Episode 16
Why you deserve help NOW, BEFORE the Gray sets in. Also, fu*k J.K. Rowling!
One pill a day. That’s all it takes, apparently, to give the world its color back. You’d think adding a little routine to your morning... a pill, a glass of water... wouldn’t be the hill your mental health dies on, but here we are.
In this week’s episode of Different, Not Broken, I'm letting you in on the strange, subtle shape that anxiety and depression can take. And why you don’t need a five-alarm fire in your life to justify asking for help.
This episode peels back the curtain on what 'not broken' really means, especially when you’ve been high-functioning, hyper-responsible, and the go-to for getting stuff done.
I'm talking candidly about the quiet ways depression and anxiety can erode joy from your life without ever stopping you from making payroll or packing school lunches.
Timestamps
00:00 "Unexpected Gray Days Cure"
03:50 Pandemic Stress and Anxiety Diagnosis
06:22 Realizing Deeper Issues Beyond Anxiety
12:33 Seeking Support Without Crisis
14:26 Avoiding Direct Support for Author
Mentioned in this episode:
Build Your Better course
Build your better course - https://stan.store/elletwo/p/build-your-better
Transcript
Our babysitter came by with her
Speaker:friend's puppy. It was like a 10 week old
Speaker:pug puppy. And it was perhaps the
Speaker:cutest thing I have ever seen in my life. And I didn't
Speaker:care. I think we probably don't talk enough about how you
Speaker:don't have to be in full crisis to ask for help, and you don't have
Speaker:to be in full crisis to need help. The world does not have to be
Speaker:on fire for you to need support. You can need support
Speaker:just by nature of needing support. All right, here we go.
Speaker:I'm going to pretend I'm pushing Record, because that feels right. Okay, I'm pressing Record.
Speaker:Boop. Hi, everybody. I'm Lauren Howard. I
Speaker:go by L2. Yes, you can call me L2. Everybody does.
Speaker:It's a long story. It's actually not that long a story, but we'll save it
Speaker:for another time. Welcome to Different, Not Broken, which
Speaker:is our podcast on exactly that. That there are a lot of people in
Speaker:this world walking around feeling broken. And the reality is you're different,
Speaker:and that's fine.
Speaker:I take one pill a day. I take one
Speaker:pill every single day. I call it my allergy
Speaker:medicine. It treats my allergy to
Speaker:other people and occasionally my husband.
Speaker:And it turns the light on when
Speaker:the world starts to turn gray, which is
Speaker:something that I have found in meeting some
Speaker:of my extended family and obviously my immediate family is like a thing
Speaker:that happens to us. It's like in all of us,
Speaker:one day we all wake up, we don't realize it, and
Speaker:the world has no color in it and the sun doesn't shine very
Speaker:bright and everything seems kind of miserable.
Speaker:But we don't realize because it's different than
Speaker:what you think of when you think of, I
Speaker:think, quote unquote, mental illness or
Speaker:depression. So if I say depression, you think
Speaker:crying all the time, unable to get out of bed, no motivation to do anything,
Speaker:missing work, giving up on things, feeling hopeless.
Speaker:And that's not ever what it was.
Speaker:There have been a few acute times in response to
Speaker:very specific situations where I have felt worse than that.
Speaker:I never miss work. I never
Speaker:called out. I didn't cry,
Speaker:I didn't feel sad. I just,
Speaker:like, would respond really harshly when people would talk to
Speaker:me and just feel really, like low key angry all the
Speaker:time. Like, I felt like I was getting, like I was just mad all the
Speaker:time. I would catch myself sometimes and go, like, why did that
Speaker:make me so mad? That was so benign. But I'm
Speaker:so mad. I think it was probably like,
Speaker:a solid 10 years of not realizing that that was not
Speaker:normal. It was just like there was nothing exciting. There was nothing to
Speaker:get excited about. I didn't look forward to anything. Everything
Speaker:felt like it was going to be a disappointment, and
Speaker:I did not go seek
Speaker:assistance for it because I realized the world
Speaker:was gray. I did it because we
Speaker:were about probably six months or a year into the pandemic,
Speaker:and I was having nightmares. Like, to me, very scary nightmares
Speaker:every night that I basically forgot my mask and
Speaker:infected everybody around me. And it was like every single
Speaker:night I would have the same nightmare that I forgot my mask. And, like, we
Speaker:were pretty well quarantined at that point. And we quarantined for a long time.
Speaker:And so it wasn't like I woke up and it was in any way
Speaker:resembling the life we were living. Just the stress of the pandemic and
Speaker:not knowing what was gonna happen and the way that I was working and being
Speaker:in a job that was not great for my soul at the time, and et
Speaker:cetera. I finally was like, these nightmares really are
Speaker:bad. And so I went and talked to a psychiatrist
Speaker:who asked me really rude questions, like,
Speaker:how many hours do you work a week? And
Speaker:do you think about work when you're not working? And I was like,
Speaker:I don't understand how either of those things are your business.
Speaker:Rude. She didn't like my answers to either
Speaker:of those questions, by the way. She's not pleased. But she did say,
Speaker:yeah, this sounds like you have an anxiety disorder. She said, that is pretty disruptive.
Speaker:You know, I basically said, my entire family is on Prozac, so can I
Speaker:just take Prozac? And she was like, sure. And that
Speaker:is true. We all, like. Even the dogs are on Prozac. That's not a
Speaker:joke. Well, actually, the dog that was on Prozac has since died. But, like,
Speaker:we had a very anxious dog, and the vet was like, prozac. And I was
Speaker:like, that's the family medication, so that's fine. That'll work. And it. It did help
Speaker:his anxiety, too. That dog would get anxious and literally
Speaker:unlock doors. Like, we
Speaker:found him running the neighborhood because he figured out how to work the
Speaker:deadbolt on the front door of the house.
Speaker:That's how anxious he was. Also, I get similarly
Speaker:anxious, so I get it. I could figure out how to work a deadbolt
Speaker:if I thought it would free me from my anxiety. A complicated deadbolt.
Speaker:As a human, at baseline, I can usually operate a deadbolt.
Speaker:Usually I'm kind of smart enough for that. But like, you could
Speaker:put like a complicated puzzle in front of me and be like, solve this and
Speaker:your anxiety will go away. And I'd be like, here you go. Thank you.
Speaker:So I get it. I do understand the dog. But also it got better with
Speaker:Prozac, which I also understand. The
Speaker:reason I talk about that specifically is because
Speaker:first off, she prescribed medication. I started taking it
Speaker:despite the fact that I'm a person who says all the time to
Speaker:people, if a doctor prescribes medication for you
Speaker:and you're supposed to be taking it, please take it. I'm not great at taking
Speaker:my own medication. And that has been an issue recently. And
Speaker:we're working on a system for that. That isn't my husband coming into my office
Speaker:every day going, did you take it? Because, yeah,
Speaker:that's been a thing. But I thought it was just taking it for anxiety
Speaker:really, because I was anxious and I was having these
Speaker:nightmares and I didn't want the nightmares to keep happening. But then I looked around
Speaker:and I realized, like, there's like this big
Speaker:star thing in the sky, like during the day and
Speaker:like, it makes the world like colorful.
Speaker:There's nothing beside the nighttime
Speaker:nightmares. That was the other catalyst to
Speaker:going, there's something wrong. Our babysitter
Speaker:came by with her friend's puppy.
Speaker:It was like a 10 week old pug puppy
Speaker:and it was perhaps the cutest thing I have ever
Speaker:seen in my life. And I didn't care.
Speaker:Like, I will run into the road in full on
Speaker:coming traffic to save a dog on the regular.
Speaker:And there was an exceptionally cute animal that
Speaker:I should have wanted to eat in front of me. And I was
Speaker:like, okay. And she was like,
Speaker:you don't want to play with the puppy. Because I like, I am a very
Speaker:reasonable person who has excellent
Speaker:impulse control and I would have 45 dogs if my husband
Speaker:let me. Like every time I walked past a puppy, I would be like, yes,
Speaker:bring it home. Yes. The fact that we only have two,
Speaker:and I say two, two individually
Speaker:160 pound dogs is like having 45 dogs. But
Speaker:also the fact that we only
Speaker:have two of them is a victory every day. Or a
Speaker:failure, depending on your take on the matter. I vacillate.
Speaker:But this puppy should have been like, I should have been like laying on the
Speaker:floor and just letting this dog climb all over me and chew on my face,
Speaker:giggling uncontrollably. Because that is the type of thing that I do when I am
Speaker:presented with a puppy. And I was just like,
Speaker:eh. That's when I realized I Was like,
Speaker:something's wrong. This is not normal. It was like everything
Speaker:inside was dull. It was like I knew that I should feel
Speaker:excitement. I just wasn't capable of it. So I started taking
Speaker:the medicine. And I did it because I thought I just had anxiety,
Speaker:which is fine. And there's been no question that I have anxiety.
Speaker:I've always had anxiety. Typically, my anxiety is what makes me good at
Speaker:things. Cause I can always, like, see down the road and see around the corner
Speaker:and predict things and make good decisions because of it. And
Speaker:occasionally it gets overwhelming. But for the
Speaker:most part, like, being an anxious person serves me very well, but
Speaker:this was not serving me well. But as a byproduct
Speaker:of that situation of trying to handle my
Speaker:anxiety, the world had color again. And
Speaker:I started laughing at things and I started
Speaker:making jokes that were funny and not just funny because
Speaker:they were uncomfortable. And I started looking forward
Speaker:to doing things with my kids again. And it has
Speaker:not made me eager to leave the house. Don't think, like, it's an
Speaker:antidepressant. It's not a miracle worker. Like, I still don't leave the house.
Speaker:But that's just like, my baseline personality. I knew it was working
Speaker:really well because we had planned our
Speaker:first vacation in a very long time. We were gonna drive up.
Speaker:This was like mid pandemic, so we didn't wanna get on a plane. And we
Speaker:were gonna drive up from Florida to Vermont, where we
Speaker:had rented a house, and we were gonna go play in the snow for two
Speaker:weeks. We were super excited about it. And my
Speaker:husband being my husband, we had planned to leave at X time.
Speaker:X time came and went. Then it was an hour later. Then it was another
Speaker:hour later. Then he's still putting things together. Then he decides at
Speaker:the last minute that he needs to wash the car. Because apparently you can't drive
Speaker:a dirty car. That's news to me. I did not know this.
Speaker:And then he had to check the windshield washer fluid, which
Speaker:made sense. But, like, don't you do that, like, in the days before
Speaker:you leave? Not. Anyway, so it was like a whole
Speaker:thing. And he was doing all
Speaker:of the things that he kind of very normally does, like that I can anticipate
Speaker:he's going to do that. Drive me fucking batshit. And I was
Speaker:just like, okay. And normally I would be, like, really
Speaker:annoyed and kicking and screaming and yelling at him
Speaker:to hurry up and talking about how we're three hours late
Speaker:and feeling so anxious about being late, because being late makes me so
Speaker:anxious. And I will say that the punctual
Speaker:spouse, who is married to the time blind spouse understands how
Speaker:people end up on Dateline. No question about that. But
Speaker:anyway, he was doing his thing, and I was just like,
Speaker:okay. And I didn't get angry, and I just kind
Speaker:of waded through it, and I was like, this is not the end of the
Speaker:world. This does not feel like this
Speaker:guy is falling down on me. And so I've had a couple of
Speaker:adjustments over the years, but it's still basically one pill a day. I didn't know
Speaker:there was anything wrong. It wasn't interfering with
Speaker:my life so much that anybody else would notice
Speaker:there was something wrong. But the world also had no color in it.
Speaker:And I didn't realize that. And I didn't look forward
Speaker:to anything. And everything was a chore,
Speaker:and everything felt like it could lead to the end of the
Speaker:world. That's being dramatic about being dramatic. But, like, that was
Speaker:the, you know, everything could merit that response.
Speaker:And I think we
Speaker:probably don't talk enough about how you don't have to be in full
Speaker:crisis to ask for help, and you don't have to be in full crisis
Speaker:to need help. I think we all
Speaker:spend a lot of time in crisis and dealing with
Speaker:dumpster fires and putting out one
Speaker:catastrophic thing after another that it feels
Speaker:like if things are just, like, not okay.
Speaker:That's not enough of a reason to ask for help. It's enough
Speaker:of a reason. It's more than enough of a reason.
Speaker:I could have lived probably a long time having nightmares
Speaker:and walking around in a world that was
Speaker:shades of gray, but not the good ones, because I didn't
Speaker:realize how. I didn't realize that wasn't normal
Speaker:because, like, I was still feeding my kids. I
Speaker:was still shown up to work every day,
Speaker:was still trusted with lots of important things, and I
Speaker:still needed somebody to intervene. And
Speaker:I think my brain's way of getting the help that it needed
Speaker:was to give me something I could not ignore, which was
Speaker:nightmares that were terrifying the shit out of me so that I finally went and
Speaker:did something about it. But the world does not have to be on
Speaker:fire for you to need support. You can need support just
Speaker:by nature of needing support. And if you are
Speaker:surrounded by people who make you feel like that's not
Speaker:a good enough reason, let's go find you some new people.
Speaker:You deserve support even when things are great. And I'm sure you give
Speaker:the support to other people, regardless how
Speaker:quote, unquote qualified it is. The world does not have to be on
Speaker:fire. For there to be a problem. And you don't have to be in
Speaker:full crisis to need things to be better.
Speaker:For this week's small talk again, remember, this is something we do every week. I
Speaker:don't know if I've been clear about this before, but fuck. J.K. rowling,
Speaker:I like to call her. Just Kidding Rowling. Because she's gotta be
Speaker:kidding fucking serious. It
Speaker:sucks because my kids love those books. Like, love them. And
Speaker:I loved them. I was only a little bit older than my oldest
Speaker:when they came out. So we have a rule that they can, like,
Speaker:consume the stories, but we don't pay for
Speaker:anything directly. So, like, they can have the stuff. As long
Speaker:as she gets none of our money. That's our rule.
Speaker:And my kids, we were at
Speaker:Universal not that long ago, and they obviously have tons of
Speaker:Harry Potter stuff everywhere. And my oldest comes
Speaker:up to me and goes, ma, if we were to buy this here,
Speaker:does that count as giving her money? And I said, yes. And she
Speaker:goes, ugh, I just really want a Gryffindor shirt.
Speaker:And I was like, we will buy a knockoff Gryffindor shirt on
Speaker:Etsy. Nobody's paying those licenses on Etsy. She was like,
Speaker:so I'm not allowed to have this wand? I'm like, nope, sorry.
Speaker:Like, she needs more stuff, right? Like, she doesn't have. She came up to me
Speaker:one day and was like, mom, there's a book I have not read, and I
Speaker:need a copy of it. I'm like, which one?
Speaker:She was like, it's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Speaker:And I was like, oh, sweetheart, no, that's the same book. I'm not buying you
Speaker:another one. She's nine. She's read
Speaker:six out of seven of the books in the last three weeks.
Speaker:I can't imagine what it's like to have a brain with this much space in
Speaker:it. She's so smart. But she comes up to me and she's like,
Speaker:mom, what color are Harry's eyes? And I'm like, sweetheart, I don't even know
Speaker:what color your dad's eyes are. Like, I have no idea. She
Speaker:was like, okay, you remember in book four when. And
Speaker:I'm like, I remember this big plot point over
Speaker:seven books. To be clear, I'm not talking about, like, I could tell you in
Speaker:what book this happened. I know that you meet Sirius in
Speaker:book three. I know that he dies in book five. But other than that, it's
Speaker:all like, so. She was like, okay, so in the middle of book
Speaker:four, when he walks into the blah, blah, blah, blah, and does the blah, blah,
Speaker:blah, blah. Do you remember if. And I'm like, no,
Speaker:no. I read them when I
Speaker:was a literal teenager. That was a long
Speaker:time ago. Now I have, like, it was enough
Speaker:time that I could create my own humans
Speaker:who can read the books that I read. Like, if you
Speaker:show me, like, a symbol from it, I can, like, usually clock
Speaker:it. I've never been here for details.
Speaker:Like, literally, like, I'm pretty sure my husband's eyes are brown. Thanks for being here,
Speaker:guys. Have a good day. Love you mean it.
