Episode 29
Car shopping in Florida is a scam — I have receipts!
Buying a car in Florida shouldn’t feel like psychological warfare, but apparently it does. I’m just trying to replace my family car without losing my mind — or my sense of humour — in the process.
Between fake add-ons, hidden dealer fees, and salespeople who can’t stop lying, car shopping in Florida has become a full-time trust exercise.
In this episode, I share what it’s really like for someone who barely leaves the house enough to justify owning shoes, to navigate car buying in Florida while trying to stay honest, barefoot, and only mildly unhinged.
Stuff that helps you become awesome even if you're different: https://stan.store/elletwo
My grown up job: https://lbeehealth.com/
Timestamped summary
00:00 "Car Shopping Misery"
05:40 "Frustrations with Car Salesmen"
06:59 Car Dealership Troubles
11:09 "Shoes, Cars, & Parenting"
15:31 "Pinstriping Package Scam"
16:24 Therapy, Cars, and Existential Questions
19:45 "Patient Isn't Always the Sick"
25:25 Evaluating Therapy's Effectiveness
26:11 "Therapy Communication and Trust"
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Transcript
So I made a fake email address. I feel like somebody has sucked all the
Speaker:joy out of my life. I'm literally asking to pay.
Speaker:I want to give you money, but I don't want you to lie about it
Speaker:in the process. And I'm like, I'm
Speaker:just gonna get a bike, because fuck this. This is awful.
Speaker:All right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record, because that feels right.
Speaker:Okay, I'm pressing record. Boop. Hi,
Speaker:everybody. I'm Lauren Howard. I go by L2. Yes,
Speaker:you can call me L2 every. Everybody does. It's a long story. It's actually not
Speaker:that long a story, but we'll save it for another time. Welcome to
Speaker:Different Not Broken, which is our podcast on
Speaker:exactly that. That there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling
Speaker:broken, and the reality is you're just different, and that's fine.
Speaker:I need to replace my car. There were a handful of things that we did
Speaker:not consider well when we
Speaker:adopted house horses, and
Speaker:one of them was transporting
Speaker:the house horses, which to me, like, I just
Speaker:throw them in the backseat and let them wreak havoc all over each other. I
Speaker:don't care. My husband's OCD does not permit that.
Speaker:We need apparently, more order and less slobber all over
Speaker:every corner of the car, to which I'm like, I have a car. I'm gonna
Speaker:use it for whatever car things I need it for. And he has this thing
Speaker:about not having dog slobber everywhere, which I understand
Speaker:in theory, but, like, does life really allow for that? Like, when
Speaker:you're just living your life, do we have that much time to worry about dog
Speaker:slobber? So we are car shopping,
Speaker:and I know that car shopping is a universally
Speaker:miserable experience, at least in the US I don't know if it's better
Speaker:anywhere else in the world. I hope it is. I hope that. This is, like,
Speaker:shitty healthcare. This is just, like, a thing that we have.
Speaker:But it has been, like, every time we go through another
Speaker:day of it, I go home, and I feel like somebody has sucked all
Speaker:the joy out of my life. I'm like, I'm just gonna get a
Speaker:bike, because, fuck this. This is awful. It's always
Speaker:like, basically, now you buy a car via email, which is fine. Like, you
Speaker:shouldn't go to the dealership and just buy a car unless, I don't know,
Speaker:it just is not a thing you should do, because you will get screwed. Even
Speaker:negotiating by email is just a bloody nightmare.
Speaker:And I realized that it's that it's just this, like,
Speaker:it feels like a minefield. It feels like you're walking into a
Speaker:minefield every time you have to have these conversations. And no matter
Speaker:what is happening, every time you turn around,
Speaker:somebody's standing there waiting to screw you over. And I do not exist
Speaker:well in those environments. Like, if you come to me for a service,
Speaker:I'm going to tell you exactly how much the service costs. I'm going to tell
Speaker:you why it can't cost less. I'm going to tell you the ways that maybe
Speaker:it could cost less if these things happen. I'm going to explain to you your
Speaker:insurance coverage I'm going to do. Everything's up front.
Speaker:There's nothing hidden. I'm not going to. There's no way that I can
Speaker:change. Like, the things are the way they are, what they are.
Speaker:And I know it's not always that way in healthcare, but that is just the
Speaker:way that I have to operate.
Speaker:And I have realized in the last several weeks that being forced to operate
Speaker:in a existence that does not work that
Speaker:way is bad for my mental health. Among
Speaker:other things. Like, holy shit.
Speaker:So you email and the first thing that they want is to get your
Speaker:phone number. First thing they say is, well, can you give me your phone number
Speaker:and I'll call you. No, because then you're gonna harass me by phone and I
Speaker:know you're gonna harass me by phone and you're gonna text me constantly. So
Speaker:I made a fake email address. It's not a fake email address. It's a really
Speaker:address, but it's an email address that is the only, like, I don't use it
Speaker:for anything else. They're not gonna get any information from it. It's not in their
Speaker:systems or if it is in their systems, it's because of the last time we
Speaker:went car shopping. And I actually have a couple of them now because for some
Speaker:reason, like a bunch of the emails weren't going through. And so I was like,
Speaker:well, I can just test it out with a new email. I even made only
Speaker:a fake name to see what happens. Anyway, I'm like incognito, trying to shop for
Speaker:cars, so these people don't bother me. But I do have an old email
Speaker:that I use very infrequently. So I was like, well, I don't really care if
Speaker:they have that one. And so I used that one for a couple of requests
Speaker:to get more information. And literally as soon as I sent it
Speaker:without, I don't put my actual phone number on anything. As soon as I
Speaker:sent it, I was getting text messages. So it's tied to my
Speaker:email in somebody's system somewhere. Some giant
Speaker:CRM has my phone number in it when this email is attached to it. And
Speaker:so like literally the second I send the email saying I would like more information,
Speaker:it gets into their system. I get a text message saying, steve from
Speaker:blah blah, blah blah would like to text message you about your request. But I'm
Speaker:like, how did you even get my phone number? So that's exactly why I don't
Speaker:give them my phone number. Thankfully these are opt out
Speaker:texts, so I can like immediately just say stop. And for the most part they
Speaker:have not repeated. But like, no, I'm not giving you my phone number. If that's
Speaker:the way that you behave. As soon as you have my phone number, I'm not,
Speaker:certainly not giving it to you again. They say like,
Speaker:can you send your phone number? We can, we can resolve this in a quick
Speaker:call. And I'm like, there's nothing to resolve. What are you actually charging for the
Speaker:car then? They don't want to give you what they're charging for the
Speaker:car. If you ask for numbers on, at least because of our businesses, it makes
Speaker:sense to lease, though I'm not sure that that's what we're going to do. They
Speaker:act like there are not places on the Internet where you can figure out what
Speaker:reasonable lease numbers are. Like, where you can literally put in the VIN for the
Speaker:vehicle and they'll be like, this is inexpensive, this is medium, this is
Speaker:high. And they're like past high. They're like
Speaker:hundreds of dollars beyond high. So they send numbers
Speaker:and you're like, what insane planet did you get these from?
Speaker:What turnip truck did I supposedly fall off of? So
Speaker:like, it is literally like, it feels like I'm sending my information
Speaker:out into a world of people who are just waiting to be predators.
Speaker:Occasionally you'll find somebody who isn't that. And I'm sure there
Speaker:are lots of really honest car salesmen out there. I
Speaker:would like somebody to make a fucking list because I will just go buy
Speaker:my cars from there. No, even, like, there's a dealership that we
Speaker:know really well where we bought a number of cars from for different members of
Speaker:our family not that long ago. The guy who
Speaker:owns it lives screaming distance from me.
Speaker:Oh, hey, did you want to buy a new Chevy? And even
Speaker:like, literally I could walk out the front of my house, scream, and he might
Speaker:hear me. That's how close he lives to me.
Speaker:I didn't know that before we walked to the dealership, but he lives right there.
Speaker:And they sent us numbers on a car a couple days ago after we bought
Speaker:multiple cars from them. And it's the same fucking thing. I get
Speaker:it that everybody wants to make money, but, like, if you. The only way that
Speaker:you can make money is by blatantly screwing people over, just go away.
Speaker:I don't. I don't want you breathing my oxygen. You are
Speaker:poisoning my oxygen. And go have your own
Speaker:poison oxygen over there, which is down the street. And not.
Speaker:He doesn't listen to this, so it should be fine. So, anyway, so we went
Speaker:to another dealership over the weekend. Really, at
Speaker:this point, we're just trying to, like, knock things off the list because I know
Speaker:what I want, but the numbers that I've gotten for it are
Speaker:so insanely astronomical, like,
Speaker:beyond unreasonable when
Speaker:I say almost a thousand dollars more a month than is reasonable
Speaker:to pay for this vehicle. So we went again, because Kyle was
Speaker:like, let's just make sure this is what you really want, because if it's what
Speaker:you want, we'll figure it out. Like, maybe we have to go out of Florida.
Speaker:Maybe we have to order it. Maybe we have to have it shipped in. Like,
Speaker:what? He's like, we can do that, but let's make sure it's what you want.
Speaker:And so we go there. I look at the car, and I'm like,
Speaker:I really think this is what I want. I really do. And
Speaker:he's like, okay. And I didn't say it in earshot of the guy, but of
Speaker:course the guy is like, do we want to, like, try to figure out a
Speaker:deal? And I'm like, okay, well, now you're already pissing me off because, like, just,
Speaker:no, I don't want to wheel and deal with you. I want you to actually
Speaker:give me the actual numbers. And then again, this goes back to the same
Speaker:thing. People think Kyle's the mean one because.
Speaker:I don't know, maybe it's just because of his face. I don't know. But people
Speaker:think that Kyle is the mean one, and so
Speaker:they worry about him. And he's not the mean one.
Speaker:He's actually the very pleasant one. I'm the mean
Speaker:one. I'm never actually mean. I'm just
Speaker:very direct. If you say something that is blatantly not true,
Speaker:I will point out that it is blatantly not true. And that
Speaker:apparently does not sit well with car salesmen.
Speaker:I'm just. I don't know. I just feel like if you don't want to be
Speaker:called out on saying things that aren't true, you should
Speaker:not say things that aren't true. I've talked to a lot of
Speaker:really, really nice, pleasant car people in
Speaker:the last several months that we have been looking for a car. We've gone to
Speaker:a number of dealerships. A lot of the people who are like
Speaker:answering the door or like grabbing you to show you cars are just
Speaker:like entry level people. They have no
Speaker:responsibility for anything. They're not responsible for the numbers. They can't make
Speaker:deals. They're really just there to show you the cars. They want to make sales.
Speaker:It's a shitty job if you're not good at it. It's
Speaker:awful. It's really high turnover. It's really high pressure. And for
Speaker:the most part, the people that we've dealt with have been like, absolutely delightful.
Speaker:Now when you get to their managers, less delightful.
Speaker:And we haven't done a whole lot of negotiating in stores because it's just like
Speaker:these people are going to actively try to screw us over. So if you leave,
Speaker:you actually have more bargaining power than if you stay there trying to buy the
Speaker:car. But the point is that
Speaker:we still haven't bought a car because the process
Speaker:is so demoralizing. I just can't
Speaker:commit to any of it because the car that I want for the
Speaker:numbers we're getting is way too expensive. I'm not going to spend that much money
Speaker:on a car. If we go by the assumption
Speaker:that I have to put shoes on to drive a
Speaker:vehicle and you look at the amount of use my
Speaker:shoes get, I don't need a car that bad
Speaker:and I don't need to spend a bunch of money on a car because
Speaker:I don't even know where my shoes are right now. And it
Speaker:will probably be days before I find them. They don't
Speaker:get a lot of use. I remember being like 16,
Speaker:17, 18, and like really loving shoes. And I would buy all these different
Speaker:shoes and always match my outfits to my shoes. And it was like a whole.
Speaker:It's a whole ass thing. And now I'm like,
Speaker:you want me to do something that requires shoes? I don't.
Speaker:No, I don't think I have that in me today. That's like a clear
Speaker:sign that this is not happening today because I'm not gonna put on shoes if
Speaker:I can walk outside barefoot. Cool. I do that all the time. I am that
Speaker:barefoot neighbor. But no, we are not
Speaker:in the 40 pairs of shoes era of our life anymore.
Speaker:We're on the please don't ever make me wear shoes. That's so much work. I
Speaker:don't like it. So anyway, if we use that as the barometer for
Speaker:how much I need a car, it's not a lot,
Speaker:but we still do need to get the second car, because when you have two
Speaker:children, there are times where people need to be in different places at the same
Speaker:time with a capable adult. And so we do need to get the second car,
Speaker:but it doesn't make sense to spend money on it, or a lot of money,
Speaker:at least, because, like, again, I have this whole shoeless thing
Speaker:going for me. So we get the numbers, and the numbers are always way
Speaker:too high. And I know what the numbers should be. So this person is
Speaker:clearly lying to me, and you say, your numbers are high. We
Speaker:need to be here. And they say, oh, man, I can't get to that. And
Speaker:you're like, you can. You just don't want to. Okay, fine. I'm gonna go somewhere
Speaker:else. We have had a couple of them, like, get close.
Speaker:But, like, by the time I've gone back and forth with you 75 times to
Speaker:get you to just tell the truth, that's all I want you to do.
Speaker:I'm not asking you to give me a great deal. I'm not asking you to
Speaker:break any rules. I'm not asking you to give me anything for free.
Speaker:I'm literally asking to pay. I want to give you money for a
Speaker:vehicle, but I don't want you to lie
Speaker:about it. In the process, everything falls apart.
Speaker:It's like the
Speaker:anthropomorphizing
Speaker:of dishonesty,
Speaker:and it makes me so uncomfortable. And every time we get done from a day
Speaker:of trying to figure these things out, doesn't matter if it's online or in person,
Speaker:I'm like, I'm just gonna get a bike. Because I just. I'll just go
Speaker:to the store down the road, and I'll pay them $179, and I will get
Speaker:a functioning bike. And nobody. I don't have to haggle with anybody.
Speaker:I'll throw a kid on the back, or I'll just get another bike
Speaker:and put the kid on it. I would literally rather teach my kid
Speaker:to ride a bike without training wheels
Speaker:than deal with more car salesmen. And to be clear,
Speaker:it's not the salesmen that are the problem. Every one of them
Speaker:supposedly has a manager that makes these decisions. And all
Speaker:of your managers are buttheads. It is the
Speaker:worst experience, and I don't know how to
Speaker:fix it, because I assume that if I let big industry fix
Speaker:it, it will get fixed to the advantage of big
Speaker:industry. Like they're not going to make cars cheaper for me.
Speaker:And then you have all these websites now that are supposed to fix it. Like
Speaker:they're supposed to tell you what to pay for a car. Anybody that you talk
Speaker:to who can actually sell you a car is like, nah, that's not true. And
Speaker:you're like, no, but I think based on the data they have, it is true.
Speaker:And they're like, no, don't look at that. Don't look, look away. Don't look
Speaker:at that. No, don't be informed. That's no good.
Speaker:So if you live in a state where this is not a thing, let me
Speaker:know because I'm going to come move there. Because I do think it might be
Speaker:worse in Florida than it is in most places. Cause not only do we have
Speaker:like thousand dollar dealer fees here where you just have
Speaker:to give the dealer a thousand dollars for existing, they tack it
Speaker:on and you can't get around it. Years ago there were dealer
Speaker:fees and it was like 3, $400, which was still a lot
Speaker:of money, but like now it's like $1,1200. And it's just money you're
Speaker:handing them. It doesn't do anything because they make money off the
Speaker:car. So. But they also, and this has been a thing for a long time,
Speaker:but it has also gotten very expensive. They also put on their
Speaker:aftermarket packages of very important stuff like
Speaker:pinstriping and tint
Speaker:and shit. I never asked for that. You have no choice but to pay
Speaker:$2,000 for before you can get the car. You either wrap it into your
Speaker:financing or you pay it, whatever. And like the number of dealerships that it's like,
Speaker:here's the MSRP price, here's the added packages from the dealer. Oh,
Speaker:and we also, you know, we at. But Fart Honda
Speaker:have added pinstripes and
Speaker:fancy air to the tires and we had it
Speaker:kissed by a sea witch. That's going to cost you $2,000.
Speaker:My steadfast steed of the shore, you carry the
Speaker:tides with grace. And I'm like, I don't, I'm not going to pay for that.
Speaker:And they're like, well you have to or else you can't have the car. And
Speaker:they're like, well then I guess I'm not getting a car. Because first
Speaker:off, the number of cars that they add this
Speaker:pinstriping package to that don't actually have
Speaker:pinstripes. They didn't Put the pinstripes on
Speaker:the car and then they charge you for it. Not
Speaker:that I want pinstripes, because I don't, because this is not 1997,
Speaker:but multiple vehicles that we looked at over
Speaker:the weekend had a pinstriping package on them
Speaker:that all together was like 1500 or $2000. And I
Speaker:think of them, two of them actually had binstripes. So
Speaker:they're literally just like, give me all your monies. And
Speaker:we're gonna say that there's something important that we put in the car,
Speaker:but we're not actually gonna do it. Like, this is literally just a money grab
Speaker:because you're not gonna check to see if the car actually has pinstripes. We're just
Speaker:gonna assume you don't have eyes. So anyway, if you live in a state
Speaker:where that is not the case, I doubt it. But if you do, let me
Speaker:know what state that is that I need to move to, because I would like
Speaker:to have fewer headaches trying to just buy a stupid car.
Speaker:Also, maybe I don't buy a car. Maybe I get a bike, or maybe,
Speaker:maybe I'll get a four wheeled motorcycle with a sidecar
Speaker:because that's street legal and you can put a kid in it.
Speaker:And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's small
Speaker:talk. I always feel like I'm doing therapy wrong.
Speaker:How do I know if the therapist is actually treating me?
Speaker:How do I know if there's healing at the end of it? Does
Speaker:therapy actually end? What is the metric for success? Just
Speaker:because I have a diagnosis, does that mean I actually need treatment?
Speaker:Where is the balance between mental health treatment and physical health treatment?
Speaker:There were a lot of questions there, and all of them are very, very good
Speaker:questions. And I want to preface all of them with the fact that I am
Speaker:not a therapist, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a clinician. I didn't go to
Speaker:any of the fancy schools to get all of those designations. I'm
Speaker:just like a person who runs her mouth a lot and
Speaker:has worked in mental health administration a lot and was
Speaker:raised by a psychiatrist, which makes you kind of acutely aware. There are
Speaker:other things that make me very acutely aware, but those are for another trauma
Speaker:dump. So with that preface, there's one thing that you said that I
Speaker:want to start with, actually. So does having a diagnosis
Speaker:mean you need treatment? And this is true of almost
Speaker:any diagnosis, not just mental health treatment.
Speaker:No. There are plenty of
Speaker:diagnoses where the right intervention is no intervention.
Speaker:There are plenty of Mental health diagnoses that are not really
Speaker:affecting you in any way. And so
Speaker:you decide that no treatment is the right solution.
Speaker:You know, we have people come to us all the time and say, like, do
Speaker:I need an autism diagnosis? I'm pretty sure I'm autistic. Do I need to
Speaker:go get a diagnosis? And my answer is always, I don't know, do you?
Speaker:Because that's not for me to decide. It's not for a clinician to
Speaker:decide. You have to decide what the reasons that you would seek diagnosis are
Speaker:and if those are worth it to you. So we tell people if you need
Speaker:accommodations, if there's access to services that you need, if having a validation from
Speaker:a clinician would matter, if those things, if there's not a reason
Speaker:and the end result is just going to be, you have a piece of paper
Speaker:that says a thing, then save your money, do something else with it. I don't
Speaker:know that that's valuable to you. And you can always do it later. It's not,
Speaker:you know, it's not a thing that is necessarily going to change your life in
Speaker:any positive way if you don't have a reason for doing it.
Speaker:Validation from a clinician is legitimate. I want to be clear about that. You don't
Speaker:need validation from a clinician. Self diagnosis is
Speaker:valid, but some people don't feel like
Speaker:they can begin that journey until they sit down with somebody who confirms their suspicions
Speaker:or tells them otherwise. And so if that's what you know, that's
Speaker:a real reason to go. Just because it's not going to result in
Speaker:some giant change of lifestyle, it's still a real reason to go sit with a
Speaker:provider and get a diagnosis. That said,
Speaker:there are so many situations where in any
Speaker:illness, the right thing to do is nothing. And that's between you and
Speaker:your clinician and your family and whoever's involved. One of the things
Speaker:I will say, and this is one of the harder parts of being in mental
Speaker:health treatment, this is something my dad always used to say, the person
Speaker:who's suffering is the patient, and sometimes
Speaker:that is not the sick person. So let me explain what
Speaker:I mean there. So if you have a family
Speaker:and everybody in the family is really, really struggling because one member
Speaker:of that family is a drug addict and is in active
Speaker:addiction and everybody else is made miserable about it, but the
Speaker:drug addict is fine with it and is not interested in changing their behavior,
Speaker:then the patient there is not the drug addict. It's the family, because
Speaker:the family's suffering. Somebody in the family who needs help, they go
Speaker:seek assistance for what they're going through, even though
Speaker:it's technically precipitated by someone else in that
Speaker:situation. For the quote unquote sick person, the right intervention is no
Speaker:intervention. Because the person doesn't want treatment. You can't force
Speaker:them to get treatment. You can't convince them to get treatment. You can't
Speaker:bribe them to get treatment. None of those things work. The sick
Speaker:person is not the patient in that situation. The patient is the person who knows
Speaker:there's a problem and wants to get better from it. There are times
Speaker:where a clinician will say, this needs intervention. And the patient will decide, no,
Speaker:that's the patient's right. They get to do that. And so that's also a
Speaker:situation where no intervention is the right thing, even though clinically it might not be
Speaker:the right thing. That was the patient's decision. I won't say that
Speaker:therapy ends, but there are natural,
Speaker:maybe not natural, there are pausing points. There are
Speaker:points where you decide that you would like to go
Speaker:action on the things that you've learned over
Speaker:an extended period of time without repeated intervention.
Speaker:And that's kind of a progression of the therapeutic process.
Speaker:Are there people who've been in therapy for 10 years, 12 years, 15 years
Speaker:continuously? Yes. I won't
Speaker:say that that's good or bad, but,
Speaker:you know, I had a friend. I had a friend come to me probably three
Speaker:or four years ago and say, I think I need to find a new therapist.
Speaker:I love my therapist. I think we've gotten to the point where she knows me
Speaker:too well now, and it's time to move on to somebody who can kind
Speaker:of challenge me in new ways. And her concern was like, how do I break
Speaker:up with my therapist? Which is like a real thing. That's a thing that people
Speaker:have to do sometimes. And I think she thought I was going to hand hold
Speaker:her through that process. And I think I actually eventually did so because that
Speaker:was what she wanted. But my question was,
Speaker:why do you need another therapist? Like, what's going on in your life
Speaker:that you feel like you need additional intervention for? And she was like,
Speaker:well, I just want the support. And I was like, for what? Because, like, you
Speaker:go to therapy to treat something
Speaker:and if you still feel like you need the support, what is the support for?
Speaker:And she couldn't really verbalize it to me. She just didn't know. She just had
Speaker:gotten so comfortable with the idea of being in therapy. She wanted to go
Speaker:find new things that she could work on and improve on. And I'm like, I
Speaker:don't know that that's therapy. I don't know that that's what that's for.
Speaker:We did find her a new therapist. I think she's been with them a long
Speaker:time. She's doing well. But that you can graduate from therapy. You
Speaker:can grow out of therapy. You can grow out of a, a
Speaker:therapist. You could decide to take a break.
Speaker:You can decide that
Speaker:maybe this isn't right. If you're not certain
Speaker:that you're getting something out of therapy, maybe it's not the right
Speaker:therapist. This sounds really awful, but if you don't leave
Speaker:therapy feeling either way better or way worse,
Speaker:there's probably something amiss. I don't want to set the
Speaker:expectation that therapy makes you worse, because it doesn't. And I'm a big believer in
Speaker:therapy. But there are times you're gonna go to therapy and it's gonna be like
Speaker:ripping a band aid off and you are gonna feel like every ounce of you
Speaker:has poured out onto the floor and you are just picking it up in a
Speaker:bucket with the hopes of putting it back where it belongs. It will rip you
Speaker:open. And that doesn't. It's not like you get to time at the end of
Speaker:a 45 minute therapy session and now
Speaker:all of your insides go back where they were before. That's like the
Speaker:work takes time. It takes time between sessions, it takes time to recover
Speaker:from. It takes all sorts of parts of you, both physical and
Speaker:emotional, that don't happen in the session.
Speaker:And so if you leave therapy feeling worse because
Speaker:you're doing work, not because you feel like you're not being heard by your therapist,
Speaker:not because you feel like your therapist isn't connecting with you or you
Speaker:disagree with them fundamentally on some things. If you leave feeling
Speaker:worse, that's kind of like when you go to the gym and feel sore the
Speaker:next day, that's a sign that something's happening. Now, if you go to the
Speaker:gym and you can't walk the next day because you injured yourself,
Speaker:that's not what we're going for. Soreness means you exercised,
Speaker:injury means you did something wrong. It's kind of the same thing.
Speaker:We're not looking for injury, we're looking for soreness. We're looking to build
Speaker:muscle memory. We're looking to create new patterns. And that
Speaker:requires a lot of work. Your therapist also should just be able to make you
Speaker:feel better about some stuff. Like, there are gonna be times, and your therapist will
Speaker:know this, there are gonna be times where you just need to feel better about
Speaker:a situation. And if you say it to your
Speaker:therapist and they confirm that you're right about the way you handled it,
Speaker:or that yes, that person is doing exactly what you think they're doing
Speaker:and I'm sorry for that. Or have you thought about this? Or
Speaker:have you thought about how this is not your fault because of X, Y, Z,
Speaker:or that's not how these patterns work. And here's why. You're probably going to leave
Speaker:that session feeling a lot better and getting validation and getting support
Speaker:and. And that's what you're running out of therapy. If you leave therapy every
Speaker:time feeling like you talked about the same stuff and
Speaker:it wasn't super actionable, you're not sure how it's helping
Speaker:you, then it might be time to either take a break or maybe look
Speaker:into finding a new therapist. That doesn't mean that you're not getting something from it.
Speaker:It just maybe means you need a little bit of space and time to kind
Speaker:of conceptualize what you were getting from it. The other thing is,
Speaker:have this conversation with your therapist. That's
Speaker:okay. Conversations about the mechanics of therapy
Speaker:are kind of a part of what's happening. And if your therapist
Speaker:says, like, I see huge changes in you and here's where I think you're improving
Speaker:and here's where I think we still need to work and and is open and
Speaker:positive about that conversation, then you're probably in the right place.
Speaker:Or if the therapist says, listen, I think you're running into the same challenges and
Speaker:maybe you need somebody who's trained in XYZ again, that's a good
Speaker:recommendation. If the therapist is not cool with that conversation
Speaker:and doesn't want to have it because of whatever reason, like maybe that's the wrong
Speaker:therapist. There is no one answer to any of the things that you've said.
Speaker:But there are lots of situations where no intervention is the right
Speaker:intervention. And also you
Speaker:should feel safe enough to say almost anything to your therapist. And
Speaker:is this working? Should be part of it or can be
Speaker:part of it. That was a very long small talk. That was more like a
Speaker:long talk. Thanks for being here, guys. Have a good day. Love you. Mean it.
Speaker:My kids said, why do you like ugly cars? And I was
Speaker:like, I don't know. I just prefer cars when they're ugly. When they're big and
Speaker:boxy and ugly. That is what I like. I like ugly
Speaker:cars. I like things that are ugly.
Speaker:And my 9 year old looked at me and said, do
Speaker:you like yourself?
Speaker:I was so proud. I was so proud.
Speaker:I laughed, but I also just, like. I took this, like,
Speaker:sharp inhale, like, that was a sick bird child.
