Ask Mayim Anything #3: Sex & Love Addiction, Repressed Memories, ADHD and Imposter Syndrome

how do you move forward with your therapist when you get to a point where you feel like you have nothing to talk about welbury you have two choices figure out what you actually want to talk about that you're avoiding talking about or look for a new therapist and see if there's a different lens to what you're experiencing that you're more comfortable sharing with that therapist I don't mean to sound like a jerk but there's never nothing to talk about like if all else fails just pull out your first uncomfortable memory your first memory of not feeling listened to and if you had an amazing childhood that's fantastic but there's a reason that you went to therapy in the first place and I guess I'd be curious if there's something that you're nervous to talk about it may be unconscious it could be that a different style of therapy might be more helpful for you and most importantly talking to your therapist about not knowing what to talk about with your therapist will probably reveal a lot more than you even imagined and good Luck's breakdown she's going to break it down for you because you know she knows my ambiance breakdown is supported by athletic greens I use athletic greens literally every day why every day because I need to take care of myself every day I need to fill in all those gaps in my diet what's athletic greens well it's 75 high quality vitamins minerals Whole Food Source superfoods probiotics and adaptogens all in one scoop helps you start your day right it supports gut health your nervous system your immune system energy recovery focus it really really handles everything right now I am encouraging you to reclaim your health and get your immune system strong with convenient daily nutrition every single day you just put one scoop in a cup of water and that's it you don't need a million different pills and supplements in order to make your health a priority also athletic greens wants to make everything so easy for you they're going to give you a free one-year supply of vitamin D which is great for your immune system and five free travel packs when you purchase for the first time go to athleticreens.com breakdown again athletic greens.com breakdown take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance [Music] hi I'm Maya Bialik and welcome to my breakdown this is the place where we break things down so you don't have to we're doing something fun today I'm flying solo everyone it's time to ask mayem anything and anything is what you have asked me we have many many questions and I'm the kind of person like if you give me one question I will give you an hour lecture on it that's not what we're going to do today today we're gonna essentially try and cover as much ground as we can here are just some of the topics that we're going to cover today always ADHD misophonia what's that you know when people annoy you when they're chewing really loud it's called misophonia imposter syndrome taking news breaks what does it mean to be triggered borderline personality disorder is burnout a real thing why do I want to take my children's TVs away and should I sex and love addiction trauma and repressed memories and the hippie era I think you're going to want to tune in ask mom anything here let's get right to it first question how does ADHD look different in females rather than males Alexandra wants to know we actually went into this a little bit in the Jodie Sweetin episode so this is not going to be like hey watch this episode to answer your question but I do think that if you haven't seen the Jody Sweetin episode um you absolutely should check that out so boys generally are about three times more likely than girls to receive an ADHD diagnosis at least to my current knowledge or the current knowledge of research this isn't because boys necessarily are more genetically predisposed to ADHD although there may be differences in in males and females and how we're seeing it but what we know is that the symptoms in boys tend to be much more externalizing which are things that often get flagged earlier and therefore easier easier to diagnose so what are the things we think about impulsivity like acting out what we generally think of as hyper activity with girls what you'll often see is more internalizing behaviors being withdrawn having low self-esteem anxiety that might not present the same way as boys so um it's it's very interesting because the limitations are going to be very similar the challenges that that boys and girls present with may look the same but the diagnoses may be different and also there's a huge cultural component of how how we expect behavior from boys that in many cases we try and regulate differently than we do in girls so thank you Alexandra for that question this is a great lead into our next question Stephanie asks can caffeine help people with ADHD and Spectrum disorders I often hear caffeine can have a calming effect on people especially children who are hyperactive but science-based evidence seems weak well Stephanie sometimes science-based evidence is weak in this case here's the deal and I hope this does not sound like I'm being Captain Obvious the medications that are typically given for ADHD are stimulants which might sound kind of counter-intuitive because like ADHD it's like oh you're so sped up and you're so stimulated one of the issues with ADHD is an inability to filter meaning an inability to filter what's kind of valuable information meaning information you need to attend to and what's less important information so for someone like me I'm very very easily not just distracted but thrown off course by stimulus that comes into my brain and into my world that I'm not able to filter out effectively what caffeine does and what stimulants do that are used to treat ADHD is um they essentially help the system focus on less categories of things with the same importance meaning those drugs are meant to help you narrow your focus so if you've ever heard any of the either like jokes or you know stereotypes about when people take amphetamines like um narcotic amphetamines um you'll often hear like oh I you know like I re-tiled my roof last night or things like that it's not simply that those things give energy which you know amphetamines will um they allow for a very specific kind of focus there are many side effects to um those medications especially for children and caffeine itself is a drug and an addictive one at that so especially for young developing Minds um many people do use caffeine to focus like that and to give them that kind of specific boost of energy but it is not a coincidence so thank you Stephanie Gloria asks please break down misophonia well Gloria this took a little research on Valerie and my part because misophonia is kind of a funny one uh it is a disorder in which certain sounds trigger emotional or physiological responses that some people might perceive as unreasonable so if you've ever heard someone say that a certain sound drives them crazy and they're not just kind of speaking colloquially like oh it drives me crazy there are people for whom certain sounds make them feel a level of discomfort that feels unbearable to them I've known people with misophonia and it often looks like extreme irritability from a certain sound meaning some people might be driven crazy to the point of irritability by someone like me who's constantly like tapping something or moving my leg or um chewing with my mouth open I'm told I do that and it makes people crazy so the issue is not simply that someone's like oh I don't like that or that's annoying there's a a physiological response and an emotional response that goes with having to hear those kind of sounds it's often repetitive sounds uh finger tapping keyboard tapping I'm also a very loud type I sound like an annoying person that anyone would be annoyed by but especially people with misophonia have spoken to me about this and you you sometimes will find misophonia in other syndromes there's comorbidity as we call it obsessive-compulsive personality disorder which is different than obsessive-compulsive disorder people with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder um I've experienced anecdotally a lot of comorbidity with that a mild reaction to this would be like that's annoying or like that's disgusting or the urge to flee which I think is just Valerie and my Memoir title together we're going to write a book called the urge to flee um severe symptoms or severe reactions that you would find in people with misophony would be really rage like like um Panic it can even cause some fear in terms of treatment for misophonia um there are ways to try and desensitize yourself to certain sounds um a lot of people either find ASMR helpful or not helpful really is going to depend on kind of what floats your misophony about anything in general that lowers anxiety is gonna um probably in in many cases be helpful if you have misophonia and now that I know that people have misophonia I do try and be more sensitive to how I behave um around them because I am a person that does create a lot of repetitive sounds and for that I apologize to people with misophonia Poe asks please discuss mental health under severe political pressure what are some tips for combating excessive bad news and feelings of sadness anger and hopelessness especially for those who don't have access to therapy this is an enormously complicated question and the answer is really beyond the scope of what I can even imagine to cover because I'm experiencing this in particular and it's really the reason that Jonathan and I started this podcast was because our mental health was taking a hit largely because of political pressure and what was going on with covid and you know a lot of misinformation you know this is one of those things that for me um I'm not proud of it I have really had to go on a variety of news breaks and um you know I think it's important for people to hear that if you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the state of Politics the state of the world the state of the environment that's normal it's normal to feel distressed when there are so many distressing things in the news especially if you're listening in the United States um there there have been many many weeks um you know of this year Alone um with shootings it's very intense it's very I would be worried if if you weren't feeling you know um sad angry hopeless while I wish I had more resilience I I have done enough experiments to know that I do need to take news breaks obviously I need to know what's going on in the world to to whatever extent is is appropriate for me or my lifestyle and I hope that would be true for you as well but I'd like to encourage people not to White Knuckle it through do not think that trying to tough it out or feeling that you will be desensitized by repeatedly exposing yourself to upsetting news that that will necessarily make it better it really just depends on who you are what your temperament's like and it is okay to be sensitive I also highly recommend listening to the episode we did with Barry Weiss you know Barry Weiss is a person who's really taken taken the news very seriously left a prestigious job at the New York Times to start her own um her own forum for media and honestly I find it a lot gentler on my mental health it's really placed in I think a very healthy context and so be careful where you get your news I also you know have had to go on strike just from sort of like popular celebrity news and gossip news and things like that um because for me I'm like a compare and despair person and so that's just me like piling on complexity to um to what I see so you know I think being an acceptance of your sensitivity is really helpful and not trying to White Knuckle it through Miami Arts breakdown is supported by Helix sleep I've had my Helix for a couple years now and it has made a huge difference in my sleep and my mood because I'm sleeping better Jonathan also has a helix my kids have Helix mattresses Helix sleep is a premium mattress brand that provides tailored mattresses based on your unique sleep preferences they have 14 unique mattresses including luxury models a mattress for Big and Tall sleepers and even a mattress made just for kids but of course my children like adult ones I took the Sleep quiz I'm a midnight mattress person I like it kind of firm but not too much and I sleep all the ways Jonathan was matched with the Twilight our mattresses are really a major upgrade from our last ones Helix is offering up to 20 off all mattress orders and two free awesome pillows for our listeners go to helixsleep.com breakdown this is their best offer yet it won't last long with Helix better sleep starts now my ambiotics breakdown is supported by better help I learned new things about myself all the time and guess where those things happen in therapy Getting to Know Yourself is a lifelong process especially because we're always growing and changing and therapy is about deepening self-awareness and understanding of yourself sometimes we don't know what we want or why we're reacting the way we do until we can talk things through better help can connect you with a licensed therapist who can take you on that journey of self-discovery from wherever you're at my experience with therapy is that I never want to live without it I used to be like oh I'll go for a little bit or I don't need to go guess what I'm a lifer and I've come to be really comfortable with that because I always want to learn about myself if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule you just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch at any time for no charge discover your potential with better help visit betterhelp.com break today to get 10 off your first month that's betterhelp help dot com slash break [Music] omkar asks do you have any advice for gaining confidence at work while combating anxiety and imposter syndrome oh man no sorry I shouldn't say no yes but I've actually been experiencing this in a lot of regions of my life you know I I was um a child actor and then I went to grad school and I went to even my undergrad people were like oh but you're an actress why are you here and um I know that's a very specific example but I think we all have those experiences of feeling like what am I doing here do I deserve to be here is it right to be here if there's so many other people who can do this better why me why am I trying to do this um you know I've talked a lot here about that science did not come easily to me you know I started studying science and trying to even make up math requirements in my my teen years and really even into my time at UCLA um and college was not easy and and grad school was not easy for me and you know then I went back to acting and then it's like well you have a PhD in Neuroscience why are you here so I definitely I've experienced a lot of this and I'm not trying to make it about me I'm trying to give examples of things that at many levels of life we experience do I belong here and you know it's an existential question that will find you wherever you are here are seven strategies that I'm gonna drop in here this is adapted from the American Psychological Association learn facts think about the facts the objective facts that support you being wherever you're at number two share your feelings make sure to share these kinds of feelings because hearing from someone else who can be kind and gentle with you is a very important part of not sinking into for me what can be a lot of Despair number three celebrate your successes this is not a small thing many of us think that if we celebrate our successes we're being egotistical or um yeah too proud but it's important to balance that out and it can go a long way towards combating those those kind of feelings number four let go of perfectionism many people who have imposter syndrome or dealing with these kind of feelings feel that they have to do everything perfect and everything right um also a really strong um emphasis in Western culture in particular so not surprising number five cultivate self-compassion use mindfulness shift from an external locus of self-worth to an internal one highly recommend meditation apps that are about self-love self-appreciation number six share your failures with a trusted group or other trusted individuals it's okay to not get things right it's okay to mess up I do it all the time and number seven acceptance find find a way to appreciate progress and not perfection Elizabeth asks can you break down hoarding and its recovery process hoarding is a tricky one hoarding is something that we often see for those who are diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder actually one of my features of my OCD is hoarding there are many levels of hoarding there's you know literally mild medium and maximum hoarding and um hoarding has a lot of different purposes and so when you talk about recovery it's really important to understand what purposes that hoarding serves some people hoard what are called useless objects I find that offensive as someone with OCD who does horde useless objects because I think useless is very arbitrary but there are people who hoard objects that don't otherwise serve a purpose when I was a kid my my father of blessed memory would we would go for walks and often in the rain we would take fun rain walks and I lived in you know a part of Los Angeles that had alleys and we would walk in the alleys because sometimes you'd find like little trinkets or you'd find change and so I grew up as like a little bit of a like it was fun it was like a scavenger hunt you know and that's just it's a part it was a part of my dad's personality it was a part of my personality some people will heard things to feel safe to feel comfortable and um the way that you really can tell if you're hoarding or just like to collect things is to try and get rid of them if you have not read the um life-changing magic of tidying up that's the Marie condo book it's very very interesting and if you try and do the things that she recommends you will quickly be able to tell if you are collecting or hoarding and there's a lot of Shame associated with hoarding and um there's a lot for some people about cleanliness and hoarding so it's often something that we see in in other Arenas as well I do not recommend trying to stop being a hoarder on your own because the feelings that come up and the discomfort that comes up when asked to part with things that you have hoarded for a kind of clinically significant reason can be scary can be really scary and uncomfortable so this is something that is important to analyze and and bring up with with a professional many things that I thought were collections actually turned out to be things that I was hoarding and um I have undergone kind of various stages of a a process of coming more to terms with my hoarding um and it's it's much more manageable I would say very organized about it and you if you haven't followed me on Tick Tock you probably should if you'd like to see some of my my special collection foreign the difference between being triggered and feeling confronted challenged or uncomfortable Julie I love this question kind of wish I could talk to you Julie because I'm so curious you know um where your your curiosity comes from so I'm curious about your curiosity triggered is one of these terms that we're hearing so much um we we are definitely hearing it more in the vernacular and it's powerful and when I think about the difference between saying to someone I don't like that you said that and you're triggering me it has a really specific purpose that I think in many cases is very useful in mental health terms a trigger is something that affects your emotional state significantly by causing extreme overwhelm or distress a trigger affects your ability to remain present it may bring up specific thought patterns it can influence your behavior in in many cases triggers can stimulate trauma so this is one of those words in one of these phrases that as an annoying neuroscientist I like to be really really careful about because things can be annoying things can be challenging you cannot like things but when we talk about triggers it's a very specific thing that that we're talking about triggers just for point of reference they can be internal they can be external absolutely specific phrases um odors or sounds can trigger people especially people who have experienced trauma um substance use disorders often involve triggers and there's a lot of really interesting research that I remember learning about when I was in grad school about the kinds of things that surround drug use are often more significant than the drug themselves the the social environment the rituals involved with many kinds of drug use can kind of serve as triggers of sort and being around those situations can trigger specific Cravings so very very interesting and um you know as always tread lightly when using the term triggered Fiona asks can you please break down the Neuroscience behind borderline personality disorder what are the physical differences in affected brains versus neurotypical brains Borderline Personality Disorder so um some people just call it borderline but not to be confused with the term borderline borderline personality disorder involves um an intense fear of abandonment uh with people often going to Extreme Measures to avoid real or imagined separation or rejection what does that look like a lot of difficulty maintaining relationships a lot of difficulty maintaining friendships a lot of difficulty maintaining work relationships or jobs pattern of unstable intense relationships meaning not intense relationships that are unstable but a pattern of relationships that are both unstable and intense idealizing someone and then turning around and believing that they don't care the angel devil syndrome happens a lot for those with borderline personality disorder also rapid changes in self-identity and self-image you'll often alcoholism is not unusual but obviously it's not unusual in a lot of places but often people with borderline personality disorder will have drug problems or binge eating spending happens a lot you know trouble managing money will often happen impulsive behavior risky Behavior you will often see wide mood swings usually because of all the changes in relationships and things like that um and what I'd love to to say Fiona and anyone else who's interested in borderline personality disorder you can have a lot of these things and not have borderline personality disorder um these are umbrella terms that that categorize very very generally but um that is a very specific portrait um how is borderline personality disorder different from like oh say bipolar disorder um you're not going to get those kind of large swings between depression and Mania you may but that wouldn't be specifically from borderline personality disorder in particular um but I definitely think that those kind of Hallmarks are a pattern of unstable intense relationships um and that kind of angel devil that fragmenting that people often do very very complicated disorder in terms of physiological differences regions that may be implicated or the amygdala which is you know the center of the brain associated with kind of fear um and and that sort of ragey fear hippocampus which is interesting um the hippocampus is um usually placement placing things in space and it's it's an interesting um an interesting region of the brain to have in continuous hyperarousal in some examples cortisol is the hormone of stress and so that's often um you often will see abnormal levels of cortisol for people with borderline personality disorder that kind of means everything's overwhelming I'm a person who has cortisol issues interesting but I don't have borderline personality disorder at least not that I know of um and prefrontal cortex is implicated in borderline personality disorder because that's impulse control and so that is a region that you're going to see different in those with BPD Rebecca with a kah asks how can indoor mold poisoning and mycotoxins affect physical mental and emotional health Rebecca this is a great question this is something that used to be kind of reserved kind of in um in hushed circles you know we we holistic hippies used to talk about this and then you'd see a case in the news about like mold taking over someone's house or life or health and it is something that people are talking about a lot more many of the symptoms that we now know can be attributed to mold toxicity in particular um they're often misdiagnosed so autoimmune disorders there are many autoimmune Specialists who believe and there is research to support this I can't say to to what extent there's absolutely research to support um the fact that autoimmune disorders are um in many cases impacted significantly it's a it's a bold thing for me to say like mold causes fibromyalgia because I don't think it's that simple but um for those of us with autoimmune disorders and I do have one myself this is an arena that many um holistic and kind of naturopathic doctors will look to to see if mold is a thing um I will say I had one one instance in my life when my kids were little when um we had a window in our home that I did not know had molded it was behind a curtain that was always closed and we had very very specific symptoms I was divorced so it only happened at my house and I couldn't figure out what was happening and my fear was that I was causing it meaning that like there was something emotional happening that was giving my children this reaction and literally it was mold so um there are sometimes easy ways to fix mold in that case we removed the window there are certain people who are more sensitive to mold I love to use myself as an example for many things you know when you collect food on the counter because then you're going to compost it later there are certain people who within often hours or a day will start having intense allergic symptoms and um I did not know that this doesn't happen to everyone so if I have produce my throat would start itching like from the inside out in a way that like you couldn't even satisfy the itch and it turned out I am a person who's very very sensitive to the mold that grows like on fruit and vegetables like that when you know even when they're in a covered container so when I think about that I think about all the other ways that our bodies are sensitive and for those of us with autoimmune conditions um we are in many cases more more susceptible to allergic reactions like that Lauren asks bipolar disorder great question mood swings can be part of bipolar disorder so not everyone who has mood swings has bipolar disorder but most people who have bipolar disorder will have mood swings so mood swings are changes in the mood meaning anytime that you are aware that you feel like you're literally swinging from one extreme to the next a lot of that happens and it doesn't mean you're bipolar if you've ever been a teenager you know that mood swings happen and those are often a result of of hormonal fluctuations many of which are just organic and um you know for me when I'm in a hormonal stage of Life be it monthly or you know in different phases of life especially for women you can find yourself having a lot more mood swings but bipolar disorders is going to have a period of of depression and Mania that are alternating with a particular frequency um great question though really great question Sarah asks what's happening in our brain when we're dealing with burnout I'm starting to come back to life after a long stretch of burnout my brain is sharper clearer and more creative my brain also feels more synchronized with my body well first of all Sarah that sounds amazing you know burnout is um a chronic stressful state that starts to blunt your ability to deal with kind of normal stressors in life which means that if you're in a position to recover or be in a recovery phase after burnout it means that you've allowed a lot of your body and brain systems to kind of reboot and you know in sort of kind of human terms what it means is you've given you've given yourself the rest that it needed so that you can return um feeling sharper clearer and more creative I would like to say Sarah that that's the way I always would like you to feel and I I know for anyone who's who has experienced burnout it can also feel like that's Eternal like you're always going to be there um but being able to um allow rest and Recovery is um really the gift that you give your system so that it can come back stronger as it were Nicole asks a fantastic question I want to make a radical change in my household and get rid of all TVs Jessica I'm scared of my two kids reactions five and eight-year-old boys they're gonna be so mad any advice on transitioning or how to handle resistance should I discuss it first or just do it just do it Nicole no I have no idea what's right for you Nicole what I will say is children are allowed to have opinions children are not allowed to in my opinion be the adults in the situation meaning I would say the radical change may be extremely challenging you may want to think about modifications I don't know what's right for your house like if you know that you want to get rid of all TVs you don't need permission to do it you're the grown-up and you can do it I do think a discussion is important and I think you really want to be careful about finding things to replace what that TV stood for and the reason that I can't weigh in is I'm not a therapist I don't know you if you have a family that is structured around the television for example it's on in the morning the kids watch throughout the day they get to watch right after they come home from school they watch all night till they go to bed that's going to be really interesting to just cut them off cold turkey and depending on your situation sometimes a family therapist even a consult with a family therapist might might be helpful in assessing what's right for you generally speaking my My Philosophy just for me as a mom is you get to do what's right for your kids they may not like it they may protest if you find that they're in a state of anxiety or misery I would say that it's an indication that more needs to be explored in terms of what what the television meant for them what sugar meant for them I mean what any number of things meant for them and I think also you want to be really clear on what your motivations are so is it that we want more family time we want more time to get exercise I'm tired of my children's eyes glazing over and ignoring me it's a great reason um but I also would maybe have you do a little bit of soul searching to find out what that radical change is for meaning is limiting or setting some healthy boundaries around it something that might be reasonable for your family um but again if you know that you are done with television and would like to live a life without television yes you're gonna get a lot of resistance I recommend adventures in gentle discipline which is a really wonderful book about sort of how to tackle these kinds of things with confidence and compassion [Music] breakdown is supported by ritual the limit does not exist neither does the perfect diet so ritual is here to help you fill those gaps they know it's really impossible to get all the nutrients you need from your diet a hundred percent of the time so they've made a multivitamin that helps you focus on what's important I love that it is easy and painless to incorporate ritual 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something that's a real goal of mine is to be an authentic person and by extension to raise children who feel like they're living an authentic existence what that means is like or at least what it means to me and I hope whoever asked this question agrees the notion that I would like I would like to raise children who feel confident expressing their needs comfortable having needs even if it makes other people uncomfortable and a sense of understanding their place in the world exactly as they are one book that I do recommend is um kind of a classic in this Arena raising your spirited child so this is especially appropriate when you talk about authentic children this is often brought up with kids who might seem Intense or sensitive children who seem to be very perceptive or persistent or energetic or in many cases difficult as diagnosed by other people so this is a book that I really recommend um some people are like oh that's a strong-willed Child instead of my child is so difficult um this this book raising your spirited child by Mary Sheedy kersinka is a really great place to start understanding your child's temperamental traits and also yours sometimes you'll get a child who's kind of a mismatch with their parents not in a negative way but if you're a person for example who's very introverted and you get a child who's an extreme extrovert that can seem really challenging or if you're a person that considers yourself very mellow and easy going and you have a kid that Tantrums a lot or that has a lot of emotional challenges that can be a difficult match and this book is really helpful especially for that a lot of kids who are sensitive or even living kind of an authentic existence they'll often have power struggles in in ways that other kids don't and this book is just a really great way to learn kind of how to handle that if it looks like Tantrums or it's a lot of ways power struggles can present with spirited children in particular Aloma asks what are some ways to cope with anxiety and fear of getting it wrong as you become a first-time mom oh hello um I mean part of it is you know we've talked um when we often talk to people who work a program here we have guests who have worked a 12-step program awareness acceptance and action many people feel anxious or um fear that they're doing something wrong so they try and like fix it uh act different do contrary action and like do the opposite of what you think because then no one will know that I'm anxious if I pretend that I'm not um but what that middle A is for awareness acceptance action is trying to be an acceptance that you're gonna get it wrong and even the the Notions of there being a right and wrong in parenting is for me a little bit like being a good or bad mom it's not that simple and it's not that binary so in terms of coping with the anxiety and fear coping with anxiety and fear is something you're going to do around every region of your life but in particular having that awareness being an acceptance that you don't have to do it right for me that alleviated a lot of anxiety and the more that I can do to care for my own mental health the better I am able to manage what is I think a normal anxiety of being a parent and fear of of getting it wrong another thing that I've found because I do get it wrong a lot is admitting that you get it wrong to your children which sounds like oh then they're not going to trust me they're going to think they're in charge I I have actually found it to work in the exact opposite direction when I'm authentic with my kids when I'm able to say I got that wrong or I don't know what to do it takes the pressure off me because it's not that I'm coming down to their level as like I don't [ __ ] know what it is is it's saying we're all figuring this out together and it takes all of us to get it right I think that's the other thing um I definitely don't think of my children as my friends they are my children and I'm their mom but I do want them to feel like we're on the same team and that team is our family and the notion of being anxious and fearful often leads to me trying to show them like I'll show them like look I'm in control I'll show them I'll make it strict I'll make it uncomfortable I'll punish you know and that's something that doesn't go away my kids are 14 and 17 and it doesn't go away but the more that you can kind of come to terms with the fact that you're not not gonna you don't have to get it right and they're gonna be okay I think the easier it will be Aggie how does sleep deprivation impact new parents horribly what are your tips for improving sleep as a new parent I have none so sleep deprivation is a real thing one of the things that that women who are pregnant um report in the third trimester is a lot of difficulty sleeping part of that is physical because like you literally like cannot move your whale of a body if you're like me and become a small whale when pregnant um but what I like to remind people is that to actually practice it can be used as practice the third trimester is not a time to plan to get rest because what's going to happen next is you're going to have a newborn mammal and here's the thing about newborn mammals they don't know when it's day and night that lasts usually a month or so and even when they do learn what day and night is um you know mammals are used to being fed their mother's milk which is metabolized about every two hours which is about when the hormones of connection bonding and attachment need to be refreshed so before you think like I don't breastfeed it's not about breastfeeding it's not about breastfeeding what I'm saying is that the mammal brain the mammalian brain the mammalian body is primed to be in contact with a caregiver approximately every two hours 24 hours a day you are welcome to say that you don't want that um babies don't care toddlers also don't care but many people do follow sleep training protocols which whatever works for you is what works for you I can speak for what worked for me and what you know I think neuro embryology and and kind of the attachment philosophy believes which is that sleep deprivation is a very very unpleasant and a normal part of the first you know um six months to four years of a child's life but what I will also remind people is that the thing about mammals is we were not designed for a man mammal and a lady mammal to live in a house by themselves and sleep deprivation was something that was managed for you know most of primate history very differently and if you look at how other primates live and parent you know the life of a new mom a mammal mom is is cared for intensely particularly by other women in the community and often other people would nurse your child so while we don't do that I mean some people I guess still live in communities where people often do share you know nursing um responsibility sleep deprivation is horrible it makes you grumpy it can make you feel nauseous if you're a person who really likes sleep I can just let you know right now that that's not going to mix well with a mammal newborn and it's very unpleasant one of my main tips which you know took I'd say the better part of the first year of my life as a new mom was to turn the clock around because my obsession and fixation with how little sleep I was getting actually became more of a problem than the fact that I was not getting a lot of sleep and that is just a testament to the human brain and uh the set of human emotions surrounding especially being a new parent so in terms of improving sleep as a new parent minimize your social activities minimize your desire to return to a life that looks like it was before you had children and I don't mean your life is over being a parent is super freaking awesome but you likely while meeting a child's needs and a baby's needs are not going to be able to have extended champagne branches with girlfriends or you know take romantic trips with your partner it is a different life and part of that adjustment is something that I believe our Western culture really has eliminated Preparing People for and I think that's really sad because I think so much of the challenges people have specific around sleep regards a lack of information which means incorrect expectations and you know there was that Saturday Night Live skit Lowered Expectations it was a dating site it was like a parody dating site um you know when you lower your expectations um you're disappointed a lot less and so that was a big part really of the first year of my life as a parent and you know we got through it I'm not always proud of the way I behaved or the way I you know treated my spouse or people around me or even my own child um and the struggle is real I that is for sure someone anonymously would like us to explain the causes of and possible brain hacks for bursting into tears when confronting someone about something I'm angry about is there a trick I can do to distract my tear duct so that I can be taken seriously in these moments um I'm not laughing at you Anonymous but I'm I'm really I empathize very deeply so um some people are brought to tears in situations that other people are not brought to tears in there are also people who laugh when things are uncomfortable meaning everybody has different ways that they're wired building up resilience so that a confrontation does not have tears is a really um it is a difficult muscle for many of us to exercise I often envy people who can have you know confrontations without crying or shaking and um for me I have found that writing out what I'd like to say beforehand can be helpful so that I feel more prepared for some people the need to cry is is important because it releases like a um an element of tension I don't believe in apologizing for crying or for having emotions but sometimes when I have to have a meaningful difficult conversation I will literally say up front this is a hard conversation for me to have because it it allows me to not pretend that I'm okay when I'm not and not that it's not okay to cry but what I mean is it's important for me to present authentically so that I'm not needing to constantly convince myself that the way I'm feeling shouldn't be felt so sometimes saying it out loud is helpful and I hope that that um is helpful for you anything you can do to lower your anxiety or your stress is going to make this less of a concern and less of an issue for you but also keep in mind that there are really good things about being sensitive it's actually not a defect it's an asset but if if allowed to run amok it can obviously feel like a defect but it's okay to be sensitive it's okay to have that reaction it just happens someone recently said that to me she's chosen to um not be on psychiatric medication at this point in her life and I said well how do you deal with it aren't you like crying all the time and what she said is I do find that I cry a lot more but she said it's not sadness it's overwhelm and she said that she's kind of made a decision to learn how to compartmentalize that and to not try and put push it away or pretend like it doesn't exist but to give it a home where it can safely be released and I I really admire that and I hope that's helpful Bree asks how do you move forward with your therapist when you get to a point where you feel like you have nothing to talk about welbury you have two choices figure out what you actually want to talk about that you're avoiding talking about or look for a new therapist and see if there's a different lens to what you're experiencing that you're more comfortable sharing with that therapist I would like to argue that most everyone would would and could benefit from therapy and I don't mean to sound like a jerk but there's never nothing to talk about like if all else fails just pull out your first uncomfortable memory your first memory of not feeling listened to and if you had an amazing childhood that's fantastic even people with amazing childhoods you know may have what to talk about but there's a reason that you went to therapy in the first place and I guess I'd be curious if there's something that you're nervous to talk about it may be unconscious it could be that a different style of therapy might be more helpful for you and most importantly talking to your therapist about not knowing what to talk about with your therapist will probably reveal a lot more than you even imagined and good luck can someone with anxiety and depression be a successful therapist April asks absolutely I think many people who are therapists are what we call wounded healers they're people who have experienced things and have a range of life experience that makes them want to connect with other people and be helpful to other people and based on statistics I'd say statistically speaking many therapists are experiencing anxiety and depression or other mental health issues themselves I think what's important to keep in mind is that if you for example and I don't know if this is your story April um if you are interested in becoming a therapist and are concerned about your anxiety and depression that likely means that there's some work for you to do no matter what you decide to do meaning I I would not want my therapist to be actively feeling compromised in their ability to manage their own emotions and that is one of the really challenging things about being a therapist two close friends right now who are studying to be therapists and it is I don't think I would have the resilience for it so you absolutely need to know your own issues the roots of your own anxiety and depression before you can be helpful to someone else or at least it's part of the simultaneous process when you learn to be a therapist Stephanie wants to know are midlife crises real it feels as if everything is the same on the outside and changing inside but impossible to make changes well Stephanie I guess the definition of midlife has changed as we are living longer and longer but roughly speaking midlife crises happen around I think we normally think of it as 40 like just completely anecdotally when I think of like oh they're going through a midlife crisis and when I was a kid I remember this was really exclusively talked about for men I don't know what they thought women were experiencing we've always been experiencing things but most of this was like he got a sports car he got a young girlfriend like that was kind of the I don't know just the stereotype but what we know is that midlife crises are real for men and for women and for women I think it's going to be more variable depending on if you've had children when you've had children what your body looked like before during and after which is not to say that women are only concerned about what their bodies look like I just mean that a lot of the reevaluation of life that happens for women at least in my experience can come in relation to did I have kids should I have had kids for many people a midlife crisis can can be really significant and it can affect you know your career and your relationship and your your self-confidence and how you see yourself um so it is a real thing and I think in many cases um you know it comes down to what you thought your purpose would have should have could have been and what it it is in actuality I think that for kind of the first 20 years of many of our Lives we're kind of working towards like I'm going to be an adult and I'm going to figure out what that thing is that I'm gonna do and then you kind of have another 20 years of seeing how'd that go and not shockingly for many of us by 40 we kind of just feel like giant teenagers and I think that's been a huge component just in my experience and the experience of a lot of people that I know um many of us thought we'd have things figured out by 40. and it turns out you just kind of keep figuring things out but in our culture and especially with our changing culture there's a really specific set of pressure around earning and around what your life is supposed to look like if your emotional distress surrounding expectations regarding middle age is impairing your ability to sleep if you see that it's affecting your appetite or you're having trouble concentrating um definitely would be the time to explore it a little deeper and if you haven't thought of therapy it's a really wonderful opportunity to talk some of this out that could be really helpful Angie loves to listen to audiobooks mainly self-help books as she sleeps she wants to know if she can subconsciously learn while she does this if so when I'm in a conscious State can I recall said information we know that we consolidate memory in our sleep in terms of learning information I think it's a little more complicated I'm going to go ahead and say that many people of a particular holistic bent do believe in the power of listening to things and being able to incorporate them unconsciously like literally I don't know if I'm a Believer in in that per se but I do know that for example there's a lot of information in music that our brains can take in and process and I do believe that for some people listening to music can um can help consolidate certain things but I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't think listening to books is going to make you able to recall that information when you're when you're not sleeping Larissa wants me to talk a little bit about sexualism sex addiction and how it can affect relationships well before I get into a little bit about this in particular I do want to mention that there is an organization called slaw s l a a that's sex and love addicts anonymous if you are a person who's familiar with 12-step programs this is a 12-step program and you can go to their website if you'd like to learn more about them but I did want to mention that there actually is a 12-step program for people who have either sex addiction or love addiction what is that love addiction is people who create fixations and compulsions that can play out in really unhealthy ways some of the symptoms of of Love addiction and in many cases this is going to overlap with sex addiction is you know feeling a compulsive need to be in love putting other people on a pedestal obsessing and ruminating over people you're interested in romantically often to the point that it disrupts your your daily functioning and this is different than like when you first meet someone you're like oh I want to text them all the time that's not what we're talking about we're talking about often you'll find people um you know obsessing over people that they don't know or people that they barely know and kind of building a fantasy relationship around it um there are also people who experience literal cravings and withdrawal um Euphoria went around this partner but also often in intense dependency and codependency a lot of people in this category will believe that all of their problems would be solved If Only They had love I think many of us probably all of us at one point or another um maybe thought that that might be a solution like oh what I'm really missing is like if I just had a partner um that is normal when it becomes a case of setting aside um warning flags or red flags because of the the need to believe that a person is something that they're not that's when it can be um dangerous an inability to be alone this is a hard one because like I'm a person who really doesn't like to be alone is that pathological I don't know and I think that's for everybody to kind of explore on their own but there are people who are okay being alone I don't know what those people I don't know how those people were made but what I know is that we we as humans don't want to have an experience where we have a compulsive need to be with someone even if it's unhealthy simply because you don't want to be alone there's a lot of factors genetics try and also you know just kind of social environment can play a factor in in this kind of addiction many times you'll find people who um who have other drug or alcohol addiction who kind of shift their addiction to to sex and love you know sex is a very very significant and important part of The Human Experience absolutely um and there are wonderful chemicals that are released in your body when you're in love or when you're in lust and when you have attachment to someone physical intimate attachment to someone um but but but but but um if you find that you're using sex as a weapon or sex as a tool it's something to look into and these all these definitions kind of shift also as Generations have different interpretations of what is um you know reasonable or what is um quote acceptable behavior meaning in the 1940s or the 1950s in certain circles you know the fact that people had sex out of wedlock was very shocking and you know in our day and age it's not definitionally so but these kind of sex and love addictions go much deeper than um than that it's a very interesting field I'm very interested in this many people do use therapy to work on these issues um learning about attachment Styles is really important I highly recommend the book attached the new science of adult attachment by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller there's a lot of things that I think relate to helping us understand more about our attachment Styles and how those can lead to um obsessions and codependency and in many cases love and sex addiction and um again I do recommend looking up slaa if you feel like you might have a problem in this Arena here's an intense question but a really important one Jared asks is it possible to have trauma but no memory of it uh yes when people first started talking about repressed memory and memory retrieval I mean I first remember hearing about it and you know I'd say the late 80s and and the early 90s when I was a teenager and it was this really really hot button topic and like if you have no conscious evidence like you're just making it up and people were accused of you know imagining things in a horrible situations that people were trying to heal from or confront and it was met with a lot of resistance you know especially in kind of public um you know public media Arenas I remember many prominent stories uh touching on this from when I was a teenager what we know now is that there is not one way that people respond to trauma especially if a child is experiencing trauma but what often happens is the brain will create a protection system and in many cases what we kind of now know is that there are ways that the normal normal typical way that memories are stored is not activated during trauma it is a in many cases a protective mechanism it's a it's a tragic and devastating protective mechanism because it means that the experience was so painful difficult horrendous that the brain and body try to protect now what we know is that people who have trauma but no active memory of it will often often often present with evidence of having experienced trauma and it's this you know it's this very very complicated puzzle that so many devoted doctors and psychologists and therapists have have been piecing together you know over the last decades and decades so if you'd like to know the terms for these things um there is something called dissociative amnesia when a person blocks out certain events associated with stress or trauma there's a lot of research from people who have lived through war or specific disasters or accidents that that have shed a lot of light on this and Freud actually was the first to connect childhood trauma with memory loss or the notion of repressed memories and Freud was wrong about a lot of things but write about a few and this is a very interesting one Freud also tended to lean very heavily on the role of the mother which I think is a little bit more complicated and sort of beyond the scope but if you are experiencing symptoms of trauma and you have no memory the notion is also that it's not our responsibility to like find a therapist who brings it out or just you know look through a list of things and see if it applies uh the the brain and the body release what they need to when they need to and it's very very important to know that if you have experienced something that you're being protected from by your own brain you want to honor that and when the time if and when the time is appropriate for you to be able to learn more about it I encourage you to trust that process and not rush it and we can't force memories to come there are some really really interesting workbooks for people who've experienced trauma that help you create a safe space around getting memory to become clearer but the notion is always that if you're being protected we want to really honor that and respect that we're going to round out this ask Miami anything with I mean a fantastic question that I was just so excited to um to start giving some thought Anne asks do you have any book recommendations on the hippie era specifically their philosophies and teachings that have inspired you you know the word hippie is probably outdated and I'm sure I use it wrong a lot but what I've gathered here is some of my favorite Progressive hippie infused uh books that really run the gamut so um here's my favorite my favorite favorite things to recommend if you'd like to learn about what it is Jonathan and I talk about when we talk about hippies first thing that came to mind was a book called the web that has no Weaver by Ted kepchuk I think is how you pronounce it and I believe this was the first Western book to explain Chinese alternative medicine it is um it's a really great read it talks about um healing practices both from the west and the East but it is the first book I ever read that literally explained scientifically what it meant when you say that like there's not just one kind of pulse right like in Western medicine there's like they take your pulse right like they put their fingers and they take your pulse and they count right or you're taught to count I remember in elementary school it was like count in 10 seconds and we would learn so in Chinese medicine there are dozens of types of pulses that they perceive and they mean different things so it's it's things like that in this book but it's very very um it's a very beautiful book it's not written in the hippie era but it was the first thing I thought of when I thought about the things that have inspired me about teachings inspired from a progressive philosophy this is a funny one which um you know you might think well I don't want to have a baby or I'm not pregnant but there's a book called spiritual Midwifery by Ina Mae Gaskin and Ina May Gaskin is the mother of modern Midwifery she's a woman who ran a farm called the farm where women were encouraged to come if they believed in natural birth in the proper hippie era and she was um she's the only Midwife that has had a procedure named after her when babies get stuck in labor which sometimes happens if their shoulders are broad it's called shoulder dystocia she has a method that was named after her it's called the Gaskin method to free babies and this book that she wrote is indeed about what it was like running this Farm but what it really is about is kind of The Human Experience and how to honor the experience of the human body both for men and women meaning she talks a lot about the role of couples and how families are built around literally this process that we all go through one way or another um Howell by Alan Ginsberg I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Madness starving hysterical also a line of they might be Giant song but how by Alan Ginsberg is um you know one of the Hallmarks of beatnik philosophy and um he's a poet and he's a thinker and there's a lot of complexity around Alan Ginsberg which I am not setting aside however it is an incredibly important part of literature from that era he was friends with Jack Kerouac and kind of that whole gang and um a very important figure and yeah that's Howell do it scenarios of the Revolution by Jerry Rubin this is one of my dad's favorite books which he gave me when I was a teenager it's wild it's super out there it's a declaration of war between the generations he calls on kids to leave their homes burn down their schools and create a new Society upon the ashes of the old partly tongue-in-cheek but also a really specific message for a specific portion of the of the the political hippies of that era and on the road by Jack Kerouac you know this is a classic beatnik literature and Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassidy literally went on the road and um it's a true portrait of Americana and um really interesting aspect of that era I also have a couple soundtrack suggestions Dylan and the dead was released in 1989 but um I recommend it as part of this era because while I believe that you should listen to All of Dylan and the Grateful Dead this album is a really sweet a sweet soundtrack for learning about this era and it tells a lot um musically about what what was going on that that led to those those two musical movements um go ahead and listen to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band please listen to it in order start to finish it was released in 1967 for many people this was the album that really transformed and and really expanded their Consciousness yes for many people this was an album that was experienced I think by many um along with pot and um it it is it is an album that touches on on drugs and mysticism and expanding Consciousness and this album is extremely important historically I would say as a really important portrait of that era and one final thing George Carlin's American dream is a documentary that was released last year it is something that I was like I don't like I know who George Carlin is but like I don't know I highly highly recommend it if you're interested in understanding not only that era but the evolution of what it was like to exist in the 1950s and 60s and what that transition looked like for an incredibly important comedian and thinker um who kind of lived on both sides of that era so those are my hippie suggestions I hope you have enjoyed this episode of ask Miami anything I've had a really great time getting to think about all these things and hear your questions we do get dozens of questions daily so we're doing our best to get to all of them thank you for your patience and thank you for your questions thank you for coming and trusting me to at least muddle through it with you I don't have all the answers and I'm an expert in very few things mainly my children and even then they would be like you're not really an expert Mama but I do appreciate you letting me learn with you and thank you so much and for my breakdown to the one I hope you never have [Music] [Music] she's gonna break it down

Channel: Mayim Bialik

Views: 84,593

Keywords: mayim bialik, big bang theory, amy farrah fowler, mayim, celebrity news

Id: VHIfH63zfFY

Length: 66min 58sec (4018 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023