So energetic for a Sunday, my god. It must be all this space that we have this year. How about this space? Do you like this hotel?
I'm so happy to be able to move around and breathe and not have a sun burning me and artisality. I like this. I think that this hotel has been good for our mental health as a con. So, my name is Jan Scott Frazier and we're here to talk about creativity and mental health.
Normally I have a cool presentation for my panels, but this one, every time I try to make one, the questions that come are always so different that I just did it's difficult for me to do this, and I'm fine. So, basically the things I'm going to talk about are a little bit about some basic stuff, and then I'll talk a little bit about if you are a writer or a creator or whatever you do that make characters or you use something creatively that deals with mental health issues. And then the last part, we'll talk a little bit about how to take care of yourself if you are a creator, who are an artist or live with an artist who has stuff going on. We can talk a little bit about some techniques that you are interested in.
Also, you are welcome to ask any question at any time. It would be kind of nice if we kept it on topic and we weren't talking about economics or something. Yeah, so feel free. Okay, so one of the things that's really important to talk about in here is stigma.
Stigma is negative feelings or negative things that are attributed to people with mental illness. So, when you hear someone say, I have depression, a lot of people, there's this instant image that we conjure up for a person who has depression. What did they look like? What did they talk like?
What did they do? This kind of stuff. That is, it's called stereotyping, and to some degree it's stigma. Depression has changed so much, our reaction to depression has changed so much over the years that now when you say, I'm dealing with depression, it's a lot different than it was 20 years ago.
Whereas now, there might have some things like for instance, borderline personality disorder has a very strong stigma attached to it. Because people with borderline personality sort of tend to have really strong emotions and they form attachments and break attachments really quickly. So, very tumultuous relationships. Because of that, people look at that and say, oh my gosh, those people are crazy.
Oh my gosh, they're too much to handle. So, there's this stigma that gets attached to that. There's a stigma that's a very strong stigma that's attached to schizophrenia and other doctor's orders. When you say, that person has schizophrenia, there's all this stuff, these images that come up in the mind about that.
I mean, the old stuff like where there was a schizophrenia and the sociobly identity disorder multiple personalities where that was basically thought to be the same thing when in reality, it's completely different. So, that's what stigma is. So, one of the most important things as a creator, as a person who talks about this, is to not build stigma, to not increase it, but to decrease it. One of the ways that we do that is throw, so that when you're writing your characters to research, you know, learn about this, these processes.
Learn about how it works in you, you know, if you're dealing with one of these issues, let's say OCD. Learn about that. Learn about how other people experience it and stuff. So, when you express it in your comic or your play or your novel or whatever you happen to be making, it educates people rather than paint somebody with a brush.
If that makes sense. So, the second thing I want to talk about is diagnosis. Obviously, a big deal that we talk about a lot. Oh, you know, I really should have mentioned this.
In addition to having, I worked in the anime industry for 14 years in Japan, and I've done a lot of animation and consulting and stuff like that. In addition to that, I have a degree in human services and it will help counseling from the true. Okay, I have a private practice. I work as a counselor.
I'm sorry? Roadrunners. Yes. I have a private practice where I see individual clients.
I've had my practice for five years now. I'm going to put my legs. So, I'm not just kind of talking up the top of my head. I do have expertise in this.
So, back to diagnosis. A diagnosis is a very informed, hopefully a very informed, a diagnosis. We look at what we have the diagnostic open end. The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders.
We're on version five of that. It is well known as the DSM. The DSM is basically a book that has lists of various disorders and various syndromes and various things that a syndrome basically is a cluster of symptoms that when we diagnose something, we do so. So, for instance, let's take bipolar disorder.
The diagnostic criteria say that you have to have a manic episode, which is a very intense intensity. Then you have a down, which is a depressive episode. The important thing for the diagnosis is that it goes back up and it comes back up and goes back up. That's the cycle.
There's the two holes of moods. Okay, so hence, bipolar. So, you have this. It's lasted.
One of the other criteria is this is lasted over six months. Basically, it's a chronic issue, not a acute, a specific issue caused by something else. One of the criteria is that it is not just a pressure. It is not purely depression.
It is not purely manual. One of the most important diagnostic criteria and the one that so many people overlook especially online is the last of the criteria is it must affect your life or their life in a very negative way. So, if someone has checking behaviors, like in other words, they, all the way, like twice a day they have to go through the house and check and make sure all the doors are locked and all the windows are locked in order for them to feel safe. Some people would say that is OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, but it's, they do it twice a day and if they're not thinking about it, if it doesn't add stress, if it's not a point of concern, then it's not a disorder.
It's a personality thing. It's just something that's just part of you. So, for instance, if you have mood swings, if you have kind of strong moods and strong down moods, but it's not, it doesn't cycle. It's not bipolar disorder.
If it doesn't, it doesn't really negatively affect your life, it's obviously an issue, but it's not necessarily a disorder. So, when you look online and you see, so you say, oh, they're trying to make this in some normal behavior into disorder, no, no they're not. Because it has to really strongly negatively affect. So, that's, yeah.
So, diagnosis also, because it is an informed opinion, sometimes opinions are wrong. Sometimes opinions are incomplete. We diagnose, as diagnosis is, sometimes it's like, okay, we think this person has bipolar disorder because of this and this and this. So, if we diagnose them with this, it gives us two benefits.
Number one, insurance. Insurance in the United States, they want to see these numbers. They want to see this thing in order to pay for it. You know, it is what it is.
It's part of our medical care. So, without, without a diagnosis, I'd say a major depressive disorder, or a dis-imina, or a psychotimina, or whatever, then, you know, your insurance company is going to say, well, we're not going to give you any money for this. We're not going to cover this. The second is, it allows us to, it's a kind of a form of shorthand that allows us to apply different therapeutic techniques.
So, we can say, okay, this person is going back to borderline personality disorder. There's a whole therapy that was designed to work with people with that disorder called dialectical behavior therapy. So, if I have some come in and say, I have to diagnose with borderline personality, well, first I'll check that out. I'll see if I agree with that.
Then if I do, I'll say, okay, let's start with DBT. It's a good baseline. Maybe they'll respond. Most people respond to it, but sometimes people don't.
So, we go with a different therapy. And then we try a different therapy. We keep working until we find something that works. And my therapeutic style is, I work with whatever works for you.
If I prefer cognitive behavior therapy, but if it doesn't work for you, okay, we'll do something else. Some therapists only do cognitive behavior therapy. Some therapists specialize in post-traumatic stress disorder. And somehow other credentials, like for instance, with a PTSD specialty, maybe you study, was it eye movement, desensitization?
Yeah, EMDR. The sensitization... Reprocessing. Something.
It hasn't been far. Because you are reprocessing. Yeah, because you are reprocessing. Okay, I always forget.
I just know the acronym. I don't say I just know the acronym, but I forget, you know, you say the acronym so much. EMDR is a technique that's used with people with PTSD. It works with your eyes and sound and different things.
And it's really, it's actually very fascinating. We don't completely understand how it works. So the other thing about diagnosis is sometimes, we're very hopeful with our treatment. Sometimes we are kind of guessing a little bit.
Like medication, for instance. Education works different with everybody. Everybody in this room, like if we get you, has all off to know. Everyone would react differently to that.
So it's not... There's no diagnosis that is carved in stone. Okay, one of the other things about diagnosis, and one of the reasons I'm very careful about the way I do this. If somebody needs it for insurance, okay, I'll lay a diagnosis down, but I think don't need it.
There's no compelling reason why I need to name that. I sometimes don't. Because if I say, I think you have bipolar disorder, the first thing that they're going to do is they're going to go home, they're going to look it up on the internet. Okay, cool.
But there's so much information. So you start with NAMI and the CEC, whatever, the government, and then the medline, and all these pubnet, et cetera. When you look at those, that's one thing. But then when you go down and you look at chains, websites, and here's the quiz, and see if you have bipolar disorder, then you're getting into trouble.
Because you're talking about amateurs, you're talking about people who've read things, written by people who've read things, written by people who've read them. It's this chain, so you end up with somewhat questionable information down there on the bottom. Of course, there's lots of sites that talk about, or people talk about their individual experiences as a creator and also as a creator with these issues. That can be invaluable to see how other people get a thing.
When my clients start medication, I do not prescribe, because I'm not a doctor, but when they come in and they start medications from a doctor or a psychiatrist or what have you, I suggest that they go to crazymeds.us. Crazymeds.us has a lot of different, effectively what's used for your medications. So let's say the doctor prescribes you, limit call. So you go on this website and you look up limit call, and there's people who say, wow, this is working amazingly for me.
It started working right away. Some people say, oh, maybe it took a month for this to start to work for me. It's kind of my own. This particular medication is kind of weird.
There are people who do not react almost at all to the generics. Who knows why? But you get it. So if they take the brand name, which is very expensive, it's one thing, but then they take the generics, it only has 30% efficacy.
It's only about 30% there for them. So you get to read about that kind of stuff. The nice thing about that is that if you look at what people actually experience, then you don't need to make stuff up. Well, rather than if you have the fantasy story or science fiction story or something, and they have, you know, xenobipolar disorder or something like that.
Okay. But if we're basing this on something, that's real. It's very important that we get it right, in my opinion. So again, that diagnosis, once I let a diagnosis on them, then some people, once they look at the internet, then they start, they do what we call labeling.
And labeling is where you take that and you become that diagnosis. Because for a variety of reasons, one of them is if we fit the diagnosis, then we will have a cure for it, or we will have a treatment for it, which is again, not really the case. So if you say to somebody, we think you have bipolar disorder and they actually have a depressive, just primarily depressive issue, they'll find a way to try to be met. They'll try to work that in.
And the medications for that and the therapies for that are different. If you have a person who has bipolar disorder, there's a number of medications, you cannot give them that you would give to a person with depression, with just a superior depression, because it can trigger all sorts of stuff. Again, so that's important, but if they need work to become that and fit those so that they can be treated, then we have a problem. I'm not saying that they're making these things up, but they're starting to recognize these things in their normal behavior.
labeling is tough. When somebody gets in that space, you know, it's hard to get out. And also, the longer somebody's had a diagnosis, the more they become firm in it, and the more, I mean, I've seen people argue with their therapist, the therapist will say, you know, it looks like you're dealing with this. No, I have this.
Well, when were you diagnosed with that? 1982. Okay, well, we understand things now in a different way than we did in 1982, or, you know, 1991 or what have you. Especially things like autism.
We understand. We have such a much greater understanding of autism and thought disorders and anxiety than we did in the 80s and 90s, just 20 years, 10 years. So labeling on stuff. Any questions?
Yes, in the back over here. Well, okay, I have this. When it comes to autism, I am not a specialist in it. I am aware of it.
Of course I went through school. I've worked to some degree with people with mild autism, but it's autism really, even the diagnosis requires a good team. You need people who know what they are doing and know how these situations work, and I will freely admit that that is not me. I will not give someone a diagnosis on the spectrum.
I will refer them to somebody who really knows what they're doing. However, to answer your question, we have what they call an information cascade. An information cascade is once we define something, you get a researcher or doctor or whatever who figures out something. Okay, we have this syndrome or disorder.
Then under that you have people who look at that and read the papers, they talk to them, they go to the seminars and hear about this, and they say, oh, yeah, that kind of fits under my clients. Then that becomes a shorthand. Then people who work under them, and it just keeps you, as you go down this cascade, eventually you end up with people who really don't know what they're talking about, who put this rubber diagnosis on somebody, and that's where the trouble becomes. In the 90s, it was bipolar disorder.
We had an information cascade dealing with that. Do you have something to say in the back? I'm sorry? I had a question.
Yes? There's a number of reasons. There's a number of reasons. One is people want to be treated.
They want to get rid of this issue. By doing so, people often believe by naming that demon they can defeat it, or they can own it. Again, that's not necessarily the case. Sometimes it is.
Sometimes if you've gone for a long time and you were undiagnosed with something like, again, let's say it's bipolar disorder, it's an example. When you find the recognize that you have it or you're diagnosed with it, it can change your life. You can say, oh, wow, that's what that is. Or, for instance, ADHE is another one.
When you have that, the world is very stormy, but then when you start to treat it through therapy, through medications, or however you treat it, you can change things. The other thing is that by labeling, sometimes the people around us, they are the ones who really want the label. They want to know what's wrong with you. They want to know that they want to be able to go, this is the thing.
This is the problem, so that they can put their finger on it. Sometimes we label because of that. There's any number of reasons. Sometimes people label because they want to have reasons for taking medication.
That gets into a kind of a different day. Just to help that is also to help you communicate things or identify your health. That's a different world to other people. For instance, I would call myself gay and I'd say, if I see a woman, I might get into a show and kiss her.
I don't know. But I just think they're myself gay, not bi. It's something similar to people to say it's something that's my interpretation of the word whereas you might say, oh, you're interested in that, then you're not gay, you're bisexual, et cetera. It's all about trying to communicate with other people.
That's a pretty good point. That actually brings up a very valid point in that. These disorders and these diagnoses are not your identity. There are people, or some people, they do, they do, they are your identity.
You hear that through their phrasing. I am bipolar. He is schizophrenic. She's a borderline.
When we do that, we're defining somebody through that. He has bipolar disorder. She suffers from schizophrenia. She suffers from even though that's really not.
That taps into my spirituality. But if you fold these things into your identity, it will stick. It will stick hard. This is something I work with my clients to be completely removed from their identity, but to not define themselves through it, I'm so glad you brought it up.
I had a, it adds on well to their points. I was able to deal with my depression better once I accepted it because I found that my brain is very resistant to treatment. That's okay now because I know it's there. The difficult part I've had in communicating that depression to other people, how do you explain depression to somebody who's never had it?
Because I was talking to someone once and they said, oh, I get sad sometimes. I'm like, no, no. This isn't just sad. It's beyond that.
Depression to me is, I can't. The lifestyle. One of the ways that I'm talking with people, sometimes this comes up in the panel, is that I frame, sometimes it's easiest to frame it with other chronic conditions like asthma. I hate to say things like kidney disease, but sometimes it really is.
Or something that comes and goes that's episodic, you know, a dengue fever or whatever you want to say. I'll tell you what, if I pour the sort of candy, way more destructive, then take the fever hand, physically, even physically, if you don't take care of it. So yeah, that's one of these things. That's one of the reasons we're talking about this is, so let's say I'm writing a novel and I want to talk about that.
How do I explore that? Do I explore it in first person from the character's point of view and just say, I feel like hell today, or do I express it in a way that they're doing something and then I go to third person so all the people around them, they're like, all that person is suffering. So we're looking at it from both points of view. Or do they not care about treatment?
Do they say, I don't want that. I'm going to live as who I am. And do we explore how they do that, which can be very interesting. If we're doing it graphically, let's say I'm drawing a comic about it, we're making an animation about it.
What are my symbols for that? What are my symbol for depression? How do I, if I have pages and I'm talking about it, do I use color to describe this? Do I use black and white?
Do I use, you know, it's interesting. What is it to you? You know, feel around the edge and do a lot of studies. And by saying, I'm not reading, but pick it, draw it.
I do this with my clients, and I draw your depression. Draw the feelings that you have for your father. Or just take something to go and buy the cheapest set of kids, watercolor, campaigns that you can, and you can finger paint this. You can do however you can make clay sculpture.
If you take polymer clay, what is your anxiety look like? This is fantastic and fantastic therapy. By doing that, you process it. You work on it.
You process it. You feel the edges of it, and it allows you to express it a little bit differently. Or a little bit clearer. I think that, as creators with these things, I think that's one of the most valuable things we can do with community like that.
You want a question in the back? Is it us? If you feel like you were diagnosing correctly, or are you accepting my opinion? Second opinion?
Yes, second opinion. Always. Well, like I said, a diagnosis is a very informed opinion. Sometimes these opinions, sometimes a diagnosis is made with incomplete information.
Or sometimes people change. Sometimes people who are younger, they have bipolar disorder, type 2, where the opinion is milder, and as they get older, the manic episode gets stronger and stronger, so they become a type 1. Sometimes people's anxiety changes shape as they get older. And sometimes, especially when you get comorbidity, when you have multiple things going on.
Like if you, let's say you have a social anxiety disorder, and then you're in a car accident, and you have PTSD because of that, those can really work tightly together, and they can influence each other in ways that aren't unexpected. And sometimes, you don't even recognize it for about six months to a year or something. So when you go to your therapist, you don't, that information doesn't come up. So the diagnosis is not complete, or you get a misdiagnosis.
And honestly, like everything else, sometimes you get people who just aren't too great at making those diagnoses. Sometimes they want to, you know, there's a, well, I'm not going to pick on a certain level. But there's a certain mental health where you can go and get medications for these things. And the average, the average, let's say psychiatry, okay.
The average, the average, like high interest, appointment time is 15 minutes. That is not a lot of time. Even if you do that once a week, that's not a lot of time to really delve into somebody into a, you know, a complex, a diagnosis of a complex thing. Like, let's say there was like a personality disorder cluster, which would be more common.
That's going to take some time to unwind that. Did you have something to say? What was the thing about? Yeah, sure.
I got in with those of us who were dealing with the requirements of health and immunodinosis of their life. I've read a book a while ago concerning creativity and the shadow. And I've read a lot of you and stuff. And since we've talked about creativity, I found it really applicable to my life.
But a lot of people don't face the shadow aspect of themselves. And how do you deal with that in your work and how do you do the place of creativity? Oh, in my own work, I have a couple of different ways of doing it. I have a couple, all but one of them are healthy.
Let's be real. You know, that's it. There have been times in the past where I've gone to that unhealthy because I wanted to look into the face of that and be able to turn around and express it. Really, not necessarily the best idea, but sometimes that's, you know, what we do, that's our process.
I'm not definitely not recommending it, but I'm not saying never do it either. What I do is, I want for most of my life, I just didn't know what to do. I lived in the storm, I lived in it. It was just part of who I am.
I have my board disorder and boy, that hypomania was a type 2 for a long time. And that hypomania, for creativity, we talk a lot of you hear a lot about, you know, mental illness and creativity are interrelated. And for the most part, they're everything on, behind themselves. It's interesting to explore.
It's a different viewpoint, which is interesting. So that gives, I mean, that's creative unto itself. But as for stimulating creativity, really the only one that does that is the, um, my board disorder is tied to the hypomania. There's a book called the Hypomanic Edge about how you use that in business.
Basically, it's this drive of, I'm not, I'm awake for three days. With me, it was, you know, I'm going to move to Japan and work in the anime industry. Yeah, so I did it. I'm going to found a charity and use all my voice actor friends to do vocals for these albums that we're going to make and we're going to do tours and stuff, so we did.
And, you know, hypomania has, you know, it's paid off for me in some ways. In some ways not because, oh, you know what, I need this and this and this money. Why, why, it'll come back. You know, so, you know, you know, um, so I'm not going to say that it was a complete edge, but for me, I learned to harness that and that was really beneficial for me.
That in hyper-focus, the combination of those two just allowed me to, it allowed me to learn things really, really fast and that helped me a lot. Years later, when I started to, when I got, when I started to address it, when I realized how, you know, destructive it was, and I'm like, you know, my relationships look like, you know, a trail of wreckage that covered the globe. And I said, I don't want to live that way anymore. I don't want to, I don't want to spill my acid onto people around me.
So, I, and another step was going on, of course, too, that kind of spurred me into this. So, I went into therapy and I started to learn more about this and I take a medication that was, like, suddenly, it was like a silver ball that it was brilliant for me. So, with that, with the combination of that, especially the therapy, I started to explore my own thoughts. Like, how do I think?
Common behavior therapy is based on the idea that our thought comes up and that is filtered through our experiences, our ideas, our beliefs, our baggage, and that is the response. That's the emotion. That's the emotion that we'll end up with. So, for instance, if I, if, let's say somebody walked in that door and started just screaming at the top of their lungs, okay, today I'm tired, right, and my ideas I want to, I want to talk with you guys, I want to finish this panel, after this panel I'm done with the day, I gotta go home, and I'm going to go back.
So, I have all this stuff in my mind and I would be, I'm willing to put up with that at this moment. So, it's like, you are invading, in my space you're invading, these people space get the hell out of the room. Last night, when I was not sober, if that person would have been like, yeah, okay, that's really funny, why don't you just move on or have a seat or whatever. My response is different because of the space I'm in, my behavior is my mood, my response.
So, if my response, if my automatic response, my automatic thought is I'm not good enough. So, and I'm at work and I get a, I get a, I get a B plus review from my boss. If my automatic thoughts are I'm not good enough, that looks like an F, that is, I'm like, oh my God, what did I do wrong? Oh my God, what did I do?
Does he, we all know students or we all were students who, if we didn't get an A, oh my God, what the hell is wrong with us? And if you look at that objectively, that's kind of intense, that's too much, that's over the top. But when we're in that, because I have to excel, I have to do this right, I must complete this, or I am not good, or I'm an idiot. If I don't finish this, what the hell is wrong with me?
If I don't win the costume contest, then I'm not good enough. You know that kind of stuff, that's where we start to get into, and then we're stressed, we have anxiety, we get stressed out, we don't want to talk to people, we have this chain of behaviors that comes up. And in and then wrapped around those behaviors is more behaviors are coping mechanisms. So, for instance, I get that bad job review.
I'm really not good enough. I'm an idiot, I'm going to lose my job, I'm going to do it, I'm going to have any money, I don't know how I'm going to pay my rent, I go home and what do I do? I eat the whole pint of ice cream. I watch the show that depresses me.
I listen to Neil Young, whatever you know. That's me, honestly, when I become super depressed, I get much more interested in listening to Neil Young. And so we have these coping mechanisms that we've created. Now let's say, let's go back to our story.
Let's say I'm drawing a comic about a person, and suddenly they have, oh my, let's say more like a person, suddenly that's gone. Suddenly it is magically changed where there's some kind of scientific thing, and it just removes that from their life. Okay? All of that wall that we've felt, all of those behaviors are still there.
It doesn't take that with it. It doesn't take the way we eat with it. It doesn't take the way we sleep. It doesn't take, you know, when we yell at our significant habit, it doesn't take any of that stuff with it.
That's why therapy is beneficial, because let's say we had a magic pill, or even if you've been dealing with depression for most of your life, or since you were a teen, you get a medication that works for you. And you feel good. You know, like, let's pick up your turn. You take up your turn and then there's that two weeks of everything is awesome.
That will be a good review. When that happens, that doesn't change the people around you, because they have reactions to you. That doesn't change how you drink. If you're like, you know, when you have a bad day, you go home and you drink, or you go up to the party, okay?
It's part of what you do. This magic change didn't take that away. So the next time you have, the next time someone cuts you out hard on the road, your response is to you, why does it take that away? So again, that's why this is interesting to explore in stories, because you're not just getting rid of that core chunk.
There's layers on top of that. Like, the relationships that you have, this is intimately wrapped inside them. Yes? Well, speaking of creating that core of a character, how do you create a character in writing or any medium?
That suffers from a mental health disorder, but doesn't appear broken. Because it's so often used to portray characters that are, we're all something's wrong with them. And that's not... No, just different.
You know, you can portray them as different. One of the big ways that's done is the people around them reacting to them. If the people are... Number one, if you show them suffering, if you show them like, oh, I'm going to crush all the time, and you show through their body language, I would say a comic, for instance.
In your comic, if you show them like, you know, slumped over and sharpness around them, then your reader is going to say, okay, this is something terrible's going on. But they're living there their day and sometimes stuff gets kind of intense and all, okay, the people's... the reactions of the people around them will be critical in that time. Because if the people around them treat them like they're broken, then the reader's going to treat them like they're broken.
But if people around them treat them like they're broken, you know, some stuff going on, then that's the way the reader's going to look at them. So if you make something so... if they're... they do ugly things, and the people around them say, okay, well, you know, this is part of who you are, this is what happens.
Let's say what we can do to fix this to help you. And they say, oh my gosh, that was kind of awful, and they work to change that. Then they do have almost a redemption story, so that helps. Anything that allows us to connect to the characters in a way that we could maybe do this, or we could see our friends or family or whatever doing this, and we can still like them because of it, I think that's really the key to that.
Yeah, it's working. So, as a creator with mental health issues, one of the most important things that I have learned is that if I don't take care of me, I can't create. If I am... if I decided, you know what, this week I'm not going to take my meds, you know, for whatever reason I decided to be non-compliant.
If my meds were very important to me, then my response to maybe is to maybe I want to lay around and watch TV, because I'm really depressed. If I'm laying around watching TV, I'm not writing my book, I'm not making my costume, I'm not drawing. So, and then I think about that, I'm not drawing. Oh man, and it just gets this crushing more and more and more crutch.
So, I say, well, what do I do that helps me? I like to go walking outside, I live by the time I'm now. So, what I do is I go out and I walk and I process a chew and chew and chew in my mind, sometimes I wasn't immune to it. And I chew, and then when I get back, I've had my processing, I've had my fresh air, I've had exercise, so I feel better for that physically, which improves my mood.
Sometimes I can yield that to keep, you know, the more I stretch my body, the less tight my shoulders are, the less tight my shoulders are, the less tight, the less tight all I have to take. All these cascades, you know. Sometimes I need to talk to somebody, sometimes I talk to a friend, sometimes I talk to my therapist, sometimes I do all sorts of stuff. I think the clock records, the clock records are a cognitive therapy tool.
It's basically, when I'm overwhelmed, I can say, okay, column A, column A is what happened. My best friend said something that was really rude to me. Column B is what, you know, how did I feel about this? I was angry.
I felt frustrated. I felt the trait. I felt that I'm not going to get the kind of attention I want. I'm not going to get the kind of love I want.
So, and then I look at these thoughts and I say, in the next column, I say, which of these is true? Which of these is valid? I'm not going to get that attention. No, she's had a bad day.
Okay, so I'm not worthy. I'm not a good person. Well, no, it was one day and she just said this annoying thing, you know. Maybe I'll call over on Facebook or whatever.
So, I dispute this. I dispute these things and I say, what if this is real? What if this is my own processing? And then, through this, I look at my automatic thoughts.
What did I immediately think? What's my baggage? My baggage is I'm not good enough. My baggage is I'm not.
I should be a better friend. Whatever that is. And then I look through that and I go, okay, how can that next time, if this same situation happen, what will I do next time? Well, I would say, you know, she's having a bad day.
Or I would say to her, are you okay rather than being confrontational? Or I would just be like, okay, I'll just let you have your space. And then the last column is to evaluate where you are in that space. I'm like, I feel better now.
So, I do that. I do thought records. Or I do, you know, whatever. I do breathing.
That kind of stuff. By doing these kind of things, it allows me more time and more space to be great. If I, there were times when I was living in Japan and I would just get so depressed. Oh my God.
I get so depressed, I couldn't work. I wouldn't want to go to work. I should have myself into the studio. But I'd sit there and I'd stare at the screen and I would be so resistant.
And then that would attach itself in my mind. Like I hate this show. This show hurts. Working on this show is awful.
And then I would continue to make it worse. It's self-fulfilling, prophecy. I would make it worse for myself. But when I do, like when I come to a con, one of the things I do in the 94, I'm like, this is my gun.
This is going to be one of the best cons I've ever been to. It's going to be an amazing weekend. My goals are going to be met like here. I have a table of artisality, so I'm making some money.
I'm going to make my goal. I'm going to make my cash goal. I'm going to make my, I'm going to do my panels. Everyone's going to like my gun.
I'm not being realistic. But I'm saying, I think I'm going to get some decent feedback from my panels, whether it's positive or negative. I frame it this way. And then I forget about it.
But then when I come into the weekend, I already have that in my mind. So when situations come up, I'm like, this is a great weekend. This is going to be a great weekend. I'm like, okay.
You know, there have been times when I've gone to cons. I'm like, oh my God, I don't want to go. I hate these people who run the con or whatever, whatever. And it turned into a nightmare.
You know, and things didn't work out. And it's not me. And it was, it's my framing that makes that difference a lot of times. And right at sometimes, sometimes we get in this space where, you know, physically, it's just typical where we're in the middle of trauma or something's going on.
And we, all we can do is accept that and wait until this form passes. Sometimes that's the best possible thing you can do. Oh, yeah. This has been a blood alcohol content network production.
For more information, visit www.bacnpodcast.com. Your home for almost bacon and banjo!