Dysfunctionally Yours

I Don't Want That Anymore.

Remember the life you thought you wanted at 20? The career, the relationship, the big plans, the person you swore you'd become?

Yeah...about that.

This week on Dysfunctionally Yours, Brittany and Chris are talking about changing your mind, outgrowing old dreams, redefining success, and realizing that the things you once desperately wanted might not fit the person you've become.

From marriage and career ambition to complicated family relationships, friendships, and protecting your peace, we're asking: When did changing your mind start feeling like failure?

Brittany loves the responsibilities Chris wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Chris found happiness in a life his younger self never imagined. And somewhere between the existential questions, questionable analogies, and completely unnecessary commentary, we discover that maybe growing up isn't about becoming who you planned to be.

Maybe it's about finally figuring out who you actually are.

Real conversations. Unfiltered opinions. A little dysfunction.

Because you're allowed to change your mind. Even about the things you once wanted more than anything.

Dysfunctionally Yours — Laughing Through the Chaos.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide attempts, family trauma, and difficult relationships.

Friendship is complicated. Add mental health struggles, grief, boundaries, and a little emotional baggage, and suddenly loving someone isn't always the easy part.

This week, Brittany and Chris explore what it means to show up for people when life gets heavy—especially when you're carrying your own struggles at the same time.

From knowing when to extend grace (and when you've extended too much), to having the uncomfortable conversations that real friendships sometimes require, we're talking about the delicate balance between compassion, accountability, and self-preservation.

Because sometimes you're the friend who needs support. Sometimes you're the friend who's running on empty. And sometimes? You're both.

Plus, our weekly Ache & Relief brings a missing dustpan, workplace frustrations, big career celebrations, and some honest reflections on life's uncertainties.

It's vulnerable, a little uncomfortable, occasionally ridiculous, and exactly the kind of conversation we love having.

Dysfunctionally Yours — Laughing Through the Chaos. 💜

New episodes every Monday.

What makes something actually worth the money?

Brittany and Chris compare the things they’ll happily spend on, the things they absolutely won’t, and the purchases that make the other person ask, “You spent HOW much?!”

From $7 coffee and expensive haircuts to groceries, travel, dogs, student loans, and some suspiciously specific outdoor gear 👀, they get into the difference between need it, want it, and worth it.

Brittany also opens up about finally getting out from under years of debt—and why she can regret the debt without regretting what put her there.

Because sometimes the financially smart decision and the right life decision aren't necessarily the same thing.

And no, this is absolutely not financial advice. Have you met us?

Dysfunctionally Yours — laughing through the chaos.

Narcissist. Trauma. Triggered. Toxic. Red flag. Self-care.

We have more language than ever to describe what we're feeling, what we've experienced, and how other people affect us—which should mean we're better at communicating...right?

Well. Maybe.

This week, Brittany and Chris are talking about the words we've overused, watered down, changed, and possibly completely ruined. Chris brings love and masculine to the table, Brittany comes armed with narcissist, trauma, and triggered, and somehow a game of Keep It or Timeout turns into a much bigger conversation about labels, context, and what happens when the label replaces the story. 

Because sometimes it really is trauma. Sometimes someone really is gaslighting you. Sometimes something really is a red flag.

But sometimes...we might need to ask one more question before deciding we know the whole story.

Plus: Chris may abandon the country and send a plane back for his dogs, Brittany witnesses a bird sexually harass a woman, society temporarily loses custody of several words, and apparently a dead chicken can perfectly summarize your emotional state.

Language is evolving. We're trying to keep up.

Come laugh through the chaos with us.

Well, since you asked…

You had questions. We put them in a pile, shuffled them up, and answered them with absolutely no preparation—which, in retrospect, may have been a questionable decision.

This week, we're revisiting things we've said on the podcast, answering follow-ups, accepting a little listener pushback, and discovering that some of you remember what we've said better than we do.

We talk about being “too much,” trauma and identity, breaking generational cycles, relationships that can be right to leave and still hurt, authenticity, self-deprecating humor, birthdays, AirPods, Chris's deeply concerning beliefs about cruise ships…and somehow, the weather.

There are laughs, a few unexpectedly vulnerable answers, and at least one moment where Chris realizes the questions are making him reflect on his own life.

So apparently you've been listening.

Dysfunctionally Yours — laughing through the chaos.

For years, I’ve been willing to say the word.

Suicide.

I’ve talked about my own attempts. I’ve talked about losing my brother Chase. I’ve talked about depression, survival, grief, and all the messy shit in between.

But this September, someone else said it—and I realized how alone I had felt carrying the conversation.

So I sat down by myself and recorded this.

This is a deeply personal conversation about the three places from which I have experienced suicide: the person who wanted to die, the mother trying to keep her child alive while parenting another child through the wreckage, and the sister left behind after suicide.

It’s also about where I am now: 21 years since my last attempt, still living with depression, still needing help sometimes, and learning that recovery was never going to mean becoming immune to struggling again.

Most importantly, it’s about something it took me a very long time to understand:

I matter.

I mattered before the career, the podcast, the people I’ve helped, the children I’ve watched grow, or any of the other “receipts” I can point to now.

And those 21 years?

They aren't 21 years of not dying.

They're 21 years of living.

This episode contains honest discussion of suicide, suicide attempts, self-injury, suicide loss, and parenting through a suicidal crisis, without graphic details. Listen when you’re in a place where this conversation is right for you.

In the U.S., call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Thetrevorproject.org

Silence isn’t awareness. It’s okay to say the word.

We inherited more than trauma.

We spend a lot of time talking about the dysfunction we carry from childhood — but what about the things that helped us survive it? The people who made us feel safe? The lessons worth keeping? The good things we actually want to pass on?

Inspired by a conversation about Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCEs), Brittany sits down with an unexpected guest — her son Corbyn — to look at the other side of generational trauma.

They talk about growing up around addiction, creating a safe home, learning what not to repeat, becoming the safe adult for someone else, and why acknowledging something good doesn’t minimize something painful.

And having Brittany’s adult son sitting across from her creates a perspective neither of them quite expected: what happens when you break a cycle…and the next generation can tell you what they inherited instead?

Also, apparently Brittany’s mother, The Rattlesnake, packed a damn good school lunch. Two things can, in fact, be true. 😂

This hurt me.

Risk can be inherited. Resilience can be inherited too.

🎙️ Dysfunctionally Yours — laughing through the chaos.

Sometimes adulthood isn’t choosing between right and wrong. Sometimes it’s choosing between two versions of hard.

This week, Brittany and Chris get into the decisions that change our lives: staying or leaving, starting over, choosing comfort or taking the risk, listening to your gut when your gut has historically made some questionable fucking decisions, and figuring out how much of a vote everyone else should get in your life.

But the conversation eventually lands somewhere bigger:

What if you make the right decision…and it still hurts?

You can grieve something and still know it isn’t for you anymore. You can miss what you left without needing to go back. And something that was once exactly what you needed can stop being right for the person you’ve become.

Hard doesn’t always mean wrong.

And apparently neither does abruptly disappearing from your own podcast due to technical difficulties. 😂

Just another week at Dysfunctionally Yours.

They said, “Just do it—you’ll feel better afterward.”

Okay…but what if we did the thing and now we’re just more tired?

Brittany is solo this week (in an owl onesie and under-eye patches, naturally) talking about motivation, the pressure to push through, and why “I don’t wanna” sometimes deserves a little more attention.

When is it worth doing the thing anyway? When is “I don’t want to” actually enough? And when are we calling it that because we’re avoiding something uncomfortable?

Sometimes showing up feels great. Sometimes it costs exactly as much energy as you thought it would. And sometimes the win is simply: I didn’t wanna. I did it anyway. It’s done.

No inspirational breakthrough required.

Watch your mouth-especially when you’re talking to yourself.

This week, Brittany and Chris are talking about the power our words actually have: the shitty things we tell ourselves, the comments other people made years ago that we’re still carrying around, and the things we’ve said when we were hurt that we wish we could take back.

Where does negative self-talk come from? When does someone else’s opinion become part of our identity? And if one careless comment can stick with someone for decades… what can one genuinely kind one do?

We’re talking about the words that hurt, the ones that heal, breaking generational patterns, learning to give ourselves the same grace we give everyone else-and why Chris’s fitness watch apparently woke up and chose violence.

Oh, and Ache & Relief includes Scotland, the plague, and… Brittany went on a DATE?!

Yeah. We know. Chris was shocked too. 😂

Watch Your Mouth: The Power of Words — because not every thought deserves to become a belief, and not every word someone gave you deserves permanent residence in your head.