August 27, 2021 • 39 mins
Therese Borchard is the author of Beyond Blue and The Pocket Therapist. She blogs for Everyday Health and is an Associate Editor and a regular contributor to Psych Central. She writes about her own struggles with depression.
In this episode, Eric and Therese discuss her book, Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes
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In This Interview, Therese Borchard and I Discuss Strategies for Depression and …
- Her book, Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes
- Her struggle with treatment-resistant depression
- How she combined a holistic and traditional approach to treating her depression
- Avoiding important conversations when hungry, angry, lonely, and tired (HALT)
- The importance of connecting with others who share the same challenges
- Why there are not more depression support groups
- The difference between mental health and 12 step culture
- Learning to live with the messiness of life and accepting things as they are
Therese Borchard Links:
If you enjoyed this conversation with Therese Borchard, you might also enjoy these other episodes:
Brent Williams on Recovering From Depression
Mark Henick on Suicide and Depression
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
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in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that
we've decided to hand pick one of our favorites that
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is worth another liston. We hope you'll enjoy this episode
(00:21):
with terse Portrait. It's funny because I met my husband
and I told him it was going to be five
years before we slept together, and it was like the
second night, Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.
Great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
(00:44):
Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
you think ring true, And yet for many of us,
our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
have instead of what we do. We think things that
hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
(01:06):
just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Welcome
(01:34):
to the show. Our guest today is Terris Portchard, author
of Beyond Blue and The Pocket Therapist. She blogs for
Everyday Health and is an associate editor and regular contributor
to psych Central. She writes about her own struggles with depression.
Here's the show. Hi, Churice, Welcome to the show. Thanks
so much for having me on. We are happy to
(01:54):
have you on. You've done a lot of writing about depression,
which is something that we talk about on this show
fair amount. You've you had a pretty popular blog on
belief Net for a long time, and you've got a
book called Beyond Blue, which I really enjoyed. So we
will dive into a lot of that stuff. But let's
start with the parable like we always do. So there
(02:15):
is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says,
in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he
thinks about it for a second, and he looks up
(02:35):
at his grandfather and he says, grandfather, well, which one wins?
And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
like to start off by asking you what that parable
means to you in your life and in the work
that you do. Well, let me say I love that parable.
The first time I heard it was about four years
ago at church, ironically, because the sermons usually aren't that good,
(02:58):
but this one, Um, it made an impact on me,
and I've remembered that, and I've had that in the
back of my mind. UM as I go forth with
trying to find ways of living around what I call
my treatment resistant depression, I think you you always have
to be cognizant of those two wolves, because when you
(03:22):
are trying so hard to feed one, you don't realize
how sneaky the other is, and before you know it,
you're feeding the wrong wolf and you're back to where
you started. So so having in mind those two, I
try to make a conscious effort on doing the things
that are going to result in more love and compassion. Um.
(03:46):
It's the same message I think that Victor Frankel has
with his book, Um demand searched for meeting that that
also was very a very important book for me to
read because I had kind of hit bottom and I
had tried, you know, to fifty different medication combinations. I
tried mindfulness, meditation, acupuncture, every kind of alternative therapy out there,
(04:10):
and I still had these horrible death thoughts. And when
I read that book, I realized that he, you know,
in the Auschwitz and the concentration camps, he was he
was there with wolves all around him, just just trying
to eat from his very being. That he was just
(04:31):
attacked all the time, and yet he found a way
to find that wolf of love and compassion and turn
that horrible time into just a blessing and to a
lesson for each of us. And so I've I've tried
to do that into turning my suffering into service, um
(04:53):
And when I do that, I do feel more compassion
and peace and serenity. So why don't you tell the
listeners just a brief overview of your story that's in
the book, about your your battles with depression. And I
would be interested in also where where things pick up
because the book was was several years ago, right, So
(05:16):
i'd be interested in kind of after the book. Also,
how how your ongoing um challenges have been with depression? Sure, well,
I I really feel like I have been depressed from
the time that I was born. I was a colloquy
infants and um when I was a child had I
was very Catholic, and so I had a scrupulosity. You know,
(05:36):
I couldn't say enough prayers, couldn't go enough masses too.
I was afraid I was going to hell. That that
kind of morphed into an eating disorder. When I was
an adolescent girl, I was wanted to be a professional ballerina,
and that's kind of the culture there is is a
little dangerous towards the body, and so I got carried
away with that. But when I got in high school,
(05:57):
I started to drink, and so went downhill fast with
the drinking. I call liquor the quiet car in my brain.
You know, when you're on amtrack and you're looking for
the quiet car because everyone's on the phone. The quiet
car for me was liquor. It was the first time
that I was able to relax in my own brain,
and I still remember the feeling of being able to
(06:18):
do that. But you know, as in all alcoholic stories
that it took me. UM took me down. So I
once I got sober, I started to really I was
in therapy in college and she thought I was depressed
and wanted to put me on an antipressent. And I
was very opposed because my aunt, my godmother, was bipolar
(06:39):
and took her life. And UM, I just remember being
so scared that I was like her. And so when
she said, you know, I think you're depressed, my my
defenses went up. And it took about a year and
a half for me to come around and and to
really acknowledge that and start the road to recovery. So UM,
(07:00):
I was good for a while until I had my kids.
And I think from what I've read, UM, childbirth can
just do a real number on a woman's body as
far as hormonally. UM. A lot of people who had
depression prior to childbirth end up with bipolar disorder after childbirth.
Not a lot, but but some do. And so that's
(07:20):
what happened to me. After I stopped nursing my second child,
I hit a bottom that UM that had been lower
than anything I had ever done. And so I went
from psychiatrists to psychiatrist seven and all and UM. One
of them was a very aggressive m guy who worked
(07:43):
for some pharmaceuticals and he was just UM given me
a very dangerous combinations of of of medication and so
I UM basically full fell into my cereal bowl one
morning and was hospitalized UM and was hospitalized ice. Actually
the last time was that JOHNS. Hopkins, and I met
(08:04):
a wonderful physician who guided me from that point to UM.
I think where I wrote the book UM, I had
gone through a period where I UM really tried the
alternative ways acupuncture, tried to go off my medication and
ended up UM in a ball in my bedroom closet,
(08:25):
and my husband said, you know, please do this for me.
But UM, with the help of the psychiatrist and with
an entrochnologist because it was also UM a matter of
having a pituitary tumor and addressing that as well, I
had two very good years. That's when I wrote the book.
I'm Since then, since two thousand eight, I've been struggling again.
(08:49):
And this time, I, you know, again tried many different
combinations and when I hit like number fifty, I just
didn't think that it was um that it just felt
like I was beating a dead horse with with a
toilet plunger something that was not working, and so I, UM,
(09:10):
I have a great deal of respect for my psychiatrist,
but I just started to kind of wonder about the
field of psychiatry itself. And so I began to see
a holistic doctor and acquire more about my diet and
see someone who could really concentrate on my enderprine system
because my pituitary tumor was still so out of whack
(09:32):
and my thyroid is also kind of out of whack.
So that journey has been the last year, and I
in the last two or three months, I feel like
I finally, um, you know, I'm still on medication and
I still go to my psychiatrist, but with those pieces
in place, I feel like I'm really starting to regain health.
(09:54):
And I've had to make some very um difficult change
is in my diet. I've given up gluten, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, sugar,
UM and UM and take enough supplements that takes me
about a half hour each week to fill them up,
and those one of those brandy size containers. But but
(10:17):
I think it's it's finally starting to pay off if
I do absolutely everything that I can to to work
towards good mental health. UM, I can't just go to
a psychia, a psychiatrist and UH and a counsel or.
For me, it has to be the whole body, the
whole everything. I found that to be. One of the
interesting things about your your story is that in your
(10:42):
book there's a lot of concern because you've got a
lot of people who are pointing you to holistic sources
of healing um as you mentioned acupuncture, or if you
just meditate right or go to enough yoga. And I
found it interesting in the book that you were you
were realizing that those things were not sufficient UM and
(11:05):
that they still aren't. But now you find you found
a way to pair the more traditional medical treatment, the
antidepressant medicine and traditional therapy with some of those more
holistic approaches. Yeah. I think for me, I I need
both and that's UM. It's been frustrating because those worlds
(11:25):
are so different, and if I go to a holistic doctor,
most of them are going to say, we don't believe
in mental diagnoses, we don't believe in mental illnesses because
everything comes from toxins, everything comes from you know, um,
they don't believe in in that in itself. And then
but most of psychiatry really doesn't pay a lot of
(11:46):
attention to diet, which I think is huge and um,
so I've been trying to address that on my blog
a lot to inform people because I don't think I
got well, um and I feel confident right now that
I'll probably wiably stay well because I have all of
these pieces in place. My husband has been really great.
He um. When I when I first just wanted to
(12:09):
take the whole list of rout and and and go
off all my medication, I was he has We have
a lot of people in our community who are new age,
and they He remembers when he was a kid watching
this um documentary on Eurik Geller, the guy who had
been the spoon with his with his thoughts, and finally,
(12:33):
when I was so um, so desperate and and but
was so stubborn to really accept the health of traditional medicine,
he said, I think you've been staring at that spoon
for too long. You know, I've been trying to fix
my brain with my thoughts um themselves, and and that
it didn't work for me. It it might work for
(12:55):
other people, but it didn't work for me. Well, I
think it's a very much matter of degree of of depression.
I think I talk a lot on the show about
the depression that I deal with, and it's never been
as crippling as what you describe or other people have.
It's more of a consistent, uh, you know, longer term, um,
(13:17):
you know, lower level chronic condition, and so it does
respond better to certain things. But but I've come to
the same conclusion that you have, which is that I
don't think that either of those camps is really sufficient.
And I think that the way that we treat depression
as a whole in this country is woefully inadequate. And
(13:38):
the only thing that I found for me, it sounds
very similar to your experience, is to sort of treat
all parts of myself physical, the emotional, the mental, the
all those things. If I've got if I'm working on
all those things, then I end up in a much
better place than if I'm working on any one of
those in particular. So just medicine is helpful, but not enough. Um.
(14:02):
Obviously just meditation doesn't get it done. It's I found
I have to sort of stack all that stuff together right, Yeah,
do you find that you don't um? It just seems
like most of the people are in one camp or another.
Though I agree, I think most people are in one
camp or the other, which is I'm I'm always suspicious
of anybody who's in one particular camp because I don't
(14:23):
think any I don't think any issue in life that
people have wrestled with for a long time is an
easy has an easy answer to it, or it would
have been solved. Right. If there was an easy answer
for depression, it would be solved by now. If there
was an easy answer for how to have healthcare in
the US, it would have been solved by now. Right.
These are complex challenges, and that's why anybody who proposes,
(14:44):
like all you have to do is this one little
thing I'm always skeptical of. Right. Yeah, Well, good for
you for having a uh venue where you can really
explore this, because I don't think there's enough of this
information out there. So yeah, I agree. It's one of
the things we try and focus on. And you a
(15:04):
couple of things that you talk about in your book
and your blog I'm really interested in, and one of
them is the idea of our thoughts this there's a
you talk about a couple of schools of thought out there.
There's one if you take it to its extreme or
the general, which is that you know, what we think
about doesn't have much to do with what goes on
in our body, right, these things are fairly disconnected. Um.
(15:28):
The other school thought, going to the other extreme, is
that everything that happens to us as a result of
what we think. And I've seen you right in your
blog before about how how we can get so stuck
on thinking that every little thing that we think or
do is the cause of what's wrong with us. Yeah,
it's funny that you mentioned that. I I love neuroscience
(15:52):
for that because it gives you hope that the brain
is plastic and you can carve those neural passageways or
the neural passageways. But but when I am very depressed,
it works against me because I'm constantly beating myself up.
As soon as I have a thought, I'm like, oh,
I just carve that passageway, you know, and then that will,
(16:14):
you know, go compile against itself, and um, it's a
real nightmare. But and that's why someone asked me the
other day, Um, what I thought of cognitive behavioral therapy,
and I think it's very very helpful, like Dr. Byrne
stuff and all that stuff has been very helpful, But
I I can't do it when I'm severely depressed. When
I'm severely depressed, I I just have to distract myself
(16:37):
because the more I try to think um of, you know,
and and and carve the right quote positive passageways, then
the more I'm just kind of digging myself a hole
because I'm feeling responsible then for my depressure, which is
making me, you know, feel even more depressed, which is
(16:59):
you know, it's a down hill spiral. But on the
other hand, I don't think that it's healthy for people
to think that they can um that they can you know,
stay in a in a resentment or a stoop, or
you know, can entertain a thought that's kind of hurtful
(17:22):
and not have their body be affected by that. I
(17:49):
do these mini episodes where I talk for you know,
four or five minutes about just thoughts I have on
different things. It's uh, it's it's the usual. Let me
turn this off now for for our listeners. But it's
a I'm kidding mostly, But I did one on rumination
and the idea was simply that sometimes I can't think
(18:09):
my way out of that situation. I simply just have
to give my brain something else to focus on. And
I think there are I found some positive techniques for
doing that. Um you know, one would be like one
of the things I do is I call it the
alphabet gratitude game, where I have to go through the
alphabet and think of something I'm grateful for for each letter,
(18:31):
and it's it's mainly the thinking of something for each
letter that's the really helpful part because it it gives
my brain something to hang onto. But it's got the
side benefit of me thinking about things that I think
are positive. Um so, but I'm I'm with you on
that inability when I'm really stuck to think my way
out of it. And another analogy that I think is
(18:51):
useful in that sense, or another way to think of
it is it's sort of when people are fighting, and
once you get to a certain point of being angry,
there is nothing positive that is going to happen until
you calm down. It just simply doesn't matter what you
try and do. It's it's to a certain extent a
matter of time. And you know, no long, no exposure
to the thing you're angry at before you're able to
(19:13):
think in any kind of positive way. Right. Yeah, that No,
that's very true. Um. That's like someone told me that
you never say anything important to your spouse before asking
yourself if you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. You know
that the twelve step halt and um. And I've added
one more is if you're in the car, because our
(19:34):
worst argument thought when we're in the car, because I'm
very nervous, and I'm a nervous front seat driver, and
so that's a that's a very good one. I've had
a lot of really bad fights in the car too.
So you wrote an article recently that was about things
you wish people knew about depression, and I was wondering
(19:57):
if you could maybe share a few of those that
if you if you could tell people about depression, what
are some of the things you wish that everyone knew.
I'm I wish people knew that you could be grateful
and oppressed at the same time. You know, I keep
on hearing that if you're grateful, then you can't be depressed.
And while I've I've read that research, I disagree with
(20:19):
it because I've been physiologically depressed but grateful at the
same time. I think it's incorrect to say that people
who are depressed don't know what blessings they have in
their life. I think they do. I mean, I know
that most of the people who I know that are
severely depressed do, and that's part of the reason that
they feel so bad is they can't celebrate those but
they are intrinsically and authentically grateful for that. Um, that's
(20:47):
one of the things. And again it's that it's the
holistic versus medical world issue. I feel like, you know,
I was really hopeful when I was reading all these
diet nutrition books that if I eliminated gluten wheat or
wheat as gluten, um, dairy, sugar, caffeine, that all, you know,
(21:12):
these books say in six weeks, you just you're like
a different person and you've never had a bad thought
in your life. And UM, that's I think very scary
for I think it's unfair for people to to expect
someone to just change their diet and not be depressed.
I mean, I changed my diet and I still was
very very suicidal. So UM, to know that that's not
(21:36):
it's not as easy. Is that it's not as easy
as going to yoga. Yoga. Actually, when I back in
two thousand five, um, I had to stop going to
yoga because my my worst suicidal ruminations happened in yoga.
It gave me the room to think, you know, during
that hour and a half, and that's dangerous for someone
who's you know, that low. So again, it's not and
(21:58):
it's it's just not black and right. It's not do yoga,
drink at Kale smoothie in the morning and you're fine, Well,
guess what I've done those things? If you put the
vodka in your Kale smoothie, well, maybe that's true. It's
the green quiet car. Yeah, that's that's a very good point.
And then on the other end, you know people who
I think that medication is the reason why you get well,
(22:23):
I mean, I think it certainly can be part of
the equation, but I don't think it's fair to say
that just because you're you know, you're on medication and
you're seeing a counselor that means that you aren't going
to be depressed. There's so much more work that you
have to go into it. Um. So it's I guess
it's again that that that double whammy that you're hit
(22:46):
by between the holistic world and the pharmaceutical world that
I wanted to discuss, and also just the just the
amount of trying. UM. I had six years between two
thousand and eight until very recently that I had these
very loud death thoughts and I would have to go
to dinner with people and laugh and you know, fake,
(23:07):
and then come home and google how to get cancer.
I mean, people don't realize that we're used to it,
you know, people who have been severely depressed for so long.
I'm used to UM, I'm used to a good act.
And so that doesn't mean I'm not that that pain
isn't any more real. How have you found because you
are the leader of uh maybe leaders the wrong word,
(23:29):
but you found it a Facebook group called Beyond Blue
that you're a key part of. How has the interaction
with that group been different from when you were doing
better and when you were struggling again? How did how
did you approach that? Well? I actually started it in May. UM.
I had been you know, eating that made the diet
(23:52):
restrictions about five months before, and I still didn't notice anything.
And I was on the fiftieth medication, and I basically
thought that I was going to have to live with
these death thoughts for the rest of my life, and
so I better, I better connect with some people and
learn how to do it. So UM, I started that,
and I think that that's partly also why I'm better
today is because I don't feel I'm as unique as
(24:14):
I thought I was before. I mean, I don't know
anyone in my friend circle or in my family circle
who who deals with what I do. But man, there
are tons of people online who, you know, have to
deal with these same thoughts every single day. And to
see them, I mean, some of them are so heroic
in the way that they do and and they offer
(24:36):
help and they you know, it's it's again, it's Victor
Frankel's turning to service. I think has really helped them,
and I'm learning from them that it helps me. So
I try to, UM, I try to get on there
and help people for like at least an hour a day,
because it's it's kind of like that one story where
the two people are gonna or the one person who's
(24:57):
going to jump off a cliff and commit suicide, and
then another person comes up and it's going to do
the same, and she turns around and tries to save
the one. You know, you forget about your pain when
you're trying to sort of, um do emergency calls there.
But um, the group has really it's been good for me, um,
and that in that way, I do have to I
(25:18):
do have to watch the compassion fatigue because there's some
people that you know, we're not a suicide hotline, and
so when you get to the space where you're you're
just really in danger, it's not not I don't think
a good um a good place to be our our
site because I'm not a mental health professional, thank god,
(25:40):
because if I was, I'd probably be responsible for all
these people. And I'm a theology major, so thank god
I'm not. But um, I do have to watch that
line of getting compassion fatigue and watching watching you know,
just being good to myself. But but some of the
people just really blow me away with their compassion and
the resolve and the way they just trudged through every
(26:02):
day and just you know, at one ft in front
of the other. It's good for me to see that
I'm not alone. Yeah, I had no idea the group
was that new and it's a really interesting group. You're
My reaction to it is I usually have a couple
of reactions. One is it can be a heartbreaking place
to spend much time because there's a lot of people struggling,
(26:22):
and yet you're right, there's so much beautiful compassion between
those people. Um that is that is there. And I
think when you when you think about a holistic approach
two depression or really mental health in general, whether that
be improving your mental health from where it is to
better or you know, moving out of depression. That another
one that I think is frequently overlooked is exactly what
(26:43):
you just said is the connection to people, but very
importantly connection to people who can understand you. Yeah, exactly.
I think all of us have in common that loneliness.
I think that's the worst part of this depression, is
that loneliness of no one really getting you. And so uh,
I mean, it's it's been really really cool to see
people come in who were suicidal and now posting funny videos.
(27:07):
And you know, a woman whom now has the energy
to take care of our grandkids and to see that
progress just from nothing's changed except that she's communicating with
other people who understand her. It's um, it's amazing. So
I'm in the process right now of building a site
for that. So it's not on Facebook because Facebook has
its limitations. Yeah. Yeah, every once in a while somebody
(27:29):
will post something they mean for the group on the
main part of Facebook and be mortified. I have a
question for you, though. This is similar because I've wondered
about this for a long time and my you you've
come you come from a twelve step culture, so you're
familiar with with what all that is. Like. I've always
been curious why there is no such thing as depression
support groups in real life, or let me rephrase it,
(27:50):
because I know there are some, but there's a very
few of them. They're not well marketed in any way.
I kind of wonder is it just by the nature
of DEPRESSI and that people don't you know, part of
that is an isolation thing. But I've just been curious
because if you think about the power that comes from
being online in that group, if you could translate that
into the face to face power that you get in
(28:13):
other recovery programs, it would be really helpful. Yeah, that's
funny that you asked that, because I'm I actually am
putting together a foundation right now. It's called Beyond Blue
Foundation to UM get funding for the the new site.
But also one of the programs that I really want
is called find Your Tribe, and it's it's based on
that quote that when you find people who don't think
(28:37):
that you're weird, but but UM react and enjoy and
say me too, you have found your tribe UM. And
I love that because I feel like that's what we
are on Tribe g BB or group Beyond Blue. So
I want to be able to do that. And I
think if the site gets big enough, then you know,
(28:57):
we'll have people in different cities and can kind of
form UM have the the online community actually become a
real community outside. I've been to NAMI meetings, and while
I'm a big supporter of NAMI, I the meetings have
not really been I think it's more for support for
parents and family members of people who are depressed. I
(29:21):
haven't UM received that much support for, like you said,
people who are going through it. I don't know if
it's anonymity or you know, the the twelve step culture
clashes a little bit with mental health culture. Let me
(29:54):
lead us into that discussion by reading something you wrote
because I thought it was really really good, and I'll
read it and then we can kind of go into
it a little bit more. You said the difference between
sobriety culture, there's a difference between sobriety culture and mental
illness culture. In the substance abuse culture, the person is
generally viewed as the agent of the problem, and they
are held accountable and have consequences for the relapse. In
(30:16):
the mental illness culture, the person is often viewed not
as the agent of the problem, but as the victim
of their illness, and we tend to hold people a
little a little less accountable for biochemical processes. Yeah. I
got into trouble with that when I first got sober
um and was I was in college and I was
(30:36):
struggling with my depression at the same time. And whenever
I tried to voice my desperation that, you know, I
had these horrible suicidal thoughts, death thoughts, they don't be like,
you know, poor me, poor me, pour me a drink,
you know, right, your gratitude list, right, you're And it
was I learned that I can't talk about my depression
(30:57):
and a A or else I it's it's something that
I've done to myself, which may be more depressed. So
I actually stopped going to the support group meetings because
I just didn't you know. Some and my sponsor said
that if I take antidepressants, those are happy pills that
are going to compromise my sobriety. And so yeah, there's
there's a big clash there. And maybe that's the reason
(31:19):
why the twelve step movement has never taken off with
the mental health because it is it's it's almost more
like a cancer survival group than it is like an
a a group. Yeah, so, um that is It's something
that I really want to work on because I have
(31:40):
a few people who I met through the actually group
Beyond Blue. We get together every once in a while,
and just the human connection, that in person connection does
lend itself to so much more. Um So, who knows,
maybe you and I can start that movement. Yeah, I'm certainly,
I am. I'm very interested in that idea. I do
(32:02):
think that the overall recovery or sobriety culture has changed
a fair amount from probably when you were in college.
Not that I'm insinuating that that was a long time ago.
I'm I'm just saying that I got ago. It is
when I I mean, I first became exposed to recovery
(32:24):
culture about twenty years ago, and I heard a lot
more of that sort of stuff than I ever hear
these days. I'm not nearly as involved, but I think
it has softened to some degree. But I think very
similarly to what we were talking about before, I think
either side of that camp is wrong. It's not all
your fault, and it's yet still whether whatever causes it
mental ill if it's mental illness, or you still are
(32:46):
responsible for your own path to getting better. And so
it's it's neither. It's both. Those camps again seem to
me to be on the extreme. Yeah, now I agree
with you. I agree with Yeah. It's um. We we
run into that in the group a little bit. You know,
you gotta people are there to support each other, but
(33:07):
you also have to want to get well yourself, and
I'm not sure that that's there for everyone. So, yeah,
I saw that discussion. I don't remember where it was
you had about So you're on the group beyond Blue. Yeah,
that's so cool. I don't post very much. Um, I
mainly just am kind of hanging out watching and reading
(33:30):
and liking some things here and there with the occasional comment.
But I'm I'm fairly um, not too not too involved.
I didn't make the connection between the Eric Zimmer of
the show and the Yeah, okay, now that I think
I have seen that's great. Yeah, I'm I'm in disguise
in there. I've got a it's it's a it's a
(33:51):
clown suit that I picture you see me in, or
I just put I put Chris's picture in for anything
that I'm a little bit nervous about being involve of DIN. Yeah, um,
the guidelines, the rules have been kind of difficult to uphold.
And that's you know, is really good about that about
(34:13):
you know, you're responsible for yourself. So yeah, there's a
lot to learn in any sort of UM group dynamic
from from A because they got a lot of things
really right to survived as long as it has and
to the scale it has, it's kind of amazing. But
I think I have I have plenty of challenges with it.
(34:36):
I think the same as a lot of people do. UM.
But so one of the things that I wanted to
we're kind of coming to the near the end of
our time. But One of the things I wanted to
ask you about is you have a quote in your
book that's one of my favorite quotes, and it's from
Rilka about loving the question. So can you tell me
a little bit about that quote and what it means
(34:57):
to you. Um. I love that quote because I grew
up as being so black and white, and I think
if I had to say what I've learned through my journey,
it's to appreciate the gray. Um. That quote is similar
to Paima quod Run, the Buddhist nun, and she talks
(35:19):
about you know, you think you're you're always going to
fix things, but then they fall apart again, and then
you fix them and then they fall apart, and you
have to learn to exist where there's room for misery
and room for joy. And that to me is um
what I try to aim for, because with the mental health,
(35:40):
when I'm trying to fix it so that I don't
have a symptom, then I'm setting myself up because you know,
the way I made my biochemistry, I'm going to have
this stuff for the rest of my life. But if
I can learn to live with my symptoms and live
with the questions and address all that gray matter as
(36:01):
it comes. Then there's gonna be a lot less frustration,
and I might be able to help the person or
two along the way instead of cower and a quarter
um in in a temper tantrum for not you know,
getting it perfect. So it's funny. I I was a
theology major and when I was writing a paper, I
(36:23):
was so black and white that I wrote this paper
on still can be believe? This paper on why everybody
who had premimable sex would burn in Hell and Jesus,
I mean I was so like, like off the charts,
you know, black and white. And so my funny teacher,
(36:43):
My teacher wrote, um wrote in the in the bottom,
she said, I hope you learn a little nuance in
your life. And five years later, my dad had died
and it was just a mess. And you know, I
started to to know that things are just messy. They're
just messy. So I came back and knocked on our
(37:05):
door and I said, yeah, thanks. Although I've always believed
in pre marital sex, so um. Well, then it's funny
because I met my husband and I told him it
was going to be five years before we slept together,
and it was like the second night you know. So
on our first one of our oars states, he said,
(37:27):
where do you see yourself in five years? And I
said as a missionary and none in the third world country.
And he's like, oh interesting. He was like, we better
get this done quickly. Then. Yes, things, things are messy things,
and and being okay with that is a big it's
(37:47):
a big help. But we we talk on the show
a lot about feeling bad about feeling bad or this
idea of just all this stuff that we layer on
top of the pain that's already there. And I think
that's another way right doing it, which is is this
believing that things should be really different than they are.
It's one thing to want them to be different. It's
(38:08):
a different thing to think that they should be different,
right right. Yeah, Well, thank you so much. I do
think you're doing a lot of great work and helping
a lot of people out there with your your blog
and your book. And it's clear the group is helping
a ton of people. Well, thank you you too with
the with this great podcast series. Yes, well, thank you
(38:29):
so much, and thanks for coming on the show, and
we'll talk again soon, Okay, thank you, all right, bye bye.
(38:52):
You can learn more about Therese Portard and this podcast
at one new feed dot net slash Therese. That's t
h E r E s e
In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
you've been a listener of the show. You may not
realize that we have over seven years of incredible episodes
in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that
we've decided to hand pick one of our favorites that
may be new to you, but if not, it definitely
is worth another liston. We hope you'll enjoy this episode
(00:21):
with terse Portrait. It's funny because I met my husband
and I told him it was going to be five
years before we slept together, and it was like the
second night, Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.
Great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
(00:44):
Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
you think ring true, And yet for many of us,
our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
have instead of what we do. We think things that
hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
(01:06):
just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Welcome
(01:34):
to the show. Our guest today is Terris Portchard, author
of Beyond Blue and The Pocket Therapist. She blogs for
Everyday Health and is an associate editor and regular contributor
to psych Central. She writes about her own struggles with depression.
Here's the show. Hi, Churice, Welcome to the show. Thanks
so much for having me on. We are happy to
(01:54):
have you on. You've done a lot of writing about depression,
which is something that we talk about on this show
fair amount. You've you had a pretty popular blog on
belief Net for a long time, and you've got a
book called Beyond Blue, which I really enjoyed. So we
will dive into a lot of that stuff. But let's
start with the parable like we always do. So there
(02:15):
is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says,
in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he
thinks about it for a second, and he looks up
(02:35):
at his grandfather and he says, grandfather, well, which one wins?
And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
like to start off by asking you what that parable
means to you in your life and in the work
that you do. Well, let me say I love that parable.
The first time I heard it was about four years
ago at church, ironically, because the sermons usually aren't that good,
(02:58):
but this one, Um, it made an impact on me,
and I've remembered that, and I've had that in the
back of my mind. UM as I go forth with
trying to find ways of living around what I call
my treatment resistant depression, I think you you always have
to be cognizant of those two wolves, because when you
(03:22):
are trying so hard to feed one, you don't realize
how sneaky the other is, and before you know it,
you're feeding the wrong wolf and you're back to where
you started. So so having in mind those two, I
try to make a conscious effort on doing the things
that are going to result in more love and compassion. Um.
(03:46):
It's the same message I think that Victor Frankel has
with his book, Um demand searched for meeting that that
also was very a very important book for me to
read because I had kind of hit bottom and I
had tried, you know, to fifty different medication combinations. I
tried mindfulness, meditation, acupuncture, every kind of alternative therapy out there,
(04:10):
and I still had these horrible death thoughts. And when
I read that book, I realized that he, you know,
in the Auschwitz and the concentration camps, he was he
was there with wolves all around him, just just trying
to eat from his very being. That he was just
(04:31):
attacked all the time, and yet he found a way
to find that wolf of love and compassion and turn
that horrible time into just a blessing and to a
lesson for each of us. And so I've I've tried
to do that into turning my suffering into service, um
(04:53):
And when I do that, I do feel more compassion
and peace and serenity. So why don't you tell the
listeners just a brief overview of your story that's in
the book, about your your battles with depression. And I
would be interested in also where where things pick up
because the book was was several years ago, right, So
(05:16):
i'd be interested in kind of after the book. Also,
how how your ongoing um challenges have been with depression? Sure, well,
I I really feel like I have been depressed from
the time that I was born. I was a colloquy
infants and um when I was a child had I
was very Catholic, and so I had a scrupulosity. You know,
(05:36):
I couldn't say enough prayers, couldn't go enough masses too.
I was afraid I was going to hell. That that
kind of morphed into an eating disorder. When I was
an adolescent girl, I was wanted to be a professional ballerina,
and that's kind of the culture there is is a
little dangerous towards the body, and so I got carried
away with that. But when I got in high school,
(05:57):
I started to drink, and so went downhill fast with
the drinking. I call liquor the quiet car in my brain.
You know, when you're on amtrack and you're looking for
the quiet car because everyone's on the phone. The quiet
car for me was liquor. It was the first time
that I was able to relax in my own brain,
and I still remember the feeling of being able to
(06:18):
do that. But you know, as in all alcoholic stories
that it took me. UM took me down. So I
once I got sober, I started to really I was
in therapy in college and she thought I was depressed
and wanted to put me on an antipressent. And I
was very opposed because my aunt, my godmother, was bipolar
(06:39):
and took her life. And UM, I just remember being
so scared that I was like her. And so when
she said, you know, I think you're depressed, my my
defenses went up. And it took about a year and
a half for me to come around and and to
really acknowledge that and start the road to recovery. So UM,
(07:00):
I was good for a while until I had my kids.
And I think from what I've read, UM, childbirth can
just do a real number on a woman's body as
far as hormonally. UM. A lot of people who had
depression prior to childbirth end up with bipolar disorder after childbirth.
Not a lot, but but some do. And so that's
(07:20):
what happened to me. After I stopped nursing my second child,
I hit a bottom that UM that had been lower
than anything I had ever done. And so I went
from psychiatrists to psychiatrist seven and all and UM. One
of them was a very aggressive m guy who worked
(07:43):
for some pharmaceuticals and he was just UM given me
a very dangerous combinations of of of medication and so
I UM basically full fell into my cereal bowl one
morning and was hospitalized UM and was hospitalized ice. Actually
the last time was that JOHNS. Hopkins, and I met
(08:04):
a wonderful physician who guided me from that point to UM.
I think where I wrote the book UM, I had
gone through a period where I UM really tried the
alternative ways acupuncture, tried to go off my medication and
ended up UM in a ball in my bedroom closet,
(08:25):
and my husband said, you know, please do this for me.
But UM, with the help of the psychiatrist and with
an entrochnologist because it was also UM a matter of
having a pituitary tumor and addressing that as well, I
had two very good years. That's when I wrote the book.
I'm Since then, since two thousand eight, I've been struggling again.
(08:49):
And this time, I, you know, again tried many different
combinations and when I hit like number fifty, I just
didn't think that it was um that it just felt
like I was beating a dead horse with with a
toilet plunger something that was not working, and so I, UM,
(09:10):
I have a great deal of respect for my psychiatrist,
but I just started to kind of wonder about the
field of psychiatry itself. And so I began to see
a holistic doctor and acquire more about my diet and
see someone who could really concentrate on my enderprine system
because my pituitary tumor was still so out of whack
(09:32):
and my thyroid is also kind of out of whack.
So that journey has been the last year, and I
in the last two or three months, I feel like
I finally, um, you know, I'm still on medication and
I still go to my psychiatrist, but with those pieces
in place, I feel like I'm really starting to regain health.
(09:54):
And I've had to make some very um difficult change
is in my diet. I've given up gluten, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, sugar,
UM and UM and take enough supplements that takes me
about a half hour each week to fill them up,
and those one of those brandy size containers. But but
(10:17):
I think it's it's finally starting to pay off if
I do absolutely everything that I can to to work
towards good mental health. UM, I can't just go to
a psychia, a psychiatrist and UH and a counsel or.
For me, it has to be the whole body, the
whole everything. I found that to be. One of the
interesting things about your your story is that in your
(10:42):
book there's a lot of concern because you've got a
lot of people who are pointing you to holistic sources
of healing um as you mentioned acupuncture, or if you
just meditate right or go to enough yoga. And I
found it interesting in the book that you were you
were realizing that those things were not sufficient UM and
(11:05):
that they still aren't. But now you find you found
a way to pair the more traditional medical treatment, the
antidepressant medicine and traditional therapy with some of those more
holistic approaches. Yeah. I think for me, I I need
both and that's UM. It's been frustrating because those worlds
(11:25):
are so different, and if I go to a holistic doctor,
most of them are going to say, we don't believe
in mental diagnoses, we don't believe in mental illnesses because
everything comes from toxins, everything comes from you know, um,
they don't believe in in that in itself. And then
but most of psychiatry really doesn't pay a lot of
(11:46):
attention to diet, which I think is huge and um,
so I've been trying to address that on my blog
a lot to inform people because I don't think I
got well, um and I feel confident right now that
I'll probably wiably stay well because I have all of
these pieces in place. My husband has been really great.
He um. When I when I first just wanted to
(12:09):
take the whole list of rout and and and go
off all my medication, I was he has We have
a lot of people in our community who are new age,
and they He remembers when he was a kid watching
this um documentary on Eurik Geller, the guy who had
been the spoon with his with his thoughts, and finally,
(12:33):
when I was so um, so desperate and and but
was so stubborn to really accept the health of traditional medicine,
he said, I think you've been staring at that spoon
for too long. You know, I've been trying to fix
my brain with my thoughts um themselves, and and that
it didn't work for me. It it might work for
(12:55):
other people, but it didn't work for me. Well, I
think it's a very much matter of degree of of depression.
I think I talk a lot on the show about
the depression that I deal with, and it's never been
as crippling as what you describe or other people have.
It's more of a consistent, uh, you know, longer term, um,
(13:17):
you know, lower level chronic condition, and so it does
respond better to certain things. But but I've come to
the same conclusion that you have, which is that I
don't think that either of those camps is really sufficient.
And I think that the way that we treat depression
as a whole in this country is woefully inadequate. And
(13:38):
the only thing that I found for me, it sounds
very similar to your experience, is to sort of treat
all parts of myself physical, the emotional, the mental, the
all those things. If I've got if I'm working on
all those things, then I end up in a much
better place than if I'm working on any one of
those in particular. So just medicine is helpful, but not enough. Um.
(14:02):
Obviously just meditation doesn't get it done. It's I found
I have to sort of stack all that stuff together right, Yeah,
do you find that you don't um? It just seems
like most of the people are in one camp or another.
Though I agree, I think most people are in one
camp or the other, which is I'm I'm always suspicious
of anybody who's in one particular camp because I don't
(14:23):
think any I don't think any issue in life that
people have wrestled with for a long time is an
easy has an easy answer to it, or it would
have been solved. Right. If there was an easy answer
for depression, it would be solved by now. If there
was an easy answer for how to have healthcare in
the US, it would have been solved by now. Right.
These are complex challenges, and that's why anybody who proposes,
(14:44):
like all you have to do is this one little
thing I'm always skeptical of. Right. Yeah, Well, good for
you for having a uh venue where you can really
explore this, because I don't think there's enough of this
information out there. So yeah, I agree. It's one of
the things we try and focus on. And you a
(15:04):
couple of things that you talk about in your book
and your blog I'm really interested in, and one of
them is the idea of our thoughts this there's a
you talk about a couple of schools of thought out there.
There's one if you take it to its extreme or
the general, which is that you know, what we think
about doesn't have much to do with what goes on
in our body, right, these things are fairly disconnected. Um.
(15:28):
The other school thought, going to the other extreme, is
that everything that happens to us as a result of
what we think. And I've seen you right in your
blog before about how how we can get so stuck
on thinking that every little thing that we think or
do is the cause of what's wrong with us. Yeah,
it's funny that you mentioned that. I I love neuroscience
(15:52):
for that because it gives you hope that the brain
is plastic and you can carve those neural passageways or
the neural passageways. But but when I am very depressed,
it works against me because I'm constantly beating myself up.
As soon as I have a thought, I'm like, oh,
I just carve that passageway, you know, and then that will,
(16:14):
you know, go compile against itself, and um, it's a
real nightmare. But and that's why someone asked me the
other day, Um, what I thought of cognitive behavioral therapy,
and I think it's very very helpful, like Dr. Byrne
stuff and all that stuff has been very helpful, But
I I can't do it when I'm severely depressed. When
I'm severely depressed, I I just have to distract myself
(16:37):
because the more I try to think um of, you know,
and and and carve the right quote positive passageways, then
the more I'm just kind of digging myself a hole
because I'm feeling responsible then for my depressure, which is
making me, you know, feel even more depressed, which is
(16:59):
you know, it's a down hill spiral. But on the
other hand, I don't think that it's healthy for people
to think that they can um that they can you know,
stay in a in a resentment or a stoop, or
you know, can entertain a thought that's kind of hurtful
(17:22):
and not have their body be affected by that. I
(17:49):
do these mini episodes where I talk for you know,
four or five minutes about just thoughts I have on
different things. It's uh, it's it's the usual. Let me
turn this off now for for our listeners. But it's
a I'm kidding mostly, But I did one on rumination
and the idea was simply that sometimes I can't think
(18:09):
my way out of that situation. I simply just have
to give my brain something else to focus on. And
I think there are I found some positive techniques for
doing that. Um you know, one would be like one
of the things I do is I call it the
alphabet gratitude game, where I have to go through the
alphabet and think of something I'm grateful for for each letter,
(18:31):
and it's it's mainly the thinking of something for each
letter that's the really helpful part because it it gives
my brain something to hang onto. But it's got the
side benefit of me thinking about things that I think
are positive. Um so, but I'm I'm with you on
that inability when I'm really stuck to think my way
out of it. And another analogy that I think is
(18:51):
useful in that sense, or another way to think of
it is it's sort of when people are fighting, and
once you get to a certain point of being angry,
there is nothing positive that is going to happen until
you calm down. It just simply doesn't matter what you
try and do. It's it's to a certain extent a
matter of time. And you know, no long, no exposure
to the thing you're angry at before you're able to
(19:13):
think in any kind of positive way. Right. Yeah, that No,
that's very true. Um. That's like someone told me that
you never say anything important to your spouse before asking
yourself if you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. You know
that the twelve step halt and um. And I've added
one more is if you're in the car, because our
(19:34):
worst argument thought when we're in the car, because I'm
very nervous, and I'm a nervous front seat driver, and
so that's a that's a very good one. I've had
a lot of really bad fights in the car too.
So you wrote an article recently that was about things
you wish people knew about depression, and I was wondering
(19:57):
if you could maybe share a few of those that
if you if you could tell people about depression, what
are some of the things you wish that everyone knew.
I'm I wish people knew that you could be grateful
and oppressed at the same time. You know, I keep
on hearing that if you're grateful, then you can't be depressed.
And while I've I've read that research, I disagree with
(20:19):
it because I've been physiologically depressed but grateful at the
same time. I think it's incorrect to say that people
who are depressed don't know what blessings they have in
their life. I think they do. I mean, I know
that most of the people who I know that are
severely depressed do, and that's part of the reason that
they feel so bad is they can't celebrate those but
they are intrinsically and authentically grateful for that. Um, that's
(20:47):
one of the things. And again it's that it's the
holistic versus medical world issue. I feel like, you know,
I was really hopeful when I was reading all these
diet nutrition books that if I eliminated gluten wheat or
wheat as gluten, um, dairy, sugar, caffeine, that all, you know,
(21:12):
these books say in six weeks, you just you're like
a different person and you've never had a bad thought
in your life. And UM, that's I think very scary
for I think it's unfair for people to to expect
someone to just change their diet and not be depressed.
I mean, I changed my diet and I still was
very very suicidal. So UM, to know that that's not
(21:36):
it's not as easy. Is that it's not as easy
as going to yoga. Yoga. Actually, when I back in
two thousand five, um, I had to stop going to
yoga because my my worst suicidal ruminations happened in yoga.
It gave me the room to think, you know, during
that hour and a half, and that's dangerous for someone
who's you know, that low. So again, it's not and
(21:58):
it's it's just not black and right. It's not do yoga,
drink at Kale smoothie in the morning and you're fine, Well,
guess what I've done those things? If you put the
vodka in your Kale smoothie, well, maybe that's true. It's
the green quiet car. Yeah, that's that's a very good point.
And then on the other end, you know people who
I think that medication is the reason why you get well,
(22:23):
I mean, I think it certainly can be part of
the equation, but I don't think it's fair to say
that just because you're you know, you're on medication and
you're seeing a counselor that means that you aren't going
to be depressed. There's so much more work that you
have to go into it. Um. So it's I guess
it's again that that that double whammy that you're hit
(22:46):
by between the holistic world and the pharmaceutical world that
I wanted to discuss, and also just the just the
amount of trying. UM. I had six years between two
thousand and eight until very recently that I had these
very loud death thoughts and I would have to go
to dinner with people and laugh and you know, fake,
(23:07):
and then come home and google how to get cancer.
I mean, people don't realize that we're used to it,
you know, people who have been severely depressed for so long.
I'm used to UM, I'm used to a good act.
And so that doesn't mean I'm not that that pain
isn't any more real. How have you found because you
are the leader of uh maybe leaders the wrong word,
(23:29):
but you found it a Facebook group called Beyond Blue
that you're a key part of. How has the interaction
with that group been different from when you were doing
better and when you were struggling again? How did how
did you approach that? Well? I actually started it in May. UM.
I had been you know, eating that made the diet
(23:52):
restrictions about five months before, and I still didn't notice anything.
And I was on the fiftieth medication, and I basically
thought that I was going to have to live with
these death thoughts for the rest of my life, and
so I better, I better connect with some people and
learn how to do it. So UM, I started that,
and I think that that's partly also why I'm better
today is because I don't feel I'm as unique as
(24:14):
I thought I was before. I mean, I don't know
anyone in my friend circle or in my family circle
who who deals with what I do. But man, there
are tons of people online who, you know, have to
deal with these same thoughts every single day. And to
see them, I mean, some of them are so heroic
in the way that they do and and they offer
(24:36):
help and they you know, it's it's again, it's Victor
Frankel's turning to service. I think has really helped them,
and I'm learning from them that it helps me. So
I try to, UM, I try to get on there
and help people for like at least an hour a day,
because it's it's kind of like that one story where
the two people are gonna or the one person who's
(24:57):
going to jump off a cliff and commit suicide, and
then another person comes up and it's going to do
the same, and she turns around and tries to save
the one. You know, you forget about your pain when
you're trying to sort of, um do emergency calls there.
But um, the group has really it's been good for me, um,
and that in that way, I do have to I
(25:18):
do have to watch the compassion fatigue because there's some
people that you know, we're not a suicide hotline, and
so when you get to the space where you're you're
just really in danger, it's not not I don't think
a good um a good place to be our our
site because I'm not a mental health professional, thank god,
(25:40):
because if I was, I'd probably be responsible for all
these people. And I'm a theology major, so thank god
I'm not. But um, I do have to watch that
line of getting compassion fatigue and watching watching you know,
just being good to myself. But but some of the
people just really blow me away with their compassion and
the resolve and the way they just trudged through every
(26:02):
day and just you know, at one ft in front
of the other. It's good for me to see that
I'm not alone. Yeah, I had no idea the group
was that new and it's a really interesting group. You're
My reaction to it is I usually have a couple
of reactions. One is it can be a heartbreaking place
to spend much time because there's a lot of people struggling,
(26:22):
and yet you're right, there's so much beautiful compassion between
those people. Um that is that is there. And I
think when you when you think about a holistic approach
two depression or really mental health in general, whether that
be improving your mental health from where it is to
better or you know, moving out of depression. That another
one that I think is frequently overlooked is exactly what
(26:43):
you just said is the connection to people, but very
importantly connection to people who can understand you. Yeah, exactly.
I think all of us have in common that loneliness.
I think that's the worst part of this depression, is
that loneliness of no one really getting you. And so uh,
I mean, it's it's been really really cool to see
people come in who were suicidal and now posting funny videos.
(27:07):
And you know, a woman whom now has the energy
to take care of our grandkids and to see that
progress just from nothing's changed except that she's communicating with
other people who understand her. It's um, it's amazing. So
I'm in the process right now of building a site
for that. So it's not on Facebook because Facebook has
its limitations. Yeah. Yeah, every once in a while somebody
(27:29):
will post something they mean for the group on the
main part of Facebook and be mortified. I have a
question for you, though. This is similar because I've wondered
about this for a long time and my you you've
come you come from a twelve step culture, so you're
familiar with with what all that is. Like. I've always
been curious why there is no such thing as depression
support groups in real life, or let me rephrase it,
(27:50):
because I know there are some, but there's a very
few of them. They're not well marketed in any way.
I kind of wonder is it just by the nature
of DEPRESSI and that people don't you know, part of
that is an isolation thing. But I've just been curious
because if you think about the power that comes from
being online in that group, if you could translate that
into the face to face power that you get in
(28:13):
other recovery programs, it would be really helpful. Yeah, that's
funny that you asked that, because I'm I actually am
putting together a foundation right now. It's called Beyond Blue
Foundation to UM get funding for the the new site.
But also one of the programs that I really want
is called find Your Tribe, and it's it's based on
that quote that when you find people who don't think
(28:37):
that you're weird, but but UM react and enjoy and
say me too, you have found your tribe UM. And
I love that because I feel like that's what we
are on Tribe g BB or group Beyond Blue. So
I want to be able to do that. And I
think if the site gets big enough, then you know,
(28:57):
we'll have people in different cities and can kind of
form UM have the the online community actually become a
real community outside. I've been to NAMI meetings, and while
I'm a big supporter of NAMI, I the meetings have
not really been I think it's more for support for
parents and family members of people who are depressed. I
(29:21):
haven't UM received that much support for, like you said,
people who are going through it. I don't know if
it's anonymity or you know, the the twelve step culture
clashes a little bit with mental health culture. Let me
(29:54):
lead us into that discussion by reading something you wrote
because I thought it was really really good, and I'll
read it and then we can kind of go into
it a little bit more. You said the difference between
sobriety culture, there's a difference between sobriety culture and mental
illness culture. In the substance abuse culture, the person is
generally viewed as the agent of the problem, and they
are held accountable and have consequences for the relapse. In
(30:16):
the mental illness culture, the person is often viewed not
as the agent of the problem, but as the victim
of their illness, and we tend to hold people a
little a little less accountable for biochemical processes. Yeah. I
got into trouble with that when I first got sober
um and was I was in college and I was
(30:36):
struggling with my depression at the same time. And whenever
I tried to voice my desperation that, you know, I
had these horrible suicidal thoughts, death thoughts, they don't be like,
you know, poor me, poor me, pour me a drink,
you know, right, your gratitude list, right, you're And it
was I learned that I can't talk about my depression
(30:57):
and a A or else I it's it's something that
I've done to myself, which may be more depressed. So
I actually stopped going to the support group meetings because
I just didn't you know. Some and my sponsor said
that if I take antidepressants, those are happy pills that
are going to compromise my sobriety. And so yeah, there's
there's a big clash there. And maybe that's the reason
(31:19):
why the twelve step movement has never taken off with
the mental health because it is it's it's almost more
like a cancer survival group than it is like an
a a group. Yeah, so, um that is It's something
that I really want to work on because I have
(31:40):
a few people who I met through the actually group
Beyond Blue. We get together every once in a while,
and just the human connection, that in person connection does
lend itself to so much more. Um So, who knows,
maybe you and I can start that movement. Yeah, I'm certainly,
I am. I'm very interested in that idea. I do
(32:02):
think that the overall recovery or sobriety culture has changed
a fair amount from probably when you were in college.
Not that I'm insinuating that that was a long time ago.
I'm I'm just saying that I got ago. It is
when I I mean, I first became exposed to recovery
(32:24):
culture about twenty years ago, and I heard a lot
more of that sort of stuff than I ever hear
these days. I'm not nearly as involved, but I think
it has softened to some degree. But I think very
similarly to what we were talking about before, I think
either side of that camp is wrong. It's not all
your fault, and it's yet still whether whatever causes it
mental ill if it's mental illness, or you still are
(32:46):
responsible for your own path to getting better. And so
it's it's neither. It's both. Those camps again seem to
me to be on the extreme. Yeah, now I agree
with you. I agree with Yeah. It's um. We we
run into that in the group a little bit. You know,
you gotta people are there to support each other, but
(33:07):
you also have to want to get well yourself, and
I'm not sure that that's there for everyone. So, yeah,
I saw that discussion. I don't remember where it was
you had about So you're on the group beyond Blue. Yeah,
that's so cool. I don't post very much. Um, I
mainly just am kind of hanging out watching and reading
(33:30):
and liking some things here and there with the occasional comment.
But I'm I'm fairly um, not too not too involved.
I didn't make the connection between the Eric Zimmer of
the show and the Yeah, okay, now that I think
I have seen that's great. Yeah, I'm I'm in disguise
in there. I've got a it's it's a it's a
(33:51):
clown suit that I picture you see me in, or
I just put I put Chris's picture in for anything
that I'm a little bit nervous about being involve of DIN. Yeah, um,
the guidelines, the rules have been kind of difficult to uphold.
And that's you know, is really good about that about
(34:13):
you know, you're responsible for yourself. So yeah, there's a
lot to learn in any sort of UM group dynamic
from from A because they got a lot of things
really right to survived as long as it has and
to the scale it has, it's kind of amazing. But
I think I have I have plenty of challenges with it.
(34:36):
I think the same as a lot of people do. UM.
But so one of the things that I wanted to
we're kind of coming to the near the end of
our time. But One of the things I wanted to
ask you about is you have a quote in your
book that's one of my favorite quotes, and it's from
Rilka about loving the question. So can you tell me
a little bit about that quote and what it means
(34:57):
to you. Um. I love that quote because I grew
up as being so black and white, and I think
if I had to say what I've learned through my journey,
it's to appreciate the gray. Um. That quote is similar
to Paima quod Run, the Buddhist nun, and she talks
(35:19):
about you know, you think you're you're always going to
fix things, but then they fall apart again, and then
you fix them and then they fall apart, and you
have to learn to exist where there's room for misery
and room for joy. And that to me is um
what I try to aim for, because with the mental health,
(35:40):
when I'm trying to fix it so that I don't
have a symptom, then I'm setting myself up because you know,
the way I made my biochemistry, I'm going to have
this stuff for the rest of my life. But if
I can learn to live with my symptoms and live
with the questions and address all that gray matter as
(36:01):
it comes. Then there's gonna be a lot less frustration,
and I might be able to help the person or
two along the way instead of cower and a quarter
um in in a temper tantrum for not you know,
getting it perfect. So it's funny. I I was a
theology major and when I was writing a paper, I
(36:23):
was so black and white that I wrote this paper
on still can be believe? This paper on why everybody
who had premimable sex would burn in Hell and Jesus,
I mean I was so like, like off the charts,
you know, black and white. And so my funny teacher,
(36:43):
My teacher wrote, um wrote in the in the bottom,
she said, I hope you learn a little nuance in
your life. And five years later, my dad had died
and it was just a mess. And you know, I
started to to know that things are just messy. They're
just messy. So I came back and knocked on our
(37:05):
door and I said, yeah, thanks. Although I've always believed
in pre marital sex, so um. Well, then it's funny
because I met my husband and I told him it
was going to be five years before we slept together,
and it was like the second night you know. So
on our first one of our oars states, he said,
(37:27):
where do you see yourself in five years? And I
said as a missionary and none in the third world country.
And he's like, oh interesting. He was like, we better
get this done quickly. Then. Yes, things, things are messy things,
and and being okay with that is a big it's
(37:47):
a big help. But we we talk on the show
a lot about feeling bad about feeling bad or this
idea of just all this stuff that we layer on
top of the pain that's already there. And I think
that's another way right doing it, which is is this
believing that things should be really different than they are.
It's one thing to want them to be different. It's
(38:08):
a different thing to think that they should be different,
right right. Yeah, Well, thank you so much. I do
think you're doing a lot of great work and helping
a lot of people out there with your your blog
and your book. And it's clear the group is helping
a ton of people. Well, thank you you too with
the with this great podcast series. Yes, well, thank you
(38:29):
so much, and thanks for coming on the show, and
we'll talk again soon, Okay, thank you, all right, bye bye.
(38:52):
You can learn more about Therese Portard and this podcast
at one new feed dot net slash Therese. That's t
h E r E s e
Host
Eric Zimmer
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