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

so sorry to hear about your brother

I am so sorry your brother has been dealt this shitty hand in life. I am glad you are expressing your grief in a healthy way even though it really sucks. Wishing your family peace during this difficult time. Keep feeling your feelings & using your words elephant shit.

Can't sleep because today I said casualty when I meant causality and so the last couple of hours have been spent staring at the ceiling and hating myself. Even though I caught it and corrected myself as soon as it happened, and honestly, even if I hadn't, how is this possibly something to obsessive over. jfc.


also....I guess I'm back updating this again. Will see. Sometimes I'm not sure if maybe it makes things worse when I write them down.

Welcome back. I obsess over things I've said all the time. Sometimes, things will pop into my head that I said or did years ago and I will lay there and keep replaying it in my head rather than sleep. I guess it's some form of perfectionist torture.

Logically I know no one remembers things I've said even hours later except me, yet I have the very same problem. 3 AM seems to be when my brain likes to regurgitate my "greatest hits of awkwardness"

So. A good thing happened.

A few weeks back a friend of mine got to interview my favorite actor in the world (Ben Mendelsohn) for his podcast. The episode was a joy to listen to and I also loved hearing my friend talk about the experience. I didn't even feel jealous (which surprised me a little) just pure excitement for my friend.

Cut to earlier this week. I get a package in the mail. My friend had Ben sign an issue of a Star Wars comic for me. It's personalized and everything. I had no idea it was coming, and I was just stunned. I am normally not one to care about autographs, but this is my FAVORITE ACTOR and it's so freaking cool.

But I realized that what made me happy wasn't just the signed comic, but that my friend would even think to do this for me, especially amidst with own excitement/stress over this interview. And then that he kept it a total surprise...It meant a lot.

I sometimes have a hard time believing that people actually care about me rather than just tolerate my presence. This was a really good reminder that I have people who love me and think about me.

That's cool.

I do a podcast with a friend of mine. While it's mostly about Star Wars, through a chain of events, I felt compelled during our last recording to talk about a previous emotionally manipulative possibly abusive relationship I was in. It's the first time that I've ever really talked about it outloud. The episode goes up tonight and I'm feeling fairly anxious.

Good luck "E is for Elephant"! Congratulations on your emotional honesty.

Bravo on sharing your authentic struggles in a public way. I'm a podcaster, too, mostly nerd topics. Who isn't these days, right?
We've been podcasting for just over a year and the feedback is that the personal and authentic stories really make the show special. We are, I'm sad to say, planning an episode on grief in the wake of my father-in-law's passing on April 1st.
It's always scary to publish something that's real but the stuff that's not real doesn't matter.