Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - I'm a High Functioning Mess...How About You？

00:00:00.440 Hey y'all. How you doing? Seriously, how are you doing? Like, for real. The real answer.

00:00:09.980 I asked you guys this in a substack last week, one of my over-the-influence substacks, and

00:00:16.800 people responded very honestly, saying, I'm not, I'm not okay. Or, I feel like I should

00:00:24.480 be okay. But, but, but, but I'm feeling pretty terrible lately. Or life is good, but also hard.

00:00:33.980 And that, that is so true. Because life is good. I love my life. But it is also hard. And there is

00:00:41.340 space for that. And I am anxious. I'm more anxious than I've been in a very long time. I think that

00:00:48.460 I'm more anxious than I've been since the start of the pandemic when I had a newborn baby and I

00:00:54.780 was stuck in my house with my husband and my two kids and we had no idea what the future held.

00:01:03.000 I know what is contributing to my anxiety and to what is starting to feel like depression.

00:01:10.840 I'm on social media all the time. I am. I am because I am a marketing monster for the Sicilian

00:01:17.760 inheritance. Pre-order it early and often, friends. Because of that, I am on Instagram and even the 0.99

00:01:25.160 TikTok constantly. And it's bad for my brain. I know that it's bad for my brain, and I need to

00:01:31.100 put the phone down. And I might be doing that in the next couple of weeks just to take care of

00:01:36.360 myself. That's what today's episode is about. It's about taking care of yourself. It's about

00:01:43.120 making the choice and saying, hey, I'm not all right. I do need help and I have to take care

00:01:50.140 of me. I have to put on my oxygen mask before I can take care of everyone else in my life

00:01:55.600 or this isn't gonna work. Today's guest is the author of Everyone But Myself.

00:02:04.980 Julie Chavez is an elementary school librarian and a mom of two boys. And when you are a working mom,

00:02:10.580 there is no time for debilitating anxiety. There's not. And the terrifying aftershocks of her first

00:02:18.360 panic attack left her grappling with questions about the causes of her mental health crisis

00:02:22.960 and where it was going to lead next. This book resonated with me so deeply. So deeply. And I know

00:02:32.840 that Julie's story is going to resonate with so many of you too. This is a hopeful and honest

00:02:38.100 account of love and loss and a husband who can't read your mind. Why can't they, by the way? Why

00:02:44.620 fucking can't they? It's about disastrous family outings and finding a new path and work and life 0.99

00:02:51.260 and friends and the joy of a well-lived life and how hard it is to sometimes enjoy that well-lived

00:02:59.540 life. So let's just get into it. I'm not totally fine. It's okay if you're not totally fine, but I

00:03:07.220 think we're all going to feel better after this episode. I'm Julie Chavez. I am an author,

00:03:15.920 writer, and librarian. I live in Northern California and I work in an elementary school.

00:03:22.620 I am very much your neighbor down the street, like just doing my thing with my kids. I have

00:03:28.340 two sons who are teenagers and had always wanted to write a book and so have sort of fallen into

00:03:34.780 this writing path in a really lovely way. But at my core, I'm just a lover of books. So I'm so

00:03:42.880 excited to be part of the club now for that. But in general, my day job is still just taking

00:03:49.280 elementary school library books and asking them to please take care of them a little bit better.

00:03:54.440 I feel very, very badly for the school librarian at Charlie's school because he just beats the 0.83

00:04:02.900 shit out of these library books and i feel and i try and it's because he loves them i don't know 0.86

00:04:09.540 how they still have dinosaur books that he hasn't read but he keeps finding them and he sleeps with 0.87

00:04:13.980 them and he loves them so hard but there's like there's nothing i can do about it so i'm sorry

00:04:19.640 i'm sorry to you and to all librarians please do not feel the need to apologize i support that sort

00:04:27.180 of love. And I will say, too, you know, I think we have some librarians in our district who don't

00:04:33.160 have kids and then some who do. So for some of the ones who don't yet have children, they will

00:04:38.200 say things like, how hard is it to get it back on time or to take care of it? And I think, oh,

00:04:42.400 actually, it's very difficult. Like you don't know what you don't know until you have children.

00:04:49.180 Truth. Truth, my friend. So that is a great intro into you. I love I love you're like,

00:04:54.260 i'm just your neighbor i'm just like that lady who lives across the street from you

00:04:58.360 um but you do have this this book out now called everyone but myself and i think it is such a raw

00:05:05.940 and honest account of what it is like to live with debilitating anxiety and so just kudos to

00:05:13.720 you for putting it all out there girl thank you friend i appreciate that and you i mean one of

00:05:22.080 the things you say very early on is that, look, you're busy. We're all busy. You're a mom. You're

00:05:28.640 an elementary school librarian. You didn't have time for debilitating anxiety. And so you just

00:05:36.080 kept taking care of everyone, everyone else, but you, like we always do. Talk to me about that.

00:05:44.980 Yeah, this is something that I really love talking about with people because I think it's so,

00:05:50.600 it's such an innocent trap. I never really thought of myself as someone who was

00:05:56.020 sort of trying to outperform my feelings, but that is exactly what I was doing. And I think

00:06:01.880 there is enough busyness in our lives as parents to make that possible. Like there are never ending

00:06:09.540 tasks. Every day is a moving target. Every day changes eight times in between, you know, waking

00:06:16.200 and 7.30 a.m. So this idea that you could just keep going until you can't go anymore. And for

00:06:24.000 people to know kind of the the crux of the book is that I went through a season of severe anxiety

00:06:32.820 and depression in 2018, and it happened on the heels of me caring for everyone but myself,

00:06:39.340 like we're talking about. And it was so I think the reason I tell people, hey, I'm your neighbor,

00:06:44.940 I'm someone you know is because it's important to know that this came on it came upon suddenly

00:06:51.680 I can see the breadcrumbs now obviously and that's what therapy is for and all of those

00:06:56.060 sort of hindsight uh insights that we can garner later so those are great but the problem for me

00:07:04.220 was that I really was just extremely busy getting burned out and I wasn't paying attention to

00:07:12.420 my own needs. But it wasn't something that, I don't know, it just came upon very suddenly.

00:07:18.460 I'm a person with a happy marriage. I have healthy children. I have resources. I have a job.

00:07:23.320 I mean, I have all of these things that on paper should sort of inoculate me against

00:07:27.640 falling into this mental health pit and not one of those things made a difference.

00:07:32.920 And then also seeing that I was so disconnected from myself, I'm kind of a natural optimist.

00:07:38.460 So to find myself in this anxious, horrible moment was a surprise.

00:07:43.820 So I think that's why when I talk about it, though, I want people to see it as a very human experience because it really was about the most human parts of me.

00:07:54.540 Of course it was. Of course it was.

00:07:56.620 And I think so many women and men, but I mean, let's be honest, most of our listeners, except for Nick Astor, my husband, are women.

00:08:06.040 um so many of course people so many people have gone through this so I want to start at the

00:08:12.880 beginning it's 2018 you're doing everything for everyone else again so relatable and like

00:08:21.740 when did you know that okay shit I've got I have to do something about this and I want to I want

00:08:29.700 to hear about the nitty-gritty I want to hear about you know the symptoms that come on that 0.98

00:08:33.980 are physical and the symptoms that are that are more mental and emotional, because I think those

00:08:39.300 are very different. I agree completely, and that's a really good question. So 20 it the story really

00:08:48.280 begins or kind of the piece of this story. It begins with my first major panic attack in 2018,

00:08:53.940 but the seeds of that were planted in 2017 because I had gone to have an immunotherapy shot. I have

00:09:01.340 terrible allergies. So do my kids. And so we were all getting these regular immunotherapy shots and

00:09:06.540 you go, you wait for a half an hour and then you go home because basically if you're going to have

00:09:11.680 a systemic reaction, it's typically within that first 30 minutes. So I went, we left and then I

00:09:17.800 had a systemic. So I went back, they had to give me epinephrine. They gave me prednisone, which

00:09:22.620 will really just mess up your mental state in a very effective way. And then I sort of found

00:09:29.920 myself so scared. I laid on the table having this epinephrine coursing through me and I was so

00:09:36.720 terrified of dying. And to me, dying meant abandoning my children. I feared for what

00:09:42.880 would happen for them if something happened to me. I just felt this intense need. And I think,

00:09:49.180 you know, as a mother of young children, that was extremely normal and valid, but I didn't have any

00:09:55.660 space for processing that. So I just put it in a little box and then I started working on all

00:10:00.020 these other to-do lists. So in the spring, the anxiety started slowly. So things would kind of

00:10:06.860 creep up. And basically, like if it's a graph, there were, you know, there would be a small blip

00:10:11.580 and then a slightly larger blip, but it was always enough that I could return to baseline.

00:10:16.460 So when I was feeling like that, you know, my heart rate would increase. I would feel hot.

00:10:21.460 a lot of times just feel that kind of buzzing feeling, but then it would subside and I could

00:10:27.760 sort of get back to normal. But then when I had the first panic attack, I had normal allergy

00:10:33.980 symptoms just out and about. And then I had this thought of what if I've messed up my system with

00:10:38.600 these shots and now I'm just going to die because I'm allergic to these stupid trees. And that was 1.00

00:10:44.620 enough. Mondo was out of town. He was traveling at the time a lot. And I came home and I couldn't

00:10:50.640 turn off the lights. I was shaky and again, hot, which was that sort of panic attack feeling.

00:10:59.360 But then the next day when I woke up, it was almost like I had entered into a different phase.

00:11:03.680 So I was cold and shivery. And I basically felt like I was electrified, like there was a low

00:11:11.640 current buzzing at all times. And the problem for me was that I couldn't pinpoint what was happening.

00:11:17.140 And it started to make me more and more stressed. And then as I started to reach out, you know, some of my first attempts didn't work, but that was really the crux of it. I think the way that I started describing it at the time was I had flipped a switch and I couldn't get it back in the off position. So I just felt terrified all the time.

00:11:37.800 and my mind did a lot of work to figure out what might be causing that and in doing that it was

00:11:45.880 like oh it could be that thing on your ring finger that's probably going to kill you it's probably

00:11:50.060 flesh-eating bacteria from the nail salon like i my brain just went into overtime of worst case

00:11:55.960 scenarios i mean i can relate so much because i have i have also gone through periods of

00:12:01.820 debilitating anxiety. And I've been on and off Zoloft for years now. I mean, since my early

00:12:11.240 thirties and I don't even know how old I am at this point. I'm 43. So for 13 years now,

00:12:18.840 for at least over a decade. And yeah, I mean, I, but when, when it first happened to me and

00:12:25.980 especially a decade ago, I feel like there was a lot less language around it and a lot more stigma.

00:12:33.480 So what happened next for you? What did you do? Did you keep trying to put this in a box or were

00:12:40.060 you like, this is out of the box. I'm fucked. This is so out of the box. 1.00

00:12:45.200 You know, I think it's so valuable. First, what you're saying about we didn't have as much

00:12:51.900 language about it. And this was even 2018, I feel like, which isn't that long ago. So thankfully,

00:12:58.860 I had enough. I went to therapy in high school, which was not common in 1995. But I had had a

00:13:05.520 period of depression during that time that looked very different. And a friend who had died. So

00:13:10.520 there were things I was working through at that time. And so I at least knew I need help. So I

00:13:17.660 was hopeful that it was going to be easy hope. So I was really like, okay, I'm just going to go.

00:13:22.820 It's probably my hormones. I was convinced that maybe there was a quick fix here. And I ended up

00:13:28.000 going to my gynecologist because after Nolan, my oldest son was born, I definitely had some

00:13:34.020 postpartum depression. I didn't medicate for it during the time, though I definitely could have.

00:13:38.100 I was so outside myself at that time. And luckily, my mom was able to kind of come back.

00:13:44.040 But it really was my gynecologist at the time who looked at Mondo while I'm just sitting here like a shell of a person in this postpartum appointment.

00:13:51.760 And she said to him, what are we going to do to get her help?

00:13:56.020 And it was this wonderful feeling of like, oh, the adults are going to take over.

00:13:59.960 Thank God.

00:14:01.340 So I think that rescue feeling, though, had stuck with me.

00:14:06.040 So I went to see my gynecologist and she told me to quit my job as the librarian.

00:14:12.060 and she even wrote me a permission slip for it and it was this bizarre experience where I you

00:14:19.380 know smiled and nodded and of course never went back but I took this permission slip from her and

00:14:24.860 thought this can't be the right answer but is it the right answer so I think that's where things

00:14:29.340 really got sticky for me because I realized at that moment I had no no conduit or no no sense

00:14:38.320 of what my gut was telling me. I just, I was totally disconnected from myself. So that started

00:14:43.900 a whole kind of new phase where I was questioning things all the time and ended up finally finding

00:14:51.120 a therapist, went to therapy, and then things went downhill because I had sort of opened up

00:14:56.120 enough of Pandora's box. So on Mother's Day of 2018, I was sitting in the tub sobbing and I

00:15:04.500 thought I'm sliding too far too fast so I went and saw my PA the next day thankfully he had a

00:15:10.880 beat on what was happening I started Zoloft my favorite SSRI of the day and it's my favorite

00:15:17.620 too I tried other ones that I don't yeah this Zoloft I mean I feel like Zoloft should just

00:15:22.120 sponsor my show and my life and like my book tour too maybe I'm like hey guys I mean I know that

00:15:28.320 you're always looking for ways to like reach a new audience like because I talk about you all the

00:15:33.360 time, Zoloft. 100%. I think there's really an opportunity there, and we've said it enough.

00:15:42.200 And I don't know if people know you have a book coming out, The Sicilian Inheritance. I just want

00:15:46.380 to make sure I put that in there for you. I think my audience is like, fuck you, Piazza. 1.00

00:15:51.620 They're like, we get it. We get it. We have pre-ordered. But if you haven't, 1.00

00:15:56.840 please pre-order The Sicilian Inheritance tonight.

00:15:58.880 your yep and get a lifetime subscription to over the influence when you thank you your proof thank

00:16:05.120 you thank you for saying it so i didn't have to yeah support support but also it is so good i'm

00:16:14.480 halfway through and literally when we finish this recording i'm gonna go read i am neglecting all

00:16:19.200 my responsibilities which is the mark of a good book so thank you sorry that was obviously oh i

00:16:26.060 am loving it. It's giving me just so many like it's it's so propulsive. It's so good. I'm I knew

00:16:32.780 I would like it. I am loving it. So I will look for it back. Thank you. Thank you. We are going

00:16:39.500 to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to dive more into this wonderful book

00:16:43.720 of yours, Everyone But Myself. Under the Influence is brought to you by Green Chef.

00:16:55.240 Green Chef is one of the ways that I'm trying to make life just a little bit easier

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00:18:49.840 Under the Influence is also sponsored by Etitude. I prioritize sleep. I prioritize sleep over a lot

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00:20:29.520 Happy sleeping, friends. It's time to get cozy.

00:20:32.720 and we are back so this started happening to you in 2018 and you got in touch with your PA

00:20:51.060 you ended up getting on the Zoloft at what point did you think hey I should write a book about this

00:20:57.840 yeah i you know it's it's really a funny it's such a funny stretch so basically it was a year

00:21:07.660 of time where once i got on the zoloft and i did want to say i know we were talking earlier just

00:21:13.780 about the debilitating part like i had when i was in the tub on mother's day i had reached a point

00:21:19.500 where i didn't care who knew that i wasn't well all all i wanted was to feel better because there

00:21:27.480 is nothing like that desperation and that feeling disconnected from yourself. So I think just when

00:21:34.840 I look back, the intensity of that experience is still with me. Thankfully, now it's with me in

00:21:41.980 more of like a, thank God I don't feel that way anymore. And sort of knowing we had some challenges

00:21:49.460 this year and I told Mondo at one point, you know, I know what the worst thing is. And the worst thing

00:21:54.840 is when I don't feel like me. And so if as long as I feel like me, I can handle whatever comes.

00:22:00.880 So that that has been a really good journey. But as to the book, I was with my principal. So I saw

00:22:09.560 her in that spring of 2018 and cried through my annual review. And she was very comforting and

00:22:17.820 such a good friend to me in that moment. And just such an example of how we can care for people when

00:22:24.560 they come to us just in their brokenness. And I'm so grateful for that. So then after a year

00:22:31.180 of therapy and meds and really making some intentional changes around our house and around

00:22:35.500 our life, I had my review again the same time. And I had been writing a blog since 2012. And

00:22:43.600 it was read basically by like my mom and my sister and a few random friends, including my

00:22:49.620 principal. And she had said to me years earlier, you should write a book. You're a really great

00:22:54.640 writer. And I said, I would love to write a book, but I just don't know what the story would be.

00:22:59.140 And so here we are in this meeting. And I said, Shay, that's her name. I said, Shay,

00:23:05.980 thank you for caring for me because I think that this is something that happens to a lot of women.

00:23:12.620 This is not just my story. And she said, well, that's what you should write your book about.

00:23:17.360 wow i love that i love this i like that that is we should all have that person in our lives i know

00:23:26.600 and so you you did say that you took these i'm going to back up i'm constantly like

00:23:33.320 rewinding i'm being like but go back to this you took some very intentional steps to change things

00:23:38.320 what were what were some of those

00:23:40.460 this is my favorite part of having the book out in the world because it's there are some

00:23:48.160 challenges to it as you know but i think my favorite part is talking about these things

00:23:53.600 because these are the changes and the lessons i learned and they still hold so the things that

00:23:59.440 we changed were well first of all i started talking about my feelings again what had happened

00:24:06.260 was I'm a very emotional person, but Mondo was traveling. I was at home. I took 30 hours of work

00:24:14.380 and popped it on top of the rest of our life and I managed everything at home. So then I bring in

00:24:20.800 this job after 10 years of only staying at home or not only, you know what I mean? Sorry. I was

00:24:26.380 totally, totally. But yeah, isn't it so, isn't it so interesting that that's the language that we

00:24:32.200 default to that we fall back on it is it totally is yes all of us everyone um i think that you know

00:24:41.640 no matter where you work inside or outside the home everyone kind of falls back on that language

00:24:47.340 and it seems so impossible to correct sometimes i agree completely so just trying to catch myself

00:24:55.600 with it but um so i go back to doing this other job yes doing this other job at school but i put

00:25:03.420 everything on and mondo was traveling constantly and what happens you know this is the the thing

00:25:08.540 is that i think the specificity of our lives can be very isolating so i have a traveling spouse

00:25:14.440 not everyone knows what that looks like just like if you're married to a doctor and they have weird

00:25:18.120 hours or you know everyone's life is very is very specific and your kids are x way and y way so

00:25:26.560 you're trying to figure everything out but basically Mondo was gone and being sort of a

00:25:32.000 practical person you know a lot of times he was in a different time zone and a million things happen

00:25:37.740 in one day with kids and people know this everything's changing but you know we get on

00:25:43.540 the phone at night and they'd be like how was your day good how was your day yeah great okay

00:25:47.600 when are you flying home tomorrow? I mean, we became just sort of logistical partners and we

00:25:52.840 are tight. Like I have a good friendship with my husband and even for us, that was a tricky thing.

00:25:58.420 So what I stopped doing was I stopped telling people when things were hard and he was the first

00:26:03.460 on that list. So one of the things I started doing was telling everyone about my feelings,

00:26:08.860 which was very disorienting for everyone for a little bit. But then it was really a reclamation

00:26:15.080 of, no, this is too much. I'm doing too much. I'm exhausted. Whatever the things were from the day

00:26:23.180 or this happened and it upset me or I'm, you know, I'm worried about our kids' future for

00:26:29.400 this many reasons because I think that's all baked into it too for moms. So I think getting

00:26:36.020 honest about that, obviously therapy was a huge safe place for me because it was like an hour of

00:26:41.680 self-indulgence. And I mean that as a positive thing because I needed to care for myself and

00:26:50.760 for me to go and talk to my therapist for an hour and not have to worry about whether I was being a 0.99

00:26:55.440 monster or turning into an asshole was a gift. So I think talking about my feelings, I started 0.99

00:27:02.040 drinking enough water and this was, it's such a simple thing, but what it was, was an attentiveness

00:27:09.240 to my physical needs. So I started exercising again. And I had, during the time kind of leading

00:27:16.760 up to the panic attack, I had been going to a Bar Method studio and then it closed. And that doesn't,

00:27:22.340 you know, that's not earth shattering material, but it was a big shift in my life. But I didn't

00:27:27.140 give space for that. So, so much started with paying attention. And then it extended out to

00:27:31.860 the kids where, you know, they, I taught them to do their own laundry. They started making their

00:27:36.980 own lunches where they were able to be independent. They were because it was really like, I now know

00:27:43.180 the cost of this self-neglect and it is very bad. So I think a lot of those things, it's really

00:27:50.800 informed how we talk to each other. So I think those are the main things that I really attended

00:27:57.060 to. And then over time that has developed into paying attention to how I'm feeling or giving

00:28:04.140 myself what i need i really it's a befriending of myself which shouldn't be hard to do but very much

00:28:09.460 is of course it is i think it's hard for i mean i'm just listening to you right now nodding i'm 0.97

00:28:16.760 going yep yep yep i wouldn't when nick travels i don't even talk to him anymore he's such a dick 0.53

00:28:25.080 because right but well because i'm you know he he actually he travels less now but starting when 0.68

00:28:32.280 B was really, really little. He was gone all the time. And when he traveled, life was hell. It was

00:28:39.620 so hard. And I had gone off Soloft when I was pregnant with B. And so, and, you know, then the

00:28:47.580 pandemic was like ramping up, but it hadn't happened. He was traveling before that. And I was

00:28:52.880 an anxious disaster. And he'd call and be like, hey, just checking in. I'm like, shut the fuck

00:28:57.880 up. I don't want to, I don't want, I'm not going to explain my day. I don't want to hear, I don't 0.99

00:29:01.660 want to I don't want to hear that you're having a nice happy hour and a karaoke party with your 0.99

00:29:04.620 fucking colleagues shut up um oh and it's hard to get out of that state so I'm just nodding along 0.99

00:29:13.760 with all of the things and everything you're saying to try to you know just shift things 1.00

00:29:20.020 to make life it's not even easier but to to make life better for you should be obvious

00:29:26.800 And it's so not obvious when you're in it.

00:29:32.420 You're exactly right.

00:29:33.820 And I think the thing about a spouse who travels, too, is that there's the physical distance and we can stay somewhat connected, but you really can't.

00:29:42.540 But I also find that to be true.

00:29:44.360 I think even when Mondo was home, I know that when the boys were little, the differences between our worlds were crazy making.

00:29:53.080 Because like you're saying, he went out to happy hour with his colleagues and people were barfing on me.

00:29:57.680 And I just was like, we can't, there's no middle ground here.

00:30:01.920 There's no middle ground here.

00:30:03.300 No, no, no, no, no, no, not at all.

00:30:05.160 But you made those changes and then, you know, and you started writing this book.

00:30:11.340 And what I think is incredible about this book and, you know, I think even this conversation is the writing it down and the saying it out loud.

00:30:22.020 because as women we don't do it enough and i hate to bring everything back to social media

00:30:29.440 but this is a podcast that is ostensibly about social media and but we don't show

00:30:35.920 but we but we don't show those parts of it and also anxiety is hard to show um a panic attack

00:30:44.680 is hard to show and we see so much perfection and not the other and not even the fixes either like

00:30:51.720 I'm not going to take a video of my kids learning to do their own laundry or putting their dishes in the sink, but books and words and conversations like this, I think so many women and mothers are going to see themselves in this and say, yes, me too, me too, me too.

00:31:07.100 there has been uh the early reception has felt very much like that so many people have said

00:31:16.320 this is my life get out of my head you're hey creep but it is it's because it's so it's so

00:31:23.460 universal because we really and a lot of it i think this is why i talk about it being a little

00:31:29.740 bit innocent because we love our lives and we love our people and we're grateful for them and

00:31:37.160 it's hard, but we don't have good language to encompass all that. I mean, what a privilege to

00:31:42.800 have kids that are healthy and wonderful and we can connect with. I mean, it's a miracle and I'm

00:31:50.600 so thankful for that. So to, you know, sort of drill it down to its, I don't know, its sort of

00:31:59.340 like banal things that are happening around it, it feels like I'm not doing it justice. So I think

00:32:05.100 there's that, how do you, how do we hold both of those at once? That this is a beautiful privilege

00:32:11.440 and it's also the hardest thing we will do. And I think trying to keep those together is something

00:32:19.180 I'm constantly working on. But I hope that to your point, that there is space for women to 1.00

00:32:27.260 had these conversations like I hope this is a book club book because I think that that's 0.85

00:32:31.640 the thing is that one of my co-workers read the book and she said to me I didn't know you were

00:32:36.200 going through that and I said yeah I'm aware I hid it very well but it also was until I didn't

00:32:42.020 of course and wrote a book about it but it was this idea that we are even people that are close

00:32:49.520 to us and in our orbits we we hide from that and I think some of it's fear and you know some of

00:32:55.420 it's we're trying to do our best. I don't know. It's a tricky one. So anything that opens up a

00:33:00.840 conversation to say, hey, I wasn't OK. And not only to stop with it's OK not to be OK. Yes,

00:33:07.800 that is true. But also we don't want to live that way. So how do I make small changes in my life

00:33:13.820 that actually support me and make sure that there's space for me in my life? Exactly, exactly.

00:33:20.540 and that is why I think everyone but myself should be a book club book because we need to

00:33:25.820 be having these conversations I I say all the time to my friends and my husband I'm like I

00:33:32.020 know for a fact that I present as someone who's got their shit together and I'm like I because I

00:33:39.140 you know I do I get things done no matter how much of a mess I am on the inside also none of 0.87

00:33:47.660 it is easy. And so I feel like my husband and friends often don't check in on me as much as

00:33:54.000 maybe I could use because they're like, you see, you're fine. You're totally fine. I'm like,

00:33:57.780 I'm actually not fine. I just want everyone to know, like, just maybe a check-in once in a while.

00:34:02.820 Hey, do you have too much on your plate? Are you doing too much? How can I support you? Or even

00:34:10.260 like, even at cheerleading, be like, hey, I'm really proud of you. Because I feel like

00:34:14.060 when you think that someone is performing well all the time they don't need to hear those things

00:34:19.460 and so I do feel like I'm reminding Nick I'm like yeah I think that you know I'm kind of a

00:34:25.520 high-functioning mess and I just want to remind you of that and I think a lot of us a lot of us

00:34:30.900 are kind of high-functioning messes so that yeah that's my long convoluted way of being like

00:34:35.880 we should all be talking about this book I love that phrase and I'm going to use that I am a

00:34:43.320 high-functioning mess for sure. And I think it's kind of the trick of being competent, right? Where

00:34:49.280 it reminds me of that Shel Silverstein poem where it says, maybe if you do the dishes and you drop

00:34:54.200 one on the floor, then maybe they won't let you do the dishes anymore. And so when you, yes. So

00:35:00.620 when you are, yeah, I think it's called dishes, but I think it all the time where I don't let

00:35:06.580 the plates drop at my own cost and then that's where you end up yeah it's like a trap of being

00:35:14.780 someone who can get things done but we need that sort of reassurance and support and I think with

00:35:21.560 your partner too that's something that Mondo and I have learned and in this time we really did where

00:35:26.260 you know we talk about it the mental load and all of these things but saying to him I need you to

00:35:31.120 manage this. And by manage it, I mean soup to nuts. You have to do this because I can't think

00:35:36.940 about it. Because a lot of times too, it's the, well, tell me how to help. And I'm like, see,

00:35:40.860 that's not helpful. That's unhelpful. I don't want to tell you what to do. I don't want to

00:35:44.600 tell you what to do. I mean, it is like, it is the same with housework and sex. Okay. I don't

00:35:50.380 want to tell you how to, how to, how to do it for me. And I don't want to tell you how to do it for

00:35:56.260 me. Okay. Housework and sex. Don't want to, I don't, I do not want to be your teacher. I want

00:36:02.700 to be your wife. It's so true though. That is, those are an excellent dovetail. And I also did 1.00

00:36:11.120 want to just ping on something you said, just with the social media piece. Someone asked me

00:36:15.500 an interesting question recently at one of my events. And she said, do you think if you had

00:36:21.260 seen more portraits of people, kind of a mess, high functioning messes on social media that you

00:36:25.680 would have avoided some of this? And the answer is no, because it was my it was my arrogance,

00:36:33.220 right? I would have scrolled right past that and been like, oh, I'm fine. I got this. Like it just

00:36:37.300 I think sometimes you have to be in a desperate place to to understand, you know, that we are all

00:36:44.220 this sort of human feeling. But then once you're there, there is a wonderful support of people.

00:36:50.620 So I'm so glad it's on social media, but so much comes back to you have to pay attention to what's working for you in your real life. And that might even be your relationship with social media. Like, where does it give you joy? Where does it suck from you? Like, what? And only you can know that. You know, I think that's one of the interesting things right now. We're trying to suss out, you know, what feels good and what doesn't. But that's an individual question.

00:37:16.420 right and how much is social media causing or adding to your anxiety which is a whole other

00:37:24.200 episode my friend it really is it really is your social media therapy episode and she was talking

00:37:30.920 about all of the clients talking about it i was like this is insane i can't believe it and yet

00:37:36.240 of course i can believe it right exactly exactly yeah no i mean it's again the things that we say

00:37:42.400 out loud. And this is how we change things and change our lives and change minds. And it's just

00:37:48.980 by talking, by having these kinds of conversations. So I'm just, I want this book, I want everyone but

00:37:55.220 myself to be a book club pick because of all the reasons we just said, but also because I just want

00:38:01.140 to read the beginning of chapter 10, which I love so much. Hold on. I'm flipping, I'm flipping

00:38:07.220 through all right when eli was in first grade his classmate trevor punched him in the stomach at

00:38:13.540 recess out of sight of the teacher trevor had been a turd all year i just love you for calling

00:38:20.560 a child a turd in this book i really do um because so many people's children are turds

00:38:30.340 And we don't, that's another thing we don't talk about enough in the world.

00:38:35.520 No, we do not.

00:38:37.360 And especially, here's the thing.

00:38:39.120 I work in an elementary school.

00:38:40.440 It is my job, part of my job that I see it, is to leave room for these kids to grow.

00:38:46.420 Was Trevor being a turd?

00:38:47.840 Absolutely.

00:38:48.660 Do I believe he will lead a turdish life?

00:38:50.440 I really hope not.

00:38:51.960 Maybe.

00:38:52.620 Maybe that.

00:38:53.140 That idea of like, yeah, but he might.

00:38:55.180 He might.

00:38:55.520 But this idea of, yeah, calling it like it is and saying, that was crappy.

00:39:00.340 because kids can be vicious vicious vicious totally so yes i mean many reasons to buy this

00:39:08.600 book but especially because you call trevor a turd and it's less i just love the word turd

00:39:15.660 because it's just so like i don't know it's so gently demeaning gently exactly exactly exactly

00:39:23.620 Like, tell tell everyone where they can find you.

00:39:29.660 Everyone can find me on, hey, Instagram.

00:39:33.260 I don't know if we've heard of that.

00:39:34.700 It's the only one I'm on currently with any sort of regularity.

00:39:38.620 But I'm on Instagram at Julie Writes Words.

00:39:41.880 That's Julie Writes Words.

00:39:44.020 I said it fast.

00:39:44.960 And then my website is JulieWritesWords.com.

00:39:48.140 And in general, that is where you'll find me.

00:39:52.600 And when I'm not there, I am sitting in the backyard with a book.

00:39:56.660 That's all we've got for today.

00:39:58.180 Thank you for being here and for listening and supporting this show.

00:40:01.600 If you love us, share us with a friend, leave us a review, go do something nice for yourself.

00:40:07.280 You deserve it.

00:40:22.600 Thank you.

00:40:52.600 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - February 08, 2024

I'm a High Functioning Mess...How About You？

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