Your Mental Breakdown

Drew is experiencing the oxytocin honeymoon feeling with his partner as they are now brand new parents. He acknowledges the feelings as well as the triggers for how he was parented. Doug challenges Drew to think through his ideas and ideals of what it means to be “the man of the house.” Drew may have baby brain, but he is expressing his emotions well. He is able to sit with them and process them in session with Doug.

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Doug and Kenzie go back in time to Sarah’s 2nd session. The breakdown for this episode happens in real time throughout the session. Sarah begins to tell some of her story about growing up in a cult. Doug acknowledges her strength and resilience in the “survival” of her experiences while paving the way to work towards the “thrival” of her life going forward. We explore Sarah’s parenting style and Doug hints at the parallel of how Sarah can heal through re-parenting herself.  

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Sarah is confronted with her past trauma history after learning that a parent at her child’s school knows about Sarah's upbringing in a cult. She navigates a conversation to clear the air because that parent is reluctant to allow her child over to Sarah’s rumored “cult house.” Doug acknowledges that Sarah handled the situation without going into “justice warrior” mode, even though her emotions were triggered. Sarah says that she’s glad to have had that conversation with a year of therapy under her belt. She’s come a long way and is now embracing being a trauma survivor – without feeling like a victim. Because, “How can you victimize somebody for being victimized?”

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Doug and Kenzie go back in time to Drew’s first therapy session - and their breakdown happens in real time throughout the session. They have the benefit of listening to him then while knowing where he is now in his therapeutic treatment and progress years later. You can listen along with them to this initial meeting as Drew shares some of his history and Doug lays the groundwork for their future work. We hear the beginnings of some of the analogies that Drew and Doug use throughout his journey in therapy. 

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Join us for a personal and open conversation with two very special guests: actress and comedian, Maria Bamford, and podcast host extraordinaire, Georgia Hardstark. These amazing women, whose memoirs have each reached the New York Times bestsellers list, chat with Doug and Kenzie in this intimate and vulnerable episode. They discuss their perspectives and experiences as public figures being authentic, transparent, and outspoken about mental health and mental illness. 

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Maria Bamford is an actress, comedian, and the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult. She is the star of four hour-long standup specials and the surreal, semi-autobiographical, Lady Dynamite, about a comedian who suffers a nervous breakdown.

Georgia Hardstark is the co-host of the true crime-comedy podcast, My Favorite Murder, and the co-founder of the Exactly Right Podcast Network. She and her co-host, Karen Kilgariff, wrote a New York Times bestselling joint memoir, Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered: The Definitive How-to Guide. 

Doug and Kenzie go back in time to Sarah’s first therapy session - and their breakdown happens in real time throughout the session. They have the benefit of listening to her then while knowing where she is now in her therapeutic treatment and progress one year later. You can listen along with them to this initial meeting as Sarah shares some of her history and Doug lays the groundwork for their future work. Sarah acknowledges that she’s spent a lifetime compartmentalizing, but doesn’t truly have a handle on everything. We hear the beginnings of some of the analogies that Sarah and Doug use throughout her journey in therapy. 

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We’re back from our summer break, and getting right back into it with Drew and his brand new baby. We hear a lot in this session that Drew needs to dump out. He is feeling like he’s not enough - as a dad, a partner, and a person not taking care of his own needs. Drew struggles to find balance and expresses feeling uncomfortable in the extremely lukewarm middle. He says he’s done himself dirty over the last week because he let his fears outweigh his courage. He isn’t loving how he’s been present in moments, which is magnified now with a newborn. Being a new dad also helps Drew draw a link to how he was parented by his mom. Doug helps him reevaluate what being effective means. Drew acknowledges that he isn’t free falling the way he used to, and that he is happy to unload in therapy. 

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Doug throws a little science and neural linguistic programming at Kenzie to demonstrate how using certain language in session with clients can help in their pursuit of change. Kenzie and Doug highlight Sarah’s progress as it’s becoming more natural and instinctive for her to ask for help when she needs it. Sarah acknowledges the evolution of her relationship to control and boundaries. She continues to explore the idea from her last session about the rigidity of her religion of data. Sarah feels progress, and she still feels stress and anxiety, as she notes, “I don’t feel unrelaxed.” Doug introduces Spoon Theory to help understand our relationship to the energy and bandwidth we have in a given day.

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Mentioned in this Episode: 

Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino

Kenzie is jacked up on caffeine and we’re getting existential in this one. In the session, Drew emotionally retells the story of the birth of his child and the traumatic experience he went through in the hospital. Along with a new baby boy, comes a heaping dose of existential anxiety. Doug bears witness and helps Drew process an emotional release. He already feels a parental responsibility for his child’s life, and with it, he also feels a real fear of death for the first time in his life. Now more than ever, Drew has a deep appreciation for the preciousness of life and a motivation to be truly present for moments as they happen.

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Doug and Kenzie discuss the hotly debated topic of whether or not repressed memories are real. In the session, Sarah revisits some traumatic memories of growing up in the cult. As she moves towards her own emotional experience, Doug helps explain her dissociation and offers tools with an intellectual understanding of her trauma response. Sarah can see it objectively by looking at a sibling’s rigidity as a similar but different trauma response, then she applies that same lens to herself. It’s a back door therapeutic technique to help build her compassion for self. They are laying the groundwork for making her feel safe and supported before going too deep into the raw emotion. Doug and Kenzie break down taking this route to process complex childhood trauma rather than the direct emotional route.

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