YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin
Postings on this site are NOT by mental health professionals, rather the opinions & experiences of a community of regular people. If you feel like you are going to hurt yourself or others PLEASE call Suicide Prevention at 1-800-273-8255
All I heard here was an addict trading one addiction for another.
Amen! (If you'll pardon the irony.)
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I was raised in a very poor, rural part of West Virginia. There was never much there in the way of opportunity or recreation even when I was a child, and it's only gotten worse in the intervening years. When I tell people about the area, here's what I usually say: "People back there are high on one of two things—drugs (oxycodone and meth) or Jesus." It honestly seems to me that the latter is every bit as addictive as the former, with the end result of both being the same: no measurable improvement to anyone's life, just a false feeling of comfort.
BTW, I just started listening to the show about a month ago, and I'm really enjoying it. Keep up the great work, Paul! I love your brutal honesty and refusal to candy-coat the uglier parts of life.
I've listened to ALL of the MIHH podcasts, and this is the first one that ever provoked a really negative reaction in me. I got turned off right at the beginning when Adrienne was getting all high-and-mighty and worked up about how damaging it was to be having sex at age 14 or 15, and things just took a nosedive for me at the end when she was discussing her religious revelations. Just...a strange interview. I felt no empathy towards her at all, I just felt kind of annoyed and irritated by her abrupt manner and holier-than-thou attitude.
Absolutely!! The way the guest kept insisting that NO 15 YEAR OLDS ON EARTH are both having sex and being healthy made me roll my eyes so hard. (Ever heard of Europe, for one thing? High school boyfriend/girlfriend sleepovers are totally normal in some countries.)
Adrienne - just because you had an unhealthy relationship with sex as a teenager and adult doesn't mean everyone else does/did. Please stop trying to convince other people of that, because it's damaging and possibly confusing to younger listeners of the podcast.
I heard this podcast today and it hit home hard. I married a male version of Adrienne. He'd had the devastating experience of discovering his best friend sleeping with his fiance and was still getting over that when we met. I thought (and so did he) that THAT would NEVER happen to us, the pain and cost of betrayal seared into his soul forever. However, our 16 year marriage is ending (along with a couple of other marriages) due to exactly that--and I've come to understand it is an addiction. The discovery of it (sadly, not the confession of it) and the infinite lies, shame, denial, the sheer volume of it, the crazymaking--has induced PTSD in me. Though he is two years sober and believes he is "not that guy" anymore, he is light years away from the self honesty Adrienne has achieved. She could not have shared what she did, taking responsibility and acknowledging her failure and the harm she has done, if she had not done a f* boatload of hard work. My husband still has excuses for everything he's done. I think if he really looked at the harm he's done it would destroy him because underneath the behavior he does have a heart and a conscience. He doesn't have that courage yet.
Hearing Adrienne's story helped because as I've had to let go to seek my own wholeness, her story reassures me God can show him what losing his family could not. Under all the grief, rage and humiliation of being on the receiving end of this manifestation of brokenness I have come to understand, I, too, am just as broken. It just takes different forms, some people's addictions and failures more obvious or visible than others. When I can grasp this--that I am no better and no worse than him or anyone else--I feel a level of peace. When I can't, I'm consumed by anger, bitterness and an ugly desire for revenge. This is the hard work I have to confront to be whole. We do not live in a vaccuum--our brokenness comes out as harm to others and ourselves in some form or other and there seems to be no other way to get past our defenses and into that ugly truth without experiencing great pain. In that sense, pain can be the gateway to freedom and healing. But I have yet to see anyone, least of all myself, volunteer for the journey.
I've listened to ALL of the MIHH podcasts, and this is the first one that ever provoked a really negative reaction in me. I got turned off right at the beginning when Adrienne was getting all high-and-mighty and worked up about how damaging it was to be having sex at age 14 or 15, and things just took a nosedive for me at the end when she was discussing her religious revelations. Just...a strange interview. I felt no empathy towards her at all, I just felt kind of annoyed and irritated by her abrupt manner and holier-than-thou attitude.
Absolutely!! The way the guest kept insisting that NO 15 YEAR OLDS ON EARTH are both having sex and being healthy made me roll my eyes so hard. (Ever heard of Europe, for one thing? High school boyfriend/girlfriend sleepovers are totally normal in some countries.)
Adrienne - just because you had an unhealthy relationship with sex as a teenager and adult doesn't mean everyone else does/did. Please stop trying to convince other people of that, because it's damaging and possibly confusing to younger listeners of the podcast.
Thanks for saving me the time of listening to the last 90 minutes of the podcast. At first I thought Adrienne was trying to find a way for others to feel bad for her because she was popular and sexually active. Was she trying to flatter Paul by saying that his lonely masturbation was actually the right way to live? Does she not realize that all teenagers are insecure in some way or another? And as she continually avoided answering Paul about why her sexual activity as a teenager was so destructive (it was all consensual and involved parties of similar ages, no one got pregnant, no one was abused, etc.), I kept waiting for some revelation to come up that might explain why she was using revisionist history to apply shame to her activities. But if you're telling me that it's just that she went through a religious conversion, she just becomes one of those hypocritical types who thinks that any fun she might have had when she wasn't religious must be deemed harmful, otherwise it won't fit into their current worldview.
She talks about how, as a 14 and 15-year-old, she had safe, consensual sex that she, furthermore, enjoyed, but then goes on to say how much it "damaged" her, without ever giving an adequate explanation as to how. Maybe I missed the point, but it just sounds like she's just deeply ashamed of her sexuality. One of the reasons she gave was that it was "not real." What does that mean? Should "true love" be a prerequisite to all sexual encounters? News flash: adults, and yes, even teenagers, can explore their sexuality in healthy ways, and it DOESN'T have to have a "good" reason to happen. Why does it matter whether or not you're still with, or still friends with, the person you had sexual experiences with....twenty years later? I shudder to think what teenagers listening to this might have thought.
It was also strange how she realized she wasted much of her life chasing things she thought would make her happy (like marriage or sex), but still thinks she "found it" with god. News flash: the only reason you think god is "the thing" that will make you happy is it's because it's unobtainable. You will spend your whole life chasing it because it's intangible, and it's the chase that makes you happy. Like others said above, she is truly just trading up one addiction for another.
The other reason "god" made her happy is because it's the only thing she's ever given up control to. Sex made her unhappy because she felt she was "giving herself away" to men, which by the way, is a really creepy, misogynistic, and regressive notion. Drugs couldn't make her happy because, well...they're drugs. Group therapy (at first) couldn't make her happy because she felt like a loser, and felt like opening up emotionally was dangerous. "God" is the only thing you can give yourself up to with absolutely no consequences.
It's also pretty ironic that she spent so much time reiterating how sex and drugs "aren't real," but then she finally "cured" herself with god.
I don't want to diminish what she's gone through, but so much of what she said, especially the bits about sex, just left a bad taste in my mouth.
Wow, most of you really disliked this episode. It wasn't my favorite, mostly because Adrienne didn't seem to "get" Paul's humor but I can't call BS on her journey. She seems happy now and that's ultimately what this is all about.
Wow, most of you really disliked this episode. It wasn't my favorite, mostly because Adrienne didn't seem to "get" Paul's humor but I can't call BS on her journey. She seems happy now and that's ultimately what this is all about.
Yeah, in retrospect I think I may have been way too harsh. The main thing that got me was all the sex negativity, and the fact that she points to sex itself (apparently not even negative sexual experiences) as a source to many of her problems. When she talked about "giving away parts of herself" and how it "didn't mean anything" or "wasn't real," it really smacked of Sunday school curriculum, or those Jesus-fueled high school abstinence classes.
I thought it was interesting how Adrienne described acting out as feeling like things were happening to her, even though she was making all the decisions that were destroying her life. But about an hour later, she describes feeling the same way but about the positive decisions she's making.
So she takes responsibility for the negative things that felt external, but she gives over responsibility to God for the positive choices she's made.
Listening to this, I thought it was great that Adrienne is in a better place, but I wasn't convinced that she wasn't just switching addictions. But who am I to judge?
I also agreed with the other poster about how horribly uncomfortably awkward the early discussion about teenage sex was. Adrienne didn't adequately describe how damaged she was, and Paul just came across as a creepy pervert. I'm not convinced that teenage sex was damaging to Adrienne - I think she might be blaming her misbehavior on her teenage experience, and she doesn't make the case. I'm not sure if Adirenne was missing something or if Paul just didn't take the opportunity to ask her the right questions because he was too hung up on the fact that some fifteen year old girls had sex and he didn't get to.
1. She didn't have a very good sense of humour. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but if you know what this podcast is about and what Paul's like, why come on if you're humourless?
2. Her journey to and experience of Christianity. I loathe it when people say they haven't done anything to improve themselves - it's all god. No, it isn't. Also, why is god such a dick that you have to go through all these trials before he reveals himself/comforts you? I hate this version of Xianity.
I also agreed with the other poster about how horribly uncomfortably awkward the early discussion about teenage sex was. Adrienne didn't adequately describe how damaged she was, and Paul just came across as a creepy pervert.
Just adding my two cents, again:
I didn't think Paul was being a creepy pervert. I think he was just being candid about his experience as a teenager, and honestly, any frank discussion of teenage sexuality is bound to be kind of awkward. I don't think it's a creepy dude thing, either. I'm a woman, and I completely relate to his experience.