YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

My God that was a powerful episode. Lauren was incredibly honest and forthcoming.

Yes, this was one of my favorite episodes, I got a lot out of this. Actually these last three have been stellar. Also on second listens to the ones with Ian and Oliver.

Lauren Ashley Bishop said many things that really resonated with me, here are the three that were the biggest takeaways. When she said that her therapist in New Mexico told her she had moved from hopelessness into apathy, that resonates with me and what I feel I'm going through right now. I've been in that mode for the last few months, and her saying that put into words something that I've been meaning to bring up to my therapist but I didn't know how, so I'll bring that up next session. I didn't know apathy was past hopelesness. But the way Lauren explained it it makes total sense.

And then when she was talking about being asked what she liked, but she didn't know what she liked, because she had always, in school for example, just liked whatever people around her at the time liked, so they could all like the same things and she would be accepted ultimately by everybody. Oh my God I did that, and to this day I have a super limited range of interests because as a kid I wasn't really genuinely interested in anything other than being accepted, because that would have taken away all the pain, and made everything OK so that I could have moved on. And, I'm wondering if there's a connection between that and the apathy I have today. There's also an element of people pleasing in that, and so there could be yet another connection there. I'm convinced all these trauma-born thought patterns feed each other. And I believe if you can create new neural pathways that disable one you can slow down the energy to others.

Also where Lauren talked about the codependent relationship with her mom, that sounded to me, just me personally, as a form of enmeshment. And I've heard Dr. Cheryl Arutt talk about the topic of enmeshment on another show, and doing a quick google I can see there's a lot of stuff there. I wish I could remember more about it, but it's a form of trauma in and of itself. One byproduct of enmeshment is the enmeshed child, as an adult, can walk into a room and read it instantly, no matter who's in there, they can tell if the vibe is tense, happy, sad, etc. Wish I could remember more, but that's for yet another google quest before my next therapy session too.

Paul, if you ever decide to expand and add different shows to MentalPod and create a mental health podcast network, I would love it if Lauren could host a regular show.

Technically, I can cry. But I often find myself in circumstances (especially this last year since I started experiencing prolonged sadness and persistent & show stopping negative thoughts) where I want to cry, feel it kind of welling up, but it never comes out. Instead, some hard shell forms around my emotions and nothing comes out. I'm like the fuckin' tin man here. Most disturbingly part? I've noticed it more so when interacting with my girlfriend of 10 years. Instead of empathy or sympathy ... I just shut down.