0:00

The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler.

0:04

Welcome back to

0:06

the Honeydew, y'all.

0:15

We're over here doing it in the Nightpan Studios.

0:18

I'm Ryan Sickler, ryansickler.com,

0:20

and Ryan Sickler on all your social media. And

0:22

again, thank you guys. Thank you

0:24

for being part of this community. Thank you for

0:26

subscribing, supporting all of it. Whether

0:28

you're new here, whether you've been here, thank you so

0:31

much. Go watch my special Lefty

0:33

Son. I keep saying YouTube pulled it from the algorithm.

0:36

It's still doing well, so you got to go find

0:38

it.

0:39

Please go support that. Share it, like it, comment,

0:41

all that good stuff. If you got

0:43

to have more, then you got to check out the Patreon.

0:46

Listen to me.

0:47

It's five bucks a month. You get the Honeydew

0:49

a day early. You get it ad free. You get it

0:51

at no extra cost. And

0:54

it's the wildest, I'm telling you, it's the best

0:57

deal on Patreon. It's five

0:59

bucks and you're hearing stories from y'all.

1:02

We just had a lady who

1:05

was the victim of a murder suicide

1:07

attempt.

1:08

Her, I believe it was husband at the time,

1:11

shoots her. She ducks, gets hit once

1:13

in the carotid artery. The other bullet,

1:16

Dr. Drew, goes through her mouth, out

1:18

of her cheek and neck.

1:20

She's now paralyzed in a wheelchair.

1:22

Her mom is in the house, sees

1:25

this, dude blows his

1:27

brains out in front of her and she runs out and plugs

1:29

the carotid artery with her hand, saves

1:32

her daughter's life.

1:33

Five dollars, y'all. And if you or someone

1:35

you know has a story that has to be told, please submit

1:37

it to Honeydewpodcast at gmail.com. If

1:39

you're looking for a new podcast to listen

1:42

to, go listen to my old podcast, The Crab

1:44

Feast. It's one of the best just storytelling

1:47

podcasts out there. Everybody you know and

1:49

love in the podcast land is on there. Bill

1:52

Burr, Chrysler, Segura, Christina P.,

1:54

everybody. So go

1:57

check that out, subscribe to that. And this.

1:59

I believe it's this weekend, July

2:02

7th and 8th,

2:03

Appleton, Wisconsin. I'm going to be there, y'all.

2:05

Get your tickets for that. August, we

2:07

got some new dates to announce. August 18th and

2:10

19th, we're in Tampa. September 1st

2:12

and 2nd, Springfield, Missouri. And September

2:14

15th and 16th,

2:16

Tulsa, Oklahoma. All right, that's all my back

2:18

and lungs can handle right now. And

2:21

that's the biz. Go get your tickets at RyanSickler.com.

2:23

Now,

2:24

you guys know what we do over here. I always say we highlight the

2:26

lowlights, and these are the stories behind the storytellers.

2:28

I'm very excited to have this guest back on

2:30

The Honeydew. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr.

2:33

Drew. Welcome back to The Honeydew, young man. Yeah, buddy. Here

2:35

we are. So why did YouTube put you in jail? I want to know

2:38

more about that. Well, they never tell you. They just say

2:40

we have- You can call and get a person sometimes if

2:42

you're diligent. We have a contact

2:44

who also tells us she can't help

2:46

us with that and keeps pushing us off. So

2:49

I've talked to Nadav about theirs. They

2:52

don't tell you. They just say we manually

2:54

reviewed it. My

2:56

question would be, how many people? One

2:58

person? Complained. Does

3:00

one person decide the fate of everything

3:03

that goes out there to all people? What everybody

3:05

else can listen to. And then they

3:07

give you their bylaws, they give you their algorithm,

3:09

and it says nothing. You can look at it and go,

3:11

I didn't do any of these things. What are you

3:14

talking about? It's so disturbing. Also,

3:16

I think they don't

3:18

like... Well, this show is...

3:20

Please subscribe to this show and

3:22

help this show because the words on this

3:25

show, and I'm going to say them now, so this will be a demonetized

3:27

episode. But when we talk about trauma and abuse

3:30

and molestation and rape, those are

3:32

words- You're not allowed to talk about those things? Those are the words that

3:34

the algorithm doesn't like. We're

3:37

demonetized in the queue. When

3:39

Kirsten posts an episode on Sunday

3:41

for a Tuesday release, it's already limited.

3:44

I don't know if they're using AI to search

3:47

words or what it is, is my guess.

3:49

Because how could you possibly...

3:50

We just uploaded it five seconds

3:53

ago. How in the hell did someone listen to it?

3:55

It's literally the most significant...

4:00

and common medical issues of our time.

4:03

Yeah.

4:03

I glorified weed

4:05

in their opinion, which I mean, I technically

4:08

do, over alcohol I do. I didn't

4:10

glorify it in general, just

4:12

comparing it to the one thing. And

4:14

they don't like weed or marijuana

4:16

on YouTube at all. That seems counter their

4:19

culture, the thing where they would like it. Even though it's legal, even though

4:21

it's medicinal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, the only

4:23

thing about weed though, you know, I have no

4:25

problem with people's fucking weed, I don't give a shit. We

4:28

are seeing some stuff now. Tell me, because

4:31

you know, because of the concentration. The concentrations,

4:33

as you know, are

4:33

so intense. Oh, you mean the power of these

4:36

things? Oh yeah, these things. And so we are seeing

4:38

people that, whose brains can't

4:40

handle that. We're seeing psychosis, we're

4:42

seeing mood disturbances, we're seeing anxiety

4:45

disorders, and we're seeing addiction

4:47

too. Particularly if you're getting onto the

4:49

dabs. Yeah, I don't know, God. I

4:52

don't even think my lungs can handle that. So, it's

4:54

really like, it's crack, it's the crack of weed.

4:57

I don't even do the, they also have infused

4:59

ones where they're taking the kef and then

5:02

putting it back in. I'm like,

5:03

just give me some flour. Just

5:06

some flour. It's because people get tolerant and they need

5:08

more and more, and that's a problem if you're getting

5:10

into that sort of zone. Not that, you

5:13

know, the plain people smoke weed every day, they're fine. And I'm

5:15

not saying that at all, but I'm saying that we gotta get honest

5:17

about, given the concentrations of THC

5:20

that are in there, it is starting to affect

5:22

people's life and brain. This isn't the weed from the Vietnam era. Yeah.

5:24

No, they don't even know about, you're

5:27

not even old enough to remember taking seeds, seeds

5:30

and sticks out of the weeds. Dr. Drew, what are you talking

5:32

about? By the lid? I would sit down

5:33

and put an album in

5:36

front of me with one on, and

5:38

I would sit there in an hour of seeding

5:40

my weed. So, I didn't get

5:42

the pops and the cracks and the sticks. Oh my

5:44

God, so funny. They eat the seeds, remember that? Yeah,

5:47

my brothers used to chew them. And then we'd read things

5:49

or hear things that there were cyanide in them and

5:51

stuff. Is that real though? I don't

5:53

know. It was all the rumors I heard that. Look,

5:56

I wanted to talk to you about this. So, this

5:59

show is...

5:59

people coming on and talking about the

6:02

worst times of their life, they're talking about their trauma,

6:04

the things they've overcome. What

6:07

I don't think we've ever really discussed

6:09

is actually what trauma is, what

6:11

it does to the imprinting

6:13

of a person, especially at the age

6:16

that it happens. I know like

6:18

listening to, again, I'm old, listening to Love

6:21

Line back in the day when you guys would talk about,

6:23

especially a young lady who had a voice

6:25

that was high pitched in her 40s

6:27

or 50s. And

6:30

also I've smoked a lot of weed. I feel

6:32

like there was a correlation to about the time

6:35

that trauma happened to them, maybe the age-ish,

6:38

am I sort of in the ballpark on that?

6:40

So one of the things that trauma does

6:42

is arrest development. And we

6:44

started noticing that we would close our

6:47

eyes and listen to some of these voices. We would

6:49

immediately, I could literally

6:51

picture the age of the trauma, like

6:54

I'm talking to a six-year-old, that's what comes

6:56

to mind for an eight-year-old. The voice

6:58

would trigger an image in my head

7:01

of the age of that individual I was speaking

7:03

to, never

7:04

wrong. Never. We was never wrong. And

7:07

there was another thing, because

7:09

just because we were sitting there, you know, with headphones listening

7:11

all night, we also would

7:13

get other kinds of feelings from people if they

7:15

had sort of personality disorders from

7:17

the traumas, because they would immediately,

7:20

we'd get, you know, Adam would have a certain reaction,

7:22

I'd have a reaction. And that's how things

7:24

work. I mean, back in the psychiatric, when I ran

7:26

programs in the psychiatric hospital, we

7:29

would sort of confirm our

7:31

diagnostic impressions based on how

7:33

people responded to the patients,

7:37

or how they responded to us even. In

7:39

other words, I had a nurse, my charge nurse

7:42

loved sociopaths. And if she would say,

7:44

and when the patient would come in, she'd just go, oh, I love

7:46

him. He's so entertaining. We'd just go, oh, shit, here we go.

7:48

Sociopath. If the patient, you

7:51

knew off of our reaction. And we were never wrong.

7:53

And if the patient liked

7:55

me, like a lot, it

7:57

was a female borderline, the borderline is like.

7:59

And my partner, my physician partner, if

8:03

they liked him, bipolar disorder. All the

8:05

bipolar is like, it was just very interesting. And so that's

8:08

why you have to have a team, because how we respond

8:10

to other people and how they respond to us is, it's protein.

8:13

It's all over the place. And some people don't

8:16

like or don't respond to others. And so you have to have somebody

8:18

that you can reach them with. So that was

8:20

that. So then back to trauma.

8:22

So trauma, you

8:24

know, we really, when you're talking about trauma, you're,

8:29

there's adult trauma,

8:31

right? Being in an earthquake or the military

8:33

trauma, that kind of thing that results in all

8:36

sorts of symptomatology around

8:38

PTSD and anxiety disorders and sleep

8:40

disturbances and intrusive images and

8:42

all the things we know about the veterans struggle with. Right?

8:45

That is a certain kind of trauma.

8:48

It's an overwhelmingly, overwhelming

8:50

experience in adulthood. If

8:53

you've had

8:55

earlier trauma,

8:56

those overwhelming experiences in adulthood

8:59

tend to be more likely to trigger PTSD. So

9:02

that's sort of adult trauma. It

9:05

doesn't really affect your personality development

9:07

or anything like that.

9:09

Early trauma has a whole

9:11

different

9:12

thing to it. So really the trauma that

9:15

we're most concerned with is childhood trauma, right?

9:18

And we in this country have lived through many

9:20

years of massive denial about

9:22

what harms children. I mean, there's now finally

9:25

in the 90s, they came up with the adverse childhood experiences,

9:28

the A scale. What, if you

9:30

have three or more of those experiences

9:32

in childhood,

9:33

that is sort of chronic trauma.

9:35

That's, you have a higher probability of- And what

9:38

percentage of people is that? That's very

9:40

high. Like, is there anyone

9:42

that goes, there's no one that goes unscathed on this

9:44

walking out of space. They're boring if they

9:46

do. Fair enough. People are

9:48

very interesting when they've had pathologies and things. But

9:52

let me tell you some of the things that are on the A scale and you'll

9:54

see how calm they are. Divorce. I

9:56

mean, Jesus Christ. Yeah.

9:59

a drug addict to the family, a family

10:02

member in prison. I mean, you don't have

10:04

to have overt physical or sexual abuse.

10:07

Of course, those are on the list too. Domestic

10:09

abuse, not necessarily violence, just fighting

10:12

and the parents. So just add substance,

10:15

divorce and fighting. I would say

10:17

you're lucky if you only have three. Right,

10:20

to be honest. And when you get five, then you

10:22

really are likely to have very serious long-term

10:24

problems, both medically and

10:26

psychiatrically. And it's very

10:28

common to have all. And there are some that

10:30

sort of obviously are heavier, so to

10:32

speak, are more likely to impact. And when you do

10:35

have things like physical and sexual abuse, usually

10:37

have some of the other things going on as well. So, so. See,

10:39

I like talking to you. How old are you now, Dr. Drew? God

10:42

damn you look good, you son of a bitch. God bless you. You look

10:45

good.

10:45

What are we planning here, Brian?

10:48

Man, I'm through, bro. I noticed those

10:50

guns as soon as you got out of the car. I was like, look at

10:52

you, you son of a bitch. I, you

10:55

got me by 14 years, but still,

10:57

I feel, I always say I'm part of the walk it

10:59

off generation. Like you'd go to your parents

11:01

back then, and it's like, just walk it off. Yeah, yeah,

11:04

yeah. Walk it off. You know that little. By

11:06

the way, we thought it was horrible and abusive, but it

11:08

wasn't so bad relative to what they were going

11:10

on these days. You're right about that. So I told you

11:12

what's on my mind today is I watched the Arnold documentary

11:14

on Netflix,

11:15

and he was just like, get busy,

11:18

do stuff, do things, make a difference, get

11:20

involved, just kind of do things. Your

11:22

whole life should be busy, and you won't be so disturbed

11:25

by these things. And he had a physically abusive father,

11:27

alcoholic, and had all kinds of horrible shit

11:29

happen to him in childhood too. But

11:31

let's get back to what trauma is.

11:33

So trauma- Can I just say this real quick,

11:35

and this is why I wanted to ask you this, and I don't want

11:37

to interrupt, and I'll shut up after this. Well, I don't want to drag

11:40

on, so maybe interrupt some problems. No, no, no, back at the YMH days

11:42

before pandemic and all that

11:44

good stuff happened, I

11:47

had talked to you about my

11:50

mother and the physical,

11:52

mental, emotional abuse, I suffered all that. And

11:55

you said something interesting to me. You said, if you're gonna,

11:59

because I may- even toyed with having her on an episode

12:01

or something, you said it's interesting, but how old is

12:03

she now? And I said, yeah, she's probably 70 or

12:05

whatever. And you said it's, you

12:08

gotta be careful with something like that because

12:10

at some point when you see

12:13

that old feeble whatever person,

12:16

you end up looking like

12:17

a bully who's still attacking

12:19

this person, right? And the funny

12:22

thing to me is,

12:23

like I've worked on it, we have a relationship

12:26

now, but up until I was 40,

12:28

I could have said to you easily, I could

12:31

live another 40 years and still be like,

12:33

fuck you, lady. So that imprinting

12:36

in every fiber of me from

12:39

early on lives underlying

12:41

everything I do out there. So

12:46

forgiveness and owning it and all that is really, really

12:48

important. But it'd be interesting. Can

12:51

we talk about how something that young, whatever

12:53

your trauma is, it's everlasting.

12:56

We'll get there. It's not, I mean, it leaves

12:58

its mark. It doesn't have to destroy you.

13:02

But it's not going to go on.

13:05

Would you agree it's not going anywhere especially

13:07

or getting any better if you don't work it? Oh

13:09

boy. Yeah, no. I mean, different

13:12

people have different ways. I mean, both, I watched

13:14

the documentary from both Steven Spielberg

13:17

and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and both of them talked about how

13:19

their work was their sort of process

13:22

and how they, but they also worked with therapists over

13:24

the year, I'm sure, or somebody did around

13:26

them and maybe they sort of, how

13:28

people around us and how we fit with them changes

13:31

who we are too. So

13:32

anyway, so

13:36

I had

13:36

an abusive mom, too, emotionally

13:39

abusive, unavailable, all that kind of stuff. And

13:41

towards the end of her

13:43

life, she never came around. Never.

13:46

No. And in fact, she

13:48

was leaning on me hard late in her life for

13:50

medical stuff. And then every

13:53

time I'd offer her an opinion, she would fight with

13:55

me, like, abusively fight with me. And

13:57

finally I go, what, don't come to me for this stuff. Have you...

13:59

She goes, just because I fight doesn't mean I'm

14:02

not gonna listen to you. And I thought, oh, this

14:04

is perfect. I just have to bust

14:06

your balls because that's what I do.

14:09

And I finally thought, I'm never

14:11

gonna get

14:12

anything out of this relationship other

14:15

than I have to do what I need to do

14:17

to be a good son.

14:18

And that's it. And that's

14:21

how it ended. I never got anything

14:23

from that relationship. It's almost

14:25

funny. So what was a good son in

14:28

your eyes to that person? To answer her

14:30

medical problems, to show up and visit

14:32

regularly and to be available and not

14:36

fucking pop off

14:38

any of this bullshit when she started firing

14:40

at me. And

14:42

it's funny. She

14:45

used to yell a lot and we arranged

14:47

a caretaker for her. And I

14:49

felt vindicated when this

14:51

woman said to me, she goes, no,

14:54

it's great. I'm not gonna forget about the yelling, the yelling.

14:56

My God, the yelling. I thought, imagine

14:58

you're three and that's going on. How

15:00

long did it take you to get that vindication?

15:03

How many years? Some

15:07

people die before they ever get it. You

15:09

know what I mean? Some people die. Yep.

15:12

So

15:12

trauma

15:15

is essentially the experience

15:17

of, at least

15:19

psychically, if not physically, the

15:22

organism, the person has

15:25

a sense that they will not go forward. They

15:27

will not go on being. It is a total

15:29

destruction either of the soul

15:32

or the body. Like I'm going to

15:34

die or this experience is just

15:36

destroying me psychically. And

15:39

that experience of,

15:43

we're not set up for that in childhood. We

15:45

can't manage that. If you're a Navy SEAL,

15:47

you can manage that. You're trained to do it. It

15:49

still affects you, right? You still have symptoms

15:52

later down the road.

15:53

But as a child, it literally

15:56

shatters the upper limits of the brain's

15:58

regulatory capacity.

15:59

So the brain floods with cortisol,

16:02

it shuts down, the vagus system,

16:04

the parasympathetic system kicks

16:07

in overdrive. You have both hyperstimulation

16:10

because you're in sort of a fight or flight and

16:12

hyperinhibition because you can't go

16:14

anywhere. You're stuck, you're being abused. And

16:17

the hyperinhibition is probably what

16:19

does all the damage. And in

16:21

that state, our vagus

16:23

nerve evolves with three distinct nuclei.

16:27

And one of the nuclei is linked

16:29

into higher functions. So

16:32

it has to kind of develop. And

16:35

it develops as a key component

16:37

of the brain's regulatory system. So

16:40

the vagus is turned out is

16:42

very embedded, as we said, in the parasympathetic

16:44

system. And that happens to be embedded also

16:47

that those vagal offshoots with

16:49

the parasympathetic input are

16:52

embedded in what are called the brachial pouches.

16:55

The brachial pouches are what develop the

16:58

muscles to the ears, vocal cords,

17:00

all the facial musculature. So

17:02

when we feel something, we can literally

17:04

attune our ear to

17:06

vocal prosody in the other. We

17:08

can use vocal prosody to express

17:11

emotion ourselves. And the tiny

17:13

movements of our facial muscles have deep

17:16

communication potential to particularly

17:18

children who may be pre-verbal,

17:21

for instance. That's how moms communicate with

17:23

babies. With the tiniest input.

17:26

And so

17:27

that system gets shattered. It

17:29

doesn't develop the normal inputs to

17:31

the higher functions in the brain. And

17:33

it stays in this sort of more

17:36

primitive system of dissociation

17:39

and shutdown. So dissociation

17:42

both from the feelings

17:45

and from your body also does

17:47

dissociation from the higher functions in the brain.

17:49

So shutdown, dissociation, either.

17:52

And that dissociation can't even be some

17:55

matter formed dissociation.

17:57

So if- What is that? So if the body

17:59

is the- source of the misery, the shattering,

18:02

physical abuse, sexual abuse,

18:05

people will actually kind of dissociate

18:07

from their body. And the body

18:10

becomes a source of disorganized information

18:13

that they never can regulate. So oftentimes

18:15

you get chronic pain and all kinds

18:17

of physical complaints that they can't explain

18:20

because they're disconnected from

18:22

the normal inflow of information

18:25

that gets regulated with the whole of

18:27

the brain.

18:29

Question so far. Is

18:32

it fit? Makes sense? Yeah. So

18:34

it begs the issue. So this is all

18:36

work of a guy named Alan Shore and

18:39

Stephen Porges. Stephen Porges

18:41

has something called the Polyvagal Theory where he talks about

18:43

this socio-emotional exchange system, which

18:45

is the vagal system that

18:47

we evolved with as primates

18:50

and humans in particular,

18:52

particularly to communicate with mom.

18:55

That's really what early pre-verbal

18:58

communication, but we retain it the rest of our

19:00

life. All right. My question is this. What

19:02

made

19:05

doctors science start studying

19:07

this? What was the final tipping

19:09

point where they're like, all right, some shit's going on

19:11

in these humans. Let's look at this.

19:14

The Kaiser Adverse Childhood Experience

19:17

score was like in the 90s or something,

19:19

maybe even the 2000s. And Adam and

19:21

I were talking to traumatized people every

19:24

night. It's obvious when you work in general

19:26

medicine or in psychiatry, all the impact

19:28

of trauma, because that's always what you see. There

19:31

was no agreement in the medical community that had a thing.

19:34

I don't know.

19:35

Even that late is 90s. Oh, yeah. I think

19:37

some of it is the history of psychiatry. And

19:39

some of it is the lack of willingness to

19:42

look at the social, what was really going

19:44

on in our country because we had all these divorces.

19:47

Good. Kids are little adults.

19:49

They're fine. They're just, look how resilient

19:51

they are. They're about playing. They seem fine. We

19:54

were in massive, massive denial about this.

19:56

And the Kaiser study on

19:59

A-scores was really just somebody

20:01

noticed that all these people with all these medical problems

20:04

also seem to have this trauma. Hmm.

20:06

I wonder if childhood experiences impact on our medical

20:08

wellbeing later. It seems to do

20:11

that, but no thought of how it

20:13

doesn't yet. I never thought. The

20:15

other problem I think was people

20:17

don't appreciate, there's

20:18

a book out there called Shrink by a guy named Lieberman

20:21

that chronicles this history very beautifully. How

20:24

much American psychiatry was captured

20:26

by psychoanalysis. And psychoanalysis

20:30

minimized trauma in many, in sort

20:32

of generally. And trauma was something

20:34

sort of imagined, right?

20:36

You imagined having sex with your mother

20:39

and you imagined that somebody physically, it's

20:42

all like it was going, and sometimes it is, let's be fair.

20:44

Sometimes these are distorted memory and false memories, things like

20:46

that. How do you decipher that?

20:48

Oh, you can't. It's almost possible. It is.

20:51

Because they believe it so much. They experience

20:53

it. The selling of it is. Yeah. I mean,

20:56

oftentimes I deal with the parents, these

20:58

people that have these vivid experiences

21:00

that I have to sit and process

21:02

with them because they're their experiences. And

21:05

the parents just go, I just didn't have it. I

21:07

don't, okay.

21:09

But I remember of all

21:11

things, Maria Bamford's mom saying some of that

21:14

stuff. I heard her saying like, Maria

21:16

has a lot of memories of me and I'm, but

21:18

maybe it did. Maybe it's the mom's distorted

21:21

memories. It doesn't matter. What

21:23

matters is the person has, carries this

21:25

with them and you've got to process it with them. So

21:28

it begs the issue of

21:30

how do you do that? And the

21:31

question,

21:35

let me just finish my comment about American psychoanalysis,

21:39

that they just didn't really want to deal with trauma

21:41

and it's a separate thing. They knew

21:43

it was there, but they didn't know what it was and they

21:45

didn't have a full theory about the impact. And it

21:47

was guys that developed the

21:50

world of interpersonal neurobiology

21:53

developed, like how brains

21:56

affect other brains. And Alan

21:58

Shore, he wrote a book.

21:59

called affect regulation, the origin of the self.

22:02

And that was really the breakthrough. And that's

22:04

probably 30 years ago now.

22:06

And he developed a whole

22:09

bunch of followers and people who did their own

22:11

research and developed their own stuff. And now

22:13

there's a whole discipline in that area. And

22:15

it just has bled into everything. Even though a lot of

22:17

doctors don't really know it in the detail

22:20

I'm sharing with you guys, they understand

22:22

that that's there. We've gotten away

22:24

from the single skull notion

22:26

of psychology and psychiatry.

22:31

The central nervous system, the brain,

22:33

in the 90s was the decade of the brain. We moved onto

22:36

that to realize, oh my

22:36

God, the brain is embedded in a body.

22:40

And that body is actually the source

22:42

of feelings. Feelings are things that come from

22:44

the body. We still don't know

22:46

how that really happens because

22:49

we have these huge nervous plexies.

22:52

People call them, what are the chakras? But

22:55

they're actually nervous blocks in here.

22:58

We don't know what they're doing. They're like little mini brains laying

23:00

down in our body that process information

23:02

coming out of our body and send it up through

23:04

the vagus nerve. And if that vagus

23:07

nerve is disconnected from the higher function,

23:09

then again, you're not really hearing your feelings.

23:12

You're not processing, regulating

23:15

feelings. It's that integrated system of

23:17

brain body we think of more now. But

23:19

of course that brain body is embedded in

23:22

relationships. Those relationships

23:24

are embedded in a socio historical

23:26

context. So you see how these

23:29

impacts, they're

23:31

waves that's spread out from

23:35

the individual experience. And you have to think about

23:37

all of this shit, especially in today's world now. So

23:40

it begs the issue

23:41

of how people develop

23:45

emotional regulation at all. And

23:48

it turns out brains heal

23:50

other brains. I think we've known that

23:52

for a long time. I think we'll sit with another person

23:54

in therapy and how

23:57

that brain healed other brains is something

23:59

that really wasn't.

23:59

that well understood until interpersonal neurobiology

24:02

came along. We start to understand more now of

24:04

how this thing of

24:07

closeness of two brain bodies

24:10

communicate in ways that are well beyond

24:13

words and just experiences.

24:17

There's something awesome about

24:19

the experience of two bodies in space when

24:21

the one body needs help and the other body

24:23

is willing to attune to that and capable of

24:26

attuning deeply to that experience. Every person,

24:28

the patient can tolerate

24:29

the closeness. Most people can't tolerate

24:32

closeness when they've been

24:34

traumatized because the closeness was

24:36

the source of the trauma, the people they

24:38

trusted oftentimes. So they just won't

24:41

ever go back. I mean, if they would go back,

24:43

they could have developed it with their own family and

24:45

friends and things and sort of help process

24:47

that, but closeness is

24:49

something they have to manage

24:51

rather than something they experience.

24:54

So they're always sort of having

24:57

oftentimes whatever the manifestations

24:59

that resulted in their personality stuff comes

25:02

into the room in the relationships, whether

25:04

it's the project of identification or manipulation

25:08

or shutdown or lack of ability

25:11

to connect with feelings all comes

25:13

into the room with people's therapy. So we have

25:15

to go back and look at

25:17

what

25:19

humans were just meant to do to develop

25:21

emotional regulations. A guy named Peter

25:23

Fonage figured some of this stuff out

25:27

and he has something called the mentalization process

25:30

and he studied moms

25:32

and babies and we can argue all day about should

25:35

it be... Where are the dads coming into

25:37

this? The dads can come into this at all? We do. We

25:40

actually do. And of course some babies don't have

25:42

moms, right? They have dads. Dads can do

25:44

this. We just don't do it as

25:46

automatically. If you've had babies,

25:48

you'll... It's not father nature, it's mother nature.

25:52

We literally don't have the big

25:54

corpus callosum that gives us the connection

25:57

to the right side of the brain where all

25:59

this is happening.

25:59

This is why women are better people. Because

26:02

we literally don't have that. Well, I used to say that. I used to

26:04

say that. And Adam gives me shit about that now because,

26:07

I don't know, he's angry at female politicians. So,

26:12

I used to say that was a better brain because it's more connected

26:15

and more, but it comes with

26:17

liabilities like everything in humans. But

26:20

it, so it's a right

26:22

brain phenomenon and we can do it as men. If you've ever

26:25

been a father, you will notice you end up sort of following

26:27

behind your wife going, how did you know that? How do

26:29

you know he's hungry? How do you know he's, I just

26:31

know it. I'm attuned. I'm attuned to right

26:33

brain to right brain communication before

26:35

there's any verbal. So, what

26:38

is that made up of? What is that process

26:40

made up of? So, when

26:42

they observe this interaction

26:45

with babies, of course there's eye contact,

26:47

there's vocal prosody created by

26:49

the mom. But mostly

26:51

she does something very interesting with her face.

26:55

So, the baby is approached by

26:57

the mom

26:58

and the mom, the baby's then learned,

27:00

my mind has content. People can look at me

27:03

and understand me, I have content.

27:05

They're designed to look out into the world

27:08

first to phenomenon that is totally

27:10

contingent on them. So,

27:13

they are, everything body function

27:15

for the first six months of life is all a baby's attuned

27:17

to. They're not, you notice they don't make eye contact

27:19

or anything. And about six months

27:21

of age, they shift to partial contingencies,

27:24

things that are sort of dependent on their behavior.

27:27

I cry and people do things in response

27:29

to that. I pull the cat's tail, the cat

27:31

does something, they have mobiles, I like hitting mobiles

27:34

and seeing them do things. But

27:36

there is a huge part of our brain that's dedicated

27:39

to the face, other faces. And

27:42

we have this already this interest

27:45

in the social world. We

27:47

have the attunement of the mom who's always in

27:50

our face making eye contact, exchanging

27:53

with us. And that is very satisfying

27:55

to the baby.

27:57

And what that exchange is made up of is

27:59

the...

27:59

The child has an experience, has an emotion,

28:04

and the mom approaches, studies,

28:06

like attunes, like what is going on here? What

28:08

does my body tell me this body's experiencing?

28:11

And she'll arrive at something with a right

28:14

brain message that comes over to the left side via

28:17

her vagus nerve. And she will automatically

28:20

on her face show

28:24

a representation of what the child is experiencing.

28:27

It will sometimes be with the subtle eye

28:29

musculature or the corners of the mouth. It's

28:31

not something you would necessarily even

28:34

notice as an adult, but the child

28:36

is very interested. If you've

28:38

ever been in deep therapy, I'll

28:41

tell you when I was in deep therapy, and I noticed,

28:43

I started feeling bad for my therapist because

28:45

I was so, I mean, her face,

28:48

I was aware of every muscle.

28:50

And I thought, this poor woman, I said, she

28:53

can't smile, I can't

28:54

even like, without me, in

28:57

on it, and I thought, well, there's that exchange thing

28:59

again.

29:01

So the child learns

29:03

that that representation is

29:06

a second order representation of their

29:08

feeling. Like somebody understands my feeling and

29:10

they're showing it back to me. I don't have words

29:12

yet, I don't have verb, I don't have language, there's

29:15

pre-language stuff, this all starts. And

29:17

so that's my feeling. And then

29:19

the mother offers alongside that feeling,

29:22

vocal prosody, soothing affects,

29:25

and in that exchange of body to body

29:27

helps the baby then regulate that feeling.

29:30

It's not so scary because

29:31

mom understands it and other adult

29:33

experiences with me, and we

29:35

co-regulate it. And of course, the baby's

29:38

hippest, their eye movements, our

29:40

pupils normally do this, moving

29:43

my fingers up and down. And

29:46

the baby and the mom's hippest times together,

29:48

as well as their heart rates and all these things. And

29:51

it's profound the way our bodies

29:53

attune as particularly as caretakers of children,

29:56

especially women

29:58

or whatever we're calling. biological entities

30:01

that are able to do this now.

30:06

So there it is. That's the fundamental

30:08

aspect of the change, the exchange. This

30:11

podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.

30:13

Sometimes in life we are faced with tough choices

30:16

and the path forward isn't always

30:18

clear. Whether you're dealing with decisions around

30:20

your career, relationships, or anything

30:22

else, therapy helps you stay connected to

30:24

what you really want while you navigate life.

30:27

So you can move forward with confidence and

30:29

excitement. You know this is a mental health show,

30:32

right? And we preach therapy on

30:34

this show. So if you're thinking about

30:36

it and it's something you haven't tried yet,

30:38

try it. If it's something you're looking

30:40

to get back into, try it. If

30:43

you're thinking of starting therapy at all, give

30:45

BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online,

30:48

designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited

30:50

to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire

30:52

to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch

30:55

therapist anytime for no additional

30:57

charge. Let therapy be your map

30:59

with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com

31:02

slash honeydew today to get 10% off

31:05

your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P

31:08

dot com slash

31:11

honeydew. BetterHelp.com slash

31:13

honeydew.

31:14

Now let's get back to the do. You

31:16

mentioned deep therapy. So I want to talk

31:18

about this for a second because you introduced me to

31:20

EMDR therapy, which

31:22

incorrectly for a while I called EDMR therapy.

31:26

And I've passed that gift on to so

31:29

many people in my personal life, and I preach

31:31

it on here because I have never – I

31:33

didn't even know it was called

31:36

talk therapy until I was introduced

31:38

to EMDR therapy. I'm like, oh, this

31:40

is just me talking to someone and like

31:42

you say, brain to brain, getting some insight,

31:44

some hindsight, whatever it is. But

31:48

this EMDR therapy, man, I originally

31:50

had gone for – my

31:52

daughter almost got hit by a car and all of a sudden

31:55

I became

31:56

terrified to fly. EMDR

31:59

is perfect. for stuff like that. A little ridiculously

32:03

scared of heights all of a sudden. Not,

32:06

you know, when I'm in a plane,

32:08

I look out the window, that looks like a cartoon. Classic

32:10

dude. 200. Classic. 300 feet. And

32:14

within, I

32:15

mean, two months, eight sessions

32:17

maybe. I was done, I can sleep

32:20

on my flights now. Now I look

32:22

at other people when turbulence hits and they're like,

32:24

oh, and I just like, man. You may wanna go

32:27

deeper, again, to deal with some of the childhood

32:29

stuff too, because that can be managed the same way. I

32:31

don't know if you did do a lot of that stuff. We got the sum of

32:33

it, but my main focus was

32:36

like, let's get me, I need to fly to

32:38

work. Yeah, I get it. No, no, no, it's perfect for that.

32:40

And I was doing therapy

32:42

back before EMDR was sort of a standard

32:45

kind of way of doing this. It really gets

32:48

your brain when it's been traumatized, right?

32:51

I've described to you now how the vagus thing is sort of set

32:53

up. When it dissociates,

32:56

right, from trauma,

32:58

your shutdown, your body, all these things

33:00

dissociate, it leaves that

33:02

part of the brain disconnected, wiring

33:05

wise, from the regulation

33:07

of the whole. It's just a piece that's

33:09

off in the distance there. And the

33:11

individual experience, it's adaptive.

33:14

It's a survival thing that the human brain

33:16

does. But the individual

33:18

experience of that is, well, I don't think about that

33:20

anymore. That's done.

33:22

It isn't done with you. It's in the

33:24

background. They're always needing, it's a part

33:27

of you and it needs attention. I had no

33:29

idea. And it will find it. That shit was laying in a

33:31

hammock. Just wait. It will get

33:33

you. It will find a way to get its attention. Like

33:36

you said, at age 55, you felt vindicated.

33:39

That popped up for,

33:41

I loved flying. I felt like

33:43

a rock star taking off in the sky. Then

33:45

all of a sudden I was like, and I was like,

33:48

what is going on? And I couldn't

33:50

get over that it

33:52

worked. Let's talk about

33:55

the buzzing in the hands of just sort of what

33:57

it does to your, literally does to

33:59

your brain.

33:59

I literally don't really know.

34:02

That's the thing. It was all been

34:05

discovered various serendipitously. There

34:07

was a woman originally from PTSD. Yeah, there was

34:09

a woman walking through the forest and notice when she moved

34:11

her ride back and forth, she was able to, she started experiencing

34:13

things she'd been trying to get at for a long time

34:16

and couldn't get to and all of a sudden there it was. And

34:19

so it does, it's, I

34:21

think of it as kind of a releasing, like a frontal

34:24

releasing experience. Like

34:26

there are repetitive things you can do that

34:28

tend to kind of slow down or shut down parts of

34:30

the brain that get in the way of us experiencing

34:32

things.

34:32

The defensive structure or cognitive

34:35

structure, all that stuff gets in the way. And

34:37

when you do EMDR, all that kind of slows

34:40

up or shuts down and what comes up is

34:42

what's been sitting there needing some attention

34:44

for quite some time typically. And

34:46

it will cause people to do behaviors and do

34:49

drugs and all kinds of things. Is that right?

34:51

Even later in life like that? Oh my God, yes. That's why people

34:53

say, I feel comfortable for the first time.

34:55

They didn't even realize they were uncomfortable, but that part

34:58

has been there driving, stirring

35:00

things up. And it's often,

35:02

if you've had bad abuse, it's often pain.

35:05

It's only a feeling of pain all the time that

35:07

you're walking around in the background with don't even know.

35:10

So the, I'm gonna go back to the

35:13

baby and the exchange. Let me see if I finished

35:15

that. So if you've been traumatized,

35:17

particularly by the person

35:19

or the people that are supposed to be the source of

35:21

the regulation, that is such

35:24

a violation of trust. It is

35:26

so shattering that you can't

35:28

trust anybody after that. So trust becomes

35:30

a major issue. Closest

35:32

becomes a major issue. And think about how vulnerable

35:34

children are. You know, that think

35:36

about they're open and vulnerable. They

35:39

just, right, they're just there. And

35:41

then all of a sudden you can tell them anything. Santa

35:43

Claus. This happens and it just,

35:45

they can't, it shatters

35:47

their ability to tolerate

35:50

and they will not come back. It's

35:53

no go anymore. And that's what you're

35:55

trying to overcome. That's what I deal with in the addiction

35:57

field all the time. Trying to get them into.

37:59

I agree with that. And the

38:02

self-esteem bullshit that we did

38:05

a generation, a disservice

38:07

trying to undo what we thought our

38:09

parents had done. Everyone gets a

38:12

trophy generation. That's terrible.

38:14

I mean, I had kids late, but that is basically

38:17

the people I went to high school with is that's their

38:19

generation. Terrible, really? And

38:21

being perfect parents because our parents were

38:23

so shitty. I'm not gonna do that to

38:26

my kid. And kids

38:28

need adversity. They need challenges.

38:31

They have to come up against reality. That's

38:33

what mental health is, is managing reality on reality's

38:35

term. Yeah, they don't need abuse. Yes,

38:37

they need more emotional openness, but

38:40

they do need a certain amount if I can get on with

38:42

it and just go try out the

38:44

football team. If you fail, try harder. Not

38:46

because you need to deserve a trophy. You're the best. Well,

38:49

let me go tell that coach something. Cause you're your coach.

38:51

You got my kid. Coach doesn't like me. It's

38:53

like, no, get your shit together. Watch

38:55

that Arnold documentary, everybody. It

38:58

is all about this.

38:59

Just go do stuff. The guy

39:02

was dedicated to

39:04

improvement. And

39:07

so, yeah,

39:08

I think now we've done another

39:10

disservice to another population by overdoing

39:13

our sort of involvement and engagement and sacrifice

39:15

for kids. It's

39:18

our own vulnerability, our own feeling of pain

39:21

that we are trying to avoid in them, but that's our

39:23

pain, not theirs. We

39:25

can't make them responsible for that. So as always, the pendulum

39:27

goes back and forth. It's never a perfect

39:30

parent. It just doesn't exist. I

39:32

would argue that we have moved forward

39:36

in terms of our ability to manage

39:38

really significant things and

39:40

understanding significant things as it pertains to

39:42

the impact of parenting on

39:44

human development. We're kind of getting better at all

39:46

that, but damn.

39:50

Take a bunch of nine year olds and

39:52

tell them they have to hide

39:55

under their bed, shelter in place.

39:57

And if you go outside, you're gonna kill your parents.

40:00

and your grandparents and oh

40:02

by the way, no contact with your

40:04

peers for two years or if you do,

40:07

I'm gonna shove a swab up your nose and here's

40:09

school on this pad. Oh, the porn don't pay any

40:11

attention to that.

40:13

What the fuck did we think we were gonna end up

40:15

with?

40:16

I mean, it was just, it was so predictable. I kept saying

40:18

we're gonna destroy eight to 15 year olds and

40:21

we did. So the mental health stuff

40:23

there is just intense now.

40:25

It is, huh? Oh my God. But in

40:28

your field, are you seeing at least more and more

40:30

in particular men coming forward to talk

40:32

about things and? Yeah,

40:35

I mean, look. And also what race of people

40:38

do you see least in therapy?

40:41

Two questions, tell me about mental health. So

40:43

I'm not working so much in day

40:45

and day mental health. I'm doing general medicine now. So

40:48

I'm gonna speak sort of general.

40:51

General. In great, great,

40:53

great. Great, great generic numbers. Yeah,

40:55

I know, what do you call it?

40:58

Where you generalize about people, yeah. What

41:01

was that last thing you said? What race of people? No,

41:03

no, no, before that you said some emails. You're seeing more

41:06

men these days come forward to talk

41:08

about things. I think men have benefited

41:10

from the Zoom revolution

41:11

in mental health care. Because

41:14

we don't wanna run into somebody in the waiting room,

41:17

there's no waiting room. We don't

41:19

wanna turn our camera on,

41:20

don't fucking turn your camera on, that's fine. We

41:24

gotta get them in the door. You can

41:26

remain anonymous and still be there. Do

41:28

whatever you want, just get in the door. And that

41:31

is a lot of the

41:32

struggles getting them in. And

41:34

of course men with all medical stuff are

41:36

more likely to come in because their female partner

41:39

brought them in. Then that's how

41:41

I get my prostate cancer diagnosis. My

41:43

wife was like, I'm

41:45

making you an appointment. Boom,

41:48

prostate cancer. Holy shit. And

41:51

that's definitely my experience

41:53

in practicing out there. The

41:55

men, particularly younger, like

41:57

middle-aged men, we don't wanna come in, fuck

41:59

that.

41:59

No. If we die, we

42:02

die. We'll find out soon enough if this is

42:04

a bad problem. So we're so

42:06

nutty, we're so stupid. So,

42:09

all right, so what race?

42:13

I'm not

42:15

sure I can really generalize.

42:19

I would say, of course, I

42:21

would say it's more about,

42:25

well, there are different cultures. Okay,

42:27

go there. Certain Asian cultures are

42:30

about, you know, don't, it's actually anathema

42:32

to share your feelings. You just keep it shut down.

42:35

So certainly that culture bears

42:38

out many times on people's ability to come in

42:40

and share and do the work of treatment. In

42:44

my experience, the African-American community has, well,

42:48

reasonably has had a horrible

42:51

experience with mental health in this country, and

42:54

so doesn't trust it. And if they have trauma, now

42:56

they're doubly not trusting it. And

42:59

I say that's, not only is that healthy,

43:01

that's real. That's real, that's reality.

43:04

But we have lots of African-American

43:07

practitioners now and people that are culturally trained and

43:09

they should open up. They'd rather go to

43:11

the church. And people do go

43:14

there, and I think the church is slowly

43:16

moving towards understanding they gotta refer back. I

43:18

mean, generally, and plenty of white people do that

43:20

too. Trust me, the church is a reasonable

43:23

place to go for certain kinds

43:25

of spiritual experiences and oftentimes

43:27

they'll have people trained there

43:28

that will help them more with the mental health

43:30

piece. And I've seen more and more, they're more

43:32

willing to refer back to when

43:34

it's outside of their ability. So

43:37

that exchange is starting to happen, which is good.

43:39

I

43:42

worry about the lack of acknowledgement

43:45

of trauma and intergenerational,

43:47

trauma transmits intergenerationally. It doesn't

43:49

happen. Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah. Is it,

43:52

it really does? Is

43:54

it in our DNA? Yeah,

43:57

I don't, we don't, there are people that theorize

43:59

that.

45:59

even though cognitively that doesn't person,

46:03

it seems not to have all those features that I'm

46:05

not gonna be around anymore. The fact that

46:07

I'm attracted to that person tells

46:09

you

46:10

it's that kind of person again. Unless

46:12

you, you really have to one of two things when you're

46:15

in that pattern of repetition. You have

46:17

to either not go for people you're so attracted

46:19

to. So we tell people think butterfly is not

46:21

lightning bolts. If it's a lightning bolt attraction, it's

46:24

gonna be the abuse of banning alcohol again. Even

46:26

though it doesn't look like that, it's

46:28

gonna be that. It's you, you're

46:30

a perfect instrument. You're having lightning

46:33

bolts. So if you can find somebody who maybe

46:35

is a recovering alcoholic or maybe had

46:38

an alcoholic parent also and shares that with you,

46:40

then you're sort of attracted but not lightning

46:42

bolts and you can build a closeness

46:45

there, you'll find it much more satisfying.

46:47

If you can't do that, you gotta go to therapy

46:50

or you will keep doing the same damn thing.

46:52

So let me ask you this then. How

46:54

do we, especially as parents,

46:58

if we do need to correct some but

47:00

not too much, what's the balance of

47:02

not overcorrecting and not

47:05

being the helicopter or everybody gets

47:07

a trophy?

47:09

I don't know. You know, because I don't know. I don't know. I'm

47:11

the same way. Like my daughter gets a participation trophy.

47:14

I'm like, no. The award

47:16

or excuse me, the reward is participating.

47:20

Yeah. Okay, we can't, how

47:22

the hell does anybody know what bad is if

47:25

we don't know what good is? This team

47:27

also over here, they did better

47:29

than everybody else this year. These coaches, these

47:31

kids, these parents, whatever it was, whatever

47:34

cohesive thing they had going on,

47:36

there's gonna be one. They did it better

47:38

than everybody else. What the hell does

47:40

the O and 12 team get the trophy?

47:43

My stepson used to get trophies like, I'm not kidding

47:45

you, come up to this, I'm like, and they'd be broken

47:47

in his room and stuff. I had my trophies

47:50

until I was in my 30s. I probably

47:52

did the same thing. And I did a photo shoot with them and then

47:55

I just sent them off to the dumpster after

47:57

that. But I will tell you the one thing that we

47:59

had back

47:59

those days that they got rid of that I thought

48:02

was very meaningful, most

48:04

improved. Remember

48:06

that most improved had the same status as

48:08

most valuable because the guy or

48:10

gal that really put in the effort

48:12

and it was shitty to begin with and really started

48:14

to perform with the team. That

48:17

was

48:18

awesome. I got most

48:20

improved when you're choking up. Really

48:22

it's weird. Uh, and it was the, and

48:24

it was the most important thing ever happened to me. Uh,

48:27

and I thought an acknowledgement for having

48:29

gone from a bench warmer to a player was

48:31

a big deal to me. And

48:34

that was overcoming adversity,

48:36

which is what we all need. These experiences

48:38

doing, we need to be challenged

48:40

with stuff and we, we can be present

48:43

for our kids. I was, so here's the balance. Be

48:45

present for your kids as a refueling

48:47

station, but do not cosign

48:50

any of their stuff, do not rescue them from anything

48:52

we rescue in this, in this, uh,

48:55

parent group. Yeah. Talk about that. No rescue.

48:57

Rescuing is I see

48:59

the pain in the child. I have to make it stop.

49:01

Okay.

49:02

Why do you need to make it stop? I

49:04

mean, I understand you want to go help a child,

49:07

but the reason you have to make it stop

49:09

is your pain was mobilized. The pain

49:11

left behind from your childhood. You

49:13

don't realize the distinction between that child's

49:16

pain and your pain. And your

49:18

pain is mobilized. It's a very deep

49:20

psychological experience that most people can't differentiate.

49:23

It's most of what I worked through in therapy myself. Does

49:25

it work the other way where like I

49:27

see my daughter, like

49:29

she had a dance recital, okay, Saturday

49:32

was rehearsal. We're leaving

49:34

the rehearsal. She's in her little dress

49:36

and tights and she's got Crocs

49:38

on and she's doing a balance beam on the

49:40

curb

49:41

and I hear, and I look back on

49:44

the ground, tights, knee ripped,

49:47

knees bleeding. And I saw her

49:49

look at me with the panic. It wasn't even about

49:51

the knee ripped. It was holy shit.

49:53

These tights are ripped recitals tomorrow. We don't

49:55

have any. And I felt the panic and

49:57

I said, Hey,

49:58

you're good. She's like, Oh.

49:59

my knee and I'm like I

50:02

grew up very boy you know it was

50:04

beat my brothers were constantly

50:06

wrecking bikes no helmets you know idiot

50:09

shit back then but when I

50:11

see my daughter's knee and she's going I'm

50:13

the other way with it I'm like it's a scrape

50:16

well not only that but now let's

50:18

go back to the early childhood exchange so

50:21

the child comes up to the mom

50:24

and go I heard my finger and the mom goes oh

50:26

my god oh my god I need a drink you make

50:28

me crazy I can't you know

50:29

I need a drink that child then

50:32

is not you need a band

50:34

right so so that child learns that

50:36

when I have a feeling my mom

50:39

catches the feeling and evokes

50:41

something that I don't want right

50:44

that's where codependency comes from so

50:46

now I have to I can't show her my feelings

50:48

I might have to suppress my feelings to manage

50:50

her feelings make sure she doesn't go get

50:53

loaded again or to make sure she doesn't yell at

50:55

me again and that's that's

50:57

not good what the child needs is you to

50:59

be

50:59

present not feel

51:02

their feelings but appreciate their

51:04

feelings which is a different thing that's what I try

51:06

to do I know I know that if your

51:08

feelings are evoked then you have a feeling that

51:11

is the opposite of what the child needs right

51:13

you get that and so this

51:15

is what boundaries are bound

51:17

and they're boundaries I'm learning well and

51:19

so is our generation of parents generally yeah

51:21

and that's where the rescuing kicks in

51:24

we have to because our boundaries are shitty and we

51:26

evoke these things that we should be just being

51:28

with and just

51:29

differentiating my feelings from your feelings

51:33

we're not we are evoked and we have to

51:35

rescue and that keeps a child

51:37

ever in need of rescue now let's

51:40

say you've been pretty good at those boundaries a

51:42

lot of the children's life and you've been letting them be challenged

51:44

and letting them fall down and stuff there

51:47

is still I've noticed something about our parenting style

51:50

that they these kids even in the young adulthood

51:52

say remain awfully preoccupied with us in

51:55

our day the

51:56

parents we wanted to get the fuck

51:59

away

51:59

as fast as possible. Just get the hell out

52:02

of here. I can't stand to be around these people. I'm

52:04

on my bike, I'm gonna play anything out of the house. But

52:06

then as soon as you're 18, you're like, that's

52:08

it, man, I'm never coming back. I may be around them a

52:10

little bit, but I'm not gonna stay here.

52:13

The bouncing back stuff is us. That's

52:16

us. That's why kids are still 20. Well,

52:19

we can get into how expensive everything is.

52:21

But I don't even write. There's a legitimate

52:23

piece to their bouncing back. It's the best in

52:26

California. It's impossible to do. It's insane.

52:29

And humans have lived in multi-family households

52:32

forever. So maybe this is a low-K

52:35

thing. Maybe this isn't a good thing. And

52:37

our desire to get out, because

52:39

a man at 17, I left for college at 17.

52:41

That was it. I couldn't even imagine.

52:44

I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't imagine

52:46

going back. No, my

52:48

parents left me before 17. Yeah.

52:51

There we go. Go on back. There we

52:53

go. But I was raised in an extended

52:56

family. Like my grandmom was like a mom. And

52:58

I feel like what that really did,

53:00

today I still have a very, if

53:04

I see an elderly lady, especially, or

53:06

someone, I'm right over there to help them out.

53:09

Like I try to do things

53:11

like that where

53:11

my grandmom would be proud. You know what I

53:13

mean? But also I got to learn what, I'm

53:16

living with this lady who's, it's my father

53:18

who died, but that's her son. And more

53:21

and more now, I start to see

53:23

and feel what she possibly

53:26

could have felt. I'm

53:28

over there going, grandma, let dad rest

53:30

in peace. You know what I mean? Like it's always,

53:32

you're crying about him or whatever. And now I'm

53:34

like, I couldn't even

53:37

imagine. You know, and I, she would say, I'm

53:39

never going to see him come up that hill again. And

53:41

I think

53:41

those lines have stuck with

53:44

me. And I replay them,

53:46

what, 30 years later as a parent

53:49

now that I didn't even remember I remembered

53:51

that damn thing. And I'm like,

53:53

God, you're, you lost a son.

53:55

I lost a dad. They're both devastating, but

53:59

I don't know which one.

53:59

The one thing, no, it's

54:02

the parent. In these

54:04

kinds of- The parent losing the child. Because

54:06

let me just say this, is that when

54:08

your parents have been abusive

54:11

and never really fully healed that, they

54:14

do you a favor at the end of their

54:16

life. Because you're like, that's okay. I

54:18

see people with, they were very close, say that

54:21

the mom thing for you and I, very close to

54:23

their moms who just suffer forever. They

54:26

lost their mom. And I'm like, I didn't have,

54:29

I

54:29

thank you mom, I don't really have

54:32

any deep feelings about it. Because there

54:34

was nothing there. 50 years

54:39

of destroying a child's bond,

54:41

well done. Yeah, you

54:44

succeeded. Yeah, you succeeded.

54:46

So I- I'm more attached to my therapist, my

54:49

wife and my daughter. Yeah. That

54:51

way, so. I, you know, I,

54:54

it's interesting because my daughter knows

54:57

my mom as her grandmom to be

54:59

a good grandma. Yeah. At some point,

55:01

someday she'll listen to these episodes

55:04

and hear the relationship we had. And

55:07

I don't know what's gonna happen when that happens.

55:09

And I'll address it,

55:11

you know, honestly. Because

55:15

the relationship she has with her grandmother

55:17

is not the relationship I have with her. It was one of

55:19

the things I was struggling with when we tried to reconnect.

55:22

And I'm like,

55:23

is their relationship

55:25

my business? So you've

55:27

mentioned now connection, I said attachment

55:30

or attach. And I

55:33

misspoke a little bit when I say, you

55:35

asked where the trauma understanding came from.

55:38

It really came out of attachment stuff,

55:40

attachment theory. And what

55:43

was noticed, there was

55:46

some famous theoreticians back, now, 40,

55:48

50 years ago, who came

55:50

up with adult attachment styles. They're

55:53

four different attachment styles. Yeah, let's hear

55:55

this. Well, there's insecure,

55:57

there's disorganized, there's avoidant,

55:59

there's... There's secure, healthy. I was

56:01

gonna say, right? Yeah, but it's rare. You

56:04

don't see it that much anymore. But in therapy,

56:06

people reestablish secure attachment with people, that's

56:08

what sort of happens. And each of these has

56:10

its own sort of style

56:13

to it. And the original

56:15

researchers were like, well, how does this happen? What's going on

56:17

in people's brains? And that's how they got to all

56:19

the stuff I've been talking about today.

56:22

And attachment is another system

56:24

operating in the brain. It's sort

56:26

of a way of navigating

56:29

closeness. Let's say that. And

56:31

there is closeness and regulation

56:33

and attunement. There

56:39

is attachment and there's love.

56:42

And each of these are their own little

56:44

system. And we don't have

56:46

a lot of understanding on

56:49

the two. We got to the regulation

56:51

part because I think we got there quick because

56:54

of that therapeutic value. But

56:56

an attachment does have, there are people

56:58

trying to categorize what's going

57:01

over on the regulation side with

57:03

the attachment stuff. And

57:06

then love is its own kind of bird. It's

57:09

over here. And then there's spirit

57:12

too, which is another kind of, sort

57:15

of hard to go onto the microscope stuff. And

57:18

I love that stuff.

57:18

It's meaningful, it's real, but

57:21

it's something that people

57:24

experience in different ways. And

57:28

it's all though love

57:30

and attunement and attachment. And

57:33

it's all about me

57:36

with you, this thing we call relationship.

57:40

And that is where I experience the

57:42

spiritual.

57:43

Yeah, at

57:46

first when my daughter's mother and I split,

57:48

I was just so worried about the back

57:50

and the forth. And we say, kids are resilient

57:53

and all that. And I don't

57:55

know, there are times where I wonder if

57:58

going back and forth isn't actually.

57:59

good for her to see different

58:02

parenting style, different lifestyle

58:05

over here, these people in this world, these neighbors,

58:07

this whatever versus this over here. Is

58:09

it a little more, do you think that could be

58:11

a little more helpful in sort of

58:13

like being well-rounded? Yeah, I

58:16

don't want to use words like more and helpful.

58:18

Fair enough. But there might be something

58:21

to it provided that it may give

58:23

more breath to her understanding

58:25

of herself and her experience. Whether it's

58:28

more, better, helpful, I'm not sure,

58:29

but it certainly has that potential to

58:32

give more

58:32

breath. The problem

58:35

is there's something called splitting.

58:37

Do you know what splitting is? Okay, splitting is

58:39

a problem in parenting and

58:42

it's a problem in personality development, which

58:45

is what children naturally do,

58:48

which is mommy, I want an ice cream.

58:50

No, it's an hour before dinner, no.

58:52

Daddy, mommy, mommy's, I want

58:55

ice cream. Dad says, all right, sure, get

58:57

an ice cream. Mommy, dad said I can get ice cream.

58:59

This is splitting. And when people,

59:01

when humans, children especially,

59:04

and adults too to some extent, can

59:07

pit one person against another,

59:10

they often feel split internally.

59:12

There's no consistent hole in

59:14

themselves because there's this relationship

59:17

and there's this relationship over here and I

59:19

split the two of them so I don't get the

59:22

hole that I need. So that's what you got to watch

59:24

out for. All right. So that's why we're splitting.

59:26

And if she starts splitting, you guys, you know it's on.

59:29

Now it's on. Daddy, I have way more fun over here with you.

59:31

Mommy's such a bitch, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so,

59:35

and again, back to my- I hear that's

59:37

coming in the teen years. Oh hell, oh

59:39

yeah, oh yeah,

59:40

yeah. Oh, we'll

59:42

have another conversation then. But

59:45

that's why I was, we

59:48

started this conversation talking about my team that

59:50

I built to treat drug addicts

59:52

and alcoholics. That's another thing

59:54

the team has to be, has to be un-splitable.

59:57

We have to know each other so well

59:59

that when- they go and said, Dr. Blum said,

1:00:02

Dr. Penske, Dr. Blum said, I can have that Xanax.

1:00:04

I just go, no, he didn't. No,

1:00:06

he didn't. I know, I know him. I

1:00:09

know. We just, just go back, get the back of

1:00:11

the group, just shut up. Yeah. And we are

1:00:13

a unified, without exception.

1:00:15

No one ever doubts what the other person is

1:00:18

judgment is. And we just know each other and

1:00:20

how we, how we respond. Yeah, that's

1:00:22

great. Now, Dr. Drew, thank

1:00:25

you so much for coming on here. This is great. I hope

1:00:27

they, people use this as a bit of a, it's

1:00:29

kind of like a resource. Yeah, this is a different

1:00:32

podcast. I know it's in the comedy world,

1:00:34

but we do really sit down and talk about real

1:00:36

things. Yeah. And this, what I, what I feel

1:00:38

like we really, um,

1:00:41

ran the cycle, you know, we really

1:00:43

covered this topic. So people

1:00:45

want to visit this topic, you know, revisit

1:00:48

this pod, listen to this thing, cause there's a lot

1:00:50

of material in here. I was going over very

1:00:52

quickly. I don't expect anyone to kind of get it all at

1:00:54

once, but this is sort of, I'm going to be

1:00:56

re-listening. This is sort of the, there

1:00:58

are books out there on this and people that try to write

1:01:01

books, you know, help people understand these things, but this

1:01:03

was a pretty good synopsis

1:01:05

of, of the landscape of this topic. So

1:01:08

yeah, thank you very much. Um, plug, promote

1:01:10

everything, please. So

1:01:11

go to dr.tv, please. Uh, my

1:01:13

wife does a streaming show Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday

1:01:15

at three o'clock, where we have been interviewing

1:01:18

all the doctors and, uh, scientists

1:01:20

who have been canceled during COVID and you will

1:01:22

learn a shit ton. All right. I've learned so

1:01:24

much. I don't agree with everything they say. I, some of the, some

1:01:26

of the stuff I understand why they canceled, but they

1:01:28

all, they all, they all have

1:01:31

stuff in there. I'm like, well, hell, I, you were there.

1:01:33

And when this happened, Oh my God, and how, what

1:01:35

would they think? Oh, whoa. I am.

1:01:37

So it's, I'm, I, the whole pandemic,

1:01:40

I was just sitting there going,

1:01:41

what is going on?

1:01:43

That is what I'm slower answering is what

1:01:45

happened. How did this, this incredibly

1:01:48

mis obvious

1:01:51

misadventure happened to us and what

1:01:53

are the consequences going to be? And then

1:01:55

also after dark, which you've been on several times

1:01:57

over at your mom's house, Dr. Drew after dark.

1:01:59

I do a podcast with Adam on a regular basis still, Adam

1:02:02

Carolla, and the Dr. Drew podcast, all

1:02:04

at drdrew.com. Thank you, Dr. Drew.

1:02:07

As always, ryansickler.com, Ryan Sickler

1:02:09

on all social media. We'll talk

1:02:10

to you all next week.