Dans Tous Les Sens
Je m’appelle Brian. J’aime les conversations qui dérapent, les gens passionnés et les récits humains.
Dans Tous Les Sens, j’invite des personnes aux parcours très différents pour discuter de ce qui les anime, les a fait grandir ou parfois vaciller. On parle de santé mentale, d’expatriation, de créativité, de musique, de sport, de souvenirs, d’amour, de deuil… et de tout ce qui surgit en chemin.
Pas de script. Pas de format imposé. Juste des conversations sincères qui prennent le temps d’exister.
Dans Tous Les Sens
Ep. 029 - Anna : Not Without Ability
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
More than thirty years after sharing the halls of Ecolint in Geneva, Anna and Brian reconnect for the first time.
What begins as a nostalgic conversation about school, and life as expat kids gradually unfolds into something much deeper. Memories that suddenly make sense through a new lens: undiagnosed ADHD, depression, anxiety, OCD, hospitalization, and the lifelong feeling of being misunderstood.
The title of this episode comes from a comment written on Brian and Anna's old school report cards: "Not Without Ability." Three words that, decades later, take on an entirely different meaning.
This is a conversation about growing up, introspection, feeling failures, finding answers later in life, and the stories we tell ourselves—and each other—to finally make sense of it all.
Brian
(0:16) Hello, everybody.
(0:17) This is your host, Brian Haugen, and today is episode 29 with my friend from Mickaland, Anna Norberg from Sweden.
(0:28) What's the capital of Sweden, Sam?
Sam
(0:31) It's Stockholm
Brian
(0:32) Good boy.
(0:33) Good boy.
(0:33) And this is a very special episode because I hadn't spoken to Anna since the nineties, so over thirty years ago.
Sam
(0:41) For sure?
Brian
(0:41) For sure.
(0:43) It was such a pleasure to talk with Anna.
(0:45) Do you think this is gonna be a good episode, Sam?
Sam
(0:48) Yeah.
Brian
(0:49) Why?
Sam
(0:50) It's good.
Brian
(0:52) Yeah.
(0:52) It's good.
(0:53) I don't need to say much more
(0:55) We talk about so much stuff, deep, funny, hopefully.
(1:00) Anyway, here's episode 29, Anna, not without ability.
BREAK
Brian
(1:17) One of the questions I I ask when I haven't had a guest before is, like, do you remember the first time that we met?
Anna
(1:24) Yeah.
(1:24) Obviously, I don't.
Brian
(1:26) Yeah.
(1:26) The specific moment yeah.
(1:29) No.
(1:29) But the specific moment, even the year, I don't remember.
(1:33) So it must have been when you arrived at Ekiland.
Anna
(1:35) We had lived there when I was, like, a toddler, like a baby.
(1:38) And then we lived in Zimbabwe and then Sweden.
(1:41) And then when I we came back to Switzerland, it was I was just about to start the ninth grade, so maybe, like, I don't know, '93, '94, something like that.
(1:54) And then you were kind of in the French side and English.
(2:01) Those that kind of was lost on me, those sections.
Anna
(2:06) I, like, was so preoccupied with managing everything else.
(2:11) I kind of didn't even notice there was a French side, but I was very scared of them anyway.
(2:18) And then we were in English together, I think.
Brian
(2:20) Yes.
(2:21) We were.
(2:21) We that yep.
(2:23) We had, I know you were in mister Elfie's class also.
Anna
(2:27) I was in mister Elfie.
Brian
(2:28) And maybe we had also together.
Anna
(2:31) Oh my god.
(2:31) Yeah.
(2:32) I got in a fight with him.
(2:34) Yeah.
Brian
(2:34) Oh, really?
Anna
(2:35) Yeah.
(2:36) I saw him two years ago.
(2:37) He's still living.
(2:38) He's
Brian
(2:39) He still has a beard?
Anna
(2:40) He still has a beard.
(2:41) Very Yeah.
(2:42) Sort of kind of like a suave dresser, but ish.
Brian
(2:48) Yes.
(2:48) Yes.
(2:48) Yes.
(2:49) I totally just
Anna
(2:50) Not you know?
Brian
(2:51) That's what I was thinking when you were saying that.
Anna
(2:54) I was already then, like, a mental patient, and he was against anti like, medication, psychiatric medication.
(3:02) And he talked about it in class.
(3:06) Really?
(3:06) And I was, livid.
(3:10) It was kind of not a secret, but I never disclosed or when I went to school, I just sort of pretended like I didn't have any problems or anything like that.
Anna
(3:22) So, you know, it was very important to me.
(3:25) So, and I I wrote, like, a letter to the principal that what is this information in a school and everything.
(3:33) I mean, he knew English very well, so that's good.
(3:35) But, I know psychopharmacology better.
Brian
(3:39) Yes.
(3:40) And people skills.
Anna
(3:41) People skills people skills also.
(3:43) And and also, like, I had heard about you that you weren't always every day in school, which Mhmm.
(3:52) I was not either.
(3:53) So, like, oh, something's wrong with Brian and, like, he's depressed, something.
(4:02) Mhmm.
Anna
(4:03) But I never saw you display any type of dark energy or, you know, like, very happy, open or happy, you what what that means, but positive, open, present, super approachable, easy to talk to, like a very like, everybody likes Brian.
(4:25) You know what I mean?
(4:25) Like, that's a very rare thing at that age to be socially mobile.
(4:31) And maybe openness also is, like, a little bit related to sensitivity.
(4:37) I mean, you have to be that in order to be perceptive.
Anna
(4:40) But, I never perceived any kind of suffering or anything like that from I mean, everybody suffers in life, but nothing like that from you.
(4:50) You seem to be like, this guy has everything.
(4:52) What's what's what's what's he upset about?
(4:56) So, obviously, I hope I got better at seeing what people really are like now.
Brian
(5:03) Yeah.
(5:04) But, I mean, that's the thing is that because I I, like, I remember just sadness being, you know, very present early on.
(5:12) I think I was six years old when
Anna
(5:13) I Really?
Brian
(5:14) It yeah.
(5:14) Yeah.
(5:15) When I already felt, like, questioning, you know, life and my my place, in you know?
Anna
(5:22) Like, existential?
Brian
(5:24) I felt I mean, I definitely felt different.
(5:27) And I'm sure that most most kids actually do feel different, but I think I always adapted well because I'm maybe people pleaser in a way.
(5:38) You know, I want I I want to bring something positive, and I guess I also want people to like me maybe.
(5:45) But, yeah, at Icolent, I'd say I was mostly happy Mhmm.
(5:52) At at Icholens.
Brian
(5:53) I think it was more, later on in in in the teenage years
Anna
(5:58) kind of.
Brian
(6:00) So when you arrived ninth grade, so that was the start of secondary school because so you weren't in middle school.
Anna
(6:08) You weren't in Mm-mm.
Brian
(6:09) The the Salab, I think it was called.
Anna
(6:11) Yeah.
(6:11) The Salab.
(6:12) No.
(6:12) I have, like, a phobia of the Salab Building because, it's where they do math, and I hate math.
(6:19) I had and I had to go to sort of extra tutoring there because
Brian
(6:23) Yeah.
Anna
(6:23) I was failing everything.
(6:24) So
Brian
(6:25) Ah, so you were doing the extra tutoring Yeah.
(6:27) In Lesediyev?
(6:28) Yeah.
(6:29) Okay.
(6:29) Yeah.
Brian
(6:30) Your parents, they they worked in international organizations?
(6:34) Or
Anna
(6:34) Well, both of them were or were career diplomats.
(6:38) My mother worked for different types of u UN organizations, and my dad was in when we lived in Geneva, he was UN ambassador.
(6:51) That's why we moved around.
(6:53) And, yeah, I was born in Sweden, and we always spoke Swedish at home.
(6:58) And I went to school in Sweden for a couple of years, but other than that, it was abroad and different different places.
Anna
(7:07) Yeah.
Brian
(7:08) I know that all Swedes speak English, but how was your English at at that moment when you came?
Anna
(7:14) I have never been worse in languages than I am today because now I spent the I mean, I speak Swedish all the time.
(7:21) I work in Swedish.
(7:22) I speak Swedish at home.
(7:24) But I went to I don't know what you call them, but, like, you know, when you start school and then middle school, like, to fifth grade.
Brian
(7:33) Primary?
(7:33) Primary.
(7:34) Primary school.
Anna
(7:36) I went to school in Zimbabwe, and that was just a English kind of that colonial style British school.
(7:44) So I already knew English from there.
(7:46) So when I came to Geneva, I I already could speak English, which was great.
(7:53) I didn't speak any or know anything about French, but my parents could speak French.
(7:59) Like, my father actually, my father could write legal texts and everything in French, so he was good.
Anna
(8:06) And my older brothers who didn't live with us then, they had been to French school, like, in Tunisia when they were So they also were, like, poor French speakers but French understanders.
(8:21) So it was kind of I had heard French before.
Brian
(8:24) So you're used to moving around, having kind of the ex expat life
Anna
(8:28) in life.
(8:29) Expat
Brian
(8:30) life.
(8:30) So ninth grade, you're what?
(8:32) You're, like, fourteen, fifteen?
Anna
(8:33) Thirteen, fourteen, I think.
(8:35) Something like that.
(8:35) Yeah.
Brian
(8:37) And you you mentioned before sort of the French section, the English section.
(8:41) So the way it worked is, especially until middle school, it was completely separate.
(8:48) I mean, even physically in the building, it was on one side the Yeah.
(8:52) And and we called it side.
(8:53) We didn't even say section.
Brian
(8:55) Yeah.
Anna
(8:57) The side.
Brian
(8:58) The side.
(8:59) And, there were more students on the English side.
(9:04) I think it was about maybe one third, two third, or 40%, 60%, more or less.
(9:10) I arrived in fourth grade.
Anna
(9:12) Mhmm.
Brian
(9:13) So the last year of Les Marronnier.
Anna
(9:15) Yeah.
Brian
(9:16) For those who went to Echelon, it's like, you know, a little flashbacks.
(9:20) And at that time, in my class, there were we have a few common friends because Toby arrived, and I was at the same school with him previously.
(9:30) But, yeah, with Toby in in fourth grade, Edouard was there, Rafael Yarisea and Rafi.
(9:37) And so I befriended them.
(9:39) Then they went to the English side.
Anna
(9:40) Because they were with us.
Brian
(9:42) Yep.
(9:43) In middle school.
(9:43) And they both of them in fifth grade, we had, like, a a group of French siders who went to the English side in in fifth grade.
(9:52) And then because I'm French and American, it was natural for me to kind of bond also with English side kids, whereas a lot of the French side kids were francophones.
(10:05) And already back then, there was this notion that the French side were kind of fuck ups.
Anna
(10:10) Really?
(10:11) I always thought the French side were much cooler, and I think that was kind of the general impression
Brian
(10:19) Really?
Anna
(10:19) That they were much cooler, like, better dressed, just the way that they walk.
(10:26) I mean, you you had Alan, and I was like, just just to see him walk across the sort of yard was like, oh, that's not like a insecure person.
(10:39) Watch out.
(10:39) You know?
(10:40) I thought I'll I'll just stay here and and try and survive in my corner.
Anna
(10:45) But maybe there was another sort of narrative about them.
(10:48) I don't know.
(10:48) Or about you.
Brian
(10:49) I mean, to go to Echelon, you have to have a pretty comfortable financial situation or international organizations paid for the schools, for kids, and stuff like that.
(11:00) But you're still, like you're you're amongst people who who, you know, who live comfortably.
Anna
(11:05) It's interesting because you live a life that is kind of very privileged and very luxurious.
(11:11) Just to live in Switzerland is so expensive.
(11:16) And we lived in a house that was, you know, massive and with sort of staff and and everything, which is not really representative of any type of personal wealth that my parents had.
(11:28) So so you live a kind of a lavish life that is not you're not really grounded in it, if you will.
Brian
(11:37) It's the it's the diplomat
Anna
(11:39) Diplomat Yeah.
(11:40) Yeah.
(11:40) Yeah.
(11:41) Yeah.
(11:41) In my own house where I grew up, it was it was very clear that this is also a workplace.
Anna
(11:47) You know, the the reason that it's that huge is because there's dinners and there's I mean, there were those things going on all all the time, and so it's not for personal use.
(11:57) You know, you you get to have personal things like you have clothes and some bedsheets and but the furniture is already there.
(12:05) There's some, like, agency that comes and furnishes it.
(12:08) And so so it's like living in a hotel.
(12:11) In the end, it was only me and my dad.
Anna
(12:13) So we're just two people with all the with these, like, 20 plus rooms and all the bathrooms and everything and furniture that we don't relate to or anything.
(12:22) I think it does something to you spirit I mean, I don't wanna be too mumbo jumbo, but I think it does something to you spiritually.
(12:29) It's, like, unhealthy.
(12:30) And I think perhaps that's why Donald Trump is that way because he also grew up in, like, a hotel environment.
(12:35) And if you go to the Trump Tower, you can see it.
Anna
(12:37) It's, like, ugly stuff that is no value, and that's why you become sick in the soul.
(12:43) Yeah.
(12:43) One reason.
(12:44) Maybe not the only
Brian
(12:45) one, but Yeah.
(12:46) So when you arrived, you were how how many members of your family
Anna
(12:51) came?
(12:52) Well, that was also the other thing that, in a way, something that was very valuable to me, I think, in in being an echelon because a lot of people have that situation.
(13:03) You know, the mom is from there, the dad is from there, you speak three languages but none of them really well, and you so so Mhmm.
(13:11) My parents were always very sort of concerned with duty.
(13:15) And and I heard other diplomatic families have it that way.
Anna
(13:18) So we it was in the beginning, it was me and my mom and dad.
(13:22) I have two older brothers.
(13:23) They didn't come with us.
(13:24) And in a way, that was reasonable because they were at that age already that, like, ready to leave home.
(13:33) You know, you don't have any aunts and uncles.
Anna
(13:35) You don't have your siblings.
(13:36) You don't have cousins.
(13:37) You don't it's just you and them.
(13:39) And then my mother moved to New York after a couple of years.
(13:44) So it was only me and my dad.
Anna
(13:46) My parents were not divorced, but it was just like, if you get a posting, you have to go.
(13:51) That was their kind of attitude.
(13:55) I, as a mother myself now, I probably wouldn't do that.
(13:59) I wouldn't and and at that time, it was so far away.
(14:01) You know?
Anna
(14:02) There wasn't Internet.
(14:03) So it was like
Brian
(14:04) Right.
Anna
(14:04) Someone goes to America.
(14:06) It's like the eighteen hundreds.
(14:07) You send a letter.
(14:08) It arrives in three weeks.
Brian
(14:09) You know?
(14:10) You can't you can't FaceTime.
Anna
(14:12) You can't call them.
(14:13) It was, like, so every every time you look
Brian
(14:15) at clock, it's like money.
(14:18) Oh, yeah.
(14:18) Right.
(14:19) Yeah.
(14:19) Yeah.
Brian
(14:19) Yeah.
(14:20) What were your first impressions of Ikkalene, to the people?
(14:23) Did you make friends pretty early pretty quickly?
(14:25) Or
Anna
(14:26) There's a Swedish rap song that's like, It means, like, you become another man in another another another country, you can just Mhmm.
(14:34) Run away from your problems.
(14:36) And so I was very happy to move to Switzerland, and I knew what type of school I was gonna go to.
(14:44) And I knew it was gonna be I, you know, I could have been worried, but I was just relieved to leave my old school because I didn't wanna go to school.
(14:53) And so I thought, at least I won't be there.
Anna
(14:56) I'll do something different.
(14:57) So I was super happy about that.
(15:01) I just thought, I'm gonna make it now.
(15:03) I'm gonna they don't know I'm a loser.
(15:06) I'm gonna change everything.
Anna
(15:08) I'm gonna be perfect and succeed.
Brian
(15:12) Your perception of yourself was that you were a loser at that time?
Anna
(15:15) My perception of myself was I think it's always been the same, which is that, obviously, I felt like a loser because I was a loser.
(15:25) I mean, I was not succeeding in in any sort of objective way, but I always had the impression that and still to this day, like, tomorrow I'm gonna get my shit together.
(15:38) Like, I'm just on the verge of like, if I only can do these couple of things, I'm gonna be like a, you know, like Pinocchio.
(15:47) I'm gonna be like a real boy.
(15:49) I'm gonna be a a good person.
Anna
(15:52) So I always had that, like, I know I'm a loser, but if I just make an effort, this is gonna not be this is not gonna be the case.
(16:04) So which is kind of a way to prevent yourself from problem solving.
(16:09) You know what I mean?
(16:09) Like, you you you think that, oh, in ten years, I'm gonna be much better, which is, like, you can start now.
(16:18) So so so I I absolutely thought I was a loser, but I thought I got it.
Anna
(16:22) I I I would have a new chance.
Brian
(16:24) Yes.
(16:25) Yes.
(16:26) That's interesting.
(16:27) Yeah.
(16:27) I I kinda felt that way too.
Anna
(16:29) Really?
(16:30) Yeah.
Brian
(16:30) A little bit.
(16:32) I mean, at least academically
Anna
(16:34) Mhmm.
Brian
(16:34) I, I felt because did you feel that you were a loser because of academics or because of social interactions?
(16:43) Or
Anna
(16:43) I I think if you're 13 or 14 or whatever that age, I think a lot of people have the tendency to think that they're losers.
(16:53) So that's one thing
Brian
(16:54) Mhmm.
Anna
(16:54) That you're insecure.
(16:57) But I if you wanna have, like, an ADHD perspective, I already always had the same problems my whole life, and they were that I uneven performance, that is to say I either overachieved or underachieved, but I never, like, hit the mark.
(17:18) And if you overachieve, you prove to others that, oh, there is ability.
Brian
(17:24) Right.
Anna
(17:24) So the reason that you're failing is that you're not making an effort.
(17:30) And and that's also the perception that you have yourself.
(17:34) Like, what and and it wasn't even predictable.
(17:37) It's not like I can do history but not math or I can do this but not that.
(17:41) It seemed to me to be I can do it and then all of a sudden I can't do it and not really clear why.
Anna
(17:48) So that was a thing.
(17:50) Then I had tremendous, like, similar problems with energy.
(17:56) You know, I hate sports, but I'm always run like, I run marathon.
(18:01) I mean, you know what I mean?
(18:02) Like, I I behave as someone who doesn't hate sports as much Yeah.
Anna
(18:06) Because I'm doing them.
(18:08) So very kind of energetic.
(18:11) I always get that feedback, like, socially that you're, you know, you're talkative.
(18:14) You're sort of Yeah.
(18:15) That.
Anna
(18:17) But my feeling is all the time, I'm so tired, you know, so exhausted.
(18:23) At the same time, it's, like, burning in the mind.
(18:27) So that was hard.
(18:28) And, you know, it's like, I can't I can't be still, but I also can't get out of bed.
(18:33) So that's a hard equation.
Brian
(18:34) Yes.
(18:35) Yes.
(18:35) Yes.
(18:35) Yes.
(18:35) Yes.
Anna
(18:36) And then the other thing I was, like, excitability.
(18:41) You know, like, my mom would say, oh, we're having dinner.
(18:44) You know, it's like, you you get worked up about nothing.
(18:48) And then when I got older, of course, that means was more manifested in, like, anxiety that Mhmm.
(18:58) Every I'm not worried.
Anna
(19:01) It's just everything's uncomfortable.
Brian
(19:03) Right.
Anna
(19:04) So I always had those, and so I was insecure academically because I knew that I wasn't I wasn't cutting it.
(19:12) Like, I and and there I I was constantly told that you the and this is also the time when, like, Ronald Reagan was president and was like, if you just work harder, you will be successful.
(19:25) Yes.
(19:26) You know, that is the reason why people are poor is because they're they're they're lazy.
(19:31) So so that was the narrative, and I just felt like I am I also thought I could be stupid.
Anna
(19:37) And then socially, of course, super hard to because of that kind of unevenness in energy and I mean, you could be an asshole.
(19:51) It could also be I'm an asshole.
(19:53) Like, people don't like me because of that.
(19:54) But I think a large part of it was people think you're annoying, overbearing, and then at the same time, you, like, can't be bothered to speak to them and you don't return their calls.
(20:06) So that becomes a problem.
Brian
(20:08) Yep.
(20:09) Yep.
(20:09) Yeah.
(20:10) I mean, that that definitely resonates with me.
(20:13) And and maybe I I can we should explain how we Yeah.
Brian
(20:18) We connected in a way because it is related to to what we're what we're talking about.
(20:23) Yeah.
(20:24) I mean, we were in Echelon together.
(20:26) I was on the French side, English side.
(20:27) We had a a couple classes Yeah.
Brian
(20:30) Together with with mister with mister Alfie.
(20:33) Maybe maybe history because I did I did a bit of both because they had started the bilingual program.
(20:40) Okay.
(20:40) So you could sort of pick and choose.
(20:42) So I was like, okay.
Brian
(20:43) History, I'm gonna Yeah.
(20:45) Take it with mister Knight and, you know, just you had mister Knight?
(20:50) Oh, so we were probably in that class together where he would write on the board.
(20:55) Like, we'd arrive in a classroom, and he'd be writing on a whiteboard with with a marker.
(21:03) I mean, handwritten just quantities and quantities of information.
Brian
(21:09) And then we the class would start.
(21:13) He would do his lecture, and we were all taking, of course, no cell phones where we can take a picture.
(21:19) So we're all taking the notes and and trying to to grasp what he was saying and having to interrupt and say, wait.
(21:27) Wait.
(21:28) Wait.
Brian
(21:28) Slow down, mister Knight.
(21:29) Slow down.
(21:30) I I mean, was that how you experienced it at the time?
Anna
(21:33) What is the central point of this information?
(21:36) Like, you know, the ant the anti PowerPoint.
(21:39) So the PowerPoint is, like, write three words on a slide.
(21:43) This is the thing.
Brian
(21:44) Total anti So this is the inverse.
(21:46) Synthesizing.
(21:47) Yeah.
Anna
(21:47) It's like everything that you know.
Brian
(21:50) Yep.
(21:51) Yeah.
(21:52) Yeah.
(21:53) Horrible.
(21:54) And and we and he forced us to use those small format notebooks.
Brian
(21:58) Yeah.
(22:00) A five, I think, maybe.
(22:02) So we were, you know, we couldn't even spread out on pages.
(22:05) We were like, it was it was
Anna
(22:07) Oh my god.
Brian
(22:08) Weirdly, I did fairly well in this class Mhmm.
(22:12) Because I think it was so just had to grasp my attention in such a that it was like, oh, okay.
(22:20) Like, it it it it's almost a game in a way because it's like, can you can we manage to take all the notes and get all the information?
Anna
(22:28) Yeah.
(22:29) It's like a candy crush.
(22:30) You know?
Brian
(22:30) Like Yeah.
(22:31) Exactly.
(22:31) Yeah.
(22:32) Mister Knight candy crush.
(22:33) And so after Echelance and and I think probably the last time I saw you was were you at the, this the trip in Spain?
Anna
(22:45) Some island?
(22:45) Could it be
Brian
(22:46) Yeah.
(22:46) It was an island.
(22:47) Oh my god.
(22:48) Wait.
(22:48) It it was Gran Canaria.
Anna
(22:50) Gran Canaria.
Brian
(22:50) Yeah.
(22:51) Gran Canaria.
Anna
(22:52) Wow.
(22:53) When you could spill smoke on the airplanes and everybody
Brian
(22:57) The the airplane ride.
(22:59) I don't know if you remember.
(23:00) It was it was 50 of us.
(23:02) 50 of us.
Anna
(23:03) Whole plane was just us.
(23:05) And the plane just us.
(23:06) Everybody ordered, like, a Yes.
(23:10) Strong alcoholic drink
Brian
(23:11) Yes.
Anna
(23:11) And started chain smoking because at that time, you could buy a plane ticket just to smoke.
Brian
(23:17) Yeah.
(23:17) Because It was a it was a it was like It
Anna
(23:20) was like
Brian
(23:20) a party.
(23:20) Plane.
(23:21) It was a party plane.
(23:22) And, like, pull I remember Hythem and and and other other kids, like, pulling the life vests and putting putting them in their baggage, and then they all had these yeah.
(23:34) Yeah.
Brian
(23:34) Yeah.
(23:34) Yeah.
(23:35) Yeah.
(23:36) Yeah.
(23:36) So, I mean, it was a different different time.
Anna
(23:39) And can I tell you, we rented a car because Yes?
(23:43) Nina had just gotten a driver's license, like, five minutes ago.
(23:47) And at that time, if you were, I don't know, like, 17, you could rent a car with just a fresh driver's license.
(23:54) And we drove into the mountains with that.
(23:56) Yes.
Anna
(23:57) And it turns out that car didn't have a horn.
(24:00) It didn't have lights.
(24:02) And I just thought, like and then, you know, it was like a cab.
(24:06) So we just sat there, like, 15 people in a in a car that wasn't properly working with a driver that was
Brian
(24:16) Very inexperienced.
(24:18) Very great.
Anna
(24:18) Exactly.
(24:19) Very gifted, but not
Brian
(24:22) Yeah.
(24:22) I would trust Nina more than our drivers
Anna
(24:25) because Okay.
(24:26) Wow.
Brian
(24:27) But, yeah, we had we we we had the same thing.
(24:30) We had one kid.
(24:31) I think it was Rafael who had the first one who had his license and rented this, like, car.
(24:36) And it was they were dangerous, those roads also, like, in the mountains.
(24:41) The hairpin
Anna
(24:42) Oh,
Brian
(24:42) I hated that.
Anna
(24:44) Switch I don't know what you call them.
Brian
(24:45) Yeah.
(24:46) Yeah.
(24:46) Yeah.
(24:46) The the
Anna
(24:47) The mountainous roads.
Brian
(24:49) Roads.
(24:49) Yep.
Anna
(24:50) Even to be living today is a miracle after going on a trip like that.
Brian
(24:55) Totally.
(24:56) Totally.
(24:56) But that's that's it's funny that we remember the same the same stuff that stuck out.
(25:02) But, but that trip was actually really cool because in terms of French side, English side I mean, initially, initially, the the French French side, side, we we weren't weren't part of that Mhmm.
(25:12) Invitation.
Brian
(25:13) Because that's one thing we we felt a lot is that we weren't invited or aware of what was going on.
(25:22) Okay.
(25:22) Wow.
(25:23) Part of it part of it was the the the French side administration's fault
Anna
(25:28) Mhmm.
Brian
(25:28) Where the English side had all these clubs and there's these activities and the ski club and stuff like that.
(25:35) And we were, like, not aware of the stuff that was go like, of that extracurricular stuff.
Anna
(25:42) Not invited to the party.
Brian
(25:43) We were not invited to the party, which I I'll have an anecdote about that.
(25:48) But I wanna hear it.
(25:49) But, yeah, it's it's one thing is that we didn't feel invited to the party.
(25:54) And so when this trip was being organized because that was a bit of a tradition, for graduating classes for the students to organize a getaway, like a a post graduation, trip somewhere.
(26:07) I know that some class went to Greece.
Brian
(26:09) And and then if I remember Greece
Anna
(26:12) now in a
Brian
(26:12) similar thing.
(26:13) Now doing this.
(26:14) Yeah.
(26:14) Greece is
Anna
(26:15) Drink drinking Limoncello.
Brian
(26:17) Oh, boy.
(26:18) Oh oh, yeah.
(26:19) Oh, yeah, man.
Anna
(26:21) Never mind.
(26:22) Never mind.
Brian
(26:23) But, but, yeah, that so so there were so initially, we weren't invited.
(26:30) And I think it's interesting because Rafi was always the one kind of keeping us updated, and he still does that today.
Anna
(26:37) Really?
Brian
(26:37) He's yeah.
(26:38) He still does it today and gives us news about people and and lets us know if there's something going on.
(26:45) But so I was like, well, we should go.
(26:47) And and a group of four of us, it was, it was me, Rafael Elias.
(26:55) Do you remember Elias?
Anna
(26:55) Of course.
Brian
(26:56) Who's a neurosurgeon in, New Orleans now.
(27:00) Yep.
Anna
(27:01) I He His his I was gonna say his last last name, but I don't think I will because it's Greek, is it not?
(27:08) Yes.
(27:08) Yeah.
(27:08) Because with a c.
(27:09) I don't I don't wanna embarrass myself.
Brian
(27:11) Chiaralopoulos.
(27:12) Yeah.
(27:13) Karalopoulos.
(27:15) Yeah.
(27:15) Ilias.
Brian
(27:16) He he was, like, really, really smart.
(27:18) I mean, he was two years younger than us and Mhmm.
(27:21) You know, like, top student in the class and wouldn't, like, even do his homework, but just just one of those guys.
(27:30) But, so, yeah, Oselius, me, Rafael.
(27:34) And then do you remember Machu Machu Teriqui?
Anna
(27:39) I thought you were gonna say Monet, but no.
Brian
(27:42) Metzger was, like, in ninth grade with us and then then left.
(27:47) He had left school in ninth grade and never went back to school pretty much.
Anna
(27:52) Okay.
Brian
(27:52) But somehow we got him on the trip.
(27:54) I don't know how.
(27:56) But, yeah, it was just four of us from the French side.
Anna
(28:00) Oh my god.
Brian
(28:01) It we were just four of us and then all, you know, all all of you guys and and girls.
(28:06) But, you know, then there were those people sort of in between, like Xavier, like Edouard, Hassidic Yeah.
(28:13) Who were who were, like, francophones who were on the English side.
(28:16) And so there was a but I remember that at that trip, we connected more with all I mean, the memories I have of of, like, a view of of Mariska, Antonia Yeah.
(28:28) Like, the because we had, like, some exchanges in class and and and in in daily life, but it was more during that trip that it was, like, finding out more about Yeah.
Brian
(28:40) You know, being in the same motel, in the same party plane, and the beach, and the crazy parties that we had there.
(28:48) And it did feel at the time, like, it's like, yeah.
(28:50) You know, all this time we were in in school together in the same Yeah.
(28:54) Grade, but but you know?
Anna
(28:56) You were kind of relieved, I think, of that.
(28:59) Obviously, I wasn't Yes.
(29:00) We'll get to that probably, but I wasn't graduating.
(29:02) I came on that trip because I was, you know, to to be friendly, but I wasn't, like Yeah.
(29:09) But but then it's like people were going away.
Anna
(29:11) So you're relieved of that.
(29:13) You know, you're you're aware that this sort of French side, this side, who's cool, who's smoking weed in the woods, who's there, who's going that that world is going to disappear very shortly.
(29:25) Like, you're gonna have to so now it was more like but we really are a group.
(29:32) We could have been not all of it all along, but those kind of barriers or pressures were released.
(29:38) And that was Exactly.
Anna
(29:40) Kind of, I I I felt that was quite wonderful, actually.
Brian
(29:45) Yes.
(29:46) Yeah.
(29:46) Yeah.
(29:46) Absolutely.
(29:47) I mean, it was, yeah.
Brian
(29:49) It's the end of, part of our lives, and I guess we we, you know, we know we know this when when high school ends.
(29:57) Don't know.
(29:57) And and, also, the other thing is after after high school, well, I mean, people go all over the place, like The US, The UK, their home countries.
(30:07) So there's also that feeling of when are when am I gonna see, you know, all all these people and all those classmates again.
(30:15) So And But Yeah.
Brian
(30:19) But so okay.
(30:20) So, yes, the reason how we reconnected.
(30:24) So that's physically the last time that we saw each other.
(30:28) But then with social media, we connected on Instagram, probably on Facebook.
(30:34) Mhmm.
Brian
(30:34) Yeah.
(30:35) On Facebook first, I guess.
(30:36) And and, you know, like, just seeing life go go by and that that you still exist, we get glimpses of of our lives through social media.
(30:48) I have a tendency to post to be pretty transparent on on social media.
(30:54) I think it I think it's because because I have friends from all over the place and family and went to university in The US, it's it's a way really to kind of keep up in a way with with people that have, like, have created bonds with, but that suddenly because we're not living in the same place, it just feels like I'm maybe maybe there's some FOMO or missing out.
Brian
(31:21) I don't know.
(31:22) But in our case, just like a week two weeks ago or so
Anna
(31:27) It was funny because, just just parentheses that I think that it could also be in your case maybe that you're, like, a good communicator.
(31:38) You know what I mean?
(31:39) Like, that you is also seems to be at least a personal interest to to share information, and that you're very effective at that, and that also is is transparent in the way that you post and what type of information you share.
(31:54) I think that that probably is one of it.
(31:56) But when we reconnected now, it was the day just just speaking of that plane ride, it was the day of my daughter's graduation.
Anna
(32:07) Oh.
(32:07) And, we were out having dinner to celebrate that they had their school year was finished because I I was obviously paying paying attention to them and their special day, I mean, immensely, but I also checked my Instagram briefly.
(32:22) And then I saw your post with all the, like, tickets for cool concerts from the nineties that was, like, already your body is infused with a good Yeah.
Brian
(32:34) Exactly.
(32:35) Yeah.
Anna
(32:35) Happyness on you.
(32:36) I saw your report card, and I was like, oh my god.
(32:40) I'm in this situation where I'm now observing my children finish going to school, and that kind of my sort of most difficult it's like high school was so challenging and everything so that everything connected to that means so much.
(33:01) I think it would anyway.
(33:03) But
Brian
(33:03) Yeah.
(33:04) But I wrote the data.
Anna
(33:05) The content.
(33:06) Like, oh my god.
(33:07) You and and also you shared, like, you had a it wasn't like a compliment that
Brian
(33:13) report.
(33:13) So I I'll I'll explain it, but it was yeah.
(33:16) It's like I, I don't remember what I was looking for because I was going through old, old boxes, old photos or something.
(33:25) I think I was looking for, like, for photos.
(33:28) I don't I don't remember the reason why.
Brian
(33:31) Oh, no.
(33:32) It was because I had those podcasts with Morgan.
(33:34) Okay.
(33:35) And I so I was looking for old photos of us Mhmm.
(33:39) To to illustrate the podcast because now with with with Morgan, we we did the first video podcast, which is what we're doing now, the first remote, like Australia and and and Geneva.
Brian
(33:52) And so I thought I would add some photos of what we were talking about because I'm like, I must have plenty of photos of and then and then that it opened, you know, rabbit Yeah.
(34:07) Can of worms.
(34:08) Can of worms.
(34:08) Exactly.
(34:09) And I find an old report card.
Brian
(34:12) I think it was from tenth or eleventh grade.
Anna
(34:14) And Written by hand.
Brian
(34:16) Written by hand.
(34:19) So with the grades that you had for the semester, like your grade for the year or something like that, And then, then, an what it like, an evaluation, just a few words.
(34:31) And the one that I sort of highlighted that I put in the middle of an Insta Story was, from mister Priest, the art teacher, who gave me a two out of seven.
(34:44) Two out of seven.
(34:45) And then I ended up going to art school, which I think is pretty funny.
Brian
(34:49) And he wrote, like, something like doesn't apply himself and wouldn't what was it?
(34:55) Not without ability.
Anna
(34:57) Not without ability.
(34:58) And I
Brian
(34:58) was like And that's what you responded to.
(35:02) You you you wrote I think you said, I had many of those or something like that.
(35:08) And then it just triggered, like, this Insta DM conversation Mhmm.
(35:15) Where we started catching up, like, from the past thirty years.
(35:19) Yeah.
Brian
(35:20) And I don't remember exactly how we got to it, but it was pretty quickly that we realized the ADHD thing so that we were both not diagnosed with ADHD as chill children?
Anna
(35:34) Children.
(35:34) Children.
(35:35) Yeah.
(35:35) Or adults.
(35:36) I mean, I was, like, almost 40, I think.
Brian
(35:38) Yeah.
(35:39) So it's even more recent for you.
(35:41) And, like, catching up the last thirty years, the echoing reunion, and and then seeing, like, oh my god.
(35:47) Yeah.
(35:48) We really connect on quite a few things.
Brian
(35:50) And the a like, the ADHD thing was a bit like, ugh.
(35:53) Okay.
(35:55) That's that's interesting.
(35:57) And, and then I I I sent you links to to the podcast, and you listened to the podcast.
Anna
(36:03) I listened to the podcast.
(36:04) I love the podcast.
(36:05) I love the podcast.
Brian
(36:06) Thank you.
(36:07) It's so interesting for me to reconnect with with you.
(36:11) I mean, actually, you, I really had, like, z I mean, as aside from the social media, you know, with Morgan, we talk every once in a while.
(36:21) Yeah.
(36:21) And he was to Geneva.
Brian
(36:23) Alain, he was in Brazil for a long time, but he moved back to Geneva.
(36:27) But but you're the first person I really haven't connected with much in in in the past thirty years.
(36:34) So I was like, boy, I hope, you know, I hope she accepts because it would be great to continue sort of the con I mean, this in a way is a continuation of the conversation we had on Instagram Exact.
(36:47) Messenger, which doesn't allow us to write.
(36:51) We we both reached the limit of words we can use in a DM.
Anna
(36:59) Yeah.
Brian
(37:00) And I I write often my messages on notes because there's always a risk that I might press send at any moment accidentally.
(37:08) So I wanna formulate and just, like, check.
(37:11) Okay.
(37:11) I didn't like it's not all over the place.
(37:14) Copy paste, then I couldn't.
Brian
(37:16) So then we we WhatsApp WhatsApp each other.
(37:20) But, but, yeah, the so the the the report card and at at that time, yeah, we're sort of back into high school mode Yeah.
(37:30) And and thinking, about high school.
(37:32) And I had no idea either that you had gone through struggles.
(37:37) Mhmm.
Brian
(37:38) You mentioned antidepressants and things like that.
(37:41) So this this was something early on that was a part of you.
Anna
(37:45) I think sometimes people who have this type of traits or the this history, like, once you get into it, you can feel a a new channel of connection opening, and I and I noticed that.
(37:58) And it wasn't like only you I mean, we were quite a number of people who who had different challenges, and that in those days, it wasn't known what it was.
(38:08) Speaking of the, like, accountant thing, you know, like, I never thought if someone would have said, save five people who had struggled in, mister Priest because I also was failed, actually, one time by mister Priest.
(38:22) He didn't think I had ability at all, but I didn't go to art school.
(38:27) So I wouldn't have immediately picked you out as someone even though, you know, that, oh, Brian has troubles.
Anna
(38:34) But now that you tell me, I kind of feel like probably, you know what I mean, knowing what I know.
(38:40) As I said, I I already knew that school was very hard for me and that everybody in my family, they're you know, my father was a lawyer.
(38:52) They're all kind of, like, university type intellectual people.
(38:58) I also you know, I could read before I went to school, so I was at a lot of intellectual interests.
(39:04) And then I couldn't do I couldn't, like, do schoolwork.
Anna
(39:08) So that was very I already knew that I had that problem, and I already knew that I was disorganized, and I already knew that I was, like, as a person, you know, that my brothers were much cooler.
(39:24) Like, I was always the sort of problem child, if you know what I mean, like tantrums type.
(39:30) But I thought I was gonna get it together.
(39:33) And the thing that got me into sort of mental health care was actually that I had OCD as well, and that was, like, the main thing.
(39:44) I mean, I had it when I was very little as well when we lived in Zimbabwe, but it went away.
Anna
(39:49) And then as the sort of demands and the stress became more it became heavier in high school, like and I knew that I couldn't cut it.
(39:59) I started with these behaviors of, like, reward and punishment.
(40:03) Like, if you read a page, you can have, an M and M.
(40:06) If you do this, then you can end with good luck and bad luck.
(40:10) Like, if you get good karma, you won't fail the test or stuff like that Mhmm.
Anna
(40:16) Which escalated enormously.
(40:18) So I didn't really think that focus attention that those were kind of core problems.
(40:26) And at that time, you know, I still was able to get good grades sometimes.
(40:32) But then when I developed more kind of obsessiveness I mean, it started off, like, super innocently.
(40:40) I had an apple before I went to school, and then that day went well.
Anna
(40:45) So then I got into, like, okay.
(40:47) So if you have an apple every day before you go to school, it's gonna be good.
(40:50) If you wear this t shirt, it's gonna be good.
(40:53) And then it was into colors, and then it was, oh, I have to put the t I have to get the right t shirt on with the right feeling.
(41:02) And if it's not the right feeling, I have to do it again.
Anna
(41:04) So I was getting up, you know, at four in the morning to get dressed, same shirt on and off, and then there's lucky shirts and unlucky shirts, and then you can't wear two lucky shirts in a row.
(41:13) So this became, like, a huge thing.
Brian
(41:17) And
Anna
(41:18) I forced my father to get up at four in the morning to watch me get dressed because if someone else like, you can share the burden, you know, it was horrible, horrible.
(41:28) And then it got into food because I was still doing this apple thing, and then I couldn't eat certain color apples.
(41:36) Oh my god.
(41:37) You and then you, you know, some some apples have, like, red apples because red can in this fucked up system sorry for the language.
(41:47) Right.
Anna
(41:48) Some colors are lucky, some are unlucky.
(41:51) So their apples, you know, there's not, like, one monochrome.
(41:54) They have different shades.
Brian
(41:55) Yes.
Anna
(41:56) Yes.
(41:56) You have to be super careful that you don't get the wrong shade.
(41:59) So I was, like, deeper and deeper in this.
(42:02) And eggs, you can only eat, like, yellow and the white and horrible, horrible.
(42:07) And because I all also had done some things that I think were not OCD related, which were like, I started smoking, and then it's like, if you read 10 pages, you can have a cigarette.
Anna
(42:18) If you you know, like, this type of system.
(42:21) And so I thought, you can eat after you do something.
(42:24) That's the reward.
(42:26) So I couldn't eat before eleven.
(42:27) Because if you're hungry, it just makes you not, like, dizzy and unfocused.
Anna
(42:32) But if you're starving, I think that's why people like, you know, intermittent fasting and stuff.
(42:38) It gives you, like, a high.
(42:39) And I went to school and I hadn't eaten for, like, I don't know, thirteen, fourteen hours, something like that.
(42:48) And I just felt like, oh my god.
(42:51) I can understand everything.
Anna
(42:53) I'm in the madame pay, like, French class.
(42:56) I'm like, oh my god.
(42:57) I understand everything.
(42:58) I'm sitting here watching the blackboard, absorbing information still, and I I don't feel I feel great.
(43:09) I I feel wonderful.
Anna
(43:10) I think so that that is some kind of, like, my first kind of, like, dopamine experience.
(43:20) You know, I get it when I'm that's why I think, you know, I get it when I'm running after a while, like, oh, I can think.
(43:25) So so that type of of feeling, I I became addicted to it.
(43:30) And then, of course, it became kind of like an eating well, I was an eating disorder in the sense that I was so addicted to the feeling that I didn't have to worry.
(43:44) It was just quiet in the mind.
Anna
(43:47) And so and also, I had to you know, I couldn't leave cross I don't know what you call it in the door of the threshold.
(43:55) Like, I couldn't cross the threshold.
(43:57) I was just, like, repeating it over and over and over.
Brian
(43:59) Oh, yeah.
Anna
(43:59) And I couldn't go to school anyway.
(44:01) I then was hospitalized because of this, which was great.
(44:08) Because I mean, it was horrible.
(44:11) But
Brian
(44:12) It was necessary.
Anna
(44:14) Yeah.
(44:14) And I felt like, again, because someone said to me because I was I mean, all of this obviously, when I think back now how's this crazy stuff that you're doing, you know, you don't notice that you're losing your mind.
(44:31) It goes slowly, and in the end, you you can't get it back.
(44:35) It was a lot of it had to do with, I wanna I'm just gonna if I if I get all this right, I'm gonna be able to pass the IB.
(44:43) That was, like, my only sort of get pass the IB and get a boyfriend.
Anna
(44:47) That's everything that is I nothing more.
(44:50) I noticed, like, I'm not gonna make it.
(44:53) I'm not gonna cut it.
(44:53) I'm not gonna get it.
(44:54) And someone said to me, listen, if you continue this behavior, you might have to drop out of school.
Anna
(45:00) You you probably they wouldn't let you go back.
(45:02) And I just thought, well, who that would be my ticket away.
(45:07) I I won't have to go.
(45:09) So I was super happy to be hospital.
(45:12) I mean, I was already, like, super sick, but I was really happy to be out of school.
Anna
(45:19) And and then I was in the Hospital Continental for about, I think, three months.
(45:27) First month this is also ages ago.
(45:31) I mean, I don't think they would do this now, but they didn't let you go out.
(45:35) You can have visitors.
(45:36) So it's like all alone Oh, with a per a minder.
Anna
(45:40) So they take you to the bathroom, they take you to shower, like, very
Brian
(45:44) Oh, my god.
Anna
(45:44) Guantanamo style.
(45:46) Yeah.
(45:47) But in a way, also kind of relaxing.
(45:51) You know what mean?
(45:52) Like, I can't take responsibility I I can't.
Anna
(45:54) And then I started to get visitors from, like, the second month and so on, and I had some my parents came, but they only came to the, like, Kolok.
(46:09) There was, like, a, you know, like, meeting.
Brian
(46:11) Yeah.
(46:12) Yeah.
(46:13) I've been in
Anna
(46:13) the Yeah.
Brian
(46:14) You've Yeah.
Anna
(46:14) Yeah.
(46:14) Yeah.
(46:15) Yeah.
(46:15) You also.
(46:16) So they only came to that.
Anna
(46:17) They didn't came come to see me because it was at that time, it was kind of thought that one of the maybe we'll get to that, but one of the sort of it was never explained to me.
(46:28) Like, what is the name of your illness?
(46:30) What is the prognosis?
(46:31) What is the treatment?
(46:32) And and the one of the things was that I was too attached to my father, you know, because I think he knew that I had issues.
Anna
(46:42) So he was very, very helpful, like a champion.
(46:45) He got me into, like, private tutoring and helped me.
(46:48) I mean, even in adulthood, more than maybe you would, another child.
(46:53) And it was thought that the reason that I was in this situation was because I had been too sort of spoiled by my father.
(47:00) So they thought that he if he I should distance myself from him and that would cure me, which was like
Brian
(47:08) Yeah.
(47:08) It sounds
Anna
(47:08) like is like a while ago.
Brian
(47:10) Yeah.
(47:10) Yeah.
Anna
(47:11) And I remember the doctor even said to my father is like, my dad is and my my dad is like, What do you mean?
(47:25) It's like a child.
(47:26) What do you mean?
(47:27) And it's like, you know, she is into attention and she, you know, you should not smother her.
(47:33) You know, that was, like, the vibe.
Brian
(47:34) Gee.
(47:36) Horrible.
(47:36) Horrible.
Anna
(47:37) Yeah.
(47:37) I mean, now I think it's horrible, but I didn't really think anything of it then.
(47:41) You know?
(47:42) I was, like, in my own bubble.
(47:43) Like, I didn't really mean anything.
Anna
(47:46) And and I had a few people, like Nina and Mariska and Antonio came to visit me.
(47:52) But then it's like, what do you say?
(47:54) You know what I mean?
Brian
(47:55) Yeah.
(47:55) Yeah.
(47:56) Yeah.
Anna
(47:56) Yeah.
(47:57) I had been to school.
(47:58) I don't think it was noticed much that I
Brian
(48:01) That was in in twelfth grade?
Anna
(48:03) I think this is in twelfth grade, like, yeah.
(48:05) At the end.
(48:05) Because when I when we went on
Brian
(48:06) So we were we were away both
Anna
(48:08) of us were away from
Brian
(48:09) school at the same time because I don't remember, like, I don't remember this.
Anna
(48:14) Because when I went on that trip I don't know because I I I had heard that you weren't away, so you probably went before me.
(48:21) When we went on that trip, I was just recently you know, I was still sleeping in the hospital, like, two Yeah.
(48:26) Two nights a week at that time.
(48:28) So I was just recently released.
Brian
(48:30) So you you you were you were in the clinic.
(48:33) It was in Ashuges.
(48:34) Was it, like, in Bel Air or Belidu, or was it at the main hospital?
Anna
(48:40) Main hospital.
Brian
(48:41) Yeah.
(48:41) Yeah.
(48:41) Because they had they do have, like, a maybe it was different back then, but in the emergency psychiatric unit Okay.
(48:48) In the main hospital.
(48:50) But then for all psychiatry patients, it's a bit outside, like, more of a what you would imagine as a rehab center.
Anna
(48:59) Oh, no.
(49:00) This is like a tall white building in the same
Brian
(49:02) So that's the hospital.
(49:03) Yeah.
(49:03) Yeah.
Anna
(49:04) Yeah.
(49:04) Mhmm.
Brian
(49:04) Yeah.
(49:05) Okay.
(49:06) So so you were there three months.
Anna
(49:08) Yeah.
(49:10) And and you were in the other clinic or not, or you're at home?
(49:13) Or where were you?
Brian
(49:14) Let's see.
(49:15) I was at home initially.
(49:17) Mhmm.
(49:18) Because it was very related to academics.
(49:20) I mean, it was the moment yeah.
Brian
(49:22) It was the moment where I felt that I might not make it the IB.
(49:27) I wasn't doing well in math, and and and, you know, I I just I felt like I was being too far behind.
(49:34) And and like you, in a way, sometimes I could overachieve and and and do extremely well, and sometimes I was, like, at the bottom because I just couldn't grasp it.
(49:44) And and because I then because it's like, okay.
(49:47) Get your act together.
Brian
(49:48) And and and and so I did.
(49:52) I tried, and I tried by paying more attention in class Mhmm.
(49:57) In attempts that failed because the because in my math class, it was very rowdy.
Anna
(50:04) Okay.
Brian
(50:04) And there were there
Anna
(50:05) were four girls in French side or
Brian
(50:08) Yes.
Anna
(50:08) With us?
Brian
(50:08) Yeah.
(50:10) And I was actually it's funny you mentioned accountants because I was very good with numbers.
(50:14) I've always been good with numbers.
(50:17) I do have a logical Mhmm.
(50:19) Very logical side to my to to me.
Brian
(50:23) And I think it it it's like if I'm zoned into numbers, it kind of it's a bit reassuring in a way.
(50:29) Mhmm.
(50:30) But I started sucking at math as we had more formulas and stuff like that.
(50:36) But so I was trying to pay more attention, and and and I had more and more frequently these ang angry anger outbursts.
Anna
(50:45) Okay.
Brian
(50:46) And they were mostly contained at school, but I could get pretty mean.
(50:52) And it wasn't it wasn't mean spirited, but it was, like, shouting.
(50:56) You know?
(50:56) Like, really, like, it's somebody who's not behaving, and I like, You know?
(51:02) It was, like, really the French in me would come out.
Anna
(51:05) Mhmm.
Brian
(51:05) And and mostly the other kids were cool with it because it was part of me.
(51:09) But then there was this one incident in class where it was at the beginning of cell phones.
(51:14) And so four girls in our class had cell phones.
(51:18) And before everybody else
Anna
(51:20) poverty stricken girls.
Brian
(51:21) No.
(51:21) Definitely not.
(51:22) Definitely not.
(51:24) And I I won't say their names, and, actually, they're they're I'm still in touch with them, and they're friends.
(51:30) They're they're not friends I see often, but but we had done our since fourth grade, actually, most of them.
Brian
(51:39) But those four were, like, really just calling each other and laughing and not caring.
(51:45) And the the the impression that I had at that moment was that they don't give a shit if they fail because their lives are Yeah.
(51:53) Are are set.
(51:54) Just seemed like it didn't it didn't matter for them if they failed or or not.
(51:57) Yeah.
Brian
(51:57) And and and, you know, and and I just completely lost it.
(52:02) I just yelled at them really I don't remember what I said, but, like, everything came out in class.
(52:09) Wow.
(52:10) And at first, people were laughing and, you know, a bit you know, they were I remember they were going like, bye.
(52:16) Yeah.
Brian
(52:16) And bye.
(52:17) Yeah.
(52:17) And, Brian, what the hell is going?
(52:18) Like, I had I had pretty much the whole class on my side.
(52:23) But because it was entertaining and it was, like, kind of, oh, Brian is losing it.
Brian
(52:29) Yeah.
(52:29) Tell him, man.
(52:30) And I remember telling one girl, I said, if you, like, if you say another word, I'm taking your school back and I'm throwing it with your cell.
(52:39) I'm taking no.
(52:40) I'm taking your cell phone, and I'm throwing it out the window.
Anna
(52:43) What a
Brian
(52:44) And I remember the look on her face was like, what's going on?
(52:48) Yeah.
(52:49) And Bora, who was a friend from from fourth grade, and we were in the student council together, and she was like, in
Anna
(52:56) my German class, but I was afraid to be I was afraid to speak to her.
(53:00) Yeah.
Brian
(53:00) Bora Weiss.
(53:01) Yeah.
(53:01) Bora Weiss.
(53:02) Weiss.
(53:02) Bora was German.
Brian
(53:03) Mhmm.
(53:03) And she knew me more than any other girl in the class.
(53:08) And I remember, like, kinda saw that something was wrong.
(53:12) Yeah.
(53:12) And and and, like, after class, kind of had asked, like, you know, what's going on?
Brian
(53:17) Uh-huh.
(53:18) But that moment and and the teacher, mister Thelma, who was a super nice teacher, he totally understood.
(53:24) He like, there were already signs, I think, that I had I had missed school maybe one week, maybe two weeks Mhmm.
(53:29) Here and there.
(53:31) So he was aware that I was just not super well.
Brian
(53:35) And and I got out of that class, and, like, I think I slammed the door and, like, had this huge outburst.
(53:42) And then I didn't return to I didn't return to class.
(53:46) And I I stayed in my bedroom and just I would only get out of my bedroom to go eat, to or when the house emptied and, like, if my dad, my mom my brother was off to college already.
(54:00) Yeah.
(54:00) But if they weren't in the house, then I'd go down and and watch TV or play video games.
Brian
(54:05) But the rest of the time, I stayed in my room.
Anna
(54:07) Do you feel that you were, like, depressed or ashamed?
(54:10) Or, like, I'm gonna go I'm never gonna go back?
Brian
(54:13) Or Yeah.
(54:14) Because I'm saying.
(54:15) It's like every day that I miss school
Anna
(54:18) Yeah.
Brian
(54:18) I it was, like, falling behind even more.
Anna
(54:22) Yeah.
(54:22) It's harder to
Brian
(54:22) get there.
(54:23) So it became you know, at first, was maybe okay, maybe a week, maybe two weeks, but it became clear.
Anna
(54:30) This is super I just.
(54:32) My daughter came home.
(54:33) Can I pause?
(54:34) I'll I'll
Brian
(54:34) Yes.
(54:35) Yes.
(54:35) Yes.
(54:35) Yes.
(54:35) Let's pause.
Brian
(54:36) Do
Anna
(54:39) you wanna say hi?
(54:40) Yeah.
(54:41) He's from Switzerland.
(54:42) You can say hi.
Brian
(54:43) Yay.
(54:43) Hello.
(54:44) Hello.
(54:44) Nice to meet you.
Anna
(54:45) Good day at work.
(54:46) It was very great.
(54:47) She can she can speak a little bit of English.
Brian
(54:50) Good.
Anna
(54:51) Yeah.
(54:51) But she's she's very good.
(54:52) She's very good.
(54:52) She's great.
(54:53) Yeah.
Anna
(54:53) I got an a.
(54:54) You got an a.
Brian
(54:54) Yeah.
(54:55) Way to go.
Anna
(54:55) My mom has told me very much about you and your publicity.
(54:58) It's very interesting because Oh, She hears me listen.
(55:02) Doesn't let me see any of the yearbook photos.
(55:04) So
Brian
(55:05) Really?
Anna
(55:06) Yeah.
(55:07) Wow.
(55:07) Well, maybe work on that.
(55:11) Work on that.
(55:12) Okay.
Anna
(55:12) Listen.
(55:13) I'll see you in, like, two minutes.
(55:15) We're talking about your deep depression, and then I just interrupted you.
Brian
(55:27) Hey.
(55:27) It's live.
(55:28) Because at at that time, the things that were going on with my life, and I Mhmm.
(55:33) You know some of it from Morgan's podcast.
(55:36) But Yeah.
Brian
(55:37) My brother's off to college.
(55:38) It's not going great between my parents.
(55:41) That in itself was on on on my mind, I guess, quite a bit.
(55:45) Then going through adolescence and what you said about the IB and a boyfriend, I kind of felt the same way.
(55:53) For me, the the objectives were, like, yeah, to be loved and to pass my IB.
Brian
(55:59) I felt that both were impossible, actually.
(56:04) And, and then the the third thing was a bit the the, yeah, the solution of, sports because I loved sports, and sport was the outlet for me.
(56:17) And I played basketball.
(56:18) I played baseball.
(56:19) I was I was good in sports.
Brian
(56:21) And in basketball, I just had reached my my limit in in, and I I whereas I was very good when I was younger and getting a lot of playing time, suddenly the basketball ended.
(56:33) So Mhmm.
(56:34) There's all these things.
(56:36) And then, yeah, it's just that outburst.
(56:38) And and I don't know if it was, like, technically depression, but I know I had phases, I guess, being depressed as a, like, a Yeah.
Brian
(56:47) How do you call that?
(56:48) Child depress or, like
Anna
(56:50) Well, I think it just depression.
Brian
(56:52) Mean, maybe depression.
(56:53) Yeah.
(56:53) But, you know, I I mean, I wasn't treated for it.
(56:56) I don't think I had seen any psychologists at that time.
(57:01) I think my grandmother, who was very in tune with education and and with psychology.
Brian
(57:08) And I was able to talk to her about it, and she had gone through it.
(57:14) So I think there was that sense that I was aware of what depression was, but I was I was listening to just, like, fucking sad music all the time.
(57:24) You know?
(57:25) Like, my
Anna
(57:26) Most of the music was very sad also in those
Brian
(57:28) Yeah.
(57:29) The '9 like, the nineties was, like Good
Anna
(57:31) time good time to be depressed.
Brian
(57:32) The grunge, pour it all out, and and and all of this.
(57:37) So so, yeah, that was sort of my life was my escape was music and and and listening over and over again to those depressing songs that made me feel better.
(57:48) I mean, it it it sort of I I welcome that that melancholy.
(57:53) You know?
(57:53) I it's like it's emotion hyper being hypersensitive.
Brian
(57:57) Yeah.
(57:57) So that sort of that feeling of of being on the verge of, like, crying and and thinking about life after death or about dying, really.
(58:06) And Mhmm.
(58:07) Were things that were were there.
(58:10) And so when I locked myself sort of in my room and then and I I was having sleeping problems also.
Brian
(58:17) That was another thing is I was I was sleep deprived.
(58:21) Mhmm.
(58:21) But at the time, I felt that I was just that it was all my, you know, my doing, that it was Mhmm.
(58:27) Just my fault and being lazy and disorganized.
(58:31) It's
Anna
(58:32) sorry to interrupt you, but I was I just one thing that you said about that incident in the class that resonates with me that that you seem to not be doing good work, and then you get annoyed with other people for not taking it seriously.
(58:47) Like, the the results of your effort is like, you make so much of an effort.
(58:53) It's so burdensome just to be in the room, to just listen to to take that stupid note in the a five notebook to copy the formula.
(59:02) It just takes all the calories, the energy that you have.
(59:07) And then even though it seems like this is a person who doesn't turn in their assignment and whatever, and then you see other people just wasting it, you know, that that they Yeah.
Anna
(59:16) Yeah.
(59:16) Totally.
(59:17) It's I I I kind of relate very strongly to that.
(59:20) It's like, I try so hard.
(59:22) You can't see it.
Anna
(59:23) You can't see that I made an effort because you gave me a bad grade or I didn't get it, but, like, I'm so trying.
(59:31) I really wanna do this well.
Brian
(59:32) And and that's what we would get on our report cards.
Anna
(59:35) Yeah.
Brian
(59:35) Yeah.
(59:35) Was that if they apply themself if you apply yourself more, you'd you'd achieve success.
(59:43) So we will not
Anna
(59:44) doing anything else than applying myself.
Brian
(59:45) Exactly.
(59:46) Yeah.
Anna
(59:47) In that sense, kind of support your tantrum or, like,
Brian
(59:50) you know, instead of it.
(59:51) But,
Anna
(59:52) what did your parents say?
Brian
(59:54) They were super super concerned for me.
(59:58) Yeah.
(59:58) Of course.
(59:59) I mean, they knew that I was sensitive and that I I don't remember if we talked about depression at the time, but they, like, they knew that I think on a human level, they knew how to handle it, but but they, you know, they didn't have answers for me, but they were trying.
(1:00:15) They were talking to teachers for the first time in my life, which they had never done previously, really.
Brian
(1:00:21) You know, they wanted to help me for sure.
(1:00:24) The first time so they called an emergency psychiatrist, I think, because I wasn't sleeping.
(1:00:30) That was the Okay.
(1:00:31) Yeah.
(1:00:31) And because I was having these anger outbursts Yeah.
Brian
(1:00:34) Well, that's the other thing is that I would turn my room inside out, like, break everything in my
Anna
(1:00:40) Oh, okay.
Brian
(1:00:41) Bedroom.
(1:00:41) So it's like this crazy child in his bedroom, like, just explodes for I don't even remember what the triggers were.
(1:00:51) Mhmm.
(1:00:52) But then somebody came, and she like, my mom called like, my mom got really worried, so somebody, like, an emergency I don't know if she was a psychiatrist.
(1:01:02) I guess she was.
Brian
(1:01:03) And she comes and they knock on the door, and I was in bed.
(1:01:07) And I didn't want her to be there.
(1:01:10) I would, you know, close the the shades.
(1:01:13) I was in the the day.
(1:01:14) Darkness.
Brian
(1:01:15) And she comes in, says a word, and I'm, like, not looking at her, but I let her come in.
(1:01:21) And then she tries to talk to me, and I wasn't really answering.
(1:01:25) And she said a couple things.
(1:01:26) She said, well, can you sit down?
(1:01:29) You know, it's the correct thing to do is to sit like, basically, she had said, like
Anna
(1:01:35) Etiquette etiquette issues.
Brian
(1:01:36) Yeah.
(1:01:36) And Immediately.
(1:01:37) And, like, what the fuck?
(1:01:39) You're supposed to help me.
(1:01:42) And and and she said that I exploded.
Brian
(1:01:47) And I was like, get the fuck out of here.
(1:01:49) Just fucking get me sleeping pills.
(1:01:52) That I think that was the thing is I just wanted something to sleep at that time.
(1:01:56) Then they gave me, like, my first antidepressants.
(1:02:00) And
Anna
(1:02:01) Was it helpful?
Brian
(1:02:02) I think the sleeping thing, like, helped the antidepressant.
(1:02:06) I don't think the first one I really felt anything.
(1:02:11) There was this weird period with with summer where I started feeling I I started feeling better when school stopped because I I wasn't missing school anymore.
(1:02:20) Yeah.
(1:02:20) You know?
Brian
(1:02:21) And I I still wasn't happy or had any resolution on how I'd get out of that.
(1:02:29) But mister Alfie, madam Vignon Ribal, and mister Talmar, the math teacher in his class exploded, they all reached out to me.
(1:02:39) I saw I'm gonna cry if I think about it, but they sent me letters.
(1:02:43) And Oh, wow.
(1:02:44) Yeah.
Brian
(1:02:45) Yeah.
(1:02:45) Such and I and I actually, when I was looking for those those photos and report cards, I found the letters.
(1:02:51) Because that's one thing that even though I would get those things on my report card, the the teachers were always very complimentary about about me as a person.
(1:03:03) And I think they knew that I was, like, hypersensitive and that Yeah.
(1:03:07) You know?
Brian
(1:03:07) They talked with my parents, and they said, don't worry.
(1:03:11) Brian, you know, like, focus on his well-being, and then Yeah.
(1:03:16) Then he'll have an opportunity to to pass, twelfth grade, you know, when he's ready, basically.
(1:03:23) Wow.
(1:03:24) So yeah.
Anna
(1:03:25) What did you say to your friends?
Brian
(1:03:28) They they were there for me, but maybe it's a guy thing also.
(1:03:32) You just don't don't, like, really talk about feelings that much.
(1:03:36) And and
Anna
(1:03:38) But sometimes that's a good thing.
(1:03:40) I mean, I think about my brothers that they were like, you know, I don't need the TED talk of everything inside you.
(1:03:47) Let's just let's just go out.
Brian
(1:03:49) Yeah.
(1:03:49) Exactly.
(1:03:50) Yeah.
Anna
(1:03:50) Because I was thinking, like, when I got the visit from friends from school in the hospital, I felt like I mean, I was very touched that they would come to see me, of course.
(1:04:01) But it's like, what can you say?
(1:04:02) You know?
(1:04:03) Like, I was a normal you know, we were talking about the stuff that was important to us, was the IB and finding a boyfriend.
(1:04:12) And maybe my method, obviously, was ineffect ineffective, but but, you know, it's and and and then in that context, it's like, I'm here.
Anna
(1:04:27) I'm dressed in this, you know, you you the hospital type outfit.
(1:04:31) Oh, yeah.
(1:04:32) And it's like, I don't know how to reach you, and this is so weird.
(1:04:36) Like, I would love to see you in town or something to do something else.
(1:04:41) It also seems like it's not really you.
Anna
(1:04:43) You know what I mean?
(1:04:44) It is you, but it's not but I have to say one of those things.
(1:04:47) Now I'm thinking maybe I should donate CHF5,000 to Evelyn because those teachers, like, how they reached out to you and also I have a lot of similar things.
(1:04:57) It's like, it's not the common way.
(1:05:00) Like, it's not all schools And are like I had with missus Desmet, if you know, who was a Yes.
Anna
(1:05:07) Biology teacher.
Brian
(1:05:08) Yeah.
(1:05:09) I remember.
(1:05:10) Yeah.
Anna
(1:05:10) And as I said, I was there.
(1:05:12) I was there.
(1:05:12) So so three months, you know, when you're, like, that age is at that time, a week is enormous amount of time.
(1:05:20) And so I I almost forgot about school.
(1:05:23) It's like you you you think you'll never be back there.
Anna
(1:05:26) And I had visitors.
(1:05:27) I had one visit from my friends, and then I had, you know, my parents my father came to those meetings, like, once a week or something.
Brian
(1:05:34) Mhmm.
(1:05:34) Mhmm.
Anna
(1:05:35) And then I got a visit from missus Desmet.
(1:05:38) Came to visit me in the hospital, and I was so shocked.
(1:05:43) You are here.
(1:05:45) And she brought me flowers.
(1:05:46) The thing is I had never thought about studying any you know, I wanted to go to university, so that was always even since I was a child, it was my dream.
Anna
(1:05:56) The unfortunate thing is you have to study to get there.
(1:05:58) I just wanted to be in uni like, didn't want
Brian
(1:06:00) to do Yes.
Anna
(1:06:02) And I felt like I can never do any profession, and I thought I'm not gonna I mean, even when I was in primary school, I thought, you know, we had prefects, and in sixth grade, you can get to be a prefect if you're a good girl.
(1:06:16) And I thought, won't live to see sixth grade.
(1:06:19) Like, I will never I I will never I'm already exhausted from first grade.
(1:06:25) How can I do six years?
(1:06:27) It's unfathomable.
Anna
(1:06:28) I'll never do that.
(1:06:30) I'll never be an adult.
(1:06:31) Like, I I thought I knew I can't be.
(1:06:34) That's why my father has to do everything for me because I I can't be like an independent person.
(1:06:39) So I never thought, like, I all my dreams I mean, of course, like, if you're a teenage girl, you would think, like, oh, I'm gonna marry, like, a king or something.
Anna
(1:06:48) But I thought if I marry a king, I'll have an assistant.
(1:06:52) You know what I mean?
(1:06:52) Like, if I I'll get I knew Madonna had an assistant, so I thought that's great.
(1:06:58) I'll just have to be, like, an enormous pop star, and then I'll get help.
(1:07:03) But at that time, I had nothing to do in the ward except for sit there with my minder, and then they had, and I watched TV because I had television.
Brian
(1:07:11) Yes.
Anna
(1:07:12) And then they had started showing that ER.
(1:07:14) It was like.
Brian
(1:07:16) Yes.
(1:07:16) I remember that.
(1:07:17) Yeah.
Anna
(1:07:17) And I started watching it.
(1:07:18) I'm like, oh, this seems pretty cool.
(1:07:21) It's, like, happening, and there's all this exciting stuff going on.
(1:07:24) And I was already in a hospital, so I felt like I could just stay here and just start working.
(1:07:29) I just felt like, oh, this is might be a good life.
Anna
(1:07:32) Anyway, then missus De Smet came.
(1:07:35) I was super shocked, and I wasn't really good in anything.
(1:07:38) You know what I mean?
(1:07:39) And she said, I miss you in class.
(1:07:41) I'm like, really?
Anna
(1:07:42) What?
(1:07:42) Why?
(1:07:43) I'm I'm I'm, like, not really contributing anything to this class.
(1:07:47) And she said, I think you could do really well.
(1:07:51) I think you should come back to school because you could really do something.
Anna
(1:07:55) You have potential.
(1:07:56) I mean, I always heard that that, oh, if you do this, you'll be good enough or you're almost there, which was also my idea.
(1:08:03) But I never heard anybody say, like, you could really be talented.
(1:08:09) And and I told her I was watching this show, and she said, I thought I think you should study medicine.
(1:08:12) And I said, what?
Anna
(1:08:13) I'm failing I'm failing everything.
(1:08:15) I can't do math because I also later on find out I have this, like it's called, like, dyscalculia.
(1:08:22) I think it's when you can't it's like dyslexia for numbers.
(1:08:24) Oh.
(1:08:25) So I can't do math.
Anna
(1:08:27) I can't do biology.
(1:08:28) I can't do I hate sciences.
(1:08:29) I hate form of and and and I'm I'm socially awkward.
(1:08:33) Like, how am I gonna do medicine?
(1:08:35) And she says, no.
Anna
(1:08:35) I think you could really do well because you can solve a problem that seems relevant to you and you're socially intense and that's what you need to do.
(1:08:48) I I think that would be very useful.
(1:08:51) And I had never heard anybody talk about those traits in a positive way.
(1:08:59) You know what I mean?
(1:09:00) Yeah.
Anna
(1:09:01) And she reminded me she that one time she wrote, like, a problem on the board that wasn't intended to I mean, I always didn't really know what the homework was, but it wasn't a homework assignment.
(1:09:12) I thought it was an assignment.
(1:09:15) And and I did it.
(1:09:16) And she said, no.
(1:09:17) It's not an assignment.
Anna
(1:09:18) It's just, you know, we start the term off with a question and we're gonna do a lot of experiments to discover the answer.
(1:09:26) And I just went home and I solved it.
(1:09:29) And she said, if you think that the problem is interesting and you're into it, I know you're a strong, like, thinker.
(1:09:38) Yep.
(1:09:39) And when you're emotionally engaged, you can do it.
Anna
(1:09:41) And if you were in a hospital, you would be great.
(1:09:46) And so Wow.
(1:09:48) I mean, it's not the main reason why I chose it, but then I started to think, like, really?
(1:09:53) Could I be could I have a job even?
(1:09:57) Yep.
Anna
(1:09:57) I thought I would never have a job.
(1:09:59) Like, I could have a job, and I could have a cool job, and I could do a job well, like, I could be good at a job.
(1:10:06) It never occurred to me that that could happen.
(1:10:09) So that type of teacher was, you know, not nothing.
Brian
(1:10:13) Wow.
(1:10:14) That's fascinating.
Anna
(1:10:15) Isn't it?
Brian
(1:10:16) That's so cool that she expressed that.
Anna
(1:10:19) And it's also that she sees you.
Brian
(1:10:21) She sees yeah.
(1:10:22) Yeah.
(1:10:23) Yeah.
(1:10:23) Yeah.
(1:10:23) Yeah.
Anna
(1:10:24) I'm like the the the not stand I mean, I was I was in class with Lakshmi who also you know?
Brian
(1:10:33) Yeah.
(1:10:34) So 1,600, like, perfect score on her SATs.
(1:10:38) I remember that.
Anna
(1:10:39) So it's like, why would I be something?
(1:10:41) You know what I mean?
(1:10:42) And and I think the same for you.
(1:10:43) They noticed you because those tantrums and the things that you're describing, you have a very sort of, like, kind and core aura.
(1:10:52) You know what I mean?
Anna
(1:10:53) Like, you don't come across as, like, a choleric person at all, I think.
(1:10:57) Yeah.
Brian
(1:10:59) Which is also why it surprises people, I think.
Anna
(1:11:02) Yeah.
(1:11:02) Yeah.
Brian
(1:11:02) I do lose my shit.
(1:11:04) But that's really interesting about Madame Desmette.
(1:11:09) And and and so she she went to see you.
Anna
(1:11:13) She went to see me.
Brian
(1:11:14) So the first month, you don't see anybody.
Anna
(1:11:16) I don't see anybody.
Brian
(1:11:18) And you felt I mean, that must have been so difficult.
(1:11:21) No?
(1:11:21) Or or what was there what you said you had mentioned there was a bit of relief because you were in the hospital, and so that it's, like, validates maybe a bit not
Anna
(1:11:31) being so to poor.
(1:11:33) Be it was a relief to be out of school.
Brian
(1:11:35) Yeah.
Anna
(1:11:35) Yeah.
(1:11:36) Yeah.
(1:11:36) Yeah.
(1:11:36) I mean, I would have committed suicide to get out of school.
(1:11:39) Like, I Yep.
Anna
(1:11:39) Yep.
(1:11:40) I mean, people could ask you, like, why did you then go on to do, like, the longest Yes.
(1:11:46) Education that you can have?
(1:11:48) But it's not that I didn't want to learn, and I wanted to be in an academic environment.
(1:11:55) I just didn't wanna do school.
Anna
(1:11:57) I I don't know how to better express it.
(1:12:00) And I and I wasn't managing, and it was just the thing of that you described in that classroom with the girls with a cell phone.
(1:12:07) I just was making such an effort, and I can't and also I had those obsessions and everything.
(1:12:12) So every single moment is just concerned with getting it together and just I can't take it.
(1:12:19) I I'm too tired.
Anna
(1:12:21) Yeah.
(1:12:21) Exhausted.
Brian
(1:12:22) The exhaustion.
(1:12:23) Yeah.
(1:12:23) Yeah.
Anna
(1:12:24) As I said, like, I probably don't appear exhausted, and I don't know if I appeared exhausted then, but I was like, I can't you know, it's just such an effort, and I don't care.
(1:12:35) Like, then and then if someone takes you takes care of you and they strip you off your clothes and your I mean, it's very, like, humbles you a little bit.
(1:12:47) You know what I mean?
(1:12:47) It's you're not, like, really a person.
(1:12:50) In a way, it's a relief because it's like the IB doesn't exist.
Anna
(1:12:54) I don't exist.
(1:12:55) Like, everything you don't have to worry about friends.
(1:12:58) You don't have to worry about, you know, that your the key to the locker where your books are that you don't know where they are and who are you gonna talk to and how are you gonna like, everything is just like a chessboard with a 64 squares, and I couldn't cut it.
Brian
(1:13:15) Yep.
Anna
(1:13:15) So just, like, take everything away from me, and I'll just I'll do whatever.
(1:13:20) I'll, you know, I'll just do whatever.
(1:13:22) And also with the obsessions, of course, because that's very much connected to the responsibility.
(1:13:26) Like, I have to make sure that the energy is correct and everything is, like, in order.
(1:13:32) And I couldn't do that there, and I was kind of relieved.
Anna
(1:13:35) In the beginning, tremendous relief.
(1:13:38) And I thought I would never get out.
(1:13:40) I I mean, I wouldn't wasn't really interested in getting
Brian
(1:13:42) out
Anna
(1:13:42) in
Brian
(1:13:43) the beginning.
Anna
(1:13:44) I thought I'll just stay here.
(1:13:46) You know?
(1:13:46) And but then gradually, you start watching TV.
(1:13:52) You get that it's, like, small pieces of information.
(1:13:55) And then when I was gradually, like, discharged, and then I started to go to school, like, two hours a day, I think, or something.
Anna
(1:14:02) And and I noticed then that two hours a day is a lot different than eight hours a day or six hours a day.
(1:14:15) And then I was only doing, I think, you know, French or English or, you know, some some limited amount of subjects.
(1:14:22) And I felt like that's enough for me.
(1:14:26) I can I can contain it?
(1:14:27) I can do it.
Anna
(1:14:28) And then I discovered, like, I was doing pretty good.
(1:14:33) It wasn't as hard.
(1:14:35) Mhmm.
(1:14:36) But then when I was released and I was doing that and I was miss in mister Rudgery, they they they said that I was depressed.
(1:14:41) Maybe I was depressed.
Anna
(1:14:43) I don't think I mean, I know depression now to be, you know, this, like, extreme absence of joy, and I I I don't really relate to that kind of sadness feeling.
(1:14:54) I always had the access to pleasure, you know
Brian
(1:14:57) Yep.
Anna
(1:14:58) That I was able to think about things that were fun or I think they helped me maybe a little bit with anxiety that I was having.
(1:15:08) And then mister said that this is only and especially not for children, it's just to, like, control your mind or something.
(1:15:13) And I just felt like, oh my god.
Brian
(1:15:15) But did he say this, like, directly?
Anna
(1:15:20) Said it in class.
(1:15:21) In class.
Brian
(1:15:22) But was it, like, a not so subtle shot at you, you think?
Anna
(1:15:26) No.
(1:15:27) No.
(1:15:27) No.
(1:15:27) No.
Brian
(1:15:27) Oh, it was just it was just, like, a general Yeah.
(1:15:29) Yeah.
Anna
(1:15:30) Yeah.
(1:15:30) Nobody stupid comment.
(1:15:31) And I I didn't really speak to people about it.
(1:15:35) You know, I just went there, and I wasn't really told.
(1:15:37) I was just said, like, if you do these things so so I thought, well, if I just go to school and I act, you know, kind of normal or whatever, and I forget about this and don't mention the war, don't mention it, it'll just go away.
Anna
(1:15:50) It would I will never have to I'll I'll be rid of it.
(1:15:53) So I I never spoke about it.
(1:15:55) I don't think I mean, I wasn't I'm not unopen, but my ambition was to let it, like, just disappear into the distance, and I'll never have to deal with it again.
(1:16:07) And I'll just, I'll go in and try and be a success, and I'll I'll make an effort, and I'm gonna get it together.
(1:16:13) I mean, that type continued for many years after that as well.
Brian
(1:16:17) Wow.
(1:16:19) That's intense.
(1:16:20) Each story is different, but, like, the the the the thing about being hospitalized.
(1:16:27) It's funny.
(1:16:29) It's it's it's the words that are the same in French that I struggle with.
Anna
(1:16:32) Yeah.
(1:16:32) The hardest one.
Brian
(1:16:33) Because I think of them in French.
(1:16:34) So I was hospitalized later on, not not at that time.
(1:16:40) I also felt in a way that that sort of validate I don't know if it's validation, but it's that that authorized pause that it's
Anna
(1:16:50) like Yeah.
(1:16:50) Yeah.
Brian
(1:16:50) Authorized.
(1:16:51) I think what's hard when we have mental illness, or or or struggles, there's often that image that if you break an arm, you see that you have a broken arm.
(1:17:03) If you break a leg, you see that you have but, you know, if your mind in a way is, like, broken, there's no way to show it really.
(1:17:11) Mhmm.
(1:17:12) So for me, it's like being in a clinic or in a hospital is sort of like, okay.
Brian
(1:17:17) Well, the doctor is has Yeah.
(1:17:20) Made a decision or has This is not, like, me trying to seek attention.
(1:17:26) It's just, like, it's really trying to to to solve a problem.
(1:17:29) And
Anna
(1:17:31) Well well, I think that that's what you know, one of the things that mental illness is.
(1:17:37) It is that it impairs your ability to problem solve, whatever that is.
(1:17:44) You know what mean?
(1:17:45) Like, to ask for help in an effective way, to identify and conceptualize and name the problem.
(1:17:52) Those are the impairments.
Anna
(1:17:54) So when you're in it, the difficulty level of understanding and having access to what can I now do to solve these problems?
(1:18:05) And I I see that with patients all the time.
(1:18:07) They're like, oh, I noticed I wasn't paying my bills.
(1:18:10) So my strategy then was to even more avoid paying my bills and not go to work as well so that the problem increases Yeah.
(1:18:20) Instead of doing the opposite.
Anna
(1:18:22) So, you know, people who are depressed often like, oh, the solution to being lonely is to never leave the house.
(1:18:30) And I think that's sort of the common thing.
(1:18:34) And and on that topic, I was already myself practicing psychiatry when I was getting diagnosed.
(1:18:40) So by then, of course, I already knew that, like, I at least have traits of this.
(1:18:45) You know what I mean?
Anna
(1:18:47) What is the value of saying it out loud?
(1:18:51) What is the value of naming it?
(1:18:53) Like, who cares?
(1:18:54) What is the purpose of conceptualizing it?
(1:18:58) And there are many things to be said about that particular thing, but one of the reasons because I get a lot of energy when I'm pissed off.
Anna
(1:19:11) You know, I always had the same issues and it was in the beginning, it's like she does it's because she doesn't speak English.
(1:19:17) Then I learned how to speak English, but then it was like, you know, I was in Christian school.
(1:19:21) My parents were secular, so I went to bible school.
(1:19:24) Jesus doesn't help.
(1:19:25) I mean, it's good for many things, but not for this.
Anna
(1:19:28) Then it was like I moved to Sweden.
(1:19:31) Well, you can speak Swedish, but you also it's a culture shock.
(1:19:34) Then it's you're a teenager and you're too close to your father, and then it's like, well, you're a woman and, you know, what they're like complaining all the time.
(1:19:45) And then I saw this guy who said to me that you have a phobia of it's like in Swedish, it's called.
(1:19:55) It's like you're a phobia of demands or challenge or pro like obstacles.
Anna
(1:20:00) Like, you can't take you a you're you have a a phobia of difficulty.
(1:20:05) Mhmm.
(1:20:06) Like a a a weak person, you can't take in you can't take a problem when you can't have
Brian
(1:20:12) a change
Anna
(1:20:12) and stuff like that.
(1:20:14) And that kind of was the straw for me that up until then, I have bought a lot of those explanations, and I just felt like this is not true.
(1:20:27) Yeah.
(1:20:27) You know what mean?
(1:20:28) Like, I have nothing but problems.
Anna
(1:20:30) I, you know, I can't drive.
(1:20:32) I try to take a driver's license 20 times.
(1:20:35) I know what it's like to fail.
(1:20:37) I know I was, you know, five years in high school.
(1:20:40) I had failed many, many times, but I'm still living.
Anna
(1:20:43) You know what mean?
(1:20:44) Like, it's not true that I'm a weak, like
Brian
(1:20:48) Yeah.
(1:20:48) Yeah.
Anna
(1:20:49) Whiny, complaining person.
(1:20:51) I mean, complaining, yes, but it's not that I'm not resilient to anything.
Brian
(1:20:57) Yep.
Anna
(1:20:58) I gave birth to '2 seven pound babies.
(1:21:00) I can handle pain.
(1:21:01) Run five marathons.
(1:21:03) I can at the same time,
Brian
(1:21:04) like Yeah.
(1:21:04) Right on.
Anna
(1:21:04) What are you talking about?
Brian
(1:21:06) Yeah.
(1:21:06) Yeah.
Anna
(1:21:07) Yeah.
(1:21:07) What
Brian
(1:21:07) are you
Anna
(1:21:07) talking about?
(1:21:08) Don't give me this shit.
(1:21:10) I am not a weak person.
(1:21:13) Yeah.
(1:21:13) Weakness is present, of course, but it's not like that's not the thing.
Anna
(1:21:19) And also, first of all, it doesn't describe anything accurately.
(1:21:23) It doesn't predict anything.
(1:21:25) It doesn't help me.
(1:21:26) What what am I supposed to do with the information that is because you don't speak English or it's because you're this religion or that religion or your relationships are wrong.
(1:21:35) It doesn't help me.
Anna
(1:21:36) And it's also in some way a bit, I think, you know, degrading.
(1:21:43) So so that was one of the reasons why I decided to try a different path because I know I think that those things about myself sometimes, but I can't and also for my child, you know, who has similar things.
(1:22:01) Like, I can't I don't want her to be told it's because you're a girl, it's because you're whining, it's because you're complaining, it's because you're a loser.
(1:22:11) And so, yeah, I just was fed up.
Brian
(1:22:14) Yep.
(1:22:15) And that that happened at which moment?
(1:22:17) Like?
Anna
(1:22:18) I mean, this was when I was I was, like, I don't know, maybe, like, 37.
(1:22:22) Can
Brian
(1:22:23) you imagine?
Anna
(1:22:23) Okay.
(1:22:24) Old.
Brian
(1:22:25) So you were told that okay.
(1:22:27) So okay.
(1:22:28) Okay.
(1:22:28) Okay.
(1:22:29) Okay.
Anna
(1:22:29) Wow.
(1:22:29) Okay.
(1:22:30) Like an adult doing site like, you know
Brian
(1:22:34) Getting through med school.
(1:22:36) Because we skipped we we skipped
Anna
(1:22:38) that.
(1:22:38) Yeah.
Brian
(1:22:39) We we skipped that.
(1:22:40) But skipped.
(1:22:41) But it's good.
(1:22:42) It's good.
(1:22:42) And it's the the title of the podcast is, so it's
Anna
(1:22:46) This is, like, everywhere.
Brian
(1:22:47) Definitely, we're gonna have to do another recording We're gonna have do another recording.
(1:22:50) Yeah.
(1:22:50) I see.
(1:22:51) Yeah.
(1:22:51) Sure.
Anna
(1:22:51) Mine's running out.
Brian
(1:22:52) I mean, I don't wanna stop the train of thought you're in, but maybe maybe because it it should be mentioned for listeners.
(1:22:59) We didn't talk about this, but did you graduate?
(1:23:01) Like, how did you end high graduate?
Anna
(1:23:04) Yeah.
(1:23:04) Well, that's why I also think because of everything that I've done of, like, you know, working in medicine and adult life and everything, even having children and so on, doing the IB and getting out of high school is, like, my biggest achievement.
(1:23:21) I don't think I can ever top it, really.
(1:23:24) And it was super hard, but I was out of the hospital.
(1:23:28) I started going to school part time.
Anna
(1:23:31) And and then it was also a situation because I had to repeat then thirteenth grade again, so I had to do it Yep.
(1:23:39) Two times.
(1:23:41) Then I was in class with the people that who were, like, a year younger than us, which was and some of them were, like, you know, the younger siblings of your friends.
(1:23:51) So it's like, oh, here I am again, with the same I don't have to buy the books again because I already have them.
(1:23:59) And everybody had started to move away, go to college and university in different places, and so the town was kind of empty of people that I knew very well or better.
Anna
(1:24:11) And I made kind of a choice not to make that many friends, at school or hang out, and I just lived a very kind of austere, life of just going to school and doing that.
(1:24:27) In Swedish, have this verb called shatta.
(1:24:29) Like, shat means meat, like minced meat, and it's from, ice hockey.
(1:24:33) Like, you go until the opposite team is, like, either you or the opposite team is like, there's nothing left.
Brian
(1:24:40) Right?
(1:24:41) Makes so much sense.
(1:24:42) Yeah.
(1:24:43) Yeah.
(1:24:43) What is it called?
Brian
(1:24:44) Can you say it again?
(1:24:45) Shatta.
(1:24:46) Shatta.
(1:24:46) Okay.
Anna
(1:24:47) Shatta.
(1:24:47) Yeah.
(1:24:48) So it's it's it's it's became a verb.
(1:24:50) And and and so that was the thing.
(1:24:53) It's like cost it it can cost anything.
Anna
(1:24:55) I'm just this is all that I'm gonna do and everything that I have until bitter end.
(1:25:01) I'm gonna do this, and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna do calculus.
(1:25:06) You know?
(1:25:06) Like, what do those Navy SEALs?
(1:25:08) They they do stupid exercises forever and ever and ever, and they don't know the reason why.
Anna
(1:25:13) I just thought I'm just gonna do that.
(1:25:15) And I I got a 40 points on my IB in the end.
Brian
(1:25:19) No.
(1:25:20) You got 40 points at your IB.
Anna
(1:25:23) 40 points.
Brian
(1:25:23) Wow.
(1:25:24) So so for people who don't know the IB, it's, like, out
Anna
(1:25:27) of is the
Brian
(1:25:27) 42 is the max.
Anna
(1:25:29) Yeah.
Brian
(1:25:29) Wow.
(1:25:30) 40 is
Anna
(1:25:31) So seven Two two sixes and only sevens.
Brian
(1:25:35) That is amazing.
(1:25:36) After
Anna
(1:25:37) Isn't it?
Brian
(1:25:38) Feeling that you wouldn't not be able to get your IB, you you end up getting 40.
(1:25:45) Wow.
Anna
(1:25:45) And that was, in a way, oh, I can do it.
(1:25:51) And and I think that I mean, to not to sort of rain on the parade of 40 points, but I had two years.
(1:25:58) I I think that even if I hadn't had problems, like, noticed my friends who were you know, they had all the subjects at the same time.
(1:26:06) They had friends.
(1:26:07) They had stuff going on.
Brian
(1:26:08) Yes.
(1:26:09) Yes.
Anna
(1:26:09) I had, circumstances surrounding me that were helpful, and so it wasn't like a real 40 points.
(1:26:17) That's how I sometimes felt like it but it's still 40 points.
Brian
(1:26:20) Oh, it's definitely still 40 points.
(1:26:22) But I see I see what you mean.
(1:26:23) You were you you you you put yourself and you were in a nice position that it's like, okay.
(1:26:29) That's the objective.
(1:26:30) And and, like you said, not friends and yeah.
Brian
(1:26:34) Only that.
(1:26:35) Yeah.
Anna
(1:26:35) Only that.
(1:26:36) Yeah.
(1:26:36) Like a nun.
(1:26:37) You know?
(1:26:37) You just live just just just do this thing every day.
Anna
(1:26:41) Yeah.
(1:26:41) And and and also it was helpful because then I was getting out of those obsession things and it's like, you you know, you have to have something else to do.
(1:26:48) What are you gonna do ex except for your anxiety?
(1:26:52) So I just did that.
(1:26:53) Then I had already started to think about medicine and I was looking at schools outside.
Anna
(1:26:58) But I knew that, like, also with this expat type life, I thought if I don't try and live in Sweden, I'm never probably never gonna go there.
(1:27:08) I'm never gonna feel attached to any con country.
(1:27:11) So it influenced me to move back, and I kind of also was getting a feel of I'm gonna need some help to live as an adult.
(1:27:22) And I knew I had my brothers who were already, like, working, established, and that I would have a network of people around me to help me.
(1:27:33) And I discovered I had to do another year of, like, evening school after that IB.
Anna
(1:27:38) I mean, I almost shot myself in the head.
Brian
(1:27:40) Right?
(1:27:40) And tell you To to get into
Anna
(1:27:42) medical school.
(1:27:42) Medical school because, you know, you have to they you know, they did they ask you for a certain type of Yeah.
(1:27:47) It has to be chemistry and da da da.
(1:27:50) I mean, if I hadn't I I I wasn't, you know, planning ahead as you can imagine.
(1:27:56) I thought this is unreal.
Anna
(1:27:58) How much is a person gonna have to take in this lifetime?
(1:28:02) So I did that and worked in a restaurant at the same time, and then eventually I got into medicine.
(1:28:10) And the minute I got in, this is also it's it's like if you have a makeover and all of a sudden you're pretty, people start looking at you a different way.
(1:28:19) The minute I got into medical school and people ask me, what are you doing?
(1:28:23) You know, oh, I'm in medical school.
Anna
(1:28:26) They look at you as if you're a smart and organized and together person And that, oh, this is our daughter.
(1:28:33) She's almost ready.
(1:28:35) She's struggling.
(1:28:36) She's been through a rough patch, but so, like and you see the disappointment in people eyes, you know, when you tell them what you're doing.
(1:28:44) And then I just said, oh, I'm here.
Anna
(1:28:46) And I didn't have to achieve anything.
(1:28:47) I had hadn't even been to the, like, campus yet.
Brian
(1:28:50) Yep.
Anna
(1:28:50) And people starts like, oh, wow.
(1:28:52) Well, you must be a really amazing person and smart and together.
(1:28:56) And then I realized, like, oh my god, how much it affected me that sort of negative Precision.
Brian
(1:29:04) Yeah.
(1:29:04) Yeah.
Anna
(1:29:04) Yeah.
(1:29:04) Disappointment all the time from I don't think they meant anything by it.
(1:29:08) I mean, my parents were, you know, officially always very proud of me, but they were so relieved that
Brian
(1:29:15) Yeah.
Anna
(1:29:16) And I knew that I could study, and I knew that I could study if it was one thing.
(1:29:22) Like, if it wasn't a million subjects, I knew I could do things that were exciting, and I was relieved of medicine.
(1:29:34) I mean, it's it's super hard, of course, and it's a long time.
(1:29:38) But that also is relief because you don't have to worry about the IB or getting a job or filling an application.
(1:29:44) It's just like once you're there, it's like the mafia.
Anna
(1:29:48) You can't get out.
(1:29:49) It's just like you just stay in Yeah.
(1:29:52) And you you never have to do anything else.
(1:29:54) You know?
(1:29:55) You I know you can go into cardiology, whatever, but you can't be an accountant.
Anna
(1:29:59) You know, you can only and that was a relief.
(1:30:02) It's just like, just show up, do cool stuff during the day.
(1:30:06) I even was good in statistics.
(1:30:08) It's math that they make you do because I never was asked a math problem that I was interested in the answer before.
Brian
(1:30:16) Yeah.
(1:30:17) Yeah.
Anna
(1:30:18) You know, Sally has two apples.
(1:30:21) The other has like, I already hate everyone who has like, this problem is so idiotic.
(1:30:29) So it was much easier.
(1:30:32) Nothing can be harder than the IB in life.
Brian
(1:30:36) Wow.
(1:30:37) And that's something you told me when you wrote to me is that I had no idea that about the stuff that I talked about
Anna
(1:30:44) Yeah.
(1:30:44) Yeah.
Brian
(1:30:45) In writing and in my podcast.
(1:30:47) And now I'm discovering all of this.
(1:30:49) It's like and to have the self awareness of being able to think back to it and how it impacted you and what was good and less good.
(1:30:59) And but definitely the the, you know, the doctors kind of trying to find a reason.
(1:31:08) Like, that whole thing about, and and I'm very curious to have your take on this, on on the diagnosis versus is it important for you that when you're treating a patient to that you have to find a diagnose that you have to put a diagnosis or or because that was one of the issues I had was, actually, my my psychiatrist was Swedish.
Anna
(1:31:36) Really?
Brian
(1:31:37) Yeah.
(1:31:37) Yeah.
(1:31:38) Yeah.
(1:31:38) Yeah.
(1:31:38) You know, he was very helpful, actually.
Brian
(1:31:40) It's the first psych so yeah.
(1:31:41) I kept him ten years, and, you know, we got sort of the medication thing and that Mhmm.
(1:31:46) But but he was very anti he didn't like to give medication, but Mhmm.
(1:31:52) So he didn't, like, push it on me.
(1:31:54) Yeah.
Brian
(1:31:54) And he was really trying to find, like, the alcohol the alcoholism of my mom and this and that.
(1:32:01) And he was a child psychiatrist, actually.
Anna
(1:32:06) Mhmm.
(1:32:06) But
Brian
(1:32:06) we weren't really getting it just felt like we weren't really moving forward into figuring things out for me because as I got through sort of high school by doing the SATs and not going to the IB and then university and failing and ultimately going to art school and then finding my thing and finding what I'm that what I'm good at, I can be a hard worker.
(1:32:34) Then in life, I still had those those, episodes of depression, which were hard to understand,
Anna
(1:32:43) I think.
Brian
(1:32:45) It was hard to understand for me, and I I I made these connections with with things that were real, concerns, job, money, love.
(1:32:59) That's, you know, that's, those were sort of the three big ones that I felt that I I would go down really deep if Yeah.
(1:33:07) If those aspects were of concern to me.
(1:33:09) And when those things are going well, then I'm, you know, I'm high.
(1:33:13) But and that's why there was that thinking that maybe I'm bipolar.
Anna
(1:33:18) Yeah.
(1:33:18) Yeah.
Brian
(1:33:18) In your case, boy, I mean, there's so much I wanna talk about also about you going to med school, but maybe you mentioned it before, but just the ADHD thing.
Anna
(1:33:30) Yeah.
Brian
(1:33:31) Like, for you getting did you get a diagnosis on anything up until recently pretty much?
(1:33:38) Or
Anna
(1:33:39) I mean, do you mean was I diagnosed with other things other than those, like
Brian
(1:33:44) I mean, because when so when you were hospitalized in in Yeah.
(1:33:47) In Geneva, like, when when you got out of there, what like, what was was there words that were put on?
Anna
(1:33:57) No.
(1:33:57) No.
(1:33:58) No.
(1:33:58) No.
(1:33:58) No.
Anna
(1:33:58) I think I mean, I would be so interested to talk more about to you about all of these issues, which are close to my close to my heart.
(1:34:06) It sounds weird, but, like, are of particular interest to me both professionally and personally.
(1:34:13) And I think I'm also passionate because I have patience.
(1:34:17) You know what I mean?
(1:34:17) Like, they are the motivating force.
Anna
(1:34:20) Like, why can you go to work?
(1:34:22) Like, it means something to see what what is helpful to them.
(1:34:26) Mhmm.
(1:34:27) But, I never, like, associated myself with someone who was, like, a patient, you know, and it's known that doctors are the worst patients anyway.
(1:34:38) So it's, like, that's a whole other thing.
Anna
(1:34:40) But having that experience that I was never told the name of my disease, I was never told what is the prognosis, what is your what can you expect from life, what should you think about, what should you do, Nothing.
(1:34:57) Maybe my parents were told, but I also know that they were told that I was like I don't know.
(1:35:02) It's not a compliment, I don't think.
(1:35:04) Yeah.
(1:35:04) Like, that's Trisha's thing.
Anna
(1:35:05) I'm very mindful of telling patients, like, this is my opinion, and this opinion means certain things.
(1:35:15) It also is the reason why I'm going to suggest so and so treatment.
(1:35:20) And the thing that you can expect from the treatment is this and this.
(1:35:25) And if it works, you will notice it in this way.
(1:35:28) If it doesn't work, we will notice it in this way.
Anna
(1:35:32) And then the alternative so that type of conversation, I think, is very important.
(1:35:37) And in order to have that, you have to have some kind of concept.
(1:35:42) It I mean, the diagnostic system is one method by which you can have that conversation.
(1:35:49) You can say it's because your mom was an alcoholic or you were, you know, this or that or the third.
(1:35:56) But knowing that it's because your mom is an alcoholic or your parents were divorced or you're you were sad because something, whatever, doesn't really inform us of what to do with it.
Brian
(1:36:08) You
Anna
(1:36:08) know?
(1:36:08) The explanation doesn't really add very much.
(1:36:11) It doesn't help you move forward, and it doesn't help you it's an explanation that is oftentimes insufficient, I would say.
(1:36:22) So for that reason, I think personally and professionally that there is a place for using a diagnostic system.
(1:36:32) Then, of course, more often than not, people don't always fit into those categories.
Anna
(1:36:38) What do do with that?
(1:36:39) And there are things that affect us in life that are not pathological.
(1:36:44) No.
(1:36:45) I mean, the thing with OCD was so clearly that.
(1:36:48) And then later on, I was sort of medical director of the OCD center in one of the university hospitals here.
Anna
(1:36:55) And I was like, maybe this is what I had, but I was never told.
Brian
(1:37:01) Never at that moment that you
Anna
(1:37:03) Only at that.
(1:37:04) Yeah.
Brian
(1:37:05) Wow.
(1:37:06) Because we sort of, like, skipped through this, but not only did you go to med school, but, like, at what point did you did you know right away that you would go in psychiatry?
(1:37:16) Or
Anna
(1:37:17) No.
(1:37:17) I didn't I didn't know it was a profession.
(1:37:19) You know what I mean?
(1:37:20) Like, there wasn't, you know
Brian
(1:37:21) Despite despite being hospitalized for three months.
Anna
(1:37:25) Yeah.
(1:37:26) Yes.
(1:37:27) And I didn't no.
(1:37:28) But I didn't it wasn't clear to me that what I have is mental.
(1:37:31) You know?
Anna
(1:37:32) Can you imagine such a thing?
Brian
(1:37:34) Really?
(1:37:34) Yeah.
(1:37:35) Wow.
Anna
(1:37:36) Now that you say that thing with Belair and everything, I was thinking, like, maybe the reason I was there was because of the nutrition Yeah.
Brian
(1:37:42) Yeah.
(1:37:42) Yeah.
(1:37:42) Issue.
(1:37:43) That they treated it separately.
Anna
(1:37:44) Separately.
(1:37:45) Yeah.
Brian
(1:37:45) Okay.
(1:37:46) Yeah.
(1:37:46) That's probably Maybe
Anna
(1:37:47) that was Yeah.
(1:37:48) That was the reason.
(1:37:49) But I never, like, thought that I was in psychiatry.
(1:37:52) I never thought that what's going on with me is mental.
(1:37:56) I thought I'm just I don't I I don't know what I thought.
Anna
(1:38:00) I mean, it wasn't made clear to me.
(1:38:02) I just thought, like, I'm a bad person.
(1:38:05) I don't know what that means.
(1:38:06) So so I absolutely I didn't know psychiatry was a thing.
(1:38:12) When I found out what it was, I immediately thought I would be good at it because I was, you know, very attached to that emo.
Anna
(1:38:19) Yes.
(1:38:20) You know, was, like, into depressive poetry and, you know, like, emotional pain.
(1:38:27) So I thought that that's gonna suit me real.
(1:38:30) It turns out that psychiatry is like, if you hate, those blackboards filled with text, like, psychiatry in the beginning is only like diagnostic criteria and lots of texts that are so boring.
(1:38:44) You can't imagine it.
Anna
(1:38:45) When I got a so I wanted to be a surgeon, I think, initially.
(1:38:49) Every cool that's, like, the coolest thing to be.
(1:38:51) You know?
(1:38:52) But then because I wasn't I never was, like, personally ambitious in that way.
(1:38:59) Like, I wanna get a status job.
Anna
(1:39:01) You know, I I I never had those that type of competitive, trait.
(1:39:06) So and also I was, like, very lazy to get my applications and everything.
(1:39:10) So I got the least the least sort of cool job or the the one that nobody wanted to have was addiction medicine.
(1:39:20) So I thought, okay.
(1:39:21) Well, I'll just, you know, at least it's a job.
Anna
(1:39:24) At least it's a job.
(1:39:25) So I went there and I worked in a methadone program.
(1:39:29) And the I mean, this is like now made me a ized version, but the minute I walked in I mean, I had never spoken to, like, an, you know, IV drug addict before.
(1:39:42) They didn't have them in Geneva in in our school if you Mhmm.
(1:39:47) I never met those that category of person before.
Anna
(1:39:50) But pretty quickly, I was like, this is amazing.
(1:39:54) I love it.
(1:39:55) I mean, I wasn't very good, but I just felt like, I think I have a talent for speaking to, like, psychotic drug addicts.
(1:40:02) I became so interested in human behavior because a 100% of them I mean, this is like for methadone, it's heroin, the main Yeah.
(1:40:11) Kind of they use everything.
Anna
(1:40:13) A 100% of them said, I wanna get my life together.
(1:40:17) I don't wanna live under a bridge.
(1:40:19) I hate selling my body.
(1:40:21) I wanna connect with my children.
(1:40:23) I wanna, like, you know, a decent life.
Anna
(1:40:27) I would do anything to get it.
(1:40:29) And I thought, amazing.
(1:40:31) Let's make this happen.
(1:40:32) And then when you go home from work, you see them shooting up, like, five minutes away from the clinic.
(1:40:38) It just the motivation was so strong, and then they lost it.
Anna
(1:40:43) You know, it just expires so quickly.
(1:40:46) It was known that, of course, it's like what addiction is, but the attitude was very much like they have bad character, they have bad attitude, they're lazy, this is specific type of person that would allow themselves to become addicted.
(1:41:01) And it was just so obvious to me that that's not true.
(1:41:05) And I became so fascinated with when they tell me that they would do anything to get rid of the heroin addiction and they will they want to do every and then they do the opposite.
(1:41:19) Like, it's it's not a lie.
Anna
(1:41:21) I think they do want that, but it's just so hard to do it.
(1:41:25) And so that got me very much into, like, human behavior.
(1:41:28) Like, why do we act this way?
(1:41:30) And I know we have to wrap it up, but, like, going back to that tantrum in your class that you make such an effort and it doesn't show and you behave in a way that doesn't display that I'm make I'm trying so hard and I'm really engaged in this and and to be like, I was very sensitive to that.
(1:41:52) Like, I can't take it that they are considered to be lazy or there's something else going on in the brain that it's so obvious that they're sick.
Anna
(1:42:02) And so that got me into and and also I noticed that many of them were mentally ill, so I thought I better learn psychiatry to get what's why why they like, how to do something for them or to move forward.
(1:42:18) So that's was how I got into it.
Brian
(1:42:21) It's it's fascinating, really.
Anna
(1:42:24) And and I could tell you stories from, drug addicts are the best.
Brian
(1:42:29) Well, I mean, also, we when we grew up was we we we grew up in the eighties, which was, like, Reagan, like, don't do drugs.
(1:42:38) Drugs are bad.
(1:42:40) Not to say that drugs are great, but it's just that that notion that you're a fuck up if you're in into drugs.
(1:42:47) And and I find it really cool what you're saying about seeing the person probably in the moment telling you that they wanna do everything to get out of it or or or instead it's, you know, it's the truth in the moment, but then five minutes later, you see them shooting up.
(1:43:02) And Yeah.
Brian
(1:43:02) And and and to to look for reasons and and and ways and under to try to understand why and and how you can help.
(1:43:11) It's the most beautiful thing on earth.
(1:43:14) It's sort of a problem solving, but that's not, like, Mary with an apple.
(1:43:19) It's that's, yeah, really beautiful that you that you got into that.
Anna
(1:43:24) It is.
(1:43:24) And it it's also a little bit what you're doing with your with your podcast, you know, to to to try to, like, understand something about the human condition and and not be bound by what is a good idea, what is current like, to to be free, mentally.
(1:43:39) That's that's the thing that attracts me and is morally correct, I think, because we know it is known, and it has always been known that the greatest risk factor for becoming addicted to, for example, opioids, but also other narcotics, is the physical presence of the narcotics.
(1:43:59) So you don't have to be you can have child trauma and be a loser or you can be anybody you can be the president.
(1:44:06) If you are in the physical vicinity of an opioid, that increases the risk as same as anybody.
Anna
(1:44:13) And when you see them in clinic, it's very clear.
(1:44:17) It doesn't protect you to be anything.
(1:44:22) It's just like if you're exposed to it, it's dangerous.
(1:44:26) And that's sort of the thing I mean, now with the opioid crisis, it's very it it now they say, oh, it's the fault of the pharmaceutical companies.
(1:44:34) Well, maybe it is.
Anna
(1:44:35) It was always the case.
(1:44:37) People who are exposed to it, they get addicted, and it doesn't matter if you're the king of the world.
(1:44:43) Yep.
(1:44:43) You're gonna get you're gonna get stuck.
(1:44:47) And, so it has nothing to do with character and particularly not in getting away from it.
Anna
(1:44:53) It has to do with other things that you actually can identify what those factors are and address them, and that's the way that you help people.
(1:45:02) And the same with ADHD as well.
(1:45:04) If you identify the problem, you can alleviate it and you can free some energy in the world.
(1:45:10) So
Brian
(1:45:19) Wow.
(1:45:19) This is, like, very, very rich conversation.
(1:45:23) I mean, going through arriving in Geneva and Echolence and going to Grand Canaria and being hospitalized, and we didn't even talk about having children, but you've got two two beautiful twin daughters who are adults now, young adults.
Anna
(1:45:42) Young adults.
Brian
(1:45:44) Life life is full of surprises, really.
Anna
(1:45:47) It is.
Brian
(1:45:48) Really, really.
Anna
(1:45:48) And I thought I was afraid my greatest fear was, like, apart so number one, technology.
(1:45:53) Number two, I have we have there's gonna be nothing to say.
Brian
(1:45:57) Oh, I didn't I didn't worry about that.
(1:45:58) You didn't worry?
(1:45:59) Oh, no.
(1:45:59) No.
(1:46:00) No.
Brian
(1:46:00) No.
(1:46:00) No.
(1:46:00) No.
(1:46:01) No.
(1:46:01) I knew after after texting, we'd have stuff to talk about and that we wouldn't be able to cover everything.
Brian
(1:46:08) Yeah.
(1:46:08) But I'm I'm this was so cool.
(1:46:10) I don't know.
Anna
(1:46:11) I mean, I'm just so kind of I mean, I'm super happy to speak to you, but it's like, why would you want to invite I mean, you know what I mean?
(1:46:19) Like You're not the
Brian
(1:46:20) first person to tell me this.
Anna
(1:46:22) It's Yeah.
Brian
(1:46:22) Yeah.
(1:46:23) But because people are fascinating, and and we all have stories.
(1:46:27) You know?
(1:46:28) I I mean, it it's funny how storytelling got into my life because I don't think I'm I have a natural ability to tell stories, in an oral sense, kind of in a in a typical way.
(1:46:40) Like, I'm not the type of there's some people that are just yeah.
Brian
(1:46:42) The dinner table, and they're gonna tell you a story, and it's like, wow.
(1:46:46) He's a storyteller.
(1:46:47) For me, it's more fragmented.
(1:46:49) I really found a love for video editing because of that, because I can
Anna
(1:46:54) Yeah.
Brian
(1:46:54) Structure in a way that, okay.
(1:46:58) I need to get it right how I want it.
(1:47:00) And and the and the podcast, it it combines that interest in in, yeah, in knowing more about people.
(1:47:09) And and it's funny, you know, like, something about the microphone, something about knowing that we're not completely alone.
(1:47:17) Mhmm.
Brian
(1:47:17) I think it also unlocks something because I feel that we're subconsciously putting it's not a mask.
(1:47:29) It's it's like a different it's us.
(1:47:30) It's like very much us.
(1:47:32) I mean, I I'll speak for myself.
(1:47:34) I feel like I'm being very much myself in those podcasts Mhmm.
Brian
(1:47:38) But that I'm being bolder in a way where in life, in everyday situations, I might be more, like, an acceptable version, like a Swiss version, depending with who I am.
(1:47:52) Where in the podcast, it's like, because we get into conversations and that we're not just gonna be, like, gossiping and being on our phones and stuff like that, there's intention to the conversation.
(1:48:03) And that just, like, triggers something.
Anna
(1:48:07) And it's it's it's we were talking about portraiture before, and I think it's it's it's kinda the same.
(1:48:13) And I I I you know, like, how do you capture?
(1:48:15) Like, people have this, like, selfie face or whatever.
(1:48:18) And then, you know, how do you how do you make a picture of someone that is something different?
(1:48:22) And that's why I like podcasts because I'm also, like you know, I used to love television.
Anna
(1:48:27) Now there's no TV, so I listen to stuff all all all the time all the time all the time.
(1:48:32) And with podcasts and, like, long format interviews now is after a while, you get the same.
(1:48:39) Like, this podcast is gonna have this is gonna be this the the the same sort of
Brian
(1:48:44) arc of storytelling arc.
(1:48:46) Yeah.
(1:48:47) Totally.
Anna
(1:48:48) I don't really know what this is about even.
(1:48:51) A guy who was your colleague with black shirts or whatever, I was like, this is amazingly interesting.
(1:48:57) I mean, I don't know why I would be concerned about a French speaking guy with a small wardrobe.
(1:49:04) Why is that interesting?
(1:49:05) I listened to it when I was going when I was on a bus trip, and I thought, I don't even wanna get off at my stop.
Anna
(1:49:11) This is amazing.
(1:49:12) I don't know.
(1:49:12) You know?
(1:49:13) Because it's you never heard it before.
Brian
(1:49:15) I love that.
(1:49:16) Thank you so much for that feedback.
(1:49:17) I love it because in in terms of best practices, I'm doing things wrong.
(1:49:23) And, you know, like, what they say for your podcast, you need to make sure that you, like Yeah.
(1:49:27) Every single thing that you have to do.
Brian
(1:49:30) Now I'm more aware of of how things Yeah.
(1:49:33) Yeah.
(1:49:33) Are, But but that's the beauty of it, and that's that's why I want I'm gonna keep it that way is that I I really don't think about how many people are gonna listen at all.
(1:49:45) I'm much more interested in in having it be engaging and surprising.
(1:49:52) I mean, I don't even think of this, but when I get your feedback or when I get Morgan's feedback Yeah.
Brian
(1:49:59) I mean, to be honest, most of my guests are listeners that'll think that was unplanned and and that I enjoy.
Anna
(1:50:05) I love the storytelling that you don't know what the story is.
(1:50:10) Like, you know, if you turn on Netflix, it's like, you can tell from the beginning, like, what's gonna happen.
(1:50:16) Or you can you you already know.
(1:50:18) You already seen the film or you already heard the you already read the book.
(1:50:21) Yes.
Anna
(1:50:22) It's gonna be this way.
(1:50:23) And I just love things that are I don't even know what I didn't even know what it is.
(1:50:30) You know?
(1:50:30) So thank you so much for, like, doing it.
(1:50:33) I'm so glad.
Anna
(1:50:35) I I I wish maybe we could have had this conversation then, but I don't think we could have had because you don't know what it is and you don't know what you're going through.
(1:50:43) And, also, you're, like, 17 and that already is like an illness, but you're so Yes.
Brian
(1:50:49) Oh, yeah.
(1:50:49) It's true.
Anna
(1:50:50) Yeah.
(1:50:50) I just thought, like, oh my god.
(1:50:52) If I had known that about you, I would have given you a hug and, like, come on, man.
(1:50:56) Everybody loves you.
(1:50:56) You're great.
Anna
(1:50:57) Like, you're gonna do you're gonna do good.
(1:50:59) Mhmm.
(1:50:59) It's gonna be okay.
(1:51:01) But it was okay anyway, and, so now we're here.
Brian
(1:51:06) Yes.
(1:51:06) And and, you know, thirty thirty years later, I accept the virtual hug.
(1:51:10) And when we'll see each other, we'll we'll do the real hug.
Anna
(1:51:13) I had a great time.
(1:51:14) And I had
Brian
(1:51:15) a great time too.
Anna
(1:51:16) My daughter says hi.
