Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard Episode: Blaise Aguirre (on Overcoming Self-Hatred)
Release Date: February 26, 2025
Host: Dax Shepard
Guest: Dr. Blaise Aguirre, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School

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1. Introduction

In this compelling episode of Armchair Expert, host Dax Shepard engages in a deep and insightful conversation with Dr. Blaise Aguirre, a renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist specializing in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Dr. Aguirre brings over two decades of experience, having treated approximately 5,000 suicidal patients, making him one of the world's foremost experts on BPD.

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2. Guest Background

Dr. Blaise Aguirre introduces himself as a half-Irish, half-Iberian individual who grew up across multiple continents, including South Africa, London, and Spain. His multicultural upbringing has provided him with a unique outsider's perspective, enriching his approach to psychiatry. Dr. Aguirre holds a degree in Anthropology, has been sober for over a decade, and possesses four years of improv training, all of which contribute to his empathetic and effective therapeutic methods.

Notable Quote:
"I wanted to be a philosopher, but you know what they say. How do you get a philosopher off your front porch? Pay for the goddamn pizza."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [04:37]

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3. Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

Dr. Aguirre delves into the intricacies of BPD, distinguishing it from mood disorders. While mood disorders involve discrete episodes of mood changes (e.g., depression or mania) that are relatively stable over time, personality disorders like BPD are characterized by enduring traits that significantly impact an individual's relationships and self-perception.

Notable Quote:
"With personality disorders, there are traits about who you are, the way that you experience yourself in relationship to other people."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [09:47]

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4. Symptoms and Criteria of BPD

Dr. Aguirre outlines the key criteria for diagnosing BPD, emphasizing behaviors such as frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, intense and unstable interpersonal relationships marked by idealization and devaluation, pervasive feelings of emptiness, and recurrent suicidal behavior or self-harm.

Notable Quote:
"The first criteria is frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment... constant texts, constant phone calls, constant seeking of reassurance."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [13:34]

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5. The Spectrum of BPD and Suicidal Ideation

Highlighting the severe correlation between BPD and suicidal ideation, Dr. Aguirre shares that nearly 100% of his patients exhibit suicidal thoughts, with a substantial number having attempted suicide. He likens BPD to a spectrum disorder, where individuals experience varying degrees of emotional intensity and self-destructive behaviors.

Notable Quote:
"I don't remember one that hasn't had suicidal ideation... it's a spectrum disorder."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [09:10]

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6. Treatment Approaches and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Dr. Aguirre emphasizes the importance of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in treating BPD. Unlike other therapies, DBT prioritizes addressing suicidal thoughts and behaviors before delving into underlying issues like relationships or self-perception. This approach ensures that patients develop the necessary skills to manage intense emotions and prevent self-destructive actions.

Notable Quote:
"DBT says until we've addressed suicide and suicidal thinking, none of the rest of therapy makes any sense."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [36:08]

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7. The Role of Self-Hatred in BPD

A significant focus of the episode is on self-hatred and its pivotal role in BPD. Dr. Aguirre explains that self-hatred often goes unaddressed in traditional psychiatric evaluations, yet it is a critical factor leading to suicidal ideation and behavior. Through his experiences, he recognized that self-hatred was a prevalent theme among his patients who succumbed to suicide, prompting him to explore this aspect further.

Notable Quote:
"In terms of the people who tragically took their life, they were expressing self hatred."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [42:05]

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8. Developing the Concept of Self-Hatred

Dr. Aguirre discusses how self-hatred is not inherent but learned through experiences of invalidation and criticism, especially in highly sensitive individuals. He elaborates on how negative labels and traumatic experiences in childhood contribute to a distorted self-image, making self-hatred a deeply ingrained belief.

Notable Quote:
"You weren't born hating yourself. That's the only way in which I was able to break through."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [51:34]

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9. Overcoming Self-Hatred

The journey to overcoming self-hatred involves recognizing that these negative beliefs are learned and can be unlearned. Dr. Aguirre advocates for therapies that help individuals separate their true selves from the self-hatred instilled in them. Techniques include reflective exercises, mindfulness, and challenging the internalized negative narratives.

Notable Quote:
"We are going to bring it up because it is actually impacting your life in terms of your relationship choices, your academic choices, your employment choices, your friendship choices."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [50:48]

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10. Impact of Modern Culture and Social Media

Dr. Aguirre touches upon the detrimental effects of modern culture and social media in perpetuating self-hatred. The constant exposure to unrealistic standards and the bombardment of negative affirmations exacerbate feelings of inadequacy among vulnerable individuals, making the battle against self-hatred even more challenging.

Notable Quote:
"We market to self hatred. So the thing is that people who are at risk are going to be dissatisfied with whatever that is within them."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [62:21]

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11. Book Discussion: "I Hate Myself: Overcome Self-Loathing and Realize Why You're Wrong About You"

Dr. Aguirre's book, co-authored previously with "DBT for Dummies", serves as a comprehensive guide addressing the pervasive issue of self-hatred in individuals with BPD. The book aims to provide both therapists and those with lived experience with the tools to recognize and combat self-loathing, fostering self-compassion and personal growth.

Notable Quote:
"If one person can read the book and say I can see myself differently, then we've done something important."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [72:30]

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12. Personal Reflections and Hope for the Future

The episode concludes with reflections on the importance of addressing self-hatred in both therapeutic settings and personal lives. Dr. Aguirre expresses his hope that his work will inspire further research and provide practical solutions for those struggling with self-loathing, ultimately reducing the tragic outcomes associated with BPD.

Notable Quote:
"Even if the book prompts more research, more thinking about it, but more than anything else. To think that somebody who is struggling with this feels that they're so burdensome that the only way is out."
— Dr. Blaise Aguirre [72:11]

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Conclusion

This episode of Armchair Expert offers an in-depth exploration of Borderline Personality Disorder and the profound impact of self-hatred on individuals' lives. Through Dr. Blaise Aguirre's expertise and compassionate insights, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of BPD and the critical need for effective therapeutic interventions. The discussion not only sheds light on the challenges faced by those with BPD but also provides hope and actionable strategies for overcoming self-loathing.

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Note: This summary excludes promotional content, advertisements, and non-relevant sections to focus solely on the substantive discussion between Dax Shepard and Dr. Blaise Aguirre.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondri plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman, and I want to quickly say that Our guest is Dr. Blaze Aguera A Giri Blaze Aguirre.

[Monica Padman]

Aguirre.

[Dax Shepard]

You say it. I'm just. I'm gonna own it. I'm having a very hard time pronouncing Blaze's last name because it's a G, U, I, R, R, E. And Wobby Wab was nice enough to write it out phonetically for me.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is ah, E, H, gear.

[Monica Padman]

Agira.

[Dax Shepard]

Agira.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. That's a hard one.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a hardy. Yeah, but I'm not a baddie.

[Monica Padman]

No, you're not.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Dr. Blaze, child and adolescent psychiatrist and an assistant professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is one of the world's foremost experts on borderline personality disorder. We've been dying to get an expert on BPD in here. And we finally have. And it was incredibly interesting.

[Monica Padman]

So interesting. We do love a deep dive into a personality trait.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Disorder.

[Dax Shepard]

I have been trying my best to repeat everything he said I tell my entire family almost this whole interview.

[Monica Padman]

You did?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I found Blaze to be incredibly interesting. His primary focus and specialty is he has dealt with 5,000 suicidal patients. And that is a very unique experience for a psychiatrist to have. And so if you want to talk to an expert on this topic, this is the guy.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And it was incredibly informative. And he has a book out again. I've already given away that one copy I read and then I've ordered two more for people I love. I hate myself, overcome self loathing and realize why you're wrong about you. Yeah. This is an incredible topic.

[Monica Padman]

Hopefully we'll help a lot of people.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I think so. And yet another big crazy endorsement for a CBD and dialectical behavioral therapy.

[Monica Padman]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

Yep.

[Monica Padman]

Which we've had on Jenny Tate's. We had on. Was also a DBT specialist.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's pretty amazing stuff. Please enjoy Dr. Blaise Aguirre.

[Monica Padman]

Aguirre.

[Dax Shepard]

Aguirre. Dr. Blaise Aguirrez.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Perfect.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

You will be happy.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

He's an unchanged man.

[Dax Shepard]

Can I start with a question? I'm so embarrassed to ask you. I've never seen your first name.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Blaise, patron saint of throats. So I grew up Catholic.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you Irish?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Half Irish, half Iberian. Aguirre is actually Basque from northern Spain. My mother is actually Spanish. So Blaise is the patron saint of throats. And it's interesting, her name is Isabel and Blaise and Isabel are anagrams.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh wow. Oh sure.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And I was like this with my mom.

[Monica Padman]

That's so sweet.

[Dax Shepard]

And where did you grow up?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I grew up in South Africa.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you did?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Okay, that's a good.

[Monica Padman]

You got a lot going on. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You're high in 67, my friend.

[Monica Padman]

Have you been to San Sebastian?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yes. So in 2011 some Spanish people found me and they said, oh, would you teach dialectical behavior therapy in Spain? I said, yeah, of course I will. But I spoke like an eight year Spain when I was eight and then I said, okay, I'm committed to learning fluent Spanish. So every year I go to Bilbao.

[Dax Shepard]

Home of The Geary Building.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I've been there.

[Dax Shepard]

You've been there?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. We went.

[Dax Shepard]

He was so worldly.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so you grew up till eight in Spain.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I was born in Columbus, Indiana. I left when I was one. We moved to London. My brother was born there. And then from there we moved to Spain. I had four siblings born there.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And then we moved to South Africa, and two siblings were born there. So I'm the eldest of eight born in 4K countries on three continents.

[Dax Shepard]

I can't even begin to guess at what industry would have brought your parents to all those locations.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

My grandfather, Antonio Rodriguez, was the Spanish ambassador in the Kennedy White House.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And they actually grew very close to the Kennedys. So my mother had been the daughter of a diplomat. Her mom had died, and she was the eldest girl, so she sort of took over. Hostess.

[Dax Shepard]

Learn that trade.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. And then my dad was in the US Navy at the time. He was in the Pentagon. And then they met at some official function, and then he started an import and export business.

[Dax Shepard]

I guess those were all seaports. I could have put that together.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

So I could imagine this could do a real number on you, identity wise.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yes and no. I had this mom who was such a profound, loving mainstay. My dad was very conservative, and I identified much more strongly with my mom.

[Dax Shepard]

You were anchored and tethered to her.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. And she was so grounded in her own sense of self. But, I mean, I definitely have seen, even living in the United States, if I'm in little towns where people haven't moved out of those little towns, their identity. Is that so? Having traveled, it's really been interesting. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think it at all gives you a healthy outsider's perspective that you're kind of observant of these places? You go and, wow, there's a different modus operandi here. That's intriguing. What's going. Do you think that could be the seeds of why you find your way to psychology and psychiatry?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I wanted to be a philosopher, but you know what they say. How do you get a philosopher off your front porch? Pay for the goddamn pizza.

[Monica Padman]

That's good. I haven't heard that.

[Dax Shepard]

That took me a second. So not a highly employable skill set.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

A highly employable skill set. It did get me curious about the mind. And then that led me to psychology, which led me to psychiatry. So I went to medical school in South Africa, and then I became an expert in dialectical behavior therapy. So all I do is treat suicidal kids. And I've been doing that since 2007. But then teaching in Jerusalem was different from teaching in Riyadh was different than TE in the uae, different than teaching in South Africa. Teaching in Spain. And looking at identity and pathology through this cultural lens is just really interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

Through all this travel, by the way, obviously you inherited your parents wanderlust if you've been in all these places.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah, I'm actually going to India in two weeks and introducing dbt. We're seeing increasing rates of suicide in Indian youth and whatever we're doing isn't helping. So I'll be there in two weeks and I'll be in Spain in four weeks.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, but throughout this whole time you have helped the position for 25 years at McLean Hospital.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah, I have.

[Dax Shepard]

So we've had a great interest in borderline personality disorder. It comes up occasionally and we've yet to have an expert on. And you've written three or four books about borderline.

[Monica Padman]

We sometimes talk out of school on it.

[Dax Shepard]

We have the thinnest understanding of what the predictable pattern of someone suffering from that is. And we could be completely wrong because we've fucked up OCD a couple times. We've stepped in it. Our colloquial understanding.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, we try to fix those things by having someone who really in the room.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I think we've had about 5,000 patients come through our programs since we opened them in 2007 and I'd say about 70% have had borderline personality disorders.

[Dax Shepard]

So is there an enormous correlation between suicidal ideation or suicide and bpd?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah, very, very high. For the people who come to my unit. I don't remember one that hasn't had suicidal ideation. So I say all those 5,000, they've all had suicidal ideation. A very large percentage have made attempts. Now it's possible that the people who come to my unit are people with very severe forms of bpd. You know, it's like not everybody with asthma ends up in an intensive care unit.

[Dax Shepard]

So it's a spectrum disorder.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. And I think that there's mild to very severe forms, but I think that when you get to the severe forms, almost everybody has suicidal ideation and self destructive behaviors.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so first of all, what is the difference between a mood disorder and a personality disorder?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

So mood disorder, as we think a little bit about it, is you have discrete episodes of mood states, typically either depressed or manic, that last for a certain period of time, 10 days, 2 weeks, and respond typically to treatment such as medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. When you're in that state, there's very little reactivity to that state. So when somebody's depressed, they stay in that state for some period of time. With personality disorders, there are traits about who you are, the way that you experience yourself in relationship to other people. Maybe you're emotionally very intense. Maybe you tend to be reactive to what people say and do, that those personality traits, when activated, interfere with your ability to function. So what's confusing is that say somebody has borderline personality disorder and everything's going fine. To the outside observer, they're just like doing fine, but they're on Instagram and they didn't get invited to a party and they see all their friends at a party and now there's incredible rage, incredible anger, incredible jealousy, envy, and it spikes their emotional state. And in that state, they cannot function. Their relationships begin to be impacted, maybe their work does.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, so that's already revelatory to me because I thought of it as like a status quo. You're in a state of this disorder.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And this is what's interesting. Let's just say that somebody was drunk and walked into the studio and we all walk in independently. We could see that the person is drunk. That state is permanent in that moment. But let's just say it's somebody with borderline personality disorder. And you guys have a good relationship with that person. But I really pissed them off. So then you come and you're chit chatting and everything, and I walk in and suddenly you see this spike of rage. From your perspective, that person seems to be doing fine. But from my perspective, all of a sudden this person's angry and maybe they're devaluing me or very, very upset and you guys are saying what's going on? That state only manifests when there's something either interpersonal or intrapersonal inside their own head that gets triggered.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, is narcissism in a state of flux as well?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

It's interesting that I don't know narcissism as well. And the reason why is because people with narcissism don't tend to come in for therapy.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we had a narcissist expert and she said exactly that. One of the rarest cases to come seek treatment.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, you can't diagnose it really, because.

[Dax Shepard]

Who'S understand it correctly? From the expert we had on, it's like you don't suffer from narcissism the way you suffer from some other.

[Monica Padman]

It's the scariest one because they're in it in such a way that they don't want to feel better.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Maybe I could teach you a thing or two.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, give us a.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

What I'm saying is that's what the narcissist will say. But the most common comorbidity with a personality disorder is another personality disorder. So you can have borderline personality disorder with some narcissistic traits. And one of the ways in which I have been able to work with a few cases of people with a narcissistic personality disorder is to say, here's the thing. No one actually likes you. And you also have to just call it out as the truth. Like, I know that you feel that people adore you, and you're surrounded by people who you believe are supportive. They don't actually. And the thing about it is, you can't even see it. So I'm going to teach you how to see the world differently, even if you don't feel that what I'm telling you is true. Because what's happening is that you're kind of lonely for a narcissist. Like, what's going on? Is it actually about everybody else? Or maybe it's about you? So mostly it's hard for me to answer that question only because I see so few people with npd.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So what are the symptoms of borderline personality disorder?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah, and I talk a lot about it in the book because that's the group that I found with most self hatred and self loathing was the group of people with borderline personality disorder. Okay, so if we go through the criteria. The first criteria is frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. So what do I mean by that? Nobody wants to be abandoned, you know, and say, like, okay, I'm gonna go home. My kids and wife have disappeared.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm already sc. Every time we have someone on who's speaking about psychology, I think I have it.

[Dax Shepard]

That's your ocd.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

What's so beautiful about this is we're all on the spectrum.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Who wants to be abandoned? Go home. The people who love you aren't going to be there because they don't want to be there with you anymore. Well, that would be terrifying. But the person with borderline personality just sort of fears it, whether it's real or whether it's not real. And sometimes it's like, boy, this relationship is so painful for me that I can't be with you anymore. And so then that's real abandonment. But then the other one is, no one. No one's ever liked me. No one's ever cared about me. I just worry that people are going to abandon me. And so then what they start to do? This is the first part of the criteria. Frantic efforts to avoid the abandonment. It's constant texts, constant phone calls, constant seeking of reassurance. Then to the other person, it's like, how many more times do I need to tell you I love you? And it becomes actually the kind of behavior that then creates the self fulfilling prophecies. Because I can't do this anymore.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Okay, that a little bit matches what my understanding was that you'll find. People with BPD will become very quickly infatuated with somebody. They'll get very quickly close and heightened and then there will be some period where they've decided you're actually kind of out to get them. And then they will flip to a kind of comparable level of hatred.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Okay, so you've actually touched on two of the other criteria. So the second criterion is intense interpersonal relationships. So they're very rapid, very intense, Characterized by extremes of idealization and devaluation. So in one moment, I just met you, Dax, you're like the best person ever. I'm going to marry you tomorrow. And there's this glow and then all of a sudden, hey, listen, I'm not making it for dinner tonight. You're the worst person ever. What did I ever see in you? And then the ninth criteria, which you find, especially if there's been trauma, is paranoia. Clearly you're plotting against me. Clearly you must be seeing somebody else. Clearly you never cared about me. And I'm very suspicious of that now. Just imagine living that way.

[Monica Padman]

So awful.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And the thing is, people don't choose it. It's not a choice to live that way.

[Dax Shepard]

I often say this, even with pedophilia, which is no one went to the grocery store, looked at the fucking options on the shelf and were like, I'll take that. No one would pick that.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. It's heartbreaking. And the compassionate thing is just to remind yourself of it.

[Dax Shepard]

Treating them has gotta be one of the most precarious because naturally they would probably wanna idolize you.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Initially, they idolize me. And then when I. Hey, by the way, I need to cancel this session. Cause I'm gonna go to LA to.

[Dax Shepard]

Hang out with the movie stars.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Hang out with the movie stars. And everything is like, if you, where'd you get your degree? You know, you're terrible, you're abandoning me and all of that. And the thing about it is, it's such a horrible way because that's how you're experiencing the world. It feels so interpersonal. It is interpersonal. But it's a manifestation of pathology. It's not like I'm waking up in the morning and thinking how am I going to mess up somebody else's life today?

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

It's not malicious. But what happens is that when somebody gets really activated, the most difficult of their pathology begins to show up. But that happens to all of us. And I've never met a person for whom this wouldn't be true. I could put you under so much stress, threaten the person you love most that the worst of who you are. Worst in quotation marks, whatever it is that you have to do to get through that moment. Survivalist. Exactly. And that when you're dysregulated you can't think.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. The part of your brain that is in charge of executive functions not accessible. Right.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

If you hear that your house is on fire right now. We're not continuing this interview. Wait a second. Don't you want to hear about borderline personality?

[Monica Padman]

Absolutely not.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I'm going to go and save my house.

[Monica Padman]

They're like living in survivors in many cases.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

They feel also perfectly situated to be love addicts as well. Because this is also very kind of similar cycle of love addiction.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Where it gets tricky is that, I mean, what a wonderful thing to feel loved. And you can't make anyone love you when you feel it. There is no word for it. Words do such a violence to our experience because we try to capture this concept in words. But I mean, what does a three month old say to its parent? I love you? No, it's not in the words. You sort of feel something and if you felt threatened for such a long time and then you're in the context of somebody who elicits a warmth and expansiveness in who you are. It's such a beautiful feeling. And then you want more of that. But who wouldn't want more of that? And when you've been deprived for most of your life, you want to cling to it. The problem is that that clinging can have its own consequences. And that's where you start to see the fifth criteria, which is like suicidal behavior, the sense of emptiness and then the reactivity of mood. You know, it's like, wait, why are you looking at me that way?

[Dax Shepard]

I don't think anyone would be hearing this and not be able to quickly think of someone in their head. I'm going to. Yeah, A couple, couple people that I've had this distinct feeling of. I can feel you creating a narrative about me that I'm out to get you. For me, on the other side, it's exhausting. Yeah, it's a little demoralizing to the experience we've had. I've earned more than this, right?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Now it's a spectrum, so there'd probably be a different answer for wherever you're at on this continuum. But are all of their relationships going to follow that pattern or do some, some trigger it and others don't?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah, you know, the way I think about it, and a lot of my patients have really liked this, I think of a dartboard and I think about there's that inner circle, the bullseye, and then that one around. The people on that inner circle where there's the most intensity are going to both experience the best of who the person is, but also like the most difficult part. And as you go out in the spectrum, trivial relationships, acquaintances aren't going to be able to experience it. So if we were to think about the earlier example of somebody who is, say, drunk, it wouldn't matter where you are on the dartboard, you'd see the person as drunk. But then often if people are more acquaintance level relationships, they're not going to see that behavior. It's not going to activate or trigger those strong emotions. But the closer you are to the person, the more you're going to see it and the more it's going to be triggered. If you think about the brain of somebody with BPD as being a supercharged Porsche versus somebody is driving a golf cart. Person who drives a golf cart, maybe that's their emotional range, up to 20 miles an hour. The person with BPD drives up to 200 miles an hour. It's okay to be emotionally intense and have that fast car, but you have to know how to drive it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

You know, and so for people with bpd, they've got this emotionally intense brain, but they just don't know how to manage it. They don't have the skill set to do it. I'm a very emotionally intense person, but for me it brings me joy. But that's because I know how to drive this brain. Even still, every now and then I go a little too far.

[Monica Padman]

Well, yeah, you're a human. I mean, even when you say the bullseye in general, we have our best and worst selves with our most intimate people.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Absolutely.

[Dax Shepard]

I would imagine there's some also predictable fallout in their professional life and their relationships. Is there a pretty well worn path that folks suffering from this find themselves on?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

The historical narrative was that this was kind of untreatable and that what would happen is that the lives would ultimately be lives of despair, of incompleteness. And I just refused to accept that that was true. I said, I'm gonna teach you how to drive your car at 200 miles. You don't have that skill set. And when you're able to do that, then you're able to function. And so many of the people that I've worked with, using treatments like dialectical behavior therapy.

[Dax Shepard]

Do I understand this? This is an offshoot of cbt.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah, exactly. You have to be able to monitor those high states, but I think it's also monitoring the low state. And the best way to do that is through the practice of mindful awareness of that moment. If I'm in a low state right now, it's like, I don't like the questions you're asking me. Why are you so annoying? Just leave me alone. I just want to go back to Boston and lie in bed.

[Dax Shepard]

Or I'm celebrated. Ye.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Wow. You think I'm the best interview that you've ever had? Can we be here for three hours and we can hang out? So when I'm filtering that and then my mind runs away one way or another, it does a lot of damage. So it is paying attention to that and saying, okay, I'm heading that direction.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm here.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And you know what? I'm just going to do the very best that I can. I'm going to pay attention to that. I'm going to catch my mind going to. I'm going to be the most celebrated interviewee ever. Or like, they think I'm an idiot. They keep looking at their watches. It's catching that. That's the part that is the mindfulness piece. And then it's what am I lacking in order to be able to manage it? And that's more of the CBT part, the skills piece.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so what causes it?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

It's the same thing as the topic of self hatred. I've not met a person that wasn't highly sensitive that developed borderline personality disorder. So, first of all, the biological DNA condition is that the person with BPD tends to be a highly sensitive person.

[Monica Padman]

Emotionally or you know how some people are like, I'm an HSP and I can't wear these clothes.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

It's a really good question. And I think actually a lot of highly sensitive people do also have sensory issues, but it's more of a emotional highly sensitive. So what do they do? They feel things quicker than other people to seemingly smaller provocation. When they have reactions, they're bigger than their peer group. And then when they're feeling something, it takes longer for them to get down to baseline. Strong emotions are the super glue for labels. Let's just say that you call somebody, hey, you're kind of fat now. If they're not highly sensitive, they're going to brush it off. If they're highly sensitive. And that was a label that was used in childhood. That label is going to stick powerfully to the person's experience. It's super glue. It's like those fly traps to those kinds of labels. And so you have this highly sensitive child who then experiences what DBT calls invalidation, saying what you're saying, it doesn't matter so much. You're making a big deal of a thing. You're overreacting. And imagine somebody has a peanut allergy and I give you some peanuts, and then you have a big reaction saying, dax, you're overreacting.

[Dax Shepard]

Which I am, by the way, to my cohort. Most people don't have anaphylactic shock from peanuts.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. And here you are like, that's the reaction that I get when I'm exposed to the prompt that I'm getting. And in this situation, that peanut is an expression of some sort of dissatisfaction. By the way. It doesn't have to be done with malice. It could just be, why aren't you like your older brother? Your older brother doesn't complain about things, gets up and goes to school. He doesn't care about those bullies in school. Like, come on, get up. It's okay. You're going to be okay. And you are okay if you are okay. It's not like you say, today, I'm going to be impacted by the cruel words that people say. And you are. It's because they don't have the ability to manage those things. It's a skills deficit problem. So when you map invalidation onto a highly sensitive person, they're very much at risk of developing borderline personality disorders.

[Dax Shepard]

And the highly sensitive person is a physiological, biochemical baseline you're born with?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it observable in any part of your body or is it a neurochemical thing? We would have to measure.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

That's what the research shows. We wanted to see this kind of response that people were having. And so we created this experiment where we compared typical teens with BPD teens. What we did is we had a cursor on a screen and then you had the mouse. And if the cursor moved one way, you had to just move the mouse to map it halfway through the experiment. We Switch it so that if you move the mouse to the right, the opposite thing happens. And so what happens for typically developing teens? They get a bit annoyed, but then that's it. With people with bpd, it is really, really upsetting. You can see massive amygdala reactivity. I had a kid who was extremely bright, and. And I said, how was the test? And she says, oh, it was okay. I said, wait, what? Didn't it upset you that the cursor went the other way? Said, no, I turned the mouse around.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. She outsmarted it.

[Dax Shepard]

Which would be a skill that was something you would probably teach in cbt.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. If we think about the amygdala and you think about the hippocampal system, and then you think about the prefrontal cortex as the brake. You know, again, if you're driving that fast car, having golf cart break for the fast car isn't gonna help you. So you either have to strengthen those brakes or learn how to drive that fast car a little bit slower.

[Dax Shepard]

It also overlaps what we would think of trauma response. I'm thinking of, of course, the beginning of Body keeps the Score and him observing veterans deal with these pretty trivial challenges and have these very outsized reactions. And I myself really relate to that deeply. I don't think because of a BPD situation, but because of a trauma, one where the slightest thing for me becomes life pretty quick. So it's very similar. It's interesting how many ways there are to arrive at the same reaction.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Totally. And at least 50% of the kids who come to our unit have had trauma with a capital T, but only about a third actually develop ptsd. And most people can have a traumatic event, including things like rape, and not develop PTSD.

[Dax Shepard]

Interesting.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Which is really interesting, actually. The majority, about 70% of people who've had those kinds of experiences don't go on to develop ptsd. And that's probably because either they had a lot of other protective factors or maybe they weren't that emotionally reactive. So the case would be that you're probably a highly sensitive person.

[Dax Shepard]

I am quite sensitive.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And then impact of those peanuts on you is gonna be much, much more than for your peers.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, the combo.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

For people who are around that type of behavior, who don't identify, is it okay to abandon. I'm thinking of one very specific person in my life, and I did do that. I have a lot of guilt because I do know, oh, God, this is like, the worst thing to do. It confirmed it, but I can't here's.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

What I think the key thing to do is. I think that there is integrity in letting the person know. And that is to say, when we get into the Porsche and you're driving at 200 miles an hour down Santa Monica Boulevard, I get scared. Scared. It's just too fast for me. And that when I'm with you, the kinds of emotional reactions and responses that you have are more than I can handle. And maybe I need to develop my own skill set, but it's too much for me. It's causing me a lot of pain. And what it does is it pushes me away from you, and I don't want to spend time with you. And I think that that's really hurtful. So I really hope that you can get some help or whatever it is. I mean, ideally, if they were really in a much, much better state, whatever drew you to them in the first place, those qualities are still there.

[Monica Padman]

Right?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

It's just that there's a lot of other qualities alienating. So maybe if you can get help, we could get back together. But this is too much for me to handle. I can't eat peanuts.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you're doing them a kindness and almost helping not confirm their own pattern, which is if you are to just ghost them and leave their life, you actually confirm everything they've been saying 100%. Whereas if you say, I wanted to be a part of this and love you, the intensity for me is very scary. And I am always feeling like I'm going to do something wrong. It gives me a state of anxiety, and I just can't handle that. Personally, I think that's of kindness.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

We treat people as fragile, and it's the worst thing that we can do. If you just told me I've had trauma and then I might have a reaction, and I now have to filter everything I say through the idea that might be triggering you, and then I say, you know what, Dax? Sorry about the interview. I was walking on eggshells and I treated you as fragile. I'd rather just be able to have a conversation with you.

[Dax Shepard]

I would hate it.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

You would hate it?

[Dax Shepard]

To be treated as. Nothing I hate worse than being pitied or being treated as fragile.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And by the way, I'm robbing you of an opportunity. To me, you know what, Blaze? That was kind of hurtful. And I'm saying, okay, well, now I know. But, like, I'm thinking, should I say peanut one more time?

[Monica Padman]

Well, yeah. This gets tricky, though, because if you know someone. Well, I mean, let's depersonalize it. No, I'm going to personalize it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Wait a second. Did you guys invite me here?

[Monica Padman]

Because this is.

[Dax Shepard]

We always do. We bring in the best experts in the world to try to navigate this partnership.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly the reason I can do this, because I don't think you have this. But I do think for both of us, we know each other's triggers. So I'm going to try not to throw a bunch of peanuts in your face because I know that causes pain or that is going to cause a huge reaction. So I am avoiding it, but out of care.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

So there's two things about that. One thing is, right now we don't have good treatments for peanut allergies. And you just know nothing that we do at this point in time because we don't have a treatment for it. Right. But let's just say that, you know that there are things that are part of ordinary life that might be triggering then the responsibilities for the other person to say, do I need to. Exposure therapy. Basil and I often talk about psychodrama sort of stuff. Bobby keeps the score. That kind of work that it doesn't actually serve you to not have dealt with that. Because in this context, you could say, well, we know each other very well. And I'm not going to say things that are going to be activating. But you walk onto the street and somebody's going to say something. And I would rather know that there's something wrong. And then I make a choice about I'm going to deal with it or I'm not going to deal with it. You don't intentionally want to be upsetting someone. At the same time, you're not the world. The world is going to do upsetting things.

[Dax Shepard]

You could be soft, kid's gloving it. But you're one person. So what do you really. Yeah. I think we could further articulate devaluing.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

It came from an old psychoanalytic concept. So more like Freudian kind of ideas. And I was trained in Freudian psychoanalysis. I then moved to behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy. So the idea is that I as an individual feel very flawed, but that's unbearable for me to experience. So I project my lack of value onto you, and then I devalue you. When you're doing behaviors that I don't like. Devaluing is like, you're the worst person ever.

[Dax Shepard]

Could we say if you notice who you hate, generally will fall into two categories. They either exhibit a side of yourself you hate about yourself, or they've achieved some success in this deficit. You think you have?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah, I think that we see both of those sorts of things, but I think there's often an emotion that shows up before that, and that is sadness, maybe jealousy. But staying in that emotional state is very, very painful. It moves from that primary emotion, which is generally 10 to 30 seconds, to a secondary emotion, which includes a lot of cognitions and thoughts about what the other person is kind of creating the.

[Dax Shepard]

Story to explain the feeling you initially had.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly right.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. We are supported by All State. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like, you know to check your sunroof first before driving through the car wash. Like you know to put the leash on your dog first before you open the door to go for a walk. Not that I've ever made that mistake and had my dog run outside without me or scream his name repeatedly over and over and over again until I found him. Or, you know, to check that the guy who asked you out is an armchair first before you agree to go on a date with him. Sage advice essential. Checking first is smart, so check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. This content is intended for audiences in the US Only. Savings vary. Terms apply Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company Anil Northbrook, IL we are supported by the all new Galaxy S25 Ultra from Samsung. This phone is a true AI companion that evolves with you to do more for you, like handling multiple tasks with just one ask. For example, you can tell it to find a restaurant nearby and text it to my friends. Or look up my favorite basketball team schedule and add it to my calendar. And it does it just like that. You just speak the request naturally and the new Galaxy S25 Ultra takes care of the rest. Okay, this is what AI was meant for. That is seamless plus. Now brief with Galaxy AI gives you personalized daily briefings that keep you a step ahead. It'll show you your appointments, the weather, your energy, score and more all in one place. Ready to let AI do more for you so you can do you then get your Galaxy S25 Ultra now at samsung.com compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account. Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy. Now Brief with Galaxy AI displays daily select information from select apps may require Internet connection. Galaxy AI features by Samsung free through 2025 and require Samsung account login. We are supported by Quint. You know Kristen's been ordering A ton from Quint.

[Monica Padman]

Quince is amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I told her, I go, you know, they're a sponsor. And she, she couldn't believe it. Being stylish and comfortable allows you to feel your best, making you ready to tackle anything that comes your way. That's where Quint's company comes in.

[Monica Padman]

I was just in the house and our friend Anna, she had borrowed a sweater from me. It's blue and it's from Quince. It's gorgeous and it fits so well. And when she was wearing it, I was like, I want it back.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I've been trained in different modalities and as with everything, in the same way that no one antibiotic treats every infection and no one exercise is the exercise to make you fit, no one treatment is the treatment. There's MBT mentalizing based therapy. There's schema therapy, there's all sorts of therapies. What I like about dialectical behavior therapy, especially in the people that come to see me, is that DBT says until we've addressed suicide and suicidal thinking, none of the rest of therapy makes any sense.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, we have to first keep you alive.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I often say, listen, I'm one of the best DBT therapists in the world. I haven't been able to treat a dead person, so I have to keep you alive. There's a lot of irreverence in dvt. You've got to be a little bit careful. So I don't want to talk about your difficult relationships or your struggles with your sense of self until we have an idea that when suicidal thoughts show up, which they're going to, that you are not then going to act on them, often what happens, and this is where I think other therapies get this wrong. They start exploring what caused the pain without having the skill set to manage the strong emotions and suicidal thoughts that we say, until you know how to drive that Porsche, we're not going to talk about going on a racetrack or anything else.

[Dax Shepard]

Why you wanted a Porsche in the first place.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right. You're already driving this fucking thing.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Not very well, but.

[Monica Padman]

And it's painful to unearth all of this stuff. So it's going to just exacerbate the situation.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

So when you don't have the skill set to be able to manage those things leading to those suicidal thoughts and behaviors and self destructiveness, toxic relationships, devaluing relationships, we're not going to do that. And actually for a lot of the young people who come to see me, if they're not in relationship, I say, you can't be in relationship until we're done with treatment. Because you're bringing the worst version of yourself into relationship. And what you're going to attract because of your low energy state is people at the same low energy state. And it's going to be negativity that drags you down rather than the higher version of who you could be. You have to regulate before you can reflect. And the problem is that a lot of people with BPD are in a heightened state of dysregulation a lot of the time.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I will say I'm generally skeptical of all the modern child raising advice that comes over the transom every 36 hours. But one that I have recently heard that my wife's a big proponent of, which I can't help but agree with. I think anyone who's got kids could relate to this is like the kid does something. They injure themselves and you want to teach them a lesson. In that moment you go, that's why you don't play with scissors. But the part of their brain you want to access is not accessible until you've regulated them. Exactly. Order of business has to be, let's calm everyone down.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's return to some kind of homeostasis where this lesson you're going to give them could even be heard.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I've got four kids and my second has become a social worker. My third is in law school and the other one's doing AI and so very, very different kids. I recently went to Vegas with my son because we Wanted to walk in the desert and hike and meditate. And I said, what is some of the most brilliant advice I ever gave you? And he says, I don't remember at all. Not one single thing. Like, a lot of it was, but I remember how you made me feel. And it was very, very moving. Because when we settled and we were connected, he felt safe. You don't remember what I said? Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Is there any part of the treatment that is pharmacological?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Not for core Borderline personality disorder. And I think people have tried to use contemporary drugs and been part of doing some studies with experimental drugs that seem to tampen down amygdala response because it has to do with a perception of self in the context of rel. And there's no medication that can do that. Now, parents have said, well, isn't there something that can calm my child down? I said, yes, it's called anesthesia. I promise you, you anesthetize the child, they are not going to misbehave at all. Like, you can dampen down the brain so much that a person cannot think, can't stay awake.

[Dax Shepard]

These are kind of the horror stories.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Now, having said that, BPD has a lot of comorbidity. So say a person has bipolar disorder who has obsessive compulsive disorder or severe major depression. The biological intervention through medication is to treat comorbidity, but not core. BPD got you.

[Dax Shepard]

How successful is the treatment?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

What I was told when we opened the unit in 2007 is that for hospitalized people, the research showed 10% would die by suicide.

[Dax Shepard]

God, really quick, take that in. To know that 1 in 10 of your patients you'll have to watch die is a very gnarly endeavor.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Right. So we've had 5,000, as far as we know, because people respond fewer than. And by the way, every single one of those is tragic. So we've reduced the number, any number. And this is where the thought of the book then starts to show up.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So through the course of all this work in the 5,000 patients, it occurs to you at some point you're occasionally hearing something, but you're not really focused on it. It's not something that's listed in the DSM that should be addressed. And you basically are led by your patients to start considering self hatred and self loathing as a condition that really needs exploration, research. We need to really start considering that this is a component that needs addressing. How do you come to this?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Right. When I thought about the people who'd taken their lives and whose Parents I was really close to, and I looked back on the records, the one thing that came up in the people who had tragically lost their lives to suicide side was statements of self hatred. Now, if you've had therapy, so you go in for an initial psychiatric evaluation, what's your name? How old are you? What do you do professionally? How do you sleep? Do you have any nightmares? How's your eating, energy level, obsessions, compulsions? Do you hear voices? Suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts? Are you anxious? Anything else you want to talk about? How's your attention and concentration, Ruminations, compulsions, whatever it is. No one ever asks about self.

[Dax Shepard]

I've not been asked that.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

You've not been asked that in any psychiatric evaluation. So here was the numbers. In terms of the people who tragically took their life, they were expressing self hatred. And when I started to speak to people who had persistent suicidal ideation and behaviors, I started to say, wait a second. If those former patients of mine acted on suicide and discussed self hatred, let me ask these people about self hatred. And I would say, what do you think about yourself? And say, I don't like myself very much. Well, how much do you not like? Not very much at all. Is it ever self hatred? And it would surprise them because that would be the first time in tons and tons of therapy that somebody had actually asked, do you not like yourself to the point of self hatred? And it'd be like, yeah, I do hate myself.

[Dax Shepard]

There's lots of excerpts of dialogue between you and patients. I don't know why, but I'm blown away with how intelligent some of the patients are and how articulate, and some of them are downright confrontational with you, which I think is so brave and cool. There's something about the dynamic that makes that hard. And one of your patients, a young woman, is like, you're not listening to me.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not upset with myself in this moment. I hate myself across the board. You need to fucking listen to me. And I'm impressed and grateful that someone would have that conviction to push back against you like that.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I tell patients, I said, if I've gotten it wrong, you've got to just tell me I've gotten it wrong. Because otherwise I'm going to continue down this path believing what I believe to be true.

[Dax Shepard]

You too, are also limited by your own experience.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

100%, yes.

[Dax Shepard]

You've learned from the DSM all these other things, and you know how to look for them. Because you yourself can't necessarily relate immediately to a constant state of Self hatred. It's a little inconceivable until it's detailed for you.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. What does it mean?

[Dax Shepard]

Because I think a lot of people will go like, well, I hate myself often.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Or when is it a pathological. Sometimes I'm lazy.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

So let's just imagine a binary world. Do you identify as male?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Female?

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Okay, now how certain are you of that? Those states 100%. Okay, what if I told you that you were wrong? What if I told you that, you know what, I actually quickly snuck a DNA test and you're actually XY and you're actually xx. How easy would it be for me to convince you that you're female?

[Dax Shepard]

It'd be impossible.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Impossible Male.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, I guess if you had proof.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Okay, no, but not only that. Okay, so here's.

[Dax Shepard]

Wait a second, this couldn't be proven.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

To you even if I had. Like, okay, here's your DNA, here's your DNA.

[Monica Padman]

That's what I'm saying.

[Dax Shepard]

You'd go, that's fucked up.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. So even if I said, okay, here's some proof now you need to be convinced.

[Dax Shepard]

I would pull my dick out and go, great, you're holding that. I'm showing you this, right?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

But here's what I want you to do. You're actually wrong about yourself. You are actually female. What would the relationship between me and you be if I kept insisting that you had to see yourself as female?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you would be an adversary, you would be a threat. You would be someone that's living in certainly a different reality than I am.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. Because there's nothing that I could do that would convince you. That's the level of right.

[Dax Shepard]

So I'm saying I'm worthless and I am toxic. They use often this term, toxic. Doesn't matter what proof you present to them, right?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

It doesn't matter. There is no separation from the isness of self hatred.

[Dax Shepard]

Meaning they're as convicted about that as they would be about their biological self, biological identity.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And then if I say, okay, you know what I want to start talking about self hatred. It's as alienating as if it would be. I want you to start thinking of yourself as this other gender. Say like, I know I've got kids, I know who I am. Like, you're not going to convince me out of this. We're wasting time, time in therapy. Because I don't want to talk about this.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, so it's very hard to tackle it.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Sounds like, well, that was the problem is that I thought, okay, so now what I need to do is tackle self hatred. Why aren't any therapies tackling self hatred? So I did what academics do, which is to go to the literature and say, find me the 10,000 papers on self hatred, and three show up. That's all I could find.

[Dax Shepard]

And what was the conclusion of those papers or the thesis of those.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah, self hatred is very, very hard to tackle.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Each paper ended with, we give up.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Ex because I can't convince you that you're female.

[Monica Padman]

You should get me in the room. I'm easily convinced you're a great candidate.

[Dax Shepard]

Exactly. It'd be misleading.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

In fact, it's this construct that gets internalized as truth. And if ever there is greater fake news, it is that because a child is not born hating itself, it has to learn to hate. And if it can learn to hate itself, it can learn to love itself.

[Dax Shepard]

So Jewel wrote a foreword. And what we learn in that story is that she had a abusive father who was an addict. We've interviewed her.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, we have.

[Dax Shepard]

And that at 15, she started considering just moving out. And she's starting to confront whether she'll feel better from that and recognizing that he's the bad guy in the story. But even when she's away from him, the bad guy's still there in this concept of internalizing your abuser, which is fascinating. And then she has this beautiful metaphor where she's peeling an orange, and she starts to become open to the idea that what she thinks of as herself is actually the peel of the orange. And that peel is there to protect this beautiful fruit inside from all the elements. And that perhaps the trauma is just the peel, and she doesn't actually know who she is. The nurture is the peel, and the nature is this orange inside. And she becomes dedicated to finding the real her. It's so beautiful. Does that align nicely?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

So much. You know, I was thinking, okay, who am I gonna get to write the forward? And I was thinking all these famous people, sort of psychological psychologists and other things like that. And when I Met Jewel in 2019, I found a kindred spirit. I loved how she paid attention to who she was, to the impact of things, how she practiced meditation and skills building. It's almost as if she developed dialectical behavior therapy on her own because of the way that she paid attention. And so I found a kindredness in this, and I thought because kindred I want her to write. And ironically, my publisher had already decided that the COVID was gonna be orange, so they'd already determined. And you see the appealing piece and she writes this independent of knowing the.

[Dax Shepard]

COVID That's so serendipitous. Do you have kind of your own DSM in your head where you would be able to delineate what is average disappointment in oneself versus something that needs this true attention and these tools?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Because if you were to come into therapy and say, like, ugh, I'm so dissatisfied, I'm really upset about something. I say, what's going? And you say, I did this interview or I met this person or I tried to do something, just didn't work out the way I wanted it to. So what are you saying about yourself? You know, that I'm not very good under certain circumstances. So, okay, let's just talk about that and then how can we work on that? So that kind of stuff is typically dealt with in cognitive and dialectical behavioral therapy. Cbt, dbt. It's when I say, okay, let's just address the ways in which you're dissatisfied with yourself. And that's when you get the patient saying, you're not listening to me. This is not a flaw that can be fixed.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm a toxic entity.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I am an entity that is not only toxic repellent, it could be repellent to people. But there's something called the interpersonal theory of suicide. What are the elements that lead people to make a determination that suicide's the answer? One of them is loneliness, non connectedness. It has a certain weight to acting and completing suicide. But another element to this which is much more powerful is burdensomeness. I am a burden to those around me and to the world, and I have nothing to contribute.

[Dax Shepard]

The world would be better without me.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

The world would be better off without me. I wouldn't be a burden to my family.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. This young woman in your book, when kind of explaining to you why she's so worthless, is it's kind of implicit. She's already had the suicide attempt. Her mother is. She knows worrying about all day long the weight of that I'm causing this person. I love all this distress and just one thing after another that's I'm a burden and this place would be better without me.

[Monica Padman]

That is a weird self fulfilling prophecy too, because of course you're not a burden, but people are worried about you when you're in that state.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And by the way, and here's the other thing is I don't try to reassure people that they're not a burden. Some of that behavior is burdensome. It's not like they're gonna say, okay, that isn't a burden. Maybe they'll try to reassure you, but that's disingenuous and that's not honest. And so I'm saying some of that behavior is burdensome. But your behavior is you washing all the dishes before your mom comes home at night. Is that burdensome? No, that's actually kind of helpful. What about taking your little sister to school? Is that burdensome? Well, no, there's all these things that they do that aren't burdensome, but that's not how they're filtering their experience.

[Dax Shepard]

So what was your personal breakthrough in treating this? What were the things you started noticing could work?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I started to think about conditions that had been highly stigmatized, whether it was hiv, aids. And I was in South Africa at the time and no one would talk about it. Cancer and things like that. And the first thing you have to do is talk about it. We are going to bring it up because it is actually impacting your life in terms of your relationship choices, your academic choices, your employment choices, your friendship choices.

[Dax Shepard]

You can definitely see it as fuel for the BPD 100%.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

The second thing is I needed to drive a wedge between who you are and self hatred. Now, were your parents English speakers?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yes. Okay. Why don't either of you speak? I don't know Greek.

[Monica Padman]

Nobody taught me from very early on.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

You weren't taught. If I had plucked you from your crib and put you into a Greek speaking family, that's what you would have learned. So the idea is that you aren't born speaking English or Greek or anything. You're born blank slate in terms of language. And you learn something because you're exposed to that thing that you weren't born hating yourself. You learned how to hate yourself.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, that's a big admission.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

That was the only way in which I was able to break through.

[Monica Padman]

They could hear that, they could hear that.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

They learned. And so I would say, who were your teachers? So the other part of it is I wanted them to start writing, you weren't born hating yourself. When do you have a recollection of you starting to hate yourself? I want you to write that down. I want to know who your teachers of self hatred were. The bullying, the parent who expected perfectionism, the comparison with a more achieving sibling, the teacher who abused you. All of these teachers said that you were not enough.

[Dax Shepard]

There's even incidents where your conclusion could be that, right, because this woman eventually writes you this letter, which is really inspiring. She's the reason that her parents got divorced. Neither of them needed to tell her that that could have just been a conclusion she made.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. So there's all this faulty conclusion. And the more you're explaining exposed to you being the fault of something, the more every single time something goes wrong.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like muscle memory.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. It's like, that must be the reason because I am this broken individual. And so that's what happens. And the other thing is we often determine the righteousness or the wrongness of something we do based on the outcomes. If you are really hungry and I give you $10, that's all you have, and you go and you buy a sandwich, well, that would make sense. But let's just say you go and buy a lot and I say, what are you doing? Like you're hungry and you buy a lottery ticket, but then you win $100 million. You say, you see, it was still the wrong decision to make. I mean, you got lucky, but we determined that it was the right decision. Just because you won $100 million, the.

[Dax Shepard]

Ends justified the means.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

If you were exhausted right now because you hadn't had a good night's sleep, this interview might go differently and you might be critical about that and say, okay, next time I want to get better sleep. But it would make sense that it would be different if you were exhausted.

[Dax Shepard]

In my nature would be to confirm a shortco I have and ignore the sleep pattern.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. You would say, I'm not going to pay attention to any vulnerability factors that may have shown up.

[Dax Shepard]

I have to be fully responsible. This is a failing.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

It's almost self aggrandize. It's putting way too much. It's ego, really.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

So when the Dalai Lama was asked about self hatred, he said it's a form of self indulgence and self absorption that is actually toxic. You know, I am the best worst person on the planet.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

There's certainly this faulty self evaluation that's taking place.

[Dax Shepard]

That's the thing. Na A, which is the other side of the coin of self aggrandizement is self pity. That was very helpful for me to police self pity, which is like, it's just as egomaniacal to think the world is conspiring against you. You're not that important on either end at all.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

At all. As I say, our common destiny is just stardust. In any case, we aren't that important. And then I think that when you tell somebody who doesn't feel that good about themselves, hey, look, you're not that important, but nor am I.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't have the power to make your Parents get divorced, you don't have the power to keep them.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. You think that you're so impactful when you. And it's liberating that the one thing that you have is to recognize that you're having an experience and then make a decision about what you're going to do. One interesting thing that patients say, well, I have this tendency or I have this habit. I say, okay, you can no longer say that. Once you recognize a tendency or a habit, it's now a choice.

[Dax Shepard]

That's tough medicine.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

The thing is, the glory that I have is when a patient leaves therapy. I don't want to keep them in therapy. That shouldn't be your primary relationship. You should be able to function on your own. It's always interesting when people have been in therapy for 10 or 15 years with the same therapist. If you think of therapy as getting to a place of autonomy, dominion over self, self agency, what's that about? I speak very bluntly. I challenge colleagues to really examine that. Now if somebody, say, has bipolar disorder and they need medication to be able to manage manic depressive episodes, that person is probably gonna need somebody to continue to prescribe and to check in. We've pathologized so many typical human experiences that all of a sudden you can't walk without being a pathological specimen.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, this is the great danger of the DSM that's implicit is inadvertently we're establishing what normal is. And now that there's normal, that's the objective. And then your belief about what normal is, which is not true. Yeah, yeah. It's all slippery.

[Monica Padman]

Well, that's the benefit of going to other cultures. Cause American pathology is different than other countries. It's not all the same thing. And so to know that, we just defined it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay? So once you drive that wedge in there and you get them to accept that they weren't born this way, which I can see on the surface is very powerful, how now do you start nudging them towards considering they could return to that?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

So the other thing that I've done with many of my patients, maybe they're in their late teens, early 20s, is I want them to bring me photos of their birthday. Age one, age two, age three, age four, age five. Until now. And I say, okay, do you hate that one year old? Do you hate that two year old? When does it start? You know, and even if you say it starts when I'm 6 or 7 in kindergarten. So do you really hate that little girl, that little boy? Do you hate that person? They Say no because they were abused, they were hurt. And just what would you do if that little girl came into your life? You would hate her because she learned.

[Dax Shepard]

She was already so fucking flawed and busted that you would dispose of her absolutely.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And that what the mess messaging was, she was a highly sensitive kid for whom rejection and criticism stuck so powerfully and started to believe that about herself. She carried that burden until now. Now let me ask you this. Does Future youe want to hate herself? They say no. So I said okay, but if your goal is to climb to the top of the mountain, sitting around playing video games isn't gonna get you anywhere. You have to start doing squats, running. You've got to start doing some hiking so that eventually future you will be grateful for. If you start taking the steps necessary to hike to the top of the mountain. That's your goal. If future you doesn't want to hate herself, then you have to start taking the steps right now to recognize that it was learned to start recognizing any kind of life affirming behaviors as acts of self compassion and then not give the power to your toxic teachers to continue to define who you are as a human being. The narrative has to be no. No longer do I accept that I was broken, that I was flawed, that I was stupid. Okay? I recognize I'm sensitive and I recognize that those labels stuck.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a moment again back to this young woman where boy, it feels like you take a huge swing. I can't imagine myself doing this, but the outcome was really interesting, which is she had taken time to write this kind of long letter and it was full of lots of kind things about you. And she clearly took a lot of time on it and you read it and she is not to a place yet where she has transcended self hatred. And you said this is lovely and I can see you've taken a lot of time on it, but I'm afraid I have to reject this.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

You cannot give that which is not within you to give. You cannot experience that which is not with you to experience. We go back to this idea.

[Dax Shepard]

I like the stolen money analogy. You can't give someone a hunt hundred dollars you stole.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly. It has to be within you. What's it like to have your menstrual period every month, Dex?

[Dax Shepard]

That's rough. I'm so mean to my husband.

[Monica Padman]

How are you exactly?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

It doesn't matter. There's no way that you can experience that because you don't have that experience. When you experience love, when you experience kindness, it's Happening inside of you, you are the source of it. There might be things in the environment that allow it to manifest more. But if it's not within you already, doesn't matter who shows up or what shows up. And if it's within you, and if it's within you to give, it's within you to give to yourself as well.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You said to accept this. You hate yourself and you're toxic and you're devoid of love. So this letter is the opposite of that. And for me to accept it would be to accept a lie.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

There's a concept in DBT is going where angels fear to tread. I have to enter the experience of ultimate darkness with a patient and risk that what I'm saying could potentially be very destabilizing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Because that. Particularly not knowing her diagnosis. But if she were bpd, this is ripe to fulfill the narrative that you're not what she thought rejecting this thing I spent all this time on.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

But it did penetrate. I guess you get great at knowing when the time is.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

That's exactly right. I have to know that the relationship is strong enough to be able to withstand.

[Dax Shepard]

I think her making that letter to you was a good flag for you.

[Monica Padman]

Well, what was happening with her that she did that?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

So what was happening is that she was one of these people who was uber talented in lots of things. Sadly, I think that this happens more with women who are ultra intelligent, very talented. They're objectified in a certain kind of way that they're only seen through this one lens of maybe attractiveness or whatever it is, or good, any of those sorts of things. And. And yet there's a multidimensionality capacity, whether it's artistic, linguistic, cognitive and other things that don't actually often get seen. And her experience of being hurt for such a long time led to this experience of self hatred. And she was also very self destructive in terms of a lot of self injury and a lot of suicide attempts. And we had really reduced all of that to the point that her relationships with her family were better and everything. So she was grateful for that. But this course self hatred still remained. And I was floundering at that time because I didn't know what to do. That was in the early days of my program and I just decided to go for it. I realized that there was a lot of risk, but I also had seen that she had been able to tolerate some very, very difficult moments. The one thing that I hadn't seen is whether she could tolerate a difficult moment with me. And I Said I have so much compassion for you. And her argument was that's cause you don't see me completely. You see some of the things that I do.

[Monica Padman]

You don't really know me.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

If you did then you would also have the hatred. She once showed up a few minutes late and people for many reasons show up late and she said I think you should punch me in the face as punishment for this incredible transgression. When I had so much love and compassion for somebody who made an effort, showed up, really worked hard and it was inconsistent with the way that she saw herself. That was early on and later on we were able to do this and subsequently she began to see, in fact there was a lot of worthiness. And when she started to do that she started to exercise more.

[Dax Shepard]

Becomes a virtuous cycle.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

It does when the other what are.

[Dax Shepard]

Some things you feel new in our culture that are compounding this we market to self hatred.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

You're not tall enough, you're not skinny enough, your boobs aren't big enough, you're not light skinned enough, you're not intelligent enough, you don't have six packs enough. But by the way, if you buy my product, you'll be fabulous and everybody's going to love you.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a very well funded mechanism out there.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

We market to self hatred. So the thing is that people who are are at risk are going to be dissatisfied with whatever that is within them. And we sell an idea of what virtue perfection is going to be if only you do this one thing. And so for those who are vulnerable, they chase that.

[Dax Shepard]

I find myself frustrated with those folks and not as compassionate and I should. Part of me wants to go like this billboard of this person is not an assault to you. I do discount sometimes that there is varying levels of vulnerability. There's part of me that just wants to go like yeah, yeah. There's also cars that are faster than yours. It's not an assault on you 100%.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I think that in an already very, very vulnerable person that then spends a lot of time on social media, TikTok, Instagram, watching these videos over and over, it reinforces the idea of that. So I think that for the vast majority of us, you go by that billboard now, what I do with the kids on my unit, I say okay, show me what your social media apps are. What I want you to do is I want you to to open TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, whatever it is. Tell me how you feel when you consume that social media. If you feel good about yourself, if you feel neutral. Carry on. It's not a problem. If you're feeling terrible about yourself, it's like me eating gluten. You're allergic to it. But in the nanny state, we take away not only personal responsibility, but we say dominion over self is not important. I want the person to make that determination that for you, TikTok. TikTok's okay, but for this other person it isn't. They are the ones who determine that. I don't want to be the one who says I'm going to take away all social media.

[Dax Shepard]

I can't eliminate all the triggers in the world to satisfy the most triggered among us. It's very defeatist, too, right?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

100%. Isn't it better that either you've learned how to deal with it or that you've decided. Yeah, I hate seeing my friends at parties all the time where I'm not invited. Okay, well, then you don't have to continue to consume that media if it's making you sick. If you're.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, okay, this is petty for me to bring up, but you would be the person that I could ask this to. I have said committed suicide on here several times, and I've heard in the comments people say I'm not allowed to say that anymore. And you, who specializes in suicide, I feel like it's a little bit of pandering and pageantry, and I actually think it's just for the people who are advocates and not the people who have done it. I think it's like when people say, I can't say drunks and junkies, which is what we call ourselves. Do you have a tick take on this? What's this move to not say committed suicide?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Okay, so there's a couple things. First of all, let me just say that I used to say that all the time when people died, they died by cancer, by pneumonia, by whatever it is. The problem was that it assigned a certain degree of blame. When you used that, rather than saying they died by suicide, they died by cancer, they died by pneumonia, they died by whatever it is rather than committed, like, I committed a crime, I walked into your house and I stole your money.

[Dax Shepard]

Because you could say, my dad committed cancer. He smoked like three packs a day.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Well, you know, I suppose you could in a certain way, but you wouldn't.

[Monica Padman]

Say, but you wouldn't.

[Dax Shepard]

You wouldn't. Right, right, right.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And the other thing is, I have this concept of do I want to be right or do I want to be effective? And there's some times when maybe I know what I'm saying, but I don't want that to be the disagreement and what's it cause our relationships. If what anybody's gonna remember about this show was that you said committed suicide. Committed suicide, then people are gonna say, what a jerk. Like you didn't understand. And then you may have had 99% really great points. That's not what they're gonna remember.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a bottle. And that's generally the answer for all these things. I know I'm gonna keep saying drunks.

[Monica Padman]

You can. But I want to push back on that, too. Because you hate advocates.

[Dax Shepard]

When I think they're protecting themselves and not actually the victim.

[Monica Padman]

They're often connected to a victim. There's a reason that people become advocates. Normally, people don't just stand up and become an advocate for something for no.

[Dax Shepard]

Reason but my gut reason. I hate it. There's an actual hatred of it, which is you're not owning your shame that someone you love did that. You actually don't want the shame for yourself and you. That's why I have a conviction about it. You're trying to protect your own shame, and you shouldn't be feeling shame about this. You're not doing your work.

[Monica Padman]

No, but if someone was talking about alcoholism and they were calling people a bunch of drunks and fuckups, I'd be like, no, that's not correct. And I don't feel shame that you're an addict.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

But I feel a responsibility as someone who knows more about it than the average person to say, actually, that's incorrect. Here's the reality.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Here's the dialectic. Both of you are right. There is so much ignorance in the world, and then what happens is we bite into our ignorance and then we spout our ignorance, then you're just going to continue down that ignorant path. Now, I would be with you if I heard people talking about drunks and junkies and I just said, okay, I know one of those guys who's turned his life around and done an incredible, incredible service to the world. And that when you devalue and diminish somebody into a state that through your ignorance means that they're gonna be on skid row for the rest of their life, you're doing a disservice. If I can have a discussion that's going to open somebody's eyes to another possibility, that's fine. But I think that what happens with a lot of ignorance is that people just have a degree of certainty about a perspective and they're not willing to change it. They open their mouths before they open their hearts and their minds.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I'm gonna declare right now, I'm happy to drop it. I'll get with the program.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I'm not going to be stubborn. I just think you might win something, but at what cost? People get lost in that message and then you'll be labeled as this one sided person.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so I don't think I've been reading a book that I wanted to give to more people than this book. I immediately thought of some people that I just know are buried under this self hatred. People I love dearly. I don't know if it's triggering to receive this book as a kid, but I certainly immediately of a couple people, I really want to read it because it's heartbreaking when you love someone and you know they're walking around with this sense of defectiveness and you can't penetrate. But also I would say this book is a call to other psychologists. So maybe just love to wrap up with what your hopes are for the book.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

If we go back in time during the COVID pandemic, I wrote the book with a colleague, DBT for Dummies, and it hit number one on Amazon. Not number one in psychology or in therapy. Number one on Amazon for three days in a row. It was the number one. And we were on a lot of shows and stuff like that and I thought it was a very, very important book. And so when I proposed this book, because I'd written other books, they were willing to take a chance, but they said there's no comparison. No one's ever written about this sort of topic. And then they asked me the question, what do you hope from it? And I really wanted to speak to people with lived experience to say you've learned this false truth. And by the way, there's a lot of fake news in the world to a lot of false narrative that many of us believe. But this one is gonna destroy your life and is very, very toxic. So I said to the publisher originally, as you know, I want it to be for everybody, for therapists, for parents. It can't be that you have to pick one lane. You know, that's just the way it works. First of all, there's no other book on this. Secondly, pick a lane.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, we need to know who to market it to.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Exactly right. So I said, okay. So we're gonna do it for people with lived experience because they're often at the bottom of the pecking order in terms of like, who gets help. But what happened is that as I Started to, started to say, would this be helpful to us? And I said, yeah, because A, you'll understand the condition a lot more. Secondly, what I want you to start doing is I want you to start asking the question. In your inventory of questions, include a question about self. If I say, do you have nightmares? And you say, no, I don't have nightmares. Are you addicted to drugs? No, I'm not addicted to drugs. I'm not going to continue down like, okay, we have to work on your nightmares and your drug use. I don't have a problem with those things. If there is no core self, hate, hatred, then great, let's just move on. But there's kindred ideas like perfectionism, people pleasing behavior, self criticism, self judgment that are on the way to self hatred.

[Dax Shepard]

Like all things. Right. It's a spectrum, 100%.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And then I have a questionnaire that I ask all my patients and I think the therapist could also take that questionnaire. When did it start? How old were you when you first remembered? Who were the teachers? What were the circumstances in which you started to believe this about yourself?

[Dax Shepard]

In the book, it is a bit of a workbook. You have provided space in the tools section to explore this on your own. Because I think that's the great sadness I have is that so few people have access to someone like you.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I don't have access to someone like me. Sometimes I'm so out there. Sometimes again, I don't want something that could potentially be helpful to a lot of people to remain the exclusive domain of anyone who can just like afford best care. You can work on some of these ideas yourself, understand it a little bit better, and then when you go to therapy, maybe say, I do want to explore this.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I think it's an incredible book. I'm so glad you've written it and shined a light on it. And it's probably crazy to you how long you were missing it.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yeah. And not only me, but the world just want to say, on the other hand is, I think it takes courage also for you and other people who are interested in having this discussion to have me on. Because it can also seem like this is so way out there that we can talk about OCD even if you get it wrong. We can talk about depression and alcoholism, but there's this sort of degree of novelty that hasn't been well researched, hasn't been well examined. What happens if it turns out that this whole construct is wrong? But you know what, Even if the book prompts more research, more thinking about it, but more than anything else. To think that somebody who is struggling with this feels that they're so burdensome that the only way is out. You know, if one person can read the book and say I can see myself differently, then we've done something important. And I appreciate you guys being part of this journey and helping.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh yeah, it's a great book. I hate hate myself. Overcome self loathing and realize why you're wrong about you. It's out now. I urge everyone to get it and I think a lot of people will relate deeply to the feelings that your patients have. Thank you so much. Blaze. First Blaze I've ever met and it was a home run.

[Monica Padman]

Was he the first Dax you ever met?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

He is.

[Dax Shepard]

So hopefully we'll form stereotypes about Daxes and Blaze that'll become self fulfilling prophecies. All right, well, good luck with everything. Thanks. Thanks for giving us so much time.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. You sign up for something, forget about it. After the trial period ends, then you're charged month after month after month. The subscriptions are there, but you're not using them. In fact, 85% of people have at least one paid subscription going unused used each month. Thanks to Rocket Money, you can see all your subscriptions in one place and cancel the ones you're not using anymore. Now, boom. You're saving more money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the apps Premium features, cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com Wondery today that's RocketMoney.com Wondery RocketMoney.com Wondery ready to electrify your drive Hyundai's cutting edge EV lineup is about to change everything you thought you knew about electric vehicles. Prepare to be captivated by a range.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

That'S as bold as it is brilliant. From the lightning fast Ioniq 5 and.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

And blind spot collision warning, Hyundai EVs.

[Dax Shepard]

Are redefining the electric experience. And with America's best warranty, including a 10 year, 100, 000 mile limited electric battery warranty, you'll drive with unmatched confidence. Hyundai's EVs aren't just the future. They're the now you've been waiting for.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Learn more about Hyundai's EVs at HyundaiUSA.com.

[Dax Shepard]

Call 562-314-4603 for complete details. America's best warranty claim based on total.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Package of warranty programs. See dealer for limited warranty details.

[Dax Shepard]

See your Hyundai dealer for further details and limitations. Thank you to our partner. You ever feel like you're just going through the same motions day after day?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

We've all been there.

[Dax Shepard]

Staring at brake lights in traffic or.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Stuck in a long meeting.

[Dax Shepard]

Not anymore.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

With Mentos gum. Listen up.

[Dax Shepard]

This isn't just your regular gum. We're talking about a whole vibe Refresh. Think of it as your personal reset button. One piece. And suddenly that traffic jam becomes your private. Com concert venue. That meeting, that should have been an email. It turns into a full on fiesta. From flavors like fresh mint to bold strawberry, Mentos gum transforms ordinary moments into fresh possibilities. Whether you want to switch up your route home or keep your mind fresh in a meeting. Refresh the everyday with Mentos gum.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Yes, Defresh with Mentos gum. Stay tuned for the fact check. It's where the party's at.

[Dax Shepard]

I just really the bed myself on my time management.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, okay.

[Dax Shepard]

I had got all my workout gear on. I was like, should I ride up my bike today?

[Monica Padman]

Sure. Always a big question.

[Dax Shepard]

Big, big question. And I was like, I still really need to change this rear inner tube. The nozzle kind of popped off. It's still holding air, but I can't risk it.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Then like I'm gonna need to repair it and then just lift. We're gonna lift. Gotta in my outfit. Then I went to. I thought, well, I now I have a little extra time. I got to working on the bicycle. I did the tires a little more challenging then. There's a lot of challenges. So when I finally got it all done, cleaned up the tools like, all right, let's go work out. I looked at my watch. 12:40. My entire workout had blown by.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah, that'll happen.

[Dax Shepard]

Got away from me.

[Monica Padman]

That'll happen.

[Dax Shepard]

You get tinkering in the shop. You know those guys get tinkering in the shop and the time just flies by. Blew right by.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my.

[Dax Shepard]

This cookie boy likes to tinker.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Cookie boys do like to tinker.

[Dax Shepard]

They'll tinker. Your morning was good. The time get away from you.

[Monica Padman]

My Internet was out at the beginning of the morning.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow. Unacceptable.

[Monica Padman]

I know. And I, I got a text from AT&T saying so. But I thought it was spam.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure.

[Monica Padman]

Or a trick. I thought it was a trick and a way to. For them to take all my money. So I didn't click it.

[Dax Shepard]

Kristen just dealt with the exact same thing. She started getting tons and tons of emails and texts from Spectrum. Oh, like you're. We're gonna shut your cable off.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Off your Internet.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

And she's like, I don't even think I signed up for the account. I don't think I. It's in my name or anything. Now there's a big mystery. There's a huge mystery. And so very similar. But she. The whole time, she's like, this is all a ploy to get my credit card.

[Monica Padman]

Got to be careful.

[Dax Shepard]

I think they got it.

[Monica Padman]

They did.

[Dax Shepard]

I think so.

[Monica Padman]

You're never supposed to click on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, she looked up the actual web address for Spectrum, and it was the right web.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, you don't click on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Scary.

[Monica Padman]

So scary.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Well, I didn't click on it. And I was wrong. They were. That was real.

[Dax Shepard]

That was real.

[Monica Padman]

And my Internet was out, and. But then it came back.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wonderful.

[Monica Padman]

Then it came back. But I do this right. I like plan. I plan my morning or my getting ready to the minute, which is a problem.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But I. I'm a busy girl.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Very busy.

[Monica Padman]

Multiple jobs, a lot to fit in there. But then the makeup. Okay, that's going to take seven minutes, and then it takes seven and a half, and then you add a half minute to each of these line items, and you're late.

[Dax Shepard]

Line items.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Business speaking. You do your P and L, and you realize more losses than profit.

[Monica Padman]

And the ROI is not good. It's not.

[Dax Shepard]

Not a good roi. I hate all those terms. Then once I learned them, I realized they really are useful.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

It's annoying. And then I'm the person I hate.

[Monica Padman]

You. You're the. You've become the person you've always hated.

[Dax Shepard]

It's almost my full arc as a human is becoming fully the person I hated. I did a good prank last night.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. Tell me, because I'm into pr.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so, as you know, my girlfriend Khaleesi's visiting.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, your little baby friend.

[Dax Shepard]

She's seven. Kenny's daughter. I told you about the hike. We had a great hike. We held hands the entire time. I'd love to show you some pictures.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah. She calls Kristen your wife. Aunt Kristen.

[Dax Shepard]

My wife. And Kristin.

[Monica Padman]

Previously. Dax's mom.

[Dax Shepard]

Dax's mom, which is really sad. But I did discover after we talked, she is calling myself sister, Delta's grandma, which is great happen. She kept saying, is Delta gone with her grandma to the movies? When she going to be done with her grandma at the movies? So now tt is grandma, which so fun.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. I'm scared for her to give me a name.

[Dax Shepard]

At least it's consistent. So, like, if. If Kristen's my mom and my sister is Delta's grandma, those are their peers, which they are, of course, in this weird structure.

[Monica Padman]

What if she's started calling me Dax? What about your Indian friend?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no. Yeah, no, she's not gonna do that. It's more of an age mix up. So anyways, Khaleesi, Delta, Lincoln, Kristen, Kenny and I went to Cafe 101 last night. We were in a big booth. Khaleesi's so excited. There's older girls. Yeah, older girls have had enough. But I tell them, I try to tell them, you know, what if we went somewhere and there was two older girls? You know, it's really tough being a parent in these situations.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Because you're really kind of weighing a couple things. You want to teach them to be kind and civil. And also, they're in their house.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

They have some boundaries. I also want them to have boundaries. I don't know.

[Monica Padman]

I know. I think I may have made a mistake on this front.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Did you advise them to punch Khaleesi?

[Monica Padman]

I did.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

No. I told Delta the other day, I did a pop out. I pop out here. I walked by and I decided to go pop into my house. And as I was walking by your friends, I heard you grunt.

[Dax Shepard]

I was unloading motorcycles and power washing them.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And I heard your little voice coming from, like, the woods.

[Monica Padman]

I said, hi, and you, you kind of, like, jerked around. This is why I'm into pranks now, actually. Because it was actually very funny because you got really spooked.

[Dax Shepard]

Well. And you were obscured behind FICA's like a hedge, a row of hedges. So you got to watch me react and look stupid for a while probably.

[Monica Padman]

It's really funny. Come on.

[Dax Shepard]

Goddamn. Damn it.

[Monica Padman]

You said, who's saying hi? You got into that mode where you were scared.

[Dax Shepard]

Protect my family, my property mode said.

[Monica Padman]

It'S Monica, I'm here. I'm over here by the fence. Monica, your Indian friend. I'm over here by the fence.

[Dax Shepard]

Your grandma.

[Monica Padman]

So then, yeah, you came over and then Delta came over. And so we were chit chatting a lot. And yeah, she mentioned that there was going to be a young, young girl.

[Dax Shepard]

And Khaleesi's so friendly.

[Monica Padman]

She wants to talk all cute.

[Dax Shepard]

Cute and friendly.

[Monica Padman]

She really was anticipating being, you know, a little overwhelmed. A little overwhelmed. And then. But really her ire was towards Lincoln.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

She was like, lincoln shuts the door, and then I have to just play by myself with her. And also, she looks at me and she says, please take care of it. And then I do, and I just. I don't want to do that this time. And I said, well, that's good. That's boundaries. You can. So I taught her about it.

[Dax Shepard]

But then if you saw little Khaleesi excited to play with him, you'd be like. Like, girls, get over it.

[Monica Padman]

I can play with this cute little girl.

[Dax Shepard]

So, yeah, Lincoln's largely spared because of the age gap. I think Delta is more interesting to clean.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Anyways, all this to say, we're at dinner, and I love talking to her. Right. Because I'm just messing with her the whole time. Exactly how I talked to Lincoln. And Delta is there because she's family.

[Monica Padman]

She's Kenny's, of course.

[Dax Shepard]

So she's. Kenny says something she doesn't like, so she starts punching Kenny. She's like, won't stop punching him. He's like, stop punching me. And I go, khaleesi, I'm going to tell you right now, they throw people out in this restaurant. They have a zero tolerance policy on violence. He's like, no, they won't. And I go, no, they'll throw you right out of here. And what is great is I've developed. Now I. Without this ever in sight, I've developed a really good relationship with the busboy.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, nice.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. I love the dude. You know, we have a great rapport. So I go, that's it. I'm to get the manager. So I got up, and then luckily, he was just standing right around the corner, and I go, oh, perfect. Will you tell that? Ask that little girl. She's been punching people. And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah. So we come back, and now there's an employee of the restaurant. And he goes, have you been punching people? And she. She was busted.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

She was so scared. She was about to get thrown out. And then we all started laughing. And then she started laughing. It was great.

[Monica Padman]

She laughed.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. But I came back with an employee, and he got right into it.

[Monica Padman]

That is funny.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it was. It was glorious.

[Monica Padman]

O. I just got mirror neurons, though. Like, I'm back to not liking pranks.

[Dax Shepard]

Anymore because you're afraid of getting kicked out.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God. I would have cried. And then, and then I would have felt bad that I was crying because I knew I would know everyone else felt bad.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But I wouldn't be able to help myself.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. There's a lot, there's a lot tricky, but it did stop the punching.

[Monica Padman]

Well, that's good.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so the other thing she and I have going is we were in the hot tub two nights ago and she's telling me all these different stories and she tells me about how mean this gymnastics coach is. And he's real mean. And one girl's going to have her water and he said, oh, you want some water? And he poured the water on her head.

[Monica Padman]

No, he did. She's a liar.

[Dax Shepard]

And I go, I got to be honest, I don't believe that story. And she's like, what? What do you mean you don't believe it? And I go like, I, I, I trust you and I love you, but at the same time I just, I really can't. I don't think I'm able to believe that story. It became this whole thing about believing that story. And then later she told me, you know, your eyes turn color when you lie. My grandpa told me that. And I go, yeah, I love your grandpa Joe. He's one of my buddies. But I, I'm afraid I can't believe that story. And she fought me on that for a while. But then in the car on the way to Cafe 101, she was saying, yeah, my grandpa told me your eyes turn color when you lying. I don't think I believe it anymore.

[Monica Padman]

No, you made her turn on her grandpa.

[Dax Shepard]

That's okay. It's good to be skeptical. This. You can't believe in fairy tales, but.

[Monica Padman]

The reason the grandpa said it is cuz she's a little liar and she's running around telling lies and the grandpa's basically saying, don't you do that.

[Dax Shepard]

I, I'll just call her a liar. You don't need to make up a whole thing with her eyes.

[Monica Padman]

Your little baby's lying.

[Dax Shepard]

You can tell kids exactly everything is.

[Monica Padman]

What my experience you do. But not everyone does that.

[Dax Shepard]

We are having a blast.

[Monica Padman]

Although don't they say that about hating Hazel? It's like sometimes it you're green, sometimes.

[Dax Shepard]

You'Re blue because sometimes you're in light that makes them look that way. And sometimes you're in light that makes them look the other way.

[Monica Padman]

It's very wishy washy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, transient.

[Monica Padman]

It's very ephemeral. It makes changes, it moves. It's amorphous.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. All to say, your eyes don't turn a different color when you lie.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, this is back to me really wishing I had green eyes since I learned they're the rarest.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you can't. Didn't you already know they were the rarest? Did you need to learn that?

[Monica Padman]

We already talked about did this. I, like, guess I kind of knew in my heart of hearts.

[Dax Shepard]

But haven't you just met the least amount of people with green eyes? I mean, I'll answer for you. Yes.

[Monica Padman]

Well, no.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. You've met way more people with blue and brown eyes than green.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Brown.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, brown's a diamond.

[Dax Shepard]

Here we go around. Also, I love browns. Don't listen to her. Daniel Ricardo's brown eyes.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Like a saddlewood.

[Monica Padman]

I know, but like, it's just you always want. The grass is always greener when your eyes are green. Yeah, no, I rob. What color your eyes? Brown.

[Dax Shepard]

Blue.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. See, I don't really.

[Dax Shepard]

That was a dangerous question.

[Monica Padman]

Why?

[Dax Shepard]

Because people take it so personal if you don't know their eye color.

[Monica Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I hear this all the time. This is one of these, I think, trends about how to out guys for. You know, Another thing guys are terrible at is like, guys don't know your eye color. This is a test for guys. Oh, what's your mom. Mom's eye color? What's your. What's your wife's eyes color? Eye color. Eyes colors.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, so it's d. It's real dangerous. It's. People get very hurt if you don't know what color their eyes are. You know what color? Minor.

[Monica Padman]

Blue.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, because I know that. We were talking about it. I think I sort of thought blue eyes were the rarest.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. I don't know how you thought that.

[Monica Padman]

I. I like blue eyes the most.

[Dax Shepard]

Name three people with green eyes.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, K. Cie, she has green eyes.

[Dax Shepard]

Are we playing it fast and loose? No.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, let me.

[Dax Shepard]

There's solid green.

[Monica Padman]

Let me text her. Well, what's solid green? Is there such a thing? Cie might be mad cuz now we're back to the thing I said you have green eyes, right?

[Dax Shepard]

She goes, I'm so hurt. Lose my number. I think she has blue eyes.

[Monica Padman]

She doesn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

She either has green or hazel.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

My friend Gina, green or hazel.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. You're asking me.

[Monica Padman]

No, I'm telling you. These are two people.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so we're up to two.

[Monica Padman]

All right.

[Dax Shepard]

And you're currently sitting with two people with blue eyes, so that's already neutralized.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, so evens.

[Dax Shepard]

Even Stevens with immediate people in your vicinity and all the people in the world you know. Yes, it's even Stevens so far.

[Monica Padman]

What does Kristen have? Blue.

[Dax Shepard]

Blue.

[Monica Padman]

And the kids have blue. Blue.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

See? Yeah, I'm not paying much attention.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, the kids have blue. They're so prototypical blonde blue. I know, but they're generic.

[Monica Padman]

I don't. I think. I don't. You know, people think eyes are like the window to the soul.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And I guess I get, like. When I look, like, in your eyes. I get it.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, that's where the human is, right? Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But I guess I'm never looking.

[Dax Shepard]

You can't see very well, though. In your defense, I don't know that you can even see much. Most people's eyes.

[Monica Padman]

Your eyes are like, blue. I don't say that when you know I have brown eyes. That's so insensitive. Yours are, like, grayish blue.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I would agree with that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Which is nice.

[Dax Shepard]

Jess has said the nicest thing about my eyes as anyone has ever said. He said there's icicles in them. Oh, that's very sweet. You know what color my brother's eyes are, right?

[Monica Padman]

What are his eyes? His eyes are probably. Probably green.

[Dax Shepard]

No, they're red.

[Monica Padman]

No, that's his hair.

[Dax Shepard]

He has brown eyes. Go ahead, test it. You're a bad boyfriend. I'm a much better boyfriend than you are.

[Monica Padman]

Color your eyes, question mark.

[Dax Shepard]

He's just gonna start crying. He'll get back to you in 30 minutes.

[Monica Padman]

Who else should I insult?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, exactly. What else did you. Should you tell. You don't tell me you don't care about me without telling me.

[Monica Padman]

I don't care about.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

I.

[Monica Padman]

Actually. When I like all of my. All the girls in the pod, I'm really trying to think who's got what. I don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And the boys, I guess. I. I hate eyes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, they're not your thing.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, we have a really important thing to do today.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, are we going to finally do the. It's a quiz from the book. What book? The Quasi.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no, but we.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, do it next week.

[Monica Padman]

Tune in next week for us saying.

[Dax Shepard]

We'Ll do it the following week for the green. So what quiz is this?

[Monica Padman]

Okay, this is Highly Sensitive Person quiz.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wonderful.

[Monica Padman]

Because this is for Blaze.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. Rackin is the smartest way to save money when you shop because you Earn cash back at over 3,500 stores. Fashion, beauty, electronics, home essentials, travel, dining, comedy, sponsor tickets and more. Your favorite stores like Lowe's, Levi's and Nike. Pay Rakuten to send them shoppers. And Rakuten then passes on a part of that payment to its members as cash back. You're already shopping at your favorite stores. Why not save while you're doing it? It's a no brainer. Membership is free and easy to sign up. Get the Rakuten app now and join the 17 million members who are already saving. Cashback rates change daily. See rakuten.com for details.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

That's R a K u T E.

[Dax Shepard]

N. Your cash back really adds up.

[Monica Padman]

Now.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you want me to read it? I always feel bad. You're always administering the quizzes and I'm happy to do it if you want.

[Monica Padman]

I'd like to do it.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Now discover your personality. Choose your gender. To start, male. Okay. You find it easy to make new friends. Strongly agree, Agree. Neutral. Disagree. Strongly agree. I disagree.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

You could spend days learning about random things that interest you.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

When others are.

[Dax Shepard]

These seem to have nothing to do with sensitivity. It was just interesting.

[Monica Padman]

When others are upset, you feel upset too.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah. I hate it.

[Monica Padman]

Which one? Agree or strongly?

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

You aren't one for backup plans?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, that's. I'm not going to go strongly. I'll go the next one.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You stay cool, calm and collected even when under lots of stress.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Which one?

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly agree. Right. Have you ever seen me losing my.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. Yeah. Wow. Really?

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. When.

[Dax Shepard]

I just think when this shit's hitting the fan, I'm very calm. Is that not what the question is? You would agree with that?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, my car's on fire and I'm like, okay, let's get the hood open. Let's like. There's no. I have no oh, no. There's no oh no in me.

[Monica Padman]

Right. When your car's on fire. Yeah. Okay. When out and about, you don't really introduce yourself to new people. You prefer to chat with people you already know.

[Dax Shepard]

That's true. Even though I can make friends really easy. That's true.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

But not strongly.

[Monica Padman]

So, regs.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's go medium.

[Monica Padman]

Neutral or agree?

[Dax Shepard]

Let's go neutral.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Yeah. Because part of your thing is that you like talking to strangers.

[Dax Shepard]

It's really weird. I like to talk to either dead strangers or people I know. It's periphery. People that people I know Know that make me nervous.

[Monica Padman]

I understand. Yeah, I can.

[Dax Shepard]

You understand. That's weird. Isn't it, though? But, like, if I'm at a gas station, I talked like, I'm. I'm very engaged.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. You want to learn about them or.

[Dax Shepard]

The server or whatever? I'm like, yeah, I'm going to ask the Uber driver where they're from, Right?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But if, like, the Uber driver I kind of remember is friends with Cali, I'd be like, oh, fuck. Oh, no, not her specifically.

[Monica Padman]

Her friend is so cool.

[Dax Shepard]

But, you know, any friend of a.

[Monica Padman]

Friend, I know it feels like you have to be on in a little bit of a different way.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. We're supposed to connect because we.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I. I get it. I'm like a no across the board. I don't want to talk to strangers, and I don't want to talk to friends either.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You don't like to start a new until the first one's finished.

[Dax Shepard]

Agree.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You're a sentimental type of person.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You enjoy using lists or schedules.

[Dax Shepard]

Neutral.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Making a small mistake can make you question your knowledge on a subject. Medium, neutral or agree?

[Dax Shepard]

Medium. Agree. Is that just.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Agree. Okay. You easily spark up a conversation with a stranger.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. 5.

[Monica Padman]

You love talking about and analyzing creative work.

[Dax Shepard]

4.

[Monica Padman]

You follow your heart more than your head. This is an interesting one.

[Dax Shepard]

Boy, that's. That's a hard one to do.

[Monica Padman]

That's hard.

[Dax Shepard]

Be objective. About what do you think I'm open to your.

[Monica Padman]

You follow your heart more than your head.

[Dax Shepard]

I kind of think so.

[Monica Padman]

I do, too.

[Dax Shepard]

I do, too.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Agree.

[Dax Shepard]

Regular. 4.

[Monica Padman]

You tend to prefer following a daily routine as opposed to just doing whatever you want.

[Dax Shepard]

I love a daily routine. Yeah. Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

When you meet new people, you worry about whether you made a great first impression.

[Dax Shepard]

5. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You prefer solo activities over group activities.

[Dax Shepard]

Neutral.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You love watching movies that let you interrupt.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, little projection. No, not projection. Just interject.

[Monica Padman]

Interrupt.

[Dax Shepard]

You put something you.

[Monica Padman]

I wrote. What if I. Yeah, I started changing the quiz.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Love to interrupt. What do you think?

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

6.

[Monica Padman]

You love watching movies that let you interpret the ending yourself? That's a good question.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

4.

[Monica Padman]

You get more happiness from achieving things yourself than you do from helping others.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Terrible quality, but, yeah, strong. 5.

[Monica Padman]

You aren't interested in very many things.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

You often worry about the worst possible scenario in any given situation. You love taking up leadership roles.

[Dax Shepard]

5.

[Monica Padman]

You are an artistic type of person.

[Dax Shepard]

4.

[Monica Padman]

The world would be better off if people made more decisions with their Feelings.

[Dax Shepard]

No, it'd be worse.

[Monica Padman]

Strongly disagree.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Well, you work with your head. Heart.

[Dax Shepard]

I know, but I'm allowed to and no one else.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You prefer to relax before getting into chores.

[Dax Shepard]

That's weird. Relax before getting into.

[Monica Padman]

You don't you?

[Dax Shepard]

Don't you?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. So you're.

[Dax Shepard]

I like to keep the. I like to keep the motor floored or off. So that's a disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You don't mind when other people are having a heated argument in front of you. Oh, this is interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I don't mind. I like. Yeah, I like it.

[Monica Padman]

So you.

[Dax Shepard]

Is horny an option?

[Monica Padman]

Strongly agree.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

You like being the center of attention.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. 15.

[Monica Padman]

Your mood.

[Dax Shepard]

This is like how gross you you are. Quiz.

[Monica Padman]

Your mood is generally pretty stable.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I'd say.

[Monica Padman]

Four, you have plenty of patience for people that aren't as efficient as you.

[Dax Shepard]

Zero.

[Monica Padman]

No, Strongly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

You're spontaneous.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. Five.

[Monica Padman]

You have always been fascinated by the question of what, if anything, happens after death.

[Dax Shepard]

Neutral.

[Monica Padman]

You prefer to be on your own rather than with others.

[Dax Shepard]

Neutral.

[Monica Padman]

You love theoretical discussions and could engage in them for days on end.

[Dax Shepard]

15.

[Monica Padman]

You have a hard time empathizing with people who come from a very different life. Lifestyle to your own. Interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. Feel like you have a. What would you give me on that?

[Monica Padman]

You have a hard time empathizing people who come from a very different.

[Dax Shepard]

Also, remember where I'm from.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I love gay dudes.

[Monica Padman]

I'm going to say something ballsy right now.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I think that has more to do with your contrarianism than it does with your. Your empathy.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Monica Padman]

And I mean that positively. Like, I think you. You always want to look at the other side and you don't want to see a status quo.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And in Michigan, there's. There was a status quo about people. And I think it was not empathy.

[Dax Shepard]

That drove you, but I have an outcast identity. Right. So I think I. I like. It's easy for me to lock into. I don't know. I'm going to go with neutral.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

I think I'm. I think I'm more. I think I'm more empathetic than the average dog from where I'm from.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

But also. Yeah. A lot of times, like, I had to definitely become friends with you before I was able to truly understand how hurtful. And sure. Doing an accent. I wouldn't use. Pretty shameful.

[Monica Padman]

No. I wouldn't use.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's use you.

[Monica Padman]

Me, I actually mean more like, I think currently you can't empathize with like a very hyper lip liberal person. And that is from where they come from, too.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, let me. Let's see though. Is it that I can't empathize? I mean, I think I understand where they're coming from. I think it's going to end in defeat.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So I have, like a real strong objection that I don't think we're ever going to get in power again unless people have a reckoning.

[Monica Padman]

So neutral.

[Dax Shepard]

We'll go neutral.

[Monica Padman]

When there's a decision to be made you want to make, make it right away.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Four or five.

[Dax Shepard]

Five.

[Monica Padman]

You tend to second guess the decisions you make.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Socializing quickly exhausts you.

[Dax Shepard]

Socializing quickly.

[Monica Padman]

If you start socializing, are you quickly exhausted?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no, I'm energized. Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

You enjoy going to art museums?

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Hate them. Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. I went to one recently and it was. It was lovely. I went by myself.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, where?

[Monica Padman]

This one in Echo Park. And I went to see this awesome artist. Her name is Sophie. I'm already a fan of hers. And she had an exhibit there. So I went and I got a coffee and I went by myself. And I felt so cultured.

[Dax Shepard]

And you really enjoyed looking at the paintings? I did, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But there was only, like, I was. I was in and out pretty quick.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, well, there weren't that. I mean, I can remember the couple that I've loved. I've loved two. The old Picasso, one in the alley in Barcelona and then the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. I like walking around the Getty, but it's like I look at the paintings and I feel like Larry David, where I'm like, I'm more annoyed that other people are getting some transcendent experience that I might not be. And I'm like, why? What is.

[Monica Padman]

I see. Yeah, this is a ding, ding, ding for my other fact, which isn't a fact, but is flower poopy, the flower puppy outside the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Frank Gehry does designed building. I went there.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. That came up in this episode.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, right.

[Monica Padman]

And I just. I went there with Cali and it was great.

[Dax Shepard]

You loved it.

[Monica Padman]

I loved it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And I'd like to go back.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You struggle to understand what others are feeling.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Disagree. Okay. You like to have a to do list for each day.

[Dax Shepard]

We already answered this. No, I don't. I don't. Regs, don't. Regs disagree.

[Monica Padman]

You often feel insecure.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, what year is this question being asked?

[Monica Padman]

Now. Rarely disagree.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, but.

[Monica Padman]

But you prefer talking to people on the phone over texting or messaging them.

[Dax Shepard]

I used to, but not anymore.

[Monica Padman]

Disagree.

[Dax Shepard]

Go. Disagree. Regs.

[Monica Padman]

When someone has a different perspective on a subject than you, you genuinely try to understand where they're coming from.

[Dax Shepard]

I'd go rags agree.

[Monica Padman]

I think so. You find that telling the cold hard truth is more important than than being tactful.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

5.

[Dax Shepard]

Almost puked.

[Monica Padman]

You're happy to go with the flow when your plans are interrupted.

[Dax Shepard]

No I'm not at all. That's a strong disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Mistakes you made in the past often haunt your mind. You feel energized after spending time alone engaging in solitary activities like reading or reflecting.

[Dax Shepard]

Not energized. No regs Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You prefer to rely on your instincts rather than sticking strictly to a set plan or schedule.

[Dax Shepard]

5.

[Monica Padman]

You often find yourself deeply contemplating the underlying meanings and implications of things rather than focusing solely on the surface details.

[Dax Shepard]

Rags agree. I think that's a neutral for me.

[Monica Padman]

No, I think you're strongly agree. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Okay. Strongly.

[Monica Padman]

When making decisions, you prioritize logic and objective analysis over considering how it might impact others feelings.

[Dax Shepard]

I agree. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You up?

[Dax Shepard]

I would have gone right. I think we're there.

[Monica Padman]

You often find yourself worrying about potential future outcomes or what could go wrong in a given situation. You often find yourself drawn to new experiences and enjoy exploring unfamiliar places. Strongly agree. You tend to trust your gut feelings and intuition when faced with difficult decisions rather than relying solely on logical analysis.

[Dax Shepard]

And neutral.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You feel a strong sense of empathy towards others and are often affected by their emotions even if they don't direct directly involve you.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I'm affected by people's emotions, but you said I'm not empathetic so I'm gonna have to take that. Let's go Regs Agree.

[Monica Padman]

I didn't say that. Okay. You prefer to have a well structured plan in place rather than leaving things up to chance or improvisation.

[Dax Shepard]

This regs Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You thrive in dynamic, fast paced environments and feel invigorated by challenging situations that require quick thinking and adaptability.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

55.

[Monica Padman]

When faced with a problem, you're more inclined to seek out practical solutions rather than dwelling on abstract theories or hypothet medical scenarios. That's a hard one.

[Dax Shepard]

That is. I would go neutral.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You enjoy engaging in deep meaningful conversations with others. Yes. Strongly agree. You often find yourself reflecting on past experiences and considering how they've shaped your beliefs and values.

[Dax Shepard]

Too much so yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You're inclined to take charge in group settings assuming leadership roles and guiding others.

[Dax Shepard]

You already asked that.

[Monica Padman]

It's achieving.

[Dax Shepard]

There should be a question like, do you hate me? And ask the same question twice. Or rather, it would say you hate being asked.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. Okay. You feel most comfortable when your environment is organized instruction. And you may feel stress or unsettled in chaotic or unpredictable situations.

[Dax Shepard]

I agree with that. It. Which seems like a contradiction, I know, but I. Yes, I. I keep my room really clean on my side of the thing, you know, like I am. Yeah, I'm a little bit of a.

[Monica Padman]

You prefer spending time with a small group of close friends rather than attending large social gatherings?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Four or five.

[Dax Shepard]

Five.

[Monica Padman]

When presented with multiple options, you tend to follow your heart and make decisions based on what feels right in the moment.

[Dax Shepard]

They're trying to. To confuse us. They keep asking the same question, but slightly different than you wonder.

[Monica Padman]

That's how all these are.

[Dax Shepard]

And they're trying to catch you being inconsistent. And they're about to catch me one more time.

[Monica Padman]

When presented with multiple options, you tend to follow your heart and make decisions based on what feels right in the moment.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I agree with that.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You enjoy exploring new ideas and concepts, often seeking out opportun. Okay, yeah, fine. You.

[Dax Shepard]

You're really trying to piss off. What if at the end it said, did this piss you off? And that's the only question that mattered. Were you. Because you're so sensitive, you find it.

[Monica Padman]

Easy to adapt to changes in plans or unexpected situations?

[Dax Shepard]

Regs? No.

[Monica Padman]

Often seeing them as opportunities for growth and learning?

[Dax Shepard]

No.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, I get there after a long time.

[Monica Padman]

When working on a project, do you value efficiency and strive to complete tasks quickly and effectively?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. 5.

[Monica Padman]

You often seek out opportunities to challenge yourself and push your limits, whether it's through physical activities or intellectual pursuits. Strongly agree. You prefer to focus on the present moment rather than dwelling on past regrets or worrying about future uncertainties.

[Dax Shepard]

No breaks. Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. You enjoy engaging in lively debates and discussions, sharing your. Yep. Okay. You have a strong desire for structure and order in your daily life, feeling most at ease when following a clear routine or schedule.

[Dax Shepard]

This is crazy. It's getting really crazy.

[Monica Padman]

You tend to be proactive in seeking out new experiences and opportunities. Embracing change is a natural part of life.

[Dax Shepard]

I like new things, but I don't know that I embrace change all that well. So let's go neutral.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Do you feel energized and excited by social interactions, often seeking out opportunities to.

[Dax Shepard]

Meet new people they didn't know? Is it like, Is there a glitch?

[Monica Padman]

No. But it is different. Often seeking out opportunities to meet new people.

[Dax Shepard]

I do do that. Let's go Rags.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. When making decisions, you prioritize logical reasoning and objective analysis, considering the facts and evidence before reaching a conclusion.

[Dax Shepard]

I'd say four. Oh, four.

[Monica Padman]

You tend to be highly self critical and introspective, frequently reflecting on your actions and decisions and striving for self improvement.

[Dax Shepard]

5.

[Monica Padman]

You often find yourself empathizing with others emotions even if you haven't experienced the same situation yourself and strive to offer support and understanding.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not good at that. Let's go regs.

[Monica Padman]

Regs disagree.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You prefer to have a clear plan and direction in life, setting specific goals and working diligently to achieve them.

[Dax Shepard]

Regs agree.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. What is your current relationship status? Married.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, but five. What is that? No, now it's oh, now we're okay.

[Monica Padman]

Married.

[Dax Shepard]

Married.

[Monica Padman]

How long is your current relationship? Six plus years. How many relationships have you been in? Oh God, there's zero. One, two, three, four. Four plus.

[Dax Shepard]

Four plus four plus.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow. How. This is personal.

[Dax Shepard]

How long is your penis?

[Monica Padman]

How satisfied are you with current relationship? We have dissatisfied. Somewhat satisfied. Mostly satisfied. Very, very satisfied. What's your age? K. Oh God, 500.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not even an option. Oh my God. I'm too old to take this quiz.

[Monica Padman]

No, it's 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and above. 60 plus.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, so I'm okay.

[Monica Padman]

There's at least weird to say 50s.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's not even as concerning as I thought I was going to say 50 plus.

[Monica Padman]

Right? No.

[Dax Shepard]

And then the rest of everyone.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, mail submit.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it going to ask you for $2.99?

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh my. These bastards.

[Monica Padman]

What the. I have to pay it.

[Dax Shepard]

I know, cuz we filmed a whole segment.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

What bastards. And this is like someone made this test up in their basement.

[Monica Padman]

I mean it is Blossom.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

That'S confidence inducing.

[Monica Padman]

But some of their questions were good and repetitive.

[Dax Shepard]

Some of their questions were great. And then on the second time they were good. And then sometimes on the third time they were no good.

[Monica Padman]

You didn't love it.

[Dax Shepard]

How much do I owe you for this? Was it $2.99?

[Monica Padman]

It was 199.

[Dax Shepard]

Are they going to give you unlimited tests?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I. You can take more quizzes.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, good.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, that's fun. Okay, well, let's find it. Be my results. Show me. We'll tell you next week.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, another paywall.

[Monica Padman]

No, this just isn't about.

[Dax Shepard]

This isn't have anything to do.

[Monica Padman]

You're an entj.

[Dax Shepard]

An ear, nose and throat.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no. This wasn't even a highly sensitive person. Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

What kind of test was this?

[Monica Padman]

It was like a. You know those. It's called something and it's. It's a personal Happy right now.

[Dax Shepard]

Like someone has wanted us to take this test, but we don't know about it.

[Monica Padman]

No, it's.

[Dax Shepard]

It's like an Enneagram test.

[Monica Padman]

It is, but it's like a really common one. You're a EN or infg, but it.

[Dax Shepard]

Won'T tell you the name.

[Monica Padman]

I think it's Myers Briggs. Maybe. Let's see. ENTJ personality, Stanford Prison. It's Myers Briggs. That's like the original one. So that's cool. Now you know.

[Dax Shepard]

What Am I? An ENT?

[Monica Padman]

You're an ENTJ. That's a confident leader. Okay, that tracks 7. 76% extroversion.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, I'd agree with that.

[Monica Padman]

Method of processing information. 81. Intuition. ENTJ's are intuitive thinkers fascinated by possibilities, patterns and future outcomes. Interesting. Okay, 55. Thinking.

[Dax Shepard]

That feels like neutral. That's a push.

[Monica Padman]

Well, because it's either. So it's introversion versus extroversion. That's the. The I and the E. Intuition versus sensing.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

That's your method of processing information. Your intuition, decision making. Functioning is thinking or feeling. You're thinking, but at 55%.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. On the I'm on the fence.

[Monica Padman]

And then management function is judging or perceiving. And you're 61% judging. Wow, what a left turn. We still don't know if you're highly sensitive.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. We'll have to find that test and we'll do it when we do the they.

[Monica Padman]

They tricked me.

[Dax Shepard]

Briggs and Stratton test. From your book. What was that called?

[Monica Padman]

Myers Briggs.

[Dax Shepard]

No, from your book.

[Monica Padman]

Oh yeah. Green hats.

[Dax Shepard]

Green hats.

[Monica Padman]

What a mess of a fact check.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, all right, Goodbye. Oh, are there any facts?

[Monica Padman]

That was it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, great. I love you.

[Monica Padman]

Love you.

[Dax Shepard]

Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.

[Monica Padman]

Imagine this. You help your little brother land a great job abroad. But when he arrives, the job doesn't exist. Instead, he's trapped in a heavily guarded compound, forced to sit at a computer and scam innocent victims.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

All.

[Monica Padman]

All while armed guards stand by with shoot to kill orders. Scam Factory, the explosive new true crime podcast from Wondery, exposes a multi billion dollar criminal empire operating in plain sight. Told through one family's harrowing account of sleepless nights, desperate phone calls, and dangerous rescue attempts, Scam Factory reveals a brutal.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Truth the only way out is to.

[Monica Padman]

Scam their way out. Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app.

[Dr. Blaze Aguirre]

Or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Monica Padman]

You can binge all episodes of Scam Factory early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus.