Hey guys, Hi, how is everybody. It's Jackie Goldschneider and we are two Jersey.
Jays and we just had a we I got some d MS last week about our audio, so just FYI it's fixed.
Yeah, we have all new Mike's brands, banking new mic Actually hear us.
Yes, it's like.
The only piece of good news I've had in the past few days. My son broke part of his knee in a basketball game and he had surgery this week, and oh my goodness, I feel like there is nothing like watching your kid in pain. Oh it's the worst. So he is so uncomfortable. So I am just you know, I am just dealing with all of that right now. We just got out of the hospital. So but on the road to recovery. So it's Friday.
Good things to come. We're going to see Michael Rappaport tonight.
I am not going.
You're not you know, We're gonna got cans.
I didn't even sleep last night because I stayed in the bed with Aiden. You did yet to help him, So no, I am not going. But maybe i'll see him when he comes back to Jersey, because he's coming back into me.
He's coming. Well, that's I think that's he's going to speak on Israel. This is more of his comedy show. But oh okay, yeah, we're excited to go on with some friends. We love us some Michael Rappaport.
Ah, so fun. Well, I'll live vicariously through you. Actually, I'm getting a cat tomorrow. I'm so excited. So I got it tonight. My my Friday night activity is going to pet coat to pick up cat stuff.
All right, I.
Haven't had a pet since I'm twelve years old.
I keep telling you can take one of these, but I can't seem to like unload them on anybody. But you have one cat. I have two cats, Jack, you have two black cats.
I thought that was the same cat walking around here.
Oh, it's like Halloween in here. My kids suckered me at COVID. Oh they're cute, They're not cute. Moving on, go ahead, we have an exciting topic.
We do. I love this topic by way, very strong feelings about it.
Yeah, me too. So I have not seen Me and Girls of the movie. Have you the original? Of course I've seen you. Oh I haven't seen the Rien now, so I haven't either. But everybody's talking about it. Sorry, So Jackie and I thought it was a great time to talk about real mean girls.
Yeah, and like not only mean girls in high school, middle school, middle school mean girls might be worse, by the way, but not only that age group, but like mean women, like women are really mean to each other something.
Yes, And we both signed up for show where it's a lot of times not always but rewarded and I think people like get off on it, right, and I'm not. I joined that show, So this is not it's not
even judgment. It's really more like an observation that thinking it through and thinking about especially the way that since I've joined, I've taken a lot of mean social media comments and I've been you know, we we've all sort of taken We take digs at each other, and sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's shady, and sometimes it's hurtful
and mean. And I don't know, like, is there a line not just in reality television, but also jack and I were talking about just in terms of like everyday lives as women living in suburbia, and there's always sort of like this. It seems like there's this pecking order and the mean girls always on top.
Yeah, I mean do you know where I see it the most is on like these Facebook mom groups that I'm a part of. If you say something and you have like there's one little iota of something wrong with what you say, the other moms jump all over you. Yeah, like they just attack you and tell you everything you're doing wrong. And you know, in Suburbia, what I find is not so much outright meanness.
It's just that that need to be snarky, wanky, one up.
Cooky, exclusive, that need to look right through people who are not in your circle. That doesn't go away.
So I think, well, let's talk about housewives. Yeah, and there it because I feel like that's you know, the Housewives's sort of like a microcosm of real life, right, and that is definitely part of it, that pecking order. But specifically, we have just watched and the reunion of Salt Lake City, Yes, so you know, there's a lot of talk of the Monica of it all. I actually heard Tamra and Teddy talking about Monica and they sort of I think they feel like she has been victimized
a little bit. When I watched the entirety of the season, I definitely got a mean girl vibe, like to say the least.
Yeah, I mean she fought dirty, like when she would say things, when she would insult people or come back at people. It was very mean things about their appearance, about she would call Lisa Barlowe old, she would talk about her her wrinkles. I mean she was she just went low.
Oh listen, And that's very common in housewives culture. But for me, it was the idea that when she was doing the Reality of Ante's, when she was in charge of that page and then finding out like the ways in which they attacked the other women and then they mentioned, you know, they went after their kids. I think Whitney was saying, how and that's we all know as mothers, that's the absolute worst. So I don't know she claims
it was all about Jen. It sounded to me like she was attacking every women and doing it in a way that's so upsetting, I think for us, because there's so much anonymous trolling to think that you're working with someone on a daily or on a daily on you know whatever throughout a season that was doing that anonymous cowardly.
Yeah, where she was even invested in the show. I mean, it's one thing to get on the show and be Lisa Rena okay, and I have nothing against Lisa Renna, but she was a villain. Or Erica Jane. I don't really know her. I mean i've met her, but she's a villa in my eyes. They are just they're cold and they have no problem like cutting you to the bone, right. But Monica, she wasn't on the show when she was
actively trying to take people down and insult them. And I always say, like, there are times when I dislike people and I like wanted, you know, I would like to see, you know, something bad happen. Let's say, right, nothing too bad. But I would never consider being one of these people who sits behind a computer screen and goes after people online who I don't know. I have never in my life. I mean I've only been on the show six years and Instagram's been around a lot
longer than that. I never left a nasty comment on somebody's page of celebrities page or anyone's page.
I've definitely wanted to, right, but I've never done it because it's just it was just a little too mean, especially if I didn't know somebody.
You know, I've never done that, so to be that type a person who could be so outrightly mean. It just.
It.
I just don't understand that.
Well, you know, I've think on Housewives, a lot of the women will call that confidence and call it you know, it's under this guise of honesty. I'm just honest. But you know, I think there's certain well we know that there's a difference, right between honesty and being mean.
Yeah, but so what happens if you take a person like Monica or Lisa or Erica and then you learn about their past and why they might be snarky?
Does that mean like Monica and her mom? Right, so obviously they say what hurt people? Hurt people. I don't know, is that always an excuse. I can tell you that I had, we all have had very difficult and challenging lives, because that's just the nature I think of life and childhood. And but at some point you become an adult and you take responsibility, You take responsibility for who you are and what you're saying. So it was, Yeah, it was hard to watch Monica and her mom. That dynamic is
definitely a difficult one. Does that excuse Monica's meanness? Not really? Not to me?
Yeah, of course not. No, I know many people who have been through Listen. My mother came over here and impoverished. Her family was Holocaust survivors, so you know her parents had to like they were in a refugee camp in Siberia. They've never been mean people ever, so I don't It's not an excuse for me, and I actually can't really relate to the people. I don't know why any house so ife would want to be a villain.
What is that? I think it's again and no judgment because we're on the show, so we don't have any for judgment here, right, But I think that wanting to be relevant is tired, so tired of that word and that expression, but it definitely drives all of us, right and how to get there. Sometimes on these shows it is,
I think, to be the villain. But I feel like, like, for instance, I actually really love Erica Jane, but in one of the latest episodes of Beverly Hills, she was going at it with the new Richard's and I don't blame her. Denise came in looking for blood too, I guess the first scene, and then there was another scene
that they were in and it escalated. Erica stayed very calm, but Denise was going after the way she had been treated by Erica, and I think that was really what she wanted to talk about and to pin her down and say you are horrible to me, Say you're sorry, admit it. And then it turned into uron what is it called OnlyFans? And so is your daughter? So it went from definitely being Denise came in and started it.
She definitely started arguing first, but then it dipped to a different level that was just mean, and Denise said it, you're a mean woman? Is Erica a mean woman? I actually really like Erica. I think she can do mean things like all of us can. But at that point I felt like that was going, especially with Denise's daughter, that was below the belt. Now we're just playing dirty and mean, right. I think I.
Think eric is mean. I do. I think something's little mean too. I think Beverly Hills, of all the shows, has the most mean girls. I really do. And it's not to say I don't like I mean, I've met them all and they're pleasant to me, but I think on the show they're cold.
Well, okay, so listen, let's let's talk about this in terms of us, because they have mean. I think that everybody does mean things. It's capable of mean things, capable of saying and thinking mean things, right, It's I think there are extremes. So for myself, I think mean things. When I first got when I first got on The Housewives, the producer said to me, you know, your job is
to say what you're thinking. And that's really you know, the crux of being a housewife is as opposed to when you're in you know, normal life, you can think nasty things and you don't say them. I think nasty things. Maybe that's why I'm never going to be a housewife, and I don't always say them. I think that there's
a difference, right I am. I can definitely have a lot of mean thoughts, a lot of them, and I gossip like a mean girl, saying something mean and hurtful to someone though I don't think I'm really as capable of that as someone else. That doesn't make me better or worse because I'm thinking mean shit in my head.
Yeah, I know there are times on the show and I have said something that is uncharacteristically mean, and it actually I had to like.
Psych myself up to get to that place.
Yeah, where I'm like, yeah, where I had the thought, and then I was like, is this too mean for me to say?
Well, the question is how does it hit you afterwards? Because I know, of course I have said mean things in my lifetime and it all feels really good in the moment. Right You're pissed, you really don't like this person. You want to somehow bring them down. It works, you say the exact mean thing at the right time. The
problem is, I feel like it always comes back. So, for instance, as soon as you see that person's vulnerability, you see that you've actually really upset someone, you see the hurt in their eyes, then you're like, I am such an asshole. I mean, it doesn't always happen that way, but for me, you know, when I've actually hurt someone, no matter how good it feels in the moment, it really sucks when you realize what you've done. I don't have that.
Experience on the show. I feel like when people have said really mean things to me, or I have said something really mean to somebody else, it just turns into a back and forth, really mean girl kind of fight. It never and the winner is the person who the audience thinks. Scott in the better barbes, you know what I'm saying. So you keep going and you keep trying to dig deeper. It's a really, you know, Housewives is a really. It's it's tough like that, Like the fights get so out of hand sometimes.
Yeah, they do have to keep going.
Lower and lower.
I don't know. And as you know, listen, I've was a viewer way longer than you were, and there were times where I didn't like a member of the cast as a viewer, right, and I really enjoyed seeing whoever she was get put in our place. Right. There's like a mean girl thing I think inside all of us. Maybe that's also part of why the show is so popular.
It's also a matter of seeing women who are you know, who seem to be perfect on the surface, with perfect lives, and that mean girl in us wants to see them taking down a notch. And it's not something that I am proud to admit, but I do think it's human. I think all of us have it the whise I personally think, and we're going to talk to someone who's way in the know, but I think it comes out of insecurity. I'm jealousy.
I don't know about that. I don't know about that. What have you ever done anything mean?
Onh I'm trying to think on the show. Yeah, I don't think you have. Yes, I have, I have. I mean the Mazzarella you ate that that was not me? Yeah, right, I tore it abute that must well. No, but I mean, like in confessionals, I've said some snarky things mean. I mean, I never I haven't yet tried to ruin anyone's life.
No, but I have said.
Snarky, nasty little things. I don't know, is there a difference between snarky and mean?
It can cross the line. I think, Yeah, what about growing up? Like, what's your experience of meaning?
No? Yeah, well I was not a mean girl growing up, but I will tell you that like in junior high, we're saying that's sometimes that's the hardest r Yeah, Alexis is in junior high. You can't do it now. Yes, I was called so my main name is gutterman, and I was called literally throughout all three years of junior high or whatever, gutterface. I answered to it, and people used to make no and like, I just remember hating
it so much. It was so mean, and kids in groups because I had moved to Texas from Long Island, and I was just an outsider and having people laugh at me and having no one to sit with at the lunch table and that kind of mean not just not just the girls, even right, the boys too. So I've definitely been as a young person, I've had I've experienced that whole mean girl, you know attitude from from classmates. But it's interesting because so have my kids, so have yours.
I think so have most kids. When it happens to your kid, it's a different thing that I want with. Like, I remember, my kids are now obviously they're adults now, but I have I hold a grudge towards kids in my neighborhood that have been mean to my kids, and it will I will never let it go. Really, Oh my god. I mean I try. I don't. I'm not driving by their house and you know, throwing rocks, but I I see those kids that were mean to my kids, and my kids don't even remember, right, and I have it.
It will it will torment me. I'll wake up at nights and times and think about something that some kid did to my son that made him cry, and I just get enraged.
Yeah, I mean, I just I can see now in my daughter's friend groups who the mean girls are, and I just wonder, I wonder if they'll stay that way. Like she had a fight with one member of her like massive friend group and that night it so about two weeks ago, that friend sent to everybody a group text saying Alexis is out of the group. And everything ended up working out and it was fine. But what is that inclination to turn everyone against the one girl
that you don't like? It's And I wonder if the mean girls then if they grow up to be mean women, because I do know mean women. There are plenty, and they'll look right through you. They still want to be the queen bees. Like that doesn't go away when you're I'm almost fifty, you're in your fifties.
Maybe it does a lot. I hope I think that.
No, I think for a lot of people, it doesn't go away. You're still looking to breathe the prom queen when you're fifty years old.
Listen, I know that I'm such a different thankfully, thank you to my doctor, my psychiatrist. But I'm a different woman than I was, maybe not in terms of I was not really a mean girl. I'm not the insecure person I was. That has changed. I was probably a lot more jealous of people when I was younger. That has changed. Hopefully people can actually change, some can't. You're right. But it's interesting because as a mom, one of the most important things that I wanted to install in my
kids was kindness. I mean, that was huge. And I guess the times that I've even had an inclination that one of my kids was being mean, I jumped on it hard. Do all moms maybe not? Maybe? Do you? I mean, I don't want I never wanted. Nobody wants who wants mean kids? But I was always very sensitive to it.
Yeah, I mean I was very sensitive to it because people were very, very mean. I could handle people being mean to me, I couldn't handle them being mean to my brother. So I have a handlecalf brother, and he was held back a year. He's only a year older than me, but he was held back a year. So when we moved and we started high school, we started together, so everyone thought we were twins. And people at my new school, I mean, they were horrific to me, but
they were so mean to my brother. Not everybody, but what they did to me I could handle. I was basically ignored. It was like I wasn't even there and I could handle it. But watching them go out of their way to embarrassing my brother.
I remember that chapter in your book.
Was yeah, I wrote about this because it was I mean, there was one incident and I write about this in my book where a bunch of kids flushed his shoes down the toilet and I can't even talk about it with that crying. And I that day, like I went, I watched him walk around the school with socks on, and I went into the bathroom and I just I was so broken and I just like bent down and cried, and I just wondered, how you can be that person who is mean to somebody who's handicapped, is just beyond it.
It's one thing to be snarky, but that's another level. And I think that's the type of person that I'm talking about.
You know, I don't know. I mean, again, thankfully we have someone coming on who can help us understand it. But I definitely I think to my do think to myself sometimes in terms of housewives, it's we're rewarding meanness. And it's also again, I loved being a viewer for years and years and years. I mean during COVID it got me through. I was like, it was just so it is so much fun to watch. Snarky and shady
is hilarious and fun to watch. When it crosses a line, which it oftentimes does and gets really dark, then it becomes uncomfortable. But yeah, there's something about also when you're funny and you're narky and shady. But you know, I wonder once you really hurt someone right and like change their lives somehow, that cannot be easy to live with.
I mean, I guess it depends who you are. I mean, but that's getting back to the whole Monica of it. You know, as a viewer of Salt Lake City, I love Salt Lake City. I forget that I'm on a show when I watched Salt Lake City too, so people, you know, I consider the question like should Monica come back? Right, And obviously at this point we all know that she's not coming back. But I would love to see Monica back because she was so entertaining and this whole story
is so ridiculous and entertaining. But at the same time, I'm on one of these shows and I have to think about, Like, would I want to be around somebody who would draw something page like that?
No, sneaky, so sneaky, It's not even it wasn't sneaky at the time. I mean, lots of people have troll pages, troll accounts, whatever it's called. I just knowing it, even if she had been upfront about it, knowing that one of my castmates had a one time run a page that got off on tearing apart you know, housewives and
their lives and there maybe making fun. I think of their kids, and you know, I get the gen Shaw of it, and I get I don't know exactly what happened between Monica and Jen, but I get that there was a revenge factor in there, and I followed the page. But from what the women said, there was trolling of them as well. It wasn't just a gen Shaw thing. That would be a hard pill for me to swallow to then like work with someone and trust them.
Yeah. So, I mean as a viewer, like you were saying, it's fun to watch these people be like villains, right, it was fun to watch what Monica did, But I put myself in their shoes, and like, I know the women on that cast, and I love them.
I would.
Yes.
By the way, lots and lots of people love Monica, lots and lots for.
That reason, because you like to watch a villain because there it's interesting.
I know, and I know that, but they iice it up. They also understand her. I mean, listen, we don't all have to agree. Some people, you know, think that she was like Delta nasty hand by having to you know, buy I don't know, was she fired, did you quit? Whatever it was, a lot of people don't think that that's fair. So I don't know. I have a very hard time working with someone that ran a troll account.
I mean, I agree, I understand why they all want her off. And that's the problem with these shows. If you have no friends left, and you have no allies, you can't be part of the friend group, right, yeah, or so, I haven't seen the remake of Mean Girls, right, But you think of all these movies from like the nineties and or the eighties or even two thousands, and like when there was a mean Girl. She isn't like
the gross chick with no friends Rachel McAdams. She was the beautiful right she was Rachel McAdams, or she was the prom queen, and she's all that right. She was always.
Beautiful, everybody wanted to be friends with everyone's wanted a girl, and yet everybody wanted to be close to her.
So does that perpetuate the idea that being mean is an attribute, it's something that only the most beautiful and the most self confident women girls?
Well, I think a lot of being girls that are not mean, women that are not necessarily beautiful. They're more sort of just miserable. But yes, I mean in high school, like in terms of being in cliques and who's cool and who's not. Is it cool to be mean? I really hope so once you know, we get older, it's not.
But does it? Is it? Yes? I mean I've also I live Listen, I live in the burbs and in a suburb where all the kids go to the same school and all the moms are at kiss and drop and we all go to back to school night and we all are invited to the same parties, And yeah, it definitely exists. There's drama, like we have not all grown out of it. There's drama, there's pettybs. There is mean girl behavior for sure, unfortunately.
And men don't do that. To each other. I mean I know that like if Evan gets in a fight with someone or like an argument, or he like loses his taste for somebody, he'll distance. But men don't gossip about each other. I never hear him on the phone gossiping.
Well, Jeff doesn't really get on the phone in bs with a lot of men. I mean, he has male friends, but they're not they're not chit chatting at eight thirty in the morning, like.
You know, right, But even with that, like he doesn't bad mouth people the way that women do.
You know what, can I just tell this quick story? Yeah, So Jeff and I were engaged about to be married, and the rabbi who married us was actually a friend of mine, but he was interviewing us for all intents and purposes, just getting to know us and getting to know Jeff a little bit better. And he asked me, it's so funny, I haven't thought about this in so long, but he asked me something that I really loved about
Jeff Wessler. And I said, you know what strikes me is like sometimes like I'll say something nasty about somebody or not just gossipy, but just mean, and he'll go that's not nice. Just those three words. He'll go, that's not nice, and I'm thinking, well, the fuck cares about nice, I'm talking to you. But I remember thinking, like, for some reason, it used to And I remember saying that
to Barry, the rabbi who married us. And it was a weird thing to pick out of the many things that I loved about Jeff, But I just loved that that was part of his character, you know, like he wasn't going to enjoy hearing me be a mean girl. Now having said that, Jeff watches now he's like obsessed with everything housewives and he also man's not perfect and he laughs along with the rest of us. But you know, I was always like, what do you mean nice? What
are you talking about? Like the person's not here, Why don't have to be nice?
Yeah, Evan, Evan just doesn't really engage. Like if I try to talk to him about people, he'll be like, oh really, Like he doesn't give me anything back. He doesn't really enjoy gossiping. He doesn't. He's not mean. He's really really nice. He makes me feel mean.
But not.
Jeff is definitely not mean. I don't think he's ever had a real confrontation with the guy really or no, not a man and not a woman. Not really, he's not He's really mean when he's behind the wheel, he is a what are they called? Like he has road rage?
Oh my god, Well I have a very bad road rage story. I don't think we have time for it today, but on another episode I'm going to tell you it is. It was one of the scariest things that's ever happened to me in my whole life. I'm convinced that I could have died that night.
Well, I mean, listen, that's like, isn't it sort of like internet trolling? Behind a wheel? They can't hear you.
Oh man, But Jeff.
Goes nuts, Like if you cut Jeff fessel Off, you're not going to know you did, because Jeff isn't going to drive up and try to or try to hit the back of your car, but he is going to have words for you.
Yeah, well he should watch out because PSA, there are crazy people on the road who will actually kill you.
And there are crazy people on reality televisions.
There are actually a lot of crazy people. I want to talk about that. Where's Melissa? I want to talk about all the crazy people on reality television. So who do you think is the meanest Jeff in history?
In history? History, who is the meanest housewife in history? I mean, there've been so I.
Think Ramona has said the mean stuff.
Ramona, it could be definitely could be mean.
But yeah.
The thing is about also about Romona is she's also endearing. Like there's something about her that's so kooky, Like you're.
Like, is she yeah, No, she's definitely cooky.
You know.
I think that there's I'm not sure that there's a difference between mean and cold in my eyes, you know, like if you're really cold and you shut people out and you act better than I consider that mean.
I mean, there's all different ways to be mean, it's true, but Ramona will put her mean. The thing is, I mean I remember that walk across the bridge that she did with Bethany. Oh yeah. The thing is you were so it was so outrageous what she was saying. I remember in the moment, it was like whoa, whoa, whoa, And I think Bethany started crying at one point, and You're like, wow, what was she saying?
You remind us?
So think about that's why you'll never get married, or that's oh yes, And I remember just years ago watching it and thinking, wow, that is mean. But then I know, you know, watching Romona throughout the years, I think she's just I want to give her that. She's so kooky, like she does like things. I will think something like that. I just won't say it, I know, but wife, right, I'll think mean things like that all the time. Anyway, I think that our guest is here.
So guys, we have Melissa right. She is known on Instagram as your bitch Therapist. She's amazing, so well spoken and knows every little thing about housewives. So she's a therapist, a brava holic. After many years and two degrees and clinical practice, she got her license and she has just been working in this area for so long. She's a cancer survivor and she had she.
Had a varying cancer when she's very young.
Yes, I think she she is managing chronic Yeah, but she is amazing. She used a self described psychology nerd, and she thinks that therapy is magic and so do I. And she is just so good at analyzing the housewives.
We need your help.
Melissa. Hi, Hi, Melissa, Hi, welcome. Hi.
We're so nice to see you.
Bo you two, thank you so much for joining us. We need your help.
I mean, there is no other therapist that that can analyze the housewives like you can, but also like women in general.
Yes, and ladies, I am prepared with the capital P. So I am ready.
All right, Jen, go for it, baby.
Well you know, so, Melissa, we're talking, as you know, about the meanness that unfortunately it does not just you know, perpetuate itself in the house in the housewives world, but you know, for young kids and even now we know mean girls, and you know, we also have mean inside of us. I know that I do. There are different degrees of it, but maybe give us your take on you know, what is driving a mean girl?
Like, what's driving at what age? Are you thinking?
Any any let's start.
Let's start with the housewives. Okay, why do you think that meanness is rewarded on the housewives? And why would a housewife want to be a villain?
Okay, so meanness is definitely rewarded. I think we've seen that. Excuse me, I think we've seen that time and time again on housewives. And I mean, look at what just kind of happened with Monica and Salt Lake and that whole thing. And so I think that sometimes, and I'm this might surprise you to hear this, but what makes a mean girl when we're young versus when we're older.
It really isn't different. Yeah, it's the same stuff. It's just if you're a mean girl when you're younger and you have certain qualities and characteristics, like for example, no matter the age, the reasons are power and control. People want power and control over the narrative, the friendship, the
social you know, relationship. Usually mean girls that have sincerely a lack of self esteem, right, they kind of you know, there's a bravado that people might put forth, but in reality there's a real lack of self esteem and self confidence. And the one thing I was doing a little bit of research, you know, preparing for this, and there's an expert in the field of bullying. Her name is Rosalind Wiseman, and she actually her book Queen Bees and Wannabes was the templan.
Girl Jerkie's Night. Yeah I know that.
Yeah, it is so I think. And if you watch Me and Girls and have read the book, it's wild how mean Girls is really like an educational documentary on what it is truly. I mean, it's a wonderful movie. It's super funny, it's just really well done.
So the mean girl gets hers in the end, which is kind of the joy of it.
Right, always, always, because the thing with this is you can can't outrun the toxic stuff within that leads to that behavior unless you really want to get some help around it. Right, people can change, but only if they want to. And so back to your question, Jackie, if the housewives are getting rewarded for being villains, why would they change?
Well, Melissa, let me ask you this, Why do we as a society and me personally like watching it? What is it about us that enjoys watching the villains and and you know, the Mean Girls?
I think two answers to that. One is that it is entertaining, because, I mean, Mean Girls was one of the most amazing movies to ever be made. It was so entertaining, it was so funny. And I think that, you know, there is just a part of our human psyche that we love drama clearly I do.
Is that. Okay? Is that healthy for us?
Well? Okay, yes and no. So to answer your question, Jen, is that to me in my clinical practice, all things exist on a spectrum. Okay, so on a spectrum over here is just kind of the general you know, some slight behavior, so maybe nasty comments, things like that, and then as you progress to the other side of the spectrum, that's when the really kind of abusive, inappropriate stuff happens. And as a therapist, one thing I always like to say is that all of us have good and bad qualities.
We all do, and I think we all have a little bit of that mean girl in it.
Yes, my psychiatrist is that all the time. And it's like so helpful when I feel guilty for having said something and it, you know, badly about maybe having hurt someone. Unfortunately, it is part of being human, you.
Know, Melissa what it is more for me, it is less, it's less of this need to like, you know, you take a Ramona right where there's no filter. We were just talking about this, and like the things that come out of her mouth sometimes are just so mean. For me, I wouldn't say stuff like that on a regular basis.
But if I don't like somebody or someone does something to me, I get this feeling where I want revenge and I want to destroy them and life, I think, right, But I have to actively shut that off and put it out of my mind because getting revenge is all that I'll think about, you know. And I wonder do you think, like the proliferate like Housewives is so big? Now do you think that watching the behavior of Housewives on the show, does that bleed out into real life?
Do people start to think that it's better to behave like that? Or Okay, what do you think?
Absolutely? Because what happens is this brings into the discussion parasocial relationships. So parasolctural relationships are relationships that folks think they have with a celebrity or someone they admire and see on TV, but they don't really have a relationship.
And so sometimes fans if they feel they have a parasocial relationship, like for example, there are people who think they have relationships with you two, and they don't you know, they've seen you on TV, but they don't really know you.
So if someone respects you and honors you and admires you and they see things happening on TV, if the watcher doesn't have that sounded like creepy like the watcher, If the person taking in that behavior, if they don't have enough self esteem and self worth to say, Okay, this is entertaining, but this isn't necessarily something I'd like
to emulate. Then yes, that emulation of behavior happens. But one important thing I did want to note is that I believe that our society, there's a social conditioning that happens with women where we are conditioned to be nice and to avoid conflict at all costs. And so what happens is back to your point, Jackie, is that.
Right.
But but people pleasers who have emotions like oh my gosh, I'm so angry, I'm not able to show this, so that emotion has to go somewhere. And so that's where some in the thoughts of revenge and things like that. It's all normal. It's normal. I mean that happens to me too. It's just do you have the ability, like you said, Jackie, to stop yourself and say, okay, it's
okay to have this fantasy of revenge. It's okay to have that, but knowing that my behavior needs to align with my ultimate morals, values, and ethics.
I love that. Let me let me ask you a million dollar question. I get a lot of people comments. Sometimes I read the comments sometimes and you get why can't we just watch women being friends and having a good time. Would anybody watch that show? Wod people watch that show? I don't think so.
Well, Okay, here's my thought because sometimes I am one of those people, because sometimes for me, I'm a very sensitive soul, and when I watch like the whole stuff that happened with Salt Lake recently, it actually just makes me feel iggy. But I do love housewives, so I feel that, you know, I'm going to use Real Housewives of Orange County season one. Okay, they didn't have glam. They wore the craziest outfits. They went to tennis and
lunch and it did really well. Now, all things need to evolve, right, I think anything, people shows, what have you, everything has an evolution. Nothing can stay the same. But I almost think that there's been an over correction in some franchise, not all. There are some franchises franchises I think that do it well and then others that you can almost tell that people are nervous about. In my opinion, well, if I don't bring the heat, yeah, we're gonna get canceled.
If I don't bring the heat, am I going to not be asked? Back right. Yes, So I do think that there has become a toxic level to what we all think we need, and some of that, I'm going to be honest, is perpetuated by Bravo. I do believe that. Well, I do believe that.
You know, I think about even the Anne Marie of it all and first time housewife, and I totally get that pressure she felt to go in there and you know, have some have some conflict, but she got so slammed. People have said a lot worse on housewives. You know, I wonder is there a difference between being shady and being mean? I mean talking about Sutton's esophagus didn't ruin Sutton's life. It was certainly shady and she certainly paid
for it. But and I would understand her, you know, going in feeling like I have to bring some of this to the table. But why there was such a reaction to that? People? Do you know housewives can cut way deeper than that, And in my mind, I like shady. I laugh at shady, right, It's people can be very funny, very shady, but when it gets that dark, it's hard to watch. But why people have the reaction to her when I just thought listen, maybe it wasn't nice, but
it wasn't so deep. I didn't think, you know, she became a villain pretty quickly she did.
And I will I'm going to explain that because I'm one of the people who really had a reaction.
To her, really because maybe because of my.
Right. So for me, I'll just share briefly, I'm a two time cancer survivor and I'm going through a chronic cancer now that there's no cure, and I've been on treatment forever and it's just exhausting, but I'm doing okay.
And so for me, and I think a lot of other folks who have had medical issues, whether it be mental health, physical health, you know, eating disorders, what have you, we have been exposed to folks like her that talk to us like we're idiots or like we like I personally don't like when a medical professional tries to talk about my body like they know it better than I. Right, So for me, what I always say is a medical professional, your degree is a piece of paper, but your morals, values, ethics,
and you know, true education are shown in your behavior. And I think for me, what bothered me about it and many other peace people because a lot of people. I get a lot of dms and a lot of comments on my Instagram. They felt the same way. They felt shamed, they felt judged. And I think she tapped into you know a lot of people like me with invisible illness, like I look great.
I know that, Yeah you do.
And you know so sometimes when you have invisible illness, you're used to people really mistreating you and judging you. And I think she just represented that. Well.
I didn't even think of that angle. I get that. I mean, that completely makes sense. I would have been different. I would have certainly had a different reaction if I'd been through what you've been through.
Can I jump back to your over correction comment, because that really struck me. So the House I started out as a really like a show about friends, right, maybe with some like minor dis agreements, and it has over corrected. You are right, And now where do we go from here? What happens from here? Is it just going to can continue to get meaner and snarkier or is it like, are we just expecting more and more drama? What's going to happen with these shows? What do you think?
That is such a good question, and I've posed that question myself on my Instagram is that I believe Housewives has become such a tox successful that it is becoming it's like, how do we move ask this if this is like the level of entertainment or the level of you know, villain era that we feel is entertainment, where does this go? And so Jackie, it's such a good question, and to me, my answer is that I believe it's unsustainable.
I don't know what's going to happen. I kind of like my intuition it's something's common and I know, so.
What then why do we?
I still don't miss not I don't watch every franchise, but I don't miss an episode like if it's gotten to that place where it is so dark and I still here, I am, you know, telling the truth. I love it, you know, I don't always love every moment of it. I have moments where I feel, you know, sick for one of the women who is the brunt of you know, the meanness. But I still am addicted. What is that about?
J One of the things I love about you is you're just like so honest and upfront and Jackie, you two you're just both so honest and real and I think what I love is just being honest about what you're saying, because that's that's a fact. I mean, and listen, I watch every episode too, right, I.
Mean, does that mean that we're mean girls as well if we're enjoying mean girl behavior?
No, I think for well, for me, it's it's content if I'm being honest, right, there's for me, the grosser things get, the more clinical interpretation I have. So for me, it's a gold mine. I'm going to be honest in terms of the work that I'm doing, but in terms of just the general public, I'm going to liken it to almost like a soap opera, right we you know people love soap operas, and it's kind of like a
real life soap opera. But what's great about it is we feel, again because of these parasocial relationships, like we know the people, so what happens is I think we watch, but then there's that's where these teams come in, like team so and so, Team so and so, because we feel A we have a relationship with them, B we feel the injustice of what's happening and then see it. So it's like it's almost creates the faux sense of interaction. But it isn't is it? That's that's fun.
Like Jackie was saying that when she gets hurt, her instinct is, like all of us, she wants revenge. So watching that, you know, feeling what one of the cast members feel in terms of being hurt and wanting revenge for that person, and then seeing that person get revenge, I guess can be cathartic.
Sure, because let's take the scandal all situation. Right, everyone has been an areaana everyone well most a lot of people have been cheated on or mistreated, and so when we see this person who was us gets such vindication, it's like it fulfills something in us that never got that. It can serve as validation, right, it can serve as oh wow, I was wrong like this too, and look at all the attentions she's getting, and so it validates. So I think that to answer that question is that
sometimes it gives us a lot of validation. And that's not necessarily bad human beings. We're human, we have you know, humanity is tough, and we all have sore spots and growing edges and trigger points. And so I think what Housewives ultimately does is it works on hitting those buttons, and then the viewer gets emotionally kind of sucked in, and then it becomes something that you just don't want to stop watching, even though it has felt so toxic, right.
But even beyond that, like you have this portion of people saying, like, I just want to see you guys be friends and have some fun and have like times. But like the other day, Jen and I went to the Madonna concert and we went with.
Which is really by the way, I don't know what people amazing people are saying, she is right on her game.
Yes we went with Sisa and Jen aaden okay, And when when there is a picture of me and Theresa together on social media, the hateful comments are insane. I cannot believe how invested people are in us going to a place together. And I just wonder it's not just the shows, it's off season. Also, it's all the time people don't really want to see. I wonder do people really want to see friendships? Aren't these shows about like finding your way back to friendship after confrontation. Isn't that
what they should be? And if so, why is there so much hate for people making up?
Okay? So I think there's two answers to that. I think that a lot of Bravo fans are very petulant in that they think that they want something and then when they're given that, they're not happy. So I just think sometimes it's human nature to say or to think that we want something and then when we're given that, we don't care for it. Number One, humans can be fickle,
let's be honest, and especially Bravo. And number two, I think Jackie the situation with you and Teresa my understanding because I've seen those hateful comments too, which are you know, that's a whole other thing. People who just like say these awful things on the internet. It's it's wild. It's my least favorite part about what I'm doing because it's just so gross. I think that people with you both and listen, we're gonna see this, and I have no
inside information. I think people think it's inauthentic and therefore their you know, frustrate or there are people I think that feel that Teresa did you grave harm, you know, by bringing up certain rumors, and so they think, well, how can Jackie be friends with her? And so But here's the thing about real life is in real life we are supposed to have conflict. Conflict is a part of relationships, and unfortunately our society and our parents, we
don't really get taught how to manage that. So it is possible to have this really challenging relationship with someone and then grow and move forward authentically. I think in your case, the problem is the audience hasn't seen that authentic base because it happened in between seasons, right, so, and people have a lot of imagination, and everybody thinks that they're a therapist, trust me because they try to tell me about things. And I think people are assuming.
It's a lot of assumptions of well, this is tactical or this isn't authentic, But it's because it happened in between seasons and we didn't get to see that natural authentic Bill.
Does that make sense, Melissa, Well, don't you think is? You know? In life? And I think maybe even on the show. But I've been accused of not being authentic because I don't maybe engage. Well, who knows what's going to happen this coming season. You know, you'll watch and you'll tell me what you think. But I feel like my in therapy I have kind of learned that even the people that we can't stand or have so much
resentment against, there's always a humanity there. I mean, I can't say that terrorists have humanity and I want to go there, But like, when you see the humanity in someone, all of that other anger and nastiness, it fades, right, And I think that it's so interesting that, you know, on the show, people can hate each other's guts and then love each other. And I feel like, because once you actually get through all of the anger and you can see somebody's for lack of a better word, humanity,
all of that other stuff just sort of dissipates. So Jack, I mean, you would have to speak to that more than.
Yeah, I would really agree with that. So if you take the Monica of it all, right, like she clearly you can see how horrible her life has been. I mean, she was abandoned as a child, she has a tumultuous relationship with her mother, she's a single mom, and it still doesn't make me.
But that's not what I mean seeing the humanity. I mean, like if you, let's say one of these women were to sit down and have lunch with Monica and she was to say this has been you know, such a shit show, and I feel so sick, and it's so hard to have had this reaction. And you know, let's say she really became vulnerable. Once she was vulnerable and open, I think that things would change in terms of how
you were to feel about her. I think that was also a complaint at the reunion, right, she wasn't vulnerable. But oftentimes, and I don't know what happened with you and Teresa's between you and Teresa, but I think in general, you can have all of this animosity towards someone and then as soon as someone sort of shows their humanity or their vulnerability, that can dissipate. Yeah.
Jen, that is so smart and such a stude observation because one of the things, like I kind of wrote it because one of you both are one of the things in how to handle of course, that's why I love Checkie. She's so smart. The one of the ways to handle the mean girl, one of them is to look at the humanity. And so, you know, JACKI you brought up an interesting point. Sometimes we can do that and sometimes we can't. So when we see someone that triggers us, if they if there's something about them that
triggers something within us. We may not be able to see that humanity, Like I have a harder time seeing the humanity for Anna Marie, but I my whole Instagram. I have been kind of a champion for Monica in explaining why she is the way she is, and so as a therapist, I can see through the humanity to the humanity of some pretty egregious behaviors. But it's okay if we can't always do that. But yes, that is the answer to kind of getting to the truth of
what's happening with this person. Because people are more than their behaviors. The behaviors come from somewhere, and if we understand that, it helps our empathy.
Well, it's like on reunions when you see, you know, somebody who has been so mean, but you see them break down, You'll see another member of the cast go over and hug them. Can I just hug you? You see a lot of that, right, Like human instinct is to get up and comfort a person, So you must your career and what you do must be so interesting to see both, right, to see the struggle between that those mean instincts and those loving human instincts.
I've had people come to therapy who literally yelled at me, treated me so terribly, and I ended up developing by the end of it, a wonderful, beautiful relationship with them, Because sometimes the behaviors come from a place of heart, and so if you're willing to see past that and you know, just be with someone, you know, that can change a lot.
I was going to ask you if you think like taking it out of Housewives and going back to movies where always the mean girl is popular, Well, I shouldn't say that there's always a popular, beautiful girl who's mean. The mean girl is never going to be the one sitting in the corner being ignored at school. She's always going to be the queen bee. She's going to be the prom queen, the one that everyone wants to be friends with. And yeah, she'll get in some drama and
at the end, someone else will be more popular than her. Right, that's the way these movies go. But does do the way they portray mean girls as being popular and beautiful do you think that affects people like our daughters. Like our daughters are both in school, hers is in college, mine's in middle school. But like the middle school crowd is tough. Does that go out to them?
Brutal? Middle school is brutal?
Yeah, it is. Why why is it so bad? My god? It blows me away?
Here's why? Because how do I answer this? Briefly, we as a society, as parents, I know you two are doing a great job of this. A lot of parents don't teach their kids how to manage emotions number one, how to handle conflict, and how to communicate effectively. Okay, kids learn how to communicate from their home. They learn it through not what they're told, they learn it through modeling. Okay, So to me, this behavior, there's usually something going on
at home. Sometimes sometimes there is not, but there are definitely Like there's six signs of mean girl, and one of them is definitely appearance focused because I think again, in our society, there is this image of you know, to be a queen bee, you have to be the best, the best looking, the best dressed, the most popular. You know, there's all of these kind of difficulties. But ultimately, mean
girls have trouble with friendships because of their behavior. But in middle school, we lack the ability to have self awareness. Like cognitively, our brains are not fully developed until age twenty five and the last part of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortexes that control impulses. So kids
aren't doing it's developmentally appropriate. What's what's happening in terms of their hormones and their emotions in all of this, Those types of kids don't have the folks around them that they need to say, Hey, I noticed this behavior, what's happening. Let's look at this together, you know. Does that make sense?
Yes? Is that though an excuse in terms of when we become women, we were never taught to control our impulses, to curb our mean girl impulses? Is that an excuse? Or is it time when you reach a certain age too, you know, to stop being so damn right?
Because like if you look on like we were talking about the Facebook groups that were like Facebook mom groups, like they jump all over each other. They're so mean to each other in a way that men are not.
Mm hmm. Here there's so there's two different types of mean girls. Okay, there's the types of mean girls that were mean girls when they were younger. They grew up, they developed some self awareness and they said, oh boy, this is not good. Let me change my behavior and there definitely are a lot of people like that. You know, you hear stories on the internet of people who go back to their high people they bullied in high school and they apologize.
And things like that.
And then there are those women who don't grow out of it. They don't learn, they don't grow. And what I like to say is as we grow we all have issues, okay, and as we grow, if we don't deal with them, we either get better or we get bitter.
That is it.
And so the adult mean girls, by the way, those Facebook groups are atrocious.
They really are.
They're so awful. These are women who are fundamentally and by the way, research shows that these women have low levels of empathy and long term unhappiness and possibly that could even lead to depression.
That's what I was about to ask you, Melissa. I'm sorry to interrupt, but that's what I want to know. Are there consequences, internal consequences to being a mean girl.
Yes, but the problem is they're all internal and we don't often see it until something like the damn break, so to speak, until something really egregious happens. They this is what people have to understand. Miserable people feel miserable like our behaviors show how we feel about ourselves, okay, and like I've gone through a lot of stuff. I'm the kindest person you'll ever meet. I'll never treat someone with less than kindness. That's just my morals and values.
But so these folks, there is karma, it's internal. They're miserable, they're unhappy, and Jackie, this might interest you is that there are research studies that show and associate perfectionistic tendency that often get kind of morphed into eating disorders with these women because it's very image based and they're miserable, non happy, and they're trying to control things, and we all know a lot of that is what you know,
can create an eating disorder. So these women, I would argue that a significant amount of them have, you know, may have I have to be mindful here, some depression, some anxiety, some you know, disordered eating behavior, low self esteem and confidence. So when you look at some of these things that people write and you feel icky, that's how they feel all the time.
Which, by the way, clearly I have mean girl in me because that makes me happy. Like mean girls are miserable, not miserable, but mean girls.
You know, it's coming from a place of heart that makes no man.
No, it makes me happy in a mean girl way, like if you're mean, you're miserable. Good you should be miserable, you're mean.
I don't know. Some some people I just feel like they're just bursting with self confidence and they feel like no matter how mean they are, they'll be loved. I don't know.
Well, I believe that people who we feel are bursting with self confidence. It's it actually comes from a very insecure place. But listen, are there some people like that? For sure? Yes, you are correct, but you know, Jen, I don't want you to be hard on yourself because you're human.
Yeah.
And so when we see someone, because I'm going to be honest, if I see someone who's mistreating other people and then they get theirs, there's of course a part of me that's a little satisfied.
Welcome to housewives. I think that is one of the biggest I can't stand someone for whatever reason, not always because they're mean, maybe because for me they're beautiful and they seem perfect, and they seem full of themselves or and so I like to see them brought down a notch, right, which is my own young girl stuff. But you like to see the mean girl, just like in the movies, get knocked down, and Housewise will do that to you.
Yeah. What worries me is that it just seems as an outsider watching other shows that it it's just this, this desire to watch people you mean to each other just gets stronger and stronger every year, and I wonder where it's going.
I don't really think, you know, the producers when I joined Jersey, they told me to watch Miami because they said Miami is shady. Right, it's not again, They're not out to ruin each other. They are shady and it's funny, but it's not quite so dark. And so I don't know who knows, you know what what the executives all want. But what I was told was that they don't want it so dark. I think maybe we just need to move to Miami. Maybe maybe to Miami, it'll be sunny, it won't be just kidding.
I love Jerseys, but you know, I am curious to see where where everything goes. It's but Melissa, you are just the most brilliant, the most brilliant, and I'm so grateful that you were here today to explain all of this to us.
I know, can you come sleep over at my house? I know, just want I want you to hold me. I just want you like an intercom, like a buzz thank you.
I love you both.
Oh my god, I love her.
I could talk to her all day and she's She's so in tune to like everything she says.
I'm like, yeah, you're right, yeah, yeah, and non judgmental.
No, right, she's great.
She's not a mean girl. She can't be a housewife.
No, she would not like this, no, no, no, no, no, no, but no, she really is.
Really that's so insightful and like I don't know, personally like helpful, right, And again I don't think, like she said, there's a spectrum and I have mean girl instincts. It's like nice to know that we all do, right, yeah, and sort of how to take it. And it was really helpful for me also to hear that, you know, mean girls, they are repercussions for it, and not not only externally but internally.
And you're right of hurt people, hurt people.
Hurt people, hurt people, right, Yeah, anyway, this is a good one. This was good.
Gut her face, you guys, this was a fun episode. I loved it.
Yeah, I loved it too.
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Don't be a mean girl.
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