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Episode: what my meltdowns have shown me, a talk with emma

Author: emma chamberlain
Duration: 00:48:05

Episode Shownotes

if i had a dollar for every time I got so angry that i threw my phone at the wall and shattered it, i would have two dollars. i’m not an angry person, so it’s extra disturbing when i have some sort of outburst. it's like a wake up call.

but i’ve learned so much from these meltdowns, and maybe you can learn something too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summary

In this episode of 'Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain,' Emma reflects on her unexpected emotional outbursts and the insights gained from them. She shares personal experiences, such as breaking her phone during moments of frustration, illustrating how these meltdowns served as wake-up calls for self-awareness and personal growth. Emma discusses her struggles with relationships, especially her first love and the intense heartbreak that followed. Through self-reflection, she emphasizes the importance of recognizing emotional limits, addressing underlying issues, and making difficult choices to foster individual growth and improve mental health.

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Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_00
If I had a dollar for every time I got so angry that I threw my phone at the wall and shattered it, I would have two dollars. And that's not a lot, okay? But it's more than you would expect. Because I'm not an angry person.

00:00:15 Speaker_00
I don't raise my voice at people very often. I don't break things very often. I'm pretty chill overall. And don't get me wrong, I have a lot of unfavorable traits, and that's a topic for another day. But I'm not an angry person. I'm just not.

00:00:33 Speaker_00
I actually take pride in the fact that I'm really good at controlling my negative emotions. If I'm in a heated debate with someone, it's pretty easy for me to keep my tone at a respectable level.

00:00:48 Speaker_00
When someone cuts me off in traffic, I don't get road rage. I might cuss a little bit under my breath because I'm startled, but once it's all said and done, I'm just grateful that nobody got hurt. I'm just not an angry person. I have other issues.

00:01:04 Speaker_00
But because I'm not an angry person, it's extra disturbing when I have some sort of angry outburst, because it's so out of character. It has not happened many times.

00:01:16 Speaker_00
I've only gotten angry to the point of breaking things twice, and for some odd reason, both times I broke my phone. I've tried to break other things, but never successfully.

00:01:25 Speaker_00
And it's only when you break something successfully that you realize how angry you truly are. To throw something and it not break is to just let off some steam and then move forward.

00:01:35 Speaker_00
To throw something so hard or punch something so hard that you break it is to then have a wake-up call. You're like, holy fuck, I really, wow, I just broke something.

00:01:44 Speaker_00
But what I'm here to discuss today is not how mortifying it is that I have gotten angry to the point of throwing my phone at the wall and breaking it twice.

00:01:53 Speaker_00
Instead, I'm choosing to look at these two very distinct meltdowns in my life from a positive lens. Because the truth is, even though I'm not proud of these two moments of my life, I've learned so much from them.

00:02:09 Speaker_00
I was shown so much from these two moments. And maybe you can learn something, too. This episode is brought to you by Airbnb. One of my favorite trips is a trip to Palm Springs with my friends. You know, I don't live very far away from Palm Springs.

00:02:28 Speaker_00
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00:02:44 Speaker_00
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00:04:37 Speaker_00
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00:04:45 Speaker_00
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00:05:46 Speaker_00
Now, listen, I have had far more mental breakdowns than these two, but I think these two stand out in my brain because they were extreme in a way that differs from my other mental breakdowns.

00:05:59 Speaker_00
Like, both of these two mental breakdowns, I think, were very much rock bottom for me. It was like the accumulation of 50 mental breakdowns beforehand that then led to this massive one. where I became somebody I don't recognize.

00:06:16 Speaker_00
And I think that that's why they're so potent and filled with things to discuss because they were filled with, you know, months and months and months of pain in a way. They were a breaking point.

00:06:29 Speaker_00
So let me take you back to when I was 17 years old and I got into my first romantic relationship. It was very exciting for me. It was also something that I never thought would work out for me.

00:06:46 Speaker_00
I was always really insecure about what I provide as a woman. Not to get so deep with it all of a sudden, but I've always been somebody who maybe was a bit more humorous.

00:07:02 Speaker_00
Like I think my dominant personality trait growing up was humor and silliness, not femininity. I didn't have a super stereotypically feminine body. I went through puberty late, so I didn't have curves, I didn't have boobs, I didn't have butt.

00:07:20 Speaker_00
That came later. And so I was always very insecure about myself as a woman. And so it was a huge accomplishment for me to be accepted by a boy and not just any boy.

00:07:33 Speaker_00
This was a boy that I had had a crush on for a very long time and he did not like me at first, but eventually he did and we dated and it was this magical thing.

00:07:44 Speaker_00
It was like doing the impossible times two, dating this guy that I had liked for a really long time and disproving the idea that I was not attractive to guys because I didn't have a feminine enough personality and body and whatever.

00:07:59 Speaker_00
So, this was really good for me in the beginning. And, you know, the relationship lasted for About nine months. I won't get into the details. It had its highs, it had its lows. It was not all sunshine and rainbows, but it also wasn't all negative.

00:08:13 Speaker_00
There were some really great moments there. We ultimately ended up breaking up after nine months. Now, I know what you're thinking. Emma, that's a very short relationship. Yeah, no. That relationship seemed like a lifetime to me.

00:08:25 Speaker_00
Because everything was so new. When things are new, psychologically, time moves slower. And when I tell you, I thought I was going, warning, I'm about to get a big graphic here. I thought when we broke up, I was going to die.

00:08:39 Speaker_00
I was like, I don't know how I can survive this breakup. I don't know how I can survive this feeling. I had never felt that level of loss. I know what a lot of you are thinking, lucky you, you fucking bitch.

00:08:53 Speaker_00
Like your first breakup was like the saddest you've been and yes, it was. And I know that that's awesome. Like that's lucky, you know, because no one died. Everyone was fucking fine.

00:09:04 Speaker_00
But for whatever reason, that breakup, I was beside myself because number one, they helped give me a sense of self in a weird way. They made me feel confident in areas that I had felt insecure my entire life. So I was losing that by losing them.

00:09:20 Speaker_00
Um, it was sort of reconfirming the suspicions that I had before, like that I was not, you know, a worthy girlfriend, which again, I know is toxic and blah, blah, blah, but it doesn't matter because that's what I thought at the time.

00:09:34 Speaker_00
Um, but also I truly loved this person and I thought that they were my soulmate. And I thought I was never going to feel that way about somebody else again, because again, it was new. I had never felt that feeling before.

00:09:43 Speaker_00
And I know that the story that I'm telling to you right now is not unique to me. I think probably 90% of people on this planet have this exact same story. This is how the first love goes.

00:09:57 Speaker_00
Unless you marry your first love or you just don't care about dating. I don't know. But like, this is a very common occurrence. The first love is always the deepest. Yeah, it sucks.

00:10:08 Speaker_00
It sucks, because when you lose it, you're destroyed for months and months and months, and I was. So after that breakup, I was just a wreck, sobbing, sobbing, not sure how I was going to survive, literally feeling like he had died. I felt like I died.

00:10:21 Speaker_00
I felt like everything—it felt like death. It was very odd, and breakups after that did not feel that way. It was very weird. It was just the first one. But I'm saying this to portray to you how fucking heartbroken and sad I was.

00:10:36 Speaker_00
I mean, I did not stop crying for multiple, for like probably two weeks, okay? It was really fucked up. It was bad. It was really bad for me. And, you know, for three months after we broke up,

00:10:48 Speaker_00
I pretty much just spent that entire time in bed watching Jersey Shore and then occasionally going to a SoulCycle spin class, which honestly, I thank SoulCycle for helping me get through that breakup.

00:11:00 Speaker_00
Having like a workout class to go to, that was so healthy for me. Anyway, but then at a certain point, I was like, you know what, I need to try to get him back. And so I did. Started talking to him again. We started hanging out as friends again.

00:11:14 Speaker_00
And it was not a super healthy situation because he did not want to date me again. You know, he was pretty clear, like, yeah, you know, like I still would hook up or whatever, but I'm not committing to anyone right now.

00:11:27 Speaker_00
I don't want to date anyone right now. I'm not going to be exclusive with anyone right now. And that did not work for me.

00:11:33 Speaker_00
I was like, well, okay, I guess we just have to be friends then because I cannot emotionally hook up with you, be physical with you, knowing that you're with other people. I can't do that. I just can't psychologically do that. It's too painful for me.

00:11:46 Speaker_00
But then we'd end up hooking up on accident. Not even on accident, but it would just happen. We had dated. We liked each other before, and we had physical chemistry to an extent, so it was very hard to not do that.

00:11:59 Speaker_00
It would just happen, because we were hanging out as friends, and then it would just be like, oh, well, maybe you could sleep over. It just was a fucking mess.

00:12:05 Speaker_00
So we kept hooking up with each other and then we would do that a few times and then I would find out that he's hooking up with somebody else too and I'd get really upset and then he'd be like, well, I don't know, we can do it.

00:12:14 Speaker_00
I guess we need to stop. Then we'd stop for a little bit and then I'd be so sad and want to get back together with him even more because it was like, whatever. And then we'd hook up again on accident. And then eventually he was like, you know what?

00:12:26 Speaker_00
I'm ready to be exclusive again. I was jumping for joy. Okay. Jumping for joy. I was so excited. He said it one night, like, casually, randomly to me, and I was like, oh my god, I'm back. He was like, I don't want to date, but I want to be exclusive.

00:12:39 Speaker_00
I was like, okay, whatever the fuck that means. And then, he kind of stopped talking to me. Like, literally the next day, he just kind of stopped talking to me. I was like, what? We're exclusive? What? We're exclusive again, I thought. What's happening?

00:12:55 Speaker_00
He's not responding to my texts. He doesn't want to hang out. I'm like, this is so odd. What's happening? And I was like, it's fine. So I let it go for a few days. But then I was like, this is weird. What is going on? Something's off.

00:13:05 Speaker_00
Finally got him on the phone. And I was like, what's going on? And he's like, I don't want to be exclusive. I was heartbroken. I had thought, I was like, why the fuck would you say that? You're throwing my emotions around. We go back and forth.

00:13:17 Speaker_00
I rip him a new one. And I hang up on him. I get so fucking pissed that I hang up on him. And we don't talk again for multiple weeks. I'm sort of in mental turmoil. I'm like, I don't know. I'm missing him so much, but I'm also so mad at him.

00:13:33 Speaker_00
I couldn't figure out how I felt. And up until this point, I had never gotten angry to the point of throwing my phone or punching a wall or doing anything. I had kept it cool. But I had put myself in an incredibly emotionally turbulent situation.

00:13:50 Speaker_00
on top of coming out of an emotionally turbulent situation. Like I w I had just come out of my breakup. I was in a very vulnerable state of mind from the relationship itself, but then also from the breakup, it was like I was weak times 10.

00:14:06 Speaker_00
Then I put myself in like a psychological blender by trying to get back together with him when he wasn't fully sold on it. And now I hung up on him and haven't talked to him since. I'm hanging on by a thread, you know, like all of that stuff.

00:14:21 Speaker_00
I had kept it together. I'd cried a lot. I'd, I'd been sad. I'd, you know, but I had kept it together. Then he texts me, Hey, and I'm faced with one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make in my life.

00:14:38 Speaker_00
And listen, I know that sounds really fucking stupid, but for some reason, The psychological grasp that this man had on my brain should be studied in textbooks because I was, I've never felt that way about a guy again, and for the better.

00:14:58 Speaker_00
He fully had his fingers in between every single fold of my fucking brain. Getting rid of him was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

00:15:07 Speaker_00
And again, I know that sounds stupid because there are a lot of way worse psychological challenges that a human can deal with for fuck's sake. I know it sounds stupid, but this is my experience. I have to just share it with you.

00:15:18 Speaker_00
This is the story I'm telling today for better or for worse. And I think a lot of you can probably relate. There's something about romantic feelings, lust, love, all of these things that is just dangerously powerful.

00:15:31 Speaker_00
Anyway, he texts me, hey, and I'm faced with a very, very challenging decision. Am I going to respond to him and reopen this wound that was finally healing, or am I going to ignore it and move on from him?

00:15:46 Speaker_00
And so I battled this for a little bit on my own, and then I started calling my loved ones. specifically my dad. And I was like, I know what I need to do. I know what the right answer is, but I don't want to do it. I want to do the wrong thing.

00:16:00 Speaker_00
You know, it's like having a devil and an angel on your shoulder. The devil was literally like fucking reaching its little arms down in trying to push my fingers onto my phone to respond to his text. It was agony.

00:16:14 Speaker_00
I cannot express, I can't express to you. And my dad was just like, Emma, you know what to do. You know, you don't want to start this all over again.

00:16:24 Speaker_00
Every time you open this wound up again, you're going to get into a weaker place and it's going to be even harder to get out. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. And I knew, I was like, Emma, like, you know what the answer is. I'm screaming.

00:16:38 Speaker_00
I'm crying. I'm literally on my bed, like fucking rolling around like a fucking, like I had like rabies. It was like insane. I was losing my mind. And I got into such a fit of rage from this inner battle.

00:16:54 Speaker_00
It was so excruciating that I fucking threw my phone at the wall and I shattered it. When I walked over to my phone and flipped it over and saw that it was shattered, it was a wake up call. I was like, All right, this has to end.

00:17:07 Speaker_00
This whole situation, me throwing the phone at the wall, this is very out of character. What the fuck is going on?

00:17:14 Speaker_00
I was so wrapped up in the minutiae, the daily minutiae of this relationship, that I had neglected to check in on myself in my own mental stability. And now I'm here, where I'm doing stuff that's out of character and reaching a breaking point.

00:17:33 Speaker_00
where I don't even know what to do with my emotions anymore. It was pretty clear to me in that moment, whoa, like I have completely lost myself in this situation. This is way worse than I thought. This is way more unhealthy than I thought.

00:17:47 Speaker_00
And it's sort of, in a weird way, in the moment, I mean, at the time when this all happened, I was 17. I was far less self-aware and reflective as I am today. So a lot of my response to me throwing the phone was almost subconscious.

00:18:03 Speaker_00
I don't even remember coming to any, like, conscious conclusions about, okay, this is a sign, this has gone too far. It was almost like this innate knowing, like, okay, I'm not gonna respond to him. This is, I just need to, like, let this all go.

00:18:16 Speaker_00
Like, it's, this has just reached its boiling point, and now I need to fucking take it off the gas. Like, it's just, it has to stop.

00:18:24 Speaker_00
Subconsciously, I think it became clear to me, if this was my soulmate, if this was who I was really supposed to be with, I don't think it would be leading me to this point. Do romantic relationships have their ups and downs and challenges?

00:18:39 Speaker_00
Absolutely. But would I be reaching this point? I don't think so. Without even fully analyzing the meltdown that I had at the time, I still gathered from that experience that something fundamental in my life needed to change.

00:18:57 Speaker_00
I needed to break that cycle. It was really unhealthy for the both of us, but especially for me, especially for me.

00:19:06 Speaker_00
And I am so grateful that I had that meltdown because if I had not, I don't know that I would have broken the cycle and I would have wasted God knows how many more years on this guy. And that's what this meltdown did for me.

00:19:21 Speaker_00
I had to turn into a monster in order to break it.

00:19:25 Speaker_00
And now, you know, hindsight being 2020, I've taken that experience of getting to my breaking point and used it as a reminder of how hard it can be to make the right choice, but how rewarding it can be down the line.

00:19:37 Speaker_00
Because very quickly after I made the decision to not respond, my life improved exponentially and it became very clear to me very quickly that I made the right decision.

00:19:49 Speaker_00
But there's so much value in making a really hard decision that is ultimately the right one, because it teaches you about delayed gratification. It teaches you about why we make the hard choices sometimes to better ourselves and our lives.

00:20:05 Speaker_00
So, you know, I was really grateful for that outburst, even though I was a bit ashamed of it as well. I look back on that outburst positively, but then it happened again yesterday. This episode is brought to you by Bumble. Dating can be exhausting.

00:20:22 Speaker_00
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00:20:30 Speaker_00
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00:21:33 Speaker_00
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00:21:54 Speaker_00
This happened literally yesterday. Ironically, it has to do with recording podcasts, what I'm doing right now. So for a while now,

00:22:05 Speaker_00
I have developed this unusual pattern of pressing record on my recording device, on my podcast recording device, and beginning to say the intro, okay, which my intro for my podcast varies depending on the episode. I don't have, like, a set intro.

00:22:25 Speaker_00
Like, hey, it's me, Emma, the host of Anything Goes. Welcome back. Today we're talking about this. My intro is very spur-of-the-moment random, and it tends to just come out, okay?

00:22:36 Speaker_00
So, oh yeah, today I said, if I had a dollar for every time I got so angry that I threw my phone at the wall and shattered it, I would have two dollars. That's something that just came to my head when I started recording.

00:22:48 Speaker_00
So my intros are very like, they're kind of spur-of-the-moment. So I've gotten into this weird habit of pressing record, saying my intro, and then feeling like it wasn't right, pressing stop. You're like, I could have said it better. Let me try again.

00:23:03 Speaker_00
So I'll take that same intro that I just said and I'll keep it in my brain. Press start on the recorder. Say it again. That didn't quite feel right. Stop. Cut that again. I'll press record. Say the exact same thing, maybe slightly different.

00:23:18 Speaker_00
Mmm, that didn't feel right. Stop. Press start again. Try again. Mmm, that one wasn't right either. Stop. Press start again. I stutter this time. Stop. Start again. I stutter again. Stop. Start again. Say it right this time, but

00:23:35 Speaker_00
Mmm, something still didn't feel right. Stop. Start again. Get through the intro. Get 30 seconds in this time. Okay, we're getting somewhere. Oops, I stutter. Stop it. Start again. Do the intro. Get 60 seconds in. Mm-mm.

00:23:48 Speaker_00
I say something that I don't like, even though I could totally cut it out of the episode. For some reason, I need to stop. I need to stop and I need to start again. Stop. Start. Stop. Start. Stop. Start. Over. Over.

00:23:59 Speaker_00
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. sometimes up to 70 times, 70 times. That is the most I've ever hit, okay? And I have struggled with this for a while, like years.

00:24:17 Speaker_00
And sometimes I'll go like a month without doing it. And sometimes I'll just rerecord the intro once or twice. And then sometimes for a month straight, every single time I go to record, I have to do 40 intros and none of them feel right.

00:24:31 Speaker_00
And I know what you're thinking, Emma, is this the most staged podcast of all time? Like, why are you doing that? I don't fucking know.

00:24:39 Speaker_00
And, you know, I've talked about it with some of my loved ones, especially my loved ones who are creative and make music or make art or whatever. Hey, do you guys do this too? And a lot of people have said yes. They're like,

00:24:52 Speaker_00
You know, we can get obsessive about the perfection of things and, you know, so I was like, okay, well maybe this is just normal and it's a part of getting into the flow state.

00:25:01 Speaker_00
Like I need to get the first 60 seconds right to get into the flow state and be able to talk conversationally. It is obviously a bit weird what I'm doing if you really think about it.

00:25:11 Speaker_00
sit for, you know, 30 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes and just talk to myself? And that's sort of an unnatural thing to do. And so is it just me overcoming an objectively weird thing to do? You know what I mean? Like an unnatural thing to do.

00:25:27 Speaker_00
And I thought about that for a while. But I've gotten really frustrated in the past just not being able to fucking get it right and like almost having this mental block preventing me from getting past 60 seconds.

00:25:42 Speaker_00
And yesterday I sat down to record, I was feeling really good, and I did the intro probably 30 times. over and over and over and over again. And I got so fucking pissed that I threw my microphone on the ground.

00:25:56 Speaker_00
And I said a bad word and I was like, fuck, like, what the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with, like, genuinely, like, do I have a problem? Like, what is going on? Is there something wrong with me psychologically?

00:26:09 Speaker_00
Like, do I need to go to the doctor? Like, I don't know. It's like that weird to me. So I threw my microphone on the floor. I did 10 more, approximately, 10 more intros. Failed every single one again. Got pissed off again. Cussed again.

00:26:24 Speaker_00
Threw my microphone on the ground again. The microphone is very, very good quality, apparently. It did not break. And I threw that thing on the ground so fucking hard. Props to this microphone. Let's see which one I'm using.

00:26:35 Speaker_00
You guys, if you want an anger-proof microphone, get the Shure SM58. Wow, this thing can fucking hold up to podcast-induced anger, okay? I threw this thing on the floor twice, not a scratch on the thing.

00:26:49 Speaker_00
I recorded a failed intro two or three more times, which at that point, it was like I was doomed. I was never going to get it because I was in this negative cycle and I was starting to get angry in a way that I normally don't.

00:27:00 Speaker_00
And once you're angry, you just, I was like crying a little bit. I was like trying to, it was just a mess. It was not good. I was so upset and so confused.

00:27:09 Speaker_00
And I got up and I walked into my dining room and I was kind of like, just, I don't know, like circling around, pacing around, thinking and just getting all fucking riled up. And I'm crying a little bit and I'm like just.

00:27:22 Speaker_00
frustrated and confused and like not understanding what the issue is. And I just get so pissed that I throw my phone on the floor and it shatters and it slides across the room. And I was like, Oh God, Emma, what the hell?

00:27:38 Speaker_00
Like, prior to that moment, I had been sort of in a weird autopilot, and then that was like, okay, we're back to reality now. My phone is shattered. I pick it up. I investigate further. Not only is my screen shattered, it doesn't work.

00:27:52 Speaker_00
The screen was black. Like, I threw that thing so fucking hard that the, like, LED screen didn't work anymore. Like, the insides of the iPhone had shifted around. Like, I don't even know what happened, but it was not good.

00:28:06 Speaker_00
When they asked me at the Apple store what happened to my phone, I knew I could not tell them the truth. Like, oh, I got really upset and I threw it on the floor. Because, oh, I can explain.

00:28:18 Speaker_00
So I rerecord my podcast intro like 90 times and I hit a boiling point today where I lost my mind a little bit and I threw my phone on my kitchen floor and it shattered.

00:28:30 Speaker_00
Couldn't tell them that, so I just told them that I dropped it from a very high distance. I was talking on the phone. I was, you know, on like The fifth floor, it fell. You know, it happens, you guys. I'm such a klutz, whoopsie.

00:28:44 Speaker_00
And they were like, totally. They could see in my puffy eyes that I was the one that threw the phone.

00:28:51 Speaker_00
Um, but back to the moment when I realized I had shattered my phone, I think the first thing that came to mind for me was like, what the fuck is going on? What's wrong with me?

00:29:02 Speaker_00
You know, I was looking at this habit that I've developed of rerecording the intro obsessively over and over and over again. the fact that, you know, I reached a point of anger that I'd thrown my phone on the ground.

00:29:14 Speaker_00
Like, is there something wrong with me? And I was judging myself a little bit for all of it. I was like, why can't I just be normal? Because to an extent, you know, I have internet brain, okay?

00:29:26 Speaker_00
And these days, if you have any sort of psychological issue or challenge at all, The internet just starts diagnosing you immediately. Now, don't get me wrong.

00:29:38 Speaker_00
I think our awareness, our understanding, our education on all of these things, it is awesome. But with all good things, there are always some negative aspects as well.

00:29:51 Speaker_00
Unfortunately, the conversation around mental health on the internet has gone from being educational and helpful to almost over-correcting and diagnosing everybody with something. That's been my experience.

00:30:05 Speaker_00
I've actually made an entire episode about this a few months ago, probably six months ago, maybe even a year ago, about how, like, you open up TikTok or YouTube Shorts or Reels and you find some random person

00:30:19 Speaker_00
putting all of the personality traits of someone who has ADHD, all of the habits of somebody who has ADHD on the screen, saying, if you have these symptoms or these traits, you have ADHD and you need to go get medicated for it.

00:30:34 Speaker_00
And if your doctor says that you don't have, like just people just saying shit who don't know what the fuck they're talking about. These are not registered professionals. These are random motherfuckers putting shit on it.

00:30:44 Speaker_00
They don't know what they're talking about. I mean, there's people making some insane claims being like, you know, some unexpected symptoms of PTSD.

00:30:51 Speaker_00
This is a random fucking like 17 year old who like has a D in math class telling you that you have undiagnosed PTSD because they have a TikTok account and they know how to use Google. That's what the mental health conversation has become.

00:31:05 Speaker_00
And it's very harmful. And I think I'm somebody who's good media literacy, right? I can tell when things are real, fake, reliable, not reliable, but even I subconsciously absorb information. and it's out of my control, okay?

00:31:20 Speaker_00
So for a period of time, I was on mental health TikTok, where every other TikTok was diagnosing me with some sort of mental disorder or some sort of psychological disorder, whatever.

00:31:30 Speaker_00
And it's just irresponsible, and it's dangerous, and it's false information, and it's fear-mongering, and it's all these other things. But I was on that section of the internet for a while. It seeped into my subconscious in a way where

00:31:43 Speaker_00
To me, when I analyze my own behavior, this reoccurring issue of me rerecording my intro over and over again, I can't help but diagnose myself with a slew of things, right?

00:31:53 Speaker_00
Now, I've never been professionally diagnosed with anything because as far as I know, I don't have anything going on. And from probably an hour to two hours after this event, I was overcome with fear and confusion around what's wrong with me.

00:32:10 Speaker_00
But I talked to my loved ones and they were the ones to remind me, there could be something wrong, you know, something bigger going on. If that's the case, we'll figure that out. However, it's normal to have outbursts every once in a while.

00:32:27 Speaker_00
Like, yeah, if you're having a major outburst every week, that's something to probably pay closer attention to or, you know, maybe treat that sort of differently. But if you're having a large outburst once every four years, That is very different.

00:32:41 Speaker_00
This is a very unusual situation. Don't look at what's wrong with you. Look at what caused it. How did you get to this point? Why are you here? And it was very hard for me to see from that lens.

00:32:53 Speaker_00
But once I allowed myself to look at this situation through that lens and not just immediately write it off as like me being mentally unstable or something, it became very clear to me immediately what is going on.

00:33:09 Speaker_00
This sort of outburst, it was long overdue. What triggered this outburst was me re-recording my intro over and over and over again. Not just yesterday, but for years.

00:33:22 Speaker_00
Now, it took me a little bit to figure out, like, okay, so I'm rerecording this intro over and over again. I've never really stopped and asked myself why I'm doing that. What is the root of that weird habit?

00:33:33 Speaker_00
And it took me a little bit to figure out, but once it clicked, just like everything made sense. A few years ago, there was sort of a shift on the internet where cancel culture sort of began, okay, right? Now listen,

00:33:49 Speaker_00
What I'm about to say is not me saying that I'm like a victim of cancel culture. That is not what I'm saying. But I'm just simply telling you how cancel culture on the internet has impacted my brain very, very deeply.

00:34:05 Speaker_00
cancel culture on the internet has sort of scarred me in a way. Not even necessarily through things happening to me, but seeing things happen to others. The culture on the internet has become very much of like, there is no room to make mistakes.

00:34:19 Speaker_00
It is very hard to gain forgiveness.

00:34:23 Speaker_00
Naturally, you know, being a public figure, you're not really considered fully human, which is completely understandable because even though I am a public figure myself, I look at other public figures and think of them as weirdly non-human.

00:34:36 Speaker_00
Like, they feel like a character to me. I actually understand that subconscious sort of way of perceiving celebrities. Like, I get it. It happens to me too.

00:34:45 Speaker_00
But because of that, we just kind of treat public figures like we say whatever the fuck we want, we'll threaten them, we'll do whatever. It doesn't matter because they're not really a real person. That's kind of how we feel.

00:34:55 Speaker_00
And listen, do I think that there are times when people have done some fucked up shit and, you know, maybe we don't want to want to be fans of them anymore? Yeah, for sure. And it's not like I got skeletons in my closet.

00:35:06 Speaker_00
that I'm like hiding, you know, I'm not hiding anything, but I'm still sort of traumatized by cancel culture. It's just, it's terrifying.

00:35:15 Speaker_00
It's a terrifying time to be on the internet because if you make one little mistake, you could be crucified completely. Now, I know what you're saying at home, Emma, like people get canceled when they do stuff that's genuinely wrong.

00:35:28 Speaker_00
I'd say 80% of the time, that's totally true.

00:35:31 Speaker_00
But either way, there are times when people get canceled for stuff that's either not true or, you know, maybe it wasn't their fault or, you know, maybe it's like not a great thing that they did, but it's like, you know, arguably sort of like forgivable.

00:35:46 Speaker_00
Like they're like, oh my God, I'm. I don't know. It's complicated. But either way, the existence of cancel culture has really fucked with my head. I'm very afraid of it. What I'm more afraid of than anything is an accident.

00:36:03 Speaker_00
Me saying something on accident and it being taken out of context and used against me. people getting their feelings hurt by me saying something. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want people to be disappointed in me.

00:36:15 Speaker_00
I don't want people to have supported me and then feel like, oh my God, she does not align with my morals and values. I have regrets about supporting her. This feels icky to me.

00:36:26 Speaker_00
There's a lot of things about it that cause me a lot of stress and anxiety constantly. I want to be a good person. I want to have a net positive effect. on the world.

00:36:37 Speaker_00
And what I've noticed with sort of cancel culture is at times you can be blamed for doing things like that or you can be told that you are doing things like that when maybe you didn't or it was an accident.

00:36:46 Speaker_00
So it's like I'm not afraid of being canceled for genuinely doing something wrong. Listen, if I do something wrong, like genuinely wrong, I would fucking hope people would hold me accountable. Absolutely.

00:36:58 Speaker_00
So I'm not afraid of that as much as I'm afraid of it happening on accident. And it can, and it does. And because of that, I've developed this level of really extreme perfectionism in my life.

00:37:12 Speaker_00
And I've struggled with it for many years in every single category of my life. And honestly, it's a great thing in a lot of ways, and it's a horrible thing in a lot of ways, right? But I don't want to make any mistakes. But see, here's the problem.

00:37:24 Speaker_00
You can't control when you do something on accident. That's what makes it a fucking accident. So I have a lot of sort of anxiety and like obsessiveness around my podcast, for example, because

00:37:40 Speaker_00
This is a medium where I talk for a long period of time, and the more you say, the higher the chances are that you're saying something that could be taken out of context or, you know, used against you or whatever.

00:37:50 Speaker_00
And I've sort of developed this irrational fear of being wrongfully attacked, I guess. I think one of the ways that it's presented itself

00:38:00 Speaker_00
is through me re-recording the intro a hundred times, not feeling confident and it being afraid, being afraid to keep going. I have like a mental block. It reminds me of when I was a cheerleader and I would tumble, right?

00:38:11 Speaker_00
Like I do round off back handspring tuck, round off back handspring layout. And when you tumble and do those flips and stuff, you can get hurt.

00:38:19 Speaker_00
You might run wrong when doing a round off back handspring and kind of trip a little bit and then roll your ankle. And then the next time you go to do it three months later, when you heal your ankle,

00:38:30 Speaker_00
you might be afraid to do it because the last time you did it, you rolled your ankle. That's sort of how I feel. I think with speaking freely on the internet, I'm very afraid.

00:38:41 Speaker_00
And this is something that has been sort of looming in the back of my mind for a long time. Something I've been struggling with for a long time.

00:38:47 Speaker_00
I think me getting emotional and throwing my phone on the ground and shattering it was the culmination of years and years of fear. And I know what you're thinking.

00:39:00 Speaker_00
Oh, Emma, the whiny influencer with a fucking podcast coming on here and whining about being scared of being canceled. Shut the fuck up. I get it. I fucking get it. Listen, again, I'm not here to like, this is no pity party.

00:39:13 Speaker_00
I'm telling you the fucking story. This is the truth of the matter. I love this job. I'm grateful to have this job. I'm so fucking lucky. And I do not take it for granted. But this fear of saying things to a mass of people, it's very frightening for me.

00:39:26 Speaker_00
It became very frightening for me.

00:39:29 Speaker_00
And I think me throwing my phone on the ground and shattering it was actually a really crucial thing that needed to happen because I've been living in this state of trying to be perfect, trying to control every word that comes out of my mouth, trying to control every single action in my life out of fear of doing anything that could possibly be taken the wrong way.

00:39:53 Speaker_00
And you know what? I can't fucking live like that anymore. I cannot. Because it's significantly worsening my quality of life.

00:40:02 Speaker_00
I need to allow myself to speak freely and just exist like a normal human being and make mistakes if I make mistakes and allow things to be taken the wrong way if they are taken the wrong way.

00:40:13 Speaker_00
Just fucking apologize and learn from it if that's what happened. It's not that big of a deal. And it's freeing. Like I woke up today feeling so much better because I hit my boiling point. I threw my phone. I broke the screen.

00:40:28 Speaker_00
I realized, all right, something's really got to change. And I don't know if I would have ever gained the strength to be like, you know what? I can't control everything. Not everything's going to be perfect.

00:40:43 Speaker_00
I can't make sure everything's perfect all the time. Like, I just have to let go. I truly believe that. I think my mental breakdown was my subconscious screaming, Emma, you cannot live like this anymore.

00:40:54 Speaker_00
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00:41:11 Speaker_00
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00:42:29 Speaker_00
This episode is not me just being like, you guys, I'm not afraid of, I'm an influencer who's not afraid of cancel culture. I'm going to say whatever I want. Like, it's not about that. Nothing will even change probably from your perspective.

00:42:45 Speaker_00
It's not like, oh, now all of a sudden I'm going to speak freely. It's like, no, I was speaking freely before just with like crippling anxiety attached. And it took me fucking 30 tries to get there, to get the courage to just talk. It's all internal.

00:43:00 Speaker_00
And so the point of this episode is not about cancel culture. It's not about getting out of a shitty relationship. It's about the importance of the occasional meltdown.

00:43:12 Speaker_00
I've realized my most severe meltdowns are like my subconscious saying, pay attention. There's something deeply, deeply wrong. And, you know, the two examples today were the two times that I threw my phone at the wall and shattered it.

00:43:27 Speaker_00
But there's been other times in my life where I've had really severe meltdowns that looked a little bit different than these two.

00:43:34 Speaker_00
But when I look at those two, listen, if I told a story about every single meltdown I've ever had, we would be here all day, baby, and we don't have time for that. Okay.

00:43:42 Speaker_00
Um, so that's why I just use the two about me throwing the phone to just fucking narrow it down somehow. Cause there's been a lot of them, but the truth is every meltdown I've had has forced me to take a look at fundamental issues in my life.

00:43:57 Speaker_00
These meltdowns have given me wake-up calls that I don't know if I could have had otherwise. And my point of all this is, again, we should not be ashamed of our occasional meltdown.

00:44:09 Speaker_00
As much as, you know, the internet and society has come a long way when it comes to mental health awareness and education and all of these things, there is still this weird pressure to, like, keep it together.

00:44:22 Speaker_00
I still feel it because if you read the comments under a video of somebody talking about their mental breakdown, it's not going to be all positive, supportive comments. You're going to see comments like, why are you talking about this?

00:44:35 Speaker_00
This is too personal. You should go see a psychologist. You're clearly very mentally ill. You're a full-grown adult. Like, you shouldn't be crying like a baby. Like, you're still going to see negative comments.

00:44:46 Speaker_00
Now, whether or not those are valid or rooted in, like, constructive criticism or not, like, okay, whatever.

00:44:52 Speaker_00
But there is still this sort of pressure to like keep your shit together or like have a graceful meltdown where you're like beautifully crying in your bed and the light is shining beautifully through the window under your tear.

00:45:04 Speaker_00
Like, no, we can feel ashamed and frustrated by our meltdowns, but I really do believe that we should not. They're helpful messages from our souls to get spiritual with it, telling us we need to make a positive shift in our lifestyle.

00:45:24 Speaker_00
We need to address the stuff that we've been shoving down. We need to go get help from professionals, whatever it may be. Something needs attention immediately, and it's going to be really, really rewarding when the attention is given.

00:45:39 Speaker_00
Pay attention to your mental breakdown. It didn't just happen for no reason. You're not just broken and, and losing it. It's like, no, there's something going on that needs addressing. Let it be a moment of almost empowerment.

00:45:53 Speaker_00
Like, wow, my subconscious was like, Hey, you need to go get some help. You need to go figure something out. You know what I mean? It's the most human thing possible for your body to scream at you. We need to figure this out. It's no use to fight it.

00:46:10 Speaker_00
Like, listen to your mental breakdown. You know what I mean? Listen to what it's trying to tell you. That's the moral of this episode. So anyway, hopefully, I do not break any more iPhones for the rest of my life.

00:46:22 Speaker_00
Hopefully, that was the last one I throw on the ground and shatter. That would be great. Can I guarantee that? No, I cannot. I might break another iPhone. And when it happens again, I'll let you know what happened and what I learned from it.

00:46:38 Speaker_00
That's all I have for today. Thank you all for listening. Yeah, I just love you all and appreciate you all and am really grateful for your listening ear. And I'm happy to say that I only re-recorded the intro for this episode like once, if that.

00:46:55 Speaker_00
I might've even just gotten right into it, I don't remember. So I've come a long way already. I love you all. I appreciate you all. I will talk to you very soon. And it will probably be about something a lot more fun than this.

00:47:06 Speaker_00
I mean, this was kind of dark energy, but, like, next episode... Actually, I'm gonna purposely make the next episode something just so delightfully surface-level. Like, not, like, fake, but, like, just delightfully surface-level and fun.

00:47:22 Speaker_00
So that we can all have a little, you know, breath of fresh air. All right, I'll talk to you all soon. And that's it. Okay, bye. Love ya.