Meaning Making - Apple Cider Vinegar

Con artists come in all shapes. We usually think of slick middle aged men, but even young single moms can weave a compelling story that gets buy-in by people and companies. Apple Cider Vinegar looks at the story of Belle Gibson, somewhat fictionalized, for narrative and legal reasons - and we have LOTS to chat about.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back to Killer Fun. We'll we explore the intersection
of crime and entertainment every other week. I'm Christy and
I'm Jackie, and today today we are talking about apple
cider vinegar. Yummy, yeah, yummy. But some people will do
anything to get attention. It's true, Yeah, it's true. But
before we get into that, you have a little thing
you'd like to share.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I kind of weirdly do.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
It's a silly thing, and so I'm gonna ask you
to a comment as you will. But if you have
seen a Friend's episode where Ross starts his new job
as a professor, and he's nervous, and so he starts using.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
The English accent, you know, and it's terrible.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
It's a terrible English accent, right, and then he tries
to phase it out. Yeah, well, just you know, like
I was trained as a vocalist, right, yes, And so
also I'm from the South, I'm from Georgia, and so
I have a tendency to in any kind of public
speaking situation, even now as like a professor, you know,
to speak clearly. I dropped my accent. And it started

(01:07):
because in Boston I couldn't get work done.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
So and now I'm too old to care.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, so I've I would like to phase out my
proper miss And so if you hear me lapse into
my like true accent throughout the time, that's what's happening.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
And so here's the challenge.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
I'm gonna do it sometimes comment below, on on the
podcast like or on like the socials, comment below, or
you catch me doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, yes, we've reached a point in our lives where
it's it's fine. And I told Jackie, like, just be
do just be yourself. Yeah, you know I need to
like hide that.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
No, it's just it takes more effort than I care
to give it anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, I'm the older you get, the more effort it takes.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
It does. I didn't expect that. I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
I mean, like, you trained through something your whole life
and you do it, but it's more exhausting now.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Uh huh. You know, well do you think that it
would be easier after all the decades of practice that
you've had trying to squash it and now it's just like,
you know, need to slash the thing.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
It always comes out when I'm tired or angry. So
I'm tired now. So it's coming out.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
We're tired for and more.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
On so many us Oh my gosh, yes, okay, maybe
we need some apples out of vinegar.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
It's good for a lot of things, I would say,
not for curing.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Cancer nowood pressure, yes, sure, lowering blood sugar yes.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Uh huh, but not cancer. No. And to be fair,
in this show, they really like don't talk about it,
like I guess it was a thing that happened in
the real life portion of this that is just not
really touched upon. But it's so ubiquitous as a absolute
cure all online. Yeah, it is not, it is not.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
It is not.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Maybe it's kind of like when the trends of the oils,
you know, like oils cat and essences are helpful in
certain ways, they have some correlations out there, but.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Like, in no way does it like actually worn off viruses.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
It's not gonna or cancer. No, it's not gonna like
it's not a cure all no, no, no no.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
But I have done the apple side or vinegar thing,
because the thing that's most strongly correlated with is the
blood sugar.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, which is great. Yeah. And if you like, if
it's during cold and flu season, if somebody in your
house gets the flu. I have successfully warded it off
for everyone else by having people take shots of apple
side or vinegar because it changes the pH in your
body to something that the flu does not like.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
So there are legitimate health benefits for it.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right like they are.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
It provides protective factors, sure cures, sure, there you go.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah. But the show, yeah, it was fun.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah. So this cast mostly Australian actors because this is
a story, the real life version of it we'll get
to that took place in Australia. So this is like
it's the year of Australia for us. We've talked about
Australia a lot. It's twenty twenty five already, it's true's February,

(04:28):
so yes, it's only February. Oh lord, I know it's
going to be a long year. But one of the
few people who is not Australian is Caitlin Deaver, who
plays Bell Gibson, the real life person who became huge

(04:52):
in the early days of Instagram after telling the world
that she cured herself of malignant brain cancer with diet.
Caitlin Deaver has also been in Last Man Standing and
The Crime Jo Drama Justified. But what I recognize her
from our two different shows, Unbelievable and Dope Sick.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, Dope Sick.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Dope Sick's amazing. That so was unbelievable. We've talked about
covering Unbelievable in the past, but it's a really tough cover.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
So uh, it's like not that we haven't covered tough things, but.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
But you know, even us, we have our we have things.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, and Dope Sick. I mean, oh my gosh, if
you do trial a Hulu watch Dope Sick in a weekend,
it's so good, it's so worth it, and it'll make
you want to throw something at the Sackler family.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, well, and like we talked about
that a little bit, and there were multiples out at
the same time covering the fentanyl situation and the whole
ms Conton situation, right, and that was something my family
dealt with personally.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, you know, like so my mom had and it.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Was before people really understood, yes, what was happening. Yeah, right,
and I think even the doctors, but I think they
did become aware, yes, and I don't think they changed course.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Bella's fair Yshade plays Chanelle, a friend of Milla Blake
and who worked with Belle Gibson. She's best known for
the comedy drama series The Bold Type on Free Form.
Alicia Debney Carrie plays Milla Blake, who was is portrayed

(06:32):
as an online influencer, except she's not lying about having cancer.
She's been in The one hundred, Fear of the Walking
Dead and a Netflix original film It's What's Inside. Tilda
Cobham Hervey plays Lucy, who is a breast cancer patient

(06:52):
who follows Belle on her social media and buys her book.
She's been in a Daisy Ridley drama Young Woman in
the Sea and an action thriller called Hotel Mumbai. Those
are both Australian shows.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah, and like Young Women in the Sea, I remember
this was up for something for the Oscars.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
It was like a short film or something. I remember
it being and I remember going I should watch that,
I should watch that.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
I did never watch that.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yes, sorry.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Mark Cole Smith plays Justin, a journalist for a Melbourne newspaper,
husband to Lucy, and he's mostly done work in Australia,
so a lot of things that American audiences probably wouldn't recognize.
The Clearing Savage River More. Ashley Zuckerman plays Clive who

(07:50):
becomes romantically involved with Bell. He's in the sci fi
drama Silo on Apple TV Plus. He's been in Session.
And we have Phoenix Ray who plays Heck, the pr
crisis manager. He's on the Netflix mega hit The Night Agent.

(08:11):
He was in Clickbait and then he has also been
on an Apple TV Plus show called Terran.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
By the way, Night Agent has new episodes. If you
are not catching up with that.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
I need to. Yeah, So let's recap, okay, recap. Belle Gibson,
early social media influencer, is not what she appears to be.
She is a young mother with an enormous following on
Instagram and her blog. She is not a cancer survivor

(08:46):
who cured herself with healthy eating, as she stated on
her Instagram and her blog. We understand that something has
gone very wrong for Belle early on, as she's in
this meeting with our crisis management firm. Everything the brain cancer,

(09:06):
the regime of healthy eating to cure that cancer, even
the donations that she supposedly made to charity are a lie,
a lie that Belle isn't ready to give up on
just yet well. It seems that Belle has always had
a flare for medical drama. She was particularly inspired by

(09:28):
another influencer in the medical arena at the time, Mila Blake,
another young woman who really did have a rare and
aggressive cancer that she was managing outside of established Western
medicine treatments. She chronicled this on her blog. It can't
be overstated the damage that Belle primarily did to people

(09:52):
who took her at her word. So there's a title
card that states the following is based on a true story.
Certain care and events have been created or fictionalized. So
it was based on a book. It was called The
Woman Who Fooled the World, and it was by journalists
bo Donmilly and Nick Tuscano and Samantha Strauss who created

(10:20):
the show. This is why Samantha wanted to adapt to
this book for a show. They wrote about the people
who'd been misled by bell and how that had impacted them.
They created this beautiful tapestry that looked at how Western
medicine let us down emotionally and why people are drawn

(10:41):
towards wellness. If the book had been about a cancer scam,
I don't think I would have been that interested in
adapting it for television. Yeah, it does make a statement, right,
and I mean it's important to note that the libel
and defamation laws in Australia are very strong on so

(11:02):
that is why there's a lot of created, fictionalized amalgamations,
different things that have been done so as not to
go a foul and that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
And honestly, when they do that and they adapt it,
it helps to just tell the the actual story because
we can't relive it.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
So so yeah, yes, I mean it's it was needed
legally and for you know, a narrative in order to
be able to tell it in a way that was digestible,
which it was. It's so digestible that acting it's really good.

(11:44):
It is good. It's really good, and the story is
like it's a weird thing to say you enjoy because
it's horrible, but it's also kind of entertaining and they
do a really good job of like making it a
little funny with the whole I mean, the first episode
is called Toxic and they use Britney spears Toxic a
lot and people are dancing to it. It's very fun.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
I mean, it's good and I'm going to rewatch it. Yeah,
I'm gonna, Yeah, I'm just gonna.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
It's good.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
So I had some fun.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
I hope I hope she will chime in with whatever
thoughts she might have. So Bell says her mother has
ms when she's giving a medical history, but that her
pain feels more structural, Like does she not realize that
nerves are a structure?

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah? I don't really know what she meant by that.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
I know what she meant. We'll get to it later.
It's bloney. Yeah, well, yeah that's what she meant.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
But I mean it is hard though, because like when
you go to the doctor and they're trying, you're trying
to describe.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
So this is something I run into.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
I get.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
I get creative because of the way that my brain works.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
If you ask me how is the pain is and
you try to give me these very finite cab I can't.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
I don't know which one right now.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
And the things I used to describe it in the
analogies are just well, they fit my personality, but they
certainly aren't in a textbook. So I have to really
catch myself and be like, no, I have to answer
the question they're asking, because what I want to.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Do is just describe the situation, right, and that doesn't
help them.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Know what it is.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
So Belle Gibson has not been paid for their recreation
of her story. Is Bell breaks the fourth wall and
tells us this, And I'm like, oh good, because we
do not pay swindlers for their story.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
She already got paid for her story she did as
an influencer.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yes, when she spun her little whib That's right, exactly,
she already got paid. We don't pay her. Again, we
don't pay serial killers for their stories. We don't pay
swindlers for their stories. If we're going to pay anybody,
we pay victims. That's right, because this is a public
health announcement right here. Yeap. Belle insists that she's not

(14:08):
a sociopath and that she could take personality quizes and
they would identify her as an mpath. Like guess because
online personality quises are never wrong and people never lie
when taking them.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Never never.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
So let's discuss whether EmPATH is a thing. And I know,
I know there's people out there that just are like,
what at me?

Speaker 2 (14:33):
At me? Let's have a conversation.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Impath No nothing, Oh really, that's a colloquial term. Okay,
to describe her a very different phenomenon that they want.
Then they are meaning it to be okay, most people
when they and so it does not have an actual
operational definition.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Really that's so interesting.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Impath is something people created that is not something that
came from assess and sort of a personality test.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Sweet, Okay, So it might come from a personality test,
but not a legitimate one.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Right, Like, it may be something somebody created to describe
huh something, but it's a common feeling, but like or
a common occurrence.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
But you're do how far down the rabbit hole do
you want.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Me to go on this one?

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Okay. You do have to admire Belle's delusion a little
bit because she credits her quote unquote commitment to authenticity
for her huge following. And I'm like, I guess authenticity
it's easy when it's not very authentic, I guess, so
it must be.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Well she hasn't.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, I mean she's creating and you're just scratched and
writing the story aout out lying.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yes, it's easy to be authentic to the character that
you're playing, right, yeah, because that's really what she was doing.
Belle says that she's grateful for the awful thing that
has happened to her. And then I was like, first
of all, no, we can be grateful that we were
able to make something good out of the awful thing

(16:11):
that happened, but we are not grateful for the awful thing.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, I you know there are people who say that differently.
And actually Stephen Colbert said it recently.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Oh really, and he said it. He said it recently
again to Anderson Cooper. Okay, and so I don't know,
all right, here it is. I pulled it up so
I could read it right. You said, This is Anderson
Cooper saying you said, and then quote this is still Stephen.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Colbert's quote, what punishment of God's are not gifts? Do
you really believe that?

Speaker 3 (16:46):
And then so he's choking back tiers as he asks
Stephen Colbert this, and Stephen Colbert says, yes, it's a
gift to exist, and with existing comes suffering.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
There's no escaping that.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
So he has like some other expanded versions of this quote,
like they continue to talk about it, and he says,
I want it to not have happened. But if you
are grateful for your life, which I think is a
positive thing to do. Not everybody is, and I'm not always.
But then you have to be grateful for all of it.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Uh huh uh huh uh huh. No, yeah, it's awful.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
It's hard. I disagree because I don't think you have
to be grateful for the bad things, so you can
be grateful that something good came from it. But I
always think, you know, I have preferred to learn this
lesson in a different way.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
The question is can you learn it?

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Maybe maybe not, But you know what, I think there's
a lot of things that I thought I never could learn,
right that without having experiencing having experienced it specifically. But
the older I get and the more experienced that I have,
that's tertiary. I can appreciate the knowledge without having to

(18:03):
have actually gone through the thing, right.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Right, it's just that somebody else did, Right, So you're
still learning off of the terrible thing that happened, even
if it didn't happen to you.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, but I can be great. I don't. I'm not
going to be grateful that a bad thing happened to me, right,
I'm not grateful that a bad thing happened to somebody else,
But I'm grateful that we can learn the lesson.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
See, that's the thing we can learn. We can be
grateful for the information we've learned from the terrible thing,
without being grateful for the terrible thing.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah, And I think that's the nuance. Yeah, but it
is hard.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
It is a very hard and sticky word thing because
I think that we're splitting a hair there, and I
think the hair though, like, okay, Stephen Colbert says it,
and other people do like they're grateful for the thing
because you know, they're not picking and choosing and they're
they're learning. But I think what you're saying is very
wise also because it allows us to also be better

(19:01):
right and not accept bad, you know. And I want
to believe that we're able to learn without these awful,
traumatic things happen. I'd love for it to be regular,
just challenges that grow us that aren't, like, you know,
such big giant things that leave like a wake of

(19:22):
destruction alongside the learning.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Right exactly. Yeah, you can learn those lessons in a
different way that's less destructive. And so I don't have
to be grateful for the awful thing that happened, because
I could have learned that in a different way. I
can be grateful for the knowledge without being grateful for
the thing that happened.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Right, Like I can be I can still have challenge
and even in a certain maybe even a certain amount
of suffering like disappointment and things like that, without it
like crossing into that like evil trauma area.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Right well, and I can recognize that everybody's going to
have that and also no one.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah right right right, Like that's the hair, right, I mean,
it is the hair.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
That I'm gonna split.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
It's just it's so hard when you listen to Stephen
Colbert and Anderson Cooper, who both love yeah you know,
and and to hear but this is their takeaway.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
And I think for them what it does, though, is
it does reconcile the story.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
I wonder if that's a man thing.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
No, it's a psychology thing. Oh okay, good. People want
to reconcile the story. Yeah, And so that I think
that's why most.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
People don't split the hair, because if they split the hair,
they're still carrying around.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
This immense unfairness.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Oh yeah, it doesn't have a meaning, right, But when
you have that level of grief, you can't move on.
You need to be part of a story that means something,
and so people put it in the story so that
they it sounds like they're grateful for the horrible thing.
It's not that they're just putting meaning into the whole story.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Sure, right, Okay, I can appreciate that. I can appreciate
both sides of that.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
My second thought, okay, when it came to Bell being
grateful for the horrible thing that happened to her, is like,
it's easy to be grateful for the horrible thing that
didn't actually happened to you, and you have faced literally
none of the challenges, right yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Ooh. So Milla insists on another option other than an
amputation for her doctors, and her doctor does give her
one death. I'm like, it's harsh, but he's not wrong. Yeah,
and it really is an option. It is an option, right,

(21:47):
We're gonna get to that in a minute. So pregnant
Bell in like a flashback. She's returning a baby blanket
and she tells the lady at the store that she
asked to return it because she's allergic to synthetic fibers. Like, girl,
the tights you have on are synthetic fibers.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
I mean, the weird thing is people who are super
allergic to stuff get the synthetic fibers.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
You're more likely to be allergic to cotton and.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Feathers, yes, than synthetic fibers. Right, Yes, because it's basically plastic.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
They have irradiated it. I know it's like allergen free.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
And also there's nothing wrong with buying a gift on sale.
She was very annoyed that they bought her baby blanket
on sale, and I'm like, that's just smart.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
I mean really, Okay, I had something ugly to say,
and I'm not gonna say. You can guess in the.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Comments, Okay, resources this one's a touchy. If you are
an adult with cancer, the treatment you do or do
not get is largely up to you. So from the
Cancer Council Australia, you do have the right to accept

(23:07):
or refuse treatment that is offered to you. They do
suggest that you take weight of the advantages and disadvantages
of any treatment that you are offered. Ask a lot
of questions of your doctors. You can ask if there
are alternate treatments available, or if there are clinical trials
that you can be a part of. If you don't

(23:28):
like the options that are given to you, you can
ask for more. Miller did this. She did not like
the answers very well, but she did ask for it,
so that's good. And then you also kind of have
to consider what the side effects of treatment are going
to be and how that's going to affect you, and
you do have a right to a second opinion. Now,

(23:49):
I think maybe in Australia that's a little easier to handle.
In the US it can be really sticky because doctors
don't like to give second opinion unless you're going to
actually transfer and become a full time patient for them.
So yeah, but you can still ask for it, and

(24:11):
you know, tell your doctor that you have confidence in them,
but you just want to know if there are other options.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah, an easy way, like okay, well not easy, but
there are major hospitals in the US that are their
second opinion kind of well I hate to say factories,
but like they do this, and doctors are maybe a
little bit more willing, yeah, because they so M. D Anderson, Okay,
if you were to go because most doctors are like, well,

(24:38):
they have more information about clinical trials and alternate treatments
than I have, so it's a little less insulting to
be like, yeah, I'm going to go to the major
cancer institute and get their opinions, see what else is available. Right,
the doctor is more likely to be like, yeah, tell
me what's happening. Yeah, you know, because yeah it can
be a little sticky, right, but don't be afraid.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
No, you're entitled to ask for that.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
So I wanted to know what refusing treatment actually looks like.
So we saw Milla really like wholesale refuse treatment, and
that's actually pretty rare. BMC Palliative Care had in a
study about this and that really almost all cancer patients

(25:25):
seek treatment of some kind. It's a very seldom do
people wholesale refuse treatment. Even Milla didn't wholesale refuse treatment,
she just went with an alternative type of treatment. But
what they found when they actually studied it a little
more closely was that they were looking at the resilience

(25:48):
of patients, and the longer you're in treatment, the lower
your resilience is. Refusing treatment actually tends to come about
as people can sling appointments, they cancel, They call and
cancel an appointment with their ecologists and say they're going
to reschedule but they don't want to do it right now.
They call and cancel their treatments and say they're going

(26:12):
to reschedule, but don't actually ever do it, And so
it tends to be the kind of thing that oncologists
even don't recognize this happening. Family doesn't really recognize it's
happening until it's been a while since they've gone for treatment.
And they said, refusal of treatment is like an iceberg,

(26:35):
and the majority of patients who have abandoned treatment are
unknown to the health system. So that's in practice what
refusing treatment.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Looks like a lot of times. Yeah, my grandmother actually
refused to treat my fur cancer.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
That's super fair. She was your grandmother.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
She was an older woman, she was in her sixties
okay when she was diagnosed, okay, and she was like, nah,
I think I'll just live because as they told her,
you won't. You have some symptoms, but they're manageable, and
they were like, you won't really feel like the horrible
stuff except for like the last couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Yeah, and you'll feel that coming.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
On because you'll have some worse days and when that flips,
the more worse days and better days that's when it happens.
And she lived for years, yeah, because and she traveled
the world and she became super active, and she just
kept going because.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Because at that time, especially the treatment more likely.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
To kill you well. And that is my next level
of assistance is that if you have a loved one
who is refusing cancer treatment, how you can handle that.
This is from the University of Virginia's Health science system,
and that you, as a family member can really really

(27:54):
want your family member to quote unquote fight fight, right, Like,
that's kind of what we saw from Milla's dad, and
not everybody wants to do that. So they suggest you
start with understanding that you go to the oncologist with
your family member, make sure that they know what options

(28:17):
that they have available to them, go and visit like
counselors or support groups together so that they can get
a real clear picture of what it can look like
to go through treatment. Depending on the cancer and how
severe it is, treatment may not really extend their life

(28:38):
very much, and it may significantly impact their quality of life.
So like your grandmother recognized that her quality of life
was going to be very impacted and she was not
willing to deal with that. For something that was going
to extend her life as an uncomfortable and miserable.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
At the risk of actually ending early because of complications, right,
she decided that she wasn't going to do that exactly.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
So if a family member has decided that they don't
want treatment, you should talk to the oncologist right away
really about options for hospice and palliative care, because that
can really help determine when do you need to go
into hospice. It can make their end of life much

(29:31):
less traumatic for them and for the family.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yeah, palliative care is not to be just pushed to
the very end.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
No, no, And I mean there's a great book so
if you need a resource, like right now, because like
this is an existential crisis.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Attal Glande wrote a book called Being Mortal, and.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
He brings up a lot of this research and it
shows that like, okay, these treatments can for a lot
of particular cancers. It can't extend life, but at the
risk of early ending it and then also bad quality
of health and there's just no life to be had.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
And so.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
What the studies were showing were that people who on
who went on palliative care earlier with these particular type
of cancers actually lived longer and lived better lives.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, so which one do you want?

Speaker 1 (30:24):
You know?

Speaker 3 (30:24):
And then he goes in to rack your brain with
existentialism about death and that's a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
But it's good for people to read.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, yeah, that is a great resource, So thank you
for that.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
So here's how it works. Christie erects her search history.
Hey an essay.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
We promise it's nothing more nefarious than a podcast to
find out what's true some of the psychological motivations behind
the character's actions and real life applications that relate to
our topic. I have no idea what Christie decided to
look up could be the same thing that captured my
curiosity or something I never thought of.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Is it true?

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Ish ish, it's my favorite answer, ish ish.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Belle Gibson did not participate or get paid for this
limited series. Whatsoever. They do break the fourth wall and
say this is a true story based on a lie.
Some names have been changed to protect the innocent. Belle
Gibson has not been paid for the recreation of her story,
which I really appreciated that they used Caitlyn Deaver, who

(31:30):
played her, to deliver this line. When you go on
to subsequent episodes, different people say this line basically throughout
the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Oh, that's so fun. Okay, because I'm only I'm episode one.
I just finished that one, right.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
So Samantha Strauss, the creator of the show, had this
to say, which I think is really excellent. She included
that for a particular reason, I was having a conversation
with a friend whose partner had brained care answer and
they were horrified that I was doing the show. Why
would you want to give this woman any more oxygen?

(32:07):
Are they being paid for it? I thought, Oh, that's
such an interesting visceral reaction. That is something that a
lot of viewers are going to come at it with.
It's important to say right up front that she is
not part of this and she's not being paid nice.
So I appreciated that that. You know, she took that

(32:29):
feedback and was like, I have to include this. Yeah,
it is important to include this now. The Guardian Australia
did attempt to contact Bell to get her reaction, but
she did not share that. Samantha Strauss again said that
it was she felt like she had to walk a

(32:51):
really fine line between humanizing Bell and telling the story.
I didn't want to make the answer for my Bell
the show Bell to just be a bad childhood. I
wanted it to be more complicated than that. But I
think that's the whole game, finding empathy in the writing

(33:12):
of it, but not crossing over the line. I never
wanted to absolve her of what she did. And I
feel like, having watched the whole show like you do,
like it's an explanation not an excuse. Okay, good, well,
because people.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
Having some empathy, not to say sympathy or compassion because
you know whatever, but understanding another person's development can almost
help you put it away, Like if you are you
know at all, like, okay, well, you've scammed us.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
But also there's a little piece of you that are
like hopeful that it was true.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
Right, if you're in that position, that's like really hard
and to just be able to understand this she scammed people,
but also that there's a background and a reason may
actually be able to help somebody say Okay, well I
understand right, they did what they did, and now I
don't need to engage with that anymore.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
Right, yes, And that's fair. And I talk about that,
I feel like I say this a lot with my kids,
particularly in the way I was like raised. Here is
why they behave the way they did. That you hear
my stories and hear something that was not okay because

(34:33):
it was not okay. But I didn't realize that until
he was an adult. And the people who treated me
that way when I was a child are incapable of understanding,
right that that was ever inappropriate. Right, But I will
give them this is not an excuse for the way

(34:55):
they treated me that was clearly in hindsight wrong, and
that you can clearly see now that if I treated
you that way, it would be wrong. But it is
the reason. So it kind of gives you space to
understand that what somebody did wasn't right, but there may

(35:15):
be reasons for it.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Well, I mean it's helpful because it's a bit it's
an autopsy, yeah, yeah, right, And and understanding that helps
you to avoid it because because first of all, we
we none of us can count ourselves out of having
done bad things, right there, and when we do bad things,
we have a lot of reasons why that's the case, right,

(35:38):
We have a lot of particularly outside influences and situational reasons, right,
And when we when somebody else does something bad to
the fundamental attribution error, we.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Tend to say it's because of them, they're bad, right, right. Well,
the thing is, though, like we shouldn't be so you know, arrogant.
I think we can't make a mistake.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
That's pretty bad, right, we can, and we do so,
like we also want a little forgiveness for our complete
misunderstanding and the opportunity to correct and sometimes right Also,
it's just about learning from other mistakes and if you
can understand.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Why, well maybe you can avoid it, right exactly, Yeah,
that's all of it.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yes, So let's figure out who are representations of real
people and who are and how much they're fictionalized?

Speaker 3 (36:32):
Okay, yeah, okay, okay, so real characters versus amalgamations or
fictionalization or complete fictionalizing.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yes, story okay, right, okay, So Bell Gibson is obviously
factionalized version of a real person. Right. How about Milla Blank?

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I feel like Milla Blink was an amalgamation?

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Okay, that is very good. Yes, she was basically inspired
by multiple wellness influencers, according to a Forbes dot com article. However,
she is most closely based on a woman named Jessica Ainscough,
who was diagnosed with a rare soft tissue cancer in

(37:18):
two thousand and eight. It was suggested to her that
she have her arm amputated, just as Milla was suggested,
and she did a course of directed chemotherapy and then
decided to treat it with a unproven method related based

(37:39):
on diet. Where it differs is that apple Cider Vinegar
shows Belle and Milla as having a relationship of some sort,
and for the most part, I don't want to give
away too much. I don't want to like spoil the
end of the show. They they did not have a

(38:02):
relationship in real life. Okay, So once you've watched the
rest of it, I'll tell you, Okay, have a comeback then,
or I'll just tell you I'll cut this bit out
and I'll just tell you. But whatever, we can come
back and talk about it, or we can not. It's fine.

(38:24):
How about Lucy Guthrie, the coffee shop owner. I feel
like that's fictionalized. Yes it is. She is a completely
fictional character who is to represent the people who followed
Bell Gips okay, and how they were duped. However, her

(38:45):
husband Justin is loosely based on the journalists who wrote
the book. Okay that the show is based on so
Boe not only Costano. Okay, but that's how they were
able to narratively titled.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Okay, gotcha, it makes sense.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Chanelle no last name given. Is she based on a
real person?

Speaker 2 (39:18):
I don't know?

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Okay, that's fine, she actually is. So there was a
woman named Chanelle mcoffliff who she'd never worked with Belle,
but they were friends. Oh okay, So, and she is
the one who raised suspicions about Belle.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
Oh interesting, she really did.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Chanelle. They don't give a last name in the show,
but this real woman of Chanelle really did go to
the police and try and get them to do something,
and when they basically told her there was not a
lot they could do, she were with the journalists. Yeah,

(40:03):
and she really did see that Belle was putting out
these oh, super healthy living and this is how you
beat cancer, and then saw her doing things that were
not super healthy living, like drinking and whatnot behind the
scenes and not revealing that to any of her yeah,

(40:27):
any of her followers. And she did confront Belle and say, look,
do you prove to me you have cancer? Who and
of course she could not write interesting and finally, heck
the crisis management.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
Professional again, I think amalgamation.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Okay, he's actually not amalgamation, but he is a it's
a fictional name.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Really.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
He was not in Santa Monica, okay. He was in
Australia and he was a PR professional named Alex Toomey
at Bespoke Approach and they did advise her in a
lot of ways to help her navigate because she was
getting death threats, she was being hounded by journalists. People

(41:19):
in the comments were asking for clarification and justification and clarity.
Belle was silent on the issue, which made them angrier
and angrier. And she was very vague with her story
with mister Toomey, just as she was in the show,

(41:41):
and he asked bluntly for proof that she had cancer,
which she was never really able to produce anything substantial,
and he basically told her, look, don't defend yourself, come clean,
tell the truth, try and disappear, which is the advice

(42:03):
she was given in the show, and that's basically what
he told her, and that the best she could hope
for was that the media was stop writing about her.
So he's pretty faithful in in the professional ways that
he engaged with her.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Where Yeah okay, yeah, I mean I guess, I guess
that's what you do.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah, I mean right, this is why you hire crisis
management professional true to help you.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
I mean no, I mean wow, I was just about
to open a can of worms. Yeah, let's not wait
wait Blake Lively, Okay, move on.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yes, moving on. So Belle kind to be in her
early twenties when all of this went through. How old
was she really early twenties?

Speaker 2 (42:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
I mean I say that, but like, well you see
it in the first episode that her she claims to
be in her early twenties and her coworkers are like,
uh no, I mean no.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
I don't think so, but I probably late twenties.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
No, no, oh younger she was seventh She was no.
Seventeen when she moved to Melbourne and eighteen when she
gave birth. She was pretending to be older than she
was to be taken more seriously, well.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
I don't understand that. Yeah, okay, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah wow yeah, so can you go to the Hirsh Institute. No, no,
so the Hirsh Institute is not real, but the Gershan
institute is real. The protocol showed in the show, okay

(43:55):
is pretty well based on the Gershian therapy. Okay, so
it's complex. People use it to treat cancer. It is diet,
dietary supplements, liver enzyme injections, enemas, and it does require
that it be followed pretty exactly. There have not been

(44:19):
laboratory or animal studies published about the Gershon therapy and
scientific journals at all. There have been some retrospective studies, okay,
so one in nineteen ninety has studied a diet similar
to the Gerson therapy and they received it alongsides standard

(44:40):
treatment and that it did appear to help patients live
a little longer and have furic complications with their traditional therapy.
In nineteen ninety five, melanoma patients who had stage three
or stage five did seem to live longer following the

(45:05):
Gershon therapy as opposed to traditional therapy, and it did
seem to in some ways have some physiological and psychological
benefits for patients. There have been at least three deaths
reported in relation directly to the coffee enemas. Okay, so

(45:27):
you do have to be really careful that they're what
they recommend is very extreme. I would not recommend it
for most people. But per their website, per the Gersian
Institute's website, they support patients going to see oncologists and
using this more as a complementary treatment after they've done

(45:51):
the initial treatment at the at A Gershian Institute, which
those are located in Tijuana, Mexico and Budapest, Hungary. So
they whereas in the show they kind of.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Show like as if it's like a literal alterna.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Yes, like very much. Chemotherapy is poison right, don't you
said don't do it? This is very much at least
now we're marketed as a complimentary therapy that can make
things easier, and that's fair.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
I mean, what we're warning about the diet now, yes,
definitely supports that it should be a factor in your treatment.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
But like you said, complimentary right, part of the whole intervention. Sure,
because they're not wrong.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
Chemotherapy is actually poisoned, right, I mean, and it's meant
to be, but it's targeted.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
It's supposed to be. It's supposed to be, you know,
like you're finding fire with fire a little bit.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
You know, sure, which also that's a thing that's actually
a thing, and so you know, yeah, so why not
give your body the best support it can while it's
doing a Hail Mary past.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Well, and even if it just makes the complications of
chemotherapy less problematic than maybe it's worth trying for sure.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Also, I am one here for a placebo effect. Yes,
one hundred here, absolutely, sign me up. Yes, placebo effect.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Yes, because even if you know it's a Placibo effect.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
It still works.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
So what does a brain tumor feel like?

Speaker 3 (47:34):
Oh? God, nothing, I mean, it feels like symptoms that
don't feel like you're head hurting.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
I don't know exactly. It can be headaches, but that
tends to be pretty advanced. Really, what you're going to
find is the neurological changes because as the tumor grows,
it pushes on parts of the brain and it changes
the way you be. Hey, if your brain doesn't actually
have any pain receptors, so it really has to get

(48:03):
large enough to like stretch the lining.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
And stuff of your brain, maybe pushing on the on
the fluid. Nah, no way, yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
Right, So for her to say it was structural feeling
is completely erroneous. Yeah, Like that's sense. Something is seventeen
year old might say, oh so true. All of the
sources that we use to inform our discussion here on

(48:31):
Killer fund Podcast can be found on our social media.
Join us on Facebook at Killer Fun Podcast, exploring the
intersection of crime and entertainment. You can find us on
Twitter at Killer Funpod, or you can send us an
email at Killerfunpodcast at gmail dot com and I'd be
happy to share a link to whatever information you're looking for.

(48:53):
We love to hear from you. You might learn a
little something too. Psychology brick Bells pretty familiar with Munchausen syndrome. No, yeah,
oh oh yes, yeah, except it's not called Munchausen syndrome disorder,

(49:14):
not anymore. It is in the DSM five, but as
fectidious disorder imposed on self. It's pretending to have certain
physical symptoms, are actually making yourself ill to have physical symptoms.
That's basically what it is. We saw this in the

(49:35):
sixth sense, you know, was Munchausen by proxy, basically a
little bit. It's still colloquially called that, but the diagnoticians,
I'm not going to call it that anymore. Altering diagnostic tests,
falsifying symptoms that you have intentionally harming yourself. I don't
know that we saw her intentionally harm herself, but she

(49:58):
does seem to really like do a lot of this stuff.
Other symptoms might be an inconsistent medical history check changing
or falsifying your identity check, not wanting to allow providers
to meet with your family or friends or speak with
other providers that you've seen check. And we don't know

(50:20):
exactly what causes this. It could just be personality. It
could be biological factors. It could be past trauma. You're
more likely to see it in cases of abuse or neglect, trauma,
family dysfunction, check jack check. We see all of those
things that those have higher risk factors. Motivations for it

(50:46):
really are things that we see wanting somebody else to
take care of you physically or emotionally, power or superiority
over others. That's kind of what she's doing here. She's
creating a new personal life identity for herself. She didn't
like the hand that she was dealt, so she was
changing it, which normally I would be like, good for you,

(51:07):
except she was lying to everybody. And people with this
condition do know that they're pretending.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Yeah, that's a hard thing, like what where does that
line get drawn between like just straight up con artists
and this this disorder. And I think it's a it's
a bit of a hindsight bias, sure, right, Like we
look them back in hindsight and we understand like the

(51:33):
things that were just all swirling to create this desire
versus like are you a con artist? Right?

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Like you're just a con you know. It's a little
different and yeah, I mean and they like and they
may overlap some I mean, that's where we're at. I
think with Belle, I think there's definitely some legitimate psychological
factors happening here, particularly because she was so young, So
there's some of that, Like she wasn't getting attention at home,

(52:05):
and so she found that she could get attention from
other people by falsifying medical information she had seen that
you'll see that later in the.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
There's also desire just to the influencer job right right,
and like which was like the right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
Yeah. So so Milla did research about the psychological impact
of limb amputation when considering what treatments she was willing
to undergo, and I thought that was actually really astute
of her. Somebody she was also very young not quite
as young as Belle actually was, but about as young

(52:49):
as Bella claimed to be. Yeah, Belle claimed to be Bell,
not Bella.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Bellwlight twilighted for a minute, yeahalk about twilight a lot more.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah, probably according to my sixteen year old.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
Absolutely, you know what, I will talk about it again.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
So there is a the Industrial Psychiatry Journal in January
of twenty sixteen Psychological Effects of Amputation. And this was
a review of studies from India, but it's generally extrapoloid
bowl to other parts of the world that limb amputation

(53:33):
is catastrophic, and it is always irreversible, and it does
typically have emotionally devastating effects for patients, whether it's a
traumatic limit imputation like as part of an accident, or
whether it's part of a treatment plan. It's very stressful

(53:58):
and does tend to lead to depressive issues, feeling of loss,
stigma from the community and within themselves, a difficulty coping
with the impairment.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
Yeah. And I mean the thing is like, of course,
I mean India's population, their culture is different, sure, but
and so there's always that.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
But I will say we've made great strides, sure, because
because meaning making is the difference maker, sure, right, and
so meaning making means everything and so like, now though
we have these amazing influencers, right, people who have.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Prosthetics and whatever.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
Like the funniest one of the funniest videos I've just
watched was two people and they have prosthetic legs.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
They traded and it was hysterical.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
You know.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
It's just like this meaning making, like why did I
lose this?

Speaker 3 (55:03):
You lost that because you saved your life, right right, like,
and there's this idea you know, and certain what limb
you lose matters. A leg far more debilitating in some
ways because the PT is much harder with the prosthetic.
If you have access to the prosthetic right on an arm,

(55:24):
it's easier to.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Learn to live with one arm.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
Sure, your driver's license isn't restricted at that point, like, right,
there's different things, And so it's all about the meaning
making and how you deal with it and making sure
that those who have to go through that have access
to the amazing engineering that we have for prosthetics, sure,
which is pretty cool, you know.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
And it's just about that community like.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
That can like help you get to that place where
you can make that joke where you can trade limbs hilarious,
you know, like.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Being of jokes. Have you seen the video of the
guy who has one leg and he does really hilarious
Halloween costumes.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
Oh yes, Oh he's the best. He's so oh my god,
the whole like Rudolph thing Disney. Yes, it was hilarious, hilarious,
it's so funny. We have access to so many people
who have done such a good job, and I think
that this this stigma will will reduce dramatically. He's just
among the world well that listens, that watches and does

(56:28):
sure exactly, it's it's among the world that does that.
And also as we see it becoming normalized, you can
just sort of m ignore it the past. It it
comes so much easier. Yeah, yeah, I mean we all
want to get to place with like grief where we
can kind of laugh at the good times or laugh

(56:50):
at what's happening, you.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Know, and it is a grief. It is a loss,
of course, so we just have to treat it as that.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Sure. You know, even minor limb loss can be psychologically
challenging for people. So there's been a lot of studies
and things done on people with major limb loss an
arm or leg. But even with a minor limb loss
like a digit like a finger or a partial digit,

(57:19):
amputation can be really like psychologically effective for people, and
there tends to be some neurological pain and psychological pain
that go along with it. And so really they're suggesting
that there be more support for people who lose a

(57:39):
finger or part of a finger emotionally as well as,
you know, physically, like learning how to deal with the
loss of a finger or toe like also go and
talk to a psychological professional and talk about that lot.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
They deserve the same therapy, sure, right, like the mirror therapy,
Like they deserve mirror therapy. Right, I'm sorry, I know
you didn't lose an arm, but the finger still hurts, throbbing,
and it's not there, right, So like, oh my gosh,
you deserve to know about mirror therapy, Like go look
at a mirror and retrain your brain, right, because it
is neural and your brain is like it's gone, but

(58:15):
it's there, and so it's.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
Like all a thing, you know, and you have to
retrain your brain. And there are so many wonderful therapies
out there.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
You know, you deserve that even if it was like
quote quote minor right exactly, especially because guess what.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
If you just go through those therapies early.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
On, Yeah, your outcomes are much better, way better, and
you'll save money. Yeah, so why not, like you'll save
money and stress? I mean, thank you, sign me up right,
real life. Okay, So, one of the alternative therapies mentioned

(58:51):
by Milla to her doctoral team was missiletoe extract therapy,
and they dismissed it completely as junk science. However, Johns
Hopkins has been looking at this because missletoe extract is

(59:13):
derived from the semi parasitic mistletoe plants, but it has
been used in Europe for a long time. So the
guy who like actually like spearheaded it said like cancer
is parasitic and mistletoe is parasitic, like attacks, like that

(59:40):
was junk science, but it actually has some therapeutic value.
So the FDA has not approved it in the US,
but Johns Hopkins has been trying to do some research
because in Europe they've had some success with that. Okay,

(01:00:02):
so is confusing and mixed results, not perfect in Europe,
but they tend to use it along side of other treatments,
so it can boost the immune system, it can help
you better deal with the side effects of chemotherapy. So

(01:00:25):
it's not an instead, but rather an addition to make
right for the most part. And they did have a
study of a particular medication called iscador that is a
prescription version of mistletoe extract, and that when they treated

(01:00:50):
people with pancreatic cancer who only had supportive care, that
they actually lived longer about two months and then the
place placebo group, and they had fewer disease related symptoms.
So it might not be on its own, as Milla

(01:01:12):
was suggesting, like a good treatment. Yeah, However, it can
be a good supportive treatment to help people be more
comfortable in their end days or to deal better with
traditional treatments.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
That makes sense, I mean think about it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
We do like stem cell transplants where where you donate
your own stem cells right right, and then they then
they manipulate them right right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
It's they called it targeted stem cell transplant.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
And what they do is they take these stem cells
and they kind of manipulate the stem cells by sort
of injecting a familial.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
You know, derivative of like.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
What we would see as HIV where it attacks your
own cells. Well, if it attacks your own cells, why
can't we like point the missile, right, and the idea
being that then they receive the stem cells and then
it attacks the things life.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
That's what it does, because that's what was a shiv does, right,
So why can't we do that?

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
And it's been very successful and more and more cancers
are showing that like a stem cell transplant or a
targeted stem cell transplant is you know, kind of helpful.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
So in the same way, like the idea of fight
fire with fire. Yes, that's the same idea, So I
get that. That makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Great. So the Cancer Counsel of Australia does not recommend
the Gershon therapy as an option for taking cancer that
they'll tolerate it basically as a alongside sort of treatment
and eating a lot of fruits and vegetables can be

(01:02:53):
healthy if you're not taking it to extremes. But again,
the coffee animas can be harmful.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
The irony of that, right, Yeah, just drink coffee.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Just drink coffee.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
You'll clear yourself out, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
And theyre's like not been studies, so they don't recommend
it as an alternative treatment. So Belle wanted to restore
her reputation without admitting to her lie, and she really
wanted to restore it quickly. And that's not really something

(01:03:29):
you can do. It's restoring your reputation takes a lot
of work and a lot of time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
It's rebuilding trust.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Well, I mean it totally is. And medium dot com
has an article about how to get your damaged reputation
back and basically, it's like you're gonna have to eat
some crow and it's gonna take a long time. Yeah,
So you have to apologize. And effective apologies have six parts,

(01:03:56):
according to this article by doctor Patricia Thompson, an expression
of regrant, an explanation of what went wrong, acknowledgment of responsibility,
a declaration of rependance, an offer of repair, and a
request for forgiveness. Well, then want to follow any of those?

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
No, she did not, she did not.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
You have to be patient. You may be totally committed
to your change, but you've been deceiving people for a
long time, and you have to give other people time
and reason to believe that you're willing to change. You
have to be direct, you have to be consistent, and

(01:04:42):
you have to be sincere.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
That's the truth. You can't fool anybody into an apology. No,
not gonna work.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Finally, Miller indicated that she, as a woman in a
patriarchal society, didn't have the vocabulary to express her rage,
and like, this isn't astute observation, because vocabulary really does
set limits on how we can think about things. This

(01:05:13):
is why certain people like the uneducated, because if you
don't have the vocabulary to express something, you can't be
You can't deal with it, you can't express that, you
can't handle that, you can't fight against that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
Yeah, basically you gaslight yourself if I don't have vocabulary,
there you go, it might not be real. And then
it's much easier to control a population who thinks that
what they are thinking must be.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
Crazy exactly if you don't have a way to talk
about it. So medium dot com has an article We
are defined by our vocabulary, and it's really a way
of being able to put our abstract feelings into words.
Cinema and cinematography has its own vocabulary, and you can

(01:06:06):
appreciate it without knowing the vocabulary. But you might not
be able to express why physics has equations and calculus.
You may not understand it. But in order to be
able to understand it, you have to have the correct
vocabulary for it. There's a few really great quotations that
are in this article, so this one's by Henry Hazlet,

(01:06:30):
a journalist, economists, and philosopher in the United States. A
man with a skin vocabulary will almost certainly be a
weak thinker. The richer and more copious ones vocabulary, and
the greater one's awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances
of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to

(01:06:52):
be one's thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the
words for them grow together. If you do not know
the words, you can hardly know the thing, which I
really appreciated. And then Diane Ackerman, a poet, an essayist,
and naturalist, said, metaphor isn't just decorative language. Most Americans

(01:07:18):
only use several hundred words or so. Frugality has its place,
but not in the larder of language. We rely on
words to help us detail how we feel, what we
once felt, what we can feel. When the blood dreams
out of language, once experience of life weakens and grows pale,

(01:07:39):
it's not simply dumbing down, but a numbing, and I'm like,
those are so great good. I mean, I would really
like the more you read, the better your vocabulary.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
Well, and that's been the more you read, write better
your scores on all kinds of outcomes, sure, all kinds exactly,
but you have to physically read it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
You can listen to an audio book and you understand
these things. If you're not a visual learner, if you're
an auditory learner, if you're a if you're a visual
learner but with pictures and things, use the shows like
this one to help you expand your vocabulary, because it

(01:08:23):
really is so important for you to have a good
vocabulary in order to be able to express yourself, even
if you don't use the words every day. We used
to call it fifty cent language. That's a fifty cent word.
That's a big that's a big word. That's a big word.
That's your SAT word. You learn that studying for the

(01:08:43):
SAT because it used to be we used to have
to do all this like vocabulary work. I like literally
took Latin.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
Oh yeah, people were pushed into Latin for this reason.
Oh yeah, my parents were like stupid to take Latin.
I hate similes, yeah, I hate them.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Well, and there's a reason why they got rid of them,
because they're not they're culturally biased.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
Well, they're culturally biased, and any creative can make anything similar.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Sure, exactly if you can find the similarities between the things.
I get it. But I literally took Latin. My parents
were like, this is ridiculous. Why are you taking a
dead language? Like, because our language is based on it,
and because I really want to do well on this
test to be able to go to school somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):
I mean everybody in my classes did too, for the
most part. Really, and it's not bad. I mean, to
know the etymology of our words, sure, not bad, because
then you can catch where things have changed, or we
can catch something that people aren't talking about, you know,
and that's good.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
But that again speaks to the vocabulary.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
Sure, you know, understanding other people in their experiences will
do the trick.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Sure, And being able to name your own experiences is
so freeing and so much power. Yeah, to be able
to say this is how I feel specifically about this
particular situation, whether it's a global situation or something that

(01:10:13):
has happened minutely in your life.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
Putting language around it gives you gives you agency.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Yes, it's power, harness it, Embrace it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Embrace it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:27):
And if you haven't listened to other podcasts, don't go
listen to the rest of ours.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Next time, something a little funnier. We're going to talk
about The Sticky, which is about a maple syrup ice.
It's a fictionalization of a real story.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
I love it, and it stars the fabulous Margot Martindale.
There's been in lots of stuff. She'll we'll recognize her
for sure. Sneaky Pete was something big that she was
really in, which was so good. It is so so good,
and I love I loved Margot Martindale since I saw

(01:11:14):
her in Sneaky Peat and I'm so excited to watch
her in this.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
It'd be great.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
Yes, so Prime Video, go watch The Sticky. Fun Times.
Thank you so much for listening. We know you make
a choice when you listen to us. We don't just
come on the radio, so we really appreciate that you
take us along on whatever adventures or mentane tasks you
are going through. Hey, rate and review wherever you get podcasts,

(01:11:39):
because good reviews do help us get found. We really
appreciate it and tell a friend is more fun. You
can listen with a friend. Can you believe the silly
thing that Chrissy said or the astute amazing thing that
Jackie said, Like, it's more fun that you when you
can talk about it with a friend. So do that
and until next time, safe, be kind and wash your hands.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
I get vaccinated because there's a measle out right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Good freaking lord, no joke. Do you know the measles
will like destroy your immune system?

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Okay, terrible, These are not good.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
I mean it like for a lot of people, it's
like a cold, but it will literally reset your immune system.
If you have the measles, you literally have to get
vaccinated for everything else.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
Again, I mean, it's terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Don't do it. It's awful.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Bom