1319: Is Your Loving Wife Living a Closeted Life? | Feedback Friday

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Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with feedback

Friday producer, my increasingly feral and ativistic partner in crime, Gabriel Masrahi. Speaking of which, I pulled what appeared to be some kind of tiny, I don't know, marine animal out of my foot yesterday. Actually, it was two of them. So, yeah, perfect nicknames. Yeah, that is incredibly disgusting, but I'm glad I'm not the only one with weird travel

“foot stories. I was actually thinking about you with the puddle and where was that Morocco Egypt?”

I was like, if Jordan can survive a full-on foot infection from stepping in stagnant, was it camel-piss? It wasn't a foot infection. I had a blood infection. I had staff in my blood. God, dude, if you could deal with that, that was hospital antibiotics when I got home, basically. If you could deal with that with the help of some bootleg Egyptian pharmacy meth, then I think I can dig these right-aid tweezers into my ankle for a few minutes and dig whatever

weird little white mollusk is in my heel and ankle. I'll be okay.

That's the power of story right there. The glad it could inspire you with my incredible stupidity.

You do it every week, my man. I am honored. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turned their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is

“to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker during the week we have long-form”

conversations with a variety of amazing folks. Former cult members, armed traffickers, former jihadis, hostage negotiators, this week we had an episode with my friend Guillom DeLood who essentially goes into the middle of nowhere, contacts tribes and tries to live with them, not speaking their language, brings a chicken and a bow and arrow and basically nothing else. Really, super interesting guy with a super interesting, I don't know what you would call it, Hobby.

We also did a skeptical Sunday last Sunday on Homelessness. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites and write this existential carousel to the wheels fall off to carousels have wheels. I don't know. Played skiers, pistons, however, those babies turned. Lots to get into today. Let's dive right in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mail bag? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. My wife all call her

Jen and I have been together for almost five years. Cool. That won't be weird or confusing for me at all. We met in the summer of 2021 and moved in together that November. Since we've been together, Jen hasn't been very interested in intimacy or affection. When we started dating, things were intimate and affectionate enough, but not quite where I'd hope they'd be. After about a year, she admitted to me that she was raped as a teenager. Oh, man. That's so sad. Very intense

thing to hear. Even more intense thing to go through, of course. I'm so sorry. I empathized with her and encouraged her to seek therapy. She resisted for some time, but eventually went, though it didn't last long as the therapist was not a good match. And it turned her off from therapy for another couple of years. I was disappointed, but figured she might just need time to warm up to the idea. Yeah, that's unfortunate. I wonder if this therapist was so bad that it really turned her off

“or if she just maybe didn't want to have to continue talking about this stuff with somebody new?”

Hmm, must be really hard, though. Yeah, I can only imagine, but my god, you go through something like that. You got to talk about it with somebody. A few years went by and we got married in

October 2023. Intimacy levels hadn't changed. When we were intimate, it was always me who initiated

and did the work. I tried introducing new things and making her more comfortable, but it was all met with dissentress. I attributed this to her sexual trauma and didn't push it. Eventually, we had our son in December 2024 about 16 months ago. I kept encouraging her to find a therapist, and she finally found one she liked. Nice, that's a way to do it, not too heavy-handed, but consistently supportive. Her therapist suggested she get tested for OCD, and she was eventually

diagnosed and is now an exposure and response prevention therapy, ERP. For those unfamiliar, OCD doesn't usually look the way it does on TV. It typically involves an intrusive thought or obsession that takes over your mind until you perform some action, a compulsion, to relieve it. It manifests differently in everyone and for a time I thought her issues with intimacy could be attributed to the OCD diagnosis. We also started couples therapy around this time, which has been great. Our couples

therapist has experienced with OCD, and we've been able to see IDI on many aspects of our relationship for the first time. Wow, that's huge. So glad you guys found someone good. After a few months of both

Recently, we started watching arrested development. Oh, so good, although I'm so curious what

“that has to do with intimacy, but go on. There are two married characters, Tobias and Lindsay,”

whose dynamics struck me as oddly familiar. They get along well, but Tobias consistently avoids intimacy. The joke being that he is a closeted gay man. You may see where I'm going with this. I've now started to wonder whether Jen might be gay. Ha, okay. It feels like the only explanation that fits everything. She actively seeks out women-only online communities and seems to avoid male friendships. She appears preoccupied with the idea of feeling "normal" attraction to me. She'll see women in

these groups post about feeling attracted to their husbands while watching them with their kids, and it devastates her. She spirals into anxiety that I have to talk her down from.

I also found threads from straight men married to closeted lesbians, and while there isn't a

wealth of information on this topic, the behaviors they described, mirror exactly what I'm experiencing with Jen. Fascinating. It's one theory, I guess. Virtually all of our close family are allies, so it seems the main obstacle to her coming out is the weight of dismantling the life we've built together, which I imagine is enormous. Yeah, that's so intense. I should mention that outside of intimacy, Jen and I genuinely get along really well. We laugh together, parent well as a team, and rarely fight

about anything else. That's part of what makes this so hard. The deeper issue is that I'm not sure Jen knows this about herself yet, or if she does, she hasn't accepted it. Either way, I sense she may be getting closer to understanding it. It's not fair it's either of us to remain in a marriage where attraction is one-sided, but I'm not angry with her. This clearly isn't something she understood when we married and how to child together. Yeah, that is incredibly compassionate of

“you man. That's going to make all the difference I think. I'm sure. If we do separate, I'm fully”

committed to co-parenting and maintaining a good relationship. My love for Jen hasn't disappeared. It's just changed. Wonderful. As wonderful as something like this can be. I know you're not supposed to confront a closeted person with your suspicions about their sexuality. I also don't want to create drama especially for our sons' sake. A separation done poorly could mean an ugly custody arrangement and more importantly, an unstable environment for a child who deserves to

grow up seeing his parents treat each other with kindness and respect. Ideally, I want us to be the kind of separated parents who still show up to birthday parties together, who don't speak poorly of each other and who make it clear to our son that both of his parents love him and love each other in their own way, just not in the way that a marriage requires. I also want to maintain my relationship with her family and I worry that initiating a separation without a

clear explanation will damage that trust. Dude, I gotta say I'm super moved by all of this. Do you know how few people think this way? It's really special. I hope your wife feels this too and she knows it's going to be okay. More than anything, I don't want you to feel exposed, judge, or blindsided. Whatever the truth turns out to be, she deserves to arrive at it with her dignity

“intact. I just don't know how to protect everyone at once. How do I broach the topic?”

And how do I initiate a separation? Signed trying to glean some advice on whether to deem that my marriage is losing steam because my wife for whom it's a tricky theme might be playing for the other team. Dang, you made your wife gay bro. No, I'm kidding. Sorry, I couldn't resist. There's a lot

going on here, man. Oh, a lot. A lot. First of all, I'm very sorry that your wife has struggled with

some very difficult things over the years. The tragic assault, OCD, the struggle with intimacy, everything that brings up. It's just a lot to work through for both of you. Like I said though, man, I'm so heartened by your lens on all this, really. I am. I know it's been hard. But I'm sure that having a spouse who's patient and understanding in all these ways that you are, I'm sure that's made a huge difference to her. You've gone to therapy. You've listened. You

guys have grown and along the way, I assume you've also invested in a foundation together that might allow you guys to have these bigger conversations one day. But you're right, coming right out and being like, are you gay? I mean, not completely off limits, but look, I'm sure you'd broach a topic in a loving and respectful way, but man, that's a delicate conversation. I don't envy you here. It might also not yield the best results if she's still grappling with some shame and

conflict around maybe being gay and hasn't come to her own conclusions yet. We also don't know for sure that she's gay. That's the other thing. I get that he's connecting these dots and the dots they make a lot of sense. But yeah, I'm not 100% convinced this is all about her orientation. Either. Even if it is what's going on, it's not the only thing. There's a trauma. There's anxiety.

Actively seeking out women only online communities, avoiding male friendships, that could be a person who's interested in women. It could also be a person who just doesn't feel safe with men and is struggling to feel at home in her marriage and she has all kinds of reasons not to feel safe with men. So maybe we need to make room for a few possibilities here. Yeah, she could be gay. She could be not gay. She could be sexual or asexual, traumatized, anxious,

or some combination thereof, all at the same time. She's a complex person with a number of complex experiences. I guess the question is if his ultimate goal is to separate, which it sounds

“like it is, then does he need Jen to tell him that she's gay? Or whatever label she wants to land on?”

Or are they at a point where whatever is going on with her? It's clear that something needs to change between them. That's where my head's at. He wants to be able to give people an explanation before he decides to separate. He wants to be on solid ground. He wants to be able to point to

something specific so everybody knows whether separating. But if she is gay, that's ultimately

for her to discover or recognize and it's up to her whether she wants to own it and when and that could take some time. But if we put aside the orientation piece, there are these symptoms, right? There's the intimacy gap, the anxiety, the shame, the preoccupation with normal. All of that is super relevant to the definition of their marriage. I don't know. My instinct is telling me that that's more important to focus on right now. I agree. And that's also what's going to help her

understand who she really is. So the safer approach and probably the more effective one is to continue inviting your wife to talk about all of this stuff with as much love and as little judgment as possible, which you are already doing. And help her see that whatever labels or answers or feelings she comes to, they're all welcome based on what you've shared as long as they feel true and move or closer to an authentic experience of herself. And is part of that conversation,

do you think it might be interested in women? It's not where I'd go first or too soon for the reasons that you just laid out. She can come to this in her own words in her own time. I feel like that would probably be ideal. Going right at it. Yeah, that might cause her to retreat and hide even more. It might. He knows her best. But if they get into more and more of this stuff and she starts sharing a number of things that clearly suggests she's gay. And he gets the sense that she's

circling the words, but she's like too afraid to say them or something and they've built a good foundation and it feels appropriate. At a certain point, I guess he could say something like, thank you for sharing all of this with me. I know it's not easy to talk about. I'm just here to listen here to understand. But what I'm hearing is this and that and I'm wondering, have you wondered whether

“you might be interested in women or not only interested in men or, I guess if you want to be”

even less pointed, do you feel attracted to anyone? What is that attraction like? I like that. The more open ended the questions the better. I think. Along the way, it might also be nice to tell her what

you told us, which is that you'd love for her will never disappear even if it evolves. If she can

take that in, I wonder if that might make her feel safe to finally share this. But again, it's possible that she never gives you a clear answer on this or that her answer takes longer than you're willing to wait. A straight answer one might say? Yeah, that's right. Sorry. I'm talking incredibly juvenile in this question. I don't know what's wrong with me today. Yeah, her answers might be Heligay. I don't know. You just one up me. Three up to me on that one. Wow. But so again, I think

there's a version of this conversation that is just about the two of you and your respective needs and your feelings that doesn't necessarily hinge on her orientation. Look, they have plenty of challenges here that assuming they can't work on them or don't want to work on them, they're perfectly legitimate reasons to say, look, they're still tons of love here, we're a team forever, but I feel the definition of our relationship needs to change. I agree with that. And actually

framing it around her orientation, this is the point. The point is, are they really a true married couple? The reasons almost don't even matter. I mean, they matter, but it's like it's secondary for sure. She doesn't need to say this is who I am for them to say there's a problem here to your point. Yeah, my sense based on a few things he shared with us is that if he can get her to say, okay, so I'm gay, then he will feel safe to separate. Now, I get that. That certainly makes

“things need her, but why that's so important to him specifically. I think that might actually”

be the real question here. Well, as we keep talking about, our friend here is extraordinarily compassionate, kind, sensitive. He doesn't want her to feel exposed. Judged blindsided, robbed of her dignity as he put it all of which again, very noble, beautiful, frankly. If you're a lesbian and you need to come out to your husband, this is the dream husband to have to come out to. I would imagine. But I'm also just appreciating how accommodating he is toward his

wife and how she seems to be the opposite in a lot of ways, hard to locate, guarded, not always

forthcoming, not always easy to help. And I say that knowing she went to therapy and all that, which is excellent, but I think both are true. And she has good reasons for that. Don't hit me wrong. Trauma, culture, childhood, personality, all that stuff is powerful. So I have a lot

girl, work with him a little bit. Yeah. I mean, he's literally saying, I love you no matter what,

I'm your family no matter what, look around. You're surrounded by allies. And I'm not sure she's fully honoring the opportunity. I'm not blaming her per se. I'm just noticing a big gap in their ways of talking about all of this. No, because what you're noticing is actually really important, which is that like he's doing a lot of work for other people here. His wife, her family, their son, but so much so that I almost have a hard time locating him. What does

you need? What does he want? I'm not clear on that. Okay. He obviously wants reciprocal intimacy, a true marriage, but I'm having the same reaction. He almost seems overly oriented towards everybody else, but himself. Yes, that's more what I meant. So if that's part of their dynamic, he does a lot of emotional work for her, drawing her out, making her feel safe, talking or down when she spirals. Again, to your point Jordan, all of which are wonderful in the right amounts

“is it possible that that almost lets her off the hook to some degree for being in these conversations?”

I think maybe, because it's possible that she knows he'll keep showing up and drawing her out and she can keep spiraling or avoiding or only sharing selectively. Yeah, exactly. I know we're speculating a little bit. We could be off, but I do wonder if that dynamic, if it exists, is that moving them closer to the truth and closer to each other or is it moving them further away? That's a good question, because I'm sure he's going, but I couldn't be more patient and understanding

how is this not making her more willing to tell the truth? But if that patient's an understanding or actually enabling her procrastination or avoidance, then suddenly it kind of becomes an obstacle. Yeah. I'm still thinking about that thing. You said I just don't know how to protect everyone at once.

Yes. Okay. That jumped out of me too. And when you read that, my first thought was, dude,

you can't protect everyone all at once. That's not how this works at all. No, you can't. Nobody can do that. But the fact that protecting everyone at once feels important to him, that might be a big piece of what we're talking about. Because one of his concerns is what her family is going to think if they separate. He's afraid of damaging their trust. If he can't say, here's this very specific and legitimate reason that we're separating,

and it's not my fault. But as we keep saying, the problems in their marriage exist,

“whether she identifies as gay or not. He's already, I think, on solid ground, just by acknowledging”

these challenges. But he's looking for a reason that is clear and external and that way you can feel secure and potentially tell everyone else, look, I'm not the bad guy she was in the closet. I'm not cruel. I'm not selfish. I'm not capricious. It's her. So I think this might be a nice opportunity for him to ask a few questions. Like, why exactly do I feel the need to protect everyone here and why is that only my job?

What does protecting everyone actually mean when you get down to it? Does it mean being equally compassionate to your wife and her family and your child and yourself? Does it mean balancing all of your needs in some magical way? Does it mean doing what's right for you without being unfair to your wife or does it mean making sure that nobody in this situation has any difficult feelings or gets hurt whatsoever? Yeah, that's kind of the vibe I'm getting really.

That's the vibe I'm getting as well. So once again, that's kind of the shadow side of kindness

“if you want to put it that way. Like, if he's so gentle toward his wife that he's making”

it hard to have some pointed conversations that might provoke her, that could be another way that he is inadvertently making this harder. Such an important point. I might even go a step further and say, your goal obviously shouldn't be to hurt your wife, but part of your job might be to gently inappropriately push her to talk about some things that might bring up some difficult feelings in her, for example. I, because to say the obvious, there's no growth or progress or coming

to terms without some pain. That's just, that's how it works. There just isn't. You can't do that. Of course, his love for her is very touching and it is real. It's a huge gift in her life. A huge gift. But love is compatible with challenging a person with expecting them to tell you the truth. Yes, calling their attention to the things they need to look at being in a difficult process with them without taking over, challenging them to put words to feelings even as you're being patient.

Whatever it is, it's not going to be a walk in the park. So that's where your wife's story becomes about you. In a way, you're both coming out of the closet. Different closets. Both involve fear, shame, fragility and uneasiness around your true needs. And hey, maybe that's even something you bring to her or bring up in couples therapy and you show her what it looks like to say some difficult things and open yourself up to help. Maybe that'll show her that it's survivable

and she'll be inspired to do the same. I'm really sorry you and your wife have been through all this. I'm also again touched by the way you've shown up for her through all this. You guys are a really

special team. I'm confident that with courage, vulnerability, the ability to say here's what I need and

here's where we're heading. You guys will talk, listen, come to the right decision about your marriage. Whatever grief you feel along the way and there will be grief. It's not a sign you're doing something wrong. In fact, it's probably a sign that you guys are moving into important territory. As long as you're both moving towards the truth, the truth about yourselves,

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Okay, next up. Dear Jordan and Gabe, when I was younger, I was fully committed to family.

“This was instilled in me being from Brazil as well as being a sensitive person. Coming to the”

states at the age of five was incredibly traumatic for various reasons. I was ripped away from my entire family, was terrified and bullied at school for not speaking English, lived with a volatile uncle, who I saw chasing someone in our house with a hammer to attack him physically at age five or six. And countless other stories that in hindsight would clearly cause complex PTSD. And they did. Geez, what a formative experience. I'm sorry to hear about all this being an immigrant as

wild man. You know, it's interesting. I know somebody else who was sent from Brazil to the US as a toddler to live with essentially super distant family. It's a thing I've heard of before. It's not unusual. My mother while charming and personable has often displayed unstable and narcissistic like behavior. We moved around a lot every couple of years other than high school where I spent four years. She has married and divorced three times and has been dating a married man for the past 20 years.

She was physically very loving, but mentally I've realized it was all pretty toxic.

Wow, that's quite a mom to have. During my mom's second marriage,

stepdad number one, they had my sister who was born in the US, half Brazilian, half American. Since she was a toddler, she has had an insatiable need for attention that has continued into her adult life. To give you an example, I was in a relationship once and this guy, his family, and I were having a conversation. She jumped in and tried to interrupt with an unrelated topic, but nobody paid attention to her and she complained about it during a conversation several years later.

Wow, imagine hanging on to the slightest of slights for literally years, geez. This girl keeps receipt. No, that's an invoice. There's a ledger. My goodness. Girls on a quickbooks, ticking and tying. So she goes on. There's also been this weird, competitive aspect to our relationship. When I was working in skincare, all of a sudden, she wanted to open a skincare business. When I met my husband in Spain, all of a sudden,

cousin. If I talk about any subject that's important to me, she all of a sudden has an interest in it

and seems like she uses it to garner attention. We have a pretty strange relationship due to this and a combination of events and I reached a point about 15 years ago where I just couldn't handle the family dynamic and distance myself almost completely from my sister and quite a bit from my mother. At some point, my sister became kind of obsessed with, quote, unquote, proving how Brazilian she is.

“She had the key chain where the T-shirt and became very performative about it.”

Huh, sounds a little bit like you, okay? You know what? Because I know where this letter is going, I resent that. All right, I'm just saying, hey, if the bracelet fits, if the seed bracelet fits, I brought it up while we still had some kind of relationship and she said it was because she wanted to quote,

"learn about moms and your culture," unquote, but it seemed like a way to get more attention.

Around that time, it was much more culturally accepted to be from another country and it was even considered exotic. Pretty sure Brazilian is still considered fairly exotic to most people, but I take your point. Fast forward to the past couple of years and she's been trying to become an influencer. No surprise there. I've had to stop watching her feed because it's filled with performative content. On top of all that, my sister and her husband moved to Switzerland for his job

for four or five years and since they've been back, she's acting like she wasn't born and raised here.

“Saying things like, "We're having culture shock being back and mentioning that her son isn't”

understanding English and school when my sister and her husband are both native English speakers." Yeah, hilarious. Sorry, but this is every 19-year-old who studies abroad and comes back with a slight fake accent or not so slight fake accent. In the hairdo of the country, they lived in a tattoo of the flag, except she's a full-grown ass adult and a mother. I'm getting a picture of this woman. In fact, when I was exchange student in Germany at the end of the program, we all got together

all the Americans. People I hadn't seen since the first couple days of the exchange. They were all

over the country and there was definitely an inverse proportion to if your German was really good at the end, it was like, "Oh, it's going to be great to go home and I'm excited about it and you are doing great." And all the kids whose German at the end of the year was still garbage because they had spent the whole year speaking English. They were like, "I barely understand English now. I had to look up the words. I don't even know what you're talking about." And I'm like, "That's sad because now you

speak zero languages." So what are you going to do? They're like, "I don't even know how I'm going to go back to school. It's going to be impossible. I have to relearn English." No, not at all. But yeah, we get it. Or people would have like a German accent. I'm like, "Why are you speaking English with a German accent? You would have had to learn that." That's so weird. It's Madonna going to the UK, living in London and suddenly doing her next interview with a fake ass British accent. It's so beyond

cringe. There have been many other examples of this, but I want to keep this as concise as possible. Yeah, I wish she didn't, but okay, I appreciate that. This is all incredibly triggering for me as an actual immigrant who went through the very real difficulties of coming to this country in the 80s. It's like she's trying to put on the varsity jacket as though it's her experience. Well, it's not full on cultural appropriation. It feels like some version of it.

“Yeah, what is that when you culturally appropriate your own culture? I don't know. Could you do that?”

Cultural auto-appropriation? Yeah, cultural auto-appropriation. I like that. Did you make that up? I don't know what it means fully, but somehow I also do. Perform it if she's being performative. And that's annoying. She is half resilient, fine, but there's an act going on here. I've been able to distance myself, but when I go to her house to see my nephew, it seems like she's convinced herself that she's this whole other being because maybe it makes

her seem more interesting or exotic? Yeah, thousand percent. It's almost like when kids get a Disney princess makeover and then they're singing and doing the LSXF. When they're four, it's cute. When they're 24, it's a little strange. Part of me you want to have a conversation with her about this or write a letter to communicate these feelings. Not because I think it'll change our relationship or make us any closer, but because it's almost unbearable being around her. And I would like to

continue being able to see my nephews. I've been in therapy in the past for a lot of these issues, but I can't think of a way to express this mindfully and would appreciate your thoughts and perspective. Signed, finding it quite touchy to talk to my sister about our unsusthraled dodgy. Oh, wow, nice. Okay, do a lingo. Mr. Worldwide over here. I dedicate that sign off to Brazil, which continues to blow my mind. Such a cool language, especially the way they speak down there.

It's very exotic. Oh, dude, it's something else. Because you know that I learned Portuguese a little bit in Portugal and it's just, it's very like the syllables get collapsed. And here it's like music,

but Portuguese from Brazil, it sounds like also drunk, but very respectful of forplay.

It's a flirtatious country. You might get a little pregnant settling up in a hotel. You don't know. sexy. So this is a super interesting story. This reminds me a little bit of this dude, Glenn. Before college, you have an orientation, so you get together with, I don't know, like 20 students that are going to go in and you have this little cadre. There was this guy Glenn and he was from a suburb and he wore LL Bean sweaters and Birkenstocks and stuff like that. And he was quiet and shy.

And he had this normal sort of like basic white dude haircut. And he was very nice. And then when we got to school, there was this crazy loud dude who was like, "Yo, what's up? What's up? Y'all!" And his name was Antonio and it turned out to be the same guy. So he went from the LL Bean catalog to Repping Death Row Records inside of 60 days.

It was crazy. I've never seen a transformation like that. I was like, "I'm not up and over the summer."

Yeah, and I was like Glenn and he was like, "What's up? My peeps." And I was like, "It was so bizarre."

“But here's the thing. He was so charismatic and so outgoing and so nice to everyone”

that no one called him out on it because it was just like, "That's Glenn." And I'm like, "I can't believe it." But he was so cool. I was like, "Nobody kind of wanted to out him because it was clearly he was kind of ashamed of who he was before and he'd come out of his shell and maybe his middle name was Antonio. I'm just not even going to question that. I don't understand what happened there. But yeah, he went from like corn-fed, normal, basic, white dude

who probably thought he wasn't interesting enough as a person to, "Yo MTV Raps Host." And it was really weird and unusual. But again, he was so nice that

everybody just kind of let it go. So, yeah, first of all, I just want to acknowledge what a journey

you've been on, leaving your home country at five, having to leave family behind, living with a violent crazy person, being bullied at school. This is intense stuff. Very formative and I'm so sorry that it left a mark on you. It sounds like you have an actual CPTSD diagnosis and I get it. A lot of people do a lot of immigrants do especially. Moving to another country, obviously really exciting and stimulating. And I'm sure it brought you a lot of gifts and possibilities. But yeah,

it's also very isolating. It's intense. It's a lonely journey at a vulnerable age, no less. And I'm just very sorry about all of it. That said, you sound like quite a thoughtful, grounded, well-adjusted person. It sounds like you also have a good sense of boundaries and how to take care of yourself. And I commend you for that. So, your sister, candidly, I don't know exactly what to make of all this. Is it narcissism? Is it insecurity? Is it instability? Is it envy? Does

she feel like she doesn't belong with you and your mom? And this is a point of connection. Is she just a really good influencer? Because all these people, I don't like that. And she knows

“she's a lean into certain tropes to create a branch, to have a thing. Honestly, it sounds like”

all of this could be going on at the same time. But based on what you've shared, my gut is telling me that your sister is mostly just incredibly insecure. And it's not even insecurity about not being Brazilian enough. I think it's insecurity about not being anything enough. See also, Glenn Antonio transformation, just not being enough. And waving this flag so to speak, cosplaying her own culture, I have a feeling that's a way to kind of, you know,

shore up her identity, to give her a sense of stability and belonging. Maybe a little bit of power. Obviously, right? Why else would a person do this? The I'm so Brazilian thing, or the whole life, I'm so just not from here thing. We're so international. It's got to be serving some purpose. Unless you were being shamelessly practical, like I want to be a Brazilian influencer. And this is the way to do it. I have to perform myself even then. It's

“I think it's fair to ask why. Now, why your sister is like that? I don't know. You've shared”

quite a bit about your adverse childhood experiences, your ACEs, ACEs. I'm sure your sister has her own. Yeah. Well, the biggest one might be being the daughter of this mother too, because they share this mother. What did she say about her mother charming, personable, unstable, narcissistic, narcissistic like and consistent, flighty sounds a bit impulsive. Yeah, all of these. And her father was stepped at number one, who is one of the three men she married and divorced. Not a great sign.

I'm also not totally clear on the timeline and the age is here, but mom has been dating a married man for the last 20 years. So she said she came here in the 80s and her sister was born later. Okay, we don't know, but possibly this relationship with this guy happened during the sister's adolescence as well, right? Yeah. I actually can't believe I already forgot that detail. A married man for 20 years. Wow. Okay. So, the mom is a mistress. So, plenty of trauma right there.

I can kind of see the math of narcissistic mom probably not attending to her daughters. Needs very well. The daughter feeling they need to get attention from other sources and kind of

impact. Yeah. Plus there's baseline personality and her position in the family and feeling like she

isn't as connected to their roots as our friend here is, which all of this dysfunction is the hide is that's a legitimate feeling. A lot of people struggle with that. So yet, there are plenty of reasons she might be doing this is my point. You kind of have two options here. They're not mutually exclusive. One option is knowing your sister has her own wounds and challenges. You empathize with her. You let it roll off your back. You forgive her. You don't watch her Instagram. You stay out of

her business. It's weird. It's embarrassing. It's attention-seeking. Yes. And it's coming from a wounded place inside her and she deserves some compassion for that. And maybe one day down the line she'll start to face it. Option two is you just go at this directly with her and you try and help her see herself more clearly. Get at the roots of this thing and help her change. There are frankly

good arguments to be made for both. I can't really say which one's going to be more effective or which

one is right. I think it really comes down to your sister's capacity for hearing feedback, especially from you. Having some vulnerable conversations about her feelings around this culture thing, her willingness to entertain new ideas and see herself more objectively. You of course know her way better than we do. You also know yourself way better than we do. Because that's the other thing.

“You have to be willing to have this conversation. And if it doesn't go well, you have to kind of”

also be prepared to sit with those feelings. And only you can know if it's worth it. What if there's a middle way? What if she says to her sister? So hey, I know that feeling Brazilian is really important to you. I know living in Switzerland was a big deal for you guys. I've noticed that being international seems like that's becoming more and more meaningful to you. You're talking about it more and more. I want to understand it better. So like how are you feeling about our heritage these days? Do you

think of yourself as more Brazilian or more American? Or how do those two fit together? And what is it about Brazil or Switzerland or whatever country that speaks to you? Do you think? When you talk about this with people or when you post about it on Instagram, what comes up for you? And just start there. Yeah, I like that. Even if she's well within her rights to wave the Brazilian flag and eat mochaica while wearing a Brazilian flag t-shirt on Instagram or whatever, it's still an interesting

question. Why? What are you doing? Look, her sister might not love these questions, right? And if she gets angry and shuts down, fine, that's also good data. Then you can either say you seem angry. Did I say something that hurt you? Is this hard to talk about? Do you know, like how am I coming across? You could draw her out a little bit. Or you can let it go knowing that your sister just is not ready to have this conversation. Or she's not interested in having this conversation. Or your sister

might engage with you and slowly but surely you guys can start digging into this whole question, which is such a fascinating question, like about identity and performance and how you present that to the world and maybe over time that will lead to some insights that do change the way she talks about her culture. Or maybe she stops talking about it at all. These are also possible. I also wonder if she has a shred of self-awareness or curiosity, which I suppose is an open question.

If our friend here starts asking this stuff, her sister might pick up on the subtext, the subtext being, you might want to be more thoughtful about how you wave this flag so it lands the right way.

“Or maybe take a beat and think about why being Brazilian is so important to you and maybe she'll”

kind of self-correct. That would be great. This is all kind of an experiment. My only caveat is try not to just think of this as a technique. Like, you're asking these meaningful questions, but really they're just thinly veiled judgments, right? Your judgments are not entirely unfair. I get why this gets under your skin. But if you're just disguising them as questions, she'll probably feel that. And she sounds particularly sensitive to that kind of stuff.

So if you're going to ask, really ask and really listen and see if anything she says helps you understand her better. Maybe there's something you don't know about how she feels about being Brazilian. And if it doesn't help you understand her better, you could say that. You could say I'm really trying to understand you better. A really 100 cents whole Brazil thing. I'm not really understanding. I'm not sure I'm getting there and maybe Husker to elaborate. And then you can decide whether

to do anything with that in terms of actually saying, "Sus, I have some feedback for you. Here's

how it's coming across. Here's what I would think about if I were you." It's a really interesting

dilemma how to tell a close family member that they're being cringe and tone-deaf, whether to tell them. It's scary because people who are this unself-aware, they also have the potential to be very wounded by criticism, which again is probably part of the trauma. So if you work up

“to addressing this, you have to be prepared to touch a tender part of her personality and live with”

the implications. It might not be pretty, but it might be worth the tension if it gives her some information that she needs. I'm just thinking about the fact that her sister seems to take an interest in all the same things that she does in a way. Yes, that is a bit weird. I also wonder if that's just a little sister wanting to emulate her big sister and be part of the same things and be accepted in this family in the same way. And be close with her friend here. I mean, we all want to belong. That's

a universal human thing and maybe the whole I'm so Brazilian thing is more about that belonging than

That's a fair point. I really do get why this rubs her the wrong way, but when she talks to her

“sister, I think she also runs the risk of gatekeeping being Brazilian. I'm the only one who can”

be Brazilian because I was actually born there and I'm 100% Brazilian and you're just half and I'm not sure that's entirely fair either. That's a good point because if we were hearing from our little sister and her sister were like my older sister is 100% Brazilian and I'm half and she doesn't

like it when I talk about my Brazilian culture. I feel like we might say, first of all, okay,

does your sister have a point a little bit, but also who is your sister to tell you how you get to talk about your heritage? And why does your sister's opinion matter to you so much? Exactly. The challenge for both of them is to move between these two perspectives to see what they have to learn. So maybe we need to ask the question, why does this bother her so much? Again, I understand that it's cringe, I think we can all agree. And I also get why watching a family member perform something

that's very close to your heart as annoying. What is it specifically that triggers or so much about her sister doing this? What is it about her sister doing this? That pushes her buttons besides the fact that it's her sister. Only you can really know that, but it might be worth articulating for yourself so you can start to figure out how much of this is your sister's fault

“and how much of this is your reaction. I'm glad we got here because I think this is probably”

more complicated than just my sister's so annoying, but then to be fair, this might be the 90th annoying thing her sister's done in their lives and it's just getting worse, which I also get. Anyway, I hope that gives you some new approaches. And if your sister needs any Brazilian bracelets for her live stream, just email Gabe, I'm sure he'd be happy to rent them out for a small fee. A couple of vegan mochacas is my usual price. So there's that. That seems fair.

Something with Maracolia in it perhaps. You guys will work something out. Good luck. By the way, you can reach us Friday at JordanHarbanger.com. Keep your emails concise. Try to use a descriptive subject line. That makes our job a whole lot easier. If your husband won't stop hanging out with an old rebound, your company cut off your fertility benefits mid-cycle and your spiraling, or your sibling wrote into feedback Friday with a wildly different version of events from what

actually happened to you and you want to fill in the blanks. I've been thinking about that letter all week since we took it. Hit us up Friday at JordanHarbanger.com, we're here to help and we keep every email anonymous. Alright, you know, it's definitely cringe. Shameless podcast ads. But if this is our culture, we'll be right back. This episode is also sponsored in part by Better Help. I'm around high-level performers all the time. People who've built massive companies,

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and career stress can sneak up on you. The comparison, the pressure, feeling like you're worth is somehow tied to the scoreboard that stuff can affect your mood, your sleep, and your relationships a lot more than you realize. Therapy can help with that, not because it's given you business advice, but because it can help you manage the anxiety, the stress, and the shame that can come with constantly measuring yourself against frankly impossible standards. Better help matches

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All right, next up. Hello, Jordan and Gabe. My year old son has always been incredibly

smart. He started reading phonetic words at age two and has a brilliant mind for math.

grade one men sitting at a desk and listening to a teacher while remaining still quiet.

My son did not do well in this environment. As a six-year-old who could read better than most grade five, he took no interest in sitting and learning that T and H together make the foot sound. Needless to say, he was disruptive to the general class and at times would let his frustration out by flipping a table literally, or just getting up and walking out of class. His teacher was not happy with him and refused to believe my husband and me when we said that he was gifted. He wouldn't

complete work because coloring in the square with his favorite color was not an engaging task for him. No, you know, it's funny. I had a similar problem. I didn't flip tables, but I exhibited very similar behaviors. My mom would tell the teachers I was gifted and they were like whatever your son's a knucklehead. He can't even pay attention. And then later I got into the gifted program at schools

and the teachers were like, "Oh, why didn't he apply earlier?" And my mom wanted to just murder all of them.

So, yeah, I relate to your son. He must have been going out of his mind.

“This is like asking John Nash to do arithmetic. Carry the one Johnny?”

Literally, hey, baby Einstein focused. We're learning the abacus and he's like, "All right, I'm doing long division over here." One time there was a project where the class was reading a story about moles and mittens and they were encouraged to draw the last page of the story for how they thought it should end. My son wrote, "With perfect spelling, this story is stupid on his page." I mean, that is funny. Whatever. This made me laugh and made his teachers infuriated. To him,

the exercise was unintelligent, so he wasn't wrong. There were also times where the classroom had to be evacuated because of his impulsive behavior. He even had to be restrained by adult special aid workers on one occasion because he was trying to leave the school. I received almost daily calls about things he had done or ways that he was not falling in line. Okay, well, yeah, that must have been hard for you guys, wow. So, we had him evaluated by

a psychologist and he tested in the 98th percentile for reading comprehension and the 99th percentile for math. Yeah, okay, so if this happened to me as well, except I believe I was 98th and 99th and 99th for reading and the teachers were confused because I was the kid who didn't pay attention at all and it's like, "How does he know how to do all this? Are you sure he took the test with everyone else?" I remember this whole kerfuffle like, "How did he do that?" It was called

the cat test. I'm from Michigan, but it was the California achievement test. Probably the same thing you took. So interesting. And we took this thing. It was probably one of the only standardized tests. So I Michigan school district bought it and we took it and I remember being like, this is stupid and really easy. And finished early. And since I finished early, they assumed, "Oh, he's going to bomb this test." I just told my mom was really easy. And then when I scored in the 99th percentile

“overall, they were like, "What happened? If we don't understand this?" That's how I ended up going”

into the gifted and talented program at school because it turned out like, "Oh, he's just really bored in your class." He's not a dumb kid. He's freaking bored out of his mind that didn't last too long because, you know, their kids catch up. When I hear stories like, "You and this kid, it just makes me wonder what would happen to so many kids. If teachers took a genuine interest in the unique abilities of each child, they're like, "Try to get curious about why it's so hard for

certain ones to focus." Instead of just kind of like dismissing a kid like this for just, can't focus, can't do it. It is not respectful. There's something going on. It turns out that he's really talented. It's a shame. There was a kid who was a quote unquote bad kid when I was in pre-kiner garden and he grew up to be a famous artist because he was just super ridiculously creative and talented, but he didn't want to sit there and do whatever. They were like, "Oh,

he's bad. He's a bad kid." Crazy. What was that guy's name? Are they really amazing,

“"Tut, Sir Ken Robinson?" Yeah. Yeah. So, to get to date about kids unique talents. Okay. So,”

a lot of goes on. He also just barely met the threshold for an ADHD diagnosis with impulsive behavior tendencies. Now that we had the formal diagnosis, the school had to take him and us seriously. We also labeled his behavior as big emotions and attempted to separate them from him as a

person. I never wanted him to think that he was bad. He just didn't have the skills to properly

navigate real world situations. Fast forward to grade two. I am a nervous wreck. But he ends up having an incredible connection with his teacher and he has an absolutely amazing year. During that year, we registered him for something called Forest School and independent outdoor school that gives children the chance to spend six hours out in nature one day a week instead of traditional school. It's a way to reset his attention, get some curiosity and energy out and have some

rare freedom. Cool. That's a good idea. So cool. One day I picked my son up from Forest School and the teacher informed me that another student's sucker punched him in the stomach or no apparent reason. I gave him hugs and love and we got back to the card to talk about it. He was really quiet as we drove and I said, do you have any pain buddy? He sniffled and replied, "No, Mom, I just didn't

internalized a lot from the previous year and associated being the victim with bad behavior.

“My son is now in grade three and positively thriving. He hardly has any big outbursts as the”

most incredible empathetic outlook on life and will ask you the most in-depth questions and be genuinely

interested in the answers. He continues to be exceptionally gifted in math and reading and socially. He's calm down significantly. No more table flipping. Yeah, he sounds like a remarkable kid. It's amazing to me that he barely passed the threshold for ADHD and it's like, oh, where we had to evacuate the entire classroom because he was throwing furniture. Where is the threshold for this? What more does it take? Seriously, come on, man. Then a few weeks ago,

he was sitting alone at one end of the classroom and doing an independent activity during free time. A boy from a group he avoids walks over to my son and whispers in his ear, "I'm going to kill you." These are eight worlds. Needless to say, my son was upset and immediately

told the teacher. We dealt with it with the administration and ultimately my son forgave the boy

“and accepted his apology. Two weeks after that, the teacher from Forest School pulls me aside to say”

he had an altercation with another young boy. My son was going into the shed to get supplies and this other boy closed the door and locked him in intentionally. My son managed to get the door open from inside and was pretty upset. This boy came back and intended to lock him in again, but my son put his foot in the door to stop him from closing in. The other boy proceeded to kick my son in the shins so he would fall and then close to lock the door again. Once again, my son managed

to get his way out and told the teacher. The issue was addressed and the boy wrote my son in a apology letter. My son corrected all of the spelling mistakes and handed it back to the boy and told them he forgive some. "Savage, dude." Oh, I gotta love that. I accept your apology. You're poorly written apology. Here you go, Clyde. Here's my red line copy. Hit the book's pal. Maybe you'll learn something. Wow. That's a super sad story in my heart breaks for your

son that he's being bullied so much, but man, that is such a nerd power move. And I love it. I've spoken out length with my son about both of these traumatic events and he seems completely at peace with things, but my heart keeps going back to the little boy crying in the car. How do I help my son navigate these things? Do you think this is weighing on him and impacting his growth and development? Signed Amama Bear trying to prepare to learn best how to care for his son and

despair. Oh, man. This is such a fascinating story. It's such a fascinating child to have. I'm thinking about everything you've shared. I want to take a moment to appreciate to really appreciate just how challenging it is to have a child with any kind of special need, a gifted child, any child really who doesn't conform to quote unquote normal. Whatever that means in this world, not normal. It's increasingly a virtue, but I digress. When I hear stories like this,

I realize how little most parents probably understand about the unique demands on families like this. And that said, part of me does wonder just how traumatizing this kind of thing is for a boy. I hate that he's being bullied. It makes me sad. But there's a part of me that maybe just internalized too much 80s nonsense, but there's a part of me that's like, "Ah, this is just boy shit." Boy shit. Yeah. Boy shit. I went through it a lot of us went through. It wasn't this bad.

But I said mean stuff to other kids when I was young. Other kids said mean stuff to me. People punched me and punched them. I'm still in touch with a bunch of them. We're all okay.

It doesn't always do like life-long damage. Interesting. So you're like wondering

our boy is more resilient to bullying than girls? Maybe I'm not sure. I don't know about bullying in general, but like physical stuff. Boy scouts? We used to just knock the crap out of each other, and then it was just fine after that. I don't know, it was like the military or something. I kind of take your point. They were like two kids growing up, one in fourth grade, and one I want to say in sixth grade, and they were both a grade or two above me who kind of

roughed me up a few times at school. And I remember it being fairly upsetting. Actually,

“now that I think about it both of them, this is pretty sad, but both of them were being abused at home.”

It came out later, so it was sad all around price out of them. But I'm okay now, I guess. I can't say this stuff left a huge mark, so maybe you have a point. It's just boy shit. On the other hand, I think it really depends on the type of bullying and the sources of the bullying and how often it's happening and how being hurt by other kids affects your unique personality. I mean, I know people who are like severely wounded by how they were treated by the other kids at

school, even as adults. It's kind of embarrassing to acknowledge, but it's real. So I don't know. Yeah, I might be boy shit, in the sense that boys do this stuff and don't think about how it lands, but that doesn't mean it isn't having an effect, especially for a kid who is pretty different. Fair enough, I'm not trying to minimize what this kid might be going through. And like I said,

moms give them credit for it. And you mentioned that the kids ability you were abused at home. I got this random Facebook message. This is 10 years ago now or something, but I was in my 30s. I got this random Facebook message. It was from like Mark R. And it was like a high guy who doesn't post full name and Facebook. What's going on? In his profile photo, he looked tired, said, and he had face tats. And I was like, I do not obviously recognize this guy. And he goes, we went to school together.

And I was like, holy crap. Mark Robbins. It was a kid in my neighborhood. He was a bully. And I was like, how are you? And he's like, I just got out of prison for DUI, felony DUI. And I was like, oh, okay. And he was trying to talk to me. And I was just like, dude, I'm shocked. You're trying to talk to me because you terrorized half of the school. And it wasn't horrible. But he was not a nice person. And I was like, God, what happened to this guy? And then my Facebook messenger thing for him was almost

like a trauma dump of all the stuff that had happened to him when we were growing up. I don't understand why he chose me. But he was just talking to anybody who would listen, maybe. And he was just writing,

I'm sorry about this. And then I'm like, here's what's going on. Yeah. As you might imagine,

he had a terrible childhood. Meanwhile, I thought he was spoiled because he had a go cart and stuff like that. And he was like, sit down on the neighborhood. It was like, no, that's not how it worked out. It all was a different way to look at things. So yeah, it was just not what I expected at all. And of course, that probably happens a lot when you're an adult. I'm trying to make room for both of these ideas. That maybe a boy doesn't end up super damaged by this stuff. Maybe it's just kind of

part of childhood. And if this kid in the story is not exhibiting huge signs of trauma, maybe he's okay. Maybe he's resilient. But I also think that a lot of boy is including this guy who reached out to you years later, probably, are taught that they're not allowed to be sensitive. They're not allowed to speak up when they're hurt. That can do a number on you. That's true. I guess as a man, I'm maybe still catching up to that. I don't know. I am too, in fact, wow, this is such a weird memory.

One of those kids I just mentioned, one day we were in theater class, we were in the auditorium. He took a metal leg from a chair. I guess the metal leg was like a loose and he like broke it off of the chair. And for no reason, like out of nowhere, he just hit me with the chair leg incredibly

“hard in the leg. Okay. That's like Tonya Harding shit right there. Why would you do that to someone?”

Yeah, you Tonya Harding me in my class in seventh grade at a manual. And so hard that I was almost

stunned because because I never been hit like that before I was like, what a weird sensation.

And it was pretty upsetting. And I was finally like, dude, he did a few times. Like, that's enough. Like, he had been messing with me for weeks before that. And so I went to tell someone a teacher, I guess, and I walked across the school to find somebody to tell it. This is so vivid and sad. And I'm sorry. I'm like, bring in the house down with us. But I was trying not to cry while I walked. And I remember feeling like the most painful part was not the physical pain. It was the embarrassment.

Yeah, the embarrassment about being attacked to you, man. Being emotional, because I was attacked. The physical pain was not that bad. It was just like, oh my god, I'm embarrassed that I'm even like worked up to this degree. Just to be holding back tears after some psycho kid who was like, being yelled at or hit at home, hit me because I was a boy and boys are not supposed to emoten like that. Yeah, I hear that. This is funny. It's just a trauma dunk from

“you and I about how we went through some of this is a good perfect. Let's do it. I remember we had this”

thing called Lacheke, which was like daycare before and after school. And so there was a meeting all the bullies weren't in that. And I was also in that. And there was a bunch of other kids there, too. So there was this circle of the teachers and aides going, all right, Mark and J are bullying all these kids. They used to rhyme things with my last name, which is actually quite challenging. So props to them for doing that successfully. And then they would also, they had like rhymes and

stuff. But they weren't that bad. They were just dumb and silly. And it didn't bother me that much. But it did suck a little bit to know that somebody was like, looking at you and making fun of you. And I remember the teachers would say things like, is it okay? Or is it teasing in a way that you don't like? And I felt immense pressure to be like, it's totally fine. It really was. But there was another kid my friend Andy. He was getting bullied mercilessly. And of course, right after I was

like, it's mostly fine. I didn't want to get them in trouble. I thought that would go hard on me. And also it didn't bother me that much. They're like, Andy, what about you? And I was like, now is your chance to get these kids some come up in. And maybe they'll actually stop and he was like,

no, it's totally fine. And I was like, no, what are you doing? He basically let it go because he was like,

I don't want to look uncool. Like, they got to me. You know, it was just clearly what he was doing.

“I felt so bad for him. Because I remember he would cry all the time. And he would go and tell”

us mom and the mom until the teachers. And it's like, why are you asking him in front of everyone if they're under his skin? Like he's going to say, oh, yeah, they're terrorizing me and I'm afraid every moment of the day. Come on, dude. Now that we've talked about all this, I'm sitting here trying to

was? I honestly don't know the answer. I know. I have a feeling there's a certain range of hurtful

behavior that's survivable because kids can be super brutal. We all need to learn how to recover from it. Everyone gets mistreated to some degree. But I also know that I didn't have it as bad as other kids. And it's also got me really questioning like, oh, it's kind of mean to Richard Rowe. I wonder

“if does he remember that? Is he like Jordan Harbinger terrorized me as a kid? And I'm just like,”

I used to poke fun at that guy. Am I the bullies? That the problem here? I would be heartbroken. I would be shattered if somebody told me that was me. That's why I don't notice it because I was the perpetrator, not the victim. This would be the huge turn. So I guess I can't necessarily assume that this bullying isn't having a real impact on her son. But I think it might be good for her to make room for the idea that he's more resilient than she might think. Also at his age, I have a feeling

that his resilience might depend in part on her confidence in him to get through this. If she believes he's resilient, he'll be resilient. Kind of another way to put it is if she overly worries about him and constantly attends to his injuries, especially if they're not as severe as she thinks, that might accidentally communicate to him that there is something wrong or might make things worse. So it's an interesting balance there. It is, but also you don't want to ignore them and

then you're just like ignoring your kid's emotional needs. A lot of dads did that. Growing up, a lot of dads would be like, oh yeah, my son was getting bullied so bad, but it's like they just ignore it because they're like, uh, then I don't want to highlight that this is terrible. And it's, I don't know, your son got pushed down a flight of stairs. He had to go to the hospital. These stories are getting worse and worse. Oh, we had dude, we had serious, you know what, maybe the reason

I'm not remembering all this bad stuff happening to me is that the kids who got bullied, it was like criminal behavior. Oh, man. Yeah. We didn't have that in my school. Thank you, might have gone to a different school. Do you think, or maybe it was like 80s? Yeah, there was a rich kid who beat up a kid that didn't have any money and had a single mom. He beat his ass so bad.

He had to go to the hospital. And it was not his first time doing that. This was like a wealthy

kid. And it was just like he beat up like one kid who had a single mom and the dad had died. It was just horrific. Oh, my god. I can handle anymore. No, my school was a war zone. And I just didn't realize that at all. I don't know, man. Derby middle school. Dang. Bring a flat jacket. All right. Anyway. So, yes, I'm sure this bullying is having some impact on your son's development. I don't see how it couldn't. But what kind of impact, how much

of an impact, how he experiences it, how he carries that forward in his life. Yeah. Those are all

“kind of open questions. I think Gabe, the picture I'm getting off her son is that he's really”

interesting mix of qualities. He's obviously extremely bright. He's also sensitive and empathetic. He's calm down and become more respectful. But he's also a little bit of a rebel in kind of a cool way. He doesn't exactly play by the rules. He's not afraid to stick it to people when they deserve it, like with the spelling thing, which I'm still big as funny. So there's a world where that mix of qualities creates a certain toughness that's going to serve her son very well in life.

I'm not saying the bullying won't hurt at all. But his way of coping with it, hitting back in the appropriate ways, I do think that's going to play a big role in just how much these experiences affect him. But he will experience some pain. That is just unavoidable. And so as difficult as it is, you do have to make peace with the fact that you're awesome kid, partly because of his awesomeness. He's going to be impacted sometimes. And you got to trust that

he's going to work through that with you, with other people, in his own way, over the course of his life.

“But yeah, of course, you can help your son navigate all this. The most important thing I think”

is to be a consistent, loving, non-judgmental presence in his life, which you're already doing, and ask him again, not constantly, because that can create its own neurosis. But regularly, ask him how he's doing, how his day was, what's on his mind, listen to what he says, validate him, ask him good questions, listen more, help him find his way to new feelings, new answers. Basically, be with him in whatever experience he's having if he wants you to be in it

with him. Of course. And if he doesn't, you can back off, give him some space to our point of

moment ago. I think that's crucial too. Yeah, I totally agree. Obviously, it's really powerful

when a parent is super attuned to their child, but there's also a kind of a parent who can be so involved with their children, so concerned with taking care of them, that it can easily tip over into something kind of smothering and invasive. And I think that can deprive a child of healthy solitude of space to work things out on their own and learn to bear their feelings on their own and discover that they can be okay without constant intervention. And that can end up undermining

that resilience that we were just talking about because that resilience requires a sense of self that self develops and part through relationship with good parents and in part through independence.

that your son is a target in large part, again, because he's different. You can't change that.

“You don't want to change that. But one day, I think it's going to be very soon, all these gifts”

are really going to start to pay off. He's going to enter athlete competitions or start building robots or writing poetry or whatever. He's going to be on such an exciting path. His intelligence, his sense of humor, his eccentricities. They're making them weird now. But weird is the precursor too awesome. That's just how it works. So two thoughts here. One is the sooner you cultivate those qualities and make them assets, the better. Get them into gifted programs, clubs, summer camps,

hobbies, places that will put them in touch with other kids like him, and that are going to nurture his talents. You don't have to wait till he's in high school to start taking all that seriously. The other thing is, the sooner he understands these unique gifts, the less the bullying will hurt. And that's my hope. Because at least then, he'll be like, oh yeah, I'm really good at this stuff, and they aren't, and that makes them angry. Or I don't really click with these kids at school,

but I have my friends at Robotics Club. They get me. That's just part of the resilience as well. I'm sorry your son is going through all this, but he's very lucky to have you looking out for him. You're obviously doing a lot right here, given how much he's grown in just a few years. It's awesome to hear. Keep up the good work, sending you and your son a big hug. Also in case you all

“don't know, there's a subreddit for the show if you want to discuss episodes or things that you”

hear on the show. It's over on Reddit on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. You deserve to be locked

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Alright, time for the recommendation of the week. I am addicted to Litfella. So, almost two years ago now, I went to Burning Man for the first time for the only time, really. And one of the things that I bought for the trip was this camping towel. You know, one of those ultra light towels that absorb a ton of water and then you can leave them hanging outside, and they'll dry in 20 or 30 minutes. So, I did a bunch of research and I found this brand

called Ecosophy that I love. These towels are amazing. They have a bunch of awesome patterns.

I bought the one called Madagascar, I also love the Acopoco, the Americas. They're all really pretty. They're all super cool. I also love that they're incredibly thin. Like they hardly take up any room when you're back. You can throw them in your trunk. You can take them on the go. You can use them as a towel. You can use them as a blanket. You can just use them as something to sit on when you're outside. And they also have a line of beach towels. Eco-friendly towels.

Kid towels, beach blankets. It's a really great product line in this towel that I love. It's only like $35. Very reasonable. I bought this thing thinking, oh yeah, I'll just use it up Burning Man for 10 days and then whatever I'll give it away. It's become a staple for me.

I've been using it every single day here in Brazil. It's amazing for traveling. It's totally

saved my life. Huge fan of this product. Ecosophy beach towels will link to them in the show notes. All right, next up. Dear Bert and Ernie, who get not a hand, Jen's gonna start getting pissed. You're right for the closet at one from the show. No, man. She's yours. It's Jen. Trending on thin ice to mix metaphors. All right, continue. I'm 30 years old female and overall healthy. I exercise eat mostly a plant-based diet and work in a

career that I love as a freelance artist. I'm happily married to a loving and supportive husband and have a beautiful little home. All of my basic needs are met. And for that, I am very lucky. Amazing. What a gift. Despite all of this, ever since I can remember, I've struggled with my mental well-being. I can become very easily stressed out over trivial things. I can be snappy and irritable in the moment to those who may not deserve it. And I often find myself sitting in resentment and

anger. A lot of this is around the fact that I help care for very grumpy grandparents and dealing with a mother who doesn't often respect boundaries. By my own admission, I am not great at drawing or enforcing these boundaries. Interesting. I'm sorry to hear all of this, but it sounds very understandable. These are

I'll often imagine something horrible happening to my husband or sister and then worry about how I

could ever deal with the outcome or if I could live on. I've also held off on having children because I'm so overcome with fear of something bad happening to them. Also, very understandable and super common. It's interesting, Jen brings this up a lot. Like when we travel, she'll talk about us going on different planes in case something happens. She'll talk about what it would be like if I died and how hard it would be. And I think we all have probably some serious anxiety about death,

but yeah, some more than others. I'm not sure where these feelings come from, but it's probably related to the fact that in high school, my boyfriend attempted suicide. Thankfully, he survived, but it was a very close call. I am no longer with this person, but I still remember the emotional

“roller coaster. I'm not sure if that's what caused this fear of death, but it could have something”

to do with a variant and so I'm sorry. I've been talking with a therapist regularly for a little over six months now. She diagnosed me with mild to moderate anxiety and depression. She has suggested pursuing medications in order to feel a little lighter and to quiet my mind. But I have many hesitations about pursuing medication. For one thing, I struggle with body image issues and cannot afford the weight gain that often comes with these medications. Gaining weight would not be good

for my mental well-being. For another, many of these medications can lower your libido. I already struggle with the lower libido, which can sometimes cause tension in my marriage. We've been working on this together and have been making progress, and I would hate for a medication to negatively affect that. I'm also a full-time artist and painter, and I worry about these medications numbing me or hindering my creativity. And I've read about possible cognitive decline associated

with long-term use of SSRIs. I never heard of that if you gave. I had not. I looked into it briefly

and I'm far from an expert, but basically it seems like the evidence for that is mixed and not conclusive. Yeah, so could totally not even be a thing. Could not be a thing. Could be a thing for some. People maybe I truly don't know, but I had never heard of it and there's no consensus online about this, so she goes on. Lastly, I find myself wondering if I really do have anxiety or depression, or if I'm just not doing enough for myself in order to feel my best. I do exercise any well,

but there's probably more that I could push myself to do that would help. For example, meditation, drinking less alcohol, I drink socially on the weekends, CBT therapy, less screen time, and so on. What are your thoughts on medication for anxiety and depression? Do you think doctors can be too quick to prescribe these medications before exploring other options? Signed writing you a letter to see if you guys are objectives to solving all this through receptors. Really good

questions. Gabe, I'm a little sweaty answer in this one. I am too, but I thought it was a really interesting question that like so many people wonder about, so I kind of wanted to get into it. Yeah, we're just not in a position to tell someone whether they should take medication or not. That is very personal. And it's medical advice. Something only a mental health professional can really weigh in on with their patient. Of course, I agree. Maybe we can just like talk about a few different

angles on our story and let her decide for herself. Yeah, that sounds good to me. First of all, I'm very sorry that you struggled with anxiety, depression, anger, the fear of losing people. Tell you back from certain experiences you might want, like having kids. This is extremely intense stuff. And so universal, it is not crazy to struggle with any of it, especially in today's world.

“Honestly, I don't know a single person, not one who doesn't experience anxiety or depression”

or anger to some degree at some point in their life. These moods, these responses, they're part of being human. And we all need to find our own relationship with them. But before we get into that, my very broad thought about medication for anxiety and depression is medication is a remarkable

tool. It's imperfect clearly, but it's powerful. And obviously, their game changes for a lot of people.

And if somebody needs help, I think it's brilliant that we have these tools. I'm generally very proud of people for being open to taking it when they need it, especially if they have a severe mood disorder or a psychiatric condition that seriously impairs their life. So like no philosophical objections to medication per se on my end. However, I don't think it's controversial to say that doctors, especially in America, probably in the West very generally, they obviously prescribe

this stuff very easily. Some might say way too easily and definitely without exploring other options.

“Although I think that's changing with new treatments, there's TMS, ketamine stuff like that,”

which is really exciting. But like, is your psychiatrist really going to spend three hours talking to you about your family, your job, what your outlook on the world is?

you a script for his all-off. Yeah, probably not. I just haven't heard of any prescriber who says

exercise for 30 minutes, four times a week. Leave your toxic job, get off your damn phone, make plans with friends every Sunday. Come back in 90 days and we'll see if you still need medication, but not trained to. It's not their job to do that. They're too overwhelmed with patients to do that. So they see you for a few minutes. They ask you a few questions, mostly related to symptoms and they just they write you a script and that's it. And don't

“get me wrong. There are great psychiatrists out there. Of course, I believe many take a”

real interest in their patients, but generally speaking in the system we have here, even the good ones, they're usually not treating you as a whole. They're treating symptoms. And that means they're mostly writing scripts. And yeah, it's usually pretty quick.

Yeah, and these medications as powerful as they are at the end of the day, they're just a tool.

As far as I understand, all the research shows that the true efficacy of medication depends on the combination of medication and talk therapy. So to just take the meds, yeah, it can be very helpful to a degree and it is for so many people, but they're not a silver bullet. It's more like what do they make possible? How do you build on that? Exactly. So let's talk about you. It sounds to me like you're doing a lot right. Not only do you have this very full and

beautiful life. You're grateful for that life. And that's amazing. That alone is a huge advantage in terms of mood. It also sounds like there are a few things you could be doing to take you in better care of yourself, meditation, drinking less, therapy, less screen time. All of which can have it. It usually do have a major impact on everything, right? Everything. So my feeling is, I say this humbly, I'm really not giving you any kind of medical advice. My feeling is,

why not do those things first and then see how you feel? Not because medication is bad or wrong,

but because it is a big step. And it's one tool out of many. And like you said, it can come with side effects and these meds can be hard to get off of. And you might or might not find the results you're hoping for in the first place. So before I took that step, I just want to make sure. I really needed that stuff. Last week, we got a question from a guy who was asking about whether it makes sense to be in therapy long term. And I said this thing about whether therapy,

mental health care in general actually, whether it's about symptom reduction or whether it's about

“something else. Or it could be about more than that, I should say. And I think that idea might”

also be useful here because what I'm hearing from this letter is that she is mildly to moderately depressed and anxious. She gets very easily stressed that makes her irritable, makes her short tempered. She carries some anger around. And there are a few very clear sources of this anger and stress. She has a grumpy grandparent. She has to take care of. She has this challenging mom with whom she struggles to draw boundaries. And then there's this despair and anxiety about losing people.

How would I survive that? How would I continue? Which is not just a question of mood or attitude. That is an existential question. And it's also one that's probably informed by your entire life history. How can you be alive on this earth? And not struggle with that question. We're talking about such big stuff. We're time out like love and loss and grief. And just how insane it is to be a human being who is going to experience in this life great joy and great sorrow. So I'm going to

repeat what Jordan just said just to be very clear and respectful of your process, my friend. I'm not as psychiatrist. I'm not a doctor. I'm no expert. I'm definitely not here to tell you what's to do. I'm just a fellow person who's also wondered at various points whether medication was for me. I've told you guys I think a little bit over the years about periods of depression. I've been through which were really hard. And I would just really take some time if you can manage it and talk

about these themes. Ideally with a therapist, yes. But also with people you're close with. I would read about these topics and learn from expert to write about this stuff. And I can send you some racks if you want. By the way, just email me. And maybe start to think of these experiences like depression and fear and anxiety and anger. Not necessarily as symptoms to make go away. But as information about you and areas of your life that might be calling out for a little bit more attention from you.

We could literally talk for hours about this. We only have a few minutes here. But for example,

“your anger, you could call it a quote unquote problem, right? A problem that you need to quote”

unquote get under control. But I think a more helpful way to think about it might be that it is a signal you need to find a new way, for example, with your mom and your grandmother or yourself, where this anxiety about losing people. You could view that other problem that you need to medicate or you could treat it like an invitation to dive into this grief you feel, this fear, why you feel it so far in advance and how you're living with that fear. And just what the whole

idea of mortality and frankly, the precarity of life, which is a fact, what all of that brings up for you. Again, I don't mean to belabor the point, but we're all grappling with these big existential questions. They are very intense in the way you live them. Not just live with them, but

fear or you use that fear to stay connected to gratitude. I'm just naming a few of these big

experiences that are possible. So, look, if you were writing into us and you were saying, I can't get out of bed in the morning, or I literally cannot leave my house and drive on the freeway, because I'm so anxious, that would be a different story. If this were like radically empowering your life, and it wasn't even possible to talk about some of this stuff with a therapist, because you couldn't even get to their office, or you couldn't go to the library to get a book or something

like that, then that's a completely different situation. And that's when medication can be extremely helpful, and for many other situations. So, I'm talking to you like this in part because of how you're doing these days, you're saying mild to moderate, and you're still high functioning. But even

“still, my invitation to you would be, how curious can you get about yourself and about this life?”

Do you want to just like, quiet your mind or do you want to understand your mind? Do you want to find

a way to not think about death ever, or do you want to step into a friendly or relationship with death, and see if maybe it enriches your life and leads to new possibilities? Obviously, I feel that that's the more fruitful journey, but everybody is different, but still, I do think it's worth trying. But that's compatible with medication, right? It's not either/or. Absolutely, compatible, and if meds make it possible for her to do this, great.

But this isn't just, you know, like a nice intellectual exercise before you go to the psychiatrist, I really believe I have found in my life that this deeper work does really help with symptoms. It's very possible that you will get better, but you might have to broaden your definition of getting better, at least be open to new possibilities because so much of this is about your relationship with these feelings, your process around these feelings, and not just what are my solutions,

“and how do I get to these end states that feel better? Yeah, well said Gabe, I also think we all”

have a responsibility to ourselves to maintain a few basic practices. One of them is exercise. When I fall off my exercise routine, it is not pretty. Another one, of course, is sleeping. If you're not sleeping well, life can only be so good. Another one for me is learning and talking. If you're keeping it all inside, and nothing can get worked through, you're going to start to feel stuck. Another one, of course, again, for me, not drinking too much. We've talked about this before.

It's a very personal choice, too, for some people's totally fine, for others, not so much, but alcohol and mood, and sleep for that matter, and exercise for that matter. It's not a good combination. And all of those things are mostly free, and some might even save you money if you stop buying booze. And a lot of it's fun, right? Working on exercise and sleep and stuff, and all of these are very much a part of this life, so I definitely want to do them before trying anything

from the outside. I just realize we didn't even get to the side effects stuff. All I can say about that is everybody who takes medication worries about them. It sucks that side effects exist. Again, only you can decide if the trade-offs are worth it. Just keep in mind, side effects aren't guaranteed. Everyone experiences this stuff differently, and different SSRIs have different side effects. Unfortunately, there's no way to know until you try or just run an experiment on your own body,

but you might not need to really think about this yet. I'd cross that bridge once again there, and just to say, again, because I really take our responsibility on the show seriously,

and I never, ever want to overstep our role. If things get extremely difficult and you need more

support, please feel free to look in the medication. I hope we've made it abundantly clear. We are not anti-nor are we automatically probe, but most importantly, we are not medical experts. There are so many ways to take care of yourself in this world. Every one of us needs something different. So just keep coming back to what's right for you, but while you do that, make sure you're putting in the work on yourself in any event. I appreciate that you're being very intentional and thoughtful

about this. I know that's going to lead you to the right places. Good luck, and take good care of yourself. Don't forget about our episode with Dr. Guillom DeLood on living with tribes and our skeptical Sunday last Sunday on homelessness, if you haven't done so yet. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people I know like and trust. Six-minute networking, the course is free. It's not Shmoosey. I wish I knew this stuff 20

years ago. It just takes a few minutes a day. Get after it. Dig that well before you get thirsty. Build relationships before you need them. You can find all that at six-minute networking.com. Show notes and transcripts on the website. Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com/deals. On @jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram, you can also connect with me on LinkedIn, "Gabes on Instagram @gaberyomozrahi."

The show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace, Sanderson, Robert Fogretty, Ian Beard, Titus Adlaskis, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice in opinions are our own and I'm a lawyer, but not your lawyer,

“consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember,”

we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you'll apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

simply stop working, not because of a hack, but because computers get smart enough to break it

instantly. The scary part? That day is already being planned for and your data may already be saved for later. Quantum computers actually are a real step in evolution in the way that everybody knows about a binary state, zeros and one on and off. That was and is the technology for the classic computers today. We've improved technologically much faster than we have been able to as a society come up with ways to prevent the harm. Quantum computers can lead to what's

called Q-Day or I prefer to call it digital disaster day, D-Day 2. Because that's the day when

all the digital secrets that the normal computers can't crack through encryption are going to be cracked by quantum computers and that is really what gets people's attention. Combine that with AI and boy, we've really got a one-two punch that can make humanity take these giant technological beliefs that we had no idea could possibly happen and that's one of the big fears is AI that a lot of people are worried about. Now, quantum's coming around the corner, it makes it even twice as scary.

It's a huge mix bag of possibilities for everybody that are great and also danger, you know, terminator level, existential problems. All the doomsday prepers actually are on this something.

“If this does happen in the next few years, we're really going to be in big trouble. That's why”

I'm sort of an evangelist out there trying to speak on it and let people know this is a major problem can't just stick our head in the sand. To hear from quantum expert John Young on what Q-Day is, why it matters now, and what happens when our digital security hits its expiration date, check out episode 1261 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. [Speaking foreign language]

And knock us out with the checkout with the world for the best conversion. That's right, the checkout with the world for the best conversion. The legendary checkout from Shopify, for just the shop on their website, listen to social media and over-ideats. That's a music for your ears. Videos on the rest of the vendors, with Shopify, can help to a real help.

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