- Hey everybody, I asked a lot of you on Instagram
if I should make another video like this,
because I had more stuff to say.
Oh my god, I'm already feeling like I'm gonna cry,
and my eye is twitching, which is also awesome.
But I think the thing that I wanted to talk about,
just to get it out there, maybe to validate,
hopefully, also it's just helpful for me,
is to talk about how things are shifting.
And I know a lot of people are excited
because things are reopening in certain states
and countries, but I still am worried.
And I think there's a couple of points to this.
So the first is, do I wanna go out?
Should I just wait a little bit
while everybody else goes out and see if we have
another wave of the coronavirus?
How is treatment coming along?
Is there a vaccine that's gonna happen?
All of that stuff still stresses me out,
hence why I think my eye is twitching.
And then the next thing is, I'm sad, so sad.
I don't know if you guys feel this way too,
but I feel like I'm constantly grieving
parts of life.
I love to travel, you guys know I travel
a lot for work, whether it's coming to speak,
like I was supposed to be speaking at OshKosh in Wisconsin,
and then I was supposed to be going
to the University of Denver I believe,
and both of those things were canceled.
And I love to meet you, I love to see you,
VidCon was canceled, and I don't know
if those things will ever come back.
I even bought tickets to go see George Strait,
'cause I'm a huge country music fan, if you don't know,
and that can't happen, and even if it does,
do I wanna be a part of it?
And so I think that's what makes me really sad
is I thrive on community, I thrive on connection,
and I don't know if that's going to exist
in the way that it used to.
And then I feel, again, kind of like I talked about before,
then I immediately feel like you shouldn't
be feeling this way.
A, you haven't gotten sick, B, you haven't lost someone
to the virus, who are you?
I'm also not a first responder or a frontline worker
in any way, and then that makes me feel bad.
And then I worry about the people in my life who are,
and it's this weird privileged, but yet still upset feeling.
And I don't know if that resonates with any of you,
but it's like how much grief can we handle at one time?
If you have been unfortunate enough
to lose someone to this, then how do we
grieve that as well as what our life is gonna look like?
'Cause Sean and I talk a lot about,
we still want to travel, still want to see you,
still want to do things, still want to explore
the world and different cultures.
And I'm like, how long 'til we can do that again,
and what does that look like?
And does that mean that I'm always
wearing gloves and a mask?
I honestly hate the masks, not because
I think they're stupid or anything like that,
but the thing that I enjoy the most
is smiles from strangers.
You know when you're walking into Starbucks,
or even on the street.
Just walking around now, Sean and I
have gone on a couple of walks,
very limited, we stay more than six feet
apart from everyone, we wear our masks.
But you can't even smile at strangers.
I am overtly like, "Hi," waving so that they don't,
I don't know, it's a weird, I don't know how
to passively engage with people,
which I think is an easy way.
I've talked about this when it comes to social anxiety,
a lot of my patients and viewers alike
who struggle with this, one of the first things
I have them do is I'm like, "I'd like you
"to make eye contact and smile at a stranger."
That's an easy door opening to connection,
and doing it safely without having to come up
with things to say, or worried about that.
And I feel like, for me, that's a huge way
that I connect with my community, in life.
And that's really bumming me out.
And then Sean's family lives in Canada,
how long 'til they open the borders?
When will we be able to see them?
And so, anyway, all of that to say
that I feel overwhelmed with grief.
And I know, I'd like to come on here
and be excited and be like, "Oh things are gonna open,
"and it's gonna be great," but I feel like I can't.
I can't.
And then it's sad, and then I'm really bummed out,
and I don't wanna be a downer,
because I think the therapist and creator in me
is just like, "No, let's come up with resources and tools."
But I'm kinda sick of that shit.
I'm kind of tired of people being like,
"Five ways to best manage your mornings."
I'm like, "Dude, sometimes I don't want to get out of bed,
"sometimes I'm super wiped.
"The thought of having to work on top of just
"managing being is enough, and overwhelming enough."
(sniffles)
Anyway, I don't know if you feel like that,
but that's sometimes how I feel.
And I feel like the thing that I'm hoping
to give you, because I'm trying to give it to myself,
is just permission to just be,
and to feel how you feel, to be sad
about what you feel sad about,
because our life is different.
And things never stay the same, thank god,
we can change, we can grow, we can adapt.
But I had, one of my Patreon live streams last month,
Raymond, who's a member of our community,
asked a question about adjustment disorder,
and it really made me think about the way
that we can think about this.
Sorry, I'm making, I'm a mess.
(sniffles)
Because in therapy, and in psychology,
we talk about how things can happen to us,
and within six months of something happening,
we can go through a period of time,
we call it adjustment disorder.
And I don't know the full diagnostic criteria
off the top of my head, and frankly my memory's
not what it used to be right now.
So you can look that up.
I have a whole video about it.
I'll link that in the description.
But it made me think about this a little bit differently,
because it's like we're all in this adjustment period,
and some of us will come out of this with PTSD symptoms,
because that's kinda part of that.
If we can't get back to normal and manage it,
it can lead to that.
And some of us might stay in it longer,
and I honestly don't even like to bring DSM into it,
because I feel like in situations like this,
worldwide pandemics, we don't know,
we don't have any past experience in our lifetimes
of dealing with this.
And so I don't wanna say, "Oh in six months,
"this should be better," or "In a year."
I don't really know.
And I think, I don't know that just gave me
a different frame to think of, hey this huge boulder's
been rolled through our town,
and we're just tryin' to figure out,
how do we stay safe from it?
And then how do we repair after?
And we don't have to have all the answers,
it's just one thing at a time.
But the one thing that has helped me,
and maybe this will help you too,
I know last time I talked about thought stopping
and how that's been beneficial,
but another thing is not running away
from the worry thoughts.
And I know that sounds like the opposite
of thought stopping, but what I really mean
is I find that I'll just zone out, immediately.
I can't be alone with my thoughts, I'll be on my phone,
Instagram, TikTok, all that stuff, all the time,
or I'll just zone into work, just as a way to distract.
And so instead of doing that,
I've been trying to allow myself to just feel it,
to be sad about it, to be sad that I won't be able
to see my friends and family like I'd like.
And I miss hugs from people, and conversations face-to-face.
I was talking with Sean about I'm sad
most about not being able to have dinner
and drinks with friends, out,
because how can you do that with a mask?
How are restaurants gonna work?
And who do you see and not see?
Are people takin' it seriously?
Do you get together with them?
What's the risk?
There's so many questions.
Do I maybe have it and I can pass it on
to an unknowing person?
There's just so much to worry about,
and I know I'm rambling, and I'm sorry.
I don't know if this is making any sense either.
That's how I felt last time.
Like, is this even making any sense?
But I think the overall message
is feel how you feel, it's okay.
If you're not feeling super excited about this, that's okay.
If you're feeling really angry, that's okay.
I think I've been feeling super grouchy.
In this last couple of weeks,
I've gone through these periods where
I'll feel like a toddler.
Sean will ask, "Hey, what do you want for dinner?"
And I'm like, "I don't want anything!
"I don't want anything in this house!
"I don't wanna do it, I don't wanna make it,
"I don't wanna clean it, I don't wanna."
I just don't want.
It's like the inner child of me is just mad
that I feel stuck, and I know everybody's like,
"Oh you're not stuck at home, you're safe at home."
I fuckin' know that, but I don't need
that to be rammed down my throat,
I just need to be able to be upset and sad,
'cause I think the anger, for me,
and I'd be interested to hear in the comments
what you think, but I think the anger, for me,
is actually hiding my sadness, and the grief
of what used to be, and how easy it was
to just show up at an event like a VidCon
where you have 30000 people there,
and be so excited to get to hug each and every one of you,
take pictures, meet people, and I don't know
if that's gonna go back to the way it was.
I don't know if those events will be able to continue.
I'm super grateful that I went to Playlist Live
at the very end of February, it was the last event
I was able to go to.
And I'm glad that I did, 'cause I at least
got to do that one last time.
Anyway, so I'm just sad.
And I think in all this rush to reopen,
and I know if any of you are hurting financially,
I am so sorry, I feel for you.
Also know that there's the Crisis Text line,
and BetterHelp, and Talkspace Online Therapy,
resources there for you.
I know it's a hard time.
Trust me, I'm not doin' my best either.
But we don't have to rush to feel better.
And I don't mean we should wallow in it,
'cause I've been, distraction has its place.
But I also think it's okay to feel,
and to talk honestly about it.
I'd encourage all of us to talk honestly about it.
While I love a good meme, and I share those
on Instagram all the time, but I think
that what I need now is real conversations
about how hard it is, and why we are angry,
why we are sad, why it is sometimes hard
to get out of bed, or it's hard to engage.
And I'm supposed to create, and that makes it even harder,
'cause I can't focus.
Like I said, I can't always remember the things
like I used to, and then I feel like I'm an idiot,
and then, you know, thought spirals.
And then I'm like, "No, no, we're doing our best."
So I just wanna tell you, you're doing your best,
and we're in it together.
Like I said, I wanna have all the answers,
but we've never dealt with anything like this.
I still don't know how to cope.
I just know tools that help with stress,
and anxiety, and I'm just trying to implement those.
I've been tryin' meditation, I'll release a video
about that soon.
But overall, it's okay to be where you are.
I think the connection has helped a little bit,
but I'm also kinda burnt out from Zoom
and stuff like that, just because it's just weird.
But we're in that adjustment period,
and I think we're gonna be in it for a while,
and so I'm just tryin' to figure out how
to grapple with that.
And I hope this makes some sense to some of you,
or is helpful in some way, because I don't know.
Everybody's like, "Oh we'll get back to normal."
And I don't know if we will.
I don't know if we will in the way that we think.
I think it's a new normal, and I'm still trying
to put together what that looks like.
And hopefully that includes a lot of community contact
in a way that's safe, and hopefully that includes
connection in one way or another,
and I don't know, new experiences, new adventures.
But I'm still trying to piece it together.
Yeah, anyway, that's where I'm at.
And I'd be interested where you're at.
Maybe I'm overreacting, that's possible.
I haven't really left my house in 50 days.
(laughs)
Which is just crazy.
I do enjoy the lack of needing to get dressed up
and stuff like that, and then in a way I miss it.
I'm like, "Man what I wouldn't give
"to have to get dressed up and be annoyed with it."
Is that weird too?
I miss the things I used to complain about.
I'm like, "Man, I'd like to be invited to something
"just to say I don't feel up to it."
(laughs) It's so stupid,
but there's nothing going on and it just feels weird.
And so, just trying to make sense of it,
figure out where this is going,
how I can best manage and adapt.
And I don't know if you guys like these videos,
if you're sick of these videos.
I don't wanna take up your time
just venting about my own stuff,
'cause that's not what this channel's all about.
But my hope is at the very least,
as I share along my own process and progress
that you can at least feel like it's okay
to be where you're at, it's okay to not be okay,
it's okay to still be trying to figure it out, grieve it.
'Cause I'm doin' it too.
Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments,
I loved hearing from you last time.
I hope you're well, I hope you're safe.
Stay home if you can.
I don't want that to outweigh your mental health,
but if you are able to stay safe and stay home,
please do that, because the more we do that,
the more we can manage this, until we enter
what our new normal is, until we have better treatments.
And a huge shout out and big hugs
to all of you who are delivering groceries,
working at grocery stores, are truck drivers,
all the people in the supply chain,
our first responders, our doctors, our nurses,
the people cleaning up the hospitals,
I'm so grateful to each and every one of you.
That's why I'm stayin' home.
But it's a lot, and I'm still processing.