Anxiety and Panic Disorder with Jen Kirkman

This week Kat (@kat.defatta) invites Jen Kirkman (@jenkirkman) on the podcast to have a candid conversation about. . . anxiety. Jen is an internationally touring comedian known for her Netflix specials “I’m Gonna Die Alone (and I Feel Fine)” and “Just Keep Livin.” and New York Times Best Selling author who now also hosts a new podcast called, Anxiety Bites. Jen has had life-long Panic and Generalized Anxiety Disorder and brings her life-lessons, humor, and hope to the podcast in an attempt to reduce the stigma of one of the most prevalent mental health disorders in our society.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Okay, guys, well, I have a really exciting guest today,
comedian and author Jen Kirkman. Thank you so much for
taking some time to talk to me today. Welcome. I'm
so glad to be here, and I'm in a room.
You can probably see there's a couch behind me, and
I feel like I should be on the couch, not
in my swivel chair here. Well, if you want to,

(00:30):
you could get sit on the couch and we'll have
a whole conversation that way. You know. That's funny is
I have so many people. You know, my office. I
have like a big, long, normal couch you would have
in a therapy office, and then I have like my chair,
which is like a more standard like lounge chair, and
people will come in often and be like, one little bit,
where do I sit? And I'm like, well, I guess

(00:51):
you could choose which spot you want, But also they're
like do I lay down? I get the do I
laid down question? But where do I sit? You just
want to go, oh, what was a client? Do you
ever think that? Just judge, I don't ever wonder that,
but I do. I think, like speaking, we're gonna talk
about anxiety to day, but I think like if you've
never been to therapy, never and you don't have a

(01:13):
lot of experience with it, there's so much anxiety that
it's almost like you black out and you don't even
know what you're saying, are doing. So sometimes I think
that like where do I sit? It's like they just
need some guidance. They just don't know what to do
with their hands, Like they just like are so nervous. Yeah,
they're probably not actually asking that, but they're just saying, okay,

(01:33):
I'm your hands out. Um. But the laid down thing,
I'm like, if you want to lay down, I guess
you can lay down. But people don't really do that
as much these days. I know, I was disappointed to
find out that you really don't know what they're ever
taken that I have to be very present and awake. Okay,
So what I was saying before we hit record is
that I love I love the podcast because I love

(01:54):
that I get to teach things, and I love that
I get to have experts come talk about things because
I'm a therapist, but I'm not an expert in everything
that comes with mental health. We have specialties. And then
there's these other episodes I don't get to do as
much where I'm just like talking to a human being
about their story and mental health. And that's what we're

(02:15):
going to do today. And Jen actually started a new
podcast called Anxiety Bites, which I will go ahead and
vouch for now because I've listened to two episodes. It's
really good and I think it's something that we need.
I have some questions about what made you start it,
but I've heard enough of your story where I'm like,
I want to ask some questions, like she just left
me hanging there and she said this thing, and then

(02:36):
I have I want to talk to her, and now
I get to talk to you. So um, that's what
we're gonna do today, is we're gonna hear somebody's story.
And before we get going, I want to say thank you,
because this might be something that you talk about a lot,
and so it might not be that big of a
deal to you anymore. But I always think it's a
big deal when we allow ourselves to share these things
that generally aren't shared as much. No, I agree, And

(02:58):
I think my anxiety story keeps changing, and there's been
new developments in the last few years as I discovered
things and realized things. So it's still kind of a
big deal for me. And in a way that I'm
not like this thing who cares. I really like saying
my whole story. And I think that most like one
thing I was wrong about was how many people think

(03:18):
every single thing that they've experienced in their anxiety is
only them, which makes it worse. And so people can
hear enough. You know, if if you talk to fifty
people and they each told their story, I think each episode,
even if things were repetitive, people would get a lot
out of it because they just need to keep hearing
this is normal, this is normal, It's not just you. Yeah,
And you know what, what I'm really curious about is

(03:40):
when you discovered that you had anxiety. And I have
my own experience with this because I think now in
the day and age we're in, especially with social media,
I see a lot of stuff that I think it's funny.
I think it's great. But you'll see a lot of
memes and stuff that just kind of like joke about anxiety,
you know, And I think some of it's okay, and

(04:02):
I laugh at some and I'll repost some of them.
And at the same time, there was one that came out,
but I don't know when it came out. I saw
it the other day and it was like something about
like I was at the doctor and my doctor asked,
like if I had any feelings of depression anxiety, and
I responded, well, don't we all? And then the doctor
just said no, And well, I I like that because

(04:24):
I think that my story and I'm interested to hear
here is is I thought that everybody felt like I felt,
and that like it was just how the human condition
was and there's nothing we can do about it. And
what that little picture reminded me of is that like, oh,
this might be like a normal thing, Like there's nothing
wrong with me per se, with my character or my

(04:47):
morality because I'm having these feelings. There's nothing to be
embarrassed about. But I also don't have to live this way,
so it's not just like a yeah, duh, it's like yes,
and I'm allowed to ask for help. Right. It's funny
because I do now. I just kind of go, oh,
it's a human condition. Everyone feels this way. But no,
obviously there's levels and there's actually, yes, there's total levels.
You know, people that need to get help and people

(05:07):
that are just going through a thing. So I want
to talk with you. I want to know about like
when you were like, wait, what what is this feeling
I'm having? Like I just want to hear from the
beginning your story. And I don't know a question to
start with that other than will you tell me your story? No,
I think it's good. It's not that I actually thought
everyone felt the same way I did at first, and

(05:28):
I certainly didn't think it was normal. But I didn't
go this as his anxiety. It's hard to remember. It's
it's like, you know, your story becomes almost like you're
telling a movie you saw. I can't it's so hard
to remember how I felt as a kid and I
and I actually should ask you this is I think
there's a correlation between memories getting jumbled and actually not
having a great memory and being a kid with undiagnosed anxiety. Yeah,

(05:51):
like I don't have a ton of memories from my childhood.
I mean, there's so much in that. But I think
sometimes our brains are really really awesome, and the fact
that they will remember things that we need to remember
and not remember are things we don't need or want
to remember, and sometimes that can be flip flop based
on our trauma or whatever that is. But I think
also with anxiety and a d h G I have.
I have a d D, so I forget where I

(06:11):
store my memories sometimes. Oh that's a good way putting.
I don't even know what that means. So I was
talking to a psychiatrist a couple I think it was.
This is probably five years ago, and I was just
so frustrated because I'm like, I literally I'm paid to
remember people's stories, and of course I like write things
down and not everything is just in my head. But
I was I was frustrating because I was forgetting tons

(06:31):
of stuff and I was like, I, this is so
frustrating to me, and I stretched too thin, like what's
going on? And she was like, no, it's not that
you are like forgetful or this, Like, yeah, I guess
it looks like that, but it's not like your brain
isn't working. You just are doing so many things at
once that you're forgetting where you're putting certain things. Oh
I love that, And it's like, okay, well, but can

(06:53):
you tell me where to go to find out? You know,
how do I get them? Not like glasses that are
on your head that story, i'd say, I'd say my
story began when I was about eight in terms of anxiety. Now,
of course, now that I've had like a million years
of therapy, and you start like I didn't start to
notice and tell us in my forties how my anxiety
affected behavior in relationships, no matter what kind, and my outlook.

(07:15):
So it was as multi later onion, I'm still peeling.
I think ten years ago I would have told you
about anxiety that only had to do with phobias and
you know, so I'm sure my anxiety began the minute
I was I don't know, able to talk and walk
because I was inheriting this stuff from like my parents
and you know, learning bad coping mechanisms and stuff like that.

(07:37):
But in terms of feeling anxious, just old school on
the verge of a panic attack. Anxious for me was
tied in with airplane travel. But I can guarantee you
I had anxiety before that. When I was five, six seven,
I think I had disordered things, you know. So I'll
give you an example of what I think was anxiety
when I was five. So I'm going to kindergarten and

(07:59):
I'm one of those kids that's like clinging to their parents.
I was so excited to go to school and be independent.
And my sisters were older than me, so they were
like going off to college. You know. I was a
lot younger and still the my sisters. Anyway, So I'm
at school and I guess I just never heard the
word parents before. It was either mom and dad or whatever.
And the teacher said something to me about take this

(08:21):
home and give it to your parents, and just in
that moment, a million things flooded my mind that were like,
I don't have parents, and so I said I don't
have parents, and I burst into tears because what I
wanted to say was I don't know what that word is.
And I thought it was like something fancy, maybe like
just some like because as I grew up in a
really rich town and we weren't rich, it was like,

(08:42):
maybe that's like I don't know someone that takes care
of you, like an O pay or not that I
knew the world here, but you do know what I mean? Like,
if I had to guess why I had that reaction
is that in four seconds, something went through my head
that went, this is the thing other people have that
you don't. So now here I am I say, I
don't have parents. They don't know I don't know what
the word means. They think I'm like an orphan or something.
So then I'm crying, and then they take me to

(09:05):
the school nurse and it's this whole thing, and then
it's like, you do your mom dropped you off today?
She's lying and I'm like, what is parents? And they're like, well,
they didn't say she you're lying, but they were trying
to figure out the wrong thing, which is why is
this girl pretending not to have parents instead of she
didn't know what the word parents is. But the issue
is why are you reacting like that? Like why not
just go what parents you know and have them go, oh,

(09:28):
that means mom and dadd I go okay. For some reason,
I just had the most irrational reaction to not knowing
a word. Now, looking back on that memory, that behavior
has followed me into my adult life at times. UM,
not that extreme, but that, to me is the first
anxiety story. But I didn't know what the hell that was.
I thought it was a funny story until like three

(09:48):
years ago, and I went, oh, my reactions have always
been a problem, which is when I realized I had adult,
A d H D and all that. So again, like
depending on when you asked me, as I'm learning more things,
that's the true beginning. Wow, Okay, So this is what
I wished as a therapist all the time, that I
could travel back in time and like talk to that
five year old, because there's something in the fact that,

(10:10):
like it wasn't an automatic reaction to say, like I
can just ask a question when I am confused, I
can just ask for clarification. Like I wonder what it
was that kept you from either knowing that you're supposed
to ask what is a parent because you didn't know
what it was. I think you're almost too deep on
this one. But you're right, it wasn't like from an
overall place because I didn't do that any other I

(10:30):
bet five times that they asked no answers. It was
tied up. I think in this stuff that I had
already absorbed by age five, which is we lived in
a very wealthy town, but my dad had a working
class job as the groundskeeper of a golf course, and
so the house came with the job. Otherwise they wouldn't
have been able to afford to live in that town.

(10:50):
So I had heard unconscious or conscious messages. Were not
as wealthy as other people. Other people are snobs, other
people have things like it was money and that was
a big So it was like this thing I don't
I literally don't don't think I have this thing called
a parent. Yeah. And it was like if my parents
had And again I'm not blaming them, I'm just saying
like if they had a different obsession about ice skating, whatever,

(11:12):
it would have come out over there. But I think
just because I went to school, I saw these like
I saw fan like somewhere in the back of my head,
I saw fancy cars. I saw kids with fancy clothes,
you know, that kind of thing. Not that it wasn't
like we didn't have nice things, but it was just
because again because it was like we really were just
middle class, you know what I mean. But like in
the story of the drama of how like my parents

(11:34):
were obsessed with like, you know, we don't have as
much as others. Like in my head, it's like I
don't have this thing that is a parent. I don't
have this thing. Yeah. And so anyway, but I think
it really just truly had to do with I thought
it was something to do with Oh, that was the
other thing too. Sorry, I didn't go to nursery school.
My mom didn't want me to go to nursery school,
which I'm so grateful she didn't. I grew up in Massachusetts,

(11:55):
in a suburb like twenty five minutes outside of Boston.
We'd go into the city and see theater, and my
parents were very hands on and learning, and we just
had a ton of life experiences and I'm just glad
I didn't go to preschool. It was just not really
a big thing in the seventies. But it was like,
I think all this was coming at me, you know,
in kindergarten, like some people were talking about how they've

(12:15):
gone to preschool and then there's this rich kid and
then someone says, give this to your parents, and just something.
I was already on that track of I'm different or whatever.
I think that's what it is. That's my analysis, because
it never again did I have any issue like with
asking questions or not knowing things. It was just I
don't know, or maybe a mood I was in, but

(12:35):
I feel like that was like a hundred percent anxiety
just you know, handed to me whatever. Yeah, and you
know what that makes me think of there's something and
I want to push people back to listening to anxiety bites.
But there's something that I really appreciated you asking in
that episode you asked the first episode you asked some
people along the lines of like, when it comes to
therapy and anxiety, is there something we should be looking for?

(12:58):
Um when it comes to like who who we go to?
You were talking about how you had a therapist that
was like, let's go back and dig into your childhood
and you're like totally, but also like, can I have
some skills? Yeah, if I'm having panic attacks at work
every day, like I don't have time to go in
And I will say I love that so much because
I think sometimes we do do this thing where we

(13:19):
like want to dissect everything from the very bottom up,
and sometimes we need to start at the top and
then if we have time and space, then we'll go back.
But sometimes it is about containment and like, not everything
has to do with your mom and your dad, Like
not everything does. A lot of stuff does. I will
say a lot of stuff does. But sometimes anxiety is

(13:42):
separate from this thing childhood trauma and all that. And
that's something that I think has been kind of frustrating
for me seeing on social media is that you'll have
these like TikTok's that you'll see or Instagram whatever that
you'll see and I'll be like, if this, this, this,
and this happened, that means that this happened, and that
means your parents did this, and that means you need this.

(14:02):
And I'm like, I don't think it's always that way, No,
And whenever I bring up my parents, like my God,
I have the most compassion for them. If if they've
handed me any life skills that were based in anxiety,
they they have known their parents that grew up in
the you know, early nine hundreds, you know, like and
did them and uh but yeah. So the first time

(14:23):
I think was I was eight years old and I
had asked my parents if we could go to Disney
World and they said yes, and we were going to
fly there. And I don't remember having a fear of flying.
I was gonna say, you never have flown before. I
think it was all just excitement and excitement, and I
just we got on the plane and that was it.
I was freaking out and and it was a full
blown panic attack and it felt like it lasted the

(14:45):
whole flight. Now was interesting that my dad, this is
way back in the day that we got on the
plane and my dad was so excited. You know, you
get on the plane back that and you can say
the pilot, can my daughter just go in the cockpit? Oh, shure,
come on in? And you know, we looked at all
the buttons and I just f we're feeling that flooded, sweating, overwhelmed,
like there's too many buttons. What's going on? Oh my god?

(15:07):
And then we sat down and you know, there's two
stories here. There's one I learned it from my parents,
and there's two that I just was gonna panic, like
my grandmother and mom did a panic disorder. They will
never use those words, but I know it. You know,
my mom and or Rosary beads out. My dad kept
going here we go, here we go. I think he
was nervous but acting excited. I think they each only
flown once. But it was also kind of like a

(15:29):
bad flight. I mean, that's the point. We weren't crashing
by any means. But again, for some reason, the pilot
was like, this is gonna be a really rough landing,
so everyone should put their head in their lap. So
I mean, I was nervous before then, but I think
that didn't help. But again, I can't remember which came first, okay,
And I almost sometimes don't know if that's the most
important part, because I'm sitting here being like, even if

(15:50):
you weren't panicked, you would be now like this is
my only experience of a flight, and this is what's happening.
And also I think let's just like go, like forget
my parents and that my mom had a rosemary beats out. Again,
I'm feeling a sensation that I've never felt before, where

(16:13):
this thing when that is taxing really fast, I forget
now that that took my breath away and and I
was little, you know, and I think it was just
sensations I've never felt. I couldn't speak. I was like
it was horrifying, and then my ears were popping really badly,
which didn't make me anxious, but it just everything was like, oh,

(16:33):
this is and strange and unknown. And also like again,
back then, everyone you know, dressed up a little more.
On planes you could smoke cigarettes, and so I'm looking
at people in certain areas of the plane that are
like smoking a cigarette and having a drink, and they
looked like their feathered hair of the eighties is so fabulous.
And that didn't help either, because that made me go,

(16:55):
why am I the only one that feels this way?
You know, why is everyone being normal? Like I ship
had inspired me, but it didn't. And then I spent
the whole trip at Disney just dreading the flight back.
You know, I wasn't talking to my parents about this.
I would say I'm scared of flying back, and my
dad would probably say something like, oh, I don't even
think about it. Let's enjoy ourselves while we're here. And

(17:16):
so I was like busy that week thinking thoughts. That
became my tool kit for panic attacks, like obsessing blah blah,
and so then it started to become my identity. I'm
afraid of flying. I didn't feel ashamed to talk about.
I told anyone I knew, and so before every flight,
especially as I got older, closer to teenage years again,
we go to Disney World every even until I was

(17:37):
like thirteen. It became I write a will before I
go on the plane, and I give it to my friends,
and like, you know what, I don't know what. I
was giving away my classic goom box, but it became
this thing where I really thought I was doing something dangerous.
You know, it wasn't just the uncomfortablelity if I really
think I thought flying was dangerous and that you could

(18:00):
die and that you could crash. And nowadays, and when
I had a fear flying a little later in life,
it eventually became like I realized it wasn't about a
fear of crashing, but you know so, and then by
age fourteen, I said, I can't do this anymore, Like
I just it's not worth it. God, we can't fly.
So I never flew again for a while, and I
think I had more depression during my teen years. But

(18:22):
oh I'm forgetting one of the other bigger things that happened.
So that was the flight when I was eight. Now,
one or two years later, we're talking cold war with Russia.
Everything is like nuclear bombs talked all over the news,
and my parents they don't really shield things from me. Again,
I'm not blaming them. I'm just saying like they would
just talk about so like, you know, oh yeah, we

(18:44):
did air rade. I mean, I think it was just
sort of we didn't live in a fantasy world, you know,
like if the news was on I saw what was happening,
and there was just a lot of talk about that
kind of stuff, and I I watched that made for
TV movie the day after. I don't know if you've
heard of it came on the eight. It was literally
a movie about what if Russia nuked America. I actually

(19:04):
was obsessed with this movie and I ended up doing
like a one woman show it's a comedy thing years ago.
But in my research about the movie, it was said
that Ronald Reagan watched it and it scared him enough
to I don't know why he wasn't working on this before,
but like it scared him enough into wanting to um
really make peace with the USSR. But anyway, it was,
it was terrifying. So basically one of the scenes in

(19:26):
the movie was the bombs are coming and everyone can
see them and they're all on the freeway trying to
get out, but it's just the cars are just like
a parking lot. No one can leave town, and then boom,
the bomb hits and everyone turns into a skeleton in
their car and you can hear the air raid signals,
you know, And so that like lived in me. So
every time we'd go visit my grandmother and we'd be

(19:47):
on the freeway. I would think, you know, what if
we get nuke right now? Everything was like what if?
Right now? What if? This? And so I started to
develop more physical symptoms that weren't the same as the
airplane symptoms. It was more heart skipping a beat and
pain in my arm. And you know, my mom and
grandmother had high blood pressure. And my grandmother who lived
until ninety nine and my mom is now currently eighty three,

(20:08):
they both claim they have heart problems. I'm no doctor,
but you know, my nana didn't die. She just because
she was ninety, not like they were obsessed with their hearts.
So I went and got a stress test at the
local hospital because I was having like heart pain or whatever.
Old are you twelve? So this is like a feyears
after the fear flying. Now we're into the like having

(20:30):
panic attacks on the freeway. Like field trips at school
were really difficult for me because I didn't like being
on the freeway. Usually the bus would take a you know,
and yeah, and so my mom took me like normalized it,
but normalized it, like oh yeah, this runs in our family,
you know, like but didn't call it anxiety and the
doctor was like, oh, yeah, you're stressed, which I thought
was like a badge of honor, like cool, I'm stressed.

(20:51):
I thought that was very adult. But he was like, oh,
also you have I don't know what he said. It
was like he's like, you're fine. Though You're fine is distressed,
but you your arm aching is separate. It's sometimes it
gets too cold. It's like a muscle thing or something.
I was like, all right, anyway, but it's like, at
the same time I had all this anxiety, I was
the other side of it was those feelings were so
intolerable that every other second of my life had to

(21:13):
be a ball. Does that make sense? So I had
a lot of joy and friends and make believe in
fun and I took dance and I was outrageous and
fun and silly. I mean, you wouldn't have known I
had anxiety. But it was like, if I'm going to
live through these intolerable moments sometimes then I lived each
day as if it were my last, because I really
thought those those feelings of impending death were so intense

(21:36):
that it almost pushed me into this really gregarious way
of living, which then by the time I was in
my late teens and went off to college. And I
only went to college like in the city of Boston,
so it was no planes involved. There was like a
program you could go to Amsterdam. It didn't cost any
more than your tuition already did. And I didn't go,
and you know, and then at that point it's like,

(21:56):
I don't know where these bad habits came from, but
I had all these bad habits of coke being with
panic attacks that I started having pretty regularly, like almost
every day at this point, all through high school. But
I never told anyone because they were so it was
once it stopped being on a plane, which made sense
to me and everyone else who I told, and it
just became I'm sitting in the middle of French class

(22:18):
and I am having a panic attack because the teacher
said something like anytime someone talked about something I don't
know how to put it, like if he said something
about the fifteen hundreds, it would just spark something like,
oh my god, the world is so big and life's
been around for everyone going to die, you know, existential
crisis kind of thing. Yes, anytime someone said something that
could spark an existential crisis, which always happened in French

(22:39):
class I would have, and you know, sometimes my teachers thought,
are I was on drugs, which is hilarious because I wasn't,
And I just have to run out of the room,
you know, and well can you talk about because I
think a lot of people don't even know what a
panic attack can look and feel like? So for you,
what did that look and feel? Like? Mine felt like
I get a thought, then my breath starts doing something,

(23:00):
and then my mind is racing a million miles a minute.
So it always started with I feel like I can't
get a deep breath, I can't breathe, and then like
the butterflies would happen in my chest where it actually
felt like it was constricting, and like oh wow, like
I actually might be able, I might stop breathing. Maybe
his palm sweating, But for me, it was always breath related,
and then just my mind would start racing to where

(23:24):
it would always go to a very existential place of
crazy thoughts, like almost like my brain was screwing with me,
like what if gravity stops affecting you when you fly away?
Right now? The stuff like that, I've since learned it
was called feelings of unreality, where like you don't feel
like you're fainting. You just feel like you're not there,
like your ghost or something. So that's how it felt.

(23:44):
And I it just I could not ground myself. I
could not get it to stop, and I couldn't stop
my mind from freaking myself out. And I think the
important part to pay attention to there is you're literally
having a physical sensation that's tapped into your mine. But
like it sounds like it would come on fast, which
they do normally do like all the sudden this is happening.

(24:06):
I don't know how to get it to stop. And
I like you saying like I would run out of
the class, Like sometimes it's like I need to run
away to get out of this. But then like I
don't know if the panic attack follows you. But it's
like so uncomfortable. It's not just like, oh I'm getting
a little bit nervous. No, it wasn't nerves at all,
you know. And of course the weird part is like
I had my safe spaces that would be anxiety and

(24:27):
producing for anyone else, Like I danced and I was
on stage a lot, and you know, those are all
my safe places. And but yeah, I mean I think
running out of the room is like, now I've learned
the correct thing to do is breathe properly, ground yourself
obviously stopped thinking those thoughts that freak you out. So
when I would run out of the room, interestingly enough,
my brain would say you're safe now. So I think

(24:48):
that helped a lot too. Obviously you can't run out
of a room on a plane. So but then that
thing happens where you have one in one room, and
now you're gonna learn that it's going to happen again
in that room, and it starts to so there became
you're having them every day, oh, multiple times a day,
every day, undiagnosed and not telling anyone for so what
was happening? Did you just think you're crazy? I thought

(25:09):
I was insane, Yeah, And I didn't know what to
do because there was no internet. And I remember my
my friend Dave came out of the closet to me.
I I came out of the anxiety closet to him.
I was like, Okay, well I have a secret. I
have these, you know, And I think we went to
the library in this very dramatic fashion and somehow found
books about the brain. I can't remember exactly what led
us to these shelves, but it was bottom line, I

(25:32):
learned the word panic, And what did that feel like
to learn that word? It didn't help that I just said, Okay,
so I know what this is. So it's gonna get
so bad that I'm gonna have to live in an institutions.
And that's what I thought. I'm just I'm just waiting
for to get bad enough that they have to make
me live somewhere. Now, this is a word. It's in
this book. I have this, and if anybody finds out,

(25:52):
I'm gonna have to go live in like an asylum.
An asylum. Yeah, And I thought, you know, I'll have
to wait until I'm feeling this way every second. Then
I'll be ready to live in an asylum. But I
still have some good living in me. It's not happening,
you know, all day, every day. So back then it
was like normal or crazy, no in between, you know,
I mean, not that I should even use the word crazy,
but you know what I'm saying. There was no no

(26:13):
I know what you're saying. Yeah, for sure, there wasn't
an in between. There was no normalization of people struggling
with mental health. Disorders. It was if you have some
kind of mental health anything, you are like cucko, and
we're going to lock you up because there's no helping you. Yeah. Yeah.
And I didn't even think to tell my parents about, Like,
I didn't even think to tell anyone. And then kind
of a miraculous ish thing happened where I was living

(26:36):
at home during the summer's to work and save money again,
I was, you know, only twenty minutes out of the city,
and my mom told me about this fear of Flying
course that was being taught at the Logan Airport in Boston,
taught by a psychiatrist, and we didn't talk about psychiatry
and our family. I like don't even remember how this
whole conversation came about. It's like in my memory, it's

(26:56):
like there's the newspaper and she pointed to something and
we did it. But back then again, the panic was
so bad. The class was in the airport, and it
was in a lounge at Delta Airlines, and you were
sitting in front of the window with the plane right out.
I mean, obviously was exposure therapy, but I couldn't do it.
I couldn't handle the sensations I couldn't drive on the
freeway either, so my dad would drive me to class

(27:18):
every Tuesday night. So you took this class. Yeah, and
my doctor gave him special permission to sit with us.
And I loved the class so much. I loved the psychiatrist.
And I always tell the story of like, he's what
kind of is in my head when I want to
help other people? This is again you could smoke inside
back then he was smoked cigarettes and drink coffee. He

(27:39):
gave us a multi tiered approach to panic. We did
progressive muscle relaxation, thoughts, stopping. But he also said diet.
Diet is important, so on the day of the flight,
don't smoke, don't drink coffee, anything to keep your nervous system.
But he's saying it while drinking coffee and smoking. And
his name was dr Al forgone, he's now dead. And
this woman goes dr l I um Fulcome, you can

(28:02):
smoke and drink. He's like, I'm not the one I
was afraid. He was very irreverent. But what was interesting
is I was the only young person in the class.
Everyone was forty and over and it was something they
had just recently developed. A lot of it had to
do with like, I don't know, like I don't know,
Like a lot of them had flown a lot and
they just had a bad flight and got a fear

(28:23):
or never had really flown, but now they have to
because their kids are grown up and moved away. Any who.
Bottom line is we do twelve weeks of the class
and every night I have to go home and do
progressive muscle relaxation. I loved doing that and I got
to see other people what they look like when they're anxious,
and and it wasn't it was just interesting. I have
no other comment on it. But we did a graduation

(28:44):
flight from Boston to New York and back, and it
didn't work for me. We used to rate our anxieties
zero to ten, and I was still at a ten.
Like every time we had to rate, I would get
down lower. But then once we got on the plane,
I was like ten and everyone was like zero on
you'r dr L I love you, and like everyone's having
the best time on the plane and I'm white knuckling

(29:05):
and I'm like grabbing his arm and he's like Jen
and I'm like and he basically told me when we landed,
he said you know, I don't think you just have
a fear flying. I think you have an anxiety disorder.
And I was like, oh and and by this point,
like I wasn't just scared. I was I think I
was twenty. I had a lot of panic attacks in college,
Like I was an acting major, and a lot of

(29:25):
that was laying on the floor and doing deep breathing.
And again it was an existential thing where we lay
on the floor and do deep breathing, but it was
in this like tenth floor of a building, and the
teacher would open the windows and tell us to look
into the sky and imagine the sky. And I didn't, well,

(29:46):
wait a second, I'm having a thought. I just want
to run this by you. So you have this like
what you think it's fear of flying. And then and
at the same time, you're an acting major and you
said before like you to dance and stuff. So you're
on stage and you're in front of people, and you're
doing things that like I want to say this subjective,
but like a somewhat objectively the things that you're doing
are kind of scary for a lot of people. But

(30:08):
those things weren't scary. So I wanted to separate for
a second. There is a difference between like being fearful
and having an anxiety disorder. They are not one and
the same. So we're like a lot of people are
in that flying class because they have this just straight
up baseline fear of flying. Some might put anxiety in

(30:29):
that category somewhere, But you have a panic and anxiety
disorder because it's not like you were just this fearful
person who was scared of scary things because you could
do these things that would put a lot of people.
If you ask me to get on a stage and
dance or do something like that when I was younger,
no way I I would have been having my own

(30:52):
fear response because that's scary, but that also was fun
for you. So that makes total sense. Yeah, I probably
didn't even really have a fear flying. It was that
my panic disorder was really aggravated by being on a
plane and I didn't want to experience it manifest in
this like this unknown of something. And there's probably more
to unpack in there, but I just I think that
anxiety can be a fancy word for fear, yes, And

(31:15):
I think sometimes it's not just that you're scared, it's
that you have an anxiety disorder, so it might not
be anything about this thing. So we're doing all this
work of like what is it about the plane? And
then this and then that, and then it's like, wait
a second, this is like a bigger issue. Yeah. And
you know it's funny too, because when I was twelve,

(31:37):
my grandfather died and we weren't closer anything. Was the
first death in my family. And I just read this
book Anxiety The Missing Stage of Grief by this woman
clear bit Wall Smith, and I interviewed her for my
podcasting Anxiety Bites. It will come out in a few months,
but there's a lot of stuff in the book that's about,
you know, like death causes anxiety obviously, the real I mean,
when someone dies, it causes us anxiety. And I think

(31:58):
I had just like a real, existential, massive fear of
death and that that's when all my panic attacks became,
not just about the plane. It was like the nuclear war.
My grandfather died, I felt like I'd been cooled, like
here I was on Earth, pretty good life, and then
I'm like, wait, we die, you know, I just like
it all hit me, like what the hell is this
all about? You know? And I think I was just

(32:21):
so afraid. And that to me is I don't know,
like who knows where anxiety disorders begin or end? But
I was really affected by certain things. But yeah, so
that fear flying course, when he said that, I went,
that makes sense. And then you know, I went to
like a couple of therapists at school that were terrible
and I don't even know what. But then I just
I don't even again, how could I remember this? It

(32:42):
was so long ago. I found someone and I started
going after I graduated college, and I think she was
like ten dollars sliding scale or something. Yeah, and I
told her about my panic and she, you know, said
all the things that you know, everyone says that it's
just over adrenaline and some reaction. And she taught me
some techniques of like staying in the moment, and it

(33:05):
really helped. Like I was able to ride the subway again,
and and and I moved to New York like a
year later. And sorry, that's what I mean by read
the subway. I I moved to New York, and I
was able to read the subway using some of the
techniques she taught me. I still sometimes had panic attacks
and had to run off. I one time asked a
cough if you could drive me back to Brooklyn. He
said no, No, I mean I was in the Times

(33:28):
Square area, and like who runs off the subway in
Times Square and serving a panic attack? Like a couple
more stocks. So you know, it was like I had
no chill still when it came to having a panic attack,
I still didn't have the tools to talk myself down
in it. I would still just kind of white knucklet

(33:48):
till it was over. At least I knew what it
was after it happened, and I was doing a lot
of prep so that I wouldn't have them. In general,
I'm curious to like, what gave you the like okay,
to like I'm going to tell somebody, like even if
it's a therapist, that these things are happening, because before
it was like, well if I tell somebody, I'm going
to be locked up. I think it was because it

(34:09):
started with that fear flying that my parents knew I had,
and going to that class and just sort of I
don't know, it just sort of all made sense in
my head that I don't know, I just sort of
knew in my gut that it was okay. And when
he said you have an anxiety disorder, he didn't say
it like and I'm so worried. He was just like, yeah,
you should just go to therapy for this, like in general,
and it doesn't have to be about planes. And I

(34:29):
was like all right, And if an authority figure told
me something, I was like, well that then that's that,
for for better or for worse. And in this case,
I was like great, and it didn't scare me. It
must have just known in that moment, Okay, this is well.
He wasn't like you have an anxiety to sort of
time to take you away. He was like, you should
go to therapy. Well you know what he said, which
I really appreciated that. I didn't actually appreciate it until

(34:51):
much later in life, as he said, you're the youngest
one here, like I told you before, and he said
this is the time of your life. He basically presented
it like you want to get rid of this ans
I need so that you can go have some fun.
And since I did enjoy having fun, that connected with me,
which is like, oh, yeah, that's right. You know. It's
to live your life. It's not because something's wrong and
I don't know, it just all sort of you deserve it,

(35:13):
you deserve to go get some help. And it took
a long time. I mean I got help for like
one tiny thing in a time, and then you don't
realize it's connected to that, and blah blah blah. And
I mean I still was a complete reactionary, spastic person
for like a good fifteen years after that, you know,
and just but it was like it was livable. But
I still every instinct was to keep my life small,

(35:36):
keep it small. And then it was like, you know,
I wanted to be a comedian. I wanted to be
an actor. I didn't know what this like. If I
saw comedians on like The Tonight Show, I didn't know
that they did gigs where they had to travel. I
didn't know any of that. So when I started doing
stand up, my goal was not to go touring, like,
not at all. I just wanted to be on TV.
So then like as I started doing stand up around

(35:56):
New York or on l A getting more popular, blah blah,
it just happens that you have to start touring and
make a living, and so I would still, you know,
I moved to l A, but I took a train
to move here from the East coast because it was
after nine eleven. And that was like, I mean talk
about like validating the worst fear I'd had. I was
it didn't make me afraid to fly because I thought

(36:17):
that was going to happen again. I just said, I'm
gonna be thinking about I'm gonna have a panic attack
on the plane. I don't want to do that. So
but you know, I I moved to l A and
and eventually other comedians would say, oh, do you want
to come be my opening act? And I would start
if someone said, you know, be my opening act in
Philadelphia in a month, I would book a flight and
then claim I had a weird feeling about it, and

(36:38):
then try to call and rebook it and and oh,
well that's gonna cost money. Screw it, just put on
my credit card. So it's like the anxiety leads to
like stupid crap, like longer term like getting into a
debt on a credit card, you know, like that just
because you keep changing a flighter. I would call people
and be like, do you think it's gonna be okay?
I mean, but what about this? And eventually, do you
know that book about quitting smoking the Easy Way to
Quit smoking. But Alan carr uh, it's like a book

(37:01):
a lot of smokers have read and everyone claims they
just quit right away. It's it's pretty good. I don't
know how he does this, but he wrote one about flying,
The Easy Way to Enjoy Flying, and he said something
that really connected. That was like, unless you're walking around
afraid planes are falling on your head, you don't have
a fear of flying. If you're not calling your family
when they're getting on a plane and crying and saying

(37:21):
you're gonna die, then you don't actually think planes are
scary and bad. You don't like just grow up and
admit it. This is a control issue. And that high
a second. That's good. It's so good. That's because that's
so true. If you're really that afraid, you think that
all these planes are just like crashing all over the place,
and you wouldn't want anybody that you love to get
on a plane. Yeah, you'd be like chicken little like no, no,

(37:44):
you know. And and it was just like that helped. Now,
didn't do anything to stop the panic attack. No, but
blah blah, cut to I just get more well known,
I start touring and truly like, that's the thing is
I loved traveling. I mean that was where this all began.
Is my instinct as a little kid was can we
go there? And that was always my favorite part of
Disney World and Epcot Center was like the fake pavilions

(38:06):
of all the different countries. And I had such a
spirit of adventure that was just completely destroyed by anxiety.
And by the time I was in my late thirties,
I finally got to fly and practice. I got to
fly times a year instead of once, and I think
that's what happened. And I would take clonupin when i'd fly,
not a crazy amount, but what started happening is take

(38:29):
a half o'clonup in on the way out the door
of the airport, take one getting on into the airport,
and then take one getting on the planets. So now
that equals one point five milligrams. And I did that
for years, and so it almost like Pavlovian. Now I
don't stay clinic, and when I walk into an airport,
when I want to walk into an airport, I'm calm.
And now I'm just so glad that I'm not panicking,

(38:50):
that nothing about travel bothers me. I mean, obviously, in
my mind, I might go, why is this baggage claim
taking so long? Why is that person coughing? But in
general I'm not a stress case about travel because I've
already stressed it like so so anyway, it's just like
the phobia. Once the phobia was wrangled, I kind of
thought I was in the clear. And then, like maybe
in my early forties, I had people tell me I

(39:12):
think you have a d h D. Relationships I was
in people would say, you know, I really can't deal
with your anxiety, and I'd go, what anxiety? I don't
have anxiety. I worked it out, but it would be
like the kind of anxiety where maybe a negative attitude
or maybe you know, I've got to call my boyfriend
network and tell them about this shipping thing that went
wrong that was supposed to be delivered. Like these people

(39:33):
don't need to know every detail of every minute. It's like,
I don't know. I just had a few years were
like I'm flying to Australia by myself and I'm like
never panicking, and yet now my anxiety is coming out
in different ways, which is very like disordered thinking, a
d h D reactionary and wasn't until like four years
ago that I was like, oh, this thing moves around

(39:55):
or more since you that control route. So if you're
talking about like this isn't about my phobia. It's about control,
whether it's controlling death, controlling whatever it is. Okay, so
we've taken that. I no longer have to control that
because now I feel good and safe and hole in
this space. But then where am I going to get
my control? And the uncertainty I think that like a

(40:18):
wonderful word that pairs with anxiety. Is this like uncertainty,
like I don't know what's going to happen, and so
my anxiety does this thing where it tries to fill
in the blank, and we get dopamine when we fill
in the blank, but then we that wears off, and
then so we need more than what if we were wrong?
So we no longer have to fill in the blank
about the plane, But then where are you going to

(40:39):
fill in the blank? God, that's I've never KNOWNE has
ever said it to me like that point. It makes
so much sense, And now I'm like obsessed with uncertainty,
like I love it. It doesn't bother me, you know,
I'd say, now I my anxiety today, the way it
hits me would be more like a PTSD response. And
what I mean by that is like I might get

(41:00):
really focused on something if I feel like it's unfair,
this is unjust, you know, like something that triggers being
bullied as a kid or whatever. I don't know. I
just kind of can get like caught up and stuff
like that, or like hyper focus on something. Yeah, and
and it's all like my a d h D was
just wild the past couple of years. And I had
a root canal during the you know, we're still in

(41:20):
the pandemic. But when it was a little safe to
go back to the dentist, I went back and they
were like, oh my god, like the roots of your
blah blah tooth are like pretty destroyed and you need
a root canal. I was like, what, you know, I
brush my teeth and he's like that's from teeth clenching.
And I actually felt like I had a pretty easy pandemic,
so I was like I'm fine, and it's like no,
now the anxieties like sneaky, like I'm finding all the

(41:43):
places it's hiding and now it's like ha ha, I
will clench your teeth in the in the night, and
you will need a root canal. So it's like, you know,
it moves around. Well, so here's my question for you. Then,
as your anxiety is moving around, and and who knows,
you might choose to I'd rather have clean sween my
teeth in, you know, feeling like I'm going to die
in a plane. Somebody else might have a different opinion.

(42:05):
But but as your anxiety is moving around, what have
you learned about like the coping with it? Because I
think that one thing is that, like, I have tons
of anxiety, tons, and it manifests in different ways. But
I live a full life, and I think there's things
that we can do with ourselves to be able to

(42:26):
do that. And so what have been some really helpful
whether they're like mantras or like behaviors or systems that
you've created that allow you to like, I can live
a full life with and I can have anxiety and
it doesn't define me and I don't have to be
afraid I'm going to be sent to an asylum. I
think I've flipped everything on its head that I used
to think, So that existential crisis, you know, Oh my god,

(42:47):
why are they talking about the war and the fift
hundreds of the world has been around. I've now turned
it into curiosity. Now I love space travel, I love
thinking about death, the afterlife, whatever you know. Um, I've
turned it's my identity, which would make me sort of
defensive and like, ay anxiety because I went through a
whole phase of like I'm better than everyone because I
have anxiety because it makes you smart. You know, that

(43:08):
will so gross. So I've turned that into not my
identity but something I can be honest about. So, hey
have anxiety. So I'm not sure how this flight is
gonna hit me today. So I got to cancel dinner
plans or what you know. And it's just I'm I
own it, but I don't. It doesn't own me. And
then another way I cope with it. Is the biggest

(43:29):
one of all, which was what made me want to
start my podcast, is I have a sense of humor
about it, which, hello, is a comedian. The last place
I put my humor was in dealing with this. I
I thought it was so serious and now it's just like,
oh that old thing, Oh the anxiety. You know. It's
just I realized that I can just have a sense
of humor about the way I deal with it, or

(43:49):
I can think about it. Like one story I told
I think on my episode that you heard, is that
there used to be this woman I worked with could
come to your desk and she'd sigh and she'd wait
for you to go, what's wrong, Lisa, and if you
it and she'd walk away. And so it's like my
anxiety is like like that. It's like Lisa like comes
over wants my attention and I don't have to give
into it. And and then I also have like I
go to talk therapy once a week. Sometimes we do E. M.

(44:12):
D R. Work. I mean, every little thing I can do.
I sleep with a weighted blanket, like I started doing
that after the teeth grinding. Sometimes I don't have a
ton of fun I you know, try to do something
physical every day, like I like to hike and whatever.
Uh and you know, but you know, I drink a
ton of coffee and it doesn't affect me. It's like
anxiety is not so literal with me in that sense.
And I think also just just staying I meditate, staying

(44:35):
in the like beauty of the uncertainty instead of the
scariness of it, because I can list more good things
that have happened to me after a period of uncertainty
than bad, if that makes sense. Like, honestly, everything bad
that's ever happened to me, you could kind of predict it.
Somebody died this, you know, you got sick. Yeah, we
know that's going to happen. Everything amazing that's ever happened

(44:55):
to me has been I never planned it, Holly ship,
Can I say that? You know as whatever as I've
been sitting here stressing about money, like this amazing job
like came through the next day, so that must have
been in the works while I was stressing. So I
try to think about it like that, you know, like
everything bad that's ever happened I already knew because we
know the bad things in life, and everything amazing came
out of the blue, so I just I just rearrange it.

(45:17):
I am obsessed with that, that like, because I love
the curiosity thing. I love that that I think is
one of the best tools, is like what if we
just were more curious than afraid? Like what if there
was more wonder in our lives? And I think wonder
has a different wonder versus worry, Like wonder is this like, oh,
that's because that's the same. They can essentially come from

(45:38):
the same thing, right, But like, but wonder has this
beauty to it and worry has this like tenseness to it. Um,
but we can do that with the same thing. But
for you to say that, like every really really awesome,
amazing thing has come out of this like uncertain time
and that's what has made them so great. So when
I'm in a time that feels uncertain, what if I

(45:58):
leaned into the fact that a lot of good stuff
come from that. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Like bad things happen,
but like a lot of really good things happen within uncertainty,
And I forget that. Like that's so simple but like
so true, and I love that. And I try to
stay away from stuff that's like like affirmations that are

(46:18):
solid you know, I will have this, because I think
that can make people like me more anxious, So I
I do. I like to do affirmations that are are
like mantras that are like I don't know, you know,
just like whatever's best, I think it'll you know, that
kind of thing. I just try to change my mindset
from like woe is me, I'm unlucky to like know,
actually the complete opposite is true, you know, and I
think that like affirmations that are like you will do X,

(46:41):
it's like, well, you might be lying to yourself and
that's not helpful, Like we don't know. That's part of
the like curiosity and like the uncertainty is we don't
really know. So for you to say like maybe like,
well I don't know what's going to happen, but also
I've taken care of myself like up until now, so
whatever is done mean I I'm most likely we'll be
able to handle and if not, I'll figure it out

(47:02):
and I'll get some help. But yeah, I love the
way that you're you're thinking about that and inviting the
humor in man even a therapy. That's one of the
reasons that I started this podcast because I'm like, oh
my god, Like why do people think that therapies is
like big, bad, scary thing that's wrong? When I laugh,
I'm I do therapy. I saw six seven clients today.
I laughed so much. Some days really really hard. But

(47:26):
we're also allowed to invite excitement and fun into the
depths of our lives. Like not everything has to be
like don't take yourself so serious, and I bet life
will be a little bit more fun, yea. And if
you know, I would say, like, I seriously have anxiety,
but I don't take it so seriously. And and now
it's just sort of like I don't know, I don't know.

(47:46):
I don't really know what the big turnaround has been.
But I just know I've been happier in the last
couple of years, which is hard to say during a pandemic,
but I really was. It was super happy, you know.
And again that's I didn't have to worry about certain things,
so it's like super lucky. But I just mean, my
I remember feeling some anxiety during it, even some panic
attacks sometimes. You know. There was a mild earthquake one

(48:07):
night here in California and it was totally normal, but
all the hospitals were full with COVID patients pre vaccine,
and I just my mind went, oh, my gods, mean earthquake.
You need You're gonna need to go to the hospital,
but they're full. And I felt the thoughts and I
felt the sensations and my body was shaking and I
felt like I couldn't breathe, and I was like, just
text one of your friends and just say, oh my,

(48:29):
I'm having this dumbest panic attack, but like say it
like that, don't be like help you know, and it
went away. But it's something that like I talked about
as needed. But it's not like all I talked about
with my friends. I mean they probably when you have
the ability to speak about it, I think that does
lighten it. So you're talking about the difference between now
where like it's out and open. You're talking about even

(48:49):
of a podcast talking about anxiety versus when I was
like sixteen years old, nobody could know this. Well, that's
putting a big old shame pile on top of your anxiety,
which just making even worse. Well, now we can release
that and we can have I hate to say this,
but we can have some fun with our mental health.
That seems like off or wrong, But at the same time, no,

(49:10):
I think it's our given right. I mean there's also
the years like in between I can't tell anyone and hey,
I might mention it. I went through the whole like
victim years where it's like, excuse me, I have anxiety,
like meaning I get to add to however I want
and hurt people. And I have anxiety and so you know,
and now I'm like through that looking glass and it's
just like, oh shoot, I might have to ask someone

(49:31):
if they can help me. Right now, I'm having that
feeling like I can't breathe. You know, that's it, and
it's really nothing anyone can do. It's just saying it
out loud obviously like takes the power away from it. Well,
I feel like I could. I mean, we could go on.
I wish I could take that part of your life
and do a whole another podcast on that, but I'm
sure you're going to talk about it on yours, so
I do. I want to remember our online people to

(49:54):
go listen to Anxiety Bites. It's it's new and so
there's gonna is it weekly now it's weak and we're
doing forty six episodes of season one, so there's a
lot more coming. It's a lot of content, there's a
lot of Yeah. Every week I try to talk about
a different aspect of helping with anxiety, like whether it's
the meditation episode or talking to a neuroscientist or talking

(50:17):
to someone that wrote a memoir. Um, I am going
to do a solo episode around Thanksgiving about fear flying.
I know, that's the busiest travel time of the year
and all that. But yeah, and you know, it's whatever
whatever comes up, I'll talk about, you know, whether it's
a new kind of medication or whatever. But the whole,
the whole point is honest conversation, something I wish i'd

(50:37):
had when I was younger, where we're not whispering, we're
not taking it so seriously, No one's a guru. It's
it's just chatting and hopefully laughing and and like taking
the stigma away from it. So yeah, nobody has to
be hiding the library like you were reading the word panic.
We just get to say it out of podcast out loud,
although hiding in a library sounds very relaxing. Sure, well,

(50:59):
how can people find you so they can find the
podcast anywhere we listen to podcasts? Correct? Yes, I took
a big, simple waters me about like an idiot. Wherever
you get your podcast, you can listen to it. And
if they guess, they can go to my website, which
is my name Jen kirkmand dot com one N and
gin everybody, and you'll see the tab for anxiety bites

(51:19):
and something I'll post about every episode and I put
like little takeaways from each person that you know a
little advice they give. So go to my website and
you can read shorthand like some quick, quick and easy
anxiety tips. Okay, awesome, And then on Instagram where do
they find you? Same thing at Jen current Man. Amazing. Well,
thank you so much. I enjoyed this. Um, I could
sit here longer and talk to you. Well, I'm a talker,

(51:41):
so I'm sorry. If you know what, I'm a talker too,
and so I have to practice letting people talk. So
this is great for me. Have a good rest for
your day. I'll talk thet Yeah you too. Bye bye,