495] Yeah.

[2496] And I don't have, like, kind of anything associated with it.

[2497] It's so bizarre.

[2498] How, like, how different everyone's reactions to the same thing can be.

[2499] Like, I get, you know, I should be in fear that she'll try it a third time.

[2500] And I'm not.

[2501] I'll tell you'll handle that for me. Yeah.

[2502] I am.

[2503] If I know that about anyone's past, I think about it.

[2504] I've thought about it with your mom.

[2505] I think about it.

[2506] Oh, God.

[2507] Okay, but I just heard a very interesting phrasing of PTSD that I forgot.

[2508] I didn't write it down.

[2509] So this might be an Easter egg.

[2510] Does this come out of Johns Hopkins?

[2511] It came out of Arizona University, Arizona, USA.

[2512] Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, USA.

[2513] Yeah.

[2514] It basically, they're learning a lot about PTSD.

[2515] What it does is basically pull past memories and make them present.

[2516] Your brain doesn't classify the past as the past.

[2517] It's like putting it in the present.

[2518] Right.

[2519] It didn't get filed in the cabinet correctly.

[2520] Yeah.

[2521] Scary stuff.

[2522] Hey, what else does she say?

[2523] Oh, percentage of kids living at home, 45 % of people aged 18 to 29 are living at home.

[2524] What was it for that?

[2525] Wow.

[2526] Almost half.

[2527] That has to be an increase, no?

[2528] Well, it says roughly the same level as it was in the 40s, but the factors are different now than they were nearly a century ago.

[2529] I wonder what the lowest point was and what the highest point was.

[2530] Yeah.

[2531] Maybe the depression was high.

[2532] I bet like Gen X and millennial.

[2533] Is this going to be high?

[2534] I think this is going to be low.

[2535] I think we were meant to get out quickly.

[2536] Oh, oh, yeah.

[2537] Yeah.

[2538] But Gen Z is very high.

[2539] It is.

[2540] We know this or you're guessing?

[2541] Well, 45 % of 18 to 29, that's Gen Z. That's them.

[2542] Yeah.

[2543] Yeah.

[2544] That feels really high.

[2545] I wonder what the rate is in Germany.

[2546] Wow.

[2547] Just curious?

[2548] Well, because that was the place I was at when I learned people stay at home much later.

[2549] And it's not like a sign of failure.

[2550] It's just they don't until they...

[2551] Yeah, it's part of the culture.

[2552] They'll get married and buy a place.

[2553] Yeah.

[2554] I could have never lived at home, man. I was running with the wolf.

[2555] I couldn't have had that much oversight on what I was doing.

[2556] Yeah, that's the part that feels unnatural.

[2557] But I guess you're just used, it's just like, you're used to it.

[2558] Yeah, so, like, Neil's very average.

[2559] This is very...

[2560] He flew the coop.

[2561] Totally.

[2562] Yes, he did.

[2563] But I'm saying even while he was living at home, this is like dead average.

[2564] Exactly.

[2565] I know that I have such anecdotal data.

[2566] I only know the people that I grew up with, and none of them live at home with their own one does.

[2567] That's what I mean.

[2568] Our age groups, especially yours, that wasn't as much of a thing.

[2569] It would be shame -inducing, too, for my generation.

[2570] It had a stigma, like it meant you were a failure.

[2571] Or like a, what's it called, deadbeat or something.

[2572] Yeah, couch potato.

[2573] Codach potato, deadbeat loser.

[2574] Deadbeat, dad.

[2575] I hate the word loser.

[2576] Tell me. Well, I hate it for a specific reason.

[2577] There is a person I know who uses that word a lot.

[2578] Okay.

[2579] And it's so hypocrites.

[2580] critical and embarrassing.

[2581] There's so many words that are bad, but that word is just dripping with judgment.

[2582] Like, there's nothing good about it.

[2583] It's only a negative thing.

[2584] There's really no silver line.

[2585] Exactly.

[2586] And it's always like, who are you to call?

[2587] It's like based on no metric.

[2588] My mom has hated that word for a long time.

[2589] More recently, I heard somebody else say it.

[2590] And I was like, yeah, that word's so bad.

[2591] Right.

[2592] So bad.

[2593] Why?

[2594] Like, there's no such thing as losers and winners, except when you win championships and connections, I guess.

[2595] Yeah, winning is personal.

[2596] It is.

[2597] If whatever you set your sights on and you, if you accomplish that, I think you should feel like a winner.

[2598] I think everyone should figure out where they're a winner in their life and not focus on where they're losing.

[2599] This person who I know calls other people losers, but in many regards, The, quote, losers are so far better off than this person.

[2600] Yeah.

[2601] I think we could probably safely say someone who's constantly calling out losers is probably feeling pretty shitty about themselves.

[2602] Exactly.

[2603] They're not happy.

[2604] And they're trying to down compare.

[2605] So they're trying to find people that are the bolster.

[2606] They're not happy.

[2607] And in that way, they're losing.

[2608] Yeah.

[2609] I don't think I say that often.

[2610] It's a great word when, as you say, it's pretty different.

[2611] So there's not much a wiggle room.

[2612] I'll generally like if someone's got just abhorrent behavior, I might say what a fucking loser.

[2613] So anyway, all right.

[2614] I think that was it for Lisa.

[2615] Wonderful guess.

[2616] Very informative.

[2617] Teenagers, people have a lot of questions about them.

[2618] So I hope this was helpful.

[2619] It is funny what a big word that is teenagers.

[2620] Like what a powerful word that is.

[2621] Yeah.

[2622] When you're really looking at that it spans like six years.

[2623] It's such a small time, but it's a huge developmental time.

[2624] It is, but we think of teenagers as like maybe a quartile of the population.

[2625] You know, it's like we've got old people, we got young people, we've got middle -aged people, then we have teenagers, like there's some huge group.

[2626] Someone brought it up the other day that it has been exactly four years, like last week or two weeks ago or something, four years since the lockdown.

[2627] Oh, March, yeah, March 2020.

[2628] Four years.

[2629] a full high school or a full college.

[2630] And what do you think about that?

[2631] Does that feel like it was shorter ago?

[2632] It's just time is fucked.

[2633] Time is fucked.

[2634] It is.

[2635] Four years used to mean so much.

[2636] It was so huge.

[2637] It was.

[2638] It also lasted for a couple years, you know?

[2639] It lasted for 16 years, you mean?

[2640] Well, the lockdown.

[2641] The lockdown.

[2642] It was like a straight year and then there was this weird middle ground year.

[2643] And it's like, I didn't feel like we came out of it.

[2644] Like, I remember, remember at the end of 2020, New Year's Eve?

[2645] Everyone was like, fuck, 2020, as if we were going to wake up on 2021 and, like, go outside and, like.

[2646] I know.

[2647] It was kind of two, two real years of it.

[2648] And then even some slow fallout after that.

[2649] Depending on where you live, too.

[2650] Totally.

[2651] But also, it's just, it went really fucking fast.

[2652] I mean, went behind a blip.

[2653] Yeah.

[2654] Nuts.

[2655] What a time.

[2656] What a time.

[2657] to live in America.

[2658] All right, I love you.

[2659] Okay, love you.