Episode 37
I Survived the Flight and Still Won’t Load the Toilet Roll
Flying makes me anxious. Not the mild kind. The walls-closing-in, I-need-control kind.
Hi, I'm Lauren Howard. You can call me L2. Like other people do. And in this episode of "Different, Not Broken" I talk about what it was like flying with someone who supported me without making a thing of it. No fuss. No questions. No spotlight. Just quiet, steady presence.
We get into why that kind of support works so well, especially for anxious and neurodivergent people, and why “are you okay?” is often the least helpful thing you can say.
Once you've been inspired to brag, here's where you can do it! - https://differentnotbrokenpodcast.com/voicemail
Useful stuff
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 "Therapist as Emotional Support"
05:49 "Calm Support During Turbulence"
07:26 "Weird Ears and Airplanes"
12:32 Toilet Paper Holder Frustrations
16:49 "Outgrowing Expectations and Tolerance"
18:46 Sibling Conflict and Resolution
Mentioned in this episode:
Build Your Better course
Build your better course - https://stan.store/elletwo/p/build-your-better
Wanna sponsor this podcast
http://differentnotbrokenpodcast.com/sponsors
Brag on yourself
Wanna brag on yourself for something you've done which you're proud of? https://differentnotbrokenpodcast.com/voicemail
Transcript
I'm fine. I have not been body snatched. And I will do
Speaker:whatever I can to take control of this situation. Is it
Speaker:possible? And hear me out here. So, all right, here we go.
Speaker:I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record. Cause that feels right. Okay, I'm pressing record.
Speaker:Boop. Hi, everybody. I'm Lauren Howard.
Speaker:Welcome to Different Not Broken, which is our
Speaker:podcast on exactly that. That there are a lot of people in this world walking
Speaker:around feeling broken. And the reality is you're just different. And that's.
Speaker:Lately, I have done something that I swore I wouldn't do. Okay, not that
Speaker:I swore I wouldn't do. I knew I would do it, but that I frequently
Speaker:try not to do, which is fly on an airplane.
Speaker:Because I don't know if anybody has caught on to this. This is probably
Speaker:new information. I have a few control
Speaker:issues. I know,
Speaker:I know it's shocking. Please
Speaker:catch your breath. Just bear with me.
Speaker:I know the science behind it. I theoretically understand
Speaker:the physics behind it. But still, there is no reason that that metal tube should
Speaker:be hurtling through the air. It just does not make sense. And then, like, these
Speaker:planes do these things that everybody acts like is normal
Speaker:and it cannot possibly be normal. Like, you hit
Speaker:turbulence and the whole damn plane shakes. And you can hear,
Speaker:like, all of the luggage above your head trying to burst
Speaker:out of the compartments because the turbulence so bad. And everybody
Speaker:around you is like, this is fine. There's nothing
Speaker:happening. That's weird on this thing. That
Speaker:is definitely not on the ground and is, in fact, many, many,
Speaker:many thousands of feet in the air. This is fine. It doesn't
Speaker:make any sense to me. I've flown multiple times in the last couple weeks. Guys.
Speaker:I know, I know. I'm fine. I have not been
Speaker:body snatched. I don't know how to prove that to you
Speaker:because everything I say is weird. So I don't know how to prove it to
Speaker:you, but just know that I have not been body snatched. I still don't like
Speaker:wearing shoes. The fact that I had to wear shoes on the airplane
Speaker:was rude, but I'm not going to put my dirty bare feet on other
Speaker:people. So I wore shoes, but that's the way you can tell
Speaker:because I was angry that I had to wear shoes anyway. If I fly
Speaker:regularly, I'm usually okay. It's when you get the big gap between
Speaker:flights that the next time I have to fly, I'm like, oh, my God, this
Speaker:is so awful. So, like, when I have to get on a plane again in
Speaker:two days to Go back home. I'll probably be okay,
Speaker:ish and appropriately medicated, to be clear. But if I have
Speaker:to then not fly for several months, which is
Speaker:usually my typical, I will be a basket case before
Speaker:the next flight. I don't know whose life this is, but it certainly cannot be
Speaker:mine. Anyway, the first two times recently that I flew, I took our
Speaker:chief clinical officer with me. One, because I didn't want to fly alone, and two,
Speaker:because I just like having her with me. It was the most affirming experience
Speaker:I've ever had in my life. And I say this as a person who has
Speaker:been very fortunate to be affirmed in many capacities throughout my life, including
Speaker:in the home that I grew up in, which was, in
Speaker:hindsight, very, very affirming because my dad didn't realize that's what he was,
Speaker:but that's what he was. But I cannot
Speaker:oversell how good a choice it is that if you are going to
Speaker:get an emotional support human, have it be the therapist
Speaker:who runs your clinical team, because she's going to be really, really
Speaker:solid at the emotional support beforehand. She
Speaker:called me just to see what I needed to be
Speaker:comfortable on the airplane, which is adorable. Cause, like, I'm a grown
Speaker:human and like, I can figure it out. But she's kind and compassionate
Speaker:and for whatever reason with her terrible taste, likes me a lot.
Speaker:And so she decided that she wanted to call and make sure that I had
Speaker:everything I needed. And I said, to be honest, all I need is the
Speaker:Klonopin that is in my bag. She was like, okay, that is fine.
Speaker:And I said, and I will need you to probably hold my hand. To which
Speaker:she said, I can do that, too. She did such an
Speaker:epic fucking job of holding my hand. She really
Speaker:did. Like, I was thinking about it afterward, and I was like,
Speaker:what an incredible fucking human. So we're on this
Speaker:airplane and I am, as I said before, appropriately medicated. And I
Speaker:very rarely take medication. But my anxiety about airplanes
Speaker:borders on irrational. Like, most of the things I do, but
Speaker:that one in particular, like, you don't want to have a meltdown
Speaker:on an airplane in the middle of the air when
Speaker:there's probably an air marshal a couple rows away from you. You just don't want
Speaker:that to happen. So that is one of the situations where I feel like I
Speaker:probably should. It's not like the type of
Speaker:anxiety where I just, like, feel like I'm worried about something. It's like
Speaker:walls closing in. I'm trapped.
Speaker:Everything is awful. The space cannot
Speaker:be big enough. I Need to grab something and square squeeze. Hard type
Speaker:anxiety. It is like, fully irrational. I am not in
Speaker:control of this situation and I will do whatever I can to take control of
Speaker:this situation. And do you know what legal things that you can do to take
Speaker:control of an airplane? Not many. So it's not a good
Speaker:idea. Anyway, she sat in the middle seat for me
Speaker:because I like to be pressed up against the wall because it makes me
Speaker:feel safe in the tube that is hurtling through the air. I recognize that
Speaker:makes no sense. Just go with it. So she sat on the middle seat for
Speaker:me, which is so nice. And, like, I wouldn't have done that for someone else.
Speaker:That is not a comfortable place to sit. And
Speaker:she just, like, let me do what I was going to do. And I kind
Speaker:of like placed my, like, I like, laid against the side with my little. I
Speaker:was using my sweatshirt as a pillow and I needed to grab
Speaker:something from a bag. And she helped with that. And that was so nice of
Speaker:her. And then we were just kind of chatting about
Speaker:plans for the day. We had a couple of events we had to go to
Speaker:that night, what time we were going to check into the hotel, et cetera, et
Speaker:cetera. And every now and then we would like, hit an air
Speaker:pocket or something would change that would freak me out. And I would
Speaker:reach out and grab her and she would just let me grab her
Speaker:and then not miss a beat in the
Speaker:conversation we were having. So it was just completely normalized. She didn't
Speaker:draw attention to it. She didn't make it a thing. She didn't ask me
Speaker:if I was okay. Don't ask people that when they're clearly not
Speaker:okay. It doesn't help nothing. She didn't draw attention to
Speaker:it. Whatever appendage I grabbed onto, she let me
Speaker:have. It was usually like a wrist or a hand.
Speaker:It didn't happen that often because I had done a pretty good job of calming
Speaker:myself beforehand. Actually, both the flight there and back for that trip were really
Speaker:smooth, and there was very little to write home about. The most recent flight we
Speaker:took, literally, we landed and the flight attendant got on the
Speaker:PA system and said, well, that was fun. So that tells you
Speaker:a little bit about that experience. I didn't realize how
Speaker:validated and whole and affirmed it made me feel.
Speaker:She didn't make a thing out of it. She didn't draw attention to it.
Speaker:She just made her
Speaker:physical body parts available to me for my
Speaker:personal use, for my sensory regulation. I also
Speaker:told her beforehand, like, if nobody around me is freaking Out. I'm not going to
Speaker:freak out because I use everybody around me as a cue for
Speaker:what's happening. And if I see somebody else respond to the fact that the plane
Speaker:did something weird, I'm going to respond. But for the most part, like,
Speaker:nobody, like, I've never been on a plane where anybody
Speaker:really like made any movement that would tell me
Speaker:that the things that I was responding to, anybody else had noticed
Speaker:or had noticed enough for it to be concerning. I
Speaker:will say that I have very weird ears and that's kind of a funny
Speaker:thing to say, but my eardrums are all messed up because I don't feel when
Speaker:I get ear infections until my eardrum perforates. And so I
Speaker:feel pressure in airplanes different than everybody else. And pressure changes in
Speaker:airplanes feel different to me. And so I know that there is a good
Speaker:chance that I'm feeling something that nobody else does. And
Speaker:so if I look around me and like nobody else is responding to it, I'm
Speaker:like, okay, that's just my weird ears. And so she knew that going in. And
Speaker:so I think she was like extra calm so that I would take the cue
Speaker:and chill the fuck out, which I sort of did.
Speaker:But the point being, the comfort and
Speaker:the support that I received had nothing to do with what she did and almost
Speaker:everything to do with what she didn't do. She didn't make a thing out of
Speaker:it. She didn't draw attention to it. She didn't ask me if
Speaker:I needed anything. She didn't make a
Speaker:production out of anything. If I grabbed her arm, she just
Speaker:gave me her arm, continued talking, didn't miss a beat. We
Speaker:continued having our conversation. When I let go, she just took her arm back.
Speaker:It was no big deal. And I got through the whole experience
Speaker:not feeling like a fucking alien. There
Speaker:is so much to be said for quiet support.
Speaker:It's not to say that people don't need loud support. And I am
Speaker:always here to provide loud support. But I don't think I had ever
Speaker:felt the full impact, especially as a
Speaker:very anxious person, especially as a very anxious person who tends to be surrounded by
Speaker:people who really, really want to help and who
Speaker:are well meaning in their desire to help, but
Speaker:who sometimes, I won't say make it worse, but
Speaker:create additional stimuli in their attempt to help, which does not help me calm
Speaker:my anxiety whatsoever. It was the least stimulating environment
Speaker:that you could possibly be in while in a metal tube hurling through the air.
Speaker:And so to Natasha, who I love dearly and who
Speaker:says she listens to my Podcast, so we'll see if that's true.
Speaker:Thank you for being the most affirming human on the planet and for making me
Speaker:feel so safe in an environment where I will never feel safe. And you
Speaker:will forever be my emotional support friend who has to travel with me everywhere I
Speaker:go. Sorry, but not sorry.
Speaker:She does say she listens to this podcast, so we'll see. Because I'm not gonna
Speaker:tell her beforehand. She quotes it back to me fairly regularly. I
Speaker:know she does actually listen, but.
Speaker:So before we ask you
Speaker:to brag on yourself, because I don't think we do
Speaker:that enough, and I think a lot of the really shockingly impressive people
Speaker:who I know are so busy trying to be modest that
Speaker:they have no idea how impressive they are. And so I encouraged you to
Speaker:brag about yourself. And this week, we have our first brag.
Speaker:We have our first brag. So let's
Speaker:hear from Deborah, who did something tough
Speaker:that I'm very jealous of and that my husband won't let me do. Okay,
Speaker:not won't let me. He will let me. He's not in control, but
Speaker:he thinks I'm bonkers for waking up one day and deciding I want to do
Speaker:this. It's been like a regular back and forth in our house for, like, six
Speaker:months. But anyway, Deborah did the damn thing. Hey,
Speaker:I'm Deborah M. And I just got my first tattoo.
Speaker:It's a phoenix. Because of course it is.
Speaker:I booked the appointment, didn't cancel it ten
Speaker:times, and sat through three hours without
Speaker:crying or throwing up, which for me
Speaker:is Olympic level success. Bragging.
Speaker:Absolutely. I earned this ink.
Speaker:I wanted to talk about toilet paper. There's this very
Speaker:stereotypical stereotype, for
Speaker:lack of I don't know what else to call it. Stereotypical. Something
Speaker:in a heteronormative appearing household that
Speaker:the woman or the person who fills that role,
Speaker:that traditional gender role, is the one who yells at
Speaker:people to put the toilet paper on the roll. And that
Speaker:if we have traditional gender roles, the more masculine
Speaker:individual fails to all the
Speaker:time. I am here to say that that is not the case in my
Speaker:house. I am actually the jackass who refuses
Speaker:to put the toilet paper on the roll. And my husband
Speaker:is the one who asks me and reminds me all the time to do it
Speaker:and truly does not understand why there is such a
Speaker:deficit in my brain to complete this. And I've
Speaker:actually spent a fair amount of time thinking about it, because this is definitely the
Speaker:brain power that I need to be applying in any place
Speaker:whatsoever. 100% absolutely so part of
Speaker:it is that I hate the spring loaded toilet
Speaker:papery thingies. I hate them. They require
Speaker:so many hands and I'm not coordinated enough
Speaker:to keep them together while putting them in the middle of the
Speaker:roll while also putting them back in the thing that creates the
Speaker:tension so that it stays on the roll. I find that whole process
Speaker:annoying and I do not want to participate in it. And most of our
Speaker:toilet paper rolls are that. And so I just choose not to participate in it.
Speaker:And that's not good because when I look at myself and say, hey,
Speaker:stop being a jackass and just put it on the roll, I
Speaker:just do it and nothing dies and no one gets hurt. And
Speaker:in fact, my marriage is probably improved for it.
Speaker:And it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. But if I
Speaker:look at it and I'm like, that toilet paper needs to go on that roll.
Speaker:Mm, mm. I don't wanna. And I just don't.
Speaker:It can sit on it, it can sit near it, it can sit next to
Speaker:it. I don't care. I don't want to deal
Speaker:with the tensiony spring loady thingamajig that
Speaker:makes this whole thing. I don't wanna deal with it. And that is a
Speaker:bizarre hill to die on. That is a really bizarre hill to die
Speaker:on.
Speaker:And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's small
Speaker:talk. I shut down socially way faster than I used to, and I'm not
Speaker:sure if that's burnout age or just me finally noticing it.
Speaker:How do you tell the difference between needing rest and avoiding life?
Speaker:Because right now everything feels exhausting. I can
Speaker:totally relate to that. Is it possible, and hear me out
Speaker:here, is it possible that everything feels exhausting?
Speaker:Because everything is exhausting. Is it possible
Speaker:that you are not giving yourself credit
Speaker:for the reality of the current toxic hellscape that we are
Speaker:existing in and you are somehow making it that
Speaker:you are having an unreasonable reaction when in reality
Speaker:you are not given the space to have the very reasonable reaction that you are
Speaker:having. I'm sure there's a good reason to know where it's
Speaker:coming from. But in the moment when you need it, I don't
Speaker:know that that matters. If you need rest. Rest. If
Speaker:your body is telling you to retreat from whatever.
Speaker:Retreat from whatever. First off, we are in the
Speaker:post Halloween pre January
Speaker:15th vortex. That doesn't exist. Time
Speaker:and space is not a thing. There is nothing
Speaker:that happens now short of emergency
Speaker:medical care. That is not a January problem. And
Speaker:we don't Give ourselves enough credit for how
Speaker:freaking exhausting just existing
Speaker:during this time of year is. And it is freaking exhausting.
Speaker:So freaking exhausting. So there's that. There is a
Speaker:world where I think there are people who are the opposite of this,
Speaker:too. Like, I think there are people who get older and want to be more
Speaker:social and go seek out other people. But it's also very common to get a
Speaker:little bit older and be like, I don't need that. I don't want that.
Speaker:There is. As you learn more about people, I think you decide how
Speaker:much you actually want of people, or you start to decide how much you actually
Speaker:want of people. The kind of natural optimism that you're going to stumble across a
Speaker:new best friend starts to deplete as you get older. And you
Speaker:have what I call the emotional graveyard of best friends.
Speaker:Hopefully not a real graveyard. That would be weird. But, like, you look
Speaker:back and you're like, well, we were so close for a while, and then, oh,
Speaker:yeah, I talked to that person a lot, but it phased out. And sometimes it
Speaker:just is like the natural progression of a relationship. And some things, something bad
Speaker:happens, and sometimes you guys just move in different directions. But the more
Speaker:experiences that you have, like that where somebody disappoints you,
Speaker:and I don't mean that in like they did something to fail you, even though
Speaker:that does happen. I just more mean like, it didn't work out
Speaker:again, or it wasn't what I thought it was going to be, or they
Speaker:weren't who I thought they were, or I, you know, thought this was going to
Speaker:work out differently than it would or than it did. You get to the other
Speaker:side of that and you're like, I don't know how much more I want to
Speaker:go back for. For more of that. Sometimes it happens with family. The older I
Speaker:get, the general less tolerance I have for BS from my family,
Speaker:which manifests in a number of ways. One, in places I would have kept my
Speaker:mouth shut before, I do not believe it or not, there were times in my
Speaker:life where I kept my mouth shut. I know that's shocking. Pick yourself up off
Speaker:the floor. It has happened. And then in other times, it's
Speaker:like, I just am not going to engage. It is too. I know
Speaker:that engaging in this relationship in any way is going to take
Speaker:so much from me that it's not worth it. And so that's kind of. Those
Speaker:are kind of like two sides of the same coin. When you are the only
Speaker:person who identifies as female, as a woman in a family of A bunch of
Speaker:people who identify as male who you know are all my brothers,
Speaker:there is a whole lot of just
Speaker:emotional management they expect you to do. Not that
Speaker:long ago, two of my brothers were like, they were arguing about something
Speaker:shocking. One had pissed the other one off. The first one
Speaker:actually almost immediately came back with an apology because he realized that he had been
Speaker:an asshole. The second one basically was on a
Speaker:page where he was like, you were an asshole and I don't have to accept
Speaker:your apology. And like, he's right, he doesn't have to. But also like, why are
Speaker:you being a dick? He apologized and so I texted my sister in law
Speaker:on the side and was like, this is like being an intimacy coordinator for
Speaker:monkeys. Why are they so bad at this part? Like,
Speaker:why do I have to prompt them on how they're supposed to? Somebody
Speaker:apologize to you, what do you say? I wasn't involved
Speaker:with it whatsoever, but it started by both of them contacting me
Speaker:separately to tell me that the other had been an asshole. And
Speaker:I knew exactly what happened. One of my brothers was going through something really hard.
Speaker:The other brother was just having a bad day. The first brother asked the
Speaker:second one about his hard situation because it's something that's
Speaker:in my oldest brother's area of expertise. My oldest brother was
Speaker:distracted having a bad day and was an asshole in response. Instead of
Speaker:being like, can we talk in two days? When I'm not buried under these
Speaker:things, normally I just would have been like, can you guys stop being
Speaker:idiots? Instead, when my oldest brother reached out to me
Speaker:to talk about it, I think my response was, I
Speaker:know you are too autistic to understand the
Speaker:necessity of responding in this situation, but I'm going to need you to get
Speaker:your head out of your ass and respond appropriately
Speaker:because you having a blow up to somebody who is going through a really
Speaker:tough time was not appropriate, even if he's
Speaker:your brother. To which he was like, you're right,
Speaker:totally right. And he apologized. But in the past, I would
Speaker:not have said that to him. In the past. I would not have just gone
Speaker:toe to toe with him and been like, get your head out of your ass.
Speaker:Some of that's a function of age, Some of it's a function of experience. Some
Speaker:of it's a function of just what the fuck dudes like, get out of your
Speaker:own way. Stop making problems for me because you two can't
Speaker:communicate. That's a lot of getting older and
Speaker:figuring out how to navigate situations you
Speaker:do and don't want to be in and you only have to be in them
Speaker:a couple of times before you're like, nope, don't want to do that again. Oh,
Speaker:there's a chance that's going to happen. I'll pass. Is that not
Speaker:participating in life? I don't know. Is it protecting your
Speaker:peace? Probably. Like, probably a lot. And
Speaker:so I don't know about you, but I would really, really love
Speaker:to have some precedented times. Since we're not going to get that. I
Speaker:think you need to give yourself some grace for the fact that
Speaker:you are exhausted because the world is exhausting and that getting older
Speaker:tells you what bullshit you're willing to put up with. Thanks for being here, guys.
Speaker:Have a good day. Love you. Mean it.
Speaker:I am an extra foul mouth today. So many fuck words.
