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Dr. Gabor Maté: This Is What a Doctor Wants You To Know About Past Emotional Trauma
00:50:58
Is what we call “normal” actually healthy—or just common? In this powerful episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen sit down with world-renowned physician and bestselling author Dr. Gabor Maté to explore how trauma, stress, and childhood...
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- [00:00]
Dr. Gabor Mate
You had trouble saying no to other people's expectations. You tended to take responsibility for everybody else. You had trouble expressing healthy anger.
- [00:07]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Oof.
- [00:08]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. You probably had this belief that you're responsible for other people's emotions and you must never disappoint anybody. This is all the result of childhood trauma. And these four traits that I just listed are characteristic of people with malignancy and autoimmune disease.
- [00:21]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Wow.
- [00:21]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And I'd both go over those four again for the listener.
- [00:25]
Dr. Gabor Mate
So.
- [00:26]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Dr. Gabor Mate is a world renowned physician and best selling author.
- [00:30]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
He has a background in family practice.
- [00:32]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And is special interest in childhood development and trauma.
- [00:34]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
He has written five books exploring topics.
- [00:37]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Including adhd, stress, developmental psychology and addiction.
- [00:41]
Dr. Gabor Mate
The role of the no is to protect your boundaries. If I invade your space, you better get angry. The role of emotions basically is to allow in what is healthy and nurturing and to keep out what is not. And what's the role of the immune system? The same thing. Right?
- [00:56]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
That's so interesting.
- [00:57]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Keep out the bad, allowing the healthy. When we suppress our emotions that way, we're also messing with our immune system.
- [01:08]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. Are you a doctor or mental health professional who's tired of one size fits all care? Are you passionate about helping people heal the root causes of their issues, but frustrated by the limitations of standard care? What if you didn't have to guess what's going on with your patients because you could see it? At Amen Clinics, we do psychiatry differently. We use brain imaging to improve diagnoses and guide personalized treatment because mental health is really brain health. If you're ready to be a leader in the future of mental health care, we're looking for you. When you join Amen clinics, you don't just make a difference, you own it. With our employee stock option plan, you become an owner in the mission, a stake in every life. We change. This is your invitation to be a healer, a brain health warrior, a pioneer. Join us. Let's end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health together.
- [02:30]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
We are so excited about our guest today. Dr. Gabor Mate is a retired physician who, after 20 years in family practice and palliative care experience, worked for over a decade in Vancouver's downtown east side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of five books published in 43 languages, including the award winning in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Close Encounters with Addiction. Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker, highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness. And for his groundbreaking medical work and writing, he's been awarded the Order of Canada, his country's highest civilian distinction. So awesome. And the Civic Merit Award for his hometown, Vancouver. His most recent book, the Myth of Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture, is a New York Times and international bestseller. Welcome, Dr. Gabor, mate, to the Change youe Brain Everyday podcast. We're so excited to have you.
- [03:34]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Thanks for having me.
- [03:36]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
So why this book? And I love the title, because I often say when I lecture that normal is a meth, that normal is the setting on a dryer, but or a city in Illinois. I actually got to lecture once in Normal, Illinois, and I met normal women. I was interviewed on the Normal radio station, and they were just like everybody else. And whenever I would think someone is normal, within three weeks they'd be in my office telling me about the addiction, the affair, the suicide attempt.
- [04:15]
Dr. Gabor Mate
So by metanormal, I mean two things. One is, as physicians, you and I are trained to recognize that life is possible and thrives within a certain range of parameters. Like within a certain range of temperature, you live too high, too low, you're in trouble. And there's a normal range of blood pressure, within which we do okay, if it's too low, too high, you're at risk. So in that sense, normal is associated with healthy and natural. But then we make a mistake in society that we think that whatever we're used to, we use the word normal. Like if everybody in Los Angeles beat their dogs, then beating your dogs would be normal in a social sense, but it'd be nothing healthy or natural about it. So we confuse this, what we're accustomed to, with healthy and natural. And many of the things that are normal in this society are actually totally unhealthy for people, as you know. So that's what I mean by the myth of normal. The other myth is that, just as you suggested, there's this whole idea that there's the normal people, then there's the troubled, diseased people. But you and I both know that everybody's on some kind of a spectrum, and there's no such thing as normal as such. It's just a question of certain stresses, certain experiences will make some people more troubled or challenged at certain times, but they're not different from anybody else. And the third meaning is this, is that let's say we say somebody with ADHD is not normal or somebody with PTSD is not normal. But what if their ADHD or their PTSD or their autoimmune disease is actually a normal response to completely abnormal circumstances? Then who has the abnormality? The individual or the social circumstances and that that induced those conditions? So that's what I mean by the method. Normal.
- [06:14]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
So if someone is suffering.
- [06:16]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [06:18]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
With sadness or with anxiety or with panic or disorganization and distractibility, how do you approach them? How do you help them?
- [06:32]
Dr. Gabor Mate
It's interesting. I was just reading this morning about the history of depression. And you know, in ancient times it's called. They call it melancholia. And melan means black. And colia is bile. They thought it was due to black bile in the. In the body. And then people got more sophisticated since then. But we still call these things medical diseases. But what if they're not? What if somebody's low mood and social isolation and poor sleep is a reflection of their lives, of what happened to them? And Bruce Perry and Oprah wrote a book called what happened to you? Which is to say what occurred to you in childhood that might have created certain responses to the environment. So when I talk to somebody with anxiety or depression or disorganization, the. The first thing I want to know about them is not to convey to them that you got this disease that I have to treat, but what's going on in your life and what has been. So the first thing I do is I listen to them rather than. It's not question so much I tell them, it's how do I listen to them and how do I help them make sense of their experience? And as you well know, certain patterns then get ingrained in the brain. And then it's a question of these patterns that were ingrained in your brain long time ago before you had any choice in the matter. How can you develop new ways of coping and responding so that you no longer under the effect of these old experiences? But it begins by listening. Tell me about your life.
- [08:15]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And if it begins by listening, what it means is it begins by connecting.
- [08:19]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [08:20]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Right. Remember Jerome Frank, who is a psychiatrist at Harvard?
- [08:23]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [08:24]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
He said what works in psychotherapy is that the doctor has a method. The doctor believes in the method.
- [08:32]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Right.
- [08:32]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And the patient believes in the doctor. So it's that bond. When we have 60 psychiatrists that work with us here at Amen clinics, and whenever I think of hiring someone, it's like, will they bond?
- [08:48]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Right.
- [08:48]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I mean, I can teach them our method, but that's harder to teach that. Are they someone that someone will Trust.
- [08:58]
Dr. Gabor Mate
That'S not a technique. That's a way of being. And unfortunately, so much of medical training, as I think you might agree, undermines. I mean, I think that there was a study I saw once where that the highest degree of empathy of medical people was just before they started their training.
- [09:17]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Well, and just to get into medical school. I mean, probably the same in Canada, but here it's so competitive.
- [09:25]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [09:25]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And our niece, who we adopted, is a pre med student at ucla. And it's chronically stressful to always feel like you have to be at the top.
- [09:39]
Dr. Gabor Mate
You know what telomeres are? Telomeres. So they've done a study. Telomeres. For the listener who might not know, these are DNA structures at the end of our chromosomes that were born with a certain length of them. And as we age or get stressed, they shorten and they keep the chromosomes together like the aglet on a shoelace keeps the shoelace from fraying. The more that we lose the telomeres, the more we fray now. So it's a marker of biological aging, actually. And you can let people of the same biological age or the same chronological age, but have totally different biological age, like the telomere length. The biological age of black women is seven years shorter in this country than Caucasian women. And it's got nothing to do with genetics. It's got to do with stress. The stress of racism, specifically. Now, medical students, they've looked at their telomeres and they compare them to the fraying over a year of telomeres of people their age. They aged faster. That makes sense because of the stress they were under.
- [10:50]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
It's chronic stress.
- [10:51]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [10:51]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I mean, I remember when I was a premed and I want to go to medical school. You need these grades, you need this MCAT score, and it's just chronic. And then when you get to medical school, it doesn't get better.
- [11:07]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Have you ever heard how do you create a cult? Okay. You isolate people from their families, you sleep, deprive them. You give them a special jargon that only they can understand. Oh, no. You stress them and you put them under authority and leaders. In other words, you send them to medical school.
- [11:27]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
That's so good. That's so good. That just reminds me of all the residents they used to work with in the hospital.
- [11:34]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. And then these stressed people. And nothing in medical school ever teaches you to take care of yourself. In fact, if you try and take care of yourself, you consider the weakling.
- [11:44]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
You're considered weak.
- [11:46]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Mine was different. Thank God I went to Oral Roberts University, which was a Christian medical school. And when you walk on the campus, there's this. This big sign and Body, mind, spirit. Body, mind, spirit. We were required to exercise.
- [12:05]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Okay.
- [12:05]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And they served healthy food. And they. They really thought about the whole person, which. So for my training, what I always think of my. My patients, always in four big circles. What's the biology? Their brain. And we look at what's their psy. How do they think, their development. What's the social circle, their support. And what's the spiritual circle, which is. Why the heck do you care?
- [12:35]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Isn't that interesting? Do you know about the indigenous North American indigenous medicine wheel? This is the medicine wheel. It's got four quadrants. When it comes to health. There's the mental, which is your thoughts and your emotions. There's the physical, there's the social. And this is spiritual.
- [12:54]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I love that.
- [12:55]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And health rests in all those four quadrants.
- [12:57]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Interesting.
- [12:58]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And in Western medicine, we ignore almost everything except the biological.
- [13:04]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
No. We're in big trouble.
- [13:06]
Dr. Gabor Mate
We're.
- [13:07]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
We're in big trouble.
- [13:08]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I have a question. So you talked about the telomere spraying and how stress in these environments, just one year of medical school, can make a big difference. What happens if that happens when you're a child and you're still developing. You're still developing. Brain, still developing. Body.
- [13:22]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Well.
- [13:23]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
So tell them about when we met.
- [13:26]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Which part you thought I was so fascinating. Just the whole thing.
- [13:32]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I'm still fascinated.
- [13:33]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I'm a psychiatrist. Like dream, I suppose.
- [13:36]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
No, when our. Our first lunch, she told me when she was 4 years old, she had upper and lower GIS.
- [13:46]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Upper and lower GI studies.
- [13:48]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Gastrointestinal procedures.
- [13:50]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Right.
- [13:50]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
They called her a frequent flyer in the hospital.
- [13:52]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [13:53]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And I'm like, so what happened when you were four years?
- [13:55]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
And I'm like, don't shrink me. I was like, don't. Don't shrink me. It had nothing to do with that. Had nothing to do with my childhood. And he's like, okay, well, what was going on in your life? And so I was like, yeah, I don't know. My. Like, it was. It was a weird year. My uncle was murdered and a drug deal gone wrong.
- [14:09]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Good.
- [14:10]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
My one uncle was a heroin addict, and then my other uncle was murdered in a drug deal. And I still remember the chaos and the screaming and the police and the whole thing.
- [14:16]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [14:17]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
And he's like, so how long after that did you start having the. These tests? And I'm like, it was a couple weeks, I think. And he was like, and you don't Think there's anything to do with. Like, they're not connected.
- [14:26]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Well, you know what? So when I was in family practice, I'd have these kids with unexplained abdominal pains or symptoms and all these specialists who do all these tests, and there's nothing wrong. You know, what they never asked is what's going on in the family.
- [14:41]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah.
- [14:42]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And what actually happened in every case, these kids were like the canary in the mine, as you were. So it probably means that genetically you're probably hypersensitive. Very. You know, and so that things affect you more. So when there's stress in the environment, you're the one who manifests it through your body and then particularly through the GI tract because of the vagus nerve and, you know, the dysfunctions that can cause. And so. But this is what they never look at. They just look at the body, and if they can't find anything, they think there's nothing wrong here.
- [15:13]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Right. And then.
- [15:14]
Dr. Gabor Mate
But actually, you had a perfectly normal response.
- [15:18]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Right.
- [15:18]
Dr. Gabor Mate
To highly abnormal circumstances.
- [15:20]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Well, and I had cancer when I was 23. And I was like, how is this possible? I'm like a healthy person.
- [15:26]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [15:26]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
You know, I was 23 and I was fit and I was working out all the time, and it never made sense to me until I learned about adverse childhood experiences.
- [15:34]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would also venture to describe your personality at age 23. And maybe I'm wrong this time, but can I try?
- [15:41]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Sure.
- [15:42]
Dr. Gabor Mate
You had trouble saying no to other people's expectations, and you tended to take responsibility for everybody else.
- [15:49]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Responsibility is still my favorite word.
- [15:51]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. Okay. And you had trouble expressing healthy anger.
- [15:56]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah.
- [15:57]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. And you probably had this belief that other people's. You're responsible for other people's emotions and you must never disappoint anybody. No. That's the person.
- [16:12]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I think you've lost that.
- [16:13]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I've lost it. I did a lot of work.
- [16:16]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Thank God. But.
- [16:17]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah, I'm saying years of work, but.
- [16:19]
Dr. Gabor Mate
This is all the result of childhood trauma. And these four traits that I just listed are characteristic of people with malignancy and autoimmune disease.
- [16:26]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Wow.
- [16:27]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And I both go over those four again for the listener.
- [16:31]
Dr. Gabor Mate
So a kind of a compulsive tendency to take care of other people's emotional needs while ignoring your own. A rigid and compulsive identification with duties, role and responsibility rather than the self repression of healthy anger, which is essential for boundary defense. Repression of healthy anger and the beliefs that you're responsible for other people feel. And you must never disappoint anybody. Now here's the point. Nobody's born with those traits. The average infant does not take responsibility for their mother's feelings, not at day one. So when that develops, this is how you survive your environment. So these traits that I just described are not your fault. They're adaptations to your early environment where you learn, for example, that if I express my healthy anger, I'm not going to be late. Therefore, in order to be accepted, I have to suppress myself. But given the unity of mind and body, that self suppression then also has all kinds of immunological, physiological, epigenetic, inflammatory, stress producing impacts which then makes it more likely that disease will appear. As a matter of fact, in one of my books, it's called when the body says no. And I make this some point in Myth and Normal, when people don't know how to say no, the body will say it for them.
- [18:13]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I have my patients practice in the mirror. Yeah, I have to think about it when someone asks them to do something.
- [18:20]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Oh good.
- [18:20]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
It's like I have to think about it so that they get rid of that automatic yes response.
- [18:27]
Dr. Gabor Mate
That's a great one.
- [18:27]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Which gets them into so much trouble.
- [18:31]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I literally started practicing saying no. Boundaries are my friend now. But it took years to be able to do that. And now I love the word no. I think it's like one of my favorite.
- [18:40]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Think about it. So think about it this way. Now, the role of the no to protect your boundaries. The role of healthy anger is to protect your boundaries.
- [18:51]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Right.
- [18:51]
Dr. Gabor Mate
If I invade your space, you better get angry. If other measures don't get me out of there, then no, stay out. It's a healthy response. I don't know if you know the work of Dr. Yak Panksep. He was a neuroaffective. He studied affective psychology, like the. The psychology and physiology of emotions. Neuroscientist. He died a bit too early and he and he points out that we're wired by evolution for a number of basic emotions, including caring, without which human beings don't survive or mammals don't survive, including grief. We should come to terms with loss. It's essential. Including fear, without which we don't survive. Also including anger, without which we don't survive. So the role of emotions basically is to allow in what is healthy and nurturing and to keep out what is not. That's basically what emotions do. They like the membrane. So keep out the bad, let in the good. That's the role of emotion. Now what's the role of the immune system? It's the same thing, right?
- [20:02]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
That's so interesting.
- [20:03]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Keep out the bad, the toxic, allowing they're healthy. Given the mind body unity that this. The science of psychoimmunology has demonstrated now for 100 years that there's no separation between mind and body when we suppress our emotions that way. We're also messing with our immune system. Makes sense, you know, and there's been lots of studies that.
- [20:30]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Over 50 million Americans live with chronic pain, and too many are told there's no hope beyond pills or surgery. My new book, change your Brain, Change youe Pain, gives you proven practical steps from the latest neuroscience to calm your brain, heal your mind, and finally feel better physically and emotionally. Pre order now to receive bonus gifts at Change your brain ChangeYourPainbook.com.
- [21:07]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
You know, one of the things that I. I still believe to this day helps me so much. I mean, yes, I did a lot of therapy. I did a lot of work. Every. I was a seeker, always trying to figure it out.
- [21:17]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Right.
- [21:17]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
But I started practicing martial arts. And it was so. No, it's so empowering. I said there was. I came home, I told my husband, I said, because I was attacked when I was 15 walking to high school, it was very bizarre thing. It was drugged down an alley. And I was one of the lucky ones who got away. But I always wanted my daughter to feel empowered. And so I started practicing martial arts and, like, learning how to, you know, really protect myself. But they're very big on the word no, and they're very big on, you know, yelling and, and keeping your boundaries and teaching you those things. And I came home, I told Daniel, I'm like, there is no better therapy than beating the hell out of some big padded guy. Like, there's just. And screaming at him. Like, there was no better therapy, like, for teaching me to, like, just get that out, you know? Yeah, it was amazing. So.
- [22:03]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. And it makes sense why it would. Yeah.
- [22:06]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I think women, like, it's just such an empowering thing.
- [22:08]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Absolutely.
- [22:11]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Tell us what you've learned on your work with addiction.
- [22:16]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Okay. So thanks for asking. So I worked for 12 years in what is North America's most concentrated area of drug use? That's in Vancouver, British Columbia. It's called the downtown east side. And within a few square block radius, we have more people shooting and inhaling and ingesting drugs of all kinds than anywhere in North America.
- [22:39]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
So it's sort of like our skid row.
- [22:41]
Dr. Gabor Mate
It's sort of like it, but it's beyond it, you know, like, it's just more concentrated. And so I worked there for 12 years. And of course, the medical mantra on addiction is that it's a genetic disease. No, it isn't. Nobody's ever found any genes that determine that you'll be addictive, addicted. There's some genes that make it more likely that you will be, but that's. But a predisposition is not the same.
- [23:10]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I've been so disappointed in psychiatric genetics.
- [23:13]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Because they're a monster hill of beans.
- [23:15]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
It's a master.
- [23:17]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah, there's been no genetic. I could talk a whole hour about the genetics of psychiatry. But the point is there's no genesis that determine. And as leading geneticist Lewantin pointed out, that genetics set the sensitivity, but the rest is up to the environment. So then if you look at the addicted brain, which circuits are involved? Well, there's the opiate circuitry. And then you might ask, why does a plant that comes from Afghanistan, opium, work on a human brain? Because as you all know, we have receptors for opiates. Now, why do we have receptors for a plant from Afghanistan? We don't. We have receptors for our own internal opiates. So if you want to know what heroin addiction is all about, look at the role of the internal opiates. And what is the role of the internal opiates in nature, in animals, and especially human beings? Number one, pain relief. They're the most powerful pain relievers that we have. Not just physical pain relief, but emotional pain relief as well. Number two, they make possible experiences of reward and pleasure and elation. So when people go bungee jumping and you measure the level of endorphins, the higher the endorphins, the happier they are. Now try and imagine life without pain relief or. Or elation. And then the third role that they have is actually the most important one. They help facilitate the infant parent relationship. Oh, so without end. So when there's that attuned, warm, parental, maternal usually, but parental child interaction, they both have endorphins happening in their brain. Now, for those circuits to develop properly, the endorphin circuits, you need the right environment. You need loving, attuned, non stressed, calm parenting environment. When that's missing, those circuits don't develop. And then when somebody does heroin for the first time, it's like they feel, ah, this is what I've been looking for all my life. But why? Because their brains didn't develop the right way in the first place. If you look at the dopamine circuitry that I know, Daniel, you work with a lot, especially in The ADHD work with in other work as well. The dopamine is essential for motivation, for feeling alive, for activation, for sense of purpose. Dopamine flows when we're seeking food, exploring a novel environment. It's the curiosity molecule and. And it's the motivation molecule. But my mothers are stressed. Their infants don't develop the same number of dopamine receptors. And if you put human beings in isolation, the number of dopamine receptors will go down. That is what I'm saying is that these circuits develop an interaction with the environment. Now, if you look at the histories of my downtown eastside clients, Every one of them has severe adversity in childhood. I didn't have a single female patient who had not been sexually abused as a child. Not one in 12 years. The men had been abused or neglected in terrific ways. And they're the ones who end up in the extremes of addiction. So that's the first thing I learned. Then I looked, you know, so when I looked at their lives and then the brain science, it all made sense, number one. Number two, I've had my own addictive behaviors. I've never been addicted to substances, but I. I behaved addictively, compulsively. I had to keep repeating the behavior. In my case, it was shopping. I'd spend thousands of dollars a day, and then I would justify it by saying, I'm working so hard as a doctor. There was one addiction My workaholism was justified by. Justified My other addiction. My other addiction. Yes, the addicted brain is fantastic in coming up with excuses. And I neglected my family or sometimes my work even. And I realized there was nothing different about me and my patients, except they had a tougher time and I've had more advantage. That's all. So. And let me give you a definition of addiction. Hope I'm not talking too much.
- [27:33]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
No, I'm just fascinated.
- [27:35]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Okay, thanks. So an addiction is manifested in any behavior in which a person finds temporary relief or pleasure and therefore craves. But then they suffer negative consequences and they don't give it up despite the negative consequences. So pleasure, craving, relief, harm, inability to give it up. I said any behavior. It could be cocaine.
- [27:57]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
So eating disorders.
- [28:00]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Bulimia, pornography, gambling, Internet, gaming, the cell phone, work, shopping, compulsive sexual acting of extreme sports can be that way for some people. So when I talk to a thousand people and I say, I give them my definition of addiction, said, how many of you meet that criteria? Out of a thousand, 999 will put their hands up and there'll be one liar who. Who won't? Basically, so most people. So why are we ostracizing these drug addicts? You know, that's the first point. Second point is when you ask people. So let me ask you if I can ask you.
- [28:45]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah.
- [28:46]
Dr. Gabor Mate
According to that definition, I'm not going to ask you what. But have you ever.
- [28:50]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I wrote a book about it, so.
- [28:51]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. Okay. Have you ever had an addictive pattern in your life?
- [28:54]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Oh, yes. So. Because the environment I grew up in with all the actual addicts.
- [28:58]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [28:58]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I was horrified and disgusted.
- [29:00]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [29:01]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
You know, my uncle was murdered. The other one was a heroin addict. So that was not going to ever be me. I'm like, I love you guys. Never going to be like you wanted to be different. So I just hid my addiction because I was a good girl.
- [29:11]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Okay.
- [29:11]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
And so I was. I had an eating disorder.
- [29:13]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Okay. So, Donna, I'm not going to ask you. Okay. You had eating disorder. Let me. Don't tell me what's wrong about it, because we all know what's wrong with it. What was right about it. What did it give you in the short.
- [29:23]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
The anxiety relief. It was clearly. It was. It was like a pressure building, and then there was like a valve.
- [29:30]
Dr. Gabor Mate
In other words, the addiction wasn't your problem. Your addiction was an attempt to solve a problem. It was the anxiety of anxiety, which is a question of emotional pain. So my mantra around addiction is to sum up this little sermon is don't ask why the addiction, ask why the pain.
- [29:46]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah.
- [29:47]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And.
- [29:47]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
And when I learned how to draw boundaries, when I learned how to say no, when I learned how to, like, really defend myself, protect myself.
- [29:54]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Exactly.
- [29:55]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
It went away.
- [29:56]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Of course it would. Which is to say you didn't have a genetic problem.
- [30:01]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Right.
- [30:02]
Dr. Gabor Mate
You had a normal response to an abnormal.
- [30:04]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Right.
- [30:05]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
So even though you could see it through generations in our family, you could also say, well, that was modeled behavior.
- [30:16]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Modeling is one thing, but the other thing, it's even deeper than modeling. Let's say your father's an alcoholic, so he's modeling it. And in some cultures, it's kind of. Alcohol is even romanticized. In my home country, Hungary, out of a population of 9 million, there's said to be a million alcoholics. So that culture kind of embraces it. So there's the modeling, for sure, but there's something else. What's it like to grow up with a father who's alcoholic? It's terrible. It's painful. So then you want to kill the pain yourself. So it's not just the modeling. It's also the response to trauma. Exactly. Yeah.
- [30:55]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Yeah. Well, I became a psychiatrist because my first wife tried to kill herself. And I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist. And that's when I learned her dad was an alcoholic. And so I started studying children and grandchildren of alcoholics. And they don't talk, they don't trust and they don't feel because all of those things are dangerous for them. And so I was really curious, what would that trauma do for my own children?
- [31:27]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Right.
- [31:28]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And it impacts them, which is why we had Mark Wolin on and.
- [31:32]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [31:33]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
You said you mentioned him in your book. It doesn't start with you. Trauma can go generationally.
- [31:42]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [31:42]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And there's this great study out of Emory where they took mice, made them afraid of the scent of cherry blossoms.
- [31:50]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [31:51]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And then their babies were afraid of the scent. That's cherry blossoms. And then their grandbabies, even though they had no negative association. And then brand new study on aspartame, of all things, the sweetener in Diet Coke, give it to rats, makes them very anxious. They give them Valium and it calms them down. It's like, okay. But their babies were anxious and their grandbabies of the aspartame.
- [32:21]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [32:22]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Fed rats. So what is going on in our society where we see autism spiking, ADHD spiking.
- [32:32]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Right.
- [32:33]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Yes. Emotional trauma. But we also might be traumatized by some of the artificial toxins or messing up our gut.
- [32:42]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. I think there's so many different factors and it's impossible to isolate.
- [32:46]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Anyone is saying biological, psychological, social science.
- [32:50]
Dr. Gabor Mate
But it's all one. Right. My own interest has been in. I know when I listen to you talk, you often mention the brain and which substances affect the brain and which supplements would support healthy brain and so on, which I really appreciate. I started taking Ashwagandha after I heard you talk about it, but I pay attention. My own particular interest is the stress and trauma part. And you have to start with the fact that human beings are not blank slates. We're born with certain needs. I mean, evolution dictated certain needs into us. And apart from the physical needs for shelter and food, but we also have other needs. And if those needs are not met, we don't develop properly. And so those needs are for emotional security and safety and belonging to in a non stressed supportive environment. It means the child doesn't have to work to make the relationship with the parent work because it's just there.
- [33:55]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
But how many you don't have to perform, Others are there.
- [33:57]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Right.
- [33:58]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I mean, we're talking about the myth of normal.
- [34:00]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [34:00]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And so it's like I'm one of seven. My ACE score is one. Okay, so I. I had his mother's amazing. A normal childhood, but I was completely lost that my mom had four children in four years and I'm third, which meant sort of irrelevant.
- [34:22]
Dr. Gabor Mate
But look, so we're not just talking about. Okay, well that's really wondering.
- [34:28]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Good mother, but overwhelmed. And am I getting what you're describing? And I'm like, no. I like got kicked off the bridge. Breasts. Four months.
- [34:39]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Well, I'll tell you, Daniel, when you.
- [34:41]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Were talking about trying to find it.
- [34:42]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Ever since, when you were talking with your first wife and how she was a trauma that I didn't say. But now you've just given open the door for me to say something which is that you were no less traumatized than she was, otherwise you wouldn't have been with her in the first place. We always marry somebody exactly at the same level of trauma resolution. Now I can hear you that you had an ACE score of one. I believe you. But there's two ways you can hurt kids. One is by doing bad things to them, which is the ACE stuff. The physical, sexual, emotional abuse. You know, the neglect. The parent, dying, parent being jailed, rancorous divorce. You know, parent being mentally ill, parent being addicted. Violence in a family. But there's another way you can hurt kids, which is where I think you would come into it, which is not by doing bad things to them that you shouldn't, but by not giving them what they need.
- [35:40]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
The lack of nurturing.
- [35:42]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And if you're one of seven and you're the third, how much attention did you get that you needed nothing. Well, that hurt you and that's why you were lost. In other words, you were hurt not because somebody did bad things to you, but because somebody didn't do the good things that was necessary. Know when you ask, but at that.
- [36:01]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Time in the 1950s, in a Catholic family.
- [36:05]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [36:06]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
It's the norm, right.
- [36:08]
Dr. Daniel Amen
To have lots of kids.
- [36:09]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Normalism.
- [36:12]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Okay. Number one. Number two.
- [36:14]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Yeah, no, I. I feel it when you say that.
- [36:16]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Okay.
- [36:17]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Because my dad was working all the time and his favorite words were, no.
- [36:21]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
He wasn't warm and fuzzy.
- [36:23]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Okay, but there's one more thing here, which is we have to take the stress off mothers and blaming mothers because they're not at fault here. But how did human beings evolved? So they've been humanoid creatures on Earth for millions of years and there's been our own species, Homo sapiens has been here for what, 150 200,000 years until 12,000 years ago. Which is like if you can put human existence on a clock, then until five minutes ago, how did we live? We lived in small band hunter gatherer groups.
- [37:00]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah.
- [37:00]
Dr. Gabor Mate
In communal groups where people had each other to support each other all the time. And that was a blink of an eye ago.
- [37:07]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yep.
- [37:07]
Dr. Gabor Mate
So the modern situation from the point of view of human evolution is completely abnormal. Where there's isolated nuclear families, where there is social stress on people all the time when people don't have that extended family, the communal support.
- [37:23]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
So the saying it takes a village.
- [37:25]
Dr. Gabor Mate
It absolutely takes a village. And so that in that sense it's not that mothers are abnormal, is that mothers no longer have the support that.
- [37:34]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
There'S not all the ants and.
- [37:35]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. All the answers. Yeah, yeah. So that's.
- [37:38]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
So I heard something and I actually think I heard you say something similar.
- [37:41]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [37:42]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
But I heard something about these villages in Fiji that still don't put babies down for the first six weeks of their lives. Or maybe it's first six months. They don't set them down, they pass them around.
- [37:52]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Not six weeks. I had a crew woman tell me once in Canada that in our culture babies don't even touch the ground for two years. Oh, well, that's long. Which is a bit of an overstatement. But babies were carried everywhere. The papoose, you know, and this idea of separate bedroom for the baby. And furthermore, the whole idea of sleep training babies where you ignore that they're crying for help.
- [38:20]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
So you don't believe in that.
- [38:21]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Oh my God. What message do you get? What message do you get as a 6 month old? Why are you crying? You're not crying out of caprice or jollies. You're crying because you need something. You might need food. But here's the thing about infants, like we mentioned, connection. Now, connection can exist on all kinds of different levels. You guys can connect with each other even if you don't see each other for a year, even if you don't speak on zoom. Just because you love each other, because you can carry somebody in your heart, an infant can't do that. The infant can only connect by physical needs. So when a conference is crying, it's because they need to be picked up. And if you read there's a wonderful book called Continuum Concept by Jean Lidlov who studied this tribe in Venezuela in the jungle back in the 90s or 80s, those babies are never put down.
- [39:18]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah. So now I just feel so much less guilty because I was criticized because I slept with my Daughter. When she was little, I tried the whole putting her in her room thing. And I'm like, I don't want her in her room. Like, I was very bonded to her, and so I slept with her. And I'm like, everyone thought I was crazy, but.
- [39:33]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Well, you know what I always tell people? Don't worry about it. By the time they're 18, they won't be sleeping in your bed.
- [39:38]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although my husband would say we're in mesh. I don't think we're. But my husband.
- [39:45]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
No. When he was describing the endorphin rush, I'm like, you totally got that with Chloe.
- [39:50]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I totally.
- [39:51]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
She was sales rep for Metaphysics Medtronics. And she's like, I'm gonna have the baby, and I'm not gonna go back. And as soon as she saw the baby, I couldn't do it. Was addicted.
- [40:04]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I. I took one look at my baby. I'm like, I cannot have someone else raise my child. And I didn't expect that.
- [40:08]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Well, it's the end. You actually get, in a good sense.
- [40:12]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
And this crazy mama bear thing came over me, was wild.
- [40:16]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Well, then your child is very lucky.
- [40:18]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
You know, that was fun.
- [40:19]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And. And. And what actually happens is so many of the birth. The birthing practices and the parenting advice that parents get these days undermine that bonding, and they undermine the physiological development of those bonding circuitry. You know, and then we wonder.
- [40:36]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
See, I. In our book, Raising Mentally Strong Kids, we talk about bonding first.
- [40:44]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [40:44]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Listening. Special time.
- [40:47]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah, It's.
- [40:48]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And I give the example. If you're bonded with your children, they're likely to pick your values.
- [40:54]
Dr. Gabor Mate
That's the whole point.
- [40:55]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Not bonded to your children. They're likely to pick the opposite ones just to piss you off.
- [41:01]
Dr. Gabor Mate
So that book, as I was telling you before, is always in competition with one of my books. And it's either the second or the third one. Either yours is. Or mine is on medical child psychology on Amazon. And we make the same point that when children are bonded to you, they will follow your values, your guidance, and.
- [41:24]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
They'Ll ask you for your help.
- [41:25]
Dr. Gabor Mate
They ask you advice. They want you. And what happened in this culture is, is that because parents. Look, in the United States, 25 of women have to go back to work within two weeks of giving. I know that's barbaric.
- [41:39]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I know I literally said, I will sell my house. It was the weirdest reaction, but it was, Barbara.
- [41:43]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And so kids are deprived of their parents. They connect instead to the other kids. Now they take their advice and guidance from other kids and you can see what a disaster that is.
- [41:53]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Or TikTok.
- [41:54]
Dr. Gabor Mate
The other thing that you point that you make is people think we're trying to coddle kids and hover over them. No, you make it very clear that you let kids do things for themselves. When they're able to do it, they have to develop that resilience. They have to develop that self trust. But you don't do it by denying them bonding. You do it by encouraging the bonding.
- [42:17]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
You become a real leader.
- [42:18]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
You're actually there with them. What I learned is you're there with them, you're always encouraging them and, and they come to you and then they talk to you about it. And then when they give you a problem, you're like, oh, that's really hard. What are you going to do? What do you think you're going to do?
- [42:29]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Exactly.
- [42:30]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
But you're talking them through it, right? And then when they ask you, I don't know, what do you think I should do? It's like, oh, you want my opinion?
- [42:36]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [42:36]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
And then we.
- [42:37]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Exactly.
- [42:37]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
But don't give them your opinion too soon.
- [42:39]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Right.
- [42:40]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
What are you working on now? What at this point in your career is the most exciting, most interesting?
- [42:49]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Well, I'll tell you the most exciting thing is I'm 81 years old now and in three weeks I'll be a grandfather for the first time.
- [42:55]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Oh, how fun. Congratulations.
- [42:58]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
It's like falling in love. We have five grandchildren. It's like falling in love all over again.
- [43:03]
Dr. Gabor Mate
You have five kids as well, don't you?
- [43:05]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Between us, we have sex, we adopt. Two of them are our two nieces because their parents were not behaving properly.
- [43:14]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Good for them. So that's. And as a matter of fact, what I've had to do, I had this big European speaking trip lined up for this month and I had to say, sorry.
- [43:26]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Good for you.
- [43:27]
Dr. Gabor Mate
This baby comes first.
- [43:28]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Good for you.
- [43:28]
Dr. Gabor Mate
But you know what? It was remarkably difficult for me to do it. What about the organizers who went through all this trouble and all the people who bought tickets and all, but you know, at the end, oh my God, was I going to miss the birth of my grandchild? So that's the big thing coming up in terms of my work. My eldest son and I, Daniel, who helped me write the Myth of Normal, we were working on a book called hello Again. A Fresh Start for Parents and Adult Children. A Fresh Start for Parents and Adult Children. Because we've been through our share of grief in our relationship and so we've learned a lot and we've given a workshop about it. Now we're writing a book about those that want to engage with that relationship. How to set it right, you know? Interesting.
- [44:12]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Feel like that I would. Why? I don't know. But I don't know if it has anything to do with the emptiness is wicked.
- [44:17]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [44:17]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
It's a wicked thing. It's awful. It's cruel. And the fact that it comes right at the same time as menopause. What was God thinking? I'm just like.
- [44:26]
Dr. Gabor Mate
But God wasn't thinking because there wasn't an emptiness.
- [44:30]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
That's true. Oh, my goodness. You just made such a good point.
- [44:33]
Dr. Gabor Mate
From the evolutionary point of view, the family stayed together.
- [44:37]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
My jaw just hit the floor. That is so.
- [44:39]
Dr. Gabor Mate
You know. So don't blame God on it.
- [44:41]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah.
- [44:42]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. Not for this one, anyway.
- [44:44]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
So smart. That's so true.
- [44:45]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And the empty nest was only in your head.
- [44:49]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
It's awful. It's like losing a part of your body. It's like.
- [44:54]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Well, I think, you know, I love this one, you guys. So just.
- [45:03]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
He's actually kind of happy because he feels like he's number one again. Right.
- [45:06]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
So for the little boy that was third, that was ignored, that was beaten up by his older brother every day.
- [45:15]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And you don't think you were traumatized? Huh? Well, no.
- [45:18]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
That's where the one comes from.
- [45:20]
Dr. Gabor Mate
That's not. That's.
- [45:21]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
No, I think it prepared me in the sense.
- [45:25]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Come on. Oh, no.
- [45:27]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Because I started looking at the brain in 1991.
- [45:31]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [45:32]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I got no end of grief from my colleagues. That charlatan. A snake oil salesman.
- [45:38]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Right.
- [45:40]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I'm a psychiatrist.
- [45:41]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Right.
- [45:41]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I belong to the only medical specialty that virtually never looks at the organ it treats. So when I started going, you should look. If you don't look, you don't know. Stop lying about this.
- [45:54]
Dr. Gabor Mate
So I started looking at the brain.
- [45:55]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I started getting so much grief, but because I got beaten up.
- [46:00]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [46:01]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
I could stand up for myself. Because ultimately, he. My brother. Older brother, became my best friend.
- [46:07]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [46:07]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And I figured if I can deal with him, I can.
- [46:10]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I want to hear doctor.
- [46:12]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. But so look. So it's certainly true that adversity can give us skills and adaptations that help us later on. But you could have also learned to stand up for yourself through another means. And so let me ask you, when your brother beat you up, how did you feel?
- [46:31]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Angry.
- [46:32]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Who did you speak to? Nobody. Okay.
- [46:35]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Because years later.
- [46:37]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Stop.
- [46:37]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Their home videos of this.
- [46:39]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [46:39]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And when I was 50, my dad gave us the videos.
- [46:42]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [46:42]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And I'm like, why didn't you stop him?
- [46:44]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah.
- [46:45]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And he said somebody had to take the videos. And I'm like, good God.
- [46:51]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
So I want to hear what he has to say.
- [46:53]
Dr. Gabor Mate
So what I'm saying is, had there been somebody to talk to. So there wasn't just a trauma of being beaten, you know, there was also of being alone with it.
- [47:03]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah.
- [47:04]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And had somebody. Had you been able to go to your parents and say this is happening? And they said, oh, yeah, that's really upsets you, doesn't it? You must be really angry. Yeah.
- [47:15]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
No, there was none of that.
- [47:17]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. So then you would have learned how to stand up for yourself just by having your anger validated, you know, so interesting. And, and, and you know, and you got lucky because a lot of people, the same thing happens to, they just totally suppress themselves and they try and make them some small in order to survive because if they stand up for themselves, it might.
- [47:39]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
That's what our nieces did.
- [47:40]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Invite further. Further adversity.
- [47:43]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah.
- [47:44]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
So, yeah, I was an anxious kid. If I look back on it, I sort of didn't come into my own until I went in the army when I was 18 and became an infantry medic. And that helped me so much to just sort of grow up. And a lot of people, you know, speak negatively about their military experience. I thought the army was the ultimate good mother. Clear rules reward you when you do good and discipline you when you don't.
- [48:17]
Dr. Gabor Mate
And you know what to expect.
- [48:19]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Yeah.
- [48:19]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
You know what to expect is absolutely predictable.
- [48:21]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Yeah. Yeah.
- [48:23]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
And that's when I learned I was smarter than I thought I was.
- [48:26]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Huh. So, okay.
- [48:29]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Anyways, we've enjoyed this so much, so much.
- [48:31]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I want to do it again.
- [48:32]
Dr. Gabor Mate
It's.
- [48:33]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
I feel like we. There's so many things we could be talking about and.
- [48:36]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Well, it's a pleasure to speak with you both. Thank you.
- [48:40]
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- [49:20]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
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- [49:22]
Dr. Daniel Amen
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- [49:56]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
So you've been listening to Change your BRAIN every day with Gabor Mate and his internationally best selling book the Myth of Normal. So worth getting reading it, sharing it with people that you care about. We would love for you to leave us a comment Question Review subscribe we're going to be here for you and.
- [50:23]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
If you get a chance, listen to some of Dr. Mate's work on what stress during pregnancy does. Because, yeah, you don't really want to feel guilty, but you do want to be informed because it's very important. I thought that was fascinating and my.
- [50:37]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Daughter told me not to say a word to her about anything to do with this.
- [50:41]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
It's so important though, I'll be the.
- [50:43]
Dr. Gabor Mate
Grandfather, not the doctor. Well, thank you both very much.
- [50:46]
Host 1 (possibly a female co-host or interviewer)
Thank you.
- [50:47]
Host 2 (possibly a male co-host or interviewer)
Thank you.
- [50:48]
Dr. Gabor Mate
There.