Show Notes
Patricia and Nicole chat about the complexities and pitfalls of being socialized to always be helpful or useful but to never ask for or need help themselves.
This episode is based on Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Volume 1, Issue 2: On Being Helpful & Being Helped
Mentioned on the show:
- How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?: Stories by N. K. Jemisin
- The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin
- Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls by Kai Cheng Thom
- Nicole on The StoryGraph
- Patricia on The StoryGraph
- Mister Rogers: How Crayons are Made via YouTube
- California Crisis Hotlines, Warmlines and Resources
- PDFs of mostly local resources from the Berkeley, CA Public Library
- Dope Therapy: A Radical Guide to Owning Your Therapy Journey by Shani Tran, LPCC
Find the full show notes on our website and sign up for the podcast email list: eedapod.com
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Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
Patricia: Hey, pals! Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle.
Nicole: And I’m your copilot, Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We are recording this show on January 27th, 2024.
Patricia: But this show is airing in February, so happy Black History Month!
Nicole: Happy Black History Month!
Patricia: I mean, it’s always Black History Month in our house.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And I think as much as, I just want to put this out there, as much as I love Black History and Black History is important, I think that it’s even broader than we tend to learn in schools and the Black people we uplift and also at the same time, like, let’s not forget about Black people who are still alive and present and supporting current living authors and artists. And podcasters and writers and everything like that.
Nicole: Yeah, that just makes me think of the title of, was it N. K. Jemisin’s short story book?
Patricia: Yeah, How Long Till Black Future Month?
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: I think about that a lot.
Patricia: That is a darn good title, too.
Nicole: It’s a fantastic title.
Patricia: I also loved that book.
Nicole: Yeah.
It has the short story that leads into The City We Became, right?
Patricia: Yes.
Nicole: Yes. Such a good book. That, in and of itself, is reason to, like, go read that book.
Patricia: Absolutely. I’ll, you know what, I’ll link that one in the show notes.
Nicole: Heck yeah.
Patricia: Yeah.
So, keeping everything a hundred, I want to be transparent, and we’re going to have a little check in about our 2024 goals that we had shared. Where we’re at, if any have fallen away, if there’s, you know, there are definitely some I haven’t even started yet. Like I still haven’t picked up a crochet hook.
Nicole: Oh yeah, there’s still some I haven’t picked up yet either. I have not reread Falling Back in Love with Being Human.
Patricia: Yet.
Nicole: Not yet.
Patricia: There’s still time.
Nicole: Oh yeah.
Patricia: We’re early in the year still.
Nicole: Yeah. I have taken a step towards getting my nose pierced though, in that I bought some fake nose rings to look at. Try to decide what’s gonna happen there. Left side, right side, one hoop, two hoops.
Patricia: Yeah, and also we got the name of a trusted piercer that our friends go to…
Nicole: yeah.
Patricia: …as well.
Nicole: Found out their schedule.
Patricia: But no, I think honestly, with something like a piercing, if you can get a fake one and kind of figure things out and see how it looks and see if you like it, I think that’s a good step.
Nicole: Yeah. Ooh, we’ve been moving!
Patricia: We have been moving.
Nicole: Not moving house, but like moving our bodies.
Patricia: Definitely moving our bodies a lot more. You know, I, we both work at the computer a lot.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: So we’re just trying to integrate more movement into our days, more deliberate movement too.
Nicole: Yeah. Not just like jumping up and wiggling for a moment because I got the wiggles, but like actual, this is good for me movement.
Patricia: Also, we’ve been sending snail mail.
Nicole: Yeah, I got out eight pieces of mail in january.
Patricia: That’s really good because last year it was averaging zero pieces of mail.
Nicole: Yeah, I’m trying to think, like, did I? I don’t think I sent eight pieces of mail the whole year last year, so I am already way ahead on that.
Patricia: Yeah, my goal was five pieces of snail mail a week.
Nicole: Mm hmm.
Patricia: And a lot of those have been postcards, but I’ve been doing that. I’ve, there have been a couple weeks where I’ve even written more than that. So I look forward, I have a long backlog of mail to reply to. But yeah, it feels good to write mail. Some, you know, we’re going to have a whole episode, I’m sure, on snail mail.
And. Like, it’s just so nice to sometimes also just like write down a story or a secret and send it off into the world.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: I have also gotten back to a nightly journaling. Sometimes I’m not a great sleeper and so it’s just generally been a brain dump. before bed, and that’s been really helpful. And I have kind of been sitting back at the piano.
Nicole: It’s been really nice.
Patricia: It is not with any regularity, and that’s where I’m struggling. I’m trying to see like, okay, is there a consistent 15 minutes that I can do this? So I think I’m going to have to find a 15 minutes that’ll piggyback on something else. Like, maybe it’s after I finish dinner, then that is my 15 minutes of piano time.
So…
Nicole: yeah.
Patricia: …we’ll see. But I’m getting there.
Nicole: Yeah, I, you know, the more you’ll play, the more I’ll enjoy it. So I’m all down for it. Umm, oh, one I thought of, I didn’t, I don’t think I even talked about this on the show at the turn of the month, but I’ve been consistently tracking my reading, like what I’m reading in StoryGraph now.
Patricia: Nice.
Nicole: Again. And I’ve been consistently remembering to log things in there when I start and finish, so that’s been kind of cool.
Patricia: Yeah, yeah, it’s helpful, especially when people ask for book recommendations.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: It’s helpful to know what we’ve read.
Nicole: Yeah, I, I find it really helpful for that, like, oh yeah, what was that book I just read three books ago?
Because, you know, I don’t actually remember the book once I put it down, so. It’s helpful for that. So, if anyone’s interested in what I’m reading, you can find me on StoryGraph, I guess?
Patricia: We’re gonna have to link that in the show notes, too. You’ll have to give me your profile or something.
Nicole: Okay, yeah. I’ll send a link.
Patricia: So, I want to start with saying that when I was a kid, I was a huge Mr. Rogers fan. Like, I still sometimes will go on YouTube and find that one clip of the crayon factory where they show, like, making crayons, and that was shown on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, and I was just absolutely obsessed. I loved that show.
I was also a big fan of Sesame Street, especially, as I called them, Ernie-Bert. It wasn’t Bert and Ernie, it was Ernie-Bert. But my mom stopped letting me watch it when I was around four years old, and it’s not for any kind of, like, weird ethical or moral reasons, but what she tells me is that there was an episode where Bert and Ernie were TV repairmen, and so this was back in the early 80s, and so televisions were huge.
And Bert and Ernie were television repairmen, and they were taking apart a television, and they were climbing inside and poking around, and I was the kind of child that would go and take apart electronics, or think that I could climb inside the television. And my mom didn’t want me getting those ideas in my head necessarily at that age.
I was definitely the size that could fit inside of a television. So, yeah. So I watched a lot of Mr. Rogers more than Sesame street.
Nicole: I feel like we should go find one of those, like, old projection big screen TVs and just let you take it apart and climb inside.
Patricia: Just let me do some healing.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: By climbing inside of an old television.
Nicole: I bet we could find that Ernie-Bert clip on YouTube or something now. So you can watch that and then take apart a TV, get inside it, just feel better about being in a TV. I love Mr. Rogers. I liked Mr. Rogers a lot. Not so much the puppets in the Land of Make Believe. I love the idea of, like, the trolley leading to the Land of Make Believe, but, like, there was something about those puppets.
Patricia: Those, yeah, yeah, I mean, just like, who was it, Lady Elaine?
Nicole: Lady Elaine Fairchild?
Patricia: Something like that. don’t know.
Nicole: She, mm.
Patricia: No. No, you’re gonna.
Nicole: Gonna nope on that one. No thank you. No thank you.
Patricia: No thank you. Yeah, we actually, in preparation for this, we went and we watched, like, part of a clip. I couldn’t handle it.
I couldn’t handle the puppets.
Nicole: No.
On the other hand, the puppets in Sesame Street, they are just perfect. Just chef’s kiss. And I think also part of that, though, is that I feel like the Sesame Street puppets also live in the same, like, universe as The Muppets.
Patricia: Absolutely, because Kermit was on Sesame Street.
Nicole: Yeah, and that’s, that was the connection.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Is there a Jim Henson universe?
Patricia: Oh, I mean, yeah, they’re all Jim henson.
Nicole: Do they exist, like, does, do the Fraggles also live in that same universe?
Patricia: Do all the puppets from Labyrinth still?
Nicole: Oh gosh, I hope so. Although I, I don’t know how, like, Big Bird would handle the Skeksis or whatever.
Or was that, that was a different one, wasn’t it?
Patricia: Oof. No, that was different. Was it, was Return to Oz?
Nicole: No.
Patricia: No.
Nicole: No.
Patricia: Wow. We are far afield.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: We are far afield.
Nicole: Sorry, everyone. This is something that just happens with my brain sometimes.
Patricia: Well, anyway, I bring up Mr. Rogers because there is a thing he said in an interview that is very popular, and the quote goes, “my mother would say to me, look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers, so many caring people in this world.” And that quote always really resonated with me. As a person who was raised as a helper, I was raised by very strong, independent women who would give and give and give, and I was expected to do the same.
Nicole: Yeah, I, I think it was a little different from me. Looking back, like, my mom was a helper, and I’ve only really come to realize that more as an adult, looking back on her life, and what she was kind of doing behind the scenes that I didn’t see as a little. But I was raised, I say a bit, probably a lot more independent.
Both my parents were divorced, they worked full time. We didn’t live with other family necessarily, and there wasn’t like a lot of like, daily or even weekly interaction with other families, so I was kind of, aside from being at daycare and stuff, left to my own devices and often played in my own imagination lands and stuff.
So I wasn’t, I wasn’t really given a lot of the, like, helping or expected to help aside from around the house, I guess. And there wasn’t much opportunity to learn to ask for help because of that as well. It was just kind of figure things out.
Our family didn’t volunteer. We never participated in like charity aside from like picking out a couple Christmas gifts to donate to quote unquote needy families at Christmas time through the church.
Patricia: Yeah, you mentioned the church and I’ve mentioned on the show before that I went to all Catholic school for elementary, junior high, high school. And so I went to schools where volunteering and being of service was not only in the culture, but it was often a requirement.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Like I would get, like in high school, I had units, like I had community service units.
We all had to do it. And even the university I went to for undergrad is very huge on volunteering and community service, and there’s still actually a day of service every year in March, where alumni, no matter wherever we are, we are expected to do some community work that day.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s so different for me.
Like, I was also raised in the Catholic Church. And I remember there was a point like around confirmation or something where they were like, okay, you need to like, do, like, ten hours of, like, volunteer work or something, and I just had no, no basis for where to even start. Like, I didn’t have any grounding, and it was really kind of disorienting because of that.
Patricia: Yeah, I think, before we get any further, I want to make it very clear that, yes, we should be helping each other, and yes, we should give and share and care, but as I’ve mentioned before, in the way I was raised, there was always this air of being on a higher moral ground if you were able to be in the position to offer help, as opposed to being the person or people who needed help. That it was somehow shameful to need help, but oh, you’re so benevolent if you can give help.
Nicole: Benevolent is the word I’ve been trying to think of in preparation for this episode for the last, like, couple hours, so thank you for finally giving that to me. This, though, really ties back to something I talked about in episode two about, you know, being raised to think that people who needed help often tended to be, quote, those people with that, like, undertone, those people, like.
Patricia: Right, yeah.
Nicole: And those people, this was often, like, you know, it was, as I said in episode two, it was never explicitly said to be, like, poor people or anything, but it was kind of like, you know, those poor people. And everything I discussed that went along with that in episode two. So, similarly though, that, that lesson of helping people, when it did come, or when there was some example of helping people, it also came with that air of superiority.
Or benevolence, I think is a really good word for this. Along with a lot of choosing around who was or was not worthy to receive help in the first place. I didn’t like it. I still don’t like it. I think it’s really gross. It makes me feel gross talking about it, even. But the other thing it gave us was this feeling of like, or what it seemed like, I guess the lessons coming from a lot of this like benevolent helping attitude was that it felt like being helpful was only like a means to an end for some sort of social status, but also status in the church, and with God, and not necessarily out of, like, true compassion, and actually wanting to help and improve people’s lives?
Patricia: Yeah. It wasn’t mutual aid. It was in a single direction. And although I am reminded of, there’s a lyric from the musical Avenue Q that says, “when you help others, you can’t help helping yourself.” And it really speaks to, like, sometimes people give or help just to make themselves feel better.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: There is also added complexity. If you are from a family or a culture that has a ton of obligations around helping or caring for other family members, like elders, not that we shouldn’t take care of our elders. But in at least some of the cultures I grew up in, it could get complicated and sometimes even toxic. And meanwhile, as a black person, this entire nation was built on the commodification of my ancestors.
So there is generational trauma around being useful, and being of service. And then top all of that off with patriarchy and white supremacy expecting women to be caregivers just in general for everyone. And so what generations of this thinking and treatment mean for myself and other people of color, and also many white women, is that, wow, so many of us are really terrible at asking for or accepting help.
Nicole: I think that also is a part of, though, the kind of white and white influenced U. S. culture that we are immersed in, right? This concept of rugged individualism influences a lot of this. You know, it’s one of those things that is kind of just taught as a part of U. S. culture, not explicitly taught, right?
It’s one of those lessons we weren’t officially taught, but we learned anyway along the way.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Needing help is bad, right? And, and we, we should be able to do everything on our own, and if we can’t, we’re weak. And, like, this lesson in particular is really, while it’s pushed on everyone in the U. S., I think it really does impact men, and especially white men, in this U. S. culture, but that’s a whole other problem.
Patricia: Right, I, I think, well, but it’s also just It’s a whole other problem. But it’s a, it’s a huge problem that I’m really seeing all over the place is that so many of us are trying to do things by ourselves and do everything by ourselves when historically people used to have communities.
And I will say like for a lot of people of color, uh, black indigenous people of color, we do have communities. We do have folks that are like, we’re helping each other out and we have friends and loved ones and mutual aid and I think, I don’t know, it’s just, it’s so important to have community and we’ll touch a little bit on this in a few minutes, but I don’t know. So many of us are trying to do so much by ourselves.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And it’s not meant to be that way.
Nicole: It’s really not. And it’s fascinating how it’s culturally pushed in that way.
Patricia: Yeah. On top of social, cultural, white supremacy reasons, additional reasons a person may not ask for help is maybe due to the need to control the situation or not being able to delegate or trust people to do something the way that you would do the thing. I know I’m definitely guilty of that.
I was always the person in group projects to do the whole project. And I know some of you listening are familiar with this classic way, and I am historically bad at asking for help. And I was very upfront about that in our relationship because I recognize that not asking for help can build resentment.
And I didn’t even want to make space for that in our relationship, but I didn’t know how to ask for help, so I would just be like, hey, here’s the thing I’m bad at.
Nicole: I think that’s a really important thing to recognize about yourself, especially if you are in or are entering in a close relationship, and it doesn’t even have to be a romantic one, even just with really close friends or something.
Patricia: Even family relationships…
Nicole: yeah.
Patricia: …too. Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah. And this is important. This is one of those foundational areas of what we built into our relationship and we think is really important to relationships. And that is almost certainly a future episode. But the other side of that and why it’s important to at least voice that is because, like, on my end, when you brought this to me, I’m not a mind reader. And if you’re bad at asking for help, and I don’t know you need help, this is where you’re saying you don’t want to build resentment because it’s not fair to get mad at someone not asking to help you if you can’t even vocalize that you need help. That’s just not fair, and I think that’s what was really great about voicing that to me.
Similarly to like, help with this, one of the things I’ve been working on is the language I use to offer help. The common way that this is done, and I have done this for years, is just say, “hey, do you need help?” And that can be really difficult to say yes to.
Patricia: It’s also really easy for me to just knee jerk and say, “no, I got it.”
Nicole: Yeah. What I’ve been trying to do instead is say things like, “would you like me to help you?”
“Can I come give you a hand?”
“Is there something I can do?”
And questions like these take away that explicit need for help and almost turn it into a question of, can we do this together?
Can we make this, like, something we do together? Is this collaborative now? And I feel like really what it’s getting at is reducing some of that stigma around needing help. And I don’t know, from your perspective, is…
Patricia: Yeah, it’s very much, it’s less can I take this load from you, it’s more can I share this load, and I am more amenable to that and doing things together
Nicole: yeah
Patricia: than the admission that I can’t carry this at all, or I don’t know.
I think also we just kind of work well together. So, you know, your mileage may vary on this one.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: But, you know, you asked me, like, can we do something? I’m, I’m always going to say, yes, we could do something together.
Nicole: Yeah. I think that comes from also us just wanting to do everything together. So yeah, your mileage may vary on that one, but I think it’s important to look at how you offer help and the language around offering that as well.
Simple changes in your language, I think can change the outcome.
Patricia: And I also recognize, like, it took me a long time and a lot of work and a lot of failure to get to a place where I could even admit that I’m bad at something, that I’m bad at asking for help. And I recognize that some people don’t even have the tools to say they’re not great at asking for help.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. It can be hard to even get that out
Patricia: yeah
Nicole: sometimes.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: And then, on top of that, I think, for some people, the pandemic exacerbated this. It made it so that a lot more people needed a lot more kinds of help than ever before. And probably for a lot of people, it was the first time they needed that particular kind of help.
And unfortunately, we as a culture in the U. S. had not empowered people with the tools to ask for it, nor did we have the ways to provide that help. And it really highlighted the ways in which some people are more or less connected with community and or culturally did have those tools to ask for help or had community offering help in various ways that were maybe more socially acceptable to them versus people who didn’t.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: I think about though, like, when your mom got sick, was that end of 2022,
Patricia: yeah
Nicole: early 2023, we got over that real fast.
Patricia: Yeah, we got over that hurdle of asking for help. It was an immediate, we cannot do this alone. And we needed to tap in our, our friends and family.
Nicole: Luckily though, we’ve spent time and worked on building that community of friends and family and having that network there.
Patricia: I, again, before we get any further, I want to be explicit about something else that it is okay to need or even want help. And it’s not, it’s not like it’s okay for other people to need help, but not me, no. It is okay for all of us to need or even want help. It’s more than okay. It’s normal.
We live in a society. What is being in society even for if not for supporting one another? There are no awards at the end of your life. For like, wow, she sure didn’t ever ask for help, or they sure didn’t need anyone, or he really struggled alone, great work, no one says that. There’s, there are no awards, there are no trophies for that.
A philosopher once said that people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. And also, the people who love you want to help.
Nicole: I feel like it’s never said joyfully, like, wow, they sure struggled alone. Good job. Those are things that are always said in, like, sorrowful tones at people’s memorial services.
Speaking as some people who’ve been to a fair number of memorial services.
Patricia: Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole: Like, you never hear these things said with a congratulatory tone. Sometimes it’s also hard to say yes to help when you don’t even know what help looks like.
Patricia: Yeah. I encounter that a lot, like, with myself, with you.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: You know, sometimes I will vent to my friends and they’re like, is there anything I can do to support? And my answer is like, I don’t even know. Like, I don’t even know what anyone can do in
Nicole: yeah
Patricia: this situation.
Nicole: Yeah, on a smaller level. That’s totally what happens to me when I don’t eat good for a day.
Patricia: Yeah
Yeah, if you don’t get your snacks in
Nicole: yeah
Patricia: if you don’t have a good eating, I I’ll just be like, hey, what’s wrong?
What can I do to help and it’s just a big I don’t know.
I don’t know.
Nicole: Nothing sounds good I just want to sit here and be sad.
Patricia: Okay, then that’s what we’re doing.
Nicole: Yeah, you should but then you end up usually just putting some sort of food in front of my face and everything gets better.
Patricia: Amazing. Magical.
Nicole: Magical, magical. There are also implications, and I really want to make sure we, we touch on this, because this is an important note. There are implications in asking for help when it comes specifically to issues surrounding mental health. In U. S. culture, U. S. society, the society we’ve built here, in this country, we do not have the infrastructure to provide the correct help for people who are having a mental health crisis.
If you do call 911 for help, in most places in this country, and I will say most because I know a few communities are finally getting around to fixing this, but in most places in this country, If you call for help, you don’t get people trained to help. You get untrained people with weapons who start yelling.
And worse.
Patricia: Yeah, I think it’s so hard because there is still so much stigma around mental illness. And so there’s a stigma around needing or getting help.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And, and then when someone desperately needs help.
Nicole: We don’t have the right system have the right system for it.
Patricia: We don’t have the right system have the right system for it. And so, like, I don’t fault anyone for not asking for help.
Like, we’ve, we’ve mentioned so many reasons why it’s hard for people to ask for help. And I think I just really want to be clear, like, we’re all deserving of help.
Nicole: Yeah, everyone’s deserving of help. And it’s inhumane that we don’t have the infrastructure for help, and not just when it comes to mental health, but like, all kinds of help.
Patricia: Yeah. Well, and I think that’s part of the reason I do my newsletter and I do this podcast is I think there are some resources out there, but there’s such a barrier to the flow of information because there’s just, if you Google something, there’s just a fire hose of information at you. And, you know, I know that at say the Berkeley public library, they had some amazing resource sheets on help if you need help around like all kinds of different things and not just mental health, but housing, jobs, like there was so much resources. And so that is for Berkeley and like the Berkeley librarians and I’m just trying to be like everyone’s librarian.
Nicole: I, you know, I think about when we visited that library, uh, was that in Riverside?
Patricia: Mm hmm.
Nicole: Where a couple days a week they have a social worker.
Patricia: Yeah, at the library.
Nicole: That was amazing.
Patricia: Brilliant. I mean, we’re definitely going to be doing a library episode
Nicole: yeah
Patricia: as well. So, okay, over all of this, we’re like, hey, it’s hard for some people to ask for help. It’s hard for some people to accept help.
And what do we do about this? And I think it first starts. So then yes, this is a theme. It’s going to start with some introspection. Step back and think, are you a person that struggles with asking for help? What kind of messages did you receive growing up around people who need help? And which of those messages do you still internalize and need to unpack in whatever ways you unpack your things. Whether it’s journaling, whether it’s talking to a loved one, whether it’s therapy, I think recognizing your own relationship to being a helper and being helped is the first step.
Nicole: On the kind of other side of that, as you said, your relationship to being a helper.
It’s important to think about how you offer help, because maybe you’re sitting there like, “oh, but I know someone just like what you were talking about, Patricia. They never ask for help and they definitely need help. And I’m always like, I want to help. And they say I don’t need it or I don’t know how.”
This is where we learned last year in particular that It may be better, or I guess, you know, the suggestion here is not to just make a general, do you need help, which can be answered with yes or no.
If it’s yes, then it gets a follow up question of, how do you need help? And that’s not always helpful.
Patricia: Yeah. If there’s someone who is dealing with a lot and then you’re asking them to detail the ways in which they need help. Like, sometimes that’s actually adding more stress.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s more, more things to do.
Now I have to make a list of all the ways people can help me? Oh, goodness, this is exhausting. So, what we’re, what we’re suggesting here is I, I think you should think about the challenges the person may be facing in their life. And this depends on your relationship and how close you know them, but think about some specific ways you can help to alleviate that stressful area, those areas that they need help in.
Asking questions like, hey, it seems like you’re juggling a lot, can I bring by or order you some food? I have a washer and dryer at home. Can I pick up and do some laundry for you? That’s especially helpful. If people need to go to a laundromat or have to get quarters to do laundry in their complex or something.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: I remember we had a couple of times friends were like, hey, can I just pick up your laundry? It was amazing because we would have had to go to the bank and get quarters
Patricia: yeah
Nicole: and they were only giving out one roll of quarters at a time. It was a whole thing. Or questions like, hey, would it be helpful if I took your kiddo or your dog to the park for a couple hours?
I think we did that for a friend once.
Patricia: We did.
Nicole: Yeah. Hey, can I take your dog for a walk?
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: It was great. Yeah, be a little more specific in asking for how you can help. It’s still a yes no question, but I think it’s a lot easier to say, like, yeah, it’d be great if you took my kid to the park for a few hours on Saturday.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Than saying, Yes, I need help.
Patricia: Yeah, offering concrete recommendations.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Related to everything we’ve been talking about, the resource this week I have is a book as as I tend to do. The book is titled Dope Therapy: A Radical Guide to Owning Your Therapy Journey by Shani Tran LPCC. Dope as in cool not drugs.
Nicole: Is that part of the title?
Patricia: No.
Nicole: Oh.
Patricia: That’s just me in case there’s someone mishearing the title, Dope Therapy.
Nicole: It’s written in bold here, the same as the title.
Patricia: I know. I know. But anyway, I fully recognize that therapy is not for everyone. The history of psychology in this country hasn’t historically been kind to white women or people of color. So, that being said, everyone, including me, is always like, go to therapy, but it’s complicated. It’s complicated.
And the thing is, if someone has never been to therapy, and they don’t really know what to expect, how it can help, how to even go about starting, it can all be super intimidating. Shani Tran wrote this book to help address these questions and more, and I do think it’s very important that this book is written by a Black person about therapy.
There are a lot of books by white people about therapy, and so I, I kind of want to push this book to the front. The author is a therapist herself. She aims to alleviate a lot of the anxiety that can bubble up around seeking a therapist, going to therapy, or even ending a relationship with a therapist.
The book has some very thoughtful responses to many of the common misconceptions around therapy, and helps readers try to recognize when they are or not actually ready to start talking to a therapist. There are some dry but necessary parts of this book on things like insurance coverage and what all the letters after a therapist’s name mean and the very important distinction between a psychiatrist and someone who does talk therapy, although some psychiatrists do both.
As someone who has helped multiple people find therapists, I can confidently say that her information on finding a therapist, and more importantly, the questions you should ask them to see if they’re a good fit for you, are worth the price of this book. There are logistical questions to ask as well as questions around values and religion and politics and therapeutic style and more.
What I love about this book is that the author doesn’t just stop at getting you in the door at the therapist’s office. She also describes what to possibly expect at your first session, as well as the many ways the patient or client has power in how their therapy experience goes. This book is Dope Therapy: A Radical Guide to Owning Your Therapy Journey by Shani Tran, LPCC, and I will totally link it in the show notes.
Nicole: Dope as in cool. Not drugs.
I feel like I should read that book, too.
Patricia: I feel like you should really read that book.
Nicole: I feel like you’ve been telling me I should read that book for a couple of years now.
Patricia: I read it on audiobook. I liked it. I liked it on audio.
Nicole: Okay. I could do it on audiobook.
Hey, Patricia.
Patricia: Yes, Nicole.
Nicole: What’s filling your cup right now.
Patricia: What is filling my cup? I feel, I feel so silly saying this.
Nicole: That’s okay. We’re a silly house.
Patricia: We are a silly house. Duolingo, Duolingo is filling my cup right now. They… no we don’t have ads on this show. They’re not sponsoring us. I don’t even have a paid subscription to Duolingo, but I am learning five different languages.
Well, okay, so one of the languages I already passably speak, so I’m just kind of like keeping up with my Italian, and then I’m doing languages in Spanish, French, German, and Chinese Mandarin. And it is scratching a particular itch in my brain, almost for like puzzle solving because in the morning when I have my coffee, I will do at least one lesson of each language and, I don’t know the switching back and forth between languages is just really bringing me a lot of joy. Not only, like, can I, like, can I do it, but it’s also, I don’t know, it’s very pleasing. It’s very pleasing and I don’t know why.
Nicole: It’s also really amusing when you kind of get your accents mixed up and hearing like German with an Italian accent.
Patricia: Yeah, I’m not that great in the mornings. And so sometimes the Italian just kind of like bleeds into everything else.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: How about you, Nicole? What’s filling your cup?
Nicole: I think right now it’s the little self care things. Little things like having fresh nail polish. Earrings, or a necklace that make me smile, just little trinkets and fun things like that.
Patricia: Yeah, I think it’s really important to recognize, like, it doesn’t always have to be capitalism or something groundbreaking to fill your cup, like, it can be little things too.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com, and we’ll definitely leave a link to that in our show notes.
Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E E D A P O D dot com. There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our bookshop link, the podcast email list, and a link to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and Bluesky at eedapod and email us at eedapod@gmail.com.
Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.
Nicole: We would appreciate it so much if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow ratings. It goes really far in helping other people find us. Also, we might totally shout out your name if you put in a written review.
Patricia: I mean, like, if people give us five star written reviews, they’re definitely gonna get printed out and hung up.
Nicole: Yeah, so if you say something nice in a review, and want to have the satisfaction that we have printed it out and hung it on our wall, then you should head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to us that does written ratings and totally write something nice about the show.
Patricia: No pressure!
Nicole: It’s not pressure, it’s just you know, we’ll hang it on our wall. That’s not pressure.
Patricia: It’s just enthusiastic encouragement.
Nicole: Yes!
Patricia: We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support is going to help us keep this show going, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod. In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself. Drink some water and give someone a compliment. We’ll be talking to you soon.
Nicole: Now I gotta go see if David Bowie was ever on Sesame Street. Did they dress him as the Goblin King?