Building A Free Mental Health Resource Network For Caregivers with Michael Mackniak

Transcript

Late Night Welcome And Collaboration

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Oh, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Howdy, y'all. Welcome to another episode of Contasia Smiles Unstoppable. Here with Victoria, Michael, and Mr. Michael Mac Mackinac.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

You did it right last time.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Damn, I forgot his last name says You might as well start over.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

I'm not starting over. This is the best part ever. Macnac.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Magnac, there.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Good night. He just woke up.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Okay, y'all. For yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Full disclosure. He's only been a week.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

I did take it out.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Five minutes.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

And yes, it is 10:30 at night here.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Yep. Way to go, babe. So we are rolling out that we are about to reach into mental health awareness month. And we've got all sorts of things lined up over here with the care coalition. And so much is going on, and we've just collaborating on everything. Why don't you update us and tell us what's going on in your world and what we're up to there, Mike Squared?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Elaborate on everything. It's all we do is collaborate. It feels like it's just non-stop collaboration all day, every day. I mean, seriously, folks, seven days a week, we've been pumping stuff out and getting together two, three, four times a day to talk about different things that we want to do for you all and bring out new material and bring bring bring things out in a way that is going to be so much easier to digest the content that we've collectively created over the course of, I mean, for me, 30 plus years. I know I'm the old man in the room, but but that's true. And I'm just blown away by the progress that we've made in a week and the team that we've assembled. I can't even understand half the things these people say. So you guys are going to be really impressed with what's coming around the corner here. We've set a personal deadline for Friday to really do a blast. So prepare yourselves for it.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

It's like Visa, it will be

Building A Free Resource Network

SPEAKER_02 2:12

everywhere. And not just that, but we're also we have this amazing group we set up called Mental Health Resource Network by the Care Coalition on Facebook. It's brand new, but it's already got amazing content on it. And it is free to join. And we are going to be doing so many amazing things on it, like free resources, free downloads. We're going to have live QA with His Highness over here in front of me. I mean, where can you talk to a veteran attorney who has been doing this for 30 years for free and do QA on all of this? And then you have myself who, you know, knows a little bit about advocacy and you know the academy courses and things like that. Just a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

So just a little bit. But you said his highness, I thought you were talking about your husband again.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

No, your mic's weird.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Just before we got on, just before we got on the phone here, what are we on? We're not on the phone. We're online, we're on Zoom, whatever we're on. The podcast. I actually witnessed Victoria calling the other mic, His Highness.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Great. Oh, you know what? I'm supposed to be the one that you align with, not him.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Well, we guys think we we have to stick together.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

But remember who is the Grand Pooba?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, His Highness.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Oh my god. What a load of shit.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

This is a family broadcast.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

No, it's not. Not our listeners. They expect it. They absolutely expect it. And we have a podcast correlation series that will be rolling out, and it is amazing. And we're gonna have all sorts of guests on it. We're gonna have all sorts of resources and information that's not really commonly known, but incredibly helpful to those individuals that are going through tough times and caregivers as well.

Mike’s New Podcast And Mission

SPEAKER_02 4:12

And not only that, but I have to say, Mike Squared over here has just released his podcast and it's doing really well.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Well, I mean, not compared to your podcast, but for me, I'm very happy with it. And I've got a lot of friends and family reaching out that have listened to it and are giving me nothing but kudos about the first episode, which was supposed to be the first episode. Yeah, very excited about it. And I I I asked, I asked Victoria, what what do you think? When should we roll this thing out? Next thing I know, about I don't know, an hour and a half later. By the way, you're live, and you're already up to 20 downloads or something crazy like that. So, I mean, it I'm very proud of it. I'm very happy with the holding it together kind of podcast because it gives me a chance to I guess talk about or vent about the things that I've been talking and venting about for my career and getting a chance to talk to people that I really have fun talking to. So, you know, hopefully we'll just keep going. And it I have no no intention of stopping as long as we keep the content going and and it's fresh and it's fun, we're gonna keep doing it.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

So tell us about the podcast. Like, tell us about like episode one. What's an overview of it so people can know the synopsis and go out and find it and listen to it?

Melissa’s First Break And System Gaps

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Okay, episode one, which I call first episode. See the play on words that I did there. No, and I call it first episode because it's about a young woman, Melissa, who undergoes her first episode of a psychiatric break. And probably more importantly, it's about her family and what the family goes through experiencing the first psychiatric break. Beyond that, you get into the system of care and or this the lack of a system of care, and how this family had to go through four hospitalizations, six hospitalizations, nine months, two states, you know, and and the lack of coordination and communication and understanding of the needs of not only Melissa but her family, the needs of the collaboration among various providers and provider systems. It it it's it's a true story, it's a real story. It's just it's the story that is based upon not only my book, but also the program that I rolled out in 2002 as as a nonprofit agency. It is Melissa's story, and yeah, it I I don't know how else to say it. She's she's an inspiration, her family is an inspiration, and have given rise to a lot of fantastic work for 25 years.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

And what I love about it is that she is a person, it's not a like a project that you work on. I mean, she is a real person that went through this, you know, herself. And that's what makes this so much more relatable to so many people, I think.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

And and by the way, her mom is a real person, and her mom is somebody that has become a great friend and advocate of us in our program. And yeah, her story hits home. It's it's this isn't a fantasy. This isn't just something that I imagined or dreamt or anything like that. This was a story that was brought to me, ironically enough, a friend of mine from high school, his mom worked in the psych unit at a local hospital, and she knew about the work that I was doing and called me up and said if I asked if I could help her with this family. And that's how this whole, you know, this whole thing began.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Everybody needs to tune in because it's really informative. And the way you come across, it's, you know, you're you're telling her story, but you're telling it in a relatable way, where people who are in this area right now in their life, they can understand it and they can relate on more than one level. And that is what's so different is that it's not like you're talking to or at a general population, you're talking to the individuals that are in the mental health arena right now, and that's what makes this so much more important for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Well, I think that's high praise indeed. You know, I really do. I, you know, coming from somebody like you with the experience and the expertise that you have.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

That's recorded.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

That will be used against me. No, I it's high praise indeed. It really is. It's it makes me feel good. I'm I'm as I said, I'm really proud of it and I'm happy with it. And my lack of technical capabilities is probably showing through with it, but I think I get better and better with every episode. I think we're up to 16 episodes in the can right now. My intent was to roll them out every couple of weeks, but Victoria is making me roll them out every week, which makes you know, which means that I have to work doubly hard and get these things, get these things out there. But I hate the dog and pony show. I don't pull punches and I wear my heart on my sleeve. How many more cliches can I possibly put in one sentence? But anyway, you when you listen to the podcast, you're gonna hear me talking about things, and I I think I talk too much. I don't know, you think so? What's that silence? Anyway, sometimes I'm listening to it, I think I'm talking too much, but I, you know, I'm very passionate about this stuff because it's what I've dedicated my life to and given up a lot and sacrificed a lot, which is part of a book that I'm working on right now, as a matter of fact. But it's it's important and it's it's okay. It's okay to pass along the the legacy or the mission and the passion so that other people can feel it, like you, like you said you did. And that that that means everything to me.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah. So are you gonna get guests to come on, other guests to continue to come on?

Upcoming Guests On Caregiving Skills

SPEAKER_01 10:51

I've got a ton of guests already in the can and and otherwise. In fact, this week I think I'm doing four recordings with four more guests, you know, professionals who are in the in the mental health space on some level or other, or in the caregiving space, and trying to help all of us understand how to be a better caregiver, what goes into caregiving, how to navigate the mental health systems, how people have navigated the mental health systems, you know, and and also try to give some pointers, you know. One of the one of the episodes coming up is a friend of mine, Walt Hampton, who talks about time management and time mastery. And I'll just say that he leaves room at the end of everything so for so that we can all enjoy the F-word. And I'm not going to tell you what the F word is, but he talks about that. I have a good friend Colette Anderson who talks about trauma and things that we don't understand about. Maybe we we we subconsciously understand how trauma impacts us, but there is a whole world of amazing studies going on about trauma and its impact on us as human beings, generationally, which blows my mind, but also you know how it impacts mental health and mental illness, and it really does. Decision making, special needs, planning special needs for the future, grief. How do we deal with grief and loss? Because make no bones about it. When you're in a prolonged period of caregiving, or when you have a friend or loved one who's been diagnosed with a mental health disorder of whatever kind, there's a there's loss there. You you're losing the person that you thought you knew and that you did know for however many years or decades, and and now we're we're into a new chapter, we're into a new person and a new relationship, and and we have to figure out how we're going to grapple with that. So those those are just some of the cool cool topics that that are out there that we've been discussing. And I'm really the more I'm talking about it right now, the more psyched I'm getting about it.

Trauma Research And Modern Violence

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Well, I'm just I'm over here thinking.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

What are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Just he he used the word uh generational, you know, how each generation probably processes trauma different. You know, Mike and I and and you, Victoria, we're about the same age, in the same bracket.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Oh, no, no, no, no. Don't put me in the same boat with the two of you. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

You know, we we grew up with a with the good horror movies, you know. Right. Been in law enforcement, and you know, she did a lot of triage and and first responder stuff. So, you know, we've been there, we we've seen the vehicle accidents where people lost their lives, lost limbs. You know, we've seen brain matter before. And, you know, for us, it's it's you know, it's it's not that big of a deal, you know. Maybe with this new generation, with the new millennials, they process it different, you know. Maybe they're more squeamish. And so it's just I'm I'm interested in that part of your book there.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Well, the the thing that fascinates me, and we talk about it in in the podcast uh in various episodes, is uh this research now that's that's saying that trauma, let's say a pregnant woman uh right undergoes uh trauma, which I know that we we can all relate to here on this on this discussion, but that trauma can not only impact the woman, but it could also impact the fetus, the unborn baby, and up to two uh some people say up to five generations hence, right? Yet to be born can be impacted by that trauma. And and they it's just amazing to me how the human body and brain works, and we're passing that on to our uh our progeny, and and and and just it's just it's mind-boggling, it just blows my mind to think that you know, something that happened to me today, I'm gonna pass along to my kids and their kids and their kids, and it's just astounding stuff. So, and and then you know, I mean, I I could tell you I have a client, had a client, he passed away, but this poor guy was a little boy and he was hiding under the bed and witnessed his father kill his mother and then shoot himself in the head. And the true story, you know, this that that trauma created a I mean, his his mind just shut off and stopped developing, and the mental illness and everything else that came along with it, but just that impact us as human beings, and you know, like you're saying, like you have seen brain matter, you have seen these accidents. That's trauma to you. There's PTSD there from seeing the things that you've seen. I have friends, you know, I'm from Connecticut, and the next town over from me is Newtown, which unfortunately is on the map now because of the horrible Sandy Hook shootings. And I have a lot of friends who were there in the aftermath doing the counseling, reaching out to the families, discussing with the teachers and the other administrators. I know one man who's a cop who was a first responder, and he said the worst thing he ever did in his life was going into that to that school. He said he'll never ever overcome it. That's just so sadly powerful.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

It's incredibly powerful.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Just and you know, school shit when we were all in school, it was like who's gonna get the swing, who's getting the monkey bars, we're gonna go play dodgeball, you know. We go home before the street lights come on. And now, you know, you we never had to worry about school shootings. We never had to worry about you know, the things that are going on that where was I?

SPEAKER_01 17:27

I was just talking, my daughter was just brought up. She asked me, my daughter's 13, and she brought up a topic. She's like, Dad, this is not in her school, but you know, in a school next nearby, she says, Dad, am I gonna have to go through these in-school drills for ice training? And I was like, What are you talking about? And why should you, you know? But yeah, you know, you they're training the kids about, you know, and uh yeah, yeah, it's just we used to love a fire drill because it was a break in the middle of the day and you or a tornado drill, or you know, get in the home, yeah. Where I'm from, we never had a tornado, so but yeah, fire drills, you know, we had to do those like three or four times a year, and we look forward to it, and we knew when it was coming. It was you know, at the beginning of the year, at the end of the year, you kind of got the hint because a fire truck pulled up outside. Um then you go around, you goof around with your friends outside, and you know, it's a little break from the day. But boy, this is I don't know how the heck we got onto this, but this is this is real life in-your-face stuff that's going on now.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Yeah, and it goes on more, and people don't realize that you know, like in the Sandy hook shooting in 2012, it it literally didn't just stop with the kids in the school, it came into their home with their siblings and the you know, immediate family. Everybody was affected by this, it wasn't just the students.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Well, how could you not be? I mean, everybody, everybody that lives in the community that I live and grew up in is and has been and will continue to be affected by that because it was right there in the backyard, and that's not to say that when it happened in Columbine, it wasn't the same, when it happened down in Florida, it wasn't the same. When Gabby Giffords got shot, when the people in the the the the um the hotel, and not the hotel, the movie theater. I mean, these were all traumatic events, right? And we all interpret them or or or take them in in different ways. My partner at my real job, Sarah, her sister and and their friends were responders that went over there and gave clinical guidance to families, particularly employees of the school system about what the heck had just happened, and so they're impacted. So, doesn't that somehow necessarily impact their relationship with their loved ones? And this, I mean, drop a drop a pebble in a pond and watch the ripple effect, because that's what we live with now in in every single facet of things, and things come at us so fast, you know. And I don't I'm not gonna say it's a bad thing, it's maybe a good thing. I mean, we're here having a conversation thousands of miles apart, so this is a great thing, but at the same time, receiving this information and getting things inundated, inundated all the time, those ripples in that pond are just exponentially greater than they probably ever were.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Very true. You're awfully quiet tonight, like normally quiet.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

So we're thinking, you know, uh, you know, most of these school shootings, you know, are done by you know late teenagers around 17.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

And 17 about 25, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah, I'm just thinking about you know, your your group and uh what we do here at a contagious smile, you know, and care coalition because now his group.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Well, it well, y'all group the collaboration. I'm very honored to be part of care co uh coalition.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

You know, how how can a lot a lot of what y'all, and I say y'all because I'm I'm always in the background, we do, is like the aftermath, the first responder stuff, you know, uh after the you know, we're not there for the preemptive attack, you know. We we're not there and I'm just wondering, you know, how can how can we get out there, you know, to these kids, or you know, before it happens, you know. That's that's uh I'm in the background just thinking about all this y'all jaw jacking.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I I think that one of the great things that I'm seeing with the teenage kids that I'm surrounded with, unfortunately. I'm only kidding, that I'm surrounded with right now is that they are being they're open and aware of issues. That we never ever would have thought of. That's right. They really are. And kudos to them. And in a lot of ways, they're way smarter than us in that regard. We, Victoria and I are working on a curriculum to have these kind of open discussions about what makes a teenager a real person. You know, because they are real people and they have real feelings. And whether we as adults sit back and say, How could you possibly think like that? You know, we have a saying you have to take your person where they are. It's the environment and and so there's that. But without getting too far down this rabbit hole, there were things I know in the same way. I did a lot of investigation. I was asked to go to speak to you know Congress and whatnot in the state of Connecticut for a lot of days in a row after the shooting, where our politicians wanted to know what it is that they don't know. They wanted to know more about how the mental health system worked. And I'll be honest with you, it was really nice to see people in those positions saying, please educate me, asking to be educated and help me understand what is really going on in the trenches out there. So so there's that. Connecticut, that that the story with in the the kid's name was Adam Lanza, and that story is really, as far as I'm concerned, is an outlier in some in terms of some of these situations. Some of the things that that that young man was going through. But uh, you know, uh there's there's a lot of things to say. There we could have seen the writing on the wall, but in a lot of ways, there's there's things that said no, no, no, F and way. We never could have seen this happening.

Stigma Bullying AI And Suicide

SPEAKER_01 24:08

One thing that does uh really get me fired up, and I'm going to do at least one, if not 20, podcasts about this, is when we instantly uh jump into the fact that uh these people have to be have to be mentally ill because they did this. And uh we have to be very careful about the nomenclature that we put on things because a mentally ill person, as I define it, and as the real mental illnesses that are out there, do not act in that violent, outgoing uh kind of way. We're not talking about sociopaths, we're not talking about psychopaths, right? That is not your typical mental illness. Mental ill mental illness typically results in victimization as opposed to victimizing. And you know, when we see the pictures of an Adam Lanza or any of the other sh famous now, infamous shooters, we see them at their worst. The the media wants to grab on to the most deranged picture they ever can find of the poor people and and put it up there over and over and over again so that that's that's the image that's drilled into our brains. And I think it's very unfair. It's an insult to people who are struggling with mental illness and their families.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

I agree. And also, I think with what you were saying is that a lot of kids I spoke to a woman and I'm very upfront and transparent about it. When I'm counseling and supporting these beautiful people, and I had a mom who wanted to come on and share a story, and I spoke with her, and she had lost her eight-year-old daughter, and she said that her daughter came home from school and she had like messages on her computer that she was being bullied, and somebody on the computer said, You just need to go kill yourself, and she did. And so she was eight, and so I sat with her and we did all of it. And afterwards, she goes, you know what, I just can't put it out. And I said, It's done, it's gone, it's deleted. I'm not gonna do it. Because my number one priority is their comfort. And but to hear that an eight-year-old girl who is just being a kid is being told, Oh, go home and do everybody a favor and go kill yourself, and she did. Yeah, I mean, that is just something that that's what made me create the stucco squad, the 11 book series, and every book has a different matter subject or subject matter where like when home is too loud, or you know, the the fading color when you're losing someone and how it's not their fault. Like, you know, like you said about the little boy who went under the bed, you know, he's gonna hold on to the mentality that he had some fault in this, and that's why he stopped growing. And, you know, and the executive function, as we talked about before, in the frontal cortex of the brain doesn't stop developing until 25. And at that primitive age, you know, it will stop. You know, it stops at that moment and then they relive it and they relive it, and then it becomes a nightmare, and then everything is a trigger, and then they get PTSD or C PTSD, and it's it's an ongoing thing, and it and it then people are like, Oh, you have the plague, like I'm not coming near you, and like they feel like they're gonna catch it, and that's not fair because nobody raises their hand and says, I want this.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

And then and then they get bullied, and then they wind up doing tragic things. I mean, how about you know, take it a step further back to our discussion about what our kids today are living with? There was a story just not too long ago about a young man, I think it was, who was chatting with his girlfriend Gemini. That's a joke between me and Victoria, you know, chatting with AI, and AI basically came to the consensus that this guy should kill himself, so he did. I mean, AI's got a lot of people scared for a lot of wrong reasons, but uh that's a pretty good reason to be scared of it right there if that's if that's really happening. Yeah, that's very and I don't know if it is or if that's just you know urban legend or whatever, but still it's you know, you could see it.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Yeah, absolutely.

Imposter Syndrome Writing And Healing

SPEAKER_02 28:22

So, what book are you working on now? What are you working on?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Well I'm working on a historical novel, which probably is not really poignant for this discussion, but I'm also been given I've been giving a lot of thought to a discussion that you and I had the other day with a dynamic guy by the name of Kellen Fluckinger. Fluchinger or Fluchinger?

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Fluckinger. Fluckinger Fluckinger.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Well, Kellen's a very interesting fella, and he put a lot of seeds in my head within a half an hour conversation. And maybe this goes to this conversation too. I I mean, I think that a lot of us as adults, but certainly as kids, we learn our uh uh responses to things that are are in life, right? That's how we grow or don't grow. And I've been really doing a lot of soul searching lately about my life as an imposter or a perceived imposter. And you know, we all know you've heard imposter syndrome, it's almost become cliche at this point, but uh uh it really isn't either. I mean, cliches are cliches for a reason, you know. And I've really been exploring that in my own introspection, which is the hardest thing of anybody for anybody to do is to really get introspective. And I've I've put a lot of time and effort and uh uh gut-wrenching memories into this this piece that I'm putting together, and I hope to have it uh roll it out uh relatively quickly. Because you know, once you once you know the material, the writing is the easy part, right, Victoria? It is, it is I mean the writing is the easy part, it's the it's the rest of it, it's the publishing and everything that goes comes after, but the writing can really be easy if you are into what you're writing and passionate about what you're writing and really believe in it.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

So it's also very therapeutic.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Oh god, it's cathartic, no question.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

I mean, it's so good to write it. That's yeah, you know, I I tell everybody that they should write because it really does open up and release a lot for you.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Didn't I just have this when you and I were talking to Kellen, didn't he talk about journaling? But he didn't call it he didn't call it journaling. He called it oh, and I had one of my podcast guests, Dr. Joanne Schaefer, talks about grief, and she was she was telling me that the the the scientific reason why it makes sense to write something down. If you're if you're stuck in the um the the mind loop, right, and the thought loop, she says, get out of bed, if you're stuck in a mind loop or uh whatever they call that for more than 15 minutes, get out of bed, pick out a piece of paper and write down what the loop is telling you, and then guaranteed within 10 minutes you'll be able to go back to sleep because it takes it out of your brain and makes your body do something functionally that will it's just interesting stuff, anyway.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Not what I do when I'm if I'm even trying to lay down and I start to write something down and I go back and lay down again. I'm like, I could do this with that, and I could do this with that, and yeah, well I that's that's you, and we won't go.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

We're not Mike, let's not touch that one with a 10-foot pole, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:54

I I I bet there's no less than 300 legal pads between this office and our bedrooms, and they're slap full of ideas and thoughts and all everything.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Oh, I can admit it. Like when I go, even I take showers every morning and then I take a bath at night to decompress and try to unwind. But I have her in here, so I don't want to say her name, but she's attached to my Apple iPhone. And I put her in the bathroom with me because when I'm trying to decompress, I have all these ideas, and so I tell her and she takes notes for me because I don't want to like you know, miss out. I do it even when we go somewhere. I I take a notepad and a pen, and you know, and I'm writing stuff down all the time.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Boy, you you must be really great at a cocktail party, huh?

SPEAKER_02 32:39

But I don't drink, I'm always the driver. I'm boring. I'm boring, aren't I? I mean, I've like I don't I he'll say something about I'm not saying you're boring.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

I think it'd be fun to just everybody sit around and watch watch Victoria. Let's see the manifestation of Victoria's mind in work.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

I'd be like, just let me know when y'all are done. I'm going upstairs and go to work. Because y'all are boring. Like, yeah. I don't know. Some some people I would like to see like my husband's a hoot when he he doesn't drink anymore, but when he did, he he was a hoot. Like he was I I loved getting those text messages from him. Because they were always so uh full of information. You know, you I I'm kind of curious as to why uh you haven't uh asked me to be on your podcast yet.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

I haven't had since I met you, I haven't had time. I know, but you know, aren't you on vacation right now? Oh, ouch no, no, you know you listen. I've this is my second time talking to you guys in not too many days, and in between, I'm talking Victoria 10 times a day, not to mention my real job, and uh yeah, no, it's you're you're going to be on the podcast. Well, wait, first of all, let's take a step back. Because when you tell me it's time for you to be on my podcast, is when you'll be on the podcast. In the meantime, I'm waiting for you to tell me when we're doing the series that we have coming out and all these exciting things. So I, you know, I know better than to get in your way. You are the steamroller. I'm just, you know, you're the windshield, I'm the bug, so to speak.

Rollouts Media Appearances Road Plans

SPEAKER_02 34:36

See, but we're gonna be on Kellen's show on May 7th. We're recording, Michael and I are both doing May 7th, and then we're gonna be on his LA talk radio on, and it'll be live on June 2nd, and we've got those coming. And I am going on with NBC tomorrow to record an interview, and we'll be talking about uh care coalition and a contagious smile and all that as well. And we're gonna release our podcast that we're doing together in the next week. So we gotta do one. No pressure. This is for rolling it out for me.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

You heard it here first, folks.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Yeah, I'm gonna have our first podcast. We'll have to record it between Tuesday and Thursday, no pressure, because I will release on Friday for our rollout with social media and everything.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

For May 1st.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

For no, the fourth, but yes. Oh and like because everything will go out Friday. We're gonna have the huge rollout on Friday, the fourth, and our podcast, our joint podcast will be one of them as well. And then, like, we're following up. We just got a beautiful video. I can't believe you haven't mentioned this. That McKenzie Phillips, who I think is just an inspiration, reached out and loves what we're doing, and we're trying to get her to come on, and we've got some other stuff. What are you looking at? What you said May 4th?

SPEAKER_01 36:03

I know. May 4th is a Monday. May 1st is Friday, dear.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Well, that's what I meant. First was Friday. Sauce.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Nail the sauce during podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

I don't do my only sauce is unsweet to eat.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

And by the way, for those of us a certain age, we remember Mackenzie Phillips so so well from One Day at a time. Oh, and of course, and of course, we also remember Papa John Phillips, which we can get into another time from the uh mamas and the papas, but yeah, McKenzie Phillips and Matt Valerie Bertinelli back then. That was that was a that was a good show for preteen kids to be watching on TV.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

You teen boys. Did you ever think the Valerie Bertinelli was a hot dish? No, she was white.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Ha ha ha ha.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

She still is, as a matter of fact.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Right, but that that wasn't his forte back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

I see. No, um yeah, I loved I loved Mackenzie Phillips, and the other day to see her talking about us was like my mind was blown.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

It's still even yeah, and she was in her pajamas in bed when she she said your name right too.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

That was really well, of course she did. You make it sound like we don't know each other, Victoria. What's the matter?

SPEAKER_00 37:26

She's saying that was a jab at me. No, no, no, it wasn't Sister Magnac. No, that was not.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Oh, I see what you're where you're going. No, but but she's right that you know Mackenzie did pronounce my name correctly and often, which I love.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

Yeah, her sister has been with us a few times and sang with my our daughter, and very sweet. She's very, very sweet. China's very sweet.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

China, China.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

Yeah, and she has sung with Faith and sent all sorts of sweet messages and videos for her, and yeah, she's really nice. Most people didn't know she was married to a Baldwin. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Yes, I did not know that, but she's married to Billy Billy is the coolest of the Baldwins.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Yeah, she's married to Billy.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

So, what's on the new horizon for you for 2026? If anybody is asking and wondering, because we always ask everybody what what's your horizon from now to the end of the year or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Are you kidding me? Really? Yeah, I I think within the next with before the end of this summer, I'm gonna have two, at least two, if not three, books created. I'm working on a curriculum based upon my character book. Character is the name of it, and it says, Become the person that your social media friends already think you are. And I'm working on taking that book and moving it into the realm of because it has that social media tag, I want to make sure that perhaps teenagers can really, teenagers, you know, high school kids can really take the lessons from it. Oh, there it is, she's got a copy. My husband and I have both read it. It's not a yeah, I mean, again, it's not war and peace, but I had a lot of fun writing that book, and I had a lot more fun with the the the illustrations in it and stuff like that. So I've got all of that going on. The podcast I'm super excited about. This this collaboration between you and I, and you and me, you and me, and our new podcast that we're gonna be rolling out. Yeah, there's just so much.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

There's just so much fall and winter. What's game plan for towards the end of the year? There's always it's always great to make plans towards the end of the year. So people know what to do.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Yeah, it is, but I also like to take things in smaller chunks. I mean, by the end of the by the end of the fall, by let's say Halloween, I expect that there will be a lot of opportunities and a lot of places that you will see me and Victoria on the road and be able to come and and meet and greet and talk to us about our podcasts and our own, you know, individually. I think you'll also be able to talk to us about our collaboration in our collaborative podcast. And and you know, it's just I just so look forward to getting out there and finally shaking hands and hugging the people who are doing the work that that she and I have both been talking about for so long.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

I'm gonna try to not misconstrue that you just said my well, you said you look forward to hugging those who work. And it sounded like you were trying to take my wife away from me.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Here comes the comedy part.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

No, I like hugging those who sleep as well.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

Hugging those who sleep.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Good luck getting her out on the road and away from the office. Office is portable.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

I'll do it myself. I'll be there. I will be the ambassador.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

I'm going to be in Arizona in October as a speaker. And I'm gonna be in So there's your vacation. That's not a vacation.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

I've already seen the Grand Canyon while I go blow up stuff, blow up stuff.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

That's really good to say on a podcast. Seriously.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

I mean, not in a literal sense. I'm you know, tannerite and shit like that.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

Whatever. And then in July, I'm doing another. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

I'm curious about what's going on tomorrow. You keep you keep dancing around telling us what's going on tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

Tomorrow I'm interviewing with NBC.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

And that's about all we get out of you. And what is the context? Why are you interviewing with NBC?

SPEAKER_02 42:02

Because the beautiful person that I'm talking with got an Emmy with my daughter for her story. And we are talking about where we are and what we've been up to, and how we can help other people that are going through things and talk about our our daughter, Faith, has a teen talk during like the summer, and she gets all of these celebrities to come on and talk with her. And like shit, Gary Lavox from Rascal Flats. I just remember that. Like that was so super cool. He he was a riot, but to be able to go in and and talk about people who have special needs and caregivers of people who've you know take care of special needs or have special needs themselves and advocating for those in mental health and things of that nature, and doing our care coalition, and it's like I don't know how to explain what I do in in one day.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

No, that you don't you do too much to explain in one day. No, I'm just excited to know that you're going to have a conversation, and obviously you must have had a conversation about what the conversation's gonna be about. No, no, he's just gonna go and that's not how I roll.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

I know you didn't you just come back from fishing?

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Yeah, no, I I'm not fishing. I just thought maybe you had I thought maybe there was a plan. I get a call about 10 minutes before we we hit record here and said, Hey, what are you doing? Wanna hop on with us?

SPEAKER_02 43:31

Okay, come on, what are you talking about? Have some cooling about over the yeah, no, I I never even when I do interviews, I'm like, it's a conversation, I don't like the the style of being questioned.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

And but isn't that beautiful? Isn't it? It is so refreshing to just be yourself, yourself and not reading. You know, I did a I did a podcast interview the other day, and I told the lady, I said, Listen, I am not going to sit here and read your bio because it's gonna be boring for. For me and boring for you, and boring to everybody listening, and it goes on and on and on. Tell me what you want people to know. Tell me what makes you what's got your juices flowing right now. And if you want to tell me about your education, that's fantastic. That's wonderful. Congratulations, kudos to you. But why are you here? Why are you so fired up and jazzed up about this right now? And it just makes it so much more human than these. I I'm not going to mention a name, but there's a there's a I love his history and especially historical fiction, but so I try to get it, you know, consume as much of it as I can. And there's this one podcast that I really want to listen to. I want it to be good, but it is so damn scripted that I just it just it feels cheesy, and the editing just feels scripted. And I like I said, I want to like this podcast, but I just can't because it's just too I don't know, scripted. I don't know what other word to use. I I like the flow of just talking, and you guys are the masters of just laying it out there and seeing where things go.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

I'll tell you, I will give you a oh, were you sorry, what were you about to say?

SPEAKER_00 45:17

Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

That's no way.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Nothing.

Why Raw Unscripted Stories Connect

SPEAKER_02 45:21

I'll tell you, one night he had no, we we're totally unscripted, and and he comes in, this was years ago, and I said, because we've been podcasting four years now, and I said, Okay, he's like, What do you want to talk about? And I said, you know what? My my book, who I've I've asked my mic squared here not to read, it I said, my husband has never read it because I don't think he could handle the ins and outs of the things that are stated in there. Um, and they're so graphic.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

This is who kicked first?

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Yes, who kicked first. No, do not read. So my husband cannot read it because it is so graphic in the physical violence, and everybody who's read it says they have nightmares, and like sleeping with the enemy is like a comedy, and people get up and triple lock the doors and are scared to even go outside because of how it was. And this was just like I've never gone back and reread the book. Somebody can has interviewed me about it and said, you know, I remember on like this page in this chapter, and I was like, You don't even have to tell me, I can tell you exactly because it's 1000% truth, and I can just go back verbatim. So I told my husband this one night, we were getting ready to start recording, and we go live, and I said, Hey, you know what? This is what I want. I want you to interview me. And he's like, No. And I was like, No, come on, let's do this. And I wouldn't want anyone else to do this but you. And he started asking questions, and he was crying and said it was Paul and of course. Yeah, and he was asking questions, some of which he had no idea about. And it was so raw and so authentic, Mike, and it was just, I can't tell you. We had thousands of comments on it. Like it was people were writing in how authentic and it made them feel like they understood and they could see and understand why that they feel so connected to us, is because we're not reading something out of a script, we're not reading something out of a textbook. We've lived it, it's it's trauma lived, they they get it, they can resonate with it. And in that episode, we got it was 4.2 million downloads on it, something like that. And I mean, that's our biggest ever.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

Yeah. Oh, I think that that's really I'm trying to imagine myself in his shoes, but in and Mike being the interviewer. Well, I'm not even gonna respond. I'm just trying, I'm trying to be serious here. I'm trying to imagine Mike as the interviewer knowing uh at least tangentially the story, knowing it but not wanting to know it. And yeah, I could see him. I could see him, but but knowing me and I think him, how pissed and how visceral that experience must have been for him.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

Well, he met him, he met him a couple times, and and and then he even went to court with me and sat with me when I went to court after Faith was born.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Um I didn't know all that, but yeah, you know what I'm saying? To me, it's it's just it's it's a harrowing. Listen, what you went through is harrowing, no question, and you God lived and lived the nightmare. But I don't know, I don't know. It's like he's got he's got that there's a word for it, like there's a trauma that's associated because of his relationship with you, and there's pain there too, you know, and his love for you, and and that's I can understand why 4.2 million people would would be interesting interested in hearing uh obviously your perspective, but what he needs to know, or doesn't want to know, but almost needs to know on a level, and and that's very raw. And the whole point of this conversation that's now really hitting me in my heart is I can't be anything if not authentic. And you're the same way, and and Michael there certainly is too. And I'll be honest, when I first listened to your podcast, it was a little hard for me to get used to, not get used to, but it was very different. It was very different in that regard. And I, you know, I've listened to a bunch of your episodes, not all of them, and I've listened to you on other people's podcasts, and it is it is raw, it is genuine. I mean, there's some times where like it sounds like the phone is about to go dead that you're talking on, and you know, and kudos to you. It I think it brings it all home.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

Thank you. That's very sweet. Like it is, that's just what I want to go for. I I want people to realize that if I can do it, because I always tell people it's not a competition. One hit, one kick, one punch is one too many. It's not a competition. If I can put it out there and be transparent and raw, then you can trust me to help you get through all of what you've been through from being in that environment to this moment to getting out and going from surviving to thriving. And you can, because I never thought I'd have another life. I never thought I would see him again. I never soulmate, and I knew that before that I got with this moron. And I literally always, you know, thought I would never see the next day. And when you're laying there thinking I'm not gonna make it to the very next day, you know, people get to see that. And then they say, I mean, anybody can go, and I always talk about how important it is to be on a couch with a therapist and counselor, and I do that too, and I support and I do therapy for my my clients. But the fact is, if you ask me, would you rather have someone help you who has been in the trenches and understands it, or someone who has read it and can certified, I have both, but I would rather be someone who is can be empathetic and listen and not be like, oh, I have another patient at four, I have another patient at five, and then I'm going to the gym or whatever. Because I want them to understand that they're not alone in this. And that's what makes everybody so successful, and that's what's going to make care coalition so successful, is because we're not the cookie cutter, do it this way, see you next week, pay us on the way out. You have 45 minutes and zero seconds, get the hell out of the office. That's what makes it so different.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

And and something that you brought up. I think you and I talked about it recently, and I know it came up in a podcast, so it's weird that it's coming

You Survived Your Worst Days

SPEAKER_01 51:54

up again here. But to those who are listening, you know, you have succeeded 100% of the time because you're my main quote. What's that?

SPEAKER_02 52:03

That is my quote. I say that. That's my quote. You'd Google it and it'll come up as mine. It is not babe, have my back, please.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

She's you have a 100% success rate to this. You have survived.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

You have survived 100% of your worst days. Um I want you to take a moment, close your eyes, and let that resonate with you. That is a hell of a successful track record. That is verbatim, the quote I say at every speaking event I do, every speech I give, anything. I did a global event on human trafficking, and that's how I trademarked. It's not copywritten. That's exactly how I closed the event, was with that that phrase. And that's one of my go-to quotes.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

I didn't even know that. So that's just but that's that's his is slightly different.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

He can vary it. I'll show you.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Well, no, I mean it's it's it's not mine either. I you know, I heard it from somebody else, and somebody else probably, you know, it's like probably from Socrates or one of those old theologians. But the point being that, you know, you're here, you know, you you you've overcome a lot of crap. And for you to overcome a lot of crap, you have a hundred percent success rate because you're still here and we're still talking, you're still listening. That's the theme, that's what Victoria's quote is. That's what my paraphrase of whoever I heard it from is, and and you know, we say we we we're saying the same thing in in different ways, but it all means the same.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

It does. I know, but my husband needs to wrap it up because it's Mike's bedtime. This is very late for him.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

You can't admit killing me here.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

All right, y'all. I reckon that's it. Thank you all for listening to completed the while podcast with Mike Magnack. Mr. Magnack, Victoria, everything over here. Whatever.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

My redneck.