November 15, 2019 • 48 mins
From ill-advised haircuts to sobbing over breakup songs, heartbreak is a powerful thing that can make us do all kinds of stuff. Anney and Samantha examine the gender differences in heartbreak, dig into whether it can be deadly, share some personal experiences, and ask the ever-important question: will our heartbreak go on and on?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff.
I'll never told your protection of I heart radios how
stuff works. We're moving into the holidays. We are you
know what. Though, after the intro, for some reason, the
(00:25):
Mario theme do Do Do Do Do just came into
my head, and I think that's gonna be my new
like theme background every time we start our introduction. Just
in your in your head, in my head? Okay, oh no, not,
I'm not gonna help you, just in my head. Just
I just want you to know that's what I'm going.
I'm like, if you want to go to my head
to a copyright battle with Nintendo, I will follow you
(00:48):
the dark. I do not. Okay, Okay, yes, holidays coming.
It is um which are the most wonderful time of
the year, my least favorite time of the year for breakups.
It's the most wonderful there you go, um yeah, And
then you ask. More people break out this time of
(01:08):
year than any other time of year, which is really
odd because I've I've heard this as the cuffing season.
You know that's this time this time? Okay. So Urban
Dictionary has defined it as during the fall and winter months,
people who would normally rather be single or promiscuous um,
find themselves, along with the rest of the world, designed
(01:28):
to be cuffed or tied down by theories relationship. The
cold weather and prolonged indoor activity causes singles to become
lonely and desperate to be cuffed to an individual. So
this is called the cuffing season. Oh, I can't wait
to see if this happens to me. Now I get it.
With me, I get it because you know, I don't
(01:50):
have to have to. I don't deal with a lot
of um. What is that called. It's not external relative?
So I have my immediate family that's where holidays and
outside of that, I don't really have much interaction at
the holidays anymore. But you know, there's obviously a question
of like, are you still single going there? Um, So
(02:12):
I get that kind of anxiety around it to My
family has a tradition in which they like to take
couples pictures or families pictures throughout and it doesn't matter
if it's just my immediate family, which involves me and
three of the siblings and then their family, or if
it's with my As you said, external I don't I'm
(02:32):
not really sure how to go about that, But like
my cousins and all of that, Yes, we're doing this
earlier a little normal. Yeah that was already bad. Now
it's even worse. But they also do it too where
they have family pictures and they do it in front
of everyone, in front of the fireplace. And I remember
(02:55):
one year and by the way, I've never taken anyone
home for a holiday, except for for ends who may
need just say, you know, may not have their family
nearby and can't go home. I've never brought anybody. That's
just not something I do. Now. My siblings have just
started taking people home at thirteen. Yeah. Um. And then
there was my nieces and nephew not most, not all
(03:17):
of them, but a few of them started, like a
fifteen sixteen started bringing others with it. I'm like, this
is so weird. To be fair, again, I think a
lot of them would rather be with my family than
their own family or whatever the crisis was at that time.
But yeah, they have this habit of bringing people from
a young age, and so I've never done that. It's
never been an interest to me. I don't care enough.
(03:38):
Maybe um, but because of that, they would have a
couple of pictures, a couple of pictures, a couple of pictures,
and then I would be alone and my grant, my
poor sweet grandmother UM and I loved her dearly would
be like that you need to get up there too,
and I was like, that's okay, I'm okay, I don't
need to be by myself in front of the damn fireplace.
(03:58):
But she would hash me so hard. My mom would
get angry with me for not doing it, and then
as I got older, I was like, Mom, please please,
this makes me miserable, and she was like, you're right,
You're right. And so one year she's like, I'll get
up there with you. So it was me and my mom.
Use me and my dad. It was me and someone
else that was of significance but not a significant other. Yeah,
(04:19):
so that was always fun for the holidays. There's so
many reasons I don't like it, but that was one
of the other reasons. But man, if you had done that,
you could make a calendar of just me. I should
have leaned into it. I think it was partially like
the shame of not bringing, you know, as the usual,
because my younger cousins would bring people, and I mean,
I'm not stay younger. I mean like ten years younger.
(04:41):
I would bring people and I'd be like, hey, y'all,
I'm gonna sit in the corner. All good, don't look
at me. Yeah, you know, I'm I'm fine. I'm fine
over here. Um. I I can understand why the holidays
they're they're stressful, and then you're adding stuff like photos
and meeting the family, and I I feel like I'm
the type of person who would wait and break up
(05:03):
on the other side of the holidays. Um. I've only
taken a significant other home once for the holidays. No. Actually,
what happened was he wanted he was a big cruise person,
and he wanted to do a long cruise over Christmas
in New Year's and so I was gonna miss Christmas,
(05:24):
and um, we invited my mom and my little brother
to his place to have like a Christmas dinner. And uh,
that's when I discovered because we spent most of the
time at my place, he had no nothing to cook with, like,
so we had to go by like pots and some stuff.
(05:45):
And it was a kind of a disaster. That would
be when I'm doing a catered mill. Somehow I should
have that was well, I was trying to like replicate
what I would have with my mom. Um. And then
we went on cruise, and uh, we have all of
these pictures of us, like Christmas trees and New Year's
(06:07):
and in Hawaiian shirts. Uh. Usually for me, I'm just
an athletic gear all the time. That was when I
was training for a marathon. Actually training for a marathon
on a bership is hard as I'm on the boat, Okay, right,
that's right. Um. And you know we broke up not
(06:28):
a couple of months after that, and then the next year,
my mom I don't know if I've told this story
on the show before, I think I had, but Bradley
Cooper came to her office once, and yeah, my mom
became obsessed with the idea that I could marry Bradley
Cooper because I he was in the office and I
did not even know he was in the office. I
(06:48):
saw him, and honestly, I thought it was another corporate guy.
I was trying to avoid him. Um turns out as
a Bradley Cooper. And my mom was I think shallow
had just come out, so she was in I'm like
Bradley Cooper mine, so it'd be like nine PM on Tuesday,
and I'd get a text for my mom. You know,
he speaks French like random bags about why you should
(07:11):
be in love with this person and pursue him. Yes,
love it. I did too. I thought it was hilarious.
So if I for a sponsor, we had a sponsor
that was like a gift card holiday card company, and
I had no significant other, I don't have dogs or
I don't have basically would be just me, like you
were saying. So I got the idea to photoshop me
and Bradley Cooper together in this Christmas card, that wonderful
(07:34):
Christmas car. It's so good, It's so good. And then
on the back I wrote, you know you're right mom,
Brad and I and she thought it was true for
like two seconds. It's finally happened. But now my ideas
every year, I'm going to like up the antie and
make more and more ridiculous photos, which is awesome. A lover,
(07:55):
I wish I could have stuff like that. UM, up
until about and that will we'll stop with the personal stories.
But up until about four or five years ago when UM,
a majority of my siblings which is all of my
siblings went through sad divorces. Um My mom at Christmas
holiday traditions would be hard yelling at me about how
I'm going to die alone. Oh gosh. Yes, So this
(08:18):
is also another reason that I'm like, this is the
worst season of the year, so I should start doing that.
I should do some photo shopping and be like, look,
look what's happening. I'm dating this dude. I need to
find a picture of Chris Evans. Oh, I need to
like photoshop myself being hugged by him. Okay, I think
I can help you with this. I wanted to hold me. Okay,
(08:40):
maybe one day. You know, we're actually not talking about
specifically this, We're talking about heartbreak. So my mother was
heartbroken because there are a lot of different types of heartbreak.
I feel like the one that most people think of
is when you're significant other you break up or something.
But there's a bunch of different types. And we are
(09:01):
going to be talking a lot about clearly about that
specific type of heartbreak, but we're gonna talk talk about others.
And it is it does seem to be a cultural
obsession of ours. Um, it's hard to avoid. I mean,
on a daily basis. As I was walking here, I
had Google Play on Shuffle, and I think every song
was about heartbreak. Um. And I don't know if that's
(09:23):
because I've been researching it and Google knows everything you
do every um, but I was kind of like, oh yeah,
and after I broke up with the aforementioned boyfriend, UM,
I remember all of a sudden these songs that I
had been making fun of. I was like, yes, right,
I feel it too, right. I absolutely understand that because
they're still in the back of my head and still
(09:45):
on my playlist too. So when I would randomly shovel something,
I was like, oh, that emotion comes up. Yeah, Oh,
there's that feeling. I can't listen to this right now. Right.
It is funny how there is a part of at
least for me, to a part of me that sometimes
I'm like, I wanted to live in this emotion, and
then other times I'm like, oh God, no, please, I
gotta avoid it with all costs. So I'm like, no
(10:07):
Taylor Swift songs actually. Um. So one of the things
we're going to talk about as well is something I
know some of us have heard about, can you die
from heartbreak? And in my family, my grandfather died a
month after my grandmother. UM, and we often say it
was heartbreak. I don't know that that. I probably wasn't that,
(10:29):
but he was the devastated when she died. And UM,
I think he just kind of, I don't know if
lost the will to live, but it became much harder
for him. Right. It seems that a swift decline when
it's like that. UM with my grandparents, the same thing.
I don't think it was, but maybe it's more so
in our head, but it feels like it's a heartbreak
(10:51):
about whatever situation has happened. UM. And in our past
episode on emotional Labor, we talked a bit about the
stats around male widowers who have a higher mortality rate
than female widowers. We've also done episodes on how to
deal with heartbreak. UM, here's some bad examples are revenge
(11:11):
body not so bad example, I guess is post break
up haircut. It can be bad, it could be good.
The beans. Yeah, even after I've done that episode, I
knew the traps and the pitfalls, and I did it. Anyway,
have you done something like that, not necessarily haircuts? UM,
(11:32):
I think I've definitely done, Like I need to get
in shape, all those things I do the crying a
little bit, but I'm also a little more motivated. Um,
and I'm like, I gotta do anything but sit here
and think about it. That's kind of that. And I'm like,
I'm gonna volunteer for this. I gotta do that. I
gotta do this. And then at night, I'm just like,
I gotta find a way to sleep. Where's not meltonin.
(11:53):
I gotta hug my dog. I gotta watch the same reruns,
which is not unusual for me any other day. I
guess I have my infamous story around the office of
accidentally ordering seventy cookies in my like throes of of
the post breakup. The worst that got it was three am.
(12:15):
The cookie ladies showed up at the door and was like, oh, honey,
I know you didn't mean to do this. I was
crying when I answered the door, and then I took
it was it was storming, and I took the box
of cookies and destroyed them with the baseball bat outside. Wow,
that's dramatic. It was a Shawshank redemption, but much less
like meaningful moment. That's dramatic. Were you screaming at the
(12:39):
cookie It was like like scream crying in my head,
I want to know that you threw a cookie up
and like you would yell curse at him. Yeah. And
then the next day I had like the grossest fleeting.
I didn't do it. I was like, I wonder if
any of those cookies are saligeable? No, no, no, no,
make him out. I'm not mad at I'm not mad
(13:03):
at that. And then I have felt a new type
of heartbreak since my dad died, which is a more
kind of deep incurable sadness as opposed to for me
that that post breakup, which is really I think I've
been through too. That we're really serious post break up
like grief, and those are more I go through destructive
rage um and and like angry crying. I guess a
(13:26):
lot of that um. And then I um, after I
love China. That was a really a moment in my
life that I would describe as heartbreak. And when I
walked to work every day there's just smell like a
it's like a oil, just cooking oil, and it reminds
me of China. And every day I feel like a pang.
And that's been I mean, I think years. Yeah, that's true,
(13:53):
that's true. And I do think a lot of people,
including myself. We we have kind of these markers of
post breakup or post pet dying or post whatever traumatic thing.
Um because there are life changing events, they're transformative and
you kind of write their milestones. Yeah, like I said, um,
(14:13):
I definitely phil What I do is kind of I
slip into the motivation mode and that might go into
you know, post breakup body type of situation. Um. I
also do a loss of different other activities, including like
I tortured myself to sleepless nights and I just sit
there and talk about think about, you know, what is
wrong with me essentially, and then I dig deep social
(14:35):
work background, you know, about analyzing my actual diagnosis. Why
are these blah blah blah blah blah go back to
my childhood? And then also grief is definitely something that
brings whole new heartbreak, a loss or death of things
that can't be healed without time and support oftentimes, and
of course it's always going to be there because it's
(14:57):
a part of losses permanent. So because death is permanent,
you know, and it sounds really obvious, but because of that,
there's no backing into everything's gonna be fine. We could
redo this, we could redo that, you know. You and
I talked about this in our death and loss in
the Dutiful Daughter episode, where there's always going to be
(15:20):
a little bit of regret. It doesn't matter what it does,
It doesn't matter how perfect you think your relationship is,
and it just is UM and then don is significant.
I actually grieve over my dog still, Benny, whom I
called Bennington Ziggler because I just have to get a
full name, UM, and I couldn't sleep in the bed
without him, and it took me years to even get
a new dog, which we talked about Peaches, and I'm
(15:41):
already like I'm still kind of like shaken by the
idea UM. But it was weird for me, and I
think this has a whole lot of different things. But
when my grandfather died within the same year as my
dog died, and I think my grandfather had passed away
and then my dog died, and I grieved harder about
my dog, but I think it was just a culmination
of all the things that had happened, and it just
(16:03):
felt even bigger loss on loss, you know. And then
I felt that way in my career, my job, I've
worn and loss as in what I believe is failures,
you know what I mean. I think I sometimes confused
my failure and anxiety as loss, which is a thing
to hard stop. It's really hard to stop grieving over
(16:23):
what could have been, what ifs UM, But the recovery
is faster, hopefully, hopefully if you can actually get on
right track whatever mental health situation you have. But yeah,
I think that was part of the bigger grieving processes
that I had to go through. It was being heartbroken
because I felt like I couldn't do or say someone
or you know it even still like actually recently happened
(16:46):
because obviously I'm in the middle of UM doing two
very different things as my job and career, and I
reflect on what I was doing and I feel like,
partially did I fail if I leave or if I
try something new, or wouldn't you have what is this failure?
So so weird like grieving process for sure, and heartbreaking
(17:08):
moments for me to think on those things. Yeah, UM,
And we've both talked about how UM I went through
a sense of heartbreak for like my younger self and
feeling like she was a little sister that died and
that was kind of a pretty big grieving process and
through this show, UM, we've had to deal with that.
(17:29):
I think for me that was one of the first
times I've directly acknowledged and dealt with it. But it was.
It's pretty serious, and I mean a lot of the
things we're talking about clearly heartbreak has major impact. Is
so powerful. UM dictates a lot of our decisions, it does. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, like fear, fear of heartbreak is such a
(17:51):
motivator for so many people. You have rejection that kept
me so I'm gonna talk about a little later, but
that kept me from even trying to get into a
relationship up still still yeah, it's it's scary. UM. So
one of the things we like to do, of course,
(18:11):
is our definitions. And as we said, we are going
to be talking a lot about breakup heartbreak. But you know,
there are all kinds of heartbreak. I remember uh having
a like round table with the women. This was before
you worked here, Samitha, but after Donald Trump was elected
in the women in this office, and like experiencing joint
heartbreaks can experience like political heartbreak, loss of a loved one,
(18:33):
loss of pet, loss of agency, traumatic injury. UM, there
are a lot of things that will give you this
kind of like heart pain that we're talking about. Yeah.
According to behavioral psychologist Joe Hemmings, heartbreak is a quote
state of devastating emotional loss. While different for all of us,
(18:53):
the intense feelings of sadness, grief, and the overwhelming sense
of never being able to get past the pain are common.
And if we at the brain, breakups trigger the same
area as physical pain, and they induce the same symptoms
as drug withdraw and not like jug with all light,
I think like medium drug withdraw. This is part of
the reason we feel the need to send ill advised
(19:15):
like night text to our scroll through our ex's Instagram. Yeah,
no way, I'm a little weird with that. So we
all go through heartbreak. Let's just say that heartbreak is
universal and on average, by the age of thirty, most
of us will have experienced three breakups, with one of
them significantly impacting our quality of life for a period
of time, and the number one reason report for breakups
(19:37):
lack of communication no surprise to um and. Some symptoms
of heartbreak include isolation, isolating yourself, numbness, volatile emotions, unhealthy eating,
working all the time, or inability to work, substance abuse,
lack of sleep. Um, just these feelings of being unlovable, damaged,
(20:00):
deeply unworthy, like you'll never find happiness again. A study
conducted by Christine Tompkins out of University of Rochester but
forth that broken heart syndrome a k A. Stress induced
heart failure is a real thing. This is also called
stress induced cardio myopathy or taco subo cardio myopathy. Taco
(20:20):
subo is name for octovis traps that look like broken hearts.
Women are more likely to experience sharp heart pains in
response to emotional pain. Further science has found links between
mental health, depression and heart disease. Broken heart syndrome presents
very similar to a heart attack shortness of breath, chest
pains minus the blocked arteries. What's happening is a part
(20:41):
of your heart enlarges and kind of falls down on
the job when it comes to pumping. But it usually
only lasts a couple of weeks and it is treatable. Yes, um,
and I did want to put in here just as
a kind of joking, kind of serious aside, there are
some benefits heartbreak. I mean, the main one is you
learn a lesson right, hopefully you learn something. Are you
appreciate somebody you know? Um? But for me, I never
(21:05):
put on real clothes, you know, eat cookies or cheese
or my case, apparently fun shishido's all day every day. Um,
watching the same movies over and over again with no
judgment my friends. As I said, watch How to Train
Your Dragon with me probably three times in a row recently.
And obviously these aren't healthy in the long run, These
aren't healthy habits to build. But while you're in the
(21:28):
throws of grief, I was acceptable. Yeah. I usually give
people a time frame. Yeah, you do do if you're
going through a recent divorce, I'll give you a year. Okay,
I'll give a because it's a lot of like up
and down. Ye. Well, honestly, it's just like trying to
figure who you are again without that person longtime relationship.
(21:48):
Probably the same thing I'm going to give you over
a long time. But then at one point I'm gonna
be like, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna and I
do this for myself. I think I do a shorter
time frame for myself because I'm like, this is a ridiculous,
get over it. Um, I'm like, Okay, we gotta do
at least these things, but for now, we can dictate
exactly what you need, Like you can tell me exactly
what you need, whether it's me coming in there, just
(22:09):
sitting with you in the dark, me leaving you alone
for a small amount of time. I'm not gonna leave
you alone too often because I have to check and
make sure you're okay. Um uh. And then when it
comes to all right, maybe it's tough for therapy, you know,
like which we all should do anyway, but it's definitely
some of those I'm like, all right, yes you need time,
you need morning for sure, but I'm gonna be the
friend that's gonna be there for you. And if that
(22:30):
means to love, I got it. Yes you do. Um.
And again, we've talked about this a lot of times,
but people experience grief in different ways, and it's like
not linear. So one day you'll be oh, I'm fine,
it's finally over, and then the next day, oh my god,
it's never gonna end, right, lots of ups and downs,
and people do, um experience it in a lot of
(22:51):
different ways and a lot of different time frames. Um.
So you you have the best knowledge of what you need.
And you know, grief is a it's a mysterious thing.
So it's hard to it's hard to look at yourself
and say, I think I'll be fine given this. It
(23:12):
is it is put that on a pillow and mel
it was please just saying, you know, Samantha and I
are very motivated, and I'm sure a lot of your
listeners are, but sometimes time is the only thing right, right.
But we do have some other things we would like
(23:34):
to talk about, but first we have a quick break
for a word from our sponsored and we're back, Thank
you sponsor. So we did want to talk about gender
differences because there are some gender differences when it comes
(23:57):
to heartbreak. I bet a lot of you would guess
that women have it worse. Um, or at least they
they're more open with it. I guess open. Maybe they
have all the fields more fields. Yeah, and we all
know the stereotype of women. I've already said that this
is a benefit of the break up in your pjs,
(24:19):
down in jugs of ice cream, through the tears, um.
And there there is actually science about this, and a
science is a little mixed. Yeah, people are complicated. People
are complicated. I wonder how much of it is too, um,
because if you look at religious aspects, a lot of
the blame goes on women about something like relationships, marriage
(24:40):
is falling apart, and the responsibilities they have within a
marriage and keeping a marriage happy. Yeah yeah, I know that. Uh,
that whole thing of like blaming women for men cheating
because you clearly weren't keeping him satisfied, keep it together.
You have to be fit like actual um books about
(25:02):
from written by women in order to get husbands. What
is that called operation h t oh? Yeah. Actually, the
book Passion and Purity, written by Elizabeth Elliott a long
long time ago, was a big, huge thing. I actually
read it, really dug into it, really just put myself
(25:24):
all up, been there and it's not awful. There's not
like it's not awful awful sentiments. Um well, actually yeah
there is if we have It's been a while since
I've read it. I guess the whole idea of that
purity in itself, which if we talked about as of
recent t I, um, the purity tests and the purity
rings are kind of gross in itself. That's kind of
actually gross in itself. Um. Two, if you want to
(25:48):
be a virgin. If you want to save yourself however
you want to claim it, that's wonderful, that's beautiful, you
do you. But to have this whole stipulation and this
title is absurd in itself, but and especially placing it
all young girl says that their responsibility, but the same
author would go around and talk about how if you're
not keeping your body fit, you're dishonoring your husband. It
(26:09):
was this whole thing, and I was like, what the hell, Yeah,
what the hell? Indeed? Right, And it's somewhat like that.
I think that has a lot to do with And
I know, again we're I'm getting off track because we're
talking about heartbreak. But that level of responsibility being placed
on women and females in general, to say this may
have been your fault as to why he cheated, or
(26:29):
this may have been your fault as to why your
marriage didn't last, it's just really absurd. Yeah, and we're
so ready to take it on anyway, it's like we're
probably gonna think yeah. Fourteen study from a UK dating
site found that men actually reported higher rates of love
sickness and sadness after a breakup, even given that it
(26:52):
wasn't quote true love. Um, that was the main difference.
Men felt heartbreak in more situations as compared to women's
severity was kind of the same. When interviewed about this
this finding, a psychologist suggested it maybe because men overestimate
women's interests and it therefore hurts more when women don't
reciprocate their affections. And yeah, that's very heterosexual, although I
(27:13):
guess bisexual, it could be. Yeah. The study also found
that men are more likely to engage in casual sex
post break up, while women are more likely to dive
into work party too hard comfort eat. That sounds familiar.
A different study found the exact opposite. It concluded that
women feel the pain of breakups longer and that new
relationships don't necessarily help. The study also found as the
(27:36):
number of breakups went up, women's overall mental health went
down in a way that men's didn't. However, it did
find that single women's mental health was higher than men's
mental health. Oh, I like that. Women also reported feeling
more physical pain. The study authors who came to that
conclusion thought that this had to do with the fact
(27:57):
that women do do the general fact that we good
pregnant invest more in relationships. This potential biological investment has
made women choose your over time, which means the loss
of a quote high quality mate hurts more. The same
study found that women come out on the other side
as emotionally stronger and recover better compared to ben Multiple
(28:18):
studies have found that both men and women find self
esteem within relationships, so it makes sense that after relationships
end it's a hit to our self esteem. We feel
a loss of identity. However, this self esteem is arrived
at differently. Women get it through connection, while men get
it through social status. Generally, these in general terms, because
(28:39):
of these basic differences that men and women do typically
experience heartbreak differently. Men are more likely to get active
in some way, while women are more likely to reach
out to their support group. Because in a lot of societies,
women are allowed to be more open when it comes
to emotions, women may actually move on from breakups more
quickly than men. Um, and this is one of the
many ways society influences how we grieve. Right but this
(29:04):
made me think about what happens when you don't want
to be in relationship, and this comes up in in
my therapy not infrequently. Right um, because it does make
me feel sometimes like I have no self worth since
people are always sort of like, where is your your incomplete?
You're missing something. UM. I feel like society sees me
(29:25):
generally as a waste. UM. It's made me do things
I haven't wanted to do and try to fit into
molds I don't want to fit into. Yeah, I think
I was the same way. I felt abnormal because I
didn't get into too many relationships either. UM, as in,
do I have a mental block as to why I'm
not looking as hard as others or why I don't
feel like I need to UM. I never actually dated
(29:45):
in high school, and I actually didn't date in college either.
I think I went on the whole the three dates
didn't have any relationships within UM. I think we had
like piddly kid kiddish relationships. You know, he's my boyfriend.
We you know in the high school or whatever, but
never actually dated. UM. And it wasn't until my mid
(30:05):
twenties that I actually started to look. And a lot
of that had to do with being open and feeling
like I could be vulnerable, and because of some of
the trauma that I had experienced, it was not possible
for me of course I say I yearned to be wanted.
That is something that's always been UM at the forefront
of my thoughts. But that's generally in everything, whether it's
(30:27):
my job, whether it's friendships, that someone wants me. There
essentially UM and my desirability and in my fear of
rejection stopped me. UM. Now I'm very comfortable in being sinkle.
I think I said that recently, Like that is something
that I know, and it's easy and I'm cool with it.
So to get into a relationship is like, do I
really want to compromise here? It's really worth my time.
(30:51):
A study from two thou eighteen out of the Journal
of Experimental Psychology examined the effectiveness of three coping strategies,
thinking bad thoughts about your ex, accepting your love for
your ex, or distracting yourself with things that have nothing
to do with your ex, which I like that option.
They found that all three help in some way, but
a mix of these methods provided the most relief. So
(31:11):
maybe listening one thing you don't like about person, one
thing you love, and then one thing that has nothing
to do with them. I think we should practice that
more often. The study authors proposed that removing feelings of
love attached with an X is the primary way to
move on. They call this love regulation, which I love
I love love regulation the term UM and they also,
(31:33):
as always, recommend not making life changing decisions during a
life changing time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, don't. It's it's
so tempting because you're like, this world takes everything. Yeah,
there are moments where I'm like, okay, I'm moving out
of the country. It's time to go to Antarctica. Finally
for me. Another study found that it takes about three
(31:56):
months to get it over a break up. Oh, I
have taken so much longer. I give you a year. Yeah,
I mean it depends on how long you've been with someone. Obviously,
I'm sure that's like an average, like you'll always remember that.
But still I give you a full year before I'm like, okay,
because it my that year includes you and you shouldn't.
But you probably dating around, maybe miscommunicating with people, breaking
(32:21):
a few people hearts, not necessarily in that way, like
doing noncommittal things with you know what, so hookups and such.
But I'm like, sure, I'll give you that. I'll give
you that. I'll let you know you're being a dumbass,
but I'll give you that. I'm not gonna be mad
at you for it. Yes. Uh. Then, of course there
(32:42):
are the comparisons between men and women in our media
when it comes to breakups, how women are so sad
without a man in their life, and how men can
finally live it up, be free, have hook ups. Yeah.
I always think of um, and I know we did
an episode on this forever ago, but the coverage of
Jadea for Anderson, like she's the saddest person that's ever existed. Yeah, okay,
(33:06):
And it was always like, well, it kind of did
start off with the Brad Pitt thing. Yeah, that whole
he left you for Angelina Jolie, who was the ultimate
sex symbol because you're the girl next door, right, Yeah,
and just like you know, she would date somebody and
then it would end and she's broken hearted by the
person she was dating. It's like finally able to date
(33:27):
all over again. And I'm like, okay, whatever. I think
Jan Franson's just okay, But I mean, if you really
thinking on it too, in that level, Brad Pitt to
me was even sadder because he would have you ever
seen the pictures of him in different relationships with different couples,
how he mimicked that style of the girl. There's this
whole those you're like, So to me, he was always
(33:50):
sadder because he's like he has to have a relationship
in order to find his identity. Yeah, so yeah, you
need to go with that. I was hilarious. So you
see him with quin Couch and you're like what, And
then you see with Angela and Jolie and Brad Pitt.
You're like a Brait, Angela, Jelly and then Jennifer or instant.
But he looks very different and very much like that
(34:11):
person in the pictures. There's a Parks in Rac episode
about that. Um. I know you've never seen Star Wars
and this is not the one I would recommend. But
in episode two, Attack of the Clones, pad Me a
k a. Natalie Portman has the infamous line and you're
breaking by heart the first thing I thought of. I
(34:33):
love the enthusiasm in that line. Oh yeah, you gotta
do delivered a um. And I mean, if you pick
just randomly three pieces of media, I bet one of
them has to do with broken heart, and I in
a way, I believe we romanticize heartbreaking. A lot of
ways in our in our medium. When I was younger,
(34:54):
I wanted to have a love that was so powerful
that the heartbreak would hurt as much as I was
seeing on TV or in movies. Um and so I like,
I had on my binder a poem that the w
H autumn poem Funeral Blues. I was really into the
(35:16):
beauty and greef. It's also very email. Were we all, well,
he and I were, And then I kind of I
was thinking about a bit more and maybe we what
we romanticize is self destruction, or maybe it's a combination
of two things. Of this love that we always see
and then the self destructive. We love broken things though.
That's kind of why we like shows that have broken
(35:39):
people in it. So you think of, um, my so
called life is all about broken people like you just
love that and you want to fix Jared leto real hard,
real hard. And the people who seem to get it together,
keep it together and be happy were the antagonists or
the bad guys, and the essentially so the nerd. It
was kind of like saw like he was too smart
(36:01):
and got it together. And then the girl who had
the family and was a cheerleader was also not the
great one. When you had all these other things that
were happening, they were more interesting. Whether it was a
drug overdoce or whether it's you know, and it's it's
definitely and I say broken people, but it's outcast as well.
And that's that level of we're very interested in we
(36:21):
feel that and we feel oh good, we're not alone hurting.
That's true. Oh and speaking of do you have a
favorite heartbreak breakup songs? So I have a few. So
I had several Elliott Smith's songs. Of course I wanted
to go down that road. Death Cab definitely had a
few of those songs up to me. I think they
had one of the best, um I hate my father
(36:43):
songs um. And it's somewhat of beat and you're like,
like one of the one of the lyrics talking about
how his father died and the priests is uh talking
all these great things about him. He's like, you're a
bastard in life, you saw you're a bastard and death.
It's a great line. And then I'll like them trying
to send his ashes out and it falls back into
his eyes. He was like, yeah, that's right. Thinks that
(37:06):
like that level of course, I'm at living things, um,
but even some old school drake got into my playlist
at one point. Um, and of course the Jimmy world.
There are several several songs that I would just angrily
singing and then then if you are like that was
kind of several. That was one of my first concerts,
(37:27):
what about you. I think I have a ton of
sad sad songs, but I don't really have too many
that I would go to after a breakup. But I
have songs that if I listen to them, I will cry,
um because that music is really moving in that way. Yeah. Yeah,
(37:47):
music is powerful and I think that's why people connect
so hard um with sad songs. Yeah. Yeah, if anyone
wants my playlist, I have a playlist grief and I
will share it if anyone wants it. But they'll make
you cry. Yeah, and you know what if you don't
(38:07):
want that, we have some advice on how to like
not cry, not necessarily maybe that's not true. We have
some advice for you, but first we have a quick
make and we're back, thank you sponsoring. So we do
(38:36):
have some advice. Even though a lot of you have
probably heard this, we've all probably heard a lot of
the basic one, and find a hobby is a big one.
You've sort of talked about that. Exercising, eating well, um,
sleeping as best you can, talking out with friends, reading
a book, volunteering, taking tiny steps to make yourself feel
(38:57):
normal again. And this is a big one. A lot
of that. Spurts recommend on following your ex on social
media and and removing reminders of them from your life.
Stop all contact if possible. I'm gonna. I actually just
looked up my ex and stuff the other day because
I was in the conversation and we're talking about past whatever,
and I was like, I wonder what he's doing. Not
(39:19):
a good idea, No, actually, I was kind of like, huh, surprise, interesting, interesting,
And I think I'm gonna especially if you're in a
really bad place and then you start comparing your life
to theirs. Oh no, don't do that, don't do it. Yeah.
I still meet up with my ex, and I regularly
thought to me, to me, like my exes or my
(39:40):
past they go into the land of nowhere and to
me just disappear, They disappear and never hear like I'm
of course, I just talked about stalking, but I would
never ever ever want to run into them. I never
wanted to see them. I'm like, they shouldn't exist. So
coming back to my like your friends with them, that's here. Yeah,
I'm the opposite is healthy, right, I'm yeah, I never
(40:02):
look at the Well now it's not that I never do.
I'm just not on social media that much much anyway,
So I just don't run into that problem, not often.
But I do see him in real life. I r
l um, and sometimes it does make me sad, Like,
you know, we used to be so close, and I
feels sort of awkward. Um, but you think about like
(40:23):
you kind of loose friendships to Yeah, sure you know
you got your gone them. Yeah, it's just just how
life is. Um. One big one is doing some introspection. UM,
ask yourself what it was that you liked about that
person and if you can find those qualities and someone else.
(40:44):
This is easier to do a bit later in the
grieving process. Um. But you know, you you have those
moments of I hate that person, I hate everything about them,
but there was something, hopefully that you were attracted to,
and maybe that's an unhealthy thing, right, Maybe it's a
healthy thing, but maybe it's unhealthy, but finding out what
it was. It's always you know, it's always a learning experience, right,
(41:09):
you can you can move on and bigger and better things. Um, okay.
And then writing about it, making art about it, using
it to create Yeah, I write a lot more when
I'm sad. I will say that to allow yourself to feel,
be honest with yourself. And if that's you need to
cry a little bit, or you have to sit and
watch the same movies repeatedly, that's fine. If you just
(41:30):
want to sit in the dark for a couple of days,
that's okay too. But eventually, yes, you do need to
shake it off. That's when the Taylor swift comes out.
And always good to communicate with the support group in
your life what's going on so that they can help
you and provide that support. And of course the unpopular
(41:51):
but true time time heels most wounds. It makes, it
makes things easier, hopefully hopefully event Chili um that positive note.
That's what we have to say about heartbreak today. But
I am really excited to share some listener mail that
we received. Yes, Kate wrote, although the most wonderful time
(42:16):
of the year is over Halloween, as a fellow horror fan.
I thought I would send you some recommendations just in
case you need more. Always send recommendations. UM One Cut
of the Dead. It is on shutter UK, not sure
if it is on the US version. It is a
zombie comedy. The first half hour maybe a little confusing,
but stick with it is great to watch with a crowd. Also,
(42:37):
if you like zombie movies and haven't already seen it,
Trained Busan is great one of my favorites. Yeah, that's
a good one. I sobbed at the end. Terrified again
and on shutter UK. A Spanish language movie that I
found unsettling, to say the least. Knives and Skin. I
saw this at fright Fest this year, UK horror film festival.
Isn't strictly horror, but has twin peak vibes and has
(42:58):
been described as a feminine noir. Yeah. I really loved it.
Looks like it's not available until December. I know you
like the superhero genre. In case you also like manga,
I highly recommend the TV series Attack on Titan, a
horror fantasy show. I often think about whether the horror
genre is a feminist genre. Women are always telling men
(43:19):
there's something out there there's something wrong, and the men
are consistently gaslighting them, ignoring their concerns. Before too long,
everyone's dead apart from one final girl. Maybe the true
horror is the patriarchy. Horror movies would be over in
five minutes if people listen to women. Hello. Yeah, You
start thinking about all of the things that could have
been solved why, and then you have to be oh,
(43:41):
because the movie would not be a movie, right. We
would have no horror movies. What I find interesting is
that it is mostly men making horror movies, but yet
they don't seem to learn from what I think is
the key message of the movie, Listen to Women. There
are some good podcasts on horror. You are interested, just
suggesting a couple She Kills, which ears horror through a
female lends, and The Evolution of Horror, which explores all
(44:03):
the different horror genres and how they developed as you
grew up with the screen franchise. You might be interested
in this eight minute documentary called Copycat, which suggests it
may not be as original as everyone thinks. Oh. I
love all of this. I love the suggestions. Um please
keep this coming. And another listener wrote in with some
different suggestions. Kim wrote after listening to feminist movie Friday
(44:25):
Alien addition, I am mailing in I'm a thirty four
year old woman who enjoys lots and lots of horror movies,
feminist horror movie plot lines to think about Last House
on the Left. This is so graphic trigger warning for rape,
et cetera. Parents Getting Revenge, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Final Girl
survives because she doesn't do stupid stuff. Midsummer Hereditary, The Descent, Everything,
(44:47):
the which female liberation lived deliciously. I spent on your
grave revenge graphic, questionable Halloween. Sorry, Laurie does everything to
survive and kill her nutty brother, which makes her badass.
Who cares if she's a virgin Jennifer's body for that matter,
anything Diabo Cody Ever wrote for Film Night of the
comment zombie fighting Valley Girls, It's can't be but great
(45:09):
The Craft Marianne, which is new on Netflix. Also, you
mentioned Ripley being the start of strong female characters like Buffy,
but I couldn't help but think of Linda Hamilton as
Sarah Connor. She was one of the baddest of the
badasses post Alien. Thanks for covering anything hard. I feel
like we ladies don't get fair representation, will weighing in
on reviews or being part of this community. You're welcome
(45:31):
and I will happily do so always. Cam later followed
up with more suggestions after Our Monster, Our Female Monster episode,
uh misery, Caffy bates the audition certainly harbor perhaps also
just considered Asian extreme high tension, which is French hand
that rocks the cradle. Um single white female swim fan
(45:53):
the crush. That's yeah, big genre, evil dead. All the
women are possessed by demons and made to do evil
g things. This was a choice by Raymie Say Raymie
Sharp Objects. Also the short from Tales from the dark
Side movie Um also this movie sucked, but it's worth
mentioning Knock the Neon demon Starry Eyes. A woman moves
(46:15):
to l a trying to get her big break. She
was willing to do anything. She spirals and kills all
of her terrible roommates and then turns into an alien
after totally riding and falling apart. I can't remember this
title helped me. I have seen that movie. I'll get
back to you about that. What I remember what it is?
Um Eyes without a Face, which is a black and
white French monster movie. I can see this influence later
(46:38):
in other horror movies. So if you wanted some suggestions
for horror, these listeners got your cover right. Thank you
so much. I've only seen like two of those the
bottom list. I've seen those. I've seen a lot of them. Yeah, um, yeah,
I know. Well you've got some fun homework today. And
then you and I because she mentioned and they both
mentioned a lot about like mothers m You know, I
(47:00):
talked about that previously. Some shoutouts to different podcasts that
we want to highlight because they're amazing and led by
women or females. Um, the scam Wow, which is super fun,
Sue and Cat. Sue and Katie talk about different scams
including and I didn't listen to the one the wedding
industry and poop TI and I was like, oh, I
(47:22):
like that. Um. And then there's also to go with
our heartbreak. This is why I'm single. With Amy and
Amy and sometimes Chuck. They talk about the good, the bad,
and the worst relationships and all the way from divorces
even to boobs. You know, I love anything that talked
about any of those things. Well, there you go listeners,
(47:43):
and if you have any suggestions for things we should
shout out horror movies, we should be watching our next
feminist movie Friday. I know there's been some talk of
the craft. Please right in. You can do so at
our email address, which is Stuff Medium, mom Stuff at
iHeart media dot com. You can also find us on
Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff
(48:03):
I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to our super
producer Andrew Howard, Thank you, and thanks to you for
listening Stuff I've Never Told You the protection of I
Heartradius house Stuff works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff.
I'll never told your protection of I heart radios how
stuff works. We're moving into the holidays. We are you
know what. Though, after the intro, for some reason, the
(00:25):
Mario theme do Do Do Do Do just came into
my head, and I think that's gonna be my new
like theme background every time we start our introduction. Just
in your in your head, in my head? Okay, oh no, not,
I'm not gonna help you, just in my head. Just
I just want you to know that's what I'm going.
I'm like, if you want to go to my head
to a copyright battle with Nintendo, I will follow you
(00:48):
the dark. I do not. Okay, Okay, yes, holidays coming.
It is um which are the most wonderful time of
the year, my least favorite time of the year for breakups.
It's the most wonderful there you go, um yeah, And
then you ask. More people break out this time of
(01:08):
year than any other time of year, which is really
odd because I've I've heard this as the cuffing season.
You know that's this time this time? Okay. So Urban
Dictionary has defined it as during the fall and winter months,
people who would normally rather be single or promiscuous um,
find themselves, along with the rest of the world, designed
(01:28):
to be cuffed or tied down by theories relationship. The
cold weather and prolonged indoor activity causes singles to become
lonely and desperate to be cuffed to an individual. So
this is called the cuffing season. Oh, I can't wait
to see if this happens to me. Now I get it.
With me, I get it because you know, I don't
(01:50):
have to have to. I don't deal with a lot
of um. What is that called. It's not external relative?
So I have my immediate family that's where holidays and
outside of that, I don't really have much interaction at
the holidays anymore. But you know, there's obviously a question
of like, are you still single going there? Um, So
(02:12):
I get that kind of anxiety around it to My
family has a tradition in which they like to take
couples pictures or families pictures throughout and it doesn't matter
if it's just my immediate family, which involves me and
three of the siblings and then their family, or if
it's with my As you said, external I don't I'm
(02:32):
not really sure how to go about that, But like
my cousins and all of that, Yes, we're doing this
earlier a little normal. Yeah that was already bad. Now
it's even worse. But they also do it too where
they have family pictures and they do it in front
of everyone, in front of the fireplace. And I remember
(02:55):
one year and by the way, I've never taken anyone
home for a holiday, except for for ends who may
need just say, you know, may not have their family
nearby and can't go home. I've never brought anybody. That's
just not something I do. Now. My siblings have just
started taking people home at thirteen. Yeah. Um. And then
there was my nieces and nephew not most, not all
(03:17):
of them, but a few of them started, like a
fifteen sixteen started bringing others with it. I'm like, this
is so weird. To be fair, again, I think a
lot of them would rather be with my family than
their own family or whatever the crisis was at that time.
But yeah, they have this habit of bringing people from
a young age, and so I've never done that. It's
never been an interest to me. I don't care enough.
(03:38):
Maybe um, but because of that, they would have a
couple of pictures, a couple of pictures, a couple of pictures,
and then I would be alone and my grant, my
poor sweet grandmother UM and I loved her dearly would
be like that you need to get up there too,
and I was like, that's okay, I'm okay, I don't
need to be by myself in front of the damn fireplace.
(03:58):
But she would hash me so hard. My mom would
get angry with me for not doing it, and then
as I got older, I was like, Mom, please please,
this makes me miserable, and she was like, you're right,
You're right. And so one year she's like, I'll get
up there with you. So it was me and my mom.
Use me and my dad. It was me and someone
else that was of significance but not a significant other. Yeah,
(04:19):
so that was always fun for the holidays. There's so
many reasons I don't like it, but that was one
of the other reasons. But man, if you had done that,
you could make a calendar of just me. I should
have leaned into it. I think it was partially like
the shame of not bringing, you know, as the usual,
because my younger cousins would bring people, and I mean,
I'm not stay younger. I mean like ten years younger.
(04:41):
I would bring people and I'd be like, hey, y'all,
I'm gonna sit in the corner. All good, don't look
at me. Yeah, you know, I'm I'm fine. I'm fine
over here. Um. I I can understand why the holidays
they're they're stressful, and then you're adding stuff like photos
and meeting the family, and I I feel like I'm
the type of person who would wait and break up
(05:03):
on the other side of the holidays. Um. I've only
taken a significant other home once for the holidays. No. Actually,
what happened was he wanted he was a big cruise person,
and he wanted to do a long cruise over Christmas
in New Year's and so I was gonna miss Christmas,
(05:24):
and um, we invited my mom and my little brother
to his place to have like a Christmas dinner. And uh,
that's when I discovered because we spent most of the
time at my place, he had no nothing to cook with, like,
so we had to go by like pots and some stuff.
(05:45):
And it was a kind of a disaster. That would
be when I'm doing a catered mill. Somehow I should
have that was well, I was trying to like replicate
what I would have with my mom. Um. And then
we went on cruise, and uh, we have all of
these pictures of us, like Christmas trees and New Year's
(06:07):
and in Hawaiian shirts. Uh. Usually for me, I'm just
an athletic gear all the time. That was when I
was training for a marathon. Actually training for a marathon
on a bership is hard as I'm on the boat, Okay, right,
that's right. Um. And you know we broke up not
(06:28):
a couple of months after that, and then the next year,
my mom I don't know if I've told this story
on the show before, I think I had, but Bradley
Cooper came to her office once, and yeah, my mom
became obsessed with the idea that I could marry Bradley
Cooper because I he was in the office and I
did not even know he was in the office. I
(06:48):
saw him, and honestly, I thought it was another corporate guy.
I was trying to avoid him. Um turns out as
a Bradley Cooper. And my mom was I think shallow
had just come out, so she was in I'm like
Bradley Cooper mine, so it'd be like nine PM on Tuesday,
and I'd get a text for my mom. You know,
he speaks French like random bags about why you should
(07:11):
be in love with this person and pursue him. Yes,
love it. I did too. I thought it was hilarious.
So if I for a sponsor, we had a sponsor
that was like a gift card holiday card company, and
I had no significant other, I don't have dogs or
I don't have basically would be just me, like you
were saying. So I got the idea to photoshop me
and Bradley Cooper together in this Christmas card, that wonderful
(07:34):
Christmas car. It's so good, It's so good. And then
on the back I wrote, you know you're right mom,
Brad and I and she thought it was true for
like two seconds. It's finally happened. But now my ideas
every year, I'm going to like up the antie and
make more and more ridiculous photos, which is awesome. A lover,
(07:55):
I wish I could have stuff like that. UM, up
until about and that will we'll stop with the personal stories.
But up until about four or five years ago when UM,
a majority of my siblings which is all of my
siblings went through sad divorces. Um My mom at Christmas
holiday traditions would be hard yelling at me about how
I'm going to die alone. Oh gosh. Yes, So this
(08:18):
is also another reason that I'm like, this is the
worst season of the year, so I should start doing that.
I should do some photo shopping and be like, look,
look what's happening. I'm dating this dude. I need to
find a picture of Chris Evans. Oh, I need to
like photoshop myself being hugged by him. Okay, I think
I can help you with this. I wanted to hold me. Okay,
(08:40):
maybe one day. You know, we're actually not talking about
specifically this, We're talking about heartbreak. So my mother was
heartbroken because there are a lot of different types of heartbreak.
I feel like the one that most people think of
is when you're significant other you break up or something.
But there's a bunch of different types. And we are
(09:01):
going to be talking a lot about clearly about that
specific type of heartbreak, but we're gonna talk talk about others.
And it is it does seem to be a cultural
obsession of ours. Um, it's hard to avoid. I mean,
on a daily basis. As I was walking here, I
had Google Play on Shuffle, and I think every song
was about heartbreak. Um. And I don't know if that's
(09:23):
because I've been researching it and Google knows everything you
do every um, but I was kind of like, oh yeah,
and after I broke up with the aforementioned boyfriend, UM,
I remember all of a sudden these songs that I
had been making fun of. I was like, yes, right,
I feel it too, right. I absolutely understand that because
they're still in the back of my head and still
(09:45):
on my playlist too. So when I would randomly shovel something,
I was like, oh, that emotion comes up. Yeah, Oh,
there's that feeling. I can't listen to this right now. Right.
It is funny how there is a part of at
least for me, to a part of me that sometimes
I'm like, I wanted to live in this emotion, and
then other times I'm like, oh God, no, please, I
gotta avoid it with all costs. So I'm like, no
(10:07):
Taylor Swift songs actually. Um. So one of the things
we're going to talk about as well is something I
know some of us have heard about, can you die
from heartbreak? And in my family, my grandfather died a
month after my grandmother. UM, and we often say it
was heartbreak. I don't know that that. I probably wasn't that,
(10:29):
but he was the devastated when she died. And UM,
I think he just kind of, I don't know if
lost the will to live, but it became much harder
for him. Right. It seems that a swift decline when
it's like that. UM with my grandparents, the same thing.
I don't think it was, but maybe it's more so
in our head, but it feels like it's a heartbreak
(10:51):
about whatever situation has happened. UM. And in our past
episode on emotional Labor, we talked a bit about the
stats around male widowers who have a higher mortality rate
than female widowers. We've also done episodes on how to
deal with heartbreak. UM, here's some bad examples are revenge
(11:11):
body not so bad example, I guess is post break
up haircut. It can be bad, it could be good.
The beans. Yeah, even after I've done that episode, I
knew the traps and the pitfalls, and I did it. Anyway,
have you done something like that, not necessarily haircuts? UM,
(11:32):
I think I've definitely done, Like I need to get
in shape, all those things I do the crying a
little bit, but I'm also a little more motivated. Um,
and I'm like, I gotta do anything but sit here
and think about it. That's kind of that. And I'm like,
I'm gonna volunteer for this. I gotta do that. I
gotta do this. And then at night, I'm just like,
I gotta find a way to sleep. Where's not meltonin.
(11:53):
I gotta hug my dog. I gotta watch the same reruns,
which is not unusual for me any other day. I
guess I have my infamous story around the office of
accidentally ordering seventy cookies in my like throes of of
the post breakup. The worst that got it was three am.
(12:15):
The cookie ladies showed up at the door and was like, oh, honey,
I know you didn't mean to do this. I was
crying when I answered the door, and then I took
it was it was storming, and I took the box
of cookies and destroyed them with the baseball bat outside. Wow,
that's dramatic. It was a Shawshank redemption, but much less
like meaningful moment. That's dramatic. Were you screaming at the
(12:39):
cookie It was like like scream crying in my head,
I want to know that you threw a cookie up
and like you would yell curse at him. Yeah. And
then the next day I had like the grossest fleeting.
I didn't do it. I was like, I wonder if
any of those cookies are saligeable? No, no, no, no,
make him out. I'm not mad at I'm not mad
(13:03):
at that. And then I have felt a new type
of heartbreak since my dad died, which is a more
kind of deep incurable sadness as opposed to for me
that that post breakup, which is really I think I've
been through too. That we're really serious post break up
like grief, and those are more I go through destructive
rage um and and like angry crying. I guess a
(13:26):
lot of that um. And then I um, after I
love China. That was a really a moment in my
life that I would describe as heartbreak. And when I
walked to work every day there's just smell like a
it's like a oil, just cooking oil, and it reminds
me of China. And every day I feel like a pang.
And that's been I mean, I think years. Yeah, that's true,
(13:53):
that's true. And I do think a lot of people,
including myself. We we have kind of these markers of
post breakup or post pet dying or post whatever traumatic thing.
Um because there are life changing events, they're transformative and
you kind of write their milestones. Yeah, like I said, um,
(14:13):
I definitely phil What I do is kind of I
slip into the motivation mode and that might go into
you know, post breakup body type of situation. Um. I
also do a loss of different other activities, including like
I tortured myself to sleepless nights and I just sit
there and talk about think about, you know, what is
wrong with me essentially, and then I dig deep social
(14:35):
work background, you know, about analyzing my actual diagnosis. Why
are these blah blah blah blah blah go back to
my childhood? And then also grief is definitely something that
brings whole new heartbreak, a loss or death of things
that can't be healed without time and support oftentimes, and
of course it's always going to be there because it's
(14:57):
a part of losses permanent. So because death is permanent,
you know, and it sounds really obvious, but because of that,
there's no backing into everything's gonna be fine. We could
redo this, we could redo that, you know. You and
I talked about this in our death and loss in
the Dutiful Daughter episode, where there's always going to be
(15:20):
a little bit of regret. It doesn't matter what it does,
It doesn't matter how perfect you think your relationship is,
and it just is UM and then don is significant.
I actually grieve over my dog still, Benny, whom I
called Bennington Ziggler because I just have to get a
full name, UM, and I couldn't sleep in the bed
without him, and it took me years to even get
a new dog, which we talked about Peaches, and I'm
(15:41):
already like I'm still kind of like shaken by the
idea UM. But it was weird for me, and I
think this has a whole lot of different things. But
when my grandfather died within the same year as my
dog died, and I think my grandfather had passed away
and then my dog died, and I grieved harder about
my dog, but I think it was just a culmination
of all the things that had happened, and it just
(16:03):
felt even bigger loss on loss, you know. And then
I felt that way in my career, my job, I've
worn and loss as in what I believe is failures,
you know what I mean. I think I sometimes confused
my failure and anxiety as loss, which is a thing
to hard stop. It's really hard to stop grieving over
(16:23):
what could have been, what ifs UM, But the recovery
is faster, hopefully, hopefully if you can actually get on
right track whatever mental health situation you have. But yeah,
I think that was part of the bigger grieving processes
that I had to go through. It was being heartbroken
because I felt like I couldn't do or say someone
or you know it even still like actually recently happened
(16:46):
because obviously I'm in the middle of UM doing two
very different things as my job and career, and I
reflect on what I was doing and I feel like,
partially did I fail if I leave or if I
try something new, or wouldn't you have what is this failure?
So so weird like grieving process for sure, and heartbreaking
(17:08):
moments for me to think on those things. Yeah, UM,
And we've both talked about how UM I went through
a sense of heartbreak for like my younger self and
feeling like she was a little sister that died and
that was kind of a pretty big grieving process and
through this show, UM, we've had to deal with that.
(17:29):
I think for me that was one of the first
times I've directly acknowledged and dealt with it. But it was.
It's pretty serious, and I mean a lot of the
things we're talking about clearly heartbreak has major impact. Is
so powerful. UM dictates a lot of our decisions, it does. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, like fear, fear of heartbreak is such a
(17:51):
motivator for so many people. You have rejection that kept
me so I'm gonna talk about a little later, but
that kept me from even trying to get into a
relationship up still still yeah, it's it's scary. UM. So
one of the things we like to do, of course,
(18:11):
is our definitions. And as we said, we are going
to be talking a lot about breakup heartbreak. But you know,
there are all kinds of heartbreak. I remember uh having
a like round table with the women. This was before
you worked here, Samitha, but after Donald Trump was elected
in the women in this office, and like experiencing joint
heartbreaks can experience like political heartbreak, loss of a loved one,
(18:33):
loss of pet, loss of agency, traumatic injury. UM, there
are a lot of things that will give you this
kind of like heart pain that we're talking about. Yeah.
According to behavioral psychologist Joe Hemmings, heartbreak is a quote
state of devastating emotional loss. While different for all of us,
(18:53):
the intense feelings of sadness, grief, and the overwhelming sense
of never being able to get past the pain are common.
And if we at the brain, breakups trigger the same
area as physical pain, and they induce the same symptoms
as drug withdraw and not like jug with all light,
I think like medium drug withdraw. This is part of
the reason we feel the need to send ill advised
(19:15):
like night text to our scroll through our ex's Instagram. Yeah,
no way, I'm a little weird with that. So we
all go through heartbreak. Let's just say that heartbreak is
universal and on average, by the age of thirty, most
of us will have experienced three breakups, with one of
them significantly impacting our quality of life for a period
of time, and the number one reason report for breakups
(19:37):
lack of communication no surprise to um and. Some symptoms
of heartbreak include isolation, isolating yourself, numbness, volatile emotions, unhealthy eating,
working all the time, or inability to work, substance abuse,
lack of sleep. Um, just these feelings of being unlovable, damaged,
(20:00):
deeply unworthy, like you'll never find happiness again. A study
conducted by Christine Tompkins out of University of Rochester but
forth that broken heart syndrome a k A. Stress induced
heart failure is a real thing. This is also called
stress induced cardio myopathy or taco subo cardio myopathy. Taco
(20:20):
subo is name for octovis traps that look like broken hearts.
Women are more likely to experience sharp heart pains in
response to emotional pain. Further science has found links between
mental health, depression and heart disease. Broken heart syndrome presents
very similar to a heart attack shortness of breath, chest
pains minus the blocked arteries. What's happening is a part
(20:41):
of your heart enlarges and kind of falls down on
the job when it comes to pumping. But it usually
only lasts a couple of weeks and it is treatable. Yes, um,
and I did want to put in here just as
a kind of joking, kind of serious aside, there are
some benefits heartbreak. I mean, the main one is you
learn a lesson right, hopefully you learn something. Are you
appreciate somebody you know? Um? But for me, I never
(21:05):
put on real clothes, you know, eat cookies or cheese
or my case, apparently fun shishido's all day every day. Um,
watching the same movies over and over again with no
judgment my friends. As I said, watch How to Train
Your Dragon with me probably three times in a row recently.
And obviously these aren't healthy in the long run, These
aren't healthy habits to build. But while you're in the
(21:28):
throws of grief, I was acceptable. Yeah. I usually give
people a time frame. Yeah, you do do if you're
going through a recent divorce, I'll give you a year. Okay,
I'll give a because it's a lot of like up
and down. Ye. Well, honestly, it's just like trying to
figure who you are again without that person longtime relationship.
(21:48):
Probably the same thing I'm going to give you over
a long time. But then at one point I'm gonna
be like, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna and I
do this for myself. I think I do a shorter
time frame for myself because I'm like, this is a ridiculous,
get over it. Um, I'm like, Okay, we gotta do
at least these things, but for now, we can dictate
exactly what you need, Like you can tell me exactly
what you need, whether it's me coming in there, just
(22:09):
sitting with you in the dark, me leaving you alone
for a small amount of time. I'm not gonna leave
you alone too often because I have to check and
make sure you're okay. Um uh. And then when it
comes to all right, maybe it's tough for therapy, you know,
like which we all should do anyway, but it's definitely
some of those I'm like, all right, yes you need time,
you need morning for sure, but I'm gonna be the
friend that's gonna be there for you. And if that
(22:30):
means to love, I got it. Yes you do. Um.
And again, we've talked about this a lot of times,
but people experience grief in different ways, and it's like
not linear. So one day you'll be oh, I'm fine,
it's finally over, and then the next day, oh my god,
it's never gonna end, right, lots of ups and downs,
and people do, um experience it in a lot of
(22:51):
different ways and a lot of different time frames. Um.
So you you have the best knowledge of what you need.
And you know, grief is a it's a mysterious thing.
So it's hard to it's hard to look at yourself
and say, I think I'll be fine given this. It
(23:12):
is it is put that on a pillow and mel
it was please just saying, you know, Samantha and I
are very motivated, and I'm sure a lot of your
listeners are, but sometimes time is the only thing right, right.
But we do have some other things we would like
(23:34):
to talk about, but first we have a quick break
for a word from our sponsored and we're back, Thank
you sponsor. So we did want to talk about gender
differences because there are some gender differences when it comes
(23:57):
to heartbreak. I bet a lot of you would guess
that women have it worse. Um, or at least they
they're more open with it. I guess open. Maybe they
have all the fields more fields. Yeah, and we all
know the stereotype of women. I've already said that this
is a benefit of the break up in your pjs,
(24:19):
down in jugs of ice cream, through the tears, um.
And there there is actually science about this, and a
science is a little mixed. Yeah, people are complicated. People
are complicated. I wonder how much of it is too, um,
because if you look at religious aspects, a lot of
the blame goes on women about something like relationships, marriage
(24:40):
is falling apart, and the responsibilities they have within a
marriage and keeping a marriage happy. Yeah yeah, I know that. Uh,
that whole thing of like blaming women for men cheating
because you clearly weren't keeping him satisfied, keep it together.
You have to be fit like actual um books about
(25:02):
from written by women in order to get husbands. What
is that called operation h t oh? Yeah. Actually, the
book Passion and Purity, written by Elizabeth Elliott a long
long time ago, was a big, huge thing. I actually
read it, really dug into it, really just put myself
(25:24):
all up, been there and it's not awful. There's not
like it's not awful awful sentiments. Um well, actually yeah
there is if we have It's been a while since
I've read it. I guess the whole idea of that
purity in itself, which if we talked about as of
recent t I, um, the purity tests and the purity
rings are kind of gross in itself. That's kind of
actually gross in itself. Um. Two, if you want to
(25:48):
be a virgin. If you want to save yourself however
you want to claim it, that's wonderful, that's beautiful, you
do you. But to have this whole stipulation and this
title is absurd in itself, but and especially placing it
all young girl says that their responsibility, but the same
author would go around and talk about how if you're
not keeping your body fit, you're dishonoring your husband. It
(26:09):
was this whole thing, and I was like, what the hell, Yeah,
what the hell? Indeed? Right, And it's somewhat like that.
I think that has a lot to do with And
I know, again we're I'm getting off track because we're
talking about heartbreak. But that level of responsibility being placed
on women and females in general, to say this may
have been your fault as to why he cheated, or
(26:29):
this may have been your fault as to why your
marriage didn't last, it's just really absurd. Yeah, and we're
so ready to take it on anyway, it's like we're
probably gonna think yeah. Fourteen study from a UK dating
site found that men actually reported higher rates of love
sickness and sadness after a breakup, even given that it
(26:52):
wasn't quote true love. Um, that was the main difference.
Men felt heartbreak in more situations as compared to women's
severity was kind of the same. When interviewed about this
this finding, a psychologist suggested it maybe because men overestimate
women's interests and it therefore hurts more when women don't
reciprocate their affections. And yeah, that's very heterosexual, although I
(27:13):
guess bisexual, it could be. Yeah. The study also found
that men are more likely to engage in casual sex
post break up, while women are more likely to dive
into work party too hard comfort eat. That sounds familiar.
A different study found the exact opposite. It concluded that
women feel the pain of breakups longer and that new
relationships don't necessarily help. The study also found as the
(27:36):
number of breakups went up, women's overall mental health went
down in a way that men's didn't. However, it did
find that single women's mental health was higher than men's
mental health. Oh, I like that. Women also reported feeling
more physical pain. The study authors who came to that
conclusion thought that this had to do with the fact
(27:57):
that women do do the general fact that we good
pregnant invest more in relationships. This potential biological investment has
made women choose your over time, which means the loss
of a quote high quality mate hurts more. The same
study found that women come out on the other side
as emotionally stronger and recover better compared to ben Multiple
(28:18):
studies have found that both men and women find self
esteem within relationships, so it makes sense that after relationships
end it's a hit to our self esteem. We feel
a loss of identity. However, this self esteem is arrived
at differently. Women get it through connection, while men get
it through social status. Generally, these in general terms, because
(28:39):
of these basic differences that men and women do typically
experience heartbreak differently. Men are more likely to get active
in some way, while women are more likely to reach
out to their support group. Because in a lot of societies,
women are allowed to be more open when it comes
to emotions, women may actually move on from breakups more
quickly than men. Um, and this is one of the
many ways society influences how we grieve. Right but this
(29:04):
made me think about what happens when you don't want
to be in relationship, and this comes up in in
my therapy not infrequently. Right um, because it does make
me feel sometimes like I have no self worth since
people are always sort of like, where is your your incomplete?
You're missing something. UM. I feel like society sees me
(29:25):
generally as a waste. UM. It's made me do things
I haven't wanted to do and try to fit into
molds I don't want to fit into. Yeah, I think
I was the same way. I felt abnormal because I
didn't get into too many relationships either. UM, as in,
do I have a mental block as to why I'm
not looking as hard as others or why I don't
feel like I need to UM. I never actually dated
(29:45):
in high school, and I actually didn't date in college either.
I think I went on the whole the three dates
didn't have any relationships within UM. I think we had
like piddly kid kiddish relationships. You know, he's my boyfriend.
We you know in the high school or whatever, but
never actually dated. UM. And it wasn't until my mid
(30:05):
twenties that I actually started to look. And a lot
of that had to do with being open and feeling
like I could be vulnerable, and because of some of
the trauma that I had experienced, it was not possible
for me of course I say I yearned to be wanted.
That is something that's always been UM at the forefront
of my thoughts. But that's generally in everything, whether it's
(30:27):
my job, whether it's friendships, that someone wants me. There
essentially UM and my desirability and in my fear of
rejection stopped me. UM. Now I'm very comfortable in being sinkle.
I think I said that recently, Like that is something
that I know, and it's easy and I'm cool with it.
So to get into a relationship is like, do I
really want to compromise here? It's really worth my time.
(30:51):
A study from two thou eighteen out of the Journal
of Experimental Psychology examined the effectiveness of three coping strategies,
thinking bad thoughts about your ex, accepting your love for
your ex, or distracting yourself with things that have nothing
to do with your ex, which I like that option.
They found that all three help in some way, but
a mix of these methods provided the most relief. So
(31:11):
maybe listening one thing you don't like about person, one
thing you love, and then one thing that has nothing
to do with them. I think we should practice that
more often. The study authors proposed that removing feelings of
love attached with an X is the primary way to
move on. They call this love regulation, which I love
I love love regulation the term UM and they also,
(31:33):
as always, recommend not making life changing decisions during a
life changing time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, don't. It's it's
so tempting because you're like, this world takes everything. Yeah,
there are moments where I'm like, okay, I'm moving out
of the country. It's time to go to Antarctica. Finally
for me. Another study found that it takes about three
(31:56):
months to get it over a break up. Oh, I
have taken so much longer. I give you a year. Yeah,
I mean it depends on how long you've been with someone. Obviously,
I'm sure that's like an average, like you'll always remember that.
But still I give you a full year before I'm like, okay,
because it my that year includes you and you shouldn't.
But you probably dating around, maybe miscommunicating with people, breaking
(32:21):
a few people hearts, not necessarily in that way, like
doing noncommittal things with you know what, so hookups and such.
But I'm like, sure, I'll give you that. I'll give
you that. I'll let you know you're being a dumbass,
but I'll give you that. I'm not gonna be mad
at you for it. Yes. Uh. Then, of course there
(32:42):
are the comparisons between men and women in our media
when it comes to breakups, how women are so sad
without a man in their life, and how men can
finally live it up, be free, have hook ups. Yeah.
I always think of um, and I know we did
an episode on this forever ago, but the coverage of
Jadea for Anderson, like she's the saddest person that's ever existed. Yeah, okay,
(33:06):
And it was always like, well, it kind of did
start off with the Brad Pitt thing. Yeah, that whole
he left you for Angelina Jolie, who was the ultimate
sex symbol because you're the girl next door, right, Yeah,
and just like you know, she would date somebody and
then it would end and she's broken hearted by the
person she was dating. It's like finally able to date
(33:27):
all over again. And I'm like, okay, whatever. I think
Jan Franson's just okay, But I mean, if you really
thinking on it too, in that level, Brad Pitt to
me was even sadder because he would have you ever
seen the pictures of him in different relationships with different couples,
how he mimicked that style of the girl. There's this
whole those you're like, So to me, he was always
(33:50):
sadder because he's like he has to have a relationship
in order to find his identity. Yeah, so yeah, you
need to go with that. I was hilarious. So you
see him with quin Couch and you're like what, And
then you see with Angela and Jolie and Brad Pitt.
You're like a Brait, Angela, Jelly and then Jennifer or instant.
But he looks very different and very much like that
(34:11):
person in the pictures. There's a Parks in Rac episode
about that. Um. I know you've never seen Star Wars
and this is not the one I would recommend. But
in episode two, Attack of the Clones, pad Me a
k a. Natalie Portman has the infamous line and you're
breaking by heart the first thing I thought of. I
(34:33):
love the enthusiasm in that line. Oh yeah, you gotta
do delivered a um. And I mean, if you pick
just randomly three pieces of media, I bet one of
them has to do with broken heart, and I in
a way, I believe we romanticize heartbreaking. A lot of
ways in our in our medium. When I was younger,
(34:54):
I wanted to have a love that was so powerful
that the heartbreak would hurt as much as I was
seeing on TV or in movies. Um and so I like,
I had on my binder a poem that the w
H autumn poem Funeral Blues. I was really into the
(35:16):
beauty and greef. It's also very email. Were we all, well,
he and I were, And then I kind of I
was thinking about a bit more and maybe we what
we romanticize is self destruction, or maybe it's a combination
of two things. Of this love that we always see
and then the self destructive. We love broken things though.
That's kind of why we like shows that have broken
(35:39):
people in it. So you think of, um, my so
called life is all about broken people like you just
love that and you want to fix Jared leto real hard,
real hard. And the people who seem to get it together,
keep it together and be happy were the antagonists or
the bad guys, and the essentially so the nerd. It
was kind of like saw like he was too smart
(36:01):
and got it together. And then the girl who had
the family and was a cheerleader was also not the
great one. When you had all these other things that
were happening, they were more interesting. Whether it was a
drug overdoce or whether it's you know, and it's it's
definitely and I say broken people, but it's outcast as well.
And that's that level of we're very interested in we
(36:21):
feel that and we feel oh good, we're not alone hurting.
That's true. Oh and speaking of do you have a
favorite heartbreak breakup songs? So I have a few. So
I had several Elliott Smith's songs. Of course I wanted
to go down that road. Death Cab definitely had a
few of those songs up to me. I think they
had one of the best, um I hate my father
(36:43):
songs um. And it's somewhat of beat and you're like,
like one of the one of the lyrics talking about
how his father died and the priests is uh talking
all these great things about him. He's like, you're a
bastard in life, you saw you're a bastard and death.
It's a great line. And then I'll like them trying
to send his ashes out and it falls back into
his eyes. He was like, yeah, that's right. Thinks that
(37:06):
like that level of course, I'm at living things, um,
but even some old school drake got into my playlist
at one point. Um, and of course the Jimmy world.
There are several several songs that I would just angrily
singing and then then if you are like that was
kind of several. That was one of my first concerts,
(37:27):
what about you. I think I have a ton of
sad sad songs, but I don't really have too many
that I would go to after a breakup. But I
have songs that if I listen to them, I will cry,
um because that music is really moving in that way. Yeah. Yeah,
(37:47):
music is powerful and I think that's why people connect
so hard um with sad songs. Yeah. Yeah, if anyone
wants my playlist, I have a playlist grief and I
will share it if anyone wants it. But they'll make
you cry. Yeah, and you know what if you don't
(38:07):
want that, we have some advice on how to like
not cry, not necessarily maybe that's not true. We have
some advice for you, but first we have a quick
make and we're back, thank you sponsoring. So we do
(38:36):
have some advice. Even though a lot of you have
probably heard this, we've all probably heard a lot of
the basic one, and find a hobby is a big one.
You've sort of talked about that. Exercising, eating well, um,
sleeping as best you can, talking out with friends, reading
a book, volunteering, taking tiny steps to make yourself feel
(38:57):
normal again. And this is a big one. A lot
of that. Spurts recommend on following your ex on social
media and and removing reminders of them from your life.
Stop all contact if possible. I'm gonna. I actually just
looked up my ex and stuff the other day because
I was in the conversation and we're talking about past whatever,
and I was like, I wonder what he's doing. Not
(39:19):
a good idea, No, actually, I was kind of like, huh, surprise, interesting, interesting,
And I think I'm gonna especially if you're in a
really bad place and then you start comparing your life
to theirs. Oh no, don't do that, don't do it. Yeah.
I still meet up with my ex, and I regularly
thought to me, to me, like my exes or my
(39:40):
past they go into the land of nowhere and to
me just disappear, They disappear and never hear like I'm
of course, I just talked about stalking, but I would
never ever ever want to run into them. I never
wanted to see them. I'm like, they shouldn't exist. So
coming back to my like your friends with them, that's here. Yeah,
I'm the opposite is healthy, right, I'm yeah, I never
(40:02):
look at the Well now it's not that I never do.
I'm just not on social media that much much anyway,
So I just don't run into that problem, not often.
But I do see him in real life. I r
l um, and sometimes it does make me sad, Like,
you know, we used to be so close, and I
feels sort of awkward. Um, but you think about like
(40:23):
you kind of loose friendships to Yeah, sure you know
you got your gone them. Yeah, it's just just how
life is. Um. One big one is doing some introspection. UM,
ask yourself what it was that you liked about that
person and if you can find those qualities and someone else.
(40:44):
This is easier to do a bit later in the
grieving process. Um. But you know, you you have those
moments of I hate that person, I hate everything about them,
but there was something, hopefully that you were attracted to,
and maybe that's an unhealthy thing, right, Maybe it's a
healthy thing, but maybe it's unhealthy, but finding out what
it was. It's always you know, it's always a learning experience, right,
(41:09):
you can you can move on and bigger and better things. Um, okay.
And then writing about it, making art about it, using
it to create Yeah, I write a lot more when
I'm sad. I will say that to allow yourself to feel,
be honest with yourself. And if that's you need to
cry a little bit, or you have to sit and
watch the same movies repeatedly, that's fine. If you just
(41:30):
want to sit in the dark for a couple of days,
that's okay too. But eventually, yes, you do need to
shake it off. That's when the Taylor swift comes out.
And always good to communicate with the support group in
your life what's going on so that they can help
you and provide that support. And of course the unpopular
(41:51):
but true time time heels most wounds. It makes, it
makes things easier, hopefully hopefully event Chili um that positive note.
That's what we have to say about heartbreak today. But
I am really excited to share some listener mail that
we received. Yes, Kate wrote, although the most wonderful time
(42:16):
of the year is over Halloween, as a fellow horror fan.
I thought I would send you some recommendations just in
case you need more. Always send recommendations. UM One Cut
of the Dead. It is on shutter UK, not sure
if it is on the US version. It is a
zombie comedy. The first half hour maybe a little confusing,
but stick with it is great to watch with a crowd. Also,
(42:37):
if you like zombie movies and haven't already seen it,
Trained Busan is great one of my favorites. Yeah, that's
a good one. I sobbed at the end. Terrified again
and on shutter UK. A Spanish language movie that I
found unsettling, to say the least. Knives and Skin. I
saw this at fright Fest this year, UK horror film festival.
Isn't strictly horror, but has twin peak vibes and has
(42:58):
been described as a feminine noir. Yeah. I really loved it.
Looks like it's not available until December. I know you
like the superhero genre. In case you also like manga,
I highly recommend the TV series Attack on Titan, a
horror fantasy show. I often think about whether the horror
genre is a feminist genre. Women are always telling men
(43:19):
there's something out there there's something wrong, and the men
are consistently gaslighting them, ignoring their concerns. Before too long,
everyone's dead apart from one final girl. Maybe the true
horror is the patriarchy. Horror movies would be over in
five minutes if people listen to women. Hello. Yeah, You
start thinking about all of the things that could have
been solved why, and then you have to be oh,
(43:41):
because the movie would not be a movie, right. We
would have no horror movies. What I find interesting is
that it is mostly men making horror movies, but yet
they don't seem to learn from what I think is
the key message of the movie, Listen to Women. There
are some good podcasts on horror. You are interested, just
suggesting a couple She Kills, which ears horror through a
female lends, and The Evolution of Horror, which explores all
(44:03):
the different horror genres and how they developed as you
grew up with the screen franchise. You might be interested
in this eight minute documentary called Copycat, which suggests it
may not be as original as everyone thinks. Oh. I
love all of this. I love the suggestions. Um please
keep this coming. And another listener wrote in with some
different suggestions. Kim wrote after listening to feminist movie Friday
(44:25):
Alien addition, I am mailing in I'm a thirty four
year old woman who enjoys lots and lots of horror movies,
feminist horror movie plot lines to think about Last House
on the Left. This is so graphic trigger warning for rape,
et cetera. Parents Getting Revenge, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Final Girl
survives because she doesn't do stupid stuff. Midsummer Hereditary, The Descent, Everything,
(44:47):
the which female liberation lived deliciously. I spent on your
grave revenge graphic, questionable Halloween. Sorry, Laurie does everything to
survive and kill her nutty brother, which makes her badass.
Who cares if she's a virgin Jennifer's body for that matter,
anything Diabo Cody Ever wrote for Film Night of the
comment zombie fighting Valley Girls, It's can't be but great
(45:09):
The Craft Marianne, which is new on Netflix. Also, you
mentioned Ripley being the start of strong female characters like Buffy,
but I couldn't help but think of Linda Hamilton as
Sarah Connor. She was one of the baddest of the
badasses post Alien. Thanks for covering anything hard. I feel
like we ladies don't get fair representation, will weighing in
on reviews or being part of this community. You're welcome
(45:31):
and I will happily do so always. Cam later followed
up with more suggestions after Our Monster, Our Female Monster episode,
uh misery, Caffy bates the audition certainly harbor perhaps also
just considered Asian extreme high tension, which is French hand
that rocks the cradle. Um single white female swim fan
(45:53):
the crush. That's yeah, big genre, evil dead. All the
women are possessed by demons and made to do evil
g things. This was a choice by Raymie Say Raymie
Sharp Objects. Also the short from Tales from the dark
Side movie Um also this movie sucked, but it's worth
mentioning Knock the Neon demon Starry Eyes. A woman moves
(46:15):
to l a trying to get her big break. She
was willing to do anything. She spirals and kills all
of her terrible roommates and then turns into an alien
after totally riding and falling apart. I can't remember this
title helped me. I have seen that movie. I'll get
back to you about that. What I remember what it is?
Um Eyes without a Face, which is a black and
white French monster movie. I can see this influence later
(46:38):
in other horror movies. So if you wanted some suggestions
for horror, these listeners got your cover right. Thank you
so much. I've only seen like two of those the
bottom list. I've seen those. I've seen a lot of them. Yeah, um, yeah,
I know. Well you've got some fun homework today. And
then you and I because she mentioned and they both
mentioned a lot about like mothers m You know, I
(47:00):
talked about that previously. Some shoutouts to different podcasts that
we want to highlight because they're amazing and led by
women or females. Um, the scam Wow, which is super fun,
Sue and Cat. Sue and Katie talk about different scams
including and I didn't listen to the one the wedding
industry and poop TI and I was like, oh, I
(47:22):
like that. Um. And then there's also to go with
our heartbreak. This is why I'm single. With Amy and
Amy and sometimes Chuck. They talk about the good, the bad,
and the worst relationships and all the way from divorces
even to boobs. You know, I love anything that talked
about any of those things. Well, there you go listeners,
(47:43):
and if you have any suggestions for things we should
shout out horror movies, we should be watching our next
feminist movie Friday. I know there's been some talk of
the craft. Please right in. You can do so at
our email address, which is Stuff Medium, mom Stuff at
iHeart media dot com. You can also find us on
Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff
(48:03):
I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to our super
producer Andrew Howard, Thank you, and thanks to you for
listening Stuff I've Never Told You the protection of I
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