WE'RE BAAAA-AAAAAACK!

Well, almost. For now, Renée is back with an update. And, as with all episodes in which Renée is the guest, this one is unplanned, unedited, and a little unhinged. It's exactly what you're used to! 

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You know the drill: unplanned, unscripted, a bit unhinged. Renée has big news about some big changes. We'll let her explain...

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Claire found a glass pipe at home when she was 10 years old and brought it to school. At that age, she had no frame of reference for her parents' addictions. "When other people were like, 'Dude, what's your mom on?' it really started to sink in," she explained to Renée. The violence and instability at home led Claire to a lot of risky behavior as an adolescent, and at 16 she was a pregnant high school sophomore. Spoiler alert: Claire is now married to a supportive partner; she found her career passion; she has a beautiful relationship with her two teenage kids. How did she get there? Well, as you can imagine, there is quite a story in between, and Claire is great at telling it; she is smart, energetic, funny, and vulnerable...everything we could want in a guest! Her openness and intelligence make it easy for Renée to get in there and sort through the clinical content. Claire has done a lot of healing work already and is better than most at self-care, so she is understandably flummoxed by an uptick in her CPTSD symptoms. They talk moms, marriage, money, movement, and more as Renée explains Claire's recent symptom surge, outlines the steps to resolving it, and sneaks in a last minute conversation about the dangers of "self discipline." Plus, she answers a listener question about cheating in the intro!

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"Things started to get hard...when I realized there were beauty standards," LJ told Renée. LJ was adopted from South Korea by when she was 6 months old. Growing up in Vermont, she found herself paradoxically situated between the progressive political spirit of the Northeast and its pervasive, problematic whiteness. LJ is a mental health counselor and smart as a whip, so she is able to explain beautifully the complicated intersections of her racial and sexual identity development. As she does, she and Renée discuss everything from fetishization to white fragility to how the state of Vermont is "inherently queer." LJ makes so many fascinating points that Renée almost forgets she is supposed to help her! Specifically, LJ came to the show wondering how to assert herself in conversations with invalidating friends and family; she is struggling to break the codependent pattern of worrying more about the other person's comfort than she does about herself. There are a lot of layers for Renée to cut through on the way to LJ's answer, and cut through them she does! The path is a little more abstract and nuanced than usual, which gets Renée even more excited than usual, leading to an ending that is just as exciting as usual. This one is heady in the best possible way.

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Megan's earliest memory is of being abused, and that abuse remained a defining feature of her childhood, along with significant neglect. She spent part of her childhood in foster homes, part with her grandparents, and part navigating her mother's mental illness and addiction. Her history is so traumatic that Renée can barely control her reactions (and, you know, she barely tries), but Megan is remarkably resilient and ready to sort out the horrors of her upbringing and the abusive relationships that followed. In the process, she and Renée discuss neurodivergence, intergenerational trauma, fragile egos, addiction, childbirth, and more - and somehow they do a lot of laughing. Megan has so much content, and she delivers it with stunning cycle-breaker spirit, making it that much easier for Renée to map out her path to healing. There is a lot to chew on in this one, and it leads to a gloriously happy ending. Plus, Renée answers some listener questions in the intro!

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Imani came to the show to talk about America's favorite symptom: anxiety. In the last few months, the anxiety that Imani has suffered since middle school has increased significantly, and she has no idea why. The question is particularly tricky because Imani has much less content than our usual guest. Renée is up for the challenge, though! She investigates, combing through Imani's childhood and adolescence, ultimately separating her functional anxiety from her dysfunctional anxiety, her trauma from her stress, and her physiological symptoms from her psychological symptoms. By the end, Imani has a comprehensive plan for resolving her layers of distress. If you need a refresher course on anxiety, this is the episode for you. Plus, Renée delivers a new chapter of The Rodent Chronicles in the intro!

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The laughter starts at the very beginning this week. Mike is a brilliant storyteller with a particularly compelling voice, and he makes Renée laugh - a lot. But don't let his buoyant humor fool you: Mike has been through it. "I would just sit at home and cry," he explains of the long stretches of time in his life when he has been lost in emotional pain. To make matters more difficult, Mike cannot pinpoint the exact source of his distress. He and Renée sort through the delusions, depressions, and difficulties that have defined his three decades of life and find that there is likely a complicated knot of childhood trauma, intergenerational trauma, and neurological injury that led to Mike's unusual symptoms - and ultimately to his psychotic break. They talk masculinity, mania, mushrooms, dreams, diagnoses, and more while Renée organizes Mike's experiences and symptoms, finally pulling it all together into a unique formulation. This one is different in the best possible way, thanks largely to Mike's engaging personality, beautiful candor, and excellent insight. Plus, Renée makes an exciting announcement in the intro and answers some listener questions about trauma and memory. This one is equal parts learning and laughter, just the way we like it.

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When Hannah was seven months old, her parents sent her to live with a foster mother, and it would be four years before she was reunited with her family. The strangest part about this is that it wasn't strange at all; at the time, this was a common arrangement for Nigerian families in the UK. Hannah's story continues to be unpredictable and unique: she went from military school and the Merchant Marines to earning an MFA in Creative Writing and hosting a cannabis literary club. She comes to the show because she wants to stop making herself smaller for others' comfort. Hannah's intelligence, drive, and self-possession are abundantly clear when she talks - so what's going on? As Renée searches for the source of Hannah's discomfort, it becomes clear that there is much more trauma in Hannah's story than is immediately evident. They sort through the layers of familial, cultural, and racial variables to isolate the trauma strands and identify the pieces that are blocking Hannah's growth, ultimately identifying the healing tools and wellness strategies that will uncover Hannah's voice. And then just when it seems like the conversation is over, Hannah brings some fabulous last-minute content; they talk sleep hygiene, the 7 types of rest, revenge procrastination, burnout, activism, and more. Plus, Renée talks about moving, depression, and mice - yes, mice -  in the intro. This one is all over the place, in the best possible way.

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"I sometimes wish I could turn it off," Rafael told Renée about his emotional intensity. It's hard to believe when you first hear him - his energy is lighthearted and gentle, and his story starts out relatively uneventful - but Rafael is only recently recovered from polysubstance addiction. A series of difficult losses sent him seeking relief with self-medication, and soon he was taking Xanax bars before family Seders. Now at 27 and with two years of sobriety under his belt, Rafael finds himself struggling with feelings of worthlessness. He came to the show hoping Renée can help him excavate the deep self-loathing that fed and was fed by his past addiction. She can, and by the end they have a starting point for his healing as well as a few other goodies, including tips for navigating a love-language mismatch. Plus, Renée talks mushrooms in the intro and teaches a new strategy for resolving anxiety at the break.

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This episode talks in detail about rape.

"I've actually been really scared to talk about these things," Paige told Renée as she started to tell her story and lose her breath. Paige had a relatively happy childhood and an appropriately "boy crazy" adolescence. Unfortunately, her first boyfriend was so abusive and controlling that, until recently, she kept the details of the five-year relationship buried far away from her consciousness. Now a happily married, 32 year-old mother of three, Paige finds herself suddenly overcome by the trauma - memories, feelings, all of it -- and she has come to the show hoping Renée can help her stabilize. Her story is intense and it was hard for her to tell it, but her bravery is stunning. Renée helps Paige understand her intense symptoms and new triggers, and by the end Paige not only has her breath back, but she also has hope and a plan.

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