What is the first thing that you think of when someone talks about a medical condition that makes people feel shame? I am sure anyone listening to this show will know of something or knows someone that has a condition that, while the person cannot do anything about it, they feel shame for having it. The panel looks at what is shame, why we need to be aware of it, what does it do to us medically, and how you can manage it.
Tune in to see Shame for Medical Conditions Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- What is shame based feelings
- Why do we need to be aware of shame and how it affects us medically
- How to manage shame
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode #237 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes on July the 20th. This is episode 2 37. Shame with Medical Conditions. That is our topic. So earlier, Victoria is with us two weeks in a row, by the way. Hello? Yay. Hi. Hi. Hey, Victoria. So if we recreate the moment, I said we’re gonna be talking about shame with medical conditions.
And what did you say? I
Victoria Pendergrass: said, oh, like erectile dysfunction.
Chris Gazdik: Wow, John. That’s where she went immediately. Oh, my
John-Nelson Pope: first time. Pour shame, shame.
Chris Gazdik: Shame on you. Shame on
Victoria Pendergrass: you. Shame on me for thinking that the first, that would be the first thing I think of. Yes. I’m sorry. That was just the first thing I thought
Chris Gazdik: of.
It was precious. It was perfect. It was why I started the show with this. Think about it. What is shame-based feelings in the first place? Why do we need to be aware of shame and how does it really affect us, even [00:01:00] medically, especially? And then, um, how do we manage it? You know, we always want to be into managing stuff with, uh, together.
So this is through a therapist eryes where you get insights from a therapist directly in your home or car? Uh, mostly, uh, we have a panel with Mr. John Pope over there. A pleasure to be here and Miss Victoria Pendergrass. Thank you. Two weeks in a row is established. Yes. We missed you with the scheduling. We got
Victoria Pendergrass: a harass.
I, I know. We gotta get back into routine, you
Chris Gazdik: know, uh, the book through Therapist. I is new soon with the marriage book. Really? I ain’t
Victoria Pendergrass: gotta get it finished, but it’s almost done with
Chris Gazdik: it. Pretty close. Pretty close. The, the editor’s gonna be won in a couple weeks, so. That means I gotta get it actually done.
Pressure’s on. So, uh, let me see, uh,
John-Nelson Pope: through that’s the Billy Joel song. Pressure. Pressure,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. There you go. Just [00:02:00] like the YouTube. So you didn’t say YouTube? Yes. Yeah. You
John-Nelson Pope: said, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: I’m messed up. You got the band. And then, anyway, anyway, we are progressing. Everyone’s listening like, what the hell are they saying?
What’s going
John-Nelson Pope: on? Eighties, eighties
Chris Gazdik: references, eighties songs, references, contacted through a therapist eyes is the way that you can get up with us. This is the human emotional experience, and we do endeavor to figure this out together. Hey, note as well, the music opening is done by Reed Ferguson. You know by now if you’re a regular listener, he is at R E I D T.
Ferguson, F E R G U s o n.com appreciate his creation of the awesomeness in opening that he created for us. So, I dunno, also, Victoria, we don’t deliver therapy services of any kind during the show. Thank you. You’re welcome. So what is up with Shame Victoria? You have a real opening that we can get to a [00:03:00] real thing.
You can think about a real like therapist kind of thought process when it comes to shame and medical conditions. Or are we just going to like, you know, shame the entire male race with No, I mean, I think
Victoria Pendergrass: there’s things I, you know, I get
John-Nelson Pope: this brown, both men and women, I get this brown envelope or, or package, you know.
Oh, with the once that does have a once month. Once a month. No, no I don’t
Chris Gazdik: anyway. Or there wouldn’t be anything wrong if you had a little blue pill lit her. You know what the little blue pill is? Yes, I did. Yes. I do know that. I just, I love the feel that we just created the air in the room. Mm-hmm. It’s awkward, it’s uncomfortable.
That’s real. It’s not right. It’s not, no. We can go further with this and see if we get there. Uh, let’s not. Okay. Cause I think we’re already there. Isn’t that interesting in the way that we interact on medical conditions and the way that we feel [00:04:00] when these things come up? And if you didn’t know, with the little blue pills, we’re talking about Viagra as a male response with, with pill for performance problems sexually.
But what did you think
Victoria Pendergrass: of first when you, what do you think of first
Chris Gazdik: hiv. HIV with, with
Victoria Pendergrass: Magic Johnson? John, what do you think of first when you think of shame and medical? Well, it could be, uh, what’s the first
John-Nelson Pope: thing that comes to your head? Well, yeah, yeah. Would be the, uh, ed and, you know, oh, it is for you too.
Yeah. But it was Bob Dole. He did. Yeah, he advertised he did it right for that back in the late nineties. Yeah, I recall. Well, wasn’t
Victoria Pendergrass: originally Viagra created for a different purpose and then they found out that a side effect of it was really, I could be pulling this out of my butt, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that it was created for something else.
And then a side effect don’t, blood of it was blood pressure, mal enhancement.
Chris Gazdik: So then it was definitely about blood, blood flow, blood pressure, [00:05:00] probably pressure, this type of thing that you might be, I think Neil might let us know. Somebody fact check us figures it out there. But I mean, yeah, I mean that it, it is a big thing that, that, that men struggle with for sure.
And, and, but
John-Nelson Pope: I would say in the eighties and nineties it was
Chris Gazdik: hiv. Uh, Neil’s got, Neil’s got smiles. I don’t, he was high blood pressure.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. I’m good.
Chris Gazdik: Which is chest bank. Yes. Angina, pecs. And the side effect was
Victoria Pendergrass: Pec had enhance, made. Muscles. Muscles. And so then they switched it and they made it more. Do you remember
John-Nelson Pope: those, those, uh, double entendre commercials, uh, that extends?
Is that they had that on TV and they had this guy that they looked like they were from the fifties or something. You don’t remember
Chris Gazdik: that? I, I got nothing to hear. Okay. I got, I got nothing here. But what you made me think of is the depends. Commercials. Oh yeah. Those are, those are realities with, with, uh, urinary incontinence.
And, and now
John-Nelson Pope: they [00:06:00] show these, uh, depends, um, um, packages with these very ve muscular men wearing male adult diapers.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh boy. They do the same thing for, I remember when I had to buy Depends for when I was pregnant, right. Like after birth. Okay. I definitely quickly threw it into my buggy and hope nobody was looking inside of my, although I’m sure people could put two and two together.
I was obviously pregnant. But still, I mean, yeah, there’s different things that, I mean, it’s
Chris Gazdik: so funny that. People get so twisted about this. I, you, you just triggered a thought where my, my buddy. I love you, Joe. I’m sorry bud. But you know, I have a buddy that, uh, was torqued. I mean torqued when he was dealing with female products in here and, and
Victoria Pendergrass: his daughter.
I was gonna say, I was gonna say, if I asked you to go buy some tampons for me at the food line, would you feel
Chris Gazdik: comfortable doing? I mean, I’m good with it. I don’t care. I don’t have a lot of pride, but I’m, but I’m 50 years old, so if I would’ve ask me when I’m 20, I probably would’ve melted or whatever.
Right. Yeah. So, [00:07:00] excuse me. So there’s these. All these different things that, that are, that are awkward and we could have fun with.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, and there’s the double entendre and then there’s the sexual innu innuendo about, let’s say the Viagra.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Or even something asig more significant as as hiv aids and, well, that’s
Chris Gazdik: what I think about really.
You asked me what came to my mind. I, I, I, it’s not fair cause I’ve been thinking about this, you know, in prepping in my brain. But you know, when you asked me, I tried to do that genuinely. And I remember Magic Johnson with the HIV epidemic and how that big of a deal, and I was a youngerman at the time, you know, enjoying the nba.
And it was like a big how Well
John-Nelson Pope: people were afraid to, to play with them. Heck
Chris Gazdik: yeah. They were really, really? Yeah. Cause they tried to play with them. Yeah. Because of the, I mean, it doesn’t shock
Victoria Pendergrass: me. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Well, it’s still today. Why they taking N nba? Uh, if there’s any little scratch or any little blood Nick mm-hmm.
They will stop [00:08:00] the game and you know, you have to
Victoria Pendergrass: prepare. You can’t be on the court that way. Like if you get blood on, I remember even in high school sports and stuff, if you get blood
on your jersey, you have to go change before you can continue. At least in my high school.
Chris Gazdik: That’s how, I mean, a lot of that started with Magic Johnson.
Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, we just
John-Nelson Pope: bled all over each other.
Chris Gazdik: I know, right? That’s right here. The same, same, you know, same. Yeah. It wasn’t no big deal. You know, you wipe it off and you move along. I will
John-Nelson Pope: share a personal anecdote. When I was go, when first went into the Navy, um, I got the worst. Um, Um, I guess, uh, sinus infection in the world.
And I was actually bleeding from my sinuses and my nose. Okay, well, I’m told, I’m told to re this is in Subic Bay, in the Philippines. I’m told to report to the clinic. So I get in there and I’m the clinic, going to the clinic, and [00:09:00] I see all these guys lined up and, uh, the, um, the pa um, he says, I want you to go here.
I want you to stand here. And I’m going, what’s this all about? And he said, well, I’m, you know, you’ve, you’ve, you gotta get a shot. And so I ended up having to get penicillin. Penicillin. I was in the gonorrhea, um, line. So, I mean, and, and the, and the guy Chaplain Pope
Chris Gazdik: Jeff, chap Pope. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Chaplain Pope. Get your shot.
You know, so it was,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. That’s hilarious. Yeah. How did you handle that one? Not very well. Not
John-Nelson Pope: very well. And, and the PA was, so he was bent over
Chris Gazdik: laughing. Merciless with you? I’m sure. Merciless, yeah. Is that all? Cuz
Victoria Pendergrass: you were bleeding?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, because I had this major infection and the best way to treat it was with, uh, penicillin.
Chris Gazdik: So [00:10:00] Sounds reasonable. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Why not? Do you treat gonorrhea with penicillin also, though? Like, yeah. Oh, you do? Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, or a vene disease had some sort, had no idea. Yeah, I didn’t realize that either.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, they’d go out, these guys would go out in town and, you know, they’d pick something up and, uh,
Chris Gazdik: STDs is another huge area with this.
Well, that was my point. Yeah, that’s your point, right? I mean, you know how, how many people want to go. I would still seriously feel awkward going into my, my GP and say, Hey, I need a S T D panel. Yeah. That would make me like, dude, I, I would want to have that conversation.
John-Nelson Pope: When I got married in Florida, we had to have a blood test to see if we had, uh, vene
Chris Gazdik: diseases.
Oh, really? As a part of the statutes for getting married.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Interesting. That’s when people got married. But that was back
Victoria Pendergrass: in, I mean, people still get married. It’s just at a lower rate. It’s a
Chris Gazdik: lower rate. Indeed.
John-Nelson Pope: Indeed. And they want to have all these destination weddings and stuff.
Chris Gazdik: Boy, you’re getting crotchety.
I’m supposed to be the one in a bad mood today. [00:11:00] What up? What up? I don’t
John-Nelson Pope: know. I’m in a bad mood now.
Chris Gazdik: I might have been standing. I
John-Nelson Pope: remember, I remember
Chris Gazdik: my shot. We’re tapping into some things, but we gotta be careful here. So, you know, let’s get into this a little bit with all these different examples.
Really. Do you realize what it is that we’re talking about when we, we, we talk about the concept of shame, like what really is shame? I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna suppose to you, I’d be curious to ask our spouses tonight going home, like, gimme a definition for shame. Like, I, I don’t know that many people are able to do that.
It’s a, it, I find it to be a tough word to, to define. Mm-hmm. Um, Do y’all, do y’all have an ability to put your own words on what? Shame really is
tough, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: it is. Because guilt, guilt and shame are, are related. Yeah. Yeah. And around the same [00:12:00] stage of adu uh,
Chris Gazdik: development. But to me, guilt’s easy is like, you know, well, you did, did something you feel bad about.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. But shame is something
Victoria Pendergrass: that I think shame is almost deeper than guilt.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Interesting.
John-Nelson Pope: Um, well, and shame is something that you didn’t necessarily cause on yourself, but it’s like if you go back to scripture, for example, uh, old Testament, it, there would be a great cause of shame for the family or if you developed leprosy. Sure.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Right. Yeah. It’s not just you, it also
Chris Gazdik: family.
It’s the whole family.
John-Nelson Pope: Whole family,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. And so bring shame upon our clan, right? You bring shame upon our family or
John-Nelson Pope: climate, uh, the climate crisis. Greta, shame on you.
Chris Gazdik: Shame on your cow
John-Nelson Pope: shame. What was that? Greta Thunberg, right? Thunberg got is for Shame. For Shame. She was, uh, 16 year old, uh, uh, [00:13:00] spectrum. We met him her last week.
Okay. Oh yeah, we
Chris Gazdik: did. Yeah. Yeah. Oh dear. Oh, see, I That’s who you’re talking about. Yeah. I didn’t, I don’t know who that is. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: who, what I was quoting is from Mulan. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: that’s Milan. Mulan Uhhuh. Oh dear. The Disney movie. Okay. We’re
John-Nelson Pope: gonna, or for shame, for, uh, the Princess Bride. It was, uh, yeah, it’s
Chris Gazdik: been a long
Victoria Pendergrass: time since I’ve seen that.
Maybe.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of sense that we can get. It’s almost like people can use. The concept in their thinking. We can use the word shame. Shame on you. Shame on this force. Shame how, you know, shame to you, you know, but, but I don’t know that people can really, are really in touch with, I think that depths, and I think you, you probably hit on something, Victoria, you know, is it that this is something that’s really kind of, it’s really deeper in the level of the, the psyche of the way that we feel.
It’s not something that is just an impulsive feeling that comes up. It, it, it, it wells up more. Would you say it’s a big
Victoria Pendergrass: feeling [00:14:00] or a little feeling?
Chris Gazdik: Uh, what do you mean?
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t know. Do you not? Oh, see, I work with kids a lot. Okay. Yeah. And we use big feelings and little feelings. Like a big feeling is, um, furious, angry, but then a little feeling might be annoyed.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, okay. Loud or
Victoria Pendergrass: quiet maybe. Yeah. Kind of thing. Or frustrated. Um, So devastated might be a big feeling where a sad might just be a, a little, a little feeling and devastated be like a
John-Nelson Pope: big feeling. So I think it might be governed also by the culture that you’re in and, um, that, uh, I’m wondering if there’s a different concepts of, of shame has changed, um, since when I was a little boy back in the dark ages.
Chris Gazdik: So it’d be interesting to see the dark ages. It’d be interesting to see, you know, what languages do with this particular word, Uhhuh. Yeah, [00:15:00] right. Like how, how languages incorporate this differently into their context. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: you know Yeah. Like how some languages don’t have a word for certain English words.
Right, right. So I almost wonder if there’s. Other languages out there that don’t even have a word for shame, I’d
Chris Gazdik: be willing to bet they do. I, because thrown it out there, because I think this is, and I’m stuck a little bit, Victoria, on your thought there, which is really cool that you, you, you, you brought that out.
That, that this resides on a, on a deeper level. I, I think, I like the way I’m saying, you know, which is in the moment, right? Like, It, it’s a little feeling or a big feeling that just impulsively kind of comes up in the moment. Mm-hmm. This isn’t where shame comes from. It wells up. Mm-hmm. It, it wells up more than comes up.
Yeah. And, and by welling, I, I think that word for me means like, there’s, there’s core doubts, core fears mm-hmm. Core feelings that you
John-Nelson Pope: have, you said [00:16:00] inadequacy or inadequacy, right. About self and self criticism, that sort of thing. You don’t, it’s like you, it’s almost as though you feel as though everyone is looking at you.
Let’s say you do something that’s, of, that the culture would say is offensive and you would have that real sense of inadequacy or sense that, uh, you have dishonored perhaps.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I, I, I think we’re kinda getting on a level with it because when you’re. It, it’s almost like, you know, when you were talking there, John, I was thinking, well, insecurities, insecurities, insecurities are all around us and we’re always interacting with them.
But isn’t there a constant battle with that? Like, when insecurities get triggered and heated, then you’re, you’re really getting more on a level of like, confirming the doubts and fears that you have about yourself. Mm-hmm. [00:17:00] I think that gets at what shame really
John-Nelson Pope: gets at. Okay. So in other words, what the, what your accusers, for example, would say about you.
Mm-hmm. Is it really true? Mm-hmm. And so you are, you’re unsure of yourself.
Chris Gazdik: Right. I think we all have it. We, mm-hmm. We all have a deep sense of I am inadequate. I cannot handle the things in front of me. I’m not strong enough, big enough, bad enough, tough enough, pretty enough. I’m not enough. Like I, I feel like that’s a, a fundamental quarter that is part of the human emotional experience.
And you got me thinking this Victoria, so, you know, on a deeper level, that wells up when it gets touched. You know, I mean, if I’m, you know, not cool enough when I walk into a store at 20 to buy tampons mm-hmm. There’s something fundamentally flawed to me when I get covid. Oh, remember that? Oh, I felt [00:18:00] shame when I got
Victoria Pendergrass: covid.
Remember that? Oh, yeah. Right. Because I had made it three years without getting it right. I, or not 3, 2, 2 and a half years without getting it. And then it finally got me and I was. I was really embarrassed too. I was, felt a lot of shame and embarrassment of, for myself of like, isn’t that crazy?
Chris Gazdik: Like, why would we feel that way?
Yeah. I mean we demonized Trump. Oh look, the president, he didn’t pay attention. He’s a bad guy cuz he got covid. Like w why is a medical condition going to trigger our thoughts about somebody’s characteristics in some way? Like, what happens? And then, then we found out, well, you know, people on the left and the right part, everyone was getting covid, everybody
Victoria Pendergrass: was getting it equal opportunity.
It’s, there are very few people now nowadays that have not at least gotten covid. Right. It’s covid
Chris Gazdik: or it swings through the population. Yeah. So you know, it, that, that’s what we’re kind of looking at. And, and that’s, you know, your, your accusers are accusing you of something, John, and that’s [00:19:00] triggering the doubts that you have about, about yourself.
Can we say that that’s what shame is? Yeah. Right. Definitely a deep sense of inadequacy, unworthiness, or self-criticism. You know, they arise from negative self perceptions or internalized judgements, or the fear of being perceived negatively by others. I think that kind of covers a lot of our, our conversation.
Yeah. Uh, you know, that, that, that’s what I came up with in, in thinking about how do you really put words on this? Um, and then how does it manifest? I mean, self-criticism, isolation, hiding, fear of judgment, you know, comparisons to others. You mentioned cultural stuff. I think that’s a nice thing to, to add.
So how often you suppose we deal with shame? How
Victoria Pendergrass: often do we deal with it?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Every
Victoria Pendergrass: day. Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, it just depends on everything you just listed.[00:20:00]
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: And do you think people are afraid? Well, obviously it’s shame, so people are naturally probably more afraid to admit when they feel shame.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I, that’s probably another component. I see where you’re going there. If, if, if, if I admit that I have shame, then I am confirming, you know, I’m not enough.
I am weak. I am, fill in the blank with criticism thought so, yeah, I, I think there’s a lot of hiding. I would agree
Victoria Pendergrass: though. I, I don’t know if I would maybe say every day, but I definitely think that it’s a lot more frequent than we let on o than we let others let on led
Chris Gazdik: that we led onto others about, yes.
I’m gonna push back and say, it actually is every day. We’ll say you, John,
John-Nelson Pope: I think. Yes. I think it’s every day. Yeah. I, I think well, Again, I’m, it’s just my context in Right. In my life I’ve, there was a lot to be ashamed of.[00:21:00]
Well, no, not really. Not really. Yeah. But, but you feel, you feel, um, A shame for any number of things.
Chris Gazdik: You know, it’s funny, I’ll take you back to a real moment, A real moment in, um, uh, supervision. Yeah. So in our field, right? Yeah. Supervision is what you get when you’re younger and inexperienced. And in order to, to practice independently, you know, we’re not always younger.
Well, when, when you’re younger in let the field, in the profession, you’re younger in the profession, then you know, you get supervision to be able to practice independently. And then I actually got supervision. I was fortunate enough to continue that, you know, for a little while after I got my license, which was awesome.
So I did a lot of learning. But one of the clinical supervisors that I had, I was sitting with her and, uh, we were just talking, we were just talking about this and talking about that. And, you know, I was young and I mean, I was literally
outta school like two or three years. I mean, I [00:22:00] was very young. Her at the time, and she just looked at me.
She said, Chris, I bet you’d be a tough nut to crack in therapy. That’s what, that’s what she said to me. Yeah. And we were talking not necessarily about shame, we were talking about something along the lines that like maybe it was insecurities or doubts with, with therapy. And I think at the time, I, I may, I think, I think what I said, actually, if it’s coming back to me, I may have said like, I, matter of fact, I know exactly what it is, John, she, we were talking about.
Questioning ourselves with choices in therapy and working with people. And I said, well, yeah, I really don’t know that I questioned myself as much. You know, I’m, I feel pretty good about what I’m doing. And I had a level of confidence. You were young. I was young. Oh yeah. You see John’s facial expression.
What do you mean? I was young? You can, well, yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: You were sure of yourself, right? Yeah. You, you, you had not messed up enough to realize that you were messing up. Right? So you were fulsome. Fulsome.
Chris Gazdik: Right. And naive. [00:23:00] Naive. Green. Green Callow. And she was, she, well, I don’t know if she was right, if I’m difficult to have in a therapy as a, as a client, but you know, certainly maybe then I was, cause I wasn’t gonna touch a therapy room when I was younger.
Mm-hmm. You know, carried the therapist myth that we don’t need it. Back in those days it was, it was more so that way. But she’s right like every single day. I mean now I question myself all the time of stuff that I do in sessions and I don’t think that changes the fact that I’m, I’m a very confident therapist.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like I Yeah. But then are you feeling shame
Chris Gazdik: about it? Um, if you make a mistake or think of something else you could’ve tried or something else you done? I think that to, to say that we don’t have a day without shame is to say that we don’t have a day without insecurities. And I’m gonna submit that, but
Victoria Pendergrass: do you feel like you’re co confusing shame with regret?
Chris Gazdik: I don’t think so. That’s regrets. What
John-Nelson Pope: cultural reference.
Chris Gazdik: Hi, John[00:24:00]
Neil. Should we hit the edit button or just keep right on going? No,
I love you guys. Are you alright,
Victoria Pendergrass: Victoria? Yeah, that was hilarious.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Um,
Victoria Pendergrass: but any, I mean, I just, it’s, no,
Chris Gazdik: I don’t think there’s regret. Okay. I think there’s a fact of the matter is of insecurities, abandonment, engulfment, we’ve talked about a lot Yeah. From EFT perspective, but there’s all kinds of insecurities that we, you know, have going on.
I mean, right now I’m heavier than I would like to be and I, I, I will be aware of the way my clothes are fitting. I’m a dude. I could say that. Right. John, did I lose my man card right now? No. No, you didn’t. Right? I
John-Nelson Pope: said I tell my wife all the time, does this make me look fat? Right, right. We can
Chris Gazdik: say that as dude.
We can say that. Yeah, but you see me checking out with the guy, like, guys can’t say that. I’m not even asking Neil, cause I know his [00:25:00] answer. I’m just kidding. I don’t. He’s cool. He’s very appreciative. But if you see Victoria like that, that is. Wells up a sense of shame-based feeling now. Okay. Does it have to be a big feeling every day?
No. Do we manage it every day like a champ? You know, it doesn’t really get us down. It doesn’t need to necessarily bother us, but I think the point I’d really like to drive home is, is this is the battle within. Mm-hmm. This is a big part of the human emotional experience that we are constantly and ever presently battling.
Right, right.
Victoria Pendergrass: I feel like Neil’s about to say something.
Chris Gazdik: I dunno if this mic in your work. I, I think that’s the broken mic. Yes. Record. But the origin, the Germanic origin is basically saving loss of self-esteem or reputation.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Honor culture. Right. So,
Chris Gazdik: so that kind of goes back to what people think about you.
Mm-hmm. Or what do you think about yourself? So when you think about every day, how many times do [00:26:00] you go through things you do? Like, oh, I don’t know if I can do that. That just gave you, that’s the loss of self-esteem. That’s. Everyone, I think, goes through that every day, whether it’s something small or simple.
John-Nelson Pope: But I think the fact of the
Chris Gazdik: IC origin, I see where shame is always a thing every day. It’s a battle.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s battle when you put it that way. I can see that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It’s just a
John-Nelson Pope: battle. By the way, that, that was, um, the Anglo-Saxons back in 1500 years ago that would go with that, the dramatic languages, and it would be very much a culture that was based on, on honor and that you, that you could not be embarrassed or shamed.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, I bet it’s true. Okay, so I I, your history lesson there is, go, go further with that. I’m curious because I know, you know, in. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: they, they had back, back in the 15, not 15 hundreds, its the five hundreds. Right. There was a or 600 s in, in, um, in like Britain, like nights. Sure. [00:27:00] Always Before that Britain.
Before that Britain. And they, uh, there was a sense that, uh, you didn’t have to have a lot of wealth. Mm-hmm. But you had, your Honor, you had to have your, your sword, you had to have your shield, you had to have some other things that you would get a band from the, the chief then that would show that you were, that you were held in esteem.
And if you lost that or you some, you did something, there was an act of cowardice, you would lose that. Uh, that was a horrible, horrible, um, In terms
of your, um, in your Honor. And so you would lose that honor and you would lose, it would affect your family and they would lose their position.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It’s these, it’s, it’s so interesting.
I, I love that. I, I I was taking a little journey with you there and thinking about like our culture, our roots, our families, you know, the, the, [00:28:00] the survivalism that, that must be back in those days. Like we, we have, we’re going to be killed if we’re not on top of our game. If we’re not good enough or, you know, and, and we band together to deal with these things.
I, I think there’s a lot. I mean, Victoria, you hit it. I, I think you absolutely hit it. This is a much deeper. Experience that wells up in us. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I wanna shift just a little bit too, and I’m thinking in terms of, of, now this is Popin. Okay, this is okay. But, but it’s like we’re a a, a roiling cauldron. It’s like, you know, when you get a, in a sense is that there’s a lot of voices inside, uh, us as individuals as, as, let’s say the entity that is, um, Victoria or Chris or Neil or John.
But there’s different voices within us and different layers and [00:29:00] those can come up. And so sometimes you may just be doing something out of, it comes up from out of nowhere, something that may have occurred 20 or 30 years ago and you still feel the shame
Chris Gazdik: for it. Right. No, that’s, that really hits, I think that this is something that we carry.
Deeply for a long time, which maybe really highlights the really big importance of doing the great challenge of identifying it when you feel it and then you know, managing it and healing it to be able to let go of it. Mm-hmm. Because this feeling very much can stay with you in such, for such a long time, sometimes, oftentimes a lifetime.
Mm-hmm. You know, I think when
John-Nelson Pope: you are in a hypnogogic state sometimes before you go to sleep or Right. Bef as you’re waking, is
Chris Gazdik: that what a hypnogogic state is? Yes. Okay. I did not know that. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: So you have [00:30:00]
Chris Gazdik: keep talking. Okay. I didn’t know that either.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. When this. You’ll have a thought that’s like a random thought that comes in, or a sense of guilt or shame.
Okay. Or something like that. That’s something that, that your defenses, um, you haven’t, you’re not alert enough to, to have an defense for it. And so it can overcome you.
Victoria Pendergrass: So is that why when I’m laying at bed at, that’s what happens when I’m laying in bed at night and I think about the one thing I did in sixth grade that I regret.
Right? Yes. I wish I could have done something different. Yes. And then I’m like, why the heck did I think of this one thing that happened in sixth grade? Yes. And you still felt guilty. And I felt, and yeah, you feel shame about it. Uh, you know, it’s interesting. That’s, I didn’t know there was a
Chris Gazdik: word for that.
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. This is the battle within a part of the human emotional experience. Thank you for teaching us that way, John. It’s called because that is a very hypnogogic. That’s a hypnogogic state is the, the state of mind that you’re in, right? The point there in that sleepy [00:31:00] state that you’re in, your defenses are down, right?
Mm-hmm. You can’t emotionally defend the fear that I’m inadequate or that I’ve done something wrong, or that I’m, you know, the bane of existence for, from all of the criticizers of, of me in my life. Mm-hmm. So then
Victoria Pendergrass: question, my question to you, John, is then, is there anything you could do to stop it, prevent it, anything like that?
No. I mean,
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t, I don’t think it’s, uh, I think you just go with it. I think that, that you’re able to, you learn from it and say, okay, what is this lesson for
Victoria Pendergrass: me? Because usually for me, that’s how I go down a rabbit hole and then I end up staying awake thinking about it, and I get anxious or whatever.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, that’s why you have, uh, Ambien.
Chris Gazdik: Well, let me just
Victoria Pendergrass: call my doctor real quick and see if, uh, she’ll gimme some
John-Nelson Pope: Ambien. No, you do, you do your R E
Chris Gazdik: P T for those that don’t know, Ambien is a [00:32:00] very powerful sleep medication that will knock you
John-Nelson Pope: out and you’ll say and do things that you don’t
Chris Gazdik: think normally do.
Do’s people sleep, walk when they take am Indiana, right? There’s some, there’s some and Luna disadvantages of this stuff, but, but they are helpful, Clint, for clinical issues of sleep. But no, like, I, I’m glad you asked that. Victoria and I, I think you know what? John, you say, kind of go with it. I, I feel like, you know, when you identify those types of things, and thank you Victoria, for sharing yours, like, you know, to focus on those things and to do some reshaping around that, to really get back into your adult brain, speaking to that part of you that really has held onto that.
And we do that in therapy all the time. Yeah. But if you don’t do that purposefully, your spirit just stores that up, I think. Yeah. Yeah. By the
John-Nelson Pope: way, um, I went through something like this when I was 36 and, um, I, for some reason it was when Mozart died. I mean, that’s the same age. I was 36 and I, I had this thought of just [00:33:00] overwhelming since I’m, I’m, I’m gonna die.
Oh wow. I’m 36, I’m gonna die. And I dealt with the death of five grandparents within six years. Oh wow. So, wow. That’s a lot. Well, and that’s why I say go with it. Yeah. Is that what was really, my body was trying to tell my soul. Was trying to tell me something. Okay. And deep down, and I was to, uh, to, I had to do unfinished business.
Chris Gazdik: Well, you know, it’s funny, you, this is two times that popped up in my head. John, you’re so Adlerian. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. Very good. Very good indeed. Because you were saying before, this is a little pop, and I, and you went on to talk and I’m like, no, that’s Adler. What are you talking about? Yeah.
And you just did it again because the, the idea there is the emotions are speaking to us.
They’re here for a reason, and if we pay attention to them, we can allow them to do it. Well, I,
John-Nelson Pope: and I was. I was basically [00:34:00] trained
Chris Gazdik: in, in Alerian therapy. Alerian. Yes. And it became a part of me. It shows, bro, it shows good stuff because it takes us back to the, to the foundations earliest memories. Yeah. That it takes us back.
So if we are not dealing with this, let’s get back maybe circling to the idea that when we’re dealing with medical realities, this is a big intersection, right? Mm-hmm. An intersection between the biological cold medical field and the emotional psychological field. Mm-hmm. I mean, these inter interactions, this intersection, you’ll laugh at me on YouTube.
I’m trying to do hand gestures with the microphone in my face. This intersection, right? Mm-hmm. Of psychology and medical reality. I think shame is a big piece that’s in that little central square. Mm-hmm. That central circle. So, so, so if we go to that between you and your doctor, You know, you and medical realities.
How does this stuff affect [00:35:00] you when you get a diagnosis or when you notice something going on? What does shame do to us? What does shame do at us?
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I feel like it tends to usually leave lead towards a negative
Chris Gazdik: mindset. Okay. Right. One of the things that occurs to me is we will lie. Yeah, that too, right?
How much do you drink? Oh, just couple doc. Like I said, just two fingers. Just
Victoria Pendergrass: socially. Yeah. Yeah. You know, or the same. How many sexual partners have you had?
Chris Gazdik: Oh, definitely only three. Yeah. Or if you’re a teenager, you might say, oh, I’ve had 32. Right. The opposite is true too. Maybe. I don’t know. Miss one guy would, I might be for
Victoria Pendergrass: different for guys, but the guy we would for girls, you’re definitely not exaggerating or putting the real number Most of the time
Chris Gazdik: you’re under reporting.[00:36:00]
Yeah, under, yeah. It’s misreporting. Oh, are misreporting.
Victoria Pendergrass: I think that leads to, I think sometimes that can lead to, you know, false data because a hundred percent. I mean, if I’m saying that I’ve haven’t ever been like had a sexual partner and then. Yeah. Like I, so then I don’t, you know, get tested or whatever.
Then
John-Nelson Pope: Kenzie report the Kenzie
Chris Gazdik: and his studies. Okay. What’s Kenzie? Yeah, I don’t
John-Nelson Pope: know about that. Alright. You know about Kenzie? He was the one that did, I know his name actually. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. But I’m not a, he
John-Nelson Pope: was the one that, uh, it was Masters in Johnson came out of it, um, later. But, uh, it was sexuality in terms of let’s say, how many people, how many sexual partners did you have?
Right. And they, they went back and they actually crunched the data and it was Wow. Wildly exaggerated. The number of partners that, that was done. Just men or
Chris Gazdik: men and women? I’m curious. It was men and women. Men and women. Over women, but mainly
John-Nelson Pope: [00:37:00] men. Okay. Mainly men. Okay. And, uh, I think under reported homosexuality and that sort of thing.
Oh, sure. Because back in the forties nobody is in forties,
Chris Gazdik: fifties. Yeah. Right. Nobody is So kinzie studied this in way of. Sexuality and reporting Right On behavior, sexual behavior, and, you know. Yeah. No, I, I think that this is something that doctors pretty quickly figure out
when they’re doing diagnostic assessments to help you medically they need this information.
But if they’re not getting that doctor patient relationship built with what? Key component? Trust. Trust.
John-Nelson Pope: Trust. Okay. Here’s another one. And that is what they’re doing now. Uh, they’re asking do you feel safe at your home? And that sort of thing. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There are people that would be lying through their teeth because they, they are shamed that they are, let’s say, physically abused men.
Yeah. That are physically abused
Chris Gazdik: or sexually abused. Sexually talked about sexually abused as well. More talk about it men gonna [00:38:00] to say No, no, no. We’re, I’ve never been uncomfortable sexually with anybody. Ever.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. I think a lot of times that’s, you know, having worked, worked in a school, especially in elementary school, you end up making, and y’all have probably maybe experienced this just being normal therapist, but that you end up reporting the same family to DSS multiple times.
Sure. Because, yeah, I know where you’re going. They go out there and then you know, the kids don’t speak up to them or don’t say anything. Mm-hmm. And so they don’t open up a case or they close it and then two months later the kid comes back to you and says, oh, it happened again. And then you have to call again and then you know, until that kid feels comfortable.
I’m being honest, you know, with the social services
Chris Gazdik: person or whatever. Absolutely. And here’s an interesting question. I, I’m curious just to give our field a little bit of prop. I wonder, uh, it’s just as a meandering of thought in the real time for me. [00:39:00] Would, would you, I know we’re. Three therapists, so it’s not really fair.
I wish we had three doctors as well. Doctors receiving, you mean physicians? Physicians. Physicians. Right. Why can’t I say doctors? Is that wrong? What do we live in? I’m well. Cause
Victoria Pendergrass: technically a nurse practitioner is a nurse practitioner.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I was just, there was a discussion in, uh, in, um, in Medscape, uh, regarding should you call yourself a a, a, if you got a, a doctorate as a nurse practitioner, you should call yourself doctor or not, as opposed to Oh really?
Chris Gazdik: And then all the
John-Nelson Pope: doctors, the physicians, they wanna be physicians
Chris Gazdik: now. Yeah. Well, didn’t know I stepped on it.
John-Nelson Pope: No, no. They own doctor.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You know what? I don’t care about all that. I’m just gonna go out. Whatever I was saying. I know. I just, so if somebody’s feelings get hurt out there, I apologize. I mean, no intent.
Arm, but, you know, whatever. So, you know, do, do medical professionals, doctors get information when they’re doing [00:40:00] assessments and stuff on their, you know, with, with people or do therapists or, you know, psychology people. Do we get more accurate information about sensitive, touchy stuff? And, and I, I’m, I’m le I’m gonna lead to the idea that, you know, we build rapport, right?
You see where I’m going, John? Mm-hmm. Uh, exactly.
John-Nelson Pope: Interesting. Because the, the facts changed from the first time I’ve done an assessment to Right. The 10th session. Oh
Chris Gazdik: yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Particularly in way of substance abuse. Mm-hmm. And, uh, sometimes we’re doing a sexual history or mm-hmm. You know, these types of things.
You know it, but,
Victoria Pendergrass: but you, so then how do you, for me, I don’t know. It might just be me, cuz I’m also younger. Mm-hmm. But I mean, I, you could get over it. No, I, I set it up as, when I asked him about it, I tell him I don’t care. Right. Like, I care, but I don’t care. So if, you know, as long as you know, you’re being respectful of your boundaries here in therapy, then I don’t, I don’t give a crap what you do when you go home.
Home. Right. You know, I mean, it’s certainly something we can talk about, but, you know, I try to [00:41:00] build that rapport and leave that open space so that, you know, they do feel comfortable. If they tell me that they, you know, I. Do cocaine every once in a while or do some acid occasionally,
Chris Gazdik: or whatever the, I don’t, you’re younger.
I wanna cut in and say cut to the Chase Victoria, because you’re personable and easy to talk to. Oh, thanks. Really, I mean, as a compliment, that is part of the art of what we do, and that’s what I’m making a point about. I had
Victoria Pendergrass: today that set crisscross applesauce on the couch for her first session, and I was like,
Chris Gazdik: good.
But see, but, but I think that you miss that in the medical field out of the cold and sterile training. Sometimes that’s there and we are geared towards build rapport first. I mean, what’s the adage of a therapist or a therapist out there? You’ve heard the purpose of a first session is what? John, you know?
Mm-hmm. Pur, come on. The purpose of a first session is to get a second session. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay, okay. Okay. Got it. You just missed it where we were at. But you’ve heard that before, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and
Victoria Pendergrass: I think it also might just have to [00:42:00] do with, and
John-Nelson Pope: that’s not for the money, that’s to help the client, right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. But I mean, if you think about it, if I go, I mean, I actually am looking for a new primary care doctor, but when you go to a primary care doctor for the first time, even your first session, 15 minutes in and out, I mean, my sister-in-law is a doctor and she ha, I mean, they have like set. Times, you know, they’ve gotta be in and out.
So there’s not that tons of time to build, build that rapport, what I’m saying. They’re in there, they’re there to get the reason why you’re there and then you know, as much information as they can in 15 minutes. Frustrating. Sometimes 20. And then they’ve gotta move on to the next person because they’ve got 30 people on their schedule for one day or whatever.
John-Nelson Pope: You know, when Yeah. When I worked on the, on the psych ward, uh, at the Naval Hospital mm-hmm. In Jacksonville, Florida, the psychiatrist would give at the max. 20, 25 minutes to the, to the patients. And, uh, [00:43:00] and so, I mean, it was, you could not, you can’t shift gears fa I mean, if you shift, you can’t get into something in terms of a rhythm or to be able to hear interactions.
Story. Just the interactions, yeah. Yeah. To hear the story, to be able to read the body language
Chris Gazdik: and that sort of thing. It’s a lot that goes on Uhhuh. And we are able to spend, at least at this point in our managed care treatment line in therapy. And you hear my voice tone because I’m worried about how that’s going to lead to, but at least at this point, we spend time.
Mm-hmm. You have the ability of developing a relationship. Mm-hmm. And a rapport that leads to trust together. As Victoria, you’re good at doing the art with creating genuineness. Here’s. Here’s the reality. So positive regard. Yeah. Right. These concepts, they, they bake, they’re baked into us as therapists. Oh, right.
Yeah, totally. And the thing is, is, you know, an online YouTube question, we got, well, if you don’t have good data, how can you get good [00:44:00] results? Or how do you get good data? I think it was said, and, and the, the idea is these concepts mm-hmm. Lead us to being able, well, to get good, better data. So you need, you
John-Nelson Pope: need quantitative data, which is measurable.
And so in other words, you get an a, a big enough data set that you, that you’d be able to With the client. Right. With the client, yeah. But you also have, uh, qualitative and that is part of it, is that you’re able to, to.
In other words, you, you know the story, you know the themes that, that a client has and, uh, what reoccurs the, the, uh, patterns that come up during the stories. If, if somebody says, well, I don’t have a problem with my father or my mother, or something like that, and that’s all they talk about, you know, that there’s there clearly
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Quality, clearly data. The quality. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Gotcha. I, you know, that there [00:45:00] is, it’s important to be able to do medical care and then, and let me move our conversation along to like, you know, how, how does that
affect treatment and how does that affect, you know, our progression? You know, I mean, when you get a condition diagnosed or you get a new reality, like shame impacts how you engage Yeah.
All of that, right? Like big time too. Not a simple piece of it, but in a. Big way it
Victoria Pendergrass: affects. Mm-hmm. Do you think other, the way other people respond to your diagnosis also affects the level and amount of shame that you feel?
Chris Gazdik: You know, you, you asking, that triggered me a thought of how many times I’ve had in therapy and experience where somebody’s got a medical diagnosis and they are terrified to let their employer know.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or coworkers have any clue. Military
Victoria Pendergrass: or spouse or, or even their spouse, you’re right. Siblings or their kids or their parents or whoever. It takes
Chris Gazdik: a lot of energy to hide that into, [00:46:00] to, what am I gonna do? How are people gonna think of me? What does this mean for me? You know, all of that. Am I gonna get fired?
Like, it gets real visceral. I
John-Nelson Pope: first responders really struggle with that so much because Absolutely. Well, you broke and military, I broke military. Oh my goodness.
Chris Gazdik: Right? How about a police officer broke? They can’t have any weakness, man. Period. Ever? No. Like, no, they have
John-Nelson Pope: this, this image, this facade, but Right.
But, uh, sometimes they’re just, they’re so tightly wound as a result of all the trauma that they have. Right. Witnessed and experienced.
Chris Gazdik: Right. So, and now you’re gonna give me a, a diagnosis of high blood pressure with dead gummit. Man, that, you know, am I gonna lose my job? I, I can’t appear weak to anybody here.
My, my subordinates won’t listen to me anymore. Mm-hmm. Or all of this comes fire. Um,
John-Nelson Pope: a fire chief, you have to be an a, I said a fire chief, but a firefighter, for example. [00:47:00] They have to have a certain, uh, they cannot have a heart defect at all otherwise, because they, what if they arrest? I did
Chris Gazdik: not know that.
As a statute or as a sort of a rule, they have to have an annual exam. Really? Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: How did you know that? And so, uh, and if they catch it, uh, you could actually, I. Lose your, um, your, um, credentials. Credentials, being able to be a firefighter anymore.
Victoria Pendergrass: Wow. Well, and I think it’s not just other, I mean, it’s other high level jobs.
I’m sure nursing, like, you know, I mean, you can’t be on a SWAT team if you have a T trimmer because if you’re holding it, you know, a gun or something to someone, and then you have a tremor, you can like
John-Nelson Pope: accidentally, well listen, say impaired, impaired, uh, providers, for example, nurses, uh, absolutely. Or physicians ourselves or, uh, nurse practitioners, uh, handle, handle medications and that sort of thing, and they, they can end up losing their, uh, physician.
Um, I’ve
Chris Gazdik: had people in therapy [00:48:00] working on this issue in recovery. Yeah. Trying to deal with the, the shame-based feelings. But again, Parkinson’s and there’s, you know, there’s issues with STDs that we talked about, but, you know, if I get a cancer diagnosis, I mean, you know, another, another reality is, is not getting the diagnosis for fear of getting it and not going in.
Yeah, yeah. You know, the shame enters into that, but, but think more about how, you know, this affects the adjustments that we have when you get a medical condition and, you know, The emotional realities thereafter about, you know, fear-based feelings and, and, you know, stopping goals that I have and changing life direction and, yeah, I got another example.
Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Uh, it, and it’s becoming more widespread spread is, uh, drug resistant tuberculosis. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And so Mesa mental or medical M R s A right. Affect infections. I’m trying to say. [00:49:00] Let’s, let’s
John-Nelson Pope: ha, let’s hone in on the TB a little bit. Okay. Is that you are basically, and essentially, um, Being isolated, and you don’t, you don’t want to tell anybody that you have this because you’re afraid that you’re going to be able, that you might transmit it to somebody.
Mm-hmm. Or they will be afraid of you. Um, yeah. To do that, but also not take the medication because then you would have to, um, you’d have to abide by a very structured and, uh, um, protocol. Right. Because you can’t miss it. Yeah. And so there’s a, there’s a sense of, of guilt, of shame that, that you’re having this, and some people, the way they handle it, they run
Chris Gazdik: away.
And what’s interesting is you’re pairing guilt and shame, which are two different things we started out. Um, right. But, but, but the shame of it is deeper. The guilt of it is, I’ve done something [00:50:00] wrong. I, I quick point out, but yeah. I mean, yeah, exactly. You’re talking about is absolutely on point. It’s powerful stuff.
Yeah. You know, powerful stuff. You know, when you, when you get a medical diagnosis, you are grieving the loss of previous to that medical diagnosis. Mm-hmm. And, and dealing with these emotions and shame just acts like a dagger. It just cuts that process apart
John-Nelson Pope: and it cuts you and isolates
Chris Gazdik: you, isolates you in pieces.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s rough and I don’t think that this is something that people are even aware of needing to deal with when you come out and deal with a medical condition. You know, I, I literally got high cholesterol not too long ago. It’s the second time in my life that I got, you know, cholesterol and, and it worried me.
It made me upset. Motivated me to get a nutritionist, not to mention. So I went and did something about, about it, and we have a good nutritionist. Got a good one. Yeah. Got a good one. Her name’s Sir Purnell Metro [00:51:00]
Psychotherapy can help you with that stuff. It’s amazing that she joined us. It’s awesome. Right.
But, but that you, you, you know, that could have just that I think that submarines a lot of people. Mm-hmm. It destroys your own effort to manage and do what you gotta do to manage the medical reality in the first place. So you avoid treatment. Yes, yes, yes.
John-Nelson Pope: And so you’ll go ahead and then you’ll be in denial and then you’ll eat the wrong foods and continue
Chris Gazdik: on Horrible progression, but that’s it, right?
Yeah. It blocks us from getting well and turns us directly to the things that make it worse. Oftentimes shame can do that. Mm-hmm. Can we say, is that fair? I think that’s fair. Right. You know, I was thinking about this and I, I I, I’ll do a quick little segment on the idea. Like, I, I really thought it very interesting to think about, you know, is, is part of dealing with [00:52:00] this, this idea of shame and, you know, we’ve, we’ve identified a little bit about what it is, how it affects medical treatment or diagnosing and what we do with it when we get a diagnosis, how shame impacts that.
I wonder if a lot of this stuff is about accepting versus fighting. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Like, is, is shame a big force that makes us fight against. The grain fight against the current, whereas learning to accept things that we cannot change as the serenity prayer goes, right? Mm-hmm. To, to, to be in a healthier space.
Does shame push us to fight and take a fighting stance when we need to accept? I was just wondering, I was thinking about it. Well, I dunno.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I think if you’re living in denial or something like that, then you live with a myth and an image. And so, uh, so [00:53:00] you would be ashamed if somebody found out your secret or something like that, or your weakness.
You would, you would call it a weakness if you were feeling shame. Right. And so, um, you don’t want anybody to know about that. I’m there. There’s a wonderful book that everybody had to read in high school or junior high. It was a scarlet letter and, uh,
Victoria Pendergrass: I do know it. We just didn’t have to read it.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
Maybe, maybe I didn’t set this up. Well. Well, let me, let me go back. Well, I think, go ahead. Well, I, I had a
Victoria Pendergrass: wonderful amount with, I think sometimes shame you, you can be afraid or have shame for how things are gonna change once you do accept it. For example, if someone has a cancer diagnosis, right. Okay. And it’s terminal.
Like there’s no, yeah, there’s no, you can try to fight it, but there’s really no odds in your favor kind of thing. Right. Well, you might have shame to about telling other people because you might be [00:54:00] afraid that once you tell them, everyone’s gonna act different around you, everyone’s gonna treat you off.
Mm-hmm. Like, you’re frail. Everyone’s gonna feel sorry for you every, you know, whatever the case may be. And so, so you just hide it. Yeah. And so then you hide it. You, you know, you might let a few people know, but, or you keep it to yourself. Do,
John-Nelson Pope: do you think there’s a thought? Do you think some people with dementia or Alzheimer’s, for example, would, uh, might feel shame and a hundred ashamed?
Yeah. And so they’ll try to hide it and they’ll say, well, I’m not losing my memory. I’m not losing it. Mm-hmm. And they’ll make up a
Chris Gazdik: hundred percent. Yeah. Learning a little bit about that. Yes. Say I,
Victoria Pendergrass: the reality, I’m a personal thing about that.
Chris Gazdik: But the, the reality is that Yeah. You know, it, it, it evidently is fought and resisted all the way to the end.
Mm-hmm. When, when, unfortunately, and very sadly, somebody’s not recognizing or remembering, you know, [00:55:00] whom their, their direct loved ones are. But, you know, John, I think that there’s, there’s something that kind of goes on in that in the mind of somebody that’s, that’s experiencing this. Mm-hmm. I mean, like, do
Victoria Pendergrass: I accept the fact that I have dementia or Alzheimer, or do I fight it and continue to
Chris Gazdik: deny it?
Well, think about this for just a little bit with me, right? Because this gets at what I was talking about with accepting versus. You know, fighting against. Mm-hmm. So if you really get into somebody’s world that’s identifying or experiencing mild, mild, mild forms of dementia, you forget stuff like everybody does.
It’s just a little bit more than everybody does. But you rationalize that away, there’s no problem here, and there really isn’t. Mm. So you function, but then it is a progressive reality. And so you begin having more market experiences, like, I have a d d or something. I forget the four things that I came to the grocery store for.
Victoria Pendergrass: Or you get lost on your way home.
Chris Gazdik: You, well, that’s a [00:56:00] little further down the road. Okay. But so the experience of like, I’m mildly forgetting something, I’m now more markedly forgetting something. I start wondering, well maybe I’m just getting older. This is normal. This is normal, that is normal, this is normal, that is normal.
You start rationalizing, explaining things in the way. Even when you get lost coming home, it’s kinda like, well, yeah, I just, I haven’t been out very long, and so you keyword rationalize. So there’s, there’s something that begins to happen that I can’t appear less than I can, you can’t control it and I can’t appear out of control.
So I feel that, and at the same time, when I start forgetting who people are, or this has happened multiple, multiple times, like, wait a minute, I know how to get to the grocery store, but somehow I’m confused. I start to know, wait. There’s something kind of wrong with me, and you’ll begin to realize that a little bit.
I would imagine at a time. A little bit at a [00:57:00] time, until you really can’t deny it. And so there’s this battle, right? This battle. No, I can’t have anything wrong, but I kind of know something’s going on. Transitions to, I need to accept that I have an issue.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. But sometimes, especially with something like dementia or Alzheimer’s, like accepting it means possibly having your driver’s license taken away, and that means your freedom, possibly having to move into some type of assisted living.
Like a lot of your freedom of being people accept that.
Chris Gazdik: Victoria, you know, I know it’s crazy. It is crazy, but the reality of it is just like a Parkinson’s patient accepts, I am going to feel shaky and I can take medications. I will do what I need to do to slow the progression. Or you’re learning about things, but you go through a progression of acceptance.
Michael
John-Nelson Pope: J. Fox is a good example of someone. Perfect example of someone [00:58:00] who has, it hasn’t been perfect for him. He gets frustrated, he gets angry, gets sad, but he has been very open about this for over 30 years. Mm-hmm. With, with his premature early onset. He was
Victoria Pendergrass: very early. Yeah. He was very young when he was.
Chris Gazdik: I love that. And I, and I love, isn’t I, I think what I’m trying to do is to hold that up as the examples. Mm-hmm. Right? Like Michael J. Fox, thank you. Because I was trying to give you a really, a little bit of a window cuz I’ve had clients on that have dementia and many patients, clients that I’ve worked with that have family members, right.
Like it’s mm-hmm. It’s a huge issue in our country. But the same thing happens with Parkinson’s. And I’ve had these hefty diagnosis and, and, and so I wanna hold these examples up as part of what we’re really trying to do is to help someone that is our loved one going through this or help ourselves more quickly get to a place of acceptance.
Because you can have peace [00:59:00] in your heart while you’re dealing with major medical realities. Mm-hmm. And I think that people are fearful that you can’t, and I think people are fearful that you can’t because of shame. Mm-hmm. And that’s what we want to cut apart and defeat, you know, in a, in a way. Um,
John-Nelson Pope: it’s not romantic though.
I mean, it’s not like, do not go, um, what is it? Gentle into the night Rage. Rage against the dying of the light.
Chris Gazdik: Wow. Yes. What do you mean go further with our, well, no, I mean, I
John-Nelson Pope: think we, our culture, um, such as it is, there’s, there’s this idea that, uh, you’ve got to fight this valiant battle all the time. And, uh, you can’t just have that, that acceptance.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, so you’re saying this doesn’t go, this doesn’t, the notions I was just subscribing to, or, or, or highlighting don’t really go with, uh, the storyline that we tend to [01:00:00] try to go Yeah. The
John-Nelson Pope: story that we like to, that we romanticize it. Okay. Know,
Chris Gazdik: right, right. So, gosh, why, why do we do that to ourselves? And, and why do we romanticize everything?
No. Why do we romanticize something that’s terribly unhelpful, right? When we’re dealing with such difficult things like a major medical reality? Mm-hmm. Or, or a major mental health reality. You know, it’s funny, we talked about schizophrenia last week, right? Mm-hmm. Or a couple weeks, weeks ago, two weeks ago.
And I think in that show I shared my clinical supervisor helping me to understand Victoria, that it takes 25 years on average for people to get to a place of accepting, Hey, I got this thing called schizophrenia, or major bipolar, or whatever. Right? Yeah. Can we not cut that down to 10, but by the conversation that we’re having here?
Mm-hmm. Or even five, like that would be nice, right? Like, cuz it doesn’t have to be a shame-based reality [01:01:00] that we all struggle with. So,
John-Nelson Pope: so in a sense, what we’re doing here is psychoeducational, right? And that is, is that if we could, uh, plant a seed bed or have a seed bed that is, uh, would be more welcoming for people to have self-acceptance when they have a, a major illness, uh, serious mental illness or a physical illness, or you’re
Chris Gazdik: looking into, do I have it?
Yeah. Or if you’re getting told that you do. Or you’re getting old. Or you’re getting old. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We not age gracefully and accept that our bodies are changing, you know, in midlife I am now, I don’t like to accept that this is all changing because it’s, again, it just goes right to the shame. Mm-hmm.
So there’s so many different examples and I think let’s taxi in a little bit to like, what, what do we do to manage this? And I think, you know, how do we
manage shame? The biggest thing I’m trying it is normalizing it. There you go. Right. It’s just normalized that we all have these [01:02:00] realities that we’re dealing with, and we do the best to manage it.
And you need to step into something. I mean, if you could do something to help your body out, then you know, help your body out and, and, and, and take charge with it. But, but by all means, it doesn’t have to confirm you’re a loser or that there’s something inherently wrong with you or you’re flawed or you know what have you.
Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: But I think as a society, I. We’re always concerned about what other people think of us.
Chris Gazdik: Well, and and we’re not gonna get rid of that. I know I’m not gonna be idealistic and think that naively we can banish that, but we can take a big bite outta that. Right. Because I think that we do do that. You know, we didn’t talk a lot about stigmas today and uh, and you know, and that type of thing, but we talked a little bit about how culture, you know, drives us into a bad spot.
But, you know, like relax out there, we’re all got failures and flaws and we don’t have to hide them as much as we think that we need to.
Victoria Pendergrass: Sometimes. I think it goes back to the classic [01:03:00] clo quote. Good lord. The classic. Yeah. The classic quote of treat others how you wanna be treated,
Chris Gazdik: uh, the golden rule.
Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Do unto others as you would have them do
Chris Gazdik: unto you. Right. Yeah. I mean, gets back to a lot of the simple things that you can’t learn that way. Yeah. I mean, I
Victoria Pendergrass: have a sticker on the back of my car that says be kind for no reason at all. You know, just, I’ve also seen your, that would be, I was say I have a shirt that says be kind, um, from a safe back Grace,
John-Nelson Pope: do you have like a, a little Darwin, a fish on your, uh, back of your car and no co-exist?
Victoria Pendergrass: I do have an equal sign on, uh, equality sign on the back
Chris Gazdik: of my car. But you gotta be in deep, deep psychology with that one, John. Yeah, nice try. It’s just,
Victoria Pendergrass: and I think sometimes that’s, can be directly related to shame is if we’re just kind to people, then we’re not giving someone a reason to feel shame about themselves or that for whatever, [01:04:00] whether it be a medical condition, a mental health condition, I agree.
Or whatever it is. But, you know, again, something that we talked, I think we, you mentioned before is a lot of times these are things that they don’t have control over. I mean, you don’t have control over whether you get cancer. No. You, I mean, some things you really don’t. You can do, you know, by not smoking cigarettes maybe.
Yeah. Or. You know, being safe when you have sex or whatever. But there are certain things that, you know, people feel shame about and that they have no control over. Right? Like they just, that’s how they’re die s landed and that’s, you
Chris Gazdik: know, how do we control and manage this issue of shame? I mean, I cite the Serenity prayer all the time.
God grant me the serenity to. Accept the things I cannot change, the courage change.
John-Nelson Pope: I get so frustrated that I’m not able to live that.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Well, yeah, I know. It’s,
John-Nelson Pope: it’s true. But there’s, there was, uh, the idea that, you know, the only time we’ve got is the time we’ve got now. Yep. Right now. Yeah. So I think that [01:05:00] goes in line with mm-hmm.
Uh, what Victoria’s saying.
Chris Gazdik: It’s the human emotional experience and the challenge and the struggles that we ascribe to and, and, and get at. So yeah. Taxi and for landing.
Guys, let’s, let’s get us outta here today. Excellent conversation. Closing thoughts and, and comments. Would, would you, my closing
Victoria Pendergrass: thought is that I got my quote from Milan wrong earlier.
It’s not shame, it’s dishonor on you, dishonor on your family, dishonor on your cow. Maybe not in that same order, but one of those, um, I think my, my wrap up statement, it’s just be nice to each other. We only live one life, depending on what you believe, I guess. But for the most part, we, it’s yolo. We only live one life, Yolo.
And so, you know, just like be kind to people sometimes I like to, you know, put yourself in the other person’s shoes, you know? If I was the one that was finding out that I had this medical [01:06:00] diagnosis, how would I want other people to treat me?
Chris Gazdik: Right. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I think, I think it’s radical acceptance of others is, is what you’re saying.
In other words, uh, the idea that, uh, where a person feels like they cannot be accepted by anyone else is that if we as therapists, we can make that space, that sacred space, that holy space for that person to feel, uh, unconditional positive regard or unconditional love, uh, more from the Judeo-Christian
Chris Gazdik: back.
John, I love it. And to your words, like, I wish I could live these things better than we have the ability, you know, keep trying. Mm-hmm. We’re moving towards the goal without perfection as the goal. Right. And I think that’s, that’s, that’s what we’re trying to get at. So be kind to yourself and be kind to others.
Radical acceptance, unconditional pause or regard you guys. I [01:07:00] think that these are concepts that we wanna bake into the way that we’re, we’re living and experiencing things. So shame sucks, right? It absolutely sucks. And you experience it most every day as we hopefully convince you to realize so that we can deal with it and get rid of it and manage it a lot more proficiently.
So stay with it, stay well. Uh, tell your friends about through a therapist’s eyes. We’ll see you soon next week. Take care. Bye.