← Secondhand Therapy
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- [00:01]
A
Secondhand Therapy is presented by Pony Bear Studios. For ad free episodes. Head on over to patreon.com secondhand therapypod
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B
hello, my little bear cubs, and welcome back to another episode of Secondhand Therapy. We need to remind you that we are not therapists.
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A
That's right.
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B
We are not experts. No, we're not. This is not a substitute for therapy. And this is not professional advice in any way. All of that also applies to our guest.
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A
Ooh, we have a guest.
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B
We do have a guest. David Cicillo is joining us remotely from the Bay Area, fresh off of his. I mean, he was on a. He was on a different podcast.
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A
We're gonna allow it now.
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B
That podcast a little bit bigger than ours.
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A
Just a t. Just a hair bigger than ours.
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B
He just did an episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard and was nice enough to come have a conversation with us.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Now, did he ask, did his people reach out to us before we went on Armchair?
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C
Yes.
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A
Okay.
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B
Did they reach out to us first?
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A
Yes. Doesn't matter. He did right there. He did great with us.
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B
You know, honestly, they probably reached out to Armchair about four years ago, so I don't know.
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C
We're very grateful that he's here.
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B
We're going to be discussing his book and memoir titled Emergence. I've read it real good. Yeah, very turbulent, very turbulent childhood. This man had a lot of adversity and in his upbringing. And we're going to talk about it. So thank you for being here. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you would like to support the podcast, you can do so@patreon.com secondhand therapypod you can get ad free episodes and a lot of other bonus content. Please check it out. Also merch available secondhandtherapypod.com philanthropy merch vasectomyfarms.com if you would like to contact us, all that info is below. Thank you for being here. Hope you enjoyed the episode.
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A
Enjoy.
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B
If you're interested in having the best time of your life, you should go ahead and check out our new sponsor, Psychic Source.
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A
Oh, buddy, I cannot wait. Dude, I'm trying to talk to dead people. Do they do that?
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B
They do mediums. They got mediums.
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A
All right, I'll take a large medium.
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B
All right, so here's the thing. Daddy already did it. Okay? Now here. Here's the thing. If you want to talk to a psychic, and trust me, you do, here's what you do. You go to trypsychicsource.com sht10. Okay? You're gonna get 40 minutes, 44, 0 minutes for $19.80. Now you don't have to use all 40 minutes with one person. I didn't. I did 20 with. And look, mind your business.
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C
Talk about my love life.
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A
Okay, all right.
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B
Talk about my love life.
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C
Trying to see some, some.
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A
Maybe some road bumps.
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B
Just seeing if it's gonna be clear skies, and it's not. Now I did the other 20 on just like a spiritual thing. See where I'm at? Let me guess, you're gonna do a medium.
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A
Oh, my God, I can't wait.
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B
All right, well, if you want to talk to a psychic, you can do that again. Trypsychicsource.com sht10 get 40 minutes for under $20. Do it and then DM us. Cuz I want to hear how it went.
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A
Oh, I can't. I. Please, please DM us.
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B
Oh, God, it's so much fun.
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A
I want the tea.
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B
Hello, my little bear cubs.
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A
And welcome back secondhand therapy.
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C
And we know that.
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B
Do you have a firm stance on whether or not or just give me your thoughts on trauma informing or shaping a person's intelligence or curiosity?
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C
Wow, that's. Yeah, I have some opinions. I think that for a lot of people, it's a huge detriment to their intelligence and curiosity. I think for some people it's. I mean, it's. Sorry. Trauma is as related to a developmental process. Right. By the way, y' all open up, you're not therapists. I'm not a therapist either. Right. So these are, These are just my, These are my opinions. And my. And my academic work is definitely very much neuroscience, but it's not neuroscience in and around trauma or psychotherapy. So with those caveats, what I would say is, you know, I see this as a developmental question. And so a lot of. I think a lot of people who go through trauma also experience things that are very much detrimental to development, including intelligence or creativity or a bunch of other things. You know, like I didn't grow up ever knowing how to throw a ball, you know, like. Like my dad never. Pops, never taught me how to. How to play catch. Right. And so surely by the time I'm in high school and all the other kids are, you know, actually playing baseball or shooting a basketball, that must have had a detrimental effect on me. Now, there is a flip side to it though, right? I mean, so what I would say is, as an adult, and as an adult who's strived very hard to understand my background and everything that's happened to me, I definitely think I'm better for it. And I'm better for it in the sense that I thought. I thought through a lot of things. Right. So I have a sense of. A sense of. I don't want to brag like, you know, like a word, like wisdom or a sense of, like, what. What the world is all about, you know, And I feel like that has served me really, really well. That's, That's. That would be my answer to your question.
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B
Okay, so then I would ask you, what is the world about?
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C
Yeah, I see. So. So, you know, people, you know, and. And, you know, I guess the way that I view it is we all, you know, sort of egotistical internally, and that's just part. Part of being. Part of being human. And so we all sort of want to achieve our goals and do whatever it is that we. We grew up thinking we wanted to do. And. But you have to work, by and large, you have to work with people to do that. And so, you know, learning how to navigate that, learning. Learning what that's all about. That's really what I mean. Right. Learning how to interact and be successful with other people to achieve your goals.
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A
I just had a question.
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C
Enjoy your life. Yeah, sure.
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A
I had a question about, like, the, the stunting, the developmental part of it, like the curiosity and things. Do you think that's related to feeling safe? Like, if you don't feel safe, then I imagine you don't feel curious or you don't feel adventurous, or you don't feel any of these things if. Because safety feels like survival. Right.
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C
I certainly agree with that. I think that's. That's also tied in with. To me, like, so. So I grew up in group homes, right? I was in. I was. I grew up in the Albuquerque Christian Children's Home for five years, and then I lived with an aunt and uncle for a year, and that didn't work out. So then I went to the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania, for. For high school. So I was basically in some kind of institutionalized living for 10 years. And what I would say is, yeah, if you don't feel safe, you don't take risks. You know, like, especially. So I'm in. I'm in big tech. You see all these big personalities. You know, I just look at some of these guys, and it's mostly guys, I'm sad to say. And you say you could just tell that this person grew up always knowing that they could have a way to get something done. And so, you know, that's. That would be my response is like, there's this you know, in, like, mental health, there's this parable of, like, a bear is in the cage, and for years and years, and then they remove the cage, and the bear still just walks in the same patterns. Right. And I feel like people with my background are, and including myself, actually very susceptible to just sort of repetition of behavior without seeing what's possible, without seeing what success might look like for them.
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B
Interesting. So it sounds like some people are, for lack of a better word, born with confidence. And people that grow up with a lot of adversity have to grow it themselves and cultivate it.
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C
Yes, I mean, I would. Or, you know, the people. I think a lot of people have confidence because as a children, they were nurtured in a way. I'm sure it's genetic, too, but, like, I'm really focusing on the developmental portion of this. You know, they grew up with parents who enabled that for mostly better and occasionally worse. And I think for kids who grew up in kinds of circumstances that I did in foster care or, you know, there's different. All kinds of hell out there. Plenty of single, you know, people. Kids who grow up in terrible families. And, you know, for those kids, too, I think, yeah, they. There's. There's a lot of growth. But, you know, like, you know, my background also enabled me. Like, I know a lot about humans because I was around humans my whole childhood. So. So it's not. It's not all black and white, but it's. It's mostly black and white, according to my personal experiences.
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B
Yeah.
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A
As somebody who broke those habits and broke that path, you know, I. I come from a small town, and a lot of people don't make it out of that town. A lot of people are just there and they. They work where their dad worked and that. And they work where their dad work kind of thing. And the thing we talk about a lot on here, especially with me, is the language of commisery. And. And what I'm struggling with now is, like, finding happiness without having it attached to, like, some kind of, like, bitterness from other people. Do you. Do you carry any of that guilt or anything like that of, like, being somebody who broke the pattern and being somebody who made it out of that situation? Do you have any guilt of, like.
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C
Oh, man, you know, none whatsoever, really. No, no, I really don't. You know, I've got plenty of things that I'm guilty about, but, like, that. That ain't one of them. You know, like, I had a really shitty childhood, and I'm very, very proud to be where I am in life to be where I am in life.
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A
That's great.
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C
The other thing, you know, the other thing is that a lot, like, a lot of that I think is oftentimes familial. And my mind, my nuclear family, my parents were heroin addicts. Like, you know, my sister didn't make it. She's unfortunately passed away. So like a lot, a lot of where that might have, might come from, it just isn't present for me.
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B
My thought, when you were speaking developmentally, you were talking about people that, you know, have a lot of confidence is because they had the support growing up and they, it was enabled for them. What do you think the balance is between? I guess, because Michael comes from like a very supportive mother. He would even, I think, describe her as smothering at times. And I came from a situation. Situation. My mom was very much a. Letting me figure it out. So what do you think the balance is between a very hands on, for lack of a better word, coddling approach and letting your child struggle and figure it out on their own when it comes to the developmental.
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C
Yeah. So from my experience, I think this really circles back to safety. I mean, one, one of the way, you know, when I entered the Albuquerque Christian Children's Home, one of the ways that I describe it is like, imagine, you know, you're eight years old or seven or something and you get lost at the mall. And, you know, you're there, you're there for 20 minutes, you're like, oh, where's my family? And an hour, two hours. What if you're there for a day? Right. You would be terrified. A young child, boy or girl, would be terrified at that experience. And so I think, you know, I was at Albuquerque Christian Children's Home, Children's Home for five years, right? So. And you know, there are house parents there, but they're not emotionally present. And so what I would say is that's just downright pathological. People don't survive those kinds of experiences on a cake. Like, it's, it's hard. It's hard. And so that's, I think, very different than like the idealized. And you know, I'm a child of the 80s, the idealized version of like, you know, we're going to go out on our tricycles and just go, you know, ransack the neighborhood and just be crazy. And it's super fun. And we all look back on that and it's. And it. That those are two very different things. And so I think it really boils down to psychological safety, right? That's. That's how. I don't know. How do you. How do you guys view that?
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B
Oh, man. I'm trying to think back, like, when. Like, it was, you know, I wasn't a very much figure it out type thing. If I felt psychologically safe, I don't know. I've never looked at that way. I've also never looked at foster care as being lost in the mall, and I had, like, a visceral reaction to that.
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A
Really?
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B
Did you imagine being five years old, lost in this giant place, and you're
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A
just like, oh, oh, my mother. If I wasn't ready to go, and she was ready to go, she would tell me that she is leaving me behind, and then she would hide from me in a store, and then I would think that she actually did leave me behind, and then to the point where I'm crying, and then she would come, whoa, get me. Okay, well,
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C
where do you go from that?
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B
Well, this is the same woman that he often refers to as a saint.
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A
So she's a saint. You leave her alone.
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C
She must have been Judas.
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A
Yeah,
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C
yeah.
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A
That's how. That's how you learn that. You go, and mom says it's time to go.
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B
That's how you learn that.
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A
That's how you learn that. You learn it real quick.
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B
Good Lord.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Intense.
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B
All right, I have.
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C
Go ahead.
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A
Oh, go ahead.
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B
I was gonna say I've. If it's not obvious, I don't know if you listen to the show. Neither of. I've never spent time at any foster care. I don't believe you have that. I know of just the Macy's bathroom. So when you talked about your time in foster care, you said they do have house parents, but they're not. I don't. I think you said emotionally available or emotionally present.
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C
Yeah, that would be my description of it. So what I would say, it's. It's not great, the foster care system. I. So there's two words for that, right? There's the US Foster care system, which is a very specific thing. State wards. They go into families. Those families are paid, yada, yada, yada, yada. Or there's just the broader term. And I'm using the broader term because I was never in that formal system. I was in these group homes or these boarding schools. And so my experience of that was that that. So first off, all these people are very well meaning. They're there to. They're on a mission, and it's oftentimes extremely religious. The Christian in Albuquerque, Christian children's Home was no bullshit. We were at church three times a week. And so there's a sense of mission or ministry there. But at least in the 80s, these places have changed. They figured out, like, having a lot of kids to two house parents is not a great idea. But like in the 80s, it would have been anywhere from 10 to 16 kids. Right? So really, I mean, nobody uses the word anymore. It was really kind of like an orphanage. It just was, as far as I understand that term, to what that term means. And so because of that. No, you know, also another caveat, there's a lot of variation. Some house parents are just angels and others are not very good. Every now and then there's a bottom feeder. But by and large, most people are well meaning. It's just that the numbers don't work out. So with all of that context, my experience of it was like the house parents were chaperones at the school dance, right? They just. They were people that were there and they wielded power over you. They definitely could, like, put you on detentions, ground you in your room, or make you go dig. Dig holes in the desert or something crazy. But, like, you weren't really relating to them on that level. About the only place I got attention was in school because I was smart.
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B
So it sounds like their job was essentially to keep you alive.
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C
Yeah, basically. You know, make sure things don't go full on. Lord of the flies, Piggy gets a rock in the. In that side of the head.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
It sounds pretty like clinical or industrial kind of thing where it's just like, we're here to keep watch. Yeah, yeah.
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C
No, again, I don't think they would characterize the situation like that. That was my impression as somebody who was 8 to 12 years old. Right. 8 to 13, technically.
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B
And were you and your sister in the same home?
- [17:22]
C
We were for a while. So my mother's mental health really collapsed when I was in third grade. My sister Esther in fourth grade. So we ended up at the Albuquerque Christian Children's Home. And we were there for five years. She and I never really got along. Some siblings do, some siblings don't. I just think we were just different. But there were, we called them cottages. Three houses there, houses of kids. And so we'd be in different cottages, so we were almost more like first cousins as opposed to siblings. So anyways, then our mother passes away when I'm in seventh grade and I go to live with one of my aunt and uncles and Esther is put into a boarding school in upstate New York, a place called the Darrow School.
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B
We'll be right back with more secondhand therapy after this.
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A
I know we talk about better Help a lot on this show, but now they're a sponsor.
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B
They are a sponsor, dude.
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A
I'm using better help. I'm loving it so far. It's so easy to find a therapist, find out what I'm looking for, and if it's not working out, because that has happened, I've been able to switch therapists with no problem at all.
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B
Yeah, yeah, you had that one. That was not a good fit.
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A
Not a good fit. Hey. And that happens. Finding good therapists is, like, a lot like finding, you know, being out there in the dating world and finding the right partner for you.
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B
And you're married now.
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C
Oh, no.
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A
Never.
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B
Never. You're in love now.
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A
I have to talk about this to my therapist.
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B
Dude, you're there. Can I meet this person? I don't even know their gender. Can I meet this person?
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A
Absolutely not.
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B
Let's do one together.
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A
Well, we should sign up for couples therapy on BetterHelp.
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B
I'll do it. You think I won't do it? You think I won't win couples therapy with you, dude? You think I'm not going to walk out with the trophy?
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A
I know you will.
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B
All right, here's the good news. They really are a sponsor. And if you have wanted to get in therapy and maybe you don't know where to start, maybe you don't have insurance like us, you can go to BetterHelp. They were nice enough to give us a discount. So if you hear this, you can go to betterhelp.com secondhand therapy and you will get 10% off your first month. There's a link below the episode. Starting therapy. It helps. It really helps. No matter what you want to work on, give it a shot. Betterhelp.com secondhand therapy. We love you guys. I'm cheating. From your book a little bit. You guys had pretty different life paths into adulthood.
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C
That's right. Yes.
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B
So. Well, my question, which I don't have a great way to phrase it, but
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C
why?
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B
What do you think the reason is that your paths are so different? Why were you to play in the title of the book, why were you able to emerge and your sister seemingly wasn't?
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C
Yeah, no, my sister most definitely did not. She. She committed suicide. So. It's a long answer, but let me give it a shot. We got time. Great. So I have this idea. It's my own bush psychology here, but when you're in these circumstances, what you're really facing is neglect. You're not getting attention in the way that most kids are getting attention. And so to continue the mall analogy, what do you do after a couple days in the mall? You deal. You learn to survive. And so that's what we were doing too, in this. In this group home. And we found different ways to do it. I turned out that I was smart in an intellectual sense. My teachers began to tell this to me right when I was in third grade. I got tested for the gifted and talented program. And so I began to put my sense of self worth into that idea. And that idea became a sort of projection into the future, if you will, the way I've started to describe it, because it's actually quite right. It's like the Patronus charm from Harry Potter. I was able to cast this spell that protected me from all this awful shit happening around me because of the story I told myself about myself in and around my intellect. And that carried me for quite some time. Didn't carry me forever, but it carried me at least into college. Now, my sister, on the other hand, my sister was very, very smart. But she was. She had very strong interpersonal gifts. You know, she could have been a psycho easily a psychotherapist. She was very, very good with people. She was more mature. She was a year and a half older than me. She turned out to be very, very pretty. And I think because of the prettiness and that she. She found another way to get attention that was not always as successful. Right?
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A
Yeah.
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C
The other thing that's going on here is I think it's kind of true of everyone in the world. But like in those environments, what really holds people back, in my opinion. And of course it's all developmental. So you don't know what's happening until you're an adult and you have all this baggage that you didn't particularly ask for or work at developing yourself, you just have it right? Is basically emotional dysregulation, right? So like prone to anger, prone to anxiety, prone to depression and all of these things. And so whatever it was between my sister and I, between our sort of survival strategies as I just described them, and you know, I was prone to anger, but always able to sort of, you know, I just keep it under wraps like I'm not going to go destroy a relationship, whereas my sister didn't give a shit. She would absolutely cut off her nose to spite her face. And so that, you know, all of a sudden, you imagine now as life progresses, there's a number of decisions that happen in life, and you have positive or negative outcomes as a result. And, you know, she just kept having negative results. And I. And I continued, at least for a while. I had some hiccups in life, for sure, but I continued to have positive results because I wasn't just going crazy, to be more precise. I wasn't ruining relationships because of emotional instability. That would be my answer to your question.
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B
So do you think, for lack of a better word, overcoming trauma? Is that something that can be taught or. It sounds like maybe luck plays a big role.
- [24:09]
C
I think they both play. I think you can definitely teach people. I mean, I've been in psychotherapy for 30 years, my entire adult life, and I've benefited greatly from it. More recently, I do meditation. It's informal. It's not some huge thing, but, like, I get tools from these. From these things that are useful to me, and they're useful to me in terms of the relationships that I'm building. I'm happily married 20 years. That obviously takes work. I'm able to hold down a job, the same job for five years. That. That requires work. You know, who doesn't want to rage, quit on occasion. Right? So.
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B
Hey.
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C
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Right. So. So I. I think you can absolutely. You know, the question. I would turn the question around and say, what is it that makes people make positive choices, change ideas? Because everyone says, oh, I want to. I want to succeed in life. Everyone says, I want to live a happy life. Well, what is it that makes them do that? Right? And so my. My first question is, why do people get into psychotherapy? I got into psychotherapy because when I was 24, my life fell apart. It was awful. I started having crazy panic attacks, almost surely related to all this other stuff that was going on in. Sorry. All of the baggage that I had from my childhood. So, you know, I had this very early crisis. And, you know, my therapist was like, oh, that crisis. I was miserable. I was like, borderline suicidal miserable. And, you know, my. My psychotherapist kept saying, no, this is a gift. This is a gift. I'm like, doesn't seem like a gift to me. I'm miserable. Right. And he's in. But you. You, like, you're taking the steps, you're doing the work. And so I now, with the hindsight of 30 years, I agree with them, actually. Right. That I was able. Like, that was a thing. That was that moment, that crisis was useful for me because it caused me to actually take a step back, take a look around and say, what do I need to do to live a better life.
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B
Do you?
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A
So your mother was a heroin addict and your father really wasn't around, but before he left, was he also into drugs?
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C
They were both drug addicts. Yeah. Yeah.
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A
I have a lot of addiction in my family as well. Do you find, I mean, do you have any traits that stuck with you or things that stuck with you, both positive and negative from those experiences? Being raised by addicts or being around addicts?
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C
I don't. It was, I was very young, right. So I have, I have basic memories but like to, to the extent that, I mean I like to drink, I like to gamble, you know, I enjoy a social cigarette. But like those things, they don't, they don't control me. Right. And that was not the case for my parents with, with their addictions, nor for my sister. So whatever, whatever that is. I, you know, I was so young, I can't point to something that's. Oh, I remember that and those. Okay, one actually you're calling to memory. The apartment always reeked of cigarettes. And I always remember as a kid. Now of course I love the smell of secondhand smoke as a, as a recovering smoker. But like, you know, I just remember thinking, boy, this reeks, you know, I'm six years old thinking, what are they doing? But that's really the only memory, you know, And I have no doubt that they were using drugs openly around us. I just, you know, when you're a kid and it's all you've ever known, it doesn't seem odd. It didn't even register. Yeah.
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A
Did you have other family members that were like covering up for them or you know, you know how people like enable addicts in different ways even if they don't know they're doing it?
- [27:43]
C
I, well, you know, only I could answer that. Only with hindsight. I think my, my grandparents, that is to say my mother's parents were enabling them, so they definitely paid the bills. Right. I don't think my parents really worked at all, maybe as the taxi driver here or there, but like that was it. And you know, they also, my grandparents didn't understand addiction at all. Like they, you know, they highly ultra conservative religious church of Christ, like just, you know, Bible thumping Christians. And their response to my mother's addiction was why doesn't she stop? Right. Like, and that's as far as it went. Right. They clearly just didn't understand it. You know, the Bible says X. Well, the Bible isn't talking about heroin addiction, I'm sorry to say. Right. So, yeah, there's a lot missing from that book.
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B
You know, there's a lot of stuff.
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C
There's a few chapters. That's right. Did they.
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A
Did you find, because you were in a religious foster care system and then growing up in this kind of religious bubble and things like that, did you find that religion was kind of the ultimate equation for like problem solving in your life? And then how did you compete with that as you got older and realized that maybe religion's not the end all, be all?
- [29:01]
C
Yeah, it's a great question. So before I went. So these boarding schools, these group homes are extremely strict. I went from doing. Having essentially never made my bed to all of a sudden doing chores three times a day for the rest of my childhood, if not more. So both the militaristic aspect of it and the religious aspect of it were very useful for me in a couple of different ways. I went from being essentially a feral seven year old to a fairly, fairly well behaved. I had behavioral problems my whole childhood, but a significantly better behaved fourth grader. Right. Likewise. I didn't appreciate it. I definitely didn't appreciate it at the time. But by the time I got to college, I had an incredible work ethic. You just like, all you do is chores, Right. So all of a sudden, oh, I got to do some fun math problems. Heck yeah. Let's rock and roll. So those two things really benefited me. Coming back to the question about the Christianity and the religion, I really became a believer. But it's a funny thing. It was not. It was a fear. It was a fear of, you know, the second coming. It was a fear of the, the tribulation and Satan ruling over the earth. It was not a sense of like, Jesus is my homeboy and he's going to take care of me. That was just, it just wasn't that for me. Right. So what happened was when I moved away from the Albuquerque Christian Children's Home, I ended up at the Milton Hershey School. And they have a much broader group of people. They accept it's a huge organization nowadays. There's 2,000 kids there. When I was. There was a thousand kids anyway. Jews, Muslims, Christians, just a very broad and diverse group of people. And so what that meant was that our required Sunday church service was almost of necessity, just grossly watered down. Right. And which was, which was fabulous for me because it gave me some separation from some real doomsday Bible thumping. And that's really the answer to your question. And then, you know, so I went from having a very sort of like I could have been a preacher. In seventh grade I was aiming for being a preacher. Right. And then by the end of my life, my high school years, I'm like, I'm going to be a scientist. Right. So that was, that was a huge thing for me.
- [31:19]
B
Are you religious now?
- [31:21]
C
I'm not, no. No, I'm not. I'm frankly, I'm, you know, I don't disrespect it, but I personally am allergic to it. Yeah, yeah, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of tools that are available to us now about how, how best to succeed, how to behave, etc. Etc.
- [31:42]
B
You, I had a question for you. It's. I'm a hair late, but earlier you were saying you enjoy drinking, gambling, occasional, you know, social cigarette. Did you ever fall into using substances for emotional regulation or a head change or coping or anything like that?
- [32:00]
C
No. And that ties back to an earlier question. Because of my sister and my parents, I was aware that that was a thing. So like I, you know, I drink for sport. I don't drink for. If I'm, if I'm anxious after a hard day at work, the one thing I don't do is drink because I'm aware, like that's, that's a habit. I don't want to. Look, I mean, don't get me wrong, every now and then it happens, but like, as a general rule, I don't want to fall into that habit where all of a sudden I'm medicating my day to day life. So no, I don't do it and because I'm aware of it.
- [32:33]
B
So it's an active, conscious decision.
- [32:35]
C
It's an active and conscious decision. That's right. Okay.
- [32:39]
A
Yeah, that's what I was wondering too also because, you know, growing up, seeing my father drink and do pills and other things, like, it was always an active choice for me. Like, I've seen how that plays out and so I've avoided it. And so that's what I was wondering too is like if it's an active choice or.
- [32:57]
C
Yeah, very much so. Yes.
- [32:59]
B
And I was in your book, you there is because, you know, you say neuroscience, but you know, you're pretty well versed in AI and computational things as well.
- [33:10]
C
My day job.
- [33:12]
B
Yeah. So viewing the mind as a, I don't know, a computer or a dynamic system, something like that. If we look at it that way, how do we heal trauma?
- [33:30]
A
Yeah.
- [33:32]
C
Boy, I would love to give you an answer to that. And you know, the answer isn't it's not far away. It's only a decade or two or three, you know, which for brain science is actually quite close. But I can't really answer your question because. Well, I can answer, I can give you a little bit of it. First. Let me give you my apologetic non answer, which is we're like, I'm down at the, on that nuts and bolts level. And once we understand, once we understand the nuts and bolts, then we can cobble that stuff together and start making sense of emotions and thoughts and all of that. Right. One thing I will say though, which from a dynamical system perspective I think is very true, is you'll hear things like, you know, mind body interactions and things like this. And I'm, I'm deeply sympathetic to that kind of thinking. You know, when you are stressed, your back seizes up. Well, why is your back seizing up? And you know, how does that make you feel? Well, I'm stressed, so my back seizes up. So you get into these kinds of dynamics. And I think that those kinds of dynamics are present in all kinds of subtle ways that probably we don't even have listed yet, including anxiety or depression or anger and so forth. It's a nebulous answer. But what I would say is when we get the answers to those questions, and we will, they will be dynamical in nature.
- [34:47]
B
Okay, so I have a pivot then.
- [34:49]
C
Great.
- [34:50]
B
If we look at it from even your, your nuts and bolts place where you are in it, how can we shift and use it to our advantage? When it comes to self understanding,
- [35:12]
C
it's a tall order. The first thing that comes to mind is like, I think, if, I think we think of ourselves as like being an isolated self. And on some level that must obviously be true because I'm me and you're you. But in reality, but in reality we're all nested in a big cultural network. And my, my view is that, you know, when I've been helped by psychotherapy, well, it's been from psychotherapy, from talking to other people. Anything that I've ever done in life, anything of value has always been done with and around and for other people. And so I think the best I can say, given our limited knowledge and what's coming to mind right now is that the social and cultural me you is another form of dynamics that we're embedded in and that we should always be aware of.
- [36:13]
A
I kind of want to flip it on the other side, right. And talk about AI in the way of like our mind works, is that we are the observer like we are observing these thoughts and emotions and things, and we choose what to attach those, Those things too. So in the world of AI, how close are we to machines being able to be the observer and start having emotions and choosing which ones to attach themselves to and things like that?
- [36:44]
C
So we don't know, but I'll go out on a limb and say, that's quite far away. So what's going on now with AI is that we have these chatbots. Everyone's, at least most people are exploring them. Right. I take great value from them, I think, just as a PSA to your listeners. Don't sit this one out. Learn how these chatbots work. They will likely, if you work with them and learn how to do it, improve whatever you work on, mostly. So, so what do these things do? It's a little bit. There's two levels to this. I'll give the simple level first, which is they just predict the next word. You say, well, how can that possibly be, how can that possibly be intelligent? So I'm not even getting to the question so far. Like, the question, is there an observer there? Is there a thing to be like as an AI? And I think the answer is no. Right? But like, so if I say, hey, pass, can you pass me the. You don't know what would come next. It could be milk, it could be the ball, whatever. Right? But if I say, hey, I just poured some cereal and can you pass me the. Then the chances that it's milk is much, much higher. Right? So that's really the magic of these things is they have enormous context windows of all the language and all the conversation that's coming before them. So the chance of spitting out the next token correctly, token being a word, gets much, much better. And so there's, there's more going on than that. But that's the basic idea. I just, I don't see how that basic form of intelligence, it's. First off, it's shocking that that kind of thing can lead to the kinds of intelligence that we see in these machines. But it just, I don't see anything close to something that is emotive or is an observer. And my, my guess is, you know, AI actually started from observation of, of the brain. And my guess is before. Now I'm going out on a limb here because, you know, predicting the trajectory of AI is one way to get to getting, Getting things wrong. But like, I, I think if you're going to get that, if you, you're going to have to go back and study the brain and Understand what the magic is.
- [38:57]
B
I don't know how to study the brain.
- [39:01]
A
Well, I, I, I know the coding part of, you know, I was encoding when I was young and st of just like software and things like that that go along with coding. It's just if then statements pretty much. And so I imagine AI is a greater version of if then statements, kind of what you were talking about. And so I didn't know if it was possible for that to ever become an observer or more than just a, for lack of a better term, a pretty cool if then statement.
- [39:30]
C
Well, so the, the real, the real mind bender. What it, what did, Anyways, the real mind bender is like, unless you, if you don't, if you believe in a soul, then there's nothing to talk about. But if you don't believe in a soul, then we are just if then statements ourselves that are embedded in biology. Right. So, so, you know, it's like, is a bug a robot or is it, is it there? Right, because the bug is like, it's right there on the edge of. Is that thing really with us or. I can't quite tell. So obviously, lots of thorny issues here.
- [40:03]
A
Yeah.
- [40:04]
B
Okay, so from everything you know, do you believe in a soul?
- [40:10]
C
I don't see any evidence for it. I mean, I'm, I'm open to, I'm just, I'm just one dude, you know, but like, what do I know? But no, not really. I, I think scientific evidence points to the fact that most of what's going, all of what's going on that we understand is in our brain. Right? So the magic is in the brain. And I could be wrong, of course,
- [40:32]
B
but that's, so what is the difference between consciousness and a soul?
- [40:42]
C
Well, I don't really know what a
- [40:43]
B
soul is,
- [40:47]
C
I guess, to be honest, I don't really know what consciousness is either. But I can talk about consciousness because I experience it. Or at least I would like to argue that I experience it. It. And, and that is of course, what we all know and understand, which is the sense of fairness, the sense of observation, the fact that I can tell you what green is, and probably you're going to nod along and say that's green or ouch, that hurts, or that that was great, that was pleasurable. And so, But I don't, that's, that's my, my layman's definition of a consciousness. But I don't, I don't know what a soul is.
- [41:15]
B
Okay, so then it seems obvious, but I don't want to assume, even given, well, Used to be religious and now you're allergic to it. So you have no evidence of a soul, which would lead me to believe
- [41:29]
C
that
- [41:31]
B
any type of afterlife or something beyond this life is unlikely.
- [41:39]
C
I'm not invested in it, personally. I'm trying to live the best life I can live now. Yeah, that's. That's. That's what. That's what's working for me.
- [41:49]
B
You know, what's fucking.
- [41:53]
C
We got pretty deep here, didn't we?
- [41:56]
A
We're lost in space.
- [41:58]
C
I always.
- [42:00]
B
I just want someone to, like, have a definitive answer of, like, what happens when we die. And this is the first time I've ever been in a conversation with someone that's like, I pretty firmly believe nothing. And I gotta tell you, didn't like it, and I don't know why. It's my ego.
- [42:21]
C
Like, what is this? Yeah, it's probably. Probably so. I mean, like, you know what? Who would the famous quote that I'm going to miss attribute? Iggy Pop. I think said nihilism is best left to the experts. I mean, it's. This is. These are not happy thoughts, right? I probably got that it was misattributed, but it's some. Something I learned. Like, you know, they're not happy thoughts. Yeah.
- [42:45]
B
Bro, this is ruined my week. God damn.
- [42:51]
A
That's so great.
- [42:53]
B
That's so funny.
- [42:57]
A
We'll be right back with more secondhand therapy. Hang tight.
- [43:03]
B
You know how I keep telling you I'm doing a psychology class? Us doing it. I.
- [43:08]
A
Okay. Are you really?
- [43:09]
B
I'm really doing it, dude. Our new sponsor, Southern New Hampshire University,
- [43:15]
C
found some classes, bro.
- [43:17]
A
Oh, you fancy.
- [43:18]
B
Now I'm out here.
- [43:20]
C
He.
- [43:20]
A
He's a school boy.
- [43:21]
B
Hey, and here's the thing. If you're like me and you're just like, dude, I like learning stuff sometimes. Snhu, go learn some stuff. If you were like me in the past, maybe you feel a little stuck in your career, you want to start a new thing. Snhu. What about you?
- [43:41]
A
I mean, I love to learn.
- [43:43]
B
Oh, God, he's never learned.
- [43:45]
A
I need to. I need to do it more. Officially.
- [43:47]
B
You never learned a thing anyway. If you want to check out SNHU and you want to see what kind of programs they have, you can go to Snhu. Edu Sht. And you can request more information. It costs nothing to request more information. It's a great way to support the podcast. Learn some stuff, start a new career, do whatever you need. Go back to school. Snhu. Edu Sht. There's Also a link in the episode description. Get some info, start some learning. You're welcome. Oh my God. Okay, so you mentioned studying the brain like as almost if like that's the way to better self understanding.
- [44:37]
C
Yeah. So I would be more nuanced there. What I would say is if we want to understand what we are from a. Not like you're going to open up the car engine and take a peek at how, how when you hit the gas pedal, there's thrust created and the tires move along the road. That's what you do with neuroscience. Right, but in terms of a better understanding of ourself, I don't remember exactly the framing that you just had it. No, the right way is to study ourselves on a different level. That is psychotherapy, that is sociology, cultural studies. What is it? You know, we can all. It's everyone's right and domain to observe their own brains and learn how that works and how to improve it and to see what's going on. And what I would love is that at some point in the future those things connect. Now whether or not that's going to happen anytime soon, that's an open question. The brain is very, very complicated.
- [45:31]
B
Okay, so we've talked a lot about trauma influencing path. What about with what you just said? How does one overcome early patterns?
- [45:48]
C
Great question. Well, according to the psychotherapist, my view on this is that you observe them first and after you observe them you
- [46:06]
B
talk like a guy who meditates a lot.
- [46:10]
C
It's psychotherapy, man. I've been in psychotherapy. I do a little meditation. It's useful, right? Okay, so what's useful for me with meditation, it's not the observation. I mean that's useful. But I've been in psychotherapy. The meditation is useful because you learn not to scratch the itch.
- [46:27]
A
Right.
- [46:28]
C
And so all of a sudden, you know, I don't, I never got that from psychotherapy. Right. But like. Okay, you know, just to continue, maybe I do want that cigarette after the, the party I'm. Should I go get a pack from the, from the, the gas station? But I don't really want to smoke at home. I don't want to do that. So. So but you can sit with that and just observe it and not do anything about it. And that'. That's the thing that, that meditation has given me personally was just learning to be comfortable with uncomfortableness. So, so that, so but then what was your earlier question was overcoming early
- [47:03]
B
patterns versus instead of looking at it
- [47:05]
C
through the lens of trauma. Yeah. So you observe It. And I think. I think so in the short term, you just. You just observe it and find other ways. Right. Like, I do a lot of fantasizing about people I dislike and all the things that I might do to them, you know, but like, it doesn't harm anyone. It's just in my head. I'm not rage quitting. I'm not hurting anyone. So I have, you know, I have internal, internal mechanisms for contending with. Since the working example. Example here is anger, I have internal mechanisms for working with anger that don't harm anyone. And it allows me to process what is a very natural and reasonable emotion to whatever's going on. Now, are my emotions stronger because of my childhood? I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing they are. Right. And so I have extra work to do, but that's how I do it. And I think over time, I've observed in my own therapy journey that I'm just not as angry as I used to be. I'm just not as anxious as I used to be. I'm not as depressive as I used to be. And honestly, I couldn't tell you what changed. It could be nothing. It could just me be getting older or it could have been. That process has really benefited me in ways that I don't have any words for because it was so damn slow that I'm just a different person now.
- [48:27]
B
Okay, so, like, now, what are some things that you find that make you angry that you have to, like, deal with in the moment?
- [48:37]
C
I have a very deep sensitivity to interpersonal strife. Right. So that's. This is a gift and a curse from group home life. Right. I'm very interpersonally sensitive, which means I can tell what's going on, and that's useful. But at the same time, because of that, any interpersonal strife, I feel it very, very strongly. So you might call me an emotional mirror or an emotional sponge. Right. So that's like, you know, when I'm at work and, you know, if I get chewed out for some reason, not that it happens that often, but like, if I will, I will contend with that with sleepless, sleepless nights for a few days, and I'm going to have to learn how to deal with that. Right. Without. Without in a way that is beneficial to my steady working and continuing at that job. Did I answer your question?
- [49:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Because we. What we talk about a lot, especially with Michael, is he. I don't want to speak for you, but I'm going to. You get angry a Lot with the feeling of injustice.
- [49:43]
A
Yeah. Like social injustice.
- [49:45]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:47]
A
I deal with that a lot.
- [49:48]
B
And so can you heal him, please? Because
- [49:53]
A
you make me not get mad at the people that stand up right away when the plane lands. Can you make me not mad at those people?
- [50:01]
C
Close the app. Yeah, that's the first. So I. Obviously, I can't. I can't fix Michael. Unfortunately, that's what they all say. Only you can fix yours.
- [50:14]
A
That's what they also say.
- [50:16]
C
God damn it. I can do the pattern completion, but I don't know the secret.
- [50:23]
A
Well, it sounds like we're talking a lot, too, about, like, nature versus nurture. And do you have any thoughts on that?
- [50:32]
C
Oh, I think there's a lot of. So. So the thing is, I think there's a lot of. A lot of nature that we don't know about. Right. But I think. I think there's a lot of. What's the right way to say this? I'm usually focused on the nurture portion of things because I can't change what I like, what I was given or what I wasn't given. I can change what I think happened to me, or at least I can try. And beyond that, it feels like a hopeless errand to try to figure that out. I'm sure that at some point in the future, just to. Just to flesh out what I'm trying to communicate, at some point in the future, they'll be able to say that whatever genetic disposition you have, literally the genes in your DNA are predispose you to X, Y, or Z. And predispose is just a big fancy word, you're more likely. But who's to really say? Because everything is too damn complicated. And so we may disambiguate some of that stuff. And just like people can say, oh, as you age, you're more likely to get Parkinson's or ALS because of some genetic marker that you have. It would not shock me at all that we learn a lot more about that for things that are much more just closer to home, anger, whatever, just because that's a working example. And so. But we don't know that now. And so to me, it just. Let's just focus on. Well, I know I had these experiences, and I know those things make me angry, so I'm going to work on that.
- [51:56]
A
Yeah, because a lot of those things, a lot of it's. It's similar with, like, genes getting passed down. Like, you learn these behaviors because they're passed down from generations. Right. Like, my mother raised me in a certain way because her mother raised her and she was taught. And so those things get passed down. And so those generational traumas, for whatever you want to call them, like, those are hard to break. And do you think that with the help of AI, eventually, like, there would be some kind of. I don't want to say like some kind of magic or anything, but some kind of like, pattern breaking thing that will happen with AI that will relearn us or. Because we're talking about in the future with the chips that go in that Elon Musk is talking about, like putting inside us and things where you don't have to Google anything anymore. You just think about it and then a screen comes on in your eyelids and you're able to see it or whatever. Like, do you think that will eventually be able to work against generational trauma that gets passed down
- [53:06]
C
with it? With lots of hesitation, I think yes, actually. Right. I mean, so I'll just wait till then. Yeah, there you go.
- [53:16]
B
Always looking for the easy way out. You know, this is what I deal with.
- [53:20]
C
So I'm trying to put some like, you know, like give it an example. Right. Like, you know, some people have trouble focusing. Right. It doesn't seem that nuts to me that we'll figure out some sort of device that could. That may or may not be informed by AI or. Or it may or may not be informed by taking a sample of your blood, tissue of your blood. I don't know, like, just learn something about you that could help you focus better because it'll learn to monitor some piece of what's going on in your brain or your dispositions. And that strikes me as actually not far away. Piece of technology. And just how effective it is, I don't know, but that seems plausible to me.
- [54:08]
B
I have one more question again. Little late on when you were talking about meditation, I didn't have a pocket to slide in. Don't look at me like that. You talk about learning to not scratch the itch. So that led me to the thought of, are there, in your opinion, avoidant behaviors that are necessary for survival and growth?
- [54:43]
C
Avoidant. Say. Say more about that. Avoidant behaviors. What do you mean by that?
- [54:47]
B
Well, he's saying, you know, learning to not scratch the itch. That could be not reacting emotionally, that could be not.
- [54:54]
C
Yeah.
- [54:55]
B
Outward. Or letting things inward or anything like that. So do you think avoiding behaviors can be necessary for growth?
- [55:04]
C
Can be necessary for growth? I. I think to the degree that I understand what you're asking, I think the answer is yes. I mean, so again, I'm no med. I'm no meditation guru. I sit down 29, 20 minutes a night, right? That's. That's what I do. But, you know, when I'm. When I'm really doing it regularly, I just have, I have this, this, like, let's say my wife and I get into a beef, right? I just have this moment that's available to me. Like, I don't have to do this. I could just not do this. And, you know, if I'm not meditating, that moment will not be available to me. And I'm just gonna go and have the beef with my wife and we're gonna write it out as so many couples do, and then, you know, everything is fine afterwards. But that's what I'm really talking about is like, you know, do I really need to do this? Do I really have to do this right now? That's. That's that moment that, that I get from meditation.
- [55:59]
B
So when you say, like, I don't really have to do this, it's like what I'm hearing is it's kind of the realization of like, you're fighting more and more hills that you do not need to die on.
- [56:08]
C
Yeah, exactly. That's right. That's. It's perfectly, perfectly stated. That's exactly right. I just don't need to do this. You know, that, that kind of thing. Behaviors. Right. Is what I'm talking about. Because, you know, I'm. I think this is true for everyone. Like, when you're angry, you want to get angrier. That is part of that is what's going on. Right. That's the nuclear explosion. And so really, you have to throttle that back. How do you do it? It's hard to do.
- [56:37]
A
Yeah. It sounds like meditation helps you just take a moment to choose reaction or not.
- [56:43]
C
That's right. It was psychotherapy that helped me understand what was going on. Meditation has helped me just have that moment, be able to make choices.
- [56:54]
B
All right, so 20 years happily married.
- [56:57]
C
Yeah.
- [56:59]
B
If there was one skill that you've learned, and I am gonna. I might regret this later, but I am gonna say as a man, I am. Dude, it's different. Me and my girl are so different. As a man, if there's one skill you've learned in maintaining and putting work into a 20 year marriage, what is it that you would pass on?
- [57:24]
C
Boy, that's a big question, and I think I can answer it.
- [57:29]
B
I think you can too. What is trying to be encouraging? What are you laughing at? All right.
- [57:41]
C
I would say that when things are easy, things are easy. So there's really nothing to discuss. It's the hard times that are worth, I would say, as a man, trying to listen and understand where my wife is coming from. Because sometimes it really feels like different planets, right? No, but. No, but you don't get it. No, but obviously this is the thing. And she's like, no, you don't get it. This is the thing. And so it's just human nature, I think. But certainly for me, I'm like, no, she's wrong, I'm right. And overcoming that or finding. Finding a way to. Finding a way to communicate through those impulses is. It would be my. My. My secret to success. Also. Just enjoy the happy moments, you know, like. Like when it's good, let it be good. Right. Do you think I support my wife? My wife supports me where, you know, so that. That's useful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I'm just saying, like, it's. It's very. We're sort of very, you know, I guess because marriages don't last because of strife, you sort of focused on the negative parts. And I'm just also saying that being appreciative during the positive parts is a really useful thing to do. That's all.
- [58:59]
B
Yeah, that's a good tip for life, I think.
- [59:02]
C
Yeah.
- [59:03]
B
Just enjoying your moments of joy. Do you think it makes a difference in the question? Being as a man, would your answer be the same as if I just said as a spouse?
- [59:20]
C
I. I'm hesitant to maybe a little bit, but not. I think my answer was pretty much would have been, if you hadn't said it, it would have been the same answer. But, you know, now I'm now attempting to address your question. I gotta say, like, as a man, the only, you know, the male stereotype that I am guilty of is being lazy. Right. So I have to work at that one. And to the degree that I'm successful at that, that's more harmony in my relationship with Robin.
- [59:57]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [59:58]
A
First, coming from a childhood that is so unstable, what was it like getting into a relationship where you're building stability with somebody?
- [60:09]
C
Yeah.
- [60:10]
A
Like, how hard is that?
- [60:11]
C
There's a couple things to say here. I. I had a couple of relationships before I met my wife, and short term, I mean, a year or less. And I learned very quickly in college that I was. I was afraid of women. And it was not a physical thing. It was all emotional. I was afraid of meeting my mother, and I didn't know it. Right. I didn't Know, I actually figured this one out without therapy. I was like, okay, this, clearly something's going on here. I had to get past that, right? And then, you know, I figured it out and I was like, hey, women are great. This is fabulous. So that was the case. The other. Sorry, what was. Remind me the question again because I
- [60:55]
A
had one more coming from unstability. How. How was it building stability with someone?
- [61:01]
C
Thank you. So, so the other aspect of this is I have like, Robin comes from basically, quote unquote, normal family. Is any family really normal? But not the kind of background that I have. And I personally, as somebody who's endured quite a bit of trauma in childhood, I find that really beneficial because I don't know how to say it. There are just places my mind can go and my emotional system can go that hers won't go. She won't go there. And so we can't drag each other down into really awful places where like if I meet up with an old friend from Milton Hershey school, we can just wallow in the mud. Right. Emotionally speaking. And I can't. Robin is incapable of doing that because she's never experienced it. And so you could spin this both ways. You could say, well, you know, people from similar backgrounds and similar traumas could really be a source of strength to each other because they could relate to these experiences. And I think that's probably true for some people. But what I've noticed is that I find it really useful in a long term relationship that somebody doesn't have that.
- [62:10]
A
My follow up was just. Did love ever feel safe because you grew up with this unsafeness?
- [62:19]
C
Yeah, you know, it did. So a couple of things here. First off, for all my parents failings, I'm pretty sure they loved me and my sister. You know, in fact, I'm, I'm certain of it. Right. So I, you know, there are, I think, you know, there are some people who you talk to, they're like, you know, didn't really feel that from my parents. You know, I didn't have. That's, that's not one of the things that I've had to contend with. The other thing is, you know, I had a lot of people make, make a big deal out of this and so do I. I had a best friend when I was in seventh grade, when I was seven years old. Excuse me. So I learned to have platonic love at a very, very young age. And you know, it was probably one of the greatest strokes of luck in my life to have this, this friend Shiloh, who you Know, just two. Two derelict kids growing up in trailers right there in Santa Fe just being crazy. But like, so. So that was never an issue for me.
- [63:17]
A
Love before love. We just talked about that.
- [63:19]
B
We did.
- [63:21]
C
My question. There's always a pattern or a template, right? You just.
- [63:24]
B
Oh, yeah, of course did. Okay, so I have a different question, but to his point, the platonic love you found before love, did you know it was platonic love?
- [63:39]
C
I just said I had a best friend. I mean, when I'm seven years old, I was like, no, this is my bestie. This is what we're doing. And then, so what happened is I moved around so much that there were times when I didn't have it right and I didn't have a best friend. And I really, really noticed it. Right. I had a very miserable four years in high school. Those four years in high school, I just didn't have a best friend. And so for me, there was always a pattern I was trying to reproduce before I even understood I was trying to. To do that. Right. And so sorry, just to summarize, just because I moved around so much, I was able to see what was going on there at a pretty early age.
- [64:19]
B
The question I actually had was when you said you realized you were afraid of women, I was going to ask to, to what level? Like, you're not even approaching them or it was getting close or getting.
- [64:33]
C
Yeah, I understand. I had. So I had the pining from, from afar thing for all. I would always pick like the hottest, most attainable, unattainable girl in school from like third grade on to basically my junior year of college.
- [64:49]
B
Right.
- [64:49]
C
My sophomore year of college, as one does. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and, and so I was like, this just makes no sense. And then what happened was, you know, I was really ungainly kid. I didn't hit puberty until I was 17. Right. And I. You can't tell from a zoom call. Whatever we're on. I'm six five, I'm a very big dude. And so all of a sudden I'm in college and I am just in a different body than I was from all of my childhood.
- [65:22]
A
Wow.
- [65:23]
C
And so I'm starting to get some female attention. And so at a frat party, the girl that I had pined away for, for two years at school corners me and starts making mount with me at the party. And I'm like, I have no idea what to do. And I basically ghosted her out of terror. And I was so embarrassed and it was so humiliating, you know, like she wanted to go on dates with me. And she's gorgeous and she's smart and the whole thing. And so that experience made me realize that I had some work to do on that level. And that really, it forced the issue.
- [65:59]
B
All right?
- [65:59]
C
Allowed me to think about it.
- [66:01]
B
Allow me to summarize. So you grew to 6, 5. The girl that you were chasing after cornered you and started making out with you. And you don't believe in God. That's what you're telling me?
- [66:15]
C
Well done, sir. Well done. Thank you.
- [66:20]
B
Hello, my little bear cub. I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you would like ad free episodes and other bonus content content, please head on over to patreon.com secondhand therapypod okay, love you.
- [66:33]
C
Bye.
- [66:33]
B
And we know that.
- [66:36]
C
Jesus, that's a bear. It's not.