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Guest: Sex Writer and Designer Violet Fawkes
39 Plays15 days ago
Violet Fawkes is a sex writer, dildo designer, podcaster, and person living with neurodivergence. We discuss the impact of horror scores on fear, the intricacies and philosophies of dildo design (seriously), and how labels and stigma can keep some people from seeking mental health treatment.
We also talk about what compels us to do what we do, and why happiness is kind of a lousy goal in the long term. Plus narcissism, sociopathy, medication...and a whole bunch of talk about sex writing.
A transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, where we talk with creatives about neurodivergence, trauma, addiction, and all the other things that impact and inform our art. Our goal is to show everyone that no matter what you're going through, you are not alone and you can make art about it.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi friends, my name is Wednesday Lee Friday and you are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. We are brought to you by sometimes hilarious horror and you'd be doing us all a favor by checking us out on Ko-fi.
00:00:51
Speaker
This week, we have Violet Fox, who is a sex and pleasure educator, a writer, a dildo designer, and someone who is dedicated to spreading sex positivity and helping people explore, empower, and enrich their lives through healthy, intimate relationships with themselves and others, which, oh my god, what a coincidence. About half of that is also stuff I do at my day job. Hi, Violet. Thanks so much for being here. Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
00:01:21
Speaker
So as we are both sex writers, I want to make it clear that we have never worked together. And as far as I know, we've never worked for the same publication. We just happen to meet on the socials. I believe that is true. Yeah. i I mean, some of the people around here are my buddies, so I kind of like it make it to make it sort of clear, like who's who. And I just want to say, I barely know you. I barely know you.
00:01:46
Speaker
So I'm sure I'll learn a lot. um We actually like to start the show by asking people to describe their first experience with a horror movie. Now, I don't know if you're a horror person per se, but everybody's seen us a scary movie at some point. So why don't you tell us about yours? You know, I thought about this question and I i do really love horror films and I started very young with horror. I was not easily scared as a child, ah but sometimes I certainly was, and I definitely sought out the experience of scary movies. And I think the one that really stands out to me from my, you know, arguably formative years, um so this would have been the early 90s, I would have been maybe eight or nine, eight, nine, 10, somewhere in there. And the original IT,
00:02:41
Speaker
which I thought was a movie and it was actually a mini series. And I was living in Vancouver at the time, which of course was where it was filmed, ah which if you've ever lived somewhere where things get filmed, it's often exciting to see those locations, but also kind of makes you think twice about them. So there were parts of the city that gave me the creeps for years. But the thing that I found interesting about that particular movie and the thing that I learned as a kid in that was watching it and i was really I was getting really pretty terrified. And I remember my dad saying, just press mute. Just mute the TV. And learning that the sound and the music in horror movies, for some of us, I'm sure not for everybody, but for me, is the big thing that sends me over the edge. I can see the horror, I can see the jump scares, the flash of fangs, whatever it is. But when I get overwhelmed, I have to not hear it.
00:03:39
Speaker
because Well, you know, there is a there's a scientific basis for that. Oh, I'm sure. It must be the most manipulative kind writing of music out there because it is absolutely meant to frighten you. But being that age and realizing that, I then watched all horror movies through the lens of the sound. And the my favorite horror movies actually are ones that have, like the the part that I love most about them is almost always um either a sound like a Foley sound, like a sound of action, or, um you know, the music and the score that was used. I mean, obviously something like Jaws is a perfect example, right? You know, that cello haunts us all. But, you know, The Shining, it's got some amazing, amazing music and sound, you know,
00:04:36
Speaker
No, that's one of my main writing scores, actually, The Shining. Just to have on while I'm working. Yeah, it's so good. Oh, no. i'm that's That's really interesting because I consider music to be one of the more visceral mediums to to intake because i can't make I cannot make music with any sense of of goodness or professionalism or or technical proficiency. I'm the same way.
00:05:02
Speaker
So it, it has that kind of mystery for me, but I did a deep dive once just in terms of, uh, I was trying to figure out why music and minor keys made me sad. And, you know, like regardless of, of whether there's lyrics or whatever, like I just knew that minor keys made me feel off and sad. And it turns out.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's a whole thing with like vibrations and you know like white noise and green noise. like When you you do the the deep dive on that, there is a scientific basis for why different kinds of music and different individual notes make us feel different things. And those assholes that compose music for horror movies, boy, they twist it in. hey But it's also like there are those those certain horror movies like Audition or The Birds that don't have a soundtrack. And it sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, because I would say that The Birds obviously is still terrifying, despite not having a soundtrack, because the soundtrack is The Birds.
00:06:10
Speaker
But with a movie like Audition, the first time I watched Audition, i have you seen Audition? The Asian film? Okay. it's It doesn't have any sound, but the whole thing is terrifying. it's a very There's a very long torture scene. and you know The whole but second half of the movie is basically torture, torture, torture.
00:06:29
Speaker
and because I was kind of high and my mind kept wandering, I like completely missed the ending because there was no music. And it occurred to me that at that point, like in the the high point of the film, that the music does so much heavy lifting in most films. Absolutely, to drive you to the experience and the culmination of the plot or the the climax, right?
00:06:53
Speaker
and and And if it's not there as a viewer, you have to try. You yeah you have to pay attention. And yeah, it's so powerful. It's so powerful how much that sound works. And I'm like you, i I'm not a music maker either. I have no talents in that realm at all. And I, when you said, you know, it's cause it's like a mystery or like, cause it's not your thing. That totally resonates too, because it's so beyond me how it's magic, how they do that.
00:07:23
Speaker
yeah it it really is and it's also music you know has a whole like mathematical element to it which also like that's my worst subject i'm i'm typically girly in that way you know i'm i'm bad with math yeah in high school i had a kick where i was convinced i had read somewhere about the mathematical connection to classical music and uh the article i'd read sort of suggested in a roundabout way that listening to classical music could stimulate the same part of your brain that can solve mathematical problems. And I was so pissed poor at math. There was like a whole semester I just fell asleep to Mozart every night. Just praying, I would wake up with a math brain and be able to do it. It did nothing. It did not help. It did not improve. um But I got pretty familiar with Mozart. That was nice.
00:08:18
Speaker
Have you ever seen the Disney short Donald Duck in Mathematic Land? No. It is on YouTube and I cannot recommend it highly enough. um It might be on Disney Plus too, um but it yeah you got to watch the Disney Plus though, man. That TOS will get you. but um oh god it's it It goes through a lot of different things like the the golden ratio.
00:08:43
Speaker
and just basic music theory in terms of music and the scale and notes. And it's really, I mean, it's the most I've ever been interested in math because it shows kids the practical applications of math and why you might want to know it for reasons other than like measuring for carpet or cutting a recipe in half. So it's really interesting in that way. I'll actually send you that because it's just so great.
00:09:12
Speaker
so you know you like I was saying you and I met because we're both sex writers. um I actually just got terminated. Kinkly, the company that bought Kinkly, let everybody know on Friday that all of our contracts were terminated. wow so They bought the company just long enough to have us all learn all new programs and all new processes. and Then they said, you know what? We changed our mind. Bye, everyone.
00:09:35
Speaker
But I do still consider myself a sex writer. I'm still at WHI. I don't actually know how you got into sex writing. Oh, yeah. ah I mean, it's sort of unceremoniously, to be honest. um I am a person who I've always had a pretty big interest in sex from a sociological point of view. I mean, obviously the physical and all that, too, for sure.
00:10:03
Speaker
But like I like thinking about sex and talking about sex in the in how sex exists as a part of the human condition, society, politics, like you know intersectionality is a beautiful thing. But I sort of fell into it just because I was interested and I started blogging and didn't get a ton of traffic or like really much momentum with that.
00:10:33
Speaker
But I did start to meet a lot of people online who were in sort of similar spaces. so I quite quickly went from just sort of documenting my own sort of ideas about sex and sexuality um in a kind of personal dear diary kind of way and then I sort of moved into writing erotica and sort of got involved with a couple of online erotica writing groups and that was pretty cool and sort of did that for a couple of years but again it the the bleed over between erotica writers and sex writers and sex bloggers you know there's a lot of mishmash there so i met a lot of other people who were writing a bit more not clinically about sex uh but less personally and a little bit more in terms of education and knowledgebased knowledge base yeah and and sharing not just their experiences through their own lens but more like this is my experience and like let's
00:11:33
Speaker
maybe pull out some of the universalities of that and talk about those things. So I started reading more of that kind of sex writer, ultimately. And that was really fascinating to me. And it was fascinating to me that these people were writing so passionately and so confidently from a place just of pure curiosity and knowledge versus, you know, degrees and letters behind their names and doctorates and all the rest of it. Like I was really attracted to how sort of grassroots a lot of, a lot of it was now, obviously that comes with the dangers of misinformation and all those other things. But I mean, even the pros do that. So six and one half to the other, but I really got interested in talking to other people about their experiences.
00:12:29
Speaker
in a way that was not salacious, but also not completely clinical. And that's kind of the zone I try to keep sort of all my work in, where it isn't so much about me and my experiences, but more about like, my experience as a starting point to talk about like, your experiences, you the royal year. And I just kept blogging. I just kept writing. I started pitching here and there to various tiny outlets or other bloggers and just getting a little bit of momentum there. um I did write a few things for Kinkly back in the day as well. um I actually stopped working with Kinkly because they a they ran one of their like top 100s or whatever sort of things and there had been some
00:13:26
Speaker
issues in the community that year around a couple of people. And they were really highly ranked in that list. And I was willing to talk to Kinkley about that. And they weren't really willing to talk to me about that. And I sort of went, you know, maybe we're just not totally aligned. So I wonder if that was when I was on hiatus from that, because when I moved over to women's health interactive, I really wanted to be on the the bottom end of a startup. You know, I wanted to just just get in there.
00:13:54
Speaker
And I took a break from Kinkly because that was my first sex writing job for Kinkly back when they were paying like 25 bucks an hour or something. I wrote a few of those too. Right. And it's like, okay, I'm basically getting paid in like tips and free sex toys, but that's okay. And, you know, obviously I was making a whole lot more recently, but yeah, i ah it it's such a it's it's kind of a ah weird line because, you know, we're not doctors.
00:14:24
Speaker
Um, so, but we, we have sex and, but, but moreover than just having it, we think about it and it's really like the thinking about it and the why of like, well, why are women slots for having lots of sex? But men are like, let's, let's get into that. Cause that's probably not true, right? You're probably all, you know, and getting into the why of it. And then.
00:14:47
Speaker
Like sex toys in general, because sex toys have just exploded in recent years in terms of like what they can do. Also what they cost, my God. That's it's alike yeah i hads a whole other blog post.
00:15:02
Speaker
I would not own a $300 vibrator except that people keep sending them to me. That's why I have them. I, you know, like 80 bucks is is high end for me. Like once you get into like, okay, it's body safe silicone. I'm good. But, uh, yeah. So, but, but you were never a sex worker. No, no, it sounds like, okay. Yeah. I actually, uh, I was a phone sex operator in the nineties. Um, I had some mobility issues and I was fresh out of college when I got out of college.
00:15:32
Speaker
I majored in broadcast journalism and technical theater. But in Detroit, all the newspapers were shut down. They were all on strike. And I didn't want to be a scab. right So I needed work because I went to a private college and I had you know loans and such. And yeah, I was like, you know what? I actually would be using a degree in broadcasting and theater if I was a phone sex operator. like that That does apply. Transferring skills.
00:16:01
Speaker
was not what my mom had in mind for me when she, to to to use her words, when I sent you off to college. um But ah yeah, anyway, I did that for off and on for like,
00:16:16
Speaker
five or six years. And then I stopped and then I started back up again. And then that was how I got into sex writing was that somebody was looking for articles about phone sex. And I said, Oh, well, I'm certainly qualified. And they liked my work and they invited me to to come back. And then I started doing like regular, I was covering news for them for a while, which, you know, sex news is just such a great beat. But you actually brought up another interesting point, which is that there's a lot of crossover and also a lot of confusion about the difference between a sex writer and an erotica writer, you know, a romance novelist, like all those different things. Not the same thing. When I tell people I'm a sex writer, they often assume that I write erotica. And I'm terrible at writing erotica. I am not I'm actually getting better at it because I've been cyber dating and
00:17:09
Speaker
you know, having a lot of like filthy chats with random dudes. And so, as one does. um yeah But, but that's actually helping me get better at just being comfortable with that kind of language, because the writing in erotica Like that the terms people use always to my ears sound either clinical or ridiculous. yeah So I can't, I have a hard time with that aspect of it, but I'm getting more comfortable with it, I think. Yeah. I think there's also, there's just such a breadth of what's available in erotica. I mean, it's getting broader all the time. It's also getting more niche and more specific all the time. Like if you, you know, if you really want to read a story about an autistic werewolf,
00:17:56
Speaker
who's also pansexual, like you can find it, right? like And that's super cool that that's out there. um But there's there's a lot of variety in all of those categories of, I think, romance writers, erotica writers, sex writers. And I've even seen people split the hairs between being a sex writer and being a sex blogger, which, you know, is kind of semantic to me, but I also kind of see the difference. Blogging is generally pretty um personally focused, or at least through one's own lens. Whereas sex writing, I would say is a bit less personal in general, but doesn't have to be. It can be, sure. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. And to your point, we're not doctors, right? like
00:18:47
Speaker
I put out a ah post on my website this week and I circulated it on Instagram and threads too. And it was about love bombing, like how to know if you're being love bombed and what to do with it. And I was so anxious about using the information, the the word narcissism in that anywhere, because narcissism is such a word that's bandied about right now and misused and misunderstood. But love bombing is literally the first step in what's called a narcissistic abuse cycle. Very real stuff, easy information to find. But there was part of me that went like, who the hell do I think I am using all these clinical terms? I'm just some sex writer.
00:19:37
Speaker
And then I went, no, I'm just, I'm aggregating information that already exists and putting it together in a way that other people can take. away yeah i mean And it, but it was like a real moment for me of like, I, we don't have to know everything to do this job. Like, you know, you don't have to be an absolute expert in every single area of sex and sexuality because you couldn't. It's just as valid to learn by reading and discussing with your peers as it is to have a lecture and a lecture hall. Exactly. You know, the fact that it didn't cost you $10,000 a year to get that information doesn't mean that the information is any less valid. You know, once you've read the DSM four or five, whatever it is now, once you've read the DSM, you know what's in it. Yeah. So you have a grasp of the information.
00:20:31
Speaker
Sure. you You may not know as much as someone who went to medical school, but as long as you're not claiming that you do, I mean, you're not diagnosing people. It's not like you're writing prescriptions on the internet. So, you know, which is a shame. I mean, things could get a lot more interesting if I did, but yeah, exactly. So the idea of like, um, expertise and, you know, being legit in this sort of world is also, I think part of that conversation about where those things all kind of blend together.
00:21:01
Speaker
you know, from fiction erotica to sex writing to blogging to, you know, like, you know, there are some fine lines there for sure. But at the end of the day, if everyone's navigating them ethically as in, I'm going to do my damnedest not to spread misinformation. And if I don't know something, I will seek an answer instead of making up a line. As long as we're doing that, I think we're all pretty okay. I'm going to say something really sexist here.
00:21:31
Speaker
which is that I think that the industry of sex writing, as we do it, because it is dominated by women, there is, in a broad sense, less ego, more cooperation, and and more i sincere parsing of the issues as opposed to people trying to one-up each other. And I'm not saying it isn't there or that like men aren't capable of that, but I think that when you have a really woman centered community like that. And that of obviously means all women, and but, uh, well, because, you know, like when we have team meetings, it's so unusual for people to insist on talking over each other. Because there's, I, well, I won't say why we all know why, right ladies? Um, but I think that that, well, in, in the sex industry in general, you know,
00:22:29
Speaker
Traditionally, I think sex workers get looked down on because it's one of the only industries where women consistently make more money than men and men can't stand it. They can't stand that they have to pay for things they think they should be given for free and all that there. But then when you get into sex writing, I think that women might be more invested in spreading good knowledge about sexuality.
00:22:59
Speaker
not just for overall good health, but because women are more likely to reap benefits, both physical and emotional, when everybody is is better informed. absolutely Whereas I think society set up in such a way that men get ah away with a whole lot of bullshit and and women really don't. And we're, I think, I don't want to say we're taking back our power, but I think we're directing the conversation in new ways that it needs to go.
00:23:27
Speaker
i and There are people that are really threatened by that. but yeah i think well and You actually are not just in the writing end, you're also in the the design end of of the sex industry. Tell us about that. Yeah. Short stint as a dildo designer.
00:23:43
Speaker
um I ended up doing, it was actually a really exciting process and it was about a year kind of end to end. I started working with a company called Freelee Toys and they were a really fabulous company out of Montreal and the team, it was a very small team and they were all engineers. And their idea was, let's create a way for people to design their own sex toys and We'll figure out how to create some sort of design front end that's really usable by an everyday person, not just an engineer, and give people you know limited range to design whatever they want. Such a cool idea. So they had reached out to me to ask me if I wanted to design a dildo for myself and then review it.
00:24:40
Speaker
And they were focusing on five particular designs at the time. So they asked that I use one of those designs as a starting point and then sort of modulate it. They had this really amazing interface that was like similar to like a a CAD machine, like architects and stuff use. So it was like this 3D modeling program. And basically you just, you were building like the profile So how the outside edge worked of where the lumps and the bumps and everything were. So it was really this fun program. You could just sort of sit there and tweak and tweak and tweak and make all kinds of crazy shapes. They had a whole gallery of fun recognizable shapes of things they'd made. They made one that was like a wine bottle, one that was like a Christmas tree, one that was like a snowman. Like you could do anything. It was really cool. Wow.
00:25:36
Speaker
I loved it immediately, loved the technology, was super pumped, designed myself an incredible dildo, reviewed it for them, loved it. Everything was great. And so I was working with them in their affiliate program, that kind of stuff. And then they reached out again and said, Hey, so we're doing this other thing where we' we're connecting with, uh, sex writers and sex workers and, you know, people in this industry.
00:26:05
Speaker
who know what they're looking for in sex toys and kind of know what other people are looking for to completely design our own toy. So the idea was, I think there were five or six of us in the end that did it. um Are you familiar? Do you know Luna Matadas? She's a, yeah. So she did one too. um And interestingly, we bought each other's toys to review each other's toys.
00:26:31
Speaker
So that was fine as well. Um, so yeah, there were about six of us, I think in the end that got to do it. And we completely designed our own toys from the ground up. Um, you know, named them, gave them, you know, not backstories, but lore, like the reason, yeah and you know, what we were doing and what we were designing and, and it was fascinating also to see the different approaches that we took.
00:26:57
Speaker
Like Luna's was focused on being a pegging duo. So she really focused on the design being, you know, sort of long, slender, tapered with, you know, a knot. I think it has two knots in it. You know, so she was like really thinking about like, what works best for pegging? What do people want? What's good for the pegger and the peggy? So from that point of view, my toy, I wanted to create something that was very accessible but also interesting. So I wanted it to feel really good without being intimidating. So I named mine Harlow after Jean Harlow, the actor, actress of the 30s, because I see her as like, I mean, she's and obviously a total icon, but I really see her as sort of being the
00:27:51
Speaker
for her time and her era, she was sort of the crux of femininity as well as sexual liberation. So I was trying to capture that in my dildo, which sounds really out there, I know. But so in the end, Harlow was you know a very accessible, easy to use, but interesting to use dildo.
00:28:20
Speaker
And you know I didn't sell thousands of them or anything. I can't remember how many we sold in the end. But you know all of us managed to sell some of you know the dildos that we just designed. Unfortunately, freely then, after about a year, they changed their model. So they're no longer front customer facing. They're doing wholesale ah for like a limited selection of toys.
00:28:47
Speaker
none of which were the ones that we, the writers and sex workers made up ourselves. That's too bad. But um it was such a cool experience. I mean, it was so cool. It was amazing to be asked to do that. Like, oh, yeah, I bet so. And it was really fun to think my way through that. I mean, again, as someone who just likes thinking about sex and sexuality,
00:29:18
Speaker
you know, really going like, okay, well, like, what do I want this to mean? What do I want it to kind of stand for? What do I want it to be like? How do I want it to feel? Yeah. I mean, who's who would use this? Who's the person I'm sort of making this for? And all of those questions were, I mean, totally fascinating and fun to work through. And then to actually have a physical, tangible,
00:29:43
Speaker
representation of all that thought and all that philosophy and all those decisions was really, really exciting in a way that's, I mean, like I don't have children, but it, I mean, it must be like what giving birth feels like.
00:30:01
Speaker
I bet it feels a little bit better than giving birth. I mean, I sure hope so. But yeah, it was really exciting to bring that forth into the world. I wonder, so ah Have you thought about pitching other companies? Because there's so many small companies that are doing, I mean, there's mystery vibes yeah who has like that fleet of reviewers that that does their product testing for the, their CLF, you know, cute little fuckers. And I think they're actually a Canadian company and they're great. And I bet they are getting taking pictures because wow, they're, they're so innovative. I got one of their, um, for review, we, we reviewed a bunch of different bullet vibes and they have one that looks,
00:30:43
Speaker
I mean, it sounds gross, but it looks like a snail and it's so cute. It's, yeah I mean, they are not lying. They are cute little fuckers for sure. so cute But I hope, I hope that you do that. I hope that you keep like pitching your ideas because I mean, dildo philosophy sounds hilarious, but it's actually pretty important.
00:31:01
Speaker
to people that are trying to be like serious about their sex life. And i mean when you talk about dildos, there's safety issues involved. Absolutely. There are a lot of people that don't understand things like, oh, it's in two different parts. So if it's a cheap piece of garbage, maybe you don't want to use something that has multiple parts.
00:31:20
Speaker
Or, ah you know, bad materials. Like people don't know why jelly rubber is bad or what to watch out for. Or, you know, flared bases and everything that can happen if you don't have a flared base, you know. And I think sometimes those basic things, like sometimes I feel like I'm repeating myself so many times because like how many times have I- But people don't know. Well, exactly. And then I forget like, this is common knowledge for us.
00:31:48
Speaker
right We don't even think about those things, but for other people, the they're revelations. Those revelations can keep them safe, keep them healthy, keep them happy, keep them feeling positive about you know how they're unpacking and moving through sex and their sexuality. like so yeah like Dildo philosophy sounds nuts, but it's putting thought behind products.
00:32:14
Speaker
and i mean products also I think being like the things that we write the you know the the projects that we produce you know the more we're sort of thinking about that and trying to focus on or at least I do I try and focus on like a very greater good kind of field with everything that I do like who is this going to impact how can I do that in a way that's positive without taking away from anything else and how can I represent everything fairly those are kind of my big questions totally
00:32:45
Speaker
Well, and one of the biggest parts of that, to to my mind, is removing shame from things. And I'll tell you that I did a couple years ago, I did, was it was it just last year? Anyway, a series of videos about DIY flashlights and how you could make a pocket pussy from something that you have around your house. um And this was, you know, before the JD Vance rumor just exploded couch fucking and and threw that into the lexicon, because a lot of them are things like, you know you need yeah a glove, a condom, two sponges, and a Pringles can. Let's go, gentlemen. Let's do this thing. And and you prop it up on your couch. And the thing is that like people want to laugh at that. And yeah, it's funny, haha, because sex is inherently funny. you know We giggle about it because people are afraid to talk about it even though everybody does it. It's like a new, wide news, ah
00:33:41
Speaker
local news and they try to talk about weed and they can't do it without laughing because it's just, you know, you you have to laugh when you talk about it. But there are a lot of reasons why people need that information. For one thing, they may not go looking for it. So, you know, or they may not know it's out there.
00:34:02
Speaker
you know, because even YouTube doesn't show people sex videos, you have to go looking for them. That whole series, like, I have teenage boys that are my fans now because they're like, well, because I got a I mean, I you know, you you get you hear from people and I'll hear from total strangers like I tried this and it didn't work. Why didn't it work?
00:34:22
Speaker
like oh you have to microwave it for longer and the thing that you use to make the mold has to be smaller than your penis not bigger right because we did the the one that like it's like a you cornstarch and you use a mug and then you put a hot dog in it to to you know for it to wait for it to get hard and then you can use it but if you think you're being some kind of badass and you use a giant cucumber well that's going to so going to be as enjoyable for you later yeah how does that go you gotta to tie a board around your ass oh I'm so crass but uh
00:35:03
Speaker
But I'd like actually to get into your your diagnosis a little bit. Now I know that you you live with ah anxiety, ah with with some trauma in your past, some PTSD. um I wonder if you could tell us, like as Americans, we have a harder time getting diagnosed because mental health treatment just isn't available. Insurance doesn't not always cover it. you know Doctors, it's very hard to find a doctor that is taking new patients and can take your insurance.
00:35:31
Speaker
is Is that what's going on in Canada, too? It's a bit different here. The way the Canadian health care system works is you can basically be anybody that needs health care. You can walk into a hospital. You can be seen, cared to cared for, and you can leave. And very few bills exist for that.
00:35:57
Speaker
because we are pay paying into universal healthcare, care which is managed both federally and provincially. So different provinces, the equivalent of states, manage that differently, have different funding, et cetera. So my mental health experience has happened in two provinces and they've been very different. So the first province, yeah, it's quite interesting actually. the The first province was British Columbia, so the West Coast,
00:36:27
Speaker
Um, I lived in Vancouver, which is, uh, I mean, people haven't been able to get a family doctor in Vancouver in a really long time. Like there's definitely a shortage of doctors in BC, which is tough.
00:36:43
Speaker
And I was lucky in that I stayed with my family doctor that I had from childhood and sort of grew up with her. She wasn't a great doctor, to be totally honest. Not at all. She had terrible, terrible bedside manner and wasn't the great like greatest listener. But I did find that when it came to issues of mental health,
00:37:13
Speaker
there it was always available you didn't have to go looking for it like if you how do i explain this better like if you went in for something completely unrelated to your mental health and through the conversation with your doctor you started talking about things that were more mental health phil they They'll go there with you. It isn't really like you're not constantly getting referred out somewhere else. GPs are are willing and able to start that process with you. So ah she started that process with me. And I didn't start taking any medication for mental health and mental illness until 2017. Actually, sorry, late 2016.
00:38:02
Speaker
And how old were you for that? Pardon me. How old were you? Oh, mid thirties, 35, 57, anything like that. And it was really interesting because I was not particularly willing at first to go the route of medication. How come? Uh, the beliefs of my parents primarily, um, I had really been raised with a lot of like looking back, like really, really fucked up views on health and wellness and bodies and all those things. And I think mental health medication was seen as something for crazy people or for people who just kind of weren't strong enough or smart enough to push through, ahha right? That sort of,
00:38:59
Speaker
I mean, I don't want to be all boomers, but I mean, they're boomers, right? is It's a different way of- No, no. And that's the thing that like, there is the, yeah, that that like suffering is good for you and feeling like shit makes you stronger. and And that's why it's okay to be mean to people because you're toughening them up. And yeah, it's very toxic mindset. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I, you know, there had just been many times growing up where, you know, I'd heard them or seen them speak about other people who were you know, who took medications, like there's that movie in the 90s, Prozac Nation, early 2000s, and I just remember the litany of, you know, the kind of person who would do who would take Prozac, who you'd have to be to take antidepressants, what that would mean about you as a person, like how screwed up you must be, how
00:39:55
Speaker
Well, and there are people that feel that way about therapy in general. For sure. Not only is it admitting defeat, but that it means there's something wrong with you that you have to, you know, admit that you need, like it's AA or something. Like you have to say, i'm I'm bad. I'm broken. Please fix me. Yeah. And that you have to like label yourself with it. You have to be like, Oh, I'm one of those. I'm one of them. And you know, so that stigma's heavy shit, right? And that was really,
00:40:23
Speaker
I think I'd always kind of heard that in the back of my head. And I also, I did know people who had taken antidepressants and had a really hard time with them, like really felt, you know, like really numb and like they lost their personality and they didn't kind of know who they were anymore. And other people were, you know, made uncomfortable by those changes in them. And, you know, just, it starts to become a lot of static that you kind of go like, I don't want that.
00:40:53
Speaker
I, maybe I don't feel that bad. Cause that sounds worse. Being that person would be worse. But you changed your mind about that. Or I guess you, you came to another understanding. i did and more It was a really interesting moment and I remember it very specifically because my doctor who was not, like I said, not such a great doctor, but in this moment she did, I think she did the right thing and somehow it hit like it just landed for me.
00:41:23
Speaker
We were talking about mood and energy and she was sort of, I don't know if she could kind of tell or whatever ah whatever I was in there talking to her about, sort of tipped her off. And we were talking a bit about energy and mood and sort of managing the ups and downs. And she said, well, what would it be like? Like that doesn't sound totally ideal. Like what would it be like? What's your ideal? Like what what would good be? If you're not feeling great right now,
00:41:54
Speaker
What would good be? And I said, well, I mean, i I'd be happy. What does that feel like? Well, first of all, yes. And then she said, happy is only one emotion. And the goal should never be to only feel one thing. Like living your life is about feeling the good things and the bad things.
00:42:20
Speaker
but you don't have to do that to your own detriment. And that idea of simply just not chasing happiness and just opening up to the idea that like, A, your existence, not to mention just the realities of the chemical human brain, we can't be happy all the time. So of course, why is that the goal?
00:42:47
Speaker
And all that shame and all that stigma and all those words that I had like digested from my parents kind of fell into place and I could see them for what they were. Cause I was like, why, yeah, why, why do I, why is happy the only goal? And there's so much other stuff to feel, to think, to experience, to be,
00:43:14
Speaker
you know, a part of and happiness is certainly not all of it. And happiness within itself is totally nuanced. So she and I had this really interesting kind of talk about ideals versus realities and how adjusting expectations can actually put you in a much more comfortable place. But if you're always seeking happy, you're unlikely to find comfortable. And so she sort of explained how SSRIs work.
00:43:44
Speaker
She drew me a cute little diagram of synapses and, you know, Sarah. I'm i'm familiar with that diagram. I've literally redrawn that diagram to explain to other people. It's a great analogy. But, you know, she showed me sort of how it worked, what it meant, what it could do. And she just sort of said, like, are you are you open? Because I feel like you're a good candidate.
00:44:15
Speaker
for this particular drug um and you know if you're interested in seeing if it makes you feel different or better or just neutral even getting to zero like let's just get you out of the negatives right and I tried it I was like well if I hate it can I stop and she said yeah you know stopping is a bit tricky it takes a little while but you know like if you're willing to give it six months to see how you feel with this you might find it's really different and You know, I just, I took the leap and it was not perfect. It took, um, took a couple of years to get that cocktail totally balanced and to a place where it really worked. What was interesting though, is when I moved out of British Columbia, where that doctor was to Alberta, where I am now and how vastly different my experience with mental health was here.
00:45:14
Speaker
Because in BC, I found it was there, if you wanted it, it wasn't hard to find. But here, as soon as I connected with a doctor, like as soon as I found a family doctor, she was all over it. And wow and like I don't live in a big city. like There's only about 25,000 people in this town. And we have an urgent care that has an entire mental health and addictions facility.
00:45:43
Speaker
wow yeah so that's amazing no cost no cost so for the next five years i went to therapy every week didn't pay a cent and between my doctor and my therapist well i was seeing a therapist a psychiatrist and my family doctor and my family doctor was really a fan of my psychiatrist being the prescriber she was like look This isn't my specialty by any means. Like I know the basics. I could like, this may be a better way. So that was great. The psychiatrist took over the prescribing on that. She ended up retiring. And so now it's back on my GP, which in the end is fine because everything's kind of like from a medication point of view. Yeah. Once you, once you figure it out, you can, yeah, little variations here and there, but I just found it really interesting moving to Alberta, which if you don't know, um,
00:46:41
Speaker
In Canada, we refer to Alberta as the Texas of Canada. It's literally the most conservative province. um It is the least or definitely one of the very least like LGBTQIA plus friendly, lots of conservatives, lots of dare I say rednecks? That's the vibe here. That's the vibe. It's very white. It's very straight. It's very Christian. It's very conservative. I feel compelled to point out that in Texas, it is illegal to own more than six dildos.
00:47:20
Speaker
You can have as many guns as you goddamn want, but it is against the law. Oh, I don't know if you heard, there was a whole protest at, I don't remember which Texas university, but people were open carrying their dildos and it was hilarious. Oh my God, that is. yeah Open carry dildo. I love it. That's why I want six.
00:47:42
Speaker
yeah I don't know how, I think because six is is the beginning of 69 and it's inherently dirty. Yeah, I really don't know how one would arrive at that number. I mean, I have small hands. I don't even think I could hold six digits all at once. Right?
00:47:57
Speaker
I'm sure it's for parties. One thing I do want to bring up though with regard to medication is I was waiting for you to say something that you in fact did not say because what convinces a lot of people to give psychiatric medications a try is the concept that mental health is the only time that people will say things like, if you're if you know you're giving up or you're not trying and that's why you're using medication. you know No one says to a diabetic, well, look, you could probably control your insulin if you applied yourself because no, you need medication. You don't tell someone with a broken leg, well, maybe if you were a little tougher, you wouldn't need those crutches. Come on, man. Why are you giving up on yourself? Right, right.
00:48:45
Speaker
so So that that is what I was waiting for. And it's like both surprising and impressive that you didn't even require that to to take the leap to to get medication. So was your initial diagnosis accurate? Because it sounds like you needed to tweak your meds after a time, but that can happen with an accurate or an inaccurate diagnosis either way. Like I was initially it. another I was diagnosed with ah depression. Yeah, same. When in fact I have, I'm i'm bipolar one. Right. So i they gave me well butrin, which is a stimulant. And it sent me into a manic episode. And it was terrible. And it was much, much worse than what I had already been going through. um What was your experience like? Yeah, my first my first drug was Zoloft. And I still take it. I take it in a very different dose than I did in the beginning.
00:49:40
Speaker
Um, much less now, but yeah, the, that sort of first meeting with my doctor when she, you know, drew me the diagram and kind of broke it all down for me. I remember leaving that appointment and going, did I just get diagnosed with something? Like not knowing what it took to be diagnosed or if she had made a diagnosis, she certainly hadn't said, I am diagnosing you thus.
00:50:10
Speaker
Um, but we had talked about depression, generalized depression. And then as a bit of time went on and there were more of those conversations and pretty much directly after getting medicated, I started going back to therapy. I hadn't been in therapy since I was in my early twenties, late teens. And so I immediately started going back to therapy, found a new therapist. He was so amazing. Really wish I.
00:50:39
Speaker
could have just taken him with me when I moved to provinces. He was amazing. But um yeah, it was Zoloft, ah quite a high dose. And I didn't love it at first. It was, I definitely felt altered.
00:50:58
Speaker
um But you know, as someone who does recreational drugs too, I wasn't, you know, very necessarily afraid of that but I was very aware like i I could feel it but I could feel the good and the bad I could feel you know how it was making some things easier and I could feel how some things weren't changing so it you know as I think it should be it became an ongoing conversation you know between my therapist and my doctor at the time um when I moved I to Alberta and change doctors, change therapists, and the psychiatrists. That's when things got a bit more diagnostic. In part because I, at the time, i I wasn't looking for a diagnosis in the sense of, you know, label me so I have an an excuse for why things are how they are. But I wanted some definitive terms because I wanted to be able to walk away and go and read about it.
00:51:53
Speaker
Like I wanted to know what, what I was actually dealing with and what that looks like kind of on the books, you know, knowing my experience as my own, but like, you know, Different mental illnesses appear very differently. Like, you know, you can't compare like, you know,
00:52:10
Speaker
Mild anxiety with schizophrenia. oh They're not the same at all if you're told you have well and they present differently at different times too because i'm i'm sure when I was diagnosed with depression It's because I was presenting as depressed. I mean, I I don't think they made that up out of nowhere but also I think If you have a new doctor or you have a doctor who doesn't listen to women Which was something that I went through a lot. They may not hear you when you explain what's happening and that can lead to so many bad things. I mean, not just misdiagnosis and misprescribing inappropriate medications or keeping people on medications when they're telling you, no, these side effects are not work. I took a medication once, I went to sleep, I woke up and I thought that it was five years previous and I started getting ready to for a job that I had not had in years.
00:53:08
Speaker
wow and It scared the shit out of my husband because I'm like, where is my blockbuster shirt? Where is it? He's like you don't work at mar fuster anymore There are no blockbusters, what are you saying?
00:53:21
Speaker
yeah the irony of it being but that right i yeah Right, yeah, I guess I'll go to burger chef next um But ah so You are a writer, so you work from home. um I know that that is ah that's pretty common with a lot of neurodivergent people, but also people with anxiety and agoraphobia. is that Was that like a joyful convergence for you, or is that something but like ah a place where you landed? Oh, not joyful, no. Really hard to accept, I would say.
00:54:00
Speaker
um yeah so the the i'm I would say when I look back at my life, I would say I have always had anxiety and I've always had depression as far as back as I can remember. And there were a lot of behaviors as a child, as a teen, that nobody recognized as those things. And I didn't recognize as those things. But when I look at them now, I'm like, oh, but that's just a different version of the same thing like the same coping mechanisms I have now. They just look a bit different.
00:54:33
Speaker
so I'm quite sure my mental illness journey has basically been from day one. But when I think about like living with mental illness, I'm using big air quotes when I say that, I kind of track that from like 2017 to now. Because that's when I that's when there was medical intervention. That's when um You know, I had a major change in jobs and career at a job I'd been at for more than a decade. um I left as a result of mental illness. And basically, I was at a point where I was burning out and breaking down and everyone around me could see it and I could not. And I had no idea. And it took until my
00:55:25
Speaker
manager, my boss at the time said on a Friday afternoon, I don't think you should come back on Monday. I think you should have a long weekend. And I went, Oh God, no, I've got all this stuff to do. And and like Monday, blah, blah, blah. And we've got the such and such. And I'm doing the other thing and then this and that. And she went, yeah, I'm kind of thinking maybe next week is maybe just take. And she was very gently saying, you, you can't, you can't. And I couldn't see it.
00:55:54
Speaker
All I could see was my responsibilities, my deliverables, the sort of sunk cost fallacy idea of like how much work I'd put into something. I had this like right we were traveling that week. I had a huge presentation. I was doing this. I had built this workshop for, you know, a group of leaders in the company. And it was like, I just, I couldn't hear her saying this to me.
00:56:21
Speaker
And yeah, that's got to stay. Oh my goodness. It stung later when I finally could hear it, but even in that, that whole meeting, like she convinced me to take a long weekend, but I was sure I was coming back on Tuesday. I'm sure like, why wouldn't I? And frankly, I thought she was a bit nuts for thinking I needed, like I was so, I was not well. And when I look back at it, I can see the people that I was working with, I can see friends, I can see,
00:56:51
Speaker
Partners I can and I mean I've talked to friends and partners about it But like I can see how even in that sort of corporate environment it I'd started to really kind of fall apart and I knew that I was a bit anxious and I was a bit tightly wound about a bunch of things I knew I was working too much and but it was always that kind of like oh well like I just gotta to kind of just gotta i get through the second quarter You know, I just gotta get to just gotta push just gotta push through and and And it's interesting because it sounds like you had a ah pretty good support network at work that people were paying attention and were aware that something was off with you, but it it doesn't sound like anybody brought it up to you until it reached like a crisis point.
00:57:36
Speaker
Yes, and I just I kind of want to talk about that a little bit because it it sort of demonstrates how well-meaning people can really drop the ball on that sort of thing. Now, obviously, it's not your your co-workers responsibility to address your issues, but I think that ah In a lot of cases we see someone struggling and we want to talk about it but we don't even know if it's appropriate to approach you know i do i do this show my show is the mentally odd cast and we talk to people who are neuro divergent and there are people that i want to have on.
00:58:14
Speaker
that like I can tell that they're probably neurodivergent, but they might not know. And I haven't really found a graceful way to say, hey man, let's talk about all that stuff that you aren't aware of. But that's the thing is that even though you know I may have a great relationship with someone, a great friendship, it doesn't necessarily mean that I would be comfortable bringing it up or that they would be receptive to me bringing it up. absolutely And that's something that like you know we we talk a lot about awareness and what we do in our sex writing.
00:58:51
Speaker
That really needs to be something that is more, you know, in the mental health community and in society in general, we need to do better. We need to do better checking in with each other. And and just like, cause I'm actually of the opinion that people should get a yearly mental health exam the way that you would get a physical just to check in and be like, how are you sleeping? How are you, you know, how's your, your anxiety? How's your anger levels?
00:59:18
Speaker
you know And just take a minute and check in and just doing that the littlest bit and raising self-awareness that much, I think could have a profound impact on that. And then people would less frequently get into situations where they're just not seeing it. you know Because if if you're having a big problem and you're not seeing it,
00:59:39
Speaker
It's probably because you are so hyper competent in other areas that your focus is such, you know, you have a laser focus on everything you need to do and then anything else falls by the wayside. And when one of those things is your mental health, yeah, eventually that's, I mean, I, I just, I mean, I ended up in a mental hospital, like a straight up like, okay, you're going to be on the third floor. dot da du
01:00:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think for me the, I agree with you, certainly was not their responsibility to identify and deal with what I was going through. um I think a lot of that with this particular group of people, the role that I played in the in the company sort of positioned me in such a way that I was the person that people came to when things weren't working for them professionally, personally. So I, it's sort of like how you maybe don't think about like your doctor or your therapist needing to go to a doctor or a therapist. You know what I mean? Like you're going to like, Oh, the person yeah knows how to fix everybody else. They don't have problems.
01:01:01
Speaker
But the reality was I was putting all of my eggs in everybody else's basket, had done absolutely no self-care or self inventory in a really long time because I was way too caught up in the work that I was doing and how in how much, frankly, how much it became my identity. And so when I took, I was convinced to take a leave of absence Very gently that, and I can't say enough how kind everyone was. I was very gently encouraged to take a leave of absence, which by the time we had that conversation, it was maybe the third, fourth, fifth conversation after that long weekend. And it was starting to sink in for me, just how how far out of orbit I was. And was that your last job, like out in the work world?
01:01:55
Speaker
So my identity was so closely tied to that role. And I had worked in that role in that company for so long that when I no longer had that place to go to every day, and I no longer had that sort of hat to put on, I had no fucking idea who I was. And the only thing that I felt like I was left with, that felt real, that felt true,
01:02:23
Speaker
that felt actually like something I could tangibly see was my trauma and my mental illness. And at that point, there was nothing for me to do but confront it and start working.
01:02:45
Speaker
and start working through it because I didn't have a job. I was not able to have a job. And my doctor very clearly said like, do not take this as like a jumping off point to go start doing something radical and get yourself back into something like you need to rest. Hard to hear, really hard to hear. Eventually started hearing, found that great therapist luck of the draw that he was so great. um But he really was incredible. And he really helped me very quickly identify that my sense of identity and self was so caught up in my job and what I was doing for other people. And that that was a good place to start doing not only some exploration, but a lot of rebuilding. And that's when as more came out, as we talked about,
01:03:38
Speaker
more trauma, more history, more past, more, I mean, he tried to talk about what did I think the future would look like. I had no idea. I couldn't, I wasn't even present. It wasn't even that I couldn't look forward. I i wasn't even present. I wasn't even in the now. I was just, I was out of it completely. And So very intensive therapy and it was CBT, which cognitive behavioral therapy, which I'm sure you're totally well versed in, but ultimately it's like talk therapy, right? And figuring out, you know, what are the bad feelings and how do we feel when we feel them? And how do we transform that feeling into something that's more workable? So that got me to a certain point for sure.
01:04:25
Speaker
Now, a lot of this, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, this ah comes from trauma during your formative years. Definitely. and yeah And stuff that wasn't really examined until much later. And that's, I think I had a pretty solid understanding that what I went through during my formative years was not right, that it was not like deserved. like i had a you know I thought I was a garbage person, but I didn't think I deserved to be like beaten regularly for it. I knew even even in that context that like, oh no, this this shouldn't be. um
01:05:01
Speaker
But does that like do you think that the source of of your trauma, if if indeed that's that's how you you define that, but I mean, does that lead did that lead to a lot of like anger and resentment and did that get in the way of your therapy? I wouldn't say it got in the way. I'd absolutely say it was an active part. you know I think when we're looking at trauma, particularly if we're looking at sexual trauma, which is Um, a lot of what was involved in my formative years. Like I, I grew up with an alcoholic mother and, uh, like a rage addicted narcissistic father. That was the first eight years of my life. Um, my mother also, when I was five had a, quite a severe brain aneurysm that left her, uh, with some
01:05:54
Speaker
And I'll say mild disability in the sense that like she seemed absolutely the same, but there were some things like she lost her short-term memory. She lost a few things that sort of did sort of change her and certainly changed her capacity for being a carer. ah And we'll add poverty as well, poverty and rural living. So isolation.
01:06:22
Speaker
I mean, it's a long list, right? Like there's lots there. And so as that kind of stuff came out of therapy, I started to realize how much, first of all, how much I hadn't dealt with and how much I had invented narratives for myself around those things, I think partly to protect myself, um but also that there were these other layers of narrative that were really a very obvious source of shame, issues of self-esteem, body dysmorphia. I acquired an eating disorder in my teens. like you know So anger and resentment certainly was a part of that landscape and a part of the unpacking.
01:07:19
Speaker
For me, I would actually say that anger and resentment at certain points really fueled my self-work and really fueled my commitment to like not get off my meds, to not stop going to therapy too. You can't see me, but I'm nodding knowingly right along with this. Like, you know what? Fuck you. I will get better just to spite your witness. I'm truly like, fuck you, fucker. You had no right. And you know what? You want to see how fucking amazing I'm going to be in spite of that? you Just you wait. you know But i mean even that, that's not a sustainable source of fuel.
01:07:57
Speaker
you know it yeah It burns hot and then it burns out. oh Exactly. And so I think a big part for me of unpacking was just sort of learning how to modulate all of those things, like how to how to take anger and make it useful. Like as someone who has experienced childhood sexual assault as well as, you know, raped as an adult, it's
01:08:25
Speaker
You know, there's so much talk out there about like, you know, the real piece comes from forgiveness and you know, you've got to go, I cannot say enough how I don't believe in that. And I, I sometimes I get in moods and I throw this one around on threads sometimes just as a single line, because I just have to put it back out into the universe again.
01:08:52
Speaker
I choose to stay angry and I refuse to be afraid.
01:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's that's very reasonable. I mean, I don't forgive anyone who's not sorry. Exactly. you know i mean if if If someone wrongs me, even a very serious wrong, if they come to me with a sincere like acknowledgement of what was done and an apology and a promise to do better and then doing better in the future, completely sure I can let a whole lot of shit go because I'm nuts. Sometimes I will say things that are straight up not cool.
01:09:31
Speaker
two people i love and then later have to go back and be like i'm sorry oh but you know But you I mean, you have to take responsibility for that shit. And if people don't, you know, I mean, there are people in my life that like 30 years has gone by and they're like, well, I don't remember remember you being hit as a child. Well, then you must have gotten hit on the head because the doctors all agree that I was hit as a child. But, you know, ah it it it can be very frustrating while you're trying to work your own shit out.
01:10:05
Speaker
to have people in the background just you know that that noise of like well it wasn't as bad as you're saying I think you're exaggerating oh you want everything to be about you oh let's all pay attention to your feelings or you know whatever the fuck and it's like yeah I get that you feel like the asshole now but a that is earned and be my problem It doesn't have to be like that. You have a million different ways that you could like take responsibility and make amends you're choosing not. Totally. So sorry to get off on a tangent about my own share. No, no, no. And I totally agree. And it actually reminds me of speaking to, I mentioned that a slide deck I made on love bombing. The last page of it, like the second last page is about like, do you think you're being love bombed? Question mark. These are maybe things you want to consider.
01:10:55
Speaker
And then the very last page is, are you the love bomber? Cause there's two sides to that coin, right? There's the receiving, but there's also the realizing that you're the one doing it. And I sat here in this very seat I'm sitting in right now and I sat here and I went, I don't want to put that page in. And then I went, why don't I want to do that? And I went, cause I know I've done this. I know I've been a love bomber.
01:11:25
Speaker
i know i like I literally had spent hours writing this putting this whole thing together and then had to literally look at my own reflection in my goddamn laptop screen and say, you've done that. It's okay that I have. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's sinister or predatory. well Exactly. but yeah it's It's good to be aware of it. and That's part of it is that it's not always sinister and it's not always predatory. I know I've love bombed in the past. i I can't think of a time I've done it in a very long time, but I recognize it as a behavior that I have exhibited and I have done. I also know where I learned that behavior. So for me, I'm like, yeah, okay, absolutely not ideal that I have made this error in my past and I have potentially hurt people with this.
01:12:21
Speaker
But the only way to not do that again is to know that you did it and make a decision not to do it again. And I had to sit there and it took me a while. Like I had to sit in the discomfort of, okay, if I'm going to publish this, I mean, nobody else has, I mean, now everybody knows cause I'm saying it on the podcast, but I mean, putting it on Instagram, nobody was going to know that, you know, I was having a crisis of conscience about some situation in my past with some boyfriend when I was 18 or whatever, like whatever it was.
01:12:52
Speaker
But I still had to do the inventory. Cause like when you're faced with those things, like learning how to look at them and how to take the information in and modulate it in such a way that you are not constantly telling yourself you're a victim and you're not also constantly not telling yourself you're a perpetrator.
01:13:17
Speaker
because victims often fear being the perpetrator. The number of times I've asked therapists, psychiatrists, doctors, if they're sure I'm not a narcissist.
01:13:29
Speaker
ah Are you sure? Are you very sure? Can you tell me? We have talked about this on the show like several times because I absolutely went through the whole like, okay, I know they say that if you question whether or not you're a narcissist that you can't be one, but I know that. I know that. What if I'm just thinking my way around that and I'm actually... Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And it turns out that is incredibly common among people who are intelligent, who self reflect, and who are constantly striving to be better people. So it's actually a great trait to have, even though we're all driving ourselves insane. Oh, it's so uncomfortable. And it's also, you know, it's it's when I see myself and I catch myself sometimes going like, Oh, God, I'm just like my dad.
01:14:23
Speaker
um yeah And that is really uncomfortable. It doesn't feel good. I don't like that. There's, you know, lots of things about him that, you know, I really didn't like or were wrong or bad or challenging. And, you know, so it's not always a nice association to make, but, you know, and I, I don't know that I would recommend people, you know, define themselves by what they're not, but sometimes you've got to, you know, you've just got to say, like,
01:14:52
Speaker
Okay, I may have this long list of things, but I'm not a one of those. And so I can just let that go. Like I can just go, I'm not being a narcissist for thinking of myself instead of somebody else. I'm not being a narcissist by, you know, choosing what makes me feel safe over what would make someone else feel comfortable. yeah But are we raised to that? Absolutely. And as women, I'm extra, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
01:15:21
Speaker
Which I think for me is why like coming back to diagnoses where we, before we both tangented twice, um for me having a, having a term, having something I could look up in the DSM and understand, uh, was important to me. It wasn't at all important to me from the point of view of being like a label, like, well, like, you know, like,
01:15:47
Speaker
I'm an agoraphobic, like I don't walk around telling people that it's not a badge of honor for me, but it's also not a badge of shame, but it's it's a word and that word has meaning and that meaning applies to my life and knowing those things and having language is so empowering in those spaces. well both i think A diagnosis is actionable. that's That's the value in a diagnosis that you say, all right, so we understand what's happening here. Now let's find a solution. And until you know what the actual issue is, even if if that definition changes later or it's it's amended, you know you have bipolar, but guess what? You also have PTSD. Oh, well, great.
01:16:36
Speaker
What do I take for that? Yeah, totally. I mean, I had to really push my psychiatrist to tell me my list of diagnoses. She really didn't want to talk about it with me. And I, you know, I sort of said like, well, why not? Like, why don't you just tell me? And she sort of went, well, you know, you know, I have some concerns that, you know, that, you know,
01:17:01
Speaker
having those terms, you know, you'll overthink it. Basically she was like, you're really neurotic and I don't want you to dig yourself into a hole over this. So like you shouldn't read the DSM for the same reason the hypochondriac shouldn't go on WebMD. This is what she was telling me, yes.
01:17:18
Speaker
I either have a headache or a brain tumor, but I'm not sure which. And there's no in-between. Or so my panic disorder tells me. Right. I either need a nap or a lobotomy. um Right. And I don't have time for either. So in the end, she said, OK, like if you really want to know, I kind of bullied her into it. And it was a longer list than I expected. And I actually kind of um found that funny.
01:17:48
Speaker
And- Did you agree with it? Did you agree with everything on the list? I did, I did. um At that point, so she was pointing to major depressive disorder, when I'll be. okay Generalized anxiety, yep, for sure. like Social anxiety had really crawled in around the time that I had left that job and kind of had that breakdown. Really was intolerant of public spaces, crowds,
01:18:18
Speaker
you know, even over promising socially, like I just didn't have the social battery that I had had before, or that I had convinced myself I had before. I don't think it was ever there. Um, she had question marks at a panic disorder and agoraphobia, little question marks after those. So maybe not a fully baked diagnosis, but it did get fully baked ultimately. And she had CT, CPTSD on there.
01:18:48
Speaker
So those all made sense to me and I was familiar with all of them like I knew what she was talking about when she referred to them. um
01:18:58
Speaker
My question to her was I had questions about do you think that part of the anxiety or the because there was also a little bit of a question around OCD and one of the reasons that she had recommended I stay on Zoloft is that it has a something in it that kind of holds your compulsions at bay a little bit. And she didn't think it was particularly prevalent in my situation, but the that was definitely kind of coming through. And so we had talked a little bit about that. And I had asked if she had any inclinations of ADHD for me, having read about, you know, the fact that, you know, so many women in my generation were never diagnosed, same with autism, right?
01:19:47
Speaker
And she said, no, absolutely not. Definitely not ADHD. And I was like, oh, interesting. Cause like I've done a bunch of the kind of, you know, the checked some boxes and I check quite a few of those boxes. And she said, no, because the H doesn't apply to you. And I said, i say more, like I don't get,
01:20:15
Speaker
Oh, you're being that specific about that. And she essentially said that she didn't think that I completely possessed the ADHD sort of pattern or recipe because I'm overweight, therefore for hyper end couldn't be, couldn't be accurate.
01:20:43
Speaker
First of all, it doesn't even present that way in girls. That's what I said. With girls, it it is a chatterbox is what they call that that, the girl that talks and talks and talks because her mind is going a thousand miles a minute, which like, that is so 100% me. And my mom didn't want me to be tested. so But even if they looked in the 70s, I don't know that they would have caught on that that's what was happening. But even if it's just ADD, I mean, the treatment is is largely the same in terms of everything except medications.
01:21:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And I was just thrown by how she made the leap to like... Well, cause she was my psychiatrist. We'd never, we had, and we'd never really talked about my weight. We'd never talked about well like the genetics at play or the trauma at play or the. Well, exactly. That statement like that says, yeah, it's absolutely making judgments about, I mean, cause I mean, to my ear, when I hear that somebody's saying you must not have hyperactivity disorder because you're overweight. It's saying that overweight people are lazy. They are slothful.
01:21:50
Speaker
they're self indulgent, they're probably eating all kind of crap. yeah You know, it that's, it's so typical and so false. And when a doctor does it, my God, I just want to rage. Well, she was quite near to our retirement. In fact, she retired within less than a year after that conversation. Um, so I don't know if she was just kind of, you know, she was kind of checked out already or, you know, she was just older and had, you know, some really,
01:22:20
Speaker
inaccurate and sort of stayed opinions on things like that. At any rate, it was that one that threw me and I was sort of like, okay, well, I'm great assault now, you know, to everything she's ever said to me, kind of. So right right that was fine. and And when I went back to my um GP about it, cause she of course was always checking in on how are things with, on the mental end and the meds and everything else. And so as my psychiatrist retired,
01:22:49
Speaker
The meds had to go back to my GP, so we got much more into these conversations and she's much more involved. And she said, yeah, from what I understand of ADHD, I'm not surprised you check a ton of the boxes, you know do do you but like do you really feel, like do you feel that there's something amiss enough that we need to like reevaluate all your meds? like Are you thinking you need, because there are a gap here that needs filling.
01:23:19
Speaker
And I explained that no, there wasn't, I was just sort of curious about, you know, I had been curious about that opinion about that particular condition, because I had read about it and sort of gone like, am I am I not? I don't know. And then sort of ultimately gone, I'm not really sure I need the diagnosis, because I'm not really looking to change anything right now. I was just more curious. And it was that conversation that led us into the conversation about Borderline Personality Disorder.
01:23:48
Speaker
And her opinion of my GP was less that she saw me presenting ADHD and more that I was presenting borderline. Now hu at the time I didn't know much of a borderline at all. And I left that appointment with my heart in my stomach. um I mean, i I didn't know enough about it to,
01:24:18
Speaker
to not just hear the words at face value. like It's hard for someone to sit like across from you and tell you you have a disordered personality. Now, I know that's not exactly what that means. like We should be clear about that, but like the impact of that conversation, it was really a hard one for me. It was the first time in all of the mental health sort of journey since 2017 and the medication and all of that, where I had felt like I was up against something that I didn't understand and didn't know if I could overcome or deal with or manage or I didn't even know if what, which one of those things I would be doing. You know, it was just sort of this term that was lobbed out there. And, you know, of course I went away going, obviously I'll look that up and
01:25:11
Speaker
Her recommendation was um instead of CBT, trying DBT. And she suggested in groups. She was like, oh, this such and such clinic has a DBT group therapy session or like Tuesday nights or whatever. And I just looked at her and I was like,
01:25:37
Speaker
I don't even go to the grocery store because I don't want to interact with humans. like yeah I don't think I'm going to take this big, heavy term and just walk into a group of strangers with a new kind of therapy and just start talking about my trauma. Not going to happen. And she said, well, OK, that's fair. Fine. if like From a social point of view, if that feels like too much, um how do you feel about taking a more academic approach, like a workbook?
01:26:06
Speaker
reading, writing, you know, journaling, that sort of thing. Okay. I can do that. there I can do that. I can do that. If there's anything I can do, I can express myself with words. So yes, let's try doing that. And you know, DBT made a huge difference. It made me glad that I'd had the CBT in the sense that that was good for like getting a few things out and connecting some points.
01:26:33
Speaker
But I found that dialectical behavioral therapy definitely helped a lot more. It put a lot more, a I felt like it put a lot more control back in my own hands. um And I started to feel less crazy really fast. Like I started to feel um not like I was more in control of my emotions necessarily, but more like It was okay to have a broad range of emotion. Yeah.
01:27:07
Speaker
You know, because Yeah, I mean, more understanding is going to give you more like understanding of yourself. You know what I mean? Exactly. Like you're more likely to, you know, because one of the things that can be really difficult to parse is whether you're irrationally angry or or depressed, or whether you're reacting appropriately to the situation that you are in. I literally ask myself those questions every day. Well, we kind of have to now. Small things, big things. Like, like, Oh, yeah.
01:27:39
Speaker
Yeah, because on the one hand, maybe I just need a nap and that's why I hate everyone. But on the other hand, if one more person asks me why I don't like Donald Trump, as if I'm making up things in my head. i you know I'm gonna lose my shit. So if we can get back to like, a more fun topic, you're actually starting your own podcast. I am.
01:28:07
Speaker
And I'm so excited. and What's it going to be like? It's going to be great. Well, I assume that. It's going to be great. um I've i landed on a name. Honestly, naming things takes me so long. I get so into like, what does a name mean? What does this name mean? I get very like...
01:28:32
Speaker
conceptual sometimes with myself. So I see brought myself back to earth. I'm going to call it curious passions. Oh, nice. Nice. Because I'm really interested in talking to people about their curious and unusual passions, particularly as they pertain to sex sexuality, sex positivity. I also really Two of the things that I love most about myself and I try to foster most of myself and share the most of myself with others is the fact that I'm passionate about a lot of things. And I really believe in the power of passion. I think it's really important for people to find their passions. I think it's okay for your passions to change, but I think it's a really valuable ah part of ourselves to mine.
01:29:25
Speaker
I also think it's really essential to remain curious as much as, you know, there's a part of me that loves to be the smartest person in the room.
01:29:38
Speaker
I also oh just love learning and I love hearing about other people's experiences and I love having like, I mean, honestly, this conversation has been so resonant and so fulfilling and powerful but that's kind of what I want. It's kind of like what we're doing right now, like the unpacking, the talking about the stuff that's past the stigma, that's past the labels, that's past the shame, um and just understanding like why people are interested in the things they're interested in. and I have a huge list, um I have a list of 30 people, 30 different episodes that I've already sort of
01:30:17
Speaker
conceptualized in my mind and now I have to track down those people and ask them if they'll join me. But you know it's stuff from you know ah sex toy designers that I know to um like people who are really doing tons of work in the non-monogamy and polyamory communities and expressing all of that and you know what it takes to move through that information. That's such a really challenging and fascinating, but like Really? Did you hit up Laura DiCarlo of polyamory in this economy? Well, Laura, Laura DiCarlo had her own sex toy company. Oh, different Laura.
01:31:00
Speaker
No, I don't think I know. Well, the thing is she did, ah she designed sex toys that are um designed to give blended orgasms. She's very into that like, you know, clit to vag connection. And her toy, one her first design, I think it was the Osei, won an award at a a tech convention, a tech convention that had sex things and had, you know, ah real dolls and stuff like that. But they determined after she won an award,
01:31:29
Speaker
that her product was obscene and they rescinded the award and there was this whole huge uproar about it. who And then they gave her they gave her the award back. It was crazy. It was like this whole like scandal in the tech world. But the thing about Laura DiCarlo is that even though she made great products and everybody loved her stuff,
01:31:50
Speaker
They were not able to stay afloat. like Her company is no more. what i mean As far as I know, she's still designing things and she still holds all of her patents. and i I have only interviewed her like via email. I've never gotten to to sit and speak with her, but she is a fascinating person. yeah so I just wrote her name down.
01:32:11
Speaker
yeah That's great. It's L-O-R-A. I actually did a guest blog for her website a couple years ago, and it was so funny because it was a I wrote her a story about when I was in my 20s, and I was so, so vanilla, and my boyfriend bought me a vibrator as a gift, and I was in like just a panic about, like what does this mean?
01:32:35
Speaker
What does this mean? right Is, is he breaking up with me? Is it snide? Like what, what is happening? And I just, you know, because I was as as a 20 something. I was really vanilla, I was super unsure, and I was autistic and didn't know, and I was always a fat kid, so I was really uncomfortable with my body. And anybody who did show me attention, I knew fat fetishes, and I didn't even understand what that was or what was happening. So I just thought anybody who was hitting on me was making fun of me. So I didn't, I just didn't, I just didn't. You weren't too pleased to receive fat.
01:33:13
Speaker
Right, but but so anyway, so I wrote this whole blog for her and it was it did really well, actually, because it was so funny. And like, you know, when when you diss yourself in a story, people find it endearing. I don't know why. But But yeah, bottom line there, Laura DiCarlo, great person to talk to. And if you're designing sex toys, and she's designing sex toys, goddamn it, get some funding and make a company. i'm I'm declaring it. That's what you have to do. Amazing. That's, I mean, yeah, I mean, obviously, I totally missed the memo and all of that was happening. When did all of that go down?
01:33:50
Speaker
Oh gosh, it was before I got sick. So probably like 2021 because that's when I was writing for, uh, I was doing like a sex tech daily article and that's how I, I followed all of that when that was going on. It was when, uh, real dolls first got haptic technology. So I was following that too. Like, yeah, these cells are going to be so real soon. They're only going to want to be friends with you fellas. So watch out for that. Um,
01:34:17
Speaker
Oh, I saw a headline recently. I did not read the article because I was like, no, don't need that in my consciousness right now. yeah i Um, I mean, I'm sure it was somewhat inflammatory, but it was basically saying like, there's this burgeoning trend of men with the real dolls as well as like AI girlfriends and using them as like just an outlet for rage and abuse, like gaining these artificial girlfriends so they can abuse them. I was just like, that's enough internet for today, thanks. Yeah, and honestly, I'm torn on that because of course that's terrible that someone would just need, but like, if that's something you need, if you're that angry all the time, well keep that away from real women. Totally. But yeah, this is it is a scary concept. It's a very scary concept.
01:35:16
Speaker
And I put so much stock in the connection between art and artists that if I love someone's work, not that I was a big ditty fan, but when I love someone's work and that I find out that they're a monstrous person, it impacts me personally. I feel like I've been suckered by them. Yeah, I get that too. Game and JK Rowling, people like that. It's like, no, you tricked me into thinking you were a good person. And I'm just as mad at that as I am about the death of Colin Creeby. Right.
01:35:46
Speaker
you know like it it all impacts me so so on that note i think that it it really makes what sex writers do that much more important because our best defense against that kind of fuckery is information yes absolutely it's knowing how things are supposed to be so you can know that it's wrong when they're not that way so that when you are getting groomed by a thirty five year old man when you're sixteen you don't have to wait until you're twenty eight to realize hey wait a minute that's actually not okay you know we can arm people with the information they need
01:36:26
Speaker
to protect themselves from predators instead of pretending they need to watch out for the drag queens at the library. Oh my god. Don't even get me started. Great. So we're actually near in the end of the interview. So is there anything that that you want to ask me? Because I do like to give guests that opportunity. Absolutely. I think my question, I feel like I may be kind of know an answer, but I'm interested in the specifics. It's like,
01:36:56
Speaker
This stuff is hard sometimes, right? And, you know, you've described, you know, several personal challenges, you know, that make, that take up space in your world already, right? Like neurodivergence, illness, all kinds of things, right? Like, we've only got so much room in, in our noggins for all of it. So,
01:37:19
Speaker
for you what keeps you coming back to this material and keeps you coming back to this world because I know for myself I've certainly had many moments of going like oh maybe I'm just done maybe maybe I just couldn't can't or shouldn't or won't anymore and inevitably I always come back to like I can't stop ah even when I want to stop I feel like I can't and I have a hard time articulating what exactly that compulsion is and I'm curious if you have a similar compulsion of feeling like you know like calling it a calling might be a little bit romanticized but like what you know what I'm doing this because it's hard work it's really hard I
01:38:09
Speaker
Once I've gotten the herdle past the hurdle of convincing myself to remain alive, um the work is just, but like that's what I'm here for. I'm here to to do the work. So yeah, there there is that. Certainly, um that what what am I even here for if I'm not doing the work? like What is the purpose of of me? So I do think that. But um the the bottom line, and and people are going to hate this when I say it,
01:38:37
Speaker
but I don't have within myself the will to remain alive. I don't have it. like i At any point, if if you know there was a deity and they said, like this is it for you, you're going to go to bed tomorrow and you're not going to wake up, I would think about like what I was going to order for my last meal. It wouldn't be like a panic, like, oh my God, I got to do all these things. I have a bucket list, but whatever.
01:39:06
Speaker
um You know, if I don't ever really get to eat a full English breakfast, I'll probably be okay. Cause I've seen lots of videos about it. But the thing is, honestly, 100% I stay alive because I've got a man and he's good to me and it would hurt him if I left him. And I found that out for sure two years ago, because when I got COVID.
01:39:30
Speaker
The, uh, the regular like respiratory symptoms went away, but I was so in pain and, and like physical pain, but also just black hearted depression that didn't go away and didn't go away. And I wasn't eating, but I was taking medication as if I was. So it all just compounded and compounded and compounded. And by the time I was actually passed out and he called an ambulance and they were like working on me and whatever. And.
01:40:00
Speaker
You know, I, I told them to get out. I told them to leave my fucking home and leave me alone. And then I wasn't going to the hospital. And they're like, ma'am, if, if you, if you don't, if you can't get your blood sugar up, cause it was like 33 at that point. So if you can't get your blood sugar up, you're going to slip into a coma and die. And I was like, I heard you get the fuck out of here. And, uh,
01:40:23
Speaker
Yeah, i I made my husband cry and he's a good man. He doesn't deserve that. And that is something that I had said to other people, but I had never said it to myself, which is that if you want people to love you, you have a responsibility to not hurt yourself in front of them. That's a thing. So I wasn't doing that. The only wedding vow I took to my husband was that I would try every day to be the best wife that I could be.
01:40:51
Speaker
to be the wife that he deserved. And goddamn did I drop the ball on that. But that's what I learned. I learned that ah I have a reason to stay alive and it's that guy. And as long as I am alive, there's some stuff that I should be getting done. So I try to you know, do the work that I'd like, even my horror work, you know, not just the sex writing, all of it has messages, all of it has themes, there are reasons to read all of those stories, because they'll make you think about shit. And, you know, that's, that's my purpose, because I didn't have any kids, I can't even have a cat right now. JD Vance would be horrified. um Like, do you even exist? No kids and no cats? My hair's not even blue anymore. um But
01:41:38
Speaker
But yeah, did did I answer your question? Yeah, yeah, I think so. And I mean, I get that. I really get that. I mean, it's. And I also understand why you said, oh, people hate me for saying this. But well, I'm never you're you're never supposed to say that your reason for living comes from any other person. But certainly when a woman is saying it about a man, there are so many societal implications of all that what you're saying.
01:42:07
Speaker
That isn't what you're saying. no you know Yeah, and I definitely hear that. i I feel like I relate in the sense that there was definitely sort of a tipping point and in my experience too, where I had to finally just have the sobering and non-self-indulgent conversation with myself that if I did,
01:42:37
Speaker
exit stage right off this mortal coil. Sure, maybe I'm on to better and greater things, but I'm leaving behind a lot of people that, you know, would be really affected by that. And not to say the whole world will weep for me, but like, you know, I have people in my life that care about me and I don't want to do that. And people that would take it personally. Yeah, people who would feel they had maybe failed me or people, you know, all kinds of things that I wouldn't be here to correct and and say, no, no, no, that's not how it works. You know, so I totally get it. I totally get that. And, and honestly, I really believe like, I don't know, whatever keeps the lights on, right? Like, if that's, if that's your reason, that's your reason. And if one day it's no longer your reason, that's your choice too. Right? It's,
01:43:34
Speaker
It doesn't all have to be perfect to be good. Yep. That, yeah, I mean, I wholeheartedly agree. And that is why it is time for the Mad Lib because i it is my favorite. It's my, well, I guess, I don't know if it's my favorite part of the show because we do the horror movie question at the beginning, but I love Mad Libs. I actually need to reach out to Mad Libs because I realized a couple of weeks ago we had someone on the show who used a them ah pronouns and Mad Libs not really caught up with that yet. They're there're still,
01:44:07
Speaker
still pretty ah binary there so see the thing is I need to contact them and talk to them about it but I also don't know if it's legal for me to do Mad Libs on my show so I might end up getting busted for being an ally and that won't be fair! I mean you just start calling them Rad Libs or something and... No I'm using an actual Mad Lib book here so...
01:44:30
Speaker
Well, don't tell them that. right and And on that note, I need one, two, three, four, five, edge six adjectives. My goodness, that's a lot. That's a lot of describing.
01:44:45
Speaker
OK, how about loud, sparkly, wet, cavernous, rigid,
01:45:00
Speaker
Smooth, was that six or five? I think that's all of them. Okay. All right. So now I need adverbs. I need one, two, three adverbs.
01:45:18
Speaker
Uh, running? Oh, geez. Am I getting my adverbs right or wrong? Just tell me. I'll be embarrassed. It's okay. ah Well adverbs are the ones that end in like L-Y. Oh the L-Y is not the I-N-G. See, I had one with the other. Yeah, those are gerunds. Right. Oh, gerunds, yes. Okay, sorry. So, uh... Quickly.
01:45:45
Speaker
How many of these do we need? Three or four? Three, I think. um So, quickly. Hotly. a very unused word. Okay. Oh,
01:46:03
Speaker
oh wow. Why is this so hard? Because you're smart and you want to use good words, you feel in the pressure. I should just do something easy.
01:46:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's always hardest for writers to do Mad Libs because they feel pressure to use good words. But you know, I cut out the long pauses in post, so it's cool. Okay, good. Because there's gonna be a few. Quickly, hotly, and surreptitiously.
01:46:32
Speaker
Or is that an adjective? I'll say it's both. I took the time to spell it, so I'm using it. Okay, we need some nouns. One, two, three, four, five singular nouns.
01:46:44
Speaker
Uh, singular nouns, apple,
01:46:51
Speaker
um, Hawaii plant and pumpkin. One more. Nope. Two more. Two more singular nouns. Oh, um, let's have a cat and a vampire.
01:47:13
Speaker
All right, somehow I need one more adverb. Oh, um sweetly. All right, I need a number. Seven. And a part of the body plural. Fingers.
01:47:30
Speaker
All right, actually wait, I need one more plural noun, but I actually just wrote bats because I saw a bat outside and it's a weird time of day for that. So it's probably auspicious somehow. I'm totally into bats and I almost said bat instead of cat. So let's, let's go with this. All right. Well, that works. Okay, cool. So this is called light as a feather.
01:47:51
Speaker
Oh, come on microphone. My microphone keeps falling down. You were cost $14. How are you doing that? um All right. Another loud sleepover game is sparkly as a feather cavernous as a board. Okay. You'll need a wet volunteer to lie down on the apple with her bats closed and her fingers folded across her chest.
01:48:20
Speaker
Tell her to breathe quickly and remain rigid and relaxed. Rigid and relaxed? Then, right? Then, gather in a circle around her placing seven fingers underneath her Hawaii as you repeat the phrase, light as a plant, stiff as a pumpkin. On the count of three, hotly lift her off the cat and raise her to the vampire.
01:48:48
Speaker
Then lower her down sweetly. Your, uh, sir, wait, okay. Damn it. Anyway, you'll be ah completely amazed at this smooth feet. Oh, that was, that was, that was something. Well, older women and pajama parties, come on now. That's, that's a mad lib for the ages for sure. Yes, absolutely.
01:49:17
Speaker
Lift her off the cat. And up to the vampire.
01:49:23
Speaker
Awesome. Violet, I am so glad that you could be here and that we could have this conversation. It was so much fun. It really was. I had the best time. i I appreciate you so much for this. Thank you. Right on. So, hey, we will see everybody next week because that's what we do. Be sure to find us on Ko-fi and give us money because this ain't cheap. Bye, everyone.