episode 218
“How does people pleasing affect our lives?”
On Ask Kati Anything, your mental health podcast episode 218, licensed therapist Kati Morton talks about negative self talk, the different ways people pleasing can show up in our lives, and how to connect what we rationally know with how we feel. She then discusses whether or not it’s okay to cuss in therapy, how to healthily lose weight when we have an eating disorder, and whether or not a therapist can be biased due to their speciality.
This is a transcript of Ask Kati Anything podcast episode your mental health podcast #218 Please note that the transcript is computer generated, and may have errors.
Ask Kati Anything episode #218
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Ask Kati Anything. I'm your host. Licensed marriage ophthalmic therapist Kati Morton. I'm so glad that you're here. In today's episode, I'm going to talk about negative self-talk. Also, the different ways that people pleasing can show up in our lives and how to connect what we rationally know with how we feel. Then I'm going to discuss whether or not it's okay to cuss in therapy, how to healthily lose weight when we also have an eating disorder, and whether or not a therapist can be biased due to their specialty. If you are looking to get your questions answered or you want to be more active in our community, you can join me on Patreon at Patreon.com Forward Slash Kati Morton. Or you can join YouTube memberships I offer live streams on both platforms. They're just a little bit different. You can look at what I offer, but over on YouTube memberships, I offer journal prompts, then 30 minute live streams and then 60 minute live streams each and every month on Patreon. I have one live stream every month where I answer questions. If you're in the $20 tier and above, but you can participate for just $1 a month. And then there are other benefits as you kind of go up there. We have Hangouts through Skype with other people that are part of the community and one on one hangouts with me, so you can check those benefits out. And without further ado, let's jump into today's question or questions.
Question number one says Hi Kati, I hope you see this. I did, I just wanted to check in with you. I'm someone who shit talks myself a lot, and my therapist calls me out on it as I should. I noticed in some of your videos you were referred to yourself as the crazy therapist or this weird therapist, and I want to check in at check. Is this you just poking fun at yourself? For example, when I refer to myself as the crazy lady in a fun way. Not sure talking myself rather than you talking bad about yourself, I only ask because you're an amazing therapist and we all appreciate you. So if you're shit talking to yourself, I'm calling you out on it. I appreciated this question or comment rather. And the truth is, I think it's probably, if I'm honest, a little bit of both. First off being the fact that when I started my channel in 2011, no one else is doing this. And I was definitely like weird. Like when I would go to events, people didn't know what to do with me. I talk to other creators and be like, hey, do you want to collab? And they're like, I don't really talk about mental health on my channel. I got a lot of pushback that way back in the day, and I think probably some of that is still hanging around, even though it's no longer true. You know, we have those old stories we tell ourselves. I think that might be one of mine. However, most of it is really I'd say that's like ten, 20% of it. The other 80, 90% is just me poking fun. Because whenever I give you guys some thoughts or advice or insight into something, I'm always like, how would you bring this up with your therapist? You know, I listen to this therapist on the internet, like, how do we talk about that? Right? And so that's me kind of just poking fun at the fact that I have a very cool and amazing job, but also kind of weird, right? It's a little different. It's not what I thought I'd be doing. I didn't think this was a job when I was in school, right? The internet and social media had not become really what it is now at that time. So it wasn't even an option, option or opportunity. And so I think that's kind of where that comes from. But thank you for calling me out on it. And it's good. I kind of like the the thought or the practice of us, you know, checking in with each other because we often shit talk ourselves especially and not realize it. It's almost like we do it like it's a knee jerk reaction or it's almost, we're so used to it that it doesn't even seem that negative. Like I have a girlfriend who does this all the time, where she will just talk down to herself and she'll say things like, yeah, I'm doing this, but it's kind of like, stupid and like, she doesn't love her job and so she should talk to her job a lot. And I'm like, hey, you've been at that job for a long time. You're doing a great job, right? I know that that can sound kind of weird, maybe, but that is all kind of part of the shit talking because it's a huge part of, like, who she is to some extent, and what she spends most of her time doing. And if she's talking down on it all the time, it can lead to her feeling bad. And so I always call her out and I'm like, hey, I know you don't like it. Let's find you something better, but has nothing to do with who you are or, you know, it's not indicative of your abilities. We have to make sure that we're not taking those things. So just be cognizant of how you talk to yourself about your self specifically, but also the things that are part of your life and the big pieces of that. Let's make sure we're talking more calmly, because we can get used to shit talking ourselves and not even realize that even just this morning, I was talking to my neighbor Karen and I am going to the United Nations at the end of this month to talk to is part of the Eating Disorder Action day, and there's a mental health coalition's going to be there. It's going to be very, very cool. And I was telling her about it and I just kind of said it and was like, yeah, yeah, I'm doing this thing. And she's like, that's a big deal. You need to give yourself credit. Don't try to downplay it. And it's funny how we do that, right. We can often downplay things that are important to us or things that should be big deals, because for whatever reason, we either think we're not worthy of it or not worth it or that it makes us conceited or something like an asshole or vain. If we do feel proud and I don't know why we, you know, not we necessarily, I guess. I don't know why I do that, and it's something that I want to be more aware of. So let's all try to be more aware this week and report back on how that goes. Okay. But thanks for checking in on me.
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Let's move on to question number two. This question is hey Kati, can you explain people pleasing gladly and the different ways that it can show up? Is it always a pacify and coping mechanism? Nope. I'll talk about that. I find that I get dysregulated when my husband is upset, so I tend to do things to make him feel better so that I feel okay again. Any idea what that behavior could be and why? And there are some follow ups. I think there's like 2 or 3 add ons to this, but let's just jump right in the great. I saw this on Instagram so I cannot take credit. I don't know who coined this term. No one has given anybody credit for it, but it's true and it's beautiful. And it's also kind of painful. And that is people pleasing is abandonment of self. And I want to say that, again, people pleasing is abandonment of self. And the reason that we say it that way, and the reason I believe it is so incredibly true, is that when we put someone else's happiness, someone else's of security, safety, whatever it is, above our own, we have to leave. We have to leave ourselves to languish or leave it for later. Put ourselves second. We're abandoning herself to put someone else first. And that's what people pleasing is. And so with this question, is it always a pacifying coping mechanism? It's not even about pacifying the other person. It's about pacifying us. Because another thing that I've learned through my own personal work with people pleasing, and I'm writing a book about control, and why do we keep doing the things we're doing? And a huge part of has people pleasing is that when we don't, when we don't grow up in a situation where all varied emotions are acceptable and talked about, which is almost all of us, right, let's be honest, then we can grow up into adults that aren't comfortable with any kind of emotional dysregulation in ourselves or in someone else. And so to this person's question where they say, you know, I try to make him feel better so that then I feel better. That's because his dysregulation makes you uncomfortable. So people pleasing is actually kind of a manipulation tactic, right? I'm trying to manipulate you into feeling better so that I don't feel as anxious about it or as upset about it. And so it's understanding that that's the role. So it's not so much that we want to please other people. Like there's that meme going around the internet where it's like, oh, you're a people pleaser. Name three people pleased with you. And it just it makes me laugh every time. But it's true because it has nothing to do with actually pleasing them. It's more about us assuaging our own anxieties. And the last little comment I want to make on this is the fact that you said, you know, I find I get dysregulated, that's you acknowledging your own anxiety. But I also want to throw in this potential piece here, which is what I call a measurement, where we what a measurement means is we don't have healthy boundaries between us and another person, so their emotions become our emotions. Our emotions become their emotions. It's a very unhealthy dynamic. It's it's it's not actually a way that we want our relationships to go, but it's incredibly, incredibly common. And so you're like picking up on his vibes and making his vibes yours. And so with all that in mind, right, people pleasing is abandonment of self. We do it not because we want them to feel happy, but because we're uncomfortable with their unhappiness. And also this codependency kind of peace. The way that people pleasing can show up is anything that touches on those three things. Meaning if we don't feel like we're worthy and we don't feel like we're important enough, it could be showing up there in places where we feel anxious or uncomfortable with someone else's upset. It can show up there. It can also show up in places where we don't have any healthy boundaries. these could be experiences like we can people please at work. Meaning we can say yes or we mean to say no. We can. People please, in our relationships, meaning not only romantic but friendship. We can put their desires above our own. Let's say we really want to see, I don't know, this movie and our friend at the last minute is like, you know what? I don't really want to see that. I'd rather see this. And we just kowtow. And every time this is a pattern, it's not just a one off. It's something that we always do. We always put other people first. We abandon our self, our own desires. I'll give you a little piece of homework to kind of maybe see how it feels for you. But something my therapist had me do that I've had a really hard time with is doing something by myself. No one else can be involved just because I want to do it just for the fun of it. That has been so incredibly hard for me because of all the things we're talking about, because I don't always put myself first. So the sheer act of doing something by myself is like, how dare you? And then the fact I'm doing it only because I want to, it's not a need again. How dare you write? It's all coming back to where my people pleasing comes from. Which is this? Not only do I have anxieties that stuff, but it's mainly the fact that I feel like I have to earn love, support, attention, affection, etc. has to be earned in some way. I'm not worthy of it, just being. I have to hustle for that worth. And so people pleasing is a version of me hustling. And I wish I could give you all the different ways that it could show up for you, but hopefully just understanding people, pleasing from a deeper level and kind of the ways it can route itself in our life. I hope you're able to see maybe the ways that it's showing up for you, and something that could be incredibly beneficial is for you to try to do the homework that I've been trying to do, doing things on your own just for the heck of it, just because you want to. But another, whenever we have people pleasing issues, we also struggle with boundaries. And so I would because you're aware that you try to make your husband feel better, I would challenge you to not do that. It doesn't mean we can't be kind and loving and supportive, but we don't have to light ourselves on fire to keep him warm. We don't have to abandon ourselves to ensure he feels better. We can allow for him to be uncomfortable and us acknowledge how that feels for us and write it out. I know it sounds terrible. I know it's uncomfortable. That's why it's a challenge. That's why it's not like, oh, you know what you could do easily. This is hard. And what we're really trying to do is break patterns. Maybe in childhood, if someone in your life was upset, maybe you, the eldest daughter or the oldest child in your family, you felt responsible for the emotional well-being of everybody in your family. Maybe there was some abuse happening. So if someone was upset, that meant that either they'd been abused or the abuse could happen. So we went into this far in response. This extreme people pleasing. Maybe you're like me and your parent worked away from home a lot, and so you felt like you had to really hustle to get their attention, to be worthy of that. You thought that something you did kept them away from home for a long period of time. That's what I internalized. So there could be any number of things that caused this, but just be aware of how it shows up for you and let's be curious, not judgmental about it. Now, there were comments on this is I have an ad on. As a long time people pleaser and social chameleon, I find it near impossible to be my genuine self when in the presence of other people. It can be tricky. It's always about catering the conversation to the interests of others and avoiding conflict at all costs. I know it's a form of manipulation, but I don't know how to stop. It feels as though I'm waking up after a conversation. I'm left puzzled for a second, wondering what the fuck just happened. It it's as if there's another person that takes the reins when I'm around others. I hate this person. Any insight into this issue would be appreciated. Thank you. I love this question too, because it can be hard to be our genuine selves because we we worry about we worry so much about what other people are thinking. I think a lot of people pleasing can overlap with some anxiety symptoms, particularly in social anxiety or social phobia symptoms. Because of that fear of conflict and the fear that people won't like us. And I'll think poorly of us, right? We want to. We want again. It's that manipulation, right? We want other people to like us. And so for the person who asked this question, I would encourage you to notice, maybe look back on other social interactions where you felt like you kind of went away. Right? You said you like, we wake up and you're like, what the fuck just happened? I wonder if you're dissociating. I wonder if the level of anxiety for social situations has gotten so high that you're not able to stay present, and if that is the case, then we need to try to find some ways to ground ourselves. Meaning if we start feeling that slip away, we're going to have to get to know those signs and symptoms we might not know right now. And that's okay. We can look back on previous experiences and see if we can try to feel out what was going on in our brain and bodies before we pulled on reality, and we're like, whoa! But if we can get to know that and we feel it happening, can we step away from the conversation? Can we go to the restroom? Can we change the subject? Can we have a fidget toy in our pocket? Can we, you know, go into the restroom, stomp our feet, shake out? Can we look around the room for things that are blue, green, black, brown and count them? Can we look around the room for something starts with a letter A, B, C, D and so on. What grounding techniques help you? Let's see if that is beneficial. Another thing is ways to lower the anxiety. So if we know that our dissociation or even this just like feeling like you wake up after a conversation, if we feel like that's happening, are there things that we can do to lower our anxiety? This could be prep work that we do. It could mean that we do some body shakes. We, do some breathing in the car before we go into an event. We take breaks throughout. It could mean we bring a person with us. It's supportive. Maybe it means we get into therapy, get on some medication. Could be any number of things. Try to bring that anxiety down. But once we kind of know where this is coming from, then we can do something about it. Because if we're dissociating, if we're kind of like waking up after conversations, then we're not going to be able to get into being our authentic self. Yet. We have to be able to sustain conversations and be present first. Then we can start to challenge our urge to turn conversations towards things that we know people want to talk about, or always act interested in things that we're really not interested in, you know, then we can challenge that. But we're not gonna be able to do that if we're already dysregulated, because challenging things is all almost always dysregulated. So let's start there first. Okay. There is one more add on. It says I find it incredibly difficult to focus and think clearly when I'm in the presence of other people. I need to know that I'm entirely alone or that everyone is asleep. I complete most of my work late at night at the cost of my sleep. I've experienced this since high school. As an added note, I often feel responsible for the emotional state of those around me. That is interesting. I don't know if this is an HSP meaning highly sensitive person issue, ADHD or being raised in an enmeshed family or something else. What do you think could cause this and what would you recommend for overcoming it? Thanks for the work that you do for the community. Of course, now the fact that you feel responsible for the emotional state of others. I kind of addressed this at the first part of the question that in measurement, there's something in your upbringing, whether you were the oldest child, oldest daughters often, experienced this like feeling their the emotional support for their family. But eldest sons can have it too. It's not necessarily gender specific. so it could be because of your role in your family and they could have expected you to be like the the one that keeps everybody happy, kind of like, you know, you placate everybody or placate her. But the fact that you feel like you're raising a family does lend itself to you. Feeling like other people's emotions are your responsibility because they're also yours, because there's no healthy boundaries. And so, along with what I've mentioned, like finding ways to calm our system down and noticing how this shows up for you in your relationships, keeping all that in mind, I think another step that we could take would be working on boundaries. Now we're going to start on boundaries that are not not so difficult, meaning not in relationships where we are really, really close to people. Because I have a feeling that if you feel responsible for the emotional state that's around you, it could happen to people that you don't even know very well. And those are the places where we're going to set boundaries, meaning if because boundaries are not requests, right? We it's not about controlling someone else, it's about what we can do for ourselves. So let's say someone in our life that we kind of know at work is, is very distressed and we feel the need to support them. We want to go over, we want to check in with them. We can even just maybe feel it. Like if we do have some HSP stuff, we might even just the the emotional know experience that's going on in our environment. We pick up on that now, instead of going over and seeking to support and seeking to understand, asking questions, talking to them. What if instead we checked in with ourselves? What if instead we distracted? Those are some other options that don't involve us getting emotionally connected to that person and maybe taking more responsibility? We're already feeling it. It's already pulling us in like a tractor beam. How do we fight back? And a lot of that's going to be distraction and then checking in with ourselves. What's going on for us? What do we think this says about us? Why do we feel like it's our responsibility instead of engaging in it? Let's get to know it better, because once we understand it, then we can do something about it and then the boundaries will be in place. Are things like letting someone know, hey, I don't really have time to talk today. Or it could be as simple as like, not apologizing when you're sharing space with another person, when you're not doing anything overtly in their way, or, saying no when we mean it, not picking up a call, not asking more questions when someone tries to dump on us, what's going on? Those are all kind of examples of how we can start with these. It's not like less difficult boundaries, but they're they're less emotionally charged. The boundaries with people who are super, super close to us are going to be the hardest ones to place. So let's start with kind of more of the casual acquaintances in our environment, stuff like not apologizing, you know, not picking up a call, things that are a little bit easier. And let's see how that goes. Okay. I hope that helps.
Let's move on to question number three. This question says, hey, Kati, how do I connect what I rationally know to what I feel? I know the whys behind my anxiety and know on a rational level, I shouldn't be anxious about it. And I know how to argue back and how to decrease the anxiety in the short term. But nothing helps in the long term, because no amount of thinking or fighting back against what my anxiety is telling me gets me to actually feel less anxious. No matter how much I know that I'm okay. It doesn't change anything, and I feel the anxiety is just sitting there in my body at all times. I love this question. You guys have such great question, but I love this question. I, have a video. It probably just came out actually. By the time this comes out, it will have come out about intellectualizing versus feeling, which is really like we can rationally know something that's intellectualizing feeling very different. And in short, in that video I explain how how to get to know our emotions and how to allow ourselves to feel them. So you can check that video out if you want that specific advice. But for this question, what's happening is the the anxiety is still sitting in our body because we haven't moved it through. An important thing to remember when it comes to anxiety, specifically in a lot of mental illnesses, that a lot of anxiety and ADHD could be one. Even my borderline patients, any of those, there's probably others, but those just off the top of my head, OCD, we can feel very cued up. We can feel very full of anxiety or whatever it is, and it's our nervous systems way of telling us that we're under threat now when we have anxiety or nervous systems like all haywire, it's saying we're under threat when we're not. Lots of things that shouldn't be terrifying or terrifying, or they worry us intensely. We don't know what to do about it. And so our body, because it is worried and it feels under threat, it accuses up to take action. And we don't take any action because we're kind of frozen in fear or, you know, panic or whatever. And it's in that freeze that we feel worse and that we get worse and our world can actually get smaller. It's kind of like when it comes to PTSD, when we have that hypervigilance. And so, oh, I get really hypervigilant, really overstimulated when I go to the park. So now I don't go outside anymore. Right. It slowly shrinks our world. I don't like waiting in lines. I don't like people behind me. So I don't go to any stores. I order in, or I don't go to my favorite amusement park because I just can't wait in line of calm. People behind me freaks me out. So all of that to say that those symptoms make our world smaller now the way out of it, because we can understand, oh, this is triggering my PTSD. This is triggering my social anxiety. I'm uncomfortable here. Instead of just understanding that's important. That's a key piece. But then to move out of it means I need to find a way to get this energy out of my body, calm my nervous system down, and push myself to keep doing those things even though they're just regulating. And it kind of goes in that order. I know that sounds kind of maybe backwards, but we have to find ways to calm our system down first, because if we're going to challenge it, we don't want to dissociate. We don't want to cause a panic or anxiety attack. We don't want to cause a shutdown, right. We want to be able to engage with the thing that's overwhelming, that's anxiety provoking, scary. And then we want to be able to come back out of it. And so we need to have those tools or resources at the ready. These can be things like dunking our face in cold water, putting a cold rag around her neck. Like I said earlier, like if it's grounding stuff, it could be like counting colors, going, doing the ABCs. Could be, you know, snapping a rubber band, fidget toys, all those things. also, it could be a full body shape, anything like that. That kind of helps you regulate. One of my patients love, like, stomp on her feet to stomp, stomp, stomp that help get it out. We're going to need to find ways to calm because you know that you're okay. But that doesn't change how you feel in your body because your your nervous system still cued up. So we need to trigger or initiate a nervous system release, cold plunges. That's why people say they're so good for their mental health, for depression, anxiety. I believe a lot of it has to do with this, like a reset. We also, I was reading, I fell down a rabbit hole. So on TikTok, this woman was talking about research from NASA about rebound it. And if you don't know what rebounding is. So when you jump on a trampoline. Now, I had done a workout back in early Covid days when we first moved to this house called Leaky Fit, and she does it on these little trampolines and I really enjoyed it. I just, you know, tried different things. I did it for like a year. And then I was like, I don't need to subscribe to things. I'll you know, just switch up. But there's so much research now, from NASA in particular, to do much research about rebounding and the effects of jumping on trampolines. When we work out just for like ten minutes a day. And it has shown to be incredibly helpful when it comes to mental illness, not severe mental illnesses. And when they say severe, they usually mean things that need to be medicated, like let's say we're actively suicidal, we have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, or we have, you know, some kind of psychosis. You know, I don't know, postpartum things like that. We might need medication. That doesn't mean we're not going to medication. But this rebounding has been proven and shown to lower cortisol levels and stress levels and help with anxiety and depression. So maybe we rebound. I think that might be why my patient like stomping her feet. Something about the jumping in the bouncing is really, really helpful. It's also really like low impact on our joints. So better for our knees. but we have to get it out of your body. That's why somatic experiencing is such a beneficial therapeutic technique. And I might encourage you to look into that, see if maybe you could get some support through that. Because there what's happening is we understand it, but it's all caught up in our body and we need to trigger that release. So give yourself an opportunity to, you know, push that out, shake it out, get it out of your body. and that should be able to help. But if not, also know that there is medication when anxiety gets bad, when our mental illness affects us to the like, we can't do anything about it. There's nothing wrong with medication either. So I hope that that gives you some ideas of things to try and do and keep me posted.
Okay, let's move on to question number four. This question says, Hi Kati, I hope you're okay. I was wondering if it's ever okay to swear in therapy. I was brought up to be polite and respectful, so I watch my mouth in most situations, of course. Oh, most in most situations, of course. This doesn't mean I don't swear. I just know the company that I can swear in versus the ones that I can't. In therapy. We're talking about a past trauma, and I've described the person before as someone that I hate, not a nice person, blah blah blah blah blah. I think my therapist noticed that I felt more strongly about this, and she asked me if you could describe him in a few words, what would it be? I admitted to her that I couldn't use the words I wanted to is. I didn't want to come across as rude, but she told me just to go for it and to finally be able to say, and to finally be able to say, I would say he's a fucking bastard. I felt so it felt so empowering. It can feel empowering. we'll talk about this. When this happened, she smiled, and it almost felt like we both saw it as a eureka moment, even though I don't swear much. Anyway, I now feel more comfortable swearing occasionally when it feels it's the best to describe or express something. and I notice that my therapist will occasionally swear to. This helped me feel a bit more comfortable and connected with her. But is this frowned upon? What a therapist tailor their attitude depending on the client or therapist, can a client or therapist get into trouble for this? Or is it better just to use the words that best fit or that fit best? I love this! Now a couple of things. As a therapist, I will cuss or not curse, kind of depending on my patient because if they're deeply religious or super, you know, buttoned up and polite and kind of uncomfortable with conversations like that, I don't want to make them uncomfortable. The whole goal is a therapist is to kind of be like a blank slate as much as possible. Obviously, I'm going to look the way that I look and there's assumptions that can be made. I'm female, you know, I speak English, I'm blond, I'm older. You know, there's all these things and assumptions people can make about a therapist. But as much as we can control, we try to not offer up anything extra. Okay? And that's so that you feel you can be yourself. Now you guys know me. I curse like a sailor. I find cursing to be incredibly helpful. I think it's for me in the same way the person described this. I remember because if for those of you don't know, I grew up incredibly religious, very active in church, and part of the reason why I would Pepperdine. My mom was like, good to send you to a good Christian school. also grew up in purity culture, and church just kind of felt incredibly suffocating for me. I remember in college around my junior year. So it's probably like 2021, my good friend Kim, she curses a lot and she doesn't as much new work. She has little kids, but she used to up a lot and it gave me this. It was almost like a eureka moment, like the way this person is describing it, because I, I could actually express myself. It felt more thoroughly or more accurately. It almost felt like by using like the nice words, it didn't always fit how I felt or what I was going through or the way that I experienced that. Right. And so it just felt more honest. And that was incredibly life changing for me. And I know that sounds silly to be like cussing is life changing, but it was, and it I've never gone back. I mean, you guys probably only know me as someone who curses. And we have Kim to thank for that. Thank you. Kim. but I find swearing to be helpful and probably also a part of it, just for total context, I think is because of my religious past. I think that kind of rebellion that I've taken from, that it also feels good to me because I felt so oppressed by that, if that makes sense, and controlled. So in therapy you can curse as much as you want. Swearing is completely fine. It's not frowned upon. The goal of therapy is for you to feel connected to your therapist and for you to feel like it's helpful. And as long as it sounds like all those things are aligned, then it as long as it's not unethical or illegal activity, it's fine. And this is perfectly healthy and fine. I've. I cussed in practice with in sessions with a ton of my patients over the years, and some not, just depending on their comfortability and the fact that your therapist occasionally swears to probably tells me that they do in their regular life. But again, they're in therapist mode so they don't want to put anything on to you. They want to make sure that you're comfortable in the fact that you're like, he's a fucking bastard. Feels like, get it? Yeah. Say it, do it. You know, because it feels good. There is something like cathartic about that. And I encourage you to just lean into it. Let yourself express how you need to express however it feels the most accurate and honest to you. Okay. Moving on.
Question number five says Kati, I need to lose weight. It's not just my opinion. I do have excess weight. My health would benefit from losing weight. I'm pre-diabetic. My heart is not doing its best. Also, the more I weigh, the more my joints hurt. However, I have had every eating disorder under the sun, including anorexia, and in the past I've managed to have a relapse while having a dietician and a therapist. That's not uncommon, and it turned into anorexia for a year, binge purge for another year, and now bingeing. For the last half a year, every diet I've had turns into 2 to 3 years of suffering. I've had those five cycles, and I'd like to lose the weight once and for all. But how do I do it? My body image is tied to feeling safe in this world due to a lot of trauma, including sexual. But I've talked about it a lot for like seven years. However, it doesn't feel like I've healed from it. We probably need a different type of therapy. I actually feel quite retraumatized by all the talking, so I truly don't want to get back into therapy for this. So many thoughts. First of all, we're going to need a different type of therapy. Maybe that means eMDR. Maybe we need somatic experiencing. Maybe we need parts work or internal family systems or schema. Let's look into those because just talk therapy FYI only works for about 40% of people. That means like 60% of us are like, what the fuck? I still feel bad. Why? But talk about this all the time. Also, I think probably has to do with the fact that a lot of us intellectualize, myself included, so I can understand and I can talk about it, but that can actually change how I act and how I feel about it. Absolutely not. So talk therapy only works for a percentage of people, and most likely you're one of those people it doesn't work for, which is why you still feel bad and you still have an eating disorder. Okay, to your question about losing weight, I hate to tell you, but you cannot diet. What we can do is we can start to try to not only heal from the trauma, but also heal our relationship with food because you do not have a good relationship with food. That's why you've toggled between you kind of chameleon from anorexia to binge purge to just binging. It's very, very common. I have tons of patients who've done this kind of I mean, it's kind of like a cycle almost. But, you know, you swing back and forth between the different eating disorders because you're eating disorder still serves a purpose. It soothes. You said it still helps me feel safe in this world. So as long as we still feel unsafe, you're just going to yo your swing back and forth between all of these different types of eating disorder behaviors. So my encouragement for you is two prong number one, I want you to try a different type of therapy. I know you say don't want to get back into therapy. We're not talking. I don't want you talking. I don't want talk therapy. Let's try Somatic Experiencing or eMDR. Let's start there. Second, I want you to pick up the book eating in the light of the moon. I love that book. I couldn't love a book more. It's in my Amazon shop Amazon.com forward slash shop forward slash Kati Morton. You'll see it in there. It's a blue cover. You can look it up, pick it up. It's a beautiful, beautiful book. I think it's good for all of us. By the way, and I really want to work towards intuitive eating. Like I said, you cannot diet. None of us with any eating disorder in our past can diet. We shouldn't diet. I don't I think diets are bullshit in general. It does because diet even just a word we we have an emotional response to I'm on a diet, means I don't I don't get to eat what I want. It means I'm restricting. It means I don't eat this fat or the other. Right. It's a very icky word. I don't like it negative connotations, but it's also just. It's a restriction. What I'd rather hear is I'm eating when I'm hungry and I'm stopping when I'm full. And I'm getting to recognize that in my body, even if it's uncomfortable when I eat until I'm actually full, I feel the urge to purge. Okay, that's helpful information. Let's let's go with that. Let's think about it. Let's talk about it. What comes up for you? Do you feel unsafe? Can we help regulate our nervous system? Well, you know, that's really the work. I know you said you've been in therapy for like seven years, so you don't want to get back in. But I just encourage you, let's not do talk therapy. Let's try a different modality, because my overall goal for you would, would be for you to get into what I call what is called intuitive eating. And there's a beautiful workbook also in my Amazon shop called the Intuitive Eating Workbook. You don't need the newest edition. I know they have like 5 or 6 editions, not necessarily pick up the cheapest, but it's a great resource to work on with your therapist, with your dietitian, eating when you're hungry, stopping when you're full instead of doing this, this, yo. Because dieting is just such a toxic concept, I do not believe in it. I believe that we can try to incorporate more fruits and veggies, and we can make sure we're eating enough protein. There are ways to focus on getting our body the nutrition that it needs without being on a diet, quote unquote, diet. That is just that's not something I'm ever going to support, because it ends up leading us to swing into these other things. Then we go from, you know, oh, I lost all that weight to hope I gained it all back to, oh, I'm restricting. I'm bingeing, I'm purging. I'm. That's the problem I have with dieting. It's not sustainable long term. And so I want you to have a better program or a better plan that's sustainable. Okay. I know that's a lot that I just threw your way. So take your time with it. But just just know just trust me that it can and will get better. Okay. Final question.
Question number six says hello Kati. Can a mental health professional be biased by their specialization when making a diagnosis? Good question. I was diagnosed with BPD, but when I got a new therapist, she said that BPD was a misdiagnosis and I got diagnosed with ASD or Autism Spectrum disorder. And BPD stands for Borderline Personality Disorder. The first therapist was more familiar with BPD, and the latter was specialized in ASD. And I'm wondering if they could have been biased due to their expertise. It's difficult to tell apart BPD and ASD. FYI, I am female and also have PTSD which were confirmed by both therapists Hmhm. Lots of thoughts. Now, a mental professional isn't going to be biased by their specialization, but we are going to be on the lookout for it more than others. So. The thing that's funny about these is that BPD and ASD are both very tricky diagnoses, and they're things that often get missed, diagnose like I've had a ton of BPD patients be best diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I've had, you know, people with PTSD get diagnosed with BPD, an ASD. The thing that these all have in common BPD, ASD is dysregulation of our nervous system, but for different reasons. And so I guess my encouragement for you is to always question a diagnosis, see if it fits, read about it, see if it feels real for you. If it feels true. Now, I have to be honest when it comes to autism spectrum disorder, I do not specialize in it, and it is one of those things that I feel needs to be specialized in. Just like I feel about eating disorders and self-injury work, it needs to be specialized. And so the fact that you're seeing someone who does specialize in it leads me to believe that they have proper assessments and should be able to talk you through why they think it's that. I wonder if your other therapist that diagnosed with BPD was just was assuming that your dysregulation had to do with fear of abandonment. But again, it's okay to ask questions. It's okay to push back. It's okay to say, are you sure it's not this? Are you sure it's this? And you also to ask yourself that question, does that feel right? Because while all mental health professionals were experts, you know, we have expertise in this area. We have specializations and certain things. You're the expert in you, and we only get to see you for like an hour or two hours every week. So if you do not feel that this is correct, please speak up. It's okay. It's not rude. It's not you overstepping. It's actually you advocating for yourself to ensure you get properly treated, properly diagnosed and treated. Okay, but I have a feeling that the reason is that overlap and I don't think it's difficult to tell them apart because BPD always comes down to like some kind of abandonment. Fear, attachment, wound BPD and complex PTSD have way more overlap in my brain than it does with ASD. But if someone's not really that aware of either, like you person who knows BPD doesn't know anything about ASD, then I could see that they wouldn't think to diagnose it and vice versa. And so ask them questions, speak up, let them know you're not really sure about this, and you want to know why they think it's this. Ask if they didn't have you take an assessment meaning like answering questions like taking a quote unquote test. If they didn't do that, then, you know, ask them more about how they diagnosed what symptoms they think you have. Why did they think it was this versus that? It's okay to ask that because therapists all the time are doing what's called differential diagnosis, where we're looking at two, three, four, maybe six different potential diagnoses, and we're trying to weed them out. And so if I thought you have BPD, that means I probably weeded out bipolar disorder, maybe even complex PTSD, maybe ASD, maybe ADHD. Who knows what I thought when you first came in, but I've waited them out for a reason, and I've come to that conclusion for a reason, and I should be able to communicate that with you. I honestly feel like a lot of therapists and mental professionals don't communicate enough about the diagnosis process, and also how they came to a certain diagnosis. So know that it is well within your rights and you should ask about how they came to that conclusion, what symptoms they think you are expressing or experiencing the most, and you can question it. You can say, I don't agree or are you sure? I don't think I have this, this or this. It's okay to have that conversation. I've had tons of patients do it over the years. I had a patient for years who didn't believe that he had bipolar disorder until he went into full blown mania once and he was like, oh, I guess you're right, you know? And that's okay. I didn't take offense. It has nothing to do with me. It's more about me ensuring he's getting proper care. And so push back a little bit, ask some questions and hopefully they'll answer. But I don't think we'd be biased. We're just more apt to catch the symptoms when they present themselves. Okay, thank you all so much for listening and for watching. Have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your week. Like I said, you can join the community more actively on Patreon or YouTube memberships. And if you're looking to kickstart your mental health journey, I have a ton of workshops available for purchase at my website. Kati morton.com. Take care of yourselves, do your homework and I'll see you next time.
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Here are the loose “chapters” in this episode.
0:05: 💬 Exploring negative self-talk, therapist biases, and healthy weight loss with an eating disorder.
3:41: 💬 Importance of self-talk and avoiding negative associations with personal interests.
7:39: 💭 The impact of people pleasing on relationships and self-regulation due to blurred emotional boundaries.
11:46: 💡 The impact of childhood experiences on people-pleasing behavior and the importance of breaking patterns.
15:08: 💭 Struggles with anxiety, dissociation, and people-pleasing behaviors affecting focus and work habits.
19:01: 💭 Struggling to connect rational knowledge with emotional anxiety despite short-term coping strategies.
23:01: ⚖️ Effective coping mechanisms for overwhelming anxiety and stress are crucial for mental health.
26:44: 💬 The impact of swearing in therapy sessions and the consideration of client preferences and comfort levels.
30:45: ⚖️ Struggling with past eating disorders, trauma, and body image issues while wanting to lose weight for health benefits.
34:50: 🍎 Promoting intuitive eating for a healthier relationship with food and body image.
38:52: ⚠️ Importance of advocating for proper diagnosis and treatment in mental health
Recap for https://youtu.be/LR3cNZYZfqg by Tammy AI
