Would you open your heart to a bot? Tell it all your problems? Look to a piece of code, a computer program, for high-quality mental healthcare? Some people have said yes and the results are hard to ignore. Dartmouth University test subjects who sought help from Therabot, a generative AI chatbot, showed a 51% reduction in depression symptoms, 31% for anxiety, 19% for eating disorders. Dr. Nicholas Jacobson, who led the study, says people really bonded with Therabot, called it Thera for short, and would check in with it frequently. But can a bot really provide meaningful advice and therapy if it’s not a human being? Are you now interested in Therabot or more likely than ever to stay far away?

This episode mentions ELIZA, an early ancestor of Therabot from 1966. You can take Eliza for a spin here.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

If you were brought up in a family or a culture that never recognized, discussed, or processed things like depression and trauma, you may have learned to simply hide those difficult feelings away and simply act as if everything’s great. You can be a high achiever, striving perfection, all to keep away demons that you’ve never really faced. Your act can be so good that it even fools you. For a while, anyway. Until it doesn’t. And then things can get very ugly. Psychologist Dr. Margaret Rutherford coined the term Perfectly Hidden Depression several years ago in a blog post that instantly went viral, filling her inbox with people shocked to recognize their own lives in what she described. She joins us to talk about PHD, how to recognize it in yourself, and what to do about it.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Cameron Esposito has many titles: hugely successful standup comedian, actor in television and film, writer, podcast host. After a recent rehab stay led to a mental health diagnosis, she has realized that she’s also a person with bipolar disorder, type II. Cameron has a new special, Four Pills, that’s part stand-up comedy and part reflection on the circumstances that led to this discovery as well as thoughts on what life as a treated person for bipolar will mean going forward. Cameron Esposito joins us for a very funny and deeply personal conversation about mental health, medication, comedy, and the road ahead.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Statistics say that 23% of Americans are currently living with some form of mental illness. For most people, that calls for reaching out for help and receiving treatment and advice on management. But if you’re an FAA-approved airline pilot, disclosing that you have something like a depressive disorder or an anxiety problem can mean a temporary pause or permanent end to your entire career. Of course, having a mental illness, not disclosing or getting treatment, and flying anyway presents a variety of problems as well. Dr. Helen Ouyang wrote about this in a recent New York Times Magazine article and joins us to unpack it all.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Hanif Abdurraqib is a MacArthur Fellow, accomplished poet, and critically lauded author of numerous books, including There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, which is now out in paperback. He’s also a person who deals with major depressive disorder and numerous anxiety disorders. In a revealing, positive, and practical interview, Hanif talks about the numerous ways he cares for his mental health issues by both taking care of himself and building a strong community of other people around him to lean on.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
 

Things are scary in this country these days for a lot of people. There is turmoil in the government, shakiness in the economy, and a deep divide over what America even means anymore. In times of upheaval, it’s a good idea to reach out to friends, see how they’re holding up, help carry their burdens and sorrows, and see what wise advice they can share about perseverance. We do this on our show from time to time. In this mini-episode, we check in on a good friend of the show Open Mike Eagle. He’s a very popular rapper, podcast host of What Had Happened Was, comedy person, and all around great guy.

It's the final week of the 2025 Max Fun Drive! Check out the fun thank you gifts and become a member of Max Fun!

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

We’ve been seeing an influx of new listeners recently. It’s very exciting. Thank you for that and we’re delighted that you’ve joined us. So we thought we’d take a moment and explain what the show is all about and who it’s for. Spoiler alert: it’s for everyone, including you, regardless of your mental health history.

It's the final week of the 2025 Max Fun Drive! Check out the fun thank you gifts and become a member of Max Fun!

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

“I’m very kind to Jim, I’m trying to take good care of Jim, I’m trying to love Jim,” says musician Jim James of the band My Morning Jacket. The kindness he’s showing Jim, himself, is a relatively new thing, he says, after a long time spent kind of beating up on the guy. As My Morning Jacket releases its new album, is, Jim reflects back on issues such as a need for validation through achievement, alcoholism, and depression. And he shares what he’s learned through intense therapy, meditation, EMDR, gratitude, and family systems therapy.

It's the final week of the 2025 Max Fun Drive! Check out the fun thank you gifts and become a member of Max Fun!

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at [email protected].

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

In this bonus content edition of Depresh Mode, We’re joined by some Maximum Fun all-stars for some very light-hearted and delightfully competitive games that are as informative as they are silly.
 

Our competitors:

• Justin McElroy of My Brother, My Brother, and Me, Adventure Zone, and Sawbones
• Hal Lublin of Tights & Fights and We Got This
• Laura Swisher, senior producer overseeing about a million Max Fun podcasts

Who will win the game Antidepressant, Pokemon, or State Fair Food? Who will emerge victorious in Google Scholar or Member of Parliament/Funkadelic? Can our panel tell the difference between an emo band lyric, a quote from The Simpsons’ Moe, or a line heard on Depresh Mode? Tune in and find out!

It’s not MaxFunDrive without a wild kickoff spectacular! Former real-life VJ and host of MTV's Spring Break 1999, Dave Holmes, takes your favorite MaxFun hosts through some wacky ‘90s- and Spring Break-themed mini games!!

Featuring: Dave Holmes, Jeremy Bent, Oscar Montoya, Dimitry Pompée, Tom Lum, Ellen Weatherford, Alex Schmidt, Brenda Snell, Drea Clark, Alonso Duralde, Dan McCoy, Jordan Morris, Manolo Moreno, Ella Hubber, Caroline Roper, Ella McLeod, John-Luke Roberts, Justin McElroy, Clint McElroy, Mike Cabellon, Sierra Katow, Hal Lublin, Danielle Radford, John Moe, Christian Dueñas, Christian Duguay.