The best plan is a canceled plan. There is no
better plan to spend time with people than a canceled plan.
Just because things are better right this second doesn't mean that
you don't need to establish a plan. Should they not
be? It doesn't mean that they're gonna stay better.
If you did it while wearing pants when you didn't have to, that's a little
bit of a fail. You should not have been wearing pants. Pants are outside clothes.
All right, here we go. I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record. Cause that feels right.
Okay, I'm pressing record. Boop. Hi,
everybody. I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different
Not Broken, which is our podcast on exactly that.
That there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken. And
the reality is you're just different, and that's fine.
Have I told you guys about the book that I want to write for my
dad? I probably haven't told anybody this.
So he started writing this and didn't
finish it. I'm sure he's listening right now. He was a terrible writer. He's a
horrible writer. I'm a good writer, and it never occurred to
me to take his stuff and make it not bad. He did successfully write
a textbook, and that is an excellent book, if you're into textbooks. He
wrote the only textbook on addiction forensic medicine in
psychiatry. So he did actually write a book. He was a published author.
It sold hundreds of copies. Because it's niche.
It's niche. I don't even think you would teach that in med school. You would
teach that in, like, some very remote fellowship of
somebody who's going into, like, addiction forensic medicine, which is like a whole different
beast entirely. So he did write a book, but he wanted to write a book
that I think was called Betsy Ross's
Drawing Room, something along those lines, because
Betsy Ross's grandson popularized this
idea that she sewed the first American flag, which is
not true. Betsy Ross owned a brothel,
and that's where all of the men of
wherever, I guess it would have been the Constitutional Convention. So Philadelphia.
That's where all the men of Philadelphia went to get
into all of their 1770 something
trouble. And so she had technically had a
pulse on what was happening in
politics, but not because she was some great,
benevolent seamstress, because she
owned the brothel where they all hung out. And so he
wanted to write the book of the things that happened in the drawing room of
her brothel. And someday, when I have creativity and time
and can do a little bit of research, I will finish that book
for him. But he definitely started it and
also was very. I mean, you wouldn't think that it would come up
that often that her grandson made up the first American
flag thing, but he managed to get it into conversation fairly regularly.
Anyway, that's the book I'm gonna finish for my dad someday.
So this isn't instruction. This is a very
clear instruction for you if you have a brain
that works like mine. And when I say that works like mine, I
mean a brain that will go out
looking for support when it's struggling. So, like,
terrible anxiety. Reach out to a medical professional. Really
tough day. Reach out to my therapist, whatever, which is the thing you're supposed to
do, right? Something is not going well, or there's something that you don't
understand or something that you can't explain. Ask for help.
Ask for help, right? So you do
the thing that you're supposed to do and you make the
appointment, or you call the person, or you do the reach out,
or you have that friend who says, anytime that happens, you call me and I'll
talk you through it. And you do that. It's not instant gratification, like, you
don't get the immediate response either because you have to
schedule something or the person's not available, or all of the very
reasonable things that happen when you're navigating
other people's schedules and lives. People are not expected to be available
at your beck and call. And that is completely reasonable. The
instruction is, keep the appointment.
You called, you reached out, you scheduled
whatever it was. Keep the appointment. Because
if you're like me, you do that when you're under
an intense situation, when things are really, really difficult, when
you really, really need the support and help, and if there's a delay of a
day or two by the time you get to that appointment, things might be better.
Maybe not solved, but, like, the pressure was brought down,
the intensity is brought down. It's not crushing, it's not dire
anymore. You don't feel like you're gonna have a panic attack and
rocket off to the moon anymore. It's really easy to think, okay, I'm better
now. I don't need that appointment. I don't need to talk to somebody. I'm okay.
Keep the appointment. Just because it's not
happening now doesn't mean it's not going to happen again. I
don't say that to scare you. I don't say that to say that your anxiety
is always going to come back or your stress is always going to come back
and sure, there's a world where whatever problem
solved itself and you don't have that anxiety anymore and you're fine. Sure, that's possible.
But it's also possible that that's not true. And if it's not financially
prohibitive, if it's not an undue hardship,
keep the appointment. Just because
things are better right this second doesn't mean that
you don't need to establish a plan should they not
be in the next however long. It doesn't
mean that you don't need to develop that support system or
use that support system at another time in
the future. It doesn't mean that they're gonna stay
better. Me, I tend to really struggle on the weekends
with everything that's happening in life right now. During the week, I'm great because I'm
working the whole time. I'm really goal directed. I'm super
involved with a bunch of things. I'm constantly
answering questions. I'm doing things for myself, for my
family. Like I'm busy the whole time. I don't have time to process
anything outside of what is immediately in front of me. And that is
my preferred state of being. That
is what works best for me. But man, the second it
hits, like Friday night and the intensity, the need to get things
done right now, releases or lessons and we go
into Saturday. And Saturday can be a day where I get a whole bunch done,
or it can be a day where I get nothing done. And it's
a little harder to push myself to get things done because
there's nobody on the other side of the computer screen waiting for the
things that I'm putting out. That's when my brain starts to play tricks on me.
That's when I start to feel really bad. Not always,
but that's when I'm more likely to feel really bad.
Which means it's also when I'm more likely to reach out for help or
try to find a resource. But things don't always happen immediately, especially
if it's on a Friday night or a Saturday. Realistically, Monday is going to be
the earliest that somebody. Unless you're talking about a friend. But if you're talking about
professionals, Monday's the earliest that somebody's going to intervene, unless
it's an emergency, in which case, please go to the emergency room. In some cases
it might be Tuesday, it might be Wednesday, it could be longer. And so that's
a lot of time to get back into my routine and
to feel more in control of things. Because the routine is winning or the
routine is doing what the routine is supposed to do. And then you get to
Wednesday and think, it's probably fine. I think things are fine,
it's probably okay. And it's really easy to say, I probably don't need to go
talk to anybody. I'm okay. Keep the appointment.
These things can be roller coasters. And it is really easy
to feel very, very secure when you're at the top and then you
hit a dip and all of a sudden it's like, I'm falling. Because it's a
roller coaster. And that's what happens. Keep the appointment.
Do yourself the favor of building a support system, even
if you don't need it immediately, even if you only go
one time, even if you think you're okay for a while
and then find out three months later you're not. You already established
you can go back, it's there. And then you might find out that
you went to the first one and it was great. And now you
just need to schedule a follow up. And you're not sure when the follow up
is or when you should schedule a follow up, but in the next couple of
days, there's a thing, and that thing racks you with anxiety and
oh, I need that follow up. I'm gonna go schedule that follow up. But you've
already established the support system. Keep
the appointment. Do not let your brain tell
you that a 24 hour improvement is
enough to skip out on building the
things that you need. A 24 hour improvement could turn into a 6
month improvement real quick. And that's amazing. And if that's the case, awesome. I'm so
happy for you, so proud of. But that's not the way it always works. And
you don't want to find out that you missed out on having
the support system that you needed because you
thought that things were fine when your brain
and body were just not screaming at you at that moment. Keep the
appointment.
And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's
small talk. All right, we have a small talk from Marcus
in Chicago. Hey, Lauren, I have a confession that feels ridiculous
to even type. I canceled plans last Saturday
and then had the best day I've had in months. I cleaned my
apartment, made soup, watched a documentary about bridges.
I was so happy. And then the guilt hit
because I canceled on people I like, people who matter to me. And I
felt like I should have been miserable to deserve the
pass. So my question is, how do you stop feeling guilty
for needing to recharge? I can't figure out if I'M an introvert
who married an extrovert lifestyle or if I'm just someone
who needs to renegotiate how I spend my weekends. Either way, the guilt
thing is exhausting. So a couple of things. Send me the documentary
on bridges I would like to watch. It sounds like 100% like the
type of content that I live for, so just send it my way.
Second off, like, did you hurt somebody? Did you harm somebody
in the process of self caring? Was somebody mad at you
because you missed something very important? Was there
some level of expectation there outside of we
would like you to come to this thing that you have not communicated because
I don't know about you. But in my opinion, the best plan is a
canceled plan. There is no better plan to spend
time with people than a canceled plan. And I say that
about things I really want to do because
logistics, even ones that you're excited about, are
emotional labor. And they're hard. Transitioning from one place to another,
even if you're excited to do it, is hard. You don't have
to do hard things just because you think you should. We can do hard
things. We don't always have to. You had what sounds like a great day
that you needed that made you feel like you were put back
together, that nobody is yelling at you about.
Sounds to me like you have the kind of friends that you could be like,
yeah, sorry that I didn't come, but I didn't want to. And they would be
like, I get that. I get that. And those are the kind of friends that
introverts need. The friends who will push you
when your social battery can handle it and who will give you space when your
social battery cannot. And that is the best kind of friend.
So how do you stop feeling guilty? I don't know. Guilt is
emotional labor that you're doing for someone else. Usually someone who hasn't asked you to
do it. I've gotten better at it. I'm still not great at it. There's still
an aspect of the guilt that. But I think that's because I'm Jewish.
That's pathological. That's not going anywhere. We're born with it. It's like a.
You know, some people get trust funds, we get guilt. It's different.
It's the same, but different. And so like, how do you
get rid of it? That part I'm not sure about. But should you
feel it? No. You didn't hurt anybody. You certainly didn't intentionally hurt
anybody. There was no harm caused to anybody. Your house is
cleaner you feel more centered. You had a great day that you
really enjoyed and you didn't have to put on pants. That sounds like a
global win. And if the only thing I will say is if you did it
while wearing pants when you didn't have to, that's a little bit of a fail.
You should not have been wearing pants. Pants are outside clothes. Unless you have,
like, lots of other people who live in your house, then, okay, I'm sorry,
pants. But if it was just you in the house all day, that's the
only thing you might have done wrong. Other than that it sounds like you had
a great day and anybody who loves you will support you in having that
great day. And nothing earth shattering happened
without you. And there will be more opportunities to spend time with those people.
And you could make one right now if you feel that guilty about missing that
time with that person. But otherwise, go watch bridge
documentaries without pants on. That sounds great. Thanks for being here,
guys. Have a good day. Love you, Mina.
I basically parodied Baz Luhrmann as if I was Bill Clinton.
It was like, follow your dreams, but leave before
your wife has time to run for Senate. Like, I can't believe people weren't more
impressed with how, like, deeply witty and intelligent I was at
13 years old. That was hilarious. But anyway, that was me at
13. I've always been like this.