Podcast Anxieties

Guy leads the fight against Generalized Podcast Anxiety Disorder (G-PAD).

Transcript

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-twenty-eighth episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 21st of July 2025.

We are sponsored this week by John Smith’s Podcast Zoo. 

I don’t know how to begin again. Thank you for still listening. Thank you. Most of you will know that my past few weeks have been a crisis. I nearly didn’t make it. I became disconnected. Like whatever I did I was losing life, it was just fading away. I was just so angry for months and eventually my mind and body just gave up. They say that happiness writes white, but depression whispers on a podcast. I cannot properly speak about how I unravelled. How can I possibly tell you how agonising everything was? That’s unfortunately part of the vicious circle of isolation and illness. I’m speaking in the past tense, but anybody who has been through serious depression will know that it’s never altogether in the past. I can say for now that I’m better than I was a month ago at least, I have a great therapist and we’re working together on long-term management strategies to help me regain stability. I can at least imagine feeling better. Two weeks ago, I had absolutely no hope. Right now, I’m grateful to be alive.

When we last spoke I was a patient on the Maternity Ward at Hemel Hempstead hospital. In the unlikely event that NHS management are listening, could you stop sending me reminders for a postnatal check-up? Strictly speaking I am having trouble breastfeeding, but I do not need to join a milk production support group. Thank you again, though, for your support when I most needed it. That epidural really took the edge off for a while.

My formal medical diagnosis is Generalized Podcast Anxiety Disorder, or G-PAD, which was added to the fifth Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5. Three in four of us now hosts or regularly guests on a podcast, and G-PAD is characterized by excessive anxiety and worry about podcast performance or subscriber numbers, occurring more days than not for at least six months. This podcast-based worry is difficult to control and often interferes with daily activities. Check! My obsession with winning The Interns’ Choice Award at this year’s Internship Podcasting Awards is classic G-PAD; I found it impossible to control my podcast anxieties. 

Generalized Podcast Anxiety Disorder is thankfully now understood to be a serious global mental health issue, with podcast-related suicide recognised as the leading cause of death in men between the ages of 18 and 42. I was very nearly part of that statistic, though outside of the age range and ultimately not able to self-explode to death. Podcasts have only been around since 2018, and so much of the scientific evidence about podcaster mental health risks is based on radio presenters. For younger listeners, a long time ago, if someone wanted to talk for others to hear far away, they had to work at a place called a radio station. This place had all the equipment needed to send their voice far and wide through the air. To talk on the radio, people needed to be employed at a radio station as a job. Think of podcasts, therefore, like radio shows you can listen to anytime you want. You don’t have to catch them at a specific time like radio; you can choose when you start and stop them. Almost anyone can make a podcast from home with just a microphone and a computer, and most of us do. Professional podcasters spend all day listening to or making podcasts, often both at once, and we pay each other for content. This is how economies work. In fact, did you know that if podcasters were a country, our GDP would be comparable to that of South Korea’s?

Generalized Podcast Anxiety Disorder, G-PAD, is very similar to Generalized Radio Anxiety Disorder, or GRAD, which was first included in DSM-3 in 1980. Kenny Everett was the main empirical subject, and he was a pioneering and irreverent presenter who struggled with bipolar issues apparently caused by an excess of radio waves. Other prominent radio presenters included in the study for DSM-3 were Terry Wogan, John Peel and Jimmy Savile. I don’t have time to delve into these other subjects, but one of these men was the Hitler of sexual crimes, one provided sarcastic and humorous commentary on the Eurovision Song Contest, and one married a 15-year old when he was 25 and openly boasted about sexual relations with children as young as thirteen. For legal reasons I should say that Terry Wogan is the goodie here, he was a living legend until he died in 2016, his Wake Up to Wogan show felt like a conversation with a witty friend. All of these presenters were podcasters before the term even existed, and the parallels between GRAD and G-PAD mean that we already know much about the long-term mental health effects of regular audio programming. The biggest difference between GRAD and G-PAD is the sheer scale of the latter, and its lack of correlation to paedophilia.

I’m also attending Podcasters Anonymous meetings every day as part of my recovery. I have admitted that I was powerless over podcasting, and believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I’m not a religious person, and it’s been made clear that Bianca is not a suitable greater Power. So I am still trying to understand exactly who or what my greater Power is, and apparently most of my ideas so far are not appropriate. I need to tie this down asap.

One difference between Podcasters Anonymous and the likes of Alcoholics Anonymous or Gamblers Anonymous is that it is virtually impossible to stop being a podcast presenter once you’ve started. Those who do manage to stop invariably replace it with something even more damaging, like blogging, video content creation or streaming. So, if a complete abstinence from podcasting is not an option, how can addicts ever hope to recover? Well, at Podcasters Anonymous we adapt the AA’s twelve steps to focus on moderation and healthy podcasting habits. That means staying away from topics such as Adolf Hitler or Boeing. Jim Davidson. Focgee. The list is quite long for me, actually.

My formal therapy with Laura Kelly partly includes looking to the past. At some point in 1995 I became not alive and withdrew from the world to the extent that I was agoraphobic. I had my first serious breakdown when I went to university because I couldn’t cope. I’ve repeated some of these harmful withdrawal behaviours at various times since then, most recently after losing my job at Focgee and my retreat to the apparent ‘safety’ of the podcast studio. I’ve discussed with Laura how I’ve never had belief in my ability to contribute to the world. This isn’t unusual and it might sound strange given that I host a globally successful internship podcast. But we’ve been exploring how being an ‘undercover intern’ still meant that I was a 44-year-old intern. Choosing to be an unpaid intern at my age goes towards a sense of powerlessness and fear of rejection: if I had a job with more responsibility then I might fail. As an intern, expectations are lower.

We are also looking to the future and I have to make important decisions soon about the future of this podcast and how I’m going to make a living. Just last week I was offered a podcasting gig on a P&O cruise ship. I think the idea was that I’d give talks two or three times a week about my experiences as an undercover intern. I have to admit that I was tempted, because they would pay me and provide me with a home. But I declined, in part because the demographics are wrong; there are very few interns on cruises. I get sea diarrhea too.  I also had the words from David Foster-Wallace echoing in my ears. Quote. There is something about a mass-market Luxury Cruise that's unbearably sad. Like most unbearably sad things, it seems incredibly elusive and complex in its causes and simple in its effect: on board—especially at night—I felt despair. End quote. I cannot risk being trapped on a boat of despair. Also, P&O are total swear.

The main therapy focus is about living in the present moment. I am forever ruminating on past mistakes or worrying about future possibilities. I’ll never forgive myself for that. But I am beginning to understand that to live in the present moment is not to ignore the past or future but to recognise that the effective site of one’s existence and potential for authentic action is rooted in the 'now.' The only temporal space in which we can act and experience the world authentically is the present. Presently, I am living in my old flat. Regular listeners will know my past problems with my landlord, but I have to say that he was the one who rescued me after I left the hospital, he took the morphine back. I’m not paying any rent while I recover. My landlord says that he just wants to make me as safe as Enya. He’s paying for my therapy too. We’ve compromised on many of the things that were troubling me, for example the ceiling shards are gone and Enya’s greatest hits only play once through every morning. 

I wanted to record this podcast today just to say that I’m still here, now. This episode is dedicated to all those podcasters who didn’t make it.

I’ve been your host, Guy Snapdragon. May you use your time wisely, and may your use of wise be timely.