This month was a short one for the show because we only recorded 2 episodes, but there is plenty of current events to cover that are affecting everyone’s mental health. We start the show talking about the wars between Israel and Hamas, and Ukraine and Russia. That also lead to the tragedy in Lewiston Maine. After discussing those we went back to talk about controlling our emotions from episode 247 and then about friendships from episode 248.
Tune in to see the October Month in Review Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
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Episode #249 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is through a therapist’s eyes. We have the October month in review. Uh, this is October the 26th, 2023 and we do have Mr. Adam Cloninger hanging out with us again today. How are you, sir? Wonderful. Wonderful. Nice to have you back. Appreciate that. And uh, Mr. Neil Robinson on the October or the month in review comes out behind the curtain and hangs out with us.
Now, thank you so How are you, sir? Good.
Neil Robinson: Good. Busy day today. So, I’m glad to not be in front of my computer, in front of a different computer.
Chris Gazdik: He’s in front of computers all day long. So, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes, where you get insights from a therapist. Uh, today is the review from our panel shows, but it’s not to delivery of therapy services in any way.
We have the book that is out, edited, getting geared up, you know, getting into the publisher’s eyes on marriage. So… Several few, [00:01:00] few, at least a few, several months away for that. But have a title yet decided about it. Uh, re understanding your marriage and becoming your best spouse. That’s my idea, but I think the publishers will probably change it.
Okay. Yeah. We’ll see what happens with that. Actually, the editor Courtney already changed it. And I was like, Oh, that sounds good. But of course, cause she’s an editor. Uh, let me see. Uh, seriously, click the subscribe button if you like the show, support the show. It helps us out on YouTube Live, but also any of the likes that you put.
And Apple iTunes allows you to type out a review. It helps us to get found on the algorithms, and we still very much want to grow the show. It helps us out. You can do that. Please do. Uh, John always says he doesn’t want five, four stars. He wants five stars. Can
Neil Robinson: any interaction will be good, but yes, five stars would be best.
And if, and if you do, uh, listen to us on Spotify, make sure you follow the podcast there. Yeah, that helps us. So Spotify, you follow. YouTube you subscribe and then iTunes I guess you like and review
Adam Cloninger: like review.
Chris Gazdik: Yep. Well, that’s confusing. Yeah [00:02:00] Let’s see contact it through a therapist eyes comm as a way to give us email and interaction we appreciate that And again are the YouTube lives that we do we get live interaction with people.
That’s pretty cool And we’ve got a really cool show interesting this week because we only have two shows that we’re going to review on Which, uh, we’re what real quick, um, Can you control your emotions? And then also, uh, a good bit about friendship that we talked about, which was really pretty cool. But we got a current event, we got down a rabbit hole with Adam on, on the review shows that we do.
And if we have time, which I think we probably will, uh, I want to… do just a quick little diagnostic section. So, uh, Adam, I would ask you to think about, or Neil, I would ask you to think about if there’s a specific diagnosis or something that you’re interested in, or you on the YouTube live, please type in there, what would you like to hear just a segment about the diagnostic [00:03:00] show, um, schizophrenia Bi polar you could, you could totally test me in my knowledge with diagnostics.
I guess I do have my DSM five right next to me if I need it, but it’d be kind of fun just to wrap around. What kind of diagnosis would you be interested to hear a little tidbit or do about, you probably know which
Adam Cloninger: one I would pick. Uh, I’ve thrown it at you before and you’re like, eh, I gotta
Chris Gazdik: look into that.
’cause Well, it has to be a legit diagnosis.
Adam Cloninger: It can’t be No, no. It was legit diagnosis, but it was like a not, I don’t, it was like a, a more finite
Chris Gazdik: definition. If, if I recall it was like a syndrome. It was like this weird component of ooc d. Now we’re not talking about no obscure phobia. We’re not talking about no.
Crazy foot fetish toenail thing. I, I don’t know man, there’s a lot of crazy things out there. We’re talking about a DSM diagnosis, shall I clarify. DSM 5 diagnosis. Alright, my voice is jacked up by the way too. I’m blaming allergies,
I don’t know. I was at the Mountaineer football game last weekend. That was a blast.
Did you yell a lot? I really did. [00:04:00] That could have something to do with it. A week later though dude? Why not? Dude, I’m like on Thursday and that was Saturday. One, two, three, four. So not a, not a full week. It’s like five days later, it’s possible because listen, if I expect my players to leave it all out on the field, I feel like I should leave it all out on the field.
So I, you know, I was quite loud. Uh, what do we want to get to first? Let’s go to the current event. Um, you know, there’s a lot going on in, in the world and, and, and we do, we do current events on the show really related to mental health. And um,
We’ve just got a lot going on. Oh, yeah this current event. I’m saying the world’s on fire, right? You know, I mean, it’s it’s just there’s so much going on and we talked about the Israeli Hamas, you know battle war zone that’s going on with Gaza Strip, you know mentioning the [00:05:00] Ukraine kind of as well That’s kind of continuing to go on You’ve got really political unrest and, and, and that’s not just in the states, man.
I mean, you know, the Israeli government was really in a lot of political unrest. I, I think, you know, the China with the Philippines, I don’t know if you’re following the stuff that’s going on with the boats over there, you know, in the South China sea, uh, Taiwan, you know, you’ve got all the. All the stuff going on in the United States Congress.
Hey, we got a, we got a Speaker of the House at this point now, did you know that? I did know that. Yeah? Do you know that?
Neil Robinson: It kind of seemed like it came out of nowhere. He came
Adam Cloninger: out of nowhere, yes. It was
Chris Gazdik: kind of crazy. This guy has been like in the government for like, I don’t know, two, three years, four years?
Yeah, he served four
Neil Robinson: terms, I think. It said four terms, I think, when I looked him up. Four years. I think it was four terms. But if they’re only two years a piece, it’s only eight years.
Chris Gazdik: No, I think, well, I think it was 2018. Anyway, he ain’t been there that long. I mean, he’s a new. Yeah, he’s a young guy. He’s a very, [00:06:00] I don’t know how that’s going to work out, but you know, and, and just, so by political unrest, I don’t mean just in the States with, with the nonsense.
I mean, it literally is around the world. And so I don’t know what to comment about all of this stuff. You know on on on the world stage, I mean Other than well my big finale, I guess i’ll throw out now was I was was I really feel like we need You know, the human contact and a concept of supporting each other.
Um, I’ve really felt like since 9 11, we had this experience of everyone being glued to the TV all day long, with that being the first event of the social media era, and the dramatic way of being stuck here. And since then, we’ve had several examples of that. And that’s, that’s not just us in the States, that’s everyone’s tied to their phone and getting immediate updates on things kind of going on.
Uh, [00:07:00] and… We’re bombarded. Absolutely consumed in, in, in, in the bombardment. And it’s really not good for your mental health. Uh, human contact, real contact with your family and friends. That’s where you get emotional support. Human connection. Yeah, we get online connection, but when things get really real, and you’re in a war zone, or you’re worried about your young…
man or young man or young woman in the military or, you know, people being stuck in the strip or Ukrainians being in Poland. I mean, you need a hug. You need contact. You need eyeballs to love you and support you. You’re not gonna get that online. You’re not gonna get that on Fox News, CNN or your favorite cable news of choice.
So be careful about that. And, you know, here in the states, you know, we got yet another major event. That is kind of intended to be the current event with, um, another mass [00:08:00] murder up in Maine, in Maine, Louis, Lewiston, Maine, there’s believed to be 18 dead. So if you don’t know what happened, this is pretty hot off the news.
Uh, again, this is October the 26th, uh, 2023. This occurred yesterday, uh, late last night, I gather, uh, 18 believed dead, many injured. The current manhunt on, for the person of interest, uh, Robert Card, I understand him to be age 40, Army Reserve, since 2002, uh, with no combat deployments, uh, he’s a Sergeant First Class.
Uh, he’s, uh, Card is a Petroleum Supply Specialist who enlisted in December of 2002, and evidently there’s been a, a bullet that was put out by the Marine Information. And now analysis center a database for law enforcement officials Said that card recently quote unquote quote recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices And threats to shoot up the national guard base in Saco [00:09:00] Me what is main main?
That’s main. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. That was ma.
Neil Robinson: No, what’s ma?
Chris Gazdik: Massachusetts. Massachusetts.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he’s also a manufacturing engineering, but that doesn’t count. It doesn’t count for this. Not applicable.
Neil Robinson: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Not applicable. So, honestly, guys, we have another mass, you know, event and I think that we’re seeing this around the world.
We seem to have more of them in the states than otherwise. I don’t know if that’s a true statement. Uh, I know people believe that anyway.
Adam Cloninger: Data says it is. Huh? Data says it is da. Does the data, what? What does the data say? Yeah, data. Are you aware? Data says it. Just that we’re not as, just ’cause we have Per capita, yeah, per capita.
We’re not even top 10. Oh, we are not. We’re not in top 10
Chris Gazdik: of mass murder events. Correct. Okay. Well, then I’m not surprised at that because, you know, our egocentrism in the United States feel like, you know, we’re the one everything, right? We’re the only ones doing everything and that’s just not [00:10:00] true. But here’s the thing.
I mean, we’re going to hear the debates about mass murder events going on, you know, with these conflicts and ideology about gun control, you know, take all the guns away, mental health, you know, condemn all mental health patients because they’re dangerous. Uh, you know, solutions for mass murder events. He got people talking about defunding the police.
And, you know, now you got people talking about defunding the FBI. I mean, it’s just, you know, we need to have these discussions in a rational, science
based, grounded way. And when we get into these states of mind, we don’t, and that’s a problem. That, that’s reactionary, impulsive, and arguably destructive, to speak in my mind.
So, um, you know, there’s lots of complicated factors with these discussions and, you know, as I said before, I really feel like we need human contact, human interaction, human support. In a real way, think about eye contact [00:11:00] with somebody. Think about getting a hug from somebody. Thinking about having a verbal conversation on the phone with people that love care and support you.
That’s what you need to do. Get off the social media. 15 minutes with the news is probably all you need. Get updates morning and noon and night for 15 minutes max or something like that. You cannot sit there and watch this for an hour or two and think your mental health is going to be okay. It’s just not, uh, we have a new human reality with the way that we consume news and get onto this, and it is causing anxiety, it is destructive, and we need to get smarter about it.
Alright, I’ll off my soapbox, uh, but I feel strongly about those things. Comments, thoughts, guys? I mean, what do you, what do you think with all the crazy events going on in the world?
Adam Cloninger: Other than people are going to be stressed, I mean, that’s all there is to it.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Neil, what do you think? I think
Neil Robinson: we [00:12:00] worry too much about things that we shouldn’t worry about.
I think the shooter in Maine, what does that have to do with me down here? There’s so many things that get that gets sensationalized nationally that I think are just causing more worry. You talk about that overwhelm. I think that’s causing a lot of unhealthiness to the product. Everything that goes on.
Obviously, you look at this. This guy has mental health problems. He’s a one off. It’s not like there’s a big issue with it, but they’re going to make a big deal about this. A guy in Maine that that is frustrated. His employer has some sort of a psychotic breakdown, whatever the reason is, was behind it. Why does North Carolina matter when it comes down to it?
Because he’s not coming down here doing anything. It’s not like we have to be aware of it, but every time there’s a situation, it’s always all over the news. It’s cause it, it always causes anxiety and worry when it’s not really applicable to you. Like, you know, with the school students that are horrible, a shooting in Texas at that school doesn’t really affect me in North Carolina per se.
Now them promoting it repeatedly, repeatedly. Is [00:13:00] really causing a lot of problems because of copycat people, people get these in their mind. They have their, they don’t have the human contact to talk things out. They get it stuck in their head. If I
Adam Cloninger: do it too, I’ll be famous. And I’ll, you know, I get notoriety.
That is the
Neil Robinson: color. There, there are so many things that I feel like media, when a lot of things, things happen. It becomes more of, Hey, you need to be informed and versus you need to be, we’re obsessed about it. We’re going to tell everyone, like I said, it’s not anxiety from all of these things, I think is.
Is a big concern, like even the wars in Ukraine and in Israel and Hamas and all that stuff right now, it really doesn’t affect my space or the space here and it can, it can extend, it can get to a point
Chris Gazdik: where I have, I have two teenage boys,
Neil Robinson: like it’s a different, so it becomes, but it gets to the point where some of these things where you look at a lot of the news that comes out where, You know, one side versus another side.
And then we start getting protesting and we start getting affected by us. Like it’s, there’s a lot of [00:14:00] sensationalization that I think leads to a lot of problems. That aren’t really there yet. And I think that’s part of the struggle you talked about with media. There’s so much stuff going on with it.
Chris Gazdik: So I , I would say that we are interconnected in and around the world. I mean, we’re sitting here in, you know, in the Charlotte area, North Carolina, in the States. And, you know, we have our, our connectivity with people all around the world. In Eritrean and downloads in the Philippines. I mean, it’s, it’s really a cool reality.
So we are interconnected. I’m okay with the news knowing what’s happening because it does interconnect us and we’re affected, but not in, and you use the
word, right? Sensationalized manner. It can’t be 10 hours straight. It’s not healthy. Right,
Neil Robinson: exactly. Especially if it doesn’t apply to that area. Like, let you know, hey, there’s a conflict going on, here’s what’s going on.
But like, when you look at the sensationalization of anytime something happens and then all of a sudden it’s all over the world without really looking at what’s going on, [00:15:00] there becomes a lot of fear. You know, false, you know, there’s a lot of lies or misleading stuff that happens in any part of any news, no matter what, whatever you look at, whether it’s as simple as sports, because some guy missed a field goal and next, you know, he’s the worst kicker ever to, you know, politics,
Chris Gazdik: we ought to have a 10 hour show on what’s going on with the offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers,
Adam Cloninger: right?
Once that’s what we need to focus on
Neil Robinson: people that doesn’t apply to me. I don’t care about
Adam Cloninger: the important.
Chris Gazdik: Man real quick. We have a lot to get to so we’ll get off of this But we it’s it’s an interesting YouTube question that we have with you know, why do you what do you think happened to? This, mr. Robert card and you know, it’s you know, what’s going on with his mental health I mean, it’s it’s impossible to say, you know, and that’s and that’s the thing that you get to right it gets sensationalized And you know, this is quite possibly a person who has mental health problems.
But again, I caution us I don’t know what’s going on with his mental health You know, he may [00:16:00] have trauma. He may have a bipolar manic reality. He may, and I’m saying may, I don’t know this guy. I don’t know the news. He may have schizoaffective disorder where you get hallucinations in combinations with impulsive manic behavior.
It could be any number of things. But the thing is, is in the sensationalization, Neil, and this is what I care about with mental health, right? We’re going to be saying that all mental health patients are dangerous. It’s just, it’s a, it’s a leap.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah. It’s a leap.
Chris Gazdik: Statistically, we know that mental health admissions are way less likely to engage in actual violence and what not per capita.
That’s, I think I’m saying. Is that
Adam Cloninger: because we’re getting this help? Is that why? Correct. Okay. Right, they’re treated. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So, you know, we have to be really careful what we extrapolate. From the, from the simplicity that we see from a news anchor for 10 hours. It, it, be very careful about that. And, and
Adam Cloninger: there’s
Neil Robinson: always, and that’s the thing is.
[00:17:00] There’s always exceptions. You can’t take one person’s example and make that for everyone. You know, one of the biggest things talking about that as well as the big things they try to do is the red flag laws. There’s a lot of fine line in that, but the problem with the red flag log
Chris Gazdik: is the red flag laws are
Neil Robinson: basically if, if you’ve, if someone thinks that you’re a threat and say you have guns, they can put a court order.
They can come take your guns until you’re deemed safe. But the problem is there’s no qualificate real qualifications for it. There’s a lot of people who use that for negative. Like I don’t like my neighbor, so I’m going to call the police. Say he’s a
Chris Gazdik: manipulation, but, but there, but there’s also, um, a complete lack of predictability.
Yeah. I’m good at what I do. I’ll make that bold statement. I’m good with what I do with diagnostics. I’m good with what I do and being on somebody’s level. I’m good with what I do in mental health. I really am. I do not have very. Predictability ability at all. And that’s because no one [00:18:00] does. Truly, truly. We just don’t.
You got people
Neil Robinson: that you would think would be right there that never do anything. You got people you have no clue about. And there’s no record for this guy. And that’s, that’s the problem with a lot of these things. People are trying to prevent something that is pretty much unpreventable. And they’re always, and I think in trauma, part of the biggest issue is they’re trying to find answers and solutions.
To things that they don’t understand. Like, why is this guy doing it? And I think, but I think you have to understand. And like I said, sensationalization is, Oh my God, this happened. How are we going to fix it? And you create all these things, but you don’t think about what it really means to set up red flag walls and what that, because red flag, flag walls.
Seem really great in practice. Yeah. And
Chris Gazdik: I’m not even totally against that. I’m not, you know, I mean, how do you implement? Well, I have ideas about that, you know, in a, in a rational mental health grounded fashion, you know, if somebody has been admitted, you don’t need to have, you know, firearms and suicidal.
Utensils, for lack of a better way of putting it, you know, in your, in your immediate ready possession, there’s con, [00:19:00] there’s standard discharge plans. Yeah, but you
Adam Cloninger: gotta be, that’s a slippery slope there. Cause you might get where people start thinking, well, I’m not going to get mental health assistance because if I do, they’re going to take my guns
Chris Gazdik: from me.
Right? Yeah. This is not that this is, this is some standard safety protocols. That we talk about with family and voluntarily really is what it is. I mean, most of the people I’ve talked to with this is it’s a voluntary reality because they want to be well, okay, well let’s, let’s remove the temptations for your suicidal ideations or whatever.
So we’d go down with that. I do have a lot of ideas. about it, but maybe that needs to be a show like a whole show. Yeah, I’d, I’d, I’d be curious what the, the, the panel would say about that. All right, let’s, let’s move on. Cause because of, uh, yeah, maybe we won’t get to the diagnostic section, but just a reminder, I’m actually excited about doing this.
I want to kind of reserve time at the end, you know, even if it’s five, 10 minutes, I want to, I want to get somebody’s feedback, one of you two, or somebody on YouTube to, uh, to help us out with what, what kind of diagnostic would you. Would you enjoy [00:20:00] hearing a little segment about, but Adam, we’re going down the rabbit hole, man, we, we have already gone into one rabbit hole.
We’re going to pop our head out and jump on the ground and go back into another rabbit hole with you. But I tell you, we’ve had a lot of this, uh, what do we had? Like this anger thing. We’ve had this rage room stuff. We’ve had this, uh, you know, cocaine, whales and sharks and bears and stuff.
Adam Cloninger: Right. So, so we were, we were looking for a positive uplifting, uh, topic.
And it’s not gonna happen today. It’s not gonna happen today. There was one topic I was looking at about orcas again, but I didn’t go into that. It’s actually really interesting. I won’t go into that. But, um, this one comes from, um, actually we talked about things being connected. This has come from BBC News, but they’re talking about something going on in the U.
S. I didn’t write down exactly word for word, so don’t worry. You’re fine. We’re fine. So, the title said, Instagram sued over harm to young people’s mental health.
Chris Gazdik: I saw that! Did you read [00:21:00] the article, Doc? I did not. Okay,
Adam Cloninger: so I wrote down some notes here. And again, I didn’t write down verbatim, so no worry. Yeah, we’re paraphrasing.
Yeah, we’re paraphrasing. In a, in a federal lawsuit. Um, announced about by several U. S. States meta parent company of Facebook and Instagram has been, um, accused of misleading the public about risks on social media. The lawsuit claims the company and I’m gonna use the word they had, uh, ensnared users while concealing substantial danger and collecting data of Children under 13, which disregards the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
Yep. Now I know we talked about And I usually got a question for you, and I don’t have a question for you this time. Oh, I
got
Chris Gazdik: answers for
Adam Cloninger: the questions you’re not going to answer. I figured, I figured you would want to talk about this because we talked about stuff about social media. I mean, you kind of even touched base on that now, so.
That’s my topic.
Chris Gazdik: What’s that? I love it. I love it. And um, I’m [00:22:00] gonna be crazy. Listen, I’m not a litigious kind of guy. Uh, is that a word? Litigious. Let take litigious lit. Litigious. Litigious. I’m not a litigious kind of guy. We need John. Where’s John? When, when we need him. He would know that exactly. , uh, anyway.
I don’t like lawsuits, all that kind of stuff that people get into and whatever. But I tell you what, when you got big companies doing something that’s wrong, when they clearly know that it’s wrong and everything that I would deduce, they’re purposely making sticky customers. That’s what you call it in marketing and, you know, business circles and such.
And what, what that means is I want to make a platform, I want to make a product that makes you come back, makes you want to come back. And the more FaceTime that you get, the more real time that you get, the more button clicking and all the stuff that you have, you, you, you make more money. And so the harm that we have begun to understand for sure that happens with kids is sacrificed for the goal of making [00:23:00] money with a known entity of anxiety creation.
I think they know what they’re doing. I do. And they don’t care because they’re making money. They’re making money. And, you know, look, I, I think we’re, how many people, ask yourself this, I’ll ask both of you, how many people do you know in your circle that have already kind of said statements or deleted full on their app, whether it be Facebook, whether it be Instagram, whether it be Any of the apps and such that we use?
Dating apps? How many people in your circles do you know of people, because I, I know of, you know, myself, you know, I’ve been surprised that my wife has actually said Facebook, you know, 86, uh, a couple other friends, uh, I think you and I have talked about it, Neil, I think you have said, right?
Adam Cloninger: I
Neil Robinson: don’t, I’m still on them just because, you know, but it’s having two [00:24:00] teenagers, you see the effect of social media or YouTube or any of those things.
So, but, you know, I think it’s funny that it’s all about. When you look at the litigious nature of of what’s going on.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah, what he said
Neil Robinson: The funny thing is it’s not even about the children’s mental health. It’s the children’s privacy Like it’s really funny when you look at that like what they’re actually filing lawsuit against it’s not really about like the wellbeing of the children.
You know, you look, do you think about RJ Morris and Philip, whatever they are, the tobacco companies, how long it was before you started realizing the negative effects. And then you find, Oh wait, they’re targeting kids and teenagers in their advertising. And then you saw what happened. You know, they’ve gone downhill.
Like that’s what needs to happen with medicine. Like a lot of those things, tick tock. They brought a neuroscientist to adapt, develop the app to make it addictive. It’s been proven, you know, that’s the part that I think is going to come down that you’re going to find out as study more and more studies come out, what happens to these kids that are stuck in these types of apps.
And then what does [00:25:00] that mean down the road? That’s, you know, the depressions, the suicides, the weird ideologies, like all that stuff comes down is because they’re stuck. And their brains can’t, they’re absorbing so much stuff and their brains can’t process going back to the current events, all that information, right?
Adam Cloninger: It’s bombardment. That’s a bad thing is you’re going to have so many studies. It’s going to stifle that down because there’s money in that too. I mean, that’s where funding comes from.
Chris Gazdik: Well, you know, we’ve covered on this show for as well, you know, about. You know, big pharma, you know, the pharmacological reality that happened with opioids, you know, I mean, I remember a very particular quote and we’ve covered it on the show where they’re like, look, these people eat this stuff like Doritos.
I mean, in, in the insides of the discussion, it was caught in some recording or some text or something, I forget, but, you know, I mean, there is a clear knowledge of what META’s doing by META folks, and it’s making money, and so, [00:26:00] the anxiety, the suicide rates, the depressions, the isolation, the
turmoil, the overwhelm, just gets sacrificed for, for making money, and the only way you can deal with that, is lawsuits, class action suits, man.
And that’s what’s happening with opioids. You make the
Neil Robinson: pain, you know, the lawsuit pain. I think that was, there was some, something about that, some movie with Nicholas Cage where he would go through and look at like card defects and literally the calculation was, is it cheaper for us to recall than it is to pay out lawsuits?
Chris Gazdik: And, and on a big level. That’s the calculation that finance officers are doing in these rooms, man So yeah, what do you think adam that uh, did we answer the question that you didn’t ask? Yes, you did
Adam Cloninger: What was the question there? Well, there wasn’t a question that so like on a topic that you knew. Yeah I knew you’d have a lot to say about it.
Yeah. Cause we’ve kind of talked about that and you kind of mentioned before about social
Chris Gazdik: media. There’s a lot that we still don’t understand about it too, right? [00:27:00] Like I said, you know, 2011, you’re right. And currently we’re talking, this is new to humankind. This is new to the human race. Like we do not understand a lot about what happens neurologically with, uh, young people, but old people as adults, just the same man.
You know, I know how I feel after I watch, you know, I’ll flip around PBS and MSNBC and what’s Gutfield saying about this and what about the five that’s, you know, CNN, you know, and I’m, and I’m looking and I’m like, wait a minute, what time is it? What am I doing? This is ridiculous. Stop.
Neil Robinson: No. And, and the thing too, like, because you think about two, when nine 11 happened and what you had, the biggest difference it’s, it’s this, you know, it’s one thing to have the news, the way that the news is like nine 11, it was all over.
Like I remember watching on the news, but you didn’t have 24 seven, like. In front of your face, the smartphone changes a lot of the stuff that [00:28:00] happened, changes that exposure, like, it’s one thing to make the effort to just turn the TV on, and suddenly you have this phone you carry with you all the time, you hit a button, oh, oh wait, look at that notification.
We’ve all got them. That changes, I mean, that changed everything, getting it on your phone. You know
Chris Gazdik: how it’s changed it the most for me, uh, these cell phones, Neil? So, I… Like, on Sunday, when I’m coming home from church or whatever, it’s about 1. 30, 2 o’clock before I really get to settle down. Do you know how difficult it is to avoid the Pittsburgh Steelers scores with these daggum cell phones and Instagram and everybody posting me and talking to me about it?
I
Adam Cloninger: want to watch my recorded sporting program without So
Neil Robinson: Sunday, at 1 o’clock, you and me are going to start doing recaps. I know, you
Adam Cloninger: guys like text me and stuff. And he has friends that just mess with him. Yeah, like this guy here
Chris Gazdik: with the WVU cap. It’s not kind. We had one the other day.
Adam Cloninger: I knew he was, had it recorded.
So, I texted him and I said, Are you, are you still [00:29:00] watching the game? He said, I just
Neil Robinson: started the fourth quarter. I said, Sorry, man. And that’s all
Adam Cloninger: I said. His team
Chris Gazdik: won. And he’s like, No,
Adam Cloninger: man,
Chris Gazdik: don’t do that to me. All my friends know not to do that. And you’re one of the last holdouts that purposely messed me up.
These cell phones are bad, Neil. They don’t let me watch my team. Anyway. How about we get to the shows that we did this, this, this month? Um, can you control your emotions and, uh, friendships? Do, do we miss them? And that was a different take on, you know, what we miss and what we don’t. Uh, Adam, let’s, let’s get this out of the, let’s get this out of the way, man.
Uh, on, on the idea of, can you control your emotions? Do you want to go ahead and say your expression? Yeah, I know you’re gonna bring it
Adam Cloninger: the one that just drives you The one that you can’t
Chris Gazdik: control your emotions, but you need to say the whole daggum thing on right you go I
Adam Cloninger: do and you and you add always add to it the whole line.
It is
Chris Gazdik: what it is That’s not the whole line. No, that is. That’s all I have to say. That is not true. [00:30:00] You know it, you know it, it is what it is. So we do what we can do. You know it. Listen, I enjoy the conversation that we had with, uh, Neil and John. Uh, because, you know, we really got into understanding what we really even mean by control, what are really emotions are and is there a difference between stopping emotions and controlling emotions?
And, you know, I think that there, there was a lot of, I mean, it’s an obvious question, right? Can you control your emotions? Is there anybody really realistically is going to say no? To, to, to that question again, this comes down
Adam Cloninger: to like all other things, how do you, how do you define of what actually is control
Chris Gazdik: says the engineer?
No, I mean, I mean,
Adam Cloninger: you know, if you say, well, control is, well, I absolutely will not be sad if this happens. Okay. That’s one definition, or you could say, well, I’m going to be sad, but [00:31:00] it’s not gonna, I’m not gonna let it control me. That’s a whole nother
Chris Gazdik: thing. It is. Yeah. I don’t think I talked about it as much when we did the show, but honestly, I feel like people.
subscribe to statements. They subscribe to memes that we’ll, we’ll have reels and stuff that are out there now where people talk about how you can’t control how you feel, right? And, and, and these are pretty famous quotes. I didn’t get to it on the show either because there’s a lot of quotes that we went through.
And I’m like, I don’t even want to go down that because people subscribe to that, believe that. I think because we’re fearful about our emotions and overwhelmed with the way that we feel and how this stuff goes. And so don’t be confused with being intimidated or fearful about the way that you feel thinking that you can’t control it.
My entire industry is based on you can control and manage. You’re, the way that, that you feel. I think
Adam Cloninger: manage is better. It’s a better word. Not really control, but manage
Chris Gazdik: is probably better. Well, I, uh, I just, I think I disagree. I mean, you’re controlling how [00:32:00] you feel when you do deep breathing. You literally immediately influence your mental health affect.
Affect’s a fancy word for saying the way that you feel. You control it. You control your heart rate when you’re in a panic attack by deep breathing. That, it’s control. You control your heart rate, believe it or not. And people would probably be like, well, you can’t control your heart
Adam Cloninger: rate. Can you stop your heart rate by thinking about it?
You can
Chris Gazdik: absolutely bring it down to like one beat a second. Can you stop it?
Adam Cloninger: No. Okay, you can’t control it, you can manage it. You can’t.
Neil Robinson: We’re not talking about your physiology, we’re talking about your emotions, the mental side of the whole thing. Well,
Adam Cloninger: hold on, hold on now. A lot of the emotions is physiological too though, so.
A
Chris Gazdik: lot of it is.
Adam Cloninger: I agree with
Neil Robinson: you. You’re not going to stop your body’s natural process. I guess you can stop breathing until you pass out, then your body takes over. But fear
Adam Cloninger: is a natural…
Chris Gazdik: What’s the definition of control, Adam? Influence over. To have influence over. That’s [00:33:00] probably a pretty good definition of control.
You have influence ability over your emotions. You can control it.
Neil Robinson: And I think the biggest thing too is like when you look at, you know, cause we brought up regulation, all this other stuff. And I think honestly, once you start figuring out your trigger points, you start figuring out what’s causing it, you do start being able to control it.
You do start being aware of the situation. And you know, if, if I know that, you know, If I go to someone’s house, I know it’s going to trigger me. I can learn how to control the situation before it happens. Or I can learn how to change my perception on something. And so I think you really, I think there’s a lot of people that are afraid of the term control because I feel like in today’s society, there’s really people don’t want to deal with their problems.
You can’t control me. So, so like, I really think there’s a lot of stuff where control is a negative, like
Chris Gazdik: you can’t. There’s a negative connotation to control and I don’t know why that is. Yeah, it really has become very much a buzzword, you know, um, it’s the [00:34:00] engulfment, uh, insecurities that we talk about, you know, a lot.
Did, did we get a good idea of, well, I guess we’re talking about the first question, what is meant by control, but did we get a really good idea, Neil, of like, you know, what, what really are emotions? Did, did we, do you remember if we got, got into that a good bit? Cause I think we got off of that when we were talking.
I think
Neil Robinson: we did a good job. I thought I think we did a good job covering the, you know, what our emotions because emotions are those those feelings you get, you know, that caused you to react a certain way. Because I think that’s
the thing you have to think about is the emotions are those initial feelings you have now how you react to them.
That was always something my kids experience. Karate guy said it’s like you can’t control your emotions, but you control how you react to them, right? And so it’s kind of that same idea, even though I just said you can’t control it again, right? So but it’s one of those things the emotions is your body’s natural reaction to certain situations or scenarios and like that You know you when someone passes away you you feel sad That’s that [00:35:00] emotion not how you handle and react to it’s a little bit different But I think emotions are what your body naturally does and some people have more That’s my take on what an emotion
Chris Gazdik: is.
And actually we did talk about it. I’m remembering because John, to your point, Adam, right? Like when you really look at what are emotions, you know, John was talking about, you know, people that have a traumatic brain injury that directly impacts the physiology of your levels of anger. Or irritability or depression, you know, we have things like diagnosable conditions, anxiety and depression that that sets a of neurological and biological reality of
the way that you feel. And so we can manage our emotions, we can control them. But boy, sometimes you have this starting spot that is just, I mean, it’s not really fair. And I’ll tell a lot of people. You know, in my therapy room, it sucks. You know, you have OCD. Let’s just say, I’m sorry. That’s, that’s a bummer.
The, but understand you’re not doing anything wrong. Your brain is really geared that way. [00:36:00] You know, how do you manage this? As you say, how do you react? What do you do with your behavior? Just because you’ve got, you know, an impulse anger impulse control doesn’t mean it’s okay to put somebody in the face, right?
What
Adam Cloninger: you’re, you’re still responsible for your actions and you need to manage that. Well, and I
Neil Robinson: think the reality is you, I think the reality is, is
Chris Gazdik: you got a statement there. I’m
Adam Cloninger: not going to make any statement. I’m just, you know what I have in mind, but I’m not saying that.
Neil Robinson: Sorry. No, I’m intrigued by whatever the statement is that he’s thinking about, but You know, I think, uh, so, but I think the thing you have to look at is like you said, everyone has a different starting point.
I think that’s a great, great statement because just like anything else, your emotions, some people are more likely to be sad or depressed. Some people are more likely to be angry. Some people just don’t show emotions. Some people get overly happy. Like everyone has their own starting point they have to fight with.
And I think just like anything else in life, yeah. You know, whether [00:37:00] it’s sports or, you know, school education, some people are great at basketball and it just comes naturally to them. Some people are great at, you know, math problems, you know, some people are great at writing. And I think emotions are the same way.
Some people are great at controlling anger, but they can’t control their sadness. Some people can, you know, are better at being more stoic where other people are just, they’re just angrier. You have to understand that that’s who you are. But you have to know your starting point to decide where you need to work on it.
If you want to become a good artist, you can’t draw, you have to put extra work in. If you know you have an anger issue, you have to put more work in to help manage it. And I think that’s the part that people have to be okay with, that not everyone’s the same. It has to be
Chris Gazdik: intentional and purposeful. Very much so.
Right. Yeah, you know, there is something that we didn’t get to talk about much at all that that’s part of what’s cool about these reviews is things that I feel like we missed. And this is definitely one that I want to highlight with the article that I had in the show notes of episode 247. [00:38:00] What do we really mean by dysregulation, emotion dysregulation?
Everyone thinks about mindfulness nowadays and emotion regulation. These are, these are buzzwords that people are picking up on. But I thought it was interesting this, this article kind of pointed out the opposite of that. Do you know when you really are dysregulated? Which is a fancy way of saying your emotions are flying all over the p
So, so, but… But in the nuts and bolts of that, how can you identify for yourself, Hey, I’m really not well right now with the way that I’m feeling and I see this and I see this and I see this and that indicates to me that, yeah, I need to, I need to slow down for a minute and check into like, what do I need to do to manage myself?
As I say, check yourself, right? Okay, so So they highlighted some, some, some basic things that I thought was really cool in the signs of this. Think about when you’re overly intense, you know, you, you can sense when you’re wound up or when you’re really hot on something that being [00:39:00] overly intense. Is your emotions are dysregulated.
Or when you have impulsive behavior, you know, like, why did I just say that? I shouldn’t have tore into my kid when he did X. Well, you’re, you’re, you’ve gotten impulsive with your, your behavior there. Your kid shouldn’t have done X. What’s that? Well, Did something go on lately, Neil? Did something happen in the Robinson house?
They have to control themselves. They do. Lack of emotional awareness is another indicator of being dysregulated. So we’re not even aware of, you know, I’m just sort of numbed out. Uh, and then These are interesting things, right? Like this indicates that you’re dysregulated trouble making decisions. You know, we all get into procrastination a little bit or, you know, indecisiveness.
We all get sort of, you know, uh, you know, apathetic. I just don’t care where we go to dinner, but when you’re really in a difficulty, like, I know I need to make a call here, but I’m, I don’t [00:40:00] know what to do. That’s. That’s dysregulation, inability to manage your behavior and then avoiding difficulty motions, shutting down or numbing out.
These are, this is a cool list of things that if you have any one of those things, it’s kind of like if you have one of them, don’t worry so much, but certainly if you’ve got a couple of them at the same time, like, yo, like that’s, you’re not well, you got multiples of these in any given time. You’re really not well.
So we don’t really think about that opposite side. How do you identify that you’re in a dysregulated state? Is that a weird
Adam Cloninger: concept out of me? No, no, because I can actually relate to it. If you feel a little off there, sometimes you got to step back and think, okay. I’ve been a little irritable this week.
Neil Robinson: I’ve been a little snappy at work. So is it your time of the month?
Adam Cloninger: I mean, no, I’m just, I’m just saying, you know, say, say you’re just been irritable or whatever. You might think to yourself, you know, I’m being kind of cranky at work or I’ve been kind of. [00:41:00] You know, yelling at the kids more than normal or whatever, or, or, you know, I just can’t think, you know, Things are bugging me more than they should.
Yeah, um, I got mad and the, the guy that cut me off and I like tried to run him off the road, you know, whatever it is, you know, whatever, if you feel like it’s something that’s your, you feel a little off, maybe there’s something to it. I think, I think that’s all you’re really saying, right? It, it absolutely
Chris Gazdik: is.
It, it absolutely is. I mean, it’s, it’s really, you know, and just to go a little further with it, I mean, you know, you’ve got, Um, trouble sleeping and holding grudges longer than you should. Minor arguments that turn into blowouts, you know, negative effects on, you know, your work or your school, you’re just not, you know, on point, uh, substance abuse, binge eating, trouble resolving conflicts.
I mean, these, this, it was a really thorough list of things that help you to really regulate and understand. I need to, to, to regulate. So where do we land real quick? Uh, gratitude goes a long [00:42:00] way. We landed on the idea of, of really looking at self talk and how you, how you get into, uh, self loathing and, you know, getting into, um, understanding what emotions are really trying to tell you and just when you, when you get in that spot, Adam, that you were saying when you were in his step back and what am I really need to be aware of now?
Uh, and then, you know, we’re going to talk about friendship in a minute, but relying on supports, relying on friends, relying on people in your life. Like that’s a huge part of managing and controlling the way that you feel, you know, when you simply have a conversation with a friend and just vent on them and dump on them and, you know, bounce their, your, your thoughts off of their ears.
They don’t even have to say anything that inherently changes the way that you feel. It’s a crazy weird thing, because it’s, because you’re not alone with it anymore. I literally just had a conversation with Adam, and he heard what I’m thinking about, and boom, I don’t, maybe I feel worse. I guarantee you, you’re probably likely to feel different, and probably, you’re likely to feel better, right?
[00:43:00] So, these are, these are some things. Um, you know, we can control them. It is what it is. But, Adam… We can, that’s the end of the statement. Do what we can do. Let’s take a quick break though, before we get to the other review to remind you that, uh, if you like what we’re talking about, you know, click the little like buttons, uh, Neil, what do we got?
Like for this and snap for that. And what are the
Neil Robinson: three? Just, if you haven’t subscribed already subscribed to YouTube, you know, if you’re watching us on YouTube, also give us a thumbs up, you know, if, if it means something to you, cause that means it’s going to be put on more people. Uh, feeds and stuff like that.
So yeah, so just
Adam Cloninger: you can also share
Chris Gazdik: and we have, yes, we can share, share, share
Adam Cloninger: the episodes, send it to somebody,
Chris Gazdik: share it to them. So we have a sponsor first horizon that is awesomely aboard. Uh, we appreciate their participation and support in the show. Uh, they are a real friendly. fund bank to fund the bank with fund bank to fund with what am I talking about?[00:44:00]
Adam Cloninger: He’s a little off and he’s not managing things. Well, I have, uh,
Chris Gazdik: I’ve dysregulated. You’re going to dysregulate me, Neil, if you keep it up. Uh, actually, I meant Adam. Uh, anyway, no. First Horizon has been on with us supporting the show for about a month. Um, we really appreciate their board. Go check out their branch, uh, anywhere in the United States.
Although they may be overseas too. I
Adam Cloninger: don’t know. We need to find what’s her name again.
Chris Gazdik: First horizon first horizon bank. All right. So the next show that we did episode two 42, uh, friendships, do we miss them? The questions, do you know what a friendship is? How do you make new friends really? And do you have.
You know, do you realize, the answer is yes, do you realize, do you have to maintain this relationship? Um, I think I may have
Adam Cloninger: seen part of this episode. What do you mean? This is the one where John was talking about being at the hospital waiting because his [00:45:00] wife had 13 hours of
Neil Robinson: surgery. Yep, and the one guy said you need to have more faith and he almost wanted to punch him.
Yep.
Adam Cloninger: I think it’s
Chris Gazdik: interesting when John gets angry or something, it’s like, I love him. He gets it. It’s like, you wanted to punch somebody? What are you talking about? It’s like, you, you are so peaceful. How could that possibly
Adam Cloninger: be? He was dysregulated at the time. He was
Chris Gazdik: definitely dysregulated. He had stuff going on at the time.
So, I’m curious, Adam, to think about the idea. I really look at that first question, you know, do you know what a friendship is? Do you? Yeah. I think we all sort of do think we do. Let’s get into weeds with that for just a minute though. What, what, how, what do you, how would you define it? How would you, how do you experience it?
Cause I’ll maintain to you that I think the word is overused. [00:46:00]
Adam Cloninger: Okay. I know you don’t like BFF for guys.
Chris Gazdik: Definitely don’t. No, we do not have BFFs or besties. No, I
Adam Cloninger: mean, um. You got different, you got different types of friends too. I mean, you got work friends, you got personal friends. Well, that gets a little bit to the heart of it.
Yeah. I mean, cause sometimes there’s people that you work with that you. Talk to about things that kind of get stuff off your chest, but I mean, they’re not the type of person that you go and, you know, hang out with them for Thanksgiving dinner or anything,
Chris Gazdik: right? It’s a different level of relationship. Um, I’ve thought a lot about this and I have a simple way of looking at.
You know, re understanding what it is that makes a relationship in a friendship category as opposed to really an acquaintance or a co worker, support. You can have supportive relationships that actually aren’t [00:47:00] friends. My thing is, is you have contact outside of the purpose point. The purpose point, I mean, if you have your people that you talk to, wave to, say hello to at a church, okay?
They’re nice. You might even hang out after church, at the church, or in a small group, and you get great and wonderful support from that. But, but in order to be friends, you really need contact outside of the purpose point. Church, you know, this is where you go have lunch together, or you go jog together.
You know, now you’re doing things in your life and more living life together. And this is what happens in small groups in churches. You, you, you, you begin to develop relationships. You begin to develop trust and you extend outside of that particular. Uh, basis. I figured this out a lot personally by figuring out that I was friends with my buddy Joe, and dang it, we’ve talked too long.
I’m not gonna be able to give the whole story, but we did a show with Craig long ago and I, I gave the whole story. [00:48:00] I didn’t know I was friends with him until he said the word friend and then, ’cause we only talked and met and hung out in the Cub Scouts. It was, it was unique and specific to camping events, Cub Scout events.
Cub Scout meetings and we were two dads. It wasn’t until we began having breakfasts after the Cub Scout event alone at the Waffle House with our kids that we began to develop a routine. And from there we developed a wonderful friendship. Joe, I love you, buddy. And he’s a good friend of mine today.
Although he moved away, I’m mad about that, but… Right? So that’s a very different thing, and you were touching on the different levels of relationship that we have. Are acquaintances friends? I would say no. But people use this term, you know, a lot. Like, oh, our work is like family, you know, it’s my friend.
It’s really
Adam Cloninger: not. It’s not. Yeah,
Neil Robinson: it’s not. It is dysfunctional like a family sometimes.
Adam Cloninger: Well, there [00:49:00] is that. I won’t disagree with that
Neil Robinson: statement. I would say for business, you know, your work is more like a family than friends because you don’t choose who you work with, you just kind of get stuck with them.
You have to deal with them.
Chris Gazdik: Wait a minute, you work outside of your home with your family, what are you talking about?
Neil Robinson: I don’t work with my family. I just work at my house. That’s
Chris Gazdik: true. That’s true. No, it, you know, and we, we won’t go into it a whole lot right now, but I have a whole continuum of, uh, you know, relationships of acquaintances and then fun friends.
These are people that you just do fun things with. Then you got good friends where you cross over a trust line and then you have really close best friends and then you have intimate relationships. So as you alluded to Adam, I have a whole level. And we all work a lot in therapy world with developing your social support network.
It’s a therapy term for saying, who do you really rely on? Do you know how many people tell me they have no friends? Like, that is a very sad and common reality. You don’t have anybody to talk to. Or, you [00:50:00] really find that your loved one, your partner, is your only person that you really talk to. Look, we gotta change this.
With current events, we were talking about how we need human contact, eyeballs, voice to voice conversations even if on the phone, hugs, like people. Contact, dapping, shaking hands. Like we need to get back to where we value that. All right. I just jumped on the soapbox again, Adam. It was a good statement though.
Was it a good statement? It’s a good statement. Yep. Make a real out of it. All right. Where do we move? How do we make new friends and do we have to maintain them? Let’s, let’s, let’s chat about how we did that. Neil, what do you, what do you remember us talking about when it comes to like, you know, how do we really do this and how do we maintain it?
Neil Robinson: I think, you know, part of the thing that got brought up was, you know, one, it has to be intentional when it comes sometimes with friendships, it has to be intentional. You have to put your, you have to put yourself out there. So like if you know you and Joe, like whoever initiated that
first breakfast, like [00:51:00] you have to, you have to be intentional about wanting to make friends or you want to extend that relationship to build that trust and that vulnerability with it.
That’s, that’s the one thing. And then the other part of it, when you look at the friendships is, you know, Is it benefiting you? Friendships are weird to me. Like, I don’t think it always has to be 50, 50 or whatever. Like, cause I think there are times in friendships where like. You needed Joe more than Joe needed you at certain times and then sometimes it’s the opposite and I think there’s sometimes you’re it’s shifts the scale Now I think Victoria brought it up.
What if I’m always in one sided friendships? That’s when it gets bad for you to do it But a lot of times I mean sometimes the friendship is One person needs the attention needs the friendship more than the other person at that time But it always to me, you know, it’s a seesaw. It’s a back and forth or it’s at least 50 50 I think that’s a good key that you want to make sure that A friendship benefits both sides of the, both sides of the equation.
What’s
Chris Gazdik: funny that you say that that way, Neil, and I love that it’s actually part of the story that I like to use as an [00:52:00] example of being purposeful about making friends, because it was at that time in my life, personally, the part of the story I’ll be able, I think I’m going to share because it applies to what you just said.
I looked around and I was actually coming out of what we’ve talked about before the last decade. And I’m kind of like, I’m, I don’t have any friends. I said that myself out loud. I’m like, I got to change that. And I literally like targeted multiple people. And part of the point that I would like to make is that really being purposeful about that is kind of like dating.
And that’s weird and creepy. You know what I think about, you know, while I’m a dude. I see what you’re, I I see what you’re
Adam Cloninger: getting at.
Chris Gazdik: I’m not going to create my cute bestie, right, Adam? You might. I’m a man. I’m a man, man. But the thing is, it is a lot like that. Because I… Struck out to a certain extent. I made some pitches to some people at that point and it just I didn’t get any contact We didn’t go golfing like we were supposed to or we didn’t you know It just didn’t work.
[00:53:00] But with a few people a couple at least at time I think I targeted like four or five neil and joe was one of those ones and I was like, you know I think we can hang out. I would you know, he likes fights and stuff So that was part of what we we had in common You find things that you have in common and you celebrate those.
You can talk about them and then you make a bid. You like actually make a suggestion because Neil, what made me think about that is he used that friend word at the campfire and we kind of weren’t friends. We didn’t do anything outside of Cub Scouts, but I was in that state that I just described and I made the suggestion, Hey, let’s go to Waffle House.
Let’s take our kids after camping. And we did that. And seriously, that blossomed into a wonderful friendship. I remember doing this show with Craig, uh, We really haven’t even, what, 250 episodes in, redone much content. Yeah. We really haven’t. Mental health has a lot
Adam Cloninger: of topics.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And, but he was amazed at, like, how thoughtful I was presenting it with this purposefulness and having intentionality.
Instead of it just, like, [00:54:00] happening? That’s what he said. He’s like, yeah, my friends just sort of happen. I look around, I don’t know, I just sort of… But it doesn’t just happen. People are lonely, man. People are struggling, feeling isolated. Working home environment doesn’t help.
Neil Robinson: I love working from home by myself.
But as an introverted engulfment person. There is that. But I think that goes back to the statement on the regulation. Some people friends come easy. Some people it’s hard. And I think that’s, you have to understand that. And some people have to make those efforts, but a lot of times when you make those efforts, you have a lot deeper friendships than those people who could make easier friends, like even along the way.
It’s like, Craig might have a dozen guy friends that he hangs out with. But you know, how deep is he with all of them? He might be deeper with it. You talk about the spectrum or whatever,
Chris Gazdik: but, but that’s a great risk to be closer in that attachment vulnerability.
Neil Robinson: But, but I think goes back some [00:55:00] people, it is easy to make friends.
You get your connections. You have the right people. You’re out there. You’re talking, you, you build friendship, let’s schedule stuff. Let’s do it. And some people are like. It is like pulling teeth. It is a purposeful thing. Oh yeah. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s amazing what some people have to go through with it.
And, um, yeah. And like I said, you just have to understand that some people it is harder and don’t get discouraged. But like you said, it’s like interviewing or going on dating. You start building that relationship. You gotta put your foot out there. You gotta put yourself out there sometimes. And be willing to say, hey.
I’m, I’m Neil. What’s your name? You know, there’s something
Chris Gazdik: we didn’t talk about at all at the show when we recorded it. And so here’s the again, bonus content in the thoughts about friendship. You just said dating. Well, we have dating apps, right? Do you know Bumble? Is that right? Bumble or Bumblebee? Bumble.
Bumble. Bumble. I was right the first time. Bumblebee app. That’s a Transformer. That’s where you find your besties. Yes. Oh, yes it is indeed. If you’re a girl. [00:56:00] Anyway. I got issues. I got lots of issues. No, no. There’s online apps to create friendships. Did you know much of that? Right? There’s also the concept in the very real reality.
Neil, you know the, the, the platform Discord. Yeah. There is a new… I think parents across the world have begun to realize that their kids aren’t crazy when they say they’re friends with Jimmy and Jimmy lives in another country. I,
Neil Robinson: I’ve seen videos of like this 12 year old who meets his friend that he met playing like Call of Duty or something, one of those, and they’re like best friends and they finally get to meet each other.
Yes. I mean, when you play video games, you’re on the head, headsets for like two or three hours a day or whatever it is. You actually build some friendships as you talk to them. Well, look
Chris Gazdik: at my son. Okay,
Adam Cloninger: what about him? Well, I mean, he’s, he made friends in like another state. And then him and his girlfriend both made friends in this other state, [00:57:00] and they moved to the other state.
To that state? Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Is that a fact? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: To that area where they had some relationships with people? I mean, it’s real. I mean, I’m gonna make a joke with a statement at the same time. I don’t mean to be offensive to, you know, our, our, our loved ones around, but, Okay, boomer. That’s the phrase, right?
Yeah, that’s you. No, I mean, whoa. Sorry. Oh, whoa. I have a Gen x baby. Let’s not put me in the boomer deal. Although with technology, I probably I can. You’re a boomer techie, a boomer techie. No, listen. It is legit that people are developing online, full blown, supportive, engaged contact outside of the purpose point definition of friendship.
And it blew my mind about 10 years ago when I had teenagers in therapy talking about this stuff. I’m like, your boyfriend is in new England and you’re in North
Adam Cloninger: Carolina.
Chris Gazdik: Like, what are you talking? [00:58:00]
Neil Robinson: About, I th I think the key to a lot of those relationships is as long as there’s like voice, conversations and video.
Yeah, exactly. I think ’cause that’s, that’s like you see a lot of them texting. You don’t get a lot of the stuff over social media. Like it’s not the same. But when you can do Discord and you can just say, Hey guys, let’s hop on this quick call. ’cause I had my kids with the neighbors across the street. Of course Becausecause, they wanna play video games and stuff, but they’ll, they’ll do a Discord call and they’ll all be talking instead of go next door
Well, they all have their own computers. You can’t bring it over. But I think, I think that. The ability now that people can kids feel comfortable like calling and talking to other kids versus just always texting is what makes that difference of actually having those friends that you want to move to because you actually literally can talk converse back and forth because even without the video just talking makes a huge difference and because there’s a lot of The phones and the texting stuff, I mean,
Chris Gazdik: the teenagers taught me this really and truly in, in, in therapy with them.
They taught me about how this really works and how this is a, a [00:59:00] reality. And I was skeptical, like about it for like hardcore for like a good five years, but it’s funny to hear your son, Adam. Cause he’s, I mean, he’s older, he’s not little, he’s, you know, it’s fair to say he’s in his twenties, right? You know, so he’s all grown up and he literally made these relationships and then ultimately moved to that area.
I mean, how cool is that for online friendships being, being real? But I mean, they’ll, they’ll click on their FaceTime and they’re sitting there watching movies together. You know, I mean, they’re, they’re like, yeah, I have
Adam Cloninger: parties and stuff. Yeah. I have a, I have a parent that was telling me
Chris Gazdik: that, uh, their daughter, you know, wants to remain connected to them.
And he’s like, yeah, we carry her around in the house. You know, like we’re preparing meals or cleaning the shelves or whatever. And she just, she’s studying and, but, you know, she wants to be connected and, and so they do that. I mean, they’re sharing this time together. I mean, I’m sure they’re interacting a little bit, but, um, online friendships are cool.
Not adequate as [01:00:00] exclusive. You need hugs. You need eye contact.
Adam Cloninger: He keeps asking about these verbals.
Neil Robinson: He’s looking for a bestie that’ll hug him. You need handshakes.
Adam Cloninger: No, it
Chris Gazdik: does. Dang, dude. Like, alright, I’m gonna be dysregulated here in a bit. But
Adam Cloninger: I think it’s. Done with
Neil Robinson: you people. It really does It does make a difference being in a room with someone, feeling their energy, their vibe, really knowing what’s going on.
You can still hide a lot behind a camera and a voice, but having that connection, like you said, that, that pat on the shoulder, that just being near, you know, as to having two teenage boys, you know, when they come and lean on, on Alicia, just for the attention, like she’s so excited just because, but they’re teenage boys.
It’s not. You just don’t get that as much. And so, but it makes a huge difference.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a very powerful difference. And I’m gonna tell a quick story to demonstrate that because it was a weird, weird moment that was like, wow. So as an insecure kid, not too far away from the divorce years, it was kind of like, you know, trying to find myself.
I didn’t really get grooving. [01:01:00] Until college, if I arguably ever got cool, which that’s a different story. But nevertheless, as a 16, 17 year old kid working in a restaurant, I was, I was pretty insecure at that time. And I’ll never forget just busing tables and, and, you know, doing the food and beverage business stuff, um, you know, whatever, hanging out.
There was one particular moment. There was this cool kid that I looked up to. He, his name was, oo, I think that was his nickname, smu. Now. He was a cool dude. Smoo was smooth. Smo was smooth, man. He was cool. . Yeah. Oo was smooth. He was a really cool dude. And I, I, I just, I looked up to him and I’m walking. In the hallway or towards the dining room to go bust a table or whatever.
And he was walking the other way and he stuck up his hand and, you know, he high fived me. Which is why I like to do high fives when people do on the show. Because it’s shmoo. Because it’s shmoo. It’s a shmoo five. But it was like such a powerful moment for me, seriously, at the time, [01:02:00] because it, it just felt like he acknowledged me being there.
He appreciated me being there. He was, he was encouraging me or supporting me or just whatever was in his brain, probably nothing. But to me, it was a big deal. And you just can’t get that online. That’s the point. And then he moved away the next week.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah, I’m just
Chris Gazdik: kidding. I don’t know. Joe moved away from you.
Yeah, no,
Neil Robinson: it, it does make you, I mean, you see the videos of the teachers who have special hands, handshakes for all their kids. It’s, there’s a connection. There’s, that, you are correct, that having that physical thing, you know, the sports, the, you know, high fiving at sports and all that stuff, you know, celebrating together, hugging when there’s, you know, sadness.
It’s a huge thing. Let
Chris Gazdik: me, let me show my manhood. I was like not comfortable when I was on second base playing baseball and the dude tapped my rear end. Oh, I,
Neil Robinson: I’ve never been okay with that. What is that? That’s always… Why is that a thing? As a wrestler, I just, I don’t get it either. It’s just weird. Like, why would the coach…
That’s what he
Chris Gazdik: did. He was this big dude. And I’m like on second base. I just hit a double.
And he’s like, boom. I’m like, whoa. This only happened to me one time in my life.
Neil Robinson: [01:03:00] Yeah. That’s, I never got that one in sports.
Chris Gazdik: Alright. Um, I made a conscious decision because our conversation was good and we didn’t really get into the friendship stuff and I wanted to cover some of those things.
So we did not do the diagnostic thing. But I think… I’m correct in saying the YouTube live. Yeah, I did not come up with a diagnosis in, in any way. So I’m not letting anybody down on the YouTube live. And I think that we covered a lot of good stuff. So how do we take us out of here, guys? What do you think?
Closing comments, bots,
crickets, dude, they like looked at each other on YouTube live and
Neil Robinson: like, I look at NBC. I want to give him a chance to talk first before I say, I mean, I think both think both topics are applicable to a lot in today’s society. So I think, I think it was great that we covered it. I love the. You know, we talked about, can you control our attraction a few months ago?
And this, the controlling your emotions was, I liked the way they talked about it. Dovetailed off. Yeah. And I liked the regulation. I think it’s important to [01:04:00] talk about friendships because like you said, in the world that we’re disconnected, friendships are super undervalued right now, but they’re so needed.
And so I think that’s very important. I, so I thought they were great topics. So good job, Chris.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I want to talk about friendship and I want to think a little bit more about different angles with this because it isn’t, I was frustrated if that’s why we did friendship concept because it occurred to me, we hadn’t talked about it.
I’m like, why are we not talking about this issue? It’s such an important part of, of mental
Adam Cloninger: health. I like your definition about friends.
Chris Gazdik: Contact outside of the purpose point. I like that. Yeah.
Adam Cloninger: If you really think about it, like, yeah, that actually is a really good definition.
Neil Robinson: When you make the point to actually hang out with someone when you don’t have to, you know?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. It’s not a forced audience at work or whatever. Yeah, sure, Adam. I care about you, man. Tell me all about all your troubles. Oh my god, this guy won’t shut up. You know, you’re afraid that that’s what they’re saying. But, uh, yeah, we need to get some different angles on friendship. If you have any [01:05:00] ideas out there, please let us know.
Give us contact at through a therapist eyes. com is a great way to tell us. What would you like to know about friendships more? Where do you think we’re lacking in talking about? And you know, like when friendships go bad, that’s like a topic. Oftentimes it goes, uh, people wonder about. I think
Neil Robinson: the one sided friendship that Victoria talked about, I would actually be intrigued by the difference between female and male friendships.
Because I feel like there’s a Ooh, that’s interesting. You’re making jokes about it tonight. Well, I’ve kind of, because I like talking to my wife and talking, and I
know I have a few groups and I have some people that I hang out with, and it’s just the dynamic of a bunch of guy friends versus a bunch of girlfriend, like it’s, I feel like there’s a lot of differences to it.
Chris Gazdik: That’s curious. That might be a good idea. Gendered. Issues with friendship. Yeah. Okay, cool deal. Well, listen, uh, I hope you enjoyed the october month in review and particularly some of the thoughts about the current events and stuff There’s a lot of thing going on out there in the world. Uh know that we’re with you in any way that we can be Um, let’s have human contact an appropriate and supportive way as [01:06:00] much as possible through whatever means pop, right?
Take care. We’ll see you next week