Mental Health Breaks and Advocating for Yourself

This is The Unholy Union. A podcast where you'll be subjected to highly offensive marital discourse. If you do not feel insulted during this week's episode, don't worry, we'll try harder next week. If you can relate to our ramblings, we wanna be friends with you. If you believe that we take it too far or our mouths are too much for you, then with as much love and sincerity as we can muster, you can suck it. Welcome to the Unholy Union.

It is 79 degrees right now in Florida. I don't like it. It's cold. It's well, I do like it.

Well, we fish well, I fished for

15 minutes this morning,

and it was awesome.

Was it now? Yeah. You sat in the car? Yeah. With kiddo watching videos. Yeah. That's wonderful. I don't understand why you neither one of you can just be outside in nature and enjoy it, especially when it's 79 degrees. We can, but we're addicted to Johnny Tsunami, I think, is his username on Instagram,

and he does all those videos where he Making fun of that lady? Yeah. Mimics the coffee lady. The cow fee. Like Oh my god.

I did wanna talk about that too. I'm glad we just randomly got on this because

if she thinks she's sexy,

she's

not. She is

a living meme because because of what she's doing. Well, I mean, she's making coffee recipes. Like, that's a big thing in Okay. I understand, but there's a way to do it to not

be so cringe. You don't like it when she says,

honey. No.

That's what I'm saying. Is she doing it on purpose to be

like a meme? Like, is she trying to be funny, or is she doing it to be serious and try to be like this sexy coffee? A little bit of both, to be honest.

It's awful. I'm like, when she does that breathy crap, I'm like, I know your breath is humming.

Well, I'm sure some other men would be like, who? Like, I don't know. I wanna smell your stinky bath.

I feel like feet. I don't know. It it it's weird.

But we like those videos, and it cracks us up. So, yeah, we would spend some time watching those videos. 15 minutes

of TikTok.

It was funny

watching all those, and our daughter likes to mimic it too. She'll say she'll say,

Carol. I know. Yeah. She's she does a really good job making fun of that lady too.

Mhmm. Good. Coffee.

Perfect.

Right. That's what that's the catchphrase right now is perfect.

I don't like it. Okay. Well, I'm glad you weren't there.

That's rude. Well, you don't like it.

So let's talk about the elephant in the room. We took a break. We did. We took a little bit of a break. We did. And

one of our listeners, Aaron,

decided to give me shit through email.

Love you.

Uh-huh. Saw that.

Yeah. We took a little break. We did. And it wasn't really it was kind of a

we would have notified

everybody and kind of said

previously, but it was kind of an impromptu type deal. We're bad about social media. We really need to leverage it more when we take these kind of breaks. Like, we're not dead. Right.

I don't know. It's social media is just something else to try to keep up with, and it's not not very easy to do. Yeah. We need to be better about it. But we took a break for mental health purposes and other things that are going on within the family.

But, specifically,

you know, you get so bogged down with bad news Oh, yeah. That you just need to take a break from it. But before we get to that,

some of the things that have been going on,

our cat has a UTI.

Yes. He's been

I think he's been finding some dirty cat.

You probably get one of them alley cats in here, paid her $5.

Uh-huh. Or whatever. Now what happened? Yeah. Paid her 5 ounces of catnip.

Oh my god.

And, just yeah. Now he's suffering the consequences. We all are. Right? Poor cat. I felt so bad for him. He

he just dribble

all over the place. I mean, he you could see that he was almost panicking

because he couldn't make it to the litter box.

Mhmm. And he would take off running, and then he would he couldn't make it, so he'd just squat wherever he was.

And I'm like, oh my good I felt so bad for him. Yep. So I had to take him to the vet, and now we have to give him medicine.

And

he's on a special diet because he has what they call crystals in his bladder, which is a normal thing for cats, but they want to make sure that it doesn't become, like,

a major blockage. Right. To where he has to have surgery. So this diet supposedly increases the acidity of his piss.

It was just gross.

And how do you make cat piss more acidic? I don't know. That stuff stinks already. Oh my god. But yeah. So it supposedly

will dissolve

said crystals before they become a problem. Yeah. And to give a cat medicine,

like, that is no easy feat.

Well, to be fair,

he isn't that bad. I just have to pick him up. Yeah. He don't like it, but I gotta pick him up and kinda hold his arms and legs down. I guess he has 4 legs.

Two arms, two legs. Yeah. Kinda I gotta hold all of his limbs

in, like, a stationary spot so he doesn't try to kick and get away, but then I have to hold his mouth open and squirt a syringe in his mouth. But one was what was very interesting

was giving him a pill. Right.

I put it in his mouth, and he just swallowed it. I was like, the fuck?

That was easy. I thought that was gonna be the hard part versus the liquid.

Mhmm. It was easier. And we've had a lot of, you know, animals in our live pets over the years. Yeah. And the only time that I can remember

a cat giving a cat medicine, like, for one of my pets, I've only ever had one besides this one. Anyways,

he would put it in his food, his wet food, and he would eat around it. Oh, yeah. So for our cat, Benny, to be able to just swallow it, like, he's a champ. Yeah. Well, I mean, I kinda don't give him much of a choice. True. I guess you could say, because I'm holding him and giving him both doses. Stroke the throat after it goes? No. I just I just tell him I'm gonna put you on a sleeper hold if you don't take this.

No. But I just put the pill in his mouth, and I kinda closed his mouth for him a little bit,

and then it was gone.

So I hope he took it. I mean, where would it go? I don't know.

Okay.

Well, then our daughter has lice again. Oh. 2nd second round here.

Yep.

And I will tell everyone that that treatment, the Knicks stuff. Is gross. It is the most vilest crap, but

it does work, but it's nasty. Mhmm. It's like you might as well pour olive oil all over your head. Right. It is. Doesn't come out easy. Yeah. It is very oily,

and it stays in your hair for a while. And I I get that's probably the point and purpose. Yeah. It says it suffocates

everything. Right.

But it's so gross. That's why I guess that's why you're supposed to leave it in for 10 minutes so that you know for a fact, like, everything's dead. They can't hold their breath for 10 minutes. It's dead. You're all dead. But

it's nasty. I don't like lice. It's not fun. The comb that they give you to go through the hair, it's a pain in the ass because it tugs the hair, and then your kid yells at you and wants to cut your arms off. Yep.

It's awful. That's a normal morning, though. I just kinda brush your hair. Yeah. But it's worse with that thing because it's so fine to catch the eggs. Oh my god. The nits.

Yeah. So it's just been fun over here in the household

over here, but

I have also been having some health issues. Nothing serious, and it's essentially unexplained woman issues, and I'll leave it at that.

But one of the

one of the things I wanted to talk about is that

when I went to the doctor

well, let me back up. I called the doctor when I started having the issues, and they basically brushed me off

and told me, you know, to wait until the next available appointment, which is like 2 weeks from that. Okay. Fine. They're not concerned. I won't be concerned.

Get into the doctor's office,

and the doctor basically says, I'm not concerned. These are natural side effects,

so nothing to worry about. Right?

And I'm looking at her like,

you don't really un know the full

you weren't there. Right? She wasn't there in the moment when I was having these issues. So she doesn't know the full extent. No. And I'm trying to explain it to her, but she's still kinda brushing it off.

So I really went into advocating for myself

with my doctor.

Like, no. I I get I hear what you're saying that maybe this is normal,

but can we please double check? Yeah. Let's let's Like, you're not even looking at she's looking at me as a person, but, like, not inside of me where things are happening. Yeah. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be graphic.

My point is, though, like, advocating. Right? Like, doctors

sometimes feel like they will brush us off. Right? Oh, I mean, it it was the same thing with the OCD stuff we went through. Right. I oh, you your first initial appointment is going to be an hour. We're gonna you're gonna sit down with me. You're gonna explain everything. Blah blah blah blah blah. It was, like, 10 minutes. Right. Okay.

Exactly. So I really wanna harp on this for a second in advocating for yourself with your doctor. Yep.

Because

feeling brushed off like that, if you leave that appointment without doing it, then you

are essentially leaving without answers. Right? Yeah. And all you're gonna do is have to schedule another expensive appointment. Right. If it the your the issues keep occurring

or if

you still have concerns. Right?

So at this appointment, I advocated for myself and got the things that I wanted.

Basically, asked her, like, can we do this? She says, well, I could be convinced.

It's like, why do I have to convince you? Yeah. I know. It's like that should be it's almost like a precautionary thing. Right. Can we double check? Right.

So definitely advocate for yourself. Another thing that this doctor said, and I'm 10 seconds away from switching doctors at this point. I think you should, anyway.

Is

the age of personalized medicine will be long after she and I die.

And I'm

when she said that, I'm like, so you know there's a way. There is a way to have personalized medicine,

and it's to understand someone's hereditary history, their

genetic makeup, like, actually balance. Right. Understand the person,

and then treat the person rather than, oh, you have this list of symptoms that sounds kinda like this over here. Yeah. It's it's awful. But

to be fair, she's probably not wrong

because of the way America's health system is.

It is

all about profit

and doing those personalized medicine things. It's very expensive.

Well, and I get that. I I understand

Why wouldn't you fight for that? She probably does,

but they insurance I don't believe she does, but continue. Insurance will not cover that kinda stuff. They want to lump you in. That's the problem. I know. Insurance is is a fucking scam Mhmm. Because

it's crap. Like,

she just essentially told you, like, any everything that I'm doing right now is putting you into a classification

and not

specific to you. Right. That's bullshit because

your

issues are totally different from

everybody else's issues. Nobody's the same,

but that's that's the problem. So you've got big pharma who runs a lot of stuff.

You've got in giant insurance companies who run a lot of stuff, and then you've got the hospitals.

They're all in cahoots

to try to,

you know, get get the most profit out of you.

It's it's awful. Mhmm. It seriously is awful and listen to the episode of with Justin Bizarro because, well,

it's conspiracy tinfoil hat shit, but he and I

think that

even food companies may be involved in all that stuff. Right. Because

the first thing you should do is change your diet for health. Mhmm.

And they never do that. Like, they never tell you that in a hospital. Of course not. They never say, hey. You know, you're eating too many Whoppers.

And I'm not talking about the fucking Burger King. I'm talking about the chocolate.

What does that say that I thought about the Burger King?

But

the point though

is why don't they advocate see, that that doctor could advocate for you changing your diet. Mhmm. And she didn't. Right. And that's free, but that's free. That costs them not or it will make them no money, but it costs you nothing.

And, well, it costs you going to the grocery store, but they don't make that money. Right. So they have they wanna pump you full of

hormonal

imbalancing

medication like birth control because that's what that does. It fucks with your hormones. Mhmm.

And then they're gonna keep throwing pills at you until one may work okay. Right. But there's a laundry list of side effects

for very little gain when there's other things out there that can balance your hormones that are natural.

Yeah. I mean, the ultimate goal though for birth control is to not get pregnant. I understand. You can't do that naturally unless, you know,

you do some outwardly contraception.

I understand, but that that that's what condoms are for. I True. I did a I did a

a science class

at

Liberty University, which is a Christian university,

a biology class,

and they talked about bang bang. You know? Bang a lang.

Why are you talking in code? They talked about sex. Got it. Yeah. They talked about sex, and they talked about contraception.

And

they're a Christian university,

but they had a lot of good points on why you shouldn't use

hormonal

type of contraception because it can be permanent. It can make you infertile for the rest of your life.

If you ever want to have a kid,

things of that nature. At this point, they can rip it all out of me, and I would be extremely happy. I am over this shit.

But my point in all of this is saying that

personalized medicine and the fact that whatever reason my insurance isn't covering,

like, most of the costs here, I'm spending, like, $250

out of pocket on some of these things. On preventive medicine Right. Which is crap.

Exactly. So it's just like it just feels like

even if you do advocate for yourself, you're gonna be out of pocket at some point. Like, you're gonna have to pay for it, and that's bullshit. Well, in all this all this is to say, you're we're already being squeezed hard

from inflation,

rising taxes,

and things of that nature, but

now you're having to to pay $250

just to go see a doctor Right. For a a lady time doctor.

I'm serious. You can say g y n I. No. I I know, but it's just messed up. It doesn't it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and this dog is tripping.

Literally.

So all that,

is true.

She derailed you.

Love it.

So with all of our

other problems that are going on, again, one of the bigger drivers, you know, we have a lot on our plate. The news just fucking sucks. Yes. We just we needed a mental health break to deal with all of our things and just kinda, like, break away

from the news, essentially. And we and we to we have not

been sleeping on the podcast.

No. We've been working our butts off, and we'll get to that in a second. Right. We are we have a lot of things in on the burner.

Right. Cooking. Cooking.

So

I wanna make it very clear that I think mental health breaks are important.

So rounding out all of the other problems that we had, you know, talking about mental health and

taking a break from bad news, I think, is extremely

important.

One of the things that I don't think that we as Americans do well, though, is taking that break and actually unplugging. No. They no. We don't.

And I think for us, unplugging

is different than

for other people or other countries even.

Like, when I think of what we did over the last 2 weeks, we really weren't unplugged.

Absolutely not. We had so much going on

with lives, right, our other problems.

But also to step away and not read the news, I think to us, that was kind of unplugging,

but still to an extent, we're we're still ingesting that. A 100%.

Like, the Gaza,

Israel,

Palestine, Hamas

war,

what a conflict is going on and that you can't

it's almost like you can't mute it

Mhmm. Unless you completely

unplug as in Don't look at your phone. Screen time go bye bye. Right. And That's hard.

A 100%.

But I was curious, like, what other countries

allow

should someone get to a point where they need a mental health break? And let I want you to listen to this because I wanna talk about it for a second. Under Germany's

burnout leave policy, if you tell your work you are burnt out,

they as a country have a policy for burnout leave.

Employees who are suffering from burnout can take up to 72

weeks of paid leave.

The policy aims to help employees recover from their stress and restore their energy and motivation.

It also benefits employers by reducing absenteeism,

turnover, and the health care costs.

Can you imagine the difference

in this country for mental health

if that was a thing?

Yeah.

It would be good. Right. Like

the I think overnight,

well, I guess over 72 weeks,

the mental health of many people

would improve

drastically.

But I don't know. I can see very a lot of abuse going on with that.

72

weeks, that's more than a year.

Well, okay. So

I didn't get into the nitty gritty of it,

but the way it sounds is you have to be essentially

diagnosed

with burnout.

I'm burnt out, doc.

Well, you go to your doctor. You go to a therapist, and they say, yeah. You're burnt out. Here's 72 weeks of paid leave.

72

weeks. That's fucked up.

It's insane.

I agree.

But

can you imagine the

what would happen to somebody? I think work

is

just a very small fraction of mental health.

I do. I think it's more to do with everybody being

a zombie, a cell phone zombie,

and focusing on that

all day every day, spending hours upon hours

getting that dopamine hit of scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all that stuff. I think work is a lot less.

I don't believe that. This this country

used to work their fucking asses off.

And look where it got us. I understand.

But they didn't have this, like, major depression

type of issues. No. That's wrong.

They did.

They just covered it up with

that's not normal. So nobody showed it. Nobody sought help. There was still suicide, especially during the market crash. Oh, yes. There was still

Of course there was. People with alcohol and drug abuse because

they wouldn't go get help. So no. I don't believe that. A lot less. Technology is poison.

Well, I don't I agree that technology isn't helping for sure, and maybe it is making it

more

happen more.

But to say that it didn't happen back then is I'm not saying it didn't happen back then. I guarantee you it was less prep prevalent.

They didn't have access to 24 hour

sensationalized

negativity

penetrating their brain meat. And I agree with that. You and I went out

Friday morning

to

pick up a crate for the cat to take him to the to the vet, and we saw high schoolers at the bus stop.

Not one of them was talking to each other.

Not one kid was talking to another kid. They were all

buried in their cell phones. It was sad. Actually, there were 2 kids, and they were sharpening sticks into, like, spears. Yeah. They were about to kill each other. They were about to 300

and shit.

Yes. To your point, the majority of them were locked in their phones. Extremely weird. I'm like, how is that good for you? Because we're social creatures.

Right. And, no, you cannot replace social

with social media. That's not the same as you

looking at somebody in the eye directly and talking to them. Well, they actually just did a study on that, and I think it's one of

the articles that has been published on the side of going back into the office.

When you have face to face meetings, you have more neural pathways that are active

than when you're on a Zoom meeting. I mean, I can kind of believe that, I think, for sure

because there's

you're

90% of the people that I meet with

on a Zoom call,

they don't have their cameras on,

first off. So it's like

I'm not I'm just talking to a voice. Right.

But when you turn your camera on, it's a little bit better, but I still don't think it's a

100%. No. You're still not getting that face to face interaction. No. I'm not saying that you can't adjust to that

and still kind of, you know,

make it work, but I don't think it's as good.

But to the point of

mental health breaks,

I mean, 72 weeks might be too much. But

for people who are diagnosed with anxiety or depression,

and it is severe,

and you give them a 72 week break,

could you, I could foresee

that they would come out of the severity of it and be able to manage it easier? I don't know. Because I feel like if you gave somebody

72 weeks,

it might get worse

because they could sit at home and be on their phone all

day. Okay. So we're half full, half empty kinda deal right now? I I think that work is a very small portion of

mental illness in this country.

The way you the US does work, I don't agree with that. The way the US does work is we do overtime. We do clock in, clock out to the minute. No. I agree. I don't I think that's wrong. That's too much. I think flexibility is more

of a

fixer than

just giving you 72 weeks off. Saying like, hey. I gotta take my kid to school on Mondays and Tuesdays. Can you just let me come in

half hour late? And if this is they work should be like, absolutely.

But if you give your employees that kind of flexibility, then

that helps a lot.

I agree with that, but

you look at countries in Europe. Right? Or I see the lady who moved to Italy from the US or Spain, one of the 2,

in the way she works. Like, in the 1st year, she had the American mentality clock in, clock out. In the 2nd year, she took an hour lunch break

and got

more acclimated to the way of life in Europe. And then by her 3rd year,

it's, you know, she works when she works, she gets it done, and that's the end.

So

the idea

of the way Americans work,

I think something like

a burnout policy

would be helpful. 72 weeks might be a lot. But

if the US

does work the way that it does now forever,

I I think mental health is gonna get worse. It will.

Probably.

But

like I said, I feel like that's a

you can't just give people 72 weeks off

and expect things to change because I think that that that may be a part of the problem, but it's not

it's not the solution to everything.

Well, it Work sucks. Everybody fucking hates work. Okay. Blink 182. But

it's other things. It's the cell phone addiction. It's the

TikTok

Keeping up with the Jones. Garbage. It's filtering yourself, and everybody's fake now. It's getting lip filler because

why?

All that to say that

breaks are are important, though. Again, 72

weeks might be a lot. But Yeah. But I'm the I I like

I think breaks

are good,

but you should make sure you take a break from a lot of things, not just your work. Right. Okay. I can I can get on board with that? So if you took a break from work, took a break from social media, took a break from

whatever stressors are going on in your life

and really truly disconnected.

Right. So I found this definition. I think it's really important that at their core, mental health breaks are about creating a space, both physical and emotional, that allows you to step back from your regular routines, commitments, and responsibilities

to focus on restoring your mental well-being.

So I think to your point, like, that's a that's a multi

Yeah. Break from

a lot of things. Right.

Not just one.

And I would recommend people buy a dumb phone off of Amazon

and swap SIM cards if you wanna truly do a detox

of, like, the digital nature.

Perfect.

Okay. But, yeah, seriously, though, buy, like, a a

cheap flip phone off Amazon and swap SIM cards when you need a break from social media. Force yourself

because it's very difficult to have a smartphone in your pocket and not

grab for it. Right.

Well, I think the last thing to kinda close-up

mental health and

or just health in general,

Matthew Perry passed. He did. He did. And he was Chandler on Friends, if you don't

recall.

But he they did that reunion show for HBO. He was the realest one on there. I love that guy. He was very real on the show, but he also looked horrible. No. He did. He's he had a lot of health issues from from substance abuse. Mhmm. So much to the point where his colon almost exploded. I think it did explode. Ugh.

And he had a 2% chance to live, and he actually lived.

But I wonder like, he it was an apparent drowning is the last I've seen on the news, but that's strange. It makes you wonder, did he relapse? And

It does. I mean, I'm sure we'll find out more over the

next couple of weeks, but that's sad. He was one of my favorite characters. I mean, Ross is probably top for me, but Me too.

He was he was up there because of I don't know. The kind of humor that he had. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was goofy.

I don't know. It's that's sad. It's so he was 54, I believe. Yes.

Like,

I don't know. It's it's weird.

Like,

growing up in the nineties. Right? That's all we watched. Yeah. That was, like, the biggest show ever. Right. And

for him to pass at 54,

you know, they had the reunion show. They said they didn't wanna ever do, like, an actual friends

Episode. Episode because they left it off so well.

And I agree with that, but,

yeah, that is now completely gone. Like, you can't do it without him. No. It's like

going to see ACDC right now. Well, no. I think they got him back.

ACDC?

I'm not fucking 60% of the band is

Well, I meant the lead singer can Doesn't happen. I meant the lead singer. I know, but it doesn't make sense. It's not AC. I hate when bands do that crap. A Lynyrd Skynyrd. Yeah. It's not them anymore. You are lying.

Yeah. The brand that that band is gone. Leave them leave it alone.

Say ACDC 2

or something like that.

The sequel. There you go.

I just I don't know. It's sad.

Hope I'm hoping that it was just,

you know,

natural causes

and all that good stuff.

It's not good no matter what it is, but hopefully it's not a relapse thing. And It just makes me think, like, did other generations

experience

and I'm not saying that I'm taking this, like, really hard depressed kind of thing. I mean, it sucks. Right? Yeah. But did other generations have this kind of attachment to shows or I grass.

Okay.

We're

back

to

that.

Yep. So

grass. Okay. We're back to that.

Yep. Screen time. Screen time bad. Yeah. Screen time bad. I get it. It's not good. I mean, I'm tired of hearing about Taylor Swift and that football guy. I don't give a fuck. No. I hope they're happy. But other than that, don't care. It just makes me wonder, like, if any other generations really had the tie that millennials do. Like, it seems like it started with millennials. Right? That we

really tied to

actors on the screen.

Yeah. I mean, that that was

the

media was big.

I mean, TV and stuff. Now it's Internet, but Right. Back then, it was television,

like Home Improvement,

Friends.

Boy Meets World. Boy Meets World. Yeah. Exactly. All that stuff. All the cartoons. Hey, Arnold. Doug.

I miss all that stuff.

I really do. But, you know, what's weird is I tried to watch that the other day.

Doug? Yeah. Oh my god. It's awful.

I feel like everything that we watched as kids was it's probably cringe now. It is. It's like you have that nostalgia and you're like hear me? Gen z? Cringe? Oh my god.

But you have that nostalgia, and then you look at it. You're like, holy crap. I watched this religiously, and I thought it was so good.

It sucks.

Well,

Halloween's coming up. Yay. I wonder if anybody will dress up as Chandler Bing. Too soon?

No. I mean,

that's good. That's a way to keep his memory

his memory alive. But how do you dress up as a normal person?

Well, so you could probably do it with Joey, the character Joey, more than you could with Chandler because Joey put on this pile of clothes Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That would be funny. But

our kiddo is gonna be

Zombies.

Yeah. The movie Halloween

the Disney movie

Zombies. Zombies. The girl. Her name is Addison. She's a cheerleader.

So our kiddo's gonna be her,

but she talked about cutting her hair. I was like, you can't cut your hair until after Halloween.

She doesn't wanna do that. Yes. She did. She told me. She don't want to. She said, I hate brushing my long hair.

Yeah. That I don't get it.

It's like World War 3 when we had to brush your hair in the morning.

Time. Every time. But we also have some, like you said, some exciting things coming up. We've been working hard on trying to get our next interviews lined up. We have a musician

interview cooking,

and it's not Oliver Anthony, so don't get

excited for Oliver Anthony, but this guy's name is Charlie Marx.

He's a folk musician, bluegrass guy. He's really cool, and he's got some good stuff on Spotify. So we're gonna have him on probably next week.

And then

We have another one. Hopefully, we're working on scheduling her right now.

Talking all about

the idea of sustainability

within

the world for infrastructure,

and that does equate to water, but also sharing of wealth. So we'll see when we can get her in as well. Yeah.

Sounds good.

Lots of good stuff. Love you. Goodbye.

Thanks for listening to the Unholy Union podcast. For more Unholy Union content, check out our social media at Unholy Union Cast on Instagram and Twitter. We also have

Unholy Union podcastdot com. Again, thank you for listening, and we hope to have you back next week.

It's what she does, and we love.