Joe: There's reality, which is loving awareness,
Sam: unconcerned by the arising and passing away of phenomena.
Ali: And then there are the 10, 000
things.
Sam: Hello, and welcome to the 10, 000 things.
My name is Sam Ellis.
I'm Joe Loh.
Ali: And I'm Ali Catramados.
Joe: Today on the show, an Ali, uh, topic.
Over to you, Ali.
Ali: Oh, straight in.
Sam: Well, I thought you were going to preface it a tiny bit.
Um, well also the little, uh, three neurodivergent, people mantra,
um, we're grappling with one of the 10, 000 things at a time.
Uh, through a lens of subjective experience and, and
multiple diagnoses between us.
Um, I thought this was a fun one.
Ali and I are both passionate about Nigella Lawson and
Robbie Williams, it turns out.
And the recent documentary about Robbie has been very revealing and provocative
of conversation with lots of people.
Ali: I was watching it because who wouldn't want to watch Robbie.
He's underpants talk about himself for four hours.
He's magnetic.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
And it's definitely worth the watch.
Sam: He's a born entertainer.
Ali: He really is.
Sam: Like, like our Nige.
Yeah.
It's, I don't know.
There's something about him.
Joe: culturally at all.
I have no idea who he is.
Sam: Irrelevant figure on Joe's cultural landscape.
Joe: I honestly cannot place, he's a boy band guy, right?
Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
That's all he is.
Ali,
Joe: I happily will ignore whoever he is for the rest of my life,
Sam: you're missing out bro.
Ali: You really are.
Anyway, I was going to say, he was the love of my life
for many, many years, but um,
Sam: not the worst choice.
Ali: Yeah.
No, it's actually emblematic of, I was talking to a girlfriend about this.
About the kind of man that I've always been attracted to, there's a guy in the
pub, he's probably pulled his pants down.
He's about to get kicked out.
That would be the one that I'd go after.
Like, that's the one for me.
And I said, and like, the loose unit and watching Robbie and him being emblematic
of all the boyfriends I've ever had, kind of have a thing for dickheads.
Like someone who's like, and I don't say that in a mean way.
Someone who's, yeah, they've got all these, they don't take themselves
too seriously, but there's this love.
Joe: So basically the worst people on dating apps, the ones who say,
I don't take things too seriously.
But they're willing to have.
Yeah, have you looked at the fucking world lately?
Cause it's going to come and take you pretty fucking seriously.
So maybe pay attention, you fuck.
Fucking airhead, coming in hot.
Ali: Someone who's happy to have a joke at their own expense.
Yeah, agreed.
That's what it is.
Sam: I think that's the distinction.
Ali: But the point is, someone who's very publicly had a mental breakdown.
Joe: You are, or Robbie?
Robbie.
Sam: Well, I mean, yours was somewhat public, I guess.
Ali: Yeah, well, to the people around me.
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
But, but watching this...
This documentary and seeing him to me still seemed like
very much like an open wound.
Like there was still stuff that you could see had been...
was fundamentally broken at one point in his life.
There was a huge moment where, you know, it's panic attack and it just,
it changed the course of things for a really, really long time.
And I feel like even still now watching it, even though it's
sort of, you know, it's got a, he's still had a wildly successful
career and all that sort of stuff.
There's still something, you know, he was sort of talking about, you know,
he spends most of his time in bed when he's not on stage and things like that.
And I seeing that and.
After having my own mental breakdown, the question I asked in the group chat,
the 10, 000 things group chat, was Do you ever fully put the pieces back
together again after you've cracked them open or they've been cracked open?
Yeah.
And
Sam: obviously your feeling is, you know, you don't
Ali: 100 percent no, no, like, and this is how I described it when I
went into hospital when I had my own breakdown a few years ago in that I
feel like I was like this Lego house.
Like that was put together all wrong and put up on a wonky ass Lego.
Yeah, like some crazy thing a little toddler's built, chucked it up on a
shelf, gathering dust for 37 years.
And someone's come and bumped the shelf and this Lego house
has smashed into a million bits.
And there's no instructions.
There's, you don't really know what it's meant to look like.
And you somehow have to build a house out of all these pieces.
That is what it felt like having a breakdown and trying to.
Envisage what I can build with what I have and It's still very much a work in
progress and I, the thing, like the thing that really with the, the Robbie Docko
and like, he was saying that he wants to spend his time in bed and that was the
thing that I mourn or I suppose I miss pre Breakdown is this level of energy that
has never fully recovered that I've, I don't have this level of energy that I did
like outside of mania that I don't have like a natural sort of energy or drive
that it still feels like I'm Just on the back foot and I'm like will I ever get
that back or is it just that I'm getting older and no This is getting older.
Is it getting older
Joe: or is it so what I would say Ali is you put the pieces back together
as best you can and you get on with it as best you can and that's it
That's life You know, it's like that.
What's that?
Good enough parenting, Sam?
Is that Winnicott?
Yeah, yeah.
Did you have good enough parents?
Are you a good enough parent?
Good enough.
Yeah, good enough is what we get.
Yeah, so I've had two full psychotic breakdowns.
I'd say I'm fine.
I'd say if anything I'm more resolved and getting better all the time.
And I haven't had to have a life sentence of anything from having breakdowns.
So
Ali: you don't feel there's any lasting effect of your breakdowns?
Joe: No.
Ali: Really?
Joe: No, I'm getting into clear, clearer and clearer air.
Ali: Oh, like, I mean, there's some things that are so much clearer and a
better understanding that like, I wouldn't want things to be like the way they were
before, it was definitely not sustainable or healthy, definitely an element of that.
But what I'm saying is there, there's still some, whether, I don't know,
maybe I'm still in the process of putting some of it back together,
but there's still feels like.
There are things that were in place that were held together, obviously somewhat
okay, that seem to be highly functional.
There's a level of functionality, that's what it is, that I don't have now
post...
Joe: I think that's the point about good enough is that I don't really know
who Robbie Williams is, but isn't he still playing shows to 50, 000 people?
Ali: Yeah.
Joe: So, that's good enough.
That's what you get.
You don't, if you wanna lie in bed in between and you've got enough
money to do that, that's fine.
That doesn't mean you're not getting on with your life.
You are.
Mm-Hmm.
Like, he's still doing the thing that he's wanted to do with his career and stuff.
So that's the most you get, I think.
Mm-Hmm.
Sam: How old are his kids right now?
Ali: That's, oh, he's got like f like there was one that I think it is about.
10.
And then all the way down to like little, little ones.
He's got, yeah, he, yeah.
Sam: Cause he was famously the person who brought Twitter into
the birthing room and, uh, yeah.
Yeah.
Let's not get too distracted with Robbie.
The reason I mentioned that is that like, that wasn't that long ago.
No.
So his kids aren't going to be super old.
And like, surely he, I think one of the things that maybe good enough,
I'm well on board with it for sure, but it might've crossed his mind.
I could be more engaged here between.
Time's with my kids or whatever, like, I mean, I can relate to that as a parent,
like, could I be doing more or of a better quality or whatever that's, I
don't, you know, the good enough has to sit alongside the aspiration, So I, for
my, for me, for my money, breakdowns are there for a reason and I don't think the
idea is to fully put it back together.
Even if you could, because that would be...
Joe: Had you ever gone into psychosis before?
No.
Yeah, it's a rearrangement.
Ali: Yeah, it's a huge rearrangement.
Joe: Did it get scary in there?
Ali: Yes.
Joe: Are you scared?
I think you said you thought your son was dead?
Ali: Oh, yeah.
So you want to, like, the story of the site.
Sam: I didn't know that part.
Ali: Oh, okay.
So, yeah.
Joe: No, I mean, you're saying you haven't recovered.
So I'm, what I'm asking is what happened?
Oh,
so what, so the, in the lead up to the breakdown, there was a series of.
compounding factors and work and relationships and life.
And as my psychologist would say, like, it's like trying to
hold a beach ball underwater.
And at some point your arms are going to get tired.
And it is going to hit you in the face and then, hello, you're going
to deal with some childhood trauma now that you've really, you've been
repressing for all these years.
So that's what had happened.
And the stress had then got to the point where I was no longer sleeping.
There's no sleeping then obviously affects the mood with bipolar and
then triggered a manic episode.
And I, I knew like the day before something wasn't right.
I called my mum.
And I sort of was oscillating wildly between crying and being catatonic almost,
and then just crying hysterically and then catatonic, and I just said to my
mum, something's really wrong, and she didn't really quite know what to make
of it, and it was sort of like, you know, I just like, I don't think I can
go to work tomorrow, like I just don't know what's Something's really wrong.
I just didn't know what it was, but something was really wrong.
And anyway, that night, again, I hadn't slept for days and
days and days at this point.
And I was awake all night and I started having delusions that my son was dead.
I thought he died and he was at school camp.
I was convinced he was dead.
I was trying to call the school camp at like three in the morning, like trying
to make arrangements for his funeral.
Like it was just, it was awful.
Um, and then I'm.
Um, you know, and this is, this is something I haven't really talked
about a lot, but at that point I was like, well, my son's gone.
What's the point?
What is the point?
And so I made plans, I say loosely, to end it.
and I'd left some garbled voicemail messages on my sister's phone who
mercifully, when she in the morning was like, Oh God, something's really wrong.
I know what this means.
And so she's like, I'm going to take you to the doctor.
Like something, you just, something's wrong.
And then she picks me up.
And I'm in full glam because I want to look good going out.
Yeah.
Right?
I know, for sure.
So, because at this stage I'm like manic, I'm, I'm not there.
I'm just...
Get on the war gear.
I was like floridly manic.
And you know, so I, you know, sequins and full face makeup
at like seven in the morning.
It's going to help.
Yeah.
She takes me to the GP and the GP was like, uh, you're floridly
manic straight to hospital.
And then that was what...
Great.
Yes.
And then I...
Was, you know, impatient after that for a little bit.
I think I told work that way.
I was like, I'm just having a couple, just a couple of mental health days.
I'll be back next week.
I think it was like a Wednesday.
Um, and I was in hospital six weeks.
If that was any indication of my state of mind.
Did they not know
that you were bipolar before that?
Ali: Yeah, they knew, but like, I just never, I'd never had an episode like that.
Yeah.
Um, so you went from
Joe: type two to type one or something.
Ali: No, no, so sometimes you can have these like protracted manic
episodes even though you have type 2.
Sam: Ooh, technicalities, inside baseball.
Joe: What was your plan to, how were you going to kill
yourself in the sequent dress?
Ali: I was going to go in the bath.
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Illuminati
Ali: sacrifice.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Which was, went to years of then not even being able to get in a bath.
Like, yes.
Oh, really?
Very recently, I've been able to start taking baths again.
Cause it was just a fear of like, Oh, this is not a safe place.
Sam: Okay.
If it's not true.
Joe: That would have been tragic.
So a complete delusion that something had happened to your son.
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
Leads to you dying.
A real.
Your son not having a mum.
Sam: Yeah.
It's actually a Romeo and Juliet, but even worse.
Yeah, you didn't have the right information.
You didn't have the right information.
That is, that is an asymmetry, that is a tragic asymmetry, but in the end, I
mean, the right intervention occurred.
Joe: But maybe that's, maybe that's what you've had such a hard time getting
over is thinking your son was dead.
Ali: Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, when I then, like, I know where my sister picked me up
and she was explaining, but he's not.
And I was like, Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Was it,
Sam: did that come as a relief?
Were you able to onboard that?
Ali: Yeah, it was weird.
It was weird.
Cause I was still, I sort of really wasn't with it.
Like I really didn't know what was going on at that point at all.
so yeah, they were like, they were able to explain to me and
I was like, oh, okay, he's safe.
He's fine.
Sam: Did you feel better at that point?
Ali: And I was like weirdly okay with it all.
I was like, okay, don't mind guys.
Like I'm fine.
Joe: I had a similar thing.
Yeah.
that's relatable.
I had a similar thing last time I was psychotic where I,
someone whose funeral I'd missed.
Uh, and I felt really guilty about it because I'd had a big night, this is
when I was still drinking and using, had a big night and missed his funeral.
Yep, classic stuff.
Once I became psychotic, I was convinced she was still alive.
I was trying to contact her family members to talk to them about how she wasn't dead.
Oh my god.
Which is, that's the unfortunate thing about psychosis is it puts you in
some very embarrassing and upsetting to other people circumstances.
And it was just because I felt so much guilt and shame about missing
that person I'd loved's funeral.
And then obviously you...
As a mum, it's just that normal mum level of attachment,
like the most important thing.
Sam: I think any parent out there could actually relate to more
of that than you might think.
Oh
Ali: yeah, like not wanting to, never wanting to live through that.
That's not a thing.
Still, even now, like that's not something I want to live through.
I don't ever want to think of that.
Sam: No, no, no, that's right.
And you can't spend your life, I mean, despite.
Seneca's advice to, you know, always contemplate these possibilities, but
like, it's like, Jesus, dude, he's like, he's a bit hardcore sometimes.
Joe: Yeah, but kids were dying a lot more often back in ancient Rome.
I guess that's true.
Sam: But, but, but it was also advice that was designed to bring the consciousness.
Yeah.
Joe: Marcus Aurelius says the same thing in meditation too.
I don't want to be a changed man because of the loss of a child.
Yeah, which is just going too far.
Sam: I just want to get on with it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's right.
That's
Joe: right.
Anyway, we're...
Oh, no, no, no, I don't think...
Stoics don't need to intrude on Ali's story.
No, I don't
Sam: think it's a, I don't think it's a stray because the part
that any parent could relate to is the delusion that they're dead.
Yeah.
This occurs to, I firmly believe, every parent.
Yeah.
Like...
And they're in the next room.
Yeah,
Joe: yeah, yeah, especially when they're babies and you're like, is this,
you're checking if they're breathing?
Ali: Yeah, like, is this normal?
Is this, you know, you worry about every little thing.
Anyway, so that's, well,
Sam: the catastrophe we fear has already occurred.
Yes.
Joe: But things become exaggerated in mania, psychosis.
Sam: That's right.
That's right.
Joe: Yeah, you got rocked.
You got rocked, bro.
Sam: You got rocked hard.
Joe: You're actually fine.
I mean, you're still doing the same job that you're doing.
you're now doing this podcast, you've been a great mum, your kid's getting on with
their life, like, in reality, you're fine.
It is appropriate.
Ali: Yeah, oh yeah, like there's
Joe: So what, what's the bit that doesn't feel, you're saying, just low energy?
There is it, it's not a
Sam: Will I achieve my former glory?
Joe: Yeah.
I, there was no form.
This is the glory now.
Ali: Yeah.
No, I, I feel like in some, so many ways things are so much better.
It's not agreed, but I, it's in a lot of ways everything feels a little bit harder.
Yeah.
And that's what it is.
Joe: That's the getting older stuff.
I think like everything, me and Sam are older than you.
Once you're over 40, mate, you're, you're always tired.
Sam: I, I look, I don't know.
I maintain some hope here that age.
Are you not always tired?
Joe: Yeah, of course, but 21 year olds are not always tired.
I got to tell you, and they're rarely tired.
That's true.
Ali: But like, no, it's just like, like, it's really, I remember it's not fair,
like the really simple little things that I just would never have batted an
eyelid or thought twice about doing.
Yeah.
I become so has, has in my mind become so much harder, so much like to dig
so much deeper to be able to do a lot of things that I was able to do.
I feel a lot easier and I say this as someone who's never been a particularly
high energy person outside of maybe I've always run, but not a high energy person.
So, but I still was able to do a lot more like.
Like, I, I feel like, you know, even if I look back and, you know, working 50,
60 hours a week doing overtime, you know, Taking care of, you know, small child.
I was like baking sourdough on the weekend.
I was making like, I was doing stuff from scratch.
I had this whole thing about doing everything from scratch because
it was not, that's the insanity.
Yeah.
There was like this insanity of, I didn't feel anything was worth doing unless
I was suffering for it, which is, you know, like now I can see is madness.
This sort of functionality I can do without, but I'm like, I
would, what it would be like to make something from scratch again.
Joe: Me and Sam are thinking that, well, it'd be therapeutic to do that.
I think I know what you're thinking.
I am.
Yes, maybe the first time ever.
I'm fascinated.
I think we're thinking that Ali is suffering under the illusion.
That there was some better former self.
Yeah, we are on it.
Actually the best self is this version.
It's just a bit
Sam: more
Ali: chill.
It's a bit more chill, but it's also a bit like a bit slower moving these
like everything's just a bit And I don't know if it's so much an age thing
because it's only been a few years Yeah, but it's a short time really.
Joe: I feel like.
Could it be meds related?
Ali: It could be like, I mean, I've had like iron checked, meds
checked, like everything like it's probably the best it's gonna be.
Be right, like that's like physically, as far as energy goes, it just feels
like there's some sort of motivation to do with that energy that is,
is harder to tap into these days.
That's what it is.
Sam: I think I know the feeling you're talking about.
Yeah.
It is interesting to be in agreement, Joe, we're both.
Kicking back and being the therapeutic experts to a degree and diagnosing
and feeling quite smug about it.
It's fun, isn't it?
Yeah.
Joe: This is Ali at her best.
She doesn't realize
it.
Sam: She doesn't realize it.
And also I was thinking of your coach.
The coach metaphor with your therapist you've talked about, sometimes
you just need a good bigging up.
And I was thinking to myself, this would be an appropriate time, Joe, I think,
as much as you and I have a real hair shirt and like whip view of what therapy,
you know, therapy should be hardcore.
But I think we're okay with saying you're crushing it.
So feel good.
Who's crushing it?
Ali.
Yeah.
At this point, at this point, at this point in your life,
Joe: I never knew the old Ali who bakes
Sam: sourdough.
Yeah.
See,
Ali: to me.
Like Ali, old Ali was, like, had a full functioning, you know,
farm going in her backyard.
That is cool.
Joe: She had a successful Instagram account for a garden
with, uh, someone famous.
Who was that writing to you?
Great.
Ali: Yeah.
Like, it was just...
Who was it?
You
Joe: gotta tell us.
Ali: Oh, it waigs Nella.
We've talked about it a lot.
Oh yeah, that's right.
You
Sam: had, you had the endorsement.
Yeah.
From the great one.
Okay.
Joe: Maybe old Ali was better.
Yeah.
Ali: Maybe like, I mean something to it.
Yeah.
Like, alright,
Sam: here's another theory.
Yeah.
Let's not dismiss your feeling.
Anyway.
Let's validate this feeling.
Ali: This is like, I was always, yeah.
I was high achiever at school.
Yeah.
I feel like I had a lot of unrealized potential.
Like a lot of ADHD private schools, burnout.
Yeah.
Like a lot of that high ability burnout.
Yeah.
So there was a lot of that.
Yeah.
I still feel like even with all the things and the mistakes that I made, I
still was able to get the really good job, you know, I still did things.
Really fucking well, like I did that, and I did, and it wasn't, and it didn't
feel hard, and so, I, everything just feels a little bit harder, and it's
not that I, yeah, I'm not doing great things with my life now, it's, but
I'm not making sourdough bread on my weekends, I'm, you know, I want to spend
a lot of my time, like Robbie, in bed.
Sure,
Joe: sounds like you're less annoying.
Yeah.
Yeah!
More relatable.
I don't want to hang out with the person with the flowering veggie garden and
making the sourdough from scratch.
Sam: Actually, the veggie garden is cool, but the sourdough, like,
this is your sourdough, Ali.
Now, look at what we're making from scratch.
Ali: Yeah, but I suppose like my bandwidth...
Felt bigger, is what it was.
That, that, like, I had an enormous capacity.
Even with a kid, yeah.
Even with a kid, I was still doing an awful lot.
Joe: So, here's one for you.
My mate Eckhart Tolle reckons that we have two phases in our life.
One when we're expanding in life, and we're putting more and more out there.
Yep.
And then one when we start contracting towards death.
Ali: And you might...
Oh, I'm in the contraction then, if you're looking at it.
Like, that seems so obvious to me, that I'm in a contraction.
Joe: Well, here's another theory, that maybe once you decide to jump
in the bath and kill yourself...
You went over the edge of death and you've come back.
Yes, it's the hero's journey.
It's like, Oh, well, I could be dead because I thought my kid was dead.
And now here I am, but I'm not, I'm not getting out of bed at 6 in the morning.
This is
Ali: like 10 to my kombucha scoby.
You
Joe: already decided to check out.
So this is like your afterlife.
The hero is like,
Sam: this reminds me very strongly of Joseph Campbell, the hero with a
thousand faces, like the hero's journey.
Right.
And one of the.
Stages is like, like approaching the innermost cave and a feeling of
impending doom, a feeling of crisis with a feeling of, uh, life and
death, like an, you know, the ordeal and the symbolic death and rebirth,
atonement, and then the road back.
To reality and back to the ordinary world.
Mm.
Which is, and the road back to the ordinary world is also beset
with perils and, uh, setbacks.
And one of the many, you know, perils we can face is a disappointment with
the ordinary world when we return to it.
Mm-Hmm.
, you know, things like that.
you know, I was thinking like this is a very compelling story and it
made me grateful that I'd had like a smaller breakdown and had it earlier.
Mm-Hmm.
But I can really relate.
Um, not to the, not the florid mania, but like the lack of sleep, losing
your moorings with reality, like the, the delusion starting to come in, the
chronic anxiety and panic attacks.
So this went on for about a week and yeah, I was falling apart and like,
yeah, it just couldn't mentally.
It was just, you could, yeah, you could feel yourself coming apart at the seams.
I can relate to all of that.
And I was thinking, what was I like before that?
What was I like after?
And yeah, God, man, it was a very long rebuilding process and still going on
now, really, when I think about it.
Ali: Like I've watched like a lot of
Sam: that was like 23 years ago.
Ali: Yeah.
Like a lot of video, like, you know, people who've gone through like
this sort of, like a similar sort of experience and they talk about like
the healing phase and like, and how.
In healing, you do need that time to rest and you are still healing and it
takes an extraordinary amount of time.
And like, I'm like, am I, yeah, am I being a bit lazy or am I healing or
like, you know, I mean like it's been, it was a few years ago now, so, you
know, for someone who was always doing an awful lot, it's like, okay, when's
this going to fucking end so I can get on and do the things I want to do.
Are we done yet?
I want to do like, that was, that was the first thing I said to my psychologist
when You know, he'd said to me, like when I, you know, I wanted a timeline,
I wanted to, I wanted, you know, I was like, how long is this going to take?
You know, he's like, and you know, count six months.
Are we in here six months?
And he said to me, he's like, no, like, you know, like realistically,
As in therapy, yeah, I thought I'd be done in six months.
And he's like, he goes, if you were super diligent, he goes, I can't say that
you couldn't get it done in six months.
But he said, realistically, he goes, I'd say it's going to
be a few years, three years.
And I was like, I'm going to beat, I'm going to do it in two.
And he's like, good luck.
I mean, I'm in my, I've just moved past two years.
Oh no, I just, I'm taking a little considered break for a couple of months.
Joe: So you haven't quite got to two years and you've stopped going.
Ali: No, no, no.
It was more than two years.
And I, I decided to take a little break just for a couple of months,
just to, because I've had some physical stuff to focus on.
So
Joe: maybe this
Ali: attitude
Joe: to your break.
So, the breakdown is just that you're conditioning as a private school girl
with a successful businessman father.
And you're like, I need to crack on with things and just get on with
it, get this done, get on with it.
But actually, maybe what you've moved into is a more
contemplative phase of your life.
But because you have no spiritual life, you haven't been
able to always the hard sell.
You haven't been able to reflect or go a bit deeper and understand the
slowing down a bit from some other.
Beyond your rational materialist way of thinking something deeper is maybe
calling to you from this quieter space But you don't have a way to access
it because you've completely shut
Sam: down.
I don't know I don't know.
I feel like it's being accessed here.
But that's part of the work we're doing here I think
Joe: but yeah, but it butts up against the hard wall with Ali because
Sam: Oh, yeah, you might be right.
I'm sure there's barriers galore.
Joe: It's hard to explain rationally, but you can't really
explain your psychosis rationally.
You thought the kid was dead.
Yeah, I know.
And you believed that.
But like...
It's not...
You left the rational.
Ali: I left the rational, but I...
So
Joe: you were no longer a high achieving private school girl, you
were suddenly in another realm.
But the rational explanation is...
That's what Sam's talking about with the hero's journey, you
went into the darkest cave.
That's right.
But the rational explanation is...
And the brightest treasure is in the darkest cave, right?
Sam: That's right.
Ali: Exactly.
Is the, yeah, like I said, the rational explanation is I have a mood disorder.
Yeah.
I had had lack of sleep.
I was on an enormous stress during the time, but you have a
chemical imbalance in the brain,
Joe: experie.
That makes sense.
But phenomenology, phenomenologically, what you experienced was not
just a bunch of symptoms like or
Ali: I say it is.
Sam: That's how I see it.
Yeah.
Joe: I'm less.
Well, let's get you back here when you're in psychosis and
see what's really going on.
But that
Sam: doesn't reveal it either, though.
No.
Joe: No one moment reveals it.
There's no rational way into that state.
Ali: I don't
Joe: see, like I, you left the logical, you left, logic
is only one way of thinking.
Ali: So do you, do you think that there's meaning within psychosis?
So
Joe: much meaning, oh my god, it's all meaning.
Well, this is a
Sam: theological one now, because is there meaning in suffering?
Like, even Christians are divided on that one.
Yeah, I, I,
Ali: there's no, I found no meaning.
Yeah.
Other than it was a potentially a wake up call to do things a bit better.
Yeah.
I
Joe: But everything is humming.
Opportunity to rebuild.
Yeah.
An opportunity to rebuild.
Everything is humming with meaning.
When you're in psychosis, what's lacking That's true.
Is logical thought, but there's no lack of meaning.
Sam: Well, but that's just it.
I think Ally's not asking for everything to be imbued with meaning at all times.
No.
So I think she's happy to settle for It can't function like that.
Like a degree of
Joe: mundanity end up in hospital.
No one can
Sam: function like that.
Yeah.
But she's not asking for like everything to feel profound.
No.
She just wants to get more done.
Yes.
Ali: Yeah, . I really do.
There's thing, there's an enormous, like, you know, people, you know, I see
people suffer when they retire because there's a lack of, oh yeah, that sucks.
You know?
Whereas I cannot wait because there is not enough time in my day Yes.
To do the things I already do.
You've already planned your retirement.
I've already, I've, I would have, I know that feeling would happily
not work another day in my life because I could fill my days.
Easily.
Easily with the things I want to do with my life that are not work related.
And that's why I'm totally resentful of the fact that I have to work because
I'd be in my garden, I'd be reading, I'd be reading all the books, I'd be
making all the things, I'd be snapping.
Yeah, exactly.
But I'd be working in a way that felt valuable to the way I want to live
my life, which is just not conducive, you know, to a capitalist life.
Sam: That's right.
Yeah.
You'd be making clothes, you'd be baking bread.
Absolutely.
Doing all that
Ali: cool stuff.
Yeah.
Homestead in the northern
Joe: suburbs.
That's how you feel and that's what you're looking forward to.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
You're fine then.
Yeah.
And when I worked on the psych ward, they'd just be like,
oh, people are future focused.
That's the term they always use.
They're future focused.
I would say that's fucked.
Like that's, you've stepped out of the present moment and you're now living in
Sam: something that doesn't
Joe: exist.
But basically the psych system wanted to get people future focused.
So as long as you're thinking, oh, I can work 20 more years in my dead
end job and then I'll get to...
No, so
Ali: I'm not, this is, for me it
Joe: feels like...
To me that's like, oh my God, I've fallen
Sam: for the...
No, Ali's been thoroughly red pilled in the traditional sense, but yeah.
Ali: Yeah, no, I feel like it's very much, I'm not going to get to do that.
I'm not going to live long enough to do it.
And I'm, I'm annoyed with that.
So it's like, well, what's the point?
And I feel like there's a lot of things I'm not starting
Joe: because that's making you tired.
The illusion of your imminent death.
Yeah,
Ali: because like for, I mean, I've never, I would say more therapy needed.
I'm not a, I've never been like a well person physically.
I've always, there's always been, there's always something going on.
And I just feel like even when you were like a teenager, you
had Yeah, there was stuff.
And I just feel like I was never, I've always had this feeling, I'm never, you've
always resented your body, haven't you?
Yes.
And I'm not gonna make old bones.
I've just never.
See myself living to old age.
I don't, I just, I don't know.
It doesn't feel, it just doesn't feel like it's...
See, now you're
Sam: being superstitious.
Yeah, but you
Joe: also have the mind that thought your son was dead.
Yeah, no, but...
So your mind is like one of the worst things to like base reality on.
I
Ali: don't, yeah, like I said, that's, it's not a rational thought, like I
have absolutely no evidence for that.
Other than...
But when you left rational thought...
The feeling in the bones.
Yeah, the feeling in the bones, but they're just not made for...
Joe: But when you convinced that your son was dead, you weren't curious after,
like, what was the meaning of that?
Or you weren't...
No.
You haven't been curious about that time that you left...
Have you talked about it in therapy?
No.
But you left rational thought and came back and was like, Oh,
that was just a lack of sleep.
It's like, Oh no, you access
Sam: another reality.
I think there's a strong, there's a strong man going on here though.
I just, look, I agree that the details of psychosis can be revealing a
diagnostic and therapeutic and like we can, it's much deeper than that.
No,
Joe: same as, same as an LSD trip is much deeper than
Sam: what you saw.
I don't know.
Maybe it is.
Ali: Maybe it isn't.
I don't know.
I, there's stuff I've seen like on drugs that I just think there
was absolutely, there was nothing meaningful about not seeing my face in
a fucking mirror for like six hours.
That was, it was horrible.
It was like 15, really not well prepared for that.
I mean, when
Joe: I say cool, I mean star studded.
It shows you that the way you perceive reality without taking acid
is just a filtering process that presents something that makes some
sense, but it's not actually true.
No,
Ali: but the overwhelming feeling I had.
Because if your
Joe: face wasn't in the mirror, then it wasn't in the mirror.
So it's only perception, there's no objective
Ali: reality.
The overwhelming feeling I had when I looked in the mirror was that I'm
going to be in so much trouble with my parents because I've lost my face.
Wow.
That was what it was.
Sam: But what I'm saying is that you had lost your face.
Joe: If you
Sam: went home without a face,
Joe: you would be...
What the fuck was going on, Ali?
I'd
Ali: just taken some mushrooms and that was the...
Joe: And where was your face in that reality?
Where was it?
Reality is not the day to day reality that everyone functions
Sam: on.
Well Joe, you know, I lost my face without taking shrooms.
I was working at the National Hotel in Geelong, and this was, this was a good
time to have a breakdown, and I almost did it, but I didn't, because I'd already
had one before, and I was able to kind of figure it out, and step around it,
but like, because yeah, I was working by myself in this, and I was living by
myself up above this pub, and I was doing the six nights, and Yeah, it wasn't good.
I actually, at one point, I had three jobs, saving money to go to India.
And yeah, you know, a little too much drinking and not enough
sleep and all that going on.
But then one night, I think it was like a Monday night, and
I let myself out of the pub.
It was closed and I had to go out and get some food or something.
And then I caught my face in like a mirror, like just kind of on
the edge of the stairs, like an old ornamental, you know, anyway.
And like the mirror was in sections, so.
Already the self was fractured, but I was like, I don't
recognize this person at all.
And then I was like looking at it longer and I was like.
There, there was no face, like, yeah, yeah, it's pretty strange,
Ali: but it's a strange feeling.
It was a strange feeling, but then like, yeah, it wore off and
then I was like, Oh, thank God I'm not in trouble with my character.
Sam: I will put it to you.
Cause you would have been in so much trouble.
I would have
Ali: been in so much trouble for losing my face.
Sam: Where did you put your face?
Ali: Come on, just retrace your steps.
This is just another thing you fucked up.
Yeah, that is so
Joe: good.
That's just the amusing way you processed it.
But what happened is No, there's meaning in these remarks.
It points to something extraordinary.
No, I
Sam: think you have a deep sense of failure.
It points to something
Joe: extraordinary, which is that consensual reality that we all
agree on so that we can function together is only one reality.
Okay.
When you step outside it through drug experiences or
psychosis or whatever, you don't.
Uh, you're not in some fake reality, you're not, you're just in a different
Sam: reality.
Okay, okay.
But we don't need to get too far out.
Like, I, I, I agree that there's some truth in all of that, but like, to
me, it's therapeutically revealing.
My face is gone, but my first thought is I'm going to be in
trouble for losing my face.
And then like with, and who, with who?
Ali: Yes.
Exactly.
And that was, and like, this is therapy stuff.
Yeah.
That is very much therapy stuff in that.
Like that, that would have been a very, like disappointing my family.
That would have been a
Joe: huge.
You missed the point.
This is Pat, no, I think the point, you missed the point about, I think
Sam: you have a deep fear of failure and of not living up to other people's
expectations, their faith wasn't there.
Oh, but think about what that could mean.
That wasn't an illusion.
No, but analyze the symbolism of it.
That wasn't an illusion.
I didn't say it was an illusion.
Joe: So we're both agreeing that reality is much more mutable than
Sam: our reality The brain was experiencing that.
Like, that was what was happening in the consciousness.
Things are not as
Joe: solid as people assume in day to day reality.
Sam: Right.
They're just not.
I'm pointing to the thin sliver of reality as well.
I'm just not as determined.
I mean, look, we can probably meet in the middle here somewhere, but I tend
to think the profound lesson was already there in like this experience of losing
the self, really, and, and going, I'm actually, but the self still exists and
will get in trouble for losing the self.
To self.
It's So who are you anyway?
Like that's what's going on there.
And how old are you at that point?
Like, I'm 15, 16.
Yeah.
That's the perfect time to be asking those questions anyway.
Yeah.
Especially with a, with a, a hard background.
And then fast forward to 37, did you say?
Yeah.
It was
Ali: 36, 37 when?
No, 37 when I had, know what I mean?
Yeah.
Had my breakdown.
Sam: Yeah.
And that's a really great time of life to start feeling a shit load
of pressure to be more than you are.
Yes.
Ali: So, yeah, and very much so like, and watching, yeah, people
who have, you know, done things in a very different way to how I did them.
Like I had baby quite young and did things, you know, the wrong way around.
I'd had, you know, failed relationships, did not follow the script.
She
Joe: just said wrong, the wrong way.
Yeah, I know, it's very
Ali: revealing too.
Well, yeah, well, exactly.
Like that's, that's the thing.
I,
Sam: you said that in a self aware way, but she is, I agree.
Yeah.
I'm taking
Ali: notes.
Yeah.
No, yeah.
Like I, I, it was, I'd perceived it to be the wrong way around or done things, you
know, you know, have made choices that were not, yeah, things didn't work out
the way I'd imagined them to for myself.
That's a thing a lot of people struggle with in that the imagined
future they had for themselves.
And I think given my upbringing, given my, I suppose, natural
aptitudes and things like.
That my goals were really lofty, really lofty.
and probably all sorts of completely unrealistic, but, um, but really lofty.
And I, I, yeah, obviously had not reached them in a
Sam: lot.
I guarantee you, if we compared notes about early twenties, they'd be
similar, like the loftiness would be
Ali: similar.
Yeah.
I was going to do great things and I'd been told.
You can do really great things because, you know, and I had a lot of results and
things from school and Reinforcements showing me I could do really great.
There was a degree of evidence to suggest this.
Yeah, so there was everything was sort of like, okay, this, this
is the path, these, you know, and
Joe: And you didn't know the whole time that actually you're a mystic.
But you're just not curious about it.
So you've been trying to make things work on the plane of consensual reality,
which is not where you function.
Sam: But we also have to remain social beings, as we said in the last episode,
and like unfortunately, we have to live in the consensual reality as well as it's
Joe: functional.
But if we, if we take it to be.
All encompassing, then we suffer, and we suffer as
neurodivergent people particularly.
Oh, and also it's not, well, our experience is not a consistent reality
that everyone else can agree on.
And that's not your organic experience.
And we can also
Sam: affront drugs or no drugs.
That's right.
And we can also affront that reality by doing things.
We can contest that reality and we do, everyone contests it and reinforces it
in different ways at all, at all moments.
And one of the ways of contesting the consensual reality is to have a breakdown.
It's a great rejection of it.
And,
Joe: but I would say maybe you haven't been curious enough about what it means.
Ali: I just don't feel the need to ascribe meaning to it.
Well, I think, yeah, go on.
Yeah.
I just, I, I don't, I've just never felt like outside of any, you know, medical.
Explanation for what happened, which, you know, there is an explanation that
that was more than enough to satisfy my interest in what happened and everything
outside of that was then about, okay, well, this happened, what do I do now?
And then how do I put it back together?
What do I need to do with my life?
What do I, how do, you know, therapy, medication, whatever it is, you
know, these are the things I need to be focusing on structure, routine,
things that, yeah, like, and.
And getting back, you know, to a place that's healthy and that wasn't, yeah,
like I said, the motivation was, yeah, again, I suppose more towards getting
back into the swing of things, or at least into a life that I had imagined
for myself that I would be happy with.
And yeah, like for the most part, you know, I am it's, it's, and so, yeah,
I just never felt the need to have a greater understanding of what I went
through other than like, Oh, it was just a thing in the same way that I,
if I broke a bone, no, I really do.
I think like, you know, like something happens medically.
To you, it's the same, you know, sore back.
Like I don't feel like broken your bone doesn't take you into
Joe: the the altered reality.
I'm
Ali: gonna have to, but obviously I disagree.
Go aside a little bit with that.
Like I've had, you know, been dealing with some chronic pain Yeah.
With a back injury.
Mm-Hmm.
And that absolutely can mind altering Yeah.
Can take you to a place of altered reality and.
Thinking that, you know, extreme pain really can alter your thinking.
Have you had some ECT
Sam: or any
Ali: of that?
No, I haven't.
No, I've had a friend who had that.
It was really successful for him.
But, um, but yeah, no, I just, so for, for chronic pain, I think, but again,
I don't describe any meaning to it.
Like it's just a shit thing.
That's, I have to deal with.
Joe: You think that you haven't recovered, but actually you've,
you focused on getting on with it.
You're good enough and you're getting on with it.
Ali: Yeah, oh yeah, like, I mean, highly functional, I've been
Joe: in work for years, you know, maybe you're missing the depth.
of something quite profound that's all around you.
No,
Ali: I, I, well, the thing I miss is the energy.
That's what I, like, that's the thing I think I miss is this energy that I feel
like that I had, which maybe I did, maybe I didn't have it as much as I remember it
to be, but at least it, I definitely feel
Joe: lower on energy.
So what I'm saying is maybe be, don't worry about doing more stuff, maybe lean
more into reflection and contemplation.
Sure,
Sam: but can I, sure, look, you might be right in the long run.
But I would prefer
Joe: to take the...
Especially if you agree that you're now entering the
contraction phase of your life.
Yeah.
So you need to start understanding your non existence, which is a good place
to enter some more deeper thinking.
Sam: And parenting is going to shift your priorities as well, and all
sorts of things are going to happen.
But, like, regardless of breakdowns occurring or not, but...
And the, the, you know, the growing understanding and sort of intimacy
with mortality and all of that.
But I think that goes back a long way with you though.
Mm-Hmm.
Like there's not a new thing.
No intonations of
Ali: mortality.
I think it's something you've been No, that's something I've been thinking about
my whole life, living with for a long
Sam: time.
Yeah.
And.
If anything, I think middle age will actually provide a degree
of relief from a lot of that.
Um, so, but what I'm interested in though, I want to take the patient's own words
and the patient's own state, stated goals, which are quite modest, I think, and I
want to work with those a little bit, which is, I just want, maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe those energy levels, I'm overstating it, but you feel
that they could be better.
Okay.
I mean, that's, I think that's a reasonable starting point.
Now, how, how you pursue that, it could end up where Joe's talking.
Contemplation.
So yeah, maybe a commitment to meditation could do wonders in this situation.
equally, I do think that the...
I'm agreeing with Joe, the episodic details I think might be interesting
and the dealing with the mortality of the child I think will be an interesting
one to talk about in therapy and also connecting that with your own
feeling of mortality earlier in life.
And there's some dots that need joining, I think.
And, but something is sapping your energy.
I think that's probably true.
And it might be unmet expectations within yourself.
It might be ones that are still coming from
Ali: without.
It's so easy just to blame.
Oh, it's work.
Cause that's what I would attribute it to.
It's a good thing to blame.
Yeah.
I mean, it doesn't, it's certainly not helping.
You're not wrong.
You know, I don't think it, it certainly doesn't help, but like
I, it is mentally fatiguing.
There is.
Yeah.
There is something, yeah, that is sapping my energy or just taking
up an awful lot of that bandwidth.
Joe: More than once.
I think you might have had a bit of a higher calling and a
bit of a deeper calling and you maybe have hung up the phone too
Sam: soon.
I don't know.
I think doing this is...
Joe: Because being functional at work and functional as a mum and
functional in relationships is fine, but it's not the whole enchilada.
There's a lot more to reality and consciousness than that.
Sure.
I
Sam: agree.
I would say by the same token, I think everyone has that higher
calling to some degree, like I agree.
We've all got a role
Joe: to play.
But when it knocks you, when it really rips you and throws you into
hospital, it's like pay attention.
No, indeed.
It's
Sam: the call to adventure.
No, you know the T Rex journey better than you said.
Yeah, no, it is the call to adventure.
And of course, the first thing is we refuse the call to adventure.
And like, that's what...
Well, that's where Ali is now.
And that's what therapy is all about.
But the thing is, all of us are refusing each adventure
as it emerges in every moment.
Like, like, it's not just...
This one's happening and you and I, well, we've gotten past the refusal.
Well, no, there's a refusal waiting for me later today.
You know, like we have to face our own refusal again and again and get past it.
Like, I don't want to brush my teeth.
I don't want to go to bed.
I don't want to cut my
Joe: nails.
Sam: You and I know about that.
Ali: It's the day to day.
It's so
Joe: hard.
I'll say this Ali, like after my last manic episode and psychosis, all I
wanted to do Do was get back on my feet.
Yes.
Mm-Hmm.
Get back to work.
Ignore what had happened, go back and work in the film industry and
get my business back on its feet.
Be yourself.
And I did that and I was successful.
Mm-Hmm.
And it left me feeling flat.
Mm-Hmm.
And it's only when I started meditating and Sure.
Um, doing my addiction recovery work and gaining a spiritual life
was the only time that I started to resolve some of this stuff that had.
It happened in the psychosis and in the mania and leading up to them and
just trying, before that trying to be functional and have a mortgage and have
a business and be a dad and it was only when I started to be slightly curious
about a spiritual life was suddenly some sustenance came into this part of me
that was so thirsty, you know, it was just so thirsty, it always had been.
And it was only when I nourished it with some spirituality that now I can
understand my bipolar in a completely different way and I can understand
psychosis in a different way and I can understand all those acid trips in a
different way and all those mushroom trips and the ketamine and all of that.
But
Sam: the meditation's been better for you than all of that.
Joe: The meditation, this is the Ram Dass passes.
You work out, you go to, you take the elevator to the top of the mountain.
And then you see something extraordinary that's just so beautiful you
can't believe it and everything's resolved and it's all there.
But then you come down.
Meditation is what Ram Dass worked out is the way to just trudge slowly up
the side of that same exact mountain.
Sure.
Ali: So what you're saying is that nourishing that spiritual side is that's
the thing that's filling your cup up.
And I can understand like you having nothing to draw on and that was
a big thing in like in therapy is like it was making sure you have
things that fill your cup up so that you do have stuff to draw on.
And I feel like.
Whether the, maybe there's just not enough that's filling me up.
Cause I feel like your
Joe: spirituality could be as simple as a five hour bushwalk.
Yes.
And then people say, Oh, I just felt like myself dropped away and
I was just connected to everything.
Ali: And that spirituality doesn't
Joe: have to be, it doesn't have to be a religious
Ali: text.
Yeah, no, that's, that's the, those are the exact things that
I've absolutely wanted to do.
And we were told to like write down all these things and a lot of them have been.
That I had found that were really helpful and for the last couple of years,
obviously the physical side of things has absolutely prohibited like most of
my ability to be able to do those things.
And so I'm not having enough to then draw on to then be able to do the stuff I want.
So there's this frustration of not being able to do the hike, not being
able to do the things that make me feel good that, and that's where.
And I feel like that's the thing that's sapping my energy.
Sam: I can't pull the medicine down from the shelf.
I know which one I need and I've devised it myself for some reason.
My body is betraying me.
Something's getting in the way again and again and we can psychoanalyse
that and sometimes it's real things.
You know, Adam frustrates me sometimes because he won't allow me to bring...
Like real and rational sort of obstacles into the thing.
He's like, yeah, well, they might or might not be true I don't know but
like what can we talk about like what you know, what what's stopping you?
This that and the other okay, but what's inside you that's stopping you?
Adam's your therapist?
Yes, Adam's a therapist and I was gonna say like that We don't talk about,
Krishna's enough apparently on this thing, but they talk about Uh, spiritual
practices, watering the right plants and just not watering the wrong ones.
You know, it's like, it's gardening.
It's cultivation is the metaphor they use.
And so it occurred to me, I don't think Ali's missing any of the ingredients
or, uh, things here whatsoever.
Like the things you were talking about, like pre breakdown,
some of it's further than.
It needs to be maybe, but like, what'd you say?
The gardening, sourdough, these are all productive creative
Ali: acts.
Yeah, like long sort of complicated cooking and or preserving
projects I found deeply cathartic.
Like, like there is a Doing something from scratch and having the struggle to
do something from scratch, I find great enjoyment and pleasure from whether it's
gardening, cooking, hiking, things that I've, you know, I, I feel like those are
the things that have been, you know, and like I said, for a variety of reasons,
you know, physically, my body has not been able to keep up the last few years.
And so, and those things would have been the things that normally would
have actually then given me the energy to then move on to, you know,
and now I just want to, Get Uber Eats and stay mad a lot of the time.
Sam: Yeah, setting up, setting up your base camp to go up
the rest of, uh, Everest is, yeah, sort of beyond you at the
Ali: moment.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And it's, it's frustrating.
It's a frustrating thing.
Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
And I was gonna say, I really vibe with a lot of this cause like before that.
You know, the 19 years old having panic attacks and, you know, yeah,
like a proper breakdown, but like not as profound as that one at all.
and I recovered much more quickly from like the surface symptoms, getting
things right in your life and doing all the therapy that took longer.
But the, I was reminded that I was really going after it before that I
was ambitious and I did things and.
I planned things and followed through on them a lot of the time and like
more than, more than I might now.
so like, yeah, you're right.
I think that there's a dissatisfaction here that we, I don't think
we need to reject it entirely.
yeah, but like, but that's like, I have to go all the way back to my
teenage years and I've had sort of episodes since of like the thing
you're just really going after it.
After more than one thing and packing a lot in, still get bursts of it
Ali: now.
Yes, I just, I haven't had the burst of it for what feels like a really long time.
Damn, that sucks.
Yeah, it really sucks.
Like, I know, like, You know, I've joked with Joe a few times that
like, God, I just would love for some low key hypomania to get something
done, so, that would be nice.
I would say,
Sam: yeah.
Just a little cheat.
Joe: Yeah.
You would, yeah.
I think you had a call to adventure, you got called to a deeper reality
and instead of doing that, you've papered over the cracks and tried
to go back to sourdough and being functional and you just, you just
don't have the energy for that anymore.
Cause your energy's been called somewhere else and you've missed the call.
Not a papering.
Sam: But like the
Joe: re, the re, it's like, Oh, let's just get back on with it.
It's like, no, well the reconstruction, different person.
No, yeah, yeah.
It's not, it's not kind of what the topic of the show was.
It's like, we don't go back to who we were.
No.
Ali: And I, and I don't think
Joe: we're going backwards.
We can go deeper is what I'm saying.
Does that
Ali: make sense?
And I certainly feel like, yeah, like the things that I was.
Holding, you know, down that, that is where I have gone
deeper and understanding.
Yes, that's good.
Yeah.
The therapy.
So that's where I've understood, you know, trauma.
Yeah.
My behaviors, you know, things I've done, things that have happened to me.
Mm-Hmm.
That's where I've gone deeper after my breakdown.
Mm-Hmm.
. And I needed to go through that to understand why I did
a lot of the things I did.
So I have that under.
I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of why I do
a lot of the things I do now.
That wasn't something I found hard to pick up.
I found that quite easily to rationalize and like, Oh, that makes sense.
Probably a pretty good patient to have.
Oh, like to the point, like my psychologist said, it's, it's a,
it's a, to my detriment that I can understand why, how and why.
Yeah, quickly with it and then feel fucking frustrated because
it's not, you know, I can see it.
You've got too much
Joe: logic
Ali: and rationality.
Yeah, it is.
But to a point of, to a fault, that's the
Joe: problem.
If you're bipolar type one, you're a mystic.
Ali: I'm not, I don't feel, I don't feel that I'm.
Joe: That's whether you want to be or not, you are.
I think
Sam: maybe you work your magic in a different way though.
It's not going to be the, it's not going to be the cave life
for you, the wide eyed, wild eyed
Joe: mystic.
Before there was a designation of bipolar type one, there was.
Charming and mystic.
Ali: So I mean, but I feel like to
Joe: whereas you are hyper-rational, hyper logical.
No, you're
Sam: also drawn, you're also drawn to the eccentric thing too.
But I,
Joe: yeah, you're happy to listen to us, but you won't
go along with anything weird.
Ali: I, I feel though that in the right environment with the right supports, yeah.
That life could be very possible indeed.
But I absolutely still have to work.
You're still a parent and take a child care of a child.
Yeah.
And there's no.
space to be a mystic, but like, if I didn't have the
responsibility, you've been
Joe: accused of being a
Ali: witch before though.
That was, that's because I have a pointy nose.
Um, and a cackle.
Yeah.
And a cackle.
Yeah.
I just, I had a witchy vibe as well.
I was told, but it was more like, you know, the long dark hair back then.
Oh yeah.
That would look good.
Yeah.
Like, but at the, like I said, I don't feel like I am in any,
you know, and historically.
If you're looking at shamans and stuff, they were revered and supported and
they could, someone would bring the shaman food, if the shaman wasn't
out there foraging for himself.
As they should.
Who's, like, no one's foraging for me.
Yeah, that's
Joe: the thing, we've been born in the wrong time.
Ali: Yeah, so absolutely, so, well, I don't, so I don't
Joe: have this.
Yeah, but I'm embracing the mystery.
Sam: Well, I've said this before, the government needs to bring in a nice
Ali: game for me.
If there was a UBI and I didn't have, and I could just get by.
And like I said, if my retirement plan, although the idea of being able to do
the things I want to do, and I find great joy and pleasure in doing, and probably
have the energy to do and potentially explore a mystic shaman sort of.
Life is just simply not...
I just don't...
Joe: I think unless you have some curiosity about the nature of
reality and some willingness to explore some spirituality, I don't
think the retired life that you're talking about will be satisfying.
No, but you
Sam: know, you know Ali's a very subtle thinker and has
got all those shades going on.
It's not, it's not always expressed directly.
And, and, but, and also you're, you're, you've determined to
put her in the rationalist box, but I don't know if it's as...
Complete is all that.
Joe: It's conditioning.
I don't think you can drop it.
There's a curiosity in there somewhere, but it can't come to the surface.
No, but I think the curiosity...
There's a yearning, you know?
Your yearning for God is actually God's yearning for you, Ali.
Ali: Oh my God.
Jesus
Joe: Christ.
Alright, I think we should wrap it up.
No, I love it.
I
Sam: love that character though.
Actually, I'm enjoying the come to Jesus character.
I don't mind it.
It is fun.
It's not a character.
No, no, no.
I'm joking.
I know it's, I know you mean it.
Absolutely.
Joe: No, no, no.
Christian God, just God, just loving awareness.
The start of this show, go back and listen.
You both signed on to it.
So we're all doing it.
We're all loving awareness.
Anyway, we've given Ali a real grilling.
I think we should let her have a
Sam: break.
We have.
We've really put her under the microscope.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know.
Was
Ali: that fun, Ali?
Yeah, no, it was good.
It was really, yeah, no, I really, I enjoy, like, I enjoy being able to
sort of, It's not often I can take pause and actually verbalize it, like
I definitely have it going on in my head in a way, but not in a way that
it's Sort of usually expressed 'cause outside of therapy, it's not socially
acceptable to do what was Yeah.
I'm not doing it with my colleagues at, at work.
I'm not doing it with my family necessarily.
Like Yeah.
Yeah.
Joe: And she's a very giving person who puts other people first.
So it's, it's true.
You have to force Allie to go into the spotlight
Sam: and Yeah.
But was being, so, giving in the process.
By being the guinea pig, and allowing
Joe: Not self obsessed like you and me, Sam.
That's right.
Yeah.
But, look, I've been told that this show is a lot of, well, almost
completely us just being self obsessed and talking about ourselves.
But you know what I realised?
I mean, there's some truth in that.
If people don't want that, they just won't listen to the
show, because that's all it is.
Don't worry about it.
So I was like, oh no, it's true, what a, what a cunning criticism,
and I'm like, oh no, that's That's, yeah, that's the entire show.
Okay, well if they like it, I think the sweetener was,
but you have a great dynamic.
Yeah.
I was like, okay, so all we do is self obsessively, I think
the term navel gazing was used.
Oh my god, it's
Sam: a podcast.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
So I was like, what, how do we fix that?
And I'm like, oh, we can't.
It's the
Sam: entire show.
Do you know what's funny though?
When you listen to like a topical podcast that's meant to be all
business and then they do some navel gazing, I'm like, see, they're
Ali: at it.
I think everyone's prone to it.
Like it's a natural place to veer to.
Joe: Yeah.
Okay.
Well, this week's one thing of the 10, 000 things was, do we ever fully
recover from a full mental breakdown?
And the answer was...
Sam: No, and you don't have to
Joe: say yes, you're fine.
Just crack on, go deeper,
Sam: always go deeper.
Yes.
You're fine.
Crack on, go deeper.
You're still broken.
Keep working on it.
It's all, all of that's true.
But I would also say that like, I tend, um, man, so many, so much
disagreement and agreement with Joey.
It's dizzying.
I'm trying to tally it all up in my head.
Like, is he more wrong than right?
Joe: Not sure, but there will be no logical coherence to what
I've said, but logic is only
Sam: one way of thinking.
I think you've had a definite.
It's a coherent view on this whole thing.
I'll actually, I'll give you that, but the, my feeling is there's something
there that you've identified a goal.
It's not gonna be easy to pursue.
Actually.
It might prove easier than I thought.
I don't know, prove me wrong, but like I, whose goal, I just want
the energy level slightly better.
I just, I want to have a little bit more executive function maybe,
you know, like, I mean, I think we can concretize it a little bit and.
I think pursuing that, I think you've found lots of great ways of pursuing
it in the past and I've got confidence that you'll find more ways and they'll
have a spiritual dimension to them.
Joe: Yeah, and if you tap into your spiritual energy, you'll have unlimited
energy, but not in that unhealthy way.
Sam: Don't make any large promises though.
Joe: Yeah.
But, you're not willing to yet, so pray for the willing,
I'll pray for your willingness.
Thanks.
Thanks Joe.
Alright, well see you later everybody.
See ya.
Sam: Ah.