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Processing the Process (April Lil' Guy Wrap-up)
108 Plays7 months ago
In this very special April Lil' Guy wrap-up episode of "Friendless," host James Avramenko offers a candid exploration into his recent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD), providing listeners with a unique insight into the complexities of mental health. James shares the challenges and triumphs of his journey with BPD, discussing its symptoms, treatment impacts, and the emotional intricacies involved.
Come along with James as we navigate the nuanced effects of the disorder, from managing emotions to understanding interpersonal relationships. With an emphasis on compassion and self-awareness, James aims to debunk common misconceptions about BPD and other Cluster B disorders, inviting a discussion on the importance of empathy and understanding in mental health conversations.
Touching upon themes of self-love, healing, and the power of community, James also dives into his personal strategies, including engaging with a DBT workbook and the positive outcomes of new medications. Through his story, listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own paths to emotional maturity and the value of unconditional support in overcoming life's challenges.
Join James in this heartfelt episode that promises to enlighten, inspire, and foster a deeper understanding of mental health complexities.
Read "Hey, sorry I missed you"
Don't forget to give Friendless a 5-star review and share the episode to help spread awareness and support for those navigating similar challenges!
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Transcript
April Recap and Listener Questions
00:00:08
Speaker
Well, hey there, sweet peas. Welcome back to Friendless. I am your host, James Avramenko, back once again with a brand new Little Guy episode to wrap up April. As always, we're gonna do a little recap of the month, talk about how it went, do a little bit of a deep dive into something I've been thinking about, and then I've got a brand new batch of amazing listener questions that I cannot wait to get to. It's gonna be an absolute treat, so let's buckle up, lean back, get comfy, set your volume at a reasonable level to protect those precious little ears of yours,
00:00:37
Speaker
and enjoyed my Little Guy episode for April 2024 here on Friendless.
Psych Evaluation and Public Diagnosis Discussion
00:00:47
Speaker
So April started with a little bit of a doozy for me. Um, I finally got my psych evaluation confirmed and, uh, surprise, surprise. I'm not well, I've really been battling, um, all month with how I want to go about talking about the assessment, the, um,
00:01:08
Speaker
what's the word I'm looking for, the diagnosis, what I've been doing in the, you know, the sort of aftermath of it. And I've realized that, you know, it's really circled me back to these questions that I've always been having about this show, about what's appropriate to share publicly, what is helpful to share publicly, you know, these questions of, you know, what is the value of this show?
00:01:31
Speaker
What kind of space am I creating in order to, you know, not only keep myself safe, but my listeners safe as well? And how are we sort of forming a kind of a trust bond as we discuss some relatively heavy subjects?
00:01:50
Speaker
And I have to admit, I haven't really found an answer yet, but it is the end of the month, so I am making myself at least do a little bit of a check-in in regards to, you know, where I am currently. My desire is to keep this light. You know, when discussing mental health, really when discussing any kind of personal experience, you know,
00:02:15
Speaker
I was given this advice recently from a new friend of mine that was saying you preach from the scar, not from the wound. And that's a way to ensure that you're telling your audience that you're okay. So even if you talk about some heavy stuff, you're able to trust that like I'm not in danger.
00:02:36
Speaker
The struggle I've been having recently is that if I'm being completely honest, I'm not. I'm not okay. It was a really heavy diagnosis. It was really life changing in a lot of ways, at least in the sense of it's given me a new lens to look at myself, to look at my past, to look at where I've been, what has happened to me, and where I want to go going forward.
00:03:03
Speaker
And that has really thrown everything kind of off its axis. Now, the irony is, in a lot of ways, I was sort of already doing the work that I need to be doing, or I should say want to be doing dialectics. I don't know if that's a dialectic behavior, actually. It's just something Scott gets me to do. Every time I hear myself say I have to do something, he encourages me to flip it and instead frame it as do I want to or do I not want
Breaking Unhealthy Cycles and Personal Growth
00:03:33
Speaker
to?
00:03:33
Speaker
It's just a way to sort of take some of that internal pressure off. So what I actually want to say is the direction I want to go with my life. I don't want to be unwell. I have been unwell for a very long time. I have allowed myself to fall into that
00:03:55
Speaker
I have allowed unhealthy people into my life, I have allowed myself to follow that unhealthy trajectory, and I no longer want that cycle. Recently I was talking with a friend about this idea of like, you know, you see people in these toxic loops, these cycles of repetitive behavior, and it gets to a point where it's like, that must just be so boring.
00:04:20
Speaker
It must be such a small existence to just never look at yourself, to always blame the outside, to always say it was somebody else and you were the innocent and how could this be done to me, and then to just repeat all over again.
00:04:38
Speaker
how dull that life really is. And I don't want that. I want to address myself. I want to address where I've been, what I've done. And I want to learn from that. Um, you know, I talk very often about this idea of like, there's no, there's no mistakes in life, especially when like no one's dead, you know, even then, you know, it's just a very extreme consequence.
00:05:02
Speaker
But like there are no mistakes. There's just choices you make with the information you had at the time. And then you have the opportunity when a similar choice arises later to assess what happened from the previous choice and and decide how you're going to behave.
Journey of Self-Compassion and Self-Love
00:05:20
Speaker
in the new scenario, you know, are you going to repeat the cycle knowing what's going to come or are you going to try something new? And I think that's where I am at. And that's where I've sort of been forced to see myself is that I am very much at a crossroads. A couple of years ago when I was getting divorced, I thought
00:05:39
Speaker
I was breaking a type of relational cycle that I didn't want to be in anymore. And instead I fell into an even more unhealthy version of that relationship. And now that that is in the past and put away, I'm finally ready to truly assess myself and truly recognize
00:06:05
Speaker
how I allowed myself to fall back into those cycles and how I participated in the perpetuation of those cycles and what I actually want going forward and that comes with this really funny push-pull because you know I'm not somebody who thinks you can heal only alone but I also don't think that and I also don't think that you know
00:06:30
Speaker
You should be in relationships when you have so much to unpack so it's this it's this give and take of we heal in connection but we also have to recognize that there is a connection to the self that needs to be secure before anything else.
00:06:50
Speaker
And I think that's very much where I'm at is that I'm recognizing that I have spent much of my life looking for outside validation and looking for others to tell me that I'm good enough and tell me that I'm worthy of love and tell me that, you know, whatever it is that I need internally can only be found through them. And that's simply not true.
00:07:12
Speaker
I've very much been on the journey of self-compassion, self-love, self-discovery, and realized that that is where all that love comes from. You love yourself first in order to be able to love others. And when you can't love yourself, I don't think it's possible to love others. Obviously, there's the RuPaul saying, if you can't love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love anybody else?
00:07:38
Speaker
I think that's a really beautiful summary of a perspective, but I also find sometimes with these sort of pithy little quotations or these slogans, a nuance is lost, right? Because in some ways, I feel like that saying brings an implication that if you can't love yourself, you're not allowed to love other people. And I don't think that that's true. It's what I'm trying to drive out of. It's like a tightrope block of like,
00:08:06
Speaker
You can be healing and still be in connections and in relationships. And I also think that it's important to recognize that there's certain elements of you that need to heal before you can truly thrive within those relationships.
00:08:22
Speaker
And where I'm at right now is trying to figure out what is my next step. I have many, many, many steps ahead of me, but I'm not gonna be able to get to all of them at once. So what I'm really doing is sort of breaking down what are the things I'd like to eventually address and what is the first thing that I can implement into my day and into my life so that I can kind of keep that path going.
Diagnosis and Treatment Plan for Borderline Personality Traits
00:08:47
Speaker
The short and the long of it is that the psych assessment
00:08:54
Speaker
I've really debated talking openly about this part of it, but you know what? I'm just gonna say fuck it. The psychosessment came back saying that I demonstrate borderline personality traits. That the the psychiatrist who assessed me wasn't willing to give like sort of a full diagnosis you know on kind of on paper.
00:09:14
Speaker
but based on the criteria of the condition and based on the behavior that I was demonstrating to them, they basically recommended a DBT group therapy that I'm on the wait list for as well as a new anti-psychotic. So I'm on Seroquel now, which is a drug I have a little bit of experience with in the past from other people, which I observed great, great benefits
00:09:43
Speaker
in them and am feeling some incredible benefits for myself. It's only been a couple weeks, so obviously it's not like taking full effect yet, but I'm sleeping through the night every night. My racing thoughts are much more manageable. Those chronic feelings of, you know, emptiness and impulsivity that come along with the disorder are starting to settle in.
00:10:08
Speaker
But really so much of this comes from recognizing that it's not something that I did to myself. This is something that happened pre-verbal. And this formed in a time when I didn't even know I was a person. And I am now trying to unpack these wounds. And instead of looking back at, you know, what went wrong in my last relationship or the relationship before that,
00:10:33
Speaker
I'm now being encouraged and in a lot of ways forced to look back at, well, where did it start? How far back does it go? And really look at those core child wounds and understand just how far back this pain truly goes.
Childhood Experiences and Emotional Development
00:10:49
Speaker
And in so many ways, this diagnosis was, you know, it really triggered so many complicated emotions in me. It triggered a relief to finally have a new lens to sort of understand some of my impulsivity and some of my behaviors in the past, my desperation.
00:11:05
Speaker
to not be what felt like abandoned, right? These frantic attempts to keep people in my life who were so bad for me, who just should have had no business being in my life. But because of this internal need for connection, I was just scrambling for them to stay in my life because any silence, any loneliness was like tantamount to death.
00:11:31
Speaker
And the pain of having that be misunderstood, the pain of that being misinterpreted and used against me and really weaponized and really purposefully misinterpreted. It's another element that just feels so disheartening and so it triggers so much grief in me is that like very often these were people who understood what was happening and still chose to cause the pain that they did.
00:12:01
Speaker
But that's really beside the point I'm spinning off. In some ways, this diagnosis has also really shed a new light into the core of this show. These questions of connection, what does it mean to be a friend? Have I been a good friend? Do I know how to be a good friend? What is community? What is intimacy? What is unconditional love? How can we show each other love? How can we help people feel love?
00:12:28
Speaker
these are questions that i've been asking myself since i was a child because i never truly felt it and i was i was never really modeled what a secure attachment was i was never shown what emotional regulation really looks like you know um i've been thinking lots about you know when i was a kid if i was crying um it was turned into a joke right it was turned into uh
00:12:51
Speaker
you don't really want to cry you really want to laugh I'd be like tickled if I was crying and so I just I would I would bottle up the sadness I would bottle up the crying and I would laugh and I would who saying that out loud has suddenly kind of spun me off
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's reframing something in the fact that I like compulsively and nervously laugh at everything. But wow, I did not mean to unlock that. Give me a second. I'm going to stop recording and breathe.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, so these questions that I've been asking on this show are really, you know, is it ironically? I don't know. They're incredibly closely tied to some of the traits of borderline personality disorder.
00:13:48
Speaker
You know, so I wanted to take a second because I recognize that this is a term that pops up a lot. I see it everywhere. And yet I don't think that there's really a true understanding of what borderline is. So I just I wanted to do a really, really brief overview. I'm by no means am I an expert of any kind. I have spent the last year or so reading every book I possibly can about BPD.
00:14:14
Speaker
from the lens of trying to be a better partner and trying to understand the condition of someone that I loved. And there's obviously a new focus being put into like, okay, so now I get to internalize this for myself.
00:14:32
Speaker
Um, which also was experience I was having as I was reading these books. You know, I read, uh, I hate you, don't leave me. And, and I was looking at it like this is, this is what I feel, you know, like I understand this so deeply. I need these things, right? Um, you know, I was reading stop walking on eggshells and all these different books. And I was thinking to myself, like this, this is talking about.
00:14:51
Speaker
me and and obviously you know it was helpful in understanding outside behaviors but from this new lens of understanding myself I'm actually going back and rereading these books and and taking in the lessons for myself to understand myself a little bit better
00:15:10
Speaker
I think that there's so many misconceptions about, not only about BPD, but about cluster B disorders in general. The razor thin wire that delineates not only the different cluster B disorders, histrionics, narcissism, borderline, but also
00:15:31
Speaker
the misconceptions of the external behavior versus the internal and this idea of what dysregulation means and what happens when you're dysregulated and in an episode.
00:15:49
Speaker
You know, the last couple of months have been spent really trying to address my codependency and my people pleasing instincts and, and, you know, the shadow work that I talk about about recognizing taking responsibility for myself.
Past Relationships and Self-Awareness
00:16:04
Speaker
And it's not that I'm giving myself a pass because of this diagnosis, but it just adds another layer of understanding why I kept on negotiating with myself of like, if I learn this, then they'll love me. If I do this, then they'll love me. And that's just simply never going to be the case.
00:16:26
Speaker
releasing the pressure of that internal negotiation and instead finding the courage to demand the love that I need, rather than giving love to people who don't want it, instead demanding the love that I need from the people who want to be in my life.
00:16:49
Speaker
because there were people who said they loved me, who did not want to be in my life. And that's fine. Again, this is not... When I talk about my personal experience, this is not with the intention of vilifying someone. This is not with the intention of making them feel bad. People make choices, and there's consequences to those choices. And I don't see these people as bad people. I see them as people who have hurt,
00:17:18
Speaker
And I also see them as people who are hurt. And so I think one of the clearest delineations of, this is going to sound sharper than I intended to, but one of the clearest markers of emotional immaturity is if you hear someone talking about their personal experience and you take it as an attack on yourself and you become defensive.
00:17:43
Speaker
that's really a sign that you have something to work on not them so you know I guess keep that in mind right but but yeah so borderline personality what the fuck is it and what are the diagnostic traits according to the DSM 5 the
00:18:01
Speaker
BPD is a pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotion, as well as marked impulsivity beginning from early childhood and present with a variety of contexts. And they are indicated by five or more of the following symptoms.
00:18:21
Speaker
Chronic feelings of emptiness. Emotional instability in reaction to day-to-day events like intense episodic sadness, irritability, or anxiety, with these usually last a few hours and only rarely more than a few days. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Identity disturbance with marketedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
00:18:44
Speaker
Impulsive behavior in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging. Examples are spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger. Example, frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights.
00:19:01
Speaker
A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by extremes between idealization and devaluation. This is also known as splitting. Reoccurring suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-harming behavior. And transient stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.
00:19:21
Speaker
So I had a couple of those. And, and yeah, it's interesting. I think, I think, you know, okay, so my brain goes in a couple of different directions. All year I've been working through a dbt workbook that has been incredibly helpful for me. And I always thought to myself, it's so, you know, I was always kind of like, Oh, it's so interesting that, you know, dbt is really helpful for BPD, which I don't have, but I'm finding this so helpful. You know, yuck, yuck.
00:19:51
Speaker
At the same time too, all year there has been this desire for me to discuss BPD, Cluster B, all the sort of knowledge that I've been gaining from it, but I've never wanted to talk about it from a sort of vilified perspective. I've wanted to talk about it from a really
00:20:11
Speaker
empathetic perspective and I've always been really hesitant for a myriad of reasons but mostly because I never thought that I had the lived experience to talk honestly about it and also I still remain deeply hurt by my experiences with other BPD people and in private conversations that hurt
00:20:33
Speaker
hurt has spilled over more often than not into how I frame BPD, how I frame my experience with it. And so I've wanted to be really cautious around not attacking and instead speaking from a place of grounded safety and regulation. And the truth of the matter is that I'm not there yet. So really what I wanted to do was just sort of
00:20:57
Speaker
Throw it out into the world say that this is what I'm dealing with and this is what I'm gonna continue to be dealing with for the rest of my life or at least you know, the psychiatrist says that remission is very likely and and you know, the prognosis is very hopeful and as long as I do the work and get help and continue to do the work and
00:21:16
Speaker
things are gonna get better. So, you know, who the fuck knows? Nobody fucking knows how brains work and we're all gonna die alone. Anyway, so I lost my train of thought. What was I saying? Right. Yeah, I'm not actually in a place to discuss the topic too much deeper other than to say that I'm
00:21:38
Speaker
Understanding myself from a new lens, I am working on finding ways to discuss it openly. I am a verbal processor. I'm somebody who finds a lot of comfort in sharing stories and sharing experiences and saying, this is what happened to me.
00:21:57
Speaker
what happened to you. Let's talk about it. What are the bonding moments? What are the things you haven't experienced? What are the things I haven't experienced? I find a lot of value within that framework. Is it a modality? I don't know. I'm never sure how that word actually works. But like I say, I'm not quite ready to get to in the weeds of it yet. But I am getting there and I'm working on it.
00:22:25
Speaker
In so many ways, I'm actually quite excited. It's scary. It's scary. And it's also really encouraging to get these kinds of moments where you have a choice. You have a choice to let it break you down and destroy you, or you have a choice.
00:22:48
Speaker
to let those cracks and let those breaks strengthen you. You know, what's the thing about like, you know, the crack is where the steel is strongest or whatever the fuck. I don't know. There's some Leonard Cohen about it. That's how the light gets in or whatever the fuck.
00:23:07
Speaker
Anyway, my brain is spinning out. Um, it's this, I'm choosing to look at it from a hopeful lens. I'm choosing to look at it from a lens of encouragement and excitement and self discovery. And, um, there is already enough shame in my body. There is already enough grief in my body. I already have enough lived experiences with those traumas. I have enough lived experiences with abandonment and sadness and, you know, and all that.
00:23:36
Speaker
rigmarole and so I'm choosing to look at it from a place of self-discovery and excitement and adventure and I choose to share that experience with the world. I choose not to bottle it up. I choose not to keep it secret. I choose not to allow that shame to silence me.
00:23:59
Speaker
But instead, I'm choosing to share this process and this journey with you, my listeners, who I adore and who have brought me so much joy. And it's not always going to be perfect and it's not always going to be comfortable. And I think that
00:24:21
Speaker
It is, in a lot of ways, the direction that I want my life to go in. So I'm really excited. I have been just crying for a month. Or at least, funny enough, I've been trying to cry. The Seroquel really kind of dampens the ability to cry. But I felt like there has just been a constant need to cry in the back of my throat all month. And every once in a while it comes out
00:24:51
Speaker
More often than not, it's when it's with something, which, you know, surprise, surprise is a bit of a BPD trait of like, you know, being perceived, not really knowing who you are until you're seen by someone else and then being able to let it out. But I feel just an immense galactic size, gratitude for those people who have held that with me.
00:25:11
Speaker
and I'll just continue figuring it out and seeing where we go next. So yeah, that's been my April and I am doing all things considered really
00:25:26
Speaker
good when i say it when like when i really finally get to it when i finally reflect i realize that you know every day i'm getting stronger and every day i'm getting better and i'm healing from my past and i'm healing from you know what's come before me and and and i'm only gonna keep trying to see where i go next
00:25:44
Speaker
I have some incredible guests coming up this month, some people who are just absolute idols of mine, who I just like am vibrating in excitement to interview and to get on the show.
00:26:00
Speaker
I'm so excited about all the projects I've got on the go You know with with with the show with building out this subscription service that I'm hoping to launch in June With hey, sorry. I missed you. I'm absolutely loving it. It's getting dark. It you know the structure of the book is about you know
00:26:18
Speaker
sort of ego death. It's about every month the narrator is working their way back further and further into where they come from. And the question of who they miss is really central. And so it's actually getting into a pretty dark ravine, narratively speaking, but it's also been incredibly cathartic and it's also like
00:26:47
Speaker
There will be a turn, I promise. It's not all doom and gloom, but I'm loving putting it out and I'm just loving being creative. I'm testing the waters of stand-up. I did my very first
00:27:03
Speaker
kind of open mic a week or two ago and just had so much fun. Bombed completely, but I just had such a blast. I'm doing another one this week on Friday if you're listening to the show when it comes out.
00:27:21
Speaker
On Friday, I'm going to be doing a couple minutes at a little open mic that I'm just like, I'm so frigging excited about. This is something that I have always wanted to do and have just never, never had the bandwidth for. And I've met someone recently who has been just encouraging me to just get out of my shell
00:27:42
Speaker
tell my stories quit faffing about quit dragging my feet do the thing i wanna do and i'm just going for it i'm just gonna keep trying and just see what comes next and this isn't you know i don't have these grand plans of fame and fortune i just i have.
00:28:00
Speaker
stories in me that want out and I'm finding the right platform to get those stories out of me. Sometimes I think that I have kind of kneecapped myself in a way by becoming too rigid with certain forms. I always wanted to be an author so I would write prose or whatever it might be and I'm realizing that I know how to tell stories, I just am still finding the mediums within which those stories need to be told.
00:28:28
Speaker
I'm experimenting, I'm exploring, I'm seeing what's coming next, and I'm just so fucking excited to see what the rest of the year brings.
Challenges of Making Friends and Embracing Individuality
00:28:43
Speaker
So with that out of the way, why don't we dive into some listener questions? As always, I have gotten some incredible questions from TikTok and from Instagram that we're gonna get to. And if you have any questions, I will remind you friendlesspod at gmail.com. You can always reach out to me or you can message me on Instagram or TikTok at friendlesspod. So if you have any questions,
00:29:12
Speaker
All are welcome, any topic, any subject, and I will answer on the next Little Guy episode. We've got a whole smattering of questions from across the board, so let's get started. Question number one, I'm a 40-year-old who holds back from friendship because I'm afraid people will think I'm weird. Any tips? Well, I am a 36-year-old who holds back on friendships because I think people will think I'm weird, so join the club, I guess. Tips on how to make friends.
00:29:42
Speaker
Okay, I think that this is honestly, I mean, this is the central question of the show is how the fuck do you make friends when you're not like forced into a classroom or, you know, told mommy has a headache and is gonna have some wine with her best friend. You go in the basement and play with her weird son Brendan and who only walks on the tips of his toes and hates socks.
00:30:10
Speaker
that was
00:30:29
Speaker
who you are is who you are and that's beautiful and that's glorious and and I think that instead of figuring out ways to adjust yourself for others comfort it's about getting really comfortable with yourself and
00:30:46
Speaker
and allowing only the people who align with that into your life. Something I'm really focusing on lately is much less about making more friends and much more about celebrating the friends that I do have. The people who came through and who supported me and stayed with me
00:31:07
Speaker
And the people who lean in to my weirdness, the people who are excited by my weirdness, you know, the people who hear the way I make a joke and appreciate it rather than saying, oh, that's not how a joke is made. Right. So I think if anything, it's about like celebrating your weirdness and it's about allowing only the people who celebrate that same weirdness in.
00:31:31
Speaker
And I guess one way to do that is just by continuing to grow your own self-compassion and your own self-love and celebrating yourself and recognizing that what makes you weird is what makes you unique. And so those are the things that are worth cherishing.
00:31:47
Speaker
It's not for everyone, but I know a lot about fucking ancient Greece. I know a lot about, I don't know, science fiction and action figures and video games and pro wrestling. And these are topics that are not universally adored, but the people who do adore them adore me and I adore them. And so it's really, I think if I was going to give any initial tip, it's like lean into your weirdness and get weirder.
00:32:14
Speaker
you know and let your weirdness out let people see the things that that you love um be really fucking cringe as the kids say you know cringe is just authenticity it's just it's just it's removing the veneer of sarcasm and irony and all those protective layers that we put up to pretend we're like too cool you know i think the people who like really like
00:32:37
Speaker
spend their life worrying about how cool they look, who worry about getting the right angle, who worry about making sure they get the right party shot so that they can post it on Instagram the next day and brag about it. I think that's a really sad life. I think it's a really small life. And I think that it's really dull. And so I think being so-called cringe is really just another way of saying you're removing
00:33:04
Speaker
your social masks and you're leaning into your authenticity. And so I would say practice celebrating yourself, practice celebrating what authentically makes you bloom and authentically makes you glow. And then those people will find you.
00:33:20
Speaker
you know i've been having an incredible experience this year as i post more on tiktok and as i unpack you know my own thoughts around any number of things people respond to it you know it's not about making the most carefully curated
00:33:35
Speaker
edited framed video it's about just putting up something that is authentically you and the people who don't respond to it won't or they'll be dicks in which case you know block and delete was invented for a reason but the people who do respond to it they will reach out and you will connect you know I've made some incredible new connections online just by like spouting my silly little thoughts that like somebody in fucking
00:34:01
Speaker
Tallahassee season is like you know what that speaks to me I'm gonna message them or I'm gonna comment you know and then I reply to them and then we connect and then now we're like friends you know so I really think it's just it's in so many ways it comes back to what I was saying before about like you know love yourself give yourself self-compassion self-love give yourself unconditional
00:34:23
Speaker
unconditional. There is no unconditional love. And really genuinely embody that. Really genuinely feel that. And the people who want to respect that and want that in your life will show up.
00:34:40
Speaker
I was talking to the other day, I made a brand new friend from TeenX, shout out Megan, hello, you are an angel. We were talking the other day about this idea of free will versus destiny is another binary thought. There's no such thing as either because they both exist in that you get to choose what you do with your time.
00:35:04
Speaker
And then because of those actions, things will come to you. So it's not this thing of like anything meant for you will come to you. It's that like whatever you work towards is, is sort of inevitable, you know? And if you just don't stop, right? I think that's another element is like, just don't let yourself stop yourself.
00:35:22
Speaker
And the things you want will happen one way or another. So yeah, thank you for the question. I love you. You know, without identifying the question asker, if you lived anywhere near me, you wouldn't be able to get rid of me because I would be just like clinging to you with all my love. So just know that there is
00:35:47
Speaker
There are weirdos out there who love you and want you to just live authentically you. So just keep on doing what you're doing and lean into it.
00:35:58
Speaker
Next question is, sweet or salty? I think that all depends on what the context is. I'm also, again, I'm doing my best to unpack binaries, so why not both? Something I've really grown to love is there's a burger shop on Main Street called Street Hawker that does these incredible
00:36:18
Speaker
Uh, crispy fries that have like a little bit of a sweetness to them. So they're like, they've got that crunch, they've got the salt and they've got a little sweet to them. And I'm telling you, um, I don't understand why we separate ourselves into box boxes of this versus that. Us versus them. Sweet versus salty. I say live and let live.
00:36:42
Speaker
Coexist you know with that the sea and the oh and the cross and the Star David you know just coexist you know and I bet that that word would actually be both sweet and salty so Yeah, no I if I had to
00:37:00
Speaker
I go salty just because I smoked for so many years that I really grew to really value salt in my foods so that I could taste something. So if I had to, you know, gun in my head, but I much prefer the option of mixing in a little bit of both with a nice dash of
00:37:24
Speaker
What's the word I'm blanking on? Mediation. Moderation. Moderation. That's the word. Moderation. You know, everything in moderation, including moderation, right? Next question is, I started painting my nails in adulthood and love your turquoise. Thank you. What is the next color choice? That.
00:37:46
Speaker
is a dilemma. I was so proud of the paint job I did recently with this, it's called Teal the Cows Come Home from, I always call it OP, but I know it's OPI. But I was so proud of how well I did them that I haven't wanted to take them off. And now it's definitely peeling and fading and chipping and yada, yada, yada.
00:38:11
Speaker
I, myself, I only started painting my nails recently. It was a way to kind of distract myself because it takes so much concentration. I love the process. I do the base layer and then the paint and a couple layers and then you let it dry and then you do the top coat and it sheens. I learned a little trick from a friend where you put a little Vaseline around the edges of your nail so that when you're done, you wipe it away and it's much easier to get all the imperfections and all the slip ups off.
00:38:40
Speaker
But yeah, I like the shiny colors. I really like the kind of like almost metallic Holo Taco I am obsessed with, but they are way too expensive for what you get. So I default to OB. And I also really like the bright colors. I like blues. I like light colors, but that still have a sheen to them. So it's tough to say. I have some darker ones. I have a purple, but it always shows up as black on camera and I don't like that. I don't want to look like, you know,
00:39:12
Speaker
I'm not gonna say but I Yeah, I'm thinking I'm gonna stay within the blue realm. I really like the blue blue is my favorite color. So We're gonna stick with blue. I'll probably end up just redoing this teal the cows come home, but we'll see what happens It's actually probably gonna happen this week. So I will keep you posted
00:39:32
Speaker
Now we've got some doozies of real deep friend questions.
Reflections on Childhood Friendships
00:39:36
Speaker
First is, are you still in touch with your first best friend and would or do you still get along? Sadly, I am not. I lost touch with them just a couple of years ago, though. It was really fascinating.
00:39:49
Speaker
We were best friends in elementary school. I absolutely loved him to bits. In junior high, you know, as happens, we grew apart, kind of went our separate ways. And then high school, went to different schools, and so we just completely lost touch. And then out of the blue, when I moved back to Calgary, you know, I hadn't seen him in God knows how long, 10, 15 years, something like that. And I was at a street festival, and out of nowhere, this hand shoots out, grabs me by the shoulder, and just goes, James, have a Romanko.
00:40:18
Speaker
And, you know, I was convinced it was like, you know, the voice of my my doom greeting me to Sweet Oblivion. But it turns out it was just my old best friend. And we we hung out a bunch when we when I still lived in Calgary, you know, that that that second round. And I adored him. It was so strange. We we ended up living.
00:40:39
Speaker
Strikingly parallel lives. We both went into theater both remained really into comic books and writing We were both way too loud, especially when we drank and he was just he was an absolute sweetheart and He helped me move on my last day when when I moved to Saskatoon he helped pack up the U-Haul van and
00:41:00
Speaker
He actually flew out when I was still dabbling in acting and I got a part in a play at Persephone. He actually flew out and saw one of my shows. I haven't really spoken to him since and it's really only because he has no social media and I've changed my number too many times and I don't know what his phone number is.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah, Corey, if you're listening to this, email me, friendlesspod at gmail.com and we will reconnect somewhere because I love him to bits to this day. But yeah, unfortunately, haven't spoken to him in a while and would really love to reconnect and see what the last couple of years have brought him because he was doing really well. He's doing really amazing things and I'm sure he's going to continue to.
00:41:46
Speaker
So do we still get along? I hope so. We did when last we crossed paths. But who can say? People change when they want to change and maybe he wanted to do a change. So I can't speak for him now. But I can't say I do love him to absolute bits. What is a core memory that you made with a friend that they don't know stuck with you so hard?
00:42:09
Speaker
And okay, so when this question came in, I sat with it for a while, and I tried really hard to think of something that might sort of surprise people. I've talked in recent episodes about how I don't always decide what my brain remembers, but my brain has this kind of, its own internal algorithm, you know? And it decides what it deems important and what isn't important, and usually that's derived from what gives me dopamine, probably.
00:42:39
Speaker
But I'm never sure what I remember about someone sort of almost like until I connect to them and my brain starts firing and I start going, oh, fuck, right. Yeah, that thing. Oh, my God. And what I started doing was I started just scrolling through my Facebook and looking at people who I hadn't thought of in a long time and what I remembered of them.
00:42:58
Speaker
And, you know, there's these moments of like, I remember in first year driving with this friend who I don't think I've spoken to since first year and like driving around late at night and listening to stars. Set Yourself on Fire is my all time favorite album. And he had only just discovered it like that, that year. And so he put it on. And I remember we were driving around like outside of Victoria.
00:43:23
Speaker
We'd kind of left the city and we were driving like little weird pockets of suburbs and stuff like that and listening to it. And it was just absolutely magic, magic night. I remember like junior high friends and every time, I think it was especially in English class, we were allowed to make like a movie as a project. We always chose to make a movie. And like one time we made this like kind of evil dead inspired like fighting a demon movie and
00:43:52
Speaker
and like it was like you know one of those like it was the book of the dead and we read it and raised this this demon called beloved and uh and uh we made we made a blood pack by like filling red kool-aid into uh into a ziplock bag that he held under his shirt
00:44:10
Speaker
And he popped it by hugging himself so that it looked like he just made himself bleed. And then we had a knife fight as the big climax, but we used real knives. And we were like 12 and just flailing around with knives. And thankfully, nobody lost an eye or a finger or anything like that. But yeah, there's these flashes of moments when I think of certain people and I think of these things.
00:44:37
Speaker
you know that don't always come up and there's almost like no reason to bring them up but they're cataloged in there somewhere and they bubble up every once in a while. You know I'll say the person who asked this question is someone who
00:44:52
Speaker
Um, I knew very tangentially for a while until really until my divorce in a certain light. Um, um, and, and he just stepped up and he, uh, he like bought me pizza from Vancouver. I was in Saskatoon and in Vancouver, he like Googled the best pizza in town and like sent me pizzas. And, um, and I will never forget that.
00:45:18
Speaker
I'll never forget that he was one of the first people to like reach out and just like sit with me and just like ask how it was and not like not try to fix not try to like say get over it but just be like okay this is where you are and this is where I am because that's where you are so I'm here with you you know
00:45:39
Speaker
Sorry, one second. That's like a kind of love and a kind of friendship and a kind of support that I haven't always been able to reciprocate, and I've always wished I could, and I just haven't been able to, but I just cherish.
00:45:57
Speaker
the memories of that love and that support and I think about her all the time. And so yeah, so that's a unnamed question asker. That's a core memory of you. And I thank you and I love you.
00:46:15
Speaker
Last question of the week. Has a friend ever saved your life?
Gratitude for Life-Saving Friendships
00:46:23
Speaker
Probably. I'm pretty sure, especially in my teens and twenties, I'm pretty sure I was in so much more danger so much more often than I even realized.
00:46:35
Speaker
um i remember like oh god just chaos chaos nights you know i i don't think i can think of like one specific night um nothing really is like coming to mind uh but just like you know nights of drinking university and then the next day hearing what had happened and just being like
00:46:54
Speaker
oh fuck you know you were in danger boy you know um uh i remember one halloween i think it was second year i was dressed as one of the one of the fairies from sleeping beauty um and but i'd been separated so it was just me in this little like miniskirt and fairy wings um just like in the middle of a busy street and and um
00:47:17
Speaker
for I don't remember what how would it happen I had gotten the car I think I was buying cigarettes and they the people who were driving were kind of doing a loop they ended up on the other side of like us I can't remember the name of the street but a super busy street and in my dumb fucking
00:47:33
Speaker
I was like, Oh, I'll just run over to them. And I happened to be at a bus stop where this like kind of acquaintance who I barely knew sort of a friend of a friend was waiting for a bus and he started chatting with me and I was trying to hold down conversation.
00:47:47
Speaker
and then I saw my friends in the car across the street and without saying anything I just like stepped off the curve and started running towards them and the guy at the bus stop grabbed my wings and pulled me back onto the sidewalk and like
00:48:03
Speaker
at the exact same moment, I felt like the brush of, you know, a speeding car kind of on my cheeks. And so, yeah, pretty sure he saved me from being a little fairy pizza. So whoever you are,
00:48:20
Speaker
I love you and I thank you. I appreciate that. I wish I could remember who you are, but alcohol does bad things to your brain. I think where my heart really goes is the idea of like what is saved, right? You know, because it's like, obviously there's like chaos moments where, you know, like that where someone genuinely saved your physical body.
00:48:40
Speaker
But there's also moments where people have saved my heart or saved just my essence. Just in the last couple months, I've had some really big drops. I've had some really black hole moments over the last couple of years.
00:48:57
Speaker
And it's always been the friends who didn't know at first that they were helping, but who just reached out because it was their impulse to reach out, you know, just to text how I'm doing, just to text, you know, with an invite to something. And then when I told them what was going on,
00:49:15
Speaker
again like an earlier story you know they didn't say okay you have to get over this they didn't say you know I'm gonna move you through it they said okay cool that's where you are I'm gonna meet you right there and and just kind of sat with me and and
00:49:31
Speaker
Those are the moments that I just cherish. I keep coming back to that word, those are sacred moments to me. And sometimes there is a guilt in me for feeling like I can't always reciprocate that. I can offer a different kind of love, but I can't always offer the same kind of love back.
00:49:54
Speaker
Um, and I'm working on it and I also am working on just recognizing that I give a different kind of love, right? Um, but, uh, yeah, you know, without going into like too many specifics, because it's like, again, it's a little bit of like a preaching from the wound, not the scar is that like, there have been moments in the last couple of months where I have been in just agony, uh, emotional, psychological.
00:50:16
Speaker
agony and friends have have texted just seeing how I'm doing and they've let me vent and they've let me just pour my soul out and they've just sat with me and I can't thank them enough for it because in so many ways they're there why I am still here so you know yeah so yeah thank you for that
00:50:49
Speaker
That is gonna do it for another Little Guy episode. Thank you so much for listening through to the end. I absolutely love doing these. I love listener questions, I love finding new topics, new avenues of exploration, and you know, yeah, I love talking about myself.
00:51:08
Speaker
If you enjoyed the show, please give it a five star review anywhere you've listened. They help so much and they're completely free. If you want more friendless content, please sign up for the weekly sub stack. You're getting a curated monthly playlist. You're getting a poem of the week from the poetry challenge that I've laid out for myself. I'm trying to read a book of poetry every week this this year. And I basically share one poem from whatever I'm reading.
00:51:37
Speaker
I'm also sharing five other distractions for the week. These are things like books, movies, music, TV shows, articles, fun things on the internet that I've enjoyed and maybe you will too. So sign up for that through the links in the show notes.
00:51:55
Speaker
I'm also going to be offering a paid level starting in June. This isn't going to include a private discord where we're going to be having monthly meetings. There's going to be courses on how to be a better friend, emotional regulation, all those kinds of fun things. There's going to be all kinds of other goodies included in that, so keep your eyes peeled for that when it launches.
00:52:15
Speaker
I have so much else lined up for the show that I'm so excited to share. I've got incredible guests coming up in May. I've got all kinds of stuff. Be sure to follow along at friendlesspod. Email me friendlesspod at gmail.com and stay tuned for some incredible, incredible updates. But we're going to leave that here because that is all then and this is now. So let's stay rooted in the moment. And all I'll say is I love you and I wish you well. Fun and safety, sweeties.
00:52:47
Speaker
you.