Having a Menty B

Well, I think collectively everybody's having a bit of a mental breakdown. Considering the current state of affairs, I don't mind if we gender it to begin with, though, because kind of along the lines of our last ep about, you know, where I revealed, you know, I would rather cut an arm off than like, ask someone for help, or even just invite someone for a coffee. That maybe we can gender this for a second and say that women are more likely to text a mate and say, I'm going to lose my shit.

I think we're better at reaching out to our friends, I think, or to our girlfriends for help, I do think generally, than men are asking for help, but to a point, to a point, yeah. Not always. Not always. And you might, they might tell you years later there was this thing going on, you're like, oh my God, you never even mentioned it. But you've had like four or five women friends or people you knew, friends of friends, I think in one or two cases, who were like...

Through an alignment of different circumstances all at once we're just like I'm gonna go and live in a motel for a week Yeah, like it was really very much like yeah, we're joking, you know And being a middle aged white woman my culture is astrology that like, you know, Mercury's in retrograde or something So something's going on Venus retrograde happened recently. Yeah, like yeah supermoons big Yeah, all this, all this sort of stuff.

So I thought you were going to say it was because of things happening in the world, that there's a problem. Astrologically, there's things happening and that's why everyone's not coping. But Joe, every time there's a Mercury retrograde, bad things do happen in the universe, Joe. Aren't you paying attention?

So, but no, but, but what it feels like and whether this is the current economic, know, state of affairs, it's everyone is, I mean, it's certainly feeling The financial struggles at the moment, even people who are, you know, on pretty good money and safe, secure jobs are struggling. true. So I think that that's compounding things. I think post sort of, I think it is a bit of a latent sort of post COVID. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we'll see you in the next one.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Collectively, there's been all these stresses that we potentially couldn't and didn't process during COVID that are all kind of catching up with us in this very stressful economic sort of time. And everyone is just not coping or it's mercury retrograde, whichever you want to believe. But, um. A whole bunch of straws got put on camels and all the camels went, ehhh. So the topic that I want to talk about.

That was the background, is having a mental breakdown. Well, you know, we're building up to that. So let's talk about it. Well, what I liked, I really liked what one of the women said, which was like, it was just like, I've moved out. I'm in a, I'm in a motel. Yeah. I can't deal with anyone's stuff at all. Yeah. I'm just, I'm done. I'm done. I need a weekend off. Yeah. She actually just needed a weekend off.

She was just at the end of her tether and I mean, god knows, I've had moments like that too, where I'm just like, I just don't want to be here. Yeah. And the, it's interesting, I've, I've talked to many, like my sister, my girlfriends, the, the common shared fantasy. is running away from your life. Oh yeah. For a, you know, just for a period of time. It's not that you don't love your kids and your partner, or your home and all those things.

It's just, it's all too much and you just actually just need a break from it. Like a genuine break of, from caring about everybody else. Doesn't sound like any of those things that you said, uh, astrological or economic. It just sounds like middle age. It's probably, but I think what alignment of pressures, it's an alignment of pressures, but I think it's, yeah, like it's been compounded in this sort of post COVID sort of world, I think.

And everything, yeah, like all of a sudden, all right, everything's meant to be back to normal, but everything doesn't quite feel like it's back to normal. Everybody's just not, it's been a rough few, like if you, you know, catching up with people, you know, since COVID, the last, you know, how have you been and how are you going? It's been a rough trot. That's, that's generally the thing I've been sensing with a lot of people my age.

Like it's, it's been a rough few years or it's been, it's been a hard year or this has not been my year. That's the thing I'm consistently hearing. Yeah, that's right. And it's good. It's good. People can do it. And I think by going to the motel, she actually prevented a nervous breakdown, which is, you know, more the case. So, and then has anyone you know had one lately?

Well, I mean, I know, um, I know someone else who has decided to take some extended time off work in order to prevent a mental breakdown. Um, because that's where they were heading. I. Yeah, like, and people taking mental health days from work just to, you know, so work is usually the thing they can put on hold in a practical sense because you can't necessarily put caring for kids on hold.

yeah, trying to, and, and people trying to recenter themselves and taking that space in a preemptive kind of way. I mean, I've certainly tried to do those things. I'm also outside of work, like without taking time off work, but like with my time off being able to actually dedicate time, my time off to myself in order to recharge, unplug properly, like really actually schedule that time in because that's usually the first thing to go.

And I think that's the problem is we've, it's the first thing to go. And so then we're not taking care of ourselves. We're just taking care of everything else. And that's when it all becomes too much. And if we've the prop, I had a really wise colleague years and years ago and she said, you cannot. Drink from an empty cup. You need to fill your cup up, Alex. And like, that was the thing that she, yeah, like what are the things that fill my cup up?

And, you know, and so over the years and with therapy and actually, you know, I have a list of things like, you know, you know, going for hikes, going camping, you know, a complicated cooking project on the weekend. Something like that is something that gives me joy and, and. Fills my cup up so that I have something to draw on when I need it for everything else. That's right. And the thing I think we haven't had is the opportunities to fill our cup up over Covid.

Yes. And so we're all running on empty and that's, and like, and for me this year, like my back, I've injured my back. Yeah. And so not being able to, to go camping or go on the hikes, Has actually been like, well, how am I, I'm needing to learn different ways to recharge. I'm guessing even some days you might not have had been able to have a walk even. No. Yeah, yeah. No, I've, I've literally been bedridden, so it's been, and that seems restful, but it's not when you're feeling frustrated No.

That you're not actually doing the things you want to, you feel like you're just missing out and so, yeah. Oh yeah. And you can be, I read an article recently, like. You know, you take that week off, but you don't manage to mentally separate yourself from what's going on. And then you're still burnt out and yeah, it's like taking the holiday and then going straight back to work. And you're like, I don't feel like that was, that was just exhausting.

Cause I've just, you know, traveled and dragged my ass. Yeah. I did all this stuff. I just stressed in a different place. I felt the pressure to be enjoying it and get the maximum value from all this money I've spent that I don't really have and all that sucks. And then, but I remember.

like my first proper mental breakdown was kind of it was brought on by a range of pressures all occurring at the same time but funnily enough money wasn't really one of them and it was sort of none of this kind of stuff that weighs on people our age now not really it was coming it was something way more fundamental but all that stuff is fundamental of course if you say well it can be a great well i can imagine it'd be a great source of uh comfort to people, to like, have people to care for, and

um, I'm not going to speak for anybody else, but certainly having other people to count on, and for them to count on me, and to like, have a role to play in their lives, that's very important to me now. But in my 20s, yeah, no one to really depend on me, and yet, I think there was a, there's an echo of the same sort of thing of like, I had a girlfriend.

But we were in love and I thought, yep, you know, this is it for the, for the time being and you know, everything's great and I'm about to start uni, it's all good. I think just like, no, I thought it was very different, but no, just like all the people you've discussed, one of the things that tipped me over the edge was a sudden panic because of trauma, childhood, you know, going to boarding school at a young age and you know, a bunch of things and my mum being sick with cancer at the time.

That, all of a sudden I felt this nausea and this, I was appalled at the thought that love could just go away. Who's to say I won't remain, who's to say I'll remain in love with this person? Who's to say, years later right, what I really learnt about all that was, just very recently in therapy, the thought wasn't. Can I love them? That's what I thought it was about. And that's part of it.

The other part was I actually didn't, and right up until quite recently, had no real trust in others to be there and continue to be there. And so it was, I was, it was coming, I had this guilt, I won't be there for that person. And I'll put my hand up. I'll be the first to say some of the worst times in my life were when I felt like I was being a bad. Boyfriend. Like, that I was failing to love this person. I was putting this distance there and I didn't know why. And the guilt of that.

But until more recently, I didn't understand. It was also because I didn't feel I could, I could be depend, that I could depend on myself to look after that other person, that I could depend on myself to look after me and that that other person would actually stick around. Had no belief in that. So that was the thing that tipped me twice into a nervous breakdown. The first time it was very profound and I spent weeks with like, um.

Just what you'd call, you know, panic attacks and, you know, chronic high anxiety and like very frequent panic attacks. And eventually under those conditions, you stop sleeping and eating, then you can't keep food down. And then so you just, you, and eventually, you know, you start to get delusion and psychosis. So that's what happened. And, you know, and then I caught, I finally threw in the towel and caught the train back to, you know, the country.

And my mum picked me up at Geelong station and all of a sudden it all just drained out of my body and then I could just eat something and then went back to the family home and just kind of slept for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Slowly staged a recovery. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's, um, it's, yeah, it's quite similar to me that, yeah, there was. I mean, I can only really count like one major one in recent history and where I ended up in hospital. And yeah, and it was because it was compounding factors.

It wasn't just one thing. There was work stresses, relationship stresses, you know, life stresses. We were in the pandemic and it just, and then.

Like as, and I think I've used this example before, it's like you're trying to hold a beach ball underwater and at some point your arms are going to get tired from hot pushing that down and that's when it's going to Come back and smack you in the face and that's when it's like, okay now deal with some childhood trauma And that's what happened for me It was like all the childhood trauma and everything just bubbled up because and as my psych said yeah, your arms get tired Your bandwidth You know,

to normally be able to keep a whole control over that over the years has, you know, things will put pressure on it, but you've been able to keep it under control. But now it's just been too much, too much, too soon. You're going to have to deal with this as well. Now it's unfortunately the reality of it. And so, yeah, being in hospital forced me for six weeks to actually just take a really solid sleep.

You know, you know, rest, recharge, I didn't have to think about cooking or cleaning or all those caring responsibilities. It was just a place to rest, do therapy, and you know, get the medication right. And that's Yeah, and I think in that way, I think a Menti B or like a mental breakdown is actually a really, a great way to reset and redirect, and they're actually a very necessary process. It's very clarifying. Yes. Yeah. You don't, you don't do it because you're weak.

You do it because you've been too strong, in inverted commas, for too long, too strong for too long. Then you'll have a Menti B. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's. It's that breakdown or breakthrough. Yes. Yeah. And, and I think, and breakdown is the only way to do it often because people cannot give themselves permission to say no or fuck this or whatever they need to, whatever change they need to do. And I'm speaking for myself here, could not just draw the line on whatever.

And, and that's what it's led to. It's like rite of passage stuff. Sometimes you have to have a mentee be, break down, breakthrough. Yeah. Um, my one, I had one at 19, which was a coming of age and then I became an adult. And I had one at 35, which was the end of my relationship, and then I stopped drinking alcohol and it changed my entire life. But you wouldn't have had the sobriety move without, you had to go into the breakdown first, right?

Yeah. Yeah. But I think I'm strong at the moment, and I'm glad I went through those breakdowns and saw what I saw, although psychosis is terrifying. Yeah. It is. But I think something what Ali said at the start. I think it's worth framing the pressures on people. I've been thinking about this lately, it's not post COVID, forget about COVID, it's ancient history. It's about, it's about something else. I think it's about, and there's some positivity in this.

Yeah. The boomers are gonna start dying out. From Gen X down, so our age and a little bit older, down. We've got the, what we've, we're left with what we're left with to make the best of it. Yeah. Now, a couple of things. Are they going to get a little bit worse or a lot worse, they're not going to get much better and that is climate change. It's either going to get a little bit worse or a lot worse, and the geopolitical situation is either going to get a little bit worse or a lot worse.

But those two things will get worse. Uh, and they're real things to worry about, I think. Um, but, to find sanity, I have to focus on my own little life. And now then there's the economic pressures of going into a recession and contradictions of capitalism and all that. But, actually... That stuff doesn't keep me up at night or stress me out much. The other, those two big, scary things, big and scary. But what I was going to say is, there used to be narratives.

For the boomers era there was narratives whether it was around socialism or like the hippie movement or Just a narrative of progress even in the 50s and 60s, you know, I Don't think we should replace the complete breakdown of all narratives with some other narrative. I think we need to focus on Our little communities and our little mm hmm the processes in our little lives. Agreed. Yeah, because the world is ours now The boomers will be gone. That's right.

And we've got to make the best of this planet that's going to be having, the conditions will be harder for human life, clearly. Yep. And there could be big fucking wars, right? Possibly, yeah. Um, so... The possibility has always been there, yeah. Yeah, it's just ramping up a bit, you know, again, potentially. I mean, there's a few people like Xi Jinping where you'd have to be able to read his mind to know...

How bad things could get for a place like Australia, and we can't read his mind, so we don't know, but totally we're at the mercy of a few decisions in a few foreign capitals, right? Now, I find that stuff terrifying. But what I'm dropping is the illusion that I can control it by reading about it non stop. And the illusion that actually there is any action I can do in the world on that particular one. And there may not even be anything to be gained from understanding any of it.

Yeah, but that's the stuff that will drive me to having a mental breakdown. If I think about the conditions of the world, the fact that we went through the pandemic, the fact that, you know, it costs more to buy some cheese at the supermarket doesn't, doesn't factor in for just for me. Okay. Well, that's, that's interesting. I do think those things will eat away at people. Um, well they, they clearly are, they clearly are.

Yeah. And, and, and, and I'm not to say, not to dismiss what you're saying and like. So that you know people are described financial pressure to like the majority of their problems that that Maybe there aren't other things they should be thinking about or could be thinking about. Like, I agree with that, and certainly... But the financial stuff is just the day to day, and it becomes the outlet for the stress. It does, yeah, it does. And it becomes a thing to measure as well, because, yeah.

Yeah, but actually these stressors are things like, having a kid with autism, or... Yes, or not having enough time for your partner, or not having enough time for your kids. Yeah, not having enough energy for... What I'm saying is... Where my head has always been is in the clouds with the big threats. Yeah. Going right, zooming right out to like an asteroid hitting the earth and killing everyone. Or whatever, or all the people that occupy themselves.

with an obsession with whether we're in a simulation or not. And like, that's their way of kind of abstracting. Cause I, I think there's a double edged thing here, Joe, like thinking about geopolitics or epistemology or ontology. Do we even exist? And is this simulation? All that? Will Xi Jinping do this? We'll put and do that. To me, those things are all alike. They cannot be resolved and they're beyond your control. So it's actually safe to think about them in a strange way.

It's just a crisis, but whether you're thinking about it on a macro level or a micro level and it's a lack of control and anxiety is a lack of control. And that's what it essentially is. It's a lack of control of the big issues. Like, yeah, whether it is. Global, you know, instability and climate change, or yeah, I can't pay my bills this week.

It's still a lack of control over the situation, and that's what's causing you anxiety, and I think yeah, it obviously manifests in different ways for different people, but collectively there are always going to be these existential threats that, you know, I guess to tie it all together, what I'm saying is Us now taking over the world. The boom is dying out. Part of our community might be, Oh, such and such is off there having a mentee B for this week.

We're going to help look after their kids because they need to have a full breakdown. But we know that in a month they're going to be more useful than they were, have been for the last year while they're barely hanging on. So we can, we might make, just like we might make psychedelic experience as part of our daily life. Or, you know, therapeutic practice.

We might make mental breakdowns part of how we deal with the wave of pressures that we're under that, you know, for the most part, boomers just didn't have to deal with. Yeah, that's right. And the only thing that may be easing, well, one of the things we do have in common with them, I think, is that there was a geopolitical situation they had to deal with.

But also, Annual leave, taking of annual leave has gone down since their time, but it is, but it is fair to say that there were a lot of boomers who People saw themselves as having an obligation to donate 60 hours of their time every week and that that was just normal and that they shouldn't be taking more than a week off in a year. And so I think there were a lot of them that saw that as normal and just plugged away in that way for years.

Maybe one of the things that changed because of the pandemic was a feeling that that was a normal or acceptable thing to ask of people. And I think, and like, as you said in the intro, and to be fair to you, Joe, yes, geopolitics Has the potential to give me a nervous breakdown. Absolutely.

If I, if I focused on it too much, that possibility does exist, but you were saying earlier about all the women, you know, dealing with the pressure from their jobs and not saying men aren't experiencing this as well. And I'm putting my hand up for it. And you know, and we're talking about good jobs and this pay and that sort of paid not, not so long ago on the show.

And I was just thinking to myself, there's just no such thing as a good job, you know, and like, and, and shout out to all the small business owners out there. Cause there's, Hardly any small business people that have got a sustainable thing on their plate right now either. And so yeah, I just feel a lot of sympathy for all the people just being asked by the two major supermarkets.

Um, who own, you know, the fuel and the pokies and the hardware and just basically own the distribution channels in the whole country and are causing truck drivers to crash into school buses and all of those motherfuckers that are just taking the piss and just adding a little 1% whenever they can, just ratcheting up, just ratcheting up. Ah, they'll keep taking it. Ah, they'll keep taking it, but I think you're right, Joe.

Menti B is often the only way it can happen, and I'm actually almost regretting the number of people that have done the right, the smart self care thing and prevented it from happening, saw it coming and prevented it from happening. I'm going to make a proposal to everybody, stop doing that. Hang on until you lose it, and get that stress leave paid. Yeah, well, because, yeah, psychological leave. Yeah, because this is like, yeah, like you said, there's no job that's good.

What there is, is there is a level of... Tolerability. Some jobs are more tolerable than others and what is happening... Some workplaces will actually respond a little bit Yeah, make adjustments to your workload or more flexibility, you know, like under the guise of... Just to make things just slightly more tolerable so that you don't...

Just to keep you hanging on, and that's a really sad state of events, you know, to be in, and I think if, yeah, if, again though, those are some things we just don't have a lot of control over, because we're all forced to pay rent and mortgages and things like that, so. That's one of the things pinning us down. Exactly, so. While we're all forced to be a part of that system. Mm-hmm. And it's about finding, I suppose, a workplace that is tolerable to your levels of Yeah.

You know, stress and capacity, but also the time outside of work mm-hmm. To be also tolerable. Be, and, and the, the, the day-to-day stresses of your relationships, your kids mm-hmm. Commuting. Yeah. Or, you know, all of those commitments that they don't become intolerable. It's when it all becomes, It's completely intolerable that yeah, we can't, we don't, we're not coping.

And so yeah, whether it's, I mean, I've been, like I said, fortunate in that now post actual breakdown when I've seen I'm not coping, it's about actually taking a step back and going, okay, I have to take this off my plate. I have to take, I have to pair things back.

And I did say this to Joe actually really recently, you know, given all the stuff I've gone through this year, I'm actually making a very conscious decision that this next season of my life or spring, the next few months, I'm actually pairing things. Right back, you know, taking the things off my plate that I just don't have to do, or I'm not forced to do, in order to be able to get through it, because my bandwidth at the moment...

So, you know, rather than just keep pushing through and pushing through and going, okay, I've just, I've got my annual leave booked, which is what I used to do. It'd be like, I've got my annual leave booked in. I'll just push through, push through, push through, push through. And then by the time I annually finally comes up, my body will just give up and I'll get sick. That's it. And I'll be so stressed. I don't enjoy it. And, and it's just this cycle of that.

And I'm like, actually, I want to be in a good space to enjoy my annual leave this year. I don't want to be sick again. I would like to just have. You know, some time off from work to rest and do the things I actually enjoy doing and yeah, but actually that process needs to start way before you actually do it.

You can't just skip, like the joke with my girlfriends and even my sister were like, I'm going to schedule in my Menti B. It's like I'm scheduling it in for my time off and we're very used to Like, not taking that on company time when we should be having the psychological leave. You should be losing your shit on company time. Yeah, you should be, you should be doing it then and, and, and, I mean, it's very hard to, but yeah.

Well, the thing that's preventing us is if I'm the squeaky wheel, the system will throw me on the pile, but I put it to you, we've reached a tipping point. Literally, within the self and within the group, the larger group that we all belong to. Margaret Thatcher said there's no such thing as society, only individuals, right? And if we stay in that kind of thinking, Margaret Thatcher was an exemplary Marxist. She understood class warfare in intimate detail and knew exactly how to wage it.

when she said that, it struck a lot of people as disgusting because we still, even A lot of right wingers still had a collectivist feeling. Fast forward 40 years from her saying that, and we're there. We're not a society. We're individuals. Well, that's what it feels like. Yes. But that's purely an illusion. Society's there. If you want it. War is over if you want it. And if when you realize, I'm not the only one feeling this way. Everybody's feeling this way. I don't use the word society.

I use the word community. That's the better one. And I'm not a Marxist like you. Circle. And I don't think what you two are talking about whinging about work and And getting dodgy time off. I don't think that's the answer. No, no, it's not dodgy. delegitimize it. If I've been through two mental breakdowns and both of them were a clarifying crisis, which made me grow and made me a stronger, clearer person. I'm speaking up in favor of them. What if society's going through a collective crisis?

Agreed. And it's a clarifying crisis. Agreed. So this is my... So it relies on people being honest about this. That's what I'm saying. It's actually for our generation. Not that we live in some kind of utopia ever, although some AI people will say that maybe that can come about. Of course. But the hope is that we have some good days amongst the shitty days.

Yeah. And we have some great moments, and we have some highs amongst the lows, but we drop a narrative of everything's great or everything's terrible. No, I agree with that. And we just focus, and the word that keeps coming back to me is community, which can be a cricket club or... Your, um, you know, whatever. No, I agree completely. Like, it seems small beer. I think the stuff you're talking about is very small beer, like take a few days stress leave, who gives a fuck?

No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm talking about The cricket club seems small beer too, but it's actually not, because No, I'm talking about That's where, we're not individuals, we're a collective. Agreed. Sport is one of the last places where you see that. So, that But it's a strong culture in Australia. Agreed, no, that's why I don't shit on it. It's very important. There's a number of people that would not be alive today if it wasn't for community sport, like 100%. Like, I don't dismiss it at all.

I used to. I used to be that kind of inner city artist. Yeah, yeah, like you want to shut down the local golf course and turn it into housing. Fuck golf. I played a round of golf yesterday. No, look, it's fine. Okay, golf is fine. Can it somehow, can we have golf and it occupies one percent of the... Public land that it currently occupies. Can we have that? Oh, can't be done? Oh well, I guess golf gets the arse. How about people just have a little bit of fun, Sam? Uh, anyway, that's a sidetrack.

No, no, 100%. But look, that's what, look. Speaking up in favor of community and at the same time speaking up in favor of, I'm not talking three days of stress leave here. This is like significant time off to rest and recharge. Yes. It would sound great for the economy for people to be not going to work but getting paid. You're already all staying home and getting paid, which blows my mind. On the contrary. Someone has to go to the workplace. On the contrary. It's good for the economy.

Yeah. Because you'll be a better, you will be better. And more well adjusted and rested to be able to be a better employee. It actually makes sense. But your conditions are getting better, both of you work from home a few days a week, like come on! No, I'm doing the five. Yeah, but, but can I say this? Come on though, like, this is actually the area where things are improving. Yes, no, in some ways, but it doesn't change the fact that there's a feeling of like, in Ali's case, from home or not.

It's not a burden you can carry successfully every day, every week. It totally is, and it's a lesser burden than it used to be for most people in the history of humanity. No, but like the idea, okay, yeah, you can work from home, great. And it's been really, it makes it so much more accessible for people with disabilities and mental health. Saves a fortune on commuting. Commute, yeah, like traffic, like there's so many benefits to it. But what we're finding now is that...

Well, one, actually no. Come back to the office. Mm-hmm. because we have to justify middle management's like existence. Yeah. because we don't Good luck to them. Yeah. Because we don't trust, you know, people mm-hmm. to be on their own. There's also the pressure of being at home and going, well, I don't wanna feel like I'm taking the piss I actually want, and so mm-hmm. and putting unnecessary ex, you know? Mm-hmm. like if, if Phil was in the office.

And doing less work, it would feel not so bad because you, there's still that level of presenteeism, whereas at home, like, you know, you're just like, okay, I have to be on all the time. That is certainly a thing. A lot of people experience. It's actually blown some people's work life balance completely out of the water. Like it's blurred those lines of, I'll just stay a little bit longer because I'm not commuting.

I can finish that thing off and next thing you've actually donated three or four hours extra of your time to the company rather than, happens all the time. So there's pros and cons. I'm not. You know, I mean, so it doesn't just saying, Oh, working from home is easier is not actually and there are people that are successfully taking the piss while working from home. Of course. And when I say successfully, I mean making it work for them.

But here's the thing, the number of people who took the piss on campus, like, and you know, Oh, there's a person like always walking around the office just, you know, who serially have watched people do this over the years. Like they might be just holding something and just go up to each, you know, little group of desks to have a chat about a thing. Yeah. And then. Yeah. Literally wasted the half the day. Time wasters and tyre kickers everywhere. And they're not actually doing anything.

What's the whinge? Because back in the 90s it was cute and funny that everyone had pointless office jobs and everyone slacked off. No, it's not cute and funny. It's an absolute tragedy. It's a waste of life and time. It's such a drain on human potential. It's a tragedy and it's a farce. It's the ultimate kind of tragedy which is farce. Right, and it's like, so I think. A kind of clearing of some of the dead wood, you know, like, can we figure out a way to do that?

Because, you know, one of the things that told me Elon Musk was tipping over and that, you know, things were about to slide was not a lot of the obvious things people will point out, like calling the cave rescuers, molesters or any of the other alarming things he was doing. let's set off nuclear devices on the poles of Mars to kickstart the terraforming of that planet. No, none of that really obvious stuff.

The thing that, for me, got me really thinking was when he said, Uh, okay, everyone at Tesla, come back to the office, or you can pretend to work from home for somebody else. And I was like, not only is that incredibly tone deaf and is going to absolutely give a whole lot of your employees and a whole lot of other people the shits, but also... It shows a complete, you are a gormless fool, I suddenly realised. You think that because people are in the office they're doing honest work.

You poor, poor fool. How did you get this far in life? Can you even read? I know what he's saying though. As someone who's never really worked from home, I know exactly what he's saying. Yeah, and he's trying to tap into a certain kind of inverse classism on your part, too. It's like a common sense, I guess. Because it's, I mean... It's like a common sense, probably a carpenter or a plumber would look at someone from home going, oh yeah, you're working, are ya? But like...

That's the common sense side of it, is like, you guys are slacking off. But like... Yeah, go on, go on, Ali. I was going to say, with my job, there's actually very... the demonstrated output. You can actually see it's tracked. It has tracked the tasks that are done and not done. And I have been able to, and the reason I've been able to negotiate working from home is because my output from home. The deliverables are so obvious. It's so much, so much more significant.

You're actually a Menti B and how we deal with the, some of the conditions that we're under is that you've had physical and mental health challenges this year. But you've had a really good therapist who you've now taking a break from because you've processed it and actually you're sitting here You're happy. You're calm.

You're you know, you've you seem to be just making enough money to get by You're a good example of the answer is probably therapy for most people Yeah, for sure and the government in Australia pays for 10 sessions for Anyone who wants them, pretty much. Well, therapies, yeah, but there's a gap. It's part of it. But there's a gap there for most people.

The thing is, you can go to therapy and talk about your problems, but if you're not actually then going home and putting into place those things, then it's a waste of time. You're not actually doing much. So, that's the doing the work part. Yeah, the doing the work. And now you're sitting here and it's the start of spring. And you've got a plan for yeah, but you're pretty good. Right.

Even though you're like worse than a lot of people, the average person probably, but what it is, is actually having the time and space to do the doing. And that's where people are feeling. That's right. They don't have the capacity to do the doing. And so that's what, so nothing's then getting done. It's that personal, it's that personal work time. That's getting pinched, I think. And that's, what's leading to these menti bees.

If you don't have the time and space to actually do the work that you need to do, because it's all very well and good. The work of doing your three pages, the work of running a bath, self care, like, you know, self care. That's the thing that keeps the crisis at bay. So that self care serves capitalism because I agree with that. The worker. And it drives consumption. It's like, it's like radiohead. It's like fitter, happier, more productive. That's self care to me. Yes. Agreed.

But the thing is, if you're, that's been chiseled away and you'd no longer have your job, the circumstances are so intolerable and you can't then actually do the self care, you're going to crack because it is not, you're drawing from an, you know, an empty well. That's it. Yeah. That's exactly right. And, and also the self care thing, it's really pointing us away from.

The other thing that, you know, can be so helpful in healing and also give us resilience and sustenance and make our lives bearable and sustainable and, and meaningful, which is community, right? And, you know, so self care steers us away from that community idea and towards something that's a little bit more consumption based a lot of the time. Now, having said that, I'm in favor of.

The really important and effective self care, i. e. the three pages, or the meditation, or, you know, the stuff that's actually, you know, effective. But I think self care can also include community. I mean, it certainly has... And hobbies. Yeah, hobbies and those sorts of, those are the things that are very much that fall by the wayside that I've, you know... Like it's all very well and good to say, Oh, you're sitting here and you're doing well, which I feel like 10 hours of telly is not so.

Yeah, exactly. And I feel like what I've done and I've really made conscious choices. Like I said, the last, however long to build those things into my life. And that includes community, making sure I see my friends, making sure I, you know, you know. getting some sort of exercise or walking or whatever that all the things things that you know, don't cost anything. It's not necessary a consumption thing. It's just that time. And that's meant taking time. That's the time that's getting pinched.

That's the time getting pinched from work. And I've actually reduced my hours at work in order to facilitate that. And I mean, that's a privilege because not, and that's the thing. A lot of people. You know, it means you're not saving, but yeah, exactly. And so in this current, you know, economic crisis, people who just don't have that option, they just don't have that option to pull back from work a little bit. The first thing that goes is a walk with a mate. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Like, you're like, I'm too tired to do that. Or volunteering, volunteering at the, the junior sports, like that, that goes. Yep. Yeah. Or like, you know, yeah. Going on the committee for the, this or the, that, like, and that's the stuff that while it's an output of energy. It involves you, implicates you with other people, and that's sustainable. But this working longer hours, and instead they've got more time at home, working from home, and working less hours.

No, no, no, that's not what's happening, that's not what's happening. You've mentioned this before on the show, it's like you guys can't, I mean we're not an empirical show that backs things up with stats, but you guys are just vibing this, and there's no... No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. There's no graph showing me that people in Australia are working heaps more hours and losing family time. I want to be clear. People are taking less annual leave.

They might have meaningless jobs, but they're not working more. My work, no, my work life balance, just to be clear right now is, is perfect. It's fine. But I do know a lot of people, no, but I know, but I know a lot of people that are actually doing more of that blurred work time thing in the evening or early in the morning, or sometimes they like. Like, I've got a friend who was recently, like, he said, oh, I've fallen into this routine. I couldn't work out why I couldn't reach him at certain.

Just normal times that I could. And eventually he went, Oh no, I've been like falling asleep after dinner and then waking up and doing a few hours work and then going back to bed. And I'm like, that's completely fucked. You've got to stop doing that. And he said, yeah, I'm going to have to go to the office in order to regulate this.

Yeah, no, I was, I'm not saying go to the office bad, but yeah, no, I was, I very much have that experience too of like after work, the amount that I've put in for variety of reasons. That as soon as I log off, even though I don't have then the commute home, instead of commuting in traffic, I'm laying down because my brain is exhausted. And like I've, there's been plenty of times where I've said I'm gonna have to have a lay down after work and Yeah.

And I've lost those three or four hours that, that I'm not actually doing. I'm not doing the self care. I'm not seeing my friends. I'm not, and it's just an exhausting burnout. That's what it is. And people are burnt out. And it's that time that we are putting into work in a different way. I think the expectations and pressures, whether, you know, yeah, whether you have the commute or not is still very much there.

And there are some companies that are like progressive in quotes that have incorporated this into their policies. And in some cases, it's actually been done meaningfully. So it's actually done where they've required people to have. A voluntary capacity somewhere, um, local community or, you know, some global NGO or whatever, but to have a thing where they're volunteering and that's built into company time and they have to do it and they have to prove that they've done it.

And that's kind of an interesting thing. And then there's others that have created mandatory personal project time and you know, there's, there's all kinds of things like that. And I would stress that while these things do, can have benefits to workers, um, and people, they're not workers, they're people, but on the other hand, it is, these are, measures are also designed to prevent the crisis. That's part of what it is. And some companies have brought in So you're saying It's a business plan.

Like, yes You prefer people to have, who votes for people having mental breakdowns and who votes for people Well Stopping short, keeping it together, looking after their kids What I vote for is revealing the dysfunction in the system. Having said that, if peop and when I So, when we talk about having a mental breakdown on this show, what you really want to talk about is a crisis in It's both. I mean, I think I can't, can't separate the crisis in the system from the crisis individuals are facing.

The system is a general term for not just the economic system, but the set of norms and the set of social relations and the set of cultural ideas and all of that stuff, all one big package. And it's not serving people very well at the moment, or maybe people have always been having mentee bees. Of course they have.

What I'm hopeful about is that people are more open about it now, and I think there's a tipping point where I think people can feel safer doing it, because I think the anxiety that lay under it for me every time I had one of these episodes and had to just withdraw from society, I can think of one time when it was bad, and then the other two where it was like, oh no, I'm good, I just kind of need a week of nothing, and I'm not good.

I feel terrible and I'm going to lose it and I'm starting to feel delusional and yeah, I'm going to withdraw from everything for a week and then I'll be okay. But there was a fear every time I did that, that I wouldn't re enter, that I wouldn't be accepted again. And that by, and I think, imagine for people who were like, not like just some kind of joker in his twenties who no one really had any high expectations of, but imagine being a high performer.

And you are holding it together for a lot of people. Imagine this feeling of shame and humiliation that you experience. Thank you then do the right thing, which I firmly believe it is the right thing, to put your hand up and going, Hi everyone. I'd just like to say I'm on the edge of sanity and I've actually tipped. Yeah, I'm not coping. I need some help. And I'm, and I'm out. I do think. And you drop the mic and you go. Systems not working for me. At the moment, I'm out.

I do think we are getting better. It's like coming out with your sexuality or whatever. Yeah, we're much better at talking about... This is the thing about moving on from the boom is the fact that we have a podcast where we've all got a mental illness. Right?

We don't talk about mental illness that much on the show because we talk about it's not like bleeding the idea for this show and the one that I tried to do I think it's I tried to do a show before this show with another bipolar guy and what I'm interested in is not meant talking about mental illness which is what a lot of like awareness days and all that stuff was all about let's talk about mental being in it yeah what I'm interested in is what the three crazy people want to talk about Oh yeah.

No. 'cause when I was in the psych ward, people don't talk about mental illness that much. They talk about a lot. They, they talk about geopolitics. Reality. Reality. What exactly, you know, changing pings up to. Yeah. That's it. And that's what crazy people are obsessed with. A hundred percent. So this show is about getting, but the fact that we have this show and that people listen, I think that's the cultural shift, is that we've changed their cultural environment and it's changing rapidly.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. so that if someone goes down with a mental breakdown, People, I think, will be a lot more accepting than they would have been back in the corporate days of the 50s and 60s. I really hope that's true, and I think it is. I think it is! Like even the last 20 years, like I know, like when I said I've only had the one breakdown, it's not necessarily that I've only had one breakdown. It's the one serious one. It's the one serious one where I got help.

There were definitely times when I was younger where I wasn't coping, and like you just withdrew, and it's like, okay, I'll have a week or so off.

Try and figure it out and muddle it through, you know, and yeah, being really high functioning, you know, for a better term, um, but yeah, like it's because it was so much shame and embarrassment and stigma that I've let everybody down because I normally can do all these things, but also that everyone will think I'm a fuck up and they won't want to hang out with me, exactly, and it's just, okay, like, yeah, so it's just like, I'll figure it out on my own for a bit and like, and it's just putting

like a little band aid on a little You know, on a cut that's just getting, turning into a bigger, festering wound and like, yeah, you just, instead of like, yeah, letting it turn into that, you know, and then it being, you know, it's like sort of just fixing it as it goes and taking those times, putting those things in place as we go so that hopefully, even if we do have to reset occasionally, it's not as big a reset. I refer to them almost... Mini breakdowns Yeah, mini breakdowns, yeah.

I do refer to these guys almost every episode, but Alain de Botton in School of Life, write about that it's a good idea to have... A full mental breakdown. Yeah, I agree with you. And he wrote, they write beautifully about it actually, that like, this is the time when you are just gonna completely lose your shit. And it's like, and on the other side, and it's what people don't realize when they're going into it, that on the other side, they'll come out better and stronger.

But that's a little, it doesn't happen to everyone. You can have a mental breakdown and kill yourself, or you can have a mental breakdown and never really quite recover, right? Yes, that does happen. But, what I've seen mostly, in my own experience as well, I had a mini one in Vietnam a month ago. Yeah, yeah, you did. is, they're clarifying. They, they, move you towards some kind of strength that you didn't quite know that you had. And it forces you to drop things you can't hold.

The government plays an important role because you need, I need the support of a psych ward, uh, medication subsidised, ideally a psychiatrist and a psychologist, and all that I need the government to help pay for. So in a poorer place, which is most of the world, you're not going to have most of that. So, I'm incredibly privileged, and we are in Australia, it's a good place to have a mental breakdown, I'd highly recommend it. but look, let's wrap it up, any closing thoughts?

Uh, well, yeah, look, I'm not, I'm not saying you're wrong earlier about, you know, I mean I think sometimes Ali and I do, do get into the white collar whinge, it is true, it is true. but I think I want to be very clear about...

You know, the fact that, for example, you're right, for a carpenter, for a bricklayer, for a hospoworker, which I was for many years, I want to remind everybody, I was black collar, that's what I call it, for 20 years, and, you know, call centres, labour hire, um, agency work, you know, dishes, coffee, food, floor, bar, people, people, people, solve, solve, solve, labour, labour, like, manual labour the time, but also Quite a lot of mental and emotional burden in those jobs, I eventually

realised. Um, and that, you know, so I've got complicated feelings about work. I believe in the dignity of work, the usefulness of work for people. I also have seen how it will strip people of dignity and that it can lack usefulness. And, you know, I've seen the good and the bad side of it. And so I don't want to shit on every last employer out there and every last workin Joe. Absolutely not. And also, you're right, carpenters and bricklayers can't.

Obscure their productivity or lack of it, right? So that's a privilege that a working person like that doesn't have. And yes, there are white collar workers that can get away with stuff, but I would just like to declare there's very few good jobs, if any. I just want to say that. I came to the same conclusion talking to people now in the... Let's not create a false divide between privileged white collar and...

Yeah, yeah, someone who has quite a well paid government job said there's a reason why Monday feels worse than Friday. Yeah You know, this is not a new concept, but it was a reminder. They wouldn't pay you if they needed, if they didn't need to. Yeah, exactly. Because I'm casting around, do I change careers or whatever and, and It's great and clarifying to realize all jobs suck just in different ways. Yeah, yeah, and I know what in what ways my film job sucks, and I know in what ways it's great.

The other stuff I'm looking at, you dig into it, and it becomes pretty obvious what's gonna suck and what's gonna be good. So yeah, and realism, but to drop the idea that they tell you when you're 18, you leave high school, that there's some great job out there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's like you're probably not gonna work at the UN. No, I mean, you might have like a really difficult colleague or difficult interpersonal relationships. You've got to navigate every job.

Like even if you have your dream job, there is still going to be something that's not great about it. There's going to be a, some aspect of it that's going to bring you stress and, or, you know, and I do not dream of labor, darling. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, it's, I think, I just don't think, yeah, like we can. Exclude the system or the like, as in, you know, where Sam and I talk, you know, we do have the white collar whinge.

I just don't think we can't, we can exclude the impact that that does have on the, your mental health and your mental wellbeing. And so they are inextricably. You know, I'm just representing the listener who might be like rolling their eyes a little bit about users. That's entirely fair. And there'll be some, there's Sam and Ali fans and there's Joe fans, maybe. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely. So, I don't know, it's my honest opinion that it's fine to analyse the system.

Yeah. But watch out, because you're probably going to head into, You know, Neil from Young Ones or whatever his name is, Vivian, you know, territory. Yeah. So watch out for that. Both apply. If you're not specific about what you're talking about and when you get specific and it doesn't sound that bad to me, then I'm going to call you out on it. No, no, I get that.

But it's, it's one of the ways that the whole thing is kept in place is that, for example, the white collar worker can, can shit on tradies and they can, they can, it's socially acceptable to, You know, to whinge about how tradies are a bunch of jerks who make too much money, that's socially acceptable and it's, and for the tradies, it's socially acceptable for them to say that anyone who doesn't stack a brick is a completely useless wanker.

And like, that's one of the things that keeps the workers apart.

And it's a, and it's a similar dynamic, almost in, dare I say it, racialized, almost semi racialized dynamic where, you know, there's, The blue collar, white collar, and as I brought in the black collar, the hospitality trades, uh, if we're not careful, they're turning into caste ideas and, you know, turning into kind of reified concepts of, like, the relative worth of this person versus that person, which is more of the kind of stuff that causes people to have mental breakdowns, because there I

was thinking I was a progressive person who saw through the illusions of the system, man, but the truth is, like, I was just a subject. To those, as anybody, and still am. And, like, that's, that's, that's part of what prevents people from doing the proper breakdown. Because they have swallowed the notion whole, as I had, that we were individuals. There was no such thing as society. And whether you believed that out loud or not, it's actually behind a lot of your actions.

And that if I allow myself to be vulnerable in this way, that I won't be accepted back into society. Like, I think. That's how a lot of people feel. And so I think you've offered the most useful thought here, Joe, is what I'm saying. If something, if this happens to someone around you, like, don't do the thing where you, you want to stay away in case you catch it. No, no, move towards it, like be around that. Yeah. Send them off to the motel. All right, let's finish up.

I think what was interesting today is that we went to talk about mentibes and ended up talking about work. Oh, we do it all the time, I think that says something about us. It does. Yeah. Like I said, the pressures for most people are those daily pressures. The pressures are for me, are stuff in, is things in the news. Sure. And that's just, it's clarifying for me to realize that. I'm unusual in that way. I get it, yeah, it is, it is. But, But what it means is I have to be a little bit more open.

if it's not World War 3, that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the mental trick that I've always done. It's like, well, let's see. It's bad, but it's not World War 3. Anything short of death itself and World War 3 and asteroids or whatever, anything short of that just doesn't matter. It's kind of bearable. It is. I mean, it's great. It's a good palliative. Yeah, but that's my, yeah, it's not something that's how I, that's my code. Yeah, yeah. That's your code.

Use the kids word. That's my code. Yeah, because you've, you've, you've sized it to a level that is tolerable. Yeah. And look, and that is, and I do agree because the thing that got me out of the chronic anxiety was, and I know this will sound so grim to so many people, like, the thing that prevented a number of nervous breakdowns on my part, was, or made them smaller, was, sorry. We're all going to be dead one day. It doesn't matter. Absolutely. You love the being dead thing.

Yeah. Oh, I don't love it. Ali's always talking about just having a little sleep and never waking up. Oh, it'd be great. Me, I'm going to fight it to my last fucking breath. No, no, but I also want to live on in my apartment and not in my work. A hundred percent. Yeah. No, I'm on both sides of that one. You should have made some pieces of it that I have not made. Oh, I don't know, Joe. I think, I don't know. I feel like you've had some breakthroughs that I haven't.

But, but I will also say on the School of Life tip, there was a great School of Life video a few years ago where, you know, de Botton, uh, urges us in his. Dset tones to, you know, consider the vastness of the universe. And there's like a million stars for every grain of sand on this beach. And like, yeah, the insignificance of that is an enormous comfort. And like, yes. And the, the ego inflating the, the size of the ego, which can only be done in one's own mind. It can't be done in reality.

But then that can determine the way we experience reality and it can cause us to have mental breakdowns. It literally, everyone in the world is counting on me. And if I don't do this ritual, um, World War III will happen, you know, all that, the genuine delusional stuff, and the stuff that sounds more grounded, like I can't take a day off, that is also mental illness and delusion, and we need to call that out as well.

And Alain de Botton would very much say, you know, contrary to what you might believe, if you took a day off, nobody would really notice, but we have an image of ourselves. Where we are so much more important than that, but consider the grains of sand and the stars. And then in the comments section of the video... It was 50 50 people going, Oh, thanks bro. I really needed that. So true. And the other half, how dare you? This makes me sick. I can't even think about my insignificance. I hate you.

That stuff works. It works while you're watching it and then it wears off. There's no replacement for psychoanalysis and also meditation. Yeah. But the, the school of life stuff really works on that intellectual level of like. It makes sense. Go and have a mental breakdown. Think about your own insignificance. The worst thing that possibly happens, well, you'll just be dead, which is a perfectly tolerable situation, right? Yeah. It works. But I need more.

I needed, what I always needed, was to go on a spiritual journey. And now I've gone on that. And the good part is it's no one else's problem. It's my own spiritual journey. I don't have to preach about it, but I always needed that. And until I got that, I was going to be destroying myself. Once I connected with some spirituality and a higher power, I'm free again, you know, so everyone's got to find what they want to be.

Need, you know, and for me, actually, it was an active spiritual life and clever videos from the School of Life and great books, which I love, will never actually heal me in the same way that my spiritual practice does. They're delicious little biscuits, but they're not the thing. Yeah. And the other thing about a mental breakdown is it might be a spiritual experience. Yes. Being misdiagnosed. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. No. Our psych system does a job, but it's not well set up to accommodate spiritual experiences. No, no. I was having a spiritual experience back then at 19. Very, you know, very similar to you. Yeah. No, there was all kinds of metaphysical cosmic dimensions to it. Absolutely. And, and, you know, my mom was kind of wrong when she said. This is a spiritual crisis, but she was actually right in another way, um, I just didn't resolve it in the way she expected.

For me, it was not the call to theism, it was the opposite. It was like, oh no, no, no, the universe... It does not have a grander, larger meaning. It took me a long time to accept it, but I was like, or if it does, it's not some comforting story you think it is, like, maybe it has a larger meaning, but it may not make sense to humans. Gonna have to make it for yourself, you know, whereas I think she was rather hoping that that nervous breakdown would, would be my come to Jesus, you know.

To Hare Krishna. Yeah. Back to the Hare Krishnas. Yeah. But you know, it wasn't to be, but in your case, Joe, religion was lying in wait for you that whole time. Oh, I've never. Yeah. Wow. I haven't joined a religion yet. Work in progress. I think maybe that's your next career. You have to start one. There you go. Yeah. Someone else said I was going to be a cult leader one day. Yeah, definitely. It's a good career move these days. Yeah, for sure. What about me as cult leader about it?

I don't know. No, don't be a cult leader. Like do, do seminars and courses. Oh, like MLM or something. Yeah, that'd be cool. It does appeal to me the idea of having power over people. Yeah, it does. For sure. Listen to that. It's a healthy instinct. Actually, I have power over no one, not even my own children. They just laugh at me. That's true. That's true. Which is the only safe way for me to be. All right, let's go. Love your work, Joe. Another piece of wisdom from you there.