5. We're All Broken People
2019Show notes
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Mattie and Alex unpack the baggage of mental illness when you're trying to juggle coming out, transitioning, and just being super duper awkward.
Show Notes
National Suicide Prevention Hotline
An Arm and a Leg
You're Wrong About
DSM-5
Transcript
Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakesMattieWelcome to Two Headed Girl, a queer podcast about gender, our minds, and all sorts of transitions. Just as a heads up, this episode contains a lot of content about mental health, hospitalization, and suicide. If you or someone you know needs some help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org to chat with a counselor.
Take care of each other and thank you for listening.
AlexCan I play you a clip of audio you probably haven't heard in a really long time?
Speaker BWhat are we recording? you're stupid you're telling your story what's your name melissa domagala well melissa cox almost not officially and what's been going on with you i've been really depressed and sad and i think about writing suicide note and i think about all the people i would put on it and what I would say.
But then I go to bed and I stay in bed with my cats and I watch Grey's Anatomy. And then I don't hurt myself. But I think about it every day for the past two weeks.
I love my best friend. Her name is Alex Cox. And we've been married for four months. and she is the best person in my entire life and I couldn't be the person I am without her
Alexafter you're hearing that bit of audio do you know what's from what it's from it is I believe
Mattieit's from we recorded it the night before I went into the uh psych hospital three uh four years ago
Alexyeah do you do you want to talk about the psych hospital or are you not up for it
Mattieoh no we can do it really yeah i'm ready let's do it
Alexi know like both of us are queer and both of us are bi-polar but those stories while intertwined causation does not equal correlation correlation is not equal causation wow i am great at science
Mattieit is a monday night and we are tired so it's totally cool i don't know you've always been way
Alexbetter at taking care of yourself than i have and i don't think that's true anymore Yeah, thank you.
MattieYou're welcome.
AlexThis was the scariest week of my life when I had to put you in the hospital. And sorry, I'm just thinking about, I mean, can I tell my, do you want me to tell my side of it first? or do you no yeah go ahead are you gonna be all right yeah yeah I mean that's the funny thing is I when I was hospitalized obviously it was traumatic but it was nothing compared to
um when you were in the hospital because initially we just the two of us went to urgent care because you thought you were having like a really really bad panic attack and I I think we were almost just driving around and you're like I need to go to the doctor now and you you go back and can you tell me what you talked to the doctor about when you got in there
MattieWell, initially I had a physical schedule, so we went for a physical. That is why I went to the doctor. And my resting heart rate ended up being 142, which is way too fast. And I ended up being sent to the ER because I was having a panic attack, but they wanted to make sure it was a panic attack. and they wanted to do an EKG, which is where they take the little, like, sticky pads, and they stick them all over your chest with the wires,
and then you see your little heart rate, like, boop, boop, boop, boop on the monitor. And when I was transferred from urgent care to the ER, once they found out that I was just having a panic attack, I straight up told them that I was having suicidal ideations, And after that, I don't know how long I waited in the ER before they brought me up to psych.
But like I voluntarily let myself get admitted.
AlexYou left out a crucial part of the urgent care to the emergency room story, which was you were back there a while, which isn't uncommon for a doctor's office. however the doctor was reluctant to call an ambulance for your heart rate and i was at first i thought like is it because it's not super bad um do you remember this with me
being in the room yeah yeah and i i was like well what's what's your suggestion and he was like well if it was my wife I absolutely would and I'm like what the fuck of course yes call 9-1-1 so then that's what happened and you got into the ambulance and left um and I remember that still being like yes ambulance rides are incredibly expensive but I am still mad that
Like, even if, wow, sorry. Oh, God.
MattieI didn't expect such a visceral reaction.
AlexI mean, for a doctor to say, if it was my wife, I'd call, my wife, I'd call an ambulance. It's still, I still get very upset.
MattieAnd I was okay. I was just having the worst panic attack of my life, basically.
AlexWhat's it like being admitted to a psychiatric ward? because I don't think a lot of people listening to this know.
MattieI think. I do. I feel like someone always knows someone that's been through it. They might not have experienced it themselves, but a friend of a friend or a family member or something.
AlexBut they're not going to get into it, I think, the way we are. There are a lot of details that I wish I had known, obviously, the first time around. This was not your first time around, however.
MattieThis was my third time, but my first time in like five years. My first time in like eight years. It was a long time in between admissions. It's scary.
Hard when you're in the midst of a mental issue, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, to like remember clearly what it's like. But, I mean, they take all your clothes. You have to put on a hospital gown. You have to give them all your jewelry. You can't have any clothing with, like, strings. You can't have any shoes with shoelaces. They can be, like, those socks with the little grippies on them.
AlexWell, that's with most hospital admissions, and I do like the grippy socks, not going to lie.
MattieI know you took them from when you had your hand surgery.
AlexThey said I could take them and steal them. although I probably would have stolen them either way since it was not my first time it's a different
Mattieexperience but they asked me about my uh history with mental illness my my history of meds um my diagnosis um they they take note of all the like scars and bumps and whatever on your body and like kind of basically make you be naked and like spin around and they mark everything down
and that's probably the most traumatic part honestly of getting processed and it just I know it's upsetting because you remember um it's it's very like methodical and cold almost but when you voluntarily admit yourself it's a little bit different you have a little more agency over your body and the admission process and ultimately it's just like physically and mentally exhausting getting admitted and like once you're settled on the
ward it's okay it's basically it's kind of like a sleepaway camp for mentally ill people that's what I feel honestly that's what my that was your your experience those have been my experiences all of my hospital stay experiences have been uh best outcomes like I've never had a a bad doctor two of my hospital stays were voluntary and just for med adjustments meaning that you weren't there
Alexbecause you were necessarily a danger to yourself, but you might have become a danger to yourself while your meds were being adjusted.
MattieRight, because they have to, usually the doctors will take you off of what you're on to experiment with putting you on new medicine if you're not feeling stable and you're having suicidal ideations. So better safe than sorry, basically.
AlexYeah, this is something we'll come back to again and again, But with insurance, you can do that. And it was still very expensive without insurance.
MattieThe ambulance was the most expensive part.
AlexYeah. We'll definitely link to our friend Dan Weissman's show, An Arm and a Leg, which breaks down the current health care crisis in America, specifically the insurance crisis in America. But to get back to sort of the intake process, when I was 18, I was admitted to a psych ward. And a lot of things went wrong for a bunch of reasons that wouldn't be helpful to share.
Like it was bureaucratic stuff, but the literal intake process was very similar. I was put into a room and like you said you're stripped naked and literally there is a um my intake nurse had this sheet of paper that was basically a bunch of outlines of specific parts of the body. And so she basically drew out where all of my scars were from self-harm,
which is a common thing that a lot of folks with mood disorders will turn to when trying to self-medicate. And at the time I wasn't diagnosed with anything. I wasn't on any medication and I turned to hurting myself uh but for some reason the act it wasn't just the act of pointing out all of the places where I'd hurt myself but the act of being like all right well did you do this
to yourself or is it just acne like yeah same as a teenage girl I don't it was just like another thing on top of the shame I was feeling, the shame I didn't need to feel about being admitted to a psych hospital. It wasn't a voluntary admission for mine, but I was 18. So when you're 18 and still in high school, what is voluntary really? The other thing though is
they are reading off of all of these things and you know they're they're talking about how I'm overweight and like my heart rate's really high and obviously you're you're being poked and prodded by strangers naked uh and at that point in my life I had not been naked ever except in the shower Like literally, I was so self-conscious that I would change in the bathroom at school.
MattieOh, I didn't know that.
AlexYeah. I mean, for gym class. Yeah. Both of us are telling our stories because it somewhat relates to the queer experience, but also our experiences are so vastly different. and I don't want people to be afraid of being hospitalized for their mental health if they need it. There's the, I just had no information and it's been, oh wow, a decade now, a decade
this year. Oh, wow. Yeah. A decade this January. And I know that I would have had a much better experience if I had just had the wherewithal to Google a few things, really. Just what is this going to be like you know what are what are the what are the steps what how can you make the best of your time here and there's plenty of that now and I did plenty of that when I was you know getting
prepared for surgery and stuff but in 2009 that wasn't really a thing and and also in an emergency situation, that can't happen. You can't prepare yourself, you mean. Right. It's almost like if it's in the public consciousness enough, then you already know what to expect. Like you kind of know what to expect when you're going to the doctor because you see it on TV or you expect what
school is going to be like when you see it on TV. And yeah, and obviously those are all skewed in sometimes negative and positive ways. And I think I've never seen a positive portrayal of a psychiatric facility until this year in media.
MattieWhat was it in?
AlexIt was actually Grey's Anatomy. Slight spoilers for Grey's Anatomy.
MattieOh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
AlexYeah. And I would love to hear if people have other positive representations of psychiatric inpatient stuff in the media. Sorry, inpatient is when you are literally in the hospital and staying there. Outpatient is when you are usually at the hospital all day and then you go home at night.
MattieIt's like crazy school.
AlexIt is like crazy school.
MattieWe also we had vastly different experiences because my family has a history of mental illness and my father had been in the exact same psych hospital and through the process multiple times when I went to that first psych hospital. So my our experiences were so different because also I wasn't admitted as a minor. so I had a lot more agency over my treatment and just everything that was going on I had much more
agency over it and my family had never talked about mental illness uh openly which we could have a whole another episode about that but there was enough communication that I kind of knew what
Alexwas going to happen I do want to be clear that my parents while they had no idea what they were doing. They do now. They got on their shit 100%. They did not know what was going on with me because I hid it so, so very well. And my mom and dad were awesome. They were just such great advocates for me. And one thing that I wish more people knew was how to advocate for yourself
in any sort of hospital or doctor situation, not just when it involves mental health. But they were my advocates when I couldn't be one for myself. Now that I've not cried...
MattieWhat did you call it the other time? Like eye water or something? If the tears don't fall, it's not crying.
AlexYeah. If they're still in my eyes, I have not cried. I don't want to go into specifics because as we know now from our new favorite podcast, you're wrong about talking about specific suicide stuff. It's not even necessarily a trigger, but it just seeps into people's brains in an unhealthy way. So we don't really need to do that. But I'm curious as to why you didn't share that with me.
Because previously, until that point, I think we had been very, very open about our mental illnesses. And that's kind of how we ended up working so well.
Why are you being so nice to me?
Speaker ABecause I love you. And right now I feel mentally stable enough to be here for you. and when you feel mentally stable enough to be there for me we tend to uh alternate roles so i feel that it's important that while i'm feeling well i should do more things that was such a journalistic answer well i used to want to be a journalist that's what i was studying so wait what that's what i
Alexwas doing too before i dropped out of marquette yeah when i went to when i went to eastern before
Speaker AI dropped out of Eastern I was studying uh media journalism yeah I was dealing I was repressing
Mattieand dealing with a lot of stuff and I I think I just at that point because I had been not like super mentally stable but because I had been out of the hospital and like functioning so long I think it was just so hard for me to admit to myself that I couldn't also admit it to you.
AlexDoes that make sense? What I came to think later on is that you were almost so wrapped up in your own thoughts, feelings, and stress about gender that you sort of let your mental health go by the wayside and I don't mean that in a like it's your fault type of way but in the way like um what's a good comparison uh oh like when you're taking care uh you're taking care of a family
member and you forget to take care of yourself or when you're working really hard and you forget to eat or exercise. Am I right about that at all? Did you know that at the time? I mean, obviously not like the second, like, ah, yes, revelation. But when did you know that? I mean, not until I
Mattiewas clear headed enough and in the hospital for I want to say maybe like my third day is when I started talking with my caseworker about like gender and stuff like that I was just so wrapped up in my depression before the hospital and like in my own head that I couldn't even sort through those things like you're right you're 100% right also to be clear this is not a bit I've never asked you about this specifically oh I know and I want to again say that this does not go hand in
hand i am bipolar it is chemical it runs in my family it is hereditary i am not bipolar because i'm trans and i am not trans because i am bipolar i was dealing with gender stuff in a heavy way
Speaker Afor the first time because i feel like i was finally at a point where i had to stop repressing
Mattieit but like being dealing with gender and being trans wasn't what put me in the hospital my mental
Alexillness put me in the hospital I really sometimes just want to like look people in the eye and you know how much I hate looking people in the eye and be like hey my queerness has nothing to do with my mental illness my mental illness has nothing to do with my queerness and that might not be the case for everybody but for the majority of folks that's how it is like like gender can
bring on feelings of distress um anxiety depression a lot of that but because of uh gender dysphoria you and because you know it sucks to be trans gay any type of queer when you're young so I mean I was repressing my own queerness in high school because I had to deal with my mental illness so it was sort of the reverse of you where I was um just like nope I just need to deal with my brain
Mattienow I can't even think about anything else no that's 100% the same for me like that's 100% how it was for me it's not the opposite it's exactly the same I dealt with I feel like I didn't explore my gender sooner because I was so worried about uh getting my mental illness
Alexstable and then there's the thing the thing in the back of your head which is again I want I want people I know that we are like ear to ear pretend that we're I'm looking in your eyes you're not crazy for questioning your gender and sexuality that has nothing to do with your mental health it is I don't know like and still in the back of my head it is it's like a
I don't know. I know that I know what I am saying.
MattieI don't know what you're saying.
AlexI'm saying that I, again, not queer because I'm bipolar and not bipolar because I'm queer.
MattieI feel like what you're trying to say is, do you just wish you were normal and sometimes having those two things making you different?
AlexWhat's normal?
MattieYou know what I mean? Like you lump them together as like things that make you different or stand out. And that's why you have to like remind even remind yourself that like they don't go hand in hand.
AlexI just keep thinking maybe it's because I want attention. Oh, you're bipolar. You don't want enough attention. How about being gay? Like I always.
MattieThat's some bullshit.
AlexI know. And maybe it's because I have. I guess it's bullshit to say I don't want attention because we're doing this podcast. I do a lot of podcasts. Give me attention and money. I want all of that because it's late stage capitalism and the world is on fire. But I don't want I want to say I don't want attention to the things I'm ashamed of because there's no reason for me to be ashamed.
MattieI was going to say there's also no reason to be ashamed of those things.
AlexYeah, but it's like how I was saying, like, I absolutely was transphobic because it was internalized transphobia. And, you know, it's internalized queer phobia. And just I have still have the internalized stigma of mental illness in my mind. and literally every day is a constant reminder of this is fine, you are normal, this is some basic ass shit.
MattieReally? You think about it every day?
AlexOh, yeah.
MattieOh, I don't.
AlexI mean, every time I go to take my meds.
MattieHuh. I didn't know that.
AlexWell, I mean, do you ever forget about your gender? not no not really and I am trying not to compare them but you're having such dysphoria right now and I think it's because you're in the midst of that dysphoria you're hyper aware of your gender yeah yeah you're right and sometimes I have the privilege of completely forgetting about my gender
which is awesome and it's it's okay to be constantly aware of your gender like it's not always dysphoria but with me I think because you know I'll be ah fuck it I was a great student I was in band I was in peer ministry I did sports got well until my senior year when I was hospitalized, had straight A's, all of that, all of that crap. And there was this thing that I had
been hiding so long, including the self-harm that I was inflicting upon myself, that I think now, whenever I have a physical reminder, like my pill case, that is, yes, this is a part of your daily life. I don't know if it's a bad thing, but it's a constant. It's just constantly there.
MattieHuh. I mean, we've both been treating our mental illness for a decade or over a decade. For me, it's been 11 years. Wow. Big difference. So it's just something that's like not on my mind all the time. It's on my mind on days when I'm having a rough time, like lately with seasonal depression and stuff but I feel like because like my dysphoria and transition and gender are more at the forefront because that's what I'm focused on now like that's what I have a reminder of every day
AlexI did not coin this phrase at all but I recently saw I'm too tired for gender and I'm like yeah That is how I am. And maybe it's because I caused more emotional harm to people in my life because of my mental illness that I'm always kind of I've got like the high beams on of making sure. all right am I being a manipulative bitch am I what just what sort of shitty thing am I doing
right now and it's you know there are people in my that I'm still very very close to even today one of my best friends Kara we were friends in high school and I did horrific things to hurt her and that took a lot of healing because it was such a toxic relationship because of me I am just so afraid of doing that to anybody especially you we understand each other's like I understand that
Mattiebut we understand and experience and have experienced each other's mental illnesses for so long that that's not something that I really worry about yeah because I think you're
Alexmore secure
Speaker Awhy do you think i'm so anxious this morning um i i don't know why are you so anxious this morning i don't know that's why i'm asking you you know me better than i know me maybe because you're on vacation and you need to keep your brain busy and instead of reading or using the anxious energy to do some physical activity, you're sitting watching cartoons.
AlexYeah, that's probably not the best. I almost feel weird saying you're more secure in your mental illness.
MattieI accept it as a part of me, but it doesn't define me.
AlexAnd same here. But at this point in my life, I almost worry that I'm letting it define me deep down because I'm so aware of it and so just constantly cognizant about the way I may or may not be acting towards others. Like people know that I am awkward as fuck and that typically has nothing to do with being bipolar whatsoever. Like but being bipolar is a mood disorder everybody experiences it differently in fact there are two different types of bipolar
disorder and yet uh I'm still like oh my god oh my god am I fucking this up but that's just your
Mattiesocial anxiety and being awkward in general that has nothing to do with bipolar right that's that's
Alexthe thing is like I am just a super awkward weird person and that's okay that is who I am I know people think that it's even wrong that I think of myself as awkward and weird but by today's social norms I am just super awkward it's hard to make eye contact I try really hard and I'm I'm not on the spectrum as far as I know of. I am just, it's something that's really hard for me. And I do
stammer. Most of my stutter has gone, but I'm very much a stammerer. And we're all broken people. We all have a big bullet list of stuff that is supposedly wrong with us but the one thing until recently until you know this whole gender flare-up all my fault i often wonder how deep i would have gotten into my own gender without you because well you're just
lucky you have me i uh or unlucky well like the other day uh someone was saying how great it was that uh our friend mike hurley was i'm name dropping mike hurley mike hurley of connected and relay fm and cortex and all of the all the great shows um but but mike used they them pronouns for me on a show and most people do on podcasts I don't super have a preference for
if people use they or she for me it's only in writing that I'm very much like yeah seriously guys it's they um but I've been using they them since since I met you actually in that queer um Oh, gosh, what was it called in college that it was like gay club?
MattieYes, like glee club, but gay club.
AlexYeah, yeah. It was literally, hey, here's all the gays. Make friends with one another. And really it ended up being like, here's all the people that you're going to hook up with in the next few years. But in queer spaces, I've always used they them sort of as a like a signifier of my gender because I was like, I don't know what it is. But just use them. Thank you. Please and thank you. And it's never been a thing. Did you know you were trans yet when you went into the hospital?
MattieYes and no. I think it was definitely something that I was repressing and part and repressing that part of me was definitely contributed to why I went into the hospital, which I didn't didn't know until I was there working through it.
AlexIt wasn't, obviously, it wasn't that you were trans that made you have a psychiatric episode, but the fact that you were suppressing a part of yourself for so long.
MattieYes. But actually, I mean, yeah, it contributed to the extreme depression I was having.
AlexYou kind of pulled me there.
MattieBy repressing myself? Yeah.
AlexYeah.
MattieYeah. Suppressing, repressing. Suppressing.
AlexSuppressing, repressing. You know what? I bet someone on Twitter is going to tell us.
MattieSomeone will tell us.
AlexOh, yeah. It's suppressing. Repressing? Hold on. Now I'm going to...
MattieWe can Google that.
Speaker AYou're humaning poorly and being a conceited dick. I know. I'm sorry.
MattieIsn't that how this started?
Speaker AHow I'm being so nice because I'm doing things for you? And how this me hiding behind a microphone and headphones is keeping my anxiety at bay? I mean, isn't that what it always did? Isn't that how you are where you are? I guess so. I guess my mental illness has propelled me.
AlexYeah, I think both are right.
Speaker AOh, all right.
AlexI hope. Yeah, yeah. Well, still, Twitter. Go ahead. We allow it. But you still didn't talk to me about it until that summer.
MattieIt's not about you, Karen.
AlexI'm just curious.
MattieI think I was so focused. You're right. But again, I was so focused on getting back on track mentally that I put my gender second.
Alexin retrospect do you think that was a good or a bad thing because this is the one time that it sort of went hand in hand not not that it was your gender but that you were basically had a secret you know what I mean and that was my depressive episode was exacerbated by
Mattiemy gender yeah or by not expressing myself and being my true self I don't it probably wasn't a good idea no I probably would have gotten farther in therapy had I worked on them both at the same time but I am very good at compartmentalizing and I kind of just compartmentalized it so there was also a lot going on with my family and I think that might
Alexhave contributed to me not dealing with it up front sooner. You are allowed to answer this question honestly and we will take it out of the episode if we need to. How do you think I contributed
Mattieto the fact that you kept waiting to talk to me about it? I don't think you contributed at all. I think I mentally built myself up thinking that in most relationships, when people identify as lesbians and are already together, and then when the other person transitions, most relationships end.
because lesbian means you like women and just women. And I feel like I was bracing myself and I was also trying to put myself in a good place and make sure you were in a good place before I dropped such a big secret, which I think we've talked about. That's why I waited.
AlexAnd in retrospect, it wasn't nearly as much of a secret as you thought.
MattieYeah, but I don't think you yourself like contributed to it. I think like just hearing that narrative over and over that it ruins relationships, especially actually a lot of the times queer relationships, not just straight relationships.
AlexYeah.
MattieAnd I think just hearing and seeing that is what made me psych myself, psych myself out and not tell you sooner.
AlexI mean, I guess that's part of the reason I wanted to do this show is to be because we only hear the bad stories, not the good ones, because it's nobody's business. Like, oh, guess what? Mattie's trans. Alex is whatever the fuck Alex is. Non-binary. And, but we are, you know.
Happily married. Oh, I mean, yes, we are happily married, but we are also, you know, nerdy film and documentary kids. So obviously we must document our life, you know, and we've always been documenting our sadness together. So why not document our gender feels?
MattieYeah. And like the good and bad and everything that comes with it. I'm honestly grateful for you putting that microphone in my face when I was having my mental breakdown because it ultimately led us here. And I like this place.
AlexI don't even fully remember why I recorded that. Because we recorded that the day before because you had had the physical planned and you were just in a bad place. And I wanted just a recording of us reminding each other how much we loved each other and cared about each other.
And, you know, the next day I'm in the emergency room until 3 a.m. trying not to lose my shit because, you know, it's. I knew it was either a horrible panic attack or a heart attack, which, you know.
MattieYou probably would have found out sooner had it not been a psych thing because it wouldn't have taken as long to process.
AlexI know. I know. And that's what I kept. Weirdly, I kept telling myself, you know what? He's probably just suicidal is something that I kept being like, listen, Alex, both of you like you guys have dealt with this before it's going to be fine were you scared when you went into the emergency room or was it a relief because you knew that you were going to
Mattiebe in a safe place and you were going to be taken care of i don't know because i was in the middle of the worst panic attack of my life so that's fair i kind of just was existing and don't really
Alexremember having too many emotions. What's the first emotion you remember having? I mean,
Mattiehappiness when I get to see you. Shut up. It's true. And sadness that I had to leave you for a
Alexweek. Yeah, that was, I mean, like, obviously that was hard, but it was nothing compared to waiting to find out if you were okay. And I think what I hope some people take from this is, You know, you can be super prepared if a family member goes, needs to go into the hospital. And there are plenty of guides on what to do when a family member is experiencing surgery or going through chemo.
And while that might not be as serious as some psych admissions, and they can be super, super serious, but they don't have to be. um now there are also guides on what you can do to support them and often on hospital websites it's like you can bring them uh these types of clothes you can't bring them this and you know just it's a lot less scary it doesn't have to be scary the reason I've been so upset recording this
isn't because I've been scared. It's thinking about what it was like for me and knowing that it was like that for a lot of people and especially kids who didn't have parents who could support them or couldn't get medication. I am just psyching myself out now. So, and I mean, I even, we made a documentary together about our mental illnesses just because I desperately, so desperately want people to know about this and know that it doesn't have to be a big deal.
MattieI don't, other than I agree, and you're right.
AlexI've been talking too much. What's?
MattieI just wanted to ask if there's anything you want to add. I feel like we.
AlexIs there anything you want to add? I'm just puking my emotions.
MattieSometimes that's the best recordings we have, is when you just puke your emotions.
AlexYeah.
MattieNo, I think we covered it.
AlexWell, on that note, you should really support our Patreon, because once we have 101 patrons, we're gonna do a basically a q a you're gonna you can send us questions we'll have a super easy form to fill out you can remain anonymous if you want and you can ask us all of the questions about gender sexuality and mental illness that you think you'd normally get in
Mattietrouble for on the internet or in person. I'm hyped. Let's do this. Are there any questions that people can't ask you? I mean, I've been asked a lot of dumb questions, but I mean, discretion wise, if there is anything, I just won't answer it. Yeah. We'll ignore them. We
Alexwon't. We will not roast you. We will just not answer them. But really, I have seen you answer so many things with such grace and patience that I can tell you as, or at least our listeners, you are going to ask questions that are less invasive and less weird than the ones that we have gotten in real life. You know, we're also asking for them, you know, bring it on. Yeah. Yeah. The questions that have been asked of us before when they weren't appropriate,
it was not solicited like ask us inappropriate questions because you know what if think about it even if you think that you're going to make us upset better to make two strangers on the internet upset than somebody in your life who might might be gay or trans or queer or all of all the quilt bag stuff that could be going on you know yeah like we're we're good hell yeah throw them at us
MattieHit us with them.
AlexYeah. Like, I mean, think about it. Both of us have just talked about our, or at least my traumatic hospital experience and your traumatic experiences with gender. And we're going to go home and watch Christmas movies. Like, we are not therapists in any way, shape, or form. However, between the two of us, we have seen many, many therapists.
MattieYep. Heck yeah. Even gender therapists.
AlexYes, exactly.
Speaker Ahey this has really actually been very helpful sometimes i have fun doing this bullshit with you do you think people are ever gonna hear this i think someday we'll make something together that's why i like doing it because when i'm with you and just with you i can be totally honest
Mattiewe really appreciate you checking out this episode of Two Headed Girl if you're enjoying the show please tell a friend or give us a review You can find us at patreon.com slash twoheadedgirlfm, which supports the show and trans healthcare costs for both myself and Alex. Once we reach 101 patrons, we'll be doing a Q&A episode. The music you heard in this episode is from Seth Boyer's album Half Lonely. Special thanks to our friends, Cara Fagan, Margaret Dax, Kevin Budnick, Merlin Mann, Mike Hurley, and Quinn Rose.
If you'd like to hear more, head over to twoheadedgirl.fm or subscribe anywhere you find your podcasts, including our favorite independent app, Overcast, made by our dear friend Marco Armin. Please reach out to tell us what you think at twoheadedgirlfm on Twitter or by emailing twoheadedgirlfm at gmail.com. Thanks again for listening. We hope you can find some time to relax over the holiday. We're thinking of you.
AlexRemember when I was high and I thought,
Speaker Awhat if people talked to like Pokemon? That was one of my favorite things ever. Matt, Matt, Matt. Yeah. I'm focusing.
I love you. I love you too.
AlexI realized that I stuck a microphone in your face after I said I loved you, so I basically forced the answer upon you.
Speaker AIt would have been the answer anyway.