Not impostors: you, hummingbirds, summer, Kerouac
It feels more like August after I wrote this newsletter than before I started and I don't know why that's the case.
This newsletter is free. I think Substack would rather I charge you money, which is understandable and not what I wish to do. But it does take time and effort to provide the world with the newsletter and the Depresh Mode podcast.
If this enterprise can’t raise enough money from listeners/readers, I swear to God, I’ll turn this show around. Don’t think I won’t, mister. If you’ve already donated, thank you. If not, go here, pick a level that works for you, then select DEPRESH MODE from the list of shows. And thank you.
This newsletter will now be exposed as the fraud that it is
And will be paraded through the public square and pilloried, even though I’m not quite sure what pilloried means. Ted Lasso’s boss will show up and do this:
No no, that won’t happen because why? Because the newsletter has listened to this week’s Depresh Mode podcast episode, and the episode is all about imposter syndrome. In a particularly poetic move, we let Clara Flesher, our intern, put the episode together as the final step in her internship. She is now our former intern, not because she did a bad job and was a fraud and got found out, but simply because her internship is now over and she needs to get ready to go back to school and be a junior English major some more.
Here’s what Clara wrote about the episode:
Have you ever felt like an impostor? Some of you, the listeners, wrote in to answer this question. According to Dr. Valerie Young from the Impostor Syndrome Institute, about 70% of you will answer that question with a “yes.” Dr. Young joins us to discuss both the internal and external factors that cause impostor syndrome, as well as what individuals and organizations can do to lessen it. Dr. Ken Duckworth, the chief medical officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, also talks to us about why impostor syndrome is not considered a mental health condition but shares how the feeling might be addressed.
Youth mental illness becomes a problem for parents mental health
Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past three and a half years, you know that we are in a mental health crisis that has been especially brutal on young people. Hell, even if you’ve been under that rock, you may know about the crisis anyway since it was coming on well before covid came along. Kids are in rough shape and, according to Kaiser Family Foundation, that has been rubbing off.
When kids need to enter in-patient care, for instance, it’s the parents who need to do the navigating and they must do so in a system that is byzantine and infuriating.
As parents navigate the mental health care system’s shortcomings, stress can start to take a physical and mental health toll that disrupts their ability to continue providing care, said Christine Crawford, the associate medical director at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group that helps families find care. Parents pour their energy into helping their kids, often at the expense of their own health, Crawford said.
“When you are worrying about whether or not your child is going to survive the day, you are constantly living on edge,” she said. “Your fight-or-flight is constantly activated.”
Take it away, Paul Lynde!
The summer variant of seasonal affective disorder can be rough too
Variants. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live with ‘em. But here they are nonetheless, including the summer version of SAD, which is usually just associated with the winter blahs. Turns out those long days and warm/hot/ChristOhMyLordIt’sHotterThanEver temperatures can turn you goofy as well. Which: shit.
Philly Inquirer tells us about it.
Along with sleeplessness, the symptoms include hyperactivity and loss of appetite, mental health professionals say, as opposed to the inertia and overeating associated with its cool-season counterpart. Both types can result in depression, they say, and summer SAD can be more life-threatening.
So here’s a tip: we’re doomed!
Your apartment is not as cool as this lady’s apartment
What are you doing with your apartment? (listens) Uh-huh. Yeah. No, sounds great. Well, listen, are you turning it into a rehabilitation clinic for hummingbirds? No? Okay then well this lady is.
I couldn’t help notice a CAT living in this apartment as well. Just kind of hanging out. Which. Either that’s the world’s most chill cat ever or it’s a cat quietly plotting an absolutely epic massacre.
Here’s a video of Jack Kerouac
And he has to put up with Steve Allen’s interview questions for a while and he has to put up with Steve Allen’s piano playing but then he reads from On The Road. And I enjoyed this and I hope you do as well. Happy Monday.