March 9, 2022 • 50 mins
The team is joined by Eve Ettinger to discuss burnout, Complex PTSD and National Strikes.
https://www.bustle.com/wellness/burnout-definition-what-we-get-wrong
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Everything. So don't don't all right, we'll just started,
(00:20):
I guess yeah, have we started at the same time.
Oh yeah, we did it. Welcome We're here now, Okay, Hello,
it's magic. It's magic how that happens. One minute we
(00:41):
aren't here and then the next minute we are seamlessly
professionally all Hi guys, Welcome back to the Worst Year Ever.
I had to think about it for a second. I
was like, yeah, I heard that. Still is um no
fun puns you include or adjust on the fly. Here,
(01:03):
I'm Katie Soul. Uh. It's Cody Johnston Johnston and today
you introduce yourself. Okay, I'm I'm eve At Injured. Nice
to be here with y'all again. We're happy to have
you back. Uh. Robert is not here with us this week. Um,
(01:28):
and I get to make all the jokes about him now. Yeah,
And so we Sophie frantically reached out to eve uh
and they agreed to join us, which we were thrilled about. Well,
it wasn't exactly, I just it wasn't frantic, calmly and responsibly,
calmly and delightedly because it took him. She was like,
how about Eve, And we were like, yeah, absolutely, Well,
(01:49):
Eve wrote this article for Bustle. Is that correct? Is
that the publication pronounced boost? Yeah? Oh, thank you so much,
Thank you so much, Katie. UM and I really thought
it was something that needed to be talked about even more.
It was such a beautifully written article that is so
poignant to the Times right now, and I loved it
(02:10):
and I'm so glad that Eve has given us their
time to talk so much. The fact that people are
resonating with it is really depressing. Um, but really it's
really nice. Um. Yeah, the response has been really cool
to see. It's it's yeah, it's absolutely something that we
(02:32):
all resonate with right now. And I think the way
you put it so eloquently, I mean in the in
the piece, you can talk about the piece, but it
basically it is something that relating these experiences in these
symptoms of burnout to your own experience with CPTSD and
(02:53):
seeing those parallels and maybe reframing how we think about
what it means to be burnt out out. Um and
more people are are realizing it as they are experiencing
these symptoms that maybe it's not just burnout. Maybe we are.
Maybe we are experiencing the thing that we all collectively
warned about, which was a severe trauma for the past
(03:16):
few years. You know. Well, the way I kind of
went into it, and I've been I worked on this
piece since August last year, so months and months, and
I had to cut so much out of it, and
there were so many valuable moments that made it in
and others that didn't. And I just I probably could
have written like ten words on it easy. Um. But
(03:36):
I kind of went into it being like, my theory
is that burnout doesn't exist. It's just complex PTSD for
that now because capitalism is eating the rich alife too.
Now we're talking about it, giving it, we're giving it
the like you know, a fancy name burnout and um,
(03:59):
and this is on a new phenomenon and everybody's been
experiencing this for forever if you're not privileged and that
white and um, so I, you know, kind of with
that theory, decided to go see if I was confined anything.
And oh boy, everybody was too excited to talk to me, yea,
which is really upsetting. Yeah, for sure. Um, do you
(04:22):
want to give a brief summary of the article for
our listeners and everyone should go read this article. It's phenomenal. Pause,
go read and come back. Don't do that then yeah. Yeah,
So basically, UM, in the article, I kind of cover
complex PTSD UM as a phenomenon and comparing it to burnout.
(04:46):
So going and asking these people who are pretty open
about their experiences of burnout, especially most of them are
women of color, talking about, um, you know, what it
means to be really successful person in their field and
also experienced burnout and how they define it and what
(05:08):
you know they would like to see happen and change,
and then kind of comparing that to my own experience
of complex PTSD and like watching the symptoms like dovetail
and UM. And then I took this to um some
researchers when he's a former family doctor who now specializes
(05:31):
in preventing physician burnout and helping hospital administrators like revamp
their systems to do that, and you know, kind of
asked him like what's your take and he was like yes,
finally UM. And then UM, this wonderful gentleman named Thanos
Um who's a yeah, the great, great name. He's a
(05:54):
researcher in Scotland. Um. You know, he helped develop the
Definite Definition of complex PTSD for um, the you know,
equivalent of the d s M five that everybody except
for the US uses. Uh So, quait real quick, just
define what d s M guide is for people five? Sorry? Um, yeah,
(06:17):
d s M is the diagnostic manual and I I'm
blinking on the exact acronym, but it's a diagnostic manual
that you is used to diagnose mental health issues. So
complex PTSD is not in it. Yeah, but there's a
lot of things that aren't in it that should be
(06:38):
in it. There's a lot of things that are in
it that shouldn't be in it. There's a lot of
things that are mislabeled, and so it's only as good
as like what you want to use it for. And
it's basically it's basically a way of justifying treatment to
insurance companies. It's allowed to crap. But when when he
when I emailed him about it, he was like, oh
(07:00):
my god, we've been talking about this. Um, I'd love
to talk to you. And I was like, oh no,
here we go again. So yeah, it seems like one
of the interesting things is like burnout is not a
medical condition. Burnout is a phenomenon that shows up that
can have medical side effects, but it's not recognized as
(07:24):
a medical diagnosable condition. So then what the funk is?
It was really what I was starting to figure out. Yeah,
And I mean it does resonate with everybody right now.
I just want to circle back to like this point.
Right now, everybody's feeling this, uh in different degrees or
has been over the past couple of years, and even
(07:45):
before that, uh, during this past administration and the world
getting worse and climate change, and it's not gonna It's
not going to go away, is I guess? My point? Um?
And and and it is very a point, very well
taken that you make in the piece about how it
(08:07):
is about the rich, white, primarily like people of the
world waking up to the reality that the vast majority
of people have been experiencing and the level of anxiety
and what that actually physically does to your body, you know.
So he was talking about this earlier, just there's an
element of it that's not even something you can control.
(08:28):
It's a physical response. Well, and there's this also this
thing that's happening, and I wasn't really able to include
this in the piece, but it was in the back
of my mind. It's like, we don't have a way
to turn off work in a way that past generations have.
So the wealthy have always been a leisure class. And
now the wealthy are proving that they can work harder
(08:51):
than anyone else because they have access to things and
they you know, they can have someone on call, and
they can have the private jet and they so they
can be anywhere whenever they want to be. So they're
just like, it's not a leisure class anymore. And suddenly
they're experiencing that same kind of like loss of margin,
loss of space to rest and play as everybody else's.
(09:15):
And it's not threatening their you know, actual existence in
the ways that it is everybody else, but um, they're
experiencing some consequences, and so now we're talking about burnout.
Yeah right. They like push, like hustle culture and like
the grind for so long and then they adopted themselves
and they're like, oh wait, this is actually kind of
(09:36):
terrible lean in, but oh, maybe we should leave our
phones outside of our bedroom at night. Yeah, no TVs
in the space where you sleep. Mm hmmm. For those
people that can afford a place with more than one bedroom.
I was going to ask Sophie, what what about the
piece resonated so much because you were very excited to
(09:56):
talk about it. Yeah, I mean, I think that you know,
your connection to the economic system and and how Bernard
is a form of oppression was very uh, something that
stuck out to me. I think that, you know, the
conversation around complex PTSD is not a conversation that happens
very often. UM, I have PTSD, and complex PTSD has
(10:20):
never been brought up to me in a professional setting
and has been brought up to me by you know,
a loved one being like, hey, I don't, I don't,
I don't know. Maybe this is what that is. And
I'm like, what are you talking about? And so, I
what do you mean. I'm I've just worked too much,
I'm just tired. I'm just over. You know, there's a war,
(10:41):
the planets on fire, you know, things like that, and yeah,
So I think those two things really stuck out to me.
And you know, knowing that you wrote it meant like
got of course got my attention because you're so brilliant
and the way you wrote this article. I really loved it,
even than really loved it. I'm glad that complex PTSD
(11:03):
is getting some intention it should understood. Yeah, and and
for me that stood out. I uh, I had not
considered it before. PTSD has seemed like as much as
I talk about it and and talk about awaren as
we all do, I think an awareness of it when
people say that they're they're struggling with it and um,
(11:26):
but it hasn't seemed like something that I could be
experiencing personally and experienced trauma. No, I'm fine, and and
I have realized that I've had it. But prior to this,
to this article, um, and at least in certain arenas
of my life, but I had this really did um
make me stop and see like, oh, oh, I see
(11:49):
how this is manifesting in different areas and other and
other ways that this is also a trauma response. And
for me personally, at least in my past, when I
name something, that's the first step towards having relief. Almost. Um.
So if I'm able to pinpoint what this, this physical
sensation that I'm experiencing is bigger than me. There's a
(12:12):
piece in that, and so it's vitally important. I think
that people are are educated have the tools to to
understand what's happening in our bodies because most people don't
know most of us do not have access to our
emotional life and can articulate what we're experiencing. Sorry, go ahead, no,
I was just gonna say, this brings me back to
the d s M, because like what we have is
(12:34):
like you know, diagnoses, a lot of people treat it
as a like a like characteristic like I have it
in eyebrows like that. I also have PTSD. I will
always have both like that kind of level of like
fixedness to your your persona and who you are. And um,
(12:56):
it's the like a diagnosis of mtal health issues just
a description of a cluster of symptoms like it's a
it's a it's a like a description of a manifestation
of something in your body. Um, and it doesn't describe you.
And so I think that's one of the reasons that
(13:17):
there's so much I don't know if you saw the
like piece about like trauma plot that was going around
lit Twitter a couple of weeks back. I didn't, but
like there's this like ongoing fight about like at least
everything Channa now um, And I'm like, yeah, Actually I
was going, that's not interesting. Like it's both like I'm sorry,
(13:42):
a rape is not an origin story for like an
interesting character. Try harder, and also like, yeah, everything is
probably trauma in ways that you didn't expect, Like your
body is going to like react to things and you're
going to carry that with you and everyone has a
different way of um my personal term for the way
I described like processing intense emotions is emotional metabolism, Like
(14:05):
everyone's emotional metabolism has a different rate, Like you're going
to carry that in your body for longer or less time,
depending on who you are. So sure, like something might
be really intense and really like you know lingering that
for someone else might be minuscule and not not a
big deal. Might just like you know, they wouldn't even
(14:27):
think about it twice. Also some of those people, oh
is everything about trauma? Yes, and you too, sir or
madam or non binary binary person you know, like it's
it's we all have it, and there is a freedom
and acknowledging it because they're carrying that we are ashamed
(14:49):
of is rooted in trauma, Like the things that you
struggle with are rooted with this. These these formative experiences
and if you can acknowledge it, you'll feel better. The
people who bitch about everything being drama and using the
word trauma too much, I feel like the same kind
of people. And I'm not saying they are the same
kind of people, but like they feel similar to the
(15:11):
people who are like, well, I got spanked as a
kid and I turned out fine. You're saying, you're saying
that clearly you're okay with hitting small people. Know. I
was gonna say, yeah, like I gotta spanking as a kid,
and I turned out fine. And so to my kids
who I spank, they're fine too, Like, okay, so you're
(15:31):
spanking your kids then, so yeah, that is that the
healthiest way for you to release your anger or frustration? Right?
Are they really listening to you? You know? Um? Yeah?
Can I can I just like check on definitions here,
like in terms of like PTSD versus c PTSD. Please,
(15:52):
I don't know that everybody's like, you know, like we're
talking about not everybody's run into it. So um, I'm
gonna grow strawberry and a Robert metaphor for this, Like
you can you can like cook meat in the ground
over a million hours like he does sometimes um, real slowly,
real low um, and it will taste great. And you
(16:14):
can flash cook a steak on a grill real fast
and it will also taste great. But you know, the
PTSD is the flash Ryan. Um, It's it's a you know,
an isolated incident. You can point to it and say
this is what happened. Um. And like when I got
(16:36):
my complex PTSD diagnosis, which like is not really a
thing given DSM stuff, but like is a thing. Um,
my therapist was like, okay, so like what's your primary trauma?
And I was like, my what It was like, uh no,
(16:56):
that's not that's not that's not a question that will
work here. Um. And that's kind of how it is.
It's like, it's this is the slow cooker experience, Like
it's the act of cooking is taking so long that
you can't delineate it from one to the next. It
just like it exists to everything. Yeah, it's just it's like, yeah,
(17:23):
it's the air you breathe. You don't even know that
you're in it until you leave it. Usually. Well yeah,
yeah that's really well said. Um. So if you should
we take a break now, this would be a great
time to take a break. I think we're gonna take
a break real quick. Perhaps perhaps would now be a
(17:45):
good time to take a break. I'm just wondering. Probably,
probably do we want a break, Katie? Break? I think, yeah,
I think maybe we can do this for another minute
and then we take a break. Just go ahead and
then but we but with spend a minute of asking
if we think that we should probably talk about it first?
How do we feel about taking a break? I don't
(18:06):
know anymore. I'm dead, feel like a little two burnt out.
You know, I'm just gonna call it. We're gonna take
a quick break, and then we're gonna be back everything.
So don't don't, don't. And we're back from that break, right.
(18:28):
It was good. We feel good to be back from break.
Did we talk about this yet? Were I just barked
right ahead? I'm so sorry. I did it again. I
did it again, just so we're all good. We're all good,
you say, okay, well, thanks for checking in. We turned
out fine. Yeah, Sophie, why don't you you had something
(18:54):
interesting you wanted to just start us off with. We
talked a little bit bit about the first thing that
stuck with me from the article, which was you know,
the complex PTSD aspect of it, but I wanted to
get into a little bit of you know, how the
economic system influences this and how uh it can lead
to oppression and different different, different things like that, and um, yeah,
(19:19):
so you know, easy topics like that, Yeah, really really
easy topics like that. M yeah yeah, Well, I mean
capitalism is designed to like keep you busy, and capitalism
is designed to constantly be taking from someone, and um,
you have to like eat your feelings about that in
(19:42):
order to like keep going. Um. And you know, it's
that classic MLM. Capitalism is an m L and that's
how like we got MLMs. I don't know, um, but
the thing is, like, yeah, the way I think about it,
in the way I was recognizing these things as people
(20:02):
were talking about them is I grew up in a
fundamentalist group and I considered a cult. And like one
of the things that was really useful to keep people
from questioning the leadership is to have everyone be constantly
on edge about like how good they were and like
whether or not God love them, and like how they
(20:23):
were measuring up. And so this constantly anxiety, this like
ambient anxiety about like your performance and your worthiness like
kept you, you know, distracted, so that you didn't have
any energy to think about like huh now how did
I end up here? Like you and urge, Um, why
(20:43):
is this a good idea? Uh? And I think that
like having so little margin on life, you know I
talked about like room to play and rest, Like we
don't have that in most of our our day to
day lives, and so we don't have time. Aim, you
cannot be creative unless you're bored a little bit, So
(21:06):
you cannot be You cannot be able to like really
analyze you know, why am I hearing? Do I like this?
Unless you have that space and so like getting to
burnout point, having that crisis, like that point of collapse,
like that's where you finally get time, and that's when
(21:26):
you finally realize, like what the fund have I been doing?
Because capitalism is designed to keep us like ambiently anxious
and caring you also everybody else and like not questioning anything. Yeah,
you can't recover from that kind of deep fatigue with
(21:47):
a long weekend where you're also trying to do your
laundry and like, um, organized the drawers that you've been
putting you know whatever, it is like you get the
you get to the weekend, and it's not the same thing.
This is we're talking about starvation, Like your body needs
to heal deeply and we don't have time. I recently
(22:11):
went through a huge breakup and it's dramatic loss of
a family member all at the same time, and it
was just ugly. But work was ramping up and for
the right I felt so grateful for all of the
good opportunities and that I needed to show up for
all of them. But I needed to heal too, and
(22:34):
there wasn't time for both of that, and it made
my work suffer for a while, you know, and I
but I at a certain point I recognized what was
happening and just gave myself permission to cut as many
corners as I needed for the remainder of the year
at least. And like a hallmark of trauma, it's like
you had like that intense mormonal response to get you
(22:56):
through the bush, and you can't sustain that love yeah operating,
and so you crash afterward. And so like I'm really
good en a crisis and then like and then yeah,
like two weeks later, I'll be like, um, and you
(23:16):
know that delayed reaction is you know, just a part
of like who I am because of complex PTSD, and
I think that like we see this all over the
place here with like you know, people will go through
stuff and they'll be like why am I acting like
this like a month later or a week later, and
I'm just like, yeah, you just went through this, this, this,
and this, and they're like uh, And I'm like, you
(23:38):
haven't rested, you haven't like recovered, you haven't actually processed
any of that. You culture doesn't. We don't talk about it,
so we don't make space for it, you know, in
the same way, and people have that internalized capitalism, that
idea of identities connected with our productivity, and so they don't.
(24:00):
We all don't feel like we can take that time
in space to endure it and continue. Yeah. Yeah, So
one of the other things in this article that you
wrote that they discusses, you know, you can wake up,
you can do your normal routine, but you're still like
in this trauma response and doing your normal routine can
(24:22):
be like part of that. At least my and my experience.
It's like Okay, it's the way like it keeps you
going as a momentum. Yeah, I can get up, I
can do X, Y and Z, I can do my job,
I can call my friends. But like you're you're not
you're not you're you're not your best self in any way,
shape or form, but you're able to go through the motions.
(24:42):
If that makes sense. Um, Yeah, that that was the
other thing. I was like there, Yeah, I'm the I'm
the friend who's like, so have you eaten today? Did
you not get? Like I'm as a professor, I try
to emulate this with like how I interact and set
boundaries with my students. I'm like, you know, I'm not
(25:05):
going to respond to things during these hours, Like you will.
You you can figure it out, Like if it's a crisis,
you will. You will find a way to get in
touch with me. But like, I'm not going to respond
to you right away because like we have boundaries here.
This is not urgent, Like this is not like for death.
This is a fucking college class. This is one oh
(25:26):
one level. Like let's be realistic and then like I'm
gonna have you have a big deadline before break so
that you actually have a break, Like yeah, because I
want to create as much space as possible, and so
I try to lead with that by like I have
to set my own boundaries for myself so that they
know how to like interact with that. It's really hard that, like,
(25:50):
you know, I it's easier to just kind of be
on all the time and be constantly thinking about it
rather than to like delineate you know, spaces and time
times that belong to this and only this. Yeah, you
talk a lot uh in the piece about like just
the environment that you're you're in, and there's no real
um like escape or from from that environment. You you know,
(26:14):
you can't take You can take a weekend from it,
but then you go right back into the environment. UM.
And I've I've talked about this a little bit before,
but I'm curious about sort of your like opinion on
like working from homes. I think there are a lot
of benefits from it, um and sort of separating from
like you, we all kind of go in the same space,
and like there are reasons that they want you to
come to the office that aren't like about performance or
(26:35):
your well being or like the benefit of the company
or anything like that. It's just like we need you
here to like watch over you there's a lot of
aspects there that the end they're pushing to get back
to get back there. But yeah, but it's I'm I'm
always thinking about, Like, yeah, but isn't it also bad
to have your workspace be at your home? Like that
(26:58):
seems like so unhealthy, but also like humans have always
done that, like we've like having the workspace be separate
from the home is not necessarily like right historically like
consistent phenomenon. So like I don't know, Um, the way
I do it is is I just have different spaces
(27:19):
for different things, and that's a privilege. That's a huge,
huge privilege of where I live, and like that I'm
able to afford to have a couple of different rooms
for things, So like not having my workspace in my
bedroom is priority number one, Like no matter what my
living situation is, I've always even in like a studio,
just like not having those together so that psychically I'm
(27:43):
not in bed thinking about work, Like it's really important
delineation so that rest is rest and work is work. Um.
The other is just like I don't know, putting on pants,
Like I don't have to hard pants, but just like
putting on pants, like you know, again having that delineation,
but also getting out of the house, walking around outside,
(28:03):
even if it's twenty minutes. Like having a dog has
been great for my my brain because like she forces
me to meet people, She forces me to go outside
multiple times a day. You have something that you have
to care about, Yeah, right, and forces you to care
about yourself in a way I've always been good about
like having something else to care about, Like I'm the
oldest of nine kids, Like I helped raise a bow,
(28:24):
Like I've always had cats, Like that's not the thing,
but like the act of having to vid the house,
that having a dog has been really revolutionary for me
on that regard. I'll just throw this out there for
anybody listening, um who lives in a small space or
(28:44):
perhaps a studio environment where it's really difficult to find
that it's tough. But with that, there are ways that
you can can make it feel separate psychically at least,
you know. Yeah, you can paint the wall, you can
put a divider up, you can you can have a divider.
You can just make sure you're never eating at your desk. Yeah,
(29:05):
that go a long way. But yeah, like you're saying
with like you know, putting on pants, and like we
all joke like, yeah, we don't have to put a
pants at work, but even like just putting on something,
it's like this is like my work. Yeah close, I'm awake.
Um right, I'm awake. It's like it's like business time.
Here we go. And then being able to separate that
and like you were talking about, even with just sort
of the communication aspects, I feel like a lot of people,
(29:27):
because they're working from home now, also have this pressure
of like, well, therefore you're always kind of at work,
therefore I can always contact you absolutely, which which is
not like should not be the case. But I think
that there's like the part of the danger of um
of this new sort of set up for a lot
of people, and a lot of employers want to have
that power over people's time when they absolutely shouldn't. Well,
(29:51):
and it's a privacy violation to like one of the issues.
So I was teaching at a community college and super
deep Southwest Appalachia, Southwest virg and Apple Logic at the
start of the pandemic, and so we went online in
that community for zoom, which meant that there would be
there was like a situation not my class but a
(30:12):
fellow teacher was teaching a class with multiple black students
in it and a white student who had a Confederate
flag in our bedroom, and like, is that her space?
Her space has now become the classroom. What power do
you have to control that space in terms of like
that's the privacy, freedom of speech thing, but it's also
(30:32):
hate speech bring brought into the classroom because the classroom
is now here and those delineations, like we haven't had
to navigate this before, and so like, you know, it
just translates directly to work too, Like, um, you know,
if you're a manager, learned how to use the schedule
email function and send things later, just like we send
(30:54):
that we're thinking it, the schedule it for tomorrow, because
that's you know, just setting those boundaries for your off
and others is really important. Uh that's a really good point. Um,
the managed thing, I should look into that for because
it's hard. It's hard. We have to respect you. Also
reminded me of a Reddit thread where a worker, some
(31:18):
guy I'm not going to remember this, he had a
life size cut out of Danny DeVito in the back
of his zoom background. And when you're unfortunately the Confederate
flag reminded me of this story. And yes, the ethical
the questions, but he's like up and coming he was,
and it became such a problem. He became a fight
between him and the manager, and the manager was like,
(31:39):
I'm sorry, you're gonna have to remove your Danny DeVito
cut out, and he was like, no, I'm not, I'm
I quit. You can't tell me what to do in
my space. First off, my favorite Baron Ronoke has like
who is the asshole? I'm sorry? My favorite barn Rono
vir Jinny has he's like paying up Danny de Vito
(32:00):
pictures all over, So that reminds me of that fond
memories there. But it's if you have a good relationship
with your employees and you're taking care of them and
you're interacting with them as a human, you can make
an ask like that and not have it be an
issue you just like if you haven't established that report, sorry,
that's your problem, buddy, right right, Just like I guess,
(32:24):
I guess it. They didn't want him doing meetings with
clients or something with Dan need to Vito and look,
you know, okay, I don't know anyways, come on, it's
like where do we learn on Danny de Vito. He
is polarizing, that is for sure. We're all just thinking
of Danny Vita now, Um yeah, no, it's it's like,
(32:46):
how do you control that space? Who's is it? I
think these are things that we don't have like a
lot of systemic precedent for. Yeah, and now they're there's
such a push to go back to the office. It's
like we're going to just skip over those conversations. Um,
that could happen now, you know, you could all just
(33:07):
you and your noise everybody. Interesting theory, interesting theory. The
union could negotiate to keep you out of the office.
That right, right, depends on who our leadership is. I
guess I live in so it's super hard to you
and you use here, but not with the power Danny
(33:28):
DeVito by your side, I can do all things. All right,
I'm going to make an executive call and we'll take
into a quick ad break. I'm sorry, Katie, hopefully Danny
DeVito voicing all of them please always. I mean, that
would be really smart approach. I made a joke. I
(33:52):
think that Danny DeVito is a gem. Okay, we'll be
right back. Everything and during the break, I was like,
you know, uh, should we just do a national strike
(34:14):
or we at that point yet? And then he was
like well, and they're like, all right, let's come back
on air to go ahead. Okay. I mean so in Minecraft,
like just burning it all down it seems like one
of the only options left at this point. It's like
(34:35):
civilizations lost only so long and like you have like
in order to survive, you have to adapt, and like
we're not adapting very well. But like m hm, one
of the things that I have learned as a cult
escape who like ended up losing a large community that
(34:59):
I grown up in and having to start from square
one with my belief system and my community and like,
you know, how I interacted with my family, what I
thought about myself and my place in the world. A
lot of people are really up for that level of
like risk and commitment. People don't like standing up for things.
(35:21):
They don't want to be uncomfortable. Um, and forgive me
for being super cynical about it, but like on the
flip side, it's really frustrating to me because I know
that they can do it, and I know that you
can be fine because I've done it and I'm fine
like fine, um, but like but like you can do
it and you can get through it, and a lot
(35:43):
of people just can't imagine what that would look like.
And I think that's that's one of the biggest obstacles
to something like that. We have. We have a generation
that hasn't grown up with a strong labor rights movement,
and we don't like have a positive vision for what
that future could be. And we really need to get
creative with that, start dreaming. Yeah, I think I think
(36:07):
you're correct. I mean, and we are seeing I would hope, um,
signs of a shift in thinking in I mean, just
this yer number of strikes and you know, labor movements
over the past year, uh, you know, since since the pandemic. Um.
(36:28):
And so I do feel hope sometimes, but it is
hard to look at me. I mean, I mean, there's
just so much. This is the through line of if
we can get get it the funk together to do
a national strike on student loans, I feel like the
rest would take care of usself. But like, yeah, like
we have to start with something that like universal. Yeah, um,
(36:50):
well yeah, what do you look like you had some
you know, I agree, it's just we can't get on
the same page on any thing. I mean, even like
you know, uh, we shouldn't have our health care tied
to our job. I know that's what I was going
to say, But you can't convince everybody to agree with
you on that. Some reason everybody to care for other
(37:16):
people like but also yeah, you're you know, asking people
to like strike to get healthcare not tied to their job. Well,
if I strike that I don't have the health care
that I need because I'm on strike. Um, And like
you're saying, like there's no um, real like vision for
how how it would work, Like how do you how
(37:36):
do you do that and survive well in the trouble?
I mean yeah, but the exhausting thing is like other
people did this and they didn't have a positive vision
for how it would look, Like, um, you could do
this too. I mean, obviously it's nice to have a
model that like you can point to and be like
like that, right, like you know, society's reinvent themselves all
(38:00):
the time without a plan. Yeah. Humans are actually like
really really really good interestingly enough about like adapting all
the time all the time. Are resilient, yes they are,
um and not but not necessarily even like collectively in
like a like like we as a society are necessarily
(38:20):
good at adapting and saying like we got to do this,
and then we do it. But um, you know, when
our packs are against the wall, we always seem to
pull through. But but to what you're saying about how
it is, it's it's hard to get people. The situation
has to be so extreme for people to be willing
(38:43):
to risk, um, you know, the outcome or whatever, the
unknown of going up against I mean like, yeah, go ahead,
Oh I'm just I know she's controversial. But Amanda Palmer
had this thing in her phone. Um, yeah, well that
we'll just let that stand. Um, it's fine, Um, we
(39:07):
don't need to go there. But like in there's this
story that she tells about, like she's like with an
older gentleman and there's a dog in the other room
and the dog just like lying on a wood floor
with like a nail sticking out of it, and it
keeps whimpering because it's lying on this nail and it's uncomfortable,
and she's like, why isn't it moving And he's like,
(39:27):
because it doesn't hurt enough yet, And it's like we
are all that dog is her larger point and it's like, yeah, like, yes,
he will stay in an abusive relationship because it doesn't
hurt enough yet. Yes, you will stay in an abusive
job because it does not hurt enough yet. Um, because
you like being comfortable and you feel like you can
(39:49):
like wiggle around just a little bit, so like you
can make a work, like you can do anything for
five more minutes, right, yeah. Yeah, and the irony being
there's so much freedom and peace to be found if
you take that leap, that scary thing, that scary step.
And I think this all actually goes back to Eve's article.
(40:12):
I mean it does. It does definitely economic system and
oppression and c p t s D. It all circles well,
and this is like yeah, c PTSD. Like one of
the things that does is it makes you unable to
imagine what's going to happen in the future, Like I
have to really like actively proactively planned things, um, because
(40:38):
usually I'm like I know what I'm doing tomorrow, I'm
like after that, like like that's how my brain defaults. UM.
And this is one of those moments where it's like
is it a d h D or is it c PTSD.
Probably both, but like I've heard enough from the complex
PTS community to think that it's it's largely that where
it's like if I, you know, don't if I don't
(41:01):
have to get through it immediately, it doesn't exist and
you can't prey up plan a revolution that way. Well yeah,
that's like, uh, come back, Like just the environment that
we're all in now, there's that uncertainty just in like
you know, anything on an individual level in all people's lives,
but also just the world, um, with things like climate change,
(41:23):
with the current war going on, all these sort of
things where it's like I don't know, you don't know
what's going to happen the next day. I think a
lot of people sort of feel like, well then why
bother planning anything? Um, why not just live this sort
of moment to moment, not think about the future because
we have no idea what will come of the future, right,
because the assumption is that like you don't have control
(41:44):
over the future, when actually the fuck you do. Exactly. Yeah,
it's just instead of ignoring it and like trying to
put it out of your mind, like take grab it. Yeah.
I think like lighter fluid to that where it was
like we were all in the state of well, I
have no idea what's going to happen, so I can't
(42:05):
plan anything. I can't even plan my next couple of hours,
all right. Uh. Yeah, that's when I was like, oh, funk,
this is bad because I was like, everybody is relating
to time like I do. This is really scary. This
is not like I'm the weirdo here, Like, let me
stay the weirdo. You all need to stay normal. We
(42:25):
have to get through this. Yeah. I felt the same
exact way. The same way I was like, I was like, Okay,
I'm used to this, but I don't want anybody else
to be This is not nobody else should be here.
This is the this is not this is not the
side of the table that anybody else should sit at. Yeah.
I remember um going for a walk socially distance walk
(42:48):
with my friend uh during that time, and she went, Honestly, Katie,
I don't know anyone that isn't just absolutely burning their
life down right now. And I was like, yeah, just
like it's just like they're like cutting off back, like
having really extreme reactions, like everybody behaving in very erratic ways. Okay,
(43:13):
So here's the other thing, is like maybe it wasn't
so erratic. Maybe this was all the like stuff that
you put off while you were trying to catch up
on laundry over the weekend that you like suddenly you
had to face because you were in the apartment with
it all day every day, and you're like, I don't
like living like this. I'm going to there's no from it.
The number of people who came out as strands during
(43:34):
the pandemic. Yes, yes, you just having to live with
yourself and only yourself like reveal so much. Yeah, Um,
are there any resources or things that people should should
know about that that we can give listeners as a
(43:57):
guide after reading an article listening to this discussion. Okay,
I'm going to give you two different versions of these.
One is I'm going to give you, um, the recommendation
for the body keeps the score, which is ubiquitous. I
was gonna bring it up is Yeah, has been accused
(44:21):
of predatory behavior in the workplace, So like take that
with a grade of salt. But like it is a
fucking good book. Um, there's a memoir out. Oh my god,
I'm blinking on the name of it. Stephanie Foo is
the name of the author. Um, and it's a memoir
about complex PTSD. I'm only halfway through it, but it's
really fucking good and it just came out UM, and
(44:42):
then I think it's what my bones know that that
is what it is. Okay, good, good, thank you. UM.
And then I'm going to give you a couple of
semantic tips just like. So, semantic therapy is the only
thing that I found that's helped me. If you have
access to e m d R through your UM insurance
or if you can afford to find an e m
(45:03):
DR practitioner, it's literally the only thing that I have
found that has helped it because talk therapy and complex
CPT therapy is often counterproductive for complex PTSD. UM, So
semantic therapy is releaseful. And here's a couple of tiny
semantic hacks that you can do, just like in a
moment if you're feeling flooded, which is like when you're
(45:25):
you're on the way to being triggered and you're away
on the way to like losing control over your reaction
because it's too much. UM. One is called I mean,
my therapist just called it tip tap fingers, but like
I'm sure it has like a more professional name. But
you just take your thumb and you start on your
pinkies and you tap your thumb to your pinky than
to your ring finger, than to your middle finger, than
(45:46):
to your first finger, and you work your way back
the same. So don't double tap, but just go. You
have to do both hands at the same time because
it crosses the hemispheres of your brain. And wait, wait,
that is something that I self soothe that way your brain,
your brain cairal, the can spiral while doing that. This
(46:09):
is really it is integrating the hemispheres of your brain.
So you cannot dissociate. You physically cannot dissociate. No, I
just thought I was a weird person who did doing this. Yeah,
that's a thing that is tap fingers in notes. Side
question on this is it is there something uh to music?
(46:33):
I guess with this um in how like I'm thinking
of like playing piano or playing a guitar, where like
your relationship between your hands and your brain, it's basically
like can you get out of your like spiral and
back into being present in the moment and like present
your body. So like whatever it is that does that
is going to be the thing that's going to like
(46:54):
cut that spiral cycle. Um, So if it's like singing
or playing an instrument or dancing or like something where
you like your your mind body connection gets restored so
that you're you're in sync with yourself. Um, you're present
in your body in real time. That that's like the
fastest way to cut that cycle. So the next thing,
(47:16):
the other thing that I was gonna share is like
just it is a semantic breathing exercise. You just put
your your right hand on your heart, your left hand
on your abdomen right at the top of your belly,
and you're just like breathing really slowly. Is that just
like basic yoga breathing belly breathing very slow in and out,
(47:36):
you know, count like in for hold, for out for
But um, the act of crossing the hands in those
that position again crosses wires in both hemispheres of your
brain so that it's again you're you're you're restoring that um,
that somatic rhythm. Love that it is really helpful. Yeah,
(48:01):
thank you. Wow. The finger thing, I'm like, it's like
such a good hack. It's such a good hack, Like
you can do it and like people can't see it.
You can like have your hands enter at the table
will be doing it. It's a little tiring, it's a
little finger workout, it's not disruptive. There there are other
(48:21):
exercises like that. I mean, the point is to like
get your mind into play mode and distracted and like present,
so it's not like that feeling of looseness and oneness
with your body that you're trying to achieve. And whatever
gets you there, like go for it absolutely. And also
heard somebody to talk about like cold water, running your
cold water over your hands to get you into your
(48:45):
body again to like connect the sensations and whatnot. And
one thing I also say is like if you've experienced
a lot of trauma, your body is not going to
want to come back. Like you're not gonna want to
reunite these parts. And its not going to be easy,
and it's going to take practice and it's gonna take time,
and it's going to take space. And like, um, you
(49:06):
know in Minecraft you might want to do mushrooms. Um
always anyway, I'm not in so we're gonna do it
in Minecraft here, but you know, um, but like there
are other ways to get there, but just it's it
requires just kind of allowing your body to take its
(49:28):
own time. Yeah, this has been really good, really fascinating. Eve.
Is there anything I'm gonna link this article in the
episode description? But is there anything you'd like to plug
at the end here? Yeah? I have a podcast um
coasted with Karan dark Water. It's called Kitchen Table Cold.
(49:50):
We talk about all things fundamentalist, Christian and current politics. Uh.
Super fun that it's still relevant. I would love to
be obese, but we're not yet. Um and I don't
know you. You can find me on Twitter. I hang
out there sometimes. Unfortunately. What's your Twitter handle? It's e
Vettinger with an underscore between awesome. Um. Yeah, follow them,
(50:16):
check them out all the shows. Thank you again so much,
thank you for having me anytime. You're You're welcome back
any time. Truly a delight, all right by everyone? Follow
us at worst your pod at COSNBIA. Have a wonderful day.
We haven't plugged that so long. I know I'm plugging it.
(50:39):
Every dull Everything I tried. Worst Year Ever is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Everything. So don't don't all right, we'll just started,
(00:20):
I guess yeah, have we started at the same time.
Oh yeah, we did it. Welcome We're here now, Okay, Hello,
it's magic. It's magic how that happens. One minute we
(00:41):
aren't here and then the next minute we are seamlessly
professionally all Hi guys, Welcome back to the Worst Year Ever.
I had to think about it for a second. I
was like, yeah, I heard that. Still is um no
fun puns you include or adjust on the fly. Here,
(01:03):
I'm Katie Soul. Uh. It's Cody Johnston Johnston and today
you introduce yourself. Okay, I'm I'm eve At Injured. Nice
to be here with y'all again. We're happy to have
you back. Uh. Robert is not here with us this week. Um,
(01:28):
and I get to make all the jokes about him now. Yeah,
And so we Sophie frantically reached out to eve uh
and they agreed to join us, which we were thrilled about. Well,
it wasn't exactly, I just it wasn't frantic, calmly and responsibly,
calmly and delightedly because it took him. She was like,
how about Eve, And we were like, yeah, absolutely, Well,
(01:49):
Eve wrote this article for Bustle. Is that correct? Is
that the publication pronounced boost? Yeah? Oh, thank you so much,
Thank you so much, Katie. UM and I really thought
it was something that needed to be talked about even more.
It was such a beautifully written article that is so
poignant to the Times right now, and I loved it
(02:10):
and I'm so glad that Eve has given us their
time to talk so much. The fact that people are
resonating with it is really depressing. Um, but really it's
really nice. Um. Yeah, the response has been really cool
to see. It's it's yeah, it's absolutely something that we
(02:32):
all resonate with right now. And I think the way
you put it so eloquently, I mean in the in
the piece, you can talk about the piece, but it
basically it is something that relating these experiences in these
symptoms of burnout to your own experience with CPTSD and
(02:53):
seeing those parallels and maybe reframing how we think about
what it means to be burnt out out. Um and
more people are are realizing it as they are experiencing
these symptoms that maybe it's not just burnout. Maybe we are.
Maybe we are experiencing the thing that we all collectively
warned about, which was a severe trauma for the past
(03:16):
few years. You know. Well, the way I kind of
went into it, and I've been I worked on this
piece since August last year, so months and months, and
I had to cut so much out of it, and
there were so many valuable moments that made it in
and others that didn't. And I just I probably could
have written like ten words on it easy. Um. But
(03:36):
I kind of went into it being like, my theory
is that burnout doesn't exist. It's just complex PTSD for
that now because capitalism is eating the rich alife too.
Now we're talking about it, giving it, we're giving it
the like you know, a fancy name burnout and um,
(03:59):
and this is on a new phenomenon and everybody's been
experiencing this for forever if you're not privileged and that
white and um, so I, you know, kind of with
that theory, decided to go see if I was confined anything.
And oh boy, everybody was too excited to talk to me, yea,
which is really upsetting. Yeah, for sure. Um, do you
(04:22):
want to give a brief summary of the article for
our listeners and everyone should go read this article. It's phenomenal. Pause,
go read and come back. Don't do that then yeah. Yeah,
So basically, UM, in the article, I kind of cover
complex PTSD UM as a phenomenon and comparing it to burnout.
(04:46):
So going and asking these people who are pretty open
about their experiences of burnout, especially most of them are
women of color, talking about, um, you know, what it
means to be really successful person in their field and
also experienced burnout and how they define it and what
(05:08):
you know they would like to see happen and change,
and then kind of comparing that to my own experience
of complex PTSD and like watching the symptoms like dovetail
and UM. And then I took this to um some
researchers when he's a former family doctor who now specializes
(05:31):
in preventing physician burnout and helping hospital administrators like revamp
their systems to do that, and you know, kind of
asked him like what's your take and he was like yes,
finally UM. And then UM, this wonderful gentleman named Thanos
Um who's a yeah, the great, great name. He's a
(05:54):
researcher in Scotland. Um. You know, he helped develop the
Definite Definition of complex PTSD for um, the you know,
equivalent of the d s M five that everybody except
for the US uses. Uh So, quait real quick, just
define what d s M guide is for people five? Sorry? Um, yeah,
(06:17):
d s M is the diagnostic manual and I I'm
blinking on the exact acronym, but it's a diagnostic manual
that you is used to diagnose mental health issues. So
complex PTSD is not in it. Yeah, but there's a
lot of things that aren't in it that should be
(06:38):
in it. There's a lot of things that are in
it that shouldn't be in it. There's a lot of
things that are mislabeled, and so it's only as good
as like what you want to use it for. And
it's basically it's basically a way of justifying treatment to
insurance companies. It's allowed to crap. But when when he
when I emailed him about it, he was like, oh
(07:00):
my god, we've been talking about this. Um, I'd love
to talk to you. And I was like, oh no,
here we go again. So yeah, it seems like one
of the interesting things is like burnout is not a
medical condition. Burnout is a phenomenon that shows up that
can have medical side effects, but it's not recognized as
(07:24):
a medical diagnosable condition. So then what the funk is?
It was really what I was starting to figure out. Yeah,
And I mean it does resonate with everybody right now.
I just want to circle back to like this point.
Right now, everybody's feeling this, uh in different degrees or
has been over the past couple of years, and even
(07:45):
before that, uh, during this past administration and the world
getting worse and climate change, and it's not gonna It's
not going to go away, is I guess? My point? Um?
And and and it is very a point, very well
taken that you make in the piece about how it
(08:07):
is about the rich, white, primarily like people of the
world waking up to the reality that the vast majority
of people have been experiencing and the level of anxiety
and what that actually physically does to your body, you know.
So he was talking about this earlier, just there's an
element of it that's not even something you can control.
(08:28):
It's a physical response. Well, and there's this also this
thing that's happening, and I wasn't really able to include
this in the piece, but it was in the back
of my mind. It's like, we don't have a way
to turn off work in a way that past generations have.
So the wealthy have always been a leisure class. And
now the wealthy are proving that they can work harder
(08:51):
than anyone else because they have access to things and
they you know, they can have someone on call, and
they can have the private jet and they so they
can be anywhere whenever they want to be. So they're
just like, it's not a leisure class anymore. And suddenly
they're experiencing that same kind of like loss of margin,
loss of space to rest and play as everybody else's.
(09:15):
And it's not threatening their you know, actual existence in
the ways that it is everybody else, but um, they're
experiencing some consequences, and so now we're talking about burnout.
Yeah right. They like push, like hustle culture and like
the grind for so long and then they adopted themselves
and they're like, oh wait, this is actually kind of
(09:36):
terrible lean in, but oh, maybe we should leave our
phones outside of our bedroom at night. Yeah, no TVs
in the space where you sleep. Mm hmmm. For those
people that can afford a place with more than one bedroom.
I was going to ask Sophie, what what about the
piece resonated so much because you were very excited to
(09:56):
talk about it. Yeah, I mean, I think that you know,
your connection to the economic system and and how Bernard
is a form of oppression was very uh, something that
stuck out to me. I think that, you know, the
conversation around complex PTSD is not a conversation that happens
very often. UM, I have PTSD, and complex PTSD has
(10:20):
never been brought up to me in a professional setting
and has been brought up to me by you know,
a loved one being like, hey, I don't, I don't,
I don't know. Maybe this is what that is. And
I'm like, what are you talking about? And so, I
what do you mean. I'm I've just worked too much,
I'm just tired. I'm just over. You know, there's a war,
(10:41):
the planets on fire, you know, things like that, and yeah,
So I think those two things really stuck out to me.
And you know, knowing that you wrote it meant like
got of course got my attention because you're so brilliant
and the way you wrote this article. I really loved it,
even than really loved it. I'm glad that complex PTSD
(11:03):
is getting some intention it should understood. Yeah, and and
for me that stood out. I uh, I had not
considered it before. PTSD has seemed like as much as
I talk about it and and talk about awaren as
we all do, I think an awareness of it when
people say that they're they're struggling with it and um,
(11:26):
but it hasn't seemed like something that I could be
experiencing personally and experienced trauma. No, I'm fine, and and
I have realized that I've had it. But prior to this,
to this article, um, and at least in certain arenas
of my life, but I had this really did um
make me stop and see like, oh, oh, I see
(11:49):
how this is manifesting in different areas and other and
other ways that this is also a trauma response. And
for me personally, at least in my past, when I
name something, that's the first step towards having relief. Almost. Um.
So if I'm able to pinpoint what this, this physical
sensation that I'm experiencing is bigger than me. There's a
(12:12):
piece in that, and so it's vitally important. I think
that people are are educated have the tools to to
understand what's happening in our bodies because most people don't
know most of us do not have access to our
emotional life and can articulate what we're experiencing. Sorry, go ahead, no,
I was just gonna say, this brings me back to
the d s M, because like what we have is
(12:34):
like you know, diagnoses, a lot of people treat it
as a like a like characteristic like I have it
in eyebrows like that. I also have PTSD. I will
always have both like that kind of level of like
fixedness to your your persona and who you are. And um,
(12:56):
it's the like a diagnosis of mtal health issues just
a description of a cluster of symptoms like it's a
it's a it's a like a description of a manifestation
of something in your body. Um, and it doesn't describe you.
And so I think that's one of the reasons that
(13:17):
there's so much I don't know if you saw the
like piece about like trauma plot that was going around
lit Twitter a couple of weeks back. I didn't, but
like there's this like ongoing fight about like at least
everything Channa now um, And I'm like, yeah, Actually I
was going, that's not interesting. Like it's both like I'm sorry,
(13:42):
a rape is not an origin story for like an
interesting character. Try harder, and also like, yeah, everything is
probably trauma in ways that you didn't expect, Like your
body is going to like react to things and you're
going to carry that with you and everyone has a
different way of um my personal term for the way
I described like processing intense emotions is emotional metabolism, Like
(14:05):
everyone's emotional metabolism has a different rate, Like you're going
to carry that in your body for longer or less time,
depending on who you are. So sure, like something might
be really intense and really like you know lingering that
for someone else might be minuscule and not not a
big deal. Might just like you know, they wouldn't even
(14:27):
think about it twice. Also some of those people, oh
is everything about trauma? Yes, and you too, sir or
madam or non binary binary person you know, like it's
it's we all have it, and there is a freedom
and acknowledging it because they're carrying that we are ashamed
(14:49):
of is rooted in trauma, Like the things that you
struggle with are rooted with this. These these formative experiences
and if you can acknowledge it, you'll feel better. The
people who bitch about everything being drama and using the
word trauma too much, I feel like the same kind
of people. And I'm not saying they are the same
kind of people, but like they feel similar to the
(15:11):
people who are like, well, I got spanked as a
kid and I turned out fine. You're saying, you're saying
that clearly you're okay with hitting small people. Know. I
was gonna say, yeah, like I gotta spanking as a kid,
and I turned out fine. And so to my kids
who I spank, they're fine too, Like, okay, so you're
(15:31):
spanking your kids then, so yeah, that is that the
healthiest way for you to release your anger or frustration? Right?
Are they really listening to you? You know? Um? Yeah?
Can I can I just like check on definitions here,
like in terms of like PTSD versus c PTSD. Please,
(15:52):
I don't know that everybody's like, you know, like we're
talking about not everybody's run into it. So um, I'm
gonna grow strawberry and a Robert metaphor for this, Like
you can you can like cook meat in the ground
over a million hours like he does sometimes um, real slowly,
real low um, and it will taste great. And you
(16:14):
can flash cook a steak on a grill real fast
and it will also taste great. But you know, the
PTSD is the flash Ryan. Um, It's it's a you know,
an isolated incident. You can point to it and say
this is what happened. Um. And like when I got
(16:36):
my complex PTSD diagnosis, which like is not really a
thing given DSM stuff, but like is a thing. Um,
my therapist was like, okay, so like what's your primary trauma?
And I was like, my what It was like, uh no,
(16:56):
that's not that's not that's not a question that will
work here. Um. And that's kind of how it is.
It's like, it's this is the slow cooker experience, Like
it's the act of cooking is taking so long that
you can't delineate it from one to the next. It
just like it exists to everything. Yeah, it's just it's like, yeah,
(17:23):
it's the air you breathe. You don't even know that
you're in it until you leave it. Usually. Well yeah,
yeah that's really well said. Um. So if you should
we take a break now, this would be a great
time to take a break. I think we're gonna take
a break real quick. Perhaps perhaps would now be a
(17:45):
good time to take a break. I'm just wondering. Probably,
probably do we want a break, Katie? Break? I think, yeah,
I think maybe we can do this for another minute
and then we take a break. Just go ahead and
then but we but with spend a minute of asking
if we think that we should probably talk about it first?
How do we feel about taking a break? I don't
(18:06):
know anymore. I'm dead, feel like a little two burnt out.
You know, I'm just gonna call it. We're gonna take
a quick break, and then we're gonna be back everything.
So don't don't, don't. And we're back from that break, right.
(18:28):
It was good. We feel good to be back from break.
Did we talk about this yet? Were I just barked
right ahead? I'm so sorry. I did it again. I
did it again, just so we're all good. We're all good,
you say, okay, well, thanks for checking in. We turned
out fine. Yeah, Sophie, why don't you you had something
(18:54):
interesting you wanted to just start us off with. We
talked a little bit bit about the first thing that
stuck with me from the article, which was you know,
the complex PTSD aspect of it, but I wanted to
get into a little bit of you know, how the
economic system influences this and how uh it can lead
to oppression and different different, different things like that, and um, yeah,
(19:19):
so you know, easy topics like that, Yeah, really really
easy topics like that. M yeah yeah, Well, I mean
capitalism is designed to like keep you busy, and capitalism
is designed to constantly be taking from someone, and um,
you have to like eat your feelings about that in
(19:42):
order to like keep going. Um. And you know, it's
that classic MLM. Capitalism is an m L and that's
how like we got MLMs. I don't know, um, but
the thing is, like, yeah, the way I think about it,
in the way I was recognizing these things as people
(20:02):
were talking about them is I grew up in a
fundamentalist group and I considered a cult. And like one
of the things that was really useful to keep people
from questioning the leadership is to have everyone be constantly
on edge about like how good they were and like
whether or not God love them, and like how they
(20:23):
were measuring up. And so this constantly anxiety, this like
ambient anxiety about like your performance and your worthiness like
kept you, you know, distracted, so that you didn't have
any energy to think about like huh now how did
I end up here? Like you and urge, Um, why
(20:43):
is this a good idea? Uh? And I think that
like having so little margin on life, you know I
talked about like room to play and rest, Like we
don't have that in most of our our day to
day lives, and so we don't have time. Aim, you
cannot be creative unless you're bored a little bit, So
(21:06):
you cannot be You cannot be able to like really
analyze you know, why am I hearing? Do I like this?
Unless you have that space and so like getting to
burnout point, having that crisis, like that point of collapse,
like that's where you finally get time, and that's when
(21:26):
you finally realize, like what the fund have I been doing?
Because capitalism is designed to keep us like ambiently anxious
and caring you also everybody else and like not questioning anything. Yeah,
you can't recover from that kind of deep fatigue with
(21:47):
a long weekend where you're also trying to do your
laundry and like, um, organized the drawers that you've been
putting you know whatever, it is like you get the
you get to the weekend, and it's not the same thing.
This is we're talking about starvation, Like your body needs
to heal deeply and we don't have time. I recently
(22:11):
went through a huge breakup and it's dramatic loss of
a family member all at the same time, and it
was just ugly. But work was ramping up and for
the right I felt so grateful for all of the
good opportunities and that I needed to show up for
all of them. But I needed to heal too, and
(22:34):
there wasn't time for both of that, and it made
my work suffer for a while, you know, and I
but I at a certain point I recognized what was
happening and just gave myself permission to cut as many
corners as I needed for the remainder of the year
at least. And like a hallmark of trauma, it's like
you had like that intense mormonal response to get you
(22:56):
through the bush, and you can't sustain that love yeah operating,
and so you crash afterward. And so like I'm really
good en a crisis and then like and then yeah,
like two weeks later, I'll be like, um, and you
(23:16):
know that delayed reaction is you know, just a part
of like who I am because of complex PTSD, and
I think that like we see this all over the
place here with like you know, people will go through
stuff and they'll be like why am I acting like
this like a month later or a week later, and
I'm just like, yeah, you just went through this, this, this,
and this, and they're like uh, And I'm like, you
(23:38):
haven't rested, you haven't like recovered, you haven't actually processed
any of that. You culture doesn't. We don't talk about it,
so we don't make space for it, you know, in
the same way, and people have that internalized capitalism, that
idea of identities connected with our productivity, and so they don't.
(24:00):
We all don't feel like we can take that time
in space to endure it and continue. Yeah. Yeah, So
one of the other things in this article that you
wrote that they discusses, you know, you can wake up,
you can do your normal routine, but you're still like
in this trauma response and doing your normal routine can
(24:22):
be like part of that. At least my and my experience.
It's like Okay, it's the way like it keeps you
going as a momentum. Yeah, I can get up, I
can do X, Y and Z, I can do my job,
I can call my friends. But like you're you're not
you're not you're you're not your best self in any way,
shape or form, but you're able to go through the motions.
(24:42):
If that makes sense. Um, Yeah, that that was the
other thing. I was like there, Yeah, I'm the I'm
the friend who's like, so have you eaten today? Did
you not get? Like I'm as a professor, I try
to emulate this with like how I interact and set
boundaries with my students. I'm like, you know, I'm not
(25:05):
going to respond to things during these hours, Like you will.
You you can figure it out, Like if it's a crisis,
you will. You will find a way to get in
touch with me. But like, I'm not going to respond
to you right away because like we have boundaries here.
This is not urgent, Like this is not like for death.
This is a fucking college class. This is one oh
(25:26):
one level. Like let's be realistic and then like I'm
gonna have you have a big deadline before break so
that you actually have a break, Like yeah, because I
want to create as much space as possible, and so
I try to lead with that by like I have
to set my own boundaries for myself so that they
know how to like interact with that. It's really hard that, like,
(25:50):
you know, I it's easier to just kind of be
on all the time and be constantly thinking about it
rather than to like delineate you know, spaces and time
times that belong to this and only this. Yeah, you
talk a lot uh in the piece about like just
the environment that you're you're in, and there's no real
um like escape or from from that environment. You you know,
(26:14):
you can't take You can take a weekend from it,
but then you go right back into the environment. UM.
And I've I've talked about this a little bit before,
but I'm curious about sort of your like opinion on
like working from homes. I think there are a lot
of benefits from it, um and sort of separating from
like you, we all kind of go in the same space,
and like there are reasons that they want you to
come to the office that aren't like about performance or
(26:35):
your well being or like the benefit of the company
or anything like that. It's just like we need you
here to like watch over you there's a lot of
aspects there that the end they're pushing to get back
to get back there. But yeah, but it's I'm I'm
always thinking about, Like, yeah, but isn't it also bad
to have your workspace be at your home? Like that
(26:58):
seems like so unhealthy, but also like humans have always
done that, like we've like having the workspace be separate
from the home is not necessarily like right historically like
consistent phenomenon. So like I don't know, Um, the way
I do it is is I just have different spaces
(27:19):
for different things, and that's a privilege. That's a huge,
huge privilege of where I live, and like that I'm
able to afford to have a couple of different rooms
for things, So like not having my workspace in my
bedroom is priority number one, Like no matter what my
living situation is, I've always even in like a studio,
just like not having those together so that psychically I'm
(27:43):
not in bed thinking about work, Like it's really important
delineation so that rest is rest and work is work. Um.
The other is just like I don't know, putting on pants,
Like I don't have to hard pants, but just like
putting on pants, like you know, again having that delineation,
but also getting out of the house, walking around outside,
(28:03):
even if it's twenty minutes. Like having a dog has
been great for my my brain because like she forces
me to meet people, She forces me to go outside
multiple times a day. You have something that you have
to care about, Yeah, right, and forces you to care
about yourself in a way I've always been good about
like having something else to care about, Like I'm the
oldest of nine kids, Like I helped raise a bow,
(28:24):
Like I've always had cats, Like that's not the thing,
but like the act of having to vid the house,
that having a dog has been really revolutionary for me
on that regard. I'll just throw this out there for
anybody listening, um who lives in a small space or
(28:44):
perhaps a studio environment where it's really difficult to find
that it's tough. But with that, there are ways that
you can can make it feel separate psychically at least,
you know. Yeah, you can paint the wall, you can
put a divider up, you can you can have a divider.
You can just make sure you're never eating at your desk. Yeah,
(29:05):
that go a long way. But yeah, like you're saying
with like you know, putting on pants, and like we
all joke like, yeah, we don't have to put a
pants at work, but even like just putting on something,
it's like this is like my work. Yeah close, I'm awake.
Um right, I'm awake. It's like it's like business time.
Here we go. And then being able to separate that
and like you were talking about, even with just sort
of the communication aspects, I feel like a lot of people,
(29:27):
because they're working from home now, also have this pressure
of like, well, therefore you're always kind of at work,
therefore I can always contact you absolutely, which which is
not like should not be the case. But I think
that there's like the part of the danger of um
of this new sort of set up for a lot
of people, and a lot of employers want to have
that power over people's time when they absolutely shouldn't. Well,
(29:51):
and it's a privacy violation to like one of the issues.
So I was teaching at a community college and super
deep Southwest Appalachia, Southwest virg and Apple Logic at the
start of the pandemic, and so we went online in
that community for zoom, which meant that there would be
there was like a situation not my class but a
(30:12):
fellow teacher was teaching a class with multiple black students
in it and a white student who had a Confederate
flag in our bedroom, and like, is that her space?
Her space has now become the classroom. What power do
you have to control that space in terms of like
that's the privacy, freedom of speech thing, but it's also
(30:32):
hate speech bring brought into the classroom because the classroom
is now here and those delineations, like we haven't had
to navigate this before, and so like, you know, it
just translates directly to work too, Like, um, you know,
if you're a manager, learned how to use the schedule
email function and send things later, just like we send
(30:54):
that we're thinking it, the schedule it for tomorrow, because
that's you know, just setting those boundaries for your off
and others is really important. Uh that's a really good point. Um,
the managed thing, I should look into that for because
it's hard. It's hard. We have to respect you. Also
reminded me of a Reddit thread where a worker, some
(31:18):
guy I'm not going to remember this, he had a
life size cut out of Danny DeVito in the back
of his zoom background. And when you're unfortunately the Confederate
flag reminded me of this story. And yes, the ethical
the questions, but he's like up and coming he was,
and it became such a problem. He became a fight
between him and the manager, and the manager was like,
(31:39):
I'm sorry, you're gonna have to remove your Danny DeVito
cut out, and he was like, no, I'm not, I'm
I quit. You can't tell me what to do in
my space. First off, my favorite Baron Ronoke has like
who is the asshole? I'm sorry? My favorite barn Rono
vir Jinny has he's like paying up Danny de Vito
(32:00):
pictures all over, So that reminds me of that fond
memories there. But it's if you have a good relationship
with your employees and you're taking care of them and
you're interacting with them as a human, you can make
an ask like that and not have it be an
issue you just like if you haven't established that report, sorry,
that's your problem, buddy, right right, Just like I guess,
(32:24):
I guess it. They didn't want him doing meetings with
clients or something with Dan need to Vito and look,
you know, okay, I don't know anyways, come on, it's
like where do we learn on Danny de Vito. He
is polarizing, that is for sure. We're all just thinking
of Danny Vita now, Um yeah, no, it's it's like,
(32:46):
how do you control that space? Who's is it? I
think these are things that we don't have like a
lot of systemic precedent for. Yeah, and now they're there's
such a push to go back to the office. It's
like we're going to just skip over those conversations. Um,
that could happen now, you know, you could all just
(33:07):
you and your noise everybody. Interesting theory, interesting theory. The
union could negotiate to keep you out of the office.
That right, right, depends on who our leadership is. I
guess I live in so it's super hard to you
and you use here, but not with the power Danny
(33:28):
DeVito by your side, I can do all things. All right,
I'm going to make an executive call and we'll take
into a quick ad break. I'm sorry, Katie, hopefully Danny
DeVito voicing all of them please always. I mean, that
would be really smart approach. I made a joke. I
(33:52):
think that Danny DeVito is a gem. Okay, we'll be
right back. Everything and during the break, I was like,
you know, uh, should we just do a national strike
(34:14):
or we at that point yet? And then he was
like well, and they're like, all right, let's come back
on air to go ahead. Okay. I mean so in Minecraft,
like just burning it all down it seems like one
of the only options left at this point. It's like
(34:35):
civilizations lost only so long and like you have like
in order to survive, you have to adapt, and like
we're not adapting very well. But like m hm, one
of the things that I have learned as a cult
escape who like ended up losing a large community that
(34:59):
I grown up in and having to start from square
one with my belief system and my community and like,
you know, how I interacted with my family, what I
thought about myself and my place in the world. A
lot of people are really up for that level of
like risk and commitment. People don't like standing up for things.
(35:21):
They don't want to be uncomfortable. Um, and forgive me
for being super cynical about it, but like on the
flip side, it's really frustrating to me because I know
that they can do it, and I know that you
can be fine because I've done it and I'm fine
like fine, um, but like but like you can do
it and you can get through it, and a lot
(35:43):
of people just can't imagine what that would look like.
And I think that's that's one of the biggest obstacles
to something like that. We have. We have a generation
that hasn't grown up with a strong labor rights movement,
and we don't like have a positive vision for what
that future could be. And we really need to get
creative with that, start dreaming. Yeah, I think I think
(36:07):
you're correct. I mean, and we are seeing I would hope, um,
signs of a shift in thinking in I mean, just
this yer number of strikes and you know, labor movements
over the past year, uh, you know, since since the pandemic. Um.
(36:28):
And so I do feel hope sometimes, but it is
hard to look at me. I mean, I mean, there's
just so much. This is the through line of if
we can get get it the funk together to do
a national strike on student loans, I feel like the
rest would take care of usself. But like, yeah, like
we have to start with something that like universal. Yeah, um,
(36:50):
well yeah, what do you look like you had some
you know, I agree, it's just we can't get on
the same page on any thing. I mean, even like
you know, uh, we shouldn't have our health care tied
to our job. I know that's what I was going
to say, But you can't convince everybody to agree with
you on that. Some reason everybody to care for other
(37:16):
people like but also yeah, you're you know, asking people
to like strike to get healthcare not tied to their job. Well,
if I strike that I don't have the health care
that I need because I'm on strike. Um, And like
you're saying, like there's no um, real like vision for
how how it would work, Like how do you how
(37:36):
do you do that and survive well in the trouble?
I mean yeah, but the exhausting thing is like other
people did this and they didn't have a positive vision
for how it would look, Like, um, you could do
this too. I mean, obviously it's nice to have a
model that like you can point to and be like
like that, right, like you know, society's reinvent themselves all
(38:00):
the time without a plan. Yeah. Humans are actually like
really really really good interestingly enough about like adapting all
the time all the time. Are resilient, yes they are,
um and not but not necessarily even like collectively in
like a like like we as a society are necessarily
(38:20):
good at adapting and saying like we got to do this,
and then we do it. But um, you know, when
our packs are against the wall, we always seem to
pull through. But but to what you're saying about how
it is, it's it's hard to get people. The situation
has to be so extreme for people to be willing
(38:43):
to risk, um, you know, the outcome or whatever, the
unknown of going up against I mean like, yeah, go ahead,
Oh I'm just I know she's controversial. But Amanda Palmer
had this thing in her phone. Um, yeah, well that
we'll just let that stand. Um, it's fine, Um, we
(39:07):
don't need to go there. But like in there's this
story that she tells about, like she's like with an
older gentleman and there's a dog in the other room
and the dog just like lying on a wood floor
with like a nail sticking out of it, and it
keeps whimpering because it's lying on this nail and it's uncomfortable,
and she's like, why isn't it moving And he's like,
(39:27):
because it doesn't hurt enough yet, And it's like we
are all that dog is her larger point and it's like, yeah, like, yes,
he will stay in an abusive relationship because it doesn't
hurt enough yet. Yes, you will stay in an abusive
job because it does not hurt enough yet. Um, because
you like being comfortable and you feel like you can
(39:49):
like wiggle around just a little bit, so like you
can make a work, like you can do anything for
five more minutes, right, yeah. Yeah, and the irony being
there's so much freedom and peace to be found if
you take that leap, that scary thing, that scary step.
And I think this all actually goes back to Eve's article.
(40:12):
I mean it does. It does definitely economic system and
oppression and c p t s D. It all circles well,
and this is like yeah, c PTSD. Like one of
the things that does is it makes you unable to
imagine what's going to happen in the future, Like I
have to really like actively proactively planned things, um, because
(40:38):
usually I'm like I know what I'm doing tomorrow, I'm
like after that, like like that's how my brain defaults. UM.
And this is one of those moments where it's like
is it a d h D or is it c PTSD.
Probably both, but like I've heard enough from the complex
PTS community to think that it's it's largely that where
it's like if I, you know, don't if I don't
(41:01):
have to get through it immediately, it doesn't exist and
you can't prey up plan a revolution that way. Well yeah,
that's like, uh, come back, Like just the environment that
we're all in now, there's that uncertainty just in like
you know, anything on an individual level in all people's lives,
but also just the world, um, with things like climate change,
(41:23):
with the current war going on, all these sort of
things where it's like I don't know, you don't know
what's going to happen the next day. I think a
lot of people sort of feel like, well then why
bother planning anything? Um, why not just live this sort
of moment to moment, not think about the future because
we have no idea what will come of the future, right,
because the assumption is that like you don't have control
(41:44):
over the future, when actually the fuck you do. Exactly. Yeah,
it's just instead of ignoring it and like trying to
put it out of your mind, like take grab it. Yeah.
I think like lighter fluid to that where it was
like we were all in the state of well, I
have no idea what's going to happen, so I can't
(42:05):
plan anything. I can't even plan my next couple of hours,
all right. Uh. Yeah, that's when I was like, oh, funk,
this is bad because I was like, everybody is relating
to time like I do. This is really scary. This
is not like I'm the weirdo here, Like, let me
stay the weirdo. You all need to stay normal. We
(42:25):
have to get through this. Yeah. I felt the same
exact way. The same way I was like, I was like, Okay,
I'm used to this, but I don't want anybody else
to be This is not nobody else should be here.
This is the this is not this is not the
side of the table that anybody else should sit at. Yeah.
I remember um going for a walk socially distance walk
(42:48):
with my friend uh during that time, and she went, Honestly, Katie,
I don't know anyone that isn't just absolutely burning their
life down right now. And I was like, yeah, just
like it's just like they're like cutting off back, like
having really extreme reactions, like everybody behaving in very erratic ways. Okay,
(43:13):
So here's the other thing, is like maybe it wasn't
so erratic. Maybe this was all the like stuff that
you put off while you were trying to catch up
on laundry over the weekend that you like suddenly you
had to face because you were in the apartment with
it all day every day, and you're like, I don't
like living like this. I'm going to there's no from it.
The number of people who came out as strands during
(43:34):
the pandemic. Yes, yes, you just having to live with
yourself and only yourself like reveal so much. Yeah, Um,
are there any resources or things that people should should
know about that that we can give listeners as a
(43:57):
guide after reading an article listening to this discussion. Okay,
I'm going to give you two different versions of these.
One is I'm going to give you, um, the recommendation
for the body keeps the score, which is ubiquitous. I
was gonna bring it up is Yeah, has been accused
(44:21):
of predatory behavior in the workplace, So like take that
with a grade of salt. But like it is a
fucking good book. Um, there's a memoir out. Oh my god,
I'm blinking on the name of it. Stephanie Foo is
the name of the author. Um, and it's a memoir
about complex PTSD. I'm only halfway through it, but it's
really fucking good and it just came out UM, and
(44:42):
then I think it's what my bones know that that
is what it is. Okay, good, good, thank you. UM.
And then I'm going to give you a couple of
semantic tips just like. So, semantic therapy is the only
thing that I found that's helped me. If you have
access to e m d R through your UM insurance
or if you can afford to find an e m
(45:03):
DR practitioner, it's literally the only thing that I have
found that has helped it because talk therapy and complex
CPT therapy is often counterproductive for complex PTSD. UM, So
semantic therapy is releaseful. And here's a couple of tiny
semantic hacks that you can do, just like in a
moment if you're feeling flooded, which is like when you're
(45:25):
you're on the way to being triggered and you're away
on the way to like losing control over your reaction
because it's too much. UM. One is called I mean,
my therapist just called it tip tap fingers, but like
I'm sure it has like a more professional name. But
you just take your thumb and you start on your
pinkies and you tap your thumb to your pinky than
to your ring finger, than to your middle finger, than
(45:46):
to your first finger, and you work your way back
the same. So don't double tap, but just go. You
have to do both hands at the same time because
it crosses the hemispheres of your brain. And wait, wait,
that is something that I self soothe that way your brain,
your brain cairal, the can spiral while doing that. This
(46:09):
is really it is integrating the hemispheres of your brain.
So you cannot dissociate. You physically cannot dissociate. No, I
just thought I was a weird person who did doing this. Yeah,
that's a thing that is tap fingers in notes. Side
question on this is it is there something uh to music?
(46:33):
I guess with this um in how like I'm thinking
of like playing piano or playing a guitar, where like
your relationship between your hands and your brain, it's basically
like can you get out of your like spiral and
back into being present in the moment and like present
your body. So like whatever it is that does that
is going to be the thing that's going to like
(46:54):
cut that spiral cycle. Um, So if it's like singing
or playing an instrument or dancing or like something where
you like your your mind body connection gets restored so
that you're you're in sync with yourself. Um, you're present
in your body in real time. That that's like the
fastest way to cut that cycle. So the next thing,
(47:16):
the other thing that I was gonna share is like
just it is a semantic breathing exercise. You just put
your your right hand on your heart, your left hand
on your abdomen right at the top of your belly,
and you're just like breathing really slowly. Is that just
like basic yoga breathing belly breathing very slow in and out,
(47:36):
you know, count like in for hold, for out for
But um, the act of crossing the hands in those
that position again crosses wires in both hemispheres of your
brain so that it's again you're you're you're restoring that um,
that somatic rhythm. Love that it is really helpful. Yeah,
(48:01):
thank you. Wow. The finger thing, I'm like, it's like
such a good hack. It's such a good hack, Like
you can do it and like people can't see it.
You can like have your hands enter at the table
will be doing it. It's a little tiring, it's a
little finger workout, it's not disruptive. There there are other
(48:21):
exercises like that. I mean, the point is to like
get your mind into play mode and distracted and like present,
so it's not like that feeling of looseness and oneness
with your body that you're trying to achieve. And whatever
gets you there, like go for it absolutely. And also
heard somebody to talk about like cold water, running your
cold water over your hands to get you into your
(48:45):
body again to like connect the sensations and whatnot. And
one thing I also say is like if you've experienced
a lot of trauma, your body is not going to
want to come back. Like you're not gonna want to
reunite these parts. And its not going to be easy,
and it's going to take practice and it's gonna take time,
and it's going to take space. And like, um, you
(49:06):
know in Minecraft you might want to do mushrooms. Um
always anyway, I'm not in so we're gonna do it
in Minecraft here, but you know, um, but like there
are other ways to get there, but just it's it
requires just kind of allowing your body to take its
(49:28):
own time. Yeah, this has been really good, really fascinating. Eve.
Is there anything I'm gonna link this article in the
episode description? But is there anything you'd like to plug
at the end here? Yeah? I have a podcast um
coasted with Karan dark Water. It's called Kitchen Table Cold.
(49:50):
We talk about all things fundamentalist, Christian and current politics. Uh.
Super fun that it's still relevant. I would love to
be obese, but we're not yet. Um and I don't
know you. You can find me on Twitter. I hang
out there sometimes. Unfortunately. What's your Twitter handle? It's e
Vettinger with an underscore between awesome. Um. Yeah, follow them,
(50:16):
check them out all the shows. Thank you again so much,
thank you for having me anytime. You're You're welcome back
any time. Truly a delight, all right by everyone? Follow
us at worst your pod at COSNBIA. Have a wonderful day.
We haven't plugged that so long. I know I'm plugging it.
(50:39):
Every dull Everything I tried. Worst Year Ever is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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