Express to Decompress with Dr. Margaret Rutherford

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There is a lack of congruence between sometimes who we seem to be and who we are. And if you get on Pinterest, if you get on Instagram, that message is getting across to people. I think people are becoming more aware that, especially with social media. I mean, I've had people on my couch who show me their Instagram accounts and they are miserable in their lives, but they spend an hour or two hours making sure and crafting this Instagram account scene that will make it seem as if their life is wonderful. I think it is such a good feeling and a solid feeling and a stable feeling to realize that as Brene Brown talks about that, you can be open. I had a question this morning about, well, what gives you permission to do that, to be vulnerable, to go on and be open about what you struggle with. And my answer to that was, when you realize that your vulnerabilities, what you struggle with, does not define you any more than your competencies.

Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and on today's show I'm joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Margaret Rutherford to talk about her new book, Perfectly Hidden Depression and how it can affect your relationships, including the one with yourself. Topics include where is the line between perfectionism and using it to mask depression? How to recognize the signs you or a loved one might have Perfectly hidden depression and why people need to do their emotional work. And that having emotions doesn't make you weak. And how the stories in our head are just anxiety. They're not truths. All this and more. Thanks for listening.

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You're listening to Sex with Emily. We're talking about sex, sex, relationships, and everything in between. For more information, check out sexwithemily.com. you're gonna love our blogs. And you can also find me on all social media. It is Sex with Emily. Across the board, we make it easy for you. Okay, Intentions with Emily. So what I've been doing this year is inviting you to join me in setting an intention. So what that does. It helps ground you in the moment and think, okay, I'm listening to this podcast. I'm gonna make a commitment for an hour. What do I want to get out of it? It could be, huh, I'm a perfectionist. Could it also be part of this? You know, am I also depressed or. Could be. I've been feeling really overwhelmed and this struck a chord with me. I'm such a perfectionist and I want to know if something's going on that's great, or it could just be maybe some tips for spicing it up. My intention is really hearing about Perfectly hidden depression. I thought this is some really new insights that I have not shared to my listeners yet. And I'm excited for you guys to figure out what might be going on beneath the surface of a lot of what might be. All right, guys, enjoy the show. So excited to welcome my guest, Dr. Margaret Rutherford. She's a PhD. We're talking about her book and her work. Her book is called Perfectly hidden Depression. How to break free from the perfectionism that masks your depression. Ouch. This hit hard Instagram. Dr. Margaret Rutherford. You can find all her information too, on our website, sexwithme.com, you know, everything we talk about is in the show. Notes at the top level. Link to your book and everything there.

Great. Thank you.

Okay, so thank you so much for being here. I believe that a lot of us are suffering from. I feel like I just said this the other day, like, either everyone's anxious or they're masking it, or they're depressed and they're going through things, and we are not living in a place where I think. I think we are as comfortable, or at least many people were not raised learning how to experience our emotions, how to express them in a healthy place.

I think you're absolutely correct. I. I get mad at the television when someone dies by suicide and they put up the different symptoms of depression that are classic. And they say, so you watch for these. Watch for these. And what they don't say to parents and other people are, no, they model for your children what it's like to talk about your vulnerability, what it's like to talk about your anger, your fear, your disappointment, your sadness. And that's the way you can teach your children to actually come forward and say, wow, I'm really suffering, or I'm thinking about hurting myself, or whatever it is. If you have modeled that for them. And certainly as a culture, we don't do that. There are many people who grow up in homes where they're told, don't be angry. Go to your room if you're angry. Or just. We don't talk about those kinds of things. Exactly. And it is rampant. Sure.

What I think is so fascinating, you're right. You look at the classical signs of depression, but you really break this down in your book Perfectly Hidden Depression. About it's not a recognizable diagnosis. Tell me how this shaped it and what we can look for in it. Because I took the quiz. I mean, I've been in therapy and studied myself for years. I know I've definitely had anxiety and bouts of depression, but I feel like the perfectionism angle of it is fascinating. So if you could talk more about how you got to this. Because I was like, how do we not know this?

Sure.

Doctor.

I actually wrote a blog post back in April of 2014, and I happened to call it the Perfectly Hidden Depressed Person. Are you one? And I was thinking about some of my patients who I'd seen over the years that literally what stood out about them was they had great difficulty in expressing any emotions. They could describe them. They could say, gosh, I'm really sad, but they could not express them. They couldn't connect with the emotions themselves. And as I was writing about these people, I thought about Some other things that were very characteristic of them. The post went viral and it was on the Huffington Post and I forgot that I'd left my email on the bottom of the post. 200 emails later, in 24 hours, people were saying, this is me. How do you know this is going on? I've never seen anything like this. And there was something about the term perfectly hidden depression that they said. I knew in my gut that something was wrong, but I would look classic symptoms of depression and I didn't fit. I'm engaged, I have friends, I'm successful, I'm, I don't sleep all day, I don't have, you know, I, I'm seen as successful and I even people tell me I have the perfect looking life. And so what they would do would be shame themselves for actually considering that something might be wrong.

Right.

We tend to think of perfectionism is linked with anxiety and it is, there's no doubt about it. But what I am proposing is that there is a kind of presentation of depression that presents as this perfect looking all put together, slightly anxious, overly fatigued kind of person who if they go to a therapist office and the therapist isn't really careful, they will say, well, you know, you need to get more rest, you're just anxious. So take a break, go on vacation, do something with your spouse. And they'll miss the fact that this person cannot express these sorts of painful emot. They. I had a woman years ago and I've used her as an example often. She came in about the fourth session and she said, you know, you asked me about sexual abuse in the first session. I said, yes, I did. And she's smiling brightly. She was a beauty contest participant and she said, well, you know, I was raped the week before I was supposed to enter college, but I never really considered it a big deal. But since you asked, bright smile on her face, since you asked, I thought I would just answer your question honestly. And I looked at her and I said, do you realize what you just said? If I turn the volume down, you could have been telling me, you could have been telling me what you were having for lunch. And so there's this mismatch between what they're talking about and the way they talk about it. And so these are the people I've been writing about now for five and a half years. I started researching what books were out there on perfectionism and depression. There's Brene Brown's work, who is incredible, but she doesn't really go so far as to link this perfect looking Persona with actual depression that's underneath. She talks about vulnerability, she talks about shame. And all of that is really interwoven into what I consider the syndrome of perfectly hidden depression. And just for your listeners, what a syndrome is, it's like co dependence. It's a group of behaviors or beliefs that hang together and you often find them together. And I came up with these 10 traits of perfectly hidden depression.

Let's do it. Tell me Dr. Margaret Rutherford. I think everyone check out her book Perfectly Hidden Depression. And if you have any questions, triple 894-782-77. Please run down because I.

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, I probably won't do it perfectly.

But I could even look. I mean, we have some things here.

But sure, it's perfectionism with a shameful voice. You know, striving for excellent is excellence is one thing, but when it's fueled by shame, I must do this. Well, I cannot fail when it's tinged by shame. And you've got this constant negative self talk. Constant, constant. Then that's a problem over responsibility and seeing yourself as valuable because of your accomplishments. Discounting painful emotions or experiences, in fact, denying their importance.

Actually being highly engaged with other people and being a great friend. But really when you talk to your friends, they say, you know, I've never really known much about her childhood.

Yeah. Then how does it go to. Because I think we all know people like that. Yep. How then what are the signs then if they're not telling anybody? I guess it's more like it has to be like a self diagnosis. In a way.

It does. One of the problems with it, of course, is with classic depression, people are saying, you know, you don't seem yourself. What's going on? There's alarm, there's concern. But actually these people have to begin to. Awareness is the number one step where you say, wait a minute, I know something's wrong, but it doesn't fit what I'm told is depression and this awareness, which I'm hoping the book and these shows like yours, which I so appreciate being on, on that there is this problem and it's growing. The suicide rates are emerging and increasing at Fanta. Well, not so fantastic, but horrible rates in every age group except those 65 and older.

So what do you think that just has to do with our talk about perfectionism? That we have to represent ourselves online? I know that's part of it. Or we have to. I don't know. People are more visually seeing us, so there's more obsession with that. There's just. And also. Yeah, I Think that would be part of it. But I want the thing that you're saying about parents have to model this for kids. It's interesting because I find this with the sex talk, right. I have parents calling in saying, how do I talk to my kids about sex? But. But. And I explain it. We talk about it a lot. But if they haven't even dealt with their own emotions around sex and their own traumas and their own things, and then their parents didn't talk to them about it. So I think what you're saying. Cause I grew up in a home where emotions were not expressed. Like, I never saw my parents cry. There was never any emotion. I had to like, kind of toughen up and do my own thing and not feel. And I actually want to know how could I mean, parents even, or how if we've never saw it, to start learning to feel emotions. I know for me it's been through therapy and through just realizing that it's a problem, that it's not okay. But that's all I saw modeled. So how do we learn it if we never even saw it? Like, I know those people you're talking about, the woman who says they're like, oh, this thing happened to me, but it's painful. So that might be a way to spot it in a friend too.

Yes.

If your friend's sitting across from you.

Or your partner or if friend or something like that. In fact, people have written to me and said, I think this is my wife or I think this is my husband. Because she never. I mean, her best friend died and she never cries about it. So it's. Or she doesn't get angry when something really that would provoke anyone to anger doesn't. So it is some awareness and some tuning in from other people. But mostly I think it is this growing unhappiness. You know, I was. Several people reached out to me that I interviewed for the book and I asked them why they had. Because a lot of them were in their garage talking to me secretly or at work behind closed doors. And they said. Because they said, I don't want anyone to live the life I have lived. I am so lonely. I'm so despairing. I'm not connected. We've seen that lack of engagement with other people is a huge problem, not only as you age, but just that's what's problem with. With iPhones. And we've grown. We've not as engaged with people. And so what they do is.

They isolate themselves not. But they don't look like they are. They they're at every function. They're chairman of this and, and, and chairperson of that. So they are very active. But there's just this lack of reality and intimacy in their true relationship.

Well, let's talk about this, the intimacy and the reality, because I often say this and I believe, like, it's hard to connect with people who haven't done this kind of emotional work before. I mean, I don't think we're perfect. I don't know if we ever fully get there. But I, I know what you're talking about. And lately I've been having these experiences where I'm out with people or, and I just. Maybe just the work we're doing. But I notice that you just can tell right away, especially in this work of people who aren't authentically feeling emotions, who aren't intimate, who aren't ever expressing, everything's fine, everything's okay. My reflection on it is it seems like it's more common than not that people are showing up, blocking their emotions, not being authentic, not being. And then as a result of that, they don't have intimacy. So how do you explain what this is? I don't know. I'm just, I'm very excited about this. So I'm kind of like, but how do you explain what this is? So we could spot it? But I also think that people don't even know that it's them. So it's almost like this is gonna be a wake up call for people.

Well, I hope so. I hope it's a wake. Because I bet everyone in this room and those listening knows someone that has died by suicide that everybody said, but I saw her at the grocery store a month ago and she was on the top of the world. Or, you know, he headed up my son's soccer game and he was the coach and he was wonderful and he cared so much about the kids. And now he's gone. So it is a problem. And I think the sadly and tragically, the more that happens, the more we're beginning to say that there is a lack of congruence between sometimes who we seem to be and who we are. And if you get on Pinterest, if you get on Instagram, that message is getting across to people. I think people are becoming more aware that, especially with social media. I mean, I've had people on my couch who show me their Instagram accounts and they are miserable in their lives, but they spend an hour or two hours making sure and crafting this Instagram scene that will make it seem as if Their life is wonderful. I think it is such a good feeling and a solid feeling and a stable feeling to realize that as Brene Brown talks about that you can be open. I had a question this morning about, well, what gives you permission to do that, to be vulnerable, to go on and be open about what you struggle with. And my answer to that was, when you realize that your vulnerabilities, what you struggle with, does not define you any more than your competencies.

Exactly.

I have a PhD after my name. That's great. I'm proud of it. But I also can be impatient and I have a quick temper sometimes and I've been divorced twice and I have panic disorder. I have all these things that I've struggled with or that are, like I say, to use the word over again, my vulnerabilities. Certainly in the past they were. And so. But my take on that after having written about it for now years, is that I was so afraid when I did that that people go, well, why do I want to go to her?

As a psychologist, I go through that too.

She can't solve any issues. I mean, she got divorced twice. She still has panic attacks.

But actually the opposite has occurred. People are drawn to listening to me on my podcast or to reading my stuff because they say you're real, you're actually real. And the more people risk being real like that, and those are the people we're beginning to see as the people we want to emulate, then that will be where we go.

I think this is so 100%. I think, I feel like it's the direction that we're going in some ways. Like I follow some people who are like. And people like. I think Brene Brown was great in her show. Like, people are like being.

Her Netflix special was amazing.

Her Netflix special was amazing. But can we talk about first off, the different kinds, Perfectionism. Like you had like self oriented, others oriented, socially prescribed.

Yeah, there's sexual connotations to that too. Because if you get into self oriented perfectionism or perfectionism with sex is that you're expecting yourself to really do everything well sexually. And you, you, you never can can, you know, you, you live for your partner saying, that was the best blow job you ever gave that.

Exactly.

This is it. And so then, then there's other oriented.

We don't, we're trying to please our partner. And then we wonder what's wrong.

Have a partner who says, well, you're not doing enough for me. You expect, you know, they expect you to be perfect. And so, and then you Split that relationship around. It's called partner prescribed perfectionistic sex. And that you believe you can. That their expectations of you grow and grow and grow and that you never can actually achieve intimacy. And so you get very. Your self esteem plummets and your anxiety goes way up. And so you're right. The more generalized term of that, the self oriented, other oriented and then socially prescribed. Research has shown that people with socially prescribed, which means again that you believe that these expectations are never going to stop, that the pressure is so great that those are the people who are most dangerous and can get where they want to take their lives.

Because it also becomes like a coping mechanism if they've been. Because usually we adopt these habits of self parenting as a child because we didn't have that kind of. Perhaps for many people. I know I didn't, I didn't have parental support or I had to raise myself. I had to. I mean they were there but like emotionally and stuff and in a lot of ways, but I feel like it's a lot of this, that people can't stop it because it's been adaptive. It's been a. You know, you're right. Right. So it's so deeply in our neural pathways. How do we. It does feel like death. Like if I lose control, if I drop one ball, then it's all gonna fall apart.

That's exactly the way people feel.

Jamie might. We've all been reading our books, so, you know, if I drop a ball, it's gonna fall apart. We' in that way. And it's like I feel like this is. I mean, because I know it's depression, but I feel like it's even more than that. It's a lifestyle. Right. I mean it can stem from that. But how do we stop it?

I think that there's a couple of levels of this perfectly hidden depression. And part of it is called high functioning or smiling depression where you know you're depressed but you hide it. You consciously hide it. But there's this subgroup and actually I think it's a large group of people like you say who. It's. They've been doing it for so long that it's actually an unconscious process. Nobody gets in their car and thinks, now how do I drive this? You know, it's an unconscious process. It's habit. And there's so many people that have done this since their childhoods that for whatever reason, maybe they were, excuse me, maybe they were reared by an alcoholic parent and they, they had to take an adult role with their children or maybe I mean, with their siblings, or maybe they were screamed at. You're never gonna amount to anything. Or quite conversely, maybe they were the star of their family and they were told by a, you know, you please me all the time because you're so special and you're so good at everything. Guess what? They feel like they have to continue being good at everything.

That describes most of the people I know.

So there's lots of roads to roam. And it's recognizing and acknowledging. You know, so many people believe that therapy is about blame. Oh, I'm gonna go back and blame my parents or blame the coach or blame my teacher or blame, blame, blame. It is not about blame. It's about acknowledgement. And if you acknowledge something, well, gosh, what would be anybody's response to growing up? That kind of environment? I can see that in myself. And the book is, I have, like, 60 exercises in the book. To try to actually do what the psychoanalysis people have said for years you have to do is to make the unconscious conscious. And basically, it's to bring to the surface these things that you're not even particularly aware of. But actually, when you begin to take it apart, you realize where you learned it, why you're still doing it, what rules you're following that are really non. They don't have to exist anymore. Because if you drop the ball, you know what? Nothing happens. There may be some natural consequences of dropping the ball, but healthy people are not going to judge you for that. They're gonna say, well, gosh, she missed this time.

Healthy people, you're now no longer living in your childhood. All right, guys, we're taking a quick break, and we come back even more with Dr. Rutherford.

So let's talk about when you said about therapy, and I think it's so true. And going through different stages of talk therapy. I've been in emdr. You know, it's not that you're going into blame. It's like you just say, you know, your parents did the best they could with what they were given. And then you have information now about where things originate. So what would you say is, like, the. The first step in would be going to a therapist, perhaps doing the exercise in the book, which I think these are. I have every book on the planet about this stuff, and I love your exercise in here. Thank you. I think that they're very helpful to kind of ask yourself these questions and just be, like, noticing, well, I'm a therapist.

And I'm a therapist because I got good therapy. I also got some bad therapy.

Same. Right.

So not all therapy is really helpful, but I think that therapy is certainly an option. Self help books are an option. Talking with friends. Love this person story that I worked with that she said, you know, she had this group of friends that they met annually and they, eight or nine or ten of them would go, whatever, and they were college friends and they would talk about things. And I said, well, what do y' all talk about? Well, you know, we talk about just facts. We talk about the things we're doing, vacations we're taking, how our children. I said, well, do you. Do you tell each other like your son has a weed problem or that, you know, you. I mean, the lady who called just a few minutes ago that she's having trouble having sex with her partner. No, we don't talk about that.

Nobody's talking about that.

We don't talk about that. And so she risked, when she was in the car with one of them, who she trusts more than everybody else, she said, you know, I'm not the person that I look like I am. And there was kind of quiet in the car. And then the woman said, I'm not either. And they began this discussion. Well, it was like a domino effect because they basically started talking about it in their text with their friends. And sure enough, everybody started opening up about, well, I've been on antidepressants for two years. Or, you know, we went to marital counseling because our marriage is about to fall apart. And it's as if you risk one person at a time that it can be this opening up and acknowledging of what really is lifelike. And it's hard. There's hard things about it. And I think if you just, you know, one of the steps is to find that one person that you think I could risk with her or him, I could open up. I'll never forget this guy. He was a young guy. He'd come into therapy because he lost a good friend, a sudden car accident, and he began to work. He came back and worked on family issues. And I won't go into the treatment of that. But he walked in one day. Now he's this big, strapping Arkansas boy who's probably six four and big guy, works in construction. And he goes, you'll never know what I did this morning. And I said, what you do this morning? He goes, I met a guy for coffee about 6:30. And I said, great. We talked about our depression.

Yeah.

I was like, what?

Yes.

I love this.

This is so true.

So Jamie here, producer Jamie.

Hello.

Read this book. I did Was reading it, and we've been. I mean, Jamie, are you cool if we.

Yeah, let's.

So I've been.

Jamie's worked for me for four years. Jamie has grown into this amazing. We started when she was 22 as an intern for me. She's 26 now, and we've been in this. You know, it's been a lot. I. I recognize a lot of stuff that she's been going through, because Jamie had it together, and she didn't express a lot of emotions. And in the last year or so, there's been some more feeling. And we've been talking about Jamie going to therapy and.

So tell me how I've been microdosed. I like to put it as microdosing, my mental breakdowns, because I just only let them out every so often. And I don't really know why this ever started because my mom was very expressive. My dad was articulate. But I don't think I saw. Now in his older age, like, he is more emotional.

Yeah.

But I think when I'm growing up, I was blind to it or I didn't see it, so. And I resonated more with my dad than my mom. Sure.

And you thought that your mom's. You were saying that your mom's emotions, you saw it as a weakness, so that's why you shouldn't.

They got labeled them as. Yeah, they got labeled as, oh, she's too emotional. Right, right, right.

Yeah, exactly.

So.

And then, I don't know, just now me, I am that friend that I'm like, I'm always upbeat, and I'm always great, and I'm like the friend that people come to with their problems, and I, like, want to be there for people. Which is also why I resonated with this job and with Emily, because she's helping people all the time, and it's a field that I really like. But then it's like, I don't know how to ask for help. I don't know how to stop. I don't have to. I don't know how to, like, not go too far. Like, not put too much on my plate.

Yeah, you don't know how to put something on your plate and then take something off.

Exactly.

Right.

Which is what healthier people do do is that they. They say, oh, sure, I'd love to do that. Let me see what I need to not do so that I actually have the energy to do that. Well, that's interesting. And I love your microdosing. I mean, I think that's a great Term, It's a great term because, you know, I don't. I don't want you to shame yourself because of that, because it is a step. And, you know, shame is a huge component here. People believe if they shame themselves, if they think, well, I'm not the person I should be or want to be. And so. So I'm just going to let that shame keep me in check. I'm going to. If I made a mistake, I'm going to say, I'll never make that mistake again. And shame is just ever, ever present, rather than saying, this is a journey, it is not a destination. This is a process that may take me a decade or more to actually begin to feel comfortable with. And that's all right. Whatever strategy you had either was to connect with your dad through that, whatever it was worked. And so it's like, you know, if you think I use this in the book, if you think of that game of Jenga and you're trying to figure out which piece that you can take out without the whole thing falling apart. Yeah, exactly. And you have to. And sometimes it does feel like it's gonna. And it does fall apart. So someone who's beginning to make these changes has to make them in a supportive environment where they think, okay, this was great that I risked this. Now let me kind of sit with those feel and then make another risk. When I moved to Fable, Arkansas, from Dallas, I was in therapy. I told my therapist there I would never tell anyone I'd been divorced twice, moving back to a small Southern town. I just wasn't gonna do it. And because of my own shame and because of lack of self acceptance on my own part. Well, sure enough, there was someone sitting on my sofa, I don't know how many, five years after I moved there. And she said, you know, I'm getting a second divorce. And then she looked at me, she said, but I know you wouldn't know what that was like. And out of my mouth, Paul popped, well, you're about to join a club that I've been a member of for years. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I've let this out, right? You know, oh, no. Oh, no. And then I realized, no, I did something very important for myself. I risk. I took that Jenga piece out and I did not fall apart. And she didn't run out of the room and say, you're a fraud. She just said, wow, thank you for sharing that. And so these things that we carry around that I don't know are the things that you don't want to talk about or that struggle to talk about. We build up these stories about what will happen if we do. And maybe some of them are true. I'm sure that there are very conservative people who don't even believe in divorce that are in Fayetteville, Arkansas, who heard that I had been divorced twice would say, well, no, I wouldn't go to her. Okay. But people who live more in the gray would welcome that. So. So there might be some natural consequences. But typically, what we fear and what we dread does not happen. Not in people that we really care about having relationships with.

It really doesn't happen. 99 point percent. 99.9% of what we worry about isn't really gonna happen. Yeah, but still, it's the.

It's difficult to, like. I mean, it's like I recognize it, but I don't feel it too much. And then it's like there's been a couple times where, like, there's a couple friends that I can kind of open up to. And there's been a couple times that have been just like, kind of nonchalant. Like, said something about feeling depressed or whatever. And people are like, oh, you're not depressed. And I'm like, oh, okay. And I just stopped.

Exactly.

I'm just like, I'm fine.

And that's one of those affirmations that you might risk looking for when you have this perfectly hidden depression and people don't give it to you. Because I tried to talk to somebody at, you know, we tailgate, and this guy's known me for seven or eight years, and I was. I'm gonna risk and. Cause I also have some panic sometimes when I'm at these tailgates. Cause there's a lot of people, and I don't do very well with that. And so I walked up to you and I said, you, Jim, I really have. I struggle with anxiety. And he just started laughing. He said, you. You seem so extroverted, so comfortable. You don't have panic and just shut down the conversation. And I walked away like, well, you know, there you go.

Right?

So you're right. You have to convince people that, no, they need to listen to you. That this, that this image that you portrayed is not all of you. It's some of you. You are. You do have competencies. You do have strengths. And one of them is for ex. Being able to put up with a lot of stress and organize and stay focused. And that's a. That's a talent you have. But when you're doing that to the detriment of recognizing. Wow. I also am tired. I also feel overwhelmed. I also don't. I'm beginning to pummel myself with the idea that I'm not a good mom or I'm not a good friend and I'm feeding myself shame. Then that's what you gotta address. Yeah. Yes.

I'm getting there.

She's doing it. She's doing it.

Good for you.

I guess what we're saying is what vulnerability means, like in these definitions. And thinking about what you're saying is almost like the things that we are keeping the most secret from others, the things that we think that makes us awful people are actually the things that it's going to. We're going to be most connected to others once we share that, like our. Whatever we think is our darkness will allow, like the light to come in. You know how when you share is when people. It's like when women. You're in a bathroom. I love your shirt. Thanks. I got it for $10. It's like we all want to make ourselves that in that little moment, we want to connect. And I think that it's the same thing that goes with emotions when you share with your friends, the right friends. And to be honest, at this point in my life, if someone came, I can't have a real conversation and handle like, all my text threads are like, us talking about all the shit we're going through, but I don't know how to even have the superficial, where are we going on vacation? What are we doing? Conversations. And eventually, I think when you start to do the work, people like that won't even be interesting. You get to weed it out. If they're not gonna go there and live an authentic life, it's harder to connect with those kind of people.

You know, years ago, I noticed that I have a pretty good memory for facts and details about people's life. Cause I've been talking to people for so long, I've just developed that skill. And yet there were people that I recognized. You know, I would have to check my notes to see now what's going on with them and where are they and where are they in the process? And what struck me finally was that it's because they don't show me who they are. I don't expect them to sob at the. You know, on the sofa the first time they come into therapy. But literally when they walk out the door after the third or fourth session, I still don't know much more about them other than the facts about. About them than I did when they first walked in.

That's exactly true. I. I get that you're just. I. It's reminding me of this time when I was like, I don't know, like 20 years ago. I was in my 20s. I was in this group therapy for like, they said you had to commit to a year. And it was 90 minutes every Tuesday, 6 to 7:30. And for me, this was like a huge commitment. How am I ever going to do it? You know, I end up being in this group for like five years. But I remember thinking it was two therapists, seven women. And they said to Emily, you're saying that you're sad about this breakup or whatever it is, but I don't see it in your face. And that kept coming up. I'm like, how do you not see? You know? And then that's when I started realizing, like, I. People don't often know what I'm feeling. I wasn't feeling the range of emotions. And so I think that that's.

You were describing it, but you weren't connecting with it, right? Yeah. And that research has shown that's very true of perfectionists. There's some wonderful researchers out of Canada that I've discovered that are doing some great work on perfectionism. And that's one of the things that they've identified that's a strong indicator of that when perfectionism is getting dangerous. Because, you know, when you really think about it, if you can't connect with those emotions, they just grow in potency because you can say, oh, yes, I am sad, or yes, I am angry, but you don't.

It's never released, so we got to release it. So through the process of healing this perfectionism, what are some of the other things like compassion for me, meditation, mindfulness, slowing down, Down. Definitely talking to people, to therapists.

Well, you know, New Harbinger, the publishing company that published my book, when it was first written, I was just describing what this was, and they looked at me and said, well, you need to come up with a treatment strategy, and it needs to be in two weeks. And I was like, two weeks? You gotta be kidding. So what I did was I sat down and thought, what do I do with every patient? And I came up with this sort of these stages, which is consciousness, which again, you have to just be aware that something's a problem. You listen to your gut. You. You listen to the term, and you think, wait a minute, you see the term perfectly hidden depression. You say this, I think this is me. Then you have to deal with commitment issues. Like, you know, as soon as you make a mistake or as soon as someone goes, well, you don't look like that to me. Then you got you shut down.

And there are all kinds of things safe. It's not safe.

Perfectionist will pick something way too hard for them to do and then when they don't do it, they'll go, ah, well, see, this is not worth it. You have to look at the rules you're living by. I told a funny story in the book about and actually I called it Juliet, but it was actually me. My mother told me that I needed to curl my eyelashes, that I looked sleepy if I didn't curl my eyelashes. So I curled my eyelashes until I was like 44. And then finally I had this five year old running around. I said, to hell with that, I've got to just stop curling my eyelashes. And I thought everybody the next day was going to say, gosh, you're so sleepy, you look so tired. And you know, not a person said that to me. That had been my mother's rule. That's a silly little thing. No, but it, but it's very indicative of that.

Challenge the thoughts that you're still carrying around with you, the stories that no longer serve you.

Sure.

Thank you so much for being here, you guys. Everyone. Check out our book, perfectly hidden depression. Dr. Margaret Robinson Rutherford, Great book. There's exercise. I think it's a great place to start, you know, if you're trying to figure out where you've been stuck. Perfectionism. This resonated with a lot of us. Thank you for being here.

However, you're listening. Whatever platform, Spotify, Google Play, Soundcloud, itunes. Review us. Give us five stars. We love that. We release three shows a week and it really helps us with the content we're providing. And if you want to leave a comment on itunes, that is awesome. And thanks to my awesome team, Ken, Kristen, Elisa, Brian, producer, Jamie and Michael. Was it good for you? Email me feedbackexwithemily.com.

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