428: You’re Not Invulnerable

You’re Not Invulnerable

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Introduction and Welcoming Merlin

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[00:00:06] Brett: Oh my God, this is Overtired. Welcome, everybody. Welcome. Um, I am here. I’m Brett Terpstra. I’m here with Jeff Severns Guntzel and Christina Warren and

[00:00:17] Christina: And

[00:00:17] Brett: guest Merlin Mann. One of our favorites. Merlin. How’s it going?

[00:00:21] Merlin: It is going great and you’re one of my favorites. I love doing this show. He

[00:00:25] Jeff: Oh

[00:00:25] Christina: Yay.

[00:00:26] Merlin: Christina. Rarely Danes to show up when I’m here, which feels important to me.

[00:00:30] Brett: Um,

[00:00:31] Merlin: We used to be friends. I remember that.

[00:00:33] Brett: two weeks ago we told everybody that we were gonna have an author that I was very excited about on, uh, last week. And then within about an hour before the show started, Jeff said he had food poisoning and couldn’t do it.

[00:00:50] Merlin: Oh

[00:00:51] Brett: And then right before the show started, Christina said, I have like a, a stomach virus.

[00:00:58] Brett: And [00:01:00] so I show up, I show up and

[00:01:01] Merlin: sit down? Christina? My friend, my friend, my friend, uh, from college, from Alabama would always say, I gotta go sit down.

[00:01:10] Christina: Yeah. I had to sit down for a while. It was, it was, it was. It was. It was. It was real. Not fun. It was

[00:01:14] Merlin: What a great phrase.

[00:01:15] Brett: So I show up and Corey shows up and I’m like, we can do this recording. Just you and me? No, it’s, his name is Corey O’Brien.

[00:01:25] Merlin: Corey O’Brien.

[00:01:26] Brett: He is, he’s an author. He’s a, he’s a, he’s now a cyberpunk author. He is a sci-fi author. But, um, he opted, he said he wanted to do Overtired in its true form with all three of us. So we rescheduled.

[00:01:42] Brett: That’s still up and coming, but this week we have Merlin, which is as good, if not better.

[00:01:51] Merlin: Uhhuh. You, you, are you, you’re John Ming. Me a little bit.

[00:01:55] Jeff: you Motting? Me? You know Cory Drow? Whenever I hear that name, I feel like 25 years [00:02:00] younger.

[00:02:00] Merlin: I know, I do. I do too. Oh, he was, God Bo was such a, had such a big influence on me, and they basically, Corey, Corey and Andy Bayo are the people I personally feel the most gratitude for, for like promoting my website when it came out. If it wasn’t for Corey, I don’t know. He’s an interesting character. That guy.

[00:02:20] Merlin: He’s got, he’s got strong opinions.

[00:02:22] Jeff: He does have strong opinions.

[00:02:24] Christina: He’s still quite in new terms. I mean, I hear every, and, and it’s weird though because, uh, I wonder if he’s annoyed if he’s as annoyed by am I am by how many people use in ification the wrong way. Like it’s just become shorthand for people don’t like something.

[00:02:36] Merlin: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:37] Jeff: he coin? Did he coin? Everything’s computer. Sorry. I really love that.

[00:02:43] Merlin: still say Wfi a lot.

[00:02:45] Jeff: Wafi.

[00:02:45] Christina: good.

[00:02:46] Merlin: Yeah. I still say that a lot. I think that was from his Magic Kingdom book.

[00:02:50] Jeff: Oh yeah. Loved some Disneyland.

[00:02:52] Merlin: Was it? Down, down in Mountain, the Magic Kingdom.

[00:02:54] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:02:54] Christina: That was good.

[00:02:55] Merlin: Well, I’m not an author. I’m the furthest thing from an author, but, um, I’m happy to be here [00:03:00] to, to fill time and I just wanna hear how y’all are doing Well. Did I try, I

[00:03:07] Brett: I, I enjoyed, I enjoyed reading you writing about not writing,

[00:03:11] Christina: Yes,

[00:03:12] Jeff: Hmm.

[00:03:13] Merlin: work.

[00:03:14] Jeff: It’s still writing.

[00:03:16] Merlin: Yeah. I, someday I wanna do a full, a full series of something, either written thing or probably a podcast thing about the things in life. We don’t get to choose top of the list. You don’t get to choose your trauma. If we could all pick our traumas, we’d have cooler traumas, sexual fetishes.

[00:03:30] Merlin: If we get to pick our own sexual

[00:03:31] Jeff: traumas.

[00:03:32] Merlin: we don’t have much cooler traumas and much cooler sexual fetishes. These are not things we get to choose. We, we find ourselves having them in dealing with

[00:03:39] Jeff: trying to think of what a, like, I’m trying to think of a cool trauma. I would want. What, what would you choose?

[00:03:43] Merlin: Oh, geez. I mean, I don’t, I I, would we be stealing valor to even talk about that?

[00:03:48] Christina: Mm. No, I mean, well, um, I think it depends on the trauma

[00:03:53] Merlin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

[00:03:55] Jeff: Yeah. I did just open a giant trap door and ask everybody to

[00:03:58] Christina: I know, I, I, I know what valor [00:04:00] I would

[00:04:00] Merlin: should check

[00:04:00] Jeff: without first dropping a dime down to hear how deep it was.

[00:04:04] Merlin: Oh, that I see. The water’s cold and deep.

[00:04:06] Christina: Yeah. I think I know what I would steal.

[00:04:09] Merlin: Um, hey, Christina, if you could pick your trauma and it would be cooler than whatever you’re working with now, what trauma do you suppose you would consider picking?

[00:04:17] Christina: Yeah. So I would like want some sort of like, like a parentage, things like, I don’t know who my real parents are. Like I have some sort of weird adoption kind of backstory or something like that. Like that would be

[00:04:28] Jeff: Because why? What, what, what would it, so what makes you say

[00:04:31] Merlin: If you’re actually raised by, raised by cap barez or something,

[00:04:34] Christina: Yeah. I just think it would be more interesting.

[00:04:35] Christina: Like, I just like, I just think it would be more interesting And you would

[00:04:38] Merlin: parents suck.

[00:04:39] Christina: right, well, yeah, well, and my mine kind of don’t, so like that would kind of be like a like, like, like, right. Exactly. So like, it’s nice, but it’s also kinda like, eh, so would, there would be like a part of it, be like, oh, I can like bitch about how bad my mom is because I never really knew my real mom because I was abandoned, because I have all these issues of not being good enough and like,

[00:04:56] Jeff: and you know what?

[00:04:57] Christina: do?

[00:04:57] Christina: I do. I live up to this like ideal that I was adopted into [00:05:00] and all that. That would be

[00:05:01] Jeff: and if that life was a song, you would go, son. She said, have I got a little story for you who you thought was your daddy?

[00:05:12] Merlin: wait. Is that, am I getting that right?

[00:05:15] Jeff: It’s

[00:05:15] Merlin: I’m either throat singing or doing Eddie Veder

[00:05:23] Jeff: We got that out of our system.

[00:05:24] Merlin: with a surprise.

[00:05:29] Jeff: Oh my God. I

[00:05:29] Brett: So.

[00:05:31] Jeff: I gotta, I wanna keep going. I wanna keep going.

[00:05:34] Brett: With, oh, don’t make me edit. Um,

[00:05:40] Merlin: wanna make work for you. I’ve recently started editing a podcast and like I, I, I, I treasure how little work I put into it. People edit too much. Just edit.

[00:05:50] Brett: well, I agree with that. I, uh, we, we don’t, we used to, I used to edit more, um, and be more, um, [00:06:00] anal about ums and ahs and misspeaks and, and I just, that’s natural. It’s like

[00:06:08] Merlin: you cut all of that

[00:06:09] Brett: don’t tune into us for a tight,

[00:06:11] Merlin: maybe it’s not a podcast that you want. If you don’t like that, maybe that’s not, you know, maybe what you want is NPR.

[00:06:17] Brett: Right.

[00:06:18] Jeff: Oh, you know, when I worked for, um, American Public Media, I worked with an amazing reporter and producer, and I sat in a booth with her while she grabbed the tea sound from another part of an interview and inserted it into the word that a person had spoken. And that

[00:06:33] Brett: I don’t want to do

[00:06:34] Jeff: that is all the way down the road.

[00:06:35] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:06:36] Merlin: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:37] Brett: So we’ve kind of already touched on a place that we know, we all know we’re going.

Mental Health Corner

[00:06:44] Brett: Um, but that’s the, uh, the mental health corner. We can make this, we can make

[00:06:49] Merlin: Have a song for it or

[00:06:50] Brett: last time I was here, we have talked about, we have talked about, I. I’ve always wanted like martini hour music for this, um, like a real [00:07:00] 1950s shrink office kind of thing.

[00:07:02] Merlin: like a maybe, like, you know, uh, yeah, like I’m, I’m thinking like a, like a, like a, you know, Jo kinda like,

[00:07:09] Brett: So historically when we do this with Merlin, it ends up being two hours out of a two hour and 15 minute podcast. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna do our best to like, have other topics, but we don’t have to because that’s part of the reason we bring Melin

[00:07:25] Merlin: people, some people would say that you’re passive aggressive. I wouldn’t say that.

[00:07:29] Christina: Some people would say.

[00:07:30] Merlin: Wouldn’t say, if it pleases you to be like that, I, of course, I’ll just do, do whatever you want, man. Wow. Wow. We learned so much guessing on a podcast in a web browser.

[00:07:41] Brett: so Merlin, how’s your mental health?

[00:07:43] Merlin: Good. How about you guys?

[00:07:46] Jeff: Pass the talking stick.

[00:07:48] Merlin: Um, good, good, good, good. I, uh, I’m always, um, uh, not always I’m, I, I’m trying to make a distinction that might seem, [00:08:00] uh, sort of, it’s early here. It might seem like, like sort of an unnecessary distinction, but, uh, I, I, I, I do like to distinguish between what I call mental health and what I would call emotional health.

[00:08:09] Merlin: I’m saying that like I’m some kind of like a revolutionary therapist that just invented that distinction. It’s just that in the day to day of people talking about this, the phrase I hear a lot is mental health. And I don’t know why I. I, I like, I, I think I do know why I like the distinction. I think emotional health and mental health are worth thinking about and looking at separately.

[00:08:34] Merlin: And like, just in terms of my own confession about that, it’s like, I have to admit when I hear mental health, I think of things like further on down the spectrum of like the sort of chemical issues that some of us have to some extent or another, all the way down to the chemical issues that some of my dear friends have that make their life nearly unlivable.

[00:08:51] Merlin: I think of those kinds of things, emotional health, boy, that that’s, that’s the key for me. How am I managing stuff in [00:09:00] life and how am I managing, or how am I experiencing to, to use a word, word, I don’t like to use that way, but how am I experiencing my emotions and how, what effect is that having, because as tight as your mental health might be, if you’re not managing your emotional health well, and, and I’m, I’m not even saying that’s kinda like pushing a rope.

[00:09:18] Merlin: Like it’s hard, like how do you, you know, decide to feel a certain way, but, uh, it’s, it’s all pretty okay. Considering as always, I’m working on sleep as always. I’m, I’m trying to work on like, you know, just a, a lot of stuff. I don’t want it to be two hours long if you don’t go into any aspect, I could do an hour on any aspect of it, but let’s just say I’m fine.

Sleep and Medication Challenges

[00:09:38] Brett: Well, since this is Overtired, tell me how sleep’s going.

[00:09:41] Merlin: Good. Um, we were talking before about, um,

[00:09:45] Brett: I.

[00:09:46] Merlin: um, me medicine things and, uh, pharmaceutical things, and in summary, probably something I’ve said each time I’ve been on is I, I always find it so challenging to balance all these different things. My mom as ever, is going through kind of a health [00:10:00] thing right now, and she’s always kind of my poster child for this, where like, once you’re on Coumadin, once you’re on blood thinners, everything gets complicated and there’s no more easy fixes for anything because everything ends up being slightly connected, related

[00:10:14] Brett: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:14] Merlin: uh, consequential to other parts of your physical health.

[00:10:19] Merlin: So, so for me, uh, that’s always been a balance. I was telling Brett that, uh, I have high blood pressure and so they took me off. So I used to be on real A DHD drugs and then eventually my rinku, my love put me on a Vyvanse, which is fine. Then after the blood pressure stuff, guess what? Abundance of caution.

[00:10:43] Merlin: We need to make sure I can’t, I can’t responsibly hand you anything that has anything with good salts in it if it could cause you to have a stroke or a heart attack. So then I’ve just been on pilot medicine, which is useless, uh, Modafinil, like the stuff they give people with work shift disorder

[00:10:59] Brett: [00:11:00] Narcolepsy. Yeah.

[00:11:00] Jeff: Trucker speed.

[00:11:01] Merlin: It’s not, I wish it was trucker speed. It’s, no, it’s really just what they give it all. What it does is it helps you not fall asleep without giving you precisely any like, super amount of energy. Plus, it makes me, I want to point out a distinction within a distinction, uh, as drunk and white have told us, feeling nauseous and feeling nauseated are different things.

[00:11:27] Christina: Correct.

[00:11:28] Merlin: Okay? I just want you to remember that. ’cause I’m like that. And this is what I live for, these distinctions. ’cause life matters, but also being nauseated is not the same thing as throwing up, being nauseated is feeling like you have to throw up. These things make me throw up almost every day that I take them.

[00:11:43] Merlin: And I’ve gotten used to it and it’s not a big deal, but they, they really don’t agree with me. Uh, anyway, um, last week I got back on Vyvanse and the nice thing about that is, and Vyvanse is a, as these things go up pretty benign, A-D-H-D-I could look it up. It’s like there’s basically two [00:12:00] kinds of

[00:12:01] Brett: Yeah, it’s,

[00:12:02] Merlin: speed.

[00:12:02] Merlin: There’s,

[00:12:03] Brett: the one, it’s,

[00:12:05] Christina: but it, but it, it has, uh, it, the way that

[00:12:07] Merlin: is it, I don’t think it.

[00:12:08] Christina: is

[00:12:09] Brett: Vyvanse is in the same class as Adderall, but it’s, uh, it’s got like one molecule removed

[00:12:14] Christina: Yeah. It has. Yeah. It, yeah, it has one, one different removal. It, but it, but it’s the same core thing. It’s the same as, as, uh, d arine or, or dexo, whatever, you know, which is like the oldest type type, type of amphetamine, but they have one less molecule, and the way that it, it absorbs in your body is this different, and it has to have like water.

[00:12:30] Christina: Like you can’t just like the way it’s supposed to be designed, you can’t just snort it. You can’t snort it. Yeah. And that’s, that’s part of why it was designed. And the other reason was frankly for, um, uh, patent extension. Um, and, and the patent, the patent expired like two

[00:12:43] Merlin: The delivery mechanism, you know, for your nex VM or whatever. Anyhow, uh, and that, that has been, I think, a boon, uh, in a quarter of a dozen ways where, uh, for one, uh, it doesn’t really do that much for me, but the [00:13:00] prospect of saying like, okay, I’m gonna get up. And I, and again, the balance, right? I, I can’t take it.

[00:13:04] Merlin: I shorten to take it at 11:00 AM because for whatever reason it has effects on me. I’m grinding, I’m kind of grinding my teeth at like nine o’clock or

[00:13:12] Brett: Yeah. As a, as a 16 hour half life.

[00:13:16] Christina: Yep.

[00:13:16] Merlin: So I, what I do is if I get up to urinate, I take it early, but this is gonna sound weird, but like, I used to really look forward to taking Adderall, um, because it had a huge impact on my ability to feel like I’m running my life.

[00:13:30] Merlin: It had side effects too, but that helps. So it ends up being this omnibus project with saying, well, if I want to feel the way I’d like to feel tomorrow, follow me. ’cause this is really, really dopey third grade kind of stuff. If I wanna feel the way I, I. De minimus level of functioning Tomorrow, I’ll, I’ll take a Vyvanse.

[00:13:51] Merlin: So when are you gonna take a Vyvanse? I need to take a Vyvanse pretty goddamn early. Like what, like 10 or 11? Nah, earlier, like I could take it as early as four and like [00:14:00] I can still sleep. But I’m looking forward to that because then I’m thinking when I wake up, I’m already, I’ve got one in the chamber and I’m like, okay, let’s do this.

[00:14:09] Merlin: I don’t know, it’s, you know, we sometimes, especially with children, I feel like we try to create, and this is way too big for this topic, but we try to create all these, uh, systems of, of fear and guilt and, and shame and all the things that make a kid do the right thing because they don’t wanna feel shame.

[00:14:27] Merlin: Um, and like as you get older, you can realize, well, I also have ways to motivate myself. It requires a certain amount of bifurcated self in some ways. The same way that the, the, the one in the morning me is different from the 5:00 AM me and that kind of stuff. But long story short, it, I think I now I have more incentive to try something I wanted to do anyway, which is getting to bed a, a little earlier and BA little more around the same regular time. And that helps me,

[00:14:55] Brett: Yeah, I, so I take Vyvanse for very much the same [00:15:00] reasons you are currently on Vyvanse. Um, what was the one we used to take? Both of us were on it.

[00:15:08] Merlin: speedy one or we were, we’ve both been on, am I allowed to talk about

[00:15:12] Brett: No, there was another A DHD Med.

[00:15:16] Merlin: oh, um, see, there was Adderall and wasn’t Concerta. It was, um, I was, I was on Ritalin for a time in the early days.

[00:15:24] Brett: it’s another one.

[00:15:25] Merlin: Is it a prescription one?

[00:15:26] Brett: Yeah, it’s in the same category as Ritalin. I forget now. But anyway, like they, they said that was too bad for my blood pressure. And um, so they put me on Vyvanse and then they lowered my Vyvanse dose when I started having insomnia again. Um, and that didn’t actually help my insomnia, but because like I was functioning on the lower dose, they kept me on the lower dose.

[00:15:51] Christina: on the lower one. Yeah.

[00:15:52] Merlin: Yeah.

[00:15:53] Brett: I have a whole, I have a half a bottle left of the higher dose, and every once in a while, if I know [00:16:00] it’s gonna be a rough day,

[00:16:01] Merlin: Oh, I was the same way. I had, I

[00:16:02] Brett: I’ll take the

[00:16:03] Merlin: I had three that I found in a bag for travel. Um, and I’ve been off it for, just so we’re clear here, we’re talking about two years, two years of, if I sometimes don’t seem as sharp, it’s because I’m 58. And also because like, I’m just, just, you know, I’m just drinking coffee and trying to say something smart.

[00:16:22] Merlin: And it’s not, it’s, it’s not always, uh, nobody cares, but it’s not always, you know, so easy. Um, but uh. It’s such, it’s all such a balance. And ultimately, again, we’re the project manager for those things. And, you know, you don’t want to, uh, you don’t wanna burn too bright and too fast. And it’s, I don’t know, it’s, I I’m not, I don’t have anything smart to say about it.

[00:16:45] Merlin: Uh, I I, I keep thinking of a book that I read that I’m not recommending this book, not at least, because it’s very, it’s outta print, difficult to find and full of, um, falsehoods, but it is a good read. And that is Albert Goldman’s biography of Elvis Presley.

[00:16:59] Jeff: Oh

[00:16:59] Christina: Okay.[00:17:00]

[00:17:00] Merlin: Okay. And Albert Goldman was this, I mean, one doesn’t say fabulous, but, but he was not above enhancing details of accounts that happened.

[00:17:11] Christina: Which, which means his books must be really fun.

[00:17:14] Merlin: Yeah. Yeah. And the Elvis one is great. It starts out brilliantly. I finally found, I’ve been telling my kid about it before he could talk, and finally I found a used copy and bought it and it was like, I gotta read the first chapter of this. ’cause the first chapter is so great. It’s Elvis circa 76, 77, getting ready to go on stage at one of his wackadoo shows where he does, you know, I wish I was, that’s trilogy at the end and all that.

[00:17:38] Merlin: Uh, and it’s, you know, it’s not nice to say, but for the young people, it’s fat Elvis. This is like in the time before he died, and the Descript of the drug regimen that he had before he would go on stage really just to get his day going. And you’ve probably all heard this, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s a controlling metaphor for me in some ways.

[00:17:56] Merlin: Elvis gets strapped into his corset. He has received [00:18:00] barbiturates, he has res, he received uppers, he has received downers, he’s received vitamin shots of many different kind. He gets double air quotes there. He gets vitamin shots of all different kinds. He gets, I think, laxatives and um, and stop pooping pills.

[00:18:15] Merlin: He got like seventies and odium title,

[00:18:17] Jeff: cover your bases.

[00:18:19] Merlin: cover all your bases, including home, if you know what I mean. But I think about that sometimes where like, and, and forgive my saying, Brett, I wonder if this is something. Folks who’ve been through what you’ve been through over the years, go through where you’re like, oh, I gotta have this to do that.

[00:18:35] Merlin: And then I have gotta have this to this to fit. It’s like, uh, chemical Tetris where you’re like, and then I’ve gotta get this to there, but if I have too much of that, but I gotta bring that down and if I have this kind of alcohol instead of that kind of alcohol, maybe I’ll feel better. And like you do all these weird combinations of things.

[00:18:48] Merlin: All this basically like personal witch doctoring, um, to, to try and get yourself to something that feels like homeostasis plus, you know? And, uh, that’s how I feel [00:19:00] sometimes, even when I’m just like, oh God, I gotta get up and take the goddamn thing that makes me throw up. And then I can’t really drink coffee.

[00:19:06] Merlin: ’cause then I’ll just throw up the coffee and I’m sorry this is gross, but I just wanna give you the picture of what you all probably go through in your own way, which is like trying to find the balance, the combination, the um, the, the internal sort of integrity of a system that helps you be close enough to who you wanna be sometimes are better than ours.

[00:19:27] Jeff: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:29] Brett: yeah. Well, and for me, I like, I don’t use illicit drugs anymore. Um, but as far as like the combination I’m on. No fewer than seven prescription medications. Um, and I do drink alcohol and I do mushrooms. And, um, one slight change in any part of that system can lead to, uh, [00:20:00] things collapsing. And it is, um, it, yeah, it’s a juggling

[00:20:05] Merlin: sometimes, if I could say at least for myself, I speak for myself, you don’t know how long that collapse is gonna be for. Like sometimes you’re just like, you had an up cwc and it’s gonna be one of those days. Um, I mean I do, I do stuff like, this is, I’m so weird. I, when I make, I make a monthly set of pill packs.

[00:20:20] Merlin: When I get my, uh, my drugs every month, I use these little wasteful plastic bags and I do all my pills for like a month so that I can have this. And this is, this is so, I don’t know something. But I finally have gotten to where, when I take the drug bump, I record that I took them and date ’em. And then I do a strange thing, which is kind of related to a thing I do with leftovers, which is I write the day of the week on the bag so that when I throw it away, if I have this panicky feeling later, did I, did I take these twice?

[00:20:51] Merlin: Did I take the, I like, I’m probably the only person in the world that has this, but I get panicky. I’m like, I can’t have this much Gabapentin, I can’t have double the amount of [00:21:00] gabapentin. That’s not wholesome.

[00:21:01] Jeff: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:01] Merlin: You know, I we’re not double the propanolol. That’s fine. I could

[00:21:05] Brett: Have you ever accidentally doubled your Vyvanse? That is a horrible

[00:21:10] Merlin: I don’t, I mean, I, I certainly have doubled something in the past accidentally. Um,

[00:21:17] Brett: I did it once, once in recent me

[00:21:20] Merlin: dosed, like you got dosed. Like, you’re like, well, I’m just gonna have to ride this thing out. Like, go where it takes me.

[00:21:26] Brett: yeah. My partner has taken to, uh, fill, you know, there’s like pill containers with the day of the

[00:21:33] Christina: days. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

[00:21:34] Brett: and, and l fills those in for me every week because I tend to fall behind. And then I just get into, I, I know what I need to take, I’ll just take it.

[00:21:44] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:45] Brett: I generally do a good job of recording it in my apps, but I do have that same panic thing where like, I’m not sure I took it and maybe I, maybe I did take it and

[00:21:55] Merlin: Well then start thinking, did I take three? Like if you’re like me, and let’s get to the, from the [00:22:00] emotional to the mental. I don’t know which one this is, but sometimes it’ll just be like, did I just space this and, and do something? And I feel like, um, like the way Maria Bamford so wonderfully talks about having OCD and that, that feeling of like, I’m gonna push somebody onto the subway tracks.

[00:22:13] Merlin: I’m probably a sex criminal. Those ideas that go around your head, I sometimes think I, then I panic and I’m like, well, how many have I had? And like, it sounds so weird, but like it’s, you know, anyways, bags

[00:22:25] Jeff: So, wait, I have a system question at what, how much overlap is there between the end of the bags and the, and the filling of the next month? Or do you do it right as they run out? You just have a system, you start it.

[00:22:38] Merlin: Well, these are, these are things I take at night that are mostly sleep related. Um, so there’s not that usual running right up against it of, with say, Adderall, where it’s like you, you’re there at like 9:01 AM because like, that’s when you’re allowed to have it and you, you feel like you’re, you know, you’re on probation or something.

[00:22:58] Merlin: Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. [00:23:00] No, th those, those work out okay.

[00:23:01] Christina: like the individual’s date on each bag?

[00:23:04] Merlin: no, no, no. They’re all identical and I just, uh, I just drop ’em in. Take a big drink. All good.

[00:23:10] Christina: the, the reason I ask is because I, ’cause I’ve done this thing where like I’ll just space where I’m like. Um, did I just take my pills and, and I, I won’t, I’m like, did I, did I, did I just do that or not? And then I’ll have to go back and like count and then I’ll have to

[00:23:24] Merlin: Oh, no, no, no. That’s madness.

[00:23:26] Jeff: in the bottle.

[00:23:27] Christina: agree. I agree with you. I agree with you. What I’m saying though is that my fear would be that if I put them in the backs, I could still have that moment where I’d be like, did I just take that? Did, did I just

[00:23:36] Merlin: that’s why I write the day of the week on it.

[00:23:38] Christina: Okay. Well, well, that’s why I was asking. So you, you put

[00:23:40] Merlin: I mean, I mean after, no, after I’ve taken it there. So mine are all identical. Okay. This is how dumb I am and how dumb I encourage everyone to be. I’m gonna say two things and then I’m

[00:23:48] Jeff: How dumb are you?

[00:23:49] Merlin: I’m so dumb. Are you ready for this? Dumb Donald? I need one of those, one of those Gene Rayburn stick microphones.

[00:23:57] Merlin: Um, dumb. Donald was [00:24:00] so dumb. Um, I make these whatever, 28 or whatever these, and I stick ’em in a little Aiken Mills, you know, Equa Mills bin, whatever that

[00:24:08] Jeff: Oh, yeah. It’s a wonderful

[00:24:10] Merlin: are great companies. Yeah, great containers. And, um, but no, so I’ve started because, and you know, I won’t need to, hopefully I won’t need it is hoped I won’t need to do this for the rest of my life.

[00:24:19] Merlin: But after I take these, uh, I should write SAT on this and that sounds dumb. But then I’ll know, like as a double backup and until I get, if, once I get better at that, I won’t do that as much anymore. When I put leftovers in the refrigerator in a little bag, I write the day of the week that I put the leftover.

[00:24:36] Merlin: See, you’re all nodding. The listener will not know this. These people are nodding. Nobody in my house is

[00:24:41] Brett: Pyrex lids that have a dial where you set it to the day of the week, you put it in the fridge.

[00:24:47] Christina: oh, look at you, Mr. Fancy.

[00:24:49] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:24:50] Merlin: Yeah. Unfortunately, our refrigerator is, uh, is a museum, um, where food is fri where garbage is cooled

[00:24:58] Christina: Yes. I was gonna say my, my, [00:25:00] my, my, my, my mine is a thing where like I, my, my, my refrigerator is like great aspirations, both of things that I will cook for myself

[00:25:06] Merlin: Sing it, sister. Who’s gonna eat that? Who’s gonna, it’s got carib in it. What, what aspirational food. You’ve gotta be kidding me. It’s like, it’s like buying, it’s like buying like a okas and keeping them in the attic or something. Like, whatcha doing? No, I, no, I love my family, but, uh, I do, I do like to have some, some sense of ease and certainty.

[00:25:26] Merlin: You know, a lot of a DHD as, you know, I, as I get older and I spend more time with this, my realizations about it become more and more obvious, which I think is a gift. And, um, you know, one of those things is that when you’re an anxious person, you’re always seeking new information or different information, or saliently updated information.

[00:25:45] Merlin: I feel like I’m just speaking generically here. I can’t get anywhere near being in the moment if I’m, if there’s a loose end out there that’s on my mind, and so I keep seeking information. One, keep [00:26:00] seeking information about that loose end, and at least you can feel like the classic Ed Sullivan plate spinning, you could go.

[00:26:06] Merlin: Well, I just, I did everything I could to get the, keep these six plates in motion. The plate that was wobbling, I spun that. Now maybe I get five minutes to watch YouTube and not feel like a crazy person. And that is, that is a tough, that’s an anti-pattern in this, I think, if I could say in the sense that it feels like it’s helping, uh, but it’s not necessarily helping.

[00:26:28] Merlin: And sometimes I try to learn to incline myself more toward. Certain, like I said, like I’ve said, I, I’ve got this series of things I’d like to say to myself pretty often, like, I’ve got this list I maintain of like, good things to say to yourself to catch yourself and like not go spinning down one sort of hole or an or another.

[00:26:49] Merlin: But I think that’s been a tough, I don’t know if, I don’t know if y’all agree, I’d be curious to hear what you think, but do you ever find yourself like becoming aware that the seeking of new and [00:27:00] updated and complete information can become a very unwholesome distraction from just sitting in, in the moment

[00:27:05] Christina: Oh yeah. it, it, it’s, it’s, it’s a constant struggle that I have, right. Which is like, what am I missing out on? By wanting to be up to date on everything and to like, know as much as possible. Like, am I actually, am I actually understanding a lot of things or am I just like, is

[00:27:21] Merlin: like the class, you can’t get outta your inbox

[00:27:23] Christina: Right. Well that’s

[00:27:23] Merlin: there’s always something in there

[00:27:25] Christina: something else there that’s gonna distract you and take you something else. And it’s like, how, how, how, how do I do it? And I, and I, and for what, what, what’s hard for me is that when I was younger, it really did feel easier to be on top of it all. And, and I don’t know if it’s