The Grinch: Holidays, PTSD, and Situational Triggers

Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster movies and psychoanalyze them.
My name is Bernie Brownfield and I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by
Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're
all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists, who practice out of Chicago.
Even though we are licensed mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for
entertainment purposes and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture in all forms.
Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists, we aren't your
therapist. If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find a local
mental health provider. Hello. So we are doing our second holiday episode of
twenty twenty two. We're gonna be talking about the Grinch. Specifically, we're
gonna be talking about the leaf Picks, our version of the Grinch from twenty
eighteen, or the Illumination Illumination, but I'm sure we'll be referencing the other
versions of the Grinch since he is basically a public property since the nineteen fifties
in sixties with the specials. So we were going to be specifically discussing parts
from that movie, but also you'll be hearing things here and there of just
basically the Grinch. So before we jump into that, I'm going to have
our guest, Brian Lowry introduced himself. Hey, Brittany and Ben, it's
great to join you. I am Brian Lowry. I'm a professor at the
Stanford Graduate School of Business and also a host of a podcast, Know what
you See, k n OLW what you see? Thanks for having me,
sure, thanks for joining us, and we're happy to have you. And
so basically this version of the Grinch, I'm sure a lot of people know,
but this person specifically is about a Grinch, a dude in Houville who
lives in a cave because he hates everybody, and he hates all the who's,
he hates Christmas, and he decides he's gonna steal Christmas because fuck those
who's. And but can we just say can we just highlight though, can
we just highlight them from San Francisco? So, um, that's a it's
a dope cave he lives in. Let's just be clear, his housing situation
is nothing to be upset about. He has a great view that would be
a hell of a place in San Francisco. I'm just gonna say, and
I would say, he really has what's it called Rube Goldberg, He's really
Rube Goldberg out his cave too. But we also in this movie, it
touches upon Cindy Lou who, but it gives a bit more a different kind
of telling of her story where she's being raised by a single mom. Donna
no clue who or where or what about her dad none. I googled it
and everything, could not discern what happened to her dad. But basically her
mom is raising her and very young twin boys. So part of the story
is also Cindy Lou who trying to help her mother by getting in touch with
old Santa Claus. So that's how her and The Grinch's story intertwine. So
the themes will be touching upon our PTSD, situational environmental triggers, and communal
healing, and as always we'll talk about treatment and final thoughts. So when
I was watching this version of The Grinch, post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD,
in my opinion as a clinician, is sort of textbook displayed in this
movie. So pretty briefly, I wanted to touch upon what actually PTSD looks
like when it's diagnosed. Is a lot of talk in the mainstream now about
it, but I think not a lot of people know exactly what criteria you
have to fulfill. So basically, if directly you have to directly experience a
traumatic event or witness it or learn about it, you have to have recurrent,
in voluntary and truths of distressing memories of the traumatic event, distressing dreams,
flashbacks. You have to have a few of these criteria emotional distress due
to cues about it. There's also a big component that I think we'll talk
about a lot with The Grinch is you have to have an avoidant response to
the distresser. So either you are actively avoiding the elements that trigger PTSD within
you, or you have to avoid also people, places, things, conversations,
external reminders basically that aroused a stressing memories, thoughts, or feelings.
So if we think about the Grinch, what is his big thing Christmas?
And I think specifically in this movie, they actually highlight that he was I
don't know, orphaned or abandoned or something along those lines Christmas. So we
are seeing someone who is actively actively actively avoiding a big external reminder of a
distressing past memory. I think something I noted one of my first notes when
watching this movie was that he has stocked up food so that he can be
in his little cave, his big cave actually all the way through Christmas like
this someone who is doomsday prepping Christmas so that he doesn't have to experience it
at all. He and the movie kind of opens because he's gotten himself in
a bit of a dilemma because he's been emotionally eating all his prep food.
So now he has to encounter the who vills people because he hasn't planned,
he hasn't appropriately prepared for his emotional responses to everything else more just like more
concretely pragmatically prepping, but not emotionally prepping. And he is, in his
failure to emotionally prep eats through his entire store of food. Yes, And
so then he has to do which what happens in people in real life.
They can no longer avoid the thing that they are avoiding, so they have
to encounter it. And so right in the beginning of this movie, we
see him go down into who Ville and be a menace. To put it
kindly. He is starting, he's provoking people, he's stealing their groceries,
he's puking in their groceries. He is walking around acting as if everyone is
out to get him, when he's the one who is causing drama, causing
conflict, and being pretty unkind to everyone around him. Yeah, well,
you know, kind of just I just wondered why he wasn't more fearful of
them, right, It was just an Interestingly, the degree of and this
is I understand can be part of keeps, but the degree of aggression and
only aggression was interesting, and then no one else responded to it was also
interesting. I think I can answer I can give you to that is that
when people are afraid, if they feel like they can take action and protect
themselves by expressing anger. And this is not necessarily a conscious thought, so
I guess it should be if your subconscious feels like it can take action to
a perceived threat, that can keep you safe by barking like a dog,
would you know, But through your behavior at something you're afraid of, you
will assume an aggressive stance and bristle and keep people away, even though what
you're doing is keeping people away from your fear, and we see that,
I think immediately with Grinches that as soon as he walks into the town,
he finds his fight part to protect his fearful, hurt parts, and if
he keeps everyone away from him, they can't get close enough to hurt him.
Yeah, definitely that protective part, because a big criteria for PTSD,
or what can be one, is that irrational and angry outbursts, you know,
and is I think that's sort of like you're saying, Ben, that
I'm going to get them before they can get me. Very protective. And
also a criteria of PTSD is having a persistent negative viewpoint on things, and
either that's about yourself or about the world at large, or something along those
lines. And I think something I noticed a lot was how much he has
decided or how much he is he believes that the Whos are all awful people.
And even though I know it's played for comedy in the movie, he
was encountering very friendly people, like especially his one neighbor, but he has
decided his persistent negative belief is that they are awful and so they deserve to
be treated with irritability and anger. And you're right, it's not fear.
But I kind of agree with Ben in that anger for a lot of people
feels like a more powerful feeling in the sense of action and control and intimidation,
and so him also because even like provoking, people are being angry with
little to no provocation. That is a PTSD criteria that I don't think a
lot of people think of. I think they think of it more of what
you're bringing up, which is being very fear fall and almost like meek and
hyper vigilant and scared all the time, but actually can scue the other direction
and frequently does of being more like starting fights and being someone with a big
chip on their shoulder, which he definitely has. Yeah, I guess that
was what was striking to me though, is often people don't respond to that
bynum unguarded kindness. Right, So when you do that, there's usually some
reaction, and the reaction is not one of, oh, let me be
nice to you even more, right, So there is a way in which
um, there's would I would not expect that to be satisfying that people would
continue to act and engage them in a nice way given the way he's responding,
right, So I'd assumed that that acting in that way, it's designed
to elicit some response and he's not getting that response. And also, by
the way, this is one of the things that will come to like I
had an issue with this movie and that I just think it's it's if I
had to guess who's writing this movie, would be the people of Whoville telling
the story about the Grinch. Yeah, well they do say history is written
by the whatever the winners, the victors, or hurts the dominators. But
yeah, it is an interesting thing to consider that if PTSD is a classifiable
disorder, it means that there's biological basis to it, and society as humans
are social creatures. If when we are hurt, some of the natural responses
we can get is that we get so hurt we retreat from society, and
when society approaches us, we're so fearful of it that we lash out in
anger. It seems like that's maladaptive because I am hurt and I need people
to care for me, and these people might care for me, but I
don't trust them, so I need to crush them and keep them away from
me. Keeps you in a paradox, and that's where we see the Grinch
live and where we see a great many people live of that they have been
so hurt that they don't trust anything, so that they are so riddled with
anger at how they're feeling that they get more angry when people don't respond positively
to their anger to take care of their needs, and get more angry.
And then people get very tired of trying to meet their needs very quickly and
leave them alone and tell bad stories about them. Yeah, it makes me
curious because we don't see this in this version of The Grinch, if as
a little kid, if he'd tried to assimilate and to fit in and then
was because what we get in the live action version is a kid who does
try to assimilate and gets bullied so egregiously that he withdraws. So it's more
like these little t traumas that go on and on until finally he's like,
fuck everybody, Fuck Christmas, fuck Martha who, and I'm gonna go live
in a cave. And so with this movie, there's more of a simplistic
story, to be quite honest, and that one bad, one quote unquote
bad thing happened and then he retreated from the world at a very young age,
and so Yeah, I'm not quite sure where I'm going with that,
other than I think a lot of with it too is just that confirmation bias
as well. You know, when you form such a strong view of the
world based on genuine hurt and hardship, when people are contradictory to that belief.
I think for some people it's so uncomfortable and invalidating that they rejected outright.
And for him, if we're to believe that this is his narrative and
not the who's when they do treat him with kindness, there's a filter going
through his brain where he is reworking the actual motivation behind that. And I
do see that with clientele who've gone through who have PTSD, have gone through
tramatic experience, who have a very strong belief about people humankind, some category
of people where even if they are treated quote unquote well by them, when
they're in session with me, they'll start making caveats, so we'll start rewriting
the event, like in front of me. Yeah, I mean, she
did invite me to this, but you know, maybe she was doing that
because she really wants to make a fool out of me, Because she's inviting
me to the specific kind of thing, and I know that she knows that
she's better than me at it, and so you can kind of see I
see like in front of me, clientele will start changing a story to fit
this narrative because that's how they have viewed the world for so long, and
to try to view it differently is so uncomfortable and it requires a lot of
radical ability, a lot of radical flexibility that if you're still in the state
that he's in and where you're still so isolated and so in pain, it's
just not possible until you have a bit more relief from that. Yeah,
I mean, I think there's a number of studies that suggest that people want
to support their own their existing worldview, right, So if you have a
worldview that people are out there get you, then it feels better to you
when you when that seems to be supported by experiences in the world that when
it's challenged. So I think that certainly is true. But at the same
time, it's self protective, right, So we talked about it. It's
it's easy to talk about it is like that he should or someone in the
situation should let people in and understand that this is you know, it's you
know, that this is the view of the world. It might not be
right, but it could be right. Doesn't clear right that it's not.
In this situation with the Gridge, the people that he has concerns about are
the people, in some way, whether they talk about or not, that
have created the PTSD. Right, they've been involved in the creation of the
trauma, so that from the outside it can look and it can look as
if there's some issue with the person, but when you take it from their
perspective, you can see it is like, yeah, it's costly to engage
in the world this way, but maybe that cost is worth it given the
fear of what could occur, And there's evidence that those things could happen,
and in the case of the Grinch, they have happened, and being able
to consider it from his perspective is important because the only perspective that you have
is your own. And we see him standing outside looking at all of these
other kids getting all of their needs met, and no one is meeting any
of his. And every year he sees all of these people, and every
just not every year, not even just Christmas, but we can assume it
being in an orphanage, but no mom and dad that he just sat and
observed through that window everyone else's needs getting met, wondering why not me,
which means that resentment that he can build and that feeling of lack of safety
in engaging in that is very valid and comes from a very real place.
And I don't think a single person in Huville would understand why they are the
villain in his story. But if you look at it from Grynch's perspective,
that makes perfect sense. That every time I look at you, I feel
my own pain and I don't want to anymore. Yeah, And I think
something also to bring up, and they talk about this on the live action
version, is he looks different than everybody else in this town. He's a
different color. He is green, and everyone else is like shades of invasion
and tan and that kind of thing. And so it wouldn't be also surprising
for him to put you meaning to that as well, like I'm also the
only person who looks like me. That's isolating in general, but also does
that mean something about why I'm being left out and I'm not being taken care
of? And I see all these other kids who look like the adults,
and they're being taken care of. Like we don't even know where there are
other kids in the orphanage? Is it just him? I'm assuming because it's
a whole orphanage that there are other kids there and not just like a room
he was sitting in, But we don't know, Like this movie doesn't really
give us a lot of information other than that flashback about the extent of his
history. Yeah, because at some point you have to wonder if it was
an orphanage, and I'm not sure it was, but if it was an
orphanage, he wasn't adopted, which is strange given how who Villas presented.
No, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And so it's like how old did
he did he have to age out of the orphanage? Did he run away
from the orphanage and then go to his cave? How did he find his
cave? Like, there's a lot of questions that if he was in my
office, there's a lot of questions. Would I would want like a timeline
of the situation so I can best sort of understand where this started for him,
you know, and what were the meaningful beats to that timeline and how
and kind of what you're saying to also validate where these beliefs came from you
know, how much it was based on actual lived experience and then how much
it was is that exacerbated through like the filter of a filter of a filter
that all of our brains do to memories where we conflate them over time.
Another thing about that I think about the movie, and this is now going
back into the movie, is that thought that I didn't think it was an
orphanage the way they played it. I thought he was like born to rich
parents or something like kind of some kind of Batman narrative where they died or
something, and he was left in this huge castle kind of on his own
because he has that big organ. He has all these things that are like,
this is not I mean, he's he's living lavish even as alone.
Well that's that's in his cave. He definitely has those. The the flashback
scene definitely shows it's an orphanage. Thinks orphanage. Yeah, So I don't
know, we're we're I mean, we'd obviously. I just find the whole
thing strange because then I'm like an orphanage. But he didn't get adopted.
I wouldn't be so happy about them either. I'm like, what's up?
Everything is great? But I got to live up myself. Yeah, And
it seemed like the subtext of one of the scenes while Farrell was reading his
poem to me, was like he was watching this one kid run up to
these other parents and and get happiness. And the way I interpreted it,
which could be incorrect, you know, it's just our perspective, right,
This is why we do films. Is watching that kid run up to parents.
It seemed like that was a kid getting adopted, and the subtext of
that was watching that happen was part of a great pain for him. And
he's right after that we see him in imagining himself being in that big empty
hall in the orphanage with almost nothing at all. I think is the even
the phrase they use. And then you see him fantasizing and that he has
this big, huge Christmas with all these lights and all these presents and this
warmth, and then it all fades away and shows that there's barely any heat
coming from the fire in this dark and gray space, staring out at what
might be the most colorful film ever made other than Coca. I think it's
of all these bright, bright colors everywhere. No, it's very Dickensian his
whole, like all the orphanage stuff. But no, it makes me think
of it makes it gives me more like more context to all the versions of
the scene in which he is standing at the edge of the cliff up in
his cave and he's staring at all at whose and he's like, I freaking
hate their tree and I hate their singing and I hate and I think it
is that longing that over time has been perverted, for lack of a better
descriptor, into anger and maybe even hatred of You guys are a community.
You're demonstrating all the time, this togetherness, and I'm being left out of
it. So that's either a fraud and fuck you guys for being so fake,
or you're choosing to specifically just isolate me, and also fuck you for
that. And so, no matter how you slice it, that celebration that
he observes in Huville is heartbreaking for him. And I think he does a
thing that a lot of people do where they're trying to act like it's just
annoying to them or irritating, and that very like I am, I scold
on the inside. My heart's two sizes too small, and I don't really
care I just these people are just annoying, but really it's coming from like
a deeply painful place for him that that behavior is just signifying loneliness and I'm
sure very deep, deep longing within him to be a part of that circle,
you know, Yahoo forest or wherever they say, like the little Yahoo
song down there, and he's not a part of it. Welcome. Yeah,
here's the thing. Here's the thing. I don't get though, why
would he want to be a part of it? Like, so there's a
difference between wanting to be a part of a community and wanting being a part
of the community to rejects you. I mean, I was always because I
wonder if it's because the way that Whoville is presented, well, it's on
a snowflake, so I think that there isn't another community for him to go
to. So I wonder if it's one of those things where either I'm embraced
by the community in front of me or I isolate in this cave. So
it's not like because when Horton, here's a who those who's live on a
flower. So unfortunately he has got you know, I don't think you can
jump from the snow to the flower So I wonder in this situation is because
he has nowhere else to go. There's no other community that he can turn
to. Well, there's no other place he can get supplies. Yeah,
his resources are limitary. Leased. Yeah, again, that guy needs to
immigrate from the snowflake to a flower. Well, someone on TikTok the other
day, someone's so funny. Someone on tik that the other day was just
talking about how on Horton hears a who all those people are different colors,
like all those who's there? Like what if he was supposed to go to
the flower and instead he got sent to the snowflake by the snork or the
stork or whatever. And so that's just the long and the short of the
problem is it was a you know, uh miss delivery or you know,
a mistake in delivery, and he was supposed to be on the flower.
Man. His situation is sounding sadder and sadder. I know. Yeah,
I have so many problems with just the like the origin of that argument that
all his problems would be solved if he was born in the right place.
That profoundly, I'm not going to analyze the crap out of that, And
now'll just go like my simple answer to that is no, no, no,
But I mean, I don't think they were thinking too deep in it.
It was they were just thinking, maybe he was supposed to be on
the flower, And actually I said to the snowflake, and that's why he
doesn't look like everybody else fit in. But that just we don't have to
get deeper than that. Then I think they were just making an observation.
He could have been Cindy Luhu on the flower instead of the grinch on the
snow lake. He could have been, and it could have been, but
even still people going, oh, that's someone else's problem. And the diffusion
of responsibility and clearly having enough resources to adopt this child and give him a
better life than relegating him to a world in a empty orphanage in the dark,
gray, abandoned looking area of a very bright, happy looking town is
a you know, it echoes the tragedies in our own world, I think,
and just assuming if someone were born somewhere different they'd be better. But
even someone published their thoughts, so I get to publish mine so they can
deal with it. M sorry, not sorry if you published that. But
the thing I think I like about the idea of understanding Grinch's world here is
that this person, this Grinch, is still staring yeah, over and over
at this happiness in front of him that is inaccessible to him. And why
would he want to join people who have left him? Is a fantastic question,
Like why would I want to be part of a community that has rejected
me? Is a fantastic question that people don't ask enough when you're approaching someone
in therapy or in people that you meet that you don't sit and going,
well, why don't you just make some friends in this place? You your
parents moved you too, that you didn't want to be at, that made
you leave all of your friends and family and anybody that looked like you because
your dad got a job. Well hold on, like, I don't want
to be here. And as soon as I got here, I got bullied
because I was the new kid and I looked different. And some of the
scenes I think that made it in the trailers of this that I don't recall
seeing in the film where they showed him getting bullied in school, and I
think they took those out by the time, because when I watched this,
I don't recall seeing those. I'm just my brain turned off, but I
don't think so. Are you confusing this for the Jim Carrey version. No.
When I remember when the trailers to this came out, they showed kids
bullying him and him trying to shave, it was it echoed some of the
stuff in the Gym Carey one, like with the toilet paper things on his
face and things, or I'm inventing memories, which is also possible and on
brand what we're talking about. Yeah, yeah, that was another episode.
Yeah, of course. But the understanding that people don't always willingly resubmit themselves
to pain is important and understanding, like you can only reject somebody so many
times before they assign you a file in your brain of being unsafe, and
Grinch has definitely done that, and he is determined I am safer by myself
than I am continuing to try to join this community of who's even though that
later proves false. I think it's it's a problem I have with Christmas movies
and things that in the traditional sense of comedy versus drama, where things end
well, things don't end well in the Degressian theater sense of it, that
in the comedy world of movies, we see the things ended well for him,
and they don't end well for everybody. In holiday movies are almost all
comedies and almost all end well, and I think people sometimes struggle with sessing
them and watching them because they see like, yeah, okay, but that's
not real for me. Maybe that's real for other people, but that's also
sort of the entire pot of this movie is Wow, that can be real
for other people, but not me, and it hurts me so humbug.
Yeah, I actually seeing people like, you know, like the Christmas aspect
of it is really interesting that he hated Christmas so much in particular. And
I think this is a hard thing for people to see that what you feel,
what makes you feel comfortable and warm and accept it, might make someone
else feel on the outside and not accepted and not understood, understood or seeing.
And I just thought that was interesting, right, and sometimes even more
than that, Right, if you feel like you've been rejected by community,
to see that community hold hands and embrace is not a sign of like warmth
and goodwill toward men. Let's say that if that community has been mean to
you and then you see them getting together and celebrating each other, that is
not going to make you feel safe or welcome, and I thank you for
him that said, that seems to be how he responds to Christmas, like
and they're singing together for example, like he's just really that's really off putting
in particular to him. Yeah, because I think the movie, probably because
it's like a simplistic children's movie, tries to sell that it's like a big
ta trauma right Christmas because he just happened to be orphaned at Christmas. So
when there's that scene with the Christmas tree and he has kind of like the
panicky, like panic attack flashback where he feels like he's back in Like that's
a pretty textbook flashback trauma related. But kind of what you're illustrating is that
what it's probably more realistic is a lot of what we call like little t
traumas like time and time again, in which he was traumatized by the community
by his situation, and Christmas is wrapped up in it because it is the
time when all of these elements are pumped up to the nth degree and it
really just demonstrates how mistreated he has been and it's so in his face to
the point that he's up in this cave and he can still hear them and
see their decorations, and they're also they're going to make it three times bigger
this year, three times bigger. So it's like, even when I try
to run from you, guys, you continue to like throw it in my
face by pumping it up. And I'm also saying, there's something almost in
the Fairies about people that have been mean to you bonding over something, right,
Like, so think of like another movie like Carrie, like you go
to the prom. If you've been bullied all through high school, the prom
is not going to be some warm experience you have, right, It's going
to be terrifying, right, because there's something that is scary about seeing people
go through bonding rituals when those people have been people who haven't been you feel
like you've been on the outside of that, right, and you've been afraid
of those people. Just like the idea that everyone experiences and this now'll go
back to Christmas that people experience Christmas and this way that we do. Right,
if you experience it as a warm together time, and that's what it
is as opposed to that's the way you experience it, and other people can
have a very different experience so you know, as we know, as you
all know better than I do, that Christmas can bring up a lot of
grief for people, right, Christmas can be really frightening and dark and sad.
And I think when you live in a world where everyone's talking about Christmas
as the most wonderful time of the year, that has to be intensely alienating.
And you're absolutely right sitting there and seeing people able to engage in something
that fee that is obviously a communal event where everyone knows the rules and everyone
knows what to do and everyone knows how to behave as you walk into it,
it can further alienate you and remind you just how on the outside of
all of this you really are. And being at a prom and not being
a cool kid who sat and talked to everybody about, oh, what are
you wearing this year? What are the trends? Who even accesses the magazines
that tell you what these things are or the websites for those of us who
you know, um, don't know what the magazine is, but I say,
I don't think anymore. But yeah, no, but it did when
we went the problem. Although I know we're dinosaurs now, so it's okay.
But recognizing the the power that when people are celebrating something that feels good
to them, and that reminds you how much further away you are for that
from that experience, it makes sense why we see people reject holidays, why
we see the Grinch and ebone'z er Scrooge and people like them have such a
hard time connecting to this and that most wonderful time of the year thing makes
them want to throw up in their mouth, die go over all the same
time, because that's the way they feel inside when they're reminded of their pain.
And Brittany, I don't know. I didn't see him mentioned that he
lost his parents at this time, so maybe I missed something. But for
me, just this gets his pain gets so much bigger at this time of
year when all of that becomes real. So yeah, all the times of
the year, I can handle it. Other times of year, I can
handle it. But this time of year, when it's also bright and there's
the rituals going on around it that you know, normally I can just see,
Okay, well, these people have their own small thing where they're gonna
hug because they see each other, and these people over here have their own
thing going on, but all of everyone who is not like me getting together
and showing that everyone but me has a place here. That being the thing
that he can't tolerate and has to retreat from makes a ton of sense to
me as a person who lives in trauma treatment world. Well, you could
probably answer this better than I could, Hannah, because I think you see
the movie more than I have. Does he lose his parents? I feel
like the movie infers that he lost his parents like at Christmas time, But
I could be totally making that up. No, I don't think that they
say that. I think it's I think it just happens to be that Christmas
time is just the hardest time for him. I don't think it's I don't
think it's that he loses his parents at the same time, I think it's
just it's just like the biggest reminder that he doesn't have any family, because
everybody's talking about family and visiting and spending time and that they have families that
they want to go and visit, and that they have families that they actually
want to spend time with, and that being the most painful time for him.
Kind Of like what Ben was saying, Okay, Well, I mean
this could slide very easily into our next topic, which is situational environmental triggers,
unless is there anything else you want to discuss with the Grinch specifically and
PTSD all right, so we will take a break here and be right back.
All right, So we're kind of talking about it already. Christmas isn't
always the cat's pajamas for a lot of people. To put it mildly,
like you were saying Prime earlier, think as clinicians we have every year we
are reminded of that or we are in that experience with a lot of clients,
which is we do extra checking in not just Christmas, but also like
Thanksgiving and this time of year in general. Is I'm doing a lot more
as a clinician, a lot more checking with people about do you have plans?
How are you feeling? Even if people have plans, they're not always
great plans. I do a lot of copahead plans for people around the holidays,
which is, if you know something about an experience is going to be
triggering, let's plan ahead for it, let's talk about skills you can use,
and let's rehearse that plan together. And so you're right in that it
is very fun, and it's marketed throughout the world pretty much as this holly
jolly, fun, fun, fun time for a lot of people. But
in the mental health world, it is probably one of the more vigilant times
of years for us in terms of keeping an eye out for our clients.
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, I think definitely a part of what we
see this time of year as people having a harder time than normal, people
experiencing more intense sometimes more intense symptoms, just worrying about things. And I
do copa head plans, but I also have to do a cod plan for
myself around the holidays, for you know, for not being one of those
people who has a who has family that are easy to be with. Yeah,
I certainly do not have family that is easy to be with, and
sometimes people really need to feel like that is an experience that is more universal
and inclusive then holiday movies and songs and decorations and everything everywhere. From ten
pm on October thirty first through January tenth, when they can sell the rest
of the stuff to the late people who want to go and buy it for
next year. They are thrust in it. They are thrust in it and
this constant messaging that everything's merry and bright, and you know, the seasons
greetings, most wonderful time of the year. I love Christmas. And there's
gonna be some person who separates out their entire reality so that they can make
everything decorated. And there's a show that I like called metal Ocalypse that doesn't
run anymore as a cartoon on Cartoon Network about a metal band, and they
head a line on there that makes me laugh so hard, is like it
a minute, we get to hang a dead thing in our house and decorate
its corpse. That's metal, And like people who are suffering through traumas that
get thrust in their face don't get to have that experience of decorating the corpse
more so, but they have is people decorating the husk of themselves that they
have to put out in front of the world and see everybody else decorating it,
and they just suffer. And they're expected to decorate the corpse of their
losses and just join the culture and they can't, and then they're villainized.
Why why are they villainized? What was the what is that about? Yeah?
I mean, I think like with Scrooge, for anything about like that
is. I know he's the villain becaupposedly he is, you know, a
miser and addutional of stuff. But I think similar to the Grinch, I
don't think we really like to acknowledge the I'm not gonna say I was gonna
say ugliness, but I don't want to put that word on it. More
like the complicated experience that it is things like the holidays. We as we
talked about many times on this podcast, people don't do well at the discomfort
of messy feelings or not positive feelings or happy, shmappy feelings, And so
to truly acknowledge that people like the Grinch exist, that there are people who
don't have good feelings around the holidays, I think just makes people really uncomfortable
and they just want to ignore it or victim blame right or like say it's
it's it's because you have your you know, your stick up your ass,
or you have squandered away opportunities to be part of a community. And we
have a lot of narratives that sell that right of their the problem, it's
their fault that they can't get into it and they're not even trying ying when
there isn't enough discourse around the fact that it's okay if Christmas isn't something that
someone's ever going to buy into, it's okay if they do. It's more
like wanting them to conform. You know. If you don't conform, you're
the problem. It isn't the situation we're asking you to conform to. It
feels like it feels like cult behavior. The energy around Christmas, that's for
sure. Holidays like if you don't get on board with this, something is
wrong with you. On you on the outside, get it together, We're
right, come on board. It feels a little bit like that. I
just don't know what they don't know what to make of that. It's really
an interesting, you know, way of seeing it. If you were to
take a grunch perspective pre you know, indoctrination into the cult. I don't
disagree with you, honestly. I think that we do people who are so
excited to put aside all of their feelings and enter this period of happiness,
which is dissociation folks. For those of us keeping track, people who are
so eager to dissociate away from all of their problems and have had an experience
that makes that possible for them get really upset with people whose difficult life experiences
have been so much that they cannot escape them so easily and they cannot put
them to the side, And even worse for those who have been through things
around the holidays or centered on the exact feelings that the holidays tell us we're
supposed to have that are inaccessible to them, so it feels more alienating,
like for our good friend Ebenezer or the Grinch, that we can't put aside
those things, but they want us to so that they can have their time
where they can dissociate happily into It's no different than you're harshing my buzz man.
You're time, so I could get fucked up, and you're harsh in
my ballas I don't appreciate that you're buzz gilt. I agree, Yeah,
it's crazy. What if What if Cindy Lou who is really like Rosemary's Baby
pulling him into well, that's kind of more of like the live action one.
She's the one who is more like I gotta get to the Grinch.
I'm like, what about the Grinch? She's the one more actively trying to
pull in the community. In that version, but I think I mean,
honestly, I'm just going to throw that up to the simplest simplicity of being
a child, that you just put something as good, and so you want
someone that you see is suffering to be in the good feeling you have,
and you don't really you can't really acknowledge the nuance there and the complications there.
I think what came to mind when you were talking asking about this,
Brian, is that there what's so funny about this is there is is that
common trope or joke that we're all going to argue over Thanksgiving table, like
everyone fights during Christmas. You gotta take your walk because you can't listen to
this one uncle talk shit anymore. So I think what's so interesting is that
we do acknowledge through sort of comedy, but not really it's you know,
it's comedy because it's true, but in a sad way that people struggle during
the holidays, and people will try to force themselves into these happy settings and
they don't have a good time. They get too drunk or and they fight
or they have to leave. And so what's interesting is that there is this
public acknowledgement that the holidays are hard and that they bring a lot of strife
up for a lot of people, and yet we want to simultaneously live in
this fantasy that it's the happiest time of year and everyone gets warm and fuzzies
from their family, which I think says so much about how in deny all
we are as people about the reality of the world and how families are complicated,
and therefore the holidays are complicated because they are primarily with your family,
and we want to live in this delusions during the holidays that that stuff doesn't
exist. And then if we're honest about it, we are causing problems,
and we are we are taking something from the people that are still fully in
that delusion. Yeah, I like it. I like the Brittany, And
then the way you present it, I think it's similar in that there seems
to be some need to have this space where everything is fantastic and everyone is
happy and great, and when you need that, someone who pushes against it
is a problem. It's problematic. And you're not going to be particularly sympathetic
to someone who's suffering, not because maybe not even because you don't care about
their suffering, but because you need something right like and they are preventing you
from getting what you need, and even what you need is delusional. That
doesn't mean you don't need. It just an interesting And that also that the
distinction you drew between the way people talk about Thanksgiving and Christmas is also really
interesting because people don't seem to have the same kind of everything is fantastic.
At Thanksgiving, there's there's an openness to know it's hard. But then somehow,
you know, the first holiday rolls past, and now everything is going
to be great and we're all gonna love each other. And it's too bad.
If that's not your family situation, I feel bad for you, But
that's how it should be. It's just an interesting societal kind of dynamic,
I think, and it is, and I think what's more powerful about it
is people are profoundly unaware of the neurobiology that we possess and the reality that
we are piloting a meat machine that comes with hardwiring that is designed to keep
us alive, and it is designed to rub run subconscious to whatever is going
on in our brain so that we can constantly evaluate the presence or absence of
threats in order to deploy responses to them. And I put it in that
bland scientific language on purpose when I try to talk to people to help him
understand, it's separated. It's separate from what you want. It's separate from
what you think. It's what your body has encoded with situations. And when
we see a movie like The Grinch, this one does such a good job
of showing how once he walks in to that holiday square, right when all
of those flights happened during that tree lighting, he is completely flooded with bad
feelings because he is feeling yet again the profound absence of safety that he felt
when he was a child, the absence of community, the absence of parents,
the absence of warmth, the absence of love. And for those of
us keeping track, those are existential level fears that cannot be negotiated with,
that are dictated by drives. Drives them not wants. Drives are biological components
of survival that we must pursue in order to stay alive. And when something
threatens those, we get an existential fear. And you see the Grinch start
to react to those and the lights bam, the sounds, the music,
all of it transports him right back and his subconscious system, his hardwiring starts
telling him you are unsafe, You are unsafe, you are unsafe, and
he starts dissociating and moving to escape immediately. That profound fear that you were
asking about, Brian, I think it's struck right there. When he could
put up the front, when he could put up the armor and be spikey,
he was, but this overrode that and told him you are so unsafe,
you must leave immediately. And we don't do a good job as a
society of being conscious of how our Christmas lights that we decorate in our workspaces
might be triggering to people's experiences of profound terror. Tied to this, what
if someone's mom or sibling passed away tragically during the holidays, and all you're
doing all day long, well, they're trying to activate their work part and
put aside their shit, is subconsciously triggering them to a point that they can't
tolerate being in their own skin, and we show no empathy for that.
Oh, I should be able to decorate for the holidays. It makes me
happy. Yeah, we fly into our egocentricism with these things of I like
it though, and I need it, and it's fun for me. So
like you're saying, Ben, it's a buzzkill. It makes me think of
when people ask people like when are you gonna have kids? And I'm always
like, oh, like, are you ready to talk about someone's reproductive journey
and maybe their infertility and maybe like they don't want to have kids and the
complicated history that might be tied to. I think there's so much that we
societally view with frivolity that we don't We're just either we can't or we're not
willing to, or we're not able to, you know, connect it to
depth, and then we get uncomfortable and we want to shoot on the person
like they'd be down or basically like that whole that nickname is an archetype of
someone who does that right, of someone who takes something that I like and
I enjoy and it brings me happiness to talk about babies or weddings or something,
and I am not willing to have a real conversation about it that would
ironically truly benefit the person potentially in front of me. If I could really
go, if we could really go into those conversations with open minds and and
the true capacity to hold that space. I mean, I think we're seeing
a lot too with people have a lot mixed feelings about even if I'm going
to say this, but like about like the term safe spaces and people really
should on it. But that's kind of what we're talking about, is even
as we as a culture trying to acknowledge more the nuance of conversations and topics
and how it can be upsetting for people, the more we are seeing people
push back really aggressively because they don't want to accommodate. They want to just
have their experience and they don't want it to be tainted by someone else's I
don't know, bad vibes. If you want to think of it super simplistically,
well, it's no different to me than I'm going to get real aggressive
here, and I'm gonna make my stance clear before I do that, that
the people who do put up those lights and decorations and have no concern for
the other people in your realm, particularly if they have told you they have
a hard time with that time of year and you still insistent doing it,
My stance on that is fuck you. So to me, I'm going to
go ahead and help you try to understand that a poisoned symbol is still a
poisoned symbol, regardless of what it means to you, like these assholes who
still want to fly Confederate flags and go like well admits, it's just symbol
about about individual freedom and standing up for what you believe in. No fuck
you, who thought when we were gonna talk about the grunts that we would
talk about no shit? You know? But also it makes sense. It's
not like it doesn't does we work? You know what's interesting? I don't
think it could be that people just don't like human beings, truly don't like
individuality. And by that I mean it's like we want to create a world.
We want to live in that world as if we completely understand it,
everyone fits, because if you don't fit, you break the delusion that the
world you're living in is the actual world as opposed to something that you created
with the people around you. It's right. I mean, this goes back
to the idea that we really really need to support our worldview. Like I
go out into the world and the world appears a certain way to me,
When everyone around me agrees with me, then I feel comfortable and safe because
as the way I see the world is the way the world actually is.
When I encounter people who are challenging that, who are pushing back against that,
that it's not just the challenge to something I believe is a challenge to
the whole world. That I'm creating the world as I see it. And
it may be something just profoundly uncomfortable about that for human beings, right like
that, we want to believe that the world is the world we inhabit,
and it's not the world we inhabit, is not the one we create it,
but the one that actually exists out there, And so we need other
people to participate in that delusion with us. We need them to validate it.
I mean, that's why when you think about the uproar of saying Happy
Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, for fuck's sake, and the way that people
blow a gasket if like they don't get if the Starbucks cups aren't like obviously
Christmas centric, if they're just read God forbid. And you're right in that
in that moment that vitriol seems to come from a space of when I've heard
people talk about this like you're taking something from me, you're invalidating something from
me by not allow a not allowing, which is like, no, one's
not allowing you to say Maria Christmas. You know, you can say marry
Christmas until you're blow your lungs. And but I think that's kind of the
knee jerk reaction is you're invalidating my lived experience and that makes me feel ironically,
makes me feel insafe with the people who I think think that way,
and so they need status quo to be re established, and so they have
to exert, they over exert to reestablish homeostasis. You know. So I'm
going to go harder on it to make you back down and get my need
met, and then everything us back to being copasetic, and there's no there's
no nuanced thinking around like why am I having that reaction to happy Holidays?
Like really thinking about it, like why is that bothering me so much?
When I do therapy clients and they talk about something like this, the question
I usually ask is what need are you trying to get met by getting a
Merry Christmas from somebody versus the happy holidays? Like what do you feel like
you're losing? And trying to provoke insight into why something minute is so is
so provocative within us or evocative, and this is connects to kind of going
back to the Grunch maybe thinking about the meta narrative. These stories seem to
be about no, Whoville is right and we just need to melt the heart
of the Grunch and he'll see that we're right and get on board. Right,
it's about his heart needs to grow. Yeah, his heart needs to
write, needs to grow, and then he'll he'll understand and be a part
of this because this is the way to be and it's the right way and
every isn't everyone happy? And I feel like it's interesting that those stories put
on heartstrings, right because it's there's another way to look at that which doesn't
seem so warm and fuzzy, right, And this goes back to Ben's point
about you know, like some people are half pain and you're decorating your let's
say you're decorating your cubically your space if and you know that might be causing
someone's someone pain, like you don't care, right, and who feel nobody
cares? Nobody's like you know what, maybe we should cut back on the
Christmas a little bit, like there should be room for everyone, right,
Like everything doesn't have to be all about Christmas everywhere all the time during the
season. Let's let's make some space for the Grinch, because you know what,
there's probably some other people who are going along who kind of feel like
the Grinch too. No, that is not that is not the narrative we
tell. The narrative is one of no, we all know the right way
to be, and some people are just refusing to get on board with that.
And it's just interesting that those are the kind of stories that get repeated
over and over and over. And it is not dissimilar from cult think.
No, you'll just be happy if you just just accept that the way we
think is right and think exactly like us and do exactly as we do,
exactly as the leader has prescribed. And you know, without the big ask
of the big boundary crossing, it gets harder to see that it's not dissimilar
from that, without the big obvious like yeah, oh well, you know,
in order to join this cult, though, um, you know,
leader gets to be the only one that fathers children because we want them to
be in his image. So you you have to sign your wife over to
uh, you know, be one of one of his wives, and you
don't get to have a wife or or give children because you're imperfect. But
you know, if you join and join our club, you know you'll be
cool. At least I feel like they goes and I feel like they goes
in a dark, dark place with the Grinch because we were talking about who
who Mary Low's dad was, Where do these kids come from? Why are
they all have the same last name? Why are they all called whom?
But yeah, it makes me think it a compound in Texas, I don't
know, because it makes me think more about the live action version, where
I think it does do more of a job of calling this out almost like
the over consumerism culture and the competitive lights shows and how people are using Christmas
as they're over identifying with it and then that's causing a lot of like communal
pain. And but still the way they still try to get it's still the
same ending, which is that the Grinch assimilates and that's how and then he's
going to have no problems again, because I think what's more realistic and talking
about situational triggers is that things can change in people's life for sure, that
make situational is less intensive. You know, maybe by the next holiday season
they have a group of friends, or maybe they reconnect with family or something
in their family heels or whatever. But that doesn't mean that all of a
sudden, Christmas Holidays, whatever, the situations no longer upsetting. It's there's
still going to be things that come up. There's layers to it. And
so that's why movies like The Grinch, all the iterations of it, the
movie magic of it is that by the end, now that he's part of
them, part of them, quote unquote, he is healed, he's fine,
no strife, no issue. But if the camera kept rolling, you
know, further complications would arise. There would be like underneath that layer of
a trigger, there would be other triggers, you know, and so it
would have to be continual work around. Now what's upsetting us? Now?
What now that we're more now that we have family, Like, is there
new things that are coming up? You know? Something that can be interesting
when I work with clients and their circumstances do change, is there can be
magical thinking that can be further upsetting. Ironically, of I thought this holiday
season would be different because I am going to get to go to my mom's
house, or I'm married now, or I had a baby, or like
some situational factor that they think is going to radically change the way it feels.
And so it's good to acknowledge that there's never like a magical fix to
these things, like a light switch, and that new situational triggers can arise
from this, you know, of like now you're a parent, or now
you are with someone, or even that the fact that you don't feel magically
better that can be triggering of like yeah, and now I'm having a big
existential crisis because I thought that would change me and it didn't, or changes
some of your and it didn't. So that must mean that there's something about
me that's broken. I mean, it's usually pretty negative language that I wouldn't
use as the provider, but that can be the feeling of the calls coming
from inside the house. I have to really acknowledge that, and that doesn't
feel good, and we see that, and I think what people what people
miss all the time is that I should be able to override my feelings by
thinking about it a different way. And where I take issue with the CBT
model of treatment is I know that is not what CBT says, but that
is what people who do not understand CBT. Think it says and try to
teach that if you change your thinking, you will be able to change your
feelings, and that is overly simplistic and misses the point of what CBT teaches,
which is that mind, thoughts and feelings or actions, thoughts and feelings
are interconnected, and that in order to start changing that cycle, you can
intervene at one of them, but all must start to change in order to
reregulate. But people talk about it wrong, particularly people just read or see
what the cycle is going. Oh, I can just think different, will
be better, and then they go through a life change and go ah,
like you said, Britney, I had a kid. Christmas can be happy
now because now we can have a baby. And Grandma's still not here.
Grandma's still died at Christmas time. And the hard wiring that you have has
was still recording every single thing. The weather change, the way the Christmas
lights look, the way it felt to be in the cold, the way
the fire felt, the way anything felt, the way a sweater felt again
skin. All of that was recorded as sensory information that is now encoded with
a warning that you are in danger, and people get the magical thinking that
they expect, well, it's this time of year or something change ed,
that my body should now rewire the information it has stored with all of the
trigger information in it, and I should be better now because XYZ happened.
And that's not real. That's not the way it works. But having a
mindful experience where you are connecting to the distressing memories brought up by the present
triggers and allowing your body to calm in the face of those can allow that
rewiring to happen. So it's not that it's impossible. It's absolutely possible for
to rewire, but it is not a magical process. It is not something
that just happens because something changes. We must mindfully take a distressing situation and
allow that to feel calm, with a calm muscle body in the present and
do the work that it takes to get there, because I want to be
real careful that it's not just something you can just sit in and it will
feel better. You had to feel everything you felt that felt bad when you
encoded that situation as dangerous as painful, and now you have to feel all
of that again as it unbinds from the situations that it was painful that time,
but it doesn't have to be painful as painful as it was that time
every time going forward. So I'm gonna connect this to the grinching. I'm
curious, like what, like I think it was, Brittany, you said
like it wouldn't have been all, you know, I don't know unicorns and
rainbows if the cameras had kept rolling for the grinch, what kind of expectations
should he have? What's a reasonable thing for someone in that situation to expect
or to aspire too? Well. One obviously go to therapy, which maybe
there's a WHO therapist, but they could be biased. That would be hard
because he can he can't get a therapist. That's maybe he feels aligned with,
you know, because we always say that it's good to have a therapist
that you feel like you have similar background too, because it can help with
the cultural understanding and stuff. So that might be tricky. I think it'd
be hard for him to trust the therapists because I'm assuming it would have to
be a WHO therapist. But I think what more to expect is it's more
when it makes me think of when I talk to clients about grief and I
tell them to sort of like ride the wave with themselves of this's going to
be like random feelings that pop up. It might feel kind of unpredictable,
like maybe someday you feel really good and you feel included and it all feels
very positive, and then maybe the next day you feel really angry, like
someone says something or does something and it pisses you off, and then you
lapse back into maybe small behaviors. And so I think people need to be
prepared for unpredictability in terms of how they'll continue to feel towards the community or
the situation that they are now more actively engaging it. Like we were talking
about like having like when you hit different milestones too. There can be a
lot of positive feelings with that, and there can lead more complications as well
of you know, actually, now that I have my own kid, I'm
feeling like this weird like like second wave of grief about how my own parents
parented me. We talked about this a little bit. We just talked about
hook and we talked about this kind of too, and and so I think
it's just being mindful that there's going to be waves of feelings and they can
be very random and try not to judge them and keep bringing them into therapy
and use your skills when you need them, and so don't get locked into
an equally rigid mindset of everything is going to go well and if it's not,
then either these people actually suck or I suck or something some very rigid
thinking, because that will lead to more of like a relapse, like going
right back into the cave and saying, you know, fuck everybody again.
It's just being mindful that there's no quick fix in life, and it's going
to be an evolution, and you have to just keep paying attention to how
you feel and ideally keeping it paying attention to what feels good to you,
either because it feels healing or positive or authentic or connected to your values or
whatever, and keep trying to listen to that voice. And that's also what
a therapists going to help with, right is you know, processing through that
and helping to find your intuition or your authentic self that can be dogpiled by
all these experiences and just reactions and survival behaviors and instincts you've been going off
of for years and years and years and years and years. It's going to
take a while from to unlearn all of these things. What I tell clients
too, is, you know, these behaviors that now you're trying to walk
away from, they kept you safe for a long time, so also you
kind of have to honor them too. And sometimes it can just be like,
yeah, why I want a yelp this person because that's what kept me
safe for a long time and I'm trying not to do that anymore. So
what a tool can I use instead? Am I going to take a break?
Am I going to take a breather? Am I going to use like
an interpersonal effectiveness skill? And so it's what I just said. There's like
wise mind. You know, I acknowledge my emotion mind and I acknowledge my
logic mind. Then I have to make a decision to bring me into my
wise mind. And for those of us at home, what is wise mind?
From Brittany Dialectical behavioral therapy, She's a powerful It is DBT is the
mma of therapy. They went, what are some of these techniques that worked
good in other situations and how do we now repurpose them into something that we
can package easily using acronyms to help people actually remember them in a dynamic way
that blends ideas together, and it can be really powerful for people too.
It's acronym city over DBT, like it's like hand out after hand out,
just for the pure memories at homes, it's just acronyms, the whole fucking
thing. It's a lot of it's under my skin a little bit sometimes.
But I was thinking, Brandy, when we were talking about about what do
we do with clients or how do we help them have expectations that make sense?
I think your explanation makes a lot of sense. And it made me
think about how I talk a lot about living in the gray, about how
the rigidity of depression PTSD and anxiety, the rigidity of that is that there's
only the extremes can happen. Either only the best thing can happen or the
worst thing can happen, and we don't have any other thing that can be
in the middle. And especially when you have PTSD, that becomes because your
worldview, maybe the worst thing has happened repeatedly, over and over and over
again, and so and so to kind of be in that place. A
part of what keeps us stuck in that place of the extremes. Only being
the option is because we can't tolerate the options that are in the gray.
We can't even think about it, We can't even consider it because it doesn't
feel like that's a possibility. And so but I really try to talk about
how depression and anxiety PTSD really work together. So it's upsetting because they work
together so unbelievably well that it keeps us feeling like only only those two options
that we have. And so really trying to help people think about whatever happens
is okay because we know that regardless of any situation, you have survived all
of the things you have survived, and you have and even though those mechanisms
that it were in place to help you survive at the time are no longer
needed, it's okay that it's going to take you some time to unlearn that.
So I totally agree with Brittany when she said, when we turn the
camera off, we're not talking about always going to go to five sessions and
he's going to feel better. We're talking about on learning and having and really
and really increasing his awareness of what's going on, increasing his awareness of and
helping him understand. I think a part of what we see with him and
what we also can experience too when we work with people who have PTSD is
that they have this idea, they have these ideas about about the world.
I've totally lost my train of thought. Yeah, it's part of bingo here
on the podcast. And when does Hannah lose her thought and say fuck it?
And will I remember it again? And I'm gonna tell you right now,
I think the answer is no, no, wait, wait, I
can help you get back on track here ready, Yeah, because I could
sense where you were going, because you and I are trained in the same
way on this particular issue, and it seemed like it just you were like
right there and it left your brain. Is what would Janina say about discarding
the part that's there to protect you? Janina Fisher she she u does a
lot of work on structural associations, a lot of work on structural association and
also just PTSD and has a lot of UM and I kind of complex PTSD
for that matter. M And I already forgot the question that you asked me,
Ben, So can you say it again? I can't say it again
because I know you explain who Janina was. And then I lost and then
I lost it. It's okay, You're wonderful and you will do just fine.
The question I asked you was, remember what Janina would tell people who
are feeling like we're increasing the people's awareness of the part right and what's happening
inside of them. What would what would you need to tell them to do
with that part that is protective once you're aware it exists. So part of
what I don't know if that's exactly what she would do, But a part
of what I do is help people acknowledge that and thank that part of themselves,
because because there's so much negativity in terms of the way that somebody who
has PTSD sees the world, it's really hard to manage in a hopeful situation.
And so a part of a part of helping them do that is acknowledging
acknowledging that I have this part of myself because I needed it, and I
don't need it anymore because I'm not a kid anymore, or I don't need
it anymore because I'm not in the whatever, because I'm not at the orphanage
anymore, like I don't need these parts of me anymore, And but also
being able to really acknowledge and step into. But I'm really grateful and having
a little piece of gratitude. I'm really grateful that I had this part of
me that helped me survive until this point. And that's a lot of what
I talk about when I talk to people about, well, how do we
how do we justify? What do we do with these parts of ourselves that
are that are standing at attention and they're so ready and they can't wait to
help us, and yet we don't need them to help us in the same
way that they used to. And so by acknowledging and saying thank you so
much for being here when I needed you to be here. And I'm really
grateful because I know that that's why I'm here and I am not in trouble
right now. Like comforting him, Yeah, like comforting that part of yourself
but also acknowledging that part of yourself and acknowledging that it's a good thing.
You know, a lot of times when we have when someone has PTSD,
I actually have PTSD. Also is a part of why I'm talking about it
so much, probably is that, fuck, I have a question for you.
Though I have a question, I have a question, go ahead,
go ahead, So what if I meancause I think that what people do this
is from again I'm not a question, but from the outside is people pathologize
certain ways of behaving. And what you're saying is sometimes those ways of ways
of behaving served them and is something that was useful at a time. How
what do you tell people and they don't know if they should put that aside
or let it go? Right? Is it always it something that's always there
ready to call on? And if people feel like that as a it's causing
them pain for it to even exist as a part of them. Like what
would you tell them if they feel like they might need to be cruited in
the future, Like I just I'm curious about this way of thinking, Like
I hadn't heard this way or yeah, sorry I interrupted you. No,
no, no, I'm just saying because the way maybe have to makes you
understand what you're saying. So there's like a recognition and appreciation for this this
way of being that served you and protect you and protected you in certain situations
and now it's no longer needed. But I think that often what people do
is they then pathologize that way of being. And what I hear you saying
is like, you should be grateful that it protected you in servy to function,
and now you shouldn't if you don't need it anymore, you should be
able to I'm going to say, like hold it less tightly or I don't
know, let it go. That's what I'm trying to understand. How do
you think about that? I got you? I got you. I think
I understand what you're what you're saying. So what I tell people is we
say now I don't need you right now. It doesn't mean I won't need
you in the future. My hope is that I won't need you to the
same intensity that I need you in the future. And the other pieces.
I don't also don't need people to be grateful as much as I need them
to acknowledge that it's okay that this part took over. I see, so
you don't. So you wouldn't because I just wondered to what extend you pathologize?
Right, So when you think about the grinch, right, the way
it's presented is like his heart is two sides is too small. That to
me seems like pathologizing as opposed to his behavior. It was self protective,
and maybe at some point it was necessary. I don't know, maybe it's
not used serving him now, but there's a difference right in the way you're
talking about it in ways portrayed. And I think the pathologizing part is really
interesting just kind of in general, because a part of what can happen is
that when we have PTSD, we want answers. We want answers to every
fucking thing you could think of, because we want to know why the fuck
do I feel this way? And why is there and why is it taken
so long? Or why was I not aware of it? Or why was
I not aware of how big of an effective was having on my life?
And we do pathologize some of the behavior. I think that that's a natural
experience of having PTSD. Of then we kind of see the story that has
all these highlights and everything that comes back is well, but then I acted
this way or I did this, and that must be why I have PTSD,
that must be why this, This must equal that. And so when
you start to get into the pathologizing behavior, I kind of kind of take
a step back and kind of talk more about what is going on in your
body right now and what is and kind of reconnecting them to their and trying
to increase awareness of your brain is trying to get an answer to something.
And just because you have the answer does not mean that you will heal from
it. And that's kind of a myth. That's kind of something that happens
when people with people who experience all different kinds of things, but especially people
who have who have PTSD, that can be wanting answers and wanting to connect
the behavior to it because we also we're so confused having PTSD. Often there's
a lot of times in your life where you were very confused because of things
that happened to you. Yep, and so part of and then so a
part of pathologizing is I want to I wanted to make sense. I wanted
to make sense. I want to have all the fucking dots. I want
to know what the picture is. I want to know where the treasure is
so that I can stop fucking feeling like this. And it's just not that
simple. It's it's a very it's very complicated. It's a very complicated experience
as a human to have parts that had to save us so many times.
And also I think it just tails back to like rigidity versus flexibility, we
want things to be simplistic, therefore rigid, and so all of this is
encouraging people to be more flexible, and that is I think inherently uncomfortable.
And so then the instinct or the desire to pathologize. I think that just
as part of that too, of like it's a rigid thing and we're saying
no, I mean they can hang out, like those parts can sort of
hang out within you and you're like, oh, people are like what,
And I think the party I want to touch on with that because this is
this is definitely my area here is for parts, understanding that you came pre
wired with them anyway. They're not negotiable. They're already there. And if
you were to think about what part of you shows up when you hold a
baby, it's not the same part of you that would destroy a human being
who came into your house that's not supposed to be there. And the important
thing about understanding why structural dissociation is important is that at the top of the
pyramid is your core self and that starts to split out into different functions that
are needed at different times that by definition, isolate the functions of other parts,
like when you're able to be calm and safe. You can show up
as yourself and be integrated and flexible. Like Britney's talking about. You have
the flexibility to draw from the s of all of your parts in order to
be authentically present. But when you're at work, you can't be all of
those things. You have to put aside a certain amount of things and activate
you're going on with normal life self. The part of you that's going through
a bunch of shit might not be the part that needs to be standing and
completing a checkout at the grocery store, because we all see when someone who
is disregulated is going and like dumping all of their shit onto the person at
the grocery store, and everyone else standing in the back of the line is
going like, goddamn it, like you just buy the gum. When you're
able to be integrated, there's a couple things that happen that are important that
don't happen when you're disregulated. When you're integrated, you can draw from resources
that you have and use what's necessary in a dynamic way. When you're disregulated,
you start activating survival systems that will draw from whatever they think they need
to survive. That situation, and maybe you've been and through a really hard
time growing up like someone like the Grinch, for example, where things probably
got really hard for him as a child. So why does he walk around
as a grown man Grinch acting like a bully child Because he is in a
fight part of himself that formed when he was a child, and the situational
triggers of seeing other kids playing in front of him and asking him for help
activate that hurt child resource inside his head that did not age with his body.
And when he interacts with that situation, he's interacting with it in a
situationally appropriate but maladaptive state because it is stuck. And then you see him
do something childish like knock the head off the thing and knock the heat off
the snowman. An adult wouldn't do that to a child. A note would
just probably help a child. An adult part would pick that up and go,
oh, you need help, let me help you. Boop. I
do love when he eats that pickle and then he borrows it back into her
pickle jar, and then he puts it in her basket. But that's something
a kid would do, like, oh, I don't like it, but
yeah, And then I'll put it back in the fridge because because then I'm
unsafe. Yeah, and also object permanence too, well that too. But
understanding parts is that we all come pre wired with a fight part. I
don't have to explain to you what you would do if someone came into your
house that wasn't supposed to be there and it was clear that they weren't there
for help. I don't have to tell you what you already know what you're
gonna do, and you can feel it in your body and going like,
yeah, there's some animalistic shit that's about to go down, or if they're
that much bigger than me that my only choice is to surrender, than I've
already made peace with that, and you activate your fawn part. I think
we talk about fight, fight, and freeze and now fawn as if they're
mythical states that only emerge under specific situations. We have parts of ourselves that
are responsible for what we can and cannot do when we do that, when
we enter go mode. That is there when you enter lecture mode, you
know, Brian, for you even imagine when you're professing knowledge to these graduate
students, you probably enter flow state sometimes and just start going and you feel
like you are in the zone and you just bam bam bam, bam bam,
are dropping educational nuggets on them that are amazing that maybe you didn't necessarily
plan, but you planned out enough that you were able to be flexible with
your knowledge to add to it. That's a good version of structural dissociation.
The other parts of ourselves that get viewed as less desirable but were adaptive to
survive a bad situation get stigmatized when they are no longer needed or desired to
match our present reality, but keep showing up because they were formed at a
time where they were and asking them to step back with kindness and appreciation for
their existence and what they did for you is vital because that part knows the
truth. That part knows that the world is that ugly and can get that
bad, and no, I'm not going to let us get hurt. You
formed me to protect you from that. So no, if this can get
reasonably close to being the same situation again, I'm here to protect you from
it, and no I'm not going away. So instead of invalidating its existence
and fighting with it, you ask it kindly to say, hey, hey,
I know you're there. If I need you, I really do,
And I know this feels a little bit like then, but we're trying to
reincode that we don't need you right this second. If we do need you,
we will get you. So on that note, we will take another
break. All right, we're gonna talk about communal healing. Do we still
want to talk about that? Because I feel like we really shit on the
community that is. I think I think we're skipping that. I think I
think okay, yeah, I think we'n go past that one. We can
just let it go because I think, and I really there's a lot of
communal healing with in this movie, but not for our little Grinch. Also,
is his name the Grinch? These people didn't They called him mister Grinch,
didn't she when he came into the party. Well, I think because
they're doing that thing where he's just the Grinch. I'm like, well,
his first name is the he's a grinch, but he is a Grinch.
That doesn't mean that's his name. Yeah, but he's the Grinch for them
because he's the only one that's true. He's the Grinch. So we're gonna
hop skip and jump over communal healing now in terms of treatment, I do
feel like we've kind of talked about that as well. Um in terms of
where we would go forward with this movie, I know like we had just
discussed like what therapy would look like for the Grinch. I think something I
would like to add as well is he would be a client where the next
Christmas I would be eyeballing him pretty hard and trying to make sure that we
prep accordingly, like what are your plans this Christmas? It's going to be
different than Christmas is before. I think he is one like we mentioned before
that i'd want to cope a head plan for and I'd want to almost well,
I'd want to like roleplay that as much as he would allow. A
lot of people really push back on role play because it feels cheesy and corny
and you have to be silly and vulnerable, and people really hate it.
At least when I try to do it in therapy with people, they're like,
Oh, but it's helpful because you don't really know how you're going to
be, and so acting it out can bring up feelings they didn't think you're
going to have, And what I do with clients, maybe this is why
they don't like it. I try to be more. I edge more on
the provocative side because I want to them to prep for what could really happen,
and so you do have to be open to that. And so I
would want to do a relate cope head play with him, and then,
like I mentioned before, I want to make sure that he is mindful that
it's not all going to be like unicorns lollipops this Christmas time, you know.
And also are we still living in the cave? I think that would
be interesting to treatment wise to talk about with him, are we what does
community mean to him? And all that stuff, but kind of touched upon
that. I don't know, Ben or Hannah, if you want to add
anymore to how you would approach treatment in this movie. I don't know if
I would necessarily need to talk more about what I would do, but I
do think I would like to talk more about what a copa head plan is,
okay, just because we've used it a couple of different times and I
wanted to just take me one second to bring it up, and I just
want to kind of to describe to people what that looks like, because I
find it to be very very helpful. I do them for my I do
them for myself all the time, but I also filled them out with clients
a lot because they are because it is so helpful. So I just wanted
to go over the questions that are part of it, and as soon as
I can find it on this fucking computer. Well, what I can also
do is go ahead, go ahead, put a picture. I can put
a picture of a cop ahead plan, like a blank one on our Instagram.
I have one saved on my computer. I think a lot of therapist
probably too. They typically have for the one I use has for parts.
The first is what it describe the situation that you would that you would think
you'd find yourself in. The next part of what are coping skills? Go
ahead, Hannah, he can take it from here. Okay. So the
one that I have has seven steps. The first one is very similar to
what Branney was saying. Describe a situation that is likely to create negative emotions
for you. So this is where you talk about what is the like I
walk into town and somebody says Christmas literally, that would be a problem for
him. One A is describe the things you can control in the situation.
What are the things that we can always control the situation. The only thing
we can control is our behavior. That's it. That's the only answer that
can ever go on that spot. Most of the time, describe the things
you cannot control, and that's helpful. I've always found that one to be
helpful because then you can write down all the things that we wish we had
to control of Decide what coping or problem solving skills you want to use in
the situation. Be specific about skills that you will use. We want to
be specific because we want you to be able to use them in the moment.
So they have to be something that something that you already know works or
something that you've practiced. Number three, imagine being in this situation right now.
Set your intentions to use to coping skills or problem solving skills you have
identified above the fourth one, rehearse in your mind coping effectively. So this
is kind of this is kind of a part where you kind of do this
a little bit on your own and kind of in your kind of in your
head to help give you an idea of what it might feel like or look
like. Of what specific actions will you take, What will you say,
how will you say it? Number five, imagine how you might feel differently
after using and coping or problem solving skills and engaging in effective communication skills.
Six practice relaxation after rehearsing. How will you relax after imagining the situation?
Because imagining the situation might make you feel might be a trigger for you,
and so we want to make sure that you have a way to relax even
after you are just rehearsing what you're going to do in your mind. Number
seven, what is a valued activity you can engage in after navigating a difficult
situation? So how can you celebrate after having to be effect of in a
situation that's uncomfortable? What is something you can do for yourself to celebrate what
you did or to or to just it doesn't have to be a celebration as
much as acknowledging what you did and engaging in a valued activity to kind of
help you move on with your day. So that's what a copa head plan
is. And we'll put a picture up on our on our social media for
everybody to say, Well, that's all I think I had to say about
about treatment. I think for me, first off, I want to say
that a copa head plan is a brilliant idea, and thank you for sharing
that, Hannah. It's almost like Hannah's a brilliant therapist and people should listen
to her advice all around the world, and we do a podcast about that,
including Hannah and her awesome perspectives. I think the only thing I would
add to that besides that listen to Hannah is remembering that the voices of our
parts get very, very strong, and thinking your way through a problem that
your body is telling you is a survival situation will never work. Ever,
if you feel disregulated, shaming yourself and getting angry with yourself and feeling like
you're wrong for feeling the way you feel will only further agitate you and make
you feel further unsafe, which will continue to activate parts that are behaving in
ways you're more core self are feeling, and others around you likely are feeling
are inappropriate. But you will still be feeling threatened and not okay, and
therefore your parts will continue to feel validated in their existence and performing their function.
So the simple way of saying that is understand when you feel not okay,
except that it's okay that you're not okay, and take some space and
time to regulate your body by grounding too, Okay, am I in danger
right now? I understand I feel like I'm in danger, But am I
in danger right now? And working on calming your body so that your brain
can work properly before doing anything else, and giving yourself permission in space to
do whatever you need to do to feel safe in order to regulate. Because
the way our system works, you cannot regulate when you're in danger unless you
are experienced in that danger and have a way to do so that convinces your
parts that you know what to do to survive it. But even that is
a part, So please recognize that throughout this holiday season. If you start
feeling not okay, take space, ground to the present, breathe, and
calm your muscles, because if you're able to do that, you will feel
yourself restore, and you'll feel your body relax and your brain will get quiet
again and you'll be able to be yourself. But there is no way to
just yell at yourself to be quiet, to just be better, just do
better. Stop being Look in the mirror. This is my advice that there
was look in the mirror and point at yourself and say shut the fuck up,
Shut the fuck up, and then you'll be fixed, and then you
won't meet therapy and everything will be fine and no problems from here on out
right, then, thank you Republican Jesus right where have you been my life?
So it will take you you were born on this day. I forgot.
I'm sorry. So we will take one final break here and then we'll
talk about final thoughts. All right, So Brian, I'll let you go
first, if you'd like to give us your final thoughts on this movie,
which I've been kind of been sprinkled throughoute. I you know, my kind
of thing about this movie was when I watched it first, I'll just this
high level movie, not the particulars we've talked about. I was like,
really, who needs their Christmas stolen? Are there? Who's from Hollywood?
Who remade this ship? That was my feeling about it. It's like,
you know, I love the Grinch, but a full length movie come on
anyway? Um, And I do think that it's it's right for or retelling
a horror film retelling, and I think one might be in the works act
where like it's really like the Grinch should be the hero, right, he's
trying to escape, trying to pull him in dark, dark, dark down
in Houville, because that's my reading of it now. I just feel like
there's such a desire to have him be part of their, you know,
little cult of supposed Christmas happiness. Um, And I think that if that's
the way you're feeling this Christmas, don't be drawn in. Find your people,
That's what I would tell him. Really, right there, you cannot
be It's it's hard to imagine. No one shares his experience, and so
finding his people would go a long way to helping him manage and cope,
possibly more effectively. So that's that's where I would end with it. Okay,
I can go next. I would say in my rankings, this movie
is probably my most favorite of Runch adaptation. I think I like obviously the
sixties version the best, just more for like the vibes and the poetry of
it and all that stuff, and the kind of really creepy that visual of
him slithering on the ground stealing presence is haunting, and I like that that
version. Maybe because it was a little baby me who already liked like horror.
Maybe that's why I was gravitating tourists who like this is creepy shit.
But I do like the live action one as well. I think it has
the nuance that this one's lacking. So I think my biggest critique of this
adaptation is that there's a lot of plot holes in my opinion, like who
the fuck is the Neila? Whose dad? As we already said, and
then there's not a lot like what I apreach about the live action one is
they try to give a lot of meat to his backstory, like who is
he? How did he get here? What was his childhood? Like,
like, there's a lot of meat, and in this movie it's just literally
one flashback scene and that's it. So I wish there was more. If
they were going to do it, I wish they would truly flesh it out.
And this one felt a little too simplistic and not as jaded as because
he went the live action one. He's very jaded and cynical and funny,
and when he has his whole like I got dinner with myself again, I
can't keep canceling mat Like a lot of more like darkness there that I think
was missing in this one. Regardless, I think it's a cute movie.
It's definitely something I would watch with like my nieces and nephews, but I
don't know if I would revisit it again by myself as a ground so I
will. That's my final thoughts. Well, Hannah, this is one of
your favorites. Do you want to go all right, Hannah Bay or do
you want to go well, I'll just go and well and that'll be fine.
I think I just like this movie because I really like the animation,
and after discussing it the way that we've discussed it, I don't know if
I'm going to watch it again. This is the trials and tribulation of this
podcast. When you talk about it really is sometimes sometimes it gets ruined forever,
which is fine. Um so, but I did I did enjoy I
did enjoy the film originally. I've seen it a couple of times, but
I really don't think I'll be watching it again. Uh oh yeah, exactly
exactly. So that's those are my final thoughts. Okay, I guess um
for once, I'm gonna be the sunshine shining out of everybody's butts. Despite
usually going like trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma. By the
way, this guy lives in a cave and he's Batman, um any who.
What I think I want to say about this one is that watching this
one with my child, that this contained messages that I really liked for her,
and the way it's so bright and the animation is absolutely amazing, especially
on a four K disc. Holy crap, the colors pop so much on
this movie that the animation and the artistry of it were so beautiful. I
really have a different take than you, Brittany on this one is that I
like this one a lot, and I don't know that I like it better
than the Sixties one, but I like the messaging that it contains that we
do need to be kind to people who are different than us. And I
like the way that they bring him in and go, Okay, we know
that you messed up, but we still want to give you a chance to
know that we're going to try to love you anyway and let you come in
from a neutral basis and come back into this community, even though there's some
cultiness to it. Brian, thank you everybody. Maybe that's just the little
bit little isolated community. I mean, if there's just the only people on
that snowflake, maybe this would always have happened. I mean, you know,
it's like my favorite movie. Yeah, exactly, mis Summer that.
Yeah, have you just realized you you're you're totally accepted here until you have
to throw your face into a cliff on your seventy second birthday, you know
you're fine, like Ausha the Grinch's cliff, which contains a dope cave is
doctor Lawley who told us, you know which you know that San Francisco perspective
is true, Like you're up on the hill. That's the best spot to
be. Yes, that's the best spot. I mean, this this movie
if you want to go real dark, it's like, you know, did
you all have seen Dogville? No? But I know it's super dark,
super dark, you know what It's like? These are like the Short Story
the Lottery, you know, yeah, like this, this, this movie,
I mean this ash shade of that. It's just all hidden behind this.
Yeah, you know it does. It does have it hidden. But
it's also what I like about it is for children. It shows the message
one way where you can see that like inclusiveness, forgiveness, like bringing people
back in even if they stepped outside. And also for the cleaning. Folks
are just popped into my office here, Um, but the thing that it
shows is underneath that us adults are looking at it and we saw a totally
different movie than my kids saw. Yeah. Yeah, we're like and I
and I respect that it's simplistic for children, this children's movie. Yeah,
and I don't think it's simplistic at all. I think it's very layered.
Like I think it can be viewed simplistic and then looking at the oppressive ways
like the Carolers were shown so oppressive and like showing Grinch's perspective of like like
I mean they're doing the West Side story snaps and like like that felt culty
as hell right, like they're coming up pop pop Chrism was running. He
was running from them. Who was running? And then they were everywhere.
And I think adults felt seen watching that, like going like oh my god,
Like yes, I feel the same way, like please get your Christmas
joy bullshit. Could do what Adam's family do where they put they turn and
feather them. Yeah, right, how would Wednesday? What would Wednesday do?
But looking at looking at this movie, I think it does keep up
with the trend of animated movies that probably started with Shrek, where they tie
in just little bits of things for grown ups that kids can't see yet and
that's okay, but that grown ups can see and go also like, wow,
I saw a different movie than my kid did, and I appreciated him
feeling and acknowledging that he is not the only one that feels that way about
Christmas and it doesn't necessarily make him a villain, that his story is complicated
enough that there's justification that this doesn't feel okay for him. And the sixties
version missed that. And my cousin put up a meme I sent it to
Brittany and Hannah today, but it had like a picture of Thurle from the
sixties, probably his headshot, that said, Hey, Thurle, we need
you to record a song about the Grinch, Like what do he do?
He ruined Christmas? I'm will ruin his whole world? Like see that,
And it's like, wow, that's culty. But the brilliance of this film
is that it can be so many things all at once, and depending on
what lens you're looking at, it can be painful, it can be validating,
and it can also have a message of hope. And I think I
really like that about this film, and I can't stand the Jim Carrey one
and I never have been able to, but this one in the sixties one
I like probably one in one. B So, Um, Hannah, you
can come watch it at my house in Brittany and Brian can stay home.
I think you should definitely see it again, Hannah. I think you're going
to see exactly what I'm talking about. All right? Whale, Um,
Brian, where would you like to be found if you were to come for
you after listening to this spot episode? Yeah, you can find me on
Know What You See dot com. Um, so all of my all of
my episodes are available there, and you can also find me on the GSB
website. So if you search for me, um, Brian Laurie at Stanford,
it will come up. I am not currently pushing people to Twitter,
but that's another long conversation, but you could you could go find me there
if you wanted. I guess all right. Well, thank you so much,
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