It’s a Lovely Superpower To Have

0:08 Welcome to my weekly panic Attack. I'm your host, Rennie Brooks. I've been a licensed psychotherapist for over twenty years and run a thriving private practice. I'm also diagnosed bipolar an OCD. Often the two do not mix well, which tends to throw my life into complete chaos. So as I do some spiraling, my best friend Liz Win will do her best to ground me a bit. During this podcast, we'll be talking about the horror and the humor of the anxieties of daily life, the things we do that are embarrassing, funny, but yet very human. Let's get started, and there's no better way to get started than by beginning this episode and all episodes with my friend and co host, the beautiful, intelligent, and ever rational Liz When Hide Liz, how are you good? How are you doing today, Remy, I'm good. We are talking about a really interesting topic today. We're talking about how the decade of our forties really kicked our asses. So this should be a lot of fun. So many strange and unexpected things occurred, and

1:40 I also learned a lot of new words along the way too, So really an interesting topic, very interesting topic. I know kicked our asses, but First, here's a well adjusted moment from lizze Is life. So I just got a brand new die job of that like dark burgundy to like a flaming red, and my mother doesn't seem to like it very much. She thinks it's a little too young for me, too young. So I'm guessing clearly you passive aggressively ignored her for the next two weeks. Right, no, no, no, no. We had a conversation about it and agreed to disagree, and she apologized and now we're good. Oh and this has been a well adjusted moment from Liz's life. Liz, Yes, guess what time it is? What time is it? It is time for me to tell you what the hell I'm stressed out about. Now? Now, now, what is stressing you out this week? I'm stressed because I've needed to add yet another doctor to my repertoire of doctors. Really, yes, I have

3:16 been seeing a chiropractor for the last two weeks. And now it's not because of the incredible sex that I've been having. And it's also not because of the intense workouts that I participate in. Really that surprising, Yes, for all of those who do not know, that was sarcasm at its finest, because my workouts consist of moving my ass from the couch to my garage and then from my garage back to my couch. Although I do think it's notable to add that my thumb gets a great workout from all of the remote control use that it gets. Would you agree with that one? That is absolutely true. You have very Olympic thumb, very strong thumb. Yes, And to be fair, my wrist must be so strong from lifting the cigarette up and then putting it back down, lifting the coffee cup up and then putting it back down repeatedly, on and on a very very strong wrist. But alass, Liz, none of those are the reasons why I ended up in

4:50 the chiropractor's office. Okay, so what happened that made you have to go to a chiropractor? Well, the sad truth is that I sneezed. I I hear it, I hear your pain. I have worn twenty five year olds that when you turned twenty five you will turn to a friend to say hi, and your neck will be out for three days. So a sneeze look sneezes nowadays could mean that you like hurt your neck or you like weed yourself, so you know that's how it goes. It wasn't even one of those sneezes that like you feel it from your toes and it goes all through your body and it's like, oh my god, what a sneeze. It wasn't. It was just it was a little at you, and then something happened. It was at you, and then from like my jaw downs, my ash cheeks, everything went out. And I get to the chiropractor and he looked at me quite questionably, may I add, and asked me how old I was, and I said to him, I'm turning fifty this year, and he says, oh, see more. This goes back into my mindset. He says, oh, you don't look like you're turning fifty,

6:24 And there exact plan. For a second, I forgot about the pain, and I smiled and I was happy. But then he said, but it does make sense. You're at that age where things like this become common. And then I kind of wanted to slap him. I'm at that age. Oh my god. I have to honestly say that I never really paid attention to how my body changed during my forties, but now as I am quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly leaving my forties and with the chiropractors comment replaying itself at my head, you're at that age. It made me start thinking about all of the many things that have changed over the last ten years.

7:46 And while I probably paid attention to it at the time, I think I just kind of let it go until I sneezed and was told I thought I'm at that bad age. At least you even finished it off by saying, ma'am, oh, that would have been bad. Yeah. When we said during the last episode that we were going to talk about the forties and how they kicked her ass, you mentioned something about talking to your nieces and her nephew about naps. Yes, what did you say? I said, take naps while you can, because when you get older you will not be able to when you were working. And they laughed at me, and the one who's now in her twenties is like, yeah, I really should have taken some of those naps. I said, I warned you. Hey, look, I laughed at my mother for some of the stuff that we're about to talk about because I was like, oh, I don't know what you're talking about. And now I'm doing it, or say, seeing some of the same things, and it's not pretty. Not pretty. Naps are soasted on the young. Like I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but I literally schedule my clients around my nap schedule. Wow. I look forward to my nap every single day. It's like I need it, It's something

9:18 I look forward to. It has become an absolute necessity. I love napping. I love It's so wasted on the young. You know what, there's youth has wasted on the young. We should all Benjamin Button through life. We should go backwards when we will appreciate all of this. You are so right about that. Um. And how about the fact that I can't hear anymore? And I think I've realized this during the mask mandates. It was the I've realized that I complain letely depend on reading people's lips in order to hear and to process what they're saying. So that when people were wearing masks and they were you know, everybody's lips were covered, I heard nothing.

10:13 I had no idea. Yeah, you're the same way. Yeah. I was constantly explaining to people, and I would say to them. I never realized how much I relied on and I'm not sure some of that is definitely the old thing, but how much you rely on both the hearing and the scene of the lips to get the context of what a set being said. You just but if you have a little bit of a hearing issue, it makes a big difference. I went throughout the pandemic just apologizing for people to repeat fifty times what they were saying. Absolutely, I couldn't hear a word that anybody was saying. And even without the mask, like at home, when my kids are talking to me, I am repeatedly saying, can you please speak up? I cannot hear you. I hear not thing, none of what you're saying. Are you talking to me? I cannot hear you.

11:03 My TV's volume is set to sixty, which apparently is very loud, because my children, when I hear what they're saying, I have no idea. Now, okay, now, while I can't hear people talking to me, right, I hear things that I wish so badly I could not hear if someone is tapping their fingers, okay, or like snapping their nails, or like shuffling their feet. I'm dying it's killing me. I was just in the chiropractor's waiting room and somebody was jingling their keys, like shoot me in the fucking face. I could hear someboddy clicking their pen from three blocks over and two blocks down, and I want to rip their goddamn head off.

12:09 And it's actually, I think always been that way for me. This is not like a forties thing. I think I'm getting off topic, but picture this undergrad Penn State main campus lecture hall holds three hundred people. I'm sitting in the middle of an aisle, so I'm already beyond annoyed. The professor is talking and I'm taking notes. All of a sudden, I hear someone clicking their pen. The professor disappears as I enter a tunnel like a vacuum, where nothing else exists except for my three bobbing head and a clicking pen. And I searched through two hundred and ninety nine people until I find the culprit. I hard stare until he notices me and makes eye contact, and then I pick up my imaginary pen and begin clicking the imaginary top and over exaggerate the words stop clicking. He understands, puts his hand, his hand up to say sorry, lays down his pen. Immediately I come out

13:43 of this tunnel. I see the professor again. I'm able to hear him. I begin to take notes. Click click, click, click, and back through the tunnel. I go, my eyes straight to the culprit. He looks back at me, and I angrily click my invisible pen, mouthing stop with a quick wave and a nouved sorry. He puts his pen down the third time I heard the clicking pen. I pack up my backpack, stand up, walk out of my aisle. Excuse me, sorry, sorry, excuse me. I'm so sorry, excuse me. I walk up the stairs to the very back of the lecture hall, walk all the way around until I get to the culprit section. I walk down the steps to his robe, put my book back down. Excuse me, sorry, sorry, excuse me. And now I'm standing right next to the culprit. I grabbed the pen right out of his hand, and he had the nerve to ask me what are you doing? And I answer, you're a fucking asshole, and then I leave the aisle. Excuse me, so, I'm so sorry, sorry, excuse me. The professor looks up and says, is there

15:16 a problem? Not anymore, I pick up my backpack, leave the lecture hall, and throw his pin out in the very first trash can I can find. So for all of you pen clickers out there, I would like to speak on behalf of the overly stimulated population of people who quite literally find that noise painful. You know the phrase it's like nails on a chalkboard.

16:00 The clicking of a pen is worse than that. Does that affect you at all? It does, but not to the extent of you probably would not have gotten up and taking his pen thrown it out. Would it have distracted you from like listening to a lecture or getting work done? Or would it have distracted you? I am able to refocus away from that. Okay, all right, So I am unable, and I believe that there are many many people like me. So for for the pen clickers, please stop.

16:49 Don't just stop, like don't even get pens that have I think that clicking pens should be outlawed, like I don't even know what they exist. I was advocating on behalf of one of my one of my private clients at their IEP meeting, and the principle was attending this meeting, and he was a pen clicker, and after I's very nicely interrupted the meeting twice to ask him to please stop clicking his pen, and he just he was unable to comply.

17:34 I stood up, walked over to him and took his pen. Oh my god, No, I can see that for someone it could absolutely be distracting, because then it's like I have Tonidas and it's starting to get a little bit worse as they get older, and there are times where it's very hard for me to not to lock that out. So I can imagine with someone where you can actually tell them to stop what they're doing and they don't that that's a big problem. It's it's a huge problem. You know. It's it's so annoying. I can't take it, you know, it's it's it's not to be taken. I can't do it. It should not happen.

18:15 It just should not happen. So all right, I don't know I got off the main topic. I think we covered the fact that we have it that I can't hear people talking to me, So let's move on. One night, also in my forties, I went to bed completely fine. I it was an uneventful day with an equally uneventful night's sleep. Okay, I woke up the next morning by my alarm, so it took me a little bit of time to like open my eyes and get situated to the light of the new day. And as my eyes began to adjust, I see these gnats flying like all around me floaties. Wow. Yep. So I'm in my bed and I have bugs flying everywhere. I'm being sworn by bugs.

19:26 And let me tell you, under no circumstance, is this a good way to start your day. I jump out of bed, I'm flailing my arms everywhere. I'm screaming because my bedroom is full of bugs. I opened the bedroom door, and the gnats aren't just in my bedroom. They're in the hallway, They're everywhere. My kids hear me screaming. They're running out of their bedrooms to see what's wrong. They're terrified. Now, I have always had I don't have many rules. I mean, I've got really good kids, but I have a hard fast role in my house that under no circumstances should there ever be any food upstairs, and the only liquid upstairs is water, because I don't want bugs, especially in our bedrooms. Now, in my lifetime, I have been poor, poor, poor, poor, and then there have been times when I haven't been poor, regardless of my financial situation. The one luxury, and I'm going to call it a luxury because I think that other people might call it a luxury, but I consider it a necessity. But okay, I'm going to call it a luxury.

20:45 The one luxury that I've always allowed myself is to have a monthly exterminator. And that's because I'm terrified of bugs, and this helps me to alleviate that fear. Both the exterminator and the pact that I made with Mother Nature a very very long time ago. I had a conversation with Mother Nature, okay, and she and I agreed that she will do her very very best to keep all of her creatures out of my house as long as I do my very best to stay out of her house. You know, like, oh, so you don't go out in nature, so nature doesn't come into you exactly, I will stay away from the outdoors, and this is my problem.

21:52 Then I have not stayed away from the outdoors, so that's why they at times come in the house. Okay, you understand the mist you have made I do now. I didn't know that. Okay. So you who go camping and go outside and do like outdoor things, of course you're gonna have mother nature things in your home. You know, you haven't made this pack with mother nature, you know I have. I don't go outside. If I could have a concrete house and you know, with like no windows or nothing like that, I would do that. That's the way I would live. Yet I never look out my window. I never pull up my blinds, I never look out my curtains. I don't go outside. You know. I put in a doggydoor so that I don't ever have to take the dog out for a walk. You know, I have no idea ever what the weather is like. It could be summer, it could be winner.

22:51 I don't know. I don't go outdoors. It's a packed that I made with Mother Nature, and I think it works out very well for both of us. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back. So getting back to the fact that there are bugs everywhere in my house, and I am absolutely terrified. My kids are looking at me like I have lost my goddamn mind, and they are assuring me that there are no bugs. In the house. But I don't believe them, Liz, because they're right in front of my fucking face, and yet my kids don't see them.

23:36 And they suggest that something may be wrong with my vision. But how can that be because yesterday, just yesterday, I was seeing perfectly fine. So as soon as they left for school, I called a bunch of local eye doctors and I went to the first one that could see me, like right there in there. And let me tell you that driving when you have no real line of vision because you're being attacked by thousands of bugs was not an easy car ride to make. The doctor does the exam, right, and she tells me that I have floaters. Oh what the fucker floaters?

24:26 So do you know what this is? I do know what floaters are, Yes, okay, do you have them? I do. I just realized I had them a couple of years ago when I was at an art installation where I was looking at a dark sky and all of a sudden, I'm like, hey, looked are all these satellite things? And my partner was like, there's nothing out there. You're not saying anything, And I realized, Oh, I've got floaters now, yeah, okay, So how did you even know what floaters were? My stepfather had them really bad. He had like chunky, big that would float in front of his eyes. That was the only reason I knew, because he had it. And then I realized, well, if I'm seeing it, no one else's and I'm not crazy, it must be that I have floaters now, because that's what you get when you get old floaters. So for people who don't know what floaters are, it is a jelly like material that begins to clump up and floats in your eyeball and cast shadows on your retina, which is the part of the eye that interprets what you see, and it gets in the way of your line of vision. And it's apparently very very common once you get to a certain age. Heard that before, Yes, so I handled this very

25:57 well. I'm speaking to the eye doctor and I'm like, okay, so how do we get rid of this? Do you give me drops? Do you suck them out? Somehow? This a surgery make this go away? But it turns out there's no treatment. Yeah, I don't know how this is possible. This is very common and yet no treatment. So I'm supposed to live this way for the rest of my life. Am I supposed to see thousands of books everywhere I look forever? How am I going to drive?

26:44 How am I going to read? How am I going to watch TV? I'm told that at some point the floaters will fall down to the bottom of my eyeball. Yeah, they started settling during the day, and the ones that don't fall down, I'll get used to get used to this. Never, I will never get used to this long story short, I got used to it. Did you get used to yours? Yes? Yes.

27:36 At some point my entire vision started changing. I first noticed it when I took my youngest to get fast food and realized that I couldn't read the neon sign. It was a very large sign. I should have been able to read it, and yet I could not. I could no longer read me on at all. But like I could live the rest of my life not reading neon, I would agree with you, YEA not a big deal. But as time began to pass, I began to realize that I no longer could read anything. I couldn't read a book, I couldn't read directions, I couldn't read my kids homework. I couldn't read or really see any think I've always had twenty twenty vision, right, Actually, I mean, like my entire life, I've always had double vision. So I like to say that I felt always had twenty twenty twenty twenty vision because you know it's double.

28:57 But right, clearly this was no longer the case because I could see nothing. So I scheduled an appointment with an eye doctor who ran a whole bunch of tests and then after the test told me that I had twenty twenty vision. And this was un helpful because how could I have twenty twenty twenty twenty vision and not be able to see any anything? Yeah? Right, Like the doesn't make sense it right. The only thing that does make sense about that is obviously the doctor I saw sucked. So I scheduled another appointment with a totally different doctor, and he ran all the tests, all the tests, and he said to me that I had twenty twenty vision. It is an interesting thing thing to have twenty twenty twenty twenty vision and not be able to see It's very interesting. So at some point I met up with a friend of mine and we always meet at this one particular diner, and I pick up the menu and I can't read it, and I pulled it away from me and close to me, and up and down and then exactly

30:30 and then I just gave up. I closed it, And quite honestly, I don't even know why I bothered. This is the only diner we ever go to, and I always ordered the exact same thing. So why I bothered with the menu in the first place, I have no idea, But I'm glad I did, because she asked me what the hell was going on with my eyes, and I explained, I am someone who has twenty twenty twenty twenty vision and yet can't see a goddamn thing. And she said, you probably just cheaters. O. Cheaters. Yeah, what are cheaters? Yet another new word to me. So she explains, they're just magnifying glasses, and she happened to have a pair on her. I tried them on, and I picked up the menu, and oh my god, I could read. It was a freaking miracle. I could see again with the granny glasses. Yeah, and it's amazing. Absolutely, I'm amazing. So I now have a pair of cheaters in my car and in every single room in my house, and I need them for absolutely everything. They are the greatest and I have to say, seeing after being blind, it is a wonderful

32:02 thing that I no longer take for granted. Absolutely, absolutely, really, those cheaters absolutely changed my life. Okay, another major thing we talked about knaps, but there was a time when one knap was no longer working for me. I was, and I think you're going to remember this time vividly. Actually, I was beyond exhausted all the time. Yes, parts of my body that had no reason to hurt was hurting. Different places started swelling for no apparent reason. I was experiencing such memory Marie fog all the time.

33:04 And I was snappy. And some people may think me being snappy would not be so strange, but honestly, I'm hardly ever snappy with my kids. Right, Another thing like clumps, huge clumps of hair began falling out, and there were like so many other symptoms, but I don't remember what they were. I was concerned there was something very very wrong with me, and I saw my doctor who sent me to specialist after specialist after specialist.

33:52 So much blood was drawn and so many tests were run and no one could find the answer. And yeah, that's right, you were having like migraines and everything, and they couldn't figure out anything. They kept sending you from one doctor to another to another. It was over. It was over a year. The whole process was over a year, and I was sick. I was sick, and I was scared because something was wrong. I had my yearly visit with the greatest gynecologist in the entire world. Love her, She's one of my most favorite people, just saying. She asked if I had any new medical issues. Why, yes, yes I do. I told her everything that's been going on plus more. Now we're entering a TMI moment. I told her that my entire actual life, I have been able to reach orgasm so easily. It's always been kind of like my superpower.

35:10 It's a lovely superpowers to have, lovely, and then within this last year, it stopped. It just stopped, right as if I had reached my lifetime amount of orgasms and I was allowed no more. Done with it, done and over. And she tells me, I'm in my mid forties and no doctor I saw and I saw many. This was shameful. Yeah, no one thought that this could possibly be hormonalre menopauzzle. Perhaps she believed, like immediately that I went through a year of testing for nothing, for nothing, and you didn't believe her either. I did. There was something so wrong, lits so wrong. She was absolutely positive it was about my hormone levels. And she was out right, utterly disgusted that with all the doctors I'd seen, and oh my god, had I seen so many doctors, not one had mentioned going to the gynecologist. I remember when you told me

36:44 that. I thought that was so shameful because I thought it made sense. You're in your mid forties, that's something that happens, and you know crazy. Please listen, I'm telling everyone who was listening to this podcast, once you enter your forties or later, if your body seems off, if you're feeling sick, if strange things are happening, see your gynecologist, get your hormone levels tested. Please avoid the mistakes I made. I was sick.

37:36 I was really sick for over a year before this was figured out. So the best kind of coologist ever ran a full hormonal panel on me, and it turned out that I no longer had any female hormones left in my system. I remember you saying that I was I didn't even know that was possible. I was basically a dude without a dick. So she put me on hormone replacement therapy, and Liz, oh my god, my entire life changed.

38:28 Hormone replacement therapy was the greatest thing in the entire world. First and foremost and most importantly, it took away all of those feeling sick symptoms. But in addition to that, I was able to orgasm by doing basically nothing, I mean like walking up and down. This STAPs was almost enough. It was wonderful and may have been the greatest time of my life. And then maybe about six months later, right I suppose, my body got used to all the hormones and kind of regulated, and that incredible feeling of being able to orgasm without having to do anything just kind of went away. Only I wasn't expecting it to go away, because nobody told me it was going to go away. So I packed and I called my Dino's office, and the receptionists picked up. Thank you for calling blah Blah's office. How can I help you? I can't orgasm? What she expects when she asked,

39:59 says hello, what, I'm sorry, I can't orgasm. Who's your doctor? I'll connect you to the nurse. Now I'm connected to the nurse. Hello, I can't orgasm. I'm sorry. That sounds awful. Who are you well, I already told it that. I'll tell the doctor and we'll get back to you. So the best guy no ever switches up my formula and it works for a while, and then it stops. Thank you for calling, blah blah, Office Hawk, and I help you. I can't orgasm. Is this Remy? No need your bootline? It is, I can't orgasm. I'll connect you to the nurse. Hi, Remy, So you can't orgasm. I can't orgasm. I'll talk to the doctor and we'll get back to you. The hormone changed again. It was wonderful until it

41:37 wasn't. I called again. So let me tell you. When I went in for my yearly visit and I checked in with the receptionist, she said with such enthusiasm, Oh you're realmy, the organs as some lady. What I said, why are you saying it? She's been the talk of the office for the past coupounds. She goes, It's it's just that I've spoken to you so many times, and now I finally faced to the name.

42:21 Then she turns to the other receptionist at the desk, and she says, this is Ny. I'm sure I probably should have been embarrassed because I was not. So I hear you what and whats of changes happened in my forties? I mean I went off, went blind, kind of became a man. And now I I'm getting ready to turn fifty, and I truly wonder what the fifties have in store for me. Yeah, I hear it's just another long downhill from Oh my god, I wonder what look, what words I'll learn this time? Oh geez. You can reach us at Voyage Media at Twitter, Instagram, and on Facebook, and you can reach out directly to me at Panicked Renny on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.