Basket Case

For this bonus episode, NK and Imani talk about navigating conflict, accountability, and grace for ourselves and the people we’re in community with. Transcript  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Western science gives us names for the things that we know – the things that we can see and feel and touch. But it’s always been skeptical of the things we can’t measure. This skepticism dates back to Europeans’ first contact with indigenous cultures in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and the unfamiliar medicine that they found there. Today in the west, those healing modalities are often still characterized as “alternative.”  Mexico City-based integrative psychiatrist Dr. Carmen Amezcua is passionate about psychedelic plant medicine – treatments that are still stigmatized and misunderstood, even though they’ve been shown to be effective at treating depression, anxiety, and PTSD. But she prefers to describe her treatments as complementary, not “alternative.”  In this episode, somatics coach Holiday Simmons says somatics can help us reconnect to our intuition – the knowledge of our ancestors. Dr. Carmen Amezcua says western psychiatry doesn’t get to the root of our issues. And both say that ceremony is how we connect with ourselves, with nature, with our pasts, and with each other.  Transcript LINKS Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer Southern Soul Wellness: https://southernsoulwellness.com/  Dr. Carmen Amezcua: https://carmenamezcua.com/ This Is What Ayahuasca Does To Your Brain  Psychedelics, the Law and Politics - UC Berkeley BCSP  Psychedelics and Neural Plasticity: Therapeutic Implications - PMC)  ‘Authentic’ ayahuasca rituals sought by tourists often ignore Indigenous practices and spiritual grounding  Magic Mushrooms Are Most-Used Psychedelic Drug; As States Change Laws, Federal Policymakers Face Urgent Questions | RAND See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Even though NK doesn’t live with the voice of constant criticism anymore, there’s still a lingering feeling that stands between her and her authentic self…or selves. In this episode she talks to social anxiety expert Dr. Aziz Gazipura about disrupting that pattern of social anxiety and learning to do something else.  Dr. Aziz Gazipura is the author of the books The Solution To Social Anxiety and Not Nice, and the founder of the Center For Social Confidence. TranscriptSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NK attends a workshop on divesting from people pleasing & begins to unravel a lifetime of grief and rage. TranscriptSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Sal moved from California to a small town in the Pacific Northwest, they didn't know anyone. The solitude didn’t bother them…at first. But after their attempts at making new friends left them feeling confused, then rejected, then frustrated, their solitude turned into loneliness. In this episode, Dr. Ellen Lee explains how loneliness is a social condition. Dr. Marisa G. Franco talks about the science of making friends (and the romance of queer friendship), and Jasmine Ostendorf-Rodriguez shows us what we can learn from fungi about building community in times of crisis. Transcript Links:  The Professional-Managerial Class w/ Catherine Liu | Jacobin Show  White Supremacy Culture Worksheet from White Supremacy Culture   Platonic: How The Science of Attachment Can Help You Make – and Keep – Friends by Dr. Marisa G. Franco Let’s Become Fungal! by Jasmine Ostendorf-RodriguezSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Does being *too online* make it increasingly hard to hang on to an inherent sense of identity? Between the algorithm, the content creators, and the very online therapists, maybe it makes sense that more and more people are self diagnosing from online content  – and are telling their IRL therapists about it. But what if the sense of belonging we get from claiming a diagnosis is just a stand in for what’s actually needed? With Nadira Goff (Slate), P.E. Moscowitz (MentalHellth), and Marcus Brittain Fleming (LCSW, Bandwidth Care). Transcript Links: On TikTok, mental health creators are confused for therapists. That's a serious problem. (2021) How mental health became a social media minefield  The BuzzFeedification of Mental Health | Mental Hellth (Feb 2021) From pee tapes to Pulitzers: The rise and fall of Buzzfeed News | The Independent Why "TikTok Diagnoses" Are on the Rise | Psychology Today Women Are Discovering They May Have ADHD Or Be On The Autism Spectrum From Trending TikTok Videos The fight over what’s real (and what’s not) on dissociative identity disorder TikTok - The Verge https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/ Mad World: Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll Girls Self-Diagnosing on TikTok Aren't Why Ableism Happens - Dr. Devon Price Changing the Framework: Disability Justice | Leaving EvidenceSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Instead of feeling happy when she learns that her cancer therapy is working, Jasmin is confronted with grief. In an effort to understand her own situation, she tries to find people who can relate. And in a collaborative art piece, Jazmine (JT) Green gives us a snapshot of what it feels like to finally learn to inhabit a body that could feel like home. “Embodied” is episode three of Little Devils – a show about the flaws that shape us. Little Devils is a TRZ Media Original and an independent production hosted by Jasmin Bauomy.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the stories about Borderline Personality Disorder that Mala was familiar with, a borderline woman was always toxic – intense, erratic, angry, manipulative. And she was almost always the villain in someone else’s story. But no one ever talked about the *source* of the intense emotion – what was at the heart of it. Transcript More to read about borderline: I'm A Black Woman with Borderline Personality Disorder | Business Insider  Why I'm Distancing Myself From My Borderline Personality Disorder Diagnosis  Diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder Is Often Flawed | Scientific American  (Re)Valuing Borderline Personality Disorder as (Counter) Knowledge | Word & Text: A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics  Transcendent Luminescence, Ravaging Flames: On Alexander Kriss’s “Borderline” | Los Angeles Review of Books  How Infinite Jest tethered me to life when I almost let it go | Aeon Essays   Borderline Personality and Self-Understanding of Psychopathology | Psychiatry At the Margins  Either all psychopathology is personality psychopathology or there is no such thing | Psychiatry at the Margins  Transgender and Gender Diverse Patients Are Diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder More Frequently Than Cisgender Patients Regardless of Personality Pathology | Transgender Health  I Have Forgiven Myself for My Pre-Diagnosis Recklessness | by Zuva Seven | An Injustice!  Skill Issues​ | Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Its Discontents See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For Maryam, anorexia was a way to disappear. But outside the institutions meant to cure eating disorders, she learns to resist the binary of recovery or death. Transcript This episode was produced by Maryam Gunja and Phoebe Unter.  And informed by… Studying Hunger Journals by Bernadette Mayer Hungry Bengal: War, Famine and the End of Empire by Janam Mukherjee Saving our own lives: a liberatory practice of harm reduction by Shira Hassan  Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo We need to reject the false narratives around anorexia by Katy Waldman Strangers Among Us by Rachel AvivSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Devon Price talks with NK about 2022’s Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity. Masking is a coping strategy, a way that neurodivergent people (especially autistic people) learn to fit into neurotypical society, with uneven success. But like many coping strategies, masking can do more harm than good in the long run – and the act of unmasking is a small act of resistance against conformity. Transcript This episode also includes some clips from Autistic Masking & Unmasking, The 4 Types of Autistic Masking, Twice as Hard: Masking Neurodiversity as Black Women, Discover your neurodivergent masks, and Black and Autistic! The Struggle is Real…  Plus Devon Price recommends Amythest Schaber’s Ask An Autistic series, The Secret Life of a Black Aspie: A Memoir by Anand Prahlad, and Uncomfortable Labels: My Life as a Gay Autistic Trans Woman by Laura Kate Dale.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bertranna’s autism makes her obsessed with finding the Truth about neurodiversity. With Ayesha Khan, PhD and The People’s Oracle. Transcript  AND INFORMED BY: Unmasking Autism by Devon Price  African-Americans With Autism Face Additional Challenges - NPR The Persistent Invisibility of Black Autism - Undark.org  The Biology Behind Autism Spectrum Disorder - Yale Medicine  Data and Statistics on Autism Spectrum Disorder - CDC The mother of neurodiversity: how Judy Singer changed the world | Autism | The Guardian Singer’s thesis was included in a British Open University anthology titled Disability Discourse, and is now available in an ebook called Neurodiversity: The Birth of an Idea  Who coined the term ‘neurodiversity?’ It wasn’t Judy Singer, some autistic academics say A correction on the origin of the term ‘neurodiversity’ - Independent Living On the Autism Spectrum (InLiv) On the neurological underpinnings of geekdom - The Atlantic  Politicizing Neurodiversity - by P.E. Moskowitz: Empire of Normality by Robert Chapman  Neurodiversity and the Pathology Paradigm | Psychology Today  Negotiating the Neurodiversity Concept | Psychology Today  NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silber  Neurodiversity Rewires Conventional Thinking About Brains | WIRED Neurodiversity in the Classroom by Thomas Armstrong “The 8 Million Species We Don’t Know” -  New York Times Sunday Review Common Biologically Essentialist Language | by Cat Harsis | Medium  What If Gay-Rights Advocates’ ‘Born This Way’ Argument Is Wrong?  It's time to rethink “born this way,” a phrase that's been key to LGBTQ acceptance | Salon.com  ‘Beyond Race’ Biology Course Busts Myths About Human Diversity | College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences | University of Maryland  Decolonizing= abolishing bioessentialism & the neurodivergent/ neurotypical binary  - Ayesha Khan, Ph.D. Psychiatric diagnoses & bioessentialism will not liberate us - Ayesha Khan, Ph.D.  What Is a Collectivist Culture? Individualism vs. Collectivism  Collective Culture & Mental Wellbeing: What Tanzania Can Teach Us About Mental Health  Science is not objective or apolitical  - by Ayesha Khan, Ph.D.  A Guide to the James Webb Telescope's View of the Universe - New York Times we are all made of starsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If depression isn't caused by a chemical imbalance, why does everyone think it is? Transcript WITH: P.E. Moskowitz  Micha Frazer-Carroll AND INFORMED BY: Breaking Off My Chemical Romance - The Nation  Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit - The New York Times Emotional Blunting, No Libido, No Life - by P.E. Moskowitz Keep the antidepressants away. New study says chemical imbalance in brain isn't causing depression - The Economic Times   The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? - New York Review of Books  The Illusions of Psychiatry - The New York Review of Books  Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll  DSM History - Psychiatry.org  How do new disorders get into the DSM? - Slate  Delusions of Progress: Psychiatry’s Diagnostic Manual - Los Angeles Review of Books “Scientific Nightmare”: The Backstory of the “DSM” - Los Angeles Review of Books  Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker With Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel blew open the memoir as we know it - BBC  Prozac Nation (2001)  Prozac: Revolution in a Capsule - The New York Times How Prozac entered the lexicon - BBC News Renamed Prozac Fuels Women's Health Debate - Washington Post  After the Boom, No Reason to Smile - Barron's  Something Happened to U.S. Drug Costs in the 1990s - The New York Times Conflicts of interest and DSM-5: the media reaction - Speaking of Medicine and Health  Many authors of psychiatry bible have industry ties - New Scientist  Undisclosed financial conflicts of interest in DSM-5-TR: cross sectional analysis - The BMJ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Samara puts her trust in psychiatry to fix her. Transcript WITH:  + PUPPYBREATH AND INFORMED BY: The Ritalin Explosion - PBS FRONTLINE Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker Strangers To Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv Antidepressants rapidly alter brain architecture, study finds - Los Angeles Times Breaking Off My Chemical Romance - The Nation  The Illusions of Psychiatry - The New York Review of BooksSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After Tina’s dad died, she was devastated. But was her grief “disordered”? Transcript WITH:  + Lashanna Williams, A Sacred Passing + Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, PhD     AND INFORMED BY:   Dying Without Regrets According to a Death Doula - VICE   Seattle-area grief groups bring mourning into the light - Seattle Times   What's A Mental Disorder? Even Experts Can't Agree - NPR    DSM-5-TR turns normal grief into a mental disorder | Miss Foundation   A History of Prolonged Grief Disorder's Inclusion in the DSM — And What Is Missing From It - Psychiatry At the Margins   Why was prolonged grief disorder added to the DSM? - American Psychiatric Association   How Long Should It Take to Grieve? Psychiatry Has Come Up With an Answer. - The New York Times    Prolonged Grief Is Now Labelled a Disorder. Not All Psychiatrists Agree. - VICE    Impairing Social Connectedness: The Dangers of Treating Grief With Naltrexone - Kara Thieleman, Joanne Cacciatore, Shanéa Thoma    What is good grief support? Exploring the actors and actions in social support after traumatic grief | Miss Foundation     It’s Mourning in America | The New Yorker How People Of Color Can Experience Grief Differently Than White People | HuffPost Life     Grief, Unmedicated - by P.E. Moskowitz - Mental Hellth  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rachel tells NK about the pain of her perfectionism, then NK talks to somatics practitioner B. Stepp and artist Yumi Sakugawa about rewriting internal narratives of shame and punishment. Transcript WITH: + B. Stepp: www.haveheartsomatics.com  + Yumi Sakugawa: @yumisakugawa   AND INFORMED BY:   The dangerous downsides of perfectionism - BBC   “Multidimensional Perfectionism And DSM-5 Personality Traits” by Joachim Stoeber   Contemplating the Infinite with Annie Dillard - Literary Hub   Silent All These Years: On Annie Dillard - The Millions   Annie Dillard on Creativity and What It Takes to Be a Writer - The Marginalian    Generative Somatics   Want to Fix Your Mind? Let Your Body Talk. - The New York Times   What Your Body Has to Do With Social Change - YES! Magazine    Brené Brown: Can We Gain Strength From Shame? - NPR    The Hidden Stress of Growing Up a Child of Immigrants - VICE    How to Be Less Self-Critical When Perfectionism Is a Trap - The New York Times   I Finally Accepted Nothing Can Be Perfect - VICE    Yumi Sakugawa on shame, hiding, paralysis, and making bad art.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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