March 25, 2025 • 33 mins
For this bonus episode, NK and Imani talk about navigating conflict, accountability, and grace for ourselves and the people we’re in community with.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's okay. Basket Case gets into some heavy topics
about mental health, but keep in mind that I'm not
a mental health professional. I'm just a person who is
coping with living through multiple crises and under multiple oppressive
system person with social anxiety, a person who is learning
and consenting to learn in public, a person who is
trying to build and live in community with a sensitive nervousness,
a person who is healing, a person who is trying,
a person who is learning.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
A person's going to love what, A person's gonna love
me when I have pressed an anxiety.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
This is basket Case. I'm nka. So I've been working
on this show for a full calendar year, and in
that time, the world has changed a lot. It's become
cliche to say it, but it does feel like we're
more divided than ever. It does feel like a lot
of people feel lonely and isolated. Yet in nearly every
(00:51):
episode of the show, community was the thing that people
pointed out as being essential to their sense of wellness
or their healing. And in order to be in community,
we need to get better at relating to each other,
not just meeting new people, but at sustaining relationships, and
something I've been thinking about a lot is that one
of the ways that we can deepen relationships is by
leaning into conflict. What seems complicated to me is that
(01:14):
leaning into conflict also means we have to lean into difference.
We have to allow for difference and also look for
points of connection, and we have to do both those
things while our nervous systems are fried. We have to
do it while struggling with mental illness. We have to
do it through our internal emotional and cognitive experiences that
are not always reliable. And we have to do it
in spite of the ways that trauma shapes our ability
(01:36):
to feel safe when it comes to conflict. Sarah Schulman,
the author of Conflict Is Not Abuse, recommends naming all
of that. Ammani Leonard is one of the producers of
basket Case, and the first time we met, I was
already working on the episode about mental health talk and
diagnoses turning into consumer identities, and they asked me if
I'd ever read Capitalism and Schizophrenia, and so obviously I
(01:57):
was like, you're hired.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Also admit I still haven't finished Capitalism in Schizophrenia. So
I just want to put that disclaimer out there, and
I do love recommending a good book, so I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
You like them. Yeah, one of your great talents for sure.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
You know, and shout out to Sylvia Winter and Octavia Butler.
They've like drastically transformed the way that I think engage
just really just have been like revolutionary for me. Also
also also also rocking the ADHD life pretty hard, which
I personally feel like really helpful for me, and being
(02:37):
able to go to that like mental catalog and just
see those little connections.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
But yeah, one of Amani's greatest gifts to the show
has definitely been always having a great book wreck at already.
So over the course of the last few months, as
we kept circling back to the topic of mental illness
and neurodivergence and conflict and accountability and community, they eventually
run up Schulman.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, I'd actually been told about this book in twenty twenty,
but I didn't pick it up again until the end
of twenty twenty two, and then going into twenty twenty three,
I had like just gotten out of this conflict with
this person. I didn't feel like the conflict I was
in needed to get to the place that it.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Was, but that it had escalated to a certain point.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah. Yeah, and that's which I mean, I, you know,
to go into Shulman's book, that's kind of like the
focus of her book. I me know, actually just quote
her directly, but she says, my thesis is that at
many levels of human interaction, there is the opportunity to
conflate discomfort with threat, to mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger,
(03:49):
and in turn to escalate rather than resolve. Yeah, just
getting out of that conflict and then having another one
that also felt like very unnecessary. I felt like I
need a better language for myself to understand what was happening.
And yeah, I just remembered I had this book, so
I returned to it. Which she've been saying that, you know,
(04:09):
I don't want to lift this book up as if
it's like, you know, God's chosen book for conflict or something.
I feel even Shulman herself would you know, probably push
back against that, which I'll quote her one more time
to She says, this is not a book to be
agreed with an exhibition of evidence or display of proof,
(04:31):
like authentic conscious relationships and like the peacemaking that all
these require it asks you to be interactive, what do
you know? Honestly, that kind of made me fall in
love with the book a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah. Yeah, Conflict Is Not Abuse was published in twenty fifteen,
but it's still really relevant today and relevant to this series.
So as a kind of epilogue to the season, Emani
and I are using Shulman's work as a jumping off
point to talk about a lot of things, conflict avoidance,
my email fingers, Amani's ADHD, the left's attachment to punishment,
(05:05):
holding people we love accountable, holding ourselves accountable, needing grace
when we inevitably experience conflict, are harmed, or cause harm.
I also have to say that myself and everyone I
live with was sick during the recording of this conversation,
and Amani and I had just one hundred thousand technical
difficulties and that is why the audio quality is not
(05:27):
as on point as it usually is. So apologies for that,
But here's that comfo.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I want to ask for you, like, what what about
this book resonates for you?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
And yeah, I think that what resonates is that, like
conflict is normative, conflict is happening constantly if you're in
relationship with people, and so it's like it's almost like,
at any time you might pick up this book, I'm
not surprised that you were dealing with two conflicts, So
was I, you know, And similarly, one of them was
at my other job with the coworker, which is really
(06:00):
unusual for me, partly because I'm avoidant, but that's the
situation had also, as you said, like escalated to a
level that started to feel a little bit out of control,
like the amount of time I was spending outside of
work thinking about it, the way that I was creating
a monster out of this person in my mind. It
(06:20):
was really helpful to them read through this text and
be reminded that I wasn't under attack, that I wasn't
being victimized by this person, which are both things that
she sort of specifically points out and has critiques of.
She talks about people approaching conflict from a place of
supremacy ideology, just one of the reasons we were talking
about this book. We were talking about identity politics and
(06:41):
the prevalence of supremacy ideology these days, meaning like any
sort of challenge to your worldview feels threatening, it feels
like harm as opposed to just feedback and kind of
reacting from a place of like not being able to
be corrected in any way. And then she also talks
about trauma as a response, which I see that myself
(07:02):
a lot. In that situation with my coworker, I definitely
at some point was like, you are having you're having
a trauma response, Like your reaction is reminding you of
something that had previously happened. It was reminded me of
a specific previous terrible work experience. Superficially it was similar,
but in many significant ways it wasn't the same at all,
and so it was really helpful to recognize that as well.
And also the person I was talking to who happens
(07:24):
to be autistic, I was like, I think there's also
some things about like the way that they communicate that
I can also be a little bit more empathic towards
or sort of not be as reactive towards, or at
least be curious about. I was a little bit embarrassed
about how reactive I got that, like people saw me
being reactive, you know, And then reading this work did
make me feel like, yeah, conflict just like is a
(07:44):
normal thing that happens and I'm just a human person.
I'm just a human person who had a human response,
you know, but that we just were experiencing something extremely normal.
One of the best ways to move through that would
be to just have conversations, try to kind of approach
each other with curiosity and empathy.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, I appreciate it your naming of like the conflict avoidance.
I mean, I know myself I can very much be
the same way. There's it's like a level of people
pleasing also in conflict avoidance that simultaneously also isn't people
pleasing because it could also cause a confusion for them
if you don't be like, hey, these are the things
(08:22):
that you've done out of maybe fear of how they
will react. I was thinking a lot about myself and
how strong my rejection sensitivity can be, or you know,
depending on how something is worded, how that can like
elevate my own emotions or maybe cause me to spiral.
(08:43):
And then it's also too like what do I how
do I engage with that emotion? Like what comes out
of that feeling? And initially I just wanted to be like, oh,
this is just like, you know, a byproduct of my
ADHD and have that be the sole focus of my
behavior or something I've done, versus seeing it as that
(09:05):
and a means of, for instance, imposing control or manipulation
or not. You know, controller manipulation doesn't have to be
like so extreme in the ways that actual situations of abuse.
So having that ability to see both of those things
and their connection and realize that we're also responding to
(09:27):
the world exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah. I think when I met you, you you had
your diagnosis and you were kind of figuring out your
medication situation. Like how long have you had an official diagnosis.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I actually got officially diagnosed at the very end of
November of last year. Oh yeah, it's very very recent,
which is also when I started taking that girly vivance shout.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
We love her, you know, shout out to Okay. So
it hasn't be in the time that I've known you
that we've been working together. I think something that's been
really interesting for me working with you is I feel
like a much more nuanced understanding of the challenges of ADHD,
of having ADHD both with relationships and at work. You know,
so much of like this show has been about illness
(10:16):
and disorder as defined by like how useful you are
within capitalism. Yeah, and I think that like ADHD is
one of those diagnoses. It's almost like kind of trendy
things that people just say without really knowing what that
means or how challenging it can be. You can, can
you talk a little bit about that? I mean, you know,
I know that you send an email to our radio
(10:36):
listener recently. I'm curious what motivated you to do that?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah? No, I God, I definitely feel the like trendiness
of ADHD. It makes me think about oh god, the
episode Mental Health Talk and just all of the like
right exactly, those little five signs you have ADHD, ten
things to do if you And it's like, wait.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
When you see videos like that, what comes up for you?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Like, I do think there's a benefit to people having,
you know, being online and talking about what they're experiencing
and all this other stuff. But the way that it's
become so just like grossly on the internet, it just
it feels not real.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I like.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And then also too, I think part of that is
seeing how much people are understanding themselves and their own
conception of being disordered through like random online posts that
don't really have any like scientific validity to it. I
do kind of think that is a problem, and so
many of us are looking for the answers for ourselves
(11:47):
or finding understanding through like thirty second one minute videos
versus actual human interaction, right which I had sent out
an email you know, as you mentioned to this radio
list serve that were part of you know, people posting
there for like jobs or show advice or whatever it
(12:10):
may be. But yeah, one of the things with ADHD
is executive functioning and just seeing how much that has
affected me in the work realm and also just from
my own creative projects. So I really wanted to get
advice from other people who like also share like the
(12:31):
similar disorder. I feel like sometimes people can be a
bit prescriptive and not always like think like this may
be really fucking hard for someone else. I also wanted
to send that email for the managers and supervisors who
have employees with ADHD, or maybe not even know like
(12:53):
that their employee has ADHD, but they're, you know, they're
they're seeing something there. And I think at times, at least,
you know, when I think about my own past experiences,
there's like a negative assumption about that person or this
imposed laziness or just lack of skill or talent, and
(13:13):
also a lot of frustration that can be directed towards
that person. Also, like you know, as a manager, your
job is to manage people, and so I think that
also means you know, figuring out what can be most
supportive to them or what they need or how you
could also help them out, or like I just know
(13:34):
for myself, I didn't ask for help partially because I
did not know what that help was that I needed.
I had like a lot of internalized shame and blame,
Like it was very hard for me to not feel like,
why can't you do this, or why can't you do
(13:55):
this this way? Or why can't you like just have
this very fixed routine or which that wasn't helpful for
me at all and really also prevented me from figuring
out what my own needs were, what I needed help with,
how I can bring other people in, you know, I'm
saying that, And I also think we do live in
such a hyper individualistic world. I'm still trying to trying
(14:17):
to figure that out. Figuring out ways to be more
in tune with myself and also being a lot gentler
with myself had been really helpful in being able to
open up space for support. I think about getting fired
from more than one job and looking back at those
(14:38):
experiences in some of the places that I was maybe
falling short, and like being able to realize, well, you've
done the same thing each time, what could potentially help
you do this thing differently? And when you've done the
same thing each time, you've done it by yourself. So yeah,
(14:58):
maybe you really need like your manager, supervisor whoever, to
write out really detailed to do lists. Maybe you need
a check in once or twice a week, which honestly
that's very very helpful for me. So I also think,
like I'm trying to when I talk about that grace,
like being able to go to those past experiences where
(15:18):
I've messed up and like what didn't I know that
or what was happening? And how could I change that
in the future.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, I mean, I'm reminded that Schulman also has a
little section where she's talking about this sort of cultural tendency.
If you think someone's dealing with mental illness or nerdive vergens,
you know, to not name that in a conflict situation,
in a conflict meeting, Yes, someone not fulfilling expectations in
the workplace. Let's say to not name that, have that
no be part of the conversation. She's like, that's actually
not kind, Like it's actually more kind to just like
(16:06):
acknowledge that could be a factor here.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Well, you know, I also don't because I also don't
want to have the like focus of my need or
support being based in my ADHD. I am such a
complex person with Yeah, you know, at least now in
March thirteenth, when we're recording this twenty eight years of
(16:29):
life experience, you know, yeah, that acknowledgment can be very important.
And also too, I do feel people at times can
use their diagnosis to manipulate or control a situation. And
I don't think it's necessarily a thing that's intentional, but
(16:50):
at least for me in my opinion, I feel like
diagnosis it's also become a way for people to have
some sense of control or be able to explain what's
happening to them instead of seeing these things our experiences,
our engagement with the disorder as so deeply systemic, as
(17:11):
disorder being only disorder because of the world that we
live in.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, absolutely, but.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Also it just God, I think about this conflict I
had with this person that again something else that I
feel like just escalated to a place that did not
need to go. But I am not the best texture.
I will be the first person to put WoT that.
But I got a very very long text message, like
a month and a half into getting to know each other,
(17:38):
then being like, oh, I'm autistic and I have ADHD,
so I like blah blah blah. But the whole entire
message was telling me what to do and the ways
that I'm messing up, and then them being able to
acknowledge their diagnosis as a reason why they need certain
(17:59):
things for me. First, Hey, like do you think this
is something that you were able to provide me? Or
like even taking consideration like shit, I got ADHD too,
Like I'm not going to respond to you in you know,
two days always.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I think that's so interesting because the other day we
were talking, you know, or one of our many conversations
about the of this book, and you mentioned or maybe
like I'm just not the right person for you, And
it made me think about a relationship in my own
life that I like, I know she's about text for like,
I see the fear of your notifications on her part,
so I know that it's not just me what felt
to me like constant rejection. You know.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I feel there's something though in being able to understand
that this person not responding to you in a certain
time is bringing up feelings of rejection. I think there's
something really important and being able to understand one's own
needs and also not personalize what someone else is doing,
(18:58):
or like knowing where your own reactions coming from or
where your own feelings are coming from.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Solomone talks a lot about different ways of avoidance, which
I really relate to as someone who you know, I've
handled a lot of conflicts in my life via writing
emails or letters. It's partly just I do think that
I'm more articulate. I feel like I will say what
I want to say, and I won't say things that
I don't necessarily need to say. I am really trying
to shift like what things I just don't say and
write it and just like kind of make save some
(19:25):
things for the conversation. And then yeah, just like kind
of like feeling like I'm a bit conflict avoidant. I
grew up in the conflict avoided family, and so like
kind of leaning into conflict is something that I'm still
practicing doing.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
What has that practice been like for you?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
It's been I mean, I try to be gentle with myself. Like,
you know, recently, I said some things in an email
and then I said and the rest I'd rather talk
about in a phone call. You know, I did feel
that I could come to the conversation more regulated because
I had already said the things that were maybe scarish
for me to say. The thing that was scarish me
to say it was actually just like communicating a boundary
that I had just trying to be really mindful of.
(20:01):
Like there's things that maybe you don't want in writing
that could seem really definitive, or there's things that you
want to give space to the person to respond to
in the moment. Yeah, like forming your opinion about it beforehand.
I'd rather just be like, yeah, we're having a disagreement,
Like let's talk through it. I'm not even like looking
for resolution. I guess I.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Very much like understand that conflict avoidance so so so much,
Like I think about it for myself, and I feel
like sometimes for me, part of me avoid engaging in
a specific conflict is because I have this fear that
(20:39):
the feeling I am feeling I shouldn't be.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, yeah, you know that's also part of like why
like my conflict don't work escalated to such an extent.
Is exactly what you said, is me feeling like unless
I feel that I know that I understand exactly why
I'm feeling the thing you can articulate exactly why my
feeling is justified, then I would rather not even express it.
It's kind of like the vulnerabilities also be wrong. The
(21:01):
vulnerability to be overreacting and have that be held, like
you said, is part of what we're talking about or
part of the skill set I feel I need to develop.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I think too, there can sometimes be a way if
someone does come to you with something and you are
presenting like your version of events. I've just seen the
ways that people can like take that instead as you
trying to be manipulative or defensive, and part of me
feels like in that is also well, this person is
(21:30):
denying what I'm feeling, and that means I am wrong,
versus this person is having a different experience, And how
can I also think critically about you know, like a
vast majority of the time, it's not just siloed to
that one individual person, you know, Like I feel like
Shulman also talks about this, but our reactions to things,
(21:51):
our understandings of things, the way we engage with them
is so deeply informed by our life. Like such a
cliche therapist saying, but you know, when you're when you're
in conflict with someone, it's not just that person, but
like every other person they've been in conflict with or
I love whatever.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, exactly exactly. I think she uses the word like
an empathic mature response, and it's like mature is such
a loaded word, but I do think yet leading with
centering the other person, that really was a relief to
me actually to do that, to put down my feeling
of being victimized, my feeling of powerlessness, and say, let
me turn my attention to what's going on for them,
let me prepare for this meeting, this conversation with just
(22:33):
only questions about what's going on for them, and really
really focus on me trying to understand where they are
coming from, kind of like why they were doing the
things that were irritating the hell out of me, and
not necessarily to like, you know, negate what I was
feeling or not to you know, not to double down
and avoidance or sort of like put my own feelings aside.
But doing that, like changing that focus did actually help
(22:54):
me feel better. It helped me to feel relief from
like this level of grace that I was off for
it again for more than a week. You know. You know,
(23:20):
I'm really candid when we're in production meetings with you
and talking about you know, this person in my life, this,
this friend, this family member, of things I'm dealing with
that pertain to the show. And so it's one of
the reasons that I think I was thinking about conflict
and accountability and mental illness, and one of the reasons
that this book came up. You know, in our conversations
this person in my life, their specific struggles, their mental
(23:45):
health crises often result in physical altercations, often result in arrests.
They're kind of not always safe to live with, and
so they've had a lot of housing and security as
a result of that. Part of their mental illness also
is that there's a lot of parent and there's sometimes
breaks with reality such that they don't necessarily remember the
things that they do, and so there's a lot of
conversations around conflicts that are happening harm that is being
(24:09):
caused in these dissociative states, and the response to being
told about those things or experiencing consequences of those things
is that, you know, people are gaslighting me, Everyone's lying
about me, you know. And so I was having a
lot of conversations about accountability around, like, everyone agrees that
you need support beyond the support that you're currently receiving. Psychiatrically,
(24:30):
we also follow feel aligned and we don't want you
to be incarcerated, you know, we don't necessarily want you
to be in a mental health hospital, which is really
adjacent to being incarcerated, but also feeling like for you
to be in community, you have to learn to have
accountability for the things that happen as a result of
your mental illness slash disability, and we do need to
be in community in order to survive these systems order
(24:53):
to heal. In navigating that, I was producing the Borderline
personality disorder episode that not the person Anyone Wants to
be and reading the work of that writer. Her name's
Mala Chatterjee, who is the subject of that episode, but
she had also had written this essay about Borderline that
I really loved, you know, and borderline is characterized by
particular challenges with relationships. It's like characterized by having disabled
(25:14):
relationships because of your perceptions of reality are not necessarily reliable.
I'm just trying to find where is it? No, here
it is, she says. Okay, using VPD as a shield
against criticism misconstrues what it's meant to be and to
be treated as a person. We cannot have it both ways.
Recognizing that we are not disordered or fractured requires acknowledging
(25:36):
that we are worthy of compassion and capable of growth,
but also at the very same time that we ought
to be responsible and accountable for the persons we are.
It is not only that both of these things can
be true, but also that they must be true because
they go hand in hand with what it means to
have humanity. I just found that to be such a
beautiful way of expressing that desire to be seen as
(25:59):
human and a desire to be in a relationship, to
stay in relationship. I was in communication with some people
around like this person's mental health crisis, and they were
feeling a lot of guilt around decisions they were being
forced to make with the rest of their own safety,
their own housing was being threatened by some of the
things that are happening. So I wound up sending this
to the people navigating that to say like, no, like
holding someone accountable is it's also an invitation to be
(26:21):
in a real relationship with someone and saying like, yeah,
despite your limitations to sometimes severe limitations, that like working
towards that shared humanity is part of it. If we're
talking about existing with a disability under capitalism, we do
need each other to deal with that. And being able
to navigate conflict as part of that, and being able
to be accountable to people in your life who you
(26:42):
might harm, who you have harmed, will harm, have been
harmed by is part of that.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I am thinking of the roommates and now the guilt
that they're feeling. That's such a difficulty of the world
we live in to have specific politics, to want to
care for people, to to show up for them, and
knowing what you are able to do is completely outside
of and that it just becomes so much more obvious
(27:09):
how we are being failed. The complete lack of resources
that we have, the ways that community structures have been
completely torn down, reshape, rewired, and how that makes it
so difficult for us to have our needs met so
that we can be in community with other people. I
also think about this this person too. I do imagine
(27:31):
how hard it has to be to be able to
fully accept or realize the things that you've done. Because
we live in such a coarsoral world that also makes
it very difficult, Like we are so fixated on punishment
that what does it mean to admit that I have
done this thing? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Exactly? Yeah, when you're already experiencing so much isolation. Yeah,
I completely agree. And also to your point about you know,
like all of these social structures that we used to have,
the ways that mental illness used to be experienced within community,
you know, the ways that mental health services have been
(28:10):
outsourced to the prison industrial complex. You know, like it's
so hard to know what to do, Like what can
I do when you don't necessarily have a lot of
options for people dealing with like really severe issues. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
One of the things I'm really curious about often think
about for myself is just how much more we have
to do that in this current moment we can't even
conceptualize is needed for for us to truly build deep,
loving communities.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
I've been thinking about that so much as well, and
I have this project in my mind that I sometimes
refer to as the bad Friend project. It's related to
all of this. It's related to thinking about the skills
that we need to build community that people in our generation.
I think we've like lost those skills. What do we
need to do to get back to that? Curious, especially
after making the show, where I feel like every episode
(29:02):
that comes up, people talking about the role that their
community played and they're feeling well and their wellness.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
I think about us growing up on social media, and
then I think about me too happening or just all
of these other things that we're watching happening online. People
getting canceled whatever that may mean, or you know, a
community member being called out, or now you're posting about
your conflict online. But I think so much of this
(29:33):
discourse happening online or people also just trying to figure
out how to be good. I notice too often people
having this ideology of how our identities now have somehow
made it to where we cannot do harm. I think
people now having this what they feel like now is
(29:55):
some sense of agency and being able to rectify the
harm that it's been done to them. And I know
so many people have a fear of being called out
that they literally like shift their behaviors or limit what
they say to match what is currently deemed politically correct
(30:17):
so they don't lose community. It is so deeplycarcal, Like
I think also in these ways of trying to figure
out how to care for people that have been so
deeply oppressed and marginalized, that like, we are literally just
recreating the same system with a different face. And you
receive so much more grace when you were able to
(30:40):
list a diagnosis that you have. And I feel like
people know that and know how difficult it is to
sit with the harm that you've done or committed.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
You know, we talked about this a lot, like people's
latching onto a diagnosis as a way to get a
certain kind of support that they feel that they can't
just ask for without the diagnosed.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That that's also one of my fears, Like I feel
like sometimes people become so attached to these ideas of
self that to admit something is wrong or change your
mind or feel questionable about something is what does that
say about myself? One of my favorite interviews that I
come back to quite often. Is this woman Pauline Boss
(31:22):
I want to say is her last name. She talks
about ambiguous loss, losing someone without closure, having the ability
to hold multiple feelings, that ability to hold so many
things at once and know that it is not either
or I think that can open up so many doors
for the ways we can connect with each other, for
the ways that we can form community and love and
(31:43):
hold each other and give grace to ourselves to know
that it is not this or that that these things
are a complexity an array that we could not even
begin to go pass bad times.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, I agree the fact that, yeah, that many things
can be true at once. I think that was like
a really really well said Baska case has been a
production of molten Heart and iHeart Podcasts. This series is hosted, produced,
and sound designed by me NK Nicole Kelly. I co
(32:19):
created the show with Jasmine J. T. Green, who's also
our executive producer. Production assistants throughout the season by Siona
Petros and Ammani Leonard. Adrian Lilly is our mix engineer.
Our theme is blue and orange by Command Jasmine. Our
show art was created by Sinney Rolson. Fact checking by
Serena Solin. Legal services provided by rowand Maren and File.
Our executive producer from iHeart Podcast was Lindsay Hoffmann. Person's
(32:42):
gonna want me and what person's gonna want me, and
what person's gonna want me, and what person's gonna want me,
and what person's gonna want me, and what person's gonna
want me and what person's gonna want me when I
have depression and anxiety
Hey, it's okay. Basket Case gets into some heavy topics
about mental health, but keep in mind that I'm not
a mental health professional. I'm just a person who is
coping with living through multiple crises and under multiple oppressive
system person with social anxiety, a person who is learning
and consenting to learn in public, a person who is
trying to build and live in community with a sensitive nervousness,
a person who is healing, a person who is trying,
a person who is learning.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
A person's going to love what, A person's gonna love
me when I have pressed an anxiety.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
This is basket Case. I'm nka. So I've been working
on this show for a full calendar year, and in
that time, the world has changed a lot. It's become
cliche to say it, but it does feel like we're
more divided than ever. It does feel like a lot
of people feel lonely and isolated. Yet in nearly every
(00:51):
episode of the show, community was the thing that people
pointed out as being essential to their sense of wellness
or their healing. And in order to be in community,
we need to get better at relating to each other,
not just meeting new people, but at sustaining relationships, and
something I've been thinking about a lot is that one
of the ways that we can deepen relationships is by
leaning into conflict. What seems complicated to me is that
(01:14):
leaning into conflict also means we have to lean into difference.
We have to allow for difference and also look for
points of connection, and we have to do both those
things while our nervous systems are fried. We have to
do it while struggling with mental illness. We have to
do it through our internal emotional and cognitive experiences that
are not always reliable. And we have to do it
in spite of the ways that trauma shapes our ability
(01:36):
to feel safe when it comes to conflict. Sarah Schulman,
the author of Conflict Is Not Abuse, recommends naming all
of that. Ammani Leonard is one of the producers of
basket Case, and the first time we met, I was
already working on the episode about mental health talk and
diagnoses turning into consumer identities, and they asked me if
I'd ever read Capitalism and Schizophrenia, and so obviously I
(01:57):
was like, you're hired.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Also admit I still haven't finished Capitalism in Schizophrenia. So
I just want to put that disclaimer out there, and
I do love recommending a good book, so I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
You like them. Yeah, one of your great talents for sure.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
You know, and shout out to Sylvia Winter and Octavia Butler.
They've like drastically transformed the way that I think engage
just really just have been like revolutionary for me. Also
also also also rocking the ADHD life pretty hard, which
I personally feel like really helpful for me, and being
(02:37):
able to go to that like mental catalog and just
see those little connections.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
But yeah, one of Amani's greatest gifts to the show
has definitely been always having a great book wreck at already.
So over the course of the last few months, as
we kept circling back to the topic of mental illness
and neurodivergence and conflict and accountability and community, they eventually
run up Schulman.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, I'd actually been told about this book in twenty twenty,
but I didn't pick it up again until the end
of twenty twenty two, and then going into twenty twenty three,
I had like just gotten out of this conflict with
this person. I didn't feel like the conflict I was
in needed to get to the place that it.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Was, but that it had escalated to a certain point.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah. Yeah, and that's which I mean, I, you know,
to go into Shulman's book, that's kind of like the
focus of her book. I me know, actually just quote
her directly, but she says, my thesis is that at
many levels of human interaction, there is the opportunity to
conflate discomfort with threat, to mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger,
(03:49):
and in turn to escalate rather than resolve. Yeah, just
getting out of that conflict and then having another one
that also felt like very unnecessary. I felt like I
need a better language for myself to understand what was happening.
And yeah, I just remembered I had this book, so
I returned to it. Which she've been saying that, you know,
(04:09):
I don't want to lift this book up as if
it's like, you know, God's chosen book for conflict or something.
I feel even Shulman herself would you know, probably push
back against that, which I'll quote her one more time
to She says, this is not a book to be
agreed with an exhibition of evidence or display of proof,
(04:31):
like authentic conscious relationships and like the peacemaking that all
these require it asks you to be interactive, what do
you know? Honestly, that kind of made me fall in
love with the book a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah. Yeah, Conflict Is Not Abuse was published in twenty fifteen,
but it's still really relevant today and relevant to this series.
So as a kind of epilogue to the season, Emani
and I are using Shulman's work as a jumping off
point to talk about a lot of things, conflict avoidance,
my email fingers, Amani's ADHD, the left's attachment to punishment,
(05:05):
holding people we love accountable, holding ourselves accountable, needing grace
when we inevitably experience conflict, are harmed, or cause harm.
I also have to say that myself and everyone I
live with was sick during the recording of this conversation,
and Amani and I had just one hundred thousand technical
difficulties and that is why the audio quality is not
(05:27):
as on point as it usually is. So apologies for that,
But here's that comfo.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I want to ask for you, like, what what about
this book resonates for you?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
And yeah, I think that what resonates is that, like
conflict is normative, conflict is happening constantly if you're in
relationship with people, and so it's like it's almost like,
at any time you might pick up this book, I'm
not surprised that you were dealing with two conflicts, So
was I, you know, And similarly, one of them was
at my other job with the coworker, which is really
(06:00):
unusual for me, partly because I'm avoidant, but that's the
situation had also, as you said, like escalated to a
level that started to feel a little bit out of control,
like the amount of time I was spending outside of
work thinking about it, the way that I was creating
a monster out of this person in my mind. It
(06:20):
was really helpful to them read through this text and
be reminded that I wasn't under attack, that I wasn't
being victimized by this person, which are both things that
she sort of specifically points out and has critiques of.
She talks about people approaching conflict from a place of
supremacy ideology, just one of the reasons we were talking
about this book. We were talking about identity politics and
(06:41):
the prevalence of supremacy ideology these days, meaning like any
sort of challenge to your worldview feels threatening, it feels
like harm as opposed to just feedback and kind of
reacting from a place of like not being able to
be corrected in any way. And then she also talks
about trauma as a response, which I see that myself
(07:02):
a lot. In that situation with my coworker, I definitely
at some point was like, you are having you're having
a trauma response, Like your reaction is reminding you of
something that had previously happened. It was reminded me of
a specific previous terrible work experience. Superficially it was similar,
but in many significant ways it wasn't the same at all,
and so it was really helpful to recognize that as well.
And also the person I was talking to who happens
(07:24):
to be autistic, I was like, I think there's also
some things about like the way that they communicate that
I can also be a little bit more empathic towards
or sort of not be as reactive towards, or at
least be curious about. I was a little bit embarrassed
about how reactive I got that, like people saw me
being reactive, you know, And then reading this work did
make me feel like, yeah, conflict just like is a
(07:44):
normal thing that happens and I'm just a human person.
I'm just a human person who had a human response,
you know, but that we just were experiencing something extremely normal.
One of the best ways to move through that would
be to just have conversations, try to kind of approach
each other with curiosity and empathy.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, I appreciate it your naming of like the conflict avoidance.
I mean, I know myself I can very much be
the same way. There's it's like a level of people
pleasing also in conflict avoidance that simultaneously also isn't people
pleasing because it could also cause a confusion for them
if you don't be like, hey, these are the things
(08:22):
that you've done out of maybe fear of how they
will react. I was thinking a lot about myself and
how strong my rejection sensitivity can be, or you know,
depending on how something is worded, how that can like
elevate my own emotions or maybe cause me to spiral.
(08:43):
And then it's also too like what do I how
do I engage with that emotion? Like what comes out
of that feeling? And initially I just wanted to be like, oh,
this is just like, you know, a byproduct of my
ADHD and have that be the sole focus of my
behavior or something I've done, versus seeing it as that
(09:05):
and a means of, for instance, imposing control or manipulation
or not. You know, controller manipulation doesn't have to be
like so extreme in the ways that actual situations of abuse.
So having that ability to see both of those things
and their connection and realize that we're also responding to
(09:27):
the world exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah. I think when I met you, you you had
your diagnosis and you were kind of figuring out your
medication situation. Like how long have you had an official diagnosis.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I actually got officially diagnosed at the very end of
November of last year. Oh yeah, it's very very recent,
which is also when I started taking that girly vivance shout.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
We love her, you know, shout out to Okay. So
it hasn't be in the time that I've known you
that we've been working together. I think something that's been
really interesting for me working with you is I feel
like a much more nuanced understanding of the challenges of ADHD,
of having ADHD both with relationships and at work. You know,
so much of like this show has been about illness
(10:16):
and disorder as defined by like how useful you are
within capitalism. Yeah, and I think that like ADHD is
one of those diagnoses. It's almost like kind of trendy
things that people just say without really knowing what that
means or how challenging it can be. You can, can
you talk a little bit about that? I mean, you know,
I know that you send an email to our radio
(10:36):
listener recently. I'm curious what motivated you to do that?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah? No, I God, I definitely feel the like trendiness
of ADHD. It makes me think about oh god, the
episode Mental Health Talk and just all of the like
right exactly, those little five signs you have ADHD, ten
things to do if you And it's like, wait.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
When you see videos like that, what comes up for you?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Like, I do think there's a benefit to people having,
you know, being online and talking about what they're experiencing
and all this other stuff. But the way that it's
become so just like grossly on the internet, it just
it feels not real.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I like.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
And then also too, I think part of that is
seeing how much people are understanding themselves and their own
conception of being disordered through like random online posts that
don't really have any like scientific validity to it. I
do kind of think that is a problem, and so
many of us are looking for the answers for ourselves
(11:47):
or finding understanding through like thirty second one minute videos
versus actual human interaction, right which I had sent out
an email you know, as you mentioned to this radio
list serve that were part of you know, people posting
there for like jobs or show advice or whatever it
(12:10):
may be. But yeah, one of the things with ADHD
is executive functioning and just seeing how much that has
affected me in the work realm and also just from
my own creative projects. So I really wanted to get
advice from other people who like also share like the
(12:31):
similar disorder. I feel like sometimes people can be a
bit prescriptive and not always like think like this may
be really fucking hard for someone else. I also wanted
to send that email for the managers and supervisors who
have employees with ADHD, or maybe not even know like
(12:53):
that their employee has ADHD, but they're, you know, they're
they're seeing something there. And I think at times, at least,
you know, when I think about my own past experiences,
there's like a negative assumption about that person or this
imposed laziness or just lack of skill or talent, and
(13:13):
also a lot of frustration that can be directed towards
that person. Also, like you know, as a manager, your
job is to manage people, and so I think that
also means you know, figuring out what can be most
supportive to them or what they need or how you
could also help them out, or like I just know
(13:34):
for myself, I didn't ask for help partially because I
did not know what that help was that I needed.
I had like a lot of internalized shame and blame,
Like it was very hard for me to not feel like,
why can't you do this, or why can't you do
(13:55):
this this way? Or why can't you like just have
this very fixed routine or which that wasn't helpful for
me at all and really also prevented me from figuring
out what my own needs were, what I needed help with,
how I can bring other people in, you know, I'm
saying that, And I also think we do live in
such a hyper individualistic world. I'm still trying to trying
(14:17):
to figure that out. Figuring out ways to be more
in tune with myself and also being a lot gentler
with myself had been really helpful in being able to
open up space for support. I think about getting fired
from more than one job and looking back at those
(14:38):
experiences in some of the places that I was maybe
falling short, and like being able to realize, well, you've
done the same thing each time, what could potentially help
you do this thing differently? And when you've done the
same thing each time, you've done it by yourself. So yeah,
(14:58):
maybe you really need like your manager, supervisor whoever, to
write out really detailed to do lists. Maybe you need
a check in once or twice a week, which honestly
that's very very helpful for me. So I also think,
like I'm trying to when I talk about that grace,
like being able to go to those past experiences where
(15:18):
I've messed up and like what didn't I know that
or what was happening? And how could I change that
in the future.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, I mean, I'm reminded that Schulman also has a
little section where she's talking about this sort of cultural tendency.
If you think someone's dealing with mental illness or nerdive vergens,
you know, to not name that in a conflict situation,
in a conflict meeting, Yes, someone not fulfilling expectations in
the workplace. Let's say to not name that, have that
no be part of the conversation. She's like, that's actually
not kind, Like it's actually more kind to just like
(16:06):
acknowledge that could be a factor here.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Well, you know, I also don't because I also don't
want to have the like focus of my need or
support being based in my ADHD. I am such a
complex person with Yeah, you know, at least now in
March thirteenth, when we're recording this twenty eight years of
(16:29):
life experience, you know, yeah, that acknowledgment can be very important.
And also too, I do feel people at times can
use their diagnosis to manipulate or control a situation. And
I don't think it's necessarily a thing that's intentional, but
(16:50):
at least for me in my opinion, I feel like
diagnosis it's also become a way for people to have
some sense of control or be able to explain what's
happening to them instead of seeing these things our experiences,
our engagement with the disorder as so deeply systemic, as
(17:11):
disorder being only disorder because of the world that we
live in.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, absolutely, but.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Also it just God, I think about this conflict I
had with this person that again something else that I
feel like just escalated to a place that did not
need to go. But I am not the best texture.
I will be the first person to put WoT that.
But I got a very very long text message, like
a month and a half into getting to know each other,
(17:38):
then being like, oh, I'm autistic and I have ADHD,
so I like blah blah blah. But the whole entire
message was telling me what to do and the ways
that I'm messing up, and then them being able to
acknowledge their diagnosis as a reason why they need certain
(17:59):
things for me. First, Hey, like do you think this
is something that you were able to provide me? Or
like even taking consideration like shit, I got ADHD too,
Like I'm not going to respond to you in you know,
two days always.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I think that's so interesting because the other day we
were talking, you know, or one of our many conversations
about the of this book, and you mentioned or maybe
like I'm just not the right person for you, And
it made me think about a relationship in my own
life that I like, I know she's about text for like,
I see the fear of your notifications on her part,
so I know that it's not just me what felt
to me like constant rejection. You know.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I feel there's something though in being able to understand
that this person not responding to you in a certain
time is bringing up feelings of rejection. I think there's
something really important and being able to understand one's own
needs and also not personalize what someone else is doing,
(18:58):
or like knowing where your own reactions coming from or
where your own feelings are coming from.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Solomone talks a lot about different ways of avoidance, which
I really relate to as someone who you know, I've
handled a lot of conflicts in my life via writing
emails or letters. It's partly just I do think that
I'm more articulate. I feel like I will say what
I want to say, and I won't say things that
I don't necessarily need to say. I am really trying
to shift like what things I just don't say and
write it and just like kind of make save some
(19:25):
things for the conversation. And then yeah, just like kind
of like feeling like I'm a bit conflict avoidant. I
grew up in the conflict avoided family, and so like
kind of leaning into conflict is something that I'm still
practicing doing.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
What has that practice been like for you?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
It's been I mean, I try to be gentle with myself. Like,
you know, recently, I said some things in an email
and then I said and the rest I'd rather talk
about in a phone call. You know, I did feel
that I could come to the conversation more regulated because
I had already said the things that were maybe scarish
for me to say. The thing that was scarish me
to say it was actually just like communicating a boundary
that I had just trying to be really mindful of.
(20:01):
Like there's things that maybe you don't want in writing
that could seem really definitive, or there's things that you
want to give space to the person to respond to
in the moment. Yeah, like forming your opinion about it beforehand.
I'd rather just be like, yeah, we're having a disagreement,
Like let's talk through it. I'm not even like looking
for resolution. I guess I.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Very much like understand that conflict avoidance so so so much,
Like I think about it for myself, and I feel
like sometimes for me, part of me avoid engaging in
a specific conflict is because I have this fear that
(20:39):
the feeling I am feeling I shouldn't be.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, yeah, you know that's also part of like why
like my conflict don't work escalated to such an extent.
Is exactly what you said, is me feeling like unless
I feel that I know that I understand exactly why
I'm feeling the thing you can articulate exactly why my
feeling is justified, then I would rather not even express it.
It's kind of like the vulnerabilities also be wrong. The
(21:01):
vulnerability to be overreacting and have that be held, like
you said, is part of what we're talking about or
part of the skill set I feel I need to develop.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I think too, there can sometimes be a way if
someone does come to you with something and you are
presenting like your version of events. I've just seen the
ways that people can like take that instead as you
trying to be manipulative or defensive, and part of me
feels like in that is also well, this person is
(21:30):
denying what I'm feeling, and that means I am wrong,
versus this person is having a different experience, And how
can I also think critically about you know, like a
vast majority of the time, it's not just siloed to
that one individual person, you know, Like I feel like
Shulman also talks about this, but our reactions to things,
(21:51):
our understandings of things, the way we engage with them
is so deeply informed by our life. Like such a
cliche therapist saying, but you know, when you're when you're
in conflict with someone, it's not just that person, but
like every other person they've been in conflict with or
I love whatever.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, exactly exactly. I think she uses the word like
an empathic mature response, and it's like mature is such
a loaded word, but I do think yet leading with
centering the other person, that really was a relief to
me actually to do that, to put down my feeling
of being victimized, my feeling of powerlessness, and say, let
me turn my attention to what's going on for them,
let me prepare for this meeting, this conversation with just
(22:33):
only questions about what's going on for them, and really
really focus on me trying to understand where they are
coming from, kind of like why they were doing the
things that were irritating the hell out of me, and
not necessarily to like, you know, negate what I was
feeling or not to you know, not to double down
and avoidance or sort of like put my own feelings aside.
But doing that, like changing that focus did actually help
(22:54):
me feel better. It helped me to feel relief from
like this level of grace that I was off for
it again for more than a week. You know. You know,
(23:20):
I'm really candid when we're in production meetings with you
and talking about you know, this person in my life, this,
this friend, this family member, of things I'm dealing with
that pertain to the show. And so it's one of
the reasons that I think I was thinking about conflict
and accountability and mental illness, and one of the reasons
that this book came up. You know, in our conversations
this person in my life, their specific struggles, their mental
(23:45):
health crises often result in physical altercations, often result in arrests.
They're kind of not always safe to live with, and
so they've had a lot of housing and security as
a result of that. Part of their mental illness also
is that there's a lot of parent and there's sometimes
breaks with reality such that they don't necessarily remember the
things that they do, and so there's a lot of
conversations around conflicts that are happening harm that is being
(24:09):
caused in these dissociative states, and the response to being
told about those things or experiencing consequences of those things
is that, you know, people are gaslighting me, Everyone's lying
about me, you know. And so I was having a
lot of conversations about accountability around, like, everyone agrees that
you need support beyond the support that you're currently receiving. Psychiatrically,
(24:30):
we also follow feel aligned and we don't want you
to be incarcerated, you know, we don't necessarily want you
to be in a mental health hospital, which is really
adjacent to being incarcerated, but also feeling like for you
to be in community, you have to learn to have
accountability for the things that happen as a result of
your mental illness slash disability, and we do need to
be in community in order to survive these systems order
(24:53):
to heal. In navigating that, I was producing the Borderline
personality disorder episode that not the person Anyone Wants to
be and reading the work of that writer. Her name's
Mala Chatterjee, who is the subject of that episode, but
she had also had written this essay about Borderline that
I really loved, you know, and borderline is characterized by
particular challenges with relationships. It's like characterized by having disabled
(25:14):
relationships because of your perceptions of reality are not necessarily reliable.
I'm just trying to find where is it? No, here
it is, she says. Okay, using VPD as a shield
against criticism misconstrues what it's meant to be and to
be treated as a person. We cannot have it both ways.
Recognizing that we are not disordered or fractured requires acknowledging
(25:36):
that we are worthy of compassion and capable of growth,
but also at the very same time that we ought
to be responsible and accountable for the persons we are.
It is not only that both of these things can
be true, but also that they must be true because
they go hand in hand with what it means to
have humanity. I just found that to be such a
beautiful way of expressing that desire to be seen as
(25:59):
human and a desire to be in a relationship, to
stay in relationship. I was in communication with some people
around like this person's mental health crisis, and they were
feeling a lot of guilt around decisions they were being
forced to make with the rest of their own safety,
their own housing was being threatened by some of the
things that are happening. So I wound up sending this
to the people navigating that to say like, no, like
holding someone accountable is it's also an invitation to be
(26:21):
in a real relationship with someone and saying like, yeah,
despite your limitations to sometimes severe limitations, that like working
towards that shared humanity is part of it. If we're
talking about existing with a disability under capitalism, we do
need each other to deal with that. And being able
to navigate conflict as part of that, and being able
to be accountable to people in your life who you
(26:42):
might harm, who you have harmed, will harm, have been
harmed by is part of that.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I am thinking of the roommates and now the guilt
that they're feeling. That's such a difficulty of the world
we live in to have specific politics, to want to
care for people, to to show up for them, and
knowing what you are able to do is completely outside
of and that it just becomes so much more obvious
(27:09):
how we are being failed. The complete lack of resources
that we have, the ways that community structures have been
completely torn down, reshape, rewired, and how that makes it
so difficult for us to have our needs met so
that we can be in community with other people. I
also think about this this person too. I do imagine
(27:31):
how hard it has to be to be able to
fully accept or realize the things that you've done. Because
we live in such a coarsoral world that also makes
it very difficult, Like we are so fixated on punishment
that what does it mean to admit that I have
done this thing? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Exactly? Yeah, when you're already experiencing so much isolation. Yeah,
I completely agree. And also to your point about you know,
like all of these social structures that we used to have,
the ways that mental illness used to be experienced within community,
you know, the ways that mental health services have been
(28:10):
outsourced to the prison industrial complex. You know, like it's
so hard to know what to do, Like what can
I do when you don't necessarily have a lot of
options for people dealing with like really severe issues. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
One of the things I'm really curious about often think
about for myself is just how much more we have
to do that in this current moment we can't even
conceptualize is needed for for us to truly build deep,
loving communities.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
I've been thinking about that so much as well, and
I have this project in my mind that I sometimes
refer to as the bad Friend project. It's related to
all of this. It's related to thinking about the skills
that we need to build community that people in our generation.
I think we've like lost those skills. What do we
need to do to get back to that? Curious, especially
after making the show, where I feel like every episode
(29:02):
that comes up, people talking about the role that their
community played and they're feeling well and their wellness.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
I think about us growing up on social media, and
then I think about me too happening or just all
of these other things that we're watching happening online. People
getting canceled whatever that may mean, or you know, a
community member being called out, or now you're posting about
your conflict online. But I think so much of this
(29:33):
discourse happening online or people also just trying to figure
out how to be good. I notice too often people
having this ideology of how our identities now have somehow
made it to where we cannot do harm. I think
people now having this what they feel like now is
(29:55):
some sense of agency and being able to rectify the
harm that it's been done to them. And I know
so many people have a fear of being called out
that they literally like shift their behaviors or limit what
they say to match what is currently deemed politically correct
(30:17):
so they don't lose community. It is so deeplycarcal, Like
I think also in these ways of trying to figure
out how to care for people that have been so
deeply oppressed and marginalized, that like, we are literally just
recreating the same system with a different face. And you
receive so much more grace when you were able to
(30:40):
list a diagnosis that you have. And I feel like
people know that and know how difficult it is to
sit with the harm that you've done or committed.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
You know, we talked about this a lot, like people's
latching onto a diagnosis as a way to get a
certain kind of support that they feel that they can't
just ask for without the diagnosed.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That that's also one of my fears, Like I feel
like sometimes people become so attached to these ideas of
self that to admit something is wrong or change your
mind or feel questionable about something is what does that
say about myself? One of my favorite interviews that I
come back to quite often. Is this woman Pauline Boss
(31:22):
I want to say is her last name. She talks
about ambiguous loss, losing someone without closure, having the ability
to hold multiple feelings, that ability to hold so many
things at once and know that it is not either
or I think that can open up so many doors
for the ways we can connect with each other, for
the ways that we can form community and love and
(31:43):
hold each other and give grace to ourselves to know
that it is not this or that that these things
are a complexity an array that we could not even
begin to go pass bad times.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, I agree the fact that, yeah, that many things
can be true at once. I think that was like
a really really well said Baska case has been a
production of molten Heart and iHeart Podcasts. This series is hosted, produced,
and sound designed by me NK Nicole Kelly. I co
(32:19):
created the show with Jasmine J. T. Green, who's also
our executive producer. Production assistants throughout the season by Siona
Petros and Ammani Leonard. Adrian Lilly is our mix engineer.
Our theme is blue and orange by Command Jasmine. Our
show art was created by Sinney Rolson. Fact checking by
Serena Solin. Legal services provided by rowand Maren and File.
Our executive producer from iHeart Podcast was Lindsay Hoffmann. Person's
(32:42):
gonna want me and what person's gonna want me, and
what person's gonna want me, and what person's gonna want me,
and what person's gonna want me, and what person's gonna
want me and what person's gonna want me when I
have depression and anxiety
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