To celebrate our journey into triple digit episode numbers, we take a look back at episodes that have really stayed with us. They’re not even necessarily our favorite, mind you. It’s not that we think they’re so much better than all the rest. They’re just some episodes that come to mind pretty quickly. Discussed on this show: Depression, Anxiety, and Devil Horns: Chelsea Ursin Saves Her Soul with Rock n’ Roll Amanda Knox on the Difference Between Exoneration and Freedom The Beautiful World of Me...
Mar 13, 2023•56 min•Ep. 100
The Greek gods, as depicted in Rachel Smythe’s Lore Olympus series, are far from stately and dignified. Indeed, they’re neurotic, depressed, and anxious. They’re gossipy and bitter and nasty and petty sometimes. Probably some legit mental disorders banging around, some trauma likely in there as well. In other words, they’re pretty human. Rachel Smythe tells us why mythology has always spoken so deeply to her, what she learned from being a social pariah in school, and how she’s handling internati...
Mar 06, 2023•53 min•Ep. 99
It was pretty simple in comedian and writer Zach Zimmerman’s mind when he was a kid: you had to accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior or you would spend all eternity being tortured in the fiery pits of Hell. And he wanted to do that accepting. Problem was, God never spoke to young Zach or gave him any indication that he was saved. No revelatory ecstatic church service or voice from beyond to give Zach a sign, just constant doubt and terror. And that can mess someone up. Zach strug...
Feb 27, 2023•58 min•Ep. 98
Enjoy the debut episode of John Moe's new sleep-aid podcast Sleeping with Celebrities and be sure to subscribe! Andy Daly is a comedian, actor, and podcaster. He starred on the Comedy Central series “Review” and was a supporting actor on HBO’s “Eastbound and Down” as well as a cast member on “MadTV.” Like many people, Andy has a yard at his home and is thus charged with the task of taking care of it. To do this, he sets aside about half a day per week, although that day varies because Andy’s wee...
Feb 22, 2023•49 min
If you’ve listened to our show before, you know that we recommend a period of trial and error to find a mental health treatment that works best for you. Nothing works for everyone, after all, so you have to see what you respond to. Neal Brennan is the embodiment of that concept and in this interview he reports back on how well or poorly it went for him trying Freudian therapy, antidepressants, transcranial magnetic stimulation, a special kind of TMS available in China, ketamine, ayahuasca, 5 MeO...
Feb 20, 2023•58 min•Ep. 97
The title of KC Davis’s book paints a pretty vivid picture of what her work is about: How To Keep House While Drowning , subtitled “a gentle approach to cleaning and organizing.” KC, a therapist and podcaster, specializes in helping people who have dealt with mental disorders, trauma, postpartum, and other issues but who are still faced with piles of laundry and dishes that need to be addressed. She joins us on a room by room tour of an imagined house to figure out how to take on care tasks whil...
Feb 13, 2023•58 min•Ep. 96
In many ways, Christian Finnegan’s earlier career path made a lot more sense given the path he has traveled. He went to NYU, tried and then dropped acting, and then set out to be a very serious writer and artist. He worked in publishing and fancied a career where his writing would be at the center of his work, possibly as a monologist but never as a stand-in-front-of-a-brick-wall comedian. The serious path would make sense given that Christian reached he has experienced some serious stuff: the d...
Feb 06, 2023•54 min•Ep. 95
Chris Walla’s life today is very different from where it has been in the past. The musician and producer isn’t in the Pacific Northwest, for instance, where he grew up and lived for many years. He’s in Trondheim, Norway, where he is putting down roots and continues to compose and produce. And while that happens, Death Cab for Cutie, the band he co-founded in the 1990s, is in the midst of a 71-stop international tour. In this interview, Chris talks about music instructors and academic experiences...
Jan 30, 2023•56 min•Ep. 94
Veteran podcaster Lauren Ober suspected something was up and that it went beyond covid stress and professional stress and all the other reasons she had been going to therapy for so long. She had been a journalist for many years and her instinct for the story led her to start piecing together that the life she had been experiencing all this time fit the profile of autism. Well spoiler alert, she tested and found out that, yeah, she’s on the autism spectrum. Then it was a matter of finding therapy...
Jan 23, 2023•51 min•Ep. 93
Kate Beaton’s new book, Ducks , is not about ducks. At least not really. It’s about people, specifically Kate and the people she worked with during a two-year period after finishing university, working in the remote oil sands region of northern Alberta, Canada. The camps at the oil sands housed hundreds of employees and they were not an easy place to be, filled with depression, broken marriages, and rampant substance use. Kate was one of only a handful of women working at the oil sands, a fact t...
Jan 16, 2023•45 min•Ep. 92
It’s easy to assume that the life of Paulina Porizkova has always been an easy one. Most people first knew her as an internationally famous model, posing on the covers of fashion magazines and Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues. She married a rock star, Ric Ocasek of The Cars, whom she met while filming a music video for the band. Seems like the sweetest life possible, right? Well, not so fast. Paulina tells stories in this interview that show another story. She was orphaned in Czechoslovakia at...
Jan 09, 2023•51 min•Ep. 91
Honestly, I really expected to call this episode “Covid Sedaris” because David Sedaris had just tested positive for COVID when we taped the interview. But when we spoke, he wasn’t feeling it much at all. Had some symptoms that might have been allergies or COVID but were barely noticeable. Other people have it a lot worse, he says. David has been delighting audiences for 30 years now, ever since the broadcast of Santaland Diaries. His latest book, Happy-Go-Lucky, is deceptively titled, containing...
Jan 02, 2023•1 hr 2 min
On The Great British Bake-Off season nine, Kim-Joy became well known not just for how cute her baked goods were but for how meticulously, exquisitely crafted they were. Her success on the show has been parlayed into a series of cookbooks and even a collaborative card game. Before all that success, things were different for Kim-Joy, including a strained relationship with her father in an unusual housing arrangement, years of selective mutism at school, and a lot of loneliness, depression, and anx...
Dec 26, 2022•48 min•Ep. 90
It’s that time of year when tv commercials and store decorations implore you to feel merry and jolly (words we only use this time of year). And if you do feel that way without any complications or nuance, well, good on ya. But for people who live with depression, anxiety, problematic stress reactions, this season can be a real minefield. We’re joined this week by two therapists who are also friends of the show. Dr. Ksera Dyette talks about strategy come holiday time and how to protect yourself f...
Dec 19, 2022•51 min•Ep. 89
It wasn’t until her late twenties that Ellen Forney noticed that her friends couldn’t really keep up with her. Ellen had boundless energy that took the form of dancing for long stretches at home, smoking a lot of pot, vibrating with intense sexuality, and latching on to new friends who were just as unrelentingly intense as she was. But to Ellen, this was just her living her best life. It wasn’t until these episodes were followed by intense, debilitating crashes of depression that she thought som...
Dec 12, 2022•50 min•Ep. 88
There is no shortage of self-help books in the world positing that the human mind can be explained, that there is a tidy order to things and a discernible reason why everything happens. These are books that claim to have answers. Rachel Aviv’s new book, Strangers to Ourselves , goes in the opposite direction. Through a series of profiles, she presents people and their behavior that defy easy explanations and who produce more questions than answers. Does Ray represent the triumph of medication ov...
Dec 05, 2022•50 min•Ep. 87
I mean, even before you see the baked goods available at Depressed Cake Shop, the name alone is good for a laugh. Because what could be less depressing than a cake shop? And then you see the storm cloud cookies or the cupcakes with gray frosting and the joke gets even funnier. The world of depression? It can be pretty hilarious at times. Depressed Cake Shop isn’t fixed to one location, rather it’s a series of pop-up shops selling funny/bleak sweets to benefit local mental health charities. We sp...
Nov 28, 2022•43 min•Ep. 86
Granted, there have been people very high on the prospects of psychedelics for a long time as a means of achieving better mental health. But these folks didn’t appear in scientific and medical circles so much as they appeared in drum circles. Things are different now, with very promising research and results being reported on the ability of these drugs to kind of un-stick one’s mind and achieve a better state of mental health. We talk with freelance reporter and researcher John Semley, who has b...
Nov 21, 2022•42 min•Ep. 85
Kristin Hersh is an acclaimed and accomplished musician and songwriter through her solo work and as part of the bands Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave. When Kristin Hersh was young, her father, Dude (that’s what everyone calls him), taught her some basic chords on the guitar. And that was fine but to Kristin, Dude was just showing her the red, blue, and green chords whereas she wanted to learn, like turquoise, burgundy, and magenta chords. Synesthesia has always been part of Kristin’s approach to...
Nov 14, 2022•58 min•Ep. 84
Jason Kander had heard of post-traumatic stress disorder. He just didn’t think he had it. After all, he hadn’t been in any firefights while stationed in wartime Afghanistan, he had merely worked as an intelligence officer. And even though that job put him in positions of tremendous vulnerability where he may have to kill or be killed in an instant, it never occurred to him that he was experiencing trauma. So when Jason got back stateside and remained hypervigilant, was destroyed by night terrors...
Nov 07, 2022•57 min•Ep. 83
People are many things. Tabitha Soren became famous for her conversations with star musicians of the 90’s during her stint on MTV News. But that’s not who she is anymore. Tabitha is, among many things, a mother grieving the loss of her daughter, Dixie, in a 2021 car accident. She talks about the challenge of having to come up with words to talk about Dixie and what her family has been through in the last year and a half. And she talks about the inspiration she stills draws from the life Dixie le...
Oct 31, 2022•53 min•Ep. 82
Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA, is serving his second non-consecutive term as U.S. Surgeon General, having previously served under President Obama. Dr. Murthy’s office has issued a Framework for Mental Health & Well-Being in the Workplace. It’s a set of guidelines aimed at reducing burnout at work and promoting positive mental health: 1. Protection from Harm 2. Connection and Community 3. Work-Life Harmony 4. Mattering at Work 5. Opportunity for Growth But the framework isn’t really aimed...
Oct 24, 2022•45 min•Ep. 81
If you’re a fan of the podcast Song Exploder, and a whole lot of people are, you know that it’s all about creativity. A musician walks the audience through the components of their song and the inspirations and decisions that went into forming those parts as they came together as a whole. Meanwhile, Hrishikesh Hirway, creator of the show, drops in separated tracks so you can follow the story. It’s somewhat surprising then that Hrishi, a musician himself, was unable to write a song for years, even...
Oct 17, 2022•49 min•Ep. 80
A lot of people think of clinical depression as a condition wherein the patient lies in bed immobilized with sadness and despair. And sure, it can present that way. But depression can show up in a lot of other ways too, including road rage, which John details in a harrowing and darkly funny chapter of his memoir. Learn why frat bros in fancy trucks set off a potentially dangerous episode at the city dump. We also hear about John finally getting help for his depression at the urging of his wife a...
Oct 10, 2022•50 min•Ep. 79
From a very early age, Kevin Love was great at sports. He had the talent, the size, and, most of all, he loved playing basketball. In this way, he was just like his father, Stan, who played in the NBA long ago. But with high achievement comes more pressure than Kevin was ready to handle and depression and anxiety came calling. As Kevin’s career progressed - scholarship player at UCLA, 5th overall pick in the NBA draft, All-Star selections, an NBA championship - he waited for the next big achieve...
Oct 03, 2022•52 min•Ep. 78
You Are Not Alone: the NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health is a deep and thorough look at mental health and mental illness as they are experienced by people from all walks of life. The book’s author, Dr. Ken Duckworth, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, interviewed 130 people who have dealt with trauma, depression, psychosis, OCD, and just about any other mental disorder you can think of. He hadn’t intended to talk to so many but it was all too fascinating to stop. H...
Sep 26, 2022•58 min•Ep. 77
Eating disorders are, unfortunately, pretty common. It’s also pretty common to experience shame and anxiety about them and thus suffer in silence. Annie Weisman is a veteran playwright and television writer and producer. From her late teens to age 30, Annie dealt with bulimia. She was binging and purging and not telling anyone. Even after she got help for the condition (she now considers herself to be recovered), she kept quiet about that part of her history. That is, until she made a TV show ca...
Sep 19, 2022•52 min•Ep. 76
In the entire 321-year history of Yale University, the most popular class ever is a relatively new one called “Psychology and the Good Life”, taught by Dr. Laurie Santos. Since it’s debut in 2018, it has proved to be so much in demand that Yale now offers a version of the class for free online to anyone in the world. Part of the appeal is that Dr. Santos is a really great professor. She’s smart, presents lessons in a compelling way. But beyond that, the class holds appeal because so many people ...
Sep 12, 2022•58 min•Ep. 75
It used to be that Jonathan Ames read and wrote all kinds of books. But somewhere along the line everything but detective novels kind of fell away and now that’s pretty much his thing. His big project these days is a detective series, featuring private eye Happy Doll, a 50-year-old Angeleno who tries to solve cases and not get killed in the process. Ames says we relate to detective stories because we’re all constantly trying to solve our own mysteries. That’s hard in real life, to put it mildly....
Sep 05, 2022•57 min•Ep. 74
Maybe you, dear podcast listener, put on a couple of pounds during COVID. You were home more because there weren’t as many other places to go. You just weren’t as active. That was the case with actor and singer Lola Kirke, who describes this period of cocooning at home as being a time she was very happy. But chances are you weren’t prevented from working in your chosen field as a result of that body change. Lola Kirke was. Lola has starred in television shows like Mozart in the Jungle and in mov...
Aug 29, 2022•44 min•Ep. 73
