Episode 3

Transcript:

00:00:00
Welcome back to Comically Exposed. We are on episode two, I believe. Three. I know how

00:00:14
to count. Don't worry about it. I'm a math tutor. So, I'm Gabbie and my co-host extraordinaire

00:00:24
is...

00:00:25
Heather.

00:00:26
Yeah.

00:00:27
See, we figured this out already.

00:00:30
So good. It's like, it's amazing how it's the same every time and we totally remember

00:00:37
what we did last time. It's perfect. Okay. So, we are on episode three and actually Heather

00:00:48
and I were just talking before the podcast because Heather has gone headfirst into everything

00:00:57
like technology, podcasting, like music rights, all of this stuff. I feel woefully inadequate,

00:01:05
but that's okay. So, I don't know. Do you want to talk about where you're at with this

00:01:11
stuff? You don't have to.

00:01:14
No, I mean, that's the insanity of, I guess, me in the way that I process information.

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Fortunately, I make things a lot bigger than they need to be sometimes. Only because, I

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mean, sometimes rightfully so because I'm just trying to figure out things, especially

00:01:31
about music, copyright and royalties and et cetera, and how to make sure that I'm doing

00:01:38
the right thing, which is also something that I have to deal with with my OCD. It's like

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circles back to OCD because of worrying about getting in trouble and then something happens

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like the world explodes or our house catches on fire and normal stuff like that.

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Totally normal. Honestly, totally normal from my head as well. So, I get where you're coming

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from. The thing is, this is like a layer of OCD that's just such a bummer to me, which

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I guess is just part of OCD. The extra rules that we put in place for ourselves to live

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and it's so exhausting to try and follow society's rules, the laws of the land, dynamics in family,

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and then we have put in place. Yeah. Sometimes totally good to follow rules for us. Like,

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you know, when I go swimming every day, I bring this little vitamin C solution so that

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it counteracts the chlorine on the swimsuit. But honestly, the fact that I have to bring

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it every single day, it's like, is it super important or is this becoming a compulsion,

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i.e. a rule that I feel like I have to follow all the time? I don't know. Is that the same

00:03:12
for you? Yeah. Yeah. I have to always kind of, it's funny because I check things too.

00:03:19
I have to check my checks, which is like, and then it becomes like this very meta. And

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then, you know, the questioning too, the questioning is this OCD. I mean, my therapist is like,

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has always said that as soon as you ask yourself, is this OCD, it is OCD. It's not that it is

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or it isn't. It's just like, it's basically ending the conversation of checking again

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and making sure and you know, all that stuff. And so, and it's not that it is or it isn't,

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it's just whether or not I'm checking to see if it is. And so, yeah, it's fun. I was just

00:03:57
gonna say it's so fun. Well, my therapist, which maybe we should get them into some kind

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of like fight club. My therapist says checking once is assurance. Checking any more than

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that is reassurance. Yes. Which is like all well and good when I'm in more of like a maintenance

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phase of the OCD. But when I'm like fully in the OCD, then it's like, wait, did I check

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the first time? Was that? Did that go through? Like did that email fully send or did it get

00:04:34
stuck with the mailer daemon? And so, we have to check again. But now as a reassurance,

00:04:39
yeah. The meta part of OCD is infuriating. Yeah. Yeah. Because you think you're on the

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outside of it, but you're really inside. Totally. It's like you were in the ocean, which is

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why people who are well-meaning who like don't have OCD or whatever, it's like they see you

00:05:04
in the middle of the ocean and they're like, why don't you just go on land? And it's like,

00:05:09
yeah, buddy, I'd love to go on land. Currently, I am drowning in water and there is no land

00:05:15
to be seen on any horizon. So, thank you for your help, but please feel free to fuck off.

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Yeah. It's always complicated to kind of explain to people, especially because I mask a lot

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when it comes to like having a difficulty. So, when I'm telling somebody a very difficult

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experience and trying to share it with them, they just kind of like push it off and they're

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like, yeah, that's not really a problem. And I'm totally, and I've had that like most of

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my life because I was only, I was recently diagnosed with OCD, although I've had it since

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childhood. It was like almost two years ago. So, I'm just learning like little bits and

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pieces and management and et cetera. Things that I thought was like a personality deficit

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and made me realize this is like a whole other thing. Yeah. When I first got diagnosed with

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OCD, as I was talking to that therapist, I was like in my head going, well, this is obviously

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not OCD. I'm just wasting this person's time and like I'm just trying to get attention

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and like blah, blah, blah. So, by the end of the hour, I convinced myself, you don't

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have OCD, you just have personality deficits and issues. And then he just immediately like

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launches into all these treatment options and I was like, I'm sorry, are you saying

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that I have OCD? And he kind of laughs and he goes, oh, you have textbook OCD. I was

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like, sweet. At least I got a gold star somewhere. You know what I mean?

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Yeah, yeah. I totally know what you mean about that. I'm sorry. It's just so familiar.

00:07:04
No. Yes. That's why I laugh too. Like when you and I are not on the podcast and talking

00:07:09
about OCD, I feel like we both are laughing constantly because it's just like part of

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me, the laugh is relief because I'm like, oh, thank God somebody else does this. It's

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not just me again, trying to make my life harder, trying to get attention, you know,

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whatever. Yeah. Well, because that's the other part of it all too, right? It's the part that

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you don't have self-compassion for yourself and you're like judging yourself and you're

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saying that you should be perfect or whatever. And that's the other part of it is it kind

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of degrades you, right? Oh yeah. Makes you think you're less than because it's like you

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can't be like, why can't I think normal? Yes. You know, why can't I just get on land? It

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seems to be so easy for everybody else to just be on land and walking around. Yeah.

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Meanwhile, my best friends are like a whale shark and an octopus. You know what I mean?

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And they're not even real. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I know. Heather has been researching

00:08:22
like to the nth degree for our podcast and doing amazing stuff, but my OCD Spidey sense

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was tingling a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So my question to you is how do you feel about

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all this research that you've been doing? And that might be a loaded question. Yeah,

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I think I was, I think I was walking the line. I don't know if my therapist agrees with me

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on this, but this is how I feel about it. There is this weird thing where research is

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useful in anybody else's life, you know, knowing exactly what something is and understanding

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something. But for my kind of disordered view, it kind of goes to another place. I like,

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for example, I'll expose myself a little bit, will have a lot of tabs open and they will

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be a lot of the same tabs over and over and over again. And when I see that, I realize

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there's something wrong here. Before I used to not realize that and I would have tabs

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open on my computer, on my phone and not just one browser. We're talking multiple browsers.

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Oh, next level. Yeah. And they would be in the hundreds, if not closer to thousands.

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But I would have a bunch of tabs open, which I'm sure is not great for your computer or

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your phone. But that is what I would do. And then I would go through them and I'm like,

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why do I have these open? And then I would see that most of them are the same or if not

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exactly the same, like the same place. And that's when I know that's not good. But then

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there's an another end of the spectrum where there is a genuine curiosity. Oh, yeah. I

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know that things aren't supposed to be there for protectant, you know, like I don't need

00:10:22
things to like be bumper guards. That's the thing with Google. You know, it's it's not

00:10:27
to have those bumper guards and be able to flail about on this planet. I don't know where

00:10:34
I'm going with this. So OCD is so fun. I think we should retitle the podcast.

00:10:43
Well, I mean, but then the other thing was so so then let's let's go back a little bit.

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The thing that we talked about just right before we turned on the recording was like

00:10:55
your feeling that you feel like that I was doing a lot and that you weren't doing enough

00:11:00
and that you were failing. But the funny thing is, is that I felt like I was failing because

00:11:05
we I felt like I wasn't doing enough. I'm so sorry to laugh, but it's like the beauty

00:11:14
of everybody has their own perspective. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm just like,

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I feel like we could both say to each other, like, well, your perspective is wrong. My

00:11:27
perspective, where I have not done enough, but you have done above and beyond is the

00:11:33
correct one. Yeah, no. Yeah. So in my mind, I'm thinking, you know, I'm failing because

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I'm not getting things done in a timeline. But in reality, our timeline is our timeline.

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And so it's just getting things out. And that's the intent of doing this is to practice, you

00:11:55
know, doing this over and over again until we get better and that there are potential

00:12:01
failures or perceived failures that will happen. Right. Which is an excellent transition to

00:12:08
me for this week. My goal was to apply to mortified and there were a couple of steps

00:12:16
in the way there. You know, all I have is like a page and a half of the standup set

00:12:21
that I wrote when I was 14. I'm sure it's brilliant. I haven't reread it. And when I

00:12:26
say brilliant, that is sarcastic as hell. But in looking at mortified, they want more

00:12:34
than just that amount of written stuff. So I was like, oh, I printed out every email

00:12:40
for the first semester as a freshman in college. Like, that'll be great. I did not go to and

00:12:46
you can see in the house, there is a door back there. That is the garage about 10 feet

00:12:52
that way to the garage. So we're talking 30 feet as the crow flies. Okay, all of those

00:13:00
printouts are there. Have I gone and found them and looked through them? Have not. So,

00:13:09
boy, this is a long winded way to say didn't do it. Didn't apply to mortified this week

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and was feeling pretty low when I knew that we were recording today. And then you had

00:13:23
to come in with like all of this amazing research and being like, okay, we're going to use this

00:13:29
resource and this resource. And I was like, fuck, Gabbie, get your shit together. In my

00:13:35
defense, in my defense, I went to LA last week, which means nothing and just sounds

00:13:43
like a brag. And the second thing was my dog went into surgery. And that is my anxiety

00:13:53
has been heightened. Yeah. So that's, that's kind of where I am. I do want to say when

00:13:58
I was in LA, I did do some things that would further comedy, which is kind of the point

00:14:04
of this podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Which is I went and saw a comedy show put on by Chris

00:14:09
Gethard and then I got to meet Chris Gethard at the end. It was so amazing. And he is the

00:14:17
kindest, nicest, such a funny person. And then I also got to join the writer strike

00:14:24
on the picket lines for a bit, which was cool. Did I feel like awkward as hell the whole

00:14:31
time? 100% self-conscious. Absolutely. Did I take a picture to like, you know, put on

00:14:38
social media? Nope. Didn't take a picture. Didn't, it was just a memory. But I feel like

00:14:43
I supported, you know, writers. Well, where did you walk? Which studio? Oh, thank you

00:14:49
for asking. So our hotel was closest to the Warner Brothers studio. So that's where we

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went. Yeah, we did one full loop. They did try to take our signs away when we were halfway

00:15:01
through the loop because they were like, we only, you know, walk the picket line until

00:15:06
noon. And I was like, cool. It's like 1145. I'd love to just bring back my sign to the

00:15:13
place where I got from initially. Again, an OCD rule perhaps. But I also just wanted to

00:15:18
do one full lap. So yeah, of course you wanted to walk the loop and you wanted to like support

00:15:24
your fellow writers. It's so cool that you were able to do that with your sister and

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just be there to support everybody because this is our future. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So

00:15:37
that's where I am. I don't know. Failure, modification, reframe. I was also supporting

00:15:46
the writer's strike by not writing. Pencils down people. Well done. Yeah, yeah. Not writing

00:15:55
as much as I would like or even contributing to the things that I wanted to work on and

00:16:01
you know, which also felt like a massive failure, but it's funny because it's my own or criticizing

00:16:06
myself in that way instead of just, you know, getting it done. Wait, what was your, what

00:16:11
was your goal for this week? Was it writing? Two things. One was going to work on this

00:16:17
podcast and two, which I did. And two was going to write my first draft or finish my

00:16:25
first draft of my audio storytelling series or fictional podcast or whatever I want to

00:16:34
call it. I still don't have a name. I need to like settle on a name. I mean, we're on

00:16:39
episode three. I mean, I could keep changing it. You could, or you could just title it

00:16:45
and then we could just refer to like your title of the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's

00:16:51
not really a podcast. It's like, I don't know what it is. No, but that's what I'm saying.

00:16:57
Like if you, if it's called like Heather's Adventures and OCD and Friends and Babysitting.

00:17:06
Yeah. It's called right now. The working title is Doubt It. Oh, awesome. Yeah. And so that's

00:17:13
what I'm calling it. Yeah. But yeah, that's how I refer to it. So even if it's not that

00:17:19
title, it's a doubt it. It's great, dude. Well, what part of the process are you on

00:17:27
with writing doubt it? Opening my program and looking at where I left off. That's solid.

00:17:35
Yeah. Well, I have written notes on the side. Oh, dude. Okay. Well, you are writing then.

00:17:43
It's just, you know, just not writing to the standard that I've put on myself. Once again,

00:17:51
the rules. Yes. I think the reason that we have them as OCD is it's to keep us safe and

00:17:57
it's to keep us like moral and you know, a good person or not in trouble or whatever.

00:18:03
But truly what they actually are is mostly stumbling blocks, speed bumps, obstacles.

00:18:11
Yeah. I remember talking to some therapist or something about like here's like a certain

00:18:18
set of rules that I have and they were like, oh, that's exhausting. And I was like, I know.

00:18:23
I'm tired all the time. Once again, OCD is so fun, you guys. If you don't already have

00:18:33
it, just go out and get it because it is just a laugh a minute. Because you can catch it.

00:18:40
Well, you can buy it for $19.95. That is our first podcast merch. Yes. OCD in a bottle.

00:18:48
Yes. Snort this and ruin your life. Yes, exactly. Okay. Well, I think we should maybe talk about

00:18:56
what our goals are for the next time period. Yeah. I'm going to do two because then maybe

00:19:04
one of them will actually have happened by the next time. That's my goal. Just get a

00:19:12
super long to-do list so that anything. I'll put breathing on there just so I can check

00:19:16
something off. Yes. I think I'm going to still apply to mortified, you know, knock on wood.

00:19:23
And then the second one is, oh boy, the rest of my goals are all like, mean a lot to me.

00:19:32
So that's a bummer. I am going to do my first episode of the podcast. I want to start called

00:19:41
That Shit Roommate. Yay. Yay. I'm writing it down. Those are great. When we're talking

00:19:49
about goals, at least this is the way that I look at it. It's like any step that you

00:19:55
do towards your goal is a step towards your goal. I mean, not to be redundant, but that's

00:20:02
just what it is. Just putting on the shoes to go running is enough to work towards the

00:20:08
going running. Yes. And I'm just going to say this now. It's amazing the compassion

00:20:15
you can have towards me and the compassion that I feel towards you. My third goal is

00:20:20
going to be, let's be a little more self compassionate to myself. Okay, Heather. Okay. What you got?

00:20:28
What do I got? So my goal is to actually publish this podcast with you, even though we're on

00:20:36
the third now in the recordings, but you know, it is what it is. And then the second is to

00:20:42
actually work on my doubt it my script and get a draft done. Cool. I'm excited to do

00:20:49
that. Finish it. I have I can tell like in my head, I have so many ideas. I just it's

00:20:55
like, yeah. Oh, now I feel like I'm talking it up. I got to talk it down. I got to under

00:21:06
sell it now. All of a sudden I was like, Whoa, that was a big head, Heather. I love that one

00:21:14
tiny comment. And you're like, Oh my gosh, who's the narcissist on this call? No, but I will

00:21:20
remind you kind of what you said to me as I was trying to write my spec script for a sunny in

00:21:26
Philadelphia, you were like, do the shittiest version. So vomit draft. That's all this is.

00:21:32
vomit drafts. It is. I challenge you to make it the worst thing I've ever read. I challenge you.

00:21:39
Okay. I'll try my best to make it the worst thing you've ever read.

00:21:47
And on that note, wait, did you say all of your goals?

00:21:51
Yeah, just the two. It's podcast and then doubt it.

00:21:56
I like that. I'm like, shouldn't you have like 12 other goals? Should we have? Take a breath,

00:22:01
Gabbie. Okay. So I think we've done it. We've done it for this episode. We laughed, we've cried,

00:22:09
we've compulsed. And I think that means it's time to wrap it up. Yes. All right. Yeah, everyone. We

00:22:18
have been Gabbie and Heather. And we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Maybe. Don't put any pressure

00:22:26
on anybody. Bye. Bye, everybody. Welcome to the end of the show. This is Gabbie Blachman.

00:22:38
And this is Heather and I. Thank you for listening to Comically Exposed. We're just a little show

00:22:44
with two creators who edit and produce each episode. We appreciate all your support.

00:22:49
If you liked what you heard, please follow us on Instagram at comicallyexp.podcast.

00:22:56
That's comicallyexp.podcast. Or subscribe to us on Spotify. New episodes drop every other Wednesday.

00:23:09
Also, special thanks to Track Club and Gxldxn Fxnch for providing the music.

00:23:12
Thanks for listening. And hey, everybody, today is a great day to expose yourself.

00:23:19
Okay. Until next time, ta ta for ta da. Bye. Bye. Me. Me.

00:23:49
Bye.