Beat The Mental Health Out Of It! | Dark-Humor Conversations On Serious Mental Illness & Trauma
If you live with mental illness—or love someone who does—and you’re tired of sugar-coated wellness talk, this show is for you!
"Beat The Mental Health Out Of It!" blends dark humor with real recovery so you feel seen, steadied, and a little lighter. We tell it like it is, so you don’t have to.
Hosted by Nicholas Wichman (“The DEFECTIVE Schizoaffective”) and often joined by co-host Tony Medeiros ("IndyPocket"), this is a brutally honest mental health podcast about what it’s actually like to live with serious mental illness on the schizophrenia spectrum. We talk schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, BPD, PTSD, addiction, religious trauma, bad therapy, psych wards, meds, disability, and trying to build a life in a system that isn’t built for us. You’ll get:
– Lived-experience truth from someone who hears voices, dissociates, relapses, parents, plays music, and still shows up.
– Grounded insight from a mental health professional who has sat across from hundreds of clients and worked inside the system.
– Edgy, stigma-smashing, sometimes controversial conversations about mental illness, relationships, family dysfunction, religion, work, creativity, and survival.
– Challenging takeaways and coping ideas you can actually try—along with laughs that punch up, down, left, right… everywhere.
This show is for people juggling therapy, meds, trauma, and everyday chaos who want honest talk, gallows humor, and zero judgment. Whether you’re schizoaffective, living with schizophrenia or psychosis, dealing with PTSD, supporting a loved one, or just trying not to lose your mind, "Beat The Mental Health Out Of It!" gives you language, community, and brutally honest hope.
We’re not your therapists—we’re fellow passengers on “The Struggle Bus,” sharing what we’ve learned the hard way and refusing to suffer in silence.
Beat The Mental Health Out Of It! | Dark-Humor Conversations On Serious Mental Illness & Trauma
Turning Pain Into Music | Insights On BPD, Addiction & Songwriting With Trevor Wischmeyer
In this candid episode, we explore how BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), addiction, and the art of ruthless editing can transform pain into meaningful art—without glamorizing the damage done.
Join writer and musician Trevor Wischmeyer (Sympathy For The Typewriter) as we delve into the intertwining processes of craft, accountability, and emotional recovery.
We shine a light on key topics:
- BPD patterns that can both inspire and challenge creativity
- The relationship between addiction and artistic expression
- The paradoxical beauty that emerges from crafting songs from scar tissue
Discover how to embrace honesty and integrity in the songwriting process while ensuring that your art does not exploit suffering.
Share a four-line verse or 30-second demo in on our Discord "The Struggle Bus"—get real feedback without the ego cosplay. (link below)
If you’re struggling (U.S.): Call/Text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24/7).
Beat The Mental Health Out Of It! is a candid mental health podcast with lived experience—schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia spectrum psychosis, BPD, PTSD, trauma recovery, coping skills, and dark humor that fights stigma.
Hosted by Nicholas Wichman (“The DEFECTIVE Schizoaffective”) with frequent co-host Tony Medeiros, ("IndyPocket"), we talk serious mental illness, psych wards, religious trauma, bad therapy, meds, disability, and messy real-world coping.
New episodes drop every other Monday at 6am ET.
Want community and support? Join our Discord, “The Struggle Bus”: https://discord.gg/emFXKuWKNA
All links (TikTok, YouTube, Streaming, etc.): https://linktr.ee/BTMHOOI
Podcast cover art by Ryan Manning
Alright. Welcome. I forgot the microphones right there.
SPEAKER_02:The microphones right here. Yeah. In between us. Welcome to beat the mental health out of it. This is the Dark Lord of the Sticks. In the Backyard Edition. In the bad the backyard edition. Featuring Sympathy for the Typewriter. Yeah. AKA Trevor. Alright, you can say you can say whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I am Trevor.
SPEAKER_02:So uh I'm Nick, just so we're on a first name basis. Um so today, guys, it's gonna be our first official interview for the podcast. You're welcome. Like he's he gets to do it.
SPEAKER_00:Very excited.
SPEAKER_02:What an honor for him. I don't know what any of the questions will be. No, I mean we've been shooting the shit all night long, but um we're just gonna, you know, vibe with it and see how it goes. So there's no real time limit set on this. Um I'm gonna let Trevor give a lot of his background, and he's just gonna share what he's comfortable with. Um and then certainly we'll do a little shameful plug for his channel. Add sympathy for the typewriter. Um definitely look him up, follow, like, subscribe, all that jazz. So uh good music there. Amazing music. A little biased, but good music. He's not biased, well, maybe, but it's legit good stuff. Um, which I'm hoping we'll talk about a little bit. So here we go. Uh Trevor, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and if you want to give a little background about some of your struggles and your history and all that, just go on wherever you want and we'll take it from there, man.
SPEAKER_00:All right. Uh well, the most important thing, uh, and the reason why I guess I'm here is uh I'm a musician, singer-songwriter since uh 2010, so 14 years now, which is I'm 28, so half my life. Um and mainly, I mean I started out as very influenced by Green Day, very into like pop punk or yeah, derivative genres of that. And then I kind of found the singer-songwriter genre with Bob Dylan and got a little bit more into like more emo music, more uh uh like uh Americana, stuff like Bright Eyes, absolute favorite band ever. Oh nice. Uh Neutral Milk Hotel, a lot of pretentious stuff, but like that has really good melody, really good lyricism, and that that's yeah. I mean, I love the Beatles, I love classic rock, stuff like that, but that's not really what influences my music. Uh, because I like to write about a lot of darker topics, I'd say. Um What are some topics you covered? I so I've always kind of thought of myself as like Taylor Swift, but like make her sadder, maybe, and male. Okay. You know, that that's kind of um I mean she hasn't influenced me or anything, but I I have no hatred towards her. Um I mean, like her ever, what is it, the Evermore album and the Folk Horse and that. Yeah, both of those.
SPEAKER_02:But you take it, I know, even deeper and darker.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I like to uh yeah, I I can't remember Taylor really talking about a whole lot of uh real addiction and suicide and stuff like that. So just heartbreak and cheating on the songs are uh yeah about people who are no longer in my life anymore. Um why do you gotta be so mean? It's always been one of my policies. It's like I have a hard time writing about someone while they're in my life, so I gotta lose you first. Um and so kind of the tragedy of that's what's inspired you, right? Absolutely. There there's something there's something so it's like you can capture capture somebody in a melody and like they're trapped there forever. And you are such an eloquent poetic guy. I love your stuff. Uh I I like to be. I like to try to be. Uh, but yeah, there's something about like you put them in your pocket kind of thing, and so you never really lose somebody. Like I have a big fear of loss. Uh I guess that's another important part. Uh I diagnosed with the borderline personality disorder, and you can absolutely tell if you just read any of my lyrics. It's a lot of topic of fear of loss and stuff like that, abandonment, anything like that. A lot of my songs. And so it's like you can capture somebody and you never truly lose them. As long as you don't get rid of the photos, or you don't get rid of the songs, you don't get rid of the memories. They're kind of like you can almost like torture yourself with them in a way. Um which so I I I read one time that uh a borderline's favorite hobby is to nail themselves to the cross. And that has always stuck with me because it's kind of true. I mean, it's like there's something about that self-torture, and not in a self-harm kind of way, but in a I gotta access my feelings and what's the fastest way to get there. And so, like, you think of, well, yeah, like I like my songs are kind of like I'll put on my own music. Like, I'm shameless about that. I I I write songs that I would want to listen to if somebody else were writing them, and so that's always been my policy. I love that. Like, you can hear a lot of artists say in the car, like on a drive, I'll just pull up my uh my TikToks or whatever and just listen to my own music, sing along with it as if someone else wrote it, like almost in a dissociative way, where it's like I'm my own favorite artist and my own biggest fan. And I try not to approach that from a narcissistic way, but rather uh like validate. If someone else wrote it, I would love these songs just as much. So I'm just very thankful I'm the one who got to pluck them from the universe. So I that's pretty cool, man. I love that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's um And I don't think that has to be a vain thing or a narcissistic thing.
SPEAKER_00:I think it's just appreciating what you do. I struggle with that a lot because it's like I there I mean, narcissism really, you know, a lot of times comes from uh low self-esteem insecurity, stuff like that. And so there's like always been two sides to me where it's like I either don't believe in myself or I overly believe in myself. And so uh so I like with my music, I like I said, I'm my own biggest fan, basically, but I also like I don't know where that line is of like, oh, I'm confident and know what I can do versus like are you also your risk critic? Well that too. I mean, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my music. I I think that does show I I think not to get too um deep into the weeds of songwriting, but there's a lot of stuff where I like to read my own lyrics because I like to see tricks I did. I know once it's just in a song. If you're not reading the lyrics like on a sheet, you're never gonna notice the rhyme scheme that I was like, it's almost like a polyrhythm. Like in it, like I write poetry like to a polyrhythm where like I have internal rhyming up here and then match it down here. Wow. It's like like MM is one of my favorite lyricists just for the just for his rhymes. I just like to like his multisyllabic rhyming that he will do like a 10-syllable rhyme and then match it with 10 syllables after, and each one rhymes with itself.
SPEAKER_02:Or the accents he does with it too, like accents are in syllables, which is really cool. Yeah, and that's great melody within the rhythm.
SPEAKER_00:You get into yeah, you get into the rhythm of how spoken word is. And that's something with my songs, is I always write them as poems first. And that's very controversial uh in songwriter circles. I have found. I've I tried to get in with a few. I think that I think a lot of people have an idea of what a poet is. I've always thought I'm a poet first, songwriter second, guitarist third, singer fourth. Because I'd never really thought of myself as a very strong singer, but I know what I can do. Um, in terms of like poetry and all that. Like I I know that I am good at what I do with that. And so I don't really have to have self-doubt there. Um, self-criticism for sure to make sure it's set up right. Like uh my writing technique is like you either have like the the people who paint the page and then go back and revise, or you have the the hammers where each line they will work on line by line and kind of build it like a brick wall, starting, well, I guess a reverse brick wall because you're starting the top right. And that's how I am. I write one line while simultaneously writing the second one for the rhyme itself. So I kind of start here and here and then flesh it out, and then I will go. And it kind of, like as I get down the page, I know what I'm writing about by the end of it. But a lot of times it starts off with, oh, those words sound good together. And I've always uh like I have a line in one of my songs about like being the arbiter of which words words should sleep together, and I've all like you you make couples of words basically, and like you're the one creating all that. And uh that's really cool. And so I I kind of see them as pairs, everything is always in pairs when I'm writing. So, but because I'm so brick by brick, a lot of songwriters see that as very rigid. And I actually had had a lot of trouble when I was in college and I was in creative writing classes and poetry classes because they kind of discourage you from in rhyme because it's the easiest thing you can do when it's like monosyllabic in rhyme, like friend and end, stuff like that, like which there's nothing wrong with if everything you did is interesting before those two rhymes or those two words that rhyme. But you know, beginner poetry classes, you see a lot of they're so focused on the rhyme that they they're not fleshing it out. And I wasn't like that. And so I had to prove that, hey, I can end rhyme in a way that you haven't maybe seen as much of, trust me. And so there would it take me a few assignments per professor for them to be like, okay, like you can you can do Nrime then. But it also forced me to kind of grow and do a lot of um internal rhyming. And I would specifically avoid Nrime and then do in a very, very uh it would it would border into arrogance. I would kind of just fill up as much internal rhyming without a single end rhyme just to kind of get back at it. Like I always wanted to break the rules at least a little bit, but um so like that they were always like, well, this is poetry, you're not supposed to treat it as like a songwriter. Then you go to songwriter circles. Contradictory. It's the opposite. It's like, well, you're writing poems, but you should be writing songs. And it's like I, you know, I've always been one foot in each camp, which has kind of always separated me in a way, not above or below, but just separated me in kind of uh a way that I'd never really fit in with either crowd. I fit in with poets a lot more. Like I've I've taken songs and just read them at poetry readings and gotten very good responses. Um and of course, you know, open mic nights, I take my poems, turn them into songs, and play them and very good responses. But if you tell people, well, I write poems and turn them into songs. They automatically discount you. There yeah. So yeah, I've I've kind of learned different ways to introduce it uh over the years.
SPEAKER_02:That's bullshit because like my thing is that if you have a method that works for you, who cares how you get there? Yeah. If you're creating beautiful work, who gives a shit how you get there unless it's fucking AI? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But like you have a process now.
SPEAKER_02:Right, but you have a process that is getting you the beautiful work that you're doing, and who cares who judges you for how the hell you're getting it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:Like that's kinda it doesn't really matter uh you know what tool you're mining with, as long as you find something in the dirt, basically. So yeah, it's all a means to the end, whatever. Sorry, Spider. Oh, thank you. Rod said it we are in their territory.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that yeah, I love for one thing, I love that you shared your writing process. I think because it does sound truly unique, I think that's something that's it's very sporadic too.
SPEAKER_00:Like sometimes I'll three songs in a month, sometimes I won't touch it for four months. It's like I've not really written something new in a couple months right now, but I'm always recharging is how I see it. I used to get so paranoid that I'll never write another song. I've completely lost it and all that, but it always has come back. And so I've learned to just not be afraid. But I mean, that ties into my big fear of loss and abandonment. It's like I was so terrified that my own skills, talents, whatever abilities were going to leave me one day. And like what like I'm nothing without it, basically.
SPEAKER_02:And you were telling me that with um VPD that that's a big thing is the fear of loss and associating everything with that, right?
SPEAKER_00:And the fear of abandonment for sure. That's one of the nine. Yeah. Uh that's one of the nine like criteria, really. That's one of the biggest ones, is like uh yeah, intense fear of abandonment or perceived abandonment, which is important that there is a difference there. And perceived abandonment is really what it is. I mean, it's all cognitive distortions all the way down, basically, but it's uh yeah, I mean, like even through my music, there's so many songs. Like I I have a song that's called What Loss Is. And basically it's just talking about like how a tree must feel when her leaves leave her once like they die off in the the autumn, and like how much loss trees go through every year. And it's like it's just like even back then, I mean, I I wrote that seven years ago. It's like it was so obvious even back then that I was dealing with loss via like the idea of a forest and what what loss nature goes through every year and all that.
SPEAKER_02:Did you ever consider with that what it means when they get their leaves back? Did you ever take that route with it? I sometimes will talk about the spring.
SPEAKER_00:I just wonder. Yeah, I mean, I definitely have songs that talk about the spring and and kind of a rebirth or whatever, or finding love again, basically, is what that really is, is finding finding anyone that's going to love you back.
SPEAKER_02:And the things but that is like we're I know I suffer being in a dark state a lot. Yeah. It's hard to focus on the more hopeful, optimistic topics we kind of revel in our more dark state, would you say? Yeah. How do you look at that?
SPEAKER_00:I'm very seasonal, uh, very seasonal based in my writing. And so if I'm if I'm more in a loss-centric mindset, there's gonna be a lot of autumn that I'm writing about. If I'm in kind of a more positive, there's gonna be a lot of spring. And it kind of they always have aligned in a way. And so, but like it's interesting with like my writing has lore to it, which is kind of a pretentious way of describing it, but it's like I I'm not just writing it. So I'm I've been working for nine years on a concept record called Wither, which is all comes from the line, you're the flower who just chooses to wither. So it's basically this idea that you can either bloom or you can wither, and it's your choice. Uh and so it's a it's a concept record, but it spills across every record I've ever written. There's a common theme where there's always gonna be the flower, there's always gonna be the goldfinch. The goldfinch represents the singer side of me. Like there's a line in uh one of my songs. Uh it was it's uh The Goldfinch is singing a song he had written. It was beautiful, but no one could see that he was not singing for those down below. He was weeping for himself in that tree. And so it it it talks about like like that's just the singer side of me. And then the typewriter, which comes with sympathy for the typewriter. I mean, that's where the name comes from. That's the writer side of me.
SPEAKER_02:In a second, you need to explain your the the meaning behind your name.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Uh and then I have the maple tree, which represents a lot of loss, as I just explained. I have the garden, which is the universe that all of my songs are set in, basically. Um I have a and it it kind of coincides with um this idea of this third story apartment, basically, which was the garden in a way. So it's like the garden can be actual nature, or it can be, you know, a place where you fell in love with somebody or live with somebody or whatever. And it's like, did you wither there or did you bloom? Uh, or it was it self-destructive inside those walls and all that. And so like there's all these characters that show up uh in a lot of my songs, they they all intertwine together, like the goldfench sits in the maple tree. Um or like the maple tree is towering over the garden, or the garden is inside the apartment, or the garden is hosting the flower that is withering, or the typewriter is crushing the flower. Because at one point, and this is kind of teenage angst, I'd say, because all this kind of came to me when I was 19, um, where I I thought, man, like the weight of what I'm writing is like actually killing me and like sending me into all this addiction and all that because I can't handle the truths that I'm writing down or whatever. And so, like, I I have a line about that, and one of the songs I'm most proud of, talking about the uh the weight of the typewriter was crushing the flower. It was more than the garden could take. But it was the weight of the novel that would bury them both under fictions that they would create. And so, like oh, and yeah, and then there's the river as well. But the river floods the the garden. Like it all blends together on one concept record, but it spreads across all the records. It's all it's it's its own universe, basically. Uh that is brilliant. Like there's there's levels of lore to it where all the characters are connect. And I tell all my different stories like using the same Lego pieces in a way. Like, if I need to talk about this, well, I can put the goldfinch here and I can put the tree here, and I can explain how the goldfinch will leave for the season. So the maple tree is also losing the singer side or whatever, or the the typewriter or you know, typewriter being on a shelf not being used, which is where the sympathy for the typewriter name comes from. Gate segregated. Yeah, is where uh I remember I was laying in bed one day and just envisioned like this typewriter sitting like up in my closet, and like if it's not being used, then what's the point of it? It's a paperweight at that point. Uh and I kind of felt the same way. It's like if if I'm not writing, then what do I exist for? Like I'm very black and white, which is going back to BPD, a very common thing with that is black and white thinking. And it's like I've never felt like I had a purpose that does not have to do with my music. But I'm also fortunate on the flip side of that, that I kind of knew early what I'm here for. And fortunately it was backed up with a lot of hard work that a lot of other people have very much appreciated and said that I'm good at. So it's kind of been like you know the sport team. Yeah, it's it's like a mirror that's always been like focused back on me in a way. And I I write about mirrors a lot too. Um, which that's something that within Bright Eyes is music. Like they have an album called Fevers and Mirrors, which is my favorite album of all time. Um they they talk about, or he taught Connor, the Connor Oberst, the main guy of Bright Eyes, he talks about mirrors a lot, but he uses it in terms of vanity, and I've never really used it in that way. I've always used it as a character that more represents like being able to see who you are. Like there's this um very important part. I guess it doesn't really, if I you can't really spoil a concept record, so it's not like a movie, where like you realize that flower is a mirror. Um like that there's this moment where like I, you know, at the end of the album, You're the flower just chooses to wither, but right before that, it's talking about like the withering flower. All it is was just a mirror that you were staring into this whole time. You're the flower is choosing to wither. And so like it flips around the whole perspective. It's very cinematic. Like I can see my songs as if they're movies because I write them in a very narrative way.
SPEAKER_02:Well, hell, maybe they'll you could do like some sort of video up and wither.
SPEAKER_00:That'd be it'd be neat, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So you I love the concept. Okay, so you said one more time, explain your concept, just very bare bones of a mirror. Because I want to add something to that myself. Where it's the flower. J the just the bare bones concept of a mirror to you.
SPEAKER_00:It's basically it's not vanity, it's it's really self-reflection, of course. It's kind it's looking back and figuring out whether you're moving forward or backwards.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. And you said Connor looks at it as waste to the vanity.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of yeah, he it's a it's a lot more vanity-based um within his writing. Not that he is full of vanity, but rather he uses it as a an image of what vanity is.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And I use it more as a self-reflection. That's one thing. I've always been a little paranoid that I'm gonna get like called a bright eyes rip-off or something when I, you know, get inspired.
SPEAKER_02:I try to be. And that's the thing, inspired by is different than copycatting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But like what I was gonna say about a mirror is that, and maybe you're getting at this too, but I can say, like in real life, when I'm looking in a mirror, I see only flaws.
SPEAKER_03:Hmm.
SPEAKER_02:It's hard for me to see anything good about myself. So I guess it's more of a judgment thing for me. Yeah, judgment. Which I think again is playing into that dark side of things, you know. Uh I don't know what your take is on that. And I I because you said it helps reflect like yourself, right? Like, I guess that could play into it, but it's not the sole purpose of it, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's a lot of times when I'm talking about the mirror, it is very specifically in context with the flower. Okay. Like I have a line, and maybe I've been pouring all these drinks to make it clear how one could see a flower, but to me I saw a mirror. And like it's so simple, but it's like that is exactly it. Like, and that that whole song is actually a bunch of comparisons where how like it basically explains what I just did in a in a much more rhyming fashion. Right. About like, okay, you have the paintbrush, which I forgot to even mention the paintbrush, which is you know how one could see a paintbrush, but to me I saw a dancer where like I wrote this song about a paintbrush that's actually just a ballroom dancer. Like, you don't find out it's a paintbrush on a canvas until the very last line of the song. Like, I'm describing this ballroom dancer who's waltzing around on a ballroom floor, but really it's a canvas, and the paintbrush is making a picture. Wow. And that that's like sometimes it's like, you know, psychedelics weren't even involved with that. But how did I conceptualize that? Sometimes it's interesting. Like the the I always try and write metaphorically when I can and take Oh, you're an expert at that. Like clearly what you're describing is oh brilliant. Like I metaphor. I typically I'll look at something and see it in a different way and like interpret it as like, okay, this is a stand-in for this. And uh Is that something you had to work at?
SPEAKER_02:Like you have to like how can I view this differently or a natural? Like, that's what I see when I see that.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of times I I will make I'll make the connection as I'm writing the first few words and then angle it that way.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Like a song I've never used before. I it really needs some revision. Um kind of contradicts me saying that I write line by line and perfect it. I I think it's written well, but it's also not really in song form, which I usually don't mind. I don't write a lot of choruses. I'm totally fine with verse after verse after verse after verse. I just like to hammer it in because like choruses are like they're great. They ground it in, it makes it feel more like a song.
SPEAKER_02:But it also, if you're trying to write that chorus, like oh, how many choruses are genius, and then the the verses have no substance.
SPEAKER_00:Or the other way around. There's a lot of songs where I love the verses. And then you get to chorus, like this is nothing. Yeah, it's repetitive. Get back to the verses. And so, like, you know, that's what I like about Bob Dylan. Like, we were talking about Desolation Row before we started this, and it's like that really doesn't have a chorus too much. He hooks it with on Desolation Row, and he ends with the like each verse with that. And so, like, theme, but it's not really a chorus, it's more of like a refrain. So I do write refrains more than choruses for sure, where I try and link it all together, or at least have something literary that is repetitive, like um using a certain like pronoun in a certain way or a certain phrase, but I change the the words each time. Like I'll pick two words and change them, and I like to make them rhyme all the way through the song.
SPEAKER_02:Which is a great artistic thing. Like you said, you said Desolation Rose, your favorite Bob Dylan song? That envisions of Joanna, yeah. Yeah, I gotta say uh minus tambourine man.
SPEAKER_00:That one's also great. That does have a chorus, though. Yeah, but I will say Which is it's a great chorus.
SPEAKER_02:It's fine. But like the music it's a pretty short chorus.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And he does switch it up a couple times a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:To to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free is one of the greatest lyrics of all time. I mean, I love that song.
SPEAKER_02:I play it all the time.
SPEAKER_00:It's a yeah, it is it's so profound.
SPEAKER_02:And he was brilliant with that. Is believe it or not.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway, yeah, it's absolutely a great song.
SPEAKER_02:But uh, yeah, so I love hearing you explain your writing process and even a snippet of your lyrics and all that. I mean, um, how many songs do you have on TikTok at this point? Oh, like your your socials, you know, like approximate?
SPEAKER_00:The problem is I repost. I I well, I never repost like the same video, but I will like take a different take of a song if it's been like a month and put it back up. So, like I know I have like probably like 30 or 40 posts, but that doesn't mean it's 30 or 40 songs. It's probably like 15 of my songs or 17 of them. Okay. Yeah, or some are just fragments of songs that I haven't finished yet, but like I just want to see what people think. Um What's been your reception so far? What do people seem to be thinking? I have never gotten a negative comment before, which is really surprising. Uh it's not surprising me. I'm almost up to a hundred followers right now, which I'm excited about actually crossing a hundred, hopefully soon. I'm at like 95 or something. I just hate that. I know yeah, I um I've never gotten a negative comment. And like some videos on it, you're enslaved to the algorithm. So some do absolutely nothing, and some have gotten like you know, 1600 views off something, and with you know, a account that's very small, it's pretty good. And then, you know, have like uh 90 likes or 100 likes. It's like wow, okay. I I get a lot of requests for like where can I find this on Spotify or whatever? And it's like, I'm sorry, I haven't even recorded these yet. I'm just like putting up demos at the moment. Like I'll tell you follow me, then you can find out when I you know that's what I always tell them, like, well, follow me. Well, let's say do you have a plan to do that eventually? If I can the problem is, like, I like to do everything myself. I'm a little bit controlling with my own music. And that I mean I've kept it pure in that way where I, you know, I've never coded before. Like I like everything is always me. So I always feel like I have to do all the recording and mixing, mastering, and I don't know anything about that stuff. Like I I have done enough to make good sounding demos, and that's about it. But like I I want a good sounding album. And so like I I've I've kind of just always waited around and hopefully think like I'll make a connection here, and like hopefully, like not maybe not for free, but uh you know, I'll have a friend who knows how to do something and that's not me. Yeah, yeah. And that's uh drum tracks. That's that's I know that that's what I'm I've always idea in the back of my mind for that. It's like, you know, I know you kill it. Um and that's but there's a lot of little studios that you could probably start a freaking GoFundMe.
SPEAKER_02:Get the let's go fund this guy. Let's get his shit out there. It's so good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I it's so good. The thing is, like with the smaller places like that, like they want you to do a single. Like, I'm not talking about like record labels, but just like they want you to do one song. And I'm I'm not a single-based, like I I've so I focus on melody a lot. Like, I really study melody. I try and make everything I have as catchy as possible. Every line, like it's dopamine out in terms of like how much hook it can have in it. Even for like lyrics first, I think you can get away with saying anything if it's catchy enough. That's kind of always been you know, I've asked people, so many people over the years to get it just to get a consensus. What do you listen to music for? Are you a lyrics first or are you melody first? A lot of people say rhythm. Like, okay, that's great. You love to dance. But like if you could only pick the two, would you rather a catchy melody or a better lyric? And there's kind of a gender split there. Uh yeah, it seems like uh Can I guess? I I I bet ye I bet you can guess correctly.
SPEAKER_02:Is female the lyrics? Ye a lot of times. Okay, yeah, okay. Yeah, they connect emotionally to that. Yeah. Why not to genderize things? No. We are different.
SPEAKER_00:I I'm a very feminine fella and I'm cool with that. I'm very confident about that, which I think is probably why I'm able to write what I do. Is that I bring it in touch with your emotions. I so I write with a lot of pronoun. Like the goldfinch is always male, but the maple tree is always female. The uh mirror can kind of like the flowers can be whatever. The garden, like anything nature-based, a lot of times is gonna be female. I talk about like the the the gold or the the uh maple tree losing her leaves, like that that line, which that's a whole other specifically her. Yeah. But so I also have a thing where I like to mirror my lyrics too, where every lyric is said in a different way somewhere else on the album, just to show the whole mirror thing. So, like me saying like that the maple is losing her leaves, it might be shown in a different way somewhere else on the album where I say that line, but I don't it's not repeated. It's just the essence of each line is put into another line somewhere else. So you're not creating saunas, you're creating it's almost a tap a wow. Yeah, I I feel like I'm almost putting a puzzle together. It's not just. Just an album, and that's why I've worked nine years on it, is because like it's gonna be something. It's like it's gonna be my, I don't know if you're kind of familiar or at all with Neutral Milk, I tell, but I want my in the aeroplane out of the sea. Like that's kind of what I'm going for. I want this grandiose writing experiment. Called a Magnum Opus. Is that what that's called? That's what I've yeah, and that's why it's like I can't put that out as my first album. I already have my first three albums written. Like I just haven't recorded them. Yeah. Yeah, I've got about 35 songs or so. I have most of the lyrics of Wither written. I just haven't composed a lot of them into songs, but I have several of them. I have like uh three flights of stairs, April 22nd. That one I played live a few times. That's one of my favorites. That one is interesting structurally just because it repeats. Like it's a circular song. So it repeats back into the first line, but an octave higher. Okay. Or not an octave. I'm singing a I'm singing the fifth rather than like so I I sing it pretty low and then I go up to the fifth of the the root chord, which is in the key of B, capo 4G shape. Yeah. Um theory, even if I don't use it right sometimes. But uh but that one, that one really is where the the whole third story apartment, I mean three flights of stairs, April 22nd, three flights of stairs climbing up to. And when I was 19, I had a third-story apartment uh on Shelbyville. So that's uh that's where a lot of it takes place in my mind. I can still picture like the layout, but I also picture it with like a garden growing in it and all that, and like the maple trees towering over it. Like it's almost like the reef comes off of it, and it's just like this di uh diorama of like a garden. And it's wow, it's all visual. It's like I am not visually talented, so all I have are words, and they've always had to be. Yeah, I I I mentioned that multiple times. Um, where um like I I've referenced either like my hands are too shaky to paint or anything like that, which is more metaphorical. I mean my hands aren't really I'm not dealing with that, but like uh where I talk about like all I have are words. Well, like even in uh on my first album, I have a song called This Is Four that I wrote right after I turned 18. And it it talks about all the uh all the prayers I ever prayed and times I lost my faith, all the love I never gave and love that went to waste, all the floors I stained with paint but couldn't clean it up, or but never cleaned it up, all the pictures I couldn't paint when words were not enough. Which I mean that's basically like I reference it multiple times. So like and I reference paintings a lot, like with the the that's where the the paintbrush comes in, like the dancer. It's like you know, you turn visual into a different type of visual, but add music. It's like you know, music's the only temporal art form, but dancing's very close.
SPEAKER_02:Amen to that. And honestly, that's a huge thing with this whole channel is like, yeah, I'm a drummer, you're a writer, singer, guitarist, composer. Yeah, but like like we like we talked about on previous episodes, is that it can be any art form, you know? Any art form or any hobby that you can lose yourself in. Yeah. Like it does not have to be even quote unquote art. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:But since we're anything that's the art, like an a welder is making art. If they're good at it, or you don't even have to be good at it, but like if you're enjoying it and you're expressing something.
SPEAKER_02:And that's why it's about the process, not the product. Now, some people care, like I know I care about producing great drums, you care about producing great lyrics and compositions. But if someone is literally just I don't care what you're if you're drawing circles on a paper and they're not completely perfect, but that gives you that flow state and that therapeutic catharsis, oh yeah, then that's all that matters. That's all that matters.
SPEAKER_00:It's really I mean, that's it's all art forms, but songwriting absolutely is just chasing catharsis. Yeah. All the way through. It's like there there are times where it's just like, you can't believe you just pulled off this complex rhyme or whatever, this rhyme scheme. And it's like there's songs that have like, I will never attempt that rhyme scheme again because it took me years. Like, I I will sit on a line. There are multiple songs that I started six years ago that I'm still trying to finish because I haven't found that perfect word yet. Or like it took me three years just to come up with this melody because I could not figure out that I needed an E minor seven. I knew I was missing a chord and I found it recently. I finished the song. Actually, that one's one of the most recent I posted on TikTok. That got a great reception. What's it called? It's the uh how lost I have you come in relation to the maple tree. But it's that the how lost I have become. I see the forest for the trees, I see the garden for flowers and the maple fir leaves. Like nice. I know I know you've heard it. I think you liked it or something. So I'm liked all your shit. Well, yeah, but I meant like you hit the like button on it.
SPEAKER_02:So fair enough. I think it's honestly if I haven't hit the like button on something, it's been an accident. But what's interesting is um accidentally dislike. I hit dislike, sorry. Um, but uh I wrote one, I used to attempt writing, and I've never been good at it. But I wrote one lyric I've always been proud of, and it was in a rap song I tried to do. I tried to do like this metal streamo thing mixed with rap. It did not pan out. There's one line I wrote, and I'll never forget it, and it's about uh a woman I was a girl I was mad at through this high school age. It was um um and it's got some X what ifs, so here we go. It's uh forget her man, she's a fucking bitch, she has no life, she has no niche. And I said, Wish I could forget, flick a switch. But Dan, this love potion, no, Dan this notion, her love potion still flows in me, all this commotion and a bearable itch, or something like that. I was really fucking proud of that. That's the only good line ever. Um Eminem inspired that, but that's as far as it went.
SPEAKER_00:But um I could hear that, like the internal rhyming.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but like that's the only one I ever did. The rest of the song was shit. Um but again, like like you said, when you hit something that's so good, you're just like, holy crap, that was amazing. That's the one time I felt that through writing.
SPEAKER_00:There's a lot of songwriters where they Bob Dillon's very famous for it, where in later years he's been interviewed and he's explained I could never write Visions of Joanna. I can never write a song that good again. I never will. And it's like when I was younger, it used to terrify me, especially because I'd read about how most of my favorite artists or just singer songwriters in general, they peak at 24. And I so I've had a big fear of peaking my whole life. I've always been worried, am I peaking? Is it my is it downhill for me or is my writing not gonna be as good as it was? I've had that fear a lot. Um, I try not to think about it. I found that's the best thing to do, is just not worry if I've peaked. But uh a lot of people kind of tend to look at it as like those albums you you're writing at like 22, 23, 24, 25 tend to be the ones that like not the like uh rate your music or whatever like matters all that much. But like the highest rated ones are usually the ones written in your early 20s. So like fortunately a lot of Wither was written in my early 20s, so like at least I've got that, even if I never wrote something else or like something as good, I've got a lot that I I I have a lot of material to keep going back to.
SPEAKER_02:But um What's interesting is we become more refined and more um mature as we get older. Well, you also But yeah, I guess you're not as like emotionally volatile or that is it.
SPEAKER_00:The angst goes away, and I think that has to do with it. And so in a way, oh, I think Lightfox will beat you down eventually.
SPEAKER_02:You're just like, I got the energy for this.
SPEAKER_00:Well, in a way, there's uh there's a lot of negatives to borderline personality disorder, but there's a few positives, and that is you tend to be incredibly angsty and hold on to that for a long time, especially if you're not medicated. And so it's like, all right, I I think I've got enough of this that I'm going to be able to sustain my career. Which I was always afraid of, like putting out an album. Uh I don't remember who said it. A famous musician, very famous, said that you have, you know, an infinite amount of time to write your first album, you have six months to write your second one. Well, that's a thing. And so that's why I wrote my first three before I put out my first one, so that I have years to write my fourth one. Is how I said.
SPEAKER_01:Are you putting your first one out?
SPEAKER_00:No, I still haven't even. But I'm saying, like, once I have that, like I I can just chill. Like my second one's already completed. Your third is. My third, for the most part is, yeah. Like I have the song, it's more like finalizing track lists. I'm always playing with track lists. Whenever I'm bored, I'll pull out a piece of paper and just like s uh like do tracking or whatever, and like just see, okay, like this song would go into that one. I I try to avoid having songs and similar keys back to back to back. Right. But I do like writing the key of E a lot. So well, there's an art form to even stacking albums like tracks. Like in the flow of an album is really good. Well, it's like if you look at like Green Day being one of my favorite bands, you look at the key of each song on an American idiot, and it goes around. Like circles, basically. And so each one feeds into the next in a way, like at least um key-wise, like they don't all blend together. Some tracks like actually do fade in and fade out to each other, like uh Boulevard Broken Dreams Holiday or uh Are We the Waiting and St. Jimmy? Like that they there's no stop between the two.
SPEAKER_01:But what's interesting like that?
SPEAKER_02:What is that these artists are thinking about that. We feel it as like the listener, but are we thinking, do we appreciate that they're like, gosh, how do we make this flow song to song so it's like a continuous Yeah, I love it. I mean, that takes work too, and people don't realize what that takes. And I'm sure you're struggling, you know, you work on that too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I have a part one and part two song basically. Uh I have a song called, like it's a if you put them together, the titles. The first track is an endless revision, and the second track is for clarity and meaning, but it's kind of a suite in a way, where it's an endless revision for clarity and meaning. And that's a song that it basically has an intro, and then it becomes the next song, and then it's just eight verses all the way through, but each verse is a different character who never can fulfill what they were born to do. So, like, and it has one of the my favorite, like, if I had a thesis statement lyric for me, it probably would be from that song where it's uh the lattice clutch the weeping vine, as pages turn, the ivy climb, the verbose poet couldn't find the words that he had longed to say to make the garden overflow and grow into the forest he envisioned. Like, no matter what, he can't turn this little garden into a forest. He doesn't have the right words for it. Or like there's a sad pianist who can't compose the song that she's been trying to work on, or like this this madman who can't uh like he can't record his thoughts down like quick enough, or uh like a like a professor who never can solve like the complexities of love and sorrow, or like uh like all these are different. Like you have the postmodern novelist who can't figure out if he's a paradox or not. Like each each verse is a different thing.
SPEAKER_02:You are a damn genius, bro. I'm not even kidding. This is just blown. I didn't know the depth of even this. Like you can hear it in your music, and I know a lot of brilliant art, you know, we all observe it, but we can appreciate it to a depth when you hear the explanation and the feelings and the thoughts that came to it. It's like, holy shit, that's deep.
SPEAKER_00:I spend a lot of time really trying to come up with something to say that hasn't really been said. I mean, everything's been said, but like How do you say it differently? You use metaphor. That's exactly how you do it. You've gotta tie it to a different image that you've never heard before.
SPEAKER_02:And different images connect with different people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's like the flower being the mirror.
SPEAKER_02:Like that's I haven't heard that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I've never heard that. I mean, I'm sure someone thought that, but have they put it down? Are they getting it out? No, they didn't put it to a melody. You know what I mean? So So all that, if you don't mind, I'm gonna caveat this to kind of a different topic. It's related. So, how many artists out there are tortured, have trauma, are trying to express this through their art form. Okay, so I only I'm only this is a segue into if you're okay sharing some of the hardship, struggles, and trauma you've been through in your life, and also how that's influenced your music.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think the biggest is I I have a very strong theme of addiction on top of it all. Um, I have very direct songs like Lucky Strikes, which is the one I sent you a couple weeks ago. That that's uh brought me to fucking tears, bro. Really? Yeah, it's powerful stuff. That's like relate to that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But the fact if you can make someone feel what you're feeling if you don't relate, that's it. Yeah, like brilliant.
SPEAKER_00:You don't want to be someone who wants to make people cry in general. Like, that's kind of like not a good person behavior. But you kind of have like an excuse if you're a songwriter, like the best compliment is Did I make you cry? But you're not doing it with malice. No, you're just doing like, hey, I'm letting you express through what I'm expressing. And then what happens is that person becomes the mirror of everything you felt.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's a vicarious expression. Yep. And so if they felt it, it's like, wow, you got to kind of live in how I feel. Yeah. You get to experience my life.
SPEAKER_02:It's like that song Beautiful by Eminem. Do you know that one? I probably do. It's all about how, you know, nobody understands what he goes through.
SPEAKER_03:Hmm.
SPEAKER_02:And um, it's one of his like more laid back, but kind of actually pretty songs. Um, and he talks about how he's depressed and all this trauma he's been through. Yeah. And like nobody understands it. But he also addresses that others have been through a ton of shit too. And I've not been in your shoes. He said we should all treat each other's shoes so we understand the full spectrum of trauma to fully, I love the song, to fully um understand what we all fucking been through. It's a br I you need a beautiful by him in that.
SPEAKER_00:I probably have heard of that. It's on the relay. It's on the relay. Oh, then I I definitely have. Anything up to that album I've basically listened to, I'd probably I had a big phase where I listened in specifically just to break down rhyme schemes. I wanted out of that. I wanted to get yeah, I mean, I I still like to put them on on driving or whatever, but I had a I had a phase where that's all I'd listened to just so that I could understand how to rhyme better. Like I wanted to learn. So you used super art artistic. I used him like because yeah, he read the dictionary. It's like, well, I'm not gonna do that, but I need to listen to you, and so you can teach me words and how to rhyme them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what a brilliant um wordsmith anyway. He's fantastic. And like I can tell you that you know, he's not an overly educated what'd he drop out in eighth grade or seventh grade of high school? Isn't that right? Or sorry, middle school. I feel like it's eighth grade, but I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I guess what I'm saying is if that's true, then I I think it's he dropped if you talk about young, maybe I'm just thinking of eight mile, and that's why I'm putting the word eight.
SPEAKER_02:That is so fair. Um, but like I guess what I'm getting at is like he's he's not like a collegiate level educated person. I don't think he has a high school education. He he fought he fought to be respected, but he also fought to get the knowledge to be able to produce this lyrical, eloquent, high-level content.
SPEAKER_00:Similar in that I was homeschooled, but I wasn't really schooled at all. It was more like I was unschooled. So anything I learned, like I I've never taken a music lesson. I've taken writing classes in college, but I'd already been writing for uh seven years at that point. Now it made me better, but like in my first year, I already I won like a poetry competition, like a multi-thousand dollar poetry competition.
SPEAKER_01:What? I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_00:It uh I funny story about that. I never got the money because I didn't check my email, which yeah. So they were like, well, we gotta give it to the second place, sorry. But you won. I was like, you know what? That's better than the money and what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_02:And amen to that too.
SPEAKER_00:It's honestly better. The fact that I can just say, like, I I, you know, I I have proof that I I can do this. But I I put in this, and it was a poem, it's never become a song. It was uh uh Pianist from Germany, I think is what it was called. And it's all about this uh Wurlitzer piano. And it talks about like this this oh it's this type of imagery that you like of my writing, but it's like the this girl playing a piano, but her fingers are invading the shores of Normandy. My god, I know it's like this cool the hymnals have all come undone at the spine, the the whirlitzer drowned in the depths of the Rhine. Like it's My goodness. I had a lot of fun with that. That was just an experiment.
SPEAKER_01:You ever thought about making that a song? I will at some point. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Everything I write most mostly will become a song. Uh someday. I just blow me away. Like, no game. Yeah. Well, thank you. Sorry, I'm just agree like, of course I do.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah. I no, take accountability, like, take accountability for I'm big on taking accountability for what you're good at and also all the shit you do, too. Like accountability is important, both.
SPEAKER_00:I guess that segues back in terms of the colours. Yeah, exactly. So uh addiction is a very common thing. Like, even with the the flower being a mirror, choosing to wither, that mainly is talking about uh alcoholism, but drug use as well, drug abuse especially. Like I'm pretty libertarian in terms of use, I think's fine. It's the abuse that's the problem. Um so I I write a lot about that, and a lot of that's from there there's a lot of drinks in my song, and there's a lot of songs written in my drinks. So it kind of they they bounce.
SPEAKER_02:You say drink like alcohol like alcohol inspired you. Is that what you're doing?
SPEAKER_00:Not that it inspired me, it gave me something to write about. Okay. And I'm very I I'm very uh I like this like well, I guess I don't really have to explain. I like the small details of like life or whatever. I like to notice the little stuff, but it's like I reference um I reference drinking a lot. Not drinking a lot, but a lot of times in my songs I reference drinking, and a lot of drinking, but like uh it like I I in multiple songs I reference like the stains on a carpet. Like you get sloppy and you spill the wine. So I like to talk about the stains on a carpet to represent like how sloppy you're getting, basically. Uh and then also you're painting a canvas. If you spill on carpet, you just made a painting. You just made a Jackson Pollock. Did that just hit you? Or do you like that? I've had that thought.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I was just like, did that freaking just hit you, Danny?
SPEAKER_00:I've never called it a Jackson Pollock. I do have this it kind of reminds me of uh your your line that you came up with where I was talking about uh it was kind of a tongue-in-cheek, but like because I usually don't write about suicide specifically. I write about very dark things like that, but I don't really talk about like as but I talk about uh turning my brains into a Jackson Pollock, like just as like a joke or whatever, like a joke line or whatever.
SPEAKER_02:Like as if you're blowing your brains out?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like onto a canvas or whatever and turn it into a Jackson Pollock. He's the artist who would throw paint at canvases. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, Pollock. So uh what do you Okay, a little fun caveat here? What do you think about Pollock? Do you think that's actually brilliant artwork? Because I hear people laughing about how his paintings go for hell millions of dollars and people are paying for paint splatters. Not to diss Jackson Pollock. I'm just getting what you think about that art form.
SPEAKER_00:I think it would look great in like a medical lobby, like a dentist's office.
SPEAKER_02:I think it looked great in my bathroom. Yeah, yeah, like it's it's not something that's I would never pay. I'd pay 20 bucks for that at a flea market. It's not a dolly.
SPEAKER_00:Like I I it's not uh the persistence of memory. That's my favorite painting of all time. I actually referenced that in one of my songs talking about uh I don't even remember. It's a song I never finished. Well, I did finish the lyrics, but like it was like 10 years ago that I wrote it, but I talk about the persistence of memory, and that's the the melting clocks painting. Oh, nice, yeah. I love that painting. I like a lot of Salvador Dali stuff. Um I just I I like surrealism in art because I mean I like to sometimes write like psychedelic influence, not like drug taking, but just like like psychedelic imagery. I like to uh write about that. Like one of my favorite lines I've ever written was the uh our feelings started twisting when we laid them end to end. Now everything's connected by the roots of flower stems. Our psychedelic eyes were only looking through a lens at everything that ever was and all that's ever been.
SPEAKER_02:I would go and like shoot myself and create a jacks and probably painting right now, but you're blowing my goddamn mind. This is crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_00:But I I I love that uh the idea of everything. Yeah, I mean, it's like the most cliche. Like someone takes acid for the first time and like everything's connected. But it really is, like everything kind of feels that way. And so I, you know, I reference the flower, which is the mirror. Everything's connected by the stems of the flower. So everything is really connected by how you see yourself and your perception of who you are. Basically.
SPEAKER_02:So it it's okay, okay. So Okay, like one topic I definitely wanted to cover with you, like I had pre-planned, which I kind of pervased with you, is since you talked a little bit about Jackson Pollock Panny created from that. I do want to do because you said you have a unique take on death and suicide, right?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if it's death, I don't really know that it's all that unique. I just know that like on my good days I want to avoid it as best as possible. Okay. Um on my bad days, I still usually want to avoid it. I did have a few psychotic breaks over the past few months, doing better now. Uh been two months straight, no psych ward, basically. So we're doing great out here. But uh I mean that's that's probably shouldn't have been in a cycle a few months ago. That that's like that's the metric now.
SPEAKER_02:Like Right? Isn't it funny?
SPEAKER_00:Not in a cyclour today.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's kind of like it's like, you know, it's uh 80 days since your last drink. Yeah, it's kind of like or the factory, it's like 30 days since an accident.
SPEAKER_00:No, like I I literally have thought about hanging up a sign just because I I I love that type of sense of humor where it's like 10 days since you uh And then it's like you gotta wipe the slate.
SPEAKER_02:That's the it's like shit, back to zero. Good stuff. So like share your thoughts because you had kind of a another poetic kind of view on it.
SPEAKER_00:So I think for the most part uh so I fit eight of the n I reliably fit eight of the nine and consistently eight of the nine like formal criteria to be diagnosed with BPD. You need uh five of the nine to be uh formally diagnosed. I have eight, yeah. I had nine. God see. It's a full cycle. Uh but I I had uh I I got the ninth one, I got the ninth infinity stone, is kind of how I saw it. I collected all of them.
SPEAKER_02:Thanos over here. Just for a moment. Snap of the fingers, you're all fucked.
SPEAKER_00:But uh that that was that was more just like a breakdown of the eight kind of collapsing on top of me. Usually I can balance them all, but I just stopped being able to juggle for a minute.
SPEAKER_02:So real quick, before we get to the suicide thing, can you off the top of your head list the nine? Like it can you? I always tag the or you know, yeah attach the thing, but yeah, just edit it onto my hand.
SPEAKER_00:Now I always feel like a fraud because I don't have them memorized, but I I absolutely have them. Like it's fear of abandonment. A lot of it is I can't remember if the black and white thinking is specifically one of the nine, but it's a very common, uh, very com I mean, it's almost it's almost universal with BPD, is uh black and white thinking. Uh suicidal ideation is I think like 70%. There's about 30% who don't constantly deal with that. I unfortunately one of the 30% who really that's the one that I accept rarely, I usually don't have. Uh which was explain that part why I don't have it. And I actually it ties into a bit of narcissistic angling, but you know, if whatever it takes to get to not suicidal, like if it saves you, it saves you.
SPEAKER_02:Because I'll share my perspective on it, which I think most of you already know, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh and then there's uh risky behavior, which is yeah, I I get I get very risky, very crazy sometimes. Um risky business. Yeah, it gets a little crazy, or has historically. So but I mean it's it's mainly stuff like that. A lot of oh well, yeah, the fear of abandonment or perceived abandonment, right and then uh unstable self-image, where you basically require other people to inform you who you are, which is why I cling to my music, and it's why it's like if you want to get me talking, I'm gonna end up quoting my lyrics because like I know who I am because of what I've written, but even not, they tell me who I am rather than me telling the song what it is.
SPEAKER_02:Uh so is it kind of like finding value through how others value you?
SPEAKER_00:Is that yeah, but it's also the appreciation. So it's like if I write a s I've never written a song and just kept it to myself. I know a lot of songwriters do that. They'll write a song just for one person and maybe like, you know, uh a significant other or something. It's like I've never written a song that meant to stick with me or one other person or a couple of people. It has to go to the world because I don't know it's a good song until other people tell me it is. I cannot look at anything I make and think that's great until I've had enough people tell me it's great. And then I will never look at it differently. It's like, all right, I know by consensus this is this is something good.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting because how many artists you go like, I got this one thing that I gotta wait for the right moment because I know it's the best. That's interesting. Yeah, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00:Which doesn't play in the narc does that play into narcissism? I guess it would or kind of would be. It can look like it, but it's more of a neediness where I require other people. I would I if you told me I will never become popular or successful or even just a small indie following, like even that's enough. Like I don't need a record label, I don't need a lot of fame. I mean, obviously that'd be great, but I don't need that. If if I just could get a small fan base who's loyal, loves my music, that's like the biggest desire. But if I was never gonna have that, I'd never write another song. Like that is why I do it, is because I need a group of people to tell me who I am, and so I'm trying to cultivate, like I need my audience as much as I'm hoping they need my music. That is Jesus.
SPEAKER_02:Because I can tell you, like, with this podcast and like my TikToks where I'm talking so candidly and openly and painfully detailed about what I go through, it is simply if I help one person out there, that's enough. A hundred, great. A hundred thousand, perfect. But ultimately, it's about having that following that it's um it's a uh is it symbiotic?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Where you're helping them, they're helping you. Is that the right term? I think so. Because it's not parasitic, so it will be symbiotic.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't think that's a word I've used in a song.
SPEAKER_02:So Well, there you go. New word for it. But um, okay, so that's interesting. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's uh so I mean, and that's like that causes problems with relationships historically, where there it and it's been a common theme where it's like, is my love not enough for you? I'm like, I've always answered, I want the world's love. That's what I need. I like wow, one person's great, but uh a hundred thousand, that's way better. Like, I want to help one person, but I don't even write it like my songs to help other people. I and I it I don't write them to help myself either, like in in like the the common sense where songwriters are like, well, I wrote it because I needed to get my feelings out. It's like, no, I write it so that someone can either like it or not, and I can know if I exist or not. Which I mean, it like kind of goes back to that that post postmodern novelist who doesn't know if he's a paradox or not, whether he exists uh or if he is just a brilliant work of fiction that he created himself. And like that's I didn't realize until very recently I'd write about myself with that line too.
SPEAKER_02:And you know, this is exactly why I was really wanting you on this podcast, because not only do I think you're a brilliant musician, great person, and have so much to share with mental health and all that, you can so you have like through I'm sure therapy and self-reflection, a lot of stuff, and trauma and like suffering ultimately, you are able to actually communicate so clearly your thought processes. Like, how many people are just like, I don't really know how to, you know, you can really just like reel it out.
SPEAKER_00:And that's exactly why I wanted you on this, because you can like I've been told that, yeah, by by uh therapists and all that. It's like, wow, you kind of like you gave this a lot of thought. You know what your problems are in circles. Uh like that's my big struggle. I I write in circles, but fair enough. Yeah, that's fair. But I mean, everything's supposed to be circular if it's on a record and it's spinning around the needle and all that.
SPEAKER_02:So far in this episode, everything's been direct and led back to where well, like one thing I struggle with, even in therapy, like I I just started a new therapist four weeks ago. And she said, You're one of the easiest clients, because man, I don't have to dig for anything. Like, you just you spew it out, and it's like, okay, well, I'll help you with that next time.
SPEAKER_00:But what's funny is that That's how my sessions go, absolutely, where like I'm apologizing. I'm like, I'm coming so disorganized. I know I'm scatter shot, but it's like, you know, if we're not meeting every day, then so much changes in a week. So like I come in there and it's like, well, here's the new problem. Or I started drinking again, or I did this, or like, oh, I'm doing well, but like I've been feeling I've been thinking about this a lot. And it's like that takes up the first 30 minutes when it was supposed to be like this guided thing. My therapist is kind of great about that, though. She she's she's very sure she's about the BPD and all that, which is very helpful. So she immediately saw it and she's like, All right, well, we're gonna focus towards yeah, DBT eventually, because that's the main there's no cure for borderline, but it is one of the most treatable personality disorders, if not the most, in terms of getting it into remission eventually, which I have interesting thoughts about that because I almost see it as the gateway to my creativity. So it's almost like, no, that's mine. I I have To str I have to suffer somewhat or else I don't want to write happy songs. Great. I don't want to write happy songs.
SPEAKER_02:Great caveat to that. So you said you think your illness or disorder, right? Play into your art. Absolutely. Okay. Which is interesting. So I know that do you okay? Let's say somebody asks you, Are you your disorder? Because I get asked that all the time. Because and I've actually had people comment on my social media that it's like you they ask me, they say like you are always You make it your personality. Huh? You make it your personality. Well, yeah, and it's like people accuse you of. Well, and it it's not always accusatory, but it's just like they're almost like concerned, like, like, you know, you're more than the schizo-effective guy, you know. It's not like I got hi, I'm schizo-effective. That's my first thing. But like I'm not sure. Disorderly personality, my neighbor I I suffer from Trevor. That's good. I like that. But I guess like that is your inspiration for your amazing art form, right? And I can think so. And I can say, like, I mean, I don't have that artistic ability when it comes to singing and writing and all that. But I mean, I think I'm a pretty solid drummer. Incredible. And I have to say that I can express myself so well through that instrument because of kind of the fucking chaos that goes on with my symptoms. I know it maybe sounds counter what uh counterintuitive or well, it's just contradictory, but it's absolute chaos in here. Yeah. So I can unleash that on the kit in a musical way.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, it's no different. Like playing playing drums, like you have And you play a little ball, so. Yeah, but like you oh, tiny bit. Uh you know, you've got your not I mean, you don't have a 10-piece kit, you have more than that, but like you, you know 11 piece. You've got uh with 20,000 symbols. Yeah, you've got like these these these different drums or whatever, and it's like same with writing on a page. Like you have all these different like you have more words than you have drums, but like you really can only blend certain words together. Like some words can't be you, yeah. Yeah. I'll get there. You have a dictionary of drums family. But like the way you you can hit them in any order, like there's an infinite amount of order for drums, so like you can, especially the better you get, you can really blend everything together, and it's like with words the same way. So it's like you're just creating like a drum line, but it's just words, and you're putting it like alright, this word is the snare, and this word is the hi-hat, and all that, and like you're you're blending something, and so you're you're making order out of chaos. Drums are the same way, and drums. I love that. Drums start off very chaotically when you're first learning, so it's interesting. Then you gotta get to kind of chaotic, but you're in that box. But then you're trying to get to order, but then the better you get with order, you want to get back to chaos because that's when it becomes unpredictable but organized.
SPEAKER_02:And that's exactly when I taught lessons. Uh, my approach to new students was okay, I'm gonna teach you everything inside this box, and then I'm gonna show you how you could puncture holes in it. And eventually there is no box. That's how I treat music iteration. Infinite. Yeah. I try to learn the rules. Learn the rules so that you can break it. Exactly. Rules were made to be broken, kind of thing. Yeah. And um, I love that you said like you said like the letters and the words were kind of painting the hi-hat. I never even fucking thought. Thank you. I never even thought of like playing a solo or something on the drums as like a form of writing or a form of expression, but I never thought of it in those that um it's like a BB King solo.
SPEAKER_00:There were no words in his solos, but he was absolutely talking, you know? Same with drums. Those are my favorite kind of guitar solos, like there's not a lot of notes. There's a lot of soft bends and a lot of like you know, and those are basically words. You're having a conversation there with notes. And so drums are the same way. You're telling a story. You have to get from the end or the beginning to the end somehow, and you have to make it make sense to some extent for it to be classified as art. I mean, not art, but like classified as an art that someone else would want to participate in with you.
SPEAKER_02:There's a whole thing that because you know, you got the whole, you know, people appreciate drummers when they play, where then you got drummers who are incredible. If they blaze, and we were just talking about this, if they blaze crazy rhythms and crazy independence and all this stuff in front of somebody who has no idea what a good drummer is, they actually think you're not very good. I've experienced that many times. So what's interesting with that is like if I if somebody asks me who doesn't know anything about drumming, like, uh, how good are you? And I'm like, really good? They're like, well, play me something. I'm certainly not gonna play like blazing solos if I can do flashes, sure. But like, I'm not gonna play blazing solos that sound just like chaos to them. It's like look at like Virgil Dinati. I don't know, you probably don't know who that is. I mean, we're getting I mean, I've spoken to about him, but like he he's a guy who plays these incredibly complex rhythms and solos like crazy. And to the like, I played them for my wife. And she's like, that sounds like noise. I'm like, it's not, it's this, and like it's this, and like he's doing these layered things, but yet, you know, you play fucking Ringo Starr. All right, how many people think Ringo's the greatest drummer of all time?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, and I'm not gonna say he's not great.
SPEAKER_00:He's one of the most melodic drummers of all time, and because I'm so heavy on melody, he is one of them, like he's on my Mount Rush more, even though I admit that there's way more talented. The things he could do, though, the drums would sing when he'd play it, and that's what I love.
SPEAKER_02:Of course, where's the division between great, like what defines great too? That's a whole different book. We're gonna cover that later because I want to get back to some things.
SPEAKER_00:Well, with Ringo also gotta discuss, he never overplayed. No, he never once could be accused of overplaying. And that's when, like that, depending on what you respect the most, that's another thing. It's like he he served the song every single time. Yes, versus I think most people. And that's why he he kind of blends in. Like, yes, he's maybe the most well-known drummer or one of the most ever. But a lot of people, you know, kind of see him as not the you know, the greatest. And he's not, but you know. He doesn't claim that either, by the way. He's incredibly nothing. He's yeah, he, yeah. He he's he had fun.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. He just felt lucky to be there. Yeah, he was the one Beatle that's like, I'm just happy to be here. And just it's like that family guy joke where they're like, uh, I drew a thing.
SPEAKER_01:He's like, good job, Ringo, we're gonna put it on the refrigerator. Oh, where he wrote a song. Right here, right here. Yay! But like, he was as big a part of that band as anybody.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. But that's all to say that objectively, is he a better technician or creator as far as rhythmic concepts than Virgil Donati? No. But how many people know Virgil Donati? Fucking nobody. You know what I mean? So it's just interesting. It's just well, it's just like interesting. Where what what makes a great musician and what makes the, you know, it's just an interesting topic. But we're getting, again, see talking, and I get all case.
SPEAKER_00:Uh no, I wanted to defend Ringo a little bit. Not that you're attacking him. No, I don't know. I gotta show up for my boy. He wrote an octopus song. It's my favorite animal. Oh, he wrote. Octopus's garden. That's what that's the one he wrote. Well, George helped him with it, but yeah. Oh, George, George helped him.
SPEAKER_02:Let me help you. You're on discussion here. Um, no, okay, interesting, interesting. But anyway, uh, damn, where were we at? Jackson Pollock. Wow, that was way back. Um, okay, so yeah, we missed that accent a few times. So, sorry, back to it. So, back to your your thoughts on suicide. Yeah. We're gonna try to stick to it this time. So you were saying about that, because we got way off topic before we even got to the content.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, tapping into the uh almost a narcissistic blend to it. Yes. Uh, where I have kind of had like uh I like to think they're illusions of grandeur, but they're probably delusions of grandeur. Uh for a very long time. Uh I grew up, it's very interesting. This so this I had no choice. This happened to me, uh, which I I wouldn't call it trauma, but I would call it as it wired my brain from an early age. So I had a uh a stepfather who every day or very commonly would tell me that I'm gonna be this important person, I'm gonna be great, I'm gonna be known, and all that. And so, like from an early age, I was made to be convinced. I always took that as fame. I didn't know what it meant, but I mean, you're eight, so what are you what are you gonna think? Yeah. And so, like, there wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna be a politician. It was like, well, I'm gonna be something. I don't know what it is. I found music at 14. I was like, oh, this is it. This is my ticket. Um so everything always was to serve like to get attention on me. I'm very attention needy for as quiet as I am. I don't like to draw attention to myself. I like it to come to me, but I need it to come to me pretty often, kind of thing. Uh which plays is your BPD, right? Yeah, 100%. Okay. 100%. But it's like I've never been the guitar uh the guy who brings a guitar to the party, like the the the party guitarist guy who just sits there and plays loudly for get the attention. I I never would do that, but I would sit there and wish people would ask me to play guitar.
SPEAKER_02:Like, oh, Trevor plays guitar, it's like hand him an acoustic.
SPEAKER_00:You're like, oh here we go. Yeah, that's when it's like, oh, you start asking me about my waiting for this. Yeah, I don't sit there and like quote my poetry to people, like hold them captive, but like they ask me that, that's like you've made my day kind of thing. Well, that's the opening. Yeah, so like uh, but so like because I was convinced of all that and still am, like I can't shake that, even though it comes across to me. Like I've struggled a long time, what's confidence, what's narcissism? That's something in therapy right now, we're still dealing with uh trying to figure out where the line is and what I think about it.
SPEAKER_02:But uh perception of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Because I was convinced of that though, it's like I've been wired to believe that some my life's gonna get really good someday. Not money-wise, but notoriety, which is what I'm after. The good kind, not the bad kind, or I couldn't. I can get a Wikipedia page, you know, in a bad way too, but like I'm not going to. I'm gonna write it. That's always been a goal of mine. I want a Wikipedia page. Like if you write your own damn Wikipedia page. Yeah, they're pretty the mods are kind of tight asses. Oh, damn. Have you tried? No, no. It does not mean I've tried. It means I was gonna have thought about trying. But I'm like, no, I'll do it.
SPEAKER_02:Research how easy it is.
SPEAKER_00:I'll do it the hard way. Get my music out.
SPEAKER_02:Earn your place on Wikipedia.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting. I like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I it's uh it's very autistic of me to care about that. It's like I read Wikipedia for fun and read license plates while I drive. So and make uh make words out of license plates and memorize them. It's crazy. Like I know I was looking at your license plate before we left. I was like, okay, if I ever see you, you're this Well, it says any means necessary.
SPEAKER_02:The there is more of us than there is of you. Sean Coss, real quick, name drop. Sean Coss is it have you heard of him? No, he's kind of one of the biggest artists that depicts mental illness so painfully dark, but people freaking love it. And I love that he's bringing that to the forefront. Yeah. So Sean Coss from Any Means Necessary, I have all his books. Um, I actually tried to get him to do the artwork for this um podcast. Oh wow. And he he he was open to it, but he's too damn busy. So, like, anyway, I I do want to name drop him. Sean Coss, any means necessary, brilliant artist. But to go back to what you were saying.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, because uh being convinced of all that, like, I don't deal with a lot of suicidal ideation because I don't want to miss the attention that I would get. Like, if you uh, you know, with suicide, all attention goes to you, and it's not good attention, but you get attention, but it's short term. I mean, you're gonna have a few people who are sad for the rest of their life missing you, but you're gonna get like sympathies for a week, but like you get a lot more attention being alive. And so, like, everything's attention-based. And that sounds like it's so raw to say, well, I need attention. I I do everything for attention, because that's like the the counter to every artist that no one wants to be like, well, I I don't write these sad songs for attention or whatever. They're they're how I really feel. They are how I feel, and I write them for attention. Like, I, you know, I I kind of want my songs to be like a like a very light and loving punch, basically, where it just tears through you. Like, I have plenty of songs, not my own songs, but other people's songs that I put on, like to feel more sad. I love feeling sad.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I think embracing that is so important.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like I'm always hooked on um The Arctic Monkeys uh 505. I put that on anytime I need to cry. That's such a good song. It is. I listen to it about every day. I love it. Or bright any bride days, of course. You know, you want to put those on to be sad and whatever. Like And there's nothing wrong with that. I've always seen moods as something alterable in the same way that people alter lighting by turning on a lamp or off a lamp. I will do things specifically to get like to turn the dial. Like I've I see it as a dial, really, where it's like, okay, I want to feel a little sad, so I'm gonna put this song on. Oh, I want to feel sadder, I'm gonna put this whole album on. Oh, I want to feel really sad and go for a drink and listen to this album. You know, stuff like that. It's like I know how to get to different emotions, and that's another thing with BPD is interesting. Your emotions change like every hour. Like it's like I it's crazy, you're not the same person when you wake up as when you went to bed, basically. I never know. And it's so easy to like fall into like either a numbness. Oh, that's chronic emptiness. That's one of the nine as well. Oh, okay. Very heavy emptiness. Okay. Um, a lot of a lot of substance abuse and hypersexuality and stuff like that comes from like with uh anyone BPD, like you know, 70% or more, had one of those. Um if not more. Uh and that's just to fill up that emptiness, really. And that's that's any drug use or alcoholism, opioids, anything like that was always to fill up like a completely sober day. Is like, oh, it just there's too many hours in the day, and I don't feel enough emotions. Yeah. So would you say it's a form of self-medicating or even deep? It's always been that, but it's so I've always kind of said I'm I'm kind of a unique um abuser. Well, okay. Drug abuser.
SPEAKER_02:I don't hit people. He was beating the shit out of me for this podcast, guys. I hit him with water. I hit the bruise. Uh hit him with words, I like that.
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, that's all I need. I'm yeah, I uh mental abuse.
SPEAKER_02:When I was verbal abuse.
SPEAKER_00:When I was younger, it was kind of a tangent. When I was younger, like like kids, other kids my age would never like bully me because thinking you know good with words, I never had to fight back. Like, you know, I I am pretty good with words. I could I hit you where your insecurity is, very poetically. So that was popular. I talked over their heads like, I don't know, I'm upset by the bigger. I was invincible though. Like that's cool. I've gone back and apologized to some people, but over the years, like I was kind of an ass to you. I'm sorry about them. Uh so I'm capable of feeling guilt and sor or uh uh feeling sorry, I guess. That's good. So that that kind of tells me, okay, it's borderline. It's not um, it's not these other things. I'm not uh sociopath, at least. You know?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh because it's a little bit of a Venn diagram there, but it's not too strong. It but oh no, where was I? It feels like a therapy session now because I forgot what I was saying. Like, it's like, what did you ask me? Oh, no, uh never mind, I'll let you. It's it's not we're getting away from the uh like illusions of grandeur or whatever. That keeps me around and for the attention, and then I ventured off somewhere and I had a point, but it's not a good thing.
SPEAKER_02:Well, okay, so one thing I was gonna mention is that and I think I appreciate your perspective on it. So you said like, you know, somebody who commits suicide, um, you know, they'll stay in everybody's thoughts for a week and really stay there for that, and then over time it's temporary um attention. So not to push back on that, but um, I've had somebody commit suicide my life. Um my grandmother did, which I've talked about on here. Um, you know, she committed suicide in 2009, that was what, 15 years ago. And of course I'm the one who found herself incredibly traumatic experience. Ooh, I cannot imagine. Um, but I've talked about that on my TikToks and stuff, so I won't reiterate that. But what I will say is that I'm not saying that you know, let's say, okay. Somebody who commits suicide. Look at Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, we're like a week a bit. Anyway. He went out with a bang for sure.
SPEAKER_02:But what I guess what I'm getting at is, okay, they were artists that were brilliant. They are just that slipped out. I'm like, yeah, I mean Freudian slip.
SPEAKER_00:Parapraxis.
SPEAKER_02:But well, I guess what I'm getting at is like, okay, there are artists who influenced so many people, yeah, affected so many people. And Robin Williams is another brilliant one. This was a unique case because of his well, he had the right, but he did what he did. Yeah, that doesn't change that. So I guess the the the end all be all is that they all committed suicide. Um and how many people associate all these people with that? What's I mean, yeah, Robin Williams, one of the best actors of all time. People loved him. Yeah. And just like Bennington, people related to so well, Cornell, Hemingway was so long ago, I don't fucking know. But, you know, we all appreciate his work. Yeah. But I guess what I'm saying is that I I can tell you myself that when somebody mentions one of those names now, almost always the first thing that hits me is that there was somebody who did that. Now, maybe that's personal because I've had somebody who did that. Yeah. Because I don't know, like if someone says Chester Bennington, you is the first thing that now I'm not saying I don't get to, oh, Lincoln Park and all that pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, my my mind isn't wired that way, I will say. But I also have not experienced secondhand suicide. Um and I do want to make it clear that I was not saying suicide is for attention. I just meant the attention to get forgotten you get attention no matter if you didn't want it or not. It did want it or not. Like so it's like not, you know, no, lacking like for attention. I'm not at the end of the way. I just want to make sure that I I clarified that because I realized as you were saying that I was like, hmm, maybe it made it sound like that. That's not that's accusatory towards people who have done that. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02:That's not the point I was getting at.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I realized that after, but I I was like, oh, I still want to put that out there that I was not uh you know saying it's for attention. I'm looking at it through my lens where I look at everything through an attention lens. Uh but there is something to that. There is. Even with soon stack. It's wired. It it's just the way you see things. No, I don't um so I think a a lot in references. So like you say Hemingway, and I thought of uh first thing was he won't out with the bang. Well, I was actually quoting a uh a song um uh on uh Connor Oberth's 2016 solo record um uh Ruminations. He talked about how he wants to go out with a bang, like Hemingway, talking about killing himself when he's old, basically is what he meant by that. And so I it was really it slipped out because anytime I think of Hemingway, I think of that song. And then there's another song on that same album where he says, I miss Christopher Hitchens, I miss Oliver Sachs, I miss Poor Robin Williams, I miss Sylvia Blath. Uh-huh. And so any of those four names always make me think of that song. So I think of references before I think of their body of work. Like any anything with that with Chester Bennington, I think of where I was the day he died, but I don't think of suicide with them initially. Same with Cornell. I remember hearing it on the radio with both of them leaving work. Like I just think of that because I was never into either of their bands. Like I respect their bands, but they've never been a favorite of mine. But I thought they were interesting uh people. Okay. Um and so yeah, like I think of references or where I was at, or like something very personal. Like there's always an image tied to everything. I'm sure. You can tell I'm very image in the way I think. Like I'm I'm very I think in like almost paintings in a way, I guess. Clearly.
SPEAKER_02:Paint a picture with your words, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I have a very good memory. Um, like my memory is uh very visual. Like almost like it, there's uh photographs and then there are like videos. Uh-and I don't mean like a photographic memory, I just mean like I can think in either of them. Like when I think of any house I've ever been in, I can walk my way through it. And I I've had this discussion with people, and I I've wanted to know for a long time if everyone's like that or not. But like I've been in your house once, but it's like 10 years from now, if I never enter it again, I'm still gonna be able to picture, oh, you got the entryway, you got the kitchen, right? I do. For the little area I did see, I'm going to be able to visualize every foot of it that I watched.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00:And so I think in uh I guess it doesn't really have anything to do with mental health, but it isn't interesting. Like I've I've if everyone does that, I've never heard people discuss it.
SPEAKER_02:And that's kind of sort of like picturing things as a video rather than images?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like uh I can say I don't picture things as a video or always as I'm walking through it, like geographically is kind of how I picture things.
SPEAKER_00:Or it's like this area, you know, like I grew up here, so like I know what each road looks like, but I can walk it in my mind and I I can look left and I can look right because I I'm interesting. Yeah, I can't say I I memorize things geographically geographically a lot of times. Um I can't say I'll function that way.
SPEAKER_02:It would be just like images of it, like boom, boom, boom.
SPEAKER_00:It's like I haven't been in in the church down there in five years, but yeah, I can picture walking in, I know what I well, at least what it looked like back then. I can see what I um but yeah, I can see left, I can see right, I see that the door there, the double doors, and the door over there.
SPEAKER_02:And it's like like going into the the auditorium, it's like I can walk in either one of those, you know, and uh just interesting because your whole art form is all revolving around the images you present and you see and well it's also kind of I just this popped in my head right now.
SPEAKER_00:It's not something I thought about before, but it's like I have a lot of motion in my lyrics, a lot of motion. I I like to make an image move by using very strong verbs. Uh so I use like I like to use the word reach, like making something reach out. Like I I have the like the maple tree will be reaching out for the gold bench. Like instead of the branches being there, I make it move. I make the tree actually reach out for it. Yeah, uh so it's uh I wonder if that, you know, just my thinking style, that's what it is, where everything is in motion. I mean, that's how your memories are. Then that's kind of how you're wired, I would imagine. And it's interesting. I have a lot of false memories. I think everyone does, of course, but like I feel like I've been where my songs are written. Like I've been in that fictional location of that garden, of that tree. Like I I pictured the image I was picturing when I wrote it, even it was 10 years ago, but it moves as if it's a real memory that I've experienced, even though I've only seen two gold benches out in the wild in my life, even though I write about them in nearly every song.
SPEAKER_02:Like well, you must associate that so much with your personality and your emotions. Yeah. That it feels real. And maybe it is.
SPEAKER_00:It is real. It became yeah, it's uh it it's absolutely something tied to me for sure. I I the goldfinch, especially. That's everyone who knows me, at least for my art at all. I like to think that if they think or see a goldfinch, like I just uh just got a uh a message earlier, a picture of a calendar and had a goldfinch on it. It's like people think of me when they see the goldfinch because I've tied it to myself so much. We made it very clear that goldfinch is me. And I even proud of that, right? Uh oh I love you because going to the BPD part, very unstable self-image. So the fact that I tied myself to something and now someone sees that and they think of me, it's now uh a device.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and it's also a pleasant image. People like goldfinches.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they they have the American Goldfinch is a beautiful song.
SPEAKER_02:So, like, what what would you say if somebody associated with you with, I don't know, a bloody axe or something?
SPEAKER_00:I am not a pleasant I'm not into uh uh ICP, so.
SPEAKER_02:Well, right. So I guess would it but would it be a detriment to you? Like it's important that you are associated with a positive image.
SPEAKER_00:I'm okay being remembered for the darker sides of me. Uh to some extent, as long as I have the chance to apologize. Like, I I can't control how s other people see me. And so there's definitely people out there's like they they might think of like uh I mean, you know, it's more recent that I actually even found out what BPE is, so I don't I can't just go back and explain. This is why I treat you this way. Like not as an excuse, but here's an explanation why I was so bad to you. Um you know, so it's like they're going to think, you know, mental illness. Oh, that kid was he was pretty ill. Um it's interesting. But I'm okay with it because I can't control how other people see me. I can only try to influence it. Explain why you did it. Well, also I can only try to influence it, but I can't actually control.
SPEAKER_02:So that's so true. And like that's kind of the whole thing with all this social media stuff. That the whole point of this podcast and everything is like we can't change how society views BPD or schizophrenia or any schizotypal uh mental illnesses or again autism, um anything like that, right? We can't force people. All we can do is put it on display and put it in a positive light. And try to educate. That's the big thing. It's just educating. Because we can't what's what's the worst fear of most people? It's fear of the unknown.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah, and I write about that. Like the I think the winter represents like in a lot of poetry, especially nature poetry, the winter represents like death. You know, a lot of times. Like it's just it's kind of shorthand for death a lot of times. Or spring's usually rebirth, but going into a rebirth, you know. Whereas winter going into that is loss, but it also is like um it's like that I don't know, it's it goes beyond loss. It's like a a resetting, but not in a cyclical way. More so like uh like it has to do with control. It has to do with like losing that control, like losing interesting like you the winter happens to you, you know, like you can I so I love the summer. Late spring, summer, early fall. That's my time. Like I always feel like I come alive the most. I don't like coats. So like I don't like to like I like you know, a blazer or whatever, but I don't like coats. I don't like to have to bundle up or anything. Like, and the type where it's like, okay, I just gotta go down the road, and then of course, my car overheats, and I'm standing on 74 at 6 a.m. out in below 10 weather in the snow, waiting. That happened. That was fun. Uh like, oh, I learned to put a coat in my car next time. Because I was out there in a t-shirt. I'm just dangerous, bro. Oh, I was it was terrifying. I had that was thankfully my family woke up like from my phone calls to come get me. I was my car was filled with smoke. It was awful. Oh, good. So I had to be outside and like it was scary. And then the semi-s wouldn't get over. That has nothing to do with mental health. It affected my mental health for that moment. That was a scary moment. Damn it was the shit out of yourself. So clearly I now have trauma to my car overheating. Well, I'll tell you about okay.
SPEAKER_02:So you mentioned winter as being kind of the darker thing, right? I mean, you're much more eloquent than me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's like a bleakness to it, which I mean people describe winter as bleak any anyway, you know, it cause it very gray. For Indiana, I guess not everyone's from Indiana is listening to this potentially, but uh here, winter sucks. So uh there's just no color. And so it kind of it almost feels like artistically I hibernate in the winter. Like Well, how many people are affected by the weather in general for their boots? I know I'm affected by lighting heavily. I'm I'm very much a lighting king. Do you like light or do you like dark? I like to sit in the dark, but I like to have a little bit of light. Like I I will adjust lights very specifically until I find the right mood and I'll instantly go into that mood. Or if I had a a a bad day and it was lit like this, I will change the lighting up. Or if I had a good day and I want to go experience that, or I want to experience nostalgia, I will set up the light the way it was five years ago. Like I'll turn on this lamp and this lamp, leave that light off because five years ago I used to sit with that and I would be in a good mood when I have that. And so like I'll I keep a record thought into things, man. It's almost like uh mentally ill feng shui. I love that.
SPEAKER_02:I mean it's getting you by, right? It's so poetic in everything you do. So like you mentioned that you like certain light, and you're very specific about that. I am the autism. I don't know. Who knows? I mean, everything's on a spectrum, especially autism. Um I think anybody can have a touch of the autism.
SPEAKER_00:Um But what I will say is pulling grabbed by it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, but uh like you mentioned certain lighting, you like I like pitch black dark. So like I know um When I need to isolate or just, you know, you said you find certain lighting calming. Yes. Lighting will never be calming to me. And even a little bit of light, I fucking hate. So when I'm sleeping, I actually paid, well, my parents bought it, like a$200 sleep mask that has earbud like earphones in it. And then also it's a complete blackout mask.
SPEAKER_00:And the black out curtains and all that.
SPEAKER_02:Got it with this. Oh, that's good enough. Yeah, well, it completely blacks it out. But what's really cool is there's no weight on the eyes. So I can keep my eyes open. And one thing about my symptoms with the visual hallucinations is that if my eyes are blocked, I don't see it.
SPEAKER_00:I would think, okay, so my only experience, aside from you, is what I can guess at. And so I always kind of would think of it more as like, well, I can my own experience is it kind of like a psychedelic a little bit, like not in a fun way, but like in a like you close your eyes and they're still there. I kind of figured it was always like that.
SPEAKER_02:I mean I can only speak from my closed eye visuals and stuff. No, I mean with with what I have, and I I can't speak to everybody. I mean, from what I understand, schizophrenia and those types of disorders are based on sensory error.
SPEAKER_00:Not so much on kind of a side note about that. I just read this the other day talking about how schizophrenia really should be potentially looked at as a geographical um issue because in America a lot of the sensory glitches or whatever are very negative. But in Asia, they're actually very positive, and most people don't mind having it. It's fascinating. We're gonna talk about that. Remember that, please. Yeah, I just read it yesterday.
SPEAKER_02:Because there's something I want to get to with the last topic. We gotta remember that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because I got a whole thing on that with my own experience. But now I don't remember where we are with the previous topic.
SPEAKER_00:Um closed eye and then Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02:So I wear the sleep mask because but it doesn't block my eyes. So I can still like have my eyes open and look around and have the piece not being visually stimulated that way. Okay. And then I have the earphones that are built in that I don't hear shit. So I can like be totally immersed. So you don't do like white noise, you're just like I need music, I do podcasts, I need stimulation because remember, I have audio hallucinations. All this is 24-7. So like the only, and by the way, the earphones don't block out the voices.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:They distract, which is one thing I love drums so much. I mean, this shit's loud, drums are louder. Yeah, right? And there's the right instrument. And that's why electronic kits don't fucking do it for me. Because I can't feel that. I can't turn headphones up loud enough, right?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it kind of just feels like you're hitting a two by four. That obsesses. I don't like how they feel.
SPEAKER_02:I hate how they feel too, and like it's not the ideal way to learn. But ultimately, that's why I've had three electronic kits in my life, even an expensive one that people kind of bought for me, and I was like, thanks, and I tried it, I said, it doesn't do it. I'm sorry. Anyway, I share that because you just mentioned how the like that's what does it for you. And I could say with what I go through, I need total darkness. But then again, okay, let's get back to what's what'd you mention? Do you remember? Because I already fucking forgot it.
SPEAKER_00:About the uh the geographical differences in schizophrenia.
SPEAKER_02:Brilliant topic.
SPEAKER_00:I can do you have a source. I can't bring a source with me at the moment, but you know, I uh I just read about it.
SPEAKER_02:Wall Street Journal, New York Times, I don't know. That's that's so I made it up. Don't fact check us. This is crap. Um no, that's brilliant thought because I can share my own experience with it. So I've been symptomatic my whole life. I've always lived in Indiana, so it's not like I've lived in any other area. But I can say that have you tried Asia? You can move to Asia, this can be great. Um But uh what I can say is that when I was younger, um, I hadn't seen a lot of violent movies. I hadn't had that influence, I did not listen to angry metal music, much more laid back sorts of things. But I can tell you when I was seven or eight years old, because I used to hallucinate when I was really young, because I don't have a ton of memories, my memory's actually pretty shot from like young to adolescence to even late teens a little bit. Um I don't really know why, it's probably medication, but um, I can tell you that I used to hallucinate clothing turning into creatures, and like my walls would kind of close in and fold in on me, and paint uh pictures on the wall would kind of dance and stuff like that. That was kind of what I did.
SPEAKER_00:That's very psychedelic. That is kind of like that kind of is a problem.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I've never done a psychedelic. That's good that you have it because that does that's really funny.
SPEAKER_00:That can yeah, it can make it a lot worse.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and that's by the way, you don't want to drink when you're like you really want to try not to over drink when you're schizophrenic or any schizotypic.
SPEAKER_00:You don't want to smoke um and about cannabis that you can't, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and I can tell you, well, that's a little I'm gonna get none of it. Okay, because it boy, I'm out of the place. But um what I was gonna say about that is so it was kind of harmless things. It's so weird. Like one thing I used to have is when lights would come on, like it was dark, and then somebody flip on a light, there'd be like this almost ghost-like creature just like right back into it. Like an orb-like creature, or like I know uh power outlets sometimes I would look at and like this smoke creature would come out and then go back in, almost like slither. I mean, this is weird shit, right? That'd be terrifying. Well, and like one thing you gotta keep in mind is I didn't know any of this was weird. I guess if you're not educated on it, guys, you don't know any of this is not normal.
SPEAKER_00:You don't. I'm very similar to the BPD. We can talk about that in a bit, about how I'm just now realizing not everyone is as needy as I am in these aspects.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And the good thing is, is once you have the quote unquote label or diagnosis, then you can start talking. It validates you. You can also be like, okay, how do I take care of this? Yeah, or get help with it. But I guess what I'm sharing about the changes in my hallucinations. So many years was that. When I was seven, probably eight or nine, actually, now I think about it. I saw Terminator 2. That's gonna be kind of a weird cat thing. But the T1000, have you seen Terminator 2? Yes. Okay. The T1000, who was the the liquid robot that was really violent and shit. That night when I saw that, I couldn't sleep for many nights because the clothing in my closet would melt into him and he would come at me. That's when the violent hallucinations started. Now, when I was about 12 to 13, with well, probably more like 10 to 11. I'm terrible on timelines. When I was probably about 10 to 11, I started watching a lot of like Martin Scorsese gangster picks. Love those. And like Scarface and Godfather, so these really violent movies. Nothing like Saw, I've never been into the Saws or Hostel or whatever the hell else is out there, like the the real gory stuff. It doesn't bother me, but it, you know. I've never been into that, and I certainly wasn't at that point. But once I started watching the violent imagery, my hallucinations turned really violent. And I can tell you that now, what I see, which I've mentioned many times, is pale white, faceless men. And then they're men, that's important because the anatomy plays into this. I don't know if you can get in detail, but I know they're men. Um, because they just murder each other in the most violent ways that you can imagine. Imagine Mortal Kombat fatalities.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:That kind of shit. It's and it's all the time. And they interact with the environment. Wow. So it's like they're here, they're just as clear as you as unique. Now they don't bother me. They're so over the actually, sometimes they're fucking entertaining. Like I need to call Ed Boone and be like, hey, need a fatality idea. I got a billionaire. Um I love Mortal Kombat, it's my favorite game of all time. But I guess what I'm saying is clearly what I was exposed to influenced what I see. And ever since I was about 12, 13, 11 range, that's what I've seen ever since. And I don't get a lot of the psychedelic-ish stuff anymore. Now, the only time I do is let's say the only time I have is like if I don't get much sleep one night and I kind of wake up in a true daze, I'll see some of that shit. Almost like you're probably on a trip. I can't, I don't know, but like Yeah. So I can say that that's an issue you bring that up because clearly what I've put into my head has influenced. I also listen to a lot of angry music, like really uh dark metal and so all of this is clearly influenced me because that's the change.
SPEAKER_00:That's what they what I was reading about was talking about that. Um, you know, it's any voices or anything, especially like auditory anything with schizophrenia in Asia and other countries, uh, other contin- I mean it's a continent, but countries within Asia and even outside of that Europe and stuff like that, yeah, Eastern Europe maybe. Um it's a lot more benevolent voices. It's a lot more like and so they're talking about American culture specifically, and schizophrenia really should be looked at as an American like American schizophrenia should be like its own label because it's very it's all about like self-destruction and it's like you're not good enough. You're you should kill yourself, whatever. And it's because our society is so much harsher in terms of competition, potentially I mean, it's just hypothet uh um hypothesis.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Um uh so this concept is hypothetical.
SPEAKER_00:I I mean probably based on research, but it's not. Yeah, it's like why it's not the researcher. It's more so like the interesting that it does happen is true, but why is more so what I was thinking about. And so it was uh, you know, people kind of trying to figure out like what is you know what's causing that. And they're like, you know, a lot of it has to do with just our Western culture. It's like it's a lot more malevolent that they deal with here.
SPEAKER_02:Well, gosh, look at like the shootings we have. I mean, it's a much more aggressive, volatile environment, right?
SPEAKER_00:And I know like I don't deal with any of that, of course, but I know my dreams changed once I started like what going on like Reddit and look back before the subreddit got uh nuked, um, watching like watch people uh watch people die or like live leak videos of like murders and stuff like that. I used to watch those all the time. And then my dreams, like I have a I have a recurring dream. I have two different well, I have three, but one has nothing to do with that. One completely, I I know instantly what it means when I wake up. And I'm not someone who thinks like every dream has a meaning, but I can tell like that.
SPEAKER_02:I try to analyze everything, like what the fuck is behind.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Like I I uh a lot of times I will be like it'll be drive-by shootings, and I know I've watched a lot of videos of like drive-by shootings like in Brazil and places like that, like on like security cameras and stuff like that. Um and the I don't remember those before starting to watch those types of videos and electricity. A lot of times I'll be in a field and trying to get away from lightning or almost getting struck by lightning or almost touching a power line that's down, and I have a big fear, like a awaken fear of that too. Like electricity terrifies me. Uh, I respect it heavily. Like I don't mess with electricity whatsoever.
SPEAKER_02:Got your guitarist too, and you gotta plug in your amps that are constantly fucking up statically like oath. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Sorry. But I I uh but like I've seen like videos of people accidentally, like they're holding up a broom, they hit a power line, instantly kills them. And like those have stuck with me for years, and I they they are into my dreams basically. So like When you looked them up, it's like that morbid curiosity of like, what is it like to, you know, what is death like? And it's almost like to understand what death is, to see how instant it is. You saw you're watching videos of like security defeats of people like, you know, not like live, but like uh, you know, of just all these different deaths, or even like ISIS beheadings and stuff like that, like stuff that people that got posted online, and it's like you're you're morbidly curious. But I know that affected my dreams, and I only made that connection a few days ago because I was talking about like because I had another dream the other day uh where I was trying to uh escape a a drive-by shooting, like trying to dodge, you know, the car or whatever. Okay. Um and so it was and and then my dream turned into Minecraft and an Enderman killed me. It's so funny. Oh that's the worst part. It was because so I've never played Minecraft, but that sounds terrible. Well, I'm very particular at Minecraft too, because if I die, I have to delete my whole world no matter how many hours I put into it and start over. I I so I have a lot of so I I have OCD as well. Like it's pretty strong. Um, I just don't I forget to even talk about that part, but I am very like I've always thought it'd be neat to live stream the OCD gamer because I play games so differently than other people. I have rules that I have to follow in every game. And some, like, like in like I love the Grand Theft Auto games, but like if I fail a mission or if I die or get arrested, like I have to turn off the system, re- restart it, reload before that happened. I don't I can't just like show up at the hospital like you do in a GTA game. Really show up at the police station. I have to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Did you restart your whole profile so you can stats?
SPEAKER_00:No, uh, I won't do that, but I have to go back to previous save. And so I lose a lot of time for that. Or like Skyrim is one of my favorite games of all time. I uh uh uh obsessively am checking like the the stats screen to make sure I don't have a murder, I don't have an assault. Like I yes, I try and play crimeless, but also like I will do whatever possible to avoid ever getting certain stats. I will never eat food in the game, I'll never take a potion. Like there are these are rules. These aren't like, oh, my playing style, like I can't do them.
SPEAKER_02:I'll have to like I'll I've it's it's an obsessive thing. I've gone back and like before even happens.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like I I've gone back and reloaded and lost like six or seven hours the of progress just to get that one number off my screen.
SPEAKER_02:You know what's interesting is like I have a totally different thing. I'll turn on Grand Theft Auto and just shoot a bunch of innocent people and just keep restarting at the hospital and just I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:See, I can't even play for fun like that. Like, even playing with cheats, like the other day I I was trying to and I was having a little bit of fun, but I was like, okay, I have to make sure I do not save. I cannot save, I can't accidentally save because like you know.
SPEAKER_02:Can I say I don't shoot people in Grand Theft Auto because I want to in real life? I just think it's super goofball fun. I'm sorry. It's how many of us do that? Come on. Everyone. Come on, even Trevor's done it, even if it ruins the stats, he's just gonna restart.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And they all come back to life. And they all come back to life.
SPEAKER_02:I would I just think it's funny. Sorry, I just wanted to caveat that.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, OCD, I'll be a good time. I mean, there's a whole lot there. I'm very affected by OCD. I just am so used to it, I forget it's there. Like, I haven't walked barefoot on the ground in 15 years. I can't do it. Uh, or in socks. I always have shoes on. Always. Even the house? Yes. And I sometimes will sleep in shoes, but over the edge of the bed. They can't, my shoes can't touch the bed. Or else, like, I can't lay there for like a week. Uh same with like my sitting arrangement. Like, if somebody were to sit in my particular spot, like I gotta flip the couch cushions, like, even though people aren't dirty, like, you know, and it's well, that's the thing with OCD. It's not necessarily a logical at all, but I'm I'm very particular about that. Like I don't know about you. I have a yeah, I've got a lot of little things I just forget about. Um, germs are a big thing. Um as I get older, I'm able to look past some a little better than others. Um, but very ritualistic stuff as well. Um, yeah, is it plays in there, but like I just forget that it even affects my life because it's been so long.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and that's anybody who deals with this sort of thing, even physical trauma, even physical handicaps, by the way. You do just learn to live with it and it is part of your life. So it's not like it's different when somebody's lived a whole their life one way and then let's say they get into an accident, and then their whole life is altered. That's I think that's particularly crippling and devastating to that person metaphorically and also litically, but literally.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's kind of similar to I was reading a debate on death penalty versus life in prison, and someone was saying that life in prison is worse than the death penalty in terms of like the punishment because of how boring, and someone's like, year 30 is not the same as year one if you're in prison for life. That's just your life now, you accept it. Because you humans are very good at adapting, and so like people who are you know 30 years in a life sentence are not listening to this podcast for one thing, but also uh Maybe they are. They throw iPads in prison now, you know. But uh they uh they just that's their life. That's just that and I noticed that day one for the psych ward, horrendous. Like I and you know, I acted my way out of there by being the most normal person there. Like I I kept trying to give advice to other people who kept trying, like, can I get released? And you know, I I couldn't because it was court ordered, so like I I just accepted it. But like by day five, I was like, or day four, because of the technicality, because over the weekend there's more court hours. So I stayed an extra two days because of the weekend. Otherwise, I would have been out Friday. It's so stupid. But anyway, um so like the I kept giving the other people advice. Like, if you want out of here, you have to act normal. Like, stop asking about it. Smile on your face constantly, show that you're doing something, exercise, do something. Like, I exercise every day that I was there, took care of myself, washed my hair, stuff like that. Um, I've gotten away from exercise recently, but I do love walking. So that's what I did. I paced it. But I was made it very clear. I'm like, I love walking. Um and I do. I was being honest about that. I like walk like up to eight miles a day sometimes. Like how many times have you been inpatient? Twice. Uh a couple weeks apart.
SPEAKER_02:So I've been inpatient three times. I lose. I mean it's not a competition. The only reason I share that is because so when you're an impatient, you said that you would act like you're okay to get out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because it doesn't help me. I'm not I so also And that's why I wanted to ask.
SPEAKER_02:That's why I went.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, because the first one took 20 hours to even transfer me to it. By that point, I was emotionally fine. I was like, this is so stupid that I have to go here for two or three days. I'm just gonna try and get out as fast as possible. I was the crisis was over by the time I even got taken there. It was so stupid. The second one, I had to go. I was like, okay, that's fine. Like I get it, I respect the court system, whatever. They want to make sure I'm fine. Well, I and that's uh that's what I do. Like, I I wasn't faking it, but I was putting on my best self because I know that's what they want to say to get you out. Because they're liable. And a lot of people don't realize that. So they are. Yeah, so it's like all right, I gotta, I gotta prove that I'm gonna be safe. So I spent a long time uh playing the part. Well, coming up with a very complex plan once I'm out. They loved it. Like they even said that's one of the greatest plans we've ever seen. And you stick to it? Some of it, and some of it was to get out, but like I knew what they wanted to see, and so I sat there and I was like, all right, well, I I want to get out Monday, so I am going to spend Sunday here jotting this out very, very carefully in my notebook. And uh thankfully the second one you could have pencils, the first one you couldn't. It's like really, I can have one here, but not here. But um, yeah, so it's like uh you you've gotta you sometimes you have to play the part to get what you want, and that sounds manipulative, but it's more so that's just how life works. Yeah, and I knew that I need therapy, but I don't need to be inpatient. That's not you know, I have my little meltdowns for a few hours, but I'm not actually gonna go do something about it.
SPEAKER_02:Do you think that's who you are as a person? Do you think that's your BPD talking?
SPEAKER_00:I think there's a lot of personality mirroring because I'm so unsure of who I really am outside of musician. That's the one thing I always answer when when someone's like, Well, who are you? That's my least favorite question for job interviews, by the way, is so tell me about yourself. Because I don't want to hear I'm a musician, it's a factory job that I'm applying for, so it's like well, I can probably bullshit question anyway. Yeah, but I don't have anything else to do.
SPEAKER_02:What spirit animal are you? It's like fucking badger. I'm gonna rip your eyes out.
SPEAKER_00:Um Yeah, you you want me to tell you about how I'm a millionaire in Skyrim because I've put 500 hours into my profile? Like, I have hobbies, but like if you none of that matters. I I have a pulse and I can show up.
SPEAKER_02:There you go. Right. Um but I guess okay, so that's your experience with them. Yeah. So if it's okay, I'll share mine. Absolutely. Because you know, I've been three times. One time was after my third suicide attempt, which I committed myself, by the way. Um it was voluntary. Yeah, it was.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the first one was voluntary for me. Well, I mean, like I I thought it was involuntary until I got there. I didn't realize I had the chance to refuse, but that also got me out of like it honestly looked better, the fact that I actually committed. So I was like, I'm fine, I'll roll with it. But I didn't realize I had an option the first time. The second time I absolutely did not have an option, and that's fine.
SPEAKER_02:But Right. And that's the thing, is like every single time I was impatient was voluntary. Was it okay? Now I will say the first time I think if I hadn't, like my parents would have committed me. But they at least gave me the illusion that I had a choice.
SPEAKER_00:That's really what it was, and it looked better because he picked it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and I wanted to, by the way. I didn't have to be tricked into that. I'm just saying if if I didn't volunteer to do it, I think my parents would have been like, well, we're gonna go and do it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But I guess, okay. So my experience, what's the longest you were inpatient for?
SPEAKER_00:I think it was five days, but it was a technicality. It was supposed to be a 72-hour hold that turned into a 120-hour hold because of the weekend hours. Right, okay. So five days would have should have. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So not too bad for for uh a period of time as far as point of can be.
SPEAKER_00:And the first one was like three, two and a half days, three days, I was able to get out of there pretty quick too. But they were also a lot less strict about having a plan. But I knew that because I had just gotten out of one two weeks earlier, I had to have a different, more detailed detailed. I was thinking about that. I was like, I know that I can't just do the same plan because they're gonna be like, well, it didn't work the two weeks ago. Right. So that's when I got really dedicated detailed on my planning.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I can say, so the first time I was inpatient, it was for a month.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, a month the first time. And three weeks the second time, two weeks the third time. So the first time was after I attempted suicide and almost succeeded the second time, that's when I pulled the gun or put the gun in my head and pulled the trigger and it clicked with a life uh clipped in trigger. Live clip in the uh whatever, I don't know, guys. In the gun, I clipping the eye. Anyway, still clipping the eye. I don't know, fuck it. Um, so I I basically that day, um, a couple days later, because when that happened, I was like, okay, some fucking higher power thinks I should be here, I guess. So I ended up about a couple days later telling my mom about the symptoms I had. I went to school the next day, and um I get this, I'm sitting in the middle of class, and I get this, Nicholas Witchman, please come to the principal's office. Now I was a rap scallion in school. So like I could call the principal's office all the time because I was just a goofball. I was never a violent, it was never that. I was just a class clown. Yeah. You know, and he was at the point where I was in the principal's office so much the assistant principal was the guy who handled um disciplinary things. And he'd be like, What did you this time, Witchman? And I tell him, and sometimes he'd be like, Okay, that's pretty funny. That's pretty funny. You just hang out for a bit. Or he'd be like, Okay, that's stupid. It was like, okay, that that's not funny. You can go stare at the wall for 30 seconds, 30 minutes. That was kind of his thing. But that's the rapport I had. But anyway, I go to the principal's office and mom and dad are there, and I say, We need to go home and talk. Well, my great uncle, Mark, um, my aunt, his wife, and then um my brother Christopher and my mom and dad kind of did a sort of intervention style thing.
SPEAKER_00:It sounded like it was leading to.
SPEAKER_02:And uh I got home and they were all sitting around the table, and we talked for god, probably three to four hours. And I myself came to the realization, okay, I didn't I didn't know. Because I I knew that if I didn't get it, I was really concerned I was going to hurt myself again. Um and I knew that after the third time of almost succeeding, I was like, okay, clearly this isn't what I meant to do. So when I I committed myself and I was there a month, and I put so much legitimate, genuine work into figuring out what the hell was going on, how to cope with it. And even when I got out, I mean I was in six months of extensive group counseling, which means six hours a day, three days a week.
SPEAKER_00:See, I did that, but it was only uh it was only about two months, and it wasn't uh that long each day or that many. It was three days a week, but it was like three hours rather than six. See, we were okay. That's actually. But I did that, right? That was part of my plan. That was one I stuck to. Uh Did that benefit you? It did, but group therapy is not really my thing. I need that one-on-one. And that thankfully my therapist is very recognized. She's like, all right, BPD, you've got to, we gotta see you every week. Like we have completely different conditions, mind you. Yeah. Like I'm just sharing perspectives. Just quickly, where I was at, I knew the psychword wasn't actually doing anything for me, but I knew that my plan after is going to help me. So like you get the work that you needed to do. I did, but like I knew I wasn't gonna do it while I was there. And that I was clear about that. I was like, you know, I on it, like I knew that if I mentioned it directly, that could look worse. So I was like, all right, I'm not gonna say it directly, but I'm gonna make it very clear that I've got this plan that I really believe once I can start this plan, meaning once I'm out, I will do much better because I think this is what I actually need. But I you can tell I'm kind of analytical about my problems. I spent a lot of hours thinking about what's wrong with me and trying to figure out plans and stuff like that. And so I already had that even by the second one. I already had that plan. Uh so really just being there was it was just to make the court happen.
SPEAKER_02:And you know what's interesting is that we are polar opposites on that too. You struggle, it sounds like knowing what is going on with you internally.
SPEAKER_00:It's right early to your way I've described it is I know what's wrong, but I don't know the how, how to fix it. I can tell you all day, like I do this because of this. I uh, you know, have these splitting episodes. This is a BPD term for like black and white thinking. Basically, you go from, you know, someone's the greatest to I don't want anything to do with you within like five minutes. Like it can just change like that. And that was one of those kind of referencing earlier.
SPEAKER_02:And you said that can happen like for someone you care about, like you can have a great day with them and then they make a comment that hits you wrong and then Or you just perceive that they don't want to spend time with you.
SPEAKER_00:Like even even a nap, like I'm guilty of like getting upset with people because they want to go take a nap. And it's like, but you couldn't be spending that time with me, like because I'm obsessive in that way, where it's like, I'll I'll stay up two days in a row to be with somebody, which is not healthy. Like, logically, I know okay, I'm not being healthy, they're tired, they need a nap, we'll hang out after. Like, that's what a normal person looks at it. But it feels like typical, yeah. It feels uh it feels very strong like abandonment, even though it's not actually abandonment logically.
SPEAKER_02:Well, remember like what we are very painful feeling. And remember what we talk about is like a big advocate for is emotions and logic are not connected at all. They can be, they are completely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think that the closer you are to understanding that there's a difference between the two, the better off you are. And that's what I that's really probably the biggest improvement I've made is realizing, okay, here's where I'm wrong. I still feel very strongly, but at least I know that I'm wrong in my feeling. But also that kind of can enter into a shame spiral where you're like, why am I like this though? Like, why can't I just be the way everyone else is to some extent?
SPEAKER_02:Being such an analytical person, that's gotta be a maddening, terrible challenge for you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and then on the other side, going back to a whole other thing was about how it's also kind of like I you kind of do make it a personality, or I do, because it's like, well, I have this and I know who I am because I've got this. It's like I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02:And who would you be if you didn't have it? Is the other thing. Yeah. Would you be the brilliant artist you are?
SPEAKER_00:That's what scares me. And I talk about it.
SPEAKER_02:Would I be the great drummer I am?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Like it's what would I lose? I would never I like as much as it's like so painful in a lot of moments, it's like, but would I really trade it in? Now that's exactly what I didn't trade. Yeah, I w I don't want it gone. I want it controlled, but I want access. And that's what I was I made it clear to my therapist. I was like, my songwriter, I've gotta get to the crushing lows. I have to have a trapdoor to kind of reach down there and grab it. And I I make it very clear, it's like sometimes I just gotta have to like emotionally go off the deep end for a few minutes to access that that darkness that it has to be there, or I'm not gonna produce.
SPEAKER_02:And that's interesting because you know, I guess what I was maybe trying to get to and then we got off is like the tortured artist thing. Yeah. Like what I was saying about Robin Williams and Chester and Chris Cornell and all that. They're clearly tortured people if they're willing to take their own lives. Yeah. But look at the amazing art they created, probably due to the torture they were going through it. Yeah. Now I'm not saying everybody goes through torture to create art. You got like method acting versus actors who, you know, just do the part. Like, look at Brad Pitt, who is a brilliant actor, but just doesn't scene he's back to Brad Pitt. Look at Leo DiCaprio, same age, probably just as popular, has become a method actor. He did the movie The Revenant, where he was eating a real liver. And like went in the freezing cold rivers, and Tom Hardy literally buried him alive. Wow. Like he went through all of that. Uh-huh. But can you I'm not saying that wasn't a fantastic performance. I'd argue Brad Pitts put in probably just as good a performance as through his method of just doing the part being done. So like I guess that's interesting too is like, does it take someone to torture themselves to create great art? I I mean I I think but it helps recently I've been describing it to friends and and in therapy as well.
SPEAKER_00:Um I most of my trauma self-induced so that I have something to write about. Oh interesting okay I put myself in a lot of relationships I knew I wasn't supposed to be in. I knew I was gonna get badly hurt so that I could write about them. So that I could keep them forever basically that you're aware of it too. I know and I I still it's like so like I always say I'm colorblind because I do not see red flags but I really I see them and run towards them. I'm like a bull really uh I love your so like I and it it's like it and I was just uh talking about this a few weeks ago in therapy is like am I is it kind of sociopathic that like I'm I I know like okay I'm gonna get hurt here but I'm gonna walk away with an album so like I'm using them in a way like I know they're also gonna get hurt but they don't they're not gonna make money they're not gonna get attention I'm the one who gets the money potentially if I can get my music out there. I'm the one who gets the I benefit from them hurting me but I'm hurting them in the process.
SPEAKER_02:And they're not benefiting.
SPEAKER_00:And so I never thought of it that way until very recently I was like that is kind of sociopathic. That I I almost use people to hurt me but I also use people in like a self-harm way. Like I'm like okay you know like I I can't harm myself but you can harm me um interesting and so like I I I approach it from a few different angles but I always say like and I I've had people say like you're not allowed to write a song about me like and I'm like okay and then you go fucking do it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah that's your own thing.
SPEAKER_00:And then you get a message a few months later like that was a beautiful song. Or like was that about me? It's a true story. Hell yeah it was it's like yeah um interesting I love that but I love that I I almost I mine and it almost feels like a slap in the face I think that people have gone through real trauma. I don't remember much in childhood at all and there are signs that something happened to me when I was young. Interesting in the like molestation kind of field. You don't really know I don't claim it like I'm a I'm a victim because I don't know but I up until 13 I don't remember much at all and I've never been on um I was gonna say psychedelics. That's not true. I've never been on psych meds so that wouldn't affect and I have a very strong memory from 13 to now almost sounds something there's something absolutely well I can tell you that my mom not to a lot share it on anyway she was sexually abused by her stepdad very young for many years and repressed it until gosh she's 61 now so she realized it 10 years ago it just came out that's what I am hoping is that I can start unlocking some I just I wouldn't make me mad like I I've said that like it's so long ago. I just want to know I just want to know I am on the same freaking boat with my skin and being upset at whoever it was if something happened to me I would I wouldn't have a single ill feeling because I've been if it created my BPD I benefited from it. I make music I love I would go through I like that sounds like it's belittling other people because there's people who are like I would never go through that but like you know I I I will put myself through a lot for my art because I don't know anything else. Like I hate working I hate most not I don't hate most things but like I there's the art and then there's what I have to do. Like I love video games I love hanging out with friends. But outside of that basically art is the only thing I see myself as I have something that is mine. Like I I'm leaving the earth with something that wasn't there before me. And something that will uh hopefully live beyond me and that's why it's like okay that's another reason why I don't really deal with suicidal ideation I gotta get these songs out there first. Now I don't know what happens once I get them all out but I'm always writing a new song so like I'm always gonna have the next thing well when I get here maybe I'll do it. But then the goalpost will always move forward as I write more songs. But like I until I get that album written I really can't even be like I can have moments where it's like oh I don't want to wake up but like I can't ever be 100% serious to where I would fully attempt something until you know as long as I don't have an album out.
SPEAKER_02:You've never attempted I've never so this the I know you put yourself in self-destructive things.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely there's what I commented on your TikTok was like there's the the passive suicide um or s what yeah I I'm passively suicidal. Yeah and then I I gave you like a different like well then here's how it looks for me is like it's really risky behavior. If I die I die. But it's never like I've never pulled a trigger I've tried that's how I ended up in the psych word though I tried buying a gun I was incredibly intoxicated. I had lost my job I drank like half a bottle of fireball just brazenly I had my windows down just down the road drinking it uh got to Shabu and then went to Rule King it was just a split second it was like I'm gonna buy a gun see what happens and I really know like sober now like I know I wouldn't have used it. It was a power thing I wanted to feel in control. I had just lost my job which I was gonna quit that day anyway. So you lost the power it's the fact I lost a rather agency. Yep. And so I was just so lost it's not like I found my identity in that job usually I find my identity in relationships if I'm not finding it in my music. So it's never a career that I find my identity in like some people do which I'm not judging but some people you know how if you can kudos to you honestly yeah I wish I could but I did once but due discrimination I had pushed out but fortunately this was a good job. I deserved to be fired absolutely I was I started becoming a bad employee. I was a very good employee for the first nine months and then as my mental health I my work ethic obviously did too. And you know it was one of those where sometimes you have to lose the job to get better.
SPEAKER_02:Because it's just like sometimes you have to hit rock how many people have to hit rock bottom for they get their shit together. Yeah. You just hope you don't go so low that you're not here anymore. Yeah which that's the thing.
SPEAKER_00:And that's the that's the defined line. And I I kept saying like in the in the the court ordered cycle where I was like I know how it looks and I'm not here to like convince you that I wasn't actually going to pull the trigger but here's all the reasons I have to live. I have my music I haven't recorded my album I really am not a danger and because I was so genuine about it and I was being truthful I think they realized that because I was able to tell them I was buying it to feel like I was in control. I know I was not gonna actually use it. I just wanted to hold it and have that feeling of like I could right now but I was going to like I've got control over my whether I take my own fucking life or not. Yeah and I know I wasn't going to but you had the option but I it was your choice. Yeah well and that's when you know the the police showed up to Rule King and thankfully I just checked my case to make sure that there's nothing like legal there now that I'm applying for jobs it's like well background check is that going to be there it shouldn't because there was nothing legal. Uh like outside of the in the court system is different with the medical side it seems like compared it there was nothing legal that happened I wasn't I didn't get a public in talks. I got very fortunate there. And because I wasn't driving at the time I mean my car was in the parking lot so they but they didn't see me in the car so I don't think they can you think that to well I'm I'm sending this to the well proof I'm uh I'm just I'm telling a poem so everything's fictional.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah this is all fiction I'm just making a we're all in the matrix this is all a simulation but yeah that that day was very crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Uh and I so like it was like okay I did that I kind of deserve to be here so I saw it as like well I didn't go to jail so I'm gonna treat this as like I'm in jail and see it as like this is my punishment. So I saw the sightboard as a punishment that I deserved rather than rather than this I'm here to get help I'm like no the help will come after but this is my punishment I scared all my friends they're all upset with me I take what you're okay. What? Take what you're out yeah and that's how I saw it was like okay I deserve this as far as I like that. I mean I that's not a bad way to look at it. Because I knew that like okay I was being very irresponsible and technically broke laws and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01:It's just like when your parents said you just been bad go go think about what you've done.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah and so it And don't do it again. It was uh you know it was all fine. And so I learned my lesson though to just not be that crazy. So I'm like okay I still can be crazy. I just gotta be crazy at home and not go try and buy a gun.
SPEAKER_02:Probably a good idea.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah so that's that's kind of where I've been at where it's like I gave I've given myself a license to safely use whatever I want like intoxicant wise but like I have to keep it at home. I can't go out and be crazy on it. I have to you know I I I can't overuse you know stuff like that whatever. Right. And I'm the type where I'll I'll so I'm there's like garbage cans which are people who will take anything. I'm like that but in a very very measured way like I said earlier I'm very big into psychopharmacology. I find it fascinating I read I I was reading uh uh a little bit of a book earlier that was written by a a chemist named Alexander Shulgin and it's called um tryptomines I have known and loved or T call and it's just all these um tryptomines that he synthesized in a lab which is a class of drug and it's like that stuff really interests me like just obscure compounds or whatever fund to research and so there's the hobby side of it and then there's the escape the the the crushing emptiness side of it. Alcohol has always agreed with me way too well way too well um so I mean I don't have to get too experimental you can get that anywhere basically so like that's always been like the crutch and then on top of it there's use of other things but that's mainly if I don't have a drink I can use this or taking a break from drinking I'll use this like Gabapenton like recreationally stuff like that. But like I'm very safe about it. I do a lot of research about like well what's the LD50 like what is the uh max dose what's the min dose all of that and you know make sure everything's pharmaceutical if I'm doing that or like test strips if I'm not type stuff I've I've never taken anything I've needed a test strip for but like you know hypothetically if I wanted like a powdery substance you'd use a test strip to make sure no fentanyl's in it basically like smarter than I don't want to say smarter than other types of addicts but I'm very careful. So I've never overdosed on anything before in my life no matter how many things I've tried because I'm always so safe and that's why people kind of look the other way with me in terms of like finding you've done like the research to make sure. So why do you what do you why do you go to it? It's because completely sober there's so much emptiness. Like I need to access those emotions whether they're really good artificially or really low artificially drinking so every drug has a curve in my mind on emotions. Okay so like drinking's like this the faster you drink the sharper it is I love both. Love being up here like I'm I'm a sucker for euphoria. I love euphoria it's my favorite feeling on earth nostalgia I'm not familiar with that nostalgia and euphoria. That's what I chase. If I want nostalgia you can kind of replicate it with like NMDA antagonists which is a class uh euphoria opioids of course and that's where that problem came from is it's the greatest feeling on earth and it's hard to come down from that mountaintop once you felt it's like and so I kind of messed up my brain in that way where I gave it a new baseline up here to feel incredible. Everything's interesting. Yeah everything's fun everything makes me happy to you know baseline me it's like now I have to work hard to get that's basically a shortcut. I don't want to work hard or haven't historically wanted to work hard to be in a good mood. I don't want to go try and cheer myself up like if I'm in an empty mood. Interesting like which is kind of where you're at a lot right it's yeah andhedonia I deal with a lot where nothing is entertaining like sober. That's a big issue. Um like even the idea of like oh like okay hypothetically um like on Sundays so like let's say you run out Saturday night like of alcohol or whatever well in Indiana you know the window is 12 p.m to eight p.m when you can buy it you can't buy anything like if you run out like let's say right at midnight and you didn't stock up but you're not tired, you have all these hours like it's let's say it's worn off or whatever or you just are out and you're sober or whatever. You have those eight hours or those you don't even know that you kind of you learn the the the restrict when you could buy alcohol yeah and on every other freaking well up until 2018 you couldn't even buy it on Sunday I knew that we were one of the last states to go get rid of that. Yeah and it's stupid too and then you can't buy it from 3 a.m to 7 a.m uh any other day uh I I there's a saying where it's like the people who like to drink know when the liquor store closes the people who are alcoholics know when they open and it's like that I used to be like that. Like I knew okay this one opens at eight this one opens at nine and then you cycle through like you know you're really in it whenever you're cycling from three different places so you don't see the same people every kind of thing. Wow that's crazy. These days I don't care as much if I'm gonna drink as like whatever but like anyway like so that those 12 hours until noon like no matter what I'll just lay there and just like like historically or whatever I will just be watching YouTube just trying to like pass the time because the idea of like trying to play a video game to distract myself from it's like even the idea of that is so heavy. That's the only way I can describe it is it's an incredibly heavy feeling um like it's a like a weighted blanket I can't get off of me. And that's really how Anedonia feels which is a lot of people don't know that word I guess uh not to not I'm so smart but like I say that a lot well when you research this shit you're trying to figure yourself out you learn all these stuff yeah but that is really a self-educate it's a type of boredom that it's it looks like depression but it's a boredom basically where you nothing is entertaining. Like yeah like putting on a TV show or something that you usually like it's like ugh and then there are chemical ties where um if you like I've done this before where like I will tie like drinking to like playing Call of Duty or something to where if I'm not drinking I can't play Call of Duty. I've tied it to music before where it's like okay I only write or I only play guitar I only compose while drinking. So the idea of doing it sober is miserable. Like I just can't make myself do it because no no it just happens over time if you do the same thing with like if you drink every day and you do the same hobby on it every time or most days you actually chemically tie it and it's not just alcohol like I've chemically tied it to like Fenabute which is a another a GABA B uh class of compounds basically alcohol and pill but like it's like three drinks so it's nothing like crazy but it's like leisure mood. It's legal uh it's one of those gray area compounds. Um or like with uh like TN Eptine the obscure opioid I was stuck on um for three and a half years uh that I tied that to like playing like Nintendo games specifically like Mario and Zelda. So it was like the idea of why there was never a time I was not on it because I would be in terrible withdrawal if I wasn't but like I got you I would much more like if I hit the hour and a half mark and I know in 30 minutes I get a pill I won't play a game until it's 30 minutes and I get to take my next dose then I'll start playing the game.
SPEAKER_02:So you you did mention I think earlier about how you almost stayed on the on the whatever truck you were on. Low storage. We're hitting low storage guys let's finish the thought okay and then we might continue this. So real quick you mentioned that and hopefully this I go on you mentioned that um and I'm long winded I can't fucking you mentioned that the popped up so you're probably fine oh yeah yeah so you mentioned the withdrawal you you honestly didn't you say and correct me if I'm wrong because I don't want anything out of it but you said something along the lines of you almost kept taking the the wherever you were on because you were scared of the withdrawal wouldn't even that you were getting the benefits from it.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely I stopped doing everything um or anything I should say for uh for it most of that time it was a massive waste of money it was uh just to avoid the withdrawal and that's very common especially on classes of drugs that have very bad withdrawal like benzodiazepine because anyone has like abusing Xanex or people like heroin or fentanyl especially um you get to a point where it stops doing anything for you like you hit that tolerance wall where it doesn't lift your mood all it does is keep you from bottoming out right you hit a ceiling you can't go over it but you can absolutely fall underneath it.
SPEAKER_02:Well and do you mind so I know you said you spent a lot of money on it.
SPEAKER_00:You don't have to share the amount unless you want to many thousands of dollars but what I was going to say is you talked about how you you related that to a gambling yes it's something I just realized that's really this morning or last night I was just laying around thinking about it and I yeah it was last night because I I was kind of looking through um I was looking through something photos from that time or whatever and I was like man I'm so glad I'm not there. It's one of those few things in my life where I really look back and think I would never let myself go back there again. Like I can't live that again kind of thing. It's uh but it was basically like every few days every 40 doses or whatever I might get like 15 minutes of a really good mood compared to like when it first works it's two hours of an amazing mood. But I'd get like maybe 10 to 15 minutes of relief like every few days and it got to the point where this was it would be a gamble and like I I realized I was basically pulling like a lever on a slot machine every time I took a pill I was hoping oh I hope this one gives me the good mood and then I'd take it. And it was like I didn't realize I was gambling like in a way like that was absolute gambling behavior. It just wasn't financial. Although it was financial but it wasn't financial. It wasn't you were gambling with your mood absolutely yeah it was it was like a You're gambling with your mental study. It was chemical gambling basically it got so that hit or miss whether it was ever gonna work and even when it would work like the ceiling was still there uh but sometimes it would go slightly above and like sometimes I would redose early just to gamble again sometimes
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Umbrella
You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes
Pete Holmes
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Marc Maron
Monday Morning Podcast
All Things Comedy
SmartLess
Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Will Arnett
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
Theo Von
Gold Minds with Kevin Hart
SiriusXM
Metaphysical Milkshake with Rainn & Reza
KAST Media | Rainn Wilson and Reza Aslan
Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast
Matt McCusker & Shane Gillis
The Mental Game by Brandon Saho
The Mental Game