#1233 After Dark: Foot Bath

Sarah is 26 years old and has type 1 diabetes. Discussions of physical and drug abuse, mental health battles and more. 

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 1233 of the Juicebox Podcast

today's episode feature Sarah she's 26 years old was just diagnosed with type one diabetes in February of 2023. She suspects another autoimmune issue that presents like ra but she can't quite figure out what it is she's taking Plaquenil for it. We're going to discuss that her mental health issues, some physical abuse, and a lot more. But keep in mind with this episode, specifically, if you are an apple podcast subscriber, which means I think you pay like five bucks a month to get the show day early and you get the Pro Tip series in the bowl beginning series without ads. If you have that subscription model right now, you're gonna get this episode, unedited. And without advertisements, that means cursing and no ads. If you're subscribed right now on Apple podcast, everyone else is getting ads and beeps. But I mean, that's not really that bad for free. You know what I mean? Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. When you place your first order for ag one with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D. Drink ag one.com/juice box this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one touched by type one.org and find them on Facebook and Instagram touched by type one is an organization dedicated to helping people living with type one diabetes. And they have so many different programs that are doing just that check them out at touched by type one.org Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's bringing people together to redefine what it means to live with diabetes. Later in this episode, I'll be speaking with Jalen, he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 14. He's 29. Now he's going to tell you a little bit about his story. To hear more stories with Medtronic champions. Go to Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or search the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo penne Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. My

Sarah 2:36
name is Sarah. I'm 26. I was diagnosed as type one in February and I'm here for whatever the new series is called.

Scott Benner 2:44
Who wait. So you just were diagnosed you 26 March April, May, June, July, August, September. It was in February so So eight months. If you count February, then you get an extra month when you're counting is difficult. So eight months ago type one Do you have any other autoimmune issues?

Sarah 3:04
I have an unknown rheumatological issue that I've suspected is autoimmune but they don't know what it is. How

Scott Benner 3:13
does it manifest itself? Since

Sarah 3:15
I was 13, it's mostly related to like I have a lot of flare ups around my cycle is managed right now with Plaquenil. But I mean, it was to the point when I was 23. I was basically bedridden and they were like I don't know all your tests come back clean. So it's mostly just like aching specifically around the joints. It presents like ra except no swelling.

Scott Benner 3:34
Presents like ra no swelling. Antibodies come back negative. And it only happens around your period. It's

Sarah 3:43
the worst man but I also like I click a lot like my joints are very loud and then they pop. Like when I am not consistently taking my medication because I tend to be forgetful. You can actually hear my joints get louder.

Scott Benner 3:58
The Plaquenil is what it's a is that an injectable?

Sarah 4:02
No, it's oral. It's hydroxychloroquine Oh, it's the blanket. It's something let's try this.

Scott Benner 4:11
I know that drug actually, how much has that helped you? Significantly,

Sarah 4:14
really significantly. When I was 23. I had worked up so bad because I had obviously was working still through all of this. But during COVID I quit my job because I was just so built up about everything. And during that time, it's like because I didn't have that daily reason to push myself to I have to go to work I have to do this. I deteriorated to somebody who needed help getting up out of bed very quickly

Scott Benner 4:44
immunosuppressive drug and anti parasitic. So oh, this this. This is the drug that like blew up in consciousness during COVID Because why? Because Oh, I know why? Because it's generic and it's cheap. When people said there were people who were saying this could maybe help with COVID. And then it turned into one of those, like, argument points during COVID. I remember this. Okay,

Sarah 5:08
that made researching it very difficult. And

Scott Benner 5:12
there were people like you using it for stuff like this. And then suddenly it was they were having trouble like sourcing it to is that this drug? That's the same one. Yeah. Okay, I remember this. I've actually thought about this for Arden at times. Does it have any side effects that are ill like things you wouldn't want to have happen? They

Sarah 5:31
say that it increases your sensitivity to sunlight, but I haven't noticed anything. And I very much love to bask so. And I have to get to yearly eye exams, because they say that has a chance for damage to your retinas. But other than that, but and I've been on it for three years. And I say that there's nothing but it's more of a like you're on it for 10 years, and then you have a 5% chance. I don't know the exact but it's relatively minor, but it's enough within it is a requirement to see a yearly ophthalmologist.

Scott Benner 6:04
So after 10 years, you have a 5% chance of having problems with your retinas.

Sarah 6:09
I think it's I think it's lower than that. I'm just making up numbers. Oh,

Scott Benner 6:12
well, yeah, I mean, we should definitely do that. We'll just make up numbers. I made them up about your age, and how long ago February was and everything, so we're fine. What brings you on the podcast? Like when when you said, I'll come on, what did you think you would talk about?

Sarah 6:30
I hear you speak a lot when I listened to particularly to the after dark episodes. And when you You seem interested in things about mental health. And that's something that I have a lot of experience with. And I haven't heard anybody talk about, I guess, when people talk about their mental health issues, they didn't have a core reason of like, oh, this happened. And I feel this way or like a core source of their problems. And I haven't heard anybody expressed the way that I have, I think you had one guest very briefly mentioned her negative connotations towards religion, but it was very sparse.

Scott Benner 7:04
Okay, let's like dig in a little bit. Do you have mental health struggles?

Sarah 7:08
Oh, definitely.

Scott Benner 7:09
Like, of course I do. When did they begin? What do they look like? The

Sarah 7:15
best way I could word it is I remember wanting to kill myself since I was in elementary school. So forever, basically,

Scott Benner 7:22
what does that feel like? How real is that feeling like you make plans to kill yourself, or you just have these feelings of like, I wish I wasn't alive.

Sarah 7:30
It waves. So sometimes like as of right now, I'm pretty decent. And if you catch me, like on a bad day, or whatever, it's like the other day, we were, I was making coffee. And I have one of the old style coffee pots, just the regular pour over. And there had been a clog or something and the grounds spilled up and backed up into the water tank. And I'm just, I just immediately started going, I have to do everything in this house. And that's just another thing I need to do. And I keep messing everything up and in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and on and on and on and on. And that always just spirals into, well, this wouldn't happen if you weren't still here. Like you're not supposed to be. Oh,

Scott Benner 8:09
wow. And how fast is that happened from like, the odd malfunction of the coffee pot that has nothing to do with you, too. We should find a verge to jump off of like, what's the is it like minutes or days? 80 seconds? Okay, then, but then do you then think I'm gonna go do it? Do you ever make a plan?

Sarah 8:30
Nonetheless, few years now, but I think the only reason I never had a honest to god attempt is because I was so convinced that I was going to screw it up. And I would end up more permanently damaged and worse off than when I started. So

Scott Benner 8:45
when you were younger, What stopped you from attempting suicide was the idea that you would screw that up like you've screwed up the coffee pot? Pretty much. Oh my gosh. Okay. And this stems from what like, do history of mental illness in your family. People are screaming and yelling at you. You've been abused anything like that? Yes,

Sarah 9:02
yes. And depending on your definition of abuse, I was never really hit. But I was in very dangerous situations. I use the word neglect more often. Your

Scott Benner 9:12
whole life neglected. Pretty much. And what does that mean? That means you're on your own to eat to go to school to clean yourself. Nobody involve themselves with you.

Sarah 9:23
Yeah. When my mother and father were still together, that was they were both drug addicts. It was very physically abusive, very dangerous. And we were split apart by foster care. And I went with my grandparents on my mother's side. And they are also drug addicts who also had a very physically abusive household, which was not conducive for a child. And then when my mother got out of prison, I got back with her and her whoever she was dating at the time, and basically from then on out, I was I think I was in third grade, maybe at this point and it was just kind of like, okay, you have to learn to be independent now fully. Oh my gosh, I always had a roof and there was almost always food. But that was

Scott Benner 10:11
like God. Do you have brothers and sisters? Five? Wow. Did they all get I

Sarah 10:19
was essentially raised as a single child after that because one went to his grandparents to went into foster care. And one went to another set of grandparents and one went to the Father. So we all went different directions. Did your

Scott Benner 10:34
mom have five kids with five different men?

Sarah 10:36
Two of them are not hers. So they're all half siblings. Oh,

Scott Benner 10:40
wait, wait. So there were three kids that were hers and two kids. She found somewhere or British?

Sarah 10:46
Were from my father's previous relationship. From

Scott Benner 10:50
you. I gotcha. Okay, so she had kids with other guys met your dad got pregnant. He brought kids with him. I got it. How old were they? When you were being moved to your grandmother's house? Do you think?

Sarah 11:03
Probably about 12 and 13. You were that old? But

Scott Benner 11:07
how old? Were your parents? Were they young parents? I

Sarah 11:09
was like four they were like probably early 20s. My mother had three children by 21. So and I was the youngest. So I think I was had right before she was 30

Scott Benner 11:23
and she was she had addiction issues.

Sarah 11:26
She still does. Okay.

Scott Benner 11:29
Wow. And then you get to the grandparents house. They're the same as your mom basically. Was there any moment when you left your mom and went to your grandparents you thought this is going to be better and then you got there and you're like oh no same place. If you take insulin or sulfonylureas you are at risk for your blood sugar going too low. You need a safety net when it matters most. Be ready with G voc hypo pen. My daughter carries G voc hypo pen everywhere she goes because it's a ready to use rescue pen for treating very low blood sugar and people with diabetes ages two and above that I trust. Low blood sugar emergencies can happen unexpectedly and they demand quick action. Luckily G vo Capo pen can be administered in two simple steps even by yourself in certain situations. Show those around you where you store G vo Capo pen and how do you use it? They need to know how to use Chivo Capo pen before an emergency situation happens. Learn more about why G vo Capo pen is in Ardens diabetes toolkit at G voc glucagon.com/juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used if you have a tumor in the gland on the top of your kidneys caught a pheochromocytoma. Or if you have a tumor in your pancreas called an insulinoma. Visit G voc glucagon.com/risk For safety information.

Sarah 12:55
Oh no. We have visited my grandparents and my grandmother was just horrific. He was screaming and like. So my grandfather while he also was still a drug addict, he worked and he did what he could. So I think the reason that I was cared for the way that I was in that household at the time was because of him. But he worked so much to try to support because he was the only one in the house with a job and takes a lot of money to buy that many people drugs. Yeah, drugs are expensive. So he lay down on the couch for a two hour nap before he went to go drive cabs. And she'd be screaming at him saying you're such a sorry, son of a bitch blah, blah, blah, everything like that. And it was just nothing but vitriol coming from that woman's mouth, always screaming. And

Scott Benner 13:38
so you as a child, you absorb all this. That's how you feel about yourself.

Sarah 13:42
I think it was also a lot of it was she was a very religious woman.

Scott Benner 13:47
It doesn't sound like it, but go ahead.

Sarah 13:50
I know. Southern Baptists will do that to you.

Scott Benner 13:55
Screaming at that guy doing what are we talking about? Heroin, meth. What do we do?

Sarah 14:00
I think she was mostly doing pills. My grandfather, I think he was also mostly doing pills and coke. And then my aunt was living there and whatever boyfriend she at the time and she switched around between crack and whatever she could get. And so well that they were mostly doing OPERS not downers. So while

Scott Benner 14:15
we're doing pills and crack and whatever else we can find some cocaine and screaming and yelling each other and abusing everybody. We're very religious going to church. We're very religious people.

Sarah 14:25
We are we cannot listen to any sort of metal music because I don't like Satan into the home. We cannot watch Harry Potter because that's the witchcraft and that's the devil's work. We cannot associate with certain acts of people whether that be based on sexuality or race. Definitely opinions

Scott Benner 14:44
when you when you strip all that away from them. What's the core issue? How did they get to where they are?

Sarah 14:50
It's definitely in my perception of it is always having to be the victim in a situation.

Scott Benner 14:59
Okay, Do you think looking back at them and thinking about how you feel about yourself? Is it possible this is very generational?

Sarah 15:08
Oh, definitely I watched it, I watched my great grandmother have to be the victim, which followed the grandmother when my mother and then my sister is very much following in the same footpath. And I tried very hard not to do the same.

Scott Benner 15:20
By the way, foot bath is such an interesting illustration with words, because your feet are dirty, and then the bath gets dirty, and then everybody goes through it. I never heard that before. But I love that. I'll be using that at some point in my life. Thank you. I'm trying to ask a question. Isn't it funny? I'm going to ask a question, I think is insulting but I mean, after the story, like what can I say that you know, anyway?

Sarah 15:44
I'm pretty sure you won't hurt my feelings. Are they?

Scott Benner 15:46
Are they particularly smart people? Dumb think?

Sarah 15:51
I think they used to be okay intelligent. But I think the just years and years of drum usage has. My mother was never the brightest person. But I remember clearly the one time I it really clicked with me that oh, this is changing who she is. Sometime when I was in high school. She asked me how to spell house. Oh, I was like, oh, no, this is this is really affecting.

Scott Benner 16:18
You're in trouble. I'm in trouble. We're all in trouble. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna just call me to get my to do list out and cross off all the jobs that I was hoping to have one day, I don't think I'm gonna make it to. If the lady supporting me is like house, what are all the letters in that? Give them to me in order, please? I think you're like, Oh, I I don't think I'm going to MIT anymore. What were your goals? Like? Did you have goals as a child? Or did this fall on you so quickly, that you kind of couldn't even dream like that? I

Sarah 16:50
never had any expectations for myself. I used to joke in high school that you would find me on the corner in my box. And that's if I made it that far. If the real estate would let me get a box in that neighborhood.

Scott Benner 17:03
I had the downpayment on the box, but I couldn't secure the water rights. I don't want to ask you where you lived. But is this common where you grew up?

Sarah 17:11
I'm fine, saying that I'm in the south. But in the area that I live in is very much you go two blocks down and you see people very comfortable. And then the other two blocks, you see people fighting for Section eight. Okay,

Scott Benner 17:26
I see. But like the kids you grew up with? Were they all like, I hope I can get a nice, I want one of those heavy duty moving boxes, the ones that are real thick, like was it? Was that like very common? Or do you think it was not particularly

Sarah 17:38
I was in like, I don't know what term they use. There's the type of schooling that you'd have to test into, like, you have to have a certain qualifying IQ, it's still a public school, and it gets like public funding, but you have to qualify to get in. So I was very much the odd duck out because nobody in there, with the exception of maybe one or two other kids was under middle class,

Scott Benner 18:00
I say, you were a target. As far as that as well, meaning you didn't fit into that scenario, either. And you didn't see. And so it feels like more of a failure when everyone around you is not failing or having these problems. I was

Sarah 18:12
never really ashamed of it in the sense that I ever thought of myself as a failure. It was more of what the time when I was a kid, I very much had the chip on my shoulder of look at how much I'm able to overcome. And I was very much lacking in empathy, probably because I needed to be at the time. And I'd hear the people around me and the biggest challenge that ever gone through is the loss of a pet or their parents getting divorced. And I'm like, hey, my grandfather's in a coma. And he's been on a ventilator for three years. And I'm being taken care of by two drug addicts, and I'm happy if there is something to eat in the house. So I don't, I don't really think that mommy not loving daddy anymore. Not that big of a deal. Now I understand, you know, that is something very difficult that they weren't dealing with. And that was something important to them at the time. And I'm sure, but at the time, I didn't have the sympathy for it, because it seemed like nothing. And

Scott Benner 19:14
maybe that's actually just at the level of things people aren't meant to deal with in a modern society. Like, you don't need to be, like having the experience of watching your grandmother crush up on oxy. It's not exactly, you know, like something people are supposed to live through. You know, and sure, in the beginning, you tell yourself that stuff like man, I can overcome anything. But that's really that's those are the words of somebody who's being like, oppressed by life every five seconds. Because if you don't do that, then you're gonna you feel like it's just gonna crush you. And then you know, if you don't get back up, you're dead and that whole thing happens. Did you mean it? Or was it just something you were saying? Like I'm saying like, was it just something you said to yourself to keep yourself going?

Sarah 19:57
I think I really did take pride in it. Well But I think it was because I didn't have anything else I could take pride in. Okay,

Scott Benner 20:04
no, that makes sense. Do you think if I lift you up out of your bassinet and take you somewhere where none of this is happening? Do you think you're a person who thinks about ending their life and feels terrible about the coffee grinds and everything else?

Sarah 20:18
I think it wouldn't be to the severity that I have. So I've tried different forms of therapy. And I'm better than I was, but I don't think I'm the best judge of my own character, because I think about who I was five years ago, and I said, Oh, I'm better than I was five years before. And each and every time I look back, I'm like, Oh, I was just the worst place of my life. So I don't think in the moment I'm ever good at judging how I'm doing

Scott Benner 20:46
because you're climbing out of such a deep hole. Yeah, you're like, Oh, my God, I've gone so far. But you're still in the hole.

Sarah 20:51
When I was in therapy, the first time at 19. I remember speaking to my therapist, and she was, I feel bad for her looking back because she was a recent grad. And she'd only had a handful of clients. And he probably wasn't prepared for somebody who'd had long term issues. She was doing college students, she's probably trying to deal with people having anxiety over exams, and she didn't know what to do with me. But I remember telling her Oh, I was so much worse off a couple years back. But at the time, I was an insomniac, I had been on three different medications that were not helping me. I was going through an eating disorder, and I was an alcoholic. So I don't think I was doing better. I think I was doing worse. But I was I thought I was doing better.

Scott Benner 21:34
So in your life, you've had an eating disorder. You drank too much. Is that correct? Did you do any drugs? No,

Sarah 21:42
because I knew I would like film.

Scott Benner 21:47
But you drank a lot? Oh, yeah. No,

Sarah 21:49
I would definitely consider myself an alcoholic for I'd say maybe four or five years.

Scott Benner 21:54
What does that look like drinking every day? drinking every

Sarah 21:57
day. But in the sense of well, I'm better than other alcoholics because I only drink after work.

Scott Benner 22:03
I go, Oh, well. Yeah. Well, you you got that good learning from your grandfather who did go to drive the the cab.

Sarah 22:12
Right? It doesn't matter if you can still hold the job.

Scott Benner 22:15
Yeah, so if I have a job, I'm not, I'm not a mess. Or

Sarah 22:19
you're you're doing well enough. I know that there's issues like I knew that I wasn't happier doing well. But I was doing better than other people in comparison. Because I was comparing myself to people who were doing very poorly. There

Scott Benner 22:35
might be an episode about comparison and blame there is with me and Erica, where we talk we talk about there's sometimes value in comparing yourself, you can actually bolster yourself through it. But when you start saying, I'm doing better than the, you know, man with no legs, who's the alcoholic and you're like a drug addict. And he lives in a sewer like you know, I'm doing better than him. When you do that you're lowering the bar so far, you're hurting yourself. But there's, there are moments where you can actually make yourself kind of like, feel better about things. But it's not a healthy way to do it a lot, but it's not terrible. Once in a while. It's interesting. Like how that that kind of can be. Wow, you were you drank between what ages

Sarah 23:18
19 to 24.

Scott Benner 23:21
It's a little early for all that stayed away from drugs because you saw what it did other people thought you would fall too far down a hole if you did that. Absolutely. I

Sarah 23:31
still believe that.

Scott Benner 23:32
Really? Do you do anything you smoke weed or anything like that?

Sarah 23:35
I never really did just because I've always been worried this is I've always been worried about getting popped on a drug test and losing my job. A lot about whatever job I ever had. Even if I was only making $8 an hour, I was like, Oh, I don't want to lose my job.

Scott Benner 23:49
What if McDonald's starts giving us piss tests? I'm out. They might you never know. They might get real serious about the french fries one day and then I'm out work but that's how important the work part of it is to you. This episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. And now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion. Jalen.

Speaker 1 24:12
I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer getting into high school was that particularly difficult and imaginable? You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went I was going to a brand new school. I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was. My hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling over an hour to the nearest endocrinologist for children. So you know, I outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown. Did

Scott Benner 24:45
you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 1 24:50
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just kept it to myself didn't really talk about it.

Scott Benner 25:05
Did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in. I

Speaker 1 25:09
never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that motivates me started embracing more, you know, how I'm able to type one diabetes, Medtronic

Scott Benner 25:30
diabetes.com/juice box to hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community.

Sarah 25:39
In the work is important just because of the money. I love how you speak about growing up with poverty and generational poverty. Because when you speak about it, I don't hear you being ashamed of it. Or sometimes I hear people say, Well, we weren't well off. And then you're like, oh, no, we were broke. We were dirt poor. And that's more of the way that I look at it. I remember getting my neighbor $20 Because our water had been shut off for a month, and they asked if we could shower at her house for the week, for

Scott Benner 26:06
20. That's not a bad deal at all. Seriously, it's like what is that like less than $2 a day, I can afford that? Well, it

Sarah 26:13
was the same thing when her power was out, she'd run an extension cord over to our house, we just tried that $20 back and forth, there

Scott Benner 26:19
was an entire winter where I would get up in the morning and take this little electric heater and drag an extension cord out of my house put the electric heater on the dashboard of my vehicle to try to melt the windshield enough that I could drive to my job before it would freeze over again, because the truck didn't have any heat in it. So I would go out there and like three jackets bundled up, I was colder driving to work than I was when I got to work. And I and I used it. So I would like I remember so like I grabbed the heater slammed the door, run the heater back in the house, throw it through the door, run back jump in the truck and drive away because I had a towel with me. And I would keep taking the condensation off the windshield because it would freeze up if I didn't. And that seemed like a fix. To me. It was like I was like this will work. Because we already had the extension cord and the heater.

Sarah 27:10
I very much understand we had a television that you can only change the channel if you had a pair of pliers. But you also needed the pair of pliers to operate the shower. So but we only had one pair of pliers. So you if somebody was taking a shower and you couldn't watch, take whatever channel it was on. That's what you were watching. You

Scott Benner 27:30
had a moment in your life where you were like I have to go get the the TV pliers so I can take a shower. Yes. Wow. Yeah, that pretty much should sum it up for anybody listening who doesn't understand what it means when you say I've never had any money? Oh, that's absolutely fascinating. Yeah, oh, you're very nice to share that. Okay. So none of that talks about the religious thing. So you think that a lot of your problems stem from the religion that you were around? It's

Sarah 27:58
not in the sense of, I am scared, I'm gonna go to hell or anything like that. And I'm not religious at this point. It's the religion was boiled down to morality. And it was, this is good. This is bad. And everything was good or bad. It was very black and white. And that morality just drilled into me very heavily. And if I was to like, summarize, what is the core of my being better? Like the entanglement of my issues, if you were to try to get to the middle of the rubber band ball, that little ball in the middle is I think I am a morally bad person, even with no evidence

Scott Benner 28:34
towards it, because you enjoyed the Harry Potter films? No, I

Sarah 28:39
don't know where the original idea stemmed from, I guess just I have an assumption. I think when I was small, it was like, all of these bad things are happening. Bad things happen to bad people as I thought, therefore, I must be bad. And I think I just internalize that. Yes,

Scott Benner 28:58
that self flagellation thing like your grandmother is thinking, if I follow the word of God, he'll save me. And because I'm not being saved, this is a reflection on who I am. Because I'm not worthy of that saving. Is that about it? I

Sarah 29:16
can't speak too much on her mindset. Because it was confusing, even to me, even to this day. I don't quite know. She she calls me sometimes and says, she leaves voicemails and I blocked her like three or four times. I don't want to talk to her. I think I've made it abundantly clear, but she just keeps finding new ways to try to contact me and she'll leave me voicemails and say, I don't understand why you don't want to speak to me. Like, you know,

Scott Benner 29:40
well as they get as people get older though. Their brains go a little mushy. How old is she? Is she in her? 70s yet? Yeah, she's in her 70s Yeah, trust me, they the front the frontal lobe begins to shrink with age. And a lot of that what I'll call piss and vinegar kind of goes away a little bit, and then they start misremember. bring things are remembering things kinder than they were. And then all of a sudden, it's like, I don't understand, like, why are we even talking about this, because they really don't remember, sometimes I

Sarah 30:08
feel like it's more of a learned behavior. Because I see the exact same thing with my mother and my sister and my mother's in her early 50s, my sister is in her early 30s. And I see them do the exact same thing. We'll

Scott Benner 30:20
pretend none of this happen. And let's start again. But if you if you started over again, with them, you'd be back in this in the footpath pretty quickly, right? It's

Sarah 30:28
very difficult. I used to have anger issues. And my mother and I would just be screaming at each other every time we wouldn't speak to each other for three weeks. And then if we intersected even for 45 seconds would be a screaming match.

Scott Benner 30:45
Do you ever remember what you were yelling about? Or was it nonsense?

Sarah 30:49
It was It was nothing. So it would be I'd be in my room and the door would be closed. And she would start screaming about Why is the door closed? What are you doing there? Why are you trying to hide for me? And then it just snowballed into, like I had a habit of wearing jackets. Because I was a teenager with an eating disorder and insecure about my body. I wore oversized clothing because I didn't want to show it and she would say, why are you doing this blah, blah, blah. And she is she would always assume that I was hiding something bigger than it really was. Reality.

Scott Benner 31:20
So to me, if I if I got your mom and your grandmother together, like on Family Feud or something like that, and we did like morality, Family Feud, and I said to them, pills, or Harry Potter, what's the bad thing? They'd go Harry Potter?

Sarah 31:33
Probably? My grandmother, definitely. My mother has skewed further from religion and more towards conspiracy. She is an avid follower of Alex Jones. Now, do tell.

Scott Benner 31:45
So how does the conspiracy support her problem? Like good? You don't I mean, like, because your grandmother's like using the religion, idea to support her ideas? How does the conspiracy support your mom's ideas?

Sarah 32:00
Very much victim, everything's out to get me there's always a plan. There's always something some sort of a cabal, and then when I say hey, maybe the things that you are believing in are problematic and causing you problems. And maybe it has nothing to do with the government controlling the weather, or the President being replaced. Or now she's really big into UFOs, and fairies and Ethereal Beings. And I don't even know what the point of those ones are. She just thinks that there are things around her.

Scott Benner 32:30
Tell me Did your mom at some point believe there were Jewish space lasers.

Sarah 32:34
She never said the word Jewish, but it was very heavily implied.

Scott Benner 32:41
So like that level, very

Sarah 32:43
much he believes if you get somebody who can speak fast enough and energetically enough, I believe that except for anything that's sensible.

Scott Benner 32:52
I had this conversation with somebody very, very recently. And we were talking about, you know, the paths that people take. And at some point, this person said, always, the problem is the internet. I said, I need to stop you. I said, I do a lot of good with the Internet. And I don't think it's the internet. I think it's the intention of the person who uses the tool. And he's like, Well, what do you mean? I said, Well, I, you know, I'm like, I do a thing. It's weird. She was talking to somebody who didn't really know when, like, a social setting. And I said, I have a podcast that helps a lot of people. And I have a Facebook group helps a lot of people. My intention was for it to help people. And so because that's my intention, it's my perspective. It's where I come from. That's the thing I've made happen. And I use the internet as a tool to accomplish that. I said, but I'm gonna have to tell you, I said, I know my ability to talk to people. And if I wanted to be and I use the example, I said, if I wanted to be like a televangelist, I'd be so good at it. I was like I said, I'd be so good at it. If I if I had the heart to do it that way. I said, My heart doesn't tell me to do that. And I said, but if it did, if I had a dark heart, I could absolutely scare the crap out of you take your money from you and leave you thanking me. It's a shame but that's what happens sometimes when people use those ideas to take advantage of other people in those situations. And then look at the trickle down effect it has all the way to you. It's fascinating really.

Sarah 34:19
I definitely feel that when it comes to just the the amount of charisma that those people have. We wouldn't have money to put gas in the car. But there was a check the 700 Club on the dining room table. No

Scott Benner 34:30
kidding. Yeah, no, I could get your I could have got your mom and grandma to give me money, no trouble if, if, by the way inside, I was like, Hey, I'm gonna screw these people over and find a way to take their money, use their insecurities to take their money from them. I don't even like even with the podcast. It sounds probably mostly to people, but I take the advertising so you guys don't have to pay for the podcast. Like that's my goal. Really? And even like where this episode gets funny You came when you're like, I'm gonna curse a lot. 33 minutes in, no one has said a bad word. I think I said, No one. No one's cursed, like a warm setting up right now putting like the management stuff without ads on it behind a paywall. So that if at one point in the future, I lose my advertising for any reason, this good information about helping people with their diabetes can kind of continue to exist. But I wouldn't want you to pay for it. And I've said this a couple of times on here. But I had a company come to me a number of years ago now. And they were like, how many downloads Do you have? And I told them, and they said, We can monetize that. Imagine, I think the woman said on the phone call, imagine if you got 50 cents for every one of those downloads. And at that point, she was talking to me, I had like 4 million downloads, and I was like, I would have $2 million. And she goes, yes. And I'm like, that doesn't sound right. And she's like, No, no, and she's really selling like, you know, but of course, they get a piece of it, like she's trying to, what really happens is is that company sees me having some success. And they're like, how can we take a percentage of that person's success from them. And I had the wherewithal to say, if I start charging for downloads, I wouldn't have 4 million because there'd be people who would look at an episode and go, I don't care enough about that to pay 50 cents for it. And, and she's like, I know, you're making a big mistake. And I have to tell you, Sarah, sitting here today, with 15 million downloads total. And I think I got six and a half this year, there is that part of you that goes along? Could I have gotten 20 cents for each one of them, like like, that would have still been an insane amount of money. And then I think, doesn't matter, because it eliminates people from getting to the information. Like like, it doesn't matter if it's 20 cents, or $20. For what it is, there's gonna be somebody at that point that goes, I can't afford that, or I'm not paying that, or whatever. And then the way I think of it is, somewhere along the line, some young person like you who just was diagnosed, or some lady who was trying to help her kid or whatever, doesn't find the information, and they live a whole life, you know, tormented by their diabetes unnecessarily. And, and I don't have the heart for that. Like, I really don't, but a lot of people do. And it's it's not it's not everybody, but it's enough people to find people like your mom and dad and, and grandmother and grandfather and take advantage of them and then leave you in the situation you're in. So I don't know, it's upsetting to me. I think it's probably more upsetting to me. Because I could do it. Like I could, I could have said yes to that company. And I probably would have eliminated 50% of my downloads, and I still would have had a million I still would have, you know, I still would have made that money that year. And so I just it's not for me, the money would be I'd like to say if somebody out there is rich, and they're just like, oh my god, what a lovely thing. I'll just give Scott a million dollars, I happily take it just send it right over. But but for the moment, like I just, I don't I can't imagine that. And I don't know what would have to happen to me. For too dark in my heart enough to just go I don't care about these people. Let me try to like cash grab this. You know, it's it's it's really sad. Honestly, I feel bad for you.

Sarah 38:01
I think part of the reason that you feel that way is because you don't view things as transactional, like I have done enough good. Therefore, I am entitled to my own good.

Scott Benner 38:12
Yeah, I haven't had that thought ever. I will be like, Oh, wow, I had like a day where I got a lot of notes today. I'm like, happy for those people. But I don't sit and think I did that. Like I have to consciously step back. It is kind of an important thing. When you do like what I do, like, there's times I do have to step back and say my actions led to this good thing for this person. And you have to kind of let yourself feel it for a little bit, but you can't bask in it and then expect to be paid for it. Like that's, that would be strange to me. So when you grew up with the the this religious talk that made you feel like you're a bad person. So is that how you feel today, you're you're 26 years old, you know, you're a good person, but you can't believe it, or you actually believe you're a bad person. It

Sarah 39:01
is my first inclination to believe that I'm a bad person. So I'm hypersensitive about things. It's both emotionally and how I am perceived by people that I care about and how people act towards me. But it's only extended towards people who I choose to interact with my wife. It's not like, oh, I bumped into a stranger who probably thinks I'm horrible. It doesn't extend that far. It's I set something down too hard. And my partners in the room, maybe he thinks I'm mad at him. I didn't intend to do that. Why did I do that? I wasn't being careful enough. Now he thinks that he did something wrong. I don't want him to feel that way. Why did I do that? I'm doing

Scott Benner 39:38
it again. And in the meantime, none of that's actually happening. None of

Sarah 39:42
that has happened at all, or it'll go vice versa. He'll say, Hey, can you hand that to me? But I perceived the tone in that voice. And so I go, Oh, no, what did I do? What happened? What went wrong? What did I do again?

Scott Benner 39:56
And it comes back to you like you even if you perceived his tone is like Of course, you wouldn't think what's his problem, you'd think, what did I do wrong? Exactly.

Sarah 40:05
And it could be consulting, completely unrelated to me. So he could come home and say, I have a very bad day at work. My boss was rude. And it was horrible. And I'd say, Why am I not better? Why can't I make him feel better?

Scott Benner 40:21
Yeah, that's a lot. Jesus, sir. And you're not in therapy at the moment?

Sarah 40:26
No, my last therapist, I was at the time I was relapsing with both drinking and self harm. And I was, from my perspective, I thought I was developing compulsions, because I have had two houses burned down. And I gotten to where I was shutting the breakers off when I left the house, because I was so worried about another electrical fire. And I, one day had gotten probably 20 minutes down the road, I was on the way to work. And I couldn't remember, if I shut my stove off. I hadn't cooked in like three days, but I couldn't remember if I checked my stove off. So I had to drive all the way back to go check that so of course it was. And when I told my therapist this, she wanted to talk about my hygiene habits and make sure that I have a consistent dental routine. And that wasn't my priority at the moment. And that was one of the best therapists like find so

Scott Benner 41:27
So you're telling me that if you just would have gotten your teeth cleaned every six months that your stove definitely would have been off?

Sarah 41:32
Exactly.

Scott Benner 41:36
There you go. I am I fault. Listen, no matter what walk of life you're in, whether it's like literally people making the fries at McDonald's, or a therapist, or you know, anybody along the way, you're gonna get varying levels of, you know, proficiency out of out of people or doing a job. And but I think talk therapy in general, just getting things out, is at a, at the basis, at the basic level, it's at least valuable just to talk to somebody, you're going to feel better after you and I talk today, like, I'm going to feel better when it's over the people listen are going to feel better after it's over. It doesn't, it doesn't maybe move the needle enough and change things. But if you do it often enough, it can it can act as like, like you're letting the steam out of the pot a little bit, at the very least. But yeah, finding someone that that's actually thoughtful can see big picture and help you is is not easy. It really is

Sarah 42:35
especially I'm on Medicaid. And there's very limited amounts of I mean, to get my AMI pot, I had to contact a state senator and get the state board involved. But so finding even just a regular therapist who can accept Medicaid is very

Scott Benner 42:52
difficult find moved you like, I don't know where you are, it doesn't matter to me. If I picked you up and put you in a cabin in Wyoming that was a couple of miles from town. And you could have a simple job that paid a reasonable rate and it took care of all your bills, and you had a little money leftover and you could start over again. Would that help you? Or would you just walk into the little town somebody would say something and you'd start you'd start like a problem all over again there.

Sarah 43:22
I think it would definitely follow me because I've that he's internalized so much. I mean, even when I tried to distance myself from it, I'm once again not the best judge, I think I'm doing better than I was before. I'm not having full on breakdowns. But one thing that I learned at least because there's no telling how long I was undiagnosed, but when I'm doing the the ping pong and bouncing around, it's like, like other worldly mood swings, like anything. I remember I was walking home with my partner, and I just been crying for three straight hours and we're walking. And I just keep saying, Can I be done being upset yet? I'd like to be done being upset yet, but I'm doing the hiccuping sobs and everything and it just feels outside of you. Okay,

Scott Benner 44:19
in that moment, you know, you're not upset anymore.

Sarah 44:22
Yes.

Scott Benner 44:25
You know, you're not upset. You consciously want to stop. Can't stop it happening. What ended up bringing it to an end? Do you just exhausted? Yes. You

Sarah 44:35
just have to wait it out. And it's like that there are times where I'll get I will just suddenly feel a drop in my chest like this. You know that sound effect when they turn the sound down? Because like Nero, the emotional equivalent of that. I'll just feel that sink into my chest and then like suddenly I can't talk.

Scott Benner 44:52
Interesting. It's just kind of then you're exhausted. It's over and just can't do it anymore.

Sarah 44:58
Sometimes it's 30 40 minutes, sometimes it's the whole day.

Scott Benner 45:03
And what's the feedback from your partner? Oh, no,

Sarah 45:06
she's having big feelings.

Scott Benner 45:09
Does your partner have issues as well?

Sarah 45:12
He had a brief stint of major depression, but it's to the extent of it. He's he tries to be as understanding as he can. And he knows that there are certain things that he will never fully get, and he listens. But he doesn't know what support needs to be offered. And I don't know what support I need, because nothing has helped. Except time. Yeah.

Scott Benner 45:35
So if I asked you, like, unlike some people's problems, if I said, Look, I give you a magic wand, like what fixes this? Somebody people might be like, Oh, if I made three more dollars now or if I had this, but you you don't even know what would help you. Right, other than just for the feelings to go away?

Sarah 45:49
Well, I've been looking into ketamine therapy. Okay. I don't know if that would help.

Scott Benner 45:53
Well, do you think you're depressed? It comes and goes

Sarah 45:58
definitely, though. I think my last diagnosis was persistent depressive disorder.

Scott Benner 46:03
So you're talking about looking into what's become pretty popular, I guess in Zeitgeist now. So the idea of like, almost resetting yourself with either like low dose mushrooms like psilocybin or ketamine, they're talking a lot about those things. There's some pretty good research going on at Johns Hopkins about it, I think, in a controlled, like, I don't mean, like getting a bag of mushrooms from a guy. I'm telling you, like in a controlled environment that I think is also supported with therapy immediately afterwards, that people are finding, like their trauma, which I mean, obviously, yours is growing up the way you did, from like soldiers to people who grew up with your situations to people who have had like, I don't know, like horrible accidents, like they're able to, it seems like they're having some success, I should say, resetting people, for the lack of a better term. Is that what you've heard, I

Sarah 46:57
haven't heard it in the terms of a reset and more of it helps. Like, if your feelings are very sharp, it helps round the edges. And then they'll sharpen over time, and you have to go file down again. I gotcha. But I because I've done DBT and CBT. And those are very behavioral focused. And I am, at one point in my life, I did need coping mechanisms for focusing on my behaviors, because I've you know, not sleeping, alcohol abuse, self harm, eating disorders, those are not the coping mechanisms. So I very much need behavioral intervention at that time. But as of now, my behavior is pretty, you know, societally acceptable, I'm not doing anything to hurt myself in that sense. Now, I need emotional intervention. And I need to stop the pattern of Well, why is it that when I dropped cup on the floor, and the handle breaks off, my first thought is, Wow, what a sec. That there's no, it's no A to B to B to B, it's I dropped the cup. And, oh, I should just die instantly. I don't know how you intervene in that when it's instantaneous. Yeah. And I haven't found many resources. So far. I'm still looking for emotional train of thought intervention, like how do you out train a gut instinct?

Scott Benner 48:26
Can you trace that back to anything in your life? Like, is there a certain moment or thing that happened to you over and over again, perhaps that, that leads that feeling to pop out like that? People just blaming you constantly for things?

Sarah 48:42
I don't think I was blamed. I think very much it was seeing the abuse from my father, like towards my mother. And it was, she was always being blamed. And I think because I was in that situation, and I felt that anger was also being projected towards me just by way of being there. That I also felt that I was being blamed. I gotcha. Even though nobody ever laid a hand on me. Right?

Scott Benner 49:10
I mean, you love your mom. No, no, when did that stop?

Sarah 49:14
I can't remember ever loving her. Okay, this is a woman who told me that I should kill myself and that I would be pretty if I didn't have that tie around my middle. So she denied me medical care when I was sick and then later said that I was making up for

Scott Benner 49:30
attach it. So you so I look, I've seen a picture of you before. Are you heavy?

Sarah 49:36
I'm about 140 right now.

Scott Benner 49:38
I mean, what I'm what I'm trying to get as I don't actually care what your body looks like I'm what I'm trying to get at is was she making something up about your physical appearance so that you were like, wow, that's like so that it was like gaslighting you almost or was it at least? Did you have a couple pounds and she was like going after you for like I'm trying to figure out what her tactic was.

Sarah 49:58
I definitely He had a couple of pounds, at least from my perspective, but I also have 10 years of eating disorder on me. So I don't know if my perception is reliable on that. But

Scott Benner 50:09
so so she knows you have an eating disorder when she's talking to you about your body like that.

Sarah 50:13
She doesn't care. Okay. And then everything is about her. So like when I was when I was in DKA, in the hospital, I didn't call her I didn't tell her when my house burned down. I didn't call her I didn't tell her. But when she found out, I got a call. And it was her being so upset. And her feelings being so hurt. And I was like, Man, this is this is not about you. I don't

Scott Benner 50:40
have a house. Yeah, I don't want to hear about your problems. Have you ever tried EMDR, the rapid eye movement therapy. When

Sarah 50:47
I've looked into it, it feels it feels more akin to PTSD and people with like, vivid flashbacks. So like, if I got screened that and I immediately thought of, Oh, I feel exactly like when my father screamed at me or when my grandmother was screaming, and I'm in that moment in that time. It seems good interventional for that. But I don't really have flashbacks. So I don't think it would be very beneficial.

Scott Benner 51:15
Yeah. I mean, I don't know enough about it to speak about it. But it mean, I don't I also don't think we can't call what happened to you not traumatic. You know,

Sarah 51:24
oh, no, there are definitely some things that, like the one like I was saying, with a therapist, that was just a recent grad. I remember telling her a story from my childhood. She had to say, I'm sorry, give me a second.

Scott Benner 51:36
I need to share to collect herself. Yeah.

Sarah 51:39
She had to collect herself. And I was like, oh, okay, that's

Scott Benner 51:43
happened to be making the podcast and number of times, I'm like, okay, hold on a second. Wait. And it's, it hits you that the person telling the story. It's just, they're just like, oh, this is the thing that happened to me, and it's hitting you so viscerally. You're like, Wait, that's insane. Like, you know, like, I have to like, put those thoughts in order and relax for a second to hear the rest of it. Because it's so outside of ordinary normal kind, you know, all those things. It's hard to look at that person and realize that that's like a Tuesday for them. You

Sarah 52:14
know, it'll be so the thing about the talking that I don't really feel the emotional catharsis from saying, Oh, I experienced this traumatic thing, and it makes me feel this way

Scott Benner 52:28
to release at all. Not at

Sarah 52:30
all, because I don't really so when I think about something traumatic that happened to me when I was five. I remember it vividly. And I know that I have an aversion to mirrors to this day. And I know why I do. I know the event that caused that link to where now I'm just I have all the mirrors in my house covered up except for one. And I know why that is. But I could retell retell the story, but I'm not reliving the fear of that moment. It is just me telling a story. But I still very tangibly have that fear to this day. So I don't really

Scott Benner 53:09
know what happened that made you like, avoid mirrors.

Sarah 53:15
I don't know if my father was on some sort of a bender or whatever. But he had locked me in my mother and our guest bathroom, this house that we lived on. And he was holding a knife to her throat and making her look at herself in the mirror while he's pressing the knife to her and saying say you hate your mother say you hate your daughter say you hate God say you're sorry pieces. And this you have to do this and everything like that. And I don't think that was good to be drafted there like that. How old were you sir? Probably like five.

Scott Benner 53:47
Yeah, you made me cry finally took almost an hour. Good job. Hold on a second.

Unknown Speaker 53:53
I mean, no, no.

Scott Benner 53:57
I can do it. Didn't happen to me. Give me a minute. Just let me Oh, my God. See, that's the thing that happened to you that happen to your mom. And you're recounting it like, Oh my God. In July when I was 10 We went to Disney now. It was amazing. It just it sounds like a regular story from your life. And that's not a regular story.

Sarah 54:20
And that wasn't something super uncommon. I remember we were living in a trailer he kicked down the front door he shattered the glass coffee table cocked the shock that and said where's that tidying? And she crawled out the bathroom window and was hunched underneath the trailer. And we were just saying like, you know, please do not kill her.

Scott Benner 54:39
You just living in a mid level Netflix TV series like what the hell? Like? Seriously, that's that's not a real thing that's supposed to happen.

Sarah 54:47
Unfortunately it is.

Scott Benner 54:50
What's the Okay, here we go. You've lived through all this and seen it. I make you the king of the world. You have a I don't know whatever I give you a magic wand. How do you fix this bigger problem in society? What makes it go away?

Sarah 55:05
I feel a lot of it is education and empathy. I think empathy is a learned skill, because I think I had to learn. I don't remember being particularly empathetic when I was younger. And I remember actively working towards that in college, because I had noticed my anger issues were coming to a head. And I thought that I was getting to a point where I would hurt somebody, and I didn't want to do that to somebody else. Because I've seen what I've done to other people. And I know how it affected me. And I didn't want to do that to anybody else and be that person for somebody. So I consciously worked through becoming more empathetic and developing empathy. And I think it is very possible for people to do that. And I think people aren't as empathetic. Could be. Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:52
so if shock and daddy, for example, have been raised differently, you think that that's not the path he might have been on? I mean, drugs while this is happening, though, too.

Sarah 56:01
Oh, yeah. But apparently, he'd been doing drugs since he was, like, 15. So it's

Scott Benner 56:05
also not good for you? No, yeah. All right. I'm gonna go with drugs, by the way, is my answer for the magic wand. Because what you know, there's, I hate to say something so trite, but there's obviously a cycle going on within families. And at some point, it's got to stop. Like, are you? Do you think you'll stop it? Are you gonna have kids?

Sarah 56:24
No, I have, when, when me and my partner got together, I made it very obvious. I do not want children, if that is something that you want, I'm not willing to compromise on a life.

Scott Benner 56:34
That might be the kindest gift that somebody in your situation can give the world, which is so sad to say, like, but I don't see like, I mean, we're talking for an hour now. And I'm a reasonable person, I don't see the way out of this. Like, like, how does this stop? Do you know what I mean? Like somebody has to stop it. And so somebody either has to, like, somehow, in one generation, push all that out of their head, make a baby and not screw it up, which seems I gotta be honest with you seems kind of unlikely to me. Or a person's just got to step up and say, You know what, I can break a cycle here by not having kids, like, my family has taught this for generations. And I can go live a lovely life, and not teach it to somebody else and let it die here with me. But is that how you feel about it?

Sarah 57:23
To an extent I, I never wanted children to begin with. But part of that is also just because I find so much difficulty caring for myself. And then I doubt my ability to be like you were saying to be a good parent without just passing on different issues in the same vein, or fields,

Scott Benner 57:43
you won't know you're doing it now. Now, here's the alternate to that argument. I can, I can jump on the other side of it and say, everybody's messed up. Not in not enough people are gonna make this ultimate sacrifice to help things. And so like, why should you be the one that doesn't have kids? But at the same time, you have that empathy piece. So you're, you're trying to avoid making people feel the way you feel? And do feel.

Sarah 58:10
Is that fair? That I think that is fair. And besides chips already, so partner already got that the second way. So I think

Scott Benner 58:16
there's other guys I mean, you might end up with Yeah, I'm saying I like this one. Well, listen, your mom like three or four different guys, so it's fine.

Sarah 58:24
Well, this one doesn't hit me. So I think I'm gonna keep on wait, Sarah,

Scott Benner 58:28
where do you have you been with guys that have hit you? I

Sarah 58:32
dated a girl who treated me poorly, but it was never to the point of physical abuse.

Scott Benner 58:36
Okay. Were you scared in that relationship? Oh,

Sarah 58:40
terrified. But I think part of it was also just self flagellation, in the sense of, I was convinced that I was always doing something wrong. So I was always looking for something that I had done wrong. And this was somebody who always needed to let like, let steam off. And I already was taking the assumed role of well, I've already done something wrong. And so I was it was very easy to be like, well, yes, you did.

Scott Benner 59:08
I think. Yeah, I say you were fulfilling a need for her and she was fulfilling one for you. You knew you were a bad person needed somebody to tell you were bad. And she needed to like go off crazy and who better than a person who deserves it? Back? Kind of? Jeez, do you have sex in a relationship like that? Not really. I was gonna say that would be weird. Sometimes I think everybody just needs to go home. Calm down.

Sarah 59:39
I think that does help some people.

Scott Benner 59:43
Oh my gosh, I was one time. I don't even think I could say this on here. But the Facebook group was going crazy, like a couple of years ago. It seems to move with the moon if I'm being completely honest. And then like drunk o'clock comes in there's like, you know, drunk Facebooking And that happens right around 1030. Eastern time. I don't know if anybody knows this or not. But I just one day one of the moderators was like saying to me, like, what is happening? I said, I just texted back. And I said, I think everybody just needs to go, calm down for five seconds. I was like, This is ridiculous. I don't think I wasn't able to relay that publicly, in a way that I thought would be helpful. But I was like, you all need to relax, like find your thing. I don't know what it is. But Jesus, find your thing. But that's also by the way, from a perspective, this mind, which didn't live through the craziness that you've described, or that many people go through, like, my life sucked, like growing up, like, I'm not gonna say differently, you know, there's a lot of yelling from my dad. My mom was a little like, kind of beaten down, like not physically, but you know, she didn't want to be the one that was the focus. So if he altered us, she kind of stayed in the background. There was no money. They weren't doing drugs. Well, in fairness, I know my mom wasn't, I couldn't, I couldn't. I don't think my dad was but I would be too young to know. He wasn't a drinker. Like you know, beer sometimes, but in social situations, and only one or two like a not frequently not a drinker. Just a lot of anger, I guess, at whatever I don't, I couldn't possibly tell you what it was about. But even describing that as my upbringing, and then divorce in there, and like more poverty and like that kind of stuff, even describing that as my upbringing. My upbringing doesn't hold a candle to yours. I look like I lived in leave it the beaver compared to you. Like Nokia, I

Sarah 1:01:40
love hearing you discuss your upbringing. Because when I there's a story that you've told multiple times on the podcast about when you stood up to your father, when he kicked you and you were just like, you know, you can keep doing that. But I changed my mind. And I love hearing you discuss things like that with the difficulties in that. And then the poverty that you experienced. And, you know, I drove because I had to, that's what I was required to do in that situation to make it through and then hearing the stable and level person that I you are perceived to be at least for

Scott Benner 1:02:17
me. Appreciate that. Yeah, I could be making this all up, I guess. But no, I'm, I'm a pretty like, boring person now. Like, I get up, I do a job. I take care of the people I love. I clean the house, like my wife went away for business for three days this week, right? Yeah, a couple of people came to my house to get into one car and go away to this thing that my wife was gonna go speak at. And there's a couple of people in my house that work with my wife, but I've never really met more than just like over zoom calls and stuff like that. Kelly says to me, what are you going to do while I'm gone? So it's like Tuesday morning, she's leaving at like, 10am. She's not coming home till late on Thursday night. And I went, Oh, I mean, well, I'm gonna get ahead on the podcast, and I'm gonna cut the grass. And I'm going to have to go grocery shopping. I don't have enough food here for while you're gone. And that excited me because Kelly doesn't like seafood. I thought, oh, I can eat seafood. Like she won't complain about it smelling that'll be nice. And then Wednesday night, I got done working at like five o'clock. And I was like, I'm gonna go to a movie. I went to a movie by myself. And I had such a nice time. I talked to this lady that I met there and like, we had a lifetime like watching the movie. She and I were the only ones in the theater together. And like, we had a little conversation afterwards. And I went home, and I went to sleep. I didn't get drunk or high. I didn't the lady at the movie theater. Like Like, you don't I mean, like, I just that's pretty much me. Like I'm a pretty normal, like average person. But I still am not boring. I don't I'm not bored by life. I'm not sad. Like, I think this is what people are shooting for. But I think I'm wrong. I think most people are shooting for pills and craziness and you know, live fast. die young. And I'm, I'm like, I don't know, I just I like to help people. Make some money. Take care of the people I love. You know, make sure the laundry is done that kind of stuff. Like, I don't know, maybe that that might sound crazy to other people. Honestly. I have no idea. Yes,

Sarah 1:04:10
it sounds absolutely perfect to me. When somebody says what do you think? What do you want in your life? What do you envision? I think of myself sitting on a porch watching ducks swim on my pond and I own like maybe two acres. That is all I'm shooting for. So a life where you feel content. And well, you know, I'm gonna go cook a meal that maybe my partner doesn't like, and then I'm gonna go watch a movie by myself and then come home to a clean house. That's, that is what I strive to be contempt with content with

Scott Benner 1:04:41
when I think about retirement like older being older. I think about being somewhere physically close enough to my children to watch their lives unfold. I think about having enough money that I can go see somebody or send a gift or if my son or daughter were to call and say oh my god, I'm in so much trouble. I need five $100 I'd be able to go, here's $500. And then the rest of it is, I want to be healthy long enough to sit around with my wife and reminisce about the things we accomplished. Like I actually that's like, I know, people are like, Oh, I'm going to travel and like, I would like to go to a couple of beaches, you know, and hang out, do some stuff like that. But like, if I saw France, or England or Australia, I'd be like, that'd be great. But if it doesn't happen, I wouldn't regret that at all. I wouldn't even care. I just to me, I've always identified myself by the thoughts in my head. And it actually hurt me. I've tried to talk about a little bit in the week over the diaries, like, as I'm talking about losing weight. I think one of the things that hurt me about my weight and my health is I was an adult, is that I never like I didn't judge myself, by the way I looked. So if I gained weight, or I didn't look okay, I still my my thoughts are so crystal clear. So I was like, That's okay, this is who I am and my thoughts. And so even when I think about like how to wind my life down, I really just want to go back over the things that I experienced, like one more time, like I want to do new things, too. But the new things aren't as important as remembering that the accomplishments. And I don't know that's like how it all seems to me. I am probably pretty boring to most people, don't you think?

Sarah 1:06:20
I don't view that as you

Scott Benner 1:06:22
because you have your mom's throat but people were screaming into a mirror. So you're like, that sounds perfect.

Sarah 1:06:28
Okay, so maybe we found another thing that I'm not a good judge of, which is just what people find boring. Because I my, my partner talks about, he wants to travel, he wants to do all these things. And he's thinking about going back to school, and he used to volunteer for the Red Cross and go to like, disaster zones, and he loved every second of it. And that sounds horrible. I do not like the idea of knowing that

Scott Benner 1:06:53
I grew up in a disaster zone, I don't need you to go find another one for me, I'm okay. Yeah, I don't know. Like, to me, that sounds right. Like even like, where I actually spend money in my life is very specific places. Like it's and it's around my comfort. Like I have a really comfortable sofa. Like that's on purpose. Here's the funny thing. I don't sit in it that off, but I have it. And when I go to watch television, when the times when that happens, I sit in a really expensive, like expensive, comfortable leather sofa. And I watch a giant crystal clear television. But I'm doing it a pair of like, underwear I bought four years ago. But you know, like that. So my money is literally in my sofa. It's in my television that I watch when I sit there. But then to actually give myself the time to sit and use those things is is sort of difficult, because I get so much joy out of making the podcast. So like I am working a lot. I know I don't probably doesn't seem like work to some people. But it's an intense amount of time. It's definitely work. Yeah, it's an intense amount of time. So and my car is a little nicer than it needs to be. Because I spend a fair amount of time in my car, like driving to go help other people. So that's pretty much it. Like I don't have, like, I would tell you that the the stuff that I'm looking at everything I use to make the podcast with write everything. And I can do it in my head really quick. 714 21 3000 4005 Six, I'm sitting probably in front of about $6,000 worth of equipment. And that's it. I mean, that's a very low outlay to start a business. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's almost nothing, I don't pay rent, I don't do anything. As a matter of fact, at the end of the year, I end up paying more in taxes than other people because I don't have any overhead. Like I don't have a bill like to pay. I hired an editor and I told the accountant that handles the taxes for the podcast. And he's like, Oh, thank God, you're finally spending money on something. And I was like, what he goes, you know, you don't have anything to write off. Like, at the end of the day. Like it's nothing like my I'm very simple. Like, and I could afford to buy like tchotchkes or other stuff for the desk that maybe but I don't need them. So like I don't need them. It just it's all very like everything seems so cut and dry to me, like about stuff like that, about being wasteful. And and what nice is and like right now today like you know, like Arden didn't feel well yesterday. Like I'm worried about that. So I'm recording with you. And when I'm finished recording with you. She's away at college. So I will get on the phone. I'm going to call a doctor that's local here. I'm going to start getting her set up to come back and do you know to see that doctor when she gets home in four weeks. I'm going to wait for her to wake up. I'm going to counsel her over the phone, comfort her try to make a plan to help her get through the next four weeks. Like that kind of stuff. And it's not fun, but it's fulfilling and if We had to look backward Sarah and wonder. It's probably because no one took care of me like that when I was little, right that do things wrong motivations. Yeah, right? I'm doing that because it's the worst thing that I could remember happening to me. And so for. So therefore, I do not want to do those things to other people, but I am not. But that's not mixed with any kind of mental illness for me. And that, to me, that's the linchpin. Like, that's where it gets hard for other people when you have some sort of depression happening, or, like, you know, intrusive thoughts, which is what I mean, that's the, that's your coffee mug thing like that thought is there so quickly, it's ahead of your common sense. And you're and then that kind of the rest of it just tumbles down and you you just boom, you just fall into a black hole in two seconds. I don't know how to fix that. I'm sorry.

Sarah 1:10:49
I wasn't expecting you to fix meats that I

Scott Benner 1:10:51
didn't think you were. But I still feel bad. Like, because of how I feel towards the people around me. And it's just who I am, like, I had somebody tell me years ago, this is gonna sound crazy. They were in the diabetes space. They wanted to buy an ad for something. I forget what? And the guy goes to me, Well, you're a caregiver. And I said, why? And it's funny, I'd been a stay at home dad for 20 years. At that point, I had a blog that helped people. I was launching the podcast at that point, my whole life I had spent helping other people. And he goes here, you're a caregiver. And and I have to tell you, it's the first time it ever occurred to me, that I was at my core a person who enjoys taking care of other people. I didn't know that about myself. It's really crazy. Actually, I had a woman tell me recently that I'm very direct. And my first thought was, No, I'm not. Like, I didn't know that about myself. And as we started talking, I was like, Oh, she's right, like I am. And I'm not just direct. I'm like northeast Direct, which is even worse. And, and on top of that, I don't have a filter. Like, sometimes people are like, Oh, I really appreciate you having people on to talk about like this, or, you know, even like your conversation today. And I think what why wouldn't I? I don't even understand why, why that wouldn't be a thing someone would do. But overwhelmingly, no one talks about this stuff.

Sarah 1:12:15
When it comes to like not having a filter. I didn't realize until this year, what like a sense of privacy meant. I never had that sense of that as my personal private information. If somebody on the bus stop, who I've never seen before, never met, came up to me and said, Hey, would you like to tell me about the worst day of your life? I'd say? Sure. And I tell them, it doesn't mean anything to me. I wouldn't mind sharing it. Yeah, the very first time I ever experienced the emotion of That's none of your business is when a CDE asked to see my Dexcom graphs. No, you don't need to look at those. That's not for you. That's my just, maybe

Scott Benner 1:12:55
you want to hear about my grandmother and the pills instead. That

Sarah 1:12:59
was easy. That would have been more comfortable for me than letting this woman see my back stock.

Scott Benner 1:13:04
I kid I kid talked about that. So like any good diabetes podcast, we're an hour and 10 minutes into it. When you were dying. You were diagnosed with type one. How did who you are and the life you're living? Did it have a positive or negative impact on you taking care of your diabetes? I feel

Sarah 1:13:22
like at first it was definitely very negative. Because I was incredibly emotional. And I didn't know what I was doing wrong. But I felt because I had that overwhelming sense of we have to do better we are doing wrong. I immediately, like sought out information. I had that little one touch meter. So when I checked, it would point to the red and I was like, oh, red is bad. I'm doing something wrong. Therefore I need to find more information. Because whatever I'm doing is not right. And then changed frequently. Because I was given bare bones advice at the hospital. So I'm not

Scott Benner 1:13:57
assuming you live somewhere where you got rock solid advice. Yeah,

Sarah 1:14:00
I have when I was diagnosed, I said, Well, how do you know, I'm type one. And the nurse looked at me and said, Well, you're not obese. So you're probably type one. Okay,

Scott Benner 1:14:10
like I look into an ad for that. Maybe do anybody nothing. Okay, thank you. Isn't it funny how even the color thing makes you upset? Like red, bad, bad boom. Like, just

Sarah 1:14:21
I have when it comes to the connotations, one thing that my partner when we've been together on those five years, and he learned very early on, he used to tell me that I was great that I was wonderful. And one day I just sat down and said, Just tell me that I'm good. Like, I need you to tell me that I'm good. I don't want to hear that. I'm great. I don't want to hear that. I'm amazing. I need to hear that. I'm good. That words specifically. And that's the word he uses now and I've definitely appreciated it.

Scott Benner 1:14:46
Yeah, that's really nice. That's it's lovely to find somebody that that understands what you're saying and wants to help you too.

Sarah 1:14:52
That's something that he does say that. He's very appreciative of that I have incredibly open communication. So if he He's watching TV or playing his game or doing whatever, I'll say, Hey, I feel like you're ignoring me I need to be paid attention to, can you pay attention to me? And he'll say, Okay, let me pause my game, and I will pay attention to you. Or I'll come in and I will say, Hey, can you be more cautious with your words? Because I'm feeling very sensitive right now. And I feel like he's very easy to hurt feelings. And he'd say, Okay, well, thank you for helping me, I will do that.

Scott Benner 1:15:22
That's nice. I struggled with that a little bit. Because I've never once had like, a bad feeling towards people in my family. Like, you know what I mean? Like, people come and, you know, they have good days and bad days, whether your kids your wife, or can't your parents or something like that, I'm just very accepting of the idea that, like, you're not doing well today, or you are or whatever. And I don't judge people like that. Because of that. I'm always at the same level. Like, I never, never, I try really hard, and I'm better at as I get older, but when I was younger, I was never good at it. Taking into account how I impacted other people. Like, like, it's that I don't know how to explain this other than if we're all good, then it wouldn't matter if we were all good and happy, because we'd all be in that space. But if one person is feeling badly, and you don't realize it, even just you being upbeat, can be difficult for them. And if that makes sense or not, Oh, no. Does what you're saying? Yeah, like, everybody's not always the same volume all the time. And sometimes you're just like, overwhelmingly positive, like, Yay, couldn't feel like it to them. And I use a lot of humor in my life. And so not everybody's always up for that. And I didn't know, like, I didn't know that when I was younger. Like I and I think, ironically, that misunderstanding for me, I think that comes from a lack of self confidence, in a weird way, and I'll explain it like this. I used to think, if I was good at something, then it must be something everyone was good at. Because I couldn't imagine being excellent at something, if that makes sense. And I actually think that comes from like my upbringing, but also I grew up a fat kid. And I think that's, I think that's part of it, honestly. Like, I just never if I did, if I was good at something, I assumed everyone was good at it. And that's not true. You know, like, there are things I'm good at that other people aren't good at. But I had a lot of trouble giving myself credit for it. So that mindset also made me feel like if this is how I feel, this is how everyone else must feel. Does that make sense?

Sarah 1:17:39
I definitely from a different perspective, obviously. But the concept of I feel this way, therefore everyone else must I also have a hard time separating myself from that. I'll often turn to my partner, and I'll say, Hey, is a phrase fit for you often? Is this a person thing or a TV thing? And I'll describe a situation or an emotion? And is that something that real people do? Or is that just something they do on TV? Because I don't know?

Scott Benner 1:18:10
Oh, I wonder how many people try to mimic what they saw on television growing up to like, like, of happiness? Like This must be what happy people do. Or This must be what like, like close families do or people who don't lie to each other. Like didn't mean like, that's why probably that might It's probably why Michael J. Fox is so like, famous because he was on that TV show where, you know, everybody was smiling and happy. And you're like, Oh, this must there must be families like this out there. I'm sure there's not many of them. And those, and probably if you lived in it, you'd be like, This is a weird Stepford Wives thing. I don't think this is normal. I don't expect anybody to be perfect. And I don't expect that anyone listening has a perfect life. But your stuff is like, extra? You don't? I mean,

Sarah 1:18:59
I'd say it's challenging for sure.

Scott Benner 1:19:01
Yeah. But I also don't think it's uncommon. It's just extra. I've

Sarah 1:19:06
definitely I've met plenty of people with very similar stories to me, some people who I'd say went through abuse to like a more direct and severe degree. And it's just it all, and even with like, my siblings, we were in very similar situations. And we all turned out different and similar. So we all turned out substance abuse issues, there's not a single one of my siblings that isn't currently or in the past, like, had some sort of addiction. And she's like, Oh, I wonder where we got that from. But one thing that is really frustrating when explaining this to people is people think that if you're aware of an issue that fixes it, and that's that's not always the case. Like I can know this is a problem and I can know why I'm like this or I can know why I do this, but that does not stop it from being a problem. And that does not help me in making it the anon issue. But people think because you're self aware that Oh, you're you're halfway there. Well, I've been halfway there my entire life. So where's the other half

Scott Benner 1:20:14
right? Now that that is more of a upper middle class white lady idea, the likeable, I've given it voice. So, you know, and by the way, like, that does work for some things. For some people, it's not to be made fun of, it's just not an across the board fix for something, you can't just go, I'm a meth head. Oh, now that I've said it out loud, I guess that'll go away. Like, like, that's not, that's not how that's gonna work like that. But if you're, you know, you know, trying to deal with like, I'm, I get anxious in like, my shopping center parking lot. There's where that works for you, buddy. You know, that kind of idea. And again, I've given voice the things in my life that have helped me. And I do think it's a valuable starting point. But if it's not going to work for everybody, I think you're 100%, right? You know, I don't know, it's, uh, things are complicated, that I know for sure. And humanity is like, is the most complicated thing. And you know, just how someone treating you poorly as a child can just take your entire existence up or put you in a situation where you're constantly battling to get out of a problem, you know, to the point where you're in middle school thinking like maybe if I was dead, this would be better. Like that's, that almost feels like somebody's willfully putting you in that situation. But then you go and look at them and their situation, how they grew up, and you realize they're just a victim of the thing that came before them, just like you are, which doesn't help you. But you know, I don't know, it should give you a highlight and how to get out of it. But I think you don't get out of it. I think you'll get other people out of it. If that makes sense.

Sarah 1:21:54
I think that does. It's just, I wanted to help my sister, I wanted to help my brother, because I do think they could escape it if they wanted to. But they don't want to. And I have offered help for them. But I made it very clear that I'm not willing to sacrifice my peace to help them that I can't I can't hurt myself further, just because I want them to be better.

Scott Benner 1:22:17
So you think they can get out of it? But do you think you can get out of it?

Sarah 1:22:20
I think I am the most stable out of every one in my family. I think in terms of who is doing well. I am the shining example. I'm working. I'm in school. I'm in clinicals I'm doing everything I can I am not currently drinking. I'm I quit smoking in January. I'm taking good care of my health. I'm doing things that I'm supposed to be well,

Scott Benner 1:22:49
are you becoming a nurse?

Sarah 1:22:52
I'm going into respiratory therapy,

Scott Benner 1:22:54
respiratory therapy. Okay, I just heard you say clinicals. That's really one good for you, sir. That's fantastic. Yeah, no, you're

Sarah 1:23:00
tired. I'm working seven days a week. So I'm not really sleeping. But

Scott Benner 1:23:04
yeah, we're gonna want you to get some sleep. But no, I mean, I agree with you, like I, it feels to me, like somebody dug a hole, then went in the hole, dug another hole, then dug former holes, then through your Senate when you were two years old, and said, see if you can go find the sunlight. And you're actually getting there. You absolutely could be one of those people that I've spoken to in the past. Because you're 26. And you're young, even though you probably feel like you're 100 because of what you've been through. But I've talked to plenty of people who are 50 and 60 years old, who when they're telling their life story, tell stories like yours from when they were 1012 1520 or something like that. And when they're 60. It's a distant memory and just a part of their puzzle at that point. And they don't live in the turmoil that they lived in, back when they were telling those stories. So to me that, you know, for my money, like, I don't know how it's gonna go for you. But the only way to find out and have a real chance at success and happiness is to keep going. Like that, to me is like you could get to a place in your life one day where you look back on all that and say, those are the things that made me the, the person I am today and I like who I am. That, to me sounds like how this usually works.

Sarah 1:24:19
That's definitely what I'm striving for. Yeah, no, it

Scott Benner 1:24:23
sounds like you're doing good. It sounds like you're doing really well. Congratulations. The no drinking thing even is a big deal. It's a big leap.

Sarah 1:24:31
I'm definitely one of those people that thinks that if, if you can't have one beer, then your whole life still being controlled by alcohol. So I do drink occasionally. I just try not to get drunk and I don't want to put it on so much of a pedestal that like if I got drunk one time, in six months, then I have to start the calendar all the way over. It's like no, just keep going how you were. That day was a reminder of why you don't do this anymore. I just keep moving, I

Scott Benner 1:25:00
can't tell you how lucky I feel not to have those issues. And with alcohol specifically, I never liked it. It didn't occur to me to continue to do it. And when I hear people talk about their struggles with it, I swear to you, I just think I feel so lucky not to have that problem. Those thoughts that you have to have I, I just I've never considered it. And I'm, like, I don't know who to be thankful to for that. But it just sounds. It sounds like it's a lot, a lot of work. You know, and a lot of, I don't know what the word is really, but just struggle. It's just crazy. Yeah, really is.

Sarah 1:25:40
Struggle is a word that I use to describe, like my daily thought process to my partner. It's just like when your first instinct for things is I should purge, starve, drank, do anything, that it's just bad for your body, you are going against every instinct in your head, and you're like, No, I'm going to eat a proper meal. And I'm going to get a good night's sleep. And I'm going to do all this. And that is not your base instinct. And just because you are doing the things you're supposed to, and you're doing well, it doesn't change the urges is that I still want to do all those things. And I want to not want those things. I've been stuck in I want to not want to do them. And that's just a difficult thing to communicate with. Like, yeah, I'm doing well outside. But like, I still feel this way. I still want to do all those things. I'm still the same person who wants to hurt myself. Right?

Scott Benner 1:26:36
You're controlling, you're controlling those urges. Is that right? To the best that I can best again? Yeah. Geez. All right. What have we not talked about that we should have?

Sarah 1:26:47
Let me had a little list. I wanted to voice a small gripe that I have with the wording that you use across a couple episodes, you say that something is common sense. And you don't use this for just anything like, oh, well, that's common sense. It's common sense. And I have a particular issue with the phrasing of common sense, because I don't think that's real, I think everything is taught or learned. Okay, and I feel I've just known people who were raised in like equally neglectful household that affected their education. And so it'll be something like they were never taught how to clean or sweep or do basic math, that somebody will say it's common sense. And they don't realize that they learned it so long ago that they don't even remember that it was more.

Scott Benner 1:27:33
Yeah, no, I see what would a better reflection of that idea be? So what am I really saying? When I'm saying common sense? I'm saying things that people just intrinsically should know. Is that what I'm saying?

Sarah 1:27:46
No, because I don't I don't think that's the thing either. I think it's all critical thinking, just different levels of critical thinking.

Scott Benner 1:27:52
So. So then what's the what's the I laugh? Because I don't know what to say next. What's the what do you think? I mean, and what would be a better way of saying it?

Sarah 1:28:03
And I think your intentions are good, just because I've listened to over 900 episodes of you. I think I know what you mean, half the time. I think what you're trying to convey is so like, one situation I hear you talk about it a lot is if your blood sugar is going high, you need to take more insulin. That's common sense. But there's so many people who did it, those dots didn't connect at all. So in a sense, that is something that was taught something that was learned. So that's something that is thought about critically. So I don't know a better way to word it.

Scott Benner 1:28:33
Yeah, well, okay. And I don't either, but I'll talk through it with you for a second. So if we, if we know that insulin makes Downey and RP is opposite of Downey, then is it not common sense that you need insulin if your blood sugar's high?

Sarah 1:28:49
Not when you go back and realize that up and down are learned concepts to Oh, what the

Scott Benner 1:28:53
hell am I supposed to say? We should all just jump in a fire. Like I don't know what, like, I mean, at some point. So I guess what I mean is, I've never thought about this, but I'll talk I'll talk it through. There needs to be a base level of critical thinking, right? That happens in a split second, like so, critical thinking that doesn't take years and months of you sitting down and breaking things down and like pulling it apart, but just this happens, that happens. I'm driving a car and something comes at me my foot moves towards the brake. It's kind of it's it's not thought about, but that's the idea. I mean, let's go this is the common next step to take the obvious next step to take you drop a lot of coffee mugs, you should probably get metal coffee mugs. That would be common sense. You could stop yourself from having that experience of dropping and breaking a coffee mug by just getting a metal mug.

Sarah 1:29:45
See I did the metal ones I actually dented them and I caused them to leak so it wasn't much of a difference. I'm very clumsy or

Scott Benner 1:29:52
you keep throwing them at the floor you drop.

Sarah 1:29:55
Okay, I have unknown arthritis I dropped

Scott Benner 1:29:59
Okay. I agree. So I, yeah, I mean, you're not wrong. If I, if I'm brought if a person is brought up in a terrible enough situation and gets absolutely no direction whatsoever, and they live in a filthy house their entire life, it may never occur to them to clean their house. But I didn't grow up in a clean house. And I am very careful to clean my house. But I didn't want my kids to grow up in a house that wasn't clean. Because I wanted them to expect that they deserve to live in a clean place.

Sarah 1:30:30
I get what you're saying. It's just and this was just a small gripe, I'm not trying to, like attack who you are seem like

Scott Benner 1:30:36
a fan out there. I don't feel attacked. Don't worry about it. By the way, I keep wondering when someone's going to come on and really come after me that hasn't happened yet.

Sarah 1:30:42
Well, I'm sorry. That's my biggest gripe that I have with you just and that's just my own personal thing with that little nitpicky phrase.

Scott Benner 1:30:48
Okay, that was it.

Sarah 1:30:51
That's why I was saying about you that I'm

Scott Benner 1:30:53
pretty great. That's what I'm here. For you at least. All right. Well, I don't know what else to say. And you didn't offer any suggestions, by the way. So I don't know. I

Sarah 1:31:03
don't know a resolution, I can only identify a problem. That is part of the issue with my life. Scott.

Scott Benner 1:31:10
I'm very good at pointing out what's wrong. Leave me alone. But I don't know how to fix anything. I don't know what to do next. Well, you do, you're keeping going, that is a real value.

Sarah 1:31:20
I'm moving. I'm trying.

Scott Benner 1:31:22
There's also listen, there's a reasonable argument to be made that says that, for many people getting back to whatever, like normal would have been for them if they had not been impacted by all these other people and things around them. Maybe it's not possible. You know, maybe it's not. Or maybe it is like, it's why I said something crazy. Like, what if you just moved out into the middle of nowhere and just started over again? Like, you know, could you just go okay, none of the things or problems that I had before are here. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to reset myself, but you think they'd come back to you? Because those things are in your mind, then they're not just they're not physical impacts or human impacts. It's, I mean, I don't know, like, I don't want to be like a downer, like, you ever hear me talk to Erica on some of the episodes. And she'll go through like all of the like, you know, very modern and best practices around people's mental health. And sometimes I get to the end, and I'm like, Oh, my God, I feel like none of that's going to help anything. I have such like, it's all great. And it's worth a try. And I see that it's helped people. But I still think like can't possibly help everybody. Once

Sarah 1:32:31
you have the fifth therapist say Well, have you tried journaling? Yes, ma'am. Yes, I have. Emily, no, have you tried yoga? Uh huh.

Scott Benner 1:32:41
I have a whole journal that says my therapist is just like, keep writing it over and over again, there's one word I never used, by the way. That was me being like, like, I was writing a story for some reason. And just like, you know, like, how would that help me? How is that going to help me to it's spitballing at that point, like, I think like, much like regular physical health concerns, mental health concerns can be that way to, like, just, you know, let's just try things and see what helps. And maybe we'll find it and maybe we won't. And I think that when someone says, Have you tried journaling? Have you tried doing this? I think they're doing the same thing. Like, try this and see what happens. You know, like, Maybe this will help, like, Who the hell knows? Like, I don't want yet like, by the way, I don't want you getting lost down a K hole. But I don't know that ketamine won't help you. And I don't know that, you know, you don't have like trauma that you couldn't get rid of with psilocybin therapy. Like, I have no idea. But you know, I can tell you that 7080 years ago, if you had these, like, if you said these things out loud, their doctors that would try to shock your brain.

Sarah 1:33:46
Oh, no, my grandmother, how do you see to

Scott Benner 1:33:48
Oh, yeah, somebody had to have in your life.

Sarah 1:33:54
If AECT didn't have such a common effect of like, memory loss, and I worried about, there are so few memories that I consider to be like, positive that I do want to hold on to. I'm worried that if I went through with AECT, those would be the ones I've lose, and I've keep everything else aside, because the only reason that's holding you back, like

Scott Benner 1:34:14
what stops you you're like, you know, I'm just gonna lose the good stuff and keep the bad stuff. I do that. Like

Sarah 1:34:20
Scott when my second house burned down. I thought, why did I think this couldn't happen?

Scott Benner 1:34:27
Is it real weird? Isn't it weird? Like how things like dude, Pat, do you know how your home's burnt down?

Sarah 1:34:32
Both electrical fires are bad wiring old houses. Isn't

Scott Benner 1:34:36
that something? That's economics? Really? You know what I mean? Like, you know, get something built, it's not built well, or it's so old, and you can't afford to maintain it like that. That's all just money, I'm afraid.

Sarah 1:34:51
Oh, yeah, money is the root of a lot of things. So I'm hoping to finish school and I mean, the job that I'm going for the starting pay is $24 an hour which does and sound like much, but when I made 19, I saved over half of my pay in six months. Yeah, let's go. I, I'm used to live in on unless I think my car cost $600. And it runs on a prayer. And my home goes, the power goes out every time it rains. And I think a strong wind knocked down though. We're here for now

Scott Benner 1:35:21
you're getting there. Yeah, my son has this first job out of college. And it's a one year stint. He's 10 months into it. And he saved some, like an impressive amount of money. And I know that he did that, because he's not making a lot. And I know that he did that by limiting himself. And he talked to me about how, at the end of the week, he opens up his bank account, and he looks and he goes, Okay, I spent more money than I should have this week. Where did I do that? And then he adjusts himself. And he cooks his own meals and prepares his lunches and stuff like that to save money. And again, like, so it's interesting, like here, I think that's common sense. He got to work. He saw a bunch of young people who were just ordering like, GrubHub every day at lunch, and he sat there and when they just paid $25 For lunch, we only make this much an hour. They just gave away this portion of their day. I'm not going to do that. And then he didn't. And he steadfastly stuck to it. And when he told me that I thought, oh, that's common. That's good. That's common sense. But what you're saying is that somehow, some way we taught him that,

Sarah 1:36:25
I think that you did, because I, I know that y'all did eat out and do things like that. But it wasn't an everyday thing. You weren't always ordering DoorDash or something, and you weren't always going to a restaurant, it wasn't something so easily accessible. And I know that you weren't afraid to tell your children. No. But in a similar situation. I would have seen people doing that and be like, Don't they know that a loaf of bread cost $1? To jar peanut butters to 50?

Scott Benner 1:36:50
Yeah, no, right. Yeah. Listen, I, but I grew up, my parents were terrible with money. They were broke, and they didn't know how to manage what they had. So why do I know? Because

Sarah 1:37:00
you had to you had to learn out of necessity, because you saw what was the contrary, teaching yourself is still learning.

Scott Benner 1:37:08
Sarah, I think I have something though, that is unusual in my situation. So let me say this, if there's some level of intellect that leads you to make decisions, and those decisions lead you down paths, right. And a better decision early on would have led you down a different path. Not to say that everybody has access to those better decisions. But I'm saying that there are some people who are more intellectually challenged than others. And so therefore, their decision making process is more questionable. I grew up with people like that mother, father, not brain surgeons, okay, and didn't come from any kind of money. And then they were put in a bad situation, they made more bad decisions that led down more bad paths. How come I didn't have that happened to me as an adult, I'm adopted. I'm not them. Like my brain is not wired the way theirs is. And so even as a small child, and growing up, I'd watched my parents do things and think that was not the right thing to do. Like, we're in a bad situation here, they did x, they definitely should have done y. And then I'd watch it go bad. And I'd go, Okay, I was right about that. And so, you know, the only I know I don't like want to dig into it, but like, when I was in kindergarten, they pulled me aside and identified me and made me take IQ tests, which used to be a big thing. Because they were trying to like section out kids, they thought were smart and give them different education and public school, which by the way, was a terrible idea. And so I know my IQ, I will tell you this, it's high enough, I won't say it on the podcast. Because it's embarrassing. And it doesn't reflect my intellect. It's just my, I don't know what IQ really measures. And maybe it's both. I have no idea. But what I do know is when you put me in bad situations, I consistently make good decisions. And that's really where my intelligence works. I'm not good at math. I don't remember things about like social studies or science, I'd be terrible at science. I'd be a horrible doctor. If I had to learn the things like I mean, like the the thinking part of it, I'd be okay with the understanding ideas. But like the science I couldn't do, you don't want me involved in any way in anything mathematical. But again, I just try to the way I say it in the podcast is like if the zombies come like you find me I'm living. Like, I'll be okay. When it's over. I'll be the lady that has the zombies on a leash and they're out there killing people for me like guard dogs, or whatever happened to that TV show. And like, like, like, I'll be the Zombie Master when it's over. So I could see my parents making all these mistakes. And my common sense told me not to do that stuff. But they didn't teach it to me. It's just and so I do wonder sometimes how much all this has to do with just processing power in your brain? I

Sarah 1:40:05
do think that definitely does have a play. And I also grew the testing to get the quote unquote, gifted children in public education. I was also in that program, and it just it just felt like total Wolf. Oh, why am I here?

Scott Benner 1:40:19
So I dropped out of it. While everyone else was like, I did it for years. And as I was leaving middle school to go to high school, or as I was leaving elementary school to go to middle school, elementary school to go to middle school, I went to my parents as like a fifth grader, and said, My I need to get out of this program. And she's my mom. My mom was like, devastated. Because she's like, she thought this was the pathway to success, like, No, they've identified you, you're going to like, go on to blah, blah, blah. And I look back now I found some of the people who are in that class, they all crumbled, like the pressure that they put on those kids from, like a young age to be terrific. It didn't do well, for most of them.

Sarah 1:41:04
Oh, yeah. That's referred to as gifted kid syndrome now. Oh, really? Oh, it has a name. It's not a real. It's not a real diagnosis. But it's just like a common social media thing of like, oh, well, if you're a rack full of anxiety, and a perfectionist, I guess you were a gifted child.

Scott Benner 1:41:18
I don't know, I got the hell away from it. I was like, This is not good. I'm leaving. And so I went back into like, Gen pop, I guess he was a prison term. And back with everybody, and I was much better off. I thought, you know, and then truth be told, it really is. The only thing that helps me get all the way out of that hole is meeting my wife, who was willing to judge me on my thoughts and who I was not where I came from, or what I had, she was ahead of me, like she grew up in a more like, a household that that really put a premium on education. So she was in college, she had kind of ascended out of that hole a little farther than I had. And she was willing to, like, stand shoulder to shoulder with me in public and say, This is my boyfriend, even though like, socially, I did not. I didn't belong with her, if that makes sense. And so like, you know, to the naked eye, and so she was willing to like judge me on who I was, and my thoughts that allowed me to jump up a level, and then reset myself. If that makes sense. It might sound like both. I've no idea. But that's how I say

Sarah 1:42:31
it doesn't sound like it's from a different perspective, I changed a lot about how I care for myself and how I act for my partner. Because when I got into this relationship, I said, okay, if I'm really going to take this seriously, I don't think a healthy relationship. Common loving home is one where when she gets too stressed out, she hits her head on the wall sometimes and down to fifth and Morgan. So maybe we don't want to do that. So I stopped drinking when we moved in together, and I started bettering myself in the expense that I could. And I'm not saying that I've always done it perfectly, but I do what I can to care for myself mostly, and motivation of not wanting to be the person that harmed somebody else. I do think I'd be in a completely different situation without him because I wouldn't have the motivation to be doing better. No,

Scott Benner 1:43:23
I understand. I have to tell you that talking to you. And conversations like this one makes me want to stay alive for 50 more years and put you on the books for another conversation like 20 years from now I want to be like, Hey, let's get you. Let's get you set up for 2043. And, and do another podcast because I think you're going to be in a great place. And sadly, I'll be dead. So I won't know. But

Sarah 1:43:43
I live another 50 years. Now.

Scott Benner 1:43:47
I'm definitely not getting 50. But will I be alive in 20 years? I don't think I can make a podcast and 20 years. So

Sarah 1:43:54
maybe you'll have enough bankroll at that time. You can hire people to press record for you schedule everything, do everything. All you got to do is talk.

Scott Benner 1:44:00
There it is Scott say what you think what she said her mom and oh my god. All right. Well, Sara, thank you. I really appreciate you doing this with me. I can't tell you how kind it was. Let me just share a story that I think a lot of people will resonate with. And the ones who don't will might give him something to think about. So thank you very much

Jaylen is an incredible example of what's so many experience living with diabetes. You show up for yourself and others every day, never letting diabetes define you. And that is what the Medtronic champion community is all about. Each of us is strong and together, we're even stronger. To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community where to share your own story, visit Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox And look out online for the hashtag Medtronic champion. A huge Thanks to touched by type one for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check them out on their website touched by type one.org or on Facebook and Instagram. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGLUC AG o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording runway recording.com

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