Stable mental health during the COVID-19 quarantine: Is it possible? Within the span of a few months, the whole world as we know it has changed. Restaurants and stores have shut down. Businesses have closed their doors. You quite possibly have lost your job. How are you holding up? If you’re feeling the sting, we empathize. We’re feeling it too. Join us to discuss the pain of quarantine, how it’s changed our lives and what we can do to protect our mental health as well as our physical health. Click the player below to listen!
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Computer Generated Transcript for “COVID-19- Insanity” Episode
Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.
Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast. And here are your hosts, Jackie Zimmerman and Gabe Howard.
Gabe: Hey, everybody, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not Crazy podcast. And also what represents quarantine, I think we’re on day 17, maybe by the time this airs day? Day? They’re all running together. Oh, yeah. That’s my co-host, Jackie. I just, if anybody cares.
Jackie: That rambling guy over there, that’s Gabe. I saw a meme this week that was, I’m gonna botch it, but like, welcome to March 97th. And I was like, yeah, it feels like we’ve been in March for about two years.
Gabe: It’s there, is it? I don’t even have words for this. And and I, Gabe but doesn’t have words
Jackie: Right.
Gabe: For this. And we prepare. We’re podcasters. We think about this shit a lot. Like we do this professionally for a living. And the best that I could come up with is, ah, we’re quarantined, and I don’t like it. That’s really what it all boils down to. Like we should just end the show right now. Thanks, everybody, for listening to the Not Crazy Podcast. We’re quarantined and they don’t like it. Tune in next week when there’s still quarantine and they still don’t like it.
Jackie: Yeah. Gabe, how are you? Like,
Gabe: Not well.
Jackie: How are you doing?
Gabe: Not good, not good. I want to be as open and honest as possible without, like, scaring my mom. This is the most mentally unhealthy I have ever been since reaching recovery. This is unchartered territory for me. This is unprecedented. This I don’t even know what to say. And I’m I even I’m like, oh, well, Gabe, you’re being very dramatic. But here’s the thing, my coping skills are all now illegal and I say illegal. And it’s not literally illegal. I’m not trying to catastrophize. I feel like that I should put like a big asterix up for that.
Jackie: But you could get a fine.
Gabe: Everything’s closed. They’re not best practices. Yeah, but
Jackie: People are getting arrested
Gabe: I don’t want
Jackie: For violating these orders in Michigan.
Gabe: All right. It’s illegal, every coping skill that Gabe Howard has to manage bipolar and anxiety disorder are now against the law.
Jackie: Like what?
Gabe: Like leaving the house, like going and sitting and people watching, like distracting myself by working in public. By being able to leave the house. I’m not an introvert in any way. Like in zero way. I once took that test. The Myers Briggs, I think, and the person who administered it said, wow, you’re the only person that’s ever gotten like a perfect score on extroversion. It’s not a, I’m not trying to. It’s just it’s just who I am as a person. I just I really like people, and I like them so much, I need them in areas that maybe other people don’t. Like, again, I’m now having trouble formulating words because I’ve talked to the same people so much.
Jackie: Yeah.
Gabe: They’re now annoyed with me and they love me. I don’t mean this in a mean way. They’re just like, you already told us that story. I’m like, I know. I like to tell every story 50 times. And that means I need 50 different people. I am the guy who randomly talks to people in public. I am. I just am.
Jackie: So I have thoughts and I have ideas and I have feelings and I don’t know where to start. So I’m going to start with feelings first. First of all, I’m sad that you’re feeling that way. I mean, there’s no other eloquent way, like it bums me out. That you’re having a really hard time. That’s hard to hear. Hard to watch. Hard to listen to all of that. Same samesies. Right?
Gabe: I could use a hug. But once again, illegal.
Jackie: Also, I’m not a hugger, so there’s that,
Gabe: You hug me.
Jackie: I am an introvert. I hate everybody, but even I am struggling and I’m struggling in the way that where a lot of people are like, let’s meet up on Zoom and have a check in and connect in. Like, let’s do let’s try to be social even when we can’t be physically social. And I’m avoiding all of that stuff. And part of that is because every conversation that I have now is talking about this. It’s reliving it. It’s diving into it. It’s talking about how much it sucks, how how bad it is and how scary it is. And I just don’t want to keep doing that because it’s making it really hard. So I find myself kind of isolating even more than normal because like every conversation I have for my business, it’s always like, hey, are you hanging in there? How’s everything going over there? Every conversation I have with a friend is like, oh, my God, are you okay? Are you still working or are you still healthy? Like, are you like all of these terrible conversations that I feel like I’m having 24-fucking-7. So I’m just trying to not talk to people, which is not good. Not good. I know it’s not good. It’s like isolation upon isolation. So
Gabe: It’s
Jackie: That’s what I’m
Gabe: All
Jackie: Doing.
Gabe: Anybody wants to talk about. And.
Jackie: It’s all anybody can talk about. I mean, what else is there to talk about?
Gabe: So that actually that that’s. Huh? Huh? It never occurred to me that the reason that people were stuck on this subject is because you’re right. There’s nothing else to talk about. People aren’t hanging out with their friends and families. So there’s no friends and family gossip and/or drama.
Jackie: There’s no sports.
Gabe: They’re not going to work. So we can’t complain about work. Those of us who are going to work, they’re scared or frustrated or. Or.
Jackie: We all think we’re like one day away from losing our jobs. Pretty much.
Gabe: We do. We do. There’s no sports to talk about. I mean, it’s fascinating. But the only thing that really took America’s public consciousness off of the coronavirus for a few days was that Tiger King documentary
Jackie: Right.
Gabe: On Netflix. But I can kind of see why. Because we needed something big, new, different and of course, national. It needed to be national. There’s no public interest stories anymore because the only thing that’s happening in the world is related to COVID-19 and the coronavirus.
Jackie: Remember when I was like, I’m so tired of hearing about the election? I wish we could stop hearing about the election. What election? Are we even still having an election? Is it getting postponed? Like, who is? Is he just gonna be our president until we die now? Because we’re never having another election? Like, I just, I don’t know. I feel
Gabe: The primaries in Ohio were cancelled. I shouldn’t say cancelled. I apologize
Jackie: Postponed, right?
Gabe: The primaries in Ohio, where I live, were postponed. But this is unprecedented. Our election
Jackie: Yeah.
Gabe: Was postponed. And of course, everybody wants to talk about that. And I kind of have a no-politics rule. There are very few people in the world, very few, like I can count them on one hand, that I will discuss politics or religion with because it’s so divisive. Right? I don’t. I have so much in common with people that why do I want to sit down and discuss something that we disagree with and it always devolves into hatred and anger. So I don’t even have that like, like, yeah, I got. Jackie.
Jackie: So.
Gabe: I just have nothing. I have nothing. My business is decimated. My my wife can’t support me because she’s scared, and, by the way, the breadwinner now, I just you know, all those people that were like, well, Gabe lives off his wife. Well, congratulations. You all got to be right in the end. You all got to be right.
Jackie: In the end of a pandemic, you know, like, I don’t know, Gabe, I want to, like, build you up and be like, no, that’s not true and you’re amazing and you pull your weight. And I mean, none of that matters right now because like
Gabe: You’re right.
Jackie: Like, none of it matters.
Gabe: Listen to what you just said. None of it matters. And listen, I agree with you. Like, if we reverse roles, if you became Gabe and I became Jackie, I’d just be like, really? That’s what you’re fucking worried about?
Jackie: No, no, no.
Gabe: I kind of want you to say that to me. Really? That’s what you’re fucking worried about? What people think of you? Literally 200,000 people are gonna die. And that’s your concern? That people think that your loving wife, who loves you, who has a job right now that’s stable while you’re safe. Oh, my God. Public perception is Gabe’s number one concern during a pandemic. But fuck you. It is.
Jackie: Ok. Well,
Gabe: I don’t know why. I can’t help it.
Jackie: Good tirade, but that was actually not what I meant.
Gabe: Well, it should have been.
Jackie: What I meant was like, I can build you up. Like I could sit here for the next hour and tell you how great you are and how effective you are and how like you really are a partnership with Kendall and all. But like what I say to you isn’t gonna matter right now. I’m not saying your feelings about this don’t matter, but I’m saying like I have one. I have no evidence to back it up any more. I can’t be like, look at all the speeches you have planned. I can’t
Gabe: Right.
Jackie: Do that. Right? I can’t be like.
Gabe: They’re gone.
Jackie: That’s not true. Look at all this other evidence that we would normally have to support that. I don’t have it. So why I’m saying it doesn’t matter, because it would just basically be blowing smoke at this point. And instead of being like, Gabe, stop it. Don’t feel that way. I’d much rather say like I feel you and I’m sorry that you feel that way, but your feelings are valid. And like, fuck everybody else. Right? I still want to give a little bit of fuck everybody else. Because you were doing it. You were, right? Like an unprecedented
Gabe: Yeah.
Jackie: Global pandemic. It’s pretty hard to be like. Yeah. But until this one thing until this one thing, everybody was doing a lot of shit. Like we all were doing a lot of things. I never even fathomed the idea of my business failing in the next year, because I was slaying it, I was doing amazing. And now I’m like, I might not have a business in three months at all.
Gabe: But remember what I said in the beginning where my coping skills are just they’re all decimated right now? One of my coping skills, Jackie, is, well, I’m a failure. OK. Gabe, why are you a failure? Well, because nobody hires me to speak. OK, Gabe, let’s pull up your calendar. Oh, look, this person has hired you to speak. This person has hired you to speak. This person has hired you to speak. Well, but I don’t do a good job at them and they would never hire me again. OK, Gabe, hang on. We have evaluations at these conferences and they send them to you. Here’s your evaluations. Nine out of ten. Nine out of ten. Nine out of ten. Oh, look, this person says you talk too much. Okay. Just whatever. This is how the process of dealing with, you know, severe anxiety and racing thoughts and paranoia work. But let’s focus on that last one. Paranoia. I live in constant fear that the world is going to end. And I thought largely that I meant Gabe’s world. I now have this cause to think, oh, shit. You know, I don’t talk about politics for a myriad of reasons. And should
Jackie: Gabe?
Gabe: I have? Is this the fault of the pandemic response being defunded? Is this or is this nothing like is it just this is just life? I just. And that’s the other thing. The news. Whatever you believed before the pandemic started, just turn on the news, and there is a news station that will validate your belief. So it makes it even more difficult to self-soothe because it’s hard to know who’s right. I mean, remember a month ago when this was all a hoax? And now we’re all quarantined in our fucking houses.
Jackie: Well, first of all, fuck should. Stop shoulding all over yourself. OK? No more should I have done this? Should I have done that? Because none of it is something you can change. Thinking about it won’t make you feel any better and the outcome will still be the same. So always fuck should. Never say should. Quit shoulding on yourself.
Gabe: I love that, by the way, that that might be my new thing. Gabe, what’s wrong? I should have on myself. I should have’d all over the place.
Jackie: I have some ideas and these are off the cuff, so they may be horrible ideas, but here are things that I think maybe could help. Again, maybe they’re bad. I don’t know. But first of all, you like people watching. You can still do that in parks or you can go for drives. Adam and I go for drives. We’ve gone for drives for years. He loves to go for drives. What about going for drives?
Gabe: So I don’t want to be like the person that like every everything that you give me, I’m going to like crap all over and say, no, that’s not what
Jackie: Well,
Gabe: I want because these are excellent ideas.
Jackie: Crap all over it. If you need to.
Gabe: Well, I want to be very clear that these are excellent ideas. But remember, there is a reason that I didn’t pick going for drives when I had all the options. So the best that I can do is not the best, which means I’m not going to get the best results.
Jackie: Right.
Gabe: Right.
Jackie: But you can get some results.
Gabe: Yes, I’m doing the things to get some results. I still like. OK. Before the world went poof, here’s my routine in the morning. I would set an alarm because sleep hygiene is very important and I would get up at the same time every day. I would then feed the dog, get dressed, let the dog out, and then I would go to a fast food restaurants and I would order Diet Coke and I would sit there for a couple of hours and drink my free refills of Diet Coke and use my phone or my laptop to do like basic work. You know, answer emails, check the stats of the podcast, you know, send verifications for like all the stuff that you can do, like at a fast food restaurant interspersed with random conversations from the other regulars and the staff and on and on and on. Then after that, for a couple hours, I’d be like, OK, well, now I need to get like deep down and record a podcast. So then I would go home, OK? That was before the pandemic, right? Following along so far? OK, so now after the pandemic, what I do is I get up at the same time every day. I get dressed, I take care of the dog. I do all the stuff. I get in my car and I drive to the same fast food restaurant, which of course, is only drive thru.
Gabe: And I go through the drive thru and I order multiple drinks so that I can bring them all home. So I’m still getting up at the same time, doing the same home routine and still going to the same the same fast food restaurant and getting my Diet Coke. I just now drive it home. But before before when I came home, I went straight up to my home office, used my big multi-screen computer, the whole nine yards. Now I sit at my kitchen table with my device and my Diet Coke, which sort of kind of feels like I’m in public. It’s not. I’m not in public. There’s no people to watch, et cetera. But I haven’t moved into my office yet. So that is the best that I can. That is the best I can get right now, because obviously I can’t sit in public, but I still need to get dressed to go out and get the Diet Coke. I still need to get up at the same time every day. And I don’t move to my home office and still I do all that stuff. And that’s supposed to, I don’t know, like approximate sitting in a fast food restaurant.
Jackie: Ok.
Gabe: So so yeah, it’s second best
Jackie: For sure.
Gabe: Or third best. There’s no people.
Jackie: But I am going to say this,
Gabe: Where are the people?
Jackie: I’m going to say this, and I think that it’s probably not going to be helpful. But you’re trying to replicate the routine that you had. Right?
Gabe: Yeah, I’m trying to replicate the thing that has worked for years.
Jackie: Right. So what if knowing that that can’t happen, we work on a new routine, that is something you can do every day. So the effort of a routine is still there, but the outcome might be different, like the outcome, meaning like you’re not going to answer emails. You’re not going to do this. Like, I don’t have a routine. I hate routines. I’m literally a nightmare. I wake up whenever and then like, don’t do. It’s bad. But I have thought about now that I have like I don’t even have that much more time. But just like I have different opportunities now, like, do we wake up at 7:30 and take a walk every morning? We say we’re going to we don’t. Well, let’s just say that we did. That would be something new and different. Right? Part of the routine, and I know that your routine has been strategically designed to help you manage bipolar and everything else in your life that you cling to your routine for. So what if we just make a different routine? Like what if it’s a drive? What if you host Facebook lives to connect with people instead of, like having phone calls? I know you’re doing interviews like some zoom interviews, I saw the one with your sister. But like, what if the routine is different and the outcome is not Gabe is super productive? And he’s getting jobs and he’s doing all this stuff? What if the routine is Gabe is just existing and he’s still doing it well?
Gabe: We’re going to step away to hear from our sponsors. We’ll be right back.
Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.
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Jackie: And we’re back talking about how everything sucks, but we’re hanging in there.
Gabe: First off, thank you for giving me credit that I forgot about. You’re right, I’m doing a shit ton on Zoom. We’re doing stuff on Psych Central every Friday right now at 1 o’clock. Please tune in. One o’clock on Psych Central’s Facebook page. It is facebook.com/PsychCentral. You should absolutely check that out. It’s really cool. It’s a panel discussion. Obviously, Jackie and I are always on The Mighty. The second and fourth Tuesdays, right? It’s Tuesday? Second and fourth Tuesdays?
Jackie: I don’t even know what day it is now. But.
Gabe: Yeah, we kick ass. And so you’re right. I’ve been making great videos through a grant with the National Alliance on Mental Illness – Tennessee. You are right. I am trying to make lemons out of lemonade. But here is what the pandemic reminds me of. You ever been stuck in the airport, Jackie?
Jackie: Yeah, actually.
Gabe: And I think many of us have and here is what happens pretty much to me all the time. So I’m going to leave it at noon. Right? Going to leave at noon. And there’s a delay. All right. And they say, well, we’re going to we’re going to delay by a half an hour. All right. That’s 12:30. So I keep my ass in my spot. And then at 12:30, they’re like, eh, we’re gonna leave by 1:00. And before you know it, you leave at 4:00. So you had four hours where you did nothing. And when you get home, you say to your wife, hey, before I eat dinner, I have to get this work done. And she immediately fires back at yo, you sat in an airport for four fucking hours. Why didn’t you get it done? Oh, my God, you’re already late. Why didn’t you get it done? And the answer is because you didn’t know you had four hours. Everything was in half an hour chunks. And the thing that you had to do takes a whole hour to get done. Building routines is a multi-week process when this whole thing started. I didn’t think that I had many weeks, you know, partial shutdowns, work from home, schools closed. You know, social distancing, you know, big events were going to be canceled. This has all happened, if we remember. And it’s hard to remember. You know, first, we’re not going to gather in groups of more than a hundred. OK. Well, yes, this will decimate my business and then I cannot speak anymore. But my day to day is going to look the same. You know, maybe I’ll have a longer wait when I go out to dinner because they’re only seating 100 instead of their normal hundred and fifty. But then it just slowly clamped down. Now malls are closed. Whoever thought the mall would close? I remember the last blizzard, and the mall was still open.
Jackie: I don’t know how any malls are still in business. So.
Gabe: Well, that’s a whole nother can of worms.
Jackie: Ok. But I’m going to
Gabe: But maybe.
Jackie: Let me but you.
Gabe: Maybe if I would have started this three weeks ago, I’d have odds.
Jackie: Ok. But.
Gabe: But I didn’t know I needed to start this three weeks ago. Nobody did.
Jackie: Gabe, but you know, now, right? We now know it’s gonna be all of April. The words have come down. This whole Easter bullshit deadline is over, we’re saying all of April. OK, so now you have four weeks in front of you that, you know, is gonna be the same.
Gabe: This is helpful. Sincerely. Now that we know that it’s all of April, this is helpful. This gives me more time. And the fact that it could stend out past April. Stend out? Is stend out a word?
Jackie: No, definitely not.
Gabe: The fact that did, the fact that it could extend out past April. You are right. And the weather is warming up. And my wife and I are trying to take more walks and listen, I’m gonna survive. Jackie, we’re gonna survive. We’re all gonna survive. Everybody listening to this, we’re gonna make it. But it bothers me to my core how we’re just not focusing on mental health because we’re all terrified of our physical health. And I’m hearing things from people like, wow, Gabe, you know, your mental health isn’t that important considering we’re in a pandemic. This is indicative of a larger problem that we have in America where we separate mental and physical health. Right now, we’re all terrified about our physical health. So therefore, that’s all we’re concentrating on and fuck people with mental illness. Well, truthfully, we kind of feel that way already. But that’s another show entirely. I just think that we need to be concentrating on the entirety of a person. Just because you’re physically healthy doesn’t mean that you’re living your best life. If you are mentally unhealthy, we want to fix that. We want to be like a whole person. This is the problem with looking at these in two different silos.
Gabe: I think we should just focus on health. If you are mentally stable but you can’t walk, that’s not a good trade. Let’s fix the not-walking thing. Let’s figure out ways around this. We don’t ignore them. Wow, you’re no longer suicidal. So it’s OK that your legs broke? No. We want to stop you from being suicidal. We want to fix your anxiety, bipolar, depression, OCD, whatever. And we want to get you a cast for your legs that can heal as well. I just feel like we already weren’t paying attention to mental illness in this country. We already were not paying attention to it. And now we’re really not paying attention to it. I have article after article of people showing up in emergency rooms, suicidal for mental health reasons and just being sent away because after all, it’s all about the pandemic now. This is horrific. This is horrific. As a mental health advocate. I just want to climb in a hole and die. I don’t I don’t even know how I’m going to a mental health advocate my way out of this.
Jackie: Everything you’re saying is super valid. 100 percent. I’m gonna but you, though. But this is the experience of every disabled person in America until the history of time. Disability and chronic illness.
Gabe: Yeah, and now it’s worse.
Jackie: Who are chronically isolated, who have poor mental health and nobody has given a shit, the whole world is finally kind of starting to see this. And I’m not saying what you’re saying is wrong, but there is a certain part of me that’s like, OK, now imagine if this was your life all the time, though.
Gabe: Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. I think all of our listeners get it. We’ve all been shit on because we have mental illness. We’ve all been stigmatized and discriminated against. I just feel like it’s even worse now. And this is not gonna be a popular statement among the well in this country. But they don’t listen to our show. So I feel like I’m gonna get away with it. Nobody gave a shit about anxious people other than anxious people. Until now, suddenly everybody’s panic, worries, stress and anxiety is like, oh, no, oh, no, everybody’s anxious. We must calm them down and help them in some way. Well, what about all the people with anxiety? Three months ago, did you want to calm them down? No. They were fake and dramatic bullshit.
Jackie: I’m not defending anybody, but it’s easy to see the cause and the effect, an outright pandemic, scary anxiety for the world, who functions with high anxiety the way that we do. It’s hard to see the cause. You can’t see it because most of the time there isn’t a cause. Spoiler right. It’s just like a thing that we think is a thing and it turns into a thing. This is not an invisible thing. This is something we are all experiencing. I don’t know. I mean we ended the last show on this about like not feeling super hopeful that it’s going to change anything. I still feel that way. I don’t think everybody’s going to come out of this and be like, you know what? Anxiety is real. We should really take this shit seriously. Nope. That’s not going to happen once everybody stops being anxious. They’re gonna go back to their normal lives. Right? I don’t think that we have like a clear course of action here. It’s not like do X and X will happen. And I think honestly, maybe this is also unpopular. Focusing on the fact that nobody is treating or helping or supporting people with mental illness right now is not going to help you, Gabe. I know you are a mental health advocate, but right now this is about Gabe’s well-being. And maybe that means like not focusing on them.
Gabe: It’s hard not to focus on it
Jackie: I know.
Gabe: Because it’s all the whole world. I don’t even have a distraction. Again, I’m going to go back to how we opened the show. I can’t go to a movie. I can’t go out to dinner with friends. I can’t go on a trip. I can’t go away for the weekend. I can’t. I can’t. I had my granddaughter over a weekend ago because her parents needed help and relief and food and and just help babysitting and money. And people gave me shit. I was just like I had a couple of hours of normal where we ate pizza and played cards. And for a couple of hours I forgot. And then as soon as it was over, people were like, well, why the fuck do you do that? I don’t, I don’t have words for this. I just I don’t even have words. I feel like I get attacked no matter what I do. And of course, I felt that way beforehand. So this doesn’t help. We have a policy that we’re now going to throw out the window here on Not Crazy where we always try to end on a positive.
Gabe: There’s not a positive. I can’t come up with one. There isn’t one, Jackie. I agree with everything that you’re saying. And listen, please listen to this show like five or six times, Jackie is killing it. She’s got great advice. We can’t change the past. Don’t should yourself. Change your routines. This is all excellent. That’s the most positive that I can get. I am telling you that people who are mentally healthy are struggling hard with their mental health right now, which means that those of us who are in the best of times struggling with our mental health are even worse. Please, God, reach out. Don’t let a pandemic wipe us out, because I do feel that this is going to end. I do feel that we have shit to do. But for right now, just fucking cry in a corner. I’m serious. I honestly, that’s probably been the most helpful thing that I’ve done this whole fucking time is just cry in a corner. I can’t. It’s all I got. Cry in a corner. Cry in a corner. That’s that’s that’s my advice.
Jackie: I mean, you can cry in a corner. It’s OK, I give you permission if you want permission. I don’t know if you do or not, but you know, whatever cry in a corner I am with you that I you know, I’ve told you, I don’t think we should always end the show on a positive note. But I feel the need just to drop a little just a little nugget of positivity in there of everything is shit. It’s going to be shit for a while in the future. Positivity is coming. But you can use this time to work on finding other coping mechanisms to supplement until you can get back to your other ones. And that might mean thinking very outside of the box. It might mean maybe you’ve learned to paint, Gabe. Maybe all that bullshit that people are saying, you know, all these like online classes. Maybe it’s cooking, maybe it’s painting, maybe it’s journaling. Maybe it’s become a vlogger. Right? Like, I’m not saying like prepare so the next time this happens, you have better coping skills because, again. But what else do you have going on? Right? You can try other things and maybe you find something you like doing. Maybe it’s meditation. Maybe it’s taking long walks. Maybe it’s, I don’t know, listening to podcasts, maybe it’s a myriad of other things. And this goes out to anybody listening to, like, don’t be afraid to try something that maybe sounded really stupid a week ago. Because what do you got to lose? What do you have to lose at this point?
Gabe: Truer words, Jackie, have never been spoken. In order to compromise, Jackie and I are going to say one positive thing about our lives right now so that we can still end the show on a positive note. Jackie, do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?
Jackie: I will go first. I truly can think of no better person to be quarantined with other than my husband. He is amazing.
Gabe: Jerk. Now, if I don’t say that, I can think of no better person to be quarantined with than my wife. I thought that was assumed. So that is not my positive
Jackie: Well.
Gabe: Because that’s just my baseline. All the time I you know, my, mine is about my wife, too, but not so gushy, mushy. My wife is 10 years younger than me and for the entire time we’ve been married, I’ve been trying to get her to watch movies from my childhood. I was like, watch this movie, watch this movie. Of course, we never have time because we’re busy. We’re stuck. So I’m finally getting her to watch like Clerks and Kevin Smith and all the Kevin Smith movies that were really big when I was in high school. So, of course, that would have made her like 8. So not appropriate. But it’s been really nice to share my formative years with her in a way that we just didn’t have time for before because there are just so many movies that we like together. Why force somebody to watch a movie that they have just zero interest in? But it’s been pretty cool. She finally has met Jay and Silent Bob.
Jackie: Wow.
Gabe: She likes them. Do you like Jay and Silent Bob?
Jackie: They’re not my favorite, but I like Kevin Smith, like I like Chasing Amy and I like Clerks, and, you know, I like the franchise.
Gabe: She’s never seen Chasing Amy, Clerks, etc. So Chasing Amy, I think is up next on the gonna watch list. I can’t wait to see what she thinks of it. Jackie, thanks for hanging out with me and giving me some semblance of normal because doing the podcast with you, this is this is normal. So thank you. Thank you for being you.
Jackie: Well, you know, all I can be is me, but I don’t know. This conversation is important and I think it’s important to have it. And I think that other people feel the same way. And yeah, I hate this phrase that I’m about to say, but like, hang in there. Just keep doing whatever you can because we don’t know what’s next. We can’t plan for shit right now. So just take it day by day. Hang in there. Make every day different if that feels good or don’t. Whatever feels good everyday, do that.
Gabe: Yeah, give yourself a break. I agree. Listen up, everybody, please, please, please take care of yourself. But since you are quarantined and you have a ton of free time, now is the time to leave a review for the Not Crazy podcast. You could write a book of words because what are you going to do? Go to your reservation, movie, or sporting event? Your stuck. Share us on social media. Use your words and tell people why they should listen. Email each other. Whatever you do, do not write it down on a sheet of paper and gather in a large group because that’s still not okay. We’ll see everybody next week.
Jackie: Hang in there, everyone, take care of yourselves. Have a great week. I don’t know.
Announcer: You’ve been listening to Not Crazy from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. To work with Jackie, go to JackieZimmerman.co. Not Crazy travels well. Have Gabe and Jackie record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details.
This article originally appeared on Psych Central as Podcast: Quarantine and Declining Mental Health.
