← Planet Tyrus
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- [00:00]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And do I seem nervous to you?
- [00:01]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
No. No.
- [00:02]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Okay, so relax. We subjected Mr. Tyrus to a Rua sex addict screening instrument. It's a lot of questions. There was like nine questions, 12 questions. Something like that.
- [00:12]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Resentment is what fueled me for such a long time. It was the anger and the hate. But the hardest thing for men is to say I'm damaged. I usually come to you when my mind's kind of made up about something. I remember. But it's also one of those things where saying, hey, I know Dr. Drew is one of the craziest, weirdest things, because you have been pretty much a part of my young adult life and America's young adult life forever. And I guess the biggest question I have is, and I really got to know you and got a chance to talk a lot, was probably during the pandemic, when was probably, I would say, one of the toughest moments of your career, the way you were attacked. How are things now compared to before the storm? That was the pandemic for you.
- [01:16]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Things are different, but very, very good, you know, so essentially I thought during people who don't know this whole story during COVID I started getting angry. I thought what I was seeing was a press generated hysteria because I thought, oh, I see what these assholes are doing. They want to capture eyes. So they're chanting all these ridiculous, you know, over the top, fear, fear mongering. Never occurred to me that our government was involved with this. I mean, that was just. That is like an asteroid landed in my backyard. That. That was the case. And then I started seeing one after another, really high quality physicians and scientists getting canceled. I thought they must have something to say. I mean, what did they say that was so terrible?
- [02:06]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Right.
- [02:06]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And started interview interviewing them on the streaming show that you very kindly were on during COVID We just started. We just started going on. We did Facebook lives and things. People wanted me to answer questions and I wanted to be of help.
- [02:18]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yes.
- [02:19]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
That's all. I just wanted to be helpful. And the things I was accused of, I actually didn't even do. And the things that. That they. Some of the things they were attacking me for were many of the things I got right. So it was. It was very wild time. Very, very confused.
- [02:33]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
I just remember it was because you were on every network, cnn, Fox, I mean, every network, whenever there was any kind of situation with mental health or a medical question, Dr. Drew was the official go to guy. And then all of a sudden, with all due respect, you were a quack. Yeah. And just an out of And I remember going, no, this is. And at the time doing. Going on your show, people were like, hey, you know, maybe not do the doctor Drew, you know, show right now. I don't think I missed a week. And sometimes we were just talking about what I was cooking for dinner. Well, not me, but my better half was cooking for dinner. But I just. And you never, ever, ever bent the knee. You never said, okay, guys, I'll fall in line. And again, you went from being on network television pretty much consistently to just gone.
- [03:30]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah. And. And it's. It's even. It was even more weird because you got to remember I was on. I had a nightly show on HLN. I was on CNN every night for 10 years.
- [03:39]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yes.
- [03:40]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And. And then all of a sudden, I'm not welcome back on msnbc, cnbc, all these places where I still am not welcome back. I would go, I.
- [03:50]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Right. You are the most forgiving person. It wasn't even my show. And I was always mad. Cause I was like, there should have been a long line of support because you have supported so many people, often 99% of the time. You never sent me a bill. You never sent anyone a bill for. I'm just saying, someone calls you up with a. You are generally a very caring, empathetic human being. You chose the right path. A lot of people don't know. You could have been an opera singer. You chose the path. I don't know if I could have been.
- [04:22]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Thought about it wisely, chose not to.
- [04:24]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay, you just stop it, all right? Please don't make me. Fact check, Doc.
- [04:29]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
No, no, I thought about it. The point is, I'm not good enough to have been one.
- [04:32]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay, well, I think that needs to be. You know that. Of course you would say that. I expect no less from you at this point, but. So now you're starting, and now you're back on tv. You got the awesome commercials. I'm happy to say that. Well, my wife, I think, bought like eight of them of the stuff of the things, and. But it seems like you've kind of gotten back to just being there to give information and support again. And I think, yeah, and that's got to feel good. But I do feel like an apology is owed, not just to you, but the other people in the science, the medical field, that some. Some never got their careers back or their reputations were completely destroyed. I know.
- [05:14]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I know it was hard. You had to keep moving forward, and you had to know where Due north was. You had to be really clear on your instincts and things and what you knew and didn't knew. And I've been practicing medicine for four decades. There are things I know, and I could tell that there was nobody taking a risk reward into account. And what's his name? Francis Collins, said that into a microphone a couple years ago. Yeah, we didn't consider any risk of what we were doing. That is disgusting. But. But I wanted just a couple things about apology. Yeah. I look for every opportunity I have to apologize where I got things wrong because I want to be a model for everybody else because we need lots of apologies from lots of people. And then the other thing you mentioned in terms of my, you know, my job, my profession, when I started doing this work, I was so grateful to have this job. And. And there was a shared sort of spirit amongst my peers at the time that we were doing something really important, like this was such an important job. And that's lost.
- [06:17]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Right?
- [06:17]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
That does not really exist. I mean, it's here and there, but primarily doesn't.
- [06:21]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Obviously I don't want to get into like names and all that kind of stuff. But like with peers that were firmly against you during that time, was there a moment of, hey, I'm sorry I got it wrong, or hey, you held your ground, and I have a lot of respect for that. Or I wish I would have known more now, opposed to what I knew then or anything at all from just the professional peers.
- [06:45]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yes, but those were amongst those that were sort of like myself, just looking at things going, something's not right. They didn't take a strong position one way or the other. The ones that attacked me, the ones that were, I mean, egregious attacks even on my DMs and things.
- [07:00]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, I remember a lot of crazy stuff.
- [07:03]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And when it was happening, I thought, oh, these are not good people. Something's wrong with them, that you could do this. And lo and behold, I mean, somebody's. I retweeted something this morning where somebody said, you know, we were doing a Milgram experiment live on a national scale. And the Milgram experiment is this famous experiment, psychology experiment in Yale where this psychology professor tried to figure out how was it that all those normal Germans behaved the way they did. Why did they go along with that? What happened? And he did this thing where he had a. A subject and they stood in front of a panel of increasingly large electrical discharges. They introduce him to some sort of a fat older guy, and he goes in the other room, he goes, we're going to ask him questions. And every question he gets wrong, you're going to hit him with electric discharge. This is a feedback training mechanism we're going to teach people. You know, this is sort of like
- [07:57]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
similar opening scene in Ghostbusters where they
- [07:59]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
have to guess, yeah, okay, and. And eventually they get to the point where they're giving the guy screaming and begging. It's a tape, of course, please. And then, and then there's even one button that is a skull and crossbones and they have a guy in a white coat standing over. I'm going, just proceed, proceed. Hit the next button. And our deference to authority and to his bystander effects and things like that are such that we will do horrible things. And that is my point is that if you said horrible things to me or you reported your neighbors for having a barbecue or you yelled at somebody for not having a mask in, in Costco, you would be the prison guard. In Germany, you would not be the anti Nazi standalone, you would be the prison guard. And you need to know that about yourself.
- [08:52]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Well, you know, and that's a great point because one of the, the things that, you know, the older I get, and now that I'm in, you know, my early 50s, I've kind of had a, an epiphany where I, I look back at my life, like how I got to 50 and I've been looking a lot into my, like, relationships over my lifetime. One of the. And I've always been very secure. And when I've made a decision whether to keep somebody in my life or not in my life, and then you kind of, you look at your mistakes and I think you've always been straight with me, that I've had a good job of owning my. When I've, when I've made mistakes. And I remember one of the biggest problems that I had, and I remember I called you up one day, is that I was relying more on attention from strangers and fans, getting that dopamine hit of being told how, you know, good I was or great I was and not really wanting to deal with all the problems I was dealing with at home. And I remember I called you up one day and I said, I'm sick of this, I have to stop doing this shit, doc. And you just kind of laughed a little bit. You're like, well, it's, you know, recognizing it is the, you know, that's important. But now that I'm looking back on things and a lot of the term, like one of the things that, and I wrote about it in my book, I had a chapter called Sea Turtles right And this, this chapter keeps coming back to me over and over again where I talk about sometimes the best way to love a family member is to let go and to move on. And with me in particular, my mother and my brother and I moved on, you know, from them. And I always kind of looked at it to where I was making the best decisions. And every decision I've made in terms of whether I have somebody in my life or not in my life or whatever, usually I always said it the re. I made my decisions or my mistakes or whatever because at first the initially the idea was it was medicine for me. Like I want. I thought what I was doing was going to make things better, you know, and then it didn't work in terms of especially looking for, you know, a stranger who doesn't know anything real about. They just see me in front of the camera and they tell me I'm a great guy and I'm smart and brilliant and, you know, they love me. That stuff kind. It's like medicine, you know, you seek it as like to feel better because you don't like your situation. But then it, it ends up turning into something, something else. So I've been looking a lot back at like, why I've not been able to sustain long term relationships with like family. You know, I write them off and I move on. And then I got. And I called you again. I don't, I've probably called you maybe four times in like when I had a problem, but my brother had recently had kidney failure and I had written like, never going to talk to him again. Not just you do your thing. I do, like we just don't work, you know, And I found myself struggling. Do I call, do I reach out to say, hey, you're going to be all right? And then eventually I finally did it and I called you for advice, you know, because unfortunately I don't have mom, dad, grandparents, and I don't have someone in my, in my, in my database or a family member that I would consider has wisdom or made good decisions. And I was going back and forth because it wasn't. And this was my rationale, it wasn't anything I. Again, you always kind of make yourself the victim, even though you're not. I made this decision and I guess I was wondering why I was struggling with it. And then I look back in some of my worst relationships or horrible things I made and some of the things. So I started looking like, well, maybe there's some stuff inside of me that maybe I don't want to come to grips with. Or maybe it would help me now that I'm in this different phase of my life where peace seems to be the most important thing to me. Just quiet and making sure of things. The other thing is like my excessive need to always try to fix things and take care of people, even if they're not necessarily good for me anymore. Right, Right. So I reached out to you and I said the two biggest things that I always hear. The biggest problem with so called wannabe alpha man or dominant man is that we're either sex addicts or we're narcissists. Those are the two things that get thrown in the air when it comes to toxic males. And I, you know, I'm on. I'm on the poster child for that. And so one of the things I was like, you know what, man? I'm just gonna. I call up Dr. Drew and I said, in this effort, I have this series on my podcast where it's like my story and try to figure things out. Whom better to trust to tell it straight. There was. And just so you know, this isn't a magic trick, I literally said, would you. I would like to take the test. I would like to you administer the test, give them to you. And then you would read me the results on the podcast. To say I'm nervous is an understatement. I guess we could screw up the tape and delete it, but I would still have to deal with the fact. So I've always been, like I said, a guy who likes to be transparent. I've been open about a lot of the mistakes I've made in, in my marriage, as in fatherhood and career choices. So I'm. I'm all about trying to own it. But I. I also would like to understand myself better, if that makes any sense. Yeah, this isn't to prove to some asshole that calls me names online. This is for me to maybe try to understand how I can be better, but also trying to just figure out, why do I never. Why is it so hard for me to forgive sometimes? Or just moving on? Like, I can be honest. Like, I probably miss my mom all the time. Just moments. And it's weird because the older you get, the stranger things remind you of stuff. I found not so much now, but there was probably. When I was in Jersey was probably my mentally toughest. I was definitely depressed. I was overeating all the time. I was, I was just. My health was terrible. I was walking in a cane. I really. I couldn't watch a movie without crying. Like, I Was having all kinds of just. Just all over the place, you know, and. And so. But I. I worked through that, but it was. It was a lot of residual collateral damage done to my family. And in some cases, I don't even know if it's repairable. But I. I do know that, like, I have to. The only way I can get through things, if I own it and understand where it comes from. So that's where I'm at.
- [15:37]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
All right, so let me corroborate that. Tyrus is nervous. He's been texting me throughout the last three hours about how nervous he is. So he is actually nervous about this. And I would never put you in a position to be harmed by anything.
- [15:53]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
I know you would. I know. But. But I. Like I said, you'll. Brutally. Politely. Honest or politely. Brutally.
- [16:00]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
We'll just be direct.
- [16:01]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, we'll just be direct. Yes.
- [16:02]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
So I wanted, I want, though, to sort of. I want to get to the test by way of some of the things you've already brought up, though.
- [16:09]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [16:10]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
First, it's important to point out that these are screening instruments only. These are self administered tests, which is what Tyrus did. The RUA sex addict screen is actually provided by the sex Addicts Anonymous organization. And it's, you know, the results. I'll talk about them in a minute. But it's really, do you need us? You know, sort of the question there not, you know, what's the nature of a sex addiction, how bad is it, what's the matter, Anything like that. And same thing on the narcissism inventory, which is what I use to do research on celebrities. That is a. It's not a diagnostic instrument. It's sort of a scale. You know, where are you relative to the average in narcissistic features? Okay. You would go on, you'd look at the features and go, well, maybe there is a disorder here. Maybe there are some trouble functioning because of these features, and maybe it's really affecting a personality function. All right, we'll get to that in a minute. But you talked about. And let me just say this test. What we were able to. We were able to develop some. Some models giving this test to celebrities to show that celebrities use their celebrity status as a way to solve narcissistic injuries.
- [17:23]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [17:24]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Which is what you just described. People that don't know me, tell me I'm great. I get the dopamine hit. It's filling that hole that we carry around. If you've had deficiencies in childhood, so you're just doing what Every celebrity does. The problem is, as you've discovered, it doesn't fix anything.
- [17:38]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
No, it doesn't.
- [17:39]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
It feels good. Doesn't fix anything. It's, it's, it's an attempt to fix it. It doesn't work, but it still feels good in the moment. It's an immediate hit and then it goes away. But some of what you've been describing are outside of the narcissism, addiction sort of, sort of zone, which is attachment styles. Have you ever heard of that?
- [18:02]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
No.
- [18:03]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Attachment styles. So adult. You know, when, when we are in our infancy, in the first five years of life, we develop a certain fittedness with our primary caretakers. And we're supposed, we're trying to form a secure attachment. And in that secure attachment we develop a sense of self that's sort of reflected back on us from, from secure figures. We develop the capacity to regulate our emotional systems and our nervous system because of that co created environment of shared trust. We call that relationship. If the parent is carrying a lot of shit around or the parent abuses the kid or abandoned the kids in some way, this whole thing is ruptured and it creates attempts by the child to form attachments. But they are insecure and for some people they're anxious. They're always trying to get, trying to get at that person. If you have an alcoholic parent or something, it's pretty easy to be anxiously attached. And if you have an abandoning parent, it's easy to be avoidantly attached. Like I didn't need him anyway, I'm fine, I'm just avoiding everything. And it's hard to be intimate if you're avoidant. It's hard to form stable intimate attractions because intimacy is where the injury occurred and so it's threatening to be close to other people. You get kind of avoidant. Attachment styles can be, I would say, I don't want to say, you know, overly state this, but kind of easily managed in therapy. I think this is a, you know, ptsd, emotional regulation, attachment styles. These are top of mind issues in psychotherapy these days. And so really what, what would happen in a emotionally focused therapy or in a good therapeutic environment, you'd get some EMDR for whatever traumas were left behind and then you form a secure attachment to the therapist. So you learn to tolerate secure attachments. So you could then go out to your spouse or whomever and get those attachments secured up, provided that your spouse can tolerate it. The spouse may be avoidant also. She then may need to do some therapy also. So there's that that's one thing to think about.
- [20:09]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [20:10]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Okay. So the tests. Let's start with. Are you a sex addict? Why was that? Why were we doing that test? What. What happened? Can you talk about that?
- [20:18]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Back when I was. When I used to have, like, multiple relationships and a lot of, like, online stuff, like, not online, but, like, people I'd never even met would be like, you know, they'd send me pictures and stuff like that, and, And, And I would seek that kind of attention. And usually in my relationship, prior to my marriage or whatever, one of the things that was always kind of thrown at me was, you know, because I had three kids in a year and it was, you know, oh, he's a sex addict. That's why I had, you know, but I was like, I had a bad year. Not bad. Like, I love my kids. I. I could. Would I had them differently with one woman? Yes, of course. I wish that wasn't the hand. I don't look back on it. But during that time, I was. That was one of the things that was thrown at me a lot.
- [21:10]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Were you. Were you using sex to manage depression or feeling problems much the way you food at one point? Yeah.
- [21:17]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Well, what ended up happening was I got divorced and it was the way maybe the last thing that the conversation we had were basically laughed at my WWE debut and basically said I was an Uncle Tom, you know, and it was just one of those things where the. The marriage had just kind of fizzled out. You know, we just wanted different things. But there was that need to be like, no, no, no, I'm. That's not. I'm not selling out to be in the WWE like you, you know, basically.
- [21:47]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Right.
- [21:48]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
And. But it stung like it, It. It messed with me. And it also bothered me that I had failed. One of the things, like, I've been pretty successful in life, but when I fail at something, it eats at me for a long time.
- [22:00]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah.
- [22:00]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
And I had failed in the marriage. I had failed, you know, to have kids or any type of real family, you know, got married for all the wrong reasons, got married to make up for being left and abandoned and cheated on, you know, and so I had to get married to prove to myself that I could win her back. You know, it was like a. And I look back on it and was like, I had no. We had no business getting married in the first place, but I did it because I needed to be. It was almost like someone said you had a small dick and you had to show em. No, no, no, no, no, no. My shit hits the water when I pee, you know what I mean? And it was kind of where that was. But when I look back on that, was that all about my manhood was that, you know, and then I had to go out and prove that I was a man by, you know, sleeping with as many, any woman that would come my way during that period even. And 99 or 85, 90. I wasn't even attracted to and instantly regretted it. Sometimes, like, why did I do this to myself? There was always like, I know this isn't the right way to behave. I, I, it, my inner voice would be like, what is it that you're trying to find? Because you're not finding it. And there's consequences. And those consequences ended up being three beautiful children. But in no way do I look at, if someone said to me, is that the way to go? I would leave. No, it's a horrible idea. You will. The consequences from that. I am, as I get older, I'm also waiting for my children to be like, how could you do that to us? You know, like, there's a, there's a day coming where I'm going to have to explain to them, you know, why? Because it wasn't fair,
- [23:56]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
wasn't fair to them.
- [23:58]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
I mean, I know what it's like to not have a dad. I know what it's like not to have a mom. And I can never be there, no matter how much I want to, no matter how hard I work. If I, if I go see one, I'm not seeing three. If I see three, I'm not seeing one. Like, so I work to make sure everybody's okay, everyone's taken care of. But there's also a part of me is like I robbed all three of them and my, my daughter, all four of my, of having a full time dad. And I picked the worst job in the world. I have to travel and live out a hotel. So I live with that kind of, I don't want to, I'm not ashamed of them, but I'm ashamed of me, if that makes any sense.
- [24:44]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah, it does. There's a lot packed into what you just went through, obviously. But I, I would be careful not to lay your guilt on them.
- [24:55]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
No, I don't.
- [24:56]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
In other words, you have some older, an older son now, right?
- [25:01]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, he's, he's 14. Yeah.
- [25:04]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah. Let him express what it is that he feels about it and then be honest with him. Like, yeah, I did the best I could. I wish I could be in there and look. Having a sustained relationship. Yes, ideally Course, dad in the home has a huge impact on a child, but a lot of people do fine without that. And having a sustained relationship outside of the home. Sustained, close, ongoing tends to really reduce the risk, particularly with a male figure, particularly if it's actually dad of dad not being there continuously.
- [25:38]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Well, and like I said, thanks to modern technology, I facetime with my son every day and my daughter.
- [25:43]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You are there.
- [25:44]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, no, we watch.
- [25:45]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And ever since they have kids when they were infants, when I could come home for half an hour from the hospital at night, you know what I mean? I was like, I was a work. I was a workaholic. You know, I got. We all got stuff.
- [25:54]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
You know, one of the nice things about that I get to. And there's this new thing where they can. We can watch movies on FaceTime together at the same time.
- [26:03]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Right.
- [26:03]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
So, you know, and so. And the same thing with my daughter Re. And. And Georgie and I'm. Like I said, my daughter Nala, we're just kind of going through. It's going to have to be on her time. And I understand that, but I'm. I'm ready when she is. But. And I think that's important. Important or whatever, but I. Not just financially make sure my kids have everything they need. Like there's. I'm always available, I'm always very important to talk to them, text them.
- [26:36]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And then as you're saying you're. You're available even when they don't need you, you're still kind of have a ongoing relationship. But, but look, you did not describe sex addiction in that behavior. You decide you describe sort of depression, me meets acting out.
- [26:49]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [26:50]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And you know, we can talk about what acting out is, you know, where that comes from and stuff. And you've mentioned more than a couple times resentment that you harbor resentments. Resentments are very erosive. They erode you. They're corrosive. A resentment is like taking a poison and expecting it to hurt somebody else.
- [27:11]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [27:12]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
That's why we say it. So those resentments that you harbor and you harbor them against yourself as well as other people, you're going to have to manage those. Those will create acting out behaviors. You'll justify things. You'll find yourself in situations where you just aren't congruent with who you are because you feel so damn resentful of things. You know, just this. The shit you took for doing a wwe that I would be hugely resentful for that. But you can't let it eat you up, right? You gotta put it Somewhere. And again, that's the other thing that emotional regulation and therapeutics are all about. So we did. We subjected Mr. Tyrus to a Rua sex addict screening instrument. It's a lot of. There was like nine questions, 12 questions, something like that. And he is not a sex addict. Both from the standpoint of the screening instrument and in terms of what I'm hearing here in this history, in this history also, I have learned something I didn't. I didn't have a clear distinction on in my own head clinically. But there's a difference between just somebody who cheats and a sex addict.
- [28:18]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yes.
- [28:19]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
If you're a cheater. I've got a great video for you. I can show you. If you feel like you have a cheating tendency of what the psychology is that ends up with you being in positions where you shouldn't be.
- [28:31]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Right.
- [28:32]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
There's. And. But. But behind it all, resentment, resentment, resentment, resentment. And then attachment issues. Attachment issues have to be solved. You got to find ways to solve your. Your needs. And if your attachments won't let you form the right kind of attachments, it's. It's. It's a conundrum that people get in, and they can end up doing things they. That aren't consistent with who they are, who certainly not who they want to be. Okay.
- [28:56]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [28:57]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
So good. You can. You can rest assured that there's. There's stuff there for you. And by the way, if. Let's say you and I were in treatment, we would do a totally different kind of treatment than if you actually had sex addiction.
- [29:07]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [29:08]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Very different.
- [29:09]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [29:09]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Okay. So then it goes. Are you a narcissist? You get that thrown at you?
- [29:15]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yes.
- [29:16]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Which is tossed around a lot these days. Now, the reality is that we have entered a narcissistic period of history.
- [29:27]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yes.
- [29:27]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And I guess it is just the case we never actually had the documentation of this historically. But I can kind of see the evidence as the waves of history, as I understand them, where narcissism comes up. Usually it comes up when families aren't functioning well and children are traumatized, and then they enter adulthood with all this trauma, and they use narcissistic strategies to manage that trauma. We have definitely been going. It was predicted sociologically by a guy named Christopher Lash in the seventies. He was right. And even he didn't predict all the shit we're into right now. But we have moved measurably into a more narcissistic era. So average narcissism is up generally.
- [30:09]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [30:09]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Okay. So we all have narcissistic traits. We all are.
- [30:12]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Being on tv, you gotta have a little bit of narcissistic.
- [30:14]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You gotta have some of that. That's right. And, and some of it is actually good. It's not necessarily. We have this tendency in this culture to take these terms and use them pejoratively. It freaks me out because I think they are descriptive terms. They're neither necessarily good nor bad. They're good and bad. If I want to find a good fighter pilot, I want him narcissistic as hell. I want him to believe he's bigger than life and can't be injured. And, and an alcoholic narcissist is the best because for them, things slow down when they're under extreme circumstances and things. So just to use these terms always pejoratively, I think is a giant, giant mistake. Yes. People with meth addiction do horrible things. Severe, malignant narcissists do horrible things. But you may want them. George Patton.
- [31:08]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Teddy Rose on for one second. Doc, I got so nervous over that test. I got to pee real quick. Can we take 30 seconds?
- [31:14]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Okay. All right. Please, please keep that part in. Shows how nervous you are.
- [31:29]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah. Oh, yeah. We don't take anything out.
- [31:33]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
So I, I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not going through all this to scare you, but to contextualize everything.
- [31:41]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
It's not just, it's not like we're sitting in a corner some, you know,
- [31:45]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
so it's like the stakes are high.
- [31:47]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
The stakes are high.
- [31:48]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah. If, if you can tell when I have to deliver bad news to people because I get nervous.
- [31:54]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Right.
- [31:54]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Do I seem nervous to you?
- [31:55]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
No. No.
- [31:56]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Okay, so relax. All right. Okay. But, but, but I, but I, I, I want people to understand that this is not diagnostic. This is. Yeah.
- [32:05]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
This is not, this isn't like I'm taking breakdown, the cancer screening things, it
- [32:10]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
breaks down to different subcategories like vanity and things like that. But I never feel like that's worthwhile. I mean, you kind of, you kind of know based on the answers you give which, which area you kind of have some narcissistic qualities in. And yours are more sort of in the area of being right and being a source of opinion and, and which are actually reflective of reality. Right. People are interested in your opinion. You do have, you, you do have. People do always come to you for ideas and things. Okay, so it's a 40 point scale. If we. The highest person. I probably shouldn't even say this because she got so mad at me because I put it in her. In our book. And it was the fact that it happened publicly. So it didn't occur to me that putting it, writing it down would bother her. But I wrote it in our book because it was just factually the case that the highest score we found amongst any celebrities was Robin Quiver from Stern Show.
- [33:00]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [33:01]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
She had like a 31st 4 or 36 or something. Howard thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard, but. And she was outraged about it. And, you know, okay, it just is. I love Robin. It doesn't diminish my affection for her at all. And if she's got those traits, fine, maybe. And by the way, the traits really only become significant. Really trouble, you know, bothersome is in, you know, sustained close relationships. That's what they can start to be kind of unpleasant to be around. Average score is like 14 to 16. That's kind of the average score. We kind of bounce around in that zone. It's interesting, when we did the celebrity test, we measured against business school students at usc and they ended up scoring super high. We were sort of surprised. They were actually well above normal, which was around 15 at the time. And then the celebrities scored above that typically. And we were able to break it down by different categories. Generally, people that were in the media because they had something specific to offer tended to rank lower on the score. Like, I was sort of below average, but not near average because I'm a physician in the media. I'm trying to do something. Or if I were a cello player, you know, I wanted to be a famous cello player because I want to share my skill. Those kinds are. I'm a newscaster. They tended to rate low. And you were definitely in that category. Your score was a 10.
- [34:24]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Oh, wow.
- [34:25]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Was a 10. And it actually. You almost scored too low. I start to worry when it goes below 10 that, that it's. It's in certain narcissistic qualities are actually good and important to be able to sort of, let's say, stand up for yourself or to look at yourself realistically. So you're right there. You're in the low normal range. You're just on the verge of being too low, which may be back to your attachment stuff and self esteem stuff and all those things.
- [34:53]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
And is. But it does age anything to do with it. Does age have anything to do with it? Like how I was when I was younger, opposed to like, now that I'm older, does that happen?
- [35:03]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
100. Okay, 100. And, you know, back to Howard. Howard was like a 14 or something, if I remember right. And he said, oh, if. You know, before I got psychotherapy, I would have been up with Robin. And I thought, yeah, that is true. I've had a lot of psychotherapy and stuff, too. And I thought the same thing. I thought. I thought, yeah, you definitely. You definitely move into healthier categories. Aging, experience. These are all things that.
- [35:28]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
And also seeing all the things that. What about seeing the results of.
- [35:32]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
What's that?
- [35:32]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
What about seeing some of the results of your bad choices and how they've hurt the people?
- [35:36]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah. Learning experience.
- [35:38]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [35:38]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Of course.
- [35:39]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay. Because, of course, you always say you change and you go through change and stuff, and you just. You know, my entire. I'm more focused on just trying to fix a lot of the. You can't. You can't take things away, obviously, but it's just. Life just seems a little bit slower now, if that makes any sense. Where I look, I just kind of. Not as angry at the world. I'm more like. I'm on the. I don't know if I get another 15 or another 25 left on this. I mean, we. We all. We all could. It could be over anytime. But.
- [36:17]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yep.
- [36:19]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Fighting. I'm. I'm not going to be dying of a heart attack, you know, because I didn't try, you know, dropping all the weight, you know, and tightening my circle and making sure.
- [36:32]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Are you doing the right things are also. You getting a coronary calcium screen. You're getting your PSA for prostate. You're doing colonoscopies.
- [36:39]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay. Half of that, sure. The other part, I'm black. Doc, we're not doing that. I'll just. I keep. I have. I'm not. The. The colonoscopy thing. I just. It. If it ain't broke. Why. You know, I always. I'm a horrible. I'm gonna tell you, Doc, I'm a horrible patient. I'm absolutely horrible. And it's just. Every time.
- [37:03]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Let me make two quick pitches.
- [37:04]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [37:04]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Okay. Colonoscopy is because we want to see the tumor before it becomes cancerous.
- [37:10]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay?
- [37:10]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
It is. We want it when the polyp stage. And when you have a polyp, you have no idea there's anything there. And when it turns into cancer, it's a goner.
- [37:17]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [37:18]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
For the most part.
- [37:19]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [37:20]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And so we're trying to get things very, very early. I get them every year because I have a genetic thing where I'm at risk for colon cancer.
- [37:27]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [37:28]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
As far as prostate, it's no more. Digital rectal exam. That's gone.
- [37:32]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Oh, okay, then I'm in. I'm in.
- [37:34]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Blood test. Blood test.
- [37:36]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay, I can do a blood test. Yeah.
- [37:37]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And for black men, when they get prostate cancer, it tends to be more aggressive and more advanced when it presents.
- [37:45]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Right.
- [37:45]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
So the screening becomes even more important for you and trust me, I have prostate cancer. You know that, right?
- [37:51]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
No, I did not.
- [37:52]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Oh, so I have prostate cancer.
- [37:54]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
You're Superman to me.
- [37:56]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I had the full surgery 14 years ago. Didn't do to my sexual functioning. Didn't. If anything improved it maybe a little bit. Kind of a little more ninja like now. And. And. And I'd have radiation 10 years after that. It had a local recurrence, so, you know, that was fine. And nothing. And nothing on my life. It's. It's been a zero impact. So the treatments are there. We have a lot we can do now, and so don't freak out about it. You get it early when it's late. There's not a lot we can do.
- [38:25]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Right. Okay, I will, doc. I will. I will follow up on that. You have my word.
- [38:31]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
All right, so back to the narcissism. You. All the stuff you're describing is really interesting. Would benefit from treatment. You know, the fixing and the. And. And, you know, and all that stuff, and the attachment and the. The harass, the resentments. These are all things that have got to be managed. Now here. Here's the two. Two things to kind of look for that outside of treatment. You want to make things right, you said. Okay. And it's important when you make things right, not just to make an apology, but to make an amends, which is, what can I do to clean up my side of the street? What do I need to do to make this right? And how can I do that and how best to. And some people won't know part of it, right? They're. They're pissed. And fine, that's. You're one of God's creatures. You're doing the best you can. That's. That's that, right?
- [39:19]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Because it has to be from within, right? Because you're not. Some people just like. Like, I'm assuming. I'm just speculating here, but let's say my biological father, at this point in his life, maybe he's like, hey, you know, I really blew it. And I want to reach out and say, hey, I'm sorry, you know, and I wish I was a better person, but, you know, I'd like to know you now. And my response would be like, no, sorry, I don't want to know you I've been this far.
- [39:46]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I think that it would be perfectly reasonable to go, I hear your apology, I accept your apology. But there's nothing in this relationship for me.
- [39:54]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [39:55]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Sorry.
- [39:56]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay. And. And, and then he needs to just be. And he would be. He can still fix himself. He can still.
- [40:03]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
He correct whatever he has to.
- [40:05]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah. He has to do whatever he has to do.
- [40:07]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
That's right.
- [40:07]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
But understand that, like, you have to be able to understand that no matter what you do, it might not ever be right to the people that you harmed.
- [40:15]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
That's right.
- [40:16]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
And you got to be okay with that.
- [40:17]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You've done your job. You did your part.
- [40:19]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [40:19]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah, you've done your part. And, and then the other thing that I start to see in people when I know they're really on the right track is gratitude. Lots of gratitude. And I've seen you express that periodically. And that's when you know you're in. In heading in the right direction. You start to feel grateful for the things you have.
- [40:41]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
And I am. You know, I, I am. It's just, I, I just want. I mean, maybe it's weird. It's just wanting everyone, even though I'm not there. I. It's there knowing they're there that makes me work so hard, I guess is like I, I used to do it for me. I wanted to show everybody that I wasn't just another stereotype, that I wasn't some. Yeah, just. Just some no account, half breed mulatto from Boston, you know?
- [41:20]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Well, I actually, I, I think that was a worthy effort and I think mission accomplished. Right?
- [41:28]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah.
- [41:28]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And now you've got other things to. To deal. Yeah. Handle.
- [41:34]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, I, I guess it's hard sometimes to. To say mission accomplished.
- [41:42]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I, I know that. And, and again, that you gotta. That's more of that stuff, whatever that is, that. That emptiness, that hole, that whatever. But I, I'm an objective observer and I can sit here and tell you, yeah, mission accomplished and don't let up.
- [41:57]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
No, no. I mean, maybe that's why, because you're like, oh, I did it. And then next day you're, You're a dick again. You know, that's not, that's not the riddle.
- [42:06]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
No, no, no. You talked about me getting through all the negativity.
- [42:10]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah.
- [42:11]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
You know, my thing is I just don't make a difference. I want to make a difference. If that's on my tombstone, I'm fine. So I'll just keep moving forward. I want to keep making a difference. It's important to me. I'd Say, I'll keep moving forward. You need to keep moving forward. Even though you've accomplished what you needed to do for you.
- [42:23]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Right.
- [42:24]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
There's still something in this that is important.
- [42:26]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Right? And I, you know what? And talking to somebody is not a bad thing. You know, And. And recently, I think it was on social media. There was. I think his name was Garcia, was a boxer. He had a fight. And at the, at the end of his fight when they. Jim Gray was interviewing him, he talked about his depression, he talked about his anxiety, and he cried in the ring, like. And, And I, I reposted it because I said I have so much respect for him because the hardest thing. And again, I only talk about men because I'm not a woman, and I don't, you know, but the hardest thing for men is to say I'm damaged and I want to be better and to express it, you know, because it's just not allowed sometimes, you know, you're not. Strength has our vision of what real strength is, is not actually what strength is. Right. It's not standing with your hands on your hips and everything. You're bulletproof, like Superman. It's being able to be shot and to bleed it out and to heal it up and then say, this happened and I'm stronger for it. And I.
- [43:26]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And I just still be that same strong person. Yeah, yeah, it's that. And, And I. I worry. There's a tendency. Now, you're not doing this, by the way. This is not about you, but there's a tendency to take this language, the, you know, the psychiatric language, and. And just use it all over the place and blame people and blame, you know, just label and blah, blah, blah. I. That's why I, you know, that's why I get upset about it. You know, I don't like the word. Addict, to me, is just a description. And people add all this pejorative sort of quality to it, or they use it as an excuse for their behavior, whatever it is. Look, these are descriptions. They're nothing more than that. They're ways of describing things. And we're all on spectrums of all these things. This is this human experience. We all have our shortcomings. We all have brains. Brains have sicknesses associated with them. Symptoms. Things happen. And it's neither weak nor strong. It's just a thing that happens, and that's the part of the richness of the human experience. That's all.
- [44:30]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Doc, you are a beautiful person. And. And I'm shocked that even during the pandemic they were People were not fighting for because I. Like I said, your kindness is legendary, and you are passionate about things. And the thing I like most about you is you're completely honest.
- [44:54]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Try to be.
- [44:55]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
And thank you because in this day and age, honesty is a rare currency. And I just personally want to thank you for even just doing this. Thank you so much.
- [45:09]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Again, I want to thank you for being a friend. I like having Tyrus as a friend. I like having you in my. You keep your fighting analogies going in my corner.
- [45:17]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, well, thank you, sir. It means the world to me, but. All right, well, I'll see you soon.
- [45:22]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
All right, good. And then do it. Be kind with this. This is descriptions. Yeah.
- [45:26]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
No, I'm not like, I'm gonna get on the phone and be like. Call like somebody from my 20. Hey, Mother, told you I wasn't.
- [45:32]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
What.
- [45:32]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Click. That would be what a narcissist would do.
- [45:35]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Exactly.
- [45:35]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
No, this was.
- [45:37]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
And then think about just. For.
- [45:38]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Just. I'm hoping that some guys watching this, that maybe you're feeling or going through some stuff.
- [45:44]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah.
- [45:45]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Reach out. Get. Not everyone has. Is blessed to have a doctor, but
- [45:49]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
there is why we did that. To show what human experience is. It shows. It's just what. This is what people are. And I leave this conversation, though, worrying about resentments for you.
- [46:00]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Okay.
- [46:01]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Resentments is the corrosion that if you don't.
- [46:05]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Resentment is what fueled me for such a long time. It was the anger and the hate. I played ball with a chip on my shoulder. I wrestled with everything I did. Was. I was there to show you I belonged and. And that anger. And I. I see that with my kids. Like my son, for example, he plays baseball with a smile on his face. He every. You know, my daughter, she rides her horses with a smile on my. My daughter, Reese, she swims and plays bassoon with a smile. They. They're enjoying the moment. I always played sports to get was an anger. There was a. It was.
- [46:38]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I.
- [46:38]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
You know, I always tell my son, listen, you're not on the dark side of the force. That. That's my. That's my. You. You're the light, and you have a smile, and you're not weak and you're not soft. I. I miss. I used to think if you weren't hard like me, there was something wrong. No. No. You are what I was supposed to be.
- [46:57]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Yeah.
- [46:58]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
And so for me, that's mission accomplished. My. My children don't play sports, so they don't have to go home. They play them because they love it and they're able to do it. So that's mission accomplished. I appreciate that, Doc.
- [47:21]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Well, and. And I'm sure that worked for you for a while too. I'm sure.
- [47:24]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, it got me here. The problem was is that I didn't realize how much damage it did to those who tried to hold on to me, you know, like my wife, close friends, my kids. Because I was so focused on being the man, the guy, you know, I had to beat everybody. I had to prove everybody wrong.
- [47:46]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I hope for you a day where you look at all of this as your journey and you're at peace with it. And although you might have done it differently, there might have been some.
- [47:55]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
And I think that's where I'm at. I'm looking for peace, opposed to. I'm not looking to confront somebody who did me wrong when I was a kid. Like, life happened and I, I survived it. But the resentment thing is something that, that's, that's that 400 pound gorilla that. It's time for him to go to. It's time for him to go to sleep.
- [48:13]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
It only hurts you.
- [48:14]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, yeah, thanks.
- [48:17]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
All right, man.
- [48:17]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
I appreciate it.
- [48:18]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Out there trying to get on the show, like in April or something. I'm trying to get out.
- [48:21]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, I know the guy. So I'll try to get your book, see what I can do.
- [48:24]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Well, I'm just gonna. I'm trying to get.
- [48:25]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yeah, you're back. You're back and busy again. And that I love. Every time I talk to you, I'm on set, I'm here, I'm there, and that's where you need to be. Because if you're on set, that means you get. People get to see probably the most decent man who's ever been on television. And I, that's. I'm trying to think of somebody else, maybe Mr. Rogers. And that's not a. And that's not throwing shade.
- [48:49]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
I get it, I get it.
- [48:50]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
He made a lot of young. He made a long of young people in this.
- [48:53]
Dr. Drew Pinsky
Very successful in the spirit in which it was offered.
- [48:56]
Tyrus (George Murdoch)
Yes, sir. Thank you. All right, boss. Till next time, okay?