I'm fine. I have not been body snatched. And I will do

whatever I can to take control of this situation. Is it

possible? And hear me out here. So, 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.

Lately, I have done something that I swore I wouldn't do. Okay, not that

I swore I wouldn't do. I knew I would do it, but that I frequently

try not to do, which is fly on an airplane.

Because I don't know if anybody has caught on to this. This is probably

new information. I have a few control

issues. I know,

I know it's shocking. Please

catch your breath. Just bear with me.

I know the science behind it. I theoretically understand

the physics behind it. But still, there is no reason that that metal tube should

be hurtling through the air. It just does not make sense. And then, like, these

planes do these things that everybody acts like is normal

and it cannot possibly be normal. Like, you hit

turbulence and the whole damn plane shakes. And you can hear,

like, all of the luggage above your head trying to burst

out of the compartments because the turbulence so bad. And everybody

around you is like, this is fine. There's nothing

happening. That's weird on this thing. That

is definitely not on the ground and is, in fact, many, many,

many thousands of feet in the air. This is fine. It doesn't

make any sense to me. I've flown multiple times in the last couple weeks. Guys.

I know, I know. I'm fine. I have not been

body snatched. I don't know how to prove that to you

because everything I say is weird. So I don't know how to prove it to

you, but just know that I have not been body snatched. I still don't like

wearing shoes. The fact that I had to wear shoes on the airplane

was rude, but I'm not going to put my dirty bare feet on other

people. So I wore shoes, but that's the way you can tell

because I was angry that I had to wear shoes anyway. If I fly

regularly, I'm usually okay. It's when you get the big gap between

flights that the next time I have to fly, I'm like, oh, my God, this

is so awful. So, like, when I have to get on a plane again in

two days to Go back home. I'll probably be okay,

ish and appropriately medicated, to be clear. But if I have

to then not fly for several months, which is

usually my typical, I will be a basket case before

the next flight. I don't know whose life this is, but it certainly cannot be

mine. Anyway, the first two times recently that I flew, I took our

chief clinical officer with me. One, because I didn't want to fly alone, and two,

because I just like having her with me. It was the most affirming experience

I've ever had in my life. And I say this as a person who has

been very fortunate to be affirmed in many capacities throughout my life, including

in the home that I grew up in, which was, in

hindsight, very, very affirming because my dad didn't realize that's what he was,

but that's what he was. But I cannot

oversell how good a choice it is that if you are going to

get an emotional support human, have it be the therapist

who runs your clinical team, because she's going to be really, really

solid at the emotional support beforehand. She

called me just to see what I needed to be

comfortable on the airplane, which is adorable. Cause, like, I'm a grown

human and like, I can figure it out. But she's kind and compassionate

and for whatever reason with her terrible taste, likes me a lot.

And so she decided that she wanted to call and make sure that I had

everything I needed. And I said, to be honest, all I need is the

Klonopin that is in my bag. She was like, okay, that is fine.

And I said, and I will need you to probably hold my hand. To which

she said, I can do that, too. She did such an

epic fucking job of holding my hand. She really

did. Like, I was thinking about it afterward, and I was like,

what an incredible fucking human. So we're on this

airplane and I am, as I said before, appropriately medicated. And I

very rarely take medication. But my anxiety about airplanes

borders on irrational. Like, most of the things I do, but

that one in particular, like, you don't want to have a meltdown

on an airplane in the middle of the air when

there's probably an air marshal a couple rows away from you. You just don't want

that to happen. So that is one of the situations where I feel like I

probably should. It's not like the type of

anxiety where I just, like, feel like I'm worried about something. It's like

walls closing in. I'm trapped.

Everything is awful. The space cannot

be big enough. I Need to grab something and square squeeze. Hard type

anxiety. It is like, fully irrational. I am not in

control of this situation and I will do whatever I can to take control of

this situation. And do you know what legal things that you can do to take

control of an airplane? Not many. So it's not a good

idea. Anyway, she sat in the middle seat for me

because I like to be pressed up against the wall because it makes me

feel safe in the tube that is hurtling through the air. I recognize that

makes no sense. Just go with it. So she sat on the middle seat for

me, which is so nice. And, like, I wouldn't have done that for someone else.

That is not a comfortable place to sit. And

she just, like, let me do what I was going to do. And I kind

of like placed my, like, I like, laid against the side with my little. I

was using my sweatshirt as a pillow and I needed to grab

something from a bag. And she helped with that. And that was so nice of

her. And then we were just kind of chatting about

plans for the day. We had a couple of events we had to go to

that night, what time we were going to check into the hotel, et cetera, et

cetera. And every now and then we would like, hit an air

pocket or something would change that would freak me out. And I would

reach out and grab her and she would just let me grab her

and then not miss a beat in the

conversation we were having. So it was just completely normalized. She didn't

draw attention to it. She didn't make it a thing. She didn't ask me

if I was okay. Don't ask people that when they're clearly not

okay. It doesn't help nothing. She didn't draw attention to

it. Whatever appendage I grabbed onto, she let me

have. It was usually like a wrist or a hand.

It didn't happen that often because I had done a pretty good job of calming

myself beforehand. Actually, both the flight there and back for that trip were really

smooth, and there was very little to write home about. The most recent flight we

took, literally, we landed and the flight attendant got on the

PA system and said, well, that was fun. So that tells you

a little bit about that experience. I didn't realize how

validated and whole and affirmed it made me feel.

She didn't make a thing out of it. She didn't draw attention to it.

She just made her

physical body parts available to me for my

personal use, for my sensory regulation. I also

told her beforehand, like, if nobody around me is freaking Out. I'm not going to

freak out because I use everybody around me as a cue for

what's happening. And if I see somebody else respond to the fact that the plane

did something weird, I'm going to respond. But for the most part, like,

nobody, like, I've never been on a plane where anybody

really like made any movement that would tell me

that the things that I was responding to, anybody else had noticed

or had noticed enough for it to be concerning. I

will say that I have very weird ears and that's kind of a funny

thing to say, but my eardrums are all messed up because I don't feel when

I get ear infections until my eardrum perforates. And so I

feel pressure in airplanes different than everybody else. And pressure changes in

airplanes feel different to me. And so I know that there is a good

chance that I'm feeling something that nobody else does. And

so if I look around me and like nobody else is responding to it, I'm

like, okay, that's just my weird ears. And so she knew that going in. And

so I think she was like extra calm so that I would take the cue

and chill the fuck out, which I sort of did.

But the point being, the comfort and

the support that I received had nothing to do with what she did and almost

everything to do with what she didn't do. She didn't make a thing out of

it. She didn't draw attention to it. She didn't ask me if

I needed anything. She didn't make a

production out of anything. If I grabbed her arm, she just

gave me her arm, continued talking, didn't miss a beat. We

continued having our conversation. When I let go, she just took her arm back.

It was no big deal. And I got through the whole experience

not feeling like a fucking alien. There

is so much to be said for quiet support.

It's not to say that people don't need loud support. And I am

always here to provide loud support. But I don't think I had ever

felt the full impact, especially as a

very anxious person, especially as a very anxious person who tends to be surrounded by

people who really, really want to help and who

are well meaning in their desire to help, but

who sometimes, I won't say make it worse, but

create additional stimuli in their attempt to help, which does not help me calm

my anxiety whatsoever. It was the least stimulating environment

that you could possibly be in while in a metal tube hurling through the air.

And so to Natasha, who I love dearly and who

says she listens to my Podcast, so we'll see if that's true.

Thank you for being the most affirming human on the planet and for making me

feel so safe in an environment where I will never feel safe. And you

will forever be my emotional support friend who has to travel with me everywhere I

go. Sorry, but not sorry.

She does say she listens to this podcast, so we'll see. Because I'm not gonna

tell her beforehand. She quotes it back to me fairly regularly. I

know she does actually listen, but.

So before we ask you

to brag on yourself, because I don't think we do

that enough, and I think a lot of the really shockingly impressive people

who I know are so busy trying to be modest that

they have no idea how impressive they are. And so I encouraged you to

brag about yourself. And this week, we have our first brag.

We have our first brag. So let's

hear from Deborah, who did something tough

that I'm very jealous of and that my husband won't let me do. Okay,

not won't let me. He will let me. He's not in control, but

he thinks I'm bonkers for waking up one day and deciding I want to do

this. It's been like a regular back and forth in our house for, like, six

months. But anyway, Deborah did the damn thing. Hey,

I'm Deborah M. And I just got my first tattoo.

It's a phoenix. Because of course it is.

I booked the appointment, didn't cancel it ten

times, and sat through three hours without

crying or throwing up, which for me

is Olympic level success. Bragging.

Absolutely. I earned this ink.

I wanted to talk about toilet paper. There's this very

stereotypical stereotype, for

lack of I don't know what else to call it. Stereotypical. Something

in a heteronormative appearing household that

the woman or the person who fills that role,

that traditional gender role, is the one who yells at

people to put the toilet paper on the roll. And that

if we have traditional gender roles, the more masculine

individual fails to all the

time. I am here to say that that is not the case in my

house. I am actually the jackass who refuses

to put the toilet paper on the roll. And my husband

is the one who asks me and reminds me all the time to do it

and truly does not understand why there is such a

deficit in my brain to complete this. And I've

actually spent a fair amount of time thinking about it, because this is definitely the

brain power that I need to be applying in any place

whatsoever. 100% absolutely so part of

it is that I hate the spring loaded toilet

papery thingies. I hate them. They require

so many hands and I'm not coordinated enough

to keep them together while putting them in the middle of the

roll while also putting them back in the thing that creates the

tension so that it stays on the roll. I find that whole process

annoying and I do not want to participate in it. And most of our

toilet paper rolls are that. And so I just choose not to participate in it.

And that's not good because when I look at myself and say, hey,

stop being a jackass and just put it on the roll, I

just do it and nothing dies and no one gets hurt. And

in fact, my marriage is probably improved for it.

And it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. But if I

look at it and I'm like, that toilet paper needs to go on that roll.

Mm, mm. I don't wanna. And I just don't.

It can sit on it, it can sit near it, it can sit next to

it. I don't care. I don't want to deal

with the tensiony spring loady thingamajig that

makes this whole thing. I don't wanna deal with it. And that is a

bizarre hill to die on. That is a really bizarre hill to die

on.

And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's small

talk. I shut down socially way faster than I used to, and I'm not

sure if that's burnout age or just me finally noticing it.

How do you tell the difference between needing rest and avoiding life?

Because right now everything feels exhausting. I can

totally relate to that. Is it possible, and hear me out

here, is it possible that everything feels exhausting?

Because everything is exhausting. Is it possible

that you are not giving yourself credit

for the reality of the current toxic hellscape that we are

existing in and you are somehow making it that

you are having an unreasonable reaction when in reality

you are not given the space to have the very reasonable reaction that you are

having. I'm sure there's a good reason to know where it's

coming from. But in the moment when you need it, I don't

know that that matters. If you need rest. Rest. If

your body is telling you to retreat from whatever.

Retreat from whatever. First off, we are in the

post Halloween pre January

15th vortex. That doesn't exist. Time

and space is not a thing. There is nothing

that happens now short of emergency

medical care. That is not a January problem. And

we don't Give ourselves enough credit for how

freaking exhausting just existing

during this time of year is. And it is freaking exhausting.

So freaking exhausting. So there's that. There is a

world where I think there are people who are the opposite of this,

too. Like, I think there are people who get older and want to be more

social and go seek out other people. But it's also very common to get a

little bit older and be like, I don't need that. I don't want that.

There is. As you learn more about people, I think you decide how

much you actually want of people, or you start to decide how much you actually

want of people. The kind of natural optimism that you're going to stumble across a

new best friend starts to deplete as you get older. And you

have what I call the emotional graveyard of best friends.

Hopefully not a real graveyard. That would be weird. But, like, you look

back and you're like, well, we were so close for a while, and then, oh,

yeah, I talked to that person a lot, but it phased out. And sometimes it

just is like the natural progression of a relationship. And some things, something bad

happens, and sometimes you guys just move in different directions. But the more

experiences that you have, like that where somebody disappoints you,

and I don't mean that in like they did something to fail you, even though

that does happen. I just more mean like, it didn't work out

again, or it wasn't what I thought it was going to be, or they

weren't who I thought they were, or I, you know, thought this was going to

work out differently than it would or than it did. You get to the other

side of that and you're like, I don't know how much more I want to

go back for. For more of that. Sometimes it happens with family. The older I

get, the general less tolerance I have for BS from my family,

which manifests in a number of ways. One, in places I would have kept my

mouth shut before, I do not believe it or not, there were times in my

life where I kept my mouth shut. I know that's shocking. Pick yourself up off

the floor. It has happened. And then in other times, it's

like, I just am not going to engage. It is too. I know

that engaging in this relationship in any way is going to take

so much from me that it's not worth it. And so that's kind of. Those

are kind of like two sides of the same coin. When you are the only

person who identifies as female, as a woman in a family of A bunch of

people who identify as male who you know are all my brothers,

there is a whole lot of just

emotional management they expect you to do. Not that

long ago, two of my brothers were like, they were arguing about something

shocking. One had pissed the other one off. The first one

actually almost immediately came back with an apology because he realized that he had been

an asshole. The second one basically was on a

page where he was like, you were an asshole and I don't have to accept

your apology. And like, he's right, he doesn't have to. But also like, why are

you being a dick? He apologized and so I texted my sister in law

on the side and was like, this is like being an intimacy coordinator for

monkeys. Why are they so bad at this part? Like,

why do I have to prompt them on how they're supposed to? Somebody

apologize to you, what do you say? I wasn't involved

with it whatsoever, but it started by both of them contacting me

separately to tell me that the other had been an asshole. And

I knew exactly what happened. One of my brothers was going through something really hard.

The other brother was just having a bad day. The first brother asked the

second one about his hard situation because it's something that's

in my oldest brother's area of expertise. My oldest brother was

distracted having a bad day and was an asshole in response. Instead of

being like, can we talk in two days? When I'm not buried under these

things, normally I just would have been like, can you guys stop being

idiots? Instead, when my oldest brother reached out to me

to talk about it, I think my response was, I

know you are too autistic to understand the

necessity of responding in this situation, but I'm going to need you to get

your head out of your ass and respond appropriately

because you having a blow up to somebody who is going through a really

tough time was not appropriate, even if he's

your brother. To which he was like, you're right,

totally right. And he apologized. But in the past, I would

not have said that to him. In the past. I would not have just gone

toe to toe with him and been like, get your head out of your ass.

Some of that's a function of age, Some of it's a function of experience. Some

of it's a function of just what the fuck dudes like, get out of your

own way. Stop making problems for me because you two can't

communicate. That's a lot of getting older and

figuring out how to navigate situations you

do and don't want to be in and you only have to be in them

a couple of times before you're like, nope, don't want to do that again. Oh,

there's a chance that's going to happen. I'll pass. Is that not

participating in life? I don't know. Is it protecting your

peace? Probably. Like, probably a lot. And

so I don't know about you, but I would really, really love

to have some precedented times. Since we're not going to get that. I

think you need to give yourself some grace for the fact that

you are exhausted because the world is exhausting and that getting older

tells you what bullshit you're willing to put up with. Thanks for being here, guys.

Have a good day. Love you. Mean it.

I am an extra foul mouth today. So many fuck words.