Gold Star Anxiety

On this season. Judy will be the final comedian in my three comedian series. I talked to my friend Andy Keindler and Chelsea Handler as well. But I've known Judy a long time, and you know, it's just it wasn't until maybe a few years ago when we talked about it, or I don't remember. I mean maybe not just a few years ago, but within the last ten years where

I realized she had anxiety and depression. And it's I don't know why I didn't think that, because I'm not saying every comedian has that, but I've again known her for a long time, and I'm sure she talks about her anxiety on stage. She's just such a big presence in that she's and I mean, this is the best of ways. She's loud, and she's funny, and she's confident, or at least she's doing a damn good job pretending

to be confident. But I've watched her work as a stand up since I moved to New York, and was this shaky little thing trying to act like I was confident, And and I really looked up to Judy, And I know if she were listening to this, she's going to be like, you're making me sound old. But Judy was always very kind to me. And you know, I'm honestly like a lot of times people with anxiety or depression there,

they're not always just kind to people. You know, a lot of times you in your own head or yourself medicating with alcolors something, and then that changes your behavior, or you're really withdrawn and shy, or you're depressed and sort of just over it. And and I never experienced that with her. So it's not like I was shocked when I found out she had depression and anxiety. I

just went, oh, oh, that's right. Yet another reminder that you never can tell you can't judge it by someone who doesn't seem freaked out to be on a stage. I mean that that's a job. You know, I'm not freaked out to be on stage, but I don't necessarily like I don't know, driving over a bridge to get there. Anyway.

Every once in a while, I like to do an episode where it's conversational, where you know, we're not talking to a neuroscientist or a therapist or someone who can explain why everything comes together and forms anxiety, but rather more of an experiential thing. You know, someone who's saying, oh, well, I grew up this way and I didn't realize until later that this was that, and that was this, and that affects this, and you know, there's this um thing.

I think that happens when when you talk to a lot of smart people, if you're listening and you're thinking, oh, okay, I guess god, if I had known this sooner, and then maybe I could have started to get better quicker. And I just don't think it totally works that way.

I think you just have to live your life, live your experiences, and sort of slowly go through life and try and fail at different things, whether it's some kind of social life, work life, and then start to realize what your pathology is or what your habits are, and realize are these mine or these maladaptive things that I learned from my parents? Okay, now I have to trade them in for some new tools. I do think that knowledge is power, but knowledge is not everything. You just

kind of have to live and see and experience. And so Judy and I are all over the place, you know, we we both have a d H D. And as Judy says, she's a d D D D D D D D. Like we're all over the place. We're talking everything from you know, the generational trauma she experienced too when she came out at the closet, and you know what society was like back then? Oh my god, she's so old. Did I mentioned what society was like? How

how different you know it is now? What it's like being a mom, what it's like being someone who had a very anxious mom, who never got treated for anxiety? How do you break the cycle? Do you break the cycle? And then what does she do now? Um too kind of keep the maladaptive behaviors at bay? What does what does she do to self soothe? And you're going to not be surprised that it's the thing that everybody says that we need to do, which is connection with others, breathing, meditating.

I mean, I hate to say it. I could do a hundred more of these episodes and we're just going to keep coming back to those basics, right, But it was really fun to talk to Judy, and I think she's a great example of just keep walking through whatever you're going through. Your going to come out the other side stronger and smarter. And if you can be as funny as Judy while you're doing it, then you've really

you've really won the mental health battle. So without further ado, I hope you just have a fun time listening to me talk with Judy and we talk about bullying, which is something that I haven't really talked about on this podcast before. There is an upcoming episode where I get into um bullying a little bit deeper, talking to a therapist and author about you know, why why does it stay with us when we know we don't actually you know, we don't actually absorb the opinions of bullies that were

mean to us as kids. I mean, maybe we did as a kid, but as an adult, we we know better. We don't care. We might even see these people on Facebook. You know, they seem to have forgotten the whole thing, and uh so what does that mean? It stays with us so that I'll be talking about that in a

future episode, but for now, it's a duty. And I kind of talking about how bullying shaped us in a way where there's this anxiety that comes from not being able to control others in that sense of how do you get to act like this and and like no one's gonna do anything about this, and and then just even growing up and seeing these people, like I said earlier on Facebook and going so you just get to have bullied someone in your whole life and then that's it.

I mean, not even an apology would do. It's like you almost want these people to like have to sit down to their family and go Okay. When I was younger, I did this, I just judy and I realized that one thing we have in common that came from being anxious people and people who maybe felt misunderstood or picked on, was the sense of justice. I think I talked about it with my other friend Andy Killer. Maybe this somehow

goes hand in hand with being a comedian. I'm not sure, but we just want to make things right that aren't in our lives and in the war old and when we can't, it's like we don't except that we can't control the bigger things in life. You know, it's so endlessly frustrating. So people like us, and if you're like us, you really need to find ways to self soothe and of course laugh. So again, so excited to have Judy on this show. And I will stop talking so that you can go listen to her. But let me just

tell you a little more about Judy Gold. She's a stand up comedian obviously, as I said, she started in critically acclaimed one woman hit off Broadway shows. She's the author of Yes I Can Say That When they come for the Comedians were all in Trouble. It's a great book she wrote years and years ago. Um that sort of predicted where we are today in many ways about you know, debates about what we can and can't joke about.

And she is the host of the very funny podcast Kill Me Now, where she always asks her guests if they're on any kind of mental health medication. Judy has acted in so many TV shows. Most recently she was on FX is Better Things, and she's in the new Showtime series Flotus. So let's go to my conversation. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. What is it?

I have this new Bluetooth speaker that I play music out of and it is just talking to me and I don't like it at all, and if I okay anyway, but I'm not going to edit that out because I think it's funny. So without further ado, my conversation with Judy. And you know, you wish you had been there when we were just setting up and she's like yelling funk while she's setting up her mic. It was delightful, but you don't get to hear it, but you get to hear about it. But now you get to hear me

and Judy. Judy and me, you get what I'm saying. Don't criticize my grammar. You just you know where a lot of your anxiety comes from. Spill it. Well, first of all, I think it's genetic. Um, I'm predisposed. I think a lot of Jews are predisposed to anxiety because of being kicked out of every country. So you know, this idea of the Jewish the anxious Jewish mother, Uh, you know, is all based on trauma of you know,

knock knock, get out heat, you get out of your dead. Um. So I know that a lot of my I had had a very anxious mother and very o c D father and an anxious father might so I believe that my anxiety. First of all, my father lived through the Depression. He was born in nineteen sixteen and remembers people we'll remember and he's dead. Uh, people like committing suicide. Fuck, I turned this off, you funk. Sorry. Oh, it wouldn't

be an interview with you without that. I'm keeping on it. Yeah, sorry. Uh. So he he remembered that anxiety from you know, the like literally the depression. Um. He was I guess, you know, thirteen years old, so very impressionable age. Now, my mother grew up on the Upper West Side and she um had a brother and a sister. She was the eldest, and then her brother was two years younger, and then her sisters seven years younger. And one day in June

I think it was the last day of school. Actually, she was walking home from she went to UM Julia Richmond High School on the East Side, and Betty Persky was in her class. Lauren Call's real name. Oh my god, I never knew that. Yes, and cousin of Sam Schmo Perez who was the Prime Minister of Israel. Okay, fascinating. So you get a lot of Jewish information. This is great. So she's walking home and uh, she bumps into one of her cousins. A lot of us grew up my

family very New York Upper West Side. And so she bumps into one of her cousins and they walk home together. And as she gets at off the bus or the subway, whatever, she sees her uncle standing on the corner and he tells the cousin to go home and brings my mother upstairs to tell her that her brother. She walks into this house and her younger brother and everyone is just

sitting um. And her younger brother, who went to Bronx Bian's Brooklyn Tech, was playing ball outside on They lived on ninety four West eighty nine Street nine and the doorman came out and said, told these kids, you can't

play ball here. And uh, my uncle, my mother's brother, had his jacket on the hood of a car, and the doorman or the elevator operator grabbed his jacket and he and Stewart, my uncle, ran and he and the elevator upper ran back into the lobby and was like playing keepaway with the jacket, and Stewart reached for his jacket and um, the doorman slash elevator opera, I don't know what it was, pushed him and he fell back

and hit his head on the marble floor and died. Oh, and I have to tell you I grew up in a house where if I was five minutes late, Um, I remember my father even taking the train to go to work and come home. Um, my mother was a wreck. Every time I left, I had to leave the name number, you know, when I was coming home. You know. So what happened was this huge tragedy happened? And how old was your mom when this happened? It up ended all of her plans of going to college. She ended up

just going to you know, junior college. Her younger sister, who still live, my aunt Joan, you know, told me that, you know, she felt so guilty because she had just had pneumonia and they had just come out with antibiotics, and she she lived, but she thought she was the one that was supposed to die. My mother and my and her sister both made a pack. They would have three children each, so in so there was always one left in case something, I mean, And no one ever

talked about it. So I didn't even know until I was eighteen and I was visiting my grandmother and I saw the obituary in one of her drawers. Um, so this trauma and no one talked about things, then that's the whole thing there was. There was no therapy, there was no They they moved to a smaller apartment with one less bedroom, and then they moved out of the building two first Street. Um, I guess it was too

painful to even be in. So that trauma. Are those two traumas I think um really made or affected the way my parents parented. And you know, and the fact that we didn't know that it was like, what's the big fucking deal. I'm ten minut It is late. You know What's so interesting because now, okay, so there's generational trauma. Then there's nature nurture, so like we know that anxiety comes down in our DNA, whether or not we had

a generational trauma. Then there's third they're doing everything quote wrong, right, so they don't they never talk about the death. They don't all so now they're passing down maladaptive behaviors. Um so even before you find out there was a death, like you're just being created in this lab of anxiety of like you know, everything is dangerous, right, And so I remember I grew up like five or six houses down from my grammar school. Like I literally walked three

minutes to get to my grammar school. You could see the you know, the state the soccer field was like in my backyard. But I mean it was anyway the minute there was any weather, right. Yeah. They used to make announcements on the public address system. I sweart of got the first time, like there's a snowstormer, there's gonna be this, or there's Judith Gold. Can you please come

to the office. Your mother's here. And I'm like, oh my god, I'm already unpopular, and now there's an announcement that my mother was the first to pick us up to you know, bring us home. Well, you know you are a comedian, and we'll mention it a little bit. I'm really I really hate like analyzing comedy and anxiety. It's just so boring and nobody gets it right. But one of my favorite routines that you do routines, one of my eight is the one about your mother. I mean,

it's a classic Judith did you fall down? She's yelling out into your answering machine. We just give us a sense of that because it's so funny. Uh. Well, and I have a I have a bunch of them. But uh so my eye had. This is the eighties, um, and I had gone pre cell phone, and I was at my agent's office and I called my mother on the phone because it was free. I used to talk to my mother every day and and it was free

because we used to have to pay it. And you know, she lived in New Jersey and I was in New York. Uh that was also a sore spot with her that she had to move to New Jersey because of my father's job, and she hated it. But so I called her in New Jersey and we're talking and my elbow hit the you know the thing on the phone. So we got disconnected and I didn't call her back. Um, and I got home and I forgot to tell her

is that my agent's office. And I got home and there was this message on my answering machine where she is literally screaming, where are you? I'm a wreck. I don't understand it. Then she's going to call the neighbor to find out what happened to me, and she's screaming, and then there's a pause and she says, so long.

I mean, it's so and I and I heard this, and I thought, and I had so much material about my anxious mother, and I think that's how I processed it, probably now that I'm talking to you, the the anxiety and um and and her over the top no, because it was It wasn't like I had to exaggerate it. I was just telling these stories and I thought, I gotta play this on. No one is going to believe this. And it became like this signature bit of mine, playing

this answering machine message. And my mother and I have a bunch of them, I you know, through life, um of the messages she left me that are so like, there's one, okay, there's one where there was this dart man. Some people remember this bit. There was a guy in the subways, and I think it was in the eighties or nineties, and he was throwing darts at women's asses, and and there was like this big scare because it was the AIDS you know crisis, So everyone was like,

oh no, what if the darts are infected? Whatever? So it was on the front cover the paper, the dart Man and I got home that afternoon and there was a message from my mother on the answering machine and it said, Judith, we're thick clothes. Uh. It's like this is right now for me. See. I think anxiety is funny because it's it's an exact like we all have. You know, people say to comedians, so you say what I just think? Right, So we all have exaggerated thoughts

and we worry, and that's part of our evolution. We have to be always scanning and keeping ourselves safe. And some of the things we have to think and do in order to do that we're wrong about. And those errors are funny. Hence I think like talking about someone's anxious thoughts are very funny. It's just it's like if she wasn't doing something that maybe you've even thought, it may not even be fine. I don't know. It's it's it's also that you know, the thing about it is

so over the top, but it's based in love and vulnerability. Right, it wouldn't be funny if she was mean spirited wanted to have a terrible life. It's like, here's this woman's idea of loving someone to her best ability and keeping you safe in the world, and it is just potentially could actually do the exact opposite. It could make you so crazy that you fall down, and so you're like,

oh my god, you're out of your mind. But you know, there, I still have one on the machine about not buying Romaine lettuce at a certain uh if you go to this gross do not buy, you know. And it was her way of, you know, sort of staying connected and also yeah, protection and and love. I mean she never said I love you. My parents never said I love you or hugged me. Um, but I knew they loved me,

you know what I mean? And I knew And you know, the thing that got the most um, I guess positive reinforcement was a clever quip or sarcastic, like a funny line or something like that. You know, they definitely appreciated humor and sarcasm. Uh. But yeah, I mean they didn't show love in those traditional ways. Uh, but I knew I was loved. Now you're a mother, and how have you? Have you broken the cycle? Oh? Absolutely, because I've been in therapy for so long. But uh, well, first of all,

I recognize it like I can identify it. I've been through cognitive behavioral therapy and I've been through regular therapy. Uh, and so I at this point. Now, first of all, if you look, you know, like I do the picking of the cuticle thing, which is one of the most common forms of anxiety, till my fingers bleed and I stopped doing that. I mean, I've been doing that since as far back as I can remember, and I over

exercised for many years because of the endorphins. Um. But as a parent, I do remember the worst case scenarios, Like I remember one time I had one of the teachers or helpers at daycare pick up Henry and we had the and he took him home and we had the time wrong, like I thought they were coming home at five or he thought it was seven, and I was fucking freaking the I started walking down the street like I had these scenarios that he was abducted. I'm like,

I'm calling the school. You know. It was crazy, you know, but it's like I have to say that's not you know, when they started driving, I'm like, I always have this this worst case scenario thing, and I had to learn to know that, like identify that is that real or is that anxiety talking? And so that's what's so great about cognitive behavioral therapy is that you can label the feeling. You know, first you get the feeling of anxiety, and then you if you just stop and say what am

I anxious about? But you know, I think the soothing comes from, first of all, I music. I play piano. Um, it's the music soothes me in a way nothing else I can. As someone with a d D D D H D D D D D d D that was never diagnosed, it was diagnosed as an adult, the one thing I can focus on is music. I can literally, um,

you know. Sometimes it's it's annoying because if I know, I play a lot of classical music, and if I know the piece, I can't focus on my writing because I'm like, oh, I love this clarinet solo, and you know, so I have to sort of, you know, play stuff that I'm not that familiar with. But um, some music exercise, UM,

meditation and therapy and just being aware. And I realized, you know, in high school and college, when I was just smoking pot all the time, it was just self medicating, of course, yeah, you know, um, but it's an awareness, you know what I mean, Because you know, some a mother who was listening and might not have anxiety might be like, well, that's perfectly normal. I don't want my kids to drive and you know, hit a tree. But there's something about, Okay, look, bad things are gonna happen

everyone in this life. If I can predict it, then I don't have to feel the feeling. There's no worse feeling than the surprise of bad news. It's like it's so overwhelming in the body. So it's like, let me predict it. I won't have any surprise feelings. I won't be overwhelmed. Right, the poo poo poo thing. But here's the thing, the pooh pooh pooh like, um, well poopoo who is a very Jewish like you don't want to

jinx it. There's this sort of mysticism like you know, you'll say oh, and then I'll yeah, well then I'll probably you know, you know, fall off the whatever the roof, and you know, and then it's like poopoo pooh, don't say that, don't put it out into the universe, you know. So there's that, but then there's that other part of it that's if you don't say it, it's gonna happen, you know what I mean. You've got to let the

universe know you. But I always, you know, like my my partner A Lisa, is very anxious, very anxious, and it's always about plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan. And when you're a mom, I think this is universal for mothers.

You realize plans are just hopes and dreams because you don't know what the fun I can't tell you how many times I had my full week planned out and then I get, uh, hi, Judy, it's Nancy the nurse, not an emergency, but this one fell off the thing, or this one has a hundred and five fever, and you just have to stop. And I think I think that's what the pandemic did. It made people stop and realize what the funk am I doing? All the time?

You know, because if you don't have control, you have to you have to realize, you know, you can plan it out as best you can, but it doesn't mean it's gonna happen. We'll be right back. So taking it back to when you were younger, because I was. You know, it's interesting. I was bullied to and I just I

don't know. I didn't realize how much it affected me truly until I was an adult in my forties and I saw it coming out in ways where like I feel, I'm really obsessed with justice, you know, and it could be justice from like one mean person on the internet to you know, Vladimir Putin, you know, and uh, and everything is of equal importance and my body right, So so take me through. Um, let's relive your bullying. It's

fun to do in the morning. But you from what I know of my research, that you were what six ft tall the eighth grade, and that you felt invisible except for that part you can call people I went to high school with. It was relentless. It was first of all, I couldn't wear clothes. You know. My mother made a lot of clothes and shoes. So there was one store in New York that had um shoes for people for women sized ten and above. And I was twelve. When I was twelve, so we used to come to

the city. I was the fourth generation of my family to go to the shoe store, and as you can imagine, the shoes were not attractive. And I'm like, you know, so first of all, I I can't find clothes and I'm gigantic, um and you know, it's like all you want to do is sort of blend in. But I was taller than my teachers. I was taller than the parents. I was taller than the rabbi when I got bought mitzvahed.

I mean, it's so I went through. And it's so funny because my kids, you know, I have a son who's six seven, and his experience opposite of mine, athletic, popular, handsome, funny like. And I used to constantly say to my kids, if anyone's getting teased, you go, you rescue them, you stand up for them. And they're like, mommy, no one does that in New York City and I'm like whatever. So um. So I have to say that my entire childhood and all through high school, every day I was

called bigfoot, susquatch orca um. It was constant. Even when I was walking home from school, it was it just never stopped. And uh, I think that I had some sense of that of you know this. I'm gonna be a star and you're all gonna be you know, like I had some of that, but I but it was constant. It was constant. And later in life and my mother told me to ignore them, never pay any attention to them, as if they don't exist. And later in life, my therapy said, no, you should have, you know, used your

wicked sense of humor. Um, like I was feeling. But if you don't have a wicked sense of humor and right, so, but I have to say that when I moved to New York, uh, when I was twenty one, right after college, I wouldn't walk by a schoolyard until I was in my thirties because I thought I would cross the street i went, you know, I would hear people laughing behind me.

I was like no, please, no, please no. Um. You know, I was so PTSDD and sometimes I was right actually they were like, oh you know, but um, until my kids went to school, I was very uncomfortable around you know, school age children and you know adolescents and high school kids. Um. And you know this. I hope you um, I hope you relate to this. I recently realized that humiliation that

sense of oh god, this is so humiliating. Um, you know when I feel that when I'm at an event on the red carpet and and they're like you are, Oh, it's so humiliating. And it's the same feeling of like it's it's invalidating, it's it's so I don't know how, you know, I feel that when I go to events and I feel so good about myself before I leave the house, and then I get there and I'm like, oh, this isn't the right clothes, this is like fancy enough.

It's just like it's also yeah, it's also being a comedian. It's like you can do you know, the Tonight Show or the Late Show and have a great set, and then the next week you're standing in front of twelve people in a basement, you know, right, So it's very humbling.

But I remember when I really wanted to be drum major and uh in order to be drum major, and I was perfect because I was a musician, nerd band, nerd and uh and I was tall, so you know, And I remember we had these auditions for drum major and you had the principle was there, and I think the superintendent in the head of the music whatever, and

you had to conduct the star Spangled banner. And when you conduct, you do this upbeat that means instruments to the mouth, and then as you're going down, there's this period of going to the downbeat. And once you hit the bottom is when the music begins. So it's like

up and then uh whatever. And I did the up and as I was coming down, someone yelled sasquatch, and I had to continue to conduct that piece, uh in front of the heads of the school after, you know, and it was just and it's just you remember these horrible I'm sure that person doesn't remember. Well, Okay, so this is what I want to talk about. Three points to make about bullying, but I want to get into how it felt in your body, and I want to talk about the cruelty of it. This is what I

don't understand. The people who have been bullied grow up into being grown adults who can't walk by a playground or still feel this way about whatever. And it caught. I mean, it's causes some kind of mental illness in the bullied person. Why isn't the bullier like they seem to get off scott free. I remember this boy right, this boy who bullied me there on Facebook, they have families and it's like, do you know that you were sociopathically violent to a child and that just goes away

and that's just okay. I don't I literally want a doctor to explain this to me, like what happens in their brain that that just magically disappears, because to me, that's that's so. I would be very worried if my kid was beating up girls. That's he's stipping me. Boys would beat me up, like that's insane. But I don't I know that they that they don't remember that they they don't have any idea the effect this had. I mean,

it's definitely. I have to tell you, if someone says bigfoot, even in a conversation, I still it's like, oh ping, you know, I get pinged sasquatch Bigfoot, Like it's still I mean to hear it every fucking day of your life for years, as you're walking down the hall and we didn't have headphones where we could, I had to purposely act like, oh right, I forgot something in the other hallway. I'm gonna walk the opposite direction. But yes, it's so interesting that you know, I remember before my

mother died. Uh, and she really well in this. She loved like, you're gonna show them, you know, and oh, I have the best story. I have the best story for you. So uh. But I remember the like the day my mother the day before my mother died, two days before, I was visiting her and uh, I said, oh, guess who tried to friend me on Facebook? And it made her so happy? And it's like, do you realize how fucking nasty in that's so? Yeah? Yeah, but here's the best part this. I told this at her funeral,

you know. Uh. When I did Questions for a Jewish Mother, I had a rave review in the New York Times and it ran for years off Broadway and then it toured and it was, Um, it was a great show, great show. And I had this rave review in the New York Times and in this my home paper in New Jersey, the Star Ledger, which is now called something Else New Jersey dot com. So anyway, that reviewer gave me a terrible review. Uh and not and not not worthy of a terror. I mean it really was. It's

a great show, um. And he gave me a bad review. And at the bottom pre of course, pre cell phone, pre computer, pre email. Um, he had for any comments or questions, you can write to me at or call me at. So I'm at a photo shoot and the publicist for the show runs up to me and it's like, Judy, I have to talk to you. I have to talk to him, Like what's going on? She said, your mother apparently left a message for the reviewer at the Star Ledger. Um, you know your mother. If you get a not a

great review, your mother can't call them. And and I said, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Again again never says I love you, but calls you know what I mean? And so, uh, I called my mother and I said, Mom, you can't if I get a bad review, you can't call the reviewer. And she said, well, Judith, actually he wrote his review and then put his phone number about any comments or questions. So I heard what he had to say, and now he can hear what I have to say. And um, and I said, he's not gonna

He was afraid to call her back. He was afraid of her. And the next one person show I did, he actually gave me a good review. Um, but it was the It's the ultimate Jewish mother And she was right. How do you argue with that. She's not don't leave your she said, don't leave your phone number for you don't want to hear my comment. I had to listen to you what your thoughts were. You can listen to mine. We'll continue the interview on the flip side of a

quick message from our sponsors. You know, I was thinking about like going back to the justice thing, and it sounds like your mom and a sense of justice when people writing letters. Let I am writing to the president, and my kids make fun of me all the time. I'm like, you're not eating a chick flake, You're not doing this, You're not end I That is definitely passed down from Yes, absolutely always writing a letter to the

top person. Yeah. Well, it's funny because like the thing that bothered me about being bullied and maybe, you know, someone could say you're just intellectualizing it so you don't feel their feelings. Sure, but it was less, oh my god, you're hurting me because I actually had this really good sense of self and they bullied me because I was acting funny and siddy. I didn't act funny as a defense. Um, I thought I I was I thought I was nailing

it in life. I thought it was so creative and coming to school, like I came to school dressed as Mozart once, no change of clothes, and I was just like, this is a great idea. Yeah, and you know my parents encouraged it. Yeah, my mom, friends friends, Yeah. And so when kids are making fun of it, there was part of me that felt sad, but more like, huh, okay, why I did not see this coming? And then that would happen over and over. But how can people be

so cruel? If I saw some wondrous as Mozart and I didn't like that, I'd probably be like weird, but I'd move on. And I didn't understand. It showed me that there are just cruel people in the world, and I couldn't handle knowing that. But it's also like they would never think of doing that. They probably didn't even know who Mozart was, and they're like, you know, you should be and not being like everyone else is the greatest gift in the world, you know. I remember years

ago they asked me to talk to tall teens. How cute? Yeah, And they were all these kids in high school who were really tall and not athletic, and they asked if the parents they didn't want their mothers there, their parents there, the kids and because only someone who And I was like, look, these people, high school is their peak. You know, this is it. They have four years. You're gonna get it.

I promise you, you're gonna get out. Like the night before I was going away to college, I was so anxious that I was going to be living in a dorm that I couldn't even because at least I had my room in my house and where I could go. You now not get teased. Um, I thought, oh god, now I'm gonna live on the floor and it's like, I'm not even able to walk out of my room.

It's just gonna be constant. And my guidance counselor had to come over the night before I was leaving to tell me it was you know, I was so anxious. I was like, oh, god, now you live in school, so there's no respite, and uh, it's that was it. And I was always really funny, but and only the people that I was friends with knew I was funny.

But thank god he came over, and the next day my whole life was changed because no one gave a ship and they thought I was pretty and tall and skinny, and you know, wow, it's it is literally a moment like that that can change. And I know that you. Um, so you went to therapy, right did you go for the first time at the eighteen and you you realize you were gay and you confess. I told my therapist. I said, yeah, do you did you know the story?

I knew that you you told your therapists. And then the therapist was like, okay, also, I'm leaving being a therapist or moving something. Yeah, I said to her. I was like, all right, I gotta tell her because I'm just sitting here like going around, and I said, I think I might be. You know, I have to tell you. I remember I've prefaced it with okay because I had built up the confidence. I'm gonna tell her today. So I went in. I was like, okay, I just want

to say I have to tell you something. She goes, well, I have to tell you something to you go first, and I tell her I think I'm gay. I mean, I knew I was gay when it was like three whatever, And and that's another anxiety thing, like can you imagine hiding that whole thing? And so I said I think I'm gay, and she said, and I said, what do you have to tell me? She said, I'm moving to

Florida and today's our last session. I was like, oh wow, typical Judy Gold, typical j J. Well, I know that it said here, Um, it said here, Liza, I didn't take my own notes that you had a breakup and you were so sad about your breakup, but you can tell anyone because you were still I remember I had Yes, I had a girlfriend ish you know, in high school, uh and college, you know, beginning college. And it broke up and I never told. No one knew. It was like, um,

you're in this. I mean it was high school whatever, whatever it was, you know. To me, I'm you know, we're performers, were artists. Everything is heightened, every feeling is heightened to the m degree. And we broke up, but no one knew I was gay or that we had been fooling around. You know. Oh god, I was so skinny. Um,

and I basically got like a bleeding peptic ulcer, you know. Um, you know, holding every feeling in did you feel it in your body in the sense that you were actually feeling anxiety about being in the closet or what did it feeling. It's like you're so uncomfortable because you're playing a character, like you're you know what I mean. So it's like here I am at this frat or this party or you know whatever, and everyone I know is straight. It turns out between my junior and senior year in college,

it was my father called it the summer of forty two. Um, I lived on campus and all of my friends sort of came out of the closet, which was I was like, you're gay too, Oh my god, you know, but I'm living in a dorm. First of all, you live in a straight world. And even like that's why they don't say gay thing. It's like no one said gay when I was, you know, and you don't say right. But it was also like and we're all gay, so we

that doesn't work. Um, But it's being in the closet is the most painful, um because everyone zooms you're someone you're not and you have to sort of play along and oh my god. It's so funny because I remember this guy Scott, who I really liked him, and I used to go visit him and his frat um and he had pot all the time, so um, and he was tall, and you know, it was always like, oh, look at that tall one. You know, my mother was like, and I'm like, oh god, tall men hate tall women.

They want short women. Short guys love tall women. Short guys who are confident and you know, love tall women. So anyway, I remember this guy Scott, and I uh, I was friends with him, and I know he wanted to date me, and you know, it's just it was unnatural. And I had a boyfriend in college too, who um, and you weren't bisexual, you were just trying to I

here's the thing. This is what's so interesting. Oh you're gonna love this is that my generation of gay it was such a horrible, horrible hard life that you had to try to be Can I at least try and and be straight because life will be so much easier. I think a lot of people in my generation did that, and it was so unnatural for me. It was literally unnatural. I had this boyfriend and he was lived in my dorm and I was like, no, I'm not, I mean lived downstairs and I wouldn't sleep in his room. Well

I was like, I can't. And I felt even even having sex was like I felt like I was being assaulted because I was like this, I hate this. I hate it so much. Um talk about anxiety and uh, and so I don't know if you know this. There's this term in the gay community called gold star. I do, yes, Okay, do you know that what the platinum means? No? I know, gold star means you are a lesbian has never had or a gay man, has never had straight sex with

the opposite sex. What's platinum? There? There's a term platinum that is so offensive to women. I can't even believe. Platinum is a gay man who is gold star but is the product of a C section, so had never even gone through a vagina. It has never gone in or come out come out of a vagina, has never had any contact with a vagina. That's called platinum. Ridiculous and funny. Yeah, you know. And also it's like, first of all, what else do teenagers talk about except I

have a crush on this person. I so you missed an entire developmental stage of your fucking life by having to keep your everything and quiet. May not grow in a brain chemistry? Oh please? It was awful. And yeah, and then I remember, you know, coming out and admitting and finally talking about it. I'm telling you, it was like an out of body experience. I was like, I felt like I was looking at myself from above, finally,

you know, letting go of this. And you know, you just didn't know, you know, you would play this character for so long. I remember when I came out to my sister in therapy and then she freaked out because she had no idea. First of all, I'm dressing as a boy, um my entire like up until like six or seven years old, like everyone, you know, no one was surprised. I made everyone call me Robert or Ringo was a kid. My cousin still calls me Robert um.

And you know, my sister said to me, I need to process this because you're not the person I thought you were, and I need to greet you that person. And I'm like, oh my god, really, um, you know, I have so many friends. I played tennis and I'm in Provincetown. I played doubles, and there's so many of these women who were eighty in their late seventies, who were married, they have kids, they have grandkids, and they're finally living their authentic life and so happy. And the

fact that they had. I mean, I'm glad they have kids and grandkids, but the fact that they put their life aside because they would have had nothing that you know, old maid, um spinster. Uh, it's just you know, you're playing this character and then all of a sudden you

don't have to hide anymore. It's the greatest feeling in the entire But I'm telling you the constant Uh, you know, you get you're with people and you're hearing them say shit about people or talk about oh my god, don't you want to have and you're like, it's just like you know, that feeling in the top of your stomach of oh god, here we go. Gotta play this fucking game and it's not comfortable. And that's why you know

you have to be out and proud. Anxiety Bites will be right back after a quick little message from one of our sponsors. Okay, so here you are bullied in the closet. Now you're getting older, you're growing up, you're coming into your own. When did you start going to therapy? And who put a name to the word anxiety to you for the first time? Was it a therapist? Oh that's interesting, I mean, I hate I hate the first time, biggest moment questions because who the funk knows, but was

there like a period in your life? Yeah? So I went to this the first therapist to move to Florida, m and then, um, she said to me at eighteen, I think you should go to an analyst, a psycho analyst, because I think you're more complicated than just like a social worker. I went to the Jewish Family Services because I said to my mother, I want to go to therapy and she's like, I will go to the Jewish Family Savors. And uh. I went to this analyst and I remember, oh, he was so bad because they don't

say anything, you know. And I'm eighteen nineteen and I'm going to this analyst and I cut my hair short and I remember going in and he's like, why did you cut your hair short? And I'm like, I'm not fucking telling you anything. Like I had him and it was in his house and I was it was this cow. I know. I wasn't ready for that. And then I fell in love with another straight you know, it's just awful because no one's out and you fall in love

with these these these straight women. And I went to Pure counseling and counseling at college, and I just kept seeking out counseling. But I think, you know, once I went to I moved to New York, I had all this stuff done and I was always diagnosed with general anxiety disorder, you know, on my my health insurance and stuff. And uh, I had a nervous breakdown slash clinical depression in two thousand ten. And I had never I had diurnal depression, so during the day I could not function

at all. At night, when the sun went down, um, I would it would lift and I could probably have like a protein chick again, so thick. But I really threw that emotional breakdown that I always have a hard time during the day. You know that the anxiety is worse during the day, and when the sun goes down, I feel at peace. And if I go back, I remember now that I'm so aware of it, the alarm going off in the morning and oh no, you know, to wake up as a kid and be like fuck,

I gotta go get teased all day fucking long. You know. Um oh, I didn't even know about this kind of depression diurnal. So Williams. Stry On had um nocturnal depression, and I had it during the day and I still have trouble sleeping a little because if I let myself think, the breathing exercises are great. Tell us what you do.

What's your breathing exercise for anxiety, so you know, mindful breathing, focusing on that breath and and being I mean, it takes so much practice and having those thoughts come into your head, identifying them and saying but by now, but by now. But it's like you have to learn to identify it, what's real, what's not real. So I'll start with the breath. And if I have a bad meditation day, I just give myself a break. But it's like, go back to the breath, Go back to the breath. I

have lists. I write lists all the time because that helps with my anxiety. Like all this stuff. I'm like, oh God, you have to do this, you have to do that. So I write it down and then I can let it go. So I do. I have all these tricks that I do. Work, exercise very important. Um also that feeling. That's why I loved quarantine, you know,

because I loved it so much. I was like, no pressure, no one's doing anything that that feeling of having no control, that feeling when the nurse called and I was like, sorry, I got to take care of my kid. Like I loved that. I think that people don't understand that like it is exercise is mindfulness exercises. They want like one answer and they want some kind of oh no that

you know. I feel like when people write to me and they go, well, no, no, that stuff doesn't work for me because I have it really bad, and I'm like, no, it doesn't work. Work you have to practice, yea. And there are some days where I'm like nothing's gonna I'm in a bad place, and I will text Gary Gulman or all text another person and I know deals with this stuff and just say I'm having a And I know now because I'm fifty nine years old, it's gonna pass.

But when I was in that clinical depression where I could not speak, if someone said go get a quart of milk. This is someone since I'm in my early twenty traveling all over the fucking country by myself, you know, doing you know, if someone said go get a cord of milk at the store, I would have been like, you know, it was horrible, and I couldn't speak, and I realized, oh, this is why people commits or you take their own lots so segments with but um, this

is why you know people harm themselves. But I never wanted to. I never did it. I had kids, but I knew that feeling and it changed me as a person. Um because my also, if you went to the doctor and you took my blood, my blood work was completely different than when I wasn't depressed. Oh really, what does it affect? Does it change like immune white bloodstion of certain vitamins. It was very chemical and so you have to realize it is an illness. And I hate the

fucking stigma. UM. And I have to say, like on those days when it's I'm like, oh boy, I'll call a Lisa and I'll say, yeah, I'll have it very bad, and she will be like, Okay, you know, you gotta reach out. You gotta reach out because there's other people who are in the same situation who have you know.

And the I think the worst part of being a uh AN artist and having depression is that we're so in tune with our feelings and we have such strong feelings that if we really think hard about it, we could go back to that feeling, you know, and so that fear of it happening again. If if I actually sat here and thought about it, I can really sort of gathered all that horrible shit and start feeling like that again. And I don't want to, but I live

in fear that it will happen again. Although I've taken some medical tests and they say it's it's you know, they took my DNA and RNA and p n A whatever. But you know that to your point, that is perfect proof that getting help getting better. If it's medication, you need therapy, Uh, you will not lose your unique thing that makes you an artist. If you think you need your refresh anxiety, be an artist. No, you can call it up any time that you might need it for

an acting scene or you know. Yeah. And it's also I remember when they first wanted me to go on ANTIS, like, no, I'm not gonna be funny, but I couldn't take it anymore. Like the amount of time I spent in my apartment just being anxious, just sitting there, not being able to get anything done, just with my head, with my thoughts. You know, I wasted. I would have I would have years I would definitely have at least a year of

doing nothing of the time that I spent picking my cuticles, worrying, worrying, worrying, worrying. Um, and now because of therapy, because of meditation. I mean, everyone has their thing that that can work if you just allow it to work and you practice practice, and if days it doesn't work, it does not mean to break. Give yourself a break and don't assume it means anything, and reach out and reach out. Yeah, I hope you had fun hanging out with me and Judy. Judy and me.

Oh my god, here I am again with that. Let's just go over some of the takeaways from my conversation with Judy Gold and don't forget. If you want to send an email to the show, please do so. Anxiety Bites weekly at gmail dot com. I don't think I won't be doing another fully only listener email episode, but um sort of scattered throughout episodes coming up, I will read a few emails that I think are pertinent, So please do that. Please give the show five stars. Can

do that on Spotify and Apple podcasts. If you don't want to write a review, that's okay, but five stars really helps pushes the algorithm up, makes more people find the podcast. More people that find the podcast, Well, maybe I could get to do more episodes after season one, and the more people are getting help for their anxiety, and that's always a good thing. That makes your life and my life better. All right. My takeaways from my chat with Judy Gould, Most importantly, Lauren but Caall's real

name is Betty Purskey or Perky. I think it was Persky. Judy believes that one of her mother's symptoms of anxiety, like the constant worrying about Judy's whereabouts, was although it was anxiety and very intrusive, it was based in love and vulnerability. Judy leaves that her anxiety came from a combination of genetically being Jewish, the generational trauma, as well as her father having an undiagnosed o c D and her mother having suffered a trauma of losing her brother

at an early age and never discussing it. Cognitive behavior therapy is what ultimately helped Judy the most with her anxiety disorders. For her, it's the act of labeling the feeling and being able to stop in the moment and

ask yourself, what am I actually anxious about. For Judy, music is a non clinical way of self soothing and one thing that Judy finds she has an easy time concentrating on despite having a d h D. As a mom, Judy has learned that she has to accept that plans are just hopes and dreams because you never know what's going to happen. You have no control. You can plan,

but that doesn't mean it's going to actually happen. Judy was bullied in school for being tall, and she does still feel a PTSD trauma response in her body when she hears words like big voters, sasquatch, or even walks by you know, a playground with middle school or teenagers. Judy's advice to anyone in high school being bullied is to keep in mind that the bullies are at their peak right now in high school. When they leave high school without their little group of people validating them, their

lives may fall apart. Whereas Judy's began. Judy got a peptic ulcer from being in the closet and holding in her feelings when she broke up with her first girlfriend, and so it stresses the importance of having someone to talk to if you have anxiety if you feel like you are hiding something from others, whether it's that you are in the closet, or that you're just swallowing your feelings, afraid to feel them because they scare you, or just

afraid that they're not normal. Another thing that contributed to Judy's anxiety was the uncomfortability of her whole life being in the closet. It was less of fear of people finding out, but more how it felt to play along with who everyone assumed. She was just not getting to live her authentic life. Judy had a nervous breakdown with clinical depression in and was diagnosed with diurnal depression. She

could only function after sundown. She's doing much better now, but has worries you know what if it comes back and for her staying connected to friends and doing her daily cognitive behavioral therapy exercises keeps her on the up and up. Judy does breathing exercises for anxiety. She practices identifying the thoughts in her head and saying by to them as she refocuses on the feeling of her breath.

When Judy has a bad meditation day, she gives herself a break, writing lists helps calm Judy down and she gets the anxiety of what she has to do out of her brain and onto the paper. Exercise is really important to duty for staving off anxiety. Exercise does create endorphins, which, when used responsibly, I mean, there's exercise addiction, but that's what we're talking about, but when used responsibly, can actually flush a lot of the anxiety out of our body.

Judy keeps in mind when she's in her anxiety or her depression that it will pass. It always has. But in those moments she reaches out to friends who understand her. It's important to reach out and stay connected. And I hope you will stay connected with this podcast Anxiety Bites. What a segue that was. And don't forget Anxiety Bites, but You're in control. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.