Part 5: Monica & Jess Love Getting Called Out on Their Bullshit with Dr. Drew

[0] Hi, I'm Monica, a .k .a. miniature mouse.

[1] I love boys.

[2] But I don't have one.

[3] And in fact, I've never had one.

[4] I could probably count on two hands how many dates I've been on in my entire life.

[5] And I decided it's time to change that.

[6] Hi, I'm Jess, and I love boys too.

[7] And in the opposite way of Monica, I can't count on all the hands in America how many people I've had sex with.

[8] And yet, I still don't have a boyfriend.

[9] And I want one.

[10] And I'm Dax, and I love Monica and Jess in so many ways.

[11] They don't have partners.

[12] And that is a huge mystery to me because they're both incredibly attractive, so fun, so smart, and have so much to offer.

[13] So what we decided to do is examine these unhealthy patterns and bring in experts and outsiders to help critique us, advise us, guide us, pretty much called bullshit on us, so that we can find the romantic companion that we're looking for.

[14] We started this thinking it was going to be just cute little dating challenges that we would go on and talk about and laugh about.

[15] Turns out it is very hard to be vulnerable in real time in public.

[16] Yes, I'm so excited.

[17] You're so long.

[18] We romanticized pathological love.

[19] One to ten.

[20] How much do you want love?

[21] Go.

[22] You can't even get the sentence out.

[23] I would just eat around it.

[24] It's a little selfish.

[25] Why do I want something?

[26] And then why have I designed to defend?

[27] We must put the chum in the water for the sharks to come.

[28] Monica's like, so apparently I have to join Raya this week.

[29] He likes fucking.

[30] You don't even have a kiss, a handheld, anything.

[31] Your frontal lobe is just in the way.

[32] Push -up, raw, low -cut top.

[33] That's what you should be doing.

[34] You masturbate every night.

[35] Rob's too uncomfortable for this.

[36] Please enjoy part five.

[37] Monica and Jess love getting called out on their bullshit with Dr. Drew.

[38] Monica and Jess is supported by Helix Sleep.

[39] We are really different, right?

[40] A thousand percent.

[41] Just couldn't be more different.

[42] You're tall, I'm sure.

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[51] What about you, Jess?

[52] I was midnight.

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[54] Nice.

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[57] I love it so much.

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[63] Go to Helix Sleep dot com slash monica take their two -minute sleep quiz and they'll match you to a mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life upgrade your sleep sleep's important it's worth it and right now helix is offering up to two hundred dollars off all mattress orders for our listeners at helix sleep dot com slash monica monica don't like monica don't like boys monica love just don't like They love boys Hi Jessica Our fifth installment Of Monica and Jess love boys Jess, we're halfway done I know We're halfway done How are you feeling?

[64] I'm feeling uncertain I don't know where it's going And it's not what I thought But I like it It's a lot deeper than I thought Kind of a metaphor, right?

[65] For relationships Yeah, exactly You guys are hysterical though.

[66] Already?

[67] Already.

[68] Already.

[69] I'm enjoying this so much.

[70] Yay.

[71] So we feel very lucky to have our guest today.

[72] Dr. Drew Pinsky is with us today.

[73] Snap.

[74] Snap, snap, snap, snap.

[75] To help us and...

[76] Let's get in.

[77] Let's go.

[78] Let's begin.

[79] Let's begin.

[80] So I'm feeling like one of the things that makes this uncomfortable, particularly for you, Jess, is that you feel a little regressive.

[81] Like you look like a little boy sometimes when you're talking about this.

[82] What's that all about?

[83] I've always been a little boy trapped in a 6 -5 -2 -30 body.

[84] Did something happen that sort of you never got through that left you a little boy?

[85] Wow.

[86] We're going there.

[87] I love this.

[88] I'm so happy already.

[89] Oh, I'm coming for you.

[90] I know, I know.

[91] I've loved that about myself.

[92] I've loved that all my boyfriends have said I have this joy and this like...

[93] Childish energy.

[94] Yeah.

[95] I get all that, but I'm seeing something a little different, which is all asset, right?

[96] It's all good.

[97] But I'm seeing that when you talk about whatever it is what makes you anxious that we're getting into here, we don't even know what that is yet, I see you get a little regressed.

[98] And I'm wondering what that is.

[99] I'm wondering why that takes you back to that place.

[100] Is that when you first recognized you were gay and sort of had to hide that part of yourself and that part of yourself has been sort of unattended to for some reason?

[101] Maybe, but also this is public.

[102] It's uncomfortable.

[103] Yeah, I feel comfortable in my own skin.

[104] I'm 43.

[105] And I also don't hate that I'm kind of like.

[106] like that.

[107] But you're confusing two things.

[108] Okay.

[109] One is the asset that you're childish and that's awesome.

[110] Yeah.

[111] But the other is whenever you start, and I see you getting uncomfortable with what might happen in the podcast, I see something different.

[112] Okay.

[113] Which is I see you sort of being a child.

[114] Like it takes you back in some way.

[115] Not I'm childlike and I have all these assets.

[116] It's like something's like there's a part of you that hasn't been attended to and it's present here in all this.

[117] Yeah.

[118] That's all I'm saying.

[119] I haven't had a lot of love and relationship.

[120] All the way back to a little kid?

[121] Well, yeah, they got a divorce when I was four.

[122] And, you know, my mom lived in California.

[123] My dad lived in Sweden.

[124] I was with him.

[125] What was year eight, nine, ten like?

[126] That was all Sweden.

[127] I was, you know, my dad, he passed away a couple weeks ago, actually.

[128] That's all right.

[129] It was, oh, man. It was strict.

[130] You know, I was an only child, and I was in Sweden, and it was cold, and I missed my mom in America.

[131] And I didn't understand why they got a divorce.

[132] Okay.

[133] Have you gotten into those feelings ever and, like, really looked at them?

[134] Yeah, I haven't.

[135] I've talked to my mom, and 20 years later, I found out my mom was addicted to alcohol.

[136] At that same time?

[137] When I was four.

[138] So that's why I got pulled away from her.

[139] It wasn't like a loss of love.

[140] So there was something, some really was going on?

[141] Yeah.

[142] And was she around unpleasant people that you got exposed to?

[143] No. I think he got me out of there in time.

[144] Got it.

[145] And then that sobered her up.

[146] And she became a police officer and just been sober, wherever since 25 years.

[147] You were an inspiration to somebody, your own mom.

[148] Yeah, yeah.

[149] How cool.

[150] Very cool.

[151] I love her dearly.

[152] Our relationship is amazing.

[153] And then at 11, I was old enough to say, I want to move to L .A. and I got to.

[154] Okay.

[155] That sort of is important.

[156] Yeah.

[157] It's a big deal.

[158] I don't know that it figures into this in an explicit way, what we're all talking about today.

[159] But, you know, our early relationships get recapitulated in our current stuff.

[160] And, you know, one way or another, the behavior.

[161] or manifestations of those feeling states.

[162] Definitely.

[163] And particularly when there's unattended parts of ourself, that's sort of what I was getting at.

[164] The unattended parts of our self, we'll get attention in one way or another.

[165] Whether it's through drugs or sexual acting out or whatever, or dysfunctional relationships, or blah, blah, blah, blah, that part will come through.

[166] Right.

[167] And our conscious self, our sort of prefrontal cortex self will be going like, what the hell's going on here?

[168] Why do I keep doing this?

[169] They'd seem like the right thing this time, and I was so sure of it, blah, blah, blah.

[170] And yet we don't look at the deeper.

[171] patterns that we got going somewhere back in Sweden or whatever.

[172] So, and in your case, what was my case?

[173] Yeah, I mean, I'm the opposite of Jess.

[174] I don't believe that.

[175] You may manifest opposite, but I don't think you're that different.

[176] Well, yeah, we're also learning that.

[177] Every time we come in here and we do these things, it's becoming more and more apparent that we and I think maybe everyone is the same thing.

[178] Shocking.

[179] Everyone's the same.

[180] Everyone holds like five insecurities that they're, you know, jumping from.

[181] And yeah, so you're right.

[182] We are very similar, ultimately.

[183] But let's talk about the similarities.

[184] Well, it's interesting because so I grew up in Georgia.

[185] I was an Indian girl in Georgia.

[186] I felt like nobody was attracted to me. Was that true?

[187] I think yes.

[188] Okay.

[189] I shouldn't say nobody.

[190] But the people that I wanted to feel loved by attracted.

[191] Do you think that was other non -Indian adolescents felt differently?

[192] I could not get a boyfriend that I wanted.

[193] And all my friends did have that.

[194] So it did feel like something was different.

[195] So legitimately you had a different experience than your peers.

[196] I felt that.

[197] But of course they were still going through.

[198] I'm sure the same thing.

[199] Similar stuff, right.

[200] But you had an extra burden.

[201] Exactly.

[202] And as we sort of think about these things, reasonably so.

[203] Yeah.

[204] I mean, in Georgia and the, when was this, 90s?

[205] Yeah, yeah.

[206] Okay.

[207] Yes, and mine felt like it was so external.

[208] I couldn't hide behind anything.

[209] I had brown skin and I was walking around them.

[210] Let me ask you something.

[211] This is going to sound silly, but I think it's important.

[212] Did the kids understand the different ethnicities and races that were around them, where were you sort of classified in one block and were differentiated from other dark -skinned kids?

[213] I'm sure some people grouped it into a block, but I think they did.

[214] So you had good friends that came.

[215] visited your family, understood what was going on.

[216] Did you talk about it when you were that age?

[217] No, so I was like adamant about separating that and making that a non -existent part of my life.

[218] So I was trying to be as white.

[219] So back to my comment about unattended parts of self, here we are again, right?

[220] Exactly.

[221] Interesting.

[222] I was like an over and still am an over -assimulator.

[223] Like I can sort of chameleon my way through and be what they need.

[224] so I become sort of indispensable to them.

[225] In some ways, that's been a great asset for my life.

[226] And also, it's a problem.

[227] Worth the problem.

[228] Well, I think it's a problem in that now as an adult, I realize that as a kid, I don't know who I really was.

[229] I was like always a person who was just shape -shifting a little bit.

[230] And so now I am that person.

[231] It's all made me into me now.

[232] But sometimes I wonder like, ooh, all that sort of repression.

[233] Does it make you sad?

[234] Yes.

[235] I think it definitely makes me sad to feel like a kid felt like they couldn't be them.

[236] Some random kid?

[237] Me. Me, I couldn't felt like.

[238] But if I heard that about another kid, I'm saying, if I could separate and hear the story of a kid growing up who felt like they couldn't be them, which by the way, another similarity.

[239] Jess is the same thing.

[240] He felt trapped in being gay, and he couldn't fully tap into fully him, and I feel the same way.

[241] So, yeah.

[242] When did you realize you were gay?

[243] I mean, I had some five, six, seven -year -old stuff, sexual stuff in Sweden that was maybe a little bit more than what more normal kids did.

[244] With other kids?

[245] Boys.

[246] Who was initiating?

[247] Oh, both.

[248] I think.

[249] the boy that was a little older.

[250] Right.

[251] So that's called child -on -child sexual abuse.

[252] That lasted till I was 11 on and off with these Nate.

[253] Same kids.

[254] Yeah.

[255] And one of them.

[256] And then high school came around and I was pushing it all away and I became the best basketball player and the best singer and the best, you know, all these things.

[257] And I had a girlfriend and then I cheated on her with another girl and I was doing it.

[258] And I was popular and I was funny.

[259] Then it was senior year.

[260] And me and me and Bobby i could say his real name because he's out we started touching each other and then that became sexual is another person at high school yeah high school and then went to college got really depressed gained 30 pounds because i wasn't popular anymore and i was scared and i was alone and i didn't know what this gay thing was and i was looking at bathroom walls seeing pictures of penises and phone numbers for phone sex and this was 1994 and i was just like losing in my mind.

[261] Were we in college?

[262] U .C. San Diego.

[263] I was there one year and then I came back.

[264] Then I was out without sex.

[265] So then I was at the groundlings doing gay sketches.

[266] I was a chubby.

[267] I had sits around my mouth.

[268] He loved to say that.

[269] I had yellow teeth.

[270] I just was a one -dimensional gay guy that would never act on it.

[271] So would you have identified as as asexual or something?

[272] No, I was just, I was gay and insecure, I guess.

[273] Then I got cut from the groundlings at 25 and that was a life -changing moment for me where I thought not an I wouldn't know the one thing I was good at which was comedy and acting I cried for a month and then I got a personal trainer and then I started doing steroids what was your what was the moment you turned and started pulling out of it cried for a month and then all of a sudden you got a trainer started getting better yeah was there a moment of change it was just I have to look hot I'm going to look gorgeous and I'm going to I'm going to get a great body and then I started having sex and it went For five years, I was having sex with 28, 30 guys a week.

[274] So can you see how the anorexia and then the hypersexuality or flip side of the same coin, the sex sexorexia?

[275] Dax definitely, I adored him, and I would, I partied with him here and there, but I couldn't, he was valacious, what's the word, voracious?

[276] Verocious.

[277] His appetite was just, but I would just want his attention and his approval, so I I would buy the cocaine, and he would do it all, and he would take it home with him.

[278] And I was like, okay, that's fine.

[279] And he would drink till six in the morning, and I would throw up and not drink for two weeks.

[280] And I always considered myself a half -addict.

[281] Are you using now?

[282] Or you stop using?

[283] I am a casual everything.

[284] Not drugs.

[285] Casual drinker.

[286] I would say more than casual drinker.

[287] Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely a...

[288] I mean, you have the childhood trauma stuff, right?

[289] Various stripes.

[290] Like, you have, you know, the mom...

[291] I have three or four aces.

[292] You do.

[293] She has one.

[294] And what's your one?

[295] Oh, mental illness.

[296] In your family.

[297] Can you talk about it?

[298] Or can you tell me and cut it if you want to?

[299] Yeah, I'll tell you and cut it.

[300] Yes.

[301] They have a lot of family trauma.

[302] My mom has massive abandonment issues.

[303] So it's major mental illness and intergenerational trauma.

[304] Correct.

[305] Yeah.

[306] Which gets rained down on us from previous generations.

[307] Yeah, exactly.

[308] Yeah, and that's rough.

[309] Yeah.

[310] And it doesn't feel real.

[311] like this idea of this event that happened with my mother when she was younger.

[312] The idea that that, I've inherited that somehow, feels silly, but you inherited the stuff she was carrying around.

[313] Yes, exactly.

[314] And whatever that is, you get rained down.

[315] Little kids are sponges.

[316] Yeah.

[317] And then that becomes a bit of a roadmap for our emotional landscape and how we fit with other people.

[318] And so we adjust accordingly or we act accordingly.

[319] Let's put it that way.

[320] We don't adjust typically.

[321] We just sort of find fit.

[322] And, you know, sex can be, what does it do for you, sex?

[323] I think it's, it's become transactional for me. And since I've been in love and had three boyfriends, I definitely choose that and being monogamous over at all.

[324] Okay.

[325] But I definitely still dabble.

[326] I still dabble in it at all.

[327] I still dabble in some cocaine.

[328] I still dabble in some happy hours.

[329] I still dabbled and doing Molly twice a year.

[330] So I am a dabbler and I definitely still a lot of casual sex, not like in my early 30s by any means.

[331] So what was it doing?

[332] What was it filling back in the earlier days?

[333] It was something that I didn't experience at 16 and 15, which was feeling wanted and hot and like.

[334] Desirable.

[335] And loved.

[336] Yeah.

[337] Or something like that.

[338] Some form of love.

[339] Something that you wanted to feel that people wanted you.

[340] Yeah, and I feel like I was 10 or 15 years behind my straight counterparts that were doing this so much earlier.

[341] So you were sort of owed it.

[342] Yeah, I took it too.

[343] Yeah, yeah.

[344] Well, and I think there's a sense of, see, I'm like you.

[345] Yes.

[346] Where, yeah, because all your friends have been having sex and casual sex and fucking girls and then walking away.

[347] And I think part of your interest in that probably sums.

[348] from like, yeah, I'm the same.

[349] I'm just like you.

[350] There's a much more powerful drive than that.

[351] Okay.

[352] I'm just like you, you'd be over with in a couple of weeks.

[353] This is a drive.

[354] This is like heroin.

[355] And I brought it up last week, too, when I did fall in love.

[356] And it was that feeling, which was high completely.

[357] It was not sustainable.

[358] It was a year we lasted.

[359] That breakup, I cried for a year.

[360] I had never felt that pain in my life.

[361] and it was like I was losing a part of myself.

[362] And do you see how having sex was a way of avoiding that?

[363] Yes.

[364] Filling it without doing that?

[365] Yes, but I will say when I am down, when my dad passed or when I broke up with Greg, when he broke up with me, I should say, I do not turn to those things.

[366] I don't turn to sex to feel better.

[367] For me, I turn to sex and drugs and alcohol, all when I'm feeling good and exciting.

[368] And it is one thing that I do if I book a job, if I, something good happens in my life, I want to make it better.

[369] And how old do you know?

[370] 43.

[371] And is there any bipolar disorder in your family?

[372] Not that I know of.

[373] I joke that I'm manicie, but I've never felt bipolar or low lows.

[374] You've described multiple low lows to me already.

[375] Yeah.

[376] That's true.

[377] Crying for a year and crying for...

[378] But that's funny because I would never place Jess in that category, but it doesn't mean it's not true.

[379] Yeah.

[380] Say to yourself, what he's described.

[381] Yeah, I know, you're right.

[382] And then write that down and like, oh, that would fit in these categories.

[383] Yes, I am exaggerating, I think, as a comedian, like, crying for a year.

[384] I do.

[385] I exaggerate all the time.

[386] Crying for a year was more like a thing that I've said over and over again.

[387] But you did, you were in a bad place.

[388] It was bad, but I was going to work and I was hanging out with my family.

[389] And I mean, it wasn't like institutionalized.

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[395] It's important to take care of.

[396] We can't just neglect.

[397] If you got poop on a part of your body, would you wipe it off with dry paper?

[398] No. This is a great question actually.

[399] No, you wouldn't.

[400] You'd use water.

[401] Yes.

[402] Why aren't we doing that for our butts?

[403] We got to.

[404] I mean, we're laughing and it's funny, but it's also serious because if you don't do it, there's bacteria and it can lead to hemorrhoids and yeast infections and just all kinds of not pleasant stuff.

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[412] That is a steal.

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[414] Get clean.

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[439] Have you ever thought about hurting yourself?

[440] Have you?

[441] No. No. Good.

[442] But I did, I went into this like really intense state of anxiety, maybe PTSD, I kept feeling like it's going to happen to me. Not like I want to or that I had any, but I was like, I'm going to look down and I will have done that to myself.

[443] And it really, it was a real spiral.

[444] How old were you?

[445] I must have been 20 -ish, 19, probably 20.

[446] It was in college.

[447] And it was really, really intense for a fair amount of time that anxiety and panicky.

[448] Did you have panic?

[449] Yeah.

[450] It manifested really physically.

[451] Like, I would have all these weird sensory things where if there was a sound that was happening that I couldn't identify.

[452] Would trigger?

[453] Yes.

[454] Yeah, yeah.

[455] I had that too.

[456] It's crazy.

[457] It was just telling somebody else's and they also experienced it, which I felt so obvious.

[458] like no one knows what this is.

[459] This is so bizarre.

[460] No, because panic has a behavioral component to it so it can get triggered.

[461] And once it goes, like, watch out.

[462] Yes.

[463] Yeah, it was rough.

[464] And I had one more bout of that very specific type of anxiety when I was, I guess, probably like five years ago.

[465] And I mean, this is such a weird thing to say, but I think possibly it got triggered after Robin Williams killed himself.

[466] So when I put, that makes sense, right?

[467] Yeah.

[468] It's kind of goofy, but it makes sense.

[469] Yeah.

[470] And that makes me think also you must have certain OCD qualities with what goes on with you, too.

[471] Yeah, I mean, it's funny because Dax and I talk about this all the time on our show because he has had these crazy OCD ticks and stuff.

[472] And I don't think, I mean, I'm a very obsessive person.

[473] It goes into a lot of this boy stuff.

[474] You guys are so funny.

[475] You both talked exactly the same way.

[476] You both go, I don't have any of that.

[477] I don't have any OCD.

[478] What I am is totally obsessive.

[479] And you go, I've cried for a year.

[480] I have no depressive symptoms.

[481] It's true.

[482] This is where you are the same.

[483] You're right.

[484] I really truly believe that you're, I took the landmark forum 20 years ago, and they talk about your story.

[485] I've said this fucking story so many times.

[486] I am getting sick of it.

[487] Good.

[488] And I want to throw it away.

[489] and I do want to change my narrative, but it's so, I don't know what part is me and what part is not me, and it's all bullshit, to be honest.

[490] But that is the job of emotional health, which is integration.

[491] That's why I was pointing out the little boy stuff, which, by the way, is gone right now when I see you.

[492] I'm very kind of like an antenna.

[493] I pick up crazy shit.

[494] The little boy stuff that I was talking about to begin with, I just don't see right now.

[495] So you can integrate.

[496] You can be present.

[497] And, you know, you can do that and own it and be part of you and integrate as a whole.

[498] And I think that's what you're doing right now.

[499] Right.

[500] I mean, that's the reality of what your life is.

[501] Let's be fair.

[502] Now, are you doing that?

[503] Just seems like he's sort of integrating and regulating and getting a whole concept of self.

[504] He's fragmented sometimes and he still enjoys his manias and whatever.

[505] But he's sort of like integrating.

[506] And I would bet as a manifestation that you're better to have healthier relationships.

[507] I want to.

[508] Are you able to?

[509] I haven't had a relationship in four years and we're this show is kind of like what are we doing all of our friends are married and have kids in our group pretty much well i'm gonna guess that the reason that's a guess is that you've made not great choices in the past and they've been traumatic when they leave or when they rupture you know and what people do is they flip to the other side then and go well then forget it you have to be and i don't know if you have this too yet monica but but just you have to be careful.

[510] I mean, you're love and sex addict, essentially.

[511] I mean, for a way of thinking about it.

[512] I mean, it's not, you're not, you don't need treatment.

[513] I'm not saying, but the way of thinking about this is that.

[514] And when you have those kinds of things going on, you're a perfect instrument for trouble.

[515] In other words, your attractions every time are going to end up in a place that is familiar.

[516] So what you have to do is either, I, get a lot of treatment, get therapy, or B, stop looking for lightning bolts and look for butterflies.

[517] Does that make sense?

[518] 100%.

[519] You have to kind of find people that are more interesting, nourishing, a little bit boring compared to what you're used to, especially like those manias.

[520] And that will be a real relationship then.

[521] That would be somebody who's available for actual intimacy.

[522] Do you feel you have difficulty with intimacy still?

[523] I'm sure you did, because the sexual compulsion is sort of a substitute for that.

[524] Right, but with the three boyfriends, I felt very healthy.

[525] Was it a real intimacy where they They were taking care of you.

[526] They valued your relationships.

[527] They valued your feelings.

[528] They've cared for you.

[529] Yeah.

[530] Especially one was more of a friendship and we're still friends.

[531] And I thought that was really healthy.

[532] I don't want that for you either because that will never last.

[533] Right.

[534] You know what I mean?

[535] That's you trying to do what's good.

[536] Be careful with that.

[537] We'll have occasional lightning bolts, you know what I mean?

[538] Right, right.

[539] Which was the next one was maybe too many lightning bolts.

[540] Right.

[541] Do you think I have to find the balance of.

[542] All right.

[543] But your relationship with Greg.

[544] you've said.

[545] It was operating on a level that was not, as you just said it a second ago, sustainable.

[546] It was, it was not.

[547] Too friendship.

[548] No, no, this is the different.

[549] This is the other one that he cried about.

[550] He looked like Tarzan.

[551] He was a 10 and it was like, look at this person that likes me so handsome.

[552] Okay, well, that's your thing.

[553] Do you have any of that?

[554] Oh, well, I have a ton of wanting unattainable people.

[555] What do they look like?

[556] The physical is important for you too.

[557] But actually, I mean, like, you know, I've had like really big crushes on teachers.

[558] And so our challenge last week for me was to write down the list of the people that I had massive fantasies over because fantasy is a huge thing for me. Write down a list and then like see what the through line is.

[559] What'd you learn?

[560] All of them unattainable across the board.

[561] Some physically unattainable is like Matt Damon is on that list, you know.

[562] But also, something about them is better than me. The way they look, their knowledge, you know, teacher -wise, they have something I don't have and I want.

[563] And I feel like maybe I could get through proximity to them.

[564] But the counter to that is, you know, these fantasies exist are super, super heightened.

[565] They kind of, you know, they, OCD, I guess, they take control in a lot of ways over me. And then some of them have come a little close to getting real.

[566] And as soon as that starts to become a little real, I am completely uninterested.

[567] I think if you're interested in me, no thanks.

[568] So it's Groucho Marx.

[569] Never want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member.

[570] Exactly.

[571] That's what Harry, our therapist, last week, said the same thing.

[572] And it's definitely that.

[573] But the fantasy is a bit OCD.

[574] That's a way of avoiding.

[575] Yeah, it is OCD.

[576] Yeah.

[577] Period.

[578] And I'm learning.

[579] But I've never had OCD.

[580] I've only, yeah, exactly.

[581] I don't have OCD.

[582] I've never had OCD.

[583] I just have the O of the CD.

[584] This is Dax's fault, by the way, because I've said, I think I'm a little bit of that.

[585] And he's like, you're not.

[586] Anxiety, panic, and OCD go together.

[587] Okay.

[588] You don't get to have anxiety and panic without some OCD.

[589] Oh, interesting.

[590] It's just the way it is.

[591] Anyone that has less stuff than Dax doesn't have anything.

[592] I know, I know.

[593] It's insane.

[594] You're right.

[595] I love it.

[596] You know.

[597] But the avoidance of intimacy is really what's at the core here, isn't it?

[598] Yeah.

[599] So think about it.

[600] I go from unattainable to rejecting.

[601] Yeah, exactly.

[602] Have you had relationships?

[603] Not really.

[604] I mean, I've had a, I've had small, like a couple months I dated this person.

[605] But no, no, I will, no. Are you virgin?

[606] No. But close -ish.

[607] Close -ish.

[608] I mean, it's hard to say close because, no, I'm not.

[609] This one makes this podcast so great the way you guys talk.

[610] It's scary.

[611] It's scary to answer that, you know?

[612] Or to even have to really think about it.

[613] How old do you know?

[614] 32.

[615] I'm trying to listen to my own feelings about what you're saying.

[616] Yeah.

[617] And I'm having a peculiar reaction that I don't quite understand, which is I want to be sad about that.

[618] Okay.

[619] But I am not.

[620] Okay.

[621] What is that?

[622] I have, I feel that sometimes.

[623] For her?

[624] Yeah.

[625] This whole thing, I almost am more invested in her because I have an avalanche that I have to stop.

[626] She has to start an avalanche.

[627] Yeah, yeah.

[628] I don't want her to have an avalanche.

[629] I don't want her to have an avalanche.

[630] I know you like her.

[631] How do you dig that?

[632] You're so fun.

[633] But I should, I should be feeling sad because that you're telling me a sad story about an incredible person who should be engaged on a deeper level.

[634] And that makes me sad to think about.

[635] Yet when I sit here and talk to you, I don't feel sad.

[636] That's very interesting.

[637] It is interesting, and I don't understand it.

[638] Well, is it success and status and attractiveness and that her life other than this one portion is amazing?

[639] Maybe, something like that.

[640] How much do you miss all this?

[641] I really do wish I had it.

[642] But I also, and maybe this is what you're picking up on, like, I have a happy full life.

[643] And I think I walk around knowing that.

[644] When she said that, I had another thought that it must, again, what I experienced sort of has meaning to me is kind of what was somewhere hiding in my head, which was, oh, when you find, when you're ready for this, it will come.

[645] And you don't want what Jess has.

[646] No. You want something else, and that something else will sort of present itself.

[647] I have to only disagree because I'm with her a ton, and I think there are many opportunities in her life that she could be going out of her comfort zone, and she chooses not to.

[648] I completely agree.

[649] I'm certain that's true, and it's going to make it harder and longer for the thing to come to be.

[650] So kind of my challenge for you would be to go out and just, and this word's going to skis.

[651] Gary you, but date.

[652] Just spend time with people breaking bread and what are we doing right now?

[653] This would be a date if we had a meal in front of us, right?

[654] We'd be talking about our lives and our thing and our person.

[655] And it could be anybody.

[656] It could be a married person like me who's not going to go anywhere.

[657] But you've got to start spending time with communing with people and see what grows out of that.

[658] Yeah.

[659] I mean, a couple.

[660] So my first challenge was to go out on two dates in one week.

[661] Was it interesting that everybody wants you to date?

[662] Yeah, I mean, clearly, that is the purpose.

[663] It's like, how do I start doing that in a way where I feel open to an actual connection?

[664] Don't worry about it.

[665] Do you like spending time with people?

[666] Yeah.

[667] We'll go spend time with people.

[668] All right.

[669] Very simple.

[670] Don't be so worried about it.

[671] She has a ton of amazing friends, though.

[672] New people.

[673] Have them introduce you to people or hang with people.

[674] She's been going at dating, like, is this the one?

[675] Is this the one?

[676] Leave that behind.

[677] I just think you need to spend time with people doing interesting things.

[678] Yeah, but then don't you think there'll be an expectation on their end?

[679] Stop it.

[680] Jesus, the OCD comes kicking in right away.

[681] That's their problem because that's kind of what I was expecting from you is more codependency, which is that's what that is what's going to happen to other person.

[682] They're going to expect something from me?

[683] It's their problem.

[684] and by the way that's part of the reason to start dating is to practice boundaries and compassion right oh look at you closing off to me I don't like that I do not like that yeah no it's true don't worry about what the meaning of it is or where it's going just do that don't you think I'm doing that do you think it I mean yeah but you're doing that with your friends and you're doing that with a podcast yes new people expand your horizons but shouldn't there be a closet that there should be a potential possibility for romance slash attraction.

[685] There will be eventually, right?

[686] That just happens, right?

[687] And somebody will go, God, I know this great guy, it'd be great for you.

[688] Do you have any studies or percentages as far as steroids and looks and age between straight and gay men as far as...

[689] I know gay men are doing it a lot.

[690] The steroids.

[691] And my patients that are stimulant addicted that do steroids die.

[692] That's the one thing I will tell you.

[693] They died.

[694] uncanny rate.

[695] And I don't know why.

[696] They don't die the same things.

[697] I don't know what the steroids do to them or the manias.

[698] Steroids make you manic.

[699] You felt it, right?

[700] Yeah.

[701] You know what that is.

[702] I do.

[703] And it's another stimulant.

[704] Let's face it.

[705] You think the percentages of straight men and gay men in addiction.

[706] Are there more gay men than...

[707] Yes.

[708] I guess I'm asking.

[709] No. I don't think there's more...

[710] I'll tell you, if you have trauma, you're more likely to get an addiction.

[711] Trauma is the is the inciting ingredient.

[712] A lot of people that are acting out sexually have trauma in their background.

[713] And so that probably correlates.

[714] Right.

[715] You know, so if you're out there with people that are hypersexual that are doing stimulants, you're going to find trauma.

[716] So that's that group.

[717] Yeah, can we talk a little bit about sex and love addiction?

[718] Because I think maybe some of our, whoever's listening to this might be interested in the details of what that means, because it sounds so like, you know, this esoteric sex and love addiction.

[719] Yeah.

[720] But it's real.

[721] Yeah, real sex addiction is, I mean, people hurt themselves.

[722] They get physically harmed and they still go on.

[723] They still keep going.

[724] And when you see real sex addiction, it's like, whoa, and they're not happy.

[725] But I will tell you that what all the sex and love addicts say to me when the door is closed is, I'm just want to have a relationship.

[726] That's what they all say.

[727] Yeah, well, that's what Jess says.

[728] Yeah, I do.

[729] And they just seem like they can't get that intimacy, can't get that closeness the same way from quiet intimacy.

[730] you know the drive the desire to be wanted and loved and the intensity they're addicted to that intensity but what about half of that what if like the person that has two or three aces and not seven or eight what are the people that are that don't have consequences what about is there such a thing is there a gradation yeah yeah yeah yeah you know listen i told you that i i don't want you to have no lightning bolts right right you got to something because i know that's important to you and i know that's going to be a sustaining, nourishing part of your relationship.

[731] So I'm not saying expect to have quiet intimacy and that's going to be your life and sex every couple weeks.

[732] And that's not you.

[733] You need to be realistic about that too.

[734] But you have to be able to tolerate the balance that, you know.

[735] Well, and fortunately in the Western society, in this country in particular, we romanticize.

[736] We amplify pathological love.

[737] Yes.

[738] What is our paradigm story of love in the Western culture?

[739] Romeo and Juliet, which was a love addiction that ended in a death of both parties.

[740] Exactly.

[741] The love addiction was so pathological that there was suicide and murder involved in it.

[742] That's how fucked up that was.

[743] And we look at that as a glorious story of romance.

[744] No, ladies and gentlemen, that was a catastrophe.

[745] These kids were living in a fantasy.

[746] They were ridiculously intense to the point of almost illusion.

[747] Yeah.

[748] And then because of the depression associated with the rupture, suicide.

[749] Yeah.

[750] Come on now.

[751] I know.

[752] I know we do.

[753] We like hold that on a pedestal of romance or something.

[754] I still want it.

[755] I want it still.

[756] So right.

[757] And so correct.

[758] And you should have a version of it, just not a big, you know.

[759] Well, it's funny because I've been thinking about it.

[760] So we had Alex Catahawkus.

[761] Oh, you had Alex in here?

[762] Yes.

[763] Oh, she's the best.

[764] Oh, my God.

[765] We loved her.

[766] So she knows exactly.

[767] She deals in this day and day out.

[768] She's my go -to when I have questions.

[769] Yes.

[770] Oh, well, so we had her on armchair, but we should also have her on here, perhaps.

[771] Oh, yes.

[772] Because she talked a bit on our show about love addiction.

[773] And ever since she's been on, I've been sort of just like spinning that in my head a little bit because of course.

[774] Not obsessionally, of course.

[775] No, no, no, no, no, not an OCD way.

[776] Just in an obsessive way.

[777] Well, I always felt like there's no way I can be.

[778] a sex or love addict.

[779] Obviously, I can't be a sex addict.

[780] I'm not having sex.

[781] I can't be a love addict because I also like not really been in love.

[782] But when she's sitting here and she's sort of explaining, especially the level of fantasy that goes on, I was like, huh.

[783] I wonder, and I maybe asked her, and I'll ask you, like, can you be a love addict who's not in love?

[784] Not really.

[785] Okay.

[786] Okay.

[787] That's good to know.

[788] You can kind of be.

[789] So really what we're sort of dancing around generally are intimacy disorders, things that avoid genuine intimacy.

[790] And fantasy does that.

[791] And so, and again, these terms like love addiction and sex addiction are really just they're not diagnoses, they're not on the DSM -5, they're constructs, their ways of helping us talk about things and understand things.

[792] There's a great book out there called Overcoming Love Addiction by P .MELDy.

[793] I recommend you read it.

[794] Okay.

[795] It's about certain kinds of relationships with your primary caretakers, how if they're overly enmeshed or overly rejecting and how that kind of it gets acted out where people go through these love avoidance, love addiction cycles.

[796] You may be in some of that.

[797] Yeah.

[798] Where you start, you know, you get in and then you start getting out, and then you act out sexually, and then you get in again, and it's these sort of cycles people get into.

[799] You should read it, you should get a lot out of it.

[800] At first 100 pages of so, you'd get a ton out of it.

[801] Overcoming love addiction.

[802] But let me also share with you.

[803] So I've been coming in here, what, a couple years in my name?

[804] Yeah.

[805] much more of you present now than when I first came in here where you were very quiet and very withdrawn and very like you said your chameleon self you were inserting yourself into this as the dutiful caretaker and and I'm I have concerns that you would overdo that you know in any as anything got going the caretaking the codependency the being what other people need you to be and less of this which which is what should be present all the time yeah We are supported by article.

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[827] Monica and Jess love boys is supported by BetterHelp Online Counseling.

[828] Life can be stressful.

[829] Yes.

[830] It can be beautiful and wonderful and stressful.

[831] It can be all the things.

[832] It is all the things.

[833] And we could all use a little help when we're feeling down, but sometimes we don't really know where to go or how to get it or it can feel overwhelming.

[834] But Better Help is available for you.

[835] Better Help offers licensed counselors who specialize in issues including depression and anxiety, as well as complicated relationships, family relationships, sleeping, grief, stress, trauma, anger.

[836] You can really see your therapist about anything.

[837] Sometimes I even go when I feel like, I'm doing great.

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[840] It's so helpful.

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[843] with the discount code Monica.

[844] That's betterhelp .com slash Monica.

[845] Guys, why not get help?

[846] For real.

[847] Betterhelp .com slash Monica.

[848] You know, this is a gross thing to say out loud, but I think status is sort of a factor.

[849] Like, you know, when you first came in and it's armchair expert and it's Dax's show technically and stuff.

[850] Yeah, I get it.

[851] There's a reality component to it that you have a certain job to do and you do it.

[852] I get that.

[853] Yes, but also, like, I'm more in, I'm probably more in the mode of I will shape shift if it's somebody who I think has high status or is above me. It's the same thing, like, better than me. Because if they were to see me, they'd be rejecting.

[854] Correct.

[855] That's bullshit, right?

[856] Yeah, maybe.

[857] And then it's a weird cycle.

[858] We're like, then, okay, if they see me and then they like me, but they're higher status.

[859] And actually, they're not higher status because.

[860] You take their status now.

[861] at that point.

[862] Exactly.

[863] Exactly.

[864] I knock them off the pedestal.

[865] There's no way you can stop that, huh?

[866] Well, I would love to.

[867] I mean, that's the goal.

[868] That is the goal.

[869] Why do I feel like this is coming from your mom?

[870] Was she a very statusy kind of person?

[871] No, no. She's definitely not, but she's not a...

[872] Maybe status isn't the white word.

[873] I don't think, I did not grow up in a household where there was like a lot of nurturing or a depiction of love, really.

[874] They They were practical together.

[875] They're still together.

[876] And, I mean...

[877] Are they arranged marriage?

[878] No. Are you ever threatened with that?

[879] They're really good about that.

[880] They really are fine with me doing whatever I want.

[881] Do you imagine that you?

[882] Can you imagine an arranged marriage for you?

[883] I'm out.

[884] I'm out.

[885] I feel like you'd take it more in stride than me. An arranged marriage?

[886] I could kind of see if it was somebody, like, if we did some vetting and it was like, look at this person, look at his body.

[887] I don't think the arrangement.

[888] part would scare him.

[889] If it was his arrangement, it was everything he wanted.

[890] Well, that's true.

[891] That's true.

[892] That's true.

[893] Maybe I should arrange something for him as a challenge.

[894] But, but yeah, so no, I mean, no romance.

[895] And so I also think there's like, that whole idea was sort of put on a pedestal.

[896] Idea of love.

[897] Because I was getting it from movies.

[898] I was getting it from Romeo and Juliet.

[899] I was getting it from these heightened places.

[900] I wasn't getting it from real life.

[901] Friends.

[902] Goodwill hunting.

[903] I was getting it from friends and Goodwill hunting.

[904] I was.

[905] Fantasy, yeah.

[906] Yeah.

[907] Wow.

[908] I just put those two things together, I think.

[909] Because, yeah, I never saw that day to day and saw what it meant to have highs and lows within that.

[910] That were real.

[911] Do you write?

[912] Yeah.

[913] Have you had some success doing that?

[914] Yeah.

[915] I write everything.

[916] I write all the prison stuff.

[917] I mean, Jane Eyre, Jane Austen, the all same story.

[918] worse, but say the same kind of story.

[919] You write for other people, though, more than yourself.

[920] Yeah, but I used to write a ton.

[921] I had tons of spec scripts.

[922] And really all that stuff fell out because of time.

[923] Yeah, I love that.

[924] I love making my own worlds.

[925] As a kid, I wrote me and my best friend, we would just, like, write stories all day long and create worlds where I had control of the narrative.

[926] And there was so much love and this and that.

[927] It's again so interesting.

[928] I do write?

[929] Well, not really, except all day, all night.

[930] I don't know what that is.

[931] You both do it.

[932] I don't either.

[933] Your starting point is, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not me. And then there it is.

[934] Because I also feel like we both believe that we're very self -aware.

[935] Right.

[936] Like we both sort of take that in as like, we're self -aware people.

[937] You're self -aware in different ways.

[938] Tell us.

[939] I'll grant you that.

[940] Well, your frontal lobe is just in the way.

[941] Yeah.

[942] It's a, she's got this power.

[943] intellectual intellect that's just analyzing and OCDing everything and analyzing.

[944] That's a great asset, but it's in the way of connecting to your emotional landscape.

[945] Yeah.

[946] You're in.

[947] You live in the emotion.

[948] You live in the emotional landscape.

[949] That's the difference.

[950] And you're aware of it, but it's a little fragmented.

[951] And you move in and out of these fragments, and I don't think you're aware when you move in and out of them.

[952] That's the non -self -aware part.

[953] And for you, Monica, said, you're disconnected from those emotional landscapes and your intellect kicks in and tries to explain everything then.

[954] Wow, this is good.

[955] Yeah, I know.

[956] It's the truth.

[957] Yeah.

[958] I do.

[959] I lean in mine.

[960] Yeah, you're in it.

[961] You're living in it.

[962] You're that.

[963] And that's what makes you guys very interesting, by the way.

[964] So that's that, again, although this whole business are you both denying everything at the front and then coming out with this massive...

[965] No, no, I'm not 6 .5.

[966] I'm 6 .5.

[967] I'm 6 .5, you guys.

[968] 6 .4 and 12 inches.

[969] And I don't know what that is.

[970] And you both have it.

[971] It's, I don't know if it's minimization or denial or what that first move always is.

[972] Also, weirdly ties into the assimilation that we've both been programmed for our whole lives, which is like, I'm good at saying I'm not this.

[973] I'm this, but it's all one thing.

[974] Is it ignore me?

[975] Ignore these real things about me?

[976] Nothing to see here.

[977] Yes.

[978] Nothing to see here literally.

[979] And you too.

[980] No gay.

[981] No Indian.

[982] No, no, no, don't see that.

[983] Don't see that.

[984] So everything starts with nothing here.

[985] I think so.

[986] And then lots of it.

[987] And then you end up accumulating way more than you should.

[988] Yeah, I think that's part of the soup.

[989] I love soup.

[990] A hearty soup?

[991] Can you explain something to me?

[992] I've never asked any gay friends of mine.

[993] A lot of gay men I know have a little bit of a recoil from the idea of female genitalia.

[994] Do you have that?

[995] I think that's a joke.

[996] No, they like it.

[997] They joke about it, but they really feel it, I think.

[998] And I'm always wondering what that was.

[999] I don't have that.

[1000] I think it's a sassy, queenie kind of gay thing.

[1001] They're like, pussy, gross.

[1002] Like, it's like a, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1003] It's a kind of a...

[1004] It's a thing.

[1005] I know that.

[1006] It's also a base -level joke, which is not really that funny.

[1007] It's not fair to women.

[1008] And not funny, you know, so I don't partick in that.

[1009] And I also don't have that whole thing that everyone's gay thing that a lot of gay guys have.

[1010] Yeah, yeah.

[1011] Oh, he's gay.

[1012] He's gay.

[1013] I'm like, no, everyone is straight to me until they're dicks in my mouth.

[1014] I have a question for you.

[1015] So being Dr. He has changed so much in 20 years.

[1016] What are some things that you said 20 years ago that you've changed your opinion on?

[1017] Is there anything that you've loosened the reins on?

[1018] I mean, the basic patterns are still the same.

[1019] And remember, I work in the extremes, right?

[1020] And so I see extreme stuff.

[1021] And the world of trauma, that's sort of where I've always been.

[1022] And that's never changed.

[1023] and drug addicts are always the same.

[1024] Pretty consistent.

[1025] They're very consistent.

[1026] That's one of the things I find so fascinating.

[1027] It's so predictable and people are so, they're so interesting when their motivations are broken and then so great when they get back.

[1028] I've loosened up on myself a bunch.

[1029] When I was starting out, I was, I was really felt very, like I was doing something super important.

[1030] What I was doing was really important.

[1031] And I took it very, very important.

[1032] Very seriously.

[1033] Right.

[1034] And if anybody tried to get me to not be serious, it was extremely uncomfortable for me. And so personally, I'm not as serious as I used to be.

[1035] I think this.

[1036] I think I probably would have been more rigid, for lack of a better word, in the idea that there was a developmental process that ended in something, maturity of some type.

[1037] And that anything that wasn't fully integrated and fully brought into something, something, I would call a whole, that there's something wrong.

[1038] Now my feeling is, no, whatever your pieces are, wherever they are, you want to be this piece and that piece, and that's fine.

[1039] It's all good.

[1040] You don't have to go anywhere for anybody or be anything for anybody, but you have to be whole for yourself, whatever that is.

[1041] When you were doing Loveline, were there any that really stood out to you that you still remember?

[1042] People always ask that question.

[1043] So we sort of arbitrarily picked a couple of them because every night there was always something.

[1044] So one was a couple of Vietnamese orphans that got put their actual, not sister, but they called themselves sisters because they were put in the same orphanage on the streets of Saigon and then we're adopted to this country.

[1045] And then one of them called us and found out that this one was like in Orange County.

[1046] And the other one was in Denver, as I recall, that the one in Denver was starting to admit her she was being sexually abused and we helped her get.

[1047] you know, get at that situation.

[1048] On the more usual love liney side, the other story we would tell was about a guy named Jim, I think his name was Jim.

[1049] Anyway, he had a dog named Brutus.

[1050] I remember the dog's name.

[1051] Oh, oh, yeah.

[1052] Oh, boy.

[1053] And Brutus was having sex with this gentleman.

[1054] Oh, my goodness.

[1055] And he called and he said, you guys are these open -minded.

[1056] This is a form where people are supposed to be able to share their ideas.

[1057] How come people are so freaked out when they find out about my consent.

[1058] loving, intimate relationship.

[1059] We go, what's going on with this relationship?

[1060] Who is it with?

[1061] Well, it's my Akita Kali mix, Brutus.

[1062] And not only was he having sex with him, Brutus was having sex with him.

[1063] He had trained him to do that.

[1064] Oh, my goodness.

[1065] And it was, here's the really interesting part of the story, is he taught me, told me a lot about zoophilia, and he had these, and the internet was getting going then, so he had little communities.

[1066] Anyway, I sort of did some research, I found that these were often a lot of severe deprivation in early childhood, and so there's no attachment, and so they attached to animals, people sort of equally unattached.

[1067] But the interesting thing happened is our staff freaked out while this guy was on the phone.

[1068] This man needs to be burned alive.

[1069] He's a horrible human being.

[1070] This is, I can't tolerate this.

[1071] And Adam finally went, wait a minute.

[1072] He goes, yeah, there's nothing okay about this, but just hang on for a second.

[1073] Every night in the show, we hear about children being abused sexually and physically.

[1074] You guys don't react to that.

[1075] And yet this guy, you want him killed.

[1076] And by the way, this is Adam's word.

[1077] He goes, how bad is it for Brutus?

[1078] Would you rather be Brutus or would you rather be pulling a sled in the Iditaron?

[1079] Which would you rather be?

[1080] Why do you get mad at the guys doing the Iditarine?

[1081] Oh my God.

[1082] But yeah, so then that boils down to attachment for him.

[1083] That's where that was coming from.

[1084] Attachment, yeah.

[1085] God.

[1086] Which is a whole other interesting landscape, right?

[1087] Attachment.

[1088] And there's different types, right?

[1089] Everybody has an attachment style.

[1090] Yeah.

[1091] Avoidant, secure, disorganized.

[1092] And what's the four?

[1093] I always forget the fourth one.

[1094] It's avoidant.

[1095] It's like kind of like avoidance.

[1096] Because I deal with disorganized all the time.

[1097] That's all that I'm dealing with.

[1098] What is the fourth one?

[1099] Dismissive.

[1100] Dismissive fearful.

[1101] Which is, wait.

[1102] Then what's the, give me another one?

[1103] Secure, anxious, dismissive, fearful.

[1104] So when you are born, we have a sort of a system in our brains that allows us to get close to somebody and attach them.

[1105] And the primary attachment figure is mom.

[1106] And mom brings all of her emotional machinery to bear on that relationship, and that relationship usually has four general categories to it.

[1107] And one of the ways they sort of evoke attachment styles is through challenging the child with removing her from the mom or mom having what's called a still face at reuniting.

[1108] Because it turns out our face is where we express a lot of our emotional exchange, right, that we have signals that are going on all the time between us.

[1109] And we don't even aware of 90 % of them.

[1110] And essentially at its core, this is the way it's constructed, is child has an emotion, mom tries to attune and understand that emotion, and then on her face automatically is a reflection of that emotion.

[1111] And it's a pretend state.

[1112] It's not the actual mom's state.

[1113] It's the mom's appreciation of the child's internal state.

[1114] Think about it.

[1115] I hurt my finger.

[1116] It's sort of an exaggerate.

[1117] It's kind of an exaggerate.

[1118] But it happens at the corners of the mouth and in the very tiny muscles in the eye.

[1119] You have to watch it.

[1120] And when you see it happen, it's like, woo.

[1121] And the people aren't aware they're doing it even as they do it.

[1122] And then the mama tunes and, you know, creates a co -created regulatory environment for the child's emotions, which the emotions are exchanged, identified, and sent back as something that the child can understand.

[1123] And that's the attachment sort of landscape.

[1124] Then when the child's in that attuned connected environment, they could either be just completely chaotic and abandoning and neglectful or it can be an environment where the mom catches the emotions and becomes rejecting.

[1125] Like, I can't stand this anymore.

[1126] I got to have a drink.

[1127] A codependency kicks in there then.

[1128] And so there's lots of qualities.

[1129] And there are plenty of children that, you know, it's normal for the child after a separation for the mom to the child want to get back and sort of go to the mom for regulation and a tomb and a reassurance.

[1130] Fearful and avoidance move away from the mom because the mom is a source of distress if the mom brings a lot of traumatic emotional machinery in with her.

[1131] And an insecure, chaotic connection is the mom's with trauma and mental illness and just can't, they can't get a stable environment for the child emotionally at all because it's threatening to the mom.

[1132] All these emotions are stirred up in her.

[1133] Yeah.

[1134] That makes sense?

[1135] Am I explaining that at a class?

[1136] I would urge reading unattachment.

[1137] And tricky of it has anchored in neurobiology because then you know it's, you know, it's, yeah, you know, it's real.

[1138] Exactly.

[1139] Yeah.

[1140] So, yes, from day one, what you're getting from your mom is then what you replicate.

[1141] Well, that's the beginning of your, what we might call love maps, right?

[1142] These sort of what we fit with.

[1143] And, you know, that sort of becomes our fittedness that we start looking with out in the world, is that landscape.

[1144] Now, of course, the other parent also can serve, you know, another map, and it can help repair some of what the other parent is doing.

[1145] but the primary parent is the primary source of this attachment.

[1146] And then you had a major rupture and abandonment after that, right?

[1147] Yeah, and so what happens, what's the longest relationship you've had, by the way?

[1148] A year, all 15 months.

[1149] Yeah.

[1150] And so when you have that rupture, just the potential of the rupture makes going back to that environment of closeness, challenging, threatening.

[1151] Because, oh my God, that trauma's going to come again.

[1152] That's so close to being strong.

[1153] That's what it felt like.

[1154] When other people were like, it's just a breakup.

[1155] And it did not feel like that for me. Right.

[1156] It's revoking all that old horrible stuff.

[1157] And so at therapy, one of the goals of therapy, there's various ways to approach it, but one way to do it is a form of secure attachment.

[1158] That's one of the things that people do in therapy.

[1159] And that takes work.

[1160] You have to rework all that neuronal machinery.

[1161] And the therapist has to kind of navigate all that and find, is her way into a secure connection with you.

[1162] And then sustain that for a period of time.

[1163] so you can then reflect that back into your choices out in the world.

[1164] Interesting.

[1165] Yeah, I mean, I guess it's impossible if you have no example of a secure attachment to then go make one in the world.

[1166] It's not even an example.

[1167] You're wired the way you're wired.

[1168] Yeah.

[1169] And you have to, if you're going to change that wiring, it takes some work.

[1170] The crazy thing about trauma is, and this is where some of the sex and love addiction comes in, is that when you've had a trauma in childhood, you'll be attracted forever, more intensely to people in places that recreate that trauma.

[1171] And we have no idea why that.

[1172] Freud used to call it traumatic reenactment.

[1173] We call them now traumatic reenactments.

[1174] And no one knows why the hell that happens.

[1175] It's some wiring thing.

[1176] So that's why earlier I was saying that you're a perfect instrument.

[1177] If you're attracted to somebody with lightning bolts, that's going to be an abandoning person.

[1178] I guarantee it.

[1179] And it could be intense and cool and very gratifying for a while.

[1180] They will leave you.

[1181] Yeah.

[1182] Yeah.

[1183] And again, history of substance use.

[1184] It's pretty chaotic stuff.

[1185] That's whatever was going on with her was intense.

[1186] I love that your mom's a cop, Nigel.

[1187] Yeah, 25 years, LAPD.

[1188] Oh, my God.

[1189] But taking your kid away from someone doesn't always sober someone up and I'm grateful that it did.

[1190] Well, generally the things that get through to addicts are loss of freedom, loss of life, loss of children.

[1191] But we all know people that overdosed millions of times and have been in prison millions of times, but losing children does tend to get through to women.

[1192] Did she talk about her traumas?

[1193] That kind of explosion of addiction early on is usually sexual abuse to women.

[1194] So you can kind of look for that in her background.

[1195] Mom, come on in.

[1196] And one of the crazy things about moms are sexually abused is that 10 -7 of their kids too.

[1197] The one thing they don't want to, as again, they get attracted to circumstances and things that are familiar with that trauma.

[1198] They gravitate back to environments where the kids get sexually abused.

[1199] It's so, we're all cliches.

[1200] It's not a cliche.

[1201] All of us, though, all of us, we're just walking around.

[1202] We're just doing the same thing over and over again.

[1203] Oh, we do that.

[1204] We all do that.

[1205] We're just in these patterns, in these cycles.

[1206] Yes.

[1207] Particularly in our interpersonal lives, particularly there.

[1208] Why?

[1209] Attachment, trauma, you know, unsolved, unresolved stuff, wiring that's left behind.

[1210] That's why we have psychotherapy.

[1211] It just seems like the knowledge should break the pattern and it does not.

[1212] That's your crazy.

[1213] frontal lobe that gets no way here.

[1214] It should.

[1215] How has it been working so far?

[1216] Well, I can recognize it's not working, but I'm saying it should, it should work.

[1217] This was Plato's construct, right?

[1218] That, you know, the emotions were the horses and the intellect was driving the chariot.

[1219] Yeah.

[1220] Yeah, it doesn't really work like that.

[1221] No. The motivational systems, the maps that we have and are relating with others, our feelings about our identity and our, you know, place in society and success and all these things.

[1222] have deep feeling states associated with them.

[1223] Yeah.

[1224] I was a lot like you.

[1225] And I was very disconnected from feelings.

[1226] It took a lot of therapy to connect it up.

[1227] And now I'm really, really, really grateful to be connected.

[1228] I still have to pay attention.

[1229] I have to really, like, really pay attention to kind of, because they're distant.

[1230] They're not always in the right in front of me. Because I'm such a freaking codependent.

[1231] I feel other people's more acutely.

[1232] Totally.

[1233] That is so me. We've had this situation.

[1234] Like there's been some situations where I, Somebody else's emotion is so strong, and I feel it's so attunedly, and it takes over.

[1235] Right.

[1236] And so I've used the word codependency many times now talking about you.

[1237] That's what that is.

[1238] But that is an asset, right, to be that available and attuned and empathic that you actually feel at people's feelings.

[1239] The problem with the codependent is that you will co -mingle your feelings with the other persons.

[1240] So you'll actually have your own pain mobilized by the other person's moments.

[1241] And then you'll want to fix it in the other person because it's your pain that you're finding so intolerable.

[1242] What happens to us, I'm pointing at Monica and me, is the feelings come in.

[1243] We catch, it's not fully a contagion.

[1244] We just, we get them.

[1245] And then they commingle with ours.

[1246] And then to separate them is very difficult.

[1247] It looks like it's the other persons.

[1248] And we got to make them stop because it's really in us that we want to make stop.

[1249] Yeah.

[1250] I've had a lot of discussions with you where, and I have to tread lightly because it's hard to tell someone that that's not.

[1251] your shit.

[1252] Yeah.

[1253] Do you get that?

[1254] It's really hard for us.

[1255] She believes what she's saying, and I understand that, and I also said it's not your issue.

[1256] It's always not your issue.

[1257] It's none of our business sometimes.

[1258] Oh, but it's...

[1259] It's like they didn't ask you to rescue them.

[1260] They don't want to be rescued.

[1261] It's none of your goddamn business.

[1262] And it's a boundary, right?

[1263] That's how you have to learn about boundaries.

[1264] But you've got to separate your feelings out to be able to really understand that.

[1265] Yeah.

[1266] And it's funny, I've been out of therapy for a long time now, and I still, I'm a little more commingly than I was when I was fresh out of therapy.

[1267] Yeah.

[1268] Yeah, it's a, I mean, it's a muscle.

[1269] It is.

[1270] It absolutely is.

[1271] And I think men are less skill with this.

[1272] You know, our corpus callosum is smaller, right?

[1273] So we don't connect to our right brain so much.

[1274] And the right brain is where a lot of this stuff is going on in this interpersonal landscape.

[1275] It's where the baby communicates with mom before they have language.

[1276] So all that attachment stuff, guys like that.

[1277] Alan Shore, I believe, are embedded in the right brain.

[1278] So it's right brain, right brain communication that sets up this attunement landscape of attachment.

[1279] Interesting.

[1280] And the males are not as, our quote is close, I'm not as big, so we're not as embedded in that right side.

[1281] Huh.

[1282] Even though you're really good, Jess is excellently, I think you are embedded in your right side, right?

[1283] You feel stuff.

[1284] Oh, yeah.

[1285] Yeah, you're in.

[1286] It's, I don't, I don't gender it, per se, myself.

[1287] Right.

[1288] I just think of it in neurobiological terms and, you know, genetic terms and stuff.

[1289] Right.

[1290] But I wouldn't expressly gender it.

[1291] Yeah.

[1292] And there are plenty of men that have lots of what you have, and there are plenty of women that have less of it, you know, and so it's always a spectrum.

[1293] So what brain am I?

[1294] You're living in your emotional brain.

[1295] Which is what side?

[1296] Right side.

[1297] Got it.

[1298] Yeah.

[1299] And she's frontal side?

[1300] She's got both frontal lobes in control, fire it off.

[1301] That prefrontal cortex is all in the way.

[1302] Yeah.

[1303] I mean, my therapist has said it every time I'm in there, basically.

[1304] She's like, yeah, I know you get it.

[1305] I know you understand it logically, but you're not understanding it emotionally.

[1306] You're not experiencing it emotionally.

[1307] Okay, so as far as our weekly challenge, because we're meeting again on a week from Thursday.

[1308] A week from tomorrow, yeah.

[1309] So this challenge has to be completed by then.

[1310] I want to arrange marriage you.

[1311] I want to, I want to arrange a first and free.

[1312] Well, that's interesting.

[1313] That would be very interesting.

[1314] I mean, we could both do it to each other, I suppose.

[1315] Why don't you just to see, no, no, I like it because I want you just to learn to hang with anybody and not be worried about it, just learn to have a date with a human being and get to know them.

[1316] Wait a minute, we have to set each other up with a person, doesn't have to be sexual or anything to hang out with?

[1317] Specifically, I don't want it to be sexual, but if it, whatever.

[1318] Right.

[1319] But I'd rather it not be.

[1320] I'd rather be an encounter.

[1321] sitting and exchanging with another human being.

[1322] And I have to get hers and she has to get mine?

[1323] Yeah.

[1324] And we can't know this person.

[1325] No. Like you can't know mine.

[1326] Right.

[1327] And I can't know yours.

[1328] Right.

[1329] And then just the goal is to enjoy being present with other humans.

[1330] A new person.

[1331] Ultimately, what I'm looking for is I want you to see yourself through a new pair of glasses.

[1332] Wow.

[1333] I want you to sit with people that you wouldn't normally be attracted to because the attraction is all that trauma stuff, right?

[1334] And so this is a way of taking that out and putting you with somebody who somebody thinks is suitable for you.

[1335] They're not being, you know.

[1336] So I'm confused.

[1337] Is this a date or is this platonic?

[1338] This is what Dr. News has been saying the whole time is to not parcel that out.

[1339] Oh, because then we have expectations.

[1340] Yeah.

[1341] It can be a date.

[1342] It can be sex.

[1343] But I'm looking for is you just spending time seeing yourself through a new pair of glasses by just being with another person.

[1344] And that could be, if you really do it and really pay attention during the exchange, you'd be a surprise what that can do for people.

[1345] People just hanging out with people they wouldn't normally hang with will, like, find sobriety.

[1346] They'll suddenly have a moment of clarity in things.

[1347] They see themselves differently.

[1348] Because again, would you seek out each of you, all of us, are the fittedness, the old patterns.

[1349] And if you step out of that and try something a little different and do it on a regular basis, especially, which I'm especially now just pointing at, You know, who knows?

[1350] I'm terrified of to pick.

[1351] For her?

[1352] Yeah.

[1353] I have no problem going to do anywhere with anyone.

[1354] I want to...

[1355] But I'm going to pick someone who is an example of someone I want you to be looking at.

[1356] Yeah.

[1357] But I hope you'd want it to be somebody that could care about him.

[1358] Exactly.

[1359] Exactly.

[1360] And what are you going to do?

[1361] I don't know.

[1362] because my thing was pick someone that is intellectually stimulating.

[1363] But she does that all the time.

[1364] I kind of want to pick someone that, I don't know.

[1365] I don't know.

[1366] I'm scared.

[1367] I think this is great.

[1368] It is.

[1369] A new pair of glasses, ladies and gentlemen.

[1370] Yeah, I like that.

[1371] It's an extremely powerful experience.

[1372] Wow.

[1373] I like that.

[1374] Thank you.

[1375] Oh, thank you so much.

[1376] This was fantastic.

[1377] It's interesting when you're in something, didn't time just Zoom?

[1378] Yeah.

[1379] Oh, yeah.

[1380] Yeah.

[1381] When you're in an emotional space, Tom, contracts and expands.

[1382] Yeah.

[1383] Yeah, for sure.

[1384] Well, this was lovely.

[1385] Thank you so much.

[1386] Thank you.

[1387] Thank you.