- Welcome back to "Just Between Us."
Everyone loves this stuff.
We're on a couch.
Yes, we are.
Let's have a party.
I'm so embarrassed.
- Why, why did you do that?
- So, this week I thought we'd bring it back
to the mental health of it all.
I talk about one of my favorite subjects.
Which is emotional regulation.
- Go for it.
- What does emotional regulation mean to you?
- Oh my God.
It means not jumping to conclusions.
It means taking a second to slow down
when something happens and not reacting immediately.
It means thinking about the bigger picture of the situation.
I'm very pro it right now.
That's like my whole thing in my life right now.
And I think now I'm finding it hard
when other people aren't doing it to keep my mouth shut.
- Yeah, I mean, I hadn't even like heard that term
until a few years ago.
Which is kind of embarrassing
considering I considered myself a mental health advocate.
But yeah, I mean, it made,
learning how to emotionally regulate was like
there's like a clear line in like, my experience
of being a human being.
Because I used to just like live
in complete fear of my emotions
because I never knew like what would set me off.
Like if like, one bad thing, I could have a terrible day.
Like now I get to decide like, kind of like
how much I let something affect me and if I wanna deal
with it in that moment, or if I wanna deal with it later.
And I think that that's a really big thing is like,
it doesn't mean you don't feel emotions,
it just means that like you get to decide a bit more
like the intensity of those emotions.
And when you choose to process them.
- I mean, I think you would let,
like fears get away from you.
Like you would conjure up a situation
that you were scared of and then you would act
like that was happening, even though it wasn't.
- Yeah, and like, I would just like get so pissed off.
Like, I would just, like, I was like, so I would get so
annoyed and then like,
I would just be like rude to like my parents.
I would like, you know, like, I would like be bad to
like my partners.
Like, I just feel like now it's like
I can take a deep breath.
Like I can just, like, I don't,
like my frustration tolerance is better
unless I'm doing poorly mentally
and then everything's out the window, but.
- I'm just saying like
it's funny to have the awareness to fix that
when I look around me
and there are so many people who just seem,
seem to be, I wanna take that back, seem to be fine
just not doing that and just flying off the handle
and letting that run their lives.
But now that I'm thinking about it
I wonder if they're just in a prison of their own mind.
- Oh yeah.
I mean, not being able to emotionally regulate was horrible.
Because like, again, like I said,
like you just didn't know what the day would bring.
And like if something bad happened, it was like,
well there goes the next two weeks.
Like, you know, like.
- Yeah, yeah.
- I just also feel like I have learned how to calm myself
down in moments where I would maybe freak out in the past.
It's like, this is a necessarily example I've talked
about before, but like, sometimes it's hard
for me to get my contacts out.
- Yes.
- And in the past I would panic.
- Yep.
- That I like couldn't get my contacts out.
I'd be like, this is like
I'm going to like die with my contact still in me.
This is like so terrible.
Like, I'm gonna hurt my eye, like all this stuff.
But like, lately, like when I have that issue
I'm like, I try to like keep my body calm.
So like, I'm like I'm like cognizant
'cause like our body sends signals
to our mind and vice versa.
And so like, you know
like not like hunching up and freaking out
and like, and just being able to like, this is okay.
All the evidence suggests that in the past
I've every single day since I've been like 12
I've been able to get the contacts out of my eye.
- One of the reasons I don't wear contacts
is because I have had, when I started wearing them
two years ago, like, I wore them for like a month or so.
And as soon as it became difficult even one time
to get them out of my eye, I was like that's a no for me.
- It's scary.
- Absolute hard pass 'cause that's terrifying.
- Yeah, but like, I could just like, I'm like, okay
like I don't have to let the emotion
of this moment overpower me.
- Yeah, but I just wanna press that it is scary.
It is scary to not be able to take your contacts out.
It's very terrifying.
I don't wanna minimize that, it's very scary.
- Also, I used to get,
if I couldn't find an outfit that I liked,
it would ruin my mood.
- Oh yeah.
- Like, I would, like, I would beat myself up.
I was suddenly like the grossest,
ugliest person in the world.
I was never gonna find anything good.
Like, I'll start to feel myself starting to freak out
and I'm able to like self-soothe
to like keep it from getting out of control
and not be like, I like, won't even like,
let my brain go to where my brain used to go
when I couldn't find an outfit.
I just like, sort of just like stay in this like,
neutral zone in this way that I wasn't able to do before.
- Yeah, I mean, I think like,
well I was gonna say we both have body issues
or like just wanting to connect small things
to bigger things and then go to extremes.
So for example, being like, well I can't find an outfit.
Oh, I guess that means that I'm ugly.
I guess that means that no one will ever love
you know what I mean?
Like just, just instead of just being
like staying with like what is actually happening.
Like, and that's like, Alex has been really good
for helping me with that too, because I do go to extremes.
Like, I'll be like, I sideswiped my car.
That means I'm irresponsible.
It means I'll never be able to have any of the things
I want in life because I'm irresponsible.
But it's like, no.
Oh my God. You, did I send you the picture
of what happened with the mirror?
- No
- Mama, okay.
So I go to Drew's house 'cause she's moving.
She asked me to pick up some stuff for her.
This is when I could've really lost my mind.
So I go to Drew's house and she's got like
some stuff that I take for her and she's like
can you just put some of my furniture out on the curb?
I don't want it anymore.
One is like a bookshelf and one is a full length mirror.
So I'm like, you don't want this mirror?
And she's like, no, it's like not that expensive.
It's just like, but it was like cool looking.
So I was like, oh, I'm gonna take the mirror.
So I take the mirror, I live up a flight of stairs.
I unload the mirror, I bring it all the way up the stairs.
It's on solid ground.
So to this day, I have no idea what happened.
This happened yesterday.
- To this day in the last 24 hours.
- In the last 24 hours, I'm like,
I dunno what happened.
So it's on solid ground.
I turn around to open my door and I just,
it just, the mirror goes down the stairs
all the way down the stairs
shatters all the way down the stairs.
You'll see in the photo.
Shatters all the way down the stairs
and lands on the ground, makes the loudest noise.
And I just stare at it.
I stare at what has occurred.
I don't know how you clean up a mirror.
What are you supposed to do?
What, I what?
- Like a broom.
- Yeah, huge chunks of mirrors.
Where do you put it in a garbage bag?
I tried that.
It ripped the garbage bag.
- It did?
- Yes, so I, my neighbor,
- If you put it in like a garbage can?
Like a small garbage. - We put it in a bucket.
We ended up putting it in a bucket.
So my neighbor comes out from downstairs and from upstairs
two wonderful women named Victoria and Claire.
And they're both like, oh.
And they, I'm like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry,
I'm so sorry.
They come, they're like helping me.
- That's totally nice.
- They get like, don't worry, don't worry.
We're just glad you're okay.
They get like stuff, they get buckets
and other stuff and they're like helping me.
I get my dust buster, like, we're,
so it takes like, you know, I don't know, 20 minutes
we end up cleaning, cleaning it all up.
We figure out what to do.
Claire's like, no one ever taught me
in school how to clean up a broken mirror.
I was like, me neither.
And then I have the rot iron frame of the mirror.
So I'm like, I guess I'll just put this out on the curb.
So I put it out on the curb.
'cause I'm like, and people put stuff out
on the curb all the time.
Like, there's always stuff out there like that
people can take or the garbage can take, whatever.
So put it on the curb.
I'm like, this is still a really nice wrought iron frame.
Like, oh, well.
Like, and then I was like, well, the mirror wasn't
that expensive and it was free and I already
have a full length mirror.
So I guess, you know, I'm just kind of trying to walk
through like, I guess it's fine.
And it's not seven years of bad luck, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, I'm at Alex's.
I get home at 1:30 in the morning.
I pull into my driveway, into my spot
in the parking garage.
The mirror is in my spot.
- What?
- The mirror is in my spot.
- Someone put it there?
- The frame is in my spot facing me.
- Because it's haunted?
- It wasn't directly in front.
So how did they know it was mine?
How did they, why did they put it back?
- The mirror moved itself. it's haunted.
- It's fucking haunted, right?
- I don't even, no other evidence needed.
- I like took it and I put it in the dumpster
because I was like, I don't know,
if I come back from here and the fucking mirror
is back in my spot, I'm fucking, I'm moving.
- And I would say that that's actually a pretty
emotionally regulated reaction.
- Right?
- You're, you know, sometimes the correct answer
is to panic.
- And then Drew thought, Drew was like, wait
did it have the mirror back on it?
I was like, no, that would've been horrifying.
- No, that would've been really cool
because then, you know magic is real.
How do you feel like you've gotten better
at emotional regulation?
- It's like sadly, a touch of nihilism.
Where I go, well, nothing matters.
- I mean, honestly, sometimes that can help.
Like or not nothing matters
but that like this doesn't matter.
- Yeah.
- Like that I'll be okay.
- Am I alive?
Am I gonna be alive?
If it, what are the worst case scenarios?
I just know I'm like a bunch of bad things
have happened to me in a row.
Not including the mirror, but the mirror's part of it.
And I'm also being haunted by a mirror.
(both laugh) And you know how it goes.
You're gonna lose your health insurance.
Your ex is being crazy.
You're haunted by a mirror.
(both laughing)
The real R L Stein book of problems.
(both laughing)
- Yeah, a lot of times I'll tell myself I'm safe.
As this sort of mantra
- I'm not due to the mirror.
(both laughing)