124: Kristen Carney | Why Depression Isn’t Just Your Own Battle

Transcript for Kristen Carney | Why Depression Isn’t Just Your Own Battle (Episode 124)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFillippo. My friend Kristen Carney is a comedian writer and radio host. She's co-hosted on Love Line with Dr. Drew who you know, and she's also been Adam Carolla's sidekick on the Adam Carolla Show. She's got a lot going for her. She's smart, she's beautiful, she's funny, and she's also depressed, and this has been something that's followed her for a while and recently the specter of suicide hit much too close to home. And what I really love about Kristen is that she never tries to sugar coat anything. She's so open, so candid. It's impossible not to do exactly the same when you're with her, which is what makes this conversation with her so valuable. Whether or not you suffer from depression, you know someone who does or you're only glancing at it from afar, this is one of those conversations that's worth being a part of, and I'm honored to do so with you here today.

[00:00:53] Of course, aside from an inside look at a phenomenon that affects millions of people around the world. We also dive into some practicals that all of us need to be doing to stay even keel and mentally chill. After this show, you'll be better equipped to deal with your own emotional states as well as those of others, and for that reason, this episode for me was particularly impactful. All right, here's Kristen Carney.

[00:01:15] So you started doing mentally chill with your friends, Stevie Ryan, who a lot of us might know, she was a YouTuber, she had her own television show. She seemingly had a lot of stuff going on and we lost her somewhat recently. So this is sort of, is it a cruel, it's not irony. It's a cruel -- yes, it is a cruel irony that we're doing a show about depression, about somebody who is depressed about two people who did a show about depression and actually suffered from it quite deeply.

Kristen Carney: [00:01:43] Yeah, I mean the circumstance surrounding doing a podcast on depression and then having your co-host take her own life was -- I mean it's horrific, but then also totally surreal.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:58] Yeah, I can imagine. It seems so strange because of course a lot of people are going, I don't understand. She had everything going for her because she was successful. But that's not really the cure to this, and it highlights the idea that it really doesn't matter how much you have going for you. I mean, we only need look as far as Anthony Bourdain to see that you can be as successful as you want and still be really unhappy.

Kristen Carney: [00:02:21] Absolutely. The thing with her that was so life changing for me was not that her and I were similar. She had a lot more going on. She was a lot more successful. She was much prettier. She was really, really funny. But she was a little bit of a mirror for me because I looked at her life as my end goal of no longer being depressed, and once she turned out to be quote unquote, the more depressed one, we actually used to do a segment on the podcast called Who’s Sadder? And it started because we were jokingly going back and forth competing with who was sad or her or I, and then she committed suicide, and so clearly she won the depression contest. And I had to step back and look at myself as someone would look at her because I looked at her and I thought, there's no way in a million years she would be that depressed, hate herself that much, hate life that much based on all of the physical evidence I'm looking at, and then I realized people would look at me the same way and not of course to the extent, because I didn't have the same following and spotlight on me by any means. But her and I have a similar physical look and we have a similar sense of humor. And I started to think, “Wow! I see why people look at me and go, why are you depressed?” I started to have that mirror, reflect back to me.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:48] Yeah, I can understand how, because logically we're going to look at someone and go, “There's no way.” That's why these high profile suicides always take everybody somehow they're still surprising. They shouldn't be I suppose. But somehow they still are because people say “What a beautiful soul. Everyone liked him. He was so successful. He had all the money in the world. He was famous like, why would someone do this?” Because the non-depressed brain, and I speak from experience here, because I don't suffer from depression right now. It's something for us to wrap our mind around where we just cannot understand why someone who seems to have everything from our perspective would ever think that things are hopeless. It just doesn't make logical sense. But again, it's our brain is making an emotional appeal here. It's not saying, “Hey look, Stevie, you had a TV show and you have a huge following and everyone loves you, but there are some people that don't love you, so you should probably just end everything.” Like that's not what's going on. Anthony Bourdain probably didn't say, “Well, there's at least one person who doesn't like me and some people don't like my TV show” or “There's one little thing wrong in my life or one big thing wrong.” The brain is it sort of tricking us? What's going on in the mind of someone near and dear to us? Because I'm not having you on as a doctor of course who's going to talk about the clinical side of depression. But I would love it if you would talk about what it's like to have a depressed friend or depressed sister or depressed cousin or relative because I think a lot of us just don't understand the alien that lives in our house that stays in the basement all the time or that feels hopeless when he or she has everything going for them from our perspective.

Kristen Carney: [00:05:34] Yeah. Well, I've been in both shoes. I've been the person who is looking at someone going, “Why are you depressed? How in a million years could you feel this way?” And then I've been on the other side of things where I've felt suicidal and I've felt hopeless. And it's weird, there's almost like a door that closes in your brain and opens and shows you darkness and light, darkness and light, and when that door is closed, you absolutely cannot see through it to the other side. And by that I mean when Stevie took her own life, I really wasn't in a very dark state of mind. I wasn't struggling with my depression. I was on antidepressants. I had been on them for a while and had gotten pretty stable, and I just didn't get it. It was like trying to get me to figure out how to do a complex math equation.

I can barely even do multiplication, so I just couldn't understand it. And then all of a sudden when my brain chemistry drops, I go so low that I get every ounce of why she would take her own life and I have to fight the feeling of doing it on my own. But once that door closes and I go back to the light -- to the light side, I cannot see in a million years how someone could do that. So it's really weird because I'm seeing both sides of it. I'm feeling that despair, and then once that despair is gone, I'm not even able to explain it. It's a really interesting, I guess, phenomenon in your brain.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:06] And it seems actually quite irritating in a way, and I know that's an understatement, but it seems that irritating for the person suffering from it because you think, “Well, okay, I can't believe I was in that mode. How silly, that's going to happen again.” “I can't believe I was going through that. What a weird phase. I guess I was really upset about this breakup. I don't even care about that guy. What is wrong with me?” And you're almost laughing at yourself and then you go through life for another couple of weeks or months and then it comes back and you go, “How was I ever happy? I don't understand. Why would I ever -- what do I even have to be happy about? There's nothing in my life that I have that's working.”

Kristen Carney: [00:07:44] Exactly. It's almost like when you get really drunk and then once you wake up in the morning, you have that feeling of, “Oh my God, what did I do last night?” And it's that feeling when you suddenly start to feel better. It's almost like you were drunk, you were in this state of mind that wasn't actually natural or yours and you're trying to reconcile how you could even get to that place, because I'm obviously, I'm not a doctor. All I know is the experience of it is so like you said, “Frustrating,” because you can't seem to put your finger on why that's happening, where it's like you get drunk and one night and you can't remember what you did the next day and you wake up feeling like, “Oh my God, what did I do last night?” You can put your finger on why that happened. It was because you drank way too many drinks. But with this, all of a sudden with depression, all of a sudden it's like a freight train and you didn't even know it was coming. You couldn't see it and there was no actual physical manifestation of a freight train so you can't put your finger on anything. You just all of a sudden shift into this darker mindset and all I can do when I get to that point is try to keep my head above water and try to -- I always feel like I'm in a dark well and there's no ladder to get me out. I don't know how I fell into it, but I'm hoping always that there's enough water in that well to keep me high enough where I don't sink so low. And so that's when I look to things like connecting with family or hanging out with my dog or exercising to kind of keep me at that level that's high enough to keep the light in the well.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:09:25] You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Kristen Carney. We'll be right back.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:29] This episode is sponsored in part by Podium. Thanks to the Internet, reviews are the lifeblood of any business and Podium makes it easy to track your online reviews across over 20 review sites all in one convenient dashboard. And what's funny about this is I didn't even know there were 20 review sites. I thought it was kind of like Yelp and then Google Reviews, Trustpilot, I think I've heard of but never seen and that's pretty much it. But I didn't realize that businesses, especially larger companies or mid-sized companies have tons of reviews, and if you have a brick and mortar business, these things are just lurking out there. I remember when I was helping my friend with his brick and mortar business, we did sort of a Google Deep Dive. There are review sites that nobody has even heard of, and there's random one or two reviews on there, and half the time those are the negative reviews because they're the people that searched for the obscure site to go and talk crap about your business. So you kind of have to have this on the lookout. It's kind of like advanced Google Alerts for reviews that you can view more easily. So Podium not only helps you know when new reviews are going live, it helps you generate more reviews so your business can get found, get chosen, you can get insight on who's reviewing you, who your customers are. And with Podium, you can actually text your customers invitations to leave reviews with convenient links, which actually reduces the friction of actually getting new reviews which I like this, because you know you go to the dentist office and it's like, “Hey, leave us a review on Yelp,” and you're like, “No.” The end. But if I got a text and I was just sitting around in the waiting room, I'd probably just do it. I really would. Last but not least, Podium has a messaging dashboard so you can actually chat to your customers or potential customers via a variety of messaging platforms, text, Facebook, web, Google. 83 percent of happy customers are willing to leave a review, but only 23 percent actually do. Podium helps bridge that gap and Podium users see a 6 percent increase in revenue just from reviews.

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Jason DeFillippo: [00:12:29] Robinhood is giving our listeners a free stock like Apple, Ford or sprint to help build your portfolio. Sign up at jordan.robinhood.com. That's jordan.robinhood.com. Don't forget we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways from Kristen Carney. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com/podcast. Thanks for listening and supporting the show and to learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com/deals, and if you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to jordanharbinger.com/subscribe. Now, back to our show with Kristen Carney.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:07] First of all, I think a lot of folks don't realize how common this is. Maybe we do because we see it on television and we go, “Wow! This person had this.” 16 million adults live with depression in the United States alone currently, and more than half of adults with a mental illness don't get any treatment, no surprise there, especially in our country. And so it seems like -- if it seems like, “Wow! There's so many people that have this.” The rate of suffering seems to be on the rise, that's because it is. Am I right on that?

Kristen Carney: [00:13:38] Yeah, it is. I guess suicides have increased since 1999 by 30 percent.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:44] Wow!

Kristen Carney: [00:13:44] And it always hits me. The year 1999, I remember being on AOL and I was bullied in high school and so the bullying went over to the instant messenger like they were now in my house. And I think that it's a theory, but I would imagine that increased suicides from 1999 to now have to have something to do with the Internet.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:07] It makes sense.

Kristen Carney: [00:14:08] Because that seems to be the one factor that's really new.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:12] I'll tell you my level of FOMO. I have a great life, I’m not saying that to be flippant or anything. I have a great life. My level of FOMO and feeling bad about stupid, irrelevant crap has gone up from near zero to a billion and I'm not one of those people who flips through Instagram and goes, I wish I was in Greece on vacation. I don't do that. I rarely ever do that. I know a lot of people do, but there are still other things. There's different channels because with infinite variety comes infinite ways to be jealous or feel like you're failing or screwing up your life, right?

Kristen Carney: [00:14:46] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:47] So like even if I'm not jealous that someone else's on vacation, even if I'm not jealous, someone else's at a sports game and as great tees, it's even if I'm not jealous that someone else has a friend who's a celebrity or something, someone will post some food that they're eating. And I'm like, “Oh, I just had mac and cheese, my life stinks.” And everything else is great. And I made the mac and cheese and I wanted it before I saw that photo, right?

Kristen Carney: [00:15:09] Right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:10] And it's like, we do this to ourselves but we don't really notice that that's what's doing. And it took me a while to even realize that was what was doing it. I remember a couple of, and again, I'm not trying to sort of make light of any of this, but because it seems so dumb, the reasons to get upset, but these all stack on top of each other. I was in Canada a couple of weeks ago and I was on Instagram just killing time, waiting for my wife to like put on makeup or put her hair in a ponytail and go out to dinner, and I saw something on Instagram and I can't even remember what it was now.That's how important it was to my life. And I went out to dinner and she was like, “What's wrong? You're kind of cranky.” And I was like “This thing and we don't do enough of that.” And she's like really getting upset because I'm really upset. And then during dinner I'm fine because we were with our close friends and after dinner I'm like, “God that was so stupid.” But then I realized if I have a 15, 25 minute downer every time or every other time that I go on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is, and maybe that's too often, but I think a lot of people do that do, do this. That's a lot of your life if you're checking your phone a hundred times a day, right?

Kristen Carney: [00:16:14] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:15] That's like more downtime and more feeling like crap than I would've done in a six month period, all done over the course of 24 to 48 hours thanks to the Internet and my addiction.

Kristen Carney: [00:16:26] Seven days a week.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:26] Yes, seven days a week, and it's not like, “Well, I'm bullied.” Like you said, “I'm bullied at school. This is terrible.” “I'm bullied at work. I feel like nobody listens to my ideas.” Then you go home and it's in your inbox, whether it's deliberate or accidental. I mean in all of these things that can make you feel like crap happen so subtly. Some examples from my recent past as well, you could be on an email thread where people are joking or making fun of something and maybe you're just not included on that conversation, but you're CCed on the thread. Even that can make you feel bad. Like it's just, and you just go, “Yep, that's me. You left out all the time.” And if you've got that wiring that looks on the looks on the negative side of things, you will have unlimited things to look at to make you feel bad. It's no longer just the television being your aspiration. It's everyone.

Kristen Carney: [00:17:16] Oh, everywhere. And something that hit me really hard before Stevie passed away was -- it was I think maybe two or three days before she died and I was talking about getting more Instagram followers or something. And she said, “I want more.” And I said, “You have 90,000 followers.” She said, “So? I want more.” And that was so striking to me because I realized that it's the never satisfied thing. We can be the ones winning on Instagram and making the people jealous and you're still going to feel sad.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:47] Yeah, of course.

Kristen Carney: [00:17:49] Or incomplete.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:51] Especially when you're competing against other people that are engineering their lives, and I won't go down this thread too much because I do it all the time on the show, but we're looking at a curated version. We're always comparing our blooper reel to other people's highlight reel, especially when it comes to social media. Nobody, very few people who have a lot of followers post on social media. “Wow, I feel really crappy today.” “I woke up looking like crap. I drank too much last night. Who is with me?” It's like, “No thanks.” People don't want that. So you have to almost be this ridiculous figure that posts, and me and my friends make fun of these folks all the time. I feel like you're with me on this Kristen, where you see someone post on Instagram and they're like fully made up in ironed pajamas. Their hair's done. Their full makeup. They're holding a bowl of strawberries or something. Their sheets have strawberry print. They have strawberry curtains around their bed. They have strawberry bobbleheads on their nightstand. Everything is perfectly placed and it's like, “Oh, I love mornings,” and it's like “Sponsored by Listerine,” and you're like, “I hate you right now. Who are you?” And also this is not good. This is not what you look like in the morning, but our brain doesn't know that. It takes a minute for us to rationalize that what we're seeing is fake.

Kristen Carney: [00:19:00] Right. And there's actually a website or not a website and Instagram account that I really love because they're calling celebrities out on this BS, and it's called celeb face, just C-E-L-E-B face. And they overlay photos that are the original of a celebrity. And then the photo that the celebrity posts, and you can see the difference because it toggles between the edited version and the unedited version, and it's such a wakeup call because you realize how fake everything actually is. And I think part of the problem is that we're seeing these images that are beyond perfection. And so one, we're aiming to have that and we're desiring that. But then two, the other problem is, is that no one is human anymore. It's like we're stripping away everything that connects us, which is when stuff goes wrong and we're not perfect and that's where comedy comes from, and that's why people love comedy because you're laughing on a connected feeling or experience. And so when we're looking at the Internet and it's all curated and fake, we're not having any human connection anymore because that's not real. But then we're feeling like that should be what we're aiming for. We're in need of human connection. That's what keeps us -- our brains feeling alive. And I think that's one reason I always end up falling into a hole and I don't recognize it until it's too late. But I tend to isolate, and my only interaction ends up being looking at Instagram and Twitter, and so it's a negative spiral that I need to -- I need to personally take my own advice or think more about and just cut off, but it's like an addiction.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:45] Sure, of course. I think the other irony here is that the Internet, well thanks in part to the Internet, there's a lot more conversation around depression. The stigma goes down because we can start to see how many people in our circles have this. Things that were formerly private are now being shared in a way that wasn't 10 years ago or less even. And so there's a lot of comfort and acceptance online even though it also comes with the downside of possibly causing the need for that acceptance and understanding in the first place.

Kristen Carney: [00: 21:15] Exactly. It's like an abusive marriage. It's like this person who is the source of your love and comfort is also hitting you and belittling you. So it's a really strange dynamic and I feel bad for our society, or the people like all of us who are alive at this point in time because this is a new phenomenon or a new thing that the world has not experienced before the Internet. We are the guinea pigs for it. And so I mean just like with everything else, like bad food or plastics and microwaves and stuff. We were the guinea pigs for all of this stuff that down the line hopefully will still even be existing as a species to see the effects of it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:00] Oh, my goodness. Okay.

Kristen Carney: [00:22:02] I don't know, I've just, I feel like I just opened up a whole, a whole well of depressing things and I don't want it to be more depressing, but we're alive in a time that's very difficult. But I mean, being alive in 1502 would have been difficult as well.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:17] Ah, yeah. You can't even have toasts. There's not even toasters back there.

Kristen Carney: [00:22:19] I know. I mean, have they even come up with bread yet? How can you live to spread?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:22] Yes.

Kristen Carney: [00:22:23] Oh my God.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:24] I think they had bread, but there was a lot of other things to be said about, there was probably sand in the bread. I mean, that's how they ground the wheat. There's all kinds of things wrong with 1502. But the beautiful thing about speaking on depression is that those who are probably feeling like, “Oh, I shouldn't say anything.” That stigma that goes away. We also know that we're not alone when it comes to this. And I think that's really important. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do this show is I wanted to give people some resources where they can reach out to ask for help with this because my inbox, especially lately has been crowded with a lot of, “Hey, this is my last chance. I really need your advice.” That's a lot of pressure for me. I'll be honest. And I ended up referring those people to things like therapy and the suicide hotline, which I know is kind of like when you're getting bullied at school and your mom's like, “They're just jealous of you, honey.” And you're like, that's not the real answer. Thanks anyway. Like it doesn't really help that much, but that's all I got. And so I wanted to have somebody come on and speak from a first person perspective and talk about this a little bit in a way that's more practical.

Kristen Carney: [00:23:25] Yeah, I mean every day for me is really not an experiment, but it is I guess an experiment. I'm trying things constantly to feel better and to get better. And I wish I could come on here and say I beat depression and here's how. But I think most people who are depressed and who think like me, are way too cynical to even believe that you can beat depression. So I think the most important thing is to cope with it before you actually try to solve it or fix it because you're going to have to cope. It's not like you're going to get it and fix it within a week and never have to learn any coping strategies. For me, I'm always going between coping with it and trying to beat it, but I think that the more time you spend commiserating with people about it, the better off you will be because you'll feel like you're not alone. And I get so many messages because I do this podcast on depression. I get so many messages of people saying they don't have anyone to talk to about how bad they feel, and that always surprises me. So I think it's really important to talk to people, and that's so cliché and it's so easy to just say, and actually when I'm -- because I'm going through a life transition of my own. I had been living in Los Angeles for 10 years, now I'm transitioning to New York City, but in the transition I'm at my parents' house, and the other day I was really having a dark, difficult morning, and my mom was trying to wake me up to go shopping with her, and I really don't talk to her about my depression that much. She knows I have it, but I know she feels like some sort of shame that I'm depressed, but also some sort of just -- I feel there's some judgment from my mom. Even though she has suffered with depression on her own, throughout her life, there's still some judgment.

[00:25:16] So I had to stop and say to her the other day, “This is not personal. There's chemicals in my brain that are not allowing me to feel pleasure at the moment, so I'm not going to be able to go shopping with you today because I just can't.” And at first you could tell she got a little angry or hurt, but then I had to tell her it wasn't personal and it's nothing that I'm choosing and I'm working on. And I think when you talk to someone, they tend to either want to throw out advice or get mad or judge. And so I think it's really important for people to not judge someone when they're trying to breach this topic. That's very difficult to talk about.

[00:26:02] So people want to reach out, but they also want to feel safe when they do so. And so I think both sides need to be more educated I guess, on how to talk to each other about depression because I know my mom -- she doesn't know how to talk to me about it and I'm doing my best to learn to talk to her about it because I'm the one who should be more educated. But I don't know if any of that just made sense at all.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:27] Of course, it does. Yeah, one thing that Jane McGonigal brought up on the show a while back was that when she got a concussion, she started to go into a depression as well. And there are theories that say things like when your brain is injured or when your body is injured in some way, that depression is a very natural response because it keeps you from going outside where you might be able to get injured again. And so it's a defense mechanism that seems to be actually quite normal. So if you feel like, “Oh, I'm some kind of freak, I have this disease.” You're not really, it's something that your brain is using to defend itself, and I guarantee you that in a hundred years they're going to be like, “I can't believe people didn't know about this random environmental factor that was causing depression and so many people.”

Kristen Carney: [00:27:11] Well actually, interestingly, the other day I saw an article. I really hope I don't get the name of this wrong, but there was a study that came out that said “People with intense depression or refractory depression or something like that are lacking this thing called L-carnitate or something like that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:33] L-carnitine, yeah.

Kristen Carney: [00:27:34] L-carnitine. Thank you. Yes, it's L-carnitine. And my last name is Carney and my middle name is Lee, so it's L. so I jokingly said the irony that like I'm lacking L-carnitine when that basically is like my name. But there's supplements of it, but it's at such the beginning phases of -- not the beginning phases. I think people are always linked this, but it was finally confirmed. And so I immediately thought, I'll run out and get this supplement. But then I was reading online not to go out and get this supplement, because you don't know what's in it. And so you feel like you have an answer and all of a sudden you don't have an answer. But to go back to what you were saying about your brain protecting yourself. I always say it's so interesting how strong your brain is while making it so weak and that's how I feel like my depression feels. My brain is so stubborn and so strong and determined to be depressed, but it's so strong to be weak, which is just so ironic to me. But I think it's always to protect me.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:38] Exactly. Yeah, of course. I think most of the things our brains do that are really inconvenient or make us feel bad in some way, whether we know the reason or not, exist for a reason. It's not just some random defect. And I think knowing that helps a little bit, even though it might not help someone who's depressed in the moment, it might help our families understand that we're not just being lazy. Or I saw this cartoon a while back that this is what it was. What if you treated people with other sickness, like you treated people with depression and then they show someone who's got like a fever or a broken arm or something and they're like, “Have you tried just going for a walk? Have you tried not having a broken arm, not having the flu? Have you tried?” -- just smile and start working out or something like that. And it's this person who like can't walk and is horribly sick.

Kristen Carney: [000:29:25] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:25] We don't really put that together as maybe outsiders or family members, friends, cousins, whatever, employers. We don't really put that together because we don't have first-hand experience. So when we see this, we're just thinking like, “Oh well, maybe if he didn't sleep in so long you wouldn't feel so bad.” Or like “Maybe if you worked out or ate better, you wouldn't feel so bad.” And I'm sure some little truth to that, but it's actually much more severe and the fact that we can't see it makes it and that the symptoms look like lazy teenageritis doesn't help anyone either.

Kristen Carney: [00:29:58] No. The first time I went to a psychiatrist, it had taken me so many years, but one of the things that I said to him was that I said, “I feel like my whole life I've been so lazy.” And he said, “You're not lazy. You're depressed.” And that lifted so much weight off my shoulders, but then I was like, “All right, sweet.” Now I can go back to bed, and just say “I'm depressed.” So for a minute I was going to use it to my advantage. But I was always so embarrassed about how lazy I felt. Since I can remember, I never wanted to wake up and go to school, but not in a way of a kid being a punk and just wanting to skip school. I physically could not bring myself to get out of bed, and I always just thought I was lazy. I was a piece of crap, and therefore then I snowballed into bringing that into other parts of my life. But I realized I was really just a depressed kid and I just didn't know that at the time. And as an adult I still struggle with it, and I sometimes wonder, “Is this meat being lazy or is this me being depressed?” And usually I tend to still be hard on myself and say “It's you being lazy,” when in reality I do know it's not really me behind the wheels and that's not a cop out or an excuse. It's a weird feeling because in the morning I can almost actually feel the chemicals in my brain, not like being right. I almost feel like I don't have synapses firing when I wake up in the morning. When I wake up in the morning, I feel so depressed and so low. I almost feel suicidal every single morning, and then as the day goes on, something snaps awaken my brain. And it's not a normal like, “Ah, just sluggish feeling.” It's a -- I physically cannot exist in this moment, and then I don't know what point in the day or it's not, I don't drink caffeine, I can't drink caffeine. I get migraines from it. So I'm not getting any sort of stimulus, but halfway through the day, all of a sudden my brain turns on and I feel normal. And then I hate going to sleep at night because then I know I'm going to be starting the same cycle in the morning. I'm going to have to start from, it's like trying to push a boulder up a mountain every morning to get me moving. But once it's up and it kind of hits the other -- the peak of the mountain and starts rolling down the other side. It's like, “Okay, cool.” But then I have to do that every single day. I have to roll that boulder up to the top, and just to restart every day, every day, every day, just like that.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:32:21] You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Kristen Carney. We'll be right back after this.

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[00:34:02] Thanks for listening in supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air and to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan harbinger.com/deals, and don't forget the worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com/podcast, and now for the conclusion of our interview with Kristen Carney.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:22] I know that in addition to that type of rolling the boulder up the mountain feeling depression is very isolating. And we touched on this earlier, I think a lot of people believe that they're alone when they suffer those or they're a burden to those that they're around. And I think it makes sense. You and I talked about this pre-show to have a physical list of the people that care about you, that want to support you. Can you take us through this? This is almost like a practical exercise that I think is probably very useful.

Kristen Carney: [00:34:51] Yeah, I think it's really important to have things written down before you fall into your hole because it's almost like that movie. Oh God, what was he name? It was about Alzheimer's with the actress of red hair. But she would leave herself notes because she had Alzheimer's and would know where the pen was or where the whatever was. I think when you have depression, when you fall into this hole, you have to have notes and reminders. They're preset for you so that you don't have to try to struggle to get it in the moment. So I think writing down a list of people who care about you and who are there for you and having that list with their contact. I mean obviously we have cell phones, we don't really need to write down numbers, but having readily available contact information so that you don't have to, when you're feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders and you're feeling like you have bricks on your feet, you don't have to -- it's basically eliminating a step. So already having this in place, and I want people on the list. I mean, if I were to do, I actually haven't written this list, which I should, I should again take my own advice, but I've talked about it before, and I think having people on the list that go beyond just your sister or your friend, but people that cared about you at one point in your life and it may seem unrealistic to reach out to them, but I always think about this teacher I had, his name was Mr. Marquis in high school and he thought I was the greatest thing ever. I would put him on my list and I would send him a Facebook message and just say, “Hey, if I ever hit you up, it's because I know you appreciate me as a human being and I may need to come do some day. And I know that's awkward and uncomfortable, but I think if you keep it a short list, it won't feel overwhelming,” and you know that when you're feeling low or dark, these people are there for you, and if you give them a heads up prior, it won't be coming out of left field that you need someone to lean on in the moment. And I think people want to be of service more than we think. And so it's not as burdenish as we would imagine it to feel for them.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:55] So essentially we create this list, set aside 30 minutes, not even probably 15 minutes, create a list that includes names, phone numbers, any email if they're out of town, and maybe why they're on the list.

Kristen Carney: [00:37:08] Exactly, why.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:08] Caring teacher, yeah. Why do we put why they're on the list? I noticed that in the instructions here, and I thought that was interesting.

Kristen Carney: [00:37:14] because it's a reminder to you that someone found value in you, because when you're in that dark place, you don't feel like you're a value to anyone, and so when it's already written out, like with my teacher, Mr. Marquis, he thought I was so funny and told me I was going to be famous one day. So I would write that on the list because when I'm super depressed and feeling essentially suicidal, I'm not going to remember that he said that about me. I'm going to remember all the worst things. So it's a way to highlight positives when your brain won't be able to do it for you.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:50] That's interesting. Okay. I think that's important and probably a key step that a lot of people don't do because when you're in a normal mood and you're making this list, you're like, “I know Mr. Marquis, I don't have to do that, I always remember how great he was.” And then you're in your down phase and you're like, “Everyone hates me. He was just humoring me. He didn't really like me. He just felt sorry for me or something like that.” Right?

Kristen Carney: [00:38:09] Exactly. Right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:11] Yeah. And so I think also it makes sense to tell people that they're on this list because if you get a call out of the blue and someone's like, “Hey, I'm depressed and you're on my lifeline rescue, they're like, “Ah, what? Let me process this.” But if you tell them, “Hey look, maybe in the next year, you might get a text or a call from me and it might be a little weird, but I'm counting on you because I've always appreciated your opinion.” Then they're thinking about you. And of course, and then when the call does come in, they're not like, “What is this weirdness?” They're like, “Oh, okay, you told me this might happen. I'm kind of mentally prepared for this.”

Kristen Carney: [00:38:45] Yeah. And some people might, part of me like this is where I questioned, I might lazy or am I just depressed? But part of me thought, well someone put me on that list, I'd be like, “Oh geez, here we go. I got to deal with this person.” But I really don't think that's the way people think. Like I said, I think people want to be of service more than we think they would. And recently the guy across the street car wouldn't start, and I was just waking up. I was exhausted. I was like, “Ugh, I felt really depressed.” And I go, “Oh geez, I got to help this freaking guy.” Because I know I have jumper cables in my car, he's a nice guy and I felt so burdened. But 30 seconds in to the interaction, all of a sudden I felt really good and I felt like it woke me up and I was appreciative to have this interaction with this other human being, and I realized it wasn't a burden. It started my day on the right foot, whereas I would have been started off on the wrong foot. I don't think it's adds like I said, burdenish as you may think off the bat.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:39:43] I think for a lot of people they're actually really uncomfortable being open about this and sharing and even to someone that they love. And I know this because I see this in my inbox. People writing to me and I'm like, “Hey, you said you live with your family,” and like and out there. Cool. So why? Why are you ready to meet? Not that I mind, but it just seems like I'm kind of a weird choice. So how can somebody start opening up? Maybe they're shy, maybe not shy, but maybe they're hesitant. Like, I don't want my parents to know they're going to feel like a failure. I'm going to feel like a bad son or a bad daughter. How do we get people opening up to those they love? Because I think that's important. I think a lot of people hide this and it just makes it worse.

Kristen Carney: [00:40:23] Yeah. Well, I think the first thing to do is to talk to someone that's not a friend or family member and this is where the Internet becomes your friend and not your foe. I think first opening up on what website like Reddit is really helpful because you'll go find other people that feel the same way as you and you can post anonymously and you can post your feelings and so you'll start being able to articulate your feelings a little better and have conversations and discussions. And so I think once someone gets comfortable actually putting it out there, then they can take the next step and go to perhaps a family member or someone that they're closer with because they've already articulated their feelings beforehand on a website or a message board or something to that extent.

[00:41:07] And I also think there are good resources like my podcast and other podcasts on depression that the hosts actually have these shows. I know, I do it, and Paul Gilmartin of the Mental Illness Happy Hour, he does it. He responds to every single email. I'm not as good as him, but people reach out to him and he becomes available to them. And so I think starting with people that you think you know, but you don't totally know, we'll make you more comfortable. So again, like sending an email to someone like me or him, opening up about your feelings and then working your way up to talking to your family. And that's the most intimidating, scary part. Even for me, someone who has a podcast on depression had a hard time talking to my mom about it the other day. So I get that it's difficult, but I think you know, when you're not in the state of the darkness, I think that's when you first set the stage for saying, “Hey, I'm okay today and because I'm okay, I'm in the right frame of mind to talk about this, but I have, I think I'm really depressed. I'm really struggling.” And when you're starting to talk to your family, when you're not in this overwhelmed, super sad state of mind, I think it's easier for them so that when the day comes, when you are more depressed and darker feeling, you can talk to them with them already being prepped. Does that make sense?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:26] Yeah, it does, it does. So how do we start small with the sharing? Do you have some concrete examples? For lack of a better term.

Kristen Carney: [00:42:35] It can be anything from saying something to just feeling like saying something like, I feel alone. I don't know how big that would feel to someone else. I think because I'm an open person that doesn't feel like I'm a very big step, I think maybe saying I feel alone would feel like a big step to someone else. So I think to start small you can just ask someone else how they're doing and then you can see if they want to breach the topic or breach any sort of vulnerability, and if they seem open to it, I think you don't emotionally vomit all over someone. It depends on who this person is, but you can just say, “I'm having a hard time” and I don't think saying I'm having a hard time is too overwhelming or too big, but I don't think saying anything smaller than that would be helpful because you don't want to lie, you don't want to pretend you're better than you are. So I think you don't want to start too small because then you'll come off like you're fine when maybe the problem is much bigger.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:39] Right. So it has to be sort of urgent enough to get attention, but not so overwhelming that the other person's like, “Oh my gosh, what do I do? This is horrible. I'm underqualified for this.”

Kristen Carney: [00:43:50] Exaclty.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:50] And then freaks out, yeah.

Kristen Carney: [00:43:52] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:52] Which is unlikely. Most people won't react to that, right?

Kristen Carney: [00:43:54] Right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:55] But still, yeah, I can understand wanting to balance that.

Kristen Carney: [00:43:57] But again, I think if you talk to someone when you're in a better frame of mind, you're not going to have this fatalist vibe and this horribly scary energy that's going to scare them away from talking about it. I think it'll be more conversational, more coffee talk like, and so yeah, I think if you want to minimize the scariness of it, you do it when you're in a better frame of mind.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:21] Any conversation about this subject would not be complete without a discussion of therapy. Finding a therapist, finding a psychiatrist, and I recommend all the time. And of course, people are like, “Yeah, of course.” But this is actually maybe not as easy as it sounds.

Kristen Carney: [00:44:38] No. It’s so hard.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:39] I think people who haven't done this think you just bust out the yellow pages and you're like, “Yeah, here's a billion of them. They're all the same.”

Kristen Carney: [00:44:46] That's exactly what I thought. And I was in for a rude awakening when I actually was trying to find a therapist and a psychiatrist. And the irony is that you can barely even get out of bed. So trying to climb this mountain of finding a psychiatrist or therapist feels like you're climbing Mount Everest. So I think the first step is -- well first of all, I know people have financial issues. So that for me kept me from looking for someone for a really long time, but I found out that there are sliding scale places so that you can get therapy that will be more friend friendly to your budget. I was going to a sliding scale place in Burbank for about two years and I was so grateful for that. So if you are having financial problems there, it doesn't mean you have to say goodbye to therapy. There are options. And so that's what I recommend for someone on a lower budget. And like anything else in life, it's hard work.

[00:45:47] The way I ended up finding my psychiatrist was through my general practitioner and the reason I had to find my psychiatrist through the general practitioner was because I had called so many psychiatrists and no one was returning my call, and this isn't me calling saying “I have shitty insurance. Do you accept this insurance?” This was me just saying, “Hey, I've struggled with depression. Please call me back. I'm looking to get help.” I got maybe one call back, maybe, out of all the psychiatrists I called, and so I ended up getting recommended through my regular doctor to this great psychiatrist. So I would ask for recommendations rather than blindly calling.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:29] That seems horrible, right? Like if you're in the business of seeing people who are depressed and you know how severe it is, you see it every day and then someone finally calls you, like you know that person spent days, weeks, months, building up the courage to do it. Finally had the strength to get out of bed and do it one day and you're like, “Look, I'm really busy, so no.” I'm just not going to even call them back and be like, “We're full.”

Kristen Carney: [00:46:50] I know my mind was blown. I thought in an industry that should be so sensitive to people's emotions seemed the least sensitive. It was really mind boggling.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:59] Yeah, it was. It's shocking and sad for me to hear that. And I think a lot of people might not -- it might be too hard for them to seek help on their own. So what do we do in that case? What happens if for like, I just can't even -- you know, the only reason I've got this podcast on my phone is it auto downloaded. Thanks Apple.

Kristen Carney: [00:47:21] Right. Well, unfortunately Apple can't get us a psychiatrist maybe one day, but—

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:24] May be one day.

Kristen Carney: [00:47:26] But I think this is when you have to ask someone for help. So I know when my brother was struggling a long time ago, he was so helpless and so unwilling to help himself. So I stepped in and helped him find a therapist. So I think that's when you have to recruit someone and that's hard to do, but they think if -- why I say it's hard to do and I also feel for people who don't have someone in their life to help them. So I think that's when you do call a 1-800 number for the Suicide Hotline to get recommendations and to talk you through steps to get help. So the frustrating part of this part of the podcast for me is that it's so difficult regardless of if you have money, you don't have money. Finding help is just hard and there's no way around it, and these are the steps that I learned on my own. So I hope they're somewhat helpful.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:24] Yeah, of course. Of course they are.

Kristen Carney: [00:48:26] Okay, I hope so, because I really, I've struggled with this as well and I've done research and I've talked to other people and I never seem to get the clean cut answer of like, this is how you do it. But there's also websites like psychology today that offer directories, and then there's institutes like psychodynamic and psychoanalytic that will give you therapists in your area. You have to be persistent. It's almost like finding a job. And it's so frustrating that this is the way it is, especially in our healthcare system, et cetera. But you have to be your own champion and you don't want to be your own champion when you're depressed. And so I think you have to find whatever little seedling you have left in you to use as strength to continue and to persevere to find someone to help you, and that's what I ended up doing, I wasn't getting any calls back. I had no one to help me and when I talked to my doctor, I just started sobbing. I broke down and I just said, “I just need help. I am so desperate.” And I think that took every ounce of strength for me to do, but you have to find it within you to do it because unfortunately the world can be cold. So if you don't have a friend or family member, you just have to use that seedling in your gut that's keeping you going.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:43] What about reviews? I know a lot of people when they look for doctors, they look for reviews and things like that. Is this worthwhile or is it just some rabbit hole that we're going to get sucked down and that delays us from getting help?

Kristen Carney: [00:49:54] I think you should really take reviews seriously because it is your mental health. It's not like, going to a restaurant and you're like, “Yeah, that's one bad meal and then you move on.” I did have one really, really terrible experience with a psychiatrist and I thought it was great because he called me back. So I was like, “Woohoo! This is great.” And then because I was lowering my standards because I was just looking for someone to call me back, I didn't really read his reviews and I didn't go into it trepidatiously at all, and then I ended up wasting thousands of dollars. He just wanted to swipe my credit card. He never ended up giving me an antidepressant. He put me on ADHD medication, which I had never struggled with ADHD before, that was news to me. It was just a terrible experience. He wouldn't refill something for the ADHD that I had now been like addicted to and that could have all been avoided if I had read his reviews. And he ended up retiring right toward the end of us work, quote unquote working together, and it seemed like he was really just trying to get money before he ended his career. But yeah, read reviews.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:02] How ridiculous is that? Like, “Oh, just take Adderall.” This depression thing is a fad.

Kristen Carney: [00:51:08] Exactly, exactly. And when I stood up for myself, he insulted me. And I mean, I don't think I'm the smartest person to even be within five miles of where I am right now. But I did give myself enough credit to trust my gut and to know that this didn't feel right. And when I did, he said, “You're not a doctor.” Like he was insulting my intelligence and saying, “You listen to the doctor if you don't listen to the doctor that I don't want to see you.” So it was like almost out of a bad like lifetime movie kind of experience. It was just so cheesy. It was like “You listen to your doctor.” You don't think for yourself and you don't have depression, and so again, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:49] That's bonkers. Like “Yeah, don't listen to your body, which is the final arbiter of whether or not something is really good for you.”

Kristen Carney: [00:51:56] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:57] Listen to me, I've spent 16 minutes evaluating your case and not listening half the time because I already think I know everything.

Kristen Carney: [00:52:03] Exactly. One of the medications he gave me, I ended up breaking out into a terrible rash and I was so excited that I got the rash because I had been objecting to the medication emotionally and then my body physically, it was like, “Hey look, it's not right.” And so I was so glad that that happened. But yeah, he had shitty reviews and I just never read them. Because especially this was before the Internet was as prevalent as it is now, it was there of course, but no one was on Yelp at the time or you know. So I think reading reviews is very important.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:36] Yeah. I think it's important to be comfortable with somebody in a position like this. I know that sounds super obvious, but I think a lot of people go to doctors where they're like, “Well, I don't really like this person, but I'm going to get my flu shot. And that's not ideal, but look, it's a flu shot. But when you're telling somebody, “Yeah, I've got all these huge problems in my life. I'm really emotionally sensitive.” And they're like, “Nah, you're just a high maintenance chick, you’ll get over it.” That's really bad. You have to be very comfortable being vulnerable with somebody in a position like this because you are actually vulnerable.

Kristen Carney: [00:53:05] Right, right. I realized that I was picking my psychiatrists or therapists, the way that a guy would pick someone to cut his hair, like guys don't really care about their hair, although they'll go wherever, Smart Cuts, whatever. And so I was being really flimsy with it, and so I think no one has your best interest in mind the way you do, so you just always have to remember that you have to look out for you.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:31] Kristen, thanks for being so vulnerable, open, honest. I think that's really -- I think that's really admirable. I know it's going to be really helpful because I've been tossing this topic around and it's like, “Yeah, I'd love to have a doctor or specialists to come on and discuss this because they're scientists,” but it's better also to have somebody who can say, “I'm in it right now. I’m in it,” not like, “Oh, I remember 10 years ago when I had it,” and I wrote a book about it, but like, “I'm in it and this is what's been working.”

Kristen Carney: [00:54:00] Yeah, I add street crowd because about an hour before we were taping this, I was curled up in a ball and my bed so it doesn't get more legit than this unfortunately.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:10] Unfortunately, yeah. Well anyway, you know that we're behind you. I've been friends with you for a really long time and honestly I didn't know about this. No big surprise there. I didn't really know about this until recently because when I go and do your show or whatever, before it was mentally chill and it was all about that, when I was doing other shows, like Ask Women with you and Marnie, we're just all joking around. So that really does illustrate the point that, you don't necessarily know who's dealing with this because when you see them, they're curating your experience because they don't want to push you away.

Kristen Carney: [00:54:43] Exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:43] Among other reasons.

Kristen Carney: [00:54:44] Exactly, even Stevie who was talking to me constantly about her depression still had curated her image to me because I wouldn't have imagined in a million years that she would have taken her own life because we would talk about depression, but she would be funny about it and silly and witty and introspective, but like not in a dark way. And so you just don't know what goes on behind closed doors really.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:08] Thanks Kristen.

Kristen Carney: [00:55:09] Thanks for having me.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:12] So candid conversation there right, Jay?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:55:14] Definitely. I love talking about this stuff on the show because I've had my bouts with it and it's near and dear to me to get this information out there and Kristen is a great resource for that, and her story is just heartbreaking.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:28] Yeah. I mean, it shows you how many people in the country, in the world are affected by this because it's not just the immediate family of somebody or the person themselves, of course. It's every -- there's this sort of ripple effect that everyone's affected by whether we know it or not. So it's an important topic and most of us keep quiet about it out of shame or whatever other reasons. So I appreciate her coming on and being cool about being so candid and open. I don't think she knows any other way, honestly. So a great big thank you to Kristen Carney. Her show is called Mentally Chill, we'll link to that in the show notes as well. Tell me your number one takeaway here from Kristen Carney. I'm @jordanharbinger on both Twitter and Instagram.

[00:56:10] This show is produced in association with PodcastOne and this episode was co-produced by Jason “Sunshine” DeFillippo, and Jen Harbinger Show notes by Robert Fogarty worksheets by Caleb Bacon, and I'm your host Jordan Harbinger. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should hopefully be in every episode. So please share the show with those you love, share the show with those you don't, share the show with those who need your love. How's that for today? We've got a lot more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you, and in the meantime do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time.

[00:56:46] Hey everybody. Thanksgiving is finally here, and PodcastOne is your home for the best cooking podcasts to help you around the kitchen. Wednesdays means a heaping helping of celebrity Chef Rick Bayless on The Feed, which I had creative name. I'll get to give you that. Along with a side of, this is my favorite one, forked up a thug kitchen podcast. I should just do their VO because I can lean into it. Top it off with a slice of Richard Blais with Starving for Attention. Damn, that's a good name too. I don't have a good name. They got a good name. Every Tuesday. Happy Thanksgiving from everyone here at the Jordan Harbinger Show and at PodcastOne and check out these great shows every week on PodcastOne or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.