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If you struggle with body image issues, you aren’t alone. A recent study found 20%-40% of women are dissatisfied with their bodies. And of course there is a spectrum; wishing your nose was a little smaller is very different than having multiple rhinoplasties to “fix” it. This week Jaime gets into her history with body dysmorphia and disordered eating and chats with a listener who finds herself slipping back into her old eating disorder habits. Plus, a question about keeping up your self-esteem as you age.

FYI: Tell Me What To Do contains mature language and themes that may not be suitable for all listeners.

Please note, this show is hosted and produced by a team that does not have any clinical or other mental or physical health training. If you are having a health or mental health crisis or emergency, please contact 911. For non-emergency mental health and addiction needs, try https://www.samhsa.gov for national and local resources. 

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Transcript

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [00:43] Hey, guys, it’s Jaime, and you’re listening to this week’s episode of the Tell Me What to Do podcast. And I’m so glad you’re here. I was reading some of the comments, by the way, that you guys wrote on the actual podcast. You know, like the reviews, I guess that’s what they’re called. And you guys are awesome. And shout-out to everybody who said they loved me because I love you back. There is so much going on in the world, but before we get to anything serious, we have to talk about the fact that a court in Ireland has just ruled that Subway bread has too much sugar to be considered bread. It is essentially cake. You are eating a turkey and Swiss cakes. That’s what you’re eating. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [01:35] Additionally, it is Jimmy Carter’s 96th birthday. No president has ever lived so long or used his years as honorably as President Jimmy Carter. I love that Jimmy Carter still is building houses for the homeless. And he you know, he and his wife have been married longer than any other president and first lady ever, like, even longer than Ron and Nancy, who I loved so much. I love Ron and Nancy. His full name actually is Submariner lt. James Earl Carter, United States Navy, retired. And just in case you didn’t know this, the Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine, USS Jimmy Carter is named in his honor. And I have to tell you, he was a stud. Seriously, I’m obsessed with him. He builds houses for the poor, writes poetry, seeks peace and justice, teaches Sunday school and he served the nation as president. A true servant leader, Jimmy Carter, a man who left office in 1981, and all he’s done since he left office is try to be the fucking greatest human ever. You guys want to build statues of Americans who have made a difference? Let’s take some of those slave guys down and put up Jimmy Carter somewhere. How about them apples? How about that swippity-swap? Hey, I got a new reality show for you instead of Wife Swap: Statue Swap. Pull down the racists and put up the Jimmy Carters of the world. Talk about presidential, man. Love this guy. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [03:20] Another thing that I want to talk about briefly is my friend Chrissy Teigen and her husband, John Legend, lost their son Jack last night. So by the time you hear this podcast, it will have been a week since they lost Baby Jack. But Chrissy, being in the public eye, when you have a visual persona and people can see you day in and day out — like, for example, I’m on Coffee Talk everyday, it would be hard to hide that I was pregnant for very long. I mean, certainly it can be done, but it takes extreme efforts and not all of us want to work that hard to hide parts of our life. We just want to live. So if you know I’m pregnant, celebrate it with me. If it bothers you, I don’t give a shit. If you love it, great. I love it, too. You know, whatever. Chrissy and John used IVF with Luna and Miles. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [04:12] So when they found out that they were pregnant with Jack, naturally, it was honestly a miracle for them. And they did not see it coming. And shout-out to them for actually having sex during Corona because no one else was. But she had a placenta issue like I had with Charlie. And placenta issues are very scary, for those of you that are listening, the placenta is what nourishes the baby. It’s the oxygen and blood flow for the baby. It’s attached to the mother, to her uterus. And that’s where the umbilical cord is attached from the placenta to the baby’s bellybutton. And so blood and oxygen are constantly being — if your placenta is weak, your baby is in trouble. I had a strong placenta that was in the wrong place. My placenta grew directly over my cervix, which is the worst place it could grow because the baby comes out the cervix. You can’t deliver a baby through a placenta. So I knew I was gonna have to have a C-section. But typically what happens with weak placentas or poorly placed placentas is they they start to detach. And when they start to pull away, mom bleeds a lot. And it’s very scary. So Chrissy started to bleed and they took her to the hospital where they admitted her and she had been there on bed rest trying to keep this baby in. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [05:44] People don’t understand the amount of pressure women are under in that scenario because you feel like it’s up to you. So even if you believe in God and you go, ‘God’s in control,’ it’s still your body failing you. It’s your body not doing what it’s supposed to be doing. You know what I mean? So Chrissy had posted, like, big bleed. Really scary. She’s already had a bunch of blood transfusions and she was like, but we got it under control. And then late last night, she posted this heart breaking image of her sitting over the gurney. Probably waiting for her epidural. But to see that they lost the baby. And then the criticism that came online about why would she share this? These moments are supposed to be private. When people are on a ride with you, it’s not that they feel they have ownership of your life, but when they celebrate with you, they want to heal with you. They want to hurt with you. They want to cry with you. They love you. People don’t know me, but they know me. They may not have ever met me, but they watched me on Coffee Talk everyday. And when I cry, they cry. They love me. There’s a genuine love there.

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [07:06] You can’t be as visible as Chrissy and John and share that you’re pregnant and share that you’re in the hospital and share that you’ve had blood transfusions and share that you’re praying and you’re scared and then lose the baby and say nothing — I mean, you can. You can. You certainly can. And it would be understandable to. But it’s her choice not to do that. When I lost my baby, I wrote about it for Yahoo! Parenting, and that was celebrated. People called me brave. So because Chrissy posted a picture of her crying or whatever it was, that’s any less brave? That’s braver, in my opinion. You know, I mean, I was in such despair. I didn’t even think to take a picture or have someone take it, you know? I couldn’t think straight. So I just think we need to cut people some slack. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [07:58] But this week, we’re going to talk about body image and self-esteem. When we had Dr. Harrison on the show about addictions, I brought up my body dysmorphia, which, you know, is always hard for me to talk about. But I talk about it all the time because I feel like it keeps me honest and accountable. But the amazing thing was that a lot of you wrote in saying that you wanted me to have a whole episode on body image because unfortunately, this is a really common struggle for women and men. And truthfully, it affects everybody. You guys, most of you know, but if you don’t, it started for me when I was the summer between 5th and 6th grade. I gained a lot of weight at summer camp. And when I came home, my mother was really embarrassed. She didn’t know how she sent her skinny fifth grader off to summer camp and got back a really fat sixth grader. And she had a very hard time with it. So she made fun of me all the time. She called me an elephant. When I walked in, she told me that no boys would ever like me and she didn’t want me in family pictures and she wouldn’t take me school shopping because she thought that if she used tough love, I would stop eating. All it did was make me more. So I got fatter. Remember that scene in European Vacation when Aubrey’s boyfriend breaks up with her and they’re in Paris and she sits down? 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [09:17] She’s like, can I have the croissants? And can you pass the butter and can you please pass the jelly? And they’re like, Aubrey, are you OK? And you like, just give me the butter and the croissants! And that was me, like, just sad stress eating. And what it did was it warped my view of not only beauty in general. But what I looked like. So when I look in the mirror, I still see that little girl in sixth grade who’s chubby and overweight. And that’s really hard. And it’s been really hard in COVID because in the beginning, I was shitting all the time. My stomach hurt all the time. I was nervous all the time. We moved. It was a new house. I couldn’t keep my kids safe. I was wiping doors and handles and light switches and fucking wiping down groceries and this and that. Like everything was making me crazy. And then when that finally settled around July, I started to realize, like, OK, we’re gonna be OK. Take a deep breath. You don’t have to wipe down every light switch, you’re good. And I started, like, eating normal again. And then, you know, whatever weight I had lost, I put back on. And so in my mind, and like with a couple extra pounds — so in my mind, I look like a wooly mammoth. But like, I know it’s not true. But I think it’s true. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [14:37] I’m about to bring on a guest who originally wrote in when we did call-out about secrets. Here’s what she said. “What if it’s an eating disorder you battle with? Secrecy is a huge part of all eating disorders. It’s shameful and sometimes too hard to overcome, especially if you relapse, as I have. And bringing up the subject will only have the people who love you worry again more and in turn cause more stress on yourself, which then may perpetuate the disorder and behaviors. And what do you do when therapy, dieticians, etc., cannot be afforded, much less wanted because you keep thinking you are finally done with it, but then you are not? Jaime, tell me what to do.” 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [15:18] So let’s talk to Shantelle. First of all, it’s very nice to meet you. 

Shantelle: [15:27] Very nice to meet you. You have been my daily confidant for years. Like many others say. So I’m in shock that I’m talking to you. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [15:40] Well, I’m so glad to be talking to you. It makes me happy. So, Shantelle, we got your email and you had written in originally when we were talking about secrets. But because your email pertained to the secrecy and shame surrounding an eating disorder, which I certainly know all too well. First, can you backtrack for me and tell me what eating disorder or disorders you have and how and when they started? 

Shantelle: [16:09] Anorexia and bulimia starting, I would say, 15. That was more of the restricting and anorexia. And eventually, years down the line, it turned to bulimia. Because in recovery, as you do find out that that is just what it leads to eventually. It just generally ends up turning into another problem on top of the initial one. I have been hospitalized a couple times in my late teens and felt I had a handle on it, was with counselors, got pregnant later on in life. So I have a two and a half, four and a half and six and a half year old. I am 41. 

Shantelle: [17:01] I was told my first hospitalization when I was 18, I would never have children. I was told, pick out your coffin. I was extremely, extremely malnourished. And that end of the spectrum for me was the worst that probably some people with eating disorders have never been to that extreme. So I’m very thankful of where I am today. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [17:23] Amen. 

Shantelle: [17:25] And, you know, I feel definitely — go with what you think, whether be God or higher power — that these children were put in my life for a reason. I just never thought that I be blessed enough to have them. And I feel that now this whole pandemic has brought on a lot of issues with control, with really what you can’t control and then turn into what you feel that you can. And I feel that a lot of the issues coming back and a lot of the behaviors coming back. You think, well, I’ll get back on track and I’ll get to the place I was before to be healthy enough and not have the behaviors or have the thoughts to be able to process them in a healthy way. And, you know, you don’t really want to let anybody in on something that you’re struggling with when you think, well, I’ll get over it and, you know, I’ll be able to get back to the place I was once before. And another thing that I think is common from my knowledge with having an eating disorder is a lot of it is control. A lot of it is secrecy. A lot of it can be triggered by things like external factors, say, you know, people that were once concerned about you, you don’t want to let them in on what you’re struggling with now, because then their concern in turn would just almost add more stress for revealing it. And then thinking, well, now I’m even more stressed out and now I’m even more kind of going down the rabbit hole. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [19:08] Those are lies we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are not worthy, we are not worthy of interrupting other peoples’ lives for help. We are not worth helping. There are other more important things. And we we we lie to ourselves. We tell ourselves that. Are you married? 

Shantelle: [19:32] We’re not legally married for our own reasons. But yes, I’m with the father of all three of the children. We’ve been together for 12 years. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [19:38] So let me start by introducing my eating disorder to yours. So I have body dysmorphia with peaks and valleys of anorexia, so body dysmorphia pretty much rules my life. I’ve never gone a day, not one day, not one day of my life since it started when I was, I don’t know, 12, 13. I have no idea what it’s like to live an entire day without looking at my body in the mirror, seeing if it’s any different than yesterday at all. Do I see exactly what I saw yesterday? Does it look any different? Weighing myself and thinking about what I wished I weighed, how I wished I looked, what was different. My body and or weight and or size is, in my mind, idling 24/7. So it’s like people always say to me, well, what does that mean? And I say, well, like, if you have a laptop, everything may be locked, like closed, Xed out, but your web browser is still running. So unless you force-quit Internet Explorer, it’s running all the time. Body dysmorphia runs in me all the time. So a couple of things. The man that you are with, your partner in life, does he know you had an eating disorder before? 

Shantelle: [21:08] Yes. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [21:10] Have you been in remission since you guys have been together? 

[21:14] Yes. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [21:16] OK. So he’s never known you in active eating disorder, only remission. And now are you dealing with the thoughts of the behavior or are you in the act? Are you active? 

Shantelle: [21:28] Active. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [21:28] Are you not eating or are you eating and purging? 

Shantelle: [21:32] It’s mostly not eating. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [21:34] Here’s what I’m going to say to you off the bat. And I know that this is not the advice that people who have never struggled with an eating disorder would give and they’re gonna be like that’s the opposite of what you should tell her! Promise me that you will drink Airborne, you will take vitamins. You will chew vitamin D, calcium chew, that you will give yourself the nutrients you need so that, God forbid, you had to pull a car off your child, you could do it. That’s all I’m asking you right now. Can you commit to that? 

Shantelle: [22:14] Yes, absolutely. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [22:15] Great. Because here’s the thing. You can’t talk someone out of an eating disorder. If you could just be like, hey, guess what, listen, Shantelle, I think you’re great. Your kids love you. Just don’t have an eating disorder, OK? Nobody would have a fucking eating disorder. So what I’m going to do is say this to you: if you deplete yourself to the point that you can’t fulfill your duties as a mother, that is when this will truly have won. I worry less about the number on the scale and the up and down. And that’s for a trained professional, which, by the way, you need to go see somebody. I am not a trained professional, but I want to speak to mother to mother. Because we’re in the same boat. You need a trained professional to pull you out of active status with this thing. But in the interim, you have got to commit to making sure that you can mom. 

Shantelle: [23:24] I think this is another thing is that a lot of being pregnant, I felt I had a purpose and I felt so extremely just blessed and in awe of like this is really happening, when I’ve had multiple doctors just drive in my head that there was no reason to even be on birth control, that you wouldn’t get pregnant. Like, you’ve done so much damage. And in some ways, that is also something that is hard, because I think the days I’m down, I’m like I’ve already done so much damage, like, what’s the point? But now I have these children to live for and I’m very in tune with how I speak about food, about the word “fat.” And I mean food is fuel. It’s energy. It’s to make you healthy. It’s to help you play on the playground. It’s not a good food or a bad food. I don’t ban them from things. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [24:24] So what are you eating right now in a typical day? 

Shantelle: [24:27] I always have salad on-hand, salad’s like my big thing. But I do try to add the protein to it. So in some ways, that’s kind of like the diet culture of, well, instead of adding steak on my salad and regular honey mustard dressing, I’ll do chickpeas and try to add more nutritious things at dinner or put salmon on the salad. And my daughter is now six and now saying, well, mommy, we can go to that, that, you know, Buffalo Wild Wings, you know, you love those salads. And I’m like, ooh, she’s noticing that I’m eating a lot of salads, even though I’m trying to incorporate things in them. So it’s not necessarily that I’m not eating or that I’m losing a lot of weight. It’s a lot of the mentality behind why I’m doing it. And I know it’s because this is what I’m controlling. Two hard boiled eggs at this time, at this time I’ll peel orange and have an orange. Or sometimes I’ll skip the peanut butter with the apple because I know it’s less calories, but I’m still having the apple. So it’s those types of behaviors that are coming back. Whereas before I felt like I had a good bulk of time that, you know, I was really I don’t know that I agree that you’ll ever fully be recovered in an eating disorder. Or maybe it’s that I’ve heard people say you can recover. I think that this is something that will always be, like you said, something twirling in the back of my head, like a tab that’s left open when you’ve closed all the other tabs in your head. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [25:53] So here’s what I will say. What I will say is you’re doing an amazing job recognizing your own triggers. So the first thing I will tell you is I had to eliminate triggers in my life when — and I know she doesn’t like me to bring it up, but I know it’s part of it. My mother is the reason why I have an eating disorder and I have forgiven her. She is forgiven fully, 100 percent forgiven. But it doesn’t negate the fact that that is the reason. She is a trigger for me. And my stepfather is a trigger for me. They are not allowed to discuss my weight. How I look. They have lost the right to even say, “you look nice.” They cannot say, “you look like you lost weight” or “you look great.” Even when my mom will see me on facetime and will go, Hi, honey. Oh, you look so pretty. It’s such a trigger for me that sadly, I have to tell my own mother she can’t tell me I look pretty because it’s not good for my mental health. The weight of her words is a trigger for me. I can’t hear it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. Keep it to yourself. 

Shantelle: [27:12] I have a hard enough time with just somebody I haven’t seen in a while. I deal with anxiety and depression as well. It’s manageable. But even like a best friend I haven’t seen in a year, if they’re like, oh my God, you look so good. Like just honestly in a non-eating disorder head to say that it still is like, “what do you mean? What did I look like before. What are you saying?” It’s really just a conversation starter coming from just like, hey, your hair looks good. Hey, you look good. I mean, you look happy. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [27:51] What I learned to do was let the smarter part of my brain speak louder. So when someone would say to me, did you lose weight or you look good. When was the last time I saw you? Like, seven months ago. You look good. The part of my brain that wants to go, I need to weigh myself, I need to look at pictures from back then, let me go on Facebook. What did I look like seven months ago? And what do I look like now? Right. I go, OK, smarter part of my brain. Come forward and tell me what’s going on here. And then I hear my own voice go, she’s just making conversation. Maybe you look better. Maybe you don’t. She didn’t know what else to say. What is she going to say? Hey, you make any money lately? Like nobody starts a conversation like that. And don’t go looking at pictures. It doesn’t matter what she says. It’s just it is a conversation starter. And so I’ve learned to trust me. That’s the biggest thing is when my voice speaks to me, I’ve learned to trust her. I’m like, OK, you’re right. It was just a conversation starter. OK, I can let it go. I’ll let it go. The voices never stop. I hear them all the time. But I will tell you this. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [29:07] After I had the children, I knew I never wanted to be so weak that I couldn’t lift a car off my kids. And it’s a metaphor, obviously, none of us, God willing, are going to have to live. But I never wanted to be fatigued or sluggish or starving or malnutrition or deficient in vitamin. You know that if, God forbid, God called me to be one of those mothers who had to fight for her kid or help them fight for their life, God forbid, or anything, I need to be ready to fight for my kids at a moment’s notice. When you look at a mama bear, she don’t care how big her ass is. You see how big her ass is on a bear. You think she cares? She’ll eat all kinds of shit because it’s her job to make sure that those cubs make it through the winter. And can come out in the spring. And she gets fat. In order for a mama bear to protect her cubs and mother them through hibernation, she has to get thick. Because she’s got to be ready at a moment’s notice. And so I try to tell myself, like, are you a mama or are you a mama bear? And I’m a mama bear. Ao to that I say I know I do know how you feel. I am so glad to hear that you are in mostly idling status. You have active tendencies, which I do, too, right now. But you are mostly idling, which is a much safer place to be. So I think you should be really proud of yourself. Because if there was ever a time you were gonna slip backward, girl, this quarantine was like a perfect storm.

Shantelle: [31:04] Oh, I know and a lot of things in my head are black and white, no gray. And I’ve been trying to be open to the whole gray part and the fact that you can’t control everything, which is a lot that we all know right now with everything going on. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [31:23] We’re not going to ever get over this. You know that, right? 

Shantelle: [31:26] I know. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [31:27] We’re gonna die with this. We’re gonna see each other and have an eating disorder lounge for people who just want to graze and not really eat. I’m not really I’m going to bump into you there and be like, did you eat? You’re gonna be like, I noshed. A little bit. I took a bite. I got my coffee. That’s going to be us. That is so funny. Funny but not funny, but funny. Sometimes you got to laugh at your pain or you’ll cry. I love you and I don’t know that I’ve helped you at all. 

Shantelle: [32:02] You absolutely did. I mean, like I said, just talking to somebody, you know, who gets it.

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [32:08] Think of me. I’ll think of you. 

Shantelle: [32:11] Thank you so much. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [32:13] And I love you so much today.

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [33:39] We have another question that I want to get to real quick. Comes from Gwen. “Can you talk about what aging does to self-esteem? I feel like nobody ever talks about what it feels like, what it’s like for you. And how do you talk to yourself to be nicer and accept it?” The only reason age bothers me is because I have a morbid fear of death. Not like fear, but like fear. It’s not like I walk around everyday like oh my God, I hope I don’t die today. But like, aging scares me because I know I’m getting closer to just like not being here one day and that feels mad weird to me here. Like one day the planet will continue on and I just won’t be on the ride. My eating disorder has not really gone away, it’s just evolved. I think you lose patience. When you get older, you don’t have the same energy to dedicate to certain things. I’m sure there are people who are way more dedicated to their eating disorders than I am. I’m just fucking tired of it.

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [34:58] And so I do give myself, as cheesy as it sounds, a lot of pep talks. I do. And I get very real with myself. I’m like, Jaime, you want to be 137 pounds so fucking bad, you’re a 140 right now. These three pounds are wearing you out. But how many times have you been 137 pounds and not been happy with that number either? So you say that’s your goal weight, but then you get there and you’re not happy and you know it. So just fucking be happy at 140 and shut the fuck up. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [35:27] I have started to really get honest with myself because I’m starting to get annoyed with myself, if that makes sense. You know, I don’t look as young as I used to. That’s for sure. I have sunspots everywhere. I like to call them freckles, but at this point, it literally looks like one of the sun’s rays has gamma-ed my face. I have a sunspot in between my eyes that makes it look like I don’t know what. But I don’t like it. I take Botox every three months. I do Botox. Not enough. I can still see way too many wrinkles, to be honest with you. I don’t like my neck. It looks like a turkey. And that’s from getting pregnant and having a baby, getting pregnant, having babies. You know, my face was fat, skinny, fat, skinny. So literally it just stretched the skin out. And it does take a toll on your self-esteem. But the truth is, none of us were really happy with what we looked like as teenagers or at 25 or as you know, you always look back and go, God, I looked pretty good at 17. I looked pretty good at 25. My favorite body was the year I turned 40. That was my absolute favorite body. I loved it. And it doesn’t feel like that long ago. It was only three years ago. Actually, my 42 year old body was pretty good. It wasn’t healthy. My eating disorder was really bad last year. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [36:56] But I was fly. I had a bangin’ body, but aging is hard. You know, it just is like everything hangs. Nothing looks the same. You know, I remember being at a certain age and going, why do Madonna’s hands look so old? And now I look at my hands. I’m like, OK, Madonna, I get it. My hands look old. I can see my veins like I don’t see the little girl hands I used to have before. It takes a toll on you because when you’re young, you look at your parents as old people. You know, they’re in their 30s, late 30s and 40s and you’re nine and they seem so old. So when you are that age, you have a very healthy sense of awareness that that age is considered old to people. Aging taxes your mind, because, you know, you don’t look the same. You don’t have the capacity for things you used to have. You get aged out of jobs. Ageism is real, let’s be honest. But I just talk to myself honestly, I really do. The way I talked to people on Tell Me What To Do and the way I talk to people on Coffee Talk is the exact same way I talk to myself. I do not have a kind voice when I talk to myself. I talk to myself like, girl, look, the fuck? 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [38:18] And that’s the way I respond to things. I don’t do well with that warm and mushy shit. I really don’t. It’s never been my way. So I feel like, Gwen, I don’t really have the best answer for you. Here’s what I can tell you. Find the voice that you are most responsive to that you will most believe. Find the Gwen voice like I had to find the Jaime voice that I could learn to trust. There’s a very distinct Jaime voice. And when she steps forward and talks, I listen all the time because I trust her implicitly. I have different Jaime voices, you know, but there’s this one when she’s like, Girl, stop, stop. I’m like, OK. I know who she is. I can identify her immediately and I just trust her implicitly. So that’s what I’ve learned to do as I get older is single out — cancel all the noise around me and listen to the voice that I trust that is mine. And if you are struggling with an eating disorder, if you are idling right now, congratulations, it’s the safest place for us to be. We all know those of us that live with it, even those that are in remission from physical manifestations, the thoughts idle all the time. If you are in active disorder right now, get help. Do not try to do this alone. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [39:39] And by help, I don’t mean talking, texting your girlfriend. Sure, those things are great, but you’ve got to eliminate triggers. I don’t care who that means. You have to cut off. You have to eliminate triggers and you need to get help. I use TalkSpace. It works for me. It’s private. I can do it on my phone. I can do it while I’m out walking. I can do it in my car. I can do it in my. It’s on my phone or my laptop, whatever. Know that age is not guaranteed for everybody. Not everybody gets the gift from God to age. My father died when he was 53. That’s young. My friend’s son died when he was 16. Just two weeks shy of his 17th birthday. So aging is a gift not given to all of us. And so I always try to remember that if I’m here, I still have purpose. God still needs me to work here. And so I focus on that. And honestly, I have great tits and nice feet. So when the days are hard, I take my shoes off and walk around the house thinking I have the best feet in this house. Fuck all of you pigeon feet. And if it’s really, really hard, I show Michael my tits. That’s what I do. That’s how we get by. So get help, remove triggers and take vitamins. Please take supplements, take vitamins, make sure you can mama bear even at your highest degree of disorder. Make sure you can mama bear if you need to.

Jaime Primak Sullivan: [41:12] OK, folks, that’s it for this episode of Tell Me What to Do. I love you guys very much. Please go back and listen to some past episodes if you have not listened to them. They are so good and so interesting and funny, if I do say so myself. And I love you and I will be with you guys next week on the next episode of Tell Me What to Do. 

Jaime Primak Sullivan: 41:42] Tell Me What To Do is a production of Lemonada Media. The show is produced by Kryssy Pease, and associate produced by Claire Jones. It’s edited by Ivan Kuraev. Music is by Dan Molad. Jessica Cordova Kramer, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jaime Primak Sullivan are executive producers. Rate and review us, and follow us @LemonadaMedia on all your favorite social platforms. Of course, you can follow me at Jaime Primak Sullivan on Facebook or at Jaime P. Sullivan on Instagram. If you have any questions for me that you want me to answer on the show, give me a call at 833-453-6662.