#“GOD I hate living in Ohio. average day in Ohio be like’’

[ludwig-dieter]

TMA 80 SPOILERS

I can’t get over how when Jon comes back after his smoke, he’s faced with Jurgen’s dead body just laying there all bloodied up and shit and he’s just like.

“Oh.”

“Uh… I’m uh…”

“I think I’m gonna take another smoke”

[navegandoaciegas]

Sunshine Girl

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: fluff, soft!Bucky, mentions of injury (no graphic descriptions), 3.6k words

Summary: You are the sun and he’s simply basking in your light. And he’s so selfish, he thinks as he holds the velvet box with the diamond ring inside of it, he’s so damn selfish he wants to keep the light all to himself for the rest of his life.

Two years ago you were supposed to enjoy a solo road trip after years of Avenging, but Bucky invited himself along. Now you’re forced back to New York, and your boyfriend is ready to surprise you once again.

A/N: Bucky’s POV. Sequel to I love my baby to death, but I suppose you could read it on its own. As always forgive any mistakes, English is my third language.

Had to repost this cause it didn’t show up in the tags, hopefully this time it will

“I swear Buck, if I see one more damn corn plant I’m losing it. I am this close” you say pinching your thumb and pointer finger real close “to a mental breakdown. I’m never eating corn again, mark my words. No corn flakes, no corn on the cobble, no nothing. I’m done.”

“We’re in Iowa, in the middle of the corn belt, I don’t know what you were expecting.” he replies, slightly amused by your little outburst and sour mood.

“Well, clearly not ending up on the set of Children of the corn.” you groan, getting back to sulking in the passenger’s seat, seething at the fields that are only a scapegoat to the real problem.

You’d been merrily skiing in Montana when his skis got somehow tangled with yours and he tumbled down on you, dragging you down the slope. Hadn’t you injured yourself, rolling in the snow like it only ever happens in cartoons would have been pretty comical.

“What?” you screech, almost jumping off the stretcher and grimacing in pain when your left foot hits the metal poles at the side. “No. It’s just pain, I’m sure it will go away, right? I mean I was an Avenger, I’ve suffered worse than a fall.”

“I’m sorry, miss, but knee surgery will be necessary, the MRI here shows you’ve torn your ACL and from the looks of it, your left knee was already damaged badly, numerous times at that, probably a result of your time on the field.”

“I can’t, I can’t just get surgery, we’re miles away from home and I-”

You’re almost sobbing and Bucky feels like shit because he’s the reason for all this and all he can do now is pat your back reassuringly.

“Given the extent of the damage, I’m afraid there’s no other option.”

“How long is the recovery time?” he asks, voice unsure.

“Well, it’s my knowledge she’s not an enhanced individual, so like any average human it will take anywhere from 6 to 9 months to recover fully. In the meantime, no more hikes or sports.”

Bucky inhales a sharp breath. Six to nine months. No more hikes. Surely you’ll have to go back to New York.

God, you are so going to break up with him.

Turns out you didn’t dump him in Montana, you didn’t abandon him in one of those auto stops along Interstate 90 in South Dakota, and you don’t seem to want to break up with him amidst the green fields of Iowa, but still, he knows he will drive through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It almost seems like a cruel twist of fate, driving the same route you did as friends two years ago, along Interstate 80 headed East instead of West, only this time he’s not hoping to be more than the annoying old man who invited himself on your trip; he’s your boyfriend now, but maybe not for long.

“You know, you really are dramatic.” you say in a teasing tone, “I’m not going to break up with you, stop thinking about that, it was an accident, ‘s not like you beat me.”

“I know, I’m just sorry because you’re in pain and it’s my fault and now we have to get back home but I know you wanted to stay more and I did too and if I didn’t-” he’s rambling, and your place your hand on his thigh and squeeze reassuringly, offering him one of those sweet smiles he dies for.

“Buck, it’s okay” you interrupt his word vomit “like I said a million times before, it was an accident, it’s going to be fine I promise. I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise with my mood, I swear I’m just pissed at all this damn corn. We’re never going to a maze again, by the way.” That gets a laugh out of him, and he loves you even more because you’re always there to lift his spirits. “I’m dreading these next months, the surgery, physiotherapy and all, but I know you’re there for me, yes?”

He nods, teary eyed, and you continue, “And I can’t lie, it’s been a while, I’m kind of excited to see everyone again, I mean except for Sam of course,” you say, as if he didn’t “live rent free in your head”, like Sam himself put it, “Jesus that man, how many of our trips has he invited himself on? I’ve lost count. ‘Member when we found him waiting for us in Phoenix? Fuckin’ weirdo.”

You both chuckle at the memory of Sam in your motel room, waiting on your bed with crossed arms like a disappointed parent, pissed off because you hadn’t called in a week and he was worried sick that something may have happened to you, a deadly sniper, and him, the Winter fuckin’ Soldier. Truth is, Bucky was so excited about your new relationship that he rarely let you leave the bed when you were in your room, and when you did you were in no condition to Facetime anyone, with your smudged mascara and swollen lips.

“I’ve heard Clint will come visit us with Laura and the kids. Nathaniel must be so big now.” you add, your eyes glazed over as you think of the little boy who was named after your Natasha.

“God, Morgan is probably all grown up.” he muses, a tinge of sadness in his voice. You squeeze his thigh again. “And the spider kid too, he’s a grown man now.”

“That he is.” you chuckle, “But to me he’ll always be the boy in the red spanx who knocked us on our asses in Berlin.”

He smiles and shakes his head at the memory, and you both fall in a comfortable silence. Now that he’s not consumed by fear anymore, Bucky kind of agrees with you that all this green is, in fact, nauseating.

“You know what, no more popcorn either.”

“Deal.”

-

A year and something ago

Arizona

“Can you believe there’s a city in New Mexico called Truth or Consequences? We should totally go and visit just for the hell of it, sounds like the type of place Steve Rogers should have been born into.” you state with all the seriousness in the world, and he snorts because after all this time you still haven’t found it in yourself to stop mocking Steve’s righteousness.

You’re walking ahead of him and he’s so distracted by your tiny denim shorts that he, the master of stealth, almost trips over a boulder. You’re always pretty but tonight, illuminated by the orange sky of Arizona, you look like a dream. And you’re so happy, snapping photos at everything you see, that even if Bucky hates the desert and the heat makes him uncomfortable, he won’t tell you, because the look on your face makes it all worth it.

“Baby, look at this big boy here, he’s like 20 feet tall. Oh my god, he’s so cute and beefy, just like you.” you gush at one of the giant cactuses of Saguaro National Park.

He raises his eyebrows skeptically.

All he sees are green spiky motherfuckers that he’s accidentally hurt himself with more times that he’d like to admit in all those damn ‘hikes’ you like so much, but to you cactuses are the most beautiful sight in the word. He genuinely does not see the appeal, but he understands now how you feel when he talks about all his ‘nerd shit’, as you call it.

“I’m cuter.” he says frowning.

“Of course you are.”

For some reason you don’t sound convincing at all.

-

It’s only spring but here in Tucson the temperature is 85 degrees today and he’s sweating buckets underneath the long sleeved t-shirt he’s wearing to conceal his vibranium arm. He’s long past the time when he was forced to hide from authorities or the general public’s judgement, but still he doesn’t want to be recognized and attract attention. He doesn’t do well with crowds, and he doesn’t understand how you can be so calm and collected when people stare at you and ask for photographs while you’re minding your own business.

As soon as you get back to the motel you’re staying at he takes off his soaked shirt, not caring that the air conditioning is probably going to end his old ass.

“What the hell happened to you?” you ask, scowling as you analyze the skin around his prosthetic.

He shrugs. “It happens sometimes.”

“Why?”

“No idea.”

“Don’t you fuckin’ lie to me James.”

You only call him that when he’s in big trouble. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose: why do you have to be so damn stubborn all the damn time? “It’s nothing sweetheart, just sometimes the skin becomes flared when it’s too hot.”

“Nothing?” you shrill, throwing your hands around animatedly, “Nothing? Bucky your whole shoulder is super red and irritated, don’t act like it’s normal. We’ve been in the sun for hours, for days really, why didn’t you tell me anything? I would have driven us back here immediately. Does it hurt?”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you, I didn’t want to ruin your fun, you liked it so much there. And no, it only itches a little.”

Your eyes soften and you move to cup his face in your hands, looking at him with so much love that he feels himself melt away into a puddle, “Baby you don’t need to do that, you know I care more about you than anything else.”

“Even more than the cactuses?”

“Well, now you’re asking too much of me.”

He snorts and playfully hits your arm, then he falls back on the bed and drags you down with him. You stay cuddled like that for a while before you pull back to look into his eyes.

“I appreciate you doing this for me Buck, but you don’t ever need to sacrifice your own comfort for me, okay?”

“I know, I’m sorry. But you looked so happy.”

“Don’t be, and I’m always happy with you, I promise.”

“I’m always happy too.”

“We’re such saps. Gross. Anyways, guess where we’re going next?” you ask him cheerfully, scratching his scalp the way that makes him purr like a cat.

“The plan was New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, right?” he frowns. You’d made plans together ages ago and you were so excited about visiting Texas of all places for God knows what reason. He’s predicted already that he won’t stand the suffocating, humid heat of that whole area. At least Arizona was dry as hell.

You on the other hand, everyday he’s become more aware of how much of a lizard you are, seeking the sun and walking around in the scorching heat not even breaking a sweat.

“Guess again baby boy, we’re going straight to Oregon. I mean, it's not Alaska but it’s not as hot as the desert here, right?

“Wait, what? Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to overheat?” you state like it’s obvious, rolling your eyes, “We’ll do New Mexico and the rest next fall, and now Oregon and Washington because it’s a little cooler there. So what do you say?” You ask with a hopeful look in your eyes.

“Princess I appreciate you doing this for me, but I promise I’ll be fine. You don’t have to change plans for me, this is your road trip.”

“No you won’t Buck, you’re not doing good and I don’t ever want to see you suffer, you understand? By the time we get to Texas it will be summer and you won’t stand it, it’s better if we visit when it’s colder.”

He smiles softly. He knows he’d do the same for you. “Then Oregon it is.”

You get up from the bed and head to the bathroom to shower, “Oh, and baby?” you call out,  peeking your head from behind the door, “This is your road trip too, never forget that.”

-

Oregon

“Why does Thor get to have places named after him and we don’t? We were Avengers too.”

“But are we norse gods?”

“I mean, not yet, but I definitely deserve some nature’s wonder, or at least a star, to be named after me.”

“I’ll call WMO and get them to name a hurricane after you, princess. It seems more fitting.”

“Asshole.”

You’d been camping somewhere in Oregon’s wilderness when he came up with the idea of visiting all of the State’s so called seven wonders, starting from Thor’s Well on the Coast and ending in Mount Hood near Portland. You took a thousand photos of each attraction and sent a video of the water seemingly draining inside the famous well to the God himself, who enthusiastically expressed his appreciation.

Bucky’s cherished every minute of it, from the hot springs of Crater Lake to the chillier temperatures at night that force you to snuggle closer to him to warm up.

You’re in Portland now, and you’re thoroughly enjoying it, but what’s new about that? You’re always so full of life, so genuinely excited about everything the world has to offer that he’d be worried if you weren’t having the time of your life as you usually are.

He likes the city too, which is saying a lot.

“Blueberries are the superior berry and that’s the hill I’m willing to die on.”

You’ve been eating your way through Portland for weeks, and you’ve been discussing pies for a solid thirty minutes now. It’s raining outside and you’re cooped up in a small pie shop, eating more than an average human can and receiving weird looks from the waitress as you tell her to ‘keep ‘em coming’.

“I’m sorry but you’re wrong princess,” he states with a stuffed mouth just for the sake of aggravating you to no end, “blackberries are just so much better.”

It works as you grimace in disgust, both at his statement and his manners.

He’s found out you are weirdly opinionated when it comes to pies: pecan pies are an abomination, pumpkin doesn’t belong in dessert, lemon pie and key lime pie are only acceptable if someone’s grandma is kindly offering them to you, rhubarb pie without strawberries is a threat to mankind and cherry and blueberry pies are the absolute best. Apple pie is too bland to even take the time to discuss it, although the taste is likeable enough.

He on the other hand likes anything pie and anything sweet. And anything that gets a rise out of you.

“Please Buck, this isn’t even a blackberry pie, it’s some sort of inbred experiment that turned out kinda right.”

He shushes you, barely holding back a laugh when he sees the waiter side eyeing you as you disrespect one of Oregon’s most famous dishes, “First of all, it’s called marionberry and it’s a type of blackberry. And second, keep it down unless you want us to be kicked out, you’re offending a whole state.”

“Sorry.” you shrug, “But blueberry tartness level is where I draw the line, anything more than that is unacceptable.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re still a child and haven’t developed adult taste buds yet baby.” He does love his senior citizen card a bit too much.

This earns him a kick under the table and a scowl. “Stop it, grandpa.” you groan.

He grins and digs in your slice of marionberry pie. You resume to people watching.

God, he loves Oregon. And he loves you.

He really is a sap.

-

Wyoming

Washington was nice enough. You’ve taken him bar crawling most nights, and all of them have ended with him giving you a piggyback ride, per your request, back to the hotel room you were staying at.

It takes 13 hours to drive from Seattle to Yellowstone and you’ve driven all the way. You refused to disclose the destination of the trip and he’s fallen asleep the last 3 hours in the car. He’d mentioned he wanted to see the geysers somewhere in Pennsylvania two years ago and you remembered and took him.

Bucky couldn’t be happier.

He’s still describing the constellations above you when you fall asleep, and he’s so absorbed by the sky that he doesn’t notice until your head falls on his shoulder and he hears your soft snores.

He picks you up bridal style and takes you back to the fancy tent he bought on a whim in Ohio after you both slept in the SUV and woke up with major back and neck pain. He smiles as he removes your makeup with a wipe and does your skincare just the way you taught him, and admires your relaxed state.

He grazes your pretty face with his vibranium fingers, something so unimaginable to him before he met you, as he never thought his arm could bring anything other than pain.

Back when he was a semi stable 100 year old man thrust in another fight yet again, he hadn’t realized the extent of his feelings for you, believing he was only attracted to your beauty and youth. He hadn’t seen the way your smile lights up a whole room, nor the way you listen, truly listen, to anyone who may have anything to tell you, without ever judging them. He hadn’t witness your kindness and patience, let alone experienced them on his own skin. He hadn’t been lucky enough to watch you feed bird seed to the ducks of every pond of the country, or try to rescue a cat from a rooftop and almost falling off to save it.

Then Sam told him you were leaving and he felt like the word was collapsing on him. He’d found the sunlight and he never wanted to be without it.

Now he’s seen it all, all the little things that make you who you are, including your flaws, and he loves you not regardless of them, nor in spite of them, but because even your worst imperfections make you… you.

Bucky doesn’t know if meeting you was a way for the universe to fix all the wrongs that have been done to him, a sort of payback for all the shit he’s been put through, but in case it is, then he’s got no objections. And maybe he doesn’t deserve someone as good as you, but he’s a selfish man, and now that his sunshine girl is with him he never wants to plunge back into the the darkness ever again.

He tucks you both under the sleeping bag and snuggles next to you.

“Buck?” you mumble in a haze, tugging at his t-shirt, “Love you.”

It’s almost imperceptible, but his supersoldier hearing allows him to pick it up. He kisses the crown of your hair as he caresses your back.

“I love you too sweetheart.”

He wants to spend the rest of his time on Earth proving you how much.

-

New York

6 months later

The doctor wasn’t lying when she warned you that recovery would take 6 to 9 months.

You said the aftermath of the operation hurt like a bitch and that physiotherapy hurt even more. Today’s your last session and Bucky is glad about it for many reasons, like how you’re not in pain anymore for starters, and maybe because of how annoyingly fun, smart and hot your therapist is. Not like he’d ever admit it to you.

“Jesus,” you groan, “he turned me inside out like a sock, I can’t feel my legs anymore.”

“Sounds fun.” he deadpans.

“Someone’s jealous of the doctor?” you ask with a mischievous smirk.

“‘M not. He’s not all that.” he mumbles, blushing like a school boy.

You snort and drawl a ‘sure’. He sends you his best death glare.

“Whatever. I hope you don’t mind if we take a stop before going home.” he announces, helping you into the car. His palms feel clammy and he’s sweating despite the chilly winds of New York’s fall.

“Sure, where are we going?”

“Actually, that’s kind of a surprise, you’ll see.”

You beam at his words; he knows you love surprises and he hopes you’re going to like this one.

----

You look radiant as you lie on the blanket he’s spread on the grass, surrounded by colorful foliage. You’re sipping some of your favorite wine and nibbling on crackers as you admire a flock of birds migrating south in the sky.

You are the sun and he’s simply basking in your light. And he’s so selfish, he thinks as he holds the velvet box with the diamond ring inside of it, he’s so damn selfish we wants to keep the light all to himself for the rest of his life.

He’s prepared a long, passionate speech to tell you how much he loves you, of all the ways you’ve changed his life for the better and of all the reasons why he’d be a good husband.

But when you look at him with those bright eyes and beaming smile, he can barely remember his own name. He drops on one knee and holds the box out with shaky hands.

“Marry me, please.”

----

Thank you for reading! If you liked it, please reblog and comment, don’t be shy, feedback is always appreciated 🥺🤲

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #312

“robert’s got a quick hand  /  he’ll look around the room, he won’t tell you his plan.”

Do you kiss your pets? Yes. Have you thought about whether or not you're gay? I actually have briefly questioned if I'm just purely lesbian due to how incredibly averse to simply seeing penises I am, but considering I'm still perfectly capable of being attracted to everything else, I'm obviously not. It's just this weird disgust I naturally have. Have you ever had gay thoughts for your best friend? Well I dated her, so like- Have you ever had an STD? No. Would you say you are addicted to texting or to the person you are texting? Nah, definitely not. I always enjoy texting Sara, but I'm not addicted to doing so. Would you date someone who still lived with their parents? Yes; I still live with my mom, so it'd be very hypocritical not to. Would you have to sleep with someone before marrying them? Nah. Sexual "talent" just doesn't matter very much to me, and besides, before or after marriage, you discover what you like together. Would it bother you if your bf/gf flirted with someone else? ???????????? yes????????????? Would you enjoy a night of playing video games? Oh hell yeah. I honestly really miss doing that with Jason. We were both gamers and would do that frequently. How much does intelligence turn you on? Not like, immensely, but being very smart is definitely attractive. Do you search someone on the Internet before a first date? That shit's kinda creepy, imo. Then again, it could be smart for your safety, but idk, something about doing that seems invasive and just weird. I feel like you should learn things directly from their mouth. Could you date someone who had children from a previous relationship? I really don't think I could at this age, at least. I need to be more stable and a figure to look up to. I could probably be a stepmom to like, a teenager or something, but I'm not dating anyone with one of those at only 25. I would have to really, REALLY like the person to even consider dating them with a younger kid. Would you consider donating your body to science after you die? Yeah, go for it. Do you like to be friends with someone before dating them? Yes, definitely. I think waiting too long can make this hard and an awkward change, though; this was the exact situation with Girt. I had a pretty big crush on him my freshman year before Jason, but we were just friends too long. He became my "brother." Is it more fun to go out just with your date or on a group date? Both are fun. Do you enjoy risk? N O P E. How often do you go dancing/clubbing? Never. Not my jam. Do you meditate? No, but I'm considering trying it thanks to group therapy. Have you ever been fired from a job? No. Do you have a problem with racist jokes? Um, fuck yes I do. Is there anything you think science will never be able to explain? Yeah, like the soul. Do you cook fancy meals for dates? Lol no, I can't cook. Do you litter? No. Don't even fucking dare to in front of me. Do you have a career plan? Yes. Could you live with someone who was really messy? How messy? And would they listen if I asked them to clean up? Do you have any shameful fantasies? Yes. Is art important to you? Art is absoluely vital for my happiness in life. Do you believe in fate or destiny? Nope; you carve your own path. Have you ever called your friend a slut? Ha, jokingly. It's gone both ways. Doing nothing all day makes you feel...? That's me pretty much every day, and it makes me feel awful by the end of it. Do you shower everyday? No. It's bad for your skin and hair. Is work important to you? It clearly is when you consider how stressed I've been for years trying to find a job I can handle. Have you had cosmetic surgery? No, but I probably will have some things done if/hopefully when I lose the weight I want to. Do you only date people who have jobs or are full-time students? My past has proven that not always, no. What I really care about is whether or not they show the intention of getting somewhere, like working on themselves and having plans they're making baby steps towards. If the person is without any motivation to get somewhere in life, no, I can't date them. Could you date someone who does drugs? Absofuckinglutely not. Do you enjoy watching sports? Only dance. Are you a cat or a dog person? Cat, I think, but I love both. Should evolution be taught in schools? Yes, definitely. Separation of church and state, my friend. Are you kinky? I mean I can't say I'm unwilling to try some things that would be considered so, but my sexual experiences so far have been pretty vanilla, and I'm fine with that. Would you do a striptease for your partner? That'd be so fucking awkward lmao. Would you date someone who doesn't have a car? Yeah; again, I don't. It may be problematic if they never wanted to, especially with me being so afraid of driving, but idk. Do you enjoy dancing? If I wasn't so horribly out of shape. Do you think men should pay for everything on dates? Lol, wow. What year are we in again? Have you ever met someone in person you met online? Only Sara so far, but I do wanna meet a few others! Last person you kissed, are they into any type of sports? Which ones? No. Do you ever read your old surveys? No. They're really just a momentary distraction for me. What was the last series you finished watching? Do you have any plans to begin another? Ginga Densetsu Weed was fantastic. I'm now anxiously awaiting Meerkat Manor to come on air again this year!! :') When writing stories, do you have trouble coming up with character names or do they come to you easily? I struggle with coming up with completely original names; I used to be good at it back in the day, now I feel like almost anything I come up with sounds stupid. Real words coming up for OCs that somehow fit them come easy for me, though. Did you ever call any teachers by their first name? Who? Yes, because some preferred it. Have you ever shoplifted, even just once? What did you take? Nope. Have you ever witnessed someone else shoplifting? Did you say something? I don't recall. Is your hair thick, thin, or somewhere in between? it's thick as hell. Do you own a bean bag chair? No. Have you ever touched a caterpillar? Oh yes, I loved letting the harmless ones wander over my arms as a kid. Is there a YouTube channel whose videos you always watch? No. What a shocker when you think of Mark, I know, but I've kinda been drifting from enjoying let's plays, especially of random games I don't know or think will be good, so I don't force myself. Have you ever witnessed something burn down? Yes. Diagonal to my childhood house, down the road, there was a huge house fire once. Only the foundation of it is left today. Well, maybe they've rebuilt it, but they sure didn't for a long-ass time. Have you ever won a game of chess? Don't know how to play, so. Have you ever picked strawberries or apples? Strawberries, yes. Are you any good at Ping-Pong? No better than the average joe. Have you ever had to put an animal to sleep? Three dogs, and my rat Tezzeret. Where on your body did you/would you like to get your first tattoo? I got mine on my right wrist. What’re some movies you love that people wouldn’t expect you to like? The Notebook surprises a lot of people. I adore that movie. Does your shower have a glass screen or a curtain? It's a curtain. What was the last pill you swallowed? I don't remember; I take a lot of meds in the morning. Where’s your dad from? Ohio. Other than yourself, who was the last person that took a picture of you? Whoever took the picture of my sister Misty and me hugging. What are you usually doing if you're up late at night? On the rare occasion I'm up late, I'm probably really into doing something in World of Warcraft at the time. I go through spells. Right now I'm barely playing it at all. What do you get when you go to the movies? Popcorn and a drink, always. Do/did you enjoy living with your parents? Yeah. If you were to write a story right now, what would it be about? I'm not interested in starting a new story. The continuous stories in RP are enough for me. If you were to paint something right now, what would it be? I'm unsure. I have a lot of art ideas I want to do, but idk what I'd do first, and besides, I prefer drawing over painting. Do you believe you have a calling? I don't believe in "callings." I believe in natural talents, but I don't feel there's some supernatural or purposeful tactic to it. If you could sing a song before an audience today, what one would it be? Oh god. If I had a choice, I wouldn't. If I didn't, I'd have to think more about this. Do you enjoy public speaking? Fuck no. What pet do you want to have? The pet I want most right now is a plains/western hognose, probably of the lavender morph. I adore those lil piggies. Who do you want to be in your life that is currently not? I go back-and-forth about Jason, even though I know it wouldn't be healthy for me for him to have any part in it. PTSD is a motherfucker. Who do you want to be out of your life that currently is in it? Nobody. What do you have to do to achieve your dream? Most likely for someone(s) with considerable influence or popularity in art to highlight photograph(s) of mine. It's why I enter competitions once in a blue moon if Mom's okay with paying the small fee; it's very, very seldom I even ask, though. I hate asking for things, especially non-necessities with our financial position. Are you ambitious? I think so. I'm determined as a motherfucker to be successful with photography, for one. Do you sell things online? Extremely rarely. Speaking of which, I keep forgetting to take pictures of my flute and guitar since I wanna try to get rid of them. I never played the guitar much, and my sentimental affection for my flute has long since faded, so I might as well make a bit of cash off them to go towards Venus' terrarium upgrade. Do you look the way you want to look? Hell no. Do you pray daily? I never do. Have you been through anything traumatic? Oh yes. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? No. What is a medical condition you used to have but don't anymore? I had this very weird spell of frequent vertigo that kinda just... vanished. Do you look your age? I suppose I do. What has made you itch the most? Shaving my legs I guess, considering I would scratch them so badly it left me with permanent scars. Is there anything you're avoiding? If so, what? Probably. Well enough that I can't even think of it right now, haha. What quality do you admire most in others? Empathy. Do you believe that things will get better? Yes. I hope. Have you ever seen a double rainbow? I have. How old were you when you started swearing? I was in the 7th grade. I don't know the actual age group for that. Do you have any Indian in your blood? No. What is your favorite sunset color? Pink. Have you ever had dreadlocks? No. Have you ever wondered if your house was haunted? Two houses ago, yes. Does the idea of having servants bother you? Yes? Do you like crab? NOOOOOO NO NO. It's mushy and just ew. What song gives you chills? Hell, most music I listen to can. I get chills from music very, very easily, and I'd say either "Terrible Things" by Mayday Parade or Disturbed's "Sound of Silence" cover does it the best, but I could very well be forgetting one. Ah, Bad Wolves' cover of "Zombie" is another very high contender, especially knowing the story behind it with how the original singer was supposed to write it with them, but the day of scheduled recording, she died. What color is your favorite hoodie? It's mostly gray, just with a Pikachu graphic on it. Do you have a string of lights in your room? No, but I've always thought those were really pretty. If you were a writer, would you have a pen name or use your real name? My real name. What is your friend's cat's name? Sara has a cat named Winter. Did you ignore the last Facebook post that bothered you, or did you comment? Probably rolled my eyes and scrolled by just to avoid conflict. I normally have to be HEATED to start something. If you were a famous singer, what would you want your hit song to be about? Peace, most likely. Do you have a blog? No. Do you think you are good at writing poetry? I think so, but it takes more thinking than it used to. Do you take gummy vitamins? No, but I wish I took vitamins. Would probably do me some good. If you could do research right now for an essay, what topic would you choose to write about? Hm. I'm always up for arguing for LGBT rights. There's a good handful of topics I'd enjoy writing about, though. Have you ever been tempted to commit a crime? Well, I've pirated things before, so... I kinda crossed that threshold. Other than that, no, not to my memory. Have you ever started writing a suicide letter? I wrote one and am forever humiliated by it. ...and then realized you wanted to live? No, I OD'd afterwards. Well wait... I was kinda on the line I guess, considering once I did it, I panicked and told Mom. If you have a class ring, what color is the stone? I didn't get one. Do you like apple cider hot or cold? I can't remember the last time I had either. Do you use window clings (stickers for your window)? No. Have you ever found a secret compartment? I don't remember ever finding one anywhere. Do you read horror stories? Sometimes RP pretty much turns into horror stories, haha. Do you ever comfort eat? I am VERY bad at that. Do you have your wedding planned in your head already? No, only skeletal basics of it. Does sunlight make you happier? Yes. This is a scientific fact. Do you feel depressed in the winter? No. What's your favorite shade of green? Like a pastel mint color. What channel is your TV usually on? Mom always has Netflix or Hulu on, I think. Do you drive with the windows down or the air on? I strongly prefer AC. How many pairs of jeans do you have? Zero. Do you sleep with a comforter or quilt? A comforter. Who is your favorite American president? I don't know nearly enough about any of 'em to make a fair judgment. Do you jump right in a pool or do you get in slowly? Whew, my jumping in the pool days are long over. Do you use one swimsuit for the summer or do you have many? I just have a single black one-piece. Do you use the bumpers when you bowl? Nah. Sorta affects the fun for me since it's less reason to focus. Do you put eyeliner on the top, bottom, or all around your eyes? All around. Will you refuse to listen to music if you find the lyrics degrading? Depends on how degrading, but usually, it doesn't play a part in deciding if I like the song itself or not. Can you do a cartwheel? I never even tried; I was always too afraid of breaking my neck. Do you have tornadoes where you live? Occasionally, but they're not a big thing here. What's your favorite type of frosting? Chocolate. What's the most expensive crafts tool that you own? Miss Tobey got me a big pack of Prismacolor pencils one year that I really cherish. Have you ever woven baskets of any kind (wicker, paper, cardboard etc.)? No. What's the most exotic spice in your spice rack? I don't have the slightest clue. Do you have a favorite television host? Steve Harvey is The Shit. What's something you're opinionated and very vocal about? LGBTQ+ rights and the pro-choice ideology lead the bunch. The lack of morality in hunting for sport, too. What's something you regularly order online? Nothing regularly. Do you like elevators? No; quite the opposite, actually. When you're angry, does it ever get physical? Absolutely not. What's the weirdest video YouTube has suggested to you? I don't really know. I'm certain I've seen some wild suggestions, though, given just how much of a heavy user I am of YT. Do you like the smell of tar? Ugh, no. Never understood that. Do you have any flags on display? If so, what flag(s)? I'd like a rainbow flag for my room to hang somewhere.

[crazedlunatic]

Bob’s First Birthday Potato Candy

“I feel like this is a trick.”

“Oh. My. God. Yes.” Adrian walked over, opened the container, and pulled out two pieces. “Happy birthday, Bob.”

“How did you even know?” Blaine asked.

“Are you serious? Me, Matt, AJ, Wes… we hear you say potato candy and we are so there.” Adrian said and walked out of the room, shoving a piece into his mouth.

“Did you pay Adrian to do that?” Bob asked suspiciously, ignoring the ‘happy birthday’ because it was not his birthday. Nope. Definitely not the ‘big 5-0’ as Brady had been taunting since his last birthday.

“It’s not poisoned—intentionally or unintentionally. Kurt makes it, not me. He still won’t let me know the recipe because he thinks I’ll make it by myself, take the twins, and leave him. Jokes on him because he’s much better at Zachy meltdowns.” Blaine shrugged and nudged the bowl closer to Bob. “You know you want it.”

“Well that would sound really awkward to someone who didn’t know you’re his adopted son.” Jake said, coming in. “Happy—”

Bob glared at him but didn’t need to bother—Jake clearly distracted himself.

“Potato candy?! Can I have some? When I lived in Ohio my granny made it once a month. I had so much of it when I stayed there for summers.” Jake tossed some paperwork into Bob’s lap.

“You do know I’m your boss, right?” Bob gave him a look.

“I’m older.” Jake shrugged.

“By six days.”

“You know what it is?!” Blaine asked excitedly, ignoring their back and forth. “Isn’t it the best?”

Jake, who had shoved a piece into his mouth, nodded.

“Kurt makes it… as if you had any doubts that I can bake or cook well.”

“Quit paying people to say these things. Seriously.” Bob eyed the bowl suspiciously.

“Actually, don’t let him try it because he’ll like it and want it all of the time.” Jake said after swallowing his candy. “Sarah will go crazy over this stuff. I don’t know why it wasn’t a thing in Aroostook since it’s all barns and cows. Speaking of, is Sarah pregnant?”

“Did you just call Sarah a cow?!” Bob asked.

“No. Because of the whole barn comment. You know how you all got locked in the barn and you were smitten for like… 43 years.”

“You’re fired. Just go.” Bob sighed.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“No. She’s not. I don’t want to talk about that either.” Bob frowned. “This is a long depression. I just want another baby.”

“Look, I actually have work to do since I’m not a superior here. Eat the candy.” Blaine said, knowing if he didn’t interrupt they’d keep bantering. “Try. The. Candy.”

“I don’t want that. It sounds gross. Potatoes, powdered sugar, and peanut butter? In the words of Miles, yuck.”

“I will revoke twin privileges.” Blaine threatened, holding out a piece.

“Oh, give him another bigger one. You know he’s going to like it.” Jake said.  

“Goddamnit.” Bob took the piece and ate it. “There. Happy?”

“You didn’t like it?!” Blaine gasped. “What is wrong with you?”

“Oh, he did. He just doesn’t want to be proven wrong.” Jake said. “He’ll eat another piece ‘just because it’s polite’ and then the whole thing will be gone and he’ll be closer to the average 50 year old man belly size.” Jake took another piece before leaving.

“Why did he even come in here?” Bob asked, picking up another piece of potato candy.

“I guess to throw papers at you?” Blaine beamed. “I told you that you would like it. Plus, I know you have a sugar snack box locked in your filing cabinet so don’t try the whole non-sugar thing.”

“Don’t you have work to do or something?” Bob asked, tone very serious although Blaine of course knew better.

“Yes!” Blaine grabbed a piece of potato candy. “See you in about thirty minutes when you’re in a deep depression because the potato candy is all gone.”

“This will last me more than half an hour, Blaine.” Bob gave him a look, grabbing another piece of potato candy.

“I’d agree… but that’s your fifth piece.” Blaine smiled sweetly.

“I hate you, Blaine.”

“I love you too.”

[stargleeksil-blog]

Criminal Minds s04e02 Angel Maker review - or more aptly named, oh my god this is amazing yet gross at the same time. Why do this to me?

Episode 02 – Angel Maker

Hey guys! So I’m still reeling from that first episode. Oh my goodness gracious. That was a definite showstopper. But, I’m over it, I hope it’s going to be fine. I hope for a little breather, and that this one will be a little funnier. But let’s see what happens. Okay?

Let’s get it started.

Creepy music isn’t instilling me with much confidence, you know.

A young cat lady? Oh honey.

Oh boy. Someone else is walking in the house.

Oh boy.

Why is that creeper hiding in her closet till the morning to kill her? What the fuck?

And why a hammer?

“You’re experiencing hyperacusis. It’s caused by sudden loud noises, like an explosion.” REALLY?

(that’s sarcasm) – hyper sounds loud.

Wait. So the doctor wants to take him off the field? Oh boy.

I mean, I get it, and I want him to get better, but poor baby, he can’t sit still forever. He hated being a prosecutor.

“W-what if I said I’d … take it easy and … limit my role in the field?”

So cute! He’s like, I need to get back to work.

Wait. He’s so damaged in the ear he can’t hear his phone ringing? Oh, baby.

Wait. That fucker raped and hammered her to death? Ugh.

JJ: “Lower Canaan, Ohio.”

Emily: “Lower where?”

Ha! I love you, Emily. I have no fucking idea where that is either.

“Ritual. Nice hair, by the way.”

Hey! Leave my poodle’s mane!

Wait what? It’s the same victimology of a serial killer who was executed? Makes no sense.

Oh. A copycat honoring the anniversary of his hero’s death. Ew.

I’m sorry, Reid saying ‘semen’ is like hearing me talking in Japanese – unnatural.

Hold up, the jizz they found in the girl is matching to the DNA of the Angel Maker? WHAT?

Oh boy.

Chuck Palahniuk: “We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” AMAZING

“They have parachutes on board, right?”

“They should. It’s standard on all federal air transport.”

“Maybe we can give one to the elephant in the room, get him out of here?”

OH MY GOD! ROSSI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I JUST DIED! SOMEBODY GIVE THOSE WRITERS A GOLD STAR!

“That’d be the elephant with the dead man’s DNA.”

“Well, obviously somebody planted the semen on the victim.”

Derek: “In the victim.”

“Reid, you’re not seriously floating around the idea of an evil twin, are you?”

WHAT?

“No, I’m not. I’m floating the idea of an eviler twin.” DOES HE NOT UNDERSTAND SARCASM?

Oh my god, I’m dying right now.

“Traditionally, the concept is a good twin and an evil twin. But in this case, it’s evil twin and eviler twin.”

Oh god, I love my pure angel.

Why would the puncture wounds seem familiar to Emily? Weird.

That’s a pretty prison.

“Real lady killer.”

REALLY? Did that guard just make that lame ass joke? Oh god.

“The type of DNA that cats in lockup don’t have occasion to use.”

Wow. That’s some strong language there, Derek!

Can I ask? Why does he speak to everyone normally on the phone, but when he talks to Garcia, it’s to the hearing piece? Is he that desperate for her voice? I don’t get it.

Wait. There are rumors about the execution being sloppy? Oh boy.

Wait. They’re digging up the angel maker to prove he’s dead to get the townies off their backs? That’s wrong. Listen to the FBI.

Okay, so I’m naturally extremely sensitive to loud noises, like the buzzing in Hotch’s ear, so can they NOT do that please? UGH

So that’s an empty coffin. And it’s not a good sign.

Oh boy.

Oh god, Shemar is sitting on a desk. Why do I find that hot?

“What does that mean, doctor?” God, no one should sound that hot. Fuck. No really, if you check out my lady parts, you’ll see them all aflutter.

Wait. So they killed him with drugs, and yet he was still alive? Oh boy.

Wait. When they killed Cortland he said he’d come back right before they attempted to execute him? Oh boy.

“Did you know that John Wayne Gracie painted clowns? A murdering pedophile paints clowns, and people hand them on their walls. It’s creepy on so many levels. I mean, clowns –”

“Garcia, I didn’t know you had that hang-up.”

Aw, Derek is learning stuff about baby girl.

“Coulrophobia – abnormal fear of clowns.” Good to know, female Reid XD

“Oh, no, there is nothing abnormal about it. When I was twelve, a hobo clown groped my breast at a birthday party and made this old-timey honkey noise when he did it. Apparently making it funny makes it okay.”

YOU ARE ONE AMAZING GIRL! AND I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THE FEAR OF CLOWNS! THEY CREEP ME OUT TOO! (never seen one in this country, but still).

Derek’s face is like, who the fuck touched my baby girl’s boobs? Only I am allowed! Who is this clown and how can I kill him?

“Oh, my vision, I found a ton.”

That’s sad. Angel Maker memorabilia. Ew.

“He also made these little origami figurines out of cigarette boxes, which, I hate to say, are really cute.”

Oh honey.

“Shebang!”

Wait. The guard sells his crap? Oh boy.

“Wakey, wakey, my man.”

Well, Sid’s dead. Shit.

“One to the grill, one to the groin. That’s personal.”

Damn straight.

“Strikes me as an Aqua Velva guy.”

Bam. Nailed it. That’s his cologne.

Ha!

What’s in the pill box?

Wait. It’s a woman now? Oh boy.

Wait. Rutledge blackmailed the unsub? OH BOY!

“We now know that Rutledge was transferred to Hawkesville from a female prison, in the wake of allegations that he was using his position to leverage sexual favors from inmates.”

Oh boy.

“That and the fact that he took a PDE-5 inhibitor shortly before his murder.”

“A what?”

“Viagra.”

Oh damn.

Are they allowed to say that on CBS? Hahahaha oh my god.

“Hybristophilia. It’s a sexual attraction to men who commit violent crimes.”

I’m sorry, but Derek talking about sexual attraction is seriously sexy and he can’t talk about unhealthy attraction and look sexy at the same time because it ruins the whole point.

“She’s using an instrument to simulate the sexual assault …” did they actually say she was using toys on the victim? OH BOY!

“Hey, you ever get groupies at your book singing?” “Sometimes, if Barry Manilow isn’t in town.”

I love you, Rossi.

“Waits an average of three hours for a ten-minute visit, mandatory strip search. Would you endure that for a guy?”

“For Barry Manilow, maybe.”

OH MY GOD EMILY!

Wait. This lady professed she was the fucker’s lover? Oh boy.

“Last time I checked, they didn’t allow conjugal visits on death row.”

True.

Wait. So the lady then stopped loving him because she got a letter addressed to a different woman, but it was written in a different dialect, how can it be from him, then? It makes no sense.

Oh god. Another victim.

She killed a day-care lady? THAT IS CRUEL!

Wait. The puncture wounds mean something? Oh boy.

The letters to ‘dove’ were a code? Oh boy.

I love you, Reid.

“What do you need to crack it?” “The ability to clone myself and a year’s supply of Adderall.”

“I’ll put on the coffee.”

Oh my god, that was genius.

“So they both had home-based businesses. A stranger could walk in off the street and be a prospective customer.” Oh god.

SHIT. The puncture wounds represent constellations. Damn.

“Delphinus, the dolphin; Equuleus, the little horse. Anything sound familiar?”

“His origami things.”

Oh boy.

Shit. One more kill to complete the set. Shit.

“They weren’t just close. They were in love.”

Gross.

“How’d you crack it?”

“I profiled the author. Cortland Ryan was on death row with several high-ranking members of the Aryan brotherhood.”

“He got the code from the Aryans?”

“Either that or he read a lot of 16th-century literature.”

Wait. “The Aryans liked to use a cipher based on a 400-year old code written by Sir Francis Bacon.” Oh god.

“Normally you’d use a computer to run all these combinations, but it was quicker to just to do it longhand until I found the right one.” WHAT?

“He’s so lifelike.” OH MY GOD! EMILY!

Seriously, those letters were so romantic, if it weren’t for the horrible fact that he fucking killed people and she continued his ‘mission’ after death.

JJ’s right. Reid confirmed, “Well, she did say ‘us’ – watch over us from the stars.”

Wait. The victim survived? Because she screamed? GOOD FOR YOU LADY!

Wait. So Shara did the whole thing, trying to get pregnant with the wacko’s kid? EW!

“So if you want me to find baby angel maker, we’re gonna have to narrow it down.” I love you Garcia.

“Ten months, actually.”

“Really?”

No wait. Hold up. Seriously? I didn’t know that a woman was pregnant ten months. Wait. Are they making this up? Hold on. Nope. They’re right. So why are we so convinced that it’s always nine months? MOM! HAVE YOU BEEN LYING TO ME????

HAS MY SCHOOL SEX ED CLASS IN THE SIXTH GRADE BEEN LYING TO ME THIS WHOLE TIME?

“We’ll do single mothers only, in case she wanted to keep the father a secret, you know, didn’t want to brag: ‘oh, your baby daddy’s a third-grade teacher? Well, mine likes to poke people in the stomach with tools, so there.’” LOL

So gross, yet so awesome

Wait. Why is the name familiar to my poodle?

Damn. She was on the jury. So she knew the case. Fuck.

Shit. Her baby died in the hospital, she wanted a baby so bad, and she fell in love with the fucker so deeply that she was willing to continue his legacy and let her new baby know who his daddy was? FUCK.

“Completing the murders was the only way she could hold on to him.”

I’m with you, baby, that’s gross. She stole the body from the grave. Fuck.

“Meetings with Delilah Grennan and Maxine Chandler the day of each murder.” Oh boy.

Bam. found the next victim. Let’s hope we get her in time.

Shemar leaning over a car. Hot.

Sneaky, yummy Shemar.

Shit. She took a gun and is roaming the house and my baby is there, too. Fuck.

Wendell Berry: “The past is our definition. we may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.” Sounds weird. Then again, I’m pretty sure I’m high on caffeine. Which is weird.

“Morgan doesn’t like to follow directions. You didn’t know about that?”

“Yeah he likes to vibe it.”

What does that even mean?

“Ok, smart ass, you drive.”

Emily: “Oh, great.”

I love this cast so fucking much!

And Morgan said ‘ass’.

 Okay, so this episode was creepy in so many ways, but we had more fun between my superheroes which was amazing beyond belief! I’m so happy they put everything in one episode and also addressed what happened to Hotch and didn’t just glance over it.

I’m not gonna elaborate too much, seeing as this is already heavy on the verbosity and I’m planning on adding tons of pictures of Shemar, Kirsten and Matthew anyway. So I’ll see you all for the next episode, and thank you again, for taking the time to actually see what I have in my filthy mind.

Love you all!

<3

[melodramatic--blog]

06.14.2009 Grace Summit Sermon – James 1

Tony Marette: Whassup?! I want to first thank you for my financial status for my internship this summer. The program is 8 weeks long – at the OSU campus. LT – Leadership training – Character growth, Leadership, truth of the Gospel. H2O staff member – worship leader – planning programs and events to the campus and community. Thanks again – if you are interested in donating – thanks – and Go Bucks!

Welcome this morning. We are finishing and bringing to close – Never Waste a Good Crisis – Bringing to a close and starting a series on the Book of James. James really dovetails in with what we have gone through. We have looked at people in the Bible who have gone through many crises. CRISES – the plural of Crisis – It just doesn’t preach as well as CRISISES – but the correct English is Crises.

James talks about going through trials (which is the plural of trial) – (I’ll stop now) – James it the brother of Jesus (not the apostle James). James is one of the most practical books in the Bible – 107 verses and 51 specific, direct commands on how to live our lives. Almost half the verses are commands. 36 quotes/paraphrases of the words of Jesus – The book of James has been called the Proverbs of the New Testament. James is a guys’ guy – just give me the facts – tell me what to do!

Lord, thank You for this opportunity to be with You and worship You. Help us to sing Your praises. We are encouraged by praising You. Thank You for those who share their gifts that we might love and adore You more. We have hearts of appreciation – open to listen to what You have to say. Give Your grace – Act on our behalf – teach us. For the needs we face – we lay our lives before You – You are worthy. May Your Holy Spirit address, comfort, encourage, motivate, and command us today that we might follow You more completely.

James 1:1 James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad, greetings. You can see off the bat – it is not like Paul – OK, Hi, NOW, let’s get down to it: 2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,

He hits it with us right off the bat. You have probably heard messages and songs and books about this verse. For me, this is one of those verses we love to hate. Depending on your state of mind, this verse can be really encouraging or make you feel really lousy.

Sometimes we misunderstand this verse – I’d like to open it up and give us an understanding – what is James really saying here – so this isn’t one way or the other – the bipolar verse of the Bible. It is really those first 4 words – consider it all joy. The folks he is writing to are going through difficult circumstances. This could sound like – OK, just cheer up, everyone! That doesn’t always work.

CONSIDER. What does that mean – He is speaking about – thinking. This is first about our thinking – not about our feeling. When we think of JOY – we think of FEELING. But this is talking about THINKING. This is an act of the mind, not an act of the emotion. This has nothing to do with emotion. This should be a relief. In some circumstances, it is impossible to feel happy in some circumstances (unless you are psychotic or evil!) – there are some circumstances you can’t feel happy about.

Sometimes we misunderstand the word ALL. We go to Thessalonians – In EVERYTHING give thanks… All is referring to the type of joy you are to have. The new translations say – consider it PURE (complete) JOY. There are some things in life that are bad. There are some things that are horrible. We should think of those things as bad, horrible; it is okay to have a righteous anger over the circumstances that come into life sometimes. It is okay to feel deep sorrow in certain circumstances. It is okay to hate evil.

It boils down to the word JOY – our tendency is to see this as happiness. We think of joy. JOY – A state of being rather than an emotion – joy proves quite different from happiness – it does not support the idear that a Christian must smile all the time. Joy can be defined as a settled contentment in every situation. An unnatural reaction of deep steady, unadulterated TRUST in God.

This is different from our typical thinking. It is to trust that God is good when things are difficult – very, very simple.

Various TRIALS – Maintain a trust in God when all these trials come into your life. We all go through difficulties – Yours will not be mine! Our tendency is to think we have it the worst – or we look at someone else and say, Boy, I could never go through that! They are specific for you – God knows and allows things into your life – because He understands and knows you.

I think of three things regarding VARIOUS trials – The difficulties that come in: 1) The suffering because of following Christ. At times, we will go through difficulties because of our faith. 2) The trials that come from living in a fallen world. This is a natural part of life. We live around wicked people; we ourselves are wicked; Our bodies are falling apart. 3) The difficulties we face because of mistakes we have made and sins we have committed. When we realize and recognize it – we can trust that He is good.

This is my own contemporary paraphrase: Maintain a state of trust in God when things go wrong. Calm down – focus on God and believe that He loves you. I can work toward that. In Verse 1 he gives us the what – Consider it all joy – Here is the WHY in verse 3. When difficulties come in… 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have [its] perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

There is something you must understand – this is not a blind hope. There is something you can know – He is not trying to ruin or destroy us by our circumstances – TESTING = PROVE. God tests you because He knows you can pass the test! We tend to think – He wants to show me how terrible I am or what a failure I am. NO! It is because He believes in you!

Tony goes to THE Ohio State University – Great for ministry – Great for football – not so great for professors! You have some wonderful professors – but not at OSU. It makes parents furious – and they make phone calls and say, I am paying you so much money… I hate to embarrass him – but I will. The professor said – I don’t know why they have me teaching this class – I don’t like teaching. Tony: I got a 74% in math! But – the class average was 53%. When the teacher teaches and half the kids fail, where is the problem?! It is with the teacher – he is not instructing in a way students can understand. I think sometimes that is our view of God. But God is PROVING to us that we have what it takes. When you go through a difficult circumstance – You have what it takes.

ENDURANCE! Steadfastness – patience – tenacity. That is a good way of looking at it. Trials produce a faith that is tenacious – that goes after it and continues on. You can’t have a faith like that without difficulties. It is no different than getting strong (I am not an example!) – It breaks the muscles down – so that it can get stronger. Add some steroids and you have great muscles! Endurance is faith on steroids! It is not passive, but engaged waiting! We think of waiting as a boring thing. Endurance is ‘Faith Stretched Out.’ The reality is life is a series of difficulties. Jesus said life would have many difficulties. (By many trials and tribulations you will enter the kingdom of God.) We are to steadily move forward – not be life on a rollercoaster.

4 And let endurance have [its] perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Testing – Endurance – stretched faith. Let it have its effect. We say – Enough! – then we look for improper way out of the trial. LET IT HAVE ITS EFFECT! Allow it to work inside of you. Go deep inside and let it work in your life rather than looking for a way out. For some it is alcohol or escaping into TV. If we are setting our minds on the shelf, we are not allowing God’s work to have its effect in our life.

Henri Nouwen – Talks a lot about the personal inner life. We need to allow God – you need time of quiet in life – where you can allow God to work in your heart – where you let God in and let Him point out what is going on inside of you. We are so action/DO/ oriented in our lives. We see prayer as speaking to God, but how much time do we spend in quiet listening for God? Jesus went to a mountain to pray – whenever there was something significant – Jesus went to be with God. We skip the letting God work in us.

When we are going through difficulties, God is trying to complete us. COMPLETE – PERFECT – MATURE – God is maturing us. What we see in this passage – God’s ultimate goal is our perfection – that won’t take place here, but in heaven. Life is this series of difficulties and trials – and eventually we will be complete in heaven. For those who James was writing to – had more of an impact than it probably would us. Their difficulties were such that they just wanted to go and be with Christ. Think of the spirituals written by the slaves – they really spoke of heaven. Our lives, for the most part, aren’t that terrible – but our goal is heaven and we need to train ourselves to think about being with God. This may be the day we go to be with Him – that is the ultimate goal – the end of the journey. James gives us a pattern 1) Tests will come – not if but when – specific and personal to you. God has your trial and test. 2) We are to maintain trust 3) Understand that He believe we can pass the test 4) As we keep going, we become stronger 5) There will be another test after this one!

James 1:5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. Wisdom – to the Jews, it meant “Skills for living” – how to live to be pleasing to God. We think about intelligence. Our tendency – when we are in the midst of a trial – is to ask WHY am I going through this?! But the right response is – I am going through this – What now?! In light of my circumstances, how should I live? When we face difficulties, God can be trusted to give us an understanding how to live in the face of our current circumstances. James 1: 6 But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 [being] a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Our success of failure is determined by our faith, confidence, trust that God is good and loves us. In every situation we face, God is good and loves us and has our best. When you are going through it – it is hard to believe it.

James 1: 9 But let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position; 10 and [let] the rich man [glory] in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind, and withers the grass; and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.

Now he throws that in there and we think – where does that come in? For those James is writing to – the primary trial is POVERTY. They are living in destitution – because of their faith, in many instances. We will look at the concept of the rich and the poor in a few weeks. Closing this section – v 12 12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; This is a beatitude – He got this from his brother – 12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which [the Lord] has promised to those who love Him.

For once he has been approved – do you see that? You will get an A! He points to this concept of life – he is trying to change their perspective – the goal is after this world – what we are living for. Yes, there will be growth and maturity here – but in the end, the true reward comes after this life and that is the reward we should live for and grow toward. Likes: 0 Viewed:

The post 06.14.2009 Grace Summit Sermon – James 1 appeared first on Good Info.

[actualltr4sh]

basics what’s your name ➔ zarina do you have a nickname ➔ z, mostly, rini for my family or if we’re super close do you have a middle name ➔ ujana [ooh-jah-nah] do you like your name ➔ i used to hate it but it’s pretty cool now do people often mispronounce your name ➔ meh sometimes do you like the meaning of your name ➔ my first and middle translates to ‘golden child’ so yes when is your birthday ➔ the 15th of january how old are you ➔ a miserable 22 do you like your age ➔ miserable 22, she said what’s your zodiac sign ➔ capricorn

appearance what’s your hair colour ➔ blackity black is your current hair colour your natural hair colour ➔ ish, the ends are still red do you dye your hair ➔ i have once do you have natural highlights ➔ nope when was the last time you had a haircut ➔ chileeee maybe like a year what length is your hair right now ➔ maybe... the middle of my neck? do you have straight, wavy or curly hair ➔ nigger curls do you have frizzy hair ➔ not really do you use a curling iron ➔ nope do you use a hair straightener ➔ nope do you braid your hair ➔ its normally braided yeah what’s your eye colour ➔ dark brown. like almost black do your eyes change colour ➔ nope do you wear contacts ➔ heck no if so, do you use colour contacts or regular contacts ➔ heck no, she said! do you wear glasses ➔ yep do you have naturally long eyelashes ➔ not really do you wear braces ➔ i donut do you have dimples ➔ nope do you have moles ➔ a few do you have outstanding cheekbones ➔ lmfao not really. i dont think so. maybe? do you have freckles ➔ no but i love them :( do you have piercings ➔ quite a few do you have tattoos ➔ too many lmao do you wear make up ➔ nope, too confusing do you paint your nails ➔ sometimes! do you wear jewelry ➔ a few bracelets and a necklace i never take off are you happy with your height ➔ its average. i dont complain lmao

personality would you consider yourself outgoing or shy ➔ i used to be outgoing but im very very shy now are you sarcastic  ➔ incredibly what’s your biggest fear ➔ i just recently realized i was afraid of heights what’s your guilty pleasure ➔ ... iiiii dont know honestly are you religious ➔ ish do you get easily along with people ➔ typically do you cry easily ➔ ...typically lmfao

school do you go to middle school ➔ what do you go to high school ➔ WAT do you go to a private school ➔ no lmao are you home schooled ➔ im in college have you graduated from school ➔ give me FOUR MONTHS what grade are you in ➔ my last semester of undergrad!! have you skipped a grade ➔ nope have you been held back a grade ➔ nope have you ever failed a class  ➔ indeed i have have you been sent to the principals office ➔ not.. that i remember lmao have you skipped school ➔ absolutely lmfaooo i be OUTTA THERE have you cheated on a test ➔ ab. so. lute. ly.

family do you live with your biological parents ➔ nope do you get along with your parents ➔ mom? depends. dad? yes do you tell your parents everything ➔ i used to tell my dad everything, my mom no do you have strict parents ➔ mom was back in the day do you have siblings ➔ 5 are you the oldest ➔ 5/6 are you in the middle ➔ kinda are you the youngest ➔ mostly are all of your grandparents still alive ➔ nope

friendships do you have a best friend ➔ doesnt feel like it but i say i do do you have more than 10 friends ➔ hell no lmfao do you have at least 2 friends you can trust with your life ➔ maybe one do you have a lot of guy friends, a lot of girl friends or equal girl and guy friends ➔ i dont have many friends at all LMAO do you text with your friends a lot ➔ i use my phone to check the time

relationships what’s your relationship status ➔ single have you ever been in love ➔ yes do you believe in love at first sight ➔ sure. why not lmao have you ever been in a relationship ➔ yep have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ not to my knowledge lmao have you ever been asked out on a date ➔ yeah i have have you ever been kissed ➔ indeed have you ever made out with someone ➔ indeed have you ever been cheated on ➔ maybe this one time but it was a technicality have you ever been proposed to ➔ no lmao whoa do you want to get married ➔ if i ever open my heart again yes lmao do you want kids ➔ maybe

country where were you born ➔ detroit, michigan where do you live right now ➔ buttfuck, ohio have you ever been out of the country ➔ canada do you prefer country or city ➔ city me, pls do you like sightseeing ➔ sure! is one or more of your parents from another country ➔ my dad’s from antigua what places would you like to visit  ➔ antigua! lol are you fluent in more than one language ➔ hell naw what languages can you speak ➔ english

health do you have any allergies ➔ nope are you lactose intolerant ➔ as fuck have you had surgery ➔ nope have you had stitches ➔ nope have you broken a bone ➔ nope has someone close to you died of a disease ➔ nope do you exercise a lot  ➔ nope lmfao

experiences have you ever had a near death experience ➔ a few actually have you ever been on a plane ➔  indeed have you ever had an allnighter ➔ absolutely have you ever been to school/work after a sleepless night ➔ yep lmao have you ever been in a physical fight ➔ eeeh kinda have you ever been to a wedding ➔ i think maybe two have you ever been to a funeral ➔ yep have you ever lived in a different country ➔ nope have you ever been drunk ➔ man LMAO have you ever been trick or treating ➔ yep have you ever been in a school play ➔ i used to do costumes! have you ever been to a camp ➔ nope have you ever driven a car ➔  i literally just started driving like a month ago lmao

skills how many languages are you fluent in ➔ uno lmao have you ever read a book in another language ➔ no can you roll your tongue ➔ i guess can you braid hair ➔ barely can you do a handstand ➔ i haven’t tried in like years and i dont think it’s a good idea lmao

habits do you crack your knuckles ➔ absolutely do you bite your nails ➔ nope do you bite your lips ➔ not really

favourites what’s your favourite movie ➔ UGH SO HARD today i’ll say bring it on what’s your favourite tv show ➔ grey’s anatomy what’s your favourite book ➔ ALSO SO HARD maybe eleanor & park?? what’s your favourite song ➔ soooo many, west savannah / isaiah rashad is one of them what’s your favourite colour ➔ black what’s your favourite animal ➔ owls what’s your favourite season ➔ fall!!

this or that summer or winter ➔ winter honestly. day or night ➔ night cats or dogs ➔ dogs rain or shine ➔ rain coffee or tea ➔ coffeeeee reading or writing ➔ i need writing to survive humorous or serious ➔ humorous brown or blue eyes ➔ brown single or group dates ➔ single texts or calls ➔ texts  driving or walking ➔ driving is more convenient lmao

last last phone call ➔ the doctor lmao last text ➔ jas last song you listened to ➔ i just need love / mac ayres last thing you ate ➔ a sandwich last thing you drank ➔ water last purchase ➔ the sandwich lmao last time you cleaned your room ➔ sunday, actually! last time you’ve been on a date ➔ oh god.. maybe sometime in july

[jutetower8-blog]

AMAAD Institute offers sense of community to LGBT people

ByRhodesia Muhammad and Bryan 3X Crawford,Contributing Writers @TheFinalCall

“Ya basta!” Estela Reyes-Lopez pleaded, which means “enough” in English.

“Twenty lives were taken from us because of some young man filled with so much hate, so much ignorance, so much hostility toward people he doesn’t even know,” said Ms. Lopez, the media and public information officer for Centro De Salud Familiar La Fe, the center for faith and family health, a non-profit social justice organization based in El Paso.

It was a hail of bullets that sent families who were back to school shopping, screaming and running for their lives, when a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, around 10 a.m. Aug. 3, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than two dozen.

According to authorities, Patrick Crusius, the 21-year-old White male identified as the shooter, drove nearly 10 hours from his hometown of Allen, Texas, about 30 miles north of Dallas, to carry out an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime against the Hispanic community. Mr. Crusius surrendered to police shortly after his reign of terror, leaving many baffled as to why he didn’t take his own life like many mass shooting suspects.

A manifesto apparently posted on social media by Mr. Crusius outlined his intentions and his racist and anti-immigration views, said authorities. Perhaps he surrendered that he wanted to be heard.

Just 12 hours later, another gunman opened fire in a crowded bar in Dayton, Ohio, early Sunday morning, on Aug. 4. Connor Betts, 24, killed nine people, including his own 22-year-old sister, in less than a minute, authorities reported. Thirty-one other people were reported injured. The suspect was eventually shot and killed by police. Authorities are saying the two shootings are not linked.

During an Aug. 5 press conference, President Trump said the nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and White supremacy. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated,” he added. “Hate has no place in America. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart and devours the soul.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the shootings were clearly, at least in part, a result of Mr. Trump’s divisive, racist rhetoric and condemned the president’s proposed legislative fix for strong background checks for gun users and tougher immigration laws. Many questioned why Mr. Trump connected the two issues, especially since the shooting suspects are U.S. citizens.

Many social media users’ disdain for the U.S. government, including the president for hesitancy and refusal to call these mass shootings what they really are hate crimes and domestic terror.

Student Minister Abel Muhammad, Latino representative of the Nation of Islam, said, “President Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened and lit fire to many extremist groups. There is a hesitancy and a slowness in labeling this in what seems to be apparent to every one of us. So many of our Black and Brown brothers and sisters are being killed for far less. Yet, somehow these extremists who take the life of our people somehow always makes it safely to be arrested without incidence. But our people unarmed can’t seem to make it out of a traffic stop.”

“It’s absolutely a sign of the times as the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has been warning the American people for years now, that the injustices within the country create an imbalance and if not addressed the results of ignoring and not trying to create a remedy would be acted out in acts of violence. We see that coming into existence more and more as the times are getting darker,” Student Minister Muhammad said.

“After a tragedy like this, there is a time to be sad and there’s a time to mourn. But this situation that we are living right now in our community, this has been building for a long time,” said Ms. Reyes-Lopez, who shops at that same El Paso Walmart with her family. “These clouds have been circling. This thunder has been building and this lightening have struck. And we’re very angry about it. Many of the people I’ve spoken to in the last 24 hours have told me, friends, activists, people that have had their feet on the ground for a long time, said, we are talking about voting, we’re talking about legislation, and gun control.”

These mass shootings are happening more often. On February 14, 2018, 17 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a high school in Parkland, Florida. On May 18, 2018, 10 people were killed at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas. On November 5, 2017, 25 people were killed at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. On October 1, 2017, 58 people were killed when a mass shooter opened fire from a hotel room at the Harvest Music Festival, at a Las Vegas strip in Nevada. On June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

On June 17, 2015, 9 people were killed at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad, southwest regional student minister of the Nation of Islam in Houston said, God loved us so much, he set up a military structure and security apparatus for his servants, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Minister Farrakhan, and the Nation of Islam in anticipation of the current dark days. “If we love our people as much as Allah (God) loves us, we will be found teaching and training our people to make our neighborhoods and institutions safe places to live, work, play, learn, and pray. Offering thoughts and prayers or finger pointing is not sufficient today,” Dr. Haleem Muhammad stressed. “Love is a verb. We must show and prove the unequaled wisdom Allah has taught us through his Christ and Messiah.”

Student Minister Abel Muhammad agreed that this is not the time for finger pointing. “This is what has angered me, the response has been politicized, where Democrats are pointing at Republicans now trying to win the Latino votes by saying, ‘oh look what they’ve done, they’ve allowed this to happen because of their gun laws’ when for eight years the Democrats had charge of the Congress and the presidential office and they were not able to fix anything in terms of immigration or in terms of those things which ill-affect our people.”

Dee Woo, operations manager of KTEP FM, El Paso, a public radio station, commended the residents of El Paso for being a strong community that bands together in times of need. She believes parents are the root of the hatred that leads to mass shootings. “Parents need to stop teaching racism and hatred at home. And, they need to address it with their children as early as two and three years old, because as we’ve seen, children will play with other children because they want to play with other children and for no other reason but to have fun. And it doesn’t matter who it is or the color of their skin. So, stop teaching the children racism and prejudice and instead start teaching them universal love, which is respect for one another and being able to help one another,” she told The Final Call.

Others say separation is the only solution. That there are already two Americas, one White and one non-White.

Jay Hernandez, a resident of El Paso, noted, “Some in the Latino community in El Paso may have been injured but didn’t seek treatment because of their lack of citizenship and I think that’s hurtful and disgraceful. This is America, yet we don’t have the freedom to shop for school supplies for our children.”

“I think it’s a wakeup call,” added Student Minister Abel Muhammad. “I hope ultimately, the only good that can come of this is that perhaps our people will awaken to the fact that these people do not see us as their brothers, they do not see us as their equals. They have no desire for truth, or fairness, or equity or justice with us if they’re not in a position of superiority, not based on truth or goodness, but simply on their Whiteness and we as subordinate and subservient to them. They don’t even want us alive in their presence. Hopefully, as harsh as that may be, I think it’s waking up people to understand and to look at what is it that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan are offering, which is the best and only solution, separation from these people.”

There has been an average of one mass shooting every 12 days in 2019, with the total so far being 18.

All told, as many as 102 people have been killed this year in mass shootings, with many of them being committed by White men; all of whom adhere to and embrace the ideology of White nationalism.

Compounding the issue is the reluctance to paint these men as what they are: domestic terrorists.

The emergence of Donald Trump on the political scene in America has brought feelings of White pride mixed with concern about Whites acting out in public spaces every day. Videos capture White men and women berating, harassing, insulting and even calling the police on Blacks and other non-White people. Social media is flooded with clips showing the differences in the way law enforcement treats White perpetrators of crime, versus treatment of non-White people who don’t have to be committing a crime to be forcibly attacked—or even killed at the hands of police officers.

All of this could, and should, be very easily categorized as acts of terrorism. But in a society where the thought appears to be only Muslims can be terrorists, White domestic terrorism gets softened to “mental illness.”

“No one is safe. And the days of thinking something like this can never happen to me are pretty much over,” political commentator and activist Mark Thompson, told The Final Call. “[White people’s] fear of genetic annihilation, as Dr. Frances Cress Welsing described it, is enabled by Donald Trump. He can dismiss these mass shootings as mental illness. But White supremacy is a mental illness. To believe that you are a superior race that is supposed to be separate and distinct above every other race, is a form of mental illness.”

“In America, the dangerous are seen as endangered,” Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, wrote in an op-ed for The Atlantic. “Leaders treat white-nationalist terror, not as a broad social ill, but as a fringe problem that will become extinct on its own. To portray white terrorism as an outlier is to ignore America’s entire racial history, not to mention its present.”

Technology and media are part of the phenomenon with White terrorists able to amplify their views through mainstream and social media. And on these platforms, the idea that only Black and Brown people are dangerous can spread like wildfire.

An FBI bulletin disseminated through the agency’s office in Phoenix, Arizona, found conspiracy theories, like people from South America are invading the United States, can contribute to domestic terrorist threats.

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the memo read in part.

“White folks are upholding a slavery amendment—the 2nd Amendment—that was meant to use violence to keep Black and Brown folks in check. But the 2nd Amendment is now being used in the killing of White folks themselves,” Mr. Thompson explained, adding, “Firearms are an instrument of White supremacy and the enforcement of racist oppression.”

In May, testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee, officials from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, that there are more than 850 open cases of domestic terrorism in the United States; 40 percent of them have involved racially motivated violence. However, there is no law on the books in America against domestic terrorism. Perpetrators of these crimes, who are labeled as homegrown terrorists, are often prosecuted using other statutes. This makes it extremely difficult to even prosecute someone as a domestic terrorist in this country.

Thus, charges can be left to the whims of prosecutors dealing with those who commit acts of extreme violence.

After the most recent tragedies, the possibility of making mass shootings, which authorities describe as shootings with four or more victims, capital crimes was raised.

Source: https://blackpressusa.com/amaad-institute-offers-sense-of-community-to-lgbt-people/

[julystorms]

Regarding the post you reblogged about life after high school getting better, do you have any tips for that? How to get into a good college even if your high school grades were just average? What degree did you take- and then what job did you end up getting? Was that hard? It's completely fine if you don't want to answer- thank you thank you for your help if u do, and blessings from a very stressed out high school student

For people whose grades are kind of average/not great, I honestly suggest community college. It’s not just the grade thing, but like...cost-wise it lets you try college classes on for size for a much more affordable price than most four-year universities. 

There’s this pressure to go to college at X age and then to like...live “the college life” and lemme just tell you that...from most people I know who did it? It wasn’t great. Or even good. It just...was. It’s definitely not worth paying 4x the money for. The media kind of hypes it up to an extreme degree but for the love of God don’t buy into college as an experience. It’s education.

Community college not only lets you try college for cheaper but it can help you figure out what you want to do for cheaper--and it can help you figure out if college is even for you for a price that won’t make you weep. They tend to have a pretty wide variety of classes and you can try something in an applicable field to see if it suits you/if you’d like to continue.

Don’t rule out trade schools, either. Or apprenticeships. Electricians, Heating/AC people, plumbers, mechanics, carpenters: they can make good money because everyone went to university and nobody went to trade school to get certifications. If any of those things are Potentially Interesting, look up some youtube videos/look for blogs on the subject. Seriously. If I could do it over again I’d have taken advantage of a background around remodeling/building and I would have done like my grandfather and been a master carpenter. Lost opportunities my guy.

Anyway, I started getting an English Education degree, then switched it to Creative Writing and finally to Literature and then with like a year left of school I dropped out: $44,000 in debt. Now I work in the billing department of a construction/concrete company doing a mix of billing and intercompany inventory work--something completely unrelated to the degree I was getting. I mostly use my degree knowledge to talk big about anime. Yikes.

Anyway working has always been easier for me than school. I like getting a paycheck. College was hard but mostly because of the commute (an hour each way every day), plus there was a lot of awful financial pressure on my entire family. (When gas was over $4/gallon I was Suffering.)

I enjoyed my college classes most of the time. My initial goal was to get a PhD in English Literature and teach college classes. It wasn’t even really a pipe dream, either: I somehow wormed my way into the good graces of all of the people in charge of the English department and was told I ought to consider pursuing a master’s or PhD. 

But in the end I quit to move to another state to be with my now-husband, so I don’t regret it (and honestly feel it was the best choice for me, though it wasn’t easy moving 10hrs away from my family to a place where I knew nobody).

Like, long story short: college isn’t for everyone. Higher education isn’t for everyone. It wasn’t even really for me, though if I’d have stayed in Ohio I’d probably be working on that PhD still. Like, I went to college at 26 because I was crippled and couldn’t get a job because I didn’t have a degree. If I hadn’t gotten hurt in the first place, I’d have never gone. 

The best thing college did for me was teach me that I wasn’t stupid. I always felt like maybe I was. I’m kind of a know-it-all and I’ve always been one, but in my family we had the Creative People (one brother and I) and the Smart People (youngest brother and sister). The youngest two graduated valedictorian and got full-tuition scholarships to universities. My other brother and I did manual labor and then when we both went to school we ended up in the liberal and fine arts (instead of getting degrees in Math and Science like the other two). Hell, my sister’s in optometry school right now. I always worried I’d go to college and it’d be too hard for me. But...it wasn’t? It was so different from high school. I didn’t feel like I belonged there (I was older than most grad students and was mistaken more than once for the professor of a class lmfao) but once I got into my lit classes, man... God, it felt good to have professors tell me that they wanted to hear from me because I “always have something good to add” and shit. What the fuck? 

Anyway as it turns out, college helped me find my talent of literary bullshit ramblings and it flung off this bitterness I had on my shoulders that just wouldn’t go away that made me think I was bad at doing anything that wasn’t monotonous physical labor. I don’t think college is for everybody, but I do think it’s worth trying out. My dad went back to college after his factory packed up and moved to Mexico and like, he graduated with an associate’s degree at 60. He thought he was stupid, too, and he struggled with some things, but he was in there getting straight As...! 

So check into community college and see about what kinds of programs they offer. If you hate it: you can bail with very little loss. If you love it, you can get a lot of gen-ed credits in and move onto/transfer to a 4-year school. You can also try working part-time and taking a couple of classes at a community college to see how you feel about it (if you enjoy working and aren’t very confident in how much you’ll like college). 

Take a deep breath, anon!! You’ll get there!

[ramrodd]

Where were you on May 4, 1970?

On 4 May 1970, I wanted to get out of the Georgia sun and into some air conditioning before the starch in my summer khaki uniform wilted completely.

COMMENTARY:

I assume that you mean, where were you when you heard about Kent State?

My first visual memory that comes up is walking just south of the Post PX/Commisary cluster at Ft. Benning with the packet of my orders to Vietnam in my hand as I was clearing off post going to some office I had to present a copy of the orders to. The US Army has always depended heavily on personal initiative from the Seven Years War, going forward. It is still pretty much the frontier society it was the day George Custer dropped a letter to his wife off at the Quartermaster and trotted cheerfully off to glory. As a result of MacNamara, the Army community was beginning to lose some of this capacity that showed up for me on C-SPAN in the run-up to Desert Storm: the community was very sluggish. The Army noticed and began to fix that in 1994 just in time for the continuing decades of high cycle deployment the applied stupidity of Richard “Dick” Cheney and the neo-cons created with their historic and totally unnecessary diplomatic blunder compounded by their cosmic incompetence when they got us into Iraq and realized that the planning for occupation based on chocolates and flowers suffered from the basic operational assumptions inherent in “The Art of the Deal” and Duck Ass Don’s government shut down and tarriff wars.

But on 4 May, 1970, I was done with spring training as a Boy Soldier and the next step was the Big Leagues. I mean, you don’t go to Ranger School to run a Wall Street bucket shop and Vietnam was where the series was being played that year.

Kent State was not a surprise to me: it was an accident waiting to happen. The Nation Guard had been gunning down black folks since 1963 in places like Watts, Detroit and DC: the only difference this time is that it was white kids getting shot down and the reaction of the mostly white anti-war mob was, from my perspective, virtually the same as Roger Stone’s complaints about being arrested like your average black male who happens to be in the room when the FBI breaks down the door with the right address on the warrant but the wrong address afor the perp. I mean, they let him pull on some pants and polo shirt for his perp walk and he got about the same kind of coverage the times George Clooney got arrested for DUI or something. I mean, come on. But I digress.

I was in ROTC at Indiana University from the beginning of the drafts in 1965 until I graduated in the lull between Nixon’s election and Kent State. On my way to report to Infantry Hall, I picked up a couple going to the Atlanta Pop Festival on the 4th of July and I took them there and stayed unti almost dark and listened to a lot of music I didn’t recognize and drove to Atlanta for a shower and a little clubbing. The Atlanta Pop Festival was the first in a series of concerts leading to Woodstock. I was going through the Patrolling Committee training of Officer’s Basic that weekend and I didn’t really get the scope of the gathering, but it was like a migration celebrating what they believed was the end of the war because the Selective Service was shutting down and the All Volunteer Military coming on line. And, all in all, I think Woodstock is probably the one thing that has prevented assholes like Steve Bannon and Newt Gingrich from finally blowing up America like John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. If you were there and you remember the underlying moral statement being made by everybody being there (I think first of Joan Baez’s cover of Joe Hill soaring across the crowd and, today, I can see AOC guiding a generation of Secular Humanists into the tabula rasa of the 19th Amendment), I went to Vietnam for exactly those values.

I know why I went to Vietnam and I haven’t changed my mind. AOC validates my expectations and, before her, Barack Hussein Obama. On 4 May 1970, I was on my way to do my bit to make sure Obama got elected President. I wasn’t surprised about Kent State except in the timing, because I was surprised by the sheer brilliance of the Cambodian Incursion, after the fact, and by the sheer chutzpah of Nixon launching the operation at all.

As I say, I am an Army brat and I was raised around major headquarters all my life until I actually reported for duty. I knew about the Tet Offensive Christmas before the Tet Offensive. Ft. Monroe knew about the godless commie cocksuckers were going to spring something and it was clear to everyone that the holiday of Tet was the first pitch. My Professor of Military Science at IU didn’t know it was coming during the last class of the semester. I may have asked the question, how did he, a Major with at least two tours at the company level behind him, measure progress in Vietnam and his answer was the party line coming out of Saigon at the time, but it wasn’t informed of Saigon’s expectations in the next three weeks.

I was surprised by Cambodia because I was no longer hooked into that command level except when I was home. It was now literally above my pay grade. At the time, my first response was that it was a very gutsy move on Nixon’s part because the memo the Woodstock Nation was circulating. This was before the Oliver Stone version of Vietnam solidified around the mythology Ken Burns presents in Vietnam because it was still happening, but the first complaint about the incursion was that Nixon was widening the war and that establishes the boundaries of the emerging mythology. The common wisdom of the Woodstock Nation is that we invaded Vietnam in 1961 and 1961 in order to prop up French Colonialism. Noam Chomsky riffs of several versions of what happened in Vietnam in 1962 and he’s full of shit, lingusitically speaking.

Anyway, Nixon stole the march on the NVA in Cambodia and Laos and on the expectaions of the MSM and the Woodstock Nation and landed the sucker punch on the godless commie cocksuckers that let Nixon keep his promise to turn the war over to Saigon and to pull the troops out of the country without reprising either Dien Bien Phu or Dunkirk. The NVA was a world class military and Hanoi fanatical about siezing Saigon as a property of the People, etc, but the US military kicked ass and took names and kicked what was left to the curb and, when I got there in July, just after everybody got back from their road trip, there were 525,000 American soldiers in Vietnam and when I left in May 1971, there was less than 165,000. The Army knew what it was doing and Nixon let them do it. The Cambodian Incursion probably avoided 30,000 US casualties as a low ball estimate and the only cost the Woodstock Nation tallys is 4 dead in Ohio. They don’t even count Jackson State, because, after all, it’s a black university and the National Guard had been gunning down black folks in places like Watts and Detroit and DC since 1963 and they weren’t white boys and girls.

Do you see how I could turn this into a sermon about #BlackLivesMatter and why it was important for me to to go Vietnam to make sure Obama got elected? I mean, if I was wrong in 2008, I’ve been wrong since 4 May 1970. And, if I was wrong in 1970, I might as well pony up for a MAGA hat and go kiss Nick Sandman’s ass at half-time in the Super Bowl for ever suggesting his MAGA hat was hate speech.

So, anyway, my first real response, walking across post in the sub-tropical George sun at high noon, was not surprise that it happened but that it took so long for it to happen if it happened at all. After all, the only thing about the Chicago Police Riots in 68 that prevented it becoming a lethal blood bath like something out of the Russian Revolution or Ghadi’s peaceful resistance movement. I’ve had a chance to review what happened and I think the troops just wanted to frighten the crowd by putting some live rounds over their heads: the sizzle of volley fire can discourage a heavy investment in a “fuck you” attitude facing troops with fixed bayonets. And a couple of them didn’t fire quite high enough.

And here’s why I believe it was an accident: I could put myself in the place of that company commander. I wouldn’t have issued live ammo in the first place. If even weekend warriors can’t handle a crowd, defensively, with fixed bayonets, they need to transfer to the Air Force. That’s the first thing. They had secured the public property and why anybody felt a need to clear the meadow is a bit hazy to me. It’s like a high-speed car chase: you don’t really want to catch him so much as pen him in: let time work for you.

I wasn’t there. I don’t know, but from what I do know, that’s what I would have planned to do. The Kent State protests were not really structure but spontaneous, kids on their way to class up for a little heckling of the National Guard. There were professors there, talking the crowd down and outrage was going to drain away, nation wide, as the military operation completed its mission and returned from the thrust, no harm, no foul. And then these kids get shot and it mobilizes everything, all over again.

But it was an accident. If I had been the CO and determined that lethal force was the necessary action, I would have killed everything going up that hill side and anybody trying to get away at the top. Not 4 dead. 400.

In the numerology of the Bible, 4 is what’s left after the Finger of God touches down. There were 67 rounds fired up that hill at Kent State and, in my application of the numerology of the Bible, 67 reduces, first, to 13 and 13 is an ideogram that symbolizes the triune crown of Yaweh, Queen of Battle, with a lightening bolt above Her crown, the Finger of God. And, then, 13 devolves to 4.

From a military point of view, Kent State was an accident waiting to happen, but, as a Secular Humanist and Christian heretic, I have come to see divine purpose in the event.

But on 4 May 1970, I really just wanted to get out of the sun and into some air conditioning before the starch in my summer khaki uniform wilted completely.

And that’s the truth.

[mrsliebgott]

Who wants to get to know me?

Here's 100 things you guys might not know about me.

1 - My hero is Niki Lauda.

2 - If I could live anywhere besides where I live now it would be Finland.

3 - My biggest fear is vomiting.

4 - My favorite place to go on vacation is Disney World.

5 - If I could change anything about myself it would be my nose (It's the size of Ringo Starr's).

6 - What really makes me angry are ignorant people.

7 - What motivates me to work harder would be knowing I'd be getting paid soon.

8 - I'm unemployed.

9 - The worst thing about my day is all my schoolwork. I have some problems comprehending what I'm reading, it's probably ADD, but I don't know.

10 - My biggest accomplishment is beating my depression. I've been happy for a year and a half now. :D

11 - I'm of Polish and German decent on my father's side, and of Irish, Danish and Cherokee Indian on my mother's side.

12 - My favorite book series is The Last Dragon Chronicles. They're kind of for kids, but I'm five year old in an eighteen year old's body, so...

13 - What makes me laugh the most is my brother.

14 - My favorite movie of all time is Reservoir Dogs.

15 - The first thing I ever wanted to be was a Veterinarian.

16 - I want to be either of Cinematographer or Screenwriter now.

17 - If I could do anything for a day I would want to be a Superhero.

18 - I love Formula 1 and baseball.

19 - I'd take riding a bike over driving a car any day. (I suck at driving).

20 - My favorite song of all time is The Good Life by Weezer.

21 - I listen to Alternative Rock, Classic Rock, Pop-Rock, and whatever genre twenty one pilots are classified as.

22 - I can't cook anything unless it's a grilled cheese sandwich or pizza quesadilla.

23 - Tim Roth is the most attractive person on the planet. (In my opinion, anyway).

24 - My favorite food is my parents homemade chili.

25 - Charles Dickens is my favorite author.

26 - My dad used to call me tater-tot when I was little.

27 - I have flat feet and have something wrong with my ankles, causing me to stand on the inside of my feet.

28 - I watch Netflix way too much.

29 - I want to visit Paris.

30 - My dream is to win an Oscar for Best Screenplay or Best Cinematography. (I dream big).

31 - I had a dream about Tim Roth last night. (And my God, was it glorious).

32 - I have a few cats, two dogs, three turtles, and two hamsters. (Who are currently running like mad in their wheel).

33 - If I could live in any other time period it would be either the 60's or the 90's.

34 - On Tumblr I'm usually described as sarcastic, curious, and chatty, but in the real world people view me as socially awkward, quiet, and a loner.

35 - I can play the piano, guitar, bass guitar, harmonica, ukulele, and a little bit on the drums, but I mostly just play my piano and ukulele.

36 - The best gift I ever received was my piano last Christmas.

37 - I don't think I've ever received a bad gift. My family and friends know what I enjoy pretty well.

38 - I couldn't go a day without listening to music.

39 - I hate when people smack their lips when they eat and I when people talk while I'm trying to watch something.

40 - In five years I see myself getting ready to graduate film school.

41 - Thirteen I think. Most of them are converse shoes.

42 - If I could have one power I would want to bend fire.

43 - If I won the lottery I would pay off everything I have and then donate the rest to charities. (Ex. Male Domestic Abuse Shelters since they don't get a lot of funding, Animal Shelters, and I'd probably give a lot of it away to other countries with a lot of poor families who need clean water and places to sleep).

44 - I don't own a car or even have a drivers license.

45 - My favorite animal is a fox.

46 - I feel like I'm too harsh sometimes.

47 - If I had could have a meal with four people, living or dead, they'd be - Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, RFK, and Tim Roth. (Tim could stay after dinner if he wanted).

48 - I wake up at eight o'clock every morning. (Thank you, homeschooling).

49 - I get tired easy.

50 - I live in a tiny town. (Population is barely 800 and full of mostly middle aged and elderly people).

51 - People tell me I'm attractive, but I think I'm just average. But then again, I don't think anyone thinks they're good looking.

52 - I buy clothes at least once a month.

53 - I've had a secret admirer before. (Or at least he thought he was, I knew who he was).

54 - I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

55 - I used to get bullied for my height when I was younger. (I'm 5'3 and haven't grown since I was fourteen).

56 - I'm currently watching Lie To Me on Netflix and I only have twelve episodes left. I'm sad.

57 - The last book I read was German for Beginners. I still can't speak it either.

58 - I love Chinese food.

59 - I'm a clean and messy person if that makes sense.

60 - My favorite Actor is Tim Roth (of course) and my favorite Actress is Carrie Fisher.

61 - It takes me about twenty minutes to get ready in the morning, sometimes thirty depending on if I want to blow dry my thick ass hair.

62 - I eat cheddar chips dipped in ketchup. (Yeah, I'm weird, I know...)

63 - I hate corn.

64 - My favorite album of all time is Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

65 - I love rollercoasters.

66 - I tell my mom everything.

67 - When I was a kid my friend used to shove me into small, cramped spaces like trash cans and closets. It's probably the reason I'm claustrophobic today.

68 - My favorite TV show is That 70's Show.

69 - I was ten or eleven when I found out Santa wasn't real.

70 - My favorite flavor is Strawberry.

71 - I'm hyperactive.

72 - I have a blanket I have to have when I'm having a panic attack.

73 - My favorite subject in school in History, probably because it's the only thing I'm decent at.

74 - My family didn't have a lot when I was a little.

75 - I collect pins, buttons and rubber bands. Yes, I know, I'm odd.

76 - I wish the grunge fashion scene would come back, or maybe the brit pop fashion scene.

77 - I'm a major introvert.

78 - I have a hard time washing my hands because I don't like them to be wet and touching each other. It's some weird sensitivity thing I have.

79 - I asked my parents to stop throwing me birthday parties when I was nine and I haven't had one since. (I don't like being the primary focus of everyone).

80 - My family name has been in the States since the early 1700's, mostly residing in Pennsylvania.

81 - I dance a lot.

82 - I have a dark sense of humor.

83 - If I were the leader of a country there would be equal rights for everybody no matter your sex, religion, race or sexual orientation. Abortion would be legal, but there would be certain limitations. People would have the right to bare arms, but there would be strict background checks and it would be harder to get one. And there would be strict border control, but of course you could legally immigrate to the country if you pleased.

84 - I suck at Math and Science. Did I already use this one?

85 - The three things I think of the most each day are, music, my family, and Tim Roth. (Jesus Christ, I have a serious obsession).

86 - If I had a label if would be 'Socially Anxious.'

87 - The song that I relate to the most is Migraine by TOP.

88 - I used to draw a lot, but I've recently focused my attention on other things that peak my interest.

89 - My first crush was either Steve from Blues Clues or Alladin.

90 - My favorite video game is Dishonored.

91 - My favorite comedians are Bo Burnham, Russell Howard, David Spade, and Jim Breuer.

92 - In ten years I see myself with hopefully a husband or wife and a kid or two and doing what I love.

93 - I've never had a job before, but I just sent in an application and they didn't deny it, so... Fingers crossed.

94 - If I could see any band of any time period live it would be Led Zeppelin.

95 - I speak English fluently, I understand a little German and know very little Spanish and French.

96 - Ohio is the greatest state in the US. O-H-I-O!

97 - I've not been officially diagnosed, but a lot of people think I have Asperger's Syndrome. (I wrote a report on it one time and my mother told me it sounded like my autobiography).

98 - I have OCD. (Diagnosed).

99 - I've never had a boyfriend or girlfriend. (Again, I live in a tiny town with barely 800 people, I'm homeschooled, and I'm socially inept).

100 - My best friend is my brother.

I'm going to tag @the-nerdy-girl-next-door and @thedavanity to list off a few little facts about themselves. It doesn't have to be 100 like I did, it could be just five for all I care, but I'd like to know more about you guys.

[brentrogers]

Podcast: Negative Self-Talk and Pessimism

  “You’re so stupid. That was the dumbest thing anyone has ever done.” You probably wouldn’t ever say this to a loved one — but would you say it to yourself? What’s your self-talk like?  And why does it matter?

In today’s Not Crazy podcast, Gabe and Lisa break down their own experiences with negative self-talk and why they do it. And while Gabe believes in reframing his thoughts to be more positive, Lisa thinks there may be some benefits to not always looking for the silver lining. What do you think?

(Transcript Available Below)

Please Subscribe to Our Show: And We Love Written Reviews! 

About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Negative Self-Talk” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Not Crazy podcast, I’m your host Gabe Howard, and with me, as always, is the incomparable Lisa.

Lisa: Hey, everyone, today’s quote is by Robert Kiyosaki, and he says, it’s not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the most power.

Gabe: My negative self talk is like 100% in my own head. Nobody else can hear it. My brain is saying to me, Gabe, you’re awful. Gabe, you suck, Gabe, nobody listens to your podcast. Gabe, everybody hates you. But it’s not audible. Is that what your negative self talk is like, Lisa?

Lisa: No, not even a little. I keep up this constant running dialog with myself, and I do it out loud. I don’t know if it’s because I lived alone for a long time or because I worked from home, but I just do it continuously out loud. And it wasn’t really until I went to like an office environment that I thought, oh, my God, I’m so annoying because I’m having this constant back and forth dialog with myself, like in line at the grocery store.

Gabe: I have this constant dialog with myself, I’m always narrating my life, I have racing thoughts sometimes because of bipolar disorder and for me personally, it’s always very negative, but it’s not audible. If I strapped a recording device to me, the recorder would pick up nothing. But you’re saying that if we strapped a recorder to you at the end of the day somewhere, Lisa Kiner would be walking around saying, I suck, this is bullshit, why am I here? And it would pick it up on the recorder?

Lisa: Yes. It’s not always about myself, like, I’m just keeping up this running dialog about everything around me. But I get so used to doing it and then I’ll do it out in public and people think I’m talking to them. Like I’m at the grocery store trying to pick out, OK, which soup do I want? Well, I don’t know. Well, this one is the no salt. Yeah. I don’t really like the no salt kind though. And I go back and forth like that out loud and frequently strangers because they think I’m talking to them, which is so narcissistic, incidentally. Just because you’re the only person around doesn’t mean I’m talking to you. All right. Talking to myself. You’re not involved. So that’s actually a problem I have all the time.

Gabe: Hang on. I know that you’re joking about that, like, how narcissistic is it to believe that? Because there’s only two people in an aisle and I’m speaking out loud. I mean, it’s much more believable that I am having a moment where I’m conversing with myself. But you’re the narcissist for thinking that I’m talking to you and I am not a narcissist for literally engaging in a conversation with myself and only me. Is that what you’re saying, Lisa?

Lisa: Well, it is a joke, but, yeah, pretty much that is what I’m saying, it’s very annoying. It happens to me all the time.

Gabe: The continuous running dialog, it has issues. I don’t know of anybody.

Lisa: I don’t think other people have this continuous dialog in the same way I do. I don’t think you do either.

Gabe: I don’t think that other people have it out loud, but I’m talking about me now, Lisa. Narcissist much?

Lisa: Well, no, I just I feel like I almost have like a narrator, like on Dexter or something where he has the narrator that’s himself in his mind all the time.

Gabe: But that’s the point, it’s in his mind, and that’s how mine is, mine is in my mind. Nobody else can hear it. Everything that happens, everything that I do. Like you said, there’s a narrative like on television shows, but it’s always negative and it doesn’t matter what happens. That’s sort of the part that I want to talk about. For example, let’s say that I get an award like that should be a huge achievement. Right? And I’m standing on the side of the stage and the person who is giving the award does the whole you know, we’re very happy with Gabe. He has earned an award. We’re very proud of him. I am standing off of the stage and I’m like, well, I mean, they had to give it to me. They didn’t want to. There is probably somebody better. I took this award for somebody. Somebody else got passed over. This is political. I bet Lisa tricked them, and that’s why I’m getting the award. And that’s just going through my mind constantly. And then, of course, I hear the applause and that’s nice. And I’m happy. And I walk up to the podium and I deliver my acceptance speech. And even as I’m giving the speech, my mind is saying, this is bullshit. You didn’t earn it. This is bullshit. You didn’t earn it. 

Lisa: I do know that about you, and you’re correct, I personally think that your inner self talk is much more negative than the average and it’s a lot more negative than mine.

Gabe: One of the interesting things about our negative self talk, aside from mine being internal and yours apparently being external, is that mine is always about me.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: I’m talking about myself. The negative self talk that occurs in my brain is always about Gabe and the things that Gabe are doing and the people around me and their reaction to Gabe. Your negative self talk is always about the people around you.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You’re observing the world and you are very critical and negative of the behavior of others.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I hate to say can you expand on that? But, but why?

Lisa: I knew that, but I didn’t really notice it until you pointed it out to me yesterday. Yeah. Your inner critic self talk is focused on yourself, which makes more sense, whereas mine is almost exclusively focused on other people. I think it’s because I have really good self-esteem

Gabe: I don’t.

Lisa: Or because I’m narcissistic. I get it.

Gabe: On one hand, it would be so easy for me to be like Lisa’s narcissistic, but I know for a fact that you’re not. And it would be easy for me to say, well, it’s because Lisa has really high self-esteem and she thinks she’s the greatest at everything.

Lisa: What can I say?

Gabe: Except, yeah, you don’t think that about yourself. You have this very high opinion of certain abilities and this extraordinarily low opinion of other abilities. And the whole thing sort of averages out to mediocre self-esteem for you.

Lisa: Maybe it’s realism.

Gabe: Maybe, but it’s not. It’s severe and persistent mental illness. But it’s interesting to me because you will observe things and your mind immediately jumps to the negative.

Lisa: That is true. It’s become more of a problem lately, like within the last couple of years, but I’m not really sure. Maybe I’m just finally, like, noticing the effect it’s having because, yeah, you’re right, it is a problem and it is causing me negative consequences.

Gabe: As your friend Lisa, you know, being negative about the people around you is frustrating for many reasons. One, I’m one of the people around you, so I don’t like it when you’re negative about me. But you observe the world through this very negative lens.

Lisa: I do.

Gabe: And I know you hate this story. And I can have this entire conversation without you, but I’m not gonna, I’m going to let you talk. But, I remember we were watching a football game. We’re sitting there watching the football game and.

Lisa: Oh, God, that story?

Gabe: Yep,

Lisa: I didn’t know where you were going,

Gabe: Yep,

Lisa: I didn’t know was going to be that one.

Gabe: Yeah, you know, they throw this old guy up on the screen and they’re like, congratulations to old Bob. Bob has attended every single home football game for the last 50 years.  And as the rest of us are all like, oh, that’s a sweet story. Lisa’s like, that’s bullshit. How do they know? They didn’t have good computerized records 60 years ago. They don’t know that he’s been to every game. Even if he bought every ticket, they don’t know that he went. What, he didn’t miss one? How were they even keeping track of this? And of course, we’re all looking at Lisa like really? Like you just can’t smile? Just be happy?

Lisa: It’s interesting that you picked this particular story, I did not see that coming. Because all of you thought that was such a big deal and you all went on for a while and bring it up since, oh, my God, why are you so negative? Why was that a big deal? Why was this such a thing? Why was that so important to you? It wasn’t. In the same way that you went, oh, that’s nice, isn’t that a cute scarf or something? I was like, well, that’s bullshit. You don’t know that he’s actually been to every game. I just saw it as a throwaway comment, but you all took it very seriously.

Gabe: Exactly, because we didn’t think that it was just worth any negativity whatsoever. It’s like insulting a kitten. If somebody has a newborn kitten and they give you a kitten and the kitten is purring and you’re petting the kitten and everybody loves the kitten and you’re the one that’s like it’s going to grow up to be a cat and ruin your furniture. People are going to be like, look, can you just enjoy the kitten in the moment?

Lisa: Why are you so invested in a kitten? What do you care if I say something about the kitten? Why does it bother you? My thoughts on the kitten?

Gabe: And therein lies our differences of how our self talk works. See my self talk only bothers me. 

Lisa: Oh.

Gabe: Your self talk radiates out into the world and negatively impacts others.

Lisa: Maybe.

Gabe: And it’s interesting that you feel this way, that it’s just this throwaway comment about kittens or old people at football games, because as people who know me well know, I can’t enjoy my own success. I can’t enjoy it. I don’t consider myself successful now. Whenever something good happens to me, I push it way down. And you told me that as my friend, that that’s exhausting,

Lisa: Absolutely.

Gabe: That you’re at this great event where Gabe gets an award or people say nice things to me and afterwards, I’m not happy about it. I won’t celebrate it. Well, how does that impact you? It’s my event. It’s my award. Can’t I react to it however I want? And you said that this took from you. Your exact words were it’s exhausting that you can’t be happy when you are being praised. Well, what do you care? It’s just a kitten or an old guy. Like, why are you so heavily invested in my inability to celebrate my own success? But you are. And the reverse is true. It’s a burden when you’re mad at the old guy at the football game.

Lisa: It isn’t just success, you can’t celebrate anything. Obviously, this is severe and persistent mental illness, but you can never seem to be happy or take pleasure in anything, even when we’re doing something fun. You’re unhappy about vacation, you’re unhappy about everything. It’s almost as if you’re chronically depressed.

Gabe: Who cares, you’re being way too broad, like answer my specific thing about if it’s my accomplishments, my award and my day, why is it exhausting for you? Why do you care if I’m unhappy at my own accomplishment? And don’t say because I’m also unhappy on vacation.

Lisa: Hmm. OK.

Gabe: I’m not trying to be a jerk here. Like you always say a gift given is a gift received. You give the gift. It’s my decision how to use the gift, react to the gift, enjoy the gift, love the gift. Gift giving doesn’t include strings.

Lisa: That’s true, that’s a good analogy.

Gabe: So here I am, I get an award and I’m like, hey, I probably don’t deserve this award, why can’t you be like, Hey, Gabe? All right, well, you should be proud of yourself. Why is it exhausting for you? Why is my negative self talk about something that is mine? Why does that bother you?

Lisa: You know, I you know, I think it might be because you know how you say I always take everything so personally? I think that actually might be what. It might be my own self talk. Because the fact that you’re not pleased or excited I somehow feel like is on me and is my responsibility to somehow correct. Almost as if it’s a criticism of my very presence, because why are you not happy and what am I doing wrong so that you’re not happy? Wow, that’s sick.

Gabe: I just want to make sure I understand this correctly, my accomplishment and my award is about you?

Lisa: Is about me, yeah. Wow. Do you think that’s true?

Gabe: I honestly have no idea because the reverse is also true, right? Like you said, it’s an innocuous comment. I don’t think that old guy did that. I do not like this puff piece that’s on the national broadcast of the college football game. Why are all of us so invested that Lisa doesn’t like the puff piece?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Like what? You’re required to like the puff piece? We’re doing the same thing to you.

Lisa: Huh.

Gabe: Why are we like this? Why does our negative self talk

Lisa: Wow.

Gabe: Interfere with each other in such a way?

Lisa: I don’t know, you know, I. Wow, I’ve actually never thought about that until. Wow. This is a strangely profound realization I’m having on a podcast. Wow.

Gabe: Not just on any podcast.

Lisa: Well, yes, on the Not Crazy podcast, which you can find at PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy.

Gabe: You know, they’re listening to it right now, you don’t have to tell them where to find it

Lisa: We don’t know where they found it.

Gabe: They’ve already found it.

Lisa: They could be listening to it at a friend’s house, they’re not sure. Anyway. Wow. Like, like I realize it’s podcast time and I’m not allowed to pause, but. Oh, my God. Do you think this is true? Like, do you think this is really why?

Gabe: I have no idea why, and

Lisa: Wow.

Gabe: I do believe that it is different for everybody.

Lisa: That is messed up.

Gabe: But I think that we’ve established that negative self talk has ramifications outside of ourselves. It influences our actions, which influences other people. And we just all want to be happy for each other. And I am ruining your happiness by not being happy at my own award. So now the question becomes what to do about it? We have suggestions. Now, listen, this is definitely a situation where you need to take our advice because we are not using it. But we’ve been given some excellent advice.

Lisa: Therefore, it’s up for grabs.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s up for grabs. Just, it’s like a Craigslist curb alert. Hey, we’re not using this advice. We’ve sat it out by the podcast curb for free. Take it. No strings attached.

Lisa: That day with the old guy on the TV, that always bothered because what did you people care? Why were you messing with me? It’s never occurred to me that that is analogous to the way that I am annoyed by you and your reaction to certain things.

Gabe: Uh-huh.

Lisa: That’s never occurred to me. Huh.

Gabe: It’s almost like when you put yourself in other people’s shoes, Lisa, you learn stuff.

Lisa: I don’t know what to do with this knowledge.

Gabe: I don’t know, but I hope that when this plays over the show that that you put like some soft piano music behind this, maybe you get some, like, audience reaction of, like, people crying and hugging.

Lisa: What is the answer, though? Why were you so invested in how I felt about the old dude? Is that the same reason that I’m so invested in why you’re not happy?

Gabe: I think sincerely, it was just a happy moment. 

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: And there’s not a lot of happy moments in the world, especially for us and all of us had agreed for whatever reason that we were going to be happy about this. And your negativity ruined an otherwise positive moment. It’s sort of unfair to demand that you change your opinion in order to make the group happy. But from the group’s perspective, we had decided that this was the point of the concert where we’re all going to sit down and one person was standing to dance to the music, and that was ruining it for the person who had to sit behind her.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: And that’s kind of how it was. We just decided that we wanted to be happy right now. And you interjected negativity. Maybe you should have realized, hey, the group has decided that they’re going to be happy. So I’m going to keep this to myself. But yeah, you’re right. Why didn’t the group say, oh, Lisa, you look at everything through shit colored glasses. Which you would fire back, well, some of you look at everything through rose colored glasses, but I think that’s really the takeaway. Right? Lisa looks at everything through shit colored glasses. Gabe looks at everything through shit colored glasses. I will always find a way to ruin anything positive that happens to me and I don’t know why. And it’s that constant dialog that’s in my brain and a cycle that I cannot break. And I really feel strongly that, Lisa, we need to help the audience understand maybe how they can break it and stop talking about your revelation

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: That you’re a negative person. We know.

Lisa: Well, but I feel like the negativity is mostly an advantage because you feel like other people are just walking around in their own self deluded bubble, right? So I feel like it’s an advantage. It’s like a special power I have to see the world correctly and clearly, the true nature of reality. But yeah, even saying that makes me sound mentally ill, doesn’t it?

Gabe: Well, let’s consider this this idea, because I’m sure that a lot of people can relate to us. We’re not unique in having negative self talk, but if everything is shit, nothing is. I hate to borrow from Pixar, but if everybody’s super, nobody is. Who is going to take us seriously? On one hand, Lisa, you’re right. It is a superpower. You have such a critical eye. And when it comes to things like editing, podcast, producing podcasts, we need people like you like for real. If you understood football and you had this critical eye, we would put you in charge of game tape because you would find every single solitary mistake and help the players correct it. 

Lisa: But see, I think it’s enjoyable, like when we go to a movie, and then as we’re leaving the movie, I’m like, OK, here are the following plot holes. Here are the following problems. I think that’s fun. To dissect it, to analyze it, to think about it, to find the flaws, I find that enjoyable. I know that you do not. So I try not to do it most of the time, but I think it’s fun.

Gabe: But here’s what sucks for you. It’s both right? I love listening to podcasts where they do that.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Gabe: Were they dissect the shows or, you know, there’s famous YouTube channels like How It Should Have Ended or

Lisa: Oh, I love that show.

Gabe: Cinema Sins where they talk about, you know.

Lisa: Cinema Sins is my oh, I love that guy. I want to be friends with him.

Gabe: I love stuff like that. The question is, does that guy show up at every single party and the minute somebody says, oh my God, I love the new superhero movie, he sashays over and says, well, actually?

Lisa: Well, if he does, I want to be his friend and I want to be at that party.

Gabe: Do you?

Lisa: Well, I do, but apparently no one else does.

Gabe: Every single time you have an opinion about anything, this guy just materializes and says, well, actually and then corrects you.

Lisa: But he’s not saying it’s bad, he’s just giving you more information. Just because he’s pointing out the following things doesn’t mean it’s an overall negative. He’s just sharing with you more. He’s adding to your enjoyment or your knowledge store or the information you have. He’s not taking.

Gabe: Are you sure?

Lisa: For me, yes.

Gabe: This is going to be somewhat controversial, but let’s talk about like mansplaining where men explain to women their point of view. But aren’t these men just adding to your knowledge base? Aren’t they just giving you information that you may or may not already have? You could use it or you couldn’t use it? I mean, why is it so problematic then? Aren’t they just giving you the male perspective to a female problem? For the record, I don’t agree with any of this. I think there’s a large slice of misogyny and problems in this general idea that maybe women don’t understand their own experience and most of us men are just being jerks, but.

Lisa: But do you think that’s an analogy? I hate it when people do that because it’s condescending and it’s annoying.

Gabe: Well, isn’t it condescending of you to tell me how to enjoy the movie, the leisure activity? Why are you correcting how I watch a movie?

Lisa: Are those equivalents?

Gabe: Probably not, but potentially

Lisa: Huh.

Gabe: You’d have to know the motivation of the person. This is where the world gets very complex.

Lisa: Oh, this is why people react negatively to me, because they don’t know my motivation.

Gabe: They don’t. They think that you are correcting their experience or their opinion.

Lisa: They assume a negative.

Gabe: Just.

Lisa: Little do they realize I’m helping,

Gabe: Really?

Lisa: Yes, you’re welcome.

Gabe: So the woman who assumes the negative is mad at other people for assuming

Lisa: The positive,

Gabe: The negative.

Lisa: Oh, damn. This is becoming a very depressing podcast. Wow, OK. Damn.

Gabe: Maybe this would have been a better quote for you to use. I’m not correcting your quote, Lisa, but we judge ourselves by our intentions and other people by their actions.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You know that your intentions are pure, but other people, all they have to go on is your actions and your actions are you’re crapping all over something that they like. They just want to enjoy it, it’s a leisure activity. They don’t want to have an in-depth conversation. They’re just at the grocery store. They just thought a stranger was saying hi. Their intentions were extraordinarily pure. But in your mind, you only had their actions to judge them and their action was they were interrupting you. They didn’t realize they were interrupting you. So you lash out. Now, you don’t lash out and in any huge way. I don’t want people to get the idea that Lisa’s throwing canned goods at strangers. She’s just in her own little bubble and she just thinks that people are rude for bothering her while she’s trying to shop. But they would think that they would be rude for ignoring you if you were, in fact, talking to them. So I think that both of you are correct. You’re both being completely pure, but then you both leave with this negative experience that is rooted in just this complete misunderstanding because of the way that each person views the world. 

Lisa: That happens to me all the time that people think I have a much higher level of emotion or investment in something than I do. Like I’ll say something, they’ll be like, wow, you have strong opinions about this or wow, you’ve really thought about this or oh, I can see you’re really upset. And I think, but I’m not. I’m not really upset. I’m just talking. I don’t have strong opinions about this. Oh, my God, you’re so upset about this. No, I’m not. Just meh. 

Gabe: Do you think the reverse is true, though? Do you think that sometimes you believe that people are more heavily invested than they are because you get angry at what people say? Well, maybe it was just a throwaway comment for them, too. Maybe they were just saying it and you can just be like, I don’t agree with that. And they’d be like, OK.

Lisa: I don’t feel like that happens very often. I feel like I don’t really care about what people say most of the time.

Gabe: Really? You just told a story about how you were offended that the person at the grocery store replied to you,

Lisa: That was a joke.

Gabe: Was it? I’m serious, Lisa. Was it? You

Lisa: It’s just annoying.

Gabe: Exactly. Why is it annoying? You’re out in public. The person thought you were talking to them. They were mistaken. No big deal. Why does it have to be anything? Why does it have to be positive or negative?

Lisa: It makes me feel better to talk out loud, I don’t like to have the internal dialog to myself. I prefer to speak aloud, but I don’t notice when I’m doing it anymore. And so I’ve been trying to stop myself. I’ve been trying to notice it more often. And yeah, it’s not going well.

Gabe: I love doing ex-wife therapy live on the podcast,

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Lisa, we have beat to death what running thoughts are.

Lisa: Ok, sorry. We should go back to your negative self talk.

Gabe: Aww, but I was having so much fun picking on you. This might be the first time in history that something is about you and you’ve been like, you know, we need to make this more about Gabe.

Lisa: Yeah, I just think you’re way too hard on yourself. You always have been.

Gabe: I can’t enjoy things because I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I don’t know if that’s because.

Lisa: Yes, you’re always waiting for the bad thing to come.

Gabe: And the bad thing always comes.

Lisa: Yeah, no kidding.

Gabe: Why do you say no kidding? Like, why do you say it that way?

Lisa: Well, the obvious answer is because, one, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and two, if you look for it, you’ll always find it. Something bad is always coming. The awards show always ends. The day always ends. All humans eventually die. Something bad is always coming. But so what?

Gabe: Here’s the problem that I have with this, I don’t know when I cross the line between saving for a rainy day and hoarding resources. 

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: People recommend that you have money for a rainy day in case your car breaks down or in case you have to fix something in your house. And that’s really good. But then on the flip side of that, you can become miserly or greedy. 

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Where you’re just hoarding all of this cash or forcing people to pay for you because you’re just you’re a jerk. And you claim that you’re doing it because you have to keep yourself safe. The Scrooge analogy, right?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Scrooge has tons of money, yet he refuses to use any of it to make his life better or other people’s lives better. And he’s just a real jackass. But nobody would recommend that Scrooge give away every single dime because then he couldn’t afford food, shelter, clothing. So where’s that line? I have trouble with that because sometimes people are like, look, Gabe, you know, go out, enjoy yourself. And I’m like, I don’t think that’s a good idea, especially right now, like with COVID. Being a public speaker means I need to be able to speak in public. So obviously, business is way down. Well, does that mean that I shouldn’t enjoy life? Does this mean that I was right? I was, I’m ready for a world pandemic. But is that reasonable? You understand what I’m saying, Lisa?

Lisa: Yeah, but you’re mixing the analogy with the reality. There’s not a finite store of happiness or enjoyment, there is a finite store of money or worldly goods. Are you actually saying that the following good thing is happening to you and the reason you’re not happy is because you might need to save that happiness for later? Like, if you use up all your happiness right now, there won’t be any for the next time when something even better happens? Is that what you’re saying?

Gabe: I think what I’m saying more is happiness elevates you, which means when the negative thing comes, you have farther to fall.

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: So I’m staying grounded. That’s literally a term, I didn’t make it up. I’m staying humble and grounded and not getting ahead of myself so that when the negativity comes, I don’t have that far to fall.

Lisa: So it’s a self protective thing?

Gabe: It’s very self protective, I don’t believe that any of the success that I achieve is real. I don’t believe that I have earned it. I don’t believe that I deserve it. And when people are like, well, Gabe, you’ve done this great thing. And here’s an objective measure of your accomplishment. It’s objective. It’s not my mom telling me or you telling me or my wife telling me like it’s an objective measure. Gabe, this many people downloaded your podcast, that puts you in this percentile. And that is an achievement that you achieved. Congratulations. I’m like, well, but if they all stopped listening,

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: That means my show failed. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. And you’re like, can’t you just be happy that this week? This week, this many people downloaded your show? No, because I have to be ready for next week.

Lisa: Because then you’ll be even more unhappy?

Gabe: Well, yeah, what if the show fails, you know, right now people are listening to the Not Crazy podcast. Thank you very much, by the way. But what about next week when you all decide that I suck and stop listening? I don’t want to get hurt. If I never celebrate my success, I will never be unhappy when I lose it.

Lisa: We’ll be right back after these messages.

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Gabe: And we’re back, discussing negativity in our brains.

Lisa: You project a lot of confidence, you go on stage in front of lots of people, you speak in public, blah, blah, blah. So people don’t realize this about you because it seems to be in such a contrast to the public persona you present, which is all this confidence. So when you say, oh, I don’t believe in myself, I have a, I think people are thinking, well, that’s not really true, he’s just saying that. No, it is 100% for real, true. Like, it’s amazing how little you have in comparison to all this self-confidence that you’re always projecting into the world.

Gabe: In my mind, I don’t see it as self-confidence. Standing on stage isn’t about confidence for me. Doing a podcast and being honest about my life, I don’t think that takes confidence.

Lisa: What is it then?

Gabe: I consider it helping other people. Like, I don’t. I guess in a way I have confidence in my ability to be honest. I have confidence in my ability to say what’s right. I have confidence in my desire to help myself and other people. I believe that people like me, people living with severe and persistent mental illness, I feel that we don’t have a voice.

Lisa: But that doesn’t mean you want to be the voice. Most people aren’t comfortable being said voice.

Gabe: I just, I feel like somebody needs to do it, and there just wasn’t a lot of people doing it. There’s more now. But you remember when I got started a decade ago, there was next to no one.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: There were some national folks. But in my city, in my town, for for the longest time, I was the only one.

Lisa: Yeah, now they’re everywhere.

Gabe: There are certainly more, not nearly enough. With the rise of the Internet, with the rise of organizations, you know, like This Is My Brave and PsychCentral.com and The Mighty. There’s lots of good organizations that we partner with that are getting the word out more and more and more and more and more.

Lisa: But where do you think this comes from?

Gabe: I don’t know.

Lisa: This lack of faith? I mean, is this like a deep seated childhood thing? I mean, why do you have this and what would it take?

Gabe: Nothing. There’s nothing. There is absolutely nothing that I think will ever work, I think it comes from the fact that one day I was on top of the world, I believed that I was invincible, partially due to my age, partly due to my race, partly due to me being male. 

Lisa: Mania.

Gabe: And of course, partly due to delusions of grandeur and mania,

Lisa: Yeah, don’t you think it’s almost all mania?

Gabe: Maybe, sure, let’s go with yes.

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: I don’t think that I am the only upper middle class white male to fail one day and then suddenly be scared of his shadow. But the addition of delusions of grandeur and mania certainly did not help. But one day I was on top of the world doing extraordinarily well at a very young age. And then I was at the bottom being kicked around like I was garbage. And that hurt a lot. I woke up in a psychiatric hospital where I couldn’t even walk through a door. Who the hell tells Gabe Howard that he can’t walk through a door? That is traumatizing.

Lisa: But did all of this start then?

Gabe: The dialog used to be Gabe, you’re great, Gabe, you’re great, Gabe, you’re great, and now the dialog is like, pfft, you are garbage buddy. It’s very protective. I think that most people have negative self talk to protect them. I, yeah, I think that’s what changed for me.

Lisa: So you literally think that was the turning point? So, like when you were 16 and you’re in high school, you were sitting around with the positive self talk of I’m great, I’m great, I’m great?

Gabe: Well, that’s really tough because I was fat and couldn’t get laid to save my life, I was also a redhead. I was a failed abortion and a carrot top and every other, you know, soulless ginger

Lisa: Well, but so when you say that this is the point where it flipped for me, you’re saying this was the point where I decided I need to have this self-protective attitude. Is that actually true? So you’re telling me that before then you had all this confidence and you were taking joy in things? If you got a promotion or a raise or whatever, you were finding happiness in it? Because I find that hard to believe.

Gabe: I think that you are right, that it was mania. For a period of time, I believed I was successful, I believed that I was happy.

Lisa: You had bouts of extreme depression and suicidality before diagnosis, before that ultimate manic trip, right? How come the mania is the thing that’s imprinted in your mind? How come this other stuff isn’t?

Gabe: The mania felt good. I miss feeling good, but.

Lisa: But you’re remembering that as being your default state when it was not.

Gabe: No, no, it wasn’t.

Lisa: No one has that default state period, much less when they’re younger. So why are you remembering that as being the default state that you can’t get back to?

Gabe: I don’t think I ever had the stability.

Lisa: Well, yeah, obviously.

Gabe: This is the most stable that I’ve ever been, and I think that I believe that stability means not thinking that you’re bad, but also not thinking that you’re good. I think that thinking that you’re good is giving into mania or delusions of grandeur. I think thinking that your bad is giving in to depression or suicidality. So thinking that you’re just meh just

Lisa: But you don’t think that. You don’t think you’re meh.

Gabe: Yeah, I do.

Lisa: You’re in the active neg. No you don’t. You are on active negativity. You are an active badness.

Gabe: Ehhh, I . . . 

Lisa: Ehhh, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Gabe: I disagree, I think that you are.

Lisa: Ok, you’re at the awards ceremony. 

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: You’re not sitting there just like meh, and people are like, oh my God, why aren’t you happy? You are sitting there actively unhappy. You are not at a neutral state.

Gabe: Well, because I stole the award from somebody else, I took from somebody, all of these people are put out because of me. I hurt them in some way.

Lisa: So you’re not in a base level of neutral, you’re always at a base level of negative. You’re always below zero, you’re not at zero.

Gabe: But all of that said, there are moments of joy. When I win that award, I’m so excited.

Lisa: Is that true?

Gabe: Yeah, remember when I got the governors,

Lisa: Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Gabe: Yeah, I was so excited winning that thing, you and I, I found out that I won while on vacation and I called you screaming. I was so happy. Like, like I told all my friends, I was like, ahhh. And then I went to this thing and they did a magazine article. I was in the paper just I, I, I, yeah. I was. And now I’m starting to feel guilty.

Lisa: You’re hurting your rep.

Gabe: Like, like why did I deserve that? And I go back and forth, you know. Sometimes, I have it framed, it’s on the wall. Thank you, Lisa, for framing it. But it took me two years to get it framed. And remember, you found it and it was starting to fall down and get ruined.

Lisa: Um-hmm.

Gabe: And I was like, well, but I’m going to put it in the closet because I just literally left it sit on my desk and the paper actually got bent a little. And you were like, what is wrong with you? And I was like, well, I just I feel guilty that I get an award for doing what other people do and.

Lisa: But they don’t do it. That’s the point.

Gabe: But other people, other people do it, I’m not the only advocate and I’m certainly not the best advocate. Why do I deserve? This also goes back to just I’m so uncomfortable with the idea that I get to be well. How about that? Maybe it’s not negative self talk, maybe I’m a realist? I am only well, because I have health insurance and money and frankly, because I’m white and from a big city and because I ran into you and because my parents aren’t or they knew what, I don’t even know. You and I both agree that one of the primary reasons that I’m well is because I’m lucky. Well, if I forget that, I’m doing a great disservice. So maybe it’s not negative self talk, maybe it’s realistic self talk. It’s reminding me every day not to forget that the only reason I’m here is because I’m lucky. That’s it.

Lisa: Is that serving you, though? Is that making you happy? Is that furthering your goal of staying well?

Gabe: Versus forgetting where I came from? I guess I don’t know what humility looks like. I swear that sometimes I’m like, look, I am incredible at this. And people are like, you need to be humble, OK? All right. That’s fair. All right. You’re right. I don’t want to forget where I came from. I will be humble now. I am OK at this. Oh, my God. You can’t even be happy when you get an award. I’m not good at self-regulating. You tell me to be happy when I get an award. Other people tell me to be humble. Other people, well, I don’t do this for the awards. Do you know how many emails I get from people that are like, well, you’re clearly only doing it for the money? Look, this is how I earn my living and businesses do thrive off money and I like to eat and it costs money to build a podcast. We’re talking into microphones that cost $200. We have to publish on websites that cost hundreds of dollars a month. None of this is free.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Nothing that we’re doing is free. So I have to make money. Plus I like to eat and go on vacation and I need to earn my keep and pay my mortgage. Well, I’m just doing it because I care about people.

Lisa: Yeah, your heart’s pure.

Gabe: But, well, I care about people, too. Well, no, you don’t, or you’d do it for free. Well, I don’t know what to do.

Lisa: That is a good point, that is fair.

Gabe: Everywhere I look, somebody’s telling me that my behavior is wrong. So I don’t know that I have negative self talk, I just think that my self talk is everybody. I just think I believe what everybody says.

Lisa: But that means you’re searching for external validation.

Gabe: Yes, that’s all I want. I am only doing this so that other people tell me I’m good because I’m incapable of telling myself that I’m good. The end. Hard stop.

Lisa: Wow, I am so much more mentally healthy than you.

Gabe: Which is odd. I mean, we saw it going a different way at the beginning of the show.

Lisa: Yeah, I got to say it because I have a lot of self-confidence, apparently, I’m quite confident in myself and my awesomeness.

Gabe: I mean.

Lisa: Other people’s opinions are not a problem. I do not have a problem with that. When other people tell me stuff, I’m never unsure of myself. They say things and I think, nope, you’re wrong. I don’t second guess myself. And people will say, well, you think you know better than? Yup. Yes, I do. And I don’t doubt that for a moment. Huh. Yay me.

Gabe: All right, Lisa, we’ve established the problem, you know, ruminations, negative self talk. How do we get out of it? One of the things that we talk about a lot on this show is a concept called reframing. And I think this is an excellent opportunity to delve a little deeper. Lisa, for the first time officially, please teach the Not Crazy podcast listeners what reframing is.

Lisa: Reframing, a common therapy trope, is when you frame or express or conceptualize or think about something in a different way. An example of reframing, the one they always give you as the example, is, oh, my car broke down. This is so terrible. This is awful. Or, you can afford a car. You own a car. You’re good. Well, a better example would be my mother had to loan me money to fix my car. Your mother loves you so much that she loaned you money. That’s so great.

Gabe: So obviously, the negatives still exists. The car broke down, but you’re reframing it to focus on the positives, people who helped you. And the fact, of course, that you have a car.

Lisa: You can reframe almost anything.

Gabe: You really, really can.

Lisa: To the point of pointlessness, but for example, I’m not negative and depressing, I’m clear eyed and refreshingly honest.

Gabe: So you can lie with your reframe. That’s important to understand, you don’t want to go too far.

Lisa: So you’re not loud and annoying, you’re confident and exuberant.

Gabe: One of the things that I like about reframing is it’s sort of a fancy way to say a pro and con list. Like, I believe that everything has pros and cons, I don’t care what it is. My wife has pros and cons. I love my wife. Of all the people in the world, I picked her to marry. But is she 100% perfect? No, that’s utter ridiculousness. She has flaws. But obviously, if I focus only on her flaws, well, I’m going to end up with another ex-wife and therefore another podcast. In general, reframing is instead of looking at the negative, it’s looking at the positive. You know, Lisa’s right. You can abuse anything. I reframing.

Lisa: You’re doing it now, you’re doing it right now, Gabe is a little bit overly obsessed with reframing. Whenever I say something negative, you’re like, but how can we reframe that? And just now, people can’t see you, but when you say the words reframing half the time you draw a square in the air with your hands.

Gabe: It’s not a square, it’s a frame.

Lisa: It’s a frame, I know. He actually holds up his hands and draws them in a square shape and is like, no, no, no, you need to reframe as he draws. It’s really annoying, frankly. Like, yeah.

Gabe: Why do you dis, just you know, it’s

Lisa: I don’t dislike it. You just use it a lot.

Gabe: You feel about reframing how I feel about mindfulness, that even though

Lisa: No.

Gabe: Mindfulness has tons of data that shows it works, lots of people love it. It’s supported by literally study after study after study to show that it’s extraordinarily helpful. For whatever reason, I just hate mindfulness. You feel this way about reframing.

Lisa: No, I don’t.

Gabe: Just Every time I say reframing, you roll your eyes. Listen to the tone of your voice. You weren’t just giving an example. You were literally saying in like a mocking singsong voice.

Lisa: Ok, that’s fair. 

Gabe: What is it about reframing that bugs you so much, Lisa?

Lisa: Wow, I am getting annoyed by the completely introspective tone of this podcast. Once again, new revelation I’m having right now. I don’t know what it is that bothers me about it so much. I think you do it too much and you making that hand gesture is really annoying. But why do I think that? Because after all, it is a positive thing and one of the few cognitive-behavioral tools that you are able to utilize effectively. So, yeah. Why do you think I can’t stand it so much?

Gabe: Because you’re mean, I

Lisa: Well. No, no, for real. What do you think?

Gabe: I think in some ways, one of the reasons that you dislike it is because I like it so much. I think it’s sort of a trauma response. It’s kind of like if you’re eating chocolate chip cookies and then you get in a car accident, you can never eat chocolate chip cookies again. Every time you bite into a chocolate chip cookie, you associate that horrible experience. We went through a lot of shit together and we were desperate. And then suddenly somebody recommends this lame New Age technique. And it’s not lame, it’s not New Age. And it’s a tool like anything else. And I think that you just resent the idea that it worked. Or every time I make the quote unquote stupid frame with my fingers, it reminds you of a time in our life that was bad. Focusing on the positive, which is essentially what reframing is, it does help with my negative self talk. My negative self talk says the negative thing. And then I try to remember some of the positives. It’s sort of like Mr. Rogers mom said, you know, how do you watch the news and see all of this horrible things happen on the news? And Mr. Rogers said that his mother said, look for the helpers. When you see all the horrible stuff happening, look for the people running in, look for the people who are helping. The EMT’s, the heroes, the aid workers. Look for the people helping. That’s an example of reframing. Nobody’s saying that the war zone is good. We’re just saying that there are some good things happening. There’s a positive for lack of a better way. But I think you, Lisa, have trouble getting over the fact that, whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re reframing a war zone? No, you need to focus on the war zone. War is bad and horrible and wrong. Don’t you reframe that to there are helping people. Then you’re forgetting the war zone. 

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And you have a right to want to focus on the war zone. Do you know how many things get reframed and we forget about the root cause?

Lisa: And then bad things happen.

Gabe: Exactly, so reframing doesn’t mean forget about the bad thing or forget about the root, cause. It just means look at the bigger picture. You said early on, Lisa, that you were a realist. Is it really realistic to only focus on the negative? Is that what you call realism?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: But it’s not. Realistically, positive things do happen in war zones. But you believe that by only focusing on your narrative that you’re somehow being realistic. You’re not. You only talk about the horrors and you stay ultra focused on that. And I think that from an advocacy perspective and a mental health perspective, that doesn’t move the needle. People stop listening to you because you’re only being negative and people are looking for a positive. But you think the people that are looking for a positive in a war zone are idiots.

Lisa: I think that looking for the positive in the negative allows people, like you said, to forget the negative and it somehow makes the negative OK in their mind. And it’s all about making themselves more comfortable rather than actually solving any given problem.

Gabe: That is one potential outcome, but you’ve thrown out all the water and the baby because of one potential negative outcome. What about all the positive outcomes of reducing negative self talk? What about all the positive outcomes of being more mentally healthy? What about all the positive outcomes of being able to survive in the world and not being so weighted down by all the negativity that we’re never going to be able to resolve? You want all of that to go away to make sure that every single person knows that the bad thing is happening. How is that going to get us to positivity, or, as you want so desperately, to resolve the negative thing?

Lisa: I understand what you’re saying, you have some good points, but I guess I feel like that’s not a problem. There’s already plenty of people wandering about finding the silver lining. We don’t need more of those people. There’s enough of them; there are too many of them. And once again, focusing on the silver lining forgets the cloud. And I feel like I’m not curmudgeonly, I’m helpful. You’re welcome. Someone has to take on the burden, people. And I am here for you. I’m the one pointing out the cloud is still there and there’s not enough people doing that and somebody has to do it. And it’s my designated job.

Gabe: Who’s going to do your job when you become so mentally unhealthy and mentally unstable that you can’t exist in the world anymore?

Lisa: Yeah, that is a problem.

Gabe: I think about that a lot. You know, one of the classic arguments in is mania good? Somebody will always bring up Van Gogh and they’re like, oh, Van Gogh’s mania allowed him to paint such beautiful pictures and create such beautiful works of art. Look, I don’t know if his mania did or not, as I did not know the man personally, but let’s go ahead and say that it did. Of course, he’s now dead. He died by suicide. He cut off his ear, he traumatized a woman. He was miserable for most of his life. But I guess we got art, so it’s OK?

Lisa: Exactly.

Gabe: If he had got treated, maybe he would have made more art, prettier art, better art, but he would have been around a lot longer to create a lot more art. So I guess the art that we got in that short period of time was good? But after he died, no more art. So I understand what you’re saying about, you know, being a realist and making sure that people remember that it’s not just a silver lining, there’s a cloud. And I do, in fact, think that’s your superpower and we need people like you.

Lisa: Thank you.

Gabe: But you’ve literally said you’re doing this at the expense of your own mental health.

Lisa: Sometimes.

Gabe: You’re allowing the negative self talk to permeate into your personal life and the lives of those around you. And you’re saying that it’s OK because after all, you’re a realist. Isn’t that just more a negative self talk?

Lisa: That is true, it is a problem, it is starting to really hit me with some negative consequences, especially in the last few years. But I just feel like all this call for positivity is just a way for people to be more comfortable and to rationalize away bad things. And notice that all the people who are always going on about positivity have very secure, very comfortable lives. I feel like it’s a way to absolve themselves of responsibility for the rest of the world’s problems because you’re like, oh, no, look, positive things. That means that I don’t need to worry about negative things. I don’t need to donate money. I don’t need to think about who I’m voting for. I don’t need to think about how my actions are affecting our global world.

Gabe: And you get all of this from your negative self talk?

Lisa: I get all of this by telling you what is wrong with The Avengers movie. Yes, it’s true.

Gabe: This is why people don’t want to get rid of their negative self talk because they feel that it is helping them in some way. You have illustrated this perfectly.

Lisa: If you’ll remember, a few years ago, this really, it had really become a problem. And thank you very much, Dr. Todd. I went to therapy and she said the problem you’re having is that you feel like if you weren’t this level of negative, it would be irresponsible. It is irresponsible to not focus on these things. And she said, so let’s look at some things that you could do to make this better, to help things that don’t involve getting yourself so upset.

Gabe: Without it consuming your entire life.

Lisa: Yeah, that. So in the end, I decided that I would send a lot more support to some of the causes that I care about. I don’t want to say that I’m outsourcing my outrage, but it is kind of how I feel about it. It’s like I don’t need to sit at home and get this upset and be angry at the news because I have these other people who are handling that for me, and they’re probably making a lot more progress. Their anger and their action is doing more good than my sitting on my couch and yelling at the television. That has been very helpful.

Gabe: You also added another piece to this in that you started not watching the news.

Lisa: Yeah, I feel bad about it, but it’s really made a big difference.

Gabe: But here’s the thing, though, people hear you stopped watching the news and they’re like aha! She doesn’t know what’s going on in the world.

Lisa: Exactly. How irresponsible.

Gabe: But that’s not true because you still read the news once a day or a couple of times a week from a trusted news source that uses journalistic standards. You stay away from cable news. You stay away from television and radio. You, I forget which news sources you picked, but you read it. It gives you the facts and then that’s it. And then also the charities that you support, they send you information with what they’re doing with your money and your time and your resources. And occasionally they send you advocacy points, you know, letters to send to people. So you feel that they’re keeping watch for you and you’re supporting their ability to do it. So it’s.

Lisa: Yes, that I trust these people to be looking out for the things that I care about. I said to the therapist, Oh my God, these things are upsetting me so much. And she said, why are you exposing yourself to them then? And I thought, what? What? What other option is there? What are you talking about? And she said, why don’t you just not do this to yourself so much? And that had not occurred to me as a choice. But things like don’t read the news several times a day, only look at it from certain sources.

Gabe: Turn off the alerts on your phone.

Lisa: I have found that TV news is much more upsetting, something about the visual. Reading it or listening to the radio is much better, stuff like that, and it has helped a lot. It has helped the negativity quite a bit.

Gabe: It’s all about finding a time and a place for the negative things that need your attention because you don’t want to do nothing. I will say I’ve known Lisa for a long time and I can honestly say that she has done more to help the causes that she cares about in the last three years by supporting these charities than she did the previous three years by being miserable 24/7, yelling at anybody that would listen and screaming at the television on her couch. And I.

Lisa: Well, I was already supporting, but I amped my level up a lot

Gabe: Yeah, you started to do more. You were.

Lisa: Yeah, I started to do more in a more productive channel.

Gabe: Lisa, I care about you very much so I apologize for this big heaping helping of negativity that I’m about to throw at you. But Lisa’s ruminations and self-talk and constant desire to focus on this negativity in the world impacted her relationships because it was all that was in her brain. So Lisa starts just watching media that is constantly talking about what was going on in the world, And Lisa is yelling at her TV, she’s getting mad, she’s reading articles, she’s reading blogs, she’s just. So when we would get together, all she would want to talk about is the negative things that were in her head. And even though we’re agreeing with her, we’re like, we agree with you 100%. No, you don’t understand. Yes, Lisa, we completely agree. No, no, no, no. Tell me why you think is

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Is bad and is good. Tell me why you. And nobody is arguing with her. But because that’s all that’s in her brain. The self talk, the ruminations, she’s become obsessed. We don’t want to be around her. We want to watch TV. We want to have dinner. We can’t have dinner because there’s nothing to talk about with Lisa because she’s not consuming anything else. She’s become so fixated. I want people to understand that not only is the negative self talk hurting you, but it’s hurting the people around you and it’s making them not want to spend time with you. Which, of course, ultimately makes you isolated and alone, giving the negative self talk free reign to work more because you’re not even distracted by people telling you to stop talking about it anymore. 

Lisa: Yeah, it had become a real problem, the therapy was very helpful, these suggestions were very helpful. On the one hand, you think, wow, that’s pretty obvious. So there’s something that was really upsetting you that you were deliberately exposing yourself to multiple times a day? Yes. Yes. I had to pay hundreds of dollars to get a PhD to tell me that and tell me to stop doing it. So on the one hand, I thought, really? Really, I just paid for this advice? But apparently I wasn’t getting it anywhere else. Apparently I had to. And so whenever I start to get worked up, whenever I start to think, oh my God, did you see that? Aaaahhh, oh my God! I have to go online and send a little extra donation. I’m like, OK, there. I sent an extra twenty bucks, it’s good, OK. Obviously that is doing more good than all of my upset was doing, to channel that upset in a different way.

Gabe: Obviously, Lisa, as your friend, I am so glad that you got help for it. I’m so glad

Lisa: I’m actually curious, do you think it’s better now?

Gabe: Yeah, it’s a lot, but do I think you’re all the way there? No, no, I don’t. And that’s the thing, we have to define success, right? Do I think you’re perfect? No, no. Do you know who’s perfect? My grandpa. Like nothing bothers him. He’s like, I got my own life. I got my own business. I’m fine. He’s cool. Do I think that you are that guy? No, I don’t think you can be that guy.

Lisa: But I don’t want to be that guy.

Gabe: Yeah, that’s my point, I think you need to give yourself credit for how far you’ve come, and I think.

Lisa: But do you really think that? Because you tell me I’m really negative all the time. I mean, are you for real saying that it has improved?

Gabe: It has improved,

Lisa: Ok, good.

Gabe: But, Lisa, when you are at a zero and the goal is 100 and you improve to a 50, 50 is still a failure. I think that you do have a ways to go. But one of the things that I am happiest about is that we talk about other stuff.

Lisa: Mostly Marvel movies,

Gabe: That’s true. One of the things that I don’t think people realize is when that negative self talk is in your brain and the rumination is in your brain, you become focused only on your thing. So while you’re constantly talking about your thing, that means my needs are never being met. One of the things that was hardest when it was the worst. Again, I hate using you as an example, because I’ve certainly done this to you.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I want to be fair. But when you’re so stuck in your own head, you turn everything about you. We all get this way where the negative self talk, the ruminations, everything builds up in our own brains that we become bad friends. We’re not helping the people around us. So, Lisa, to your specific question, are you better now? Yeah, because you talk about my stuff without turning it into your thing. That alone is worth the price of admission. And I think that we all need to understand that getting rid of the ruminations and the self talk and all of this, I think it’s good for our own mental health. But I also think that it’s extraordinarily beneficial to the people around us. So, listen, if you’re not willing to get rid of this stuff for your own good, do it for those you love. They deserve to have a well engaged friend or family member. Please, if you don’t want to be mentally healthier, if you don’t want to be happier. Fine, I can’t stop you. But don’t you want to be a good parent, friend, child, family member, bestie, dance partner, whatever to the people around you? Do it for all of them.

Lisa: And, Gabe, that’s exactly why I did it. I could feel how the people around me were reacting, I could see their eyes rolling, I could see them checking out. I could see when they stopped paying attention to me. Of course, at the time, I thought, well, see, look at these fools. Argh! But yeah, I could see that I was pushing away you, my friends, my family, my husband. And apparently the journey is ongoing, but I’ve had some good results.

Gabe: Lisa, the journey is ongoing, just like our podcast. If you love the show, please leave us a review. Use your words. Tell people why you like us. Share us on social media. Rate, subscribe, review. Just do stuff with our podcast pretty much 24/7. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Lisa: And we’ll be back next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details. 

    Podcast: Negative Self-Talk and Pessimism syndicated from

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Podcast: Negative Self-Talk and Pessimism

  “You’re so stupid. That was the dumbest thing anyone has ever done.” You probably wouldn’t ever say this to a loved one — but would you say it to yourself? What’s your self-talk like?  And why does it matter?

In today’s Not Crazy podcast, Gabe and Lisa break down their own experiences with negative self-talk and why they do it. And while Gabe believes in reframing his thoughts to be more positive, Lisa thinks there may be some benefits to not always looking for the silver lining. What do you think?

(Transcript Available Below)

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About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Negative Self-Talk” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Not Crazy podcast, I’m your host Gabe Howard, and with me, as always, is the incomparable Lisa.

Lisa: Hey, everyone, today’s quote is by Robert Kiyosaki, and he says, it’s not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the most power.

Gabe: My negative self talk is like 100% in my own head. Nobody else can hear it. My brain is saying to me, Gabe, you’re awful. Gabe, you suck, Gabe, nobody listens to your podcast. Gabe, everybody hates you. But it’s not audible. Is that what your negative self talk is like, Lisa?

Lisa: No, not even a little. I keep up this constant running dialog with myself, and I do it out loud. I don’t know if it’s because I lived alone for a long time or because I worked from home, but I just do it continuously out loud. And it wasn’t really until I went to like an office environment that I thought, oh, my God, I’m so annoying because I’m having this constant back and forth dialog with myself, like in line at the grocery store.

Gabe: I have this constant dialog with myself, I’m always narrating my life, I have racing thoughts sometimes because of bipolar disorder and for me personally, it’s always very negative, but it’s not audible. If I strapped a recording device to me, the recorder would pick up nothing. But you’re saying that if we strapped a recorder to you at the end of the day somewhere, Lisa Kiner would be walking around saying, I suck, this is bullshit, why am I here? And it would pick it up on the recorder?

Lisa: Yes. It’s not always about myself, like, I’m just keeping up this running dialog about everything around me. But I get so used to doing it and then I’ll do it out in public and people think I’m talking to them. Like I’m at the grocery store trying to pick out, OK, which soup do I want? Well, I don’t know. Well, this one is the no salt. Yeah. I don’t really like the no salt kind though. And I go back and forth like that out loud and frequently strangers because they think I’m talking to them, which is so narcissistic, incidentally. Just because you’re the only person around doesn’t mean I’m talking to you. All right. Talking to myself. You’re not involved. So that’s actually a problem I have all the time.

Gabe: Hang on. I know that you’re joking about that, like, how narcissistic is it to believe that? Because there’s only two people in an aisle and I’m speaking out loud. I mean, it’s much more believable that I am having a moment where I’m conversing with myself. But you’re the narcissist for thinking that I’m talking to you and I am not a narcissist for literally engaging in a conversation with myself and only me. Is that what you’re saying, Lisa?

Lisa: Well, it is a joke, but, yeah, pretty much that is what I’m saying, it’s very annoying. It happens to me all the time.

Gabe: The continuous running dialog, it has issues. I don’t know of anybody.

Lisa: I don’t think other people have this continuous dialog in the same way I do. I don’t think you do either.

Gabe: I don’t think that other people have it out loud, but I’m talking about me now, Lisa. Narcissist much?

Lisa: Well, no, I just I feel like I almost have like a narrator, like on Dexter or something where he has the narrator that’s himself in his mind all the time.

Gabe: But that’s the point, it’s in his mind, and that’s how mine is, mine is in my mind. Nobody else can hear it. Everything that happens, everything that I do. Like you said, there’s a narrative like on television shows, but it’s always negative and it doesn’t matter what happens. That’s sort of the part that I want to talk about. For example, let’s say that I get an award like that should be a huge achievement. Right? And I’m standing on the side of the stage and the person who is giving the award does the whole you know, we’re very happy with Gabe. He has earned an award. We’re very proud of him. I am standing off of the stage and I’m like, well, I mean, they had to give it to me. They didn’t want to. There is probably somebody better. I took this award for somebody. Somebody else got passed over. This is political. I bet Lisa tricked them, and that’s why I’m getting the award. And that’s just going through my mind constantly. And then, of course, I hear the applause and that’s nice. And I’m happy. And I walk up to the podium and I deliver my acceptance speech. And even as I’m giving the speech, my mind is saying, this is bullshit. You didn’t earn it. This is bullshit. You didn’t earn it. 

Lisa: I do know that about you, and you’re correct, I personally think that your inner self talk is much more negative than the average and it’s a lot more negative than mine.

Gabe: One of the interesting things about our negative self talk, aside from mine being internal and yours apparently being external, is that mine is always about me.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: I’m talking about myself. The negative self talk that occurs in my brain is always about Gabe and the things that Gabe are doing and the people around me and their reaction to Gabe. Your negative self talk is always about the people around you.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You’re observing the world and you are very critical and negative of the behavior of others.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I hate to say can you expand on that? But, but why?

Lisa: I knew that, but I didn’t really notice it until you pointed it out to me yesterday. Yeah. Your inner critic self talk is focused on yourself, which makes more sense, whereas mine is almost exclusively focused on other people. I think it’s because I have really good self-esteem

Gabe: I don’t.

Lisa: Or because I’m narcissistic. I get it.

Gabe: On one hand, it would be so easy for me to be like Lisa’s narcissistic, but I know for a fact that you’re not. And it would be easy for me to say, well, it’s because Lisa has really high self-esteem and she thinks she’s the greatest at everything.

Lisa: What can I say?

Gabe: Except, yeah, you don’t think that about yourself. You have this very high opinion of certain abilities and this extraordinarily low opinion of other abilities. And the whole thing sort of averages out to mediocre self-esteem for you.

Lisa: Maybe it’s realism.

Gabe: Maybe, but it’s not. It’s severe and persistent mental illness. But it’s interesting to me because you will observe things and your mind immediately jumps to the negative.

Lisa: That is true. It’s become more of a problem lately, like within the last couple of years, but I’m not really sure. Maybe I’m just finally, like, noticing the effect it’s having because, yeah, you’re right, it is a problem and it is causing me negative consequences.

Gabe: As your friend Lisa, you know, being negative about the people around you is frustrating for many reasons. One, I’m one of the people around you, so I don’t like it when you’re negative about me. But you observe the world through this very negative lens.

Lisa: I do.

Gabe: And I know you hate this story. And I can have this entire conversation without you, but I’m not gonna, I’m going to let you talk. But, I remember we were watching a football game. We’re sitting there watching the football game and.

Lisa: Oh, God, that story?

Gabe: Yep,

Lisa: I didn’t know where you were going,

Gabe: Yep,

Lisa: I didn’t know was going to be that one.

Gabe: Yeah, you know, they throw this old guy up on the screen and they’re like, congratulations to old Bob. Bob has attended every single home football game for the last 50 years.  And as the rest of us are all like, oh, that’s a sweet story. Lisa’s like, that’s bullshit. How do they know? They didn’t have good computerized records 60 years ago. They don’t know that he’s been to every game. Even if he bought every ticket, they don’t know that he went. What, he didn’t miss one? How were they even keeping track of this? And of course, we’re all looking at Lisa like really? Like you just can’t smile? Just be happy?

Lisa: It’s interesting that you picked this particular story, I did not see that coming. Because all of you thought that was such a big deal and you all went on for a while and bring it up since, oh, my God, why are you so negative? Why was that a big deal? Why was this such a thing? Why was that so important to you? It wasn’t. In the same way that you went, oh, that’s nice, isn’t that a cute scarf or something? I was like, well, that’s bullshit. You don’t know that he’s actually been to every game. I just saw it as a throwaway comment, but you all took it very seriously.

Gabe: Exactly, because we didn’t think that it was just worth any negativity whatsoever. It’s like insulting a kitten. If somebody has a newborn kitten and they give you a kitten and the kitten is purring and you’re petting the kitten and everybody loves the kitten and you’re the one that’s like it’s going to grow up to be a cat and ruin your furniture. People are going to be like, look, can you just enjoy the kitten in the moment?

Lisa: Why are you so invested in a kitten? What do you care if I say something about the kitten? Why does it bother you? My thoughts on the kitten?

Gabe: And therein lies our differences of how our self talk works. See my self talk only bothers me. 

Lisa: Oh.

Gabe: Your self talk radiates out into the world and negatively impacts others.

Lisa: Maybe.

Gabe: And it’s interesting that you feel this way, that it’s just this throwaway comment about kittens or old people at football games, because as people who know me well know, I can’t enjoy my own success. I can’t enjoy it. I don’t consider myself successful now. Whenever something good happens to me, I push it way down. And you told me that as my friend, that that’s exhausting,

Lisa: Absolutely.

Gabe: That you’re at this great event where Gabe gets an award or people say nice things to me and afterwards, I’m not happy about it. I won’t celebrate it. Well, how does that impact you? It’s my event. It’s my award. Can’t I react to it however I want? And you said that this took from you. Your exact words were it’s exhausting that you can’t be happy when you are being praised. Well, what do you care? It’s just a kitten or an old guy. Like, why are you so heavily invested in my inability to celebrate my own success? But you are. And the reverse is true. It’s a burden when you’re mad at the old guy at the football game.

Lisa: It isn’t just success, you can’t celebrate anything. Obviously, this is severe and persistent mental illness, but you can never seem to be happy or take pleasure in anything, even when we’re doing something fun. You’re unhappy about vacation, you’re unhappy about everything. It’s almost as if you’re chronically depressed.

Gabe: Who cares, you’re being way too broad, like answer my specific thing about if it’s my accomplishments, my award and my day, why is it exhausting for you? Why do you care if I’m unhappy at my own accomplishment? And don’t say because I’m also unhappy on vacation.

Lisa: Hmm. OK.

Gabe: I’m not trying to be a jerk here. Like you always say a gift given is a gift received. You give the gift. It’s my decision how to use the gift, react to the gift, enjoy the gift, love the gift. Gift giving doesn’t include strings.

Lisa: That’s true, that’s a good analogy.

Gabe: So here I am, I get an award and I’m like, hey, I probably don’t deserve this award, why can’t you be like, Hey, Gabe? All right, well, you should be proud of yourself. Why is it exhausting for you? Why is my negative self talk about something that is mine? Why does that bother you?

Lisa: You know, I you know, I think it might be because you know how you say I always take everything so personally? I think that actually might be what. It might be my own self talk. Because the fact that you’re not pleased or excited I somehow feel like is on me and is my responsibility to somehow correct. Almost as if it’s a criticism of my very presence, because why are you not happy and what am I doing wrong so that you’re not happy? Wow, that’s sick.

Gabe: I just want to make sure I understand this correctly, my accomplishment and my award is about you?

Lisa: Is about me, yeah. Wow. Do you think that’s true?

Gabe: I honestly have no idea because the reverse is also true, right? Like you said, it’s an innocuous comment. I don’t think that old guy did that. I do not like this puff piece that’s on the national broadcast of the college football game. Why are all of us so invested that Lisa doesn’t like the puff piece?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Like what? You’re required to like the puff piece? We’re doing the same thing to you.

Lisa: Huh.

Gabe: Why are we like this? Why does our negative self talk

Lisa: Wow.

Gabe: Interfere with each other in such a way?

Lisa: I don’t know, you know, I. Wow, I’ve actually never thought about that until. Wow. This is a strangely profound realization I’m having on a podcast. Wow.

Gabe: Not just on any podcast.

Lisa: Well, yes, on the Not Crazy podcast, which you can find at PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy.

Gabe: You know, they’re listening to it right now, you don’t have to tell them where to find it

Lisa: We don’t know where they found it.

Gabe: They’ve already found it.

Lisa: They could be listening to it at a friend’s house, they’re not sure. Anyway. Wow. Like, like I realize it’s podcast time and I’m not allowed to pause, but. Oh, my God. Do you think this is true? Like, do you think this is really why?

Gabe: I have no idea why, and

Lisa: Wow.

Gabe: I do believe that it is different for everybody.

Lisa: That is messed up.

Gabe: But I think that we’ve established that negative self talk has ramifications outside of ourselves. It influences our actions, which influences other people. And we just all want to be happy for each other. And I am ruining your happiness by not being happy at my own award. So now the question becomes what to do about it? We have suggestions. Now, listen, this is definitely a situation where you need to take our advice because we are not using it. But we’ve been given some excellent advice.

Lisa: Therefore, it’s up for grabs.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s up for grabs. Just, it’s like a Craigslist curb alert. Hey, we’re not using this advice. We’ve sat it out by the podcast curb for free. Take it. No strings attached.

Lisa: That day with the old guy on the TV, that always bothered because what did you people care? Why were you messing with me? It’s never occurred to me that that is analogous to the way that I am annoyed by you and your reaction to certain things.

Gabe: Uh-huh.

Lisa: That’s never occurred to me. Huh.

Gabe: It’s almost like when you put yourself in other people’s shoes, Lisa, you learn stuff.

Lisa: I don’t know what to do with this knowledge.

Gabe: I don’t know, but I hope that when this plays over the show that that you put like some soft piano music behind this, maybe you get some, like, audience reaction of, like, people crying and hugging.

Lisa: What is the answer, though? Why were you so invested in how I felt about the old dude? Is that the same reason that I’m so invested in why you’re not happy?

Gabe: I think sincerely, it was just a happy moment. 

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: And there’s not a lot of happy moments in the world, especially for us and all of us had agreed for whatever reason that we were going to be happy about this. And your negativity ruined an otherwise positive moment. It’s sort of unfair to demand that you change your opinion in order to make the group happy. But from the group’s perspective, we had decided that this was the point of the concert where we’re all going to sit down and one person was standing to dance to the music, and that was ruining it for the person who had to sit behind her.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: And that’s kind of how it was. We just decided that we wanted to be happy right now. And you interjected negativity. Maybe you should have realized, hey, the group has decided that they’re going to be happy. So I’m going to keep this to myself. But yeah, you’re right. Why didn’t the group say, oh, Lisa, you look at everything through shit colored glasses. Which you would fire back, well, some of you look at everything through rose colored glasses, but I think that’s really the takeaway. Right? Lisa looks at everything through shit colored glasses. Gabe looks at everything through shit colored glasses. I will always find a way to ruin anything positive that happens to me and I don’t know why. And it’s that constant dialog that’s in my brain and a cycle that I cannot break. And I really feel strongly that, Lisa, we need to help the audience understand maybe how they can break it and stop talking about your revelation

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: That you’re a negative person. We know.

Lisa: Well, but I feel like the negativity is mostly an advantage because you feel like other people are just walking around in their own self deluded bubble, right? So I feel like it’s an advantage. It’s like a special power I have to see the world correctly and clearly, the true nature of reality. But yeah, even saying that makes me sound mentally ill, doesn’t it?

Gabe: Well, let’s consider this this idea, because I’m sure that a lot of people can relate to us. We’re not unique in having negative self talk, but if everything is shit, nothing is. I hate to borrow from Pixar, but if everybody’s super, nobody is. Who is going to take us seriously? On one hand, Lisa, you’re right. It is a superpower. You have such a critical eye. And when it comes to things like editing, podcast, producing podcasts, we need people like you like for real. If you understood football and you had this critical eye, we would put you in charge of game tape because you would find every single solitary mistake and help the players correct it. 

Lisa: But see, I think it’s enjoyable, like when we go to a movie, and then as we’re leaving the movie, I’m like, OK, here are the following plot holes. Here are the following problems. I think that’s fun. To dissect it, to analyze it, to think about it, to find the flaws, I find that enjoyable. I know that you do not. So I try not to do it most of the time, but I think it’s fun.

Gabe: But here’s what sucks for you. It’s both right? I love listening to podcasts where they do that.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Gabe: Were they dissect the shows or, you know, there’s famous YouTube channels like How It Should Have Ended or

Lisa: Oh, I love that show.

Gabe: Cinema Sins where they talk about, you know.

Lisa: Cinema Sins is my oh, I love that guy. I want to be friends with him.

Gabe: I love stuff like that. The question is, does that guy show up at every single party and the minute somebody says, oh my God, I love the new superhero movie, he sashays over and says, well, actually?

Lisa: Well, if he does, I want to be his friend and I want to be at that party.

Gabe: Do you?

Lisa: Well, I do, but apparently no one else does.

Gabe: Every single time you have an opinion about anything, this guy just materializes and says, well, actually and then corrects you.

Lisa: But he’s not saying it’s bad, he’s just giving you more information. Just because he’s pointing out the following things doesn’t mean it’s an overall negative. He’s just sharing with you more. He’s adding to your enjoyment or your knowledge store or the information you have. He’s not taking.

Gabe: Are you sure?

Lisa: For me, yes.

Gabe: This is going to be somewhat controversial, but let’s talk about like mansplaining where men explain to women their point of view. But aren’t these men just adding to your knowledge base? Aren’t they just giving you information that you may or may not already have? You could use it or you couldn’t use it? I mean, why is it so problematic then? Aren’t they just giving you the male perspective to a female problem? For the record, I don’t agree with any of this. I think there’s a large slice of misogyny and problems in this general idea that maybe women don’t understand their own experience and most of us men are just being jerks, but.

Lisa: But do you think that’s an analogy? I hate it when people do that because it’s condescending and it’s annoying.

Gabe: Well, isn’t it condescending of you to tell me how to enjoy the movie, the leisure activity? Why are you correcting how I watch a movie?

Lisa: Are those equivalents?

Gabe: Probably not, but potentially

Lisa: Huh.

Gabe: You’d have to know the motivation of the person. This is where the world gets very complex.

Lisa: Oh, this is why people react negatively to me, because they don’t know my motivation.

Gabe: They don’t. They think that you are correcting their experience or their opinion.

Lisa: They assume a negative.

Gabe: Just.

Lisa: Little do they realize I’m helping,

Gabe: Really?

Lisa: Yes, you’re welcome.

Gabe: So the woman who assumes the negative is mad at other people for assuming

Lisa: The positive,

Gabe: The negative.

Lisa: Oh, damn. This is becoming a very depressing podcast. Wow, OK. Damn.

Gabe: Maybe this would have been a better quote for you to use. I’m not correcting your quote, Lisa, but we judge ourselves by our intentions and other people by their actions.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You know that your intentions are pure, but other people, all they have to go on is your actions and your actions are you’re crapping all over something that they like. They just want to enjoy it, it’s a leisure activity. They don’t want to have an in-depth conversation. They’re just at the grocery store. They just thought a stranger was saying hi. Their intentions were extraordinarily pure. But in your mind, you only had their actions to judge them and their action was they were interrupting you. They didn’t realize they were interrupting you. So you lash out. Now, you don’t lash out and in any huge way. I don’t want people to get the idea that Lisa’s throwing canned goods at strangers. She’s just in her own little bubble and she just thinks that people are rude for bothering her while she’s trying to shop. But they would think that they would be rude for ignoring you if you were, in fact, talking to them. So I think that both of you are correct. You’re both being completely pure, but then you both leave with this negative experience that is rooted in just this complete misunderstanding because of the way that each person views the world. 

Lisa: That happens to me all the time that people think I have a much higher level of emotion or investment in something than I do. Like I’ll say something, they’ll be like, wow, you have strong opinions about this or wow, you’ve really thought about this or oh, I can see you’re really upset. And I think, but I’m not. I’m not really upset. I’m just talking. I don’t have strong opinions about this. Oh, my God, you’re so upset about this. No, I’m not. Just meh. 

Gabe: Do you think the reverse is true, though? Do you think that sometimes you believe that people are more heavily invested than they are because you get angry at what people say? Well, maybe it was just a throwaway comment for them, too. Maybe they were just saying it and you can just be like, I don’t agree with that. And they’d be like, OK.

Lisa: I don’t feel like that happens very often. I feel like I don’t really care about what people say most of the time.

Gabe: Really? You just told a story about how you were offended that the person at the grocery store replied to you,

Lisa: That was a joke.

Gabe: Was it? I’m serious, Lisa. Was it? You

Lisa: It’s just annoying.

Gabe: Exactly. Why is it annoying? You’re out in public. The person thought you were talking to them. They were mistaken. No big deal. Why does it have to be anything? Why does it have to be positive or negative?

Lisa: It makes me feel better to talk out loud, I don’t like to have the internal dialog to myself. I prefer to speak aloud, but I don’t notice when I’m doing it anymore. And so I’ve been trying to stop myself. I’ve been trying to notice it more often. And yeah, it’s not going well.

Gabe: I love doing ex-wife therapy live on the podcast,

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Lisa, we have beat to death what running thoughts are.

Lisa: Ok, sorry. We should go back to your negative self talk.

Gabe: Aww, but I was having so much fun picking on you. This might be the first time in history that something is about you and you’ve been like, you know, we need to make this more about Gabe.

Lisa: Yeah, I just think you’re way too hard on yourself. You always have been.

Gabe: I can’t enjoy things because I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I don’t know if that’s because.

Lisa: Yes, you’re always waiting for the bad thing to come.

Gabe: And the bad thing always comes.

Lisa: Yeah, no kidding.

Gabe: Why do you say no kidding? Like, why do you say it that way?

Lisa: Well, the obvious answer is because, one, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and two, if you look for it, you’ll always find it. Something bad is always coming. The awards show always ends. The day always ends. All humans eventually die. Something bad is always coming. But so what?

Gabe: Here’s the problem that I have with this, I don’t know when I cross the line between saving for a rainy day and hoarding resources. 

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: People recommend that you have money for a rainy day in case your car breaks down or in case you have to fix something in your house. And that’s really good. But then on the flip side of that, you can become miserly or greedy. 

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Where you’re just hoarding all of this cash or forcing people to pay for you because you’re just you’re a jerk. And you claim that you’re doing it because you have to keep yourself safe. The Scrooge analogy, right?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Scrooge has tons of money, yet he refuses to use any of it to make his life better or other people’s lives better. And he’s just a real jackass. But nobody would recommend that Scrooge give away every single dime because then he couldn’t afford food, shelter, clothing. So where’s that line? I have trouble with that because sometimes people are like, look, Gabe, you know, go out, enjoy yourself. And I’m like, I don’t think that’s a good idea, especially right now, like with COVID. Being a public speaker means I need to be able to speak in public. So obviously, business is way down. Well, does that mean that I shouldn’t enjoy life? Does this mean that I was right? I was, I’m ready for a world pandemic. But is that reasonable? You understand what I’m saying, Lisa?

Lisa: Yeah, but you’re mixing the analogy with the reality. There’s not a finite store of happiness or enjoyment, there is a finite store of money or worldly goods. Are you actually saying that the following good thing is happening to you and the reason you’re not happy is because you might need to save that happiness for later? Like, if you use up all your happiness right now, there won’t be any for the next time when something even better happens? Is that what you’re saying?

Gabe: I think what I’m saying more is happiness elevates you, which means when the negative thing comes, you have farther to fall.

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: So I’m staying grounded. That’s literally a term, I didn’t make it up. I’m staying humble and grounded and not getting ahead of myself so that when the negativity comes, I don’t have that far to fall.

Lisa: So it’s a self protective thing?

Gabe: It’s very self protective, I don’t believe that any of the success that I achieve is real. I don’t believe that I have earned it. I don’t believe that I deserve it. And when people are like, well, Gabe, you’ve done this great thing. And here’s an objective measure of your accomplishment. It’s objective. It’s not my mom telling me or you telling me or my wife telling me like it’s an objective measure. Gabe, this many people downloaded your podcast, that puts you in this percentile. And that is an achievement that you achieved. Congratulations. I’m like, well, but if they all stopped listening,

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: That means my show failed. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. And you’re like, can’t you just be happy that this week? This week, this many people downloaded your show? No, because I have to be ready for next week.

Lisa: Because then you’ll be even more unhappy?

Gabe: Well, yeah, what if the show fails, you know, right now people are listening to the Not Crazy podcast. Thank you very much, by the way. But what about next week when you all decide that I suck and stop listening? I don’t want to get hurt. If I never celebrate my success, I will never be unhappy when I lose it.

Lisa: We’ll be right back after these messages.

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Gabe: And we’re back, discussing negativity in our brains.

Lisa: You project a lot of confidence, you go on stage in front of lots of people, you speak in public, blah, blah, blah. So people don’t realize this about you because it seems to be in such a contrast to the public persona you present, which is all this confidence. So when you say, oh, I don’t believe in myself, I have a, I think people are thinking, well, that’s not really true, he’s just saying that. No, it is 100% for real, true. Like, it’s amazing how little you have in comparison to all this self-confidence that you’re always projecting into the world.

Gabe: In my mind, I don’t see it as self-confidence. Standing on stage isn’t about confidence for me. Doing a podcast and being honest about my life, I don’t think that takes confidence.

Lisa: What is it then?

Gabe: I consider it helping other people. Like, I don’t. I guess in a way I have confidence in my ability to be honest. I have confidence in my ability to say what’s right. I have confidence in my desire to help myself and other people. I believe that people like me, people living with severe and persistent mental illness, I feel that we don’t have a voice.

Lisa: But that doesn’t mean you want to be the voice. Most people aren’t comfortable being said voice.

Gabe: I just, I feel like somebody needs to do it, and there just wasn’t a lot of people doing it. There’s more now. But you remember when I got started a decade ago, there was next to no one.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: There were some national folks. But in my city, in my town, for for the longest time, I was the only one.

Lisa: Yeah, now they’re everywhere.

Gabe: There are certainly more, not nearly enough. With the rise of the Internet, with the rise of organizations, you know, like This Is My Brave and PsychCentral.com and The Mighty. There’s lots of good organizations that we partner with that are getting the word out more and more and more and more and more.

Lisa: But where do you think this comes from?

Gabe: I don’t know.

Lisa: This lack of faith? I mean, is this like a deep seated childhood thing? I mean, why do you have this and what would it take?

Gabe: Nothing. There’s nothing. There is absolutely nothing that I think will ever work, I think it comes from the fact that one day I was on top of the world, I believed that I was invincible, partially due to my age, partly due to my race, partly due to me being male. 

Lisa: Mania.

Gabe: And of course, partly due to delusions of grandeur and mania,

Lisa: Yeah, don’t you think it’s almost all mania?

Gabe: Maybe, sure, let’s go with yes.

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: I don’t think that I am the only upper middle class white male to fail one day and then suddenly be scared of his shadow. But the addition of delusions of grandeur and mania certainly did not help. But one day I was on top of the world doing extraordinarily well at a very young age. And then I was at the bottom being kicked around like I was garbage. And that hurt a lot. I woke up in a psychiatric hospital where I couldn’t even walk through a door. Who the hell tells Gabe Howard that he can’t walk through a door? That is traumatizing.

Lisa: But did all of this start then?

Gabe: The dialog used to be Gabe, you’re great, Gabe, you’re great, Gabe, you’re great, and now the dialog is like, pfft, you are garbage buddy. It’s very protective. I think that most people have negative self talk to protect them. I, yeah, I think that’s what changed for me.

Lisa: So you literally think that was the turning point? So, like when you were 16 and you’re in high school, you were sitting around with the positive self talk of I’m great, I’m great, I’m great?

Gabe: Well, that’s really tough because I was fat and couldn’t get laid to save my life, I was also a redhead. I was a failed abortion and a carrot top and every other, you know, soulless ginger

Lisa: Well, but so when you say that this is the point where it flipped for me, you’re saying this was the point where I decided I need to have this self-protective attitude. Is that actually true? So you’re telling me that before then you had all this confidence and you were taking joy in things? If you got a promotion or a raise or whatever, you were finding happiness in it? Because I find that hard to believe.

Gabe: I think that you are right, that it was mania. For a period of time, I believed I was successful, I believed that I was happy.

Lisa: You had bouts of extreme depression and suicidality before diagnosis, before that ultimate manic trip, right? How come the mania is the thing that’s imprinted in your mind? How come this other stuff isn’t?

Gabe: The mania felt good. I miss feeling good, but.

Lisa: But you’re remembering that as being your default state when it was not.

Gabe: No, no, it wasn’t.

Lisa: No one has that default state period, much less when they’re younger. So why are you remembering that as being the default state that you can’t get back to?

Gabe: I don’t think I ever had the stability.

Lisa: Well, yeah, obviously.

Gabe: This is the most stable that I’ve ever been, and I think that I believe that stability means not thinking that you’re bad, but also not thinking that you’re good. I think that thinking that you’re good is giving into mania or delusions of grandeur. I think thinking that your bad is giving in to depression or suicidality. So thinking that you’re just meh just

Lisa: But you don’t think that. You don’t think you’re meh.

Gabe: Yeah, I do.

Lisa: You’re in the active neg. No you don’t. You are on active negativity. You are an active badness.

Gabe: Ehhh, I . . . 

Lisa: Ehhh, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Gabe: I disagree, I think that you are.

Lisa: Ok, you’re at the awards ceremony. 

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: You’re not sitting there just like meh, and people are like, oh my God, why aren’t you happy? You are sitting there actively unhappy. You are not at a neutral state.

Gabe: Well, because I stole the award from somebody else, I took from somebody, all of these people are put out because of me. I hurt them in some way.

Lisa: So you’re not in a base level of neutral, you’re always at a base level of negative. You’re always below zero, you’re not at zero.

Gabe: But all of that said, there are moments of joy. When I win that award, I’m so excited.

Lisa: Is that true?

Gabe: Yeah, remember when I got the governors,

Lisa: Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Gabe: Yeah, I was so excited winning that thing, you and I, I found out that I won while on vacation and I called you screaming. I was so happy. Like, like I told all my friends, I was like, ahhh. And then I went to this thing and they did a magazine article. I was in the paper just I, I, I, yeah. I was. And now I’m starting to feel guilty.

Lisa: You’re hurting your rep.

Gabe: Like, like why did I deserve that? And I go back and forth, you know. Sometimes, I have it framed, it’s on the wall. Thank you, Lisa, for framing it. But it took me two years to get it framed. And remember, you found it and it was starting to fall down and get ruined.

Lisa: Um-hmm.

Gabe: And I was like, well, but I’m going to put it in the closet because I just literally left it sit on my desk and the paper actually got bent a little. And you were like, what is wrong with you? And I was like, well, I just I feel guilty that I get an award for doing what other people do and.

Lisa: But they don’t do it. That’s the point.

Gabe: But other people, other people do it, I’m not the only advocate and I’m certainly not the best advocate. Why do I deserve? This also goes back to just I’m so uncomfortable with the idea that I get to be well. How about that? Maybe it’s not negative self talk, maybe I’m a realist? I am only well, because I have health insurance and money and frankly, because I’m white and from a big city and because I ran into you and because my parents aren’t or they knew what, I don’t even know. You and I both agree that one of the primary reasons that I’m well is because I’m lucky. Well, if I forget that, I’m doing a great disservice. So maybe it’s not negative self talk, maybe it’s realistic self talk. It’s reminding me every day not to forget that the only reason I’m here is because I’m lucky. That’s it.

Lisa: Is that serving you, though? Is that making you happy? Is that furthering your goal of staying well?

Gabe: Versus forgetting where I came from? I guess I don’t know what humility looks like. I swear that sometimes I’m like, look, I am incredible at this. And people are like, you need to be humble, OK? All right. That’s fair. All right. You’re right. I don’t want to forget where I came from. I will be humble now. I am OK at this. Oh, my God. You can’t even be happy when you get an award. I’m not good at self-regulating. You tell me to be happy when I get an award. Other people tell me to be humble. Other people, well, I don’t do this for the awards. Do you know how many emails I get from people that are like, well, you’re clearly only doing it for the money? Look, this is how I earn my living and businesses do thrive off money and I like to eat and it costs money to build a podcast. We’re talking into microphones that cost $200. We have to publish on websites that cost hundreds of dollars a month. None of this is free.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Nothing that we’re doing is free. So I have to make money. Plus I like to eat and go on vacation and I need to earn my keep and pay my mortgage. Well, I’m just doing it because I care about people.

Lisa: Yeah, your heart’s pure.

Gabe: But, well, I care about people, too. Well, no, you don’t, or you’d do it for free. Well, I don’t know what to do.

Lisa: That is a good point, that is fair.

Gabe: Everywhere I look, somebody’s telling me that my behavior is wrong. So I don’t know that I have negative self talk, I just think that my self talk is everybody. I just think I believe what everybody says.

Lisa: But that means you’re searching for external validation.

Gabe: Yes, that’s all I want. I am only doing this so that other people tell me I’m good because I’m incapable of telling myself that I’m good. The end. Hard stop.

Lisa: Wow, I am so much more mentally healthy than you.

Gabe: Which is odd. I mean, we saw it going a different way at the beginning of the show.

Lisa: Yeah, I got to say it because I have a lot of self-confidence, apparently, I’m quite confident in myself and my awesomeness.

Gabe: I mean.

Lisa: Other people’s opinions are not a problem. I do not have a problem with that. When other people tell me stuff, I’m never unsure of myself. They say things and I think, nope, you’re wrong. I don’t second guess myself. And people will say, well, you think you know better than? Yup. Yes, I do. And I don’t doubt that for a moment. Huh. Yay me.

Gabe: All right, Lisa, we’ve established the problem, you know, ruminations, negative self talk. How do we get out of it? One of the things that we talk about a lot on this show is a concept called reframing. And I think this is an excellent opportunity to delve a little deeper. Lisa, for the first time officially, please teach the Not Crazy podcast listeners what reframing is.

Lisa: Reframing, a common therapy trope, is when you frame or express or conceptualize or think about something in a different way. An example of reframing, the one they always give you as the example, is, oh, my car broke down. This is so terrible. This is awful. Or, you can afford a car. You own a car. You’re good. Well, a better example would be my mother had to loan me money to fix my car. Your mother loves you so much that she loaned you money. That’s so great.

Gabe: So obviously, the negatives still exists. The car broke down, but you’re reframing it to focus on the positives, people who helped you. And the fact, of course, that you have a car.

Lisa: You can reframe almost anything.

Gabe: You really, really can.

Lisa: To the point of pointlessness, but for example, I’m not negative and depressing, I’m clear eyed and refreshingly honest.

Gabe: So you can lie with your reframe. That’s important to understand, you don’t want to go too far.

Lisa: So you’re not loud and annoying, you’re confident and exuberant.

Gabe: One of the things that I like about reframing is it’s sort of a fancy way to say a pro and con list. Like, I believe that everything has pros and cons, I don’t care what it is. My wife has pros and cons. I love my wife. Of all the people in the world, I picked her to marry. But is she 100% perfect? No, that’s utter ridiculousness. She has flaws. But obviously, if I focus only on her flaws, well, I’m going to end up with another ex-wife and therefore another podcast. In general, reframing is instead of looking at the negative, it’s looking at the positive. You know, Lisa’s right. You can abuse anything. I reframing.

Lisa: You’re doing it now, you’re doing it right now, Gabe is a little bit overly obsessed with reframing. Whenever I say something negative, you’re like, but how can we reframe that? And just now, people can’t see you, but when you say the words reframing half the time you draw a square in the air with your hands.

Gabe: It’s not a square, it’s a frame.

Lisa: It’s a frame, I know. He actually holds up his hands and draws them in a square shape and is like, no, no, no, you need to reframe as he draws. It’s really annoying, frankly. Like, yeah.

Gabe: Why do you dis, just you know, it’s

Lisa: I don’t dislike it. You just use it a lot.

Gabe: You feel about reframing how I feel about mindfulness, that even though

Lisa: No.

Gabe: Mindfulness has tons of data that shows it works, lots of people love it. It’s supported by literally study after study after study to show that it’s extraordinarily helpful. For whatever reason, I just hate mindfulness. You feel this way about reframing.

Lisa: No, I don’t.

Gabe: Just Every time I say reframing, you roll your eyes. Listen to the tone of your voice. You weren’t just giving an example. You were literally saying in like a mocking singsong voice.

Lisa: Ok, that’s fair. 

Gabe: What is it about reframing that bugs you so much, Lisa?

Lisa: Wow, I am getting annoyed by the completely introspective tone of this podcast. Once again, new revelation I’m having right now. I don’t know what it is that bothers me about it so much. I think you do it too much and you making that hand gesture is really annoying. But why do I think that? Because after all, it is a positive thing and one of the few cognitive-behavioral tools that you are able to utilize effectively. So, yeah. Why do you think I can’t stand it so much?

Gabe: Because you’re mean, I

Lisa: Well. No, no, for real. What do you think?

Gabe: I think in some ways, one of the reasons that you dislike it is because I like it so much. I think it’s sort of a trauma response. It’s kind of like if you’re eating chocolate chip cookies and then you get in a car accident, you can never eat chocolate chip cookies again. Every time you bite into a chocolate chip cookie, you associate that horrible experience. We went through a lot of shit together and we were desperate. And then suddenly somebody recommends this lame New Age technique. And it’s not lame, it’s not New Age. And it’s a tool like anything else. And I think that you just resent the idea that it worked. Or every time I make the quote unquote stupid frame with my fingers, it reminds you of a time in our life that was bad. Focusing on the positive, which is essentially what reframing is, it does help with my negative self talk. My negative self talk says the negative thing. And then I try to remember some of the positives. It’s sort of like Mr. Rogers mom said, you know, how do you watch the news and see all of this horrible things happen on the news? And Mr. Rogers said that his mother said, look for the helpers. When you see all the horrible stuff happening, look for the people running in, look for the people who are helping. The EMT’s, the heroes, the aid workers. Look for the people helping. That’s an example of reframing. Nobody’s saying that the war zone is good. We’re just saying that there are some good things happening. There’s a positive for lack of a better way. But I think you, Lisa, have trouble getting over the fact that, whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re reframing a war zone? No, you need to focus on the war zone. War is bad and horrible and wrong. Don’t you reframe that to there are helping people. Then you’re forgetting the war zone. 

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And you have a right to want to focus on the war zone. Do you know how many things get reframed and we forget about the root cause?

Lisa: And then bad things happen.

Gabe: Exactly, so reframing doesn’t mean forget about the bad thing or forget about the root, cause. It just means look at the bigger picture. You said early on, Lisa, that you were a realist. Is it really realistic to only focus on the negative? Is that what you call realism?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: But it’s not. Realistically, positive things do happen in war zones. But you believe that by only focusing on your narrative that you’re somehow being realistic. You’re not. You only talk about the horrors and you stay ultra focused on that. And I think that from an advocacy perspective and a mental health perspective, that doesn’t move the needle. People stop listening to you because you’re only being negative and people are looking for a positive. But you think the people that are looking for a positive in a war zone are idiots.

Lisa: I think that looking for the positive in the negative allows people, like you said, to forget the negative and it somehow makes the negative OK in their mind. And it’s all about making themselves more comfortable rather than actually solving any given problem.

Gabe: That is one potential outcome, but you’ve thrown out all the water and the baby because of one potential negative outcome. What about all the positive outcomes of reducing negative self talk? What about all the positive outcomes of being more mentally healthy? What about all the positive outcomes of being able to survive in the world and not being so weighted down by all the negativity that we’re never going to be able to resolve? You want all of that to go away to make sure that every single person knows that the bad thing is happening. How is that going to get us to positivity, or, as you want so desperately, to resolve the negative thing?

Lisa: I understand what you’re saying, you have some good points, but I guess I feel like that’s not a problem. There’s already plenty of people wandering about finding the silver lining. We don’t need more of those people. There’s enough of them; there are too many of them. And once again, focusing on the silver lining forgets the cloud. And I feel like I’m not curmudgeonly, I’m helpful. You’re welcome. Someone has to take on the burden, people. And I am here for you. I’m the one pointing out the cloud is still there and there’s not enough people doing that and somebody has to do it. And it’s my designated job.

Gabe: Who’s going to do your job when you become so mentally unhealthy and mentally unstable that you can’t exist in the world anymore?

Lisa: Yeah, that is a problem.

Gabe: I think about that a lot. You know, one of the classic arguments in is mania good? Somebody will always bring up Van Gogh and they’re like, oh, Van Gogh’s mania allowed him to paint such beautiful pictures and create such beautiful works of art. Look, I don’t know if his mania did or not, as I did not know the man personally, but let’s go ahead and say that it did. Of course, he’s now dead. He died by suicide. He cut off his ear, he traumatized a woman. He was miserable for most of his life. But I guess we got art, so it’s OK?

Lisa: Exactly.

Gabe: If he had got treated, maybe he would have made more art, prettier art, better art, but he would have been around a lot longer to create a lot more art. So I guess the art that we got in that short period of time was good? But after he died, no more art. So I understand what you’re saying about, you know, being a realist and making sure that people remember that it’s not just a silver lining, there’s a cloud. And I do, in fact, think that’s your superpower and we need people like you.

Lisa: Thank you.

Gabe: But you’ve literally said you’re doing this at the expense of your own mental health.

Lisa: Sometimes.

Gabe: You’re allowing the negative self talk to permeate into your personal life and the lives of those around you. And you’re saying that it’s OK because after all, you’re a realist. Isn’t that just more a negative self talk?

Lisa: That is true, it is a problem, it is starting to really hit me with some negative consequences, especially in the last few years. But I just feel like all this call for positivity is just a way for people to be more comfortable and to rationalize away bad things. And notice that all the people who are always going on about positivity have very secure, very comfortable lives. I feel like it’s a way to absolve themselves of responsibility for the rest of the world’s problems because you’re like, oh, no, look, positive things. That means that I don’t need to worry about negative things. I don’t need to donate money. I don’t need to think about who I’m voting for. I don’t need to think about how my actions are affecting our global world.

Gabe: And you get all of this from your negative self talk?

Lisa: I get all of this by telling you what is wrong with The Avengers movie. Yes, it’s true.

Gabe: This is why people don’t want to get rid of their negative self talk because they feel that it is helping them in some way. You have illustrated this perfectly.

Lisa: If you’ll remember, a few years ago, this really, it had really become a problem. And thank you very much, Dr. Todd. I went to therapy and she said the problem you’re having is that you feel like if you weren’t this level of negative, it would be irresponsible. It is irresponsible to not focus on these things. And she said, so let’s look at some things that you could do to make this better, to help things that don’t involve getting yourself so upset.

Gabe: Without it consuming your entire life.

Lisa: Yeah, that. So in the end, I decided that I would send a lot more support to some of the causes that I care about. I don’t want to say that I’m outsourcing my outrage, but it is kind of how I feel about it. It’s like I don’t need to sit at home and get this upset and be angry at the news because I have these other people who are handling that for me, and they’re probably making a lot more progress. Their anger and their action is doing more good than my sitting on my couch and yelling at the television. That has been very helpful.

Gabe: You also added another piece to this in that you started not watching the news.

Lisa: Yeah, I feel bad about it, but it’s really made a big difference.

Gabe: But here’s the thing, though, people hear you stopped watching the news and they’re like aha! She doesn’t know what’s going on in the world.

Lisa: Exactly. How irresponsible.

Gabe: But that’s not true because you still read the news once a day or a couple of times a week from a trusted news source that uses journalistic standards. You stay away from cable news. You stay away from television and radio. You, I forget which news sources you picked, but you read it. It gives you the facts and then that’s it. And then also the charities that you support, they send you information with what they’re doing with your money and your time and your resources. And occasionally they send you advocacy points, you know, letters to send to people. So you feel that they’re keeping watch for you and you’re supporting their ability to do it. So it’s.

Lisa: Yes, that I trust these people to be looking out for the things that I care about. I said to the therapist, Oh my God, these things are upsetting me so much. And she said, why are you exposing yourself to them then? And I thought, what? What? What other option is there? What are you talking about? And she said, why don’t you just not do this to yourself so much? And that had not occurred to me as a choice. But things like don’t read the news several times a day, only look at it from certain sources.

Gabe: Turn off the alerts on your phone.

Lisa: I have found that TV news is much more upsetting, something about the visual. Reading it or listening to the radio is much better, stuff like that, and it has helped a lot. It has helped the negativity quite a bit.

Gabe: It’s all about finding a time and a place for the negative things that need your attention because you don’t want to do nothing. I will say I’ve known Lisa for a long time and I can honestly say that she has done more to help the causes that she cares about in the last three years by supporting these charities than she did the previous three years by being miserable 24/7, yelling at anybody that would listen and screaming at the television on her couch. And I.

Lisa: Well, I was already supporting, but I amped my level up a lot

Gabe: Yeah, you started to do more. You were.

Lisa: Yeah, I started to do more in a more productive channel.

Gabe: Lisa, I care about you very much so I apologize for this big heaping helping of negativity that I’m about to throw at you. But Lisa’s ruminations and self-talk and constant desire to focus on this negativity in the world impacted her relationships because it was all that was in her brain. So Lisa starts just watching media that is constantly talking about what was going on in the world, And Lisa is yelling at her TV, she’s getting mad, she’s reading articles, she’s reading blogs, she’s just. So when we would get together, all she would want to talk about is the negative things that were in her head. And even though we’re agreeing with her, we’re like, we agree with you 100%. No, you don’t understand. Yes, Lisa, we completely agree. No, no, no, no. Tell me why you think is

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Is bad and is good. Tell me why you. And nobody is arguing with her. But because that’s all that’s in her brain. The self talk, the ruminations, she’s become obsessed. We don’t want to be around her. We want to watch TV. We want to have dinner. We can’t have dinner because there’s nothing to talk about with Lisa because she’s not consuming anything else. She’s become so fixated. I want people to understand that not only is the negative self talk hurting you, but it’s hurting the people around you and it’s making them not want to spend time with you. Which, of course, ultimately makes you isolated and alone, giving the negative self talk free reign to work more because you’re not even distracted by people telling you to stop talking about it anymore. 

Lisa: Yeah, it had become a real problem, the therapy was very helpful, these suggestions were very helpful. On the one hand, you think, wow, that’s pretty obvious. So there’s something that was really upsetting you that you were deliberately exposing yourself to multiple times a day? Yes. Yes. I had to pay hundreds of dollars to get a PhD to tell me that and tell me to stop doing it. So on the one hand, I thought, really? Really, I just paid for this advice? But apparently I wasn’t getting it anywhere else. Apparently I had to. And so whenever I start to get worked up, whenever I start to think, oh my God, did you see that? Aaaahhh, oh my God! I have to go online and send a little extra donation. I’m like, OK, there. I sent an extra twenty bucks, it’s good, OK. Obviously that is doing more good than all of my upset was doing, to channel that upset in a different way.

Gabe: Obviously, Lisa, as your friend, I am so glad that you got help for it. I’m so glad

Lisa: I’m actually curious, do you think it’s better now?

Gabe: Yeah, it’s a lot, but do I think you’re all the way there? No, no, I don’t. And that’s the thing, we have to define success, right? Do I think you’re perfect? No, no. Do you know who’s perfect? My grandpa. Like nothing bothers him. He’s like, I got my own life. I got my own business. I’m fine. He’s cool. Do I think that you are that guy? No, I don’t think you can be that guy.

Lisa: But I don’t want to be that guy.

Gabe: Yeah, that’s my point, I think you need to give yourself credit for how far you’ve come, and I think.

Lisa: But do you really think that? Because you tell me I’m really negative all the time. I mean, are you for real saying that it has improved?

Gabe: It has improved,

Lisa: Ok, good.

Gabe: But, Lisa, when you are at a zero and the goal is 100 and you improve to a 50, 50 is still a failure. I think that you do have a ways to go. But one of the things that I am happiest about is that we talk about other stuff.

Lisa: Mostly Marvel movies,

Gabe: That’s true. One of the things that I don’t think people realize is when that negative self talk is in your brain and the rumination is in your brain, you become focused only on your thing. So while you’re constantly talking about your thing, that means my needs are never being met. One of the things that was hardest when it was the worst. Again, I hate using you as an example, because I’ve certainly done this to you.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I want to be fair. But when you’re so stuck in your own head, you turn everything about you. We all get this way where the negative self talk, the ruminations, everything builds up in our own brains that we become bad friends. We’re not helping the people around us. So, Lisa, to your specific question, are you better now? Yeah, because you talk about my stuff without turning it into your thing. That alone is worth the price of admission. And I think that we all need to understand that getting rid of the ruminations and the self talk and all of this, I think it’s good for our own mental health. But I also think that it’s extraordinarily beneficial to the people around us. So, listen, if you’re not willing to get rid of this stuff for your own good, do it for those you love. They deserve to have a well engaged friend or family member. Please, if you don’t want to be mentally healthier, if you don’t want to be happier. Fine, I can’t stop you. But don’t you want to be a good parent, friend, child, family member, bestie, dance partner, whatever to the people around you? Do it for all of them.

Lisa: And, Gabe, that’s exactly why I did it. I could feel how the people around me were reacting, I could see their eyes rolling, I could see them checking out. I could see when they stopped paying attention to me. Of course, at the time, I thought, well, see, look at these fools. Argh! But yeah, I could see that I was pushing away you, my friends, my family, my husband. And apparently the journey is ongoing, but I’ve had some good results.

Gabe: Lisa, the journey is ongoing, just like our podcast. If you love the show, please leave us a review. Use your words. Tell people why you like us. Share us on social media. Rate, subscribe, review. Just do stuff with our podcast pretty much 24/7. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Lisa: And we’ll be back next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details. 

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Podcast: Negative Self-Talk and Pessimism

  “You’re so stupid. That was the dumbest thing anyone has ever done.” You probably wouldn’t ever say this to a loved one — but would you say it to yourself? What’s your self-talk like?  And why does it matter?

In today’s Not Crazy podcast, Gabe and Lisa break down their own experiences with negative self-talk and why they do it. And while Gabe believes in reframing his thoughts to be more positive, Lisa thinks there may be some benefits to not always looking for the silver lining. What do you think?

(Transcript Available Below)

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About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Negative Self-Talk” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Not Crazy podcast, I’m your host Gabe Howard, and with me, as always, is the incomparable Lisa.

Lisa: Hey, everyone, today’s quote is by Robert Kiyosaki, and he says, it’s not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the most power.

Gabe: My negative self talk is like 100% in my own head. Nobody else can hear it. My brain is saying to me, Gabe, you’re awful. Gabe, you suck, Gabe, nobody listens to your podcast. Gabe, everybody hates you. But it’s not audible. Is that what your negative self talk is like, Lisa?

Lisa: No, not even a little. I keep up this constant running dialog with myself, and I do it out loud. I don’t know if it’s because I lived alone for a long time or because I worked from home, but I just do it continuously out loud. And it wasn’t really until I went to like an office environment that I thought, oh, my God, I’m so annoying because I’m having this constant back and forth dialog with myself, like in line at the grocery store.

Gabe: I have this constant dialog with myself, I’m always narrating my life, I have racing thoughts sometimes because of bipolar disorder and for me personally, it’s always very negative, but it’s not audible. If I strapped a recording device to me, the recorder would pick up nothing. But you’re saying that if we strapped a recorder to you at the end of the day somewhere, Lisa Kiner would be walking around saying, I suck, this is bullshit, why am I here? And it would pick it up on the recorder?

Lisa: Yes. It’s not always about myself, like, I’m just keeping up this running dialog about everything around me. But I get so used to doing it and then I’ll do it out in public and people think I’m talking to them. Like I’m at the grocery store trying to pick out, OK, which soup do I want? Well, I don’t know. Well, this one is the no salt. Yeah. I don’t really like the no salt kind though. And I go back and forth like that out loud and frequently strangers because they think I’m talking to them, which is so narcissistic, incidentally. Just because you’re the only person around doesn’t mean I’m talking to you. All right. Talking to myself. You’re not involved. So that’s actually a problem I have all the time.

Gabe: Hang on. I know that you’re joking about that, like, how narcissistic is it to believe that? Because there’s only two people in an aisle and I’m speaking out loud. I mean, it’s much more believable that I am having a moment where I’m conversing with myself. But you’re the narcissist for thinking that I’m talking to you and I am not a narcissist for literally engaging in a conversation with myself and only me. Is that what you’re saying, Lisa?

Lisa: Well, it is a joke, but, yeah, pretty much that is what I’m saying, it’s very annoying. It happens to me all the time.

Gabe: The continuous running dialog, it has issues. I don’t know of anybody.

Lisa: I don’t think other people have this continuous dialog in the same way I do. I don’t think you do either.

Gabe: I don’t think that other people have it out loud, but I’m talking about me now, Lisa. Narcissist much?

Lisa: Well, no, I just I feel like I almost have like a narrator, like on Dexter or something where he has the narrator that’s himself in his mind all the time.

Gabe: But that’s the point, it’s in his mind, and that’s how mine is, mine is in my mind. Nobody else can hear it. Everything that happens, everything that I do. Like you said, there’s a narrative like on television shows, but it’s always negative and it doesn’t matter what happens. That’s sort of the part that I want to talk about. For example, let’s say that I get an award like that should be a huge achievement. Right? And I’m standing on the side of the stage and the person who is giving the award does the whole you know, we’re very happy with Gabe. He has earned an award. We’re very proud of him. I am standing off of the stage and I’m like, well, I mean, they had to give it to me. They didn’t want to. There is probably somebody better. I took this award for somebody. Somebody else got passed over. This is political. I bet Lisa tricked them, and that’s why I’m getting the award. And that’s just going through my mind constantly. And then, of course, I hear the applause and that’s nice. And I’m happy. And I walk up to the podium and I deliver my acceptance speech. And even as I’m giving the speech, my mind is saying, this is bullshit. You didn’t earn it. This is bullshit. You didn’t earn it. 

Lisa: I do know that about you, and you’re correct, I personally think that your inner self talk is much more negative than the average and it’s a lot more negative than mine.

Gabe: One of the interesting things about our negative self talk, aside from mine being internal and yours apparently being external, is that mine is always about me.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: I’m talking about myself. The negative self talk that occurs in my brain is always about Gabe and the things that Gabe are doing and the people around me and their reaction to Gabe. Your negative self talk is always about the people around you.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You’re observing the world and you are very critical and negative of the behavior of others.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I hate to say can you expand on that? But, but why?

Lisa: I knew that, but I didn’t really notice it until you pointed it out to me yesterday. Yeah. Your inner critic self talk is focused on yourself, which makes more sense, whereas mine is almost exclusively focused on other people. I think it’s because I have really good self-esteem

Gabe: I don’t.

Lisa: Or because I’m narcissistic. I get it.

Gabe: On one hand, it would be so easy for me to be like Lisa’s narcissistic, but I know for a fact that you’re not. And it would be easy for me to say, well, it’s because Lisa has really high self-esteem and she thinks she’s the greatest at everything.

Lisa: What can I say?

Gabe: Except, yeah, you don’t think that about yourself. You have this very high opinion of certain abilities and this extraordinarily low opinion of other abilities. And the whole thing sort of averages out to mediocre self-esteem for you.

Lisa: Maybe it’s realism.

Gabe: Maybe, but it’s not. It’s severe and persistent mental illness. But it’s interesting to me because you will observe things and your mind immediately jumps to the negative.

Lisa: That is true. It’s become more of a problem lately, like within the last couple of years, but I’m not really sure. Maybe I’m just finally, like, noticing the effect it’s having because, yeah, you’re right, it is a problem and it is causing me negative consequences.

Gabe: As your friend Lisa, you know, being negative about the people around you is frustrating for many reasons. One, I’m one of the people around you, so I don’t like it when you’re negative about me. But you observe the world through this very negative lens.

Lisa: I do.

Gabe: And I know you hate this story. And I can have this entire conversation without you, but I’m not gonna, I’m going to let you talk. But, I remember we were watching a football game. We’re sitting there watching the football game and.

Lisa: Oh, God, that story?

Gabe: Yep,

Lisa: I didn’t know where you were going,

Gabe: Yep,

Lisa: I didn’t know was going to be that one.

Gabe: Yeah, you know, they throw this old guy up on the screen and they’re like, congratulations to old Bob. Bob has attended every single home football game for the last 50 years.  And as the rest of us are all like, oh, that’s a sweet story. Lisa’s like, that’s bullshit. How do they know? They didn’t have good computerized records 60 years ago. They don’t know that he’s been to every game. Even if he bought every ticket, they don’t know that he went. What, he didn’t miss one? How were they even keeping track of this? And of course, we’re all looking at Lisa like really? Like you just can’t smile? Just be happy?

Lisa: It’s interesting that you picked this particular story, I did not see that coming. Because all of you thought that was such a big deal and you all went on for a while and bring it up since, oh, my God, why are you so negative? Why was that a big deal? Why was this such a thing? Why was that so important to you? It wasn’t. In the same way that you went, oh, that’s nice, isn’t that a cute scarf or something? I was like, well, that’s bullshit. You don’t know that he’s actually been to every game. I just saw it as a throwaway comment, but you all took it very seriously.

Gabe: Exactly, because we didn’t think that it was just worth any negativity whatsoever. It’s like insulting a kitten. If somebody has a newborn kitten and they give you a kitten and the kitten is purring and you’re petting the kitten and everybody loves the kitten and you’re the one that’s like it’s going to grow up to be a cat and ruin your furniture. People are going to be like, look, can you just enjoy the kitten in the moment?

Lisa: Why are you so invested in a kitten? What do you care if I say something about the kitten? Why does it bother you? My thoughts on the kitten?

Gabe: And therein lies our differences of how our self talk works. See my self talk only bothers me. 

Lisa: Oh.

Gabe: Your self talk radiates out into the world and negatively impacts others.

Lisa: Maybe.

Gabe: And it’s interesting that you feel this way, that it’s just this throwaway comment about kittens or old people at football games, because as people who know me well know, I can’t enjoy my own success. I can’t enjoy it. I don’t consider myself successful now. Whenever something good happens to me, I push it way down. And you told me that as my friend, that that’s exhausting,

Lisa: Absolutely.

Gabe: That you’re at this great event where Gabe gets an award or people say nice things to me and afterwards, I’m not happy about it. I won’t celebrate it. Well, how does that impact you? It’s my event. It’s my award. Can’t I react to it however I want? And you said that this took from you. Your exact words were it’s exhausting that you can’t be happy when you are being praised. Well, what do you care? It’s just a kitten or an old guy. Like, why are you so heavily invested in my inability to celebrate my own success? But you are. And the reverse is true. It’s a burden when you’re mad at the old guy at the football game.

Lisa: It isn’t just success, you can’t celebrate anything. Obviously, this is severe and persistent mental illness, but you can never seem to be happy or take pleasure in anything, even when we’re doing something fun. You’re unhappy about vacation, you’re unhappy about everything. It’s almost as if you’re chronically depressed.

Gabe: Who cares, you’re being way too broad, like answer my specific thing about if it’s my accomplishments, my award and my day, why is it exhausting for you? Why do you care if I’m unhappy at my own accomplishment? And don’t say because I’m also unhappy on vacation.

Lisa: Hmm. OK.

Gabe: I’m not trying to be a jerk here. Like you always say a gift given is a gift received. You give the gift. It’s my decision how to use the gift, react to the gift, enjoy the gift, love the gift. Gift giving doesn’t include strings.

Lisa: That’s true, that’s a good analogy.

Gabe: So here I am, I get an award and I’m like, hey, I probably don’t deserve this award, why can’t you be like, Hey, Gabe? All right, well, you should be proud of yourself. Why is it exhausting for you? Why is my negative self talk about something that is mine? Why does that bother you?

Lisa: You know, I you know, I think it might be because you know how you say I always take everything so personally? I think that actually might be what. It might be my own self talk. Because the fact that you’re not pleased or excited I somehow feel like is on me and is my responsibility to somehow correct. Almost as if it’s a criticism of my very presence, because why are you not happy and what am I doing wrong so that you’re not happy? Wow, that’s sick.

Gabe: I just want to make sure I understand this correctly, my accomplishment and my award is about you?

Lisa: Is about me, yeah. Wow. Do you think that’s true?

Gabe: I honestly have no idea because the reverse is also true, right? Like you said, it’s an innocuous comment. I don’t think that old guy did that. I do not like this puff piece that’s on the national broadcast of the college football game. Why are all of us so invested that Lisa doesn’t like the puff piece?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Like what? You’re required to like the puff piece? We’re doing the same thing to you.

Lisa: Huh.

Gabe: Why are we like this? Why does our negative self talk

Lisa: Wow.

Gabe: Interfere with each other in such a way?

Lisa: I don’t know, you know, I. Wow, I’ve actually never thought about that until. Wow. This is a strangely profound realization I’m having on a podcast. Wow.

Gabe: Not just on any podcast.

Lisa: Well, yes, on the Not Crazy podcast, which you can find at PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy.

Gabe: You know, they’re listening to it right now, you don’t have to tell them where to find it

Lisa: We don’t know where they found it.

Gabe: They’ve already found it.

Lisa: They could be listening to it at a friend’s house, they’re not sure. Anyway. Wow. Like, like I realize it’s podcast time and I’m not allowed to pause, but. Oh, my God. Do you think this is true? Like, do you think this is really why?

Gabe: I have no idea why, and

Lisa: Wow.

Gabe: I do believe that it is different for everybody.

Lisa: That is messed up.

Gabe: But I think that we’ve established that negative self talk has ramifications outside of ourselves. It influences our actions, which influences other people. And we just all want to be happy for each other. And I am ruining your happiness by not being happy at my own award. So now the question becomes what to do about it? We have suggestions. Now, listen, this is definitely a situation where you need to take our advice because we are not using it. But we’ve been given some excellent advice.

Lisa: Therefore, it’s up for grabs.

Gabe: Yeah, it’s up for grabs. Just, it’s like a Craigslist curb alert. Hey, we’re not using this advice. We’ve sat it out by the podcast curb for free. Take it. No strings attached.

Lisa: That day with the old guy on the TV, that always bothered because what did you people care? Why were you messing with me? It’s never occurred to me that that is analogous to the way that I am annoyed by you and your reaction to certain things.

Gabe: Uh-huh.

Lisa: That’s never occurred to me. Huh.

Gabe: It’s almost like when you put yourself in other people’s shoes, Lisa, you learn stuff.

Lisa: I don’t know what to do with this knowledge.

Gabe: I don’t know, but I hope that when this plays over the show that that you put like some soft piano music behind this, maybe you get some, like, audience reaction of, like, people crying and hugging.

Lisa: What is the answer, though? Why were you so invested in how I felt about the old dude? Is that the same reason that I’m so invested in why you’re not happy?

Gabe: I think sincerely, it was just a happy moment. 

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: And there’s not a lot of happy moments in the world, especially for us and all of us had agreed for whatever reason that we were going to be happy about this. And your negativity ruined an otherwise positive moment. It’s sort of unfair to demand that you change your opinion in order to make the group happy. But from the group’s perspective, we had decided that this was the point of the concert where we’re all going to sit down and one person was standing to dance to the music, and that was ruining it for the person who had to sit behind her.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: And that’s kind of how it was. We just decided that we wanted to be happy right now. And you interjected negativity. Maybe you should have realized, hey, the group has decided that they’re going to be happy. So I’m going to keep this to myself. But yeah, you’re right. Why didn’t the group say, oh, Lisa, you look at everything through shit colored glasses. Which you would fire back, well, some of you look at everything through rose colored glasses, but I think that’s really the takeaway. Right? Lisa looks at everything through shit colored glasses. Gabe looks at everything through shit colored glasses. I will always find a way to ruin anything positive that happens to me and I don’t know why. And it’s that constant dialog that’s in my brain and a cycle that I cannot break. And I really feel strongly that, Lisa, we need to help the audience understand maybe how they can break it and stop talking about your revelation

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: That you’re a negative person. We know.

Lisa: Well, but I feel like the negativity is mostly an advantage because you feel like other people are just walking around in their own self deluded bubble, right? So I feel like it’s an advantage. It’s like a special power I have to see the world correctly and clearly, the true nature of reality. But yeah, even saying that makes me sound mentally ill, doesn’t it?

Gabe: Well, let’s consider this this idea, because I’m sure that a lot of people can relate to us. We’re not unique in having negative self talk, but if everything is shit, nothing is. I hate to borrow from Pixar, but if everybody’s super, nobody is. Who is going to take us seriously? On one hand, Lisa, you’re right. It is a superpower. You have such a critical eye. And when it comes to things like editing, podcast, producing podcasts, we need people like you like for real. If you understood football and you had this critical eye, we would put you in charge of game tape because you would find every single solitary mistake and help the players correct it. 

Lisa: But see, I think it’s enjoyable, like when we go to a movie, and then as we’re leaving the movie, I’m like, OK, here are the following plot holes. Here are the following problems. I think that’s fun. To dissect it, to analyze it, to think about it, to find the flaws, I find that enjoyable. I know that you do not. So I try not to do it most of the time, but I think it’s fun.

Gabe: But here’s what sucks for you. It’s both right? I love listening to podcasts where they do that.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Gabe: Were they dissect the shows or, you know, there’s famous YouTube channels like How It Should Have Ended or

Lisa: Oh, I love that show.

Gabe: Cinema Sins where they talk about, you know.

Lisa: Cinema Sins is my oh, I love that guy. I want to be friends with him.

Gabe: I love stuff like that. The question is, does that guy show up at every single party and the minute somebody says, oh my God, I love the new superhero movie, he sashays over and says, well, actually?

Lisa: Well, if he does, I want to be his friend and I want to be at that party.

Gabe: Do you?

Lisa: Well, I do, but apparently no one else does.

Gabe: Every single time you have an opinion about anything, this guy just materializes and says, well, actually and then corrects you.

Lisa: But he’s not saying it’s bad, he’s just giving you more information. Just because he’s pointing out the following things doesn’t mean it’s an overall negative. He’s just sharing with you more. He’s adding to your enjoyment or your knowledge store or the information you have. He’s not taking.

Gabe: Are you sure?

Lisa: For me, yes.

Gabe: This is going to be somewhat controversial, but let’s talk about like mansplaining where men explain to women their point of view. But aren’t these men just adding to your knowledge base? Aren’t they just giving you information that you may or may not already have? You could use it or you couldn’t use it? I mean, why is it so problematic then? Aren’t they just giving you the male perspective to a female problem? For the record, I don’t agree with any of this. I think there’s a large slice of misogyny and problems in this general idea that maybe women don’t understand their own experience and most of us men are just being jerks, but.

Lisa: But do you think that’s an analogy? I hate it when people do that because it’s condescending and it’s annoying.

Gabe: Well, isn’t it condescending of you to tell me how to enjoy the movie, the leisure activity? Why are you correcting how I watch a movie?

Lisa: Are those equivalents?

Gabe: Probably not, but potentially

Lisa: Huh.

Gabe: You’d have to know the motivation of the person. This is where the world gets very complex.

Lisa: Oh, this is why people react negatively to me, because they don’t know my motivation.

Gabe: They don’t. They think that you are correcting their experience or their opinion.

Lisa: They assume a negative.

Gabe: Just.

Lisa: Little do they realize I’m helping,

Gabe: Really?

Lisa: Yes, you’re welcome.

Gabe: So the woman who assumes the negative is mad at other people for assuming

Lisa: The positive,

Gabe: The negative.

Lisa: Oh, damn. This is becoming a very depressing podcast. Wow, OK. Damn.

Gabe: Maybe this would have been a better quote for you to use. I’m not correcting your quote, Lisa, but we judge ourselves by our intentions and other people by their actions.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: You know that your intentions are pure, but other people, all they have to go on is your actions and your actions are you’re crapping all over something that they like. They just want to enjoy it, it’s a leisure activity. They don’t want to have an in-depth conversation. They’re just at the grocery store. They just thought a stranger was saying hi. Their intentions were extraordinarily pure. But in your mind, you only had their actions to judge them and their action was they were interrupting you. They didn’t realize they were interrupting you. So you lash out. Now, you don’t lash out and in any huge way. I don’t want people to get the idea that Lisa’s throwing canned goods at strangers. She’s just in her own little bubble and she just thinks that people are rude for bothering her while she’s trying to shop. But they would think that they would be rude for ignoring you if you were, in fact, talking to them. So I think that both of you are correct. You’re both being completely pure, but then you both leave with this negative experience that is rooted in just this complete misunderstanding because of the way that each person views the world. 

Lisa: That happens to me all the time that people think I have a much higher level of emotion or investment in something than I do. Like I’ll say something, they’ll be like, wow, you have strong opinions about this or wow, you’ve really thought about this or oh, I can see you’re really upset. And I think, but I’m not. I’m not really upset. I’m just talking. I don’t have strong opinions about this. Oh, my God, you’re so upset about this. No, I’m not. Just meh. 

Gabe: Do you think the reverse is true, though? Do you think that sometimes you believe that people are more heavily invested than they are because you get angry at what people say? Well, maybe it was just a throwaway comment for them, too. Maybe they were just saying it and you can just be like, I don’t agree with that. And they’d be like, OK.

Lisa: I don’t feel like that happens very often. I feel like I don’t really care about what people say most of the time.

Gabe: Really? You just told a story about how you were offended that the person at the grocery store replied to you,

Lisa: That was a joke.

Gabe: Was it? I’m serious, Lisa. Was it? You

Lisa: It’s just annoying.

Gabe: Exactly. Why is it annoying? You’re out in public. The person thought you were talking to them. They were mistaken. No big deal. Why does it have to be anything? Why does it have to be positive or negative?

Lisa: It makes me feel better to talk out loud, I don’t like to have the internal dialog to myself. I prefer to speak aloud, but I don’t notice when I’m doing it anymore. And so I’ve been trying to stop myself. I’ve been trying to notice it more often. And yeah, it’s not going well.

Gabe: I love doing ex-wife therapy live on the podcast,

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Lisa, we have beat to death what running thoughts are.

Lisa: Ok, sorry. We should go back to your negative self talk.

Gabe: Aww, but I was having so much fun picking on you. This might be the first time in history that something is about you and you’ve been like, you know, we need to make this more about Gabe.

Lisa: Yeah, I just think you’re way too hard on yourself. You always have been.

Gabe: I can’t enjoy things because I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I don’t know if that’s because.

Lisa: Yes, you’re always waiting for the bad thing to come.

Gabe: And the bad thing always comes.

Lisa: Yeah, no kidding.

Gabe: Why do you say no kidding? Like, why do you say it that way?

Lisa: Well, the obvious answer is because, one, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and two, if you look for it, you’ll always find it. Something bad is always coming. The awards show always ends. The day always ends. All humans eventually die. Something bad is always coming. But so what?

Gabe: Here’s the problem that I have with this, I don’t know when I cross the line between saving for a rainy day and hoarding resources. 

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: People recommend that you have money for a rainy day in case your car breaks down or in case you have to fix something in your house. And that’s really good. But then on the flip side of that, you can become miserly or greedy. 

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Where you’re just hoarding all of this cash or forcing people to pay for you because you’re just you’re a jerk. And you claim that you’re doing it because you have to keep yourself safe. The Scrooge analogy, right?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Scrooge has tons of money, yet he refuses to use any of it to make his life better or other people’s lives better. And he’s just a real jackass. But nobody would recommend that Scrooge give away every single dime because then he couldn’t afford food, shelter, clothing. So where’s that line? I have trouble with that because sometimes people are like, look, Gabe, you know, go out, enjoy yourself. And I’m like, I don’t think that’s a good idea, especially right now, like with COVID. Being a public speaker means I need to be able to speak in public. So obviously, business is way down. Well, does that mean that I shouldn’t enjoy life? Does this mean that I was right? I was, I’m ready for a world pandemic. But is that reasonable? You understand what I’m saying, Lisa?

Lisa: Yeah, but you’re mixing the analogy with the reality. There’s not a finite store of happiness or enjoyment, there is a finite store of money or worldly goods. Are you actually saying that the following good thing is happening to you and the reason you’re not happy is because you might need to save that happiness for later? Like, if you use up all your happiness right now, there won’t be any for the next time when something even better happens? Is that what you’re saying?

Gabe: I think what I’m saying more is happiness elevates you, which means when the negative thing comes, you have farther to fall.

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: So I’m staying grounded. That’s literally a term, I didn’t make it up. I’m staying humble and grounded and not getting ahead of myself so that when the negativity comes, I don’t have that far to fall.

Lisa: So it’s a self protective thing?

Gabe: It’s very self protective, I don’t believe that any of the success that I achieve is real. I don’t believe that I have earned it. I don’t believe that I deserve it. And when people are like, well, Gabe, you’ve done this great thing. And here’s an objective measure of your accomplishment. It’s objective. It’s not my mom telling me or you telling me or my wife telling me like it’s an objective measure. Gabe, this many people downloaded your podcast, that puts you in this percentile. And that is an achievement that you achieved. Congratulations. I’m like, well, but if they all stopped listening,

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: That means my show failed. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. And you’re like, can’t you just be happy that this week? This week, this many people downloaded your show? No, because I have to be ready for next week.

Lisa: Because then you’ll be even more unhappy?

Gabe: Well, yeah, what if the show fails, you know, right now people are listening to the Not Crazy podcast. Thank you very much, by the way. But what about next week when you all decide that I suck and stop listening? I don’t want to get hurt. If I never celebrate my success, I will never be unhappy when I lose it.

Lisa: We’ll be right back after these messages.

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Gabe: And we’re back, discussing negativity in our brains.

Lisa: You project a lot of confidence, you go on stage in front of lots of people, you speak in public, blah, blah, blah. So people don’t realize this about you because it seems to be in such a contrast to the public persona you present, which is all this confidence. So when you say, oh, I don’t believe in myself, I have a, I think people are thinking, well, that’s not really true, he’s just saying that. No, it is 100% for real, true. Like, it’s amazing how little you have in comparison to all this self-confidence that you’re always projecting into the world.

Gabe: In my mind, I don’t see it as self-confidence. Standing on stage isn’t about confidence for me. Doing a podcast and being honest about my life, I don’t think that takes confidence.

Lisa: What is it then?

Gabe: I consider it helping other people. Like, I don’t. I guess in a way I have confidence in my ability to be honest. I have confidence in my ability to say what’s right. I have confidence in my desire to help myself and other people. I believe that people like me, people living with severe and persistent mental illness, I feel that we don’t have a voice.

Lisa: But that doesn’t mean you want to be the voice. Most people aren’t comfortable being said voice.

Gabe: I just, I feel like somebody needs to do it, and there just wasn’t a lot of people doing it. There’s more now. But you remember when I got started a decade ago, there was next to no one.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: There were some national folks. But in my city, in my town, for for the longest time, I was the only one.

Lisa: Yeah, now they’re everywhere.

Gabe: There are certainly more, not nearly enough. With the rise of the Internet, with the rise of organizations, you know, like This Is My Brave and PsychCentral.com and The Mighty. There’s lots of good organizations that we partner with that are getting the word out more and more and more and more and more.

Lisa: But where do you think this comes from?

Gabe: I don’t know.

Lisa: This lack of faith? I mean, is this like a deep seated childhood thing? I mean, why do you have this and what would it take?

Gabe: Nothing. There’s nothing. There is absolutely nothing that I think will ever work, I think it comes from the fact that one day I was on top of the world, I believed that I was invincible, partially due to my age, partly due to my race, partly due to me being male. 

Lisa: Mania.

Gabe: And of course, partly due to delusions of grandeur and mania,

Lisa: Yeah, don’t you think it’s almost all mania?

Gabe: Maybe, sure, let’s go with yes.

Lisa: OK.

Gabe: I don’t think that I am the only upper middle class white male to fail one day and then suddenly be scared of his shadow. But the addition of delusions of grandeur and mania certainly did not help. But one day I was on top of the world doing extraordinarily well at a very young age. And then I was at the bottom being kicked around like I was garbage. And that hurt a lot. I woke up in a psychiatric hospital where I couldn’t even walk through a door. Who the hell tells Gabe Howard that he can’t walk through a door? That is traumatizing.

Lisa: But did all of this start then?

Gabe: The dialog used to be Gabe, you’re great, Gabe, you’re great, Gabe, you’re great, and now the dialog is like, pfft, you are garbage buddy. It’s very protective. I think that most people have negative self talk to protect them. I, yeah, I think that’s what changed for me.

Lisa: So you literally think that was the turning point? So, like when you were 16 and you’re in high school, you were sitting around with the positive self talk of I’m great, I’m great, I’m great?

Gabe: Well, that’s really tough because I was fat and couldn’t get laid to save my life, I was also a redhead. I was a failed abortion and a carrot top and every other, you know, soulless ginger

Lisa: Well, but so when you say that this is the point where it flipped for me, you’re saying this was the point where I decided I need to have this self-protective attitude. Is that actually true? So you’re telling me that before then you had all this confidence and you were taking joy in things? If you got a promotion or a raise or whatever, you were finding happiness in it? Because I find that hard to believe.

Gabe: I think that you are right, that it was mania. For a period of time, I believed I was successful, I believed that I was happy.

Lisa: You had bouts of extreme depression and suicidality before diagnosis, before that ultimate manic trip, right? How come the mania is the thing that’s imprinted in your mind? How come this other stuff isn’t?

Gabe: The mania felt good. I miss feeling good, but.

Lisa: But you’re remembering that as being your default state when it was not.

Gabe: No, no, it wasn’t.

Lisa: No one has that default state period, much less when they’re younger. So why are you remembering that as being the default state that you can’t get back to?

Gabe: I don’t think I ever had the stability.

Lisa: Well, yeah, obviously.

Gabe: This is the most stable that I’ve ever been, and I think that I believe that stability means not thinking that you’re bad, but also not thinking that you’re good. I think that thinking that you’re good is giving into mania or delusions of grandeur. I think thinking that your bad is giving in to depression or suicidality. So thinking that you’re just meh just

Lisa: But you don’t think that. You don’t think you’re meh.

Gabe: Yeah, I do.

Lisa: You’re in the active neg. No you don’t. You are on active negativity. You are an active badness.

Gabe: Ehhh, I . . . 

Lisa: Ehhh, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Gabe: I disagree, I think that you are.

Lisa: Ok, you’re at the awards ceremony. 

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: You’re not sitting there just like meh, and people are like, oh my God, why aren’t you happy? You are sitting there actively unhappy. You are not at a neutral state.

Gabe: Well, because I stole the award from somebody else, I took from somebody, all of these people are put out because of me. I hurt them in some way.

Lisa: So you’re not in a base level of neutral, you’re always at a base level of negative. You’re always below zero, you’re not at zero.

Gabe: But all of that said, there are moments of joy. When I win that award, I’m so excited.

Lisa: Is that true?

Gabe: Yeah, remember when I got the governors,

Lisa: Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Gabe: Yeah, I was so excited winning that thing, you and I, I found out that I won while on vacation and I called you screaming. I was so happy. Like, like I told all my friends, I was like, ahhh. And then I went to this thing and they did a magazine article. I was in the paper just I, I, I, yeah. I was. And now I’m starting to feel guilty.

Lisa: You’re hurting your rep.

Gabe: Like, like why did I deserve that? And I go back and forth, you know. Sometimes, I have it framed, it’s on the wall. Thank you, Lisa, for framing it. But it took me two years to get it framed. And remember, you found it and it was starting to fall down and get ruined.

Lisa: Um-hmm.

Gabe: And I was like, well, but I’m going to put it in the closet because I just literally left it sit on my desk and the paper actually got bent a little. And you were like, what is wrong with you? And I was like, well, I just I feel guilty that I get an award for doing what other people do and.

Lisa: But they don’t do it. That’s the point.

Gabe: But other people, other people do it, I’m not the only advocate and I’m certainly not the best advocate. Why do I deserve? This also goes back to just I’m so uncomfortable with the idea that I get to be well. How about that? Maybe it’s not negative self talk, maybe I’m a realist? I am only well, because I have health insurance and money and frankly, because I’m white and from a big city and because I ran into you and because my parents aren’t or they knew what, I don’t even know. You and I both agree that one of the primary reasons that I’m well is because I’m lucky. Well, if I forget that, I’m doing a great disservice. So maybe it’s not negative self talk, maybe it’s realistic self talk. It’s reminding me every day not to forget that the only reason I’m here is because I’m lucky. That’s it.

Lisa: Is that serving you, though? Is that making you happy? Is that furthering your goal of staying well?

Gabe: Versus forgetting where I came from? I guess I don’t know what humility looks like. I swear that sometimes I’m like, look, I am incredible at this. And people are like, you need to be humble, OK? All right. That’s fair. All right. You’re right. I don’t want to forget where I came from. I will be humble now. I am OK at this. Oh, my God. You can’t even be happy when you get an award. I’m not good at self-regulating. You tell me to be happy when I get an award. Other people tell me to be humble. Other people, well, I don’t do this for the awards. Do you know how many emails I get from people that are like, well, you’re clearly only doing it for the money? Look, this is how I earn my living and businesses do thrive off money and I like to eat and it costs money to build a podcast. We’re talking into microphones that cost $200. We have to publish on websites that cost hundreds of dollars a month. None of this is free.

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Nothing that we’re doing is free. So I have to make money. Plus I like to eat and go on vacation and I need to earn my keep and pay my mortgage. Well, I’m just doing it because I care about people.

Lisa: Yeah, your heart’s pure.

Gabe: But, well, I care about people, too. Well, no, you don’t, or you’d do it for free. Well, I don’t know what to do.

Lisa: That is a good point, that is fair.

Gabe: Everywhere I look, somebody’s telling me that my behavior is wrong. So I don’t know that I have negative self talk, I just think that my self talk is everybody. I just think I believe what everybody says.

Lisa: But that means you’re searching for external validation.

Gabe: Yes, that’s all I want. I am only doing this so that other people tell me I’m good because I’m incapable of telling myself that I’m good. The end. Hard stop.

Lisa: Wow, I am so much more mentally healthy than you.

Gabe: Which is odd. I mean, we saw it going a different way at the beginning of the show.

Lisa: Yeah, I got to say it because I have a lot of self-confidence, apparently, I’m quite confident in myself and my awesomeness.

Gabe: I mean.

Lisa: Other people’s opinions are not a problem. I do not have a problem with that. When other people tell me stuff, I’m never unsure of myself. They say things and I think, nope, you’re wrong. I don’t second guess myself. And people will say, well, you think you know better than? Yup. Yes, I do. And I don’t doubt that for a moment. Huh. Yay me.

Gabe: All right, Lisa, we’ve established the problem, you know, ruminations, negative self talk. How do we get out of it? One of the things that we talk about a lot on this show is a concept called reframing. And I think this is an excellent opportunity to delve a little deeper. Lisa, for the first time officially, please teach the Not Crazy podcast listeners what reframing is.

Lisa: Reframing, a common therapy trope, is when you frame or express or conceptualize or think about something in a different way. An example of reframing, the one they always give you as the example, is, oh, my car broke down. This is so terrible. This is awful. Or, you can afford a car. You own a car. You’re good. Well, a better example would be my mother had to loan me money to fix my car. Your mother loves you so much that she loaned you money. That’s so great.

Gabe: So obviously, the negatives still exists. The car broke down, but you’re reframing it to focus on the positives, people who helped you. And the fact, of course, that you have a car.

Lisa: You can reframe almost anything.

Gabe: You really, really can.

Lisa: To the point of pointlessness, but for example, I’m not negative and depressing, I’m clear eyed and refreshingly honest.

Gabe: So you can lie with your reframe. That’s important to understand, you don’t want to go too far.

Lisa: So you’re not loud and annoying, you’re confident and exuberant.

Gabe: One of the things that I like about reframing is it’s sort of a fancy way to say a pro and con list. Like, I believe that everything has pros and cons, I don’t care what it is. My wife has pros and cons. I love my wife. Of all the people in the world, I picked her to marry. But is she 100% perfect? No, that’s utter ridiculousness. She has flaws. But obviously, if I focus only on her flaws, well, I’m going to end up with another ex-wife and therefore another podcast. In general, reframing is instead of looking at the negative, it’s looking at the positive. You know, Lisa’s right. You can abuse anything. I reframing.

Lisa: You’re doing it now, you’re doing it right now, Gabe is a little bit overly obsessed with reframing. Whenever I say something negative, you’re like, but how can we reframe that? And just now, people can’t see you, but when you say the words reframing half the time you draw a square in the air with your hands.

Gabe: It’s not a square, it’s a frame.

Lisa: It’s a frame, I know. He actually holds up his hands and draws them in a square shape and is like, no, no, no, you need to reframe as he draws. It’s really annoying, frankly. Like, yeah.

Gabe: Why do you dis, just you know, it’s

Lisa: I don’t dislike it. You just use it a lot.

Gabe: You feel about reframing how I feel about mindfulness, that even though

Lisa: No.

Gabe: Mindfulness has tons of data that shows it works, lots of people love it. It’s supported by literally study after study after study to show that it’s extraordinarily helpful. For whatever reason, I just hate mindfulness. You feel this way about reframing.

Lisa: No, I don’t.

Gabe: Just Every time I say reframing, you roll your eyes. Listen to the tone of your voice. You weren’t just giving an example. You were literally saying in like a mocking singsong voice.

Lisa: Ok, that’s fair. 

Gabe: What is it about reframing that bugs you so much, Lisa?

Lisa: Wow, I am getting annoyed by the completely introspective tone of this podcast. Once again, new revelation I’m having right now. I don’t know what it is that bothers me about it so much. I think you do it too much and you making that hand gesture is really annoying. But why do I think that? Because after all, it is a positive thing and one of the few cognitive-behavioral tools that you are able to utilize effectively. So, yeah. Why do you think I can’t stand it so much?

Gabe: Because you’re mean, I

Lisa: Well. No, no, for real. What do you think?

Gabe: I think in some ways, one of the reasons that you dislike it is because I like it so much. I think it’s sort of a trauma response. It’s kind of like if you’re eating chocolate chip cookies and then you get in a car accident, you can never eat chocolate chip cookies again. Every time you bite into a chocolate chip cookie, you associate that horrible experience. We went through a lot of shit together and we were desperate. And then suddenly somebody recommends this lame New Age technique. And it’s not lame, it’s not New Age. And it’s a tool like anything else. And I think that you just resent the idea that it worked. Or every time I make the quote unquote stupid frame with my fingers, it reminds you of a time in our life that was bad. Focusing on the positive, which is essentially what reframing is, it does help with my negative self talk. My negative self talk says the negative thing. And then I try to remember some of the positives. It’s sort of like Mr. Rogers mom said, you know, how do you watch the news and see all of this horrible things happen on the news? And Mr. Rogers said that his mother said, look for the helpers. When you see all the horrible stuff happening, look for the people running in, look for the people who are helping. The EMT’s, the heroes, the aid workers. Look for the people helping. That’s an example of reframing. Nobody’s saying that the war zone is good. We’re just saying that there are some good things happening. There’s a positive for lack of a better way. But I think you, Lisa, have trouble getting over the fact that, whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re reframing a war zone? No, you need to focus on the war zone. War is bad and horrible and wrong. Don’t you reframe that to there are helping people. Then you’re forgetting the war zone. 

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And you have a right to want to focus on the war zone. Do you know how many things get reframed and we forget about the root cause?

Lisa: And then bad things happen.

Gabe: Exactly, so reframing doesn’t mean forget about the bad thing or forget about the root, cause. It just means look at the bigger picture. You said early on, Lisa, that you were a realist. Is it really realistic to only focus on the negative? Is that what you call realism?

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: But it’s not. Realistically, positive things do happen in war zones. But you believe that by only focusing on your narrative that you’re somehow being realistic. You’re not. You only talk about the horrors and you stay ultra focused on that. And I think that from an advocacy perspective and a mental health perspective, that doesn’t move the needle. People stop listening to you because you’re only being negative and people are looking for a positive. But you think the people that are looking for a positive in a war zone are idiots.

Lisa: I think that looking for the positive in the negative allows people, like you said, to forget the negative and it somehow makes the negative OK in their mind. And it’s all about making themselves more comfortable rather than actually solving any given problem.

Gabe: That is one potential outcome, but you’ve thrown out all the water and the baby because of one potential negative outcome. What about all the positive outcomes of reducing negative self talk? What about all the positive outcomes of being more mentally healthy? What about all the positive outcomes of being able to survive in the world and not being so weighted down by all the negativity that we’re never going to be able to resolve? You want all of that to go away to make sure that every single person knows that the bad thing is happening. How is that going to get us to positivity, or, as you want so desperately, to resolve the negative thing?

Lisa: I understand what you’re saying, you have some good points, but I guess I feel like that’s not a problem. There’s already plenty of people wandering about finding the silver lining. We don’t need more of those people. There’s enough of them; there are too many of them. And once again, focusing on the silver lining forgets the cloud. And I feel like I’m not curmudgeonly, I’m helpful. You’re welcome. Someone has to take on the burden, people. And I am here for you. I’m the one pointing out the cloud is still there and there’s not enough people doing that and somebody has to do it. And it’s my designated job.

Gabe: Who’s going to do your job when you become so mentally unhealthy and mentally unstable that you can’t exist in the world anymore?

Lisa: Yeah, that is a problem.

Gabe: I think about that a lot. You know, one of the classic arguments in is mania good? Somebody will always bring up Van Gogh and they’re like, oh, Van Gogh’s mania allowed him to paint such beautiful pictures and create such beautiful works of art. Look, I don’t know if his mania did or not, as I did not know the man personally, but let’s go ahead and say that it did. Of course, he’s now dead. He died by suicide. He cut off his ear, he traumatized a woman. He was miserable for most of his life. But I guess we got art, so it’s OK?

Lisa: Exactly.

Gabe: If he had got treated, maybe he would have made more art, prettier art, better art, but he would have been around a lot longer to create a lot more art. So I guess the art that we got in that short period of time was good? But after he died, no more art. So I understand what you’re saying about, you know, being a realist and making sure that people remember that it’s not just a silver lining, there’s a cloud. And I do, in fact, think that’s your superpower and we need people like you.

Lisa: Thank you.

Gabe: But you’ve literally said you’re doing this at the expense of your own mental health.

Lisa: Sometimes.

Gabe: You’re allowing the negative self talk to permeate into your personal life and the lives of those around you. And you’re saying that it’s OK because after all, you’re a realist. Isn’t that just more a negative self talk?

Lisa: That is true, it is a problem, it is starting to really hit me with some negative consequences, especially in the last few years. But I just feel like all this call for positivity is just a way for people to be more comfortable and to rationalize away bad things. And notice that all the people who are always going on about positivity have very secure, very comfortable lives. I feel like it’s a way to absolve themselves of responsibility for the rest of the world’s problems because you’re like, oh, no, look, positive things. That means that I don’t need to worry about negative things. I don’t need to donate money. I don’t need to think about who I’m voting for. I don’t need to think about how my actions are affecting our global world.

Gabe: And you get all of this from your negative self talk?

Lisa: I get all of this by telling you what is wrong with The Avengers movie. Yes, it’s true.

Gabe: This is why people don’t want to get rid of their negative self talk because they feel that it is helping them in some way. You have illustrated this perfectly.

Lisa: If you’ll remember, a few years ago, this really, it had really become a problem. And thank you very much, Dr. Todd. I went to therapy and she said the problem you’re having is that you feel like if you weren’t this level of negative, it would be irresponsible. It is irresponsible to not focus on these things. And she said, so let’s look at some things that you could do to make this better, to help things that don’t involve getting yourself so upset.

Gabe: Without it consuming your entire life.

Lisa: Yeah, that. So in the end, I decided that I would send a lot more support to some of the causes that I care about. I don’t want to say that I’m outsourcing my outrage, but it is kind of how I feel about it. It’s like I don’t need to sit at home and get this upset and be angry at the news because I have these other people who are handling that for me, and they’re probably making a lot more progress. Their anger and their action is doing more good than my sitting on my couch and yelling at the television. That has been very helpful.

Gabe: You also added another piece to this in that you started not watching the news.

Lisa: Yeah, I feel bad about it, but it’s really made a big difference.

Gabe: But here’s the thing, though, people hear you stopped watching the news and they’re like aha! She doesn’t know what’s going on in the world.

Lisa: Exactly. How irresponsible.

Gabe: But that’s not true because you still read the news once a day or a couple of times a week from a trusted news source that uses journalistic standards. You stay away from cable news. You stay away from television and radio. You, I forget which news sources you picked, but you read it. It gives you the facts and then that’s it. And then also the charities that you support, they send you information with what they’re doing with your money and your time and your resources. And occasionally they send you advocacy points, you know, letters to send to people. So you feel that they’re keeping watch for you and you’re supporting their ability to do it. So it’s.

Lisa: Yes, that I trust these people to be looking out for the things that I care about. I said to the therapist, Oh my God, these things are upsetting me so much. And she said, why are you exposing yourself to them then? And I thought, what? What? What other option is there? What are you talking about? And she said, why don’t you just not do this to yourself so much? And that had not occurred to me as a choice. But things like don’t read the news several times a day, only look at it from certain sources.

Gabe: Turn off the alerts on your phone.

Lisa: I have found that TV news is much more upsetting, something about the visual. Reading it or listening to the radio is much better, stuff like that, and it has helped a lot. It has helped the negativity quite a bit.

Gabe: It’s all about finding a time and a place for the negative things that need your attention because you don’t want to do nothing. I will say I’ve known Lisa for a long time and I can honestly say that she has done more to help the causes that she cares about in the last three years by supporting these charities than she did the previous three years by being miserable 24/7, yelling at anybody that would listen and screaming at the television on her couch. And I.

Lisa: Well, I was already supporting, but I amped my level up a lot

Gabe: Yeah, you started to do more. You were.

Lisa: Yeah, I started to do more in a more productive channel.

Gabe: Lisa, I care about you very much so I apologize for this big heaping helping of negativity that I’m about to throw at you. But Lisa’s ruminations and self-talk and constant desire to focus on this negativity in the world impacted her relationships because it was all that was in her brain. So Lisa starts just watching media that is constantly talking about what was going on in the world, And Lisa is yelling at her TV, she’s getting mad, she’s reading articles, she’s reading blogs, she’s just. So when we would get together, all she would want to talk about is the negative things that were in her head. And even though we’re agreeing with her, we’re like, we agree with you 100%. No, you don’t understand. Yes, Lisa, we completely agree. No, no, no, no. Tell me why you think is

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Is bad and is good. Tell me why you. And nobody is arguing with her. But because that’s all that’s in her brain. The self talk, the ruminations, she’s become obsessed. We don’t want to be around her. We want to watch TV. We want to have dinner. We can’t have dinner because there’s nothing to talk about with Lisa because she’s not consuming anything else. She’s become so fixated. I want people to understand that not only is the negative self talk hurting you, but it’s hurting the people around you and it’s making them not want to spend time with you. Which, of course, ultimately makes you isolated and alone, giving the negative self talk free reign to work more because you’re not even distracted by people telling you to stop talking about it anymore. 

Lisa: Yeah, it had become a real problem, the therapy was very helpful, these suggestions were very helpful. On the one hand, you think, wow, that’s pretty obvious. So there’s something that was really upsetting you that you were deliberately exposing yourself to multiple times a day? Yes. Yes. I had to pay hundreds of dollars to get a PhD to tell me that and tell me to stop doing it. So on the one hand, I thought, really? Really, I just paid for this advice? But apparently I wasn’t getting it anywhere else. Apparently I had to. And so whenever I start to get worked up, whenever I start to think, oh my God, did you see that? Aaaahhh, oh my God! I have to go online and send a little extra donation. I’m like, OK, there. I sent an extra twenty bucks, it’s good, OK. Obviously that is doing more good than all of my upset was doing, to channel that upset in a different way.

Gabe: Obviously, Lisa, as your friend, I am so glad that you got help for it. I’m so glad

Lisa: I’m actually curious, do you think it’s better now?

Gabe: Yeah, it’s a lot, but do I think you’re all the way there? No, no, I don’t. And that’s the thing, we have to define success, right? Do I think you’re perfect? No, no. Do you know who’s perfect? My grandpa. Like nothing bothers him. He’s like, I got my own life. I got my own business. I’m fine. He’s cool. Do I think that you are that guy? No, I don’t think you can be that guy.

Lisa: But I don’t want to be that guy.

Gabe: Yeah, that’s my point, I think you need to give yourself credit for how far you’ve come, and I think.

Lisa: But do you really think that? Because you tell me I’m really negative all the time. I mean, are you for real saying that it has improved?

Gabe: It has improved,

Lisa: Ok, good.

Gabe: But, Lisa, when you are at a zero and the goal is 100 and you improve to a 50, 50 is still a failure. I think that you do have a ways to go. But one of the things that I am happiest about is that we talk about other stuff.

Lisa: Mostly Marvel movies,

Gabe: That’s true. One of the things that I don’t think people realize is when that negative self talk is in your brain and the rumination is in your brain, you become focused only on your thing. So while you’re constantly talking about your thing, that means my needs are never being met. One of the things that was hardest when it was the worst. Again, I hate using you as an example, because I’ve certainly done this to you.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I want to be fair. But when you’re so stuck in your own head, you turn everything about you. We all get this way where the negative self talk, the ruminations, everything builds up in our own brains that we become bad friends. We’re not helping the people around us. So, Lisa, to your specific question, are you better now? Yeah, because you talk about my stuff without turning it into your thing. That alone is worth the price of admission. And I think that we all need to understand that getting rid of the ruminations and the self talk and all of this, I think it’s good for our own mental health. But I also think that it’s extraordinarily beneficial to the people around us. So, listen, if you’re not willing to get rid of this stuff for your own good, do it for those you love. They deserve to have a well engaged friend or family member. Please, if you don’t want to be mentally healthier, if you don’t want to be happier. Fine, I can’t stop you. But don’t you want to be a good parent, friend, child, family member, bestie, dance partner, whatever to the people around you? Do it for all of them.

Lisa: And, Gabe, that’s exactly why I did it. I could feel how the people around me were reacting, I could see their eyes rolling, I could see them checking out. I could see when they stopped paying attention to me. Of course, at the time, I thought, well, see, look at these fools. Argh! But yeah, I could see that I was pushing away you, my friends, my family, my husband. And apparently the journey is ongoing, but I’ve had some good results.

Gabe: Lisa, the journey is ongoing, just like our podcast. If you love the show, please leave us a review. Use your words. Tell people why you like us. Share us on social media. Rate, subscribe, review. Just do stuff with our podcast pretty much 24/7. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Lisa: And we’ll be back next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details. 

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06.14.2009 Grace Summit Sermon – James 1

Tony Marette: Whassup?! I want to first thank you for my financial status for my internship this summer. The program is 8 weeks long – at the OSU campus. LT – Leadership training – Character growth, Leadership, truth of the Gospel. H2O staff member – worship leader – planning programs and events to the campus and community. Thanks again – if you are interested in donating – thanks – and Go Bucks!

Welcome this morning. We are finishing and bringing to close – Never Waste a Good Crisis – Bringing to a close and starting a series on the Book of James. James really dovetails in with what we have gone through. We have looked at people in the Bible who have gone through many crises. CRISES – the plural of Crisis – It just doesn’t preach as well as CRISISES – but the correct English is Crises.

James talks about going through trials (which is the plural of trial) – (I’ll stop now) – James it the brother of Jesus (not the apostle James). James is one of the most practical books in the Bible – 107 verses and 51 specific, direct commands on how to live our lives. Almost half the verses are commands. 36 quotes/paraphrases of the words of Jesus – The book of James has been called the Proverbs of the New Testament. James is a guys’ guy – just give me the facts – tell me what to do!

Lord, thank You for this opportunity to be with You and worship You. Help us to sing Your praises. We are encouraged by praising You. Thank You for those who share their gifts that we might love and adore You more. We have hearts of appreciation – open to listen to what You have to say. Give Your grace – Act on our behalf – teach us. For the needs we face – we lay our lives before You – You are worthy. May Your Holy Spirit address, comfort, encourage, motivate, and command us today that we might follow You more completely.

James 1:1 James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad, greetings. You can see off the bat – it is not like Paul – OK, Hi, NOW, let’s get down to it: 2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,

He hits it with us right off the bat. You have probably heard messages and songs and books about this verse. For me, this is one of those verses we love to hate. Depending on your state of mind, this verse can be really encouraging or make you feel really lousy.

Sometimes we misunderstand this verse – I’d like to open it up and give us an understanding – what is James really saying here – so this isn’t one way or the other – the bipolar verse of the Bible. It is really those first 4 words – consider it all joy. The folks he is writing to are going through difficult circumstances. This could sound like – OK, just cheer up, everyone! That doesn’t always work.

CONSIDER. What does that mean – He is speaking about – thinking. This is first about our thinking – not about our feeling. When we think of JOY – we think of FEELING. But this is talking about THINKING. This is an act of the mind, not an act of the emotion. This has nothing to do with emotion. This should be a relief. In some circumstances, it is impossible to feel happy in some circumstances (unless you are psychotic or evil!) – there are some circumstances you can’t feel happy about.

Sometimes we misunderstand the word ALL. We go to Thessalonians – In EVERYTHING give thanks… All is referring to the type of joy you are to have. The new translations say – consider it PURE (complete) JOY. There are some things in life that are bad. There are some things that are horrible. We should think of those things as bad, horrible; it is okay to have a righteous anger over the circumstances that come into life sometimes. It is okay to feel deep sorrow in certain circumstances. It is okay to hate evil.

It boils down to the word JOY – our tendency is to see this as happiness. We think of joy. JOY – A state of being rather than an emotion – joy proves quite different from happiness – it does not support the idear that a Christian must smile all the time. Joy can be defined as a settled contentment in every situation. An unnatural reaction of deep steady, unadulterated TRUST in God.

This is different from our typical thinking. It is to trust that God is good when things are difficult – very, very simple.

Various TRIALS – Maintain a trust in God when all these trials come into your life. We all go through difficulties – Yours will not be mine! Our tendency is to think we have it the worst – or we look at someone else and say, Boy, I could never go through that! They are specific for you – God knows and allows things into your life – because He understands and knows you.

I think of three things regarding VARIOUS trials – The difficulties that come in: 1) The suffering because of following Christ. At times, we will go through difficulties because of our faith. 2) The trials that come from living in a fallen world. This is a natural part of life. We live around wicked people; we ourselves are wicked; Our bodies are falling apart. 3) The difficulties we face because of mistakes we have made and sins we have committed. When we realize and recognize it – we can trust that He is good.

This is my own contemporary paraphrase: Maintain a state of trust in God when things go wrong. Calm down – focus on God and believe that He loves you. I can work toward that. In Verse 1 he gives us the what – Consider it all joy – Here is the WHY in verse 3. When difficulties come in… 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have [its] perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

There is something you must understand – this is not a blind hope. There is something you can know – He is not trying to ruin or destroy us by our circumstances – TESTING = PROVE. God tests you because He knows you can pass the test! We tend to think – He wants to show me how terrible I am or what a failure I am. NO! It is because He believes in you!

Tony goes to THE Ohio State University – Great for ministry – Great for football – not so great for professors! You have some wonderful professors – but not at OSU. It makes parents furious – and they make phone calls and say, I am paying you so much money… I hate to embarrass him – but I will. The professor said – I don’t know why they have me teaching this class – I don’t like teaching. Tony: I got a 74% in math! But – the class average was 53%. When the teacher teaches and half the kids fail, where is the problem?! It is with the teacher – he is not instructing in a way students can understand. I think sometimes that is our view of God. But God is PROVING to us that we have what it takes. When you go through a difficult circumstance – You have what it takes.

ENDURANCE! Steadfastness – patience – tenacity. That is a good way of looking at it. Trials produce a faith that is tenacious – that goes after it and continues on. You can’t have a faith like that without difficulties. It is no different than getting strong (I am not an example!) – It breaks the muscles down – so that it can get stronger. Add some steroids and you have great muscles! Endurance is faith on steroids! It is not passive, but engaged waiting! We think of waiting as a boring thing. Endurance is ‘Faith Stretched Out.’ The reality is life is a series of difficulties. Jesus said life would have many difficulties. (By many trials and tribulations you will enter the kingdom of God.) We are to steadily move forward – not be life on a rollercoaster.

4 And let endurance have [its] perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Testing – Endurance – stretched faith. Let it have its effect. We say – Enough! – then we look for improper way out of the trial. LET IT HAVE ITS EFFECT! Allow it to work inside of you. Go deep inside and let it work in your life rather than looking for a way out. For some it is alcohol or escaping into TV. If we are setting our minds on the shelf, we are not allowing God’s work to have its effect in our life.

Henri Nouwen – Talks a lot about the personal inner life. We need to allow God – you need time of quiet in life – where you can allow God to work in your heart – where you let God in and let Him point out what is going on inside of you. We are so action/DO/ oriented in our lives. We see prayer as speaking to God, but how much time do we spend in quiet listening for God? Jesus went to a mountain to pray – whenever there was something significant – Jesus went to be with God. We skip the letting God work in us.

When we are going through difficulties, God is trying to complete us. COMPLETE – PERFECT – MATURE – God is maturing us. What we see in this passage – God’s ultimate goal is our perfection – that won’t take place here, but in heaven. Life is this series of difficulties and trials – and eventually we will be complete in heaven. For those who James was writing to – had more of an impact than it probably would us. Their difficulties were such that they just wanted to go and be with Christ. Think of the spirituals written by the slaves – they really spoke of heaven. Our lives, for the most part, aren’t that terrible – but our goal is heaven and we need to train ourselves to think about being with God. This may be the day we go to be with Him – that is the ultimate goal – the end of the journey. James gives us a pattern 1) Tests will come – not if but when – specific and personal to you. God has your trial and test. 2) We are to maintain trust 3) Understand that He believe we can pass the test 4) As we keep going, we become stronger 5) There will be another test after this one!

James 1:5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. Wisdom – to the Jews, it meant “Skills for living” – how to live to be pleasing to God. We think about intelligence. Our tendency – when we are in the midst of a trial – is to ask WHY am I going through this?! But the right response is – I am going through this – What now?! In light of my circumstances, how should I live? When we face difficulties, God can be trusted to give us an understanding how to live in the face of our current circumstances. James 1: 6 But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 [being] a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Our success of failure is determined by our faith, confidence, trust that God is good and loves us. In every situation we face, God is good and loves us and has our best. When you are going through it – it is hard to believe it.

James 1: 9 But let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position; 10 and [let] the rich man [glory] in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind, and withers the grass; and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.

Now he throws that in there and we think – where does that come in? For those James is writing to – the primary trial is POVERTY. They are living in destitution – because of their faith, in many instances. We will look at the concept of the rich and the poor in a few weeks. Closing this section – v 12 12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; This is a beatitude – He got this from his brother – 12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which [the Lord] has promised to those who love Him.

For once he has been approved – do you see that? You will get an A! He points to this concept of life – he is trying to change their perspective – the goal is after this world – what we are living for. Yes, there will be growth and maturity here – but in the end, the true reward comes after this life and that is the reward we should live for and grow toward. Likes: 0 Viewed:

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