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In this episode I speak with Brian LaBelle and Kylee Wall, two members of my initial test group. This conversation was inspired by a blog that Kylee wrote for Creative Cow back in February entitled “How Are You Doing? Really…” that discusses the darker side of our business…mental illness. Brian, a post-production supervisor by trade, has firsthand experience with bipolar disorder as two of his brothers committed suicide because of the disease.
Zack Arnold: So we’re going to go ahead and get to our guests today. I am joined by Brian LaBelle and Kylee Wall, and they are two members of my initial test group. So, hello, Brian and Kylee. Hello.
Kylee Wall: Hello.
Zack Arnold: What I want to talk about today is going to veer a little bit off the beaten path of what we usually talk about, which is test group results and supplements and workout programs and you know things we do in the edit suite to stay healthy. What I want to talk about is based on an article that I saw that you wrote, Kylee. It was a blog post that you did for Creative Cow, and it’s entitled “How Are You Doing? Let’s Talk Mental Illness and Creativity in the Film and Video Industry. So, Kylee, you’d written this article back in February, but you posted it the day after Robin Williams’ suicide, and I’m assuming that wasn’t a coincidence, correct?
Kylee Wall: Right. I actually I published it back then, and and then in light of of his suicide and him being in the creative industry and stuff, I thought it was worth a repost, and a lot of more people saw it this time around again. So I thought it was good to bring up those topics.
Zack Arnold: So what initially prompted you to write this article?
Kylee Wall: I have a few friends in the industry that struggle with various mental issues, mental health issues, and I try to help them out. And it’s just very difficult because there’s this stigma where people don’t want to talk about it, they don’t want to hear about it. But then, like an event happens and people are like, “Oh, depression’s terrible. Like, tell someone. Then it fades away and it becomes a stigma again. So we just need to talk about it a lot more and make it a thing where people are asking each other, like, “Are you okay? Because a lot of times, if you have a support system, like you can start to get yourself out of the hole. Because if you’re alone, you can’t. So it’s just about trying to get people to like come together and be okay with saying, you know, I have depression or whatever, and I need help.
Zack Arnold: Right. What I want to bring up today, and this is something that I’ve written about in a past blog post, is my history with depression in this industry. But what I also want to talk about is the reason why Brian is here. So, do you do you mind sharing why I brought you onto this call today?
Brian LaBelle: Absolutely, Zack. You know, we have in my family. I I had two brothers who, one which was undiagnosed because it was in the 70s, who who took his life, and then as of recent, my middle brother Chris had committed suicide from you know suffering for years and years and years from bipolar disorder, and I’m here to discuss what it’s like to be surrounded by family who suffer this illness and and how to be there for them and how to be available and how to you know kind of recommend to other people how to to work with family members who might suffer from this illness because it’s something that when you’re sick you’re you’re very somewhat accidental narcissist and everything that’s happening in the world to the sick person is happening directly to them, whether it’s something you know, like a relationship or something at work. It’s it’s all centered around them, and and it’s usually against them. And it’s how to work with dealing with someone who who feels that you know the world’s against them, and that’s what the the illusion is with with these chemical disorders, you just feel lost and lonely, and it’s self isolation. So, you know, creating awareness and and also how to communicate or how to try to listen. I think because it’s it’s more of a listening job than it is a talking job when you’re dealing with people with mental illness.
Zack Arnold: So one of the interesting things about you and I, Brian, is that we worked together on the ABC show Black Box for about eight months, and the show has unfortunately since been canceled. But what’s so coincidental is that front and center in the show Black Box was bipolar disorder because the main character was a neuroscientist that was bipolar, so we lived with this disorder, you know, quote unquote, every single day, all day long. It kind of came to the forefront of what we were doing. And the other interesting thing is that the showrunner, Amy, the creator of the show, her father was bipolar. So I really felt like, even though it was a TV show, I learned a lot of knowledge about how the the disorder works, and people can say whatever they want about the TV show and the quality of it and the storytelling. But the one criticism that it got a lot of that I always fought back against was its portrayal of somebody that’s bipolar, because the creator was basically retelling stories of things that she had experienced through her own family life.
Brian LaBelle: That’s right. So to
Zack Arnold: Me, I always defended that, and a lot of the people in the mental health community were coming out and saying, “Thank you. This is one of the first realistic portrayals of manic depressive disorder. So that was something that you and I had just a lot of exposure to day in and day out for a long time.
Brian LaBelle: Yes, we did, and you know, I can tell you that. My brother watched the show when the fourth episode, Erity, he finally had come out of a fog enough to to want to see it, and I was extremely nervous about him watching it because he suffered from schizophrenia and some other issues as well, and I didn’t want the illusion of oh my gosh, you’re making this show and it’s about me, and I was really scared of how he was going to receive the material or if he was going to be offended. But I can tell you that, you know, he was so elated by the way the story was told. You know, Catherine’s arc and her highs and her lows were reminiscent of of many of the experiences that that he had, I know we got knocked for for the mild hallucinations at times in our show. Sometimes they were severe, but you know my brother Chris suffered from those same issues. And you know the mind will see what it wants to see, and you know you you just it’s hard to comprehend unless you’re a loved one dealing with someone who’s sick, or if you are the person who’s sick, how excruciating and dramatic your mind can shift your perception.
Zack Arnold: Sure, and perception is a big part of what I want to talk about today. Is just awareness and perception because awareness is a big part of the program in general, but now it’s more about becoming more aware of your mental state or the mental state of people around you, I’ll just go very briefly into my history, both of people around me and my own. I actually have three bipolar people in my family. I’m not bipolar myself, but I have three that are severely bipolar. Two of which have attempted suicide. So it’s not something I can say I’ve experienced firsthand, but I’ve certainly seen how it can affect people’s lives. And then I myself have suffered from severe depression for years. And if you read in the blog post that I did for American cinema editors, I kind of talk about some of it. Yeah. But it was about eight or nine years ago, and I was at the point of suicidal depression. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t act on it, but I was at that mental point where I just there’s there’s no reason for me to stick around. This is too hard. I can’t handle it. I don’t enjoy anything. Nobody wants to be around me. I’m done. And it wasn’t until I got out of that because you can’t see the forest through the trees. And once you step out of the forest, you’re like, oh my god, what in the world was I looking at? Like, what prism am I seeing the world through? But
Brian LaBelle: It
Zack Arnold: Took a long time to get out of that hole, and a lot of people don’t really see themselves when they’re in that hole. Like I just said to myself, “This is just me. This is just who I am. This is my life, and I have to deal with it, or I just have to end it because there’s nowhere else to go. And there’s a quote that I want to take from your article, Kylee, and it says, “Some people are capable of crawling back out from occasional bouts of depression. Others only sink further, not seeking help out of pride, fear, or anger. A recent graduate might say, ‘If only I could get a job, then I’ll feel better. A seasoned camera operator thinks, ‘Once this gig is done, I know I’ll be able to relax, but then it happens. The job comes up, the gig ends, and nothing changes inside. And it’s that it’s that sense that you just can never get away from it, but you just keep putting it off. That I want to talk about. So just you know, give me a sense of where that came from.
Kylee Wall: Well, I know a couple of manic depressive people, and we talked a lot about how it felt when he was in the worst of it, and the thing about that specifically is that a lot of creative people like it’s not like all creative people have issues, but I feel like creative people in general tend to gravitate towards creativity as a way to like escape. So manic depression in particular is really helpful to creative people, unfortunately, because the mania part of it just keeps you working really hard and makes you successful and feel good. And then the depression comes, and you just kind of link it all to like the whole creative industry that’s just really up and down all the time. You’re like, I don’t feel great, but it’s probably just I need to work harder, and then you go into a manic state, and then you’re working crazy, and then it ends, and you’re down, and it’s just this back and forth, and it just gets deeper and deeper until you realize that you’re. It’s not. It’s not entirely environmental. There’s something going on with your with your mind, so that’s kind of where that came from. I’ve seen that pattern a lot, and I just want to point it out to people.
Zack Arnold: Right, and that that that that’s a really important thing that I want people to understand that maybe don’t experience this, but have people around them that might be. This is not a matter of somebody that needs to get a couple nights sleep and they’re going to be better. This is a matter of having your brain chemistry messed up, and your brain is not able to catch up and get back to where it needs to be, and that was something that always just drove me crazy. Not only did it drive me crazy, but it made me more depressed and it made me feel guiltier because people would say to me, “Well, dude, you just need a couple good nights sleep and you’re fine, or you’re just working too hard.
Kylee Wall: Right? Yeah, that’s right.
Zack Arnold: You know, like the other thing I heard, and I wanted to punch somebody is, “Well.” What are you talking about? Like you got a great job, you’re working on a feature film, you’ve got a girlfriend, you’re going to get engaged. Like, what business do you have being depressed? And people, they don’t understand it. Yeah,
Kylee Wall: That’s such a terrible way to approach it. Because if you mean if you’re if you’re taking somebody that already feels bad and and feels bad about feeling bad, and then you make them feel guilty about it, about just a feeling that they’re experiencing, I can’t stand it when people do that. Like, what do you have to be depressed about? Well, my brain chemistry is so frustrated.
Brian LaBelle: There’s just a lack of understanding, and and it comes from probably the most innocent place. But it’s there’s a tendency for the masses and and your friends who are close to you to think that you know they can talk you out of this, and while talking is great, sometimes the the better solution when you’re dealing with people who aren’t well is being there is better, and and being there and listening and discussing is is better than you know hey snap out of it you’re just having a bad day they’re trapped. It’s it’s an isolating feeling. You you know don’t know what you have when your your chemicals are off kilter. Everything that that is perceived by everybody else is not what you perceive at all. It’s completely devastating to the person inside. So learning how to communicate is is key, and yeah, I would love to see everyone kind of wake up a little more about the fact that mental illness exists and and that you just you know aren’t having a bad day. Some people have bad days, but but some people have bad days every day. So,
Zack Arnold: Like my experience was that I would go literally months without having a good day, and it’s like, how is it possible that I have no memory of the last time that I felt good? And you get to a point where that becomes your new default setting, so to speak, where the way that you feel constantly day in and day out is just crappy, and you’re just low, and you’re sad, or you’re angry, or whatever it is, but that’s the new normal. Like that’s just your default level. So you you just think, oh well, this is just the way that it is. And the I can’t speak for other people around me, but I can speak for myself in knowing that one of the telltale signs that I didn’t see without hindsight until I got out of it was the fact that you’re incapable of experiencing any kind of joy whatsoever. So if something great happens and you’re just kind of staring at the wall and you’re like, okay, well that happened, and you don’t physically feel anything inside, that’s not just because you’re a boring person or you’re apathetic. That’s because you don’t have the chemicals in your body to help you experience those emotions.
Brian LaBelle: Right. Exactly. And in that by that is not a choice, and that’s why it gets so confusing. And you know the discussion of of Robin Williams and and what he suffered, you know, and what my brother suffered. And like you said, many probably at first said, “Well, well, how could he do such a thing? He’s got everything in the world. He’s got a family. He’s got a career that’s been so successful, but it’s not about any of that. It’s not about it at all. It’s it’s completely internal and completely this little ability to be able to understand what it’s like to to suffer inside, and you know you can go on stage and you can perform, and you can edit, or you can write, or you can act. But when you come home and close the doors and and deal with the internal thoughts that spin and spin and spin in your head, due to the fact that you’re not getting you know the usual amounts of serotonin or the do your dopamine levels are off. It’s those are the things that cause someone like that to to do what they did. They they have to be in the most isolated space and and loneliest of places to to perform such a task. I believe firmly that you know when I talk about my brother, that that he honestly felt, and let me give you the perception. You know, Chris was loved. He had two two wonderful sons. You know, wonderful brothers, wonderful sisters, wonderful mom and dad. Had a great job, and inside nobody loved him. He ruined his marriage. He felt that he ruined the child, his his kids’ lives, and none of these things on the out in the out on the outside existed. This was all in his head. So what we saw on the outside and what we felt he had internally, he felt he had something completely different. He felt like he had completely, utterly screwed up everything in his life, and that wasn’t the case. And that’s the sad part. I think is how do you you know is is trying to figure out a way to to reach loved ones who feel that way, and and while also validating those emotions because. You have to validate that they’re in pain. You have to validate that that they’re they’re being tortured by their own thoughts and their chemicals in their brain are are telling lies to them. You have to validate all those things. You can’t just say, “Well, tomorrow will be better. It just won’t be like that,
Zack Arnold: Right? And then that’s one thing that I wanted to mention when you said validate feelings, kind of the analogy that I always think of when people are saying, “Well, you know, going back to what I was saying before, of like, well, you know, how can you not see all the wonderful things you have? Imagine you’re standing on the beach at sunset, and it’s the most amazing, spectacular sunset that’s ever existed in the history of the universe, right? And you’re standing next to a blind person. Are you going to say to them, “I cannot believe you’re not enjoying this right now” You’re not going to say that because you understand they can’t experience it because of the way that information is filtered into their brain. They have eyes that don’t work, which means they’re not bringing in the sensory information to be able to visualize what this other person is experiencing. And to me, depression is no different. Where you can both be watching a fantastic film, and one person’s laughing, and the other one’s just sitting there with a blank face. They don’t. They’re not filtering the information the same way because their brain isn’t functioning properly. So I think it’s really helpful for people to understand that it’s not just somebody’s in a cranky mood. There’s a lot more going on, right? It’s a
Kylee Wall: Chronic illness. It’s like somebody stop stop having cancer, cheer up. And the thing is,
Brian LaBelle: Is that there’s a lot of there’s there’s so many resources for for anyone listening that that has that may feel they might be suffering because I think a lot of people go through life and and and you know might not know they’re a victim to this. And if you feel like you might be a victim to this, you know the best thing you can do, I think, is is you know do some of your own research and understand it, and read a few books about depression, get some recommendations from from people that that might suffer from it, so that you can understand what’s happening to you. Also, for loved ones, how you communicate with people who suffer from depression is an is another story. You have to learn how to communicate with loved ones. We already have a hard time even with family, when we’re completely healthy, right? You know, there’s the sibling rivalry. There’s, you know, you grow up with your family, and you never want to get advice. Sometimes people are really thick-headed about getting any kind of feedback from family members or loved ones. So, you know, just that alone on a normal spectrum, it’s hard to help each other now, compound that by somebody who’s suffering from a mental illness, and you’re trying to reach them as a family member. It’s it’s frustrating on both sides. It’s painstaking for those who suffer, and also painstaking for those who want to help because they just see the world so differently. So you’ve got to create a conduit and to find a baseline that can allow doors to open, and and education is key in this matter. I hope that that we can continually discuss mental illness in in not only our business but in the U.S. but in the world because it it’s a it’s a cancer. It is. It’s just like cancer, and and it seems like we can openly discuss cancer, and openly discuss all of these issues without having any confusion about it. But when we when we discuss mental illness, there’s so many levels of it. There’s so many variables that that’s where the stigma rises up, you know. I I think just just learning how to communicate is is key.
Kylee Wall: Yeah, learning to communicate with a person like it takes a lot of patience to try to figure out the best way to do it. But I think the most effective one of the most effective things to do is to just validate that you you are there and you know that it sucks. Like yeah, you feel bad and it sucks, and it’s important not to confuse sympathy with empathy, because if if you say to a person, “I feel sorry for you, you know you’re putting something onto them and they feel bad for making you feel bad. But if you’re empathetic, you can say, “I’m sorry. I know that you feel bad, and I’m sorry about that. You know, something more like that. That’s a huge distinction that a lot of people tend to miss at first. So, if you can skip right to to knowing the difference, it helps a lot with the communication with your friend or family or whoever. And then also making sure that in a lot of other mental illnesses, there’s a tendency to want to baby someone and take care of them and do everything for them. But in the middle of all this communication, it’s still important to keep their responsibilities in line and understand, like, yes, I’m helping you and I’m here and I’m not going to go anywhere, but it’s. You know, it’s kind of up to you to help me guide you.
Brian LaBelle: Yeah, I agree, and I think also no matter what, you know, what happens, what what happened to my brother is he, you know, eventually the depression hits and it isolates you mentally. He feels like he’s going to pull himself out now, since he feels terrible. He’s going to pull himself away from everybody, and it’s really important that during that process, with when someone’s pulling away, and they’re not answering their phone or answering the door, is that you constantly keep trying to reach them. You constantly call them, no matter what. There’s a tendency to feel like, well, he’s not calling me, so and he’s not answering my answering my call, so I’m just gonna you know wait till he calls back. Staying active and attentive to somebody like that is is is very important because that’s how you can be there in the event that the outcome is suicide, you can at least do your best. You can’t always win this, but you can do your best by by being there as much as you can, even when they’re not answering their phone, going over their friends that might be able to you know reach them, trying to talk to those friends is important. I just want to mention that Chris had a great support group of friends that that suffered as well from not only bipolar but you know manic depression and and and those were the people he could really speak to, and he could help them to that they they all were able to work together and depressed people need people as much as they want to isolate themselves,
Zack Arnold: Right? And I think that a really key thing about the isolation for people that are on the outside looking in that they don’t understand, they sometimes misrepresent. They think to themselves, “Well, they’re just being selfish. They don’t want to be around people. And maybe there is a sense of selfishness because there is a lot of narcissism that comes with deep depression or bipolar or manic depression, where everything is happening to you. But then there’s another part of it that people don’t get, and that’s that you don’t want to be around other people because you don’t want to bring them down and you don’t want to affect their day. And I think people need to understand that that there is a level of selflessness to at least to a lot of it. Like for me, that was my biggest thing. I didn’t want to go out to dinner. I didn’t want to be around people because I couldn’t experience joy, and I didn’t want to bring their nights down. I was just thinking in my head, well, I don’t want to go. You go have fun. Don’t worry about me because I’m just going to bring you down. So people need to understand there is a level of selfness, selflessness inside that, and that’s
Kylee Wall: Going to be exhausting for a depressed person to go out and try to put on a show for everyone to not bring them down too,
Zack Arnold: And that’s that becomes a vortex. I mean, that was the life that I lived for years because outside of my girlfriend at the time, who’s my wife now, but outside of my girlfriend and maybe my parents, nobody around me knew that I was going through anything. I mean, maybe they thought that I was you know grumpy or whatever, like I called myself the 20-five-year-old curmudgeon. I would have a lot of people say, “Man, you sure are moody in the edit suite, but nobody reached out or said, “Hey, man, are you okay? It was just, “Dude, why are you being such an ass? You know, and it was because I really worked to hide it because my career was my identity in my life, and that was part of the issue. Like it’s just this vortex that you get sucked into because you become more exhausted trying to hide it. That it gets worse and worse and worse and worse, and the shame starts to build until you’re sitting in this hole saying, “I’m never going to get out of this.
Brian LaBelle: That’s right, and it’s a slippery slope. And I think you kind of you know said it best, and and maybe maybe you were able to come out of it a little bit because you have moments where you do. You know, Chris had relapses, and then would go years where he was absolutely great, and the medication was balancing him, and work was great, and he would find a rhythm. But the moment that rhythm is broken, that’s when all the pain sweeps in. That’s when the darkness closes in. On his best day, he would say, “I’m cured of this disease. On his best day, he would say that he’s the poster child for the cure for bipolar disorder. On his best day, if he had become an example of success on his worst day, you know we all know what his worst day was. So that’s the illusion. And when you work, and and he would be very, you know, he was a lot like us, Zack. You know, where we’re always working so hard. And you know, when you’re in this business, you just work, work, work. And I think work is great because it kind of it’s it’s something for your mind to do, but when you come home, and you know, or if you have downtime like hiatus, that’s where the the darkness creeps in for for those I think who who might suffer, and I know that for Chris, as soon as he didn’t have something to do, you know. Things changed.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, that that’s something that happened to me a lot, and that happened to all the members of my family. Where you know, all workaholics, all highly, highly intelligent, and very talented at their specific jobs and careers. And you know, we’re talking months on end of working on these crazy projects. Then all of a sudden, the project is over, and then it’s just like you’re driving a car 150 miles an hour and you hit a brick wall. Right, that can kill you. Well, so can being a workaholic and all of a sudden having that stimulus pulled away from you over the course of 48 hours. That’s a tremendous crash, both psychologically and chemically. So that that’s part of the reason I wanted to bring this up is just not hey everyone’s talking about mental illness, so we should do it too. It’s more about how I feel that in our specific industry of post production, we have a double whammy and really need to look out for this because number one, like you had mentioned in your article, Kylee, it says that a recent Swedish study showed that people in creative fields were 8% more likely to have bipolar disorder, and writers in particular are 50% more likely to commit suicide. And there is plenty of documented evidence that the higher the intelligence level and the higher the level of creativity, the higher the level of mental illness. And there are obviously a ton of creative people in our industry in general. So I think that’s the first whammy. But the double whammy is that we’re stuck in a dark room for 12 hours a day, which means that even if we’re not creative, we’re getting the other side, which is that we don’t get any sunlight, we don’t get any activity, so we get no no blood circulating in our body, and our brains just start to rot. Yeah, I
Brian LaBelle: Was waiting for you to bring that up because that is so true, and and as you obviously know, since you’ve brought everyone together for all the sake of our health in this business, that if you have depression and you’re not getting exercise, you’re just it’s just all compounding. You know, anyone who might feel bad about their downtime, you know, I I know when I have a bad day, I’ll tell you I get up and I you know get out and I go for a run and that becomes my um my therapy session in its own right.
Zack Arnold: Right, and the the one thing that I want to mention though and be very clear about is if if I have a bit bad day or you have a bad day or we’re exhausted and it’s like I’m going to skip a workout, I don’t feel great. The next day, we can wake up, feel better, and do it. What I don’t want people to get the impression from this conversation is that I’m saying, “Well, if you’re depressed, just get out and start exercising and eating well, because you you can’t do it. It’s not going to happen because you’re too far in the hole. So, what I want to let people know, and part of the reason, I mean, most of the reason this program exists is because I was at the bottom of that dark hole, and I’ve crawled all the way out of it. And what I’m trying to do is show how I did it, and be able to show that to others. But if you’re in the hole, getting Shakeology and doing P90X ain’t going to happen. What you need to do first is you need to find a professional, and you need to talk to them. That’s where it starts. That’s where it started for me, and I will fully admit, like I’m not comfortable talking about any of this, but knowing how it can help others, I will. I was on multi a multitude of medications for years. I was on Lexapro, I was on Wellbutrin, I was on Prozac, I was on Adderall, I was on. There were a couple other like ADD type ones. I don’t remember the names offhand. Those were the things that got me out of the hole initially. And I remember, like, I was so opposed to medication. Like, I’m sure you can imagine now with you know how I am about natural substances and everything. Just the thought of having a chemical in my body makes my skin crawl. Absolutely. But I’d gone. I probably dealt with this for five or six years and didn’t even really realize it. I just thought I was a grumpy old man, and I remember within three days of taking the medication, my my wife. She wasn’t my wife then, which she was my girlfriend. But she said you just smiled for the first time in three months, and I almost broke down and cried because I didn’t. It wasn’t something I was conscious of, and I didn’t feel like I was feeling better. But she said within three days I looked like a different person, and that was just kind of like if you’re inside that hole, you get that first hand over the ledge, and you start pulling. You’re just slowly getting up, right? And that’s when you start. That’s the the point at which you start to realize, hey, this is something I can do. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s doable, right? So what I’m trying to do with this program is more about prevention. If you’re in the hole already, you need to seek professional help. If you have a tendency to go towards that hole, like I do, basically what I’ve done, and this has taken years. So if if there are people out there that are taking medication, don’t think, well, I’m just going to throw it all in the toilet and I’m going to start doing fitness in post because I do not want you to do that. But what I have found for me my antidepressants are now exercise and proper nutrition and meditation and having a lot of people around me that I really like spending time with. Like those are my antidepressants, right? The fish oils and you know magnesium and like all these other things. These are the way that I prevent going. Back into the hole, but I’ve been in the hole, and it hasn’t been that long ago. It’s not like I’m talking about eight years ago. We’re talking months ago. I’ve been back in the hole, and then I do have to find some form of prescription medication to get out of the hole, and then I’m off it. And I’ve gone the longest period of not needing it because of all the different things that I’m doing with my health.
Zack Arnold: So I want people to see that this program is about so much more than you know, just supplements and exercise programs. And hey, I look better in the mirror. Like for me, this is about survival. That’s the reason that I have this program for myself is so I don’t get back into that deep dark hole because I can’t function. I have two kids. I have a job. Like I can’t be back in that hole anymore.
Kylee Wall: Yeah, and I think another thing that’s important that goes hand in hand with fitness and post and mental illness is that when you’re in the hole and you want to come out, it’s you have to pace yourself. It’s it’s a process. You don’t see results instantly. It’s it’s a kind of a thing that you have to commit to over the long term, and you need a support group. So just like you know, looking good in the mirror or whatever, mental wellness is not a race. It’s just you know you have to commit to the long term and be patient.
Zack Arnold: Right. I mean, there there was a quote that Monica Daniel actually pulled out a quote from me because I was having a conversation with somebody on Facebook and I had mentioned them. I said you have to realize that maintaining your health is a game of chess. It’s not a game of checkers because people are so quick to think, “Well, I feel like crap and I’m overweight and my pants don’t fit. I’m going to be completely transformed in 90 days, and if I’m not, I failed and I’m going to quit. Right? And it took me almost 10 years to get completely out of the hole to the point where I feel like I’ve I’ve succeeded and I figured it out. I may go back into the hole. Like there’s no saying that I’ve prevented it. Like I haven’t cured it. You never cure any form of you know mental depression or you know bipolar. Like you’re never going to be cured. It’s kind of like if you’re an alcoholic, you may be sober for 25 years, but you’re always fearful of taking that first drink, and it’s kind of the same way where I always know that it’s there. I know that I have a tendency toward it, and I always have to be careful to be aware of it. But you know, having all these different tools in my toolbox now are helping keep me away from it, and they’re making me better at what I do. Along the lines of those tools, the first one that I want to mention, and this is a totally shameless plug, but it’s for a good reason. The place that got me out of this hole is the Akasha Center, and I done a podcast with Dr. Edison de Mello. It was a two-part show that I did a few weeks ago. He was the guy that got me out. So if you listen to that show, that that guy’s the reason that I’m alive right now. The other thing that I want to talk about that people don’t really even think about when we’re talking about mental illness. Everybody’s always talking about the chemical side, the dopamine and the serotonin, and it’s all about your brain chemistry. What people don’t really know is that there’s a lot of electrical activity in your brain that’s off too, and that can be caused from traumatic brain injury, as opposed to just oh well, you know, I’m just I’m just a sad person, right? And what I found through all the experimentation that I’ve done is that a lot of the cause of everything I was dealing with, especially the attention issues and a lot of the depression issues, was from traumatic brain injury that I had when I was in high school playing football and being in martial arts and baseball. And I found all that out through doing neurofeedback. And I have another podcast from a few weeks ago with Dr. Michael Mark, who’s the the neuroscientist that I work with. But people often think to themselves, “Well, you know, if I’m mentally ill and I’m depressed, then I just have to take a pill, and it’s the only way I’m going to get out. And the sad part is that a lot of the Western medical establishment feels the same way, and I know that firsthand because I’ve talked to other medical doctors. Because I was in the this wasn’t for me, but when I was with the members of my family in the room, they would say, “All right, well, you’re depressed and you’re down, so I’m going to try this pill. And I would say, “Well, hold on a second. Before we just throw a pill at them, you know what? What? Maybe we should go ahead and start measuring the neurotransmitters. Maybe we should talk about dietary changes. Maybe we can look at electrical activity because this is from all the experiences that I had. And the doctor, I swear to God, looked at me and said, “Oh no, I’m sorry, I don’t do that. I’m a doctor. And I was like, “Okay, so I think we’re done here. So I took that person, flew them out to California, and sat them down with Doctor de Mello. And this person was basically catatonic and couldn’t function. And within a month or two, they were better than I had seen them in decades.
Zack Arnold: But that’s because the approach was just a complete full frontal assault from every single angle possible. But most of Western medicine, and I’ve been told this by Western medical doctors, where they say, “Well, we know you’re depressed if we give you the pill and it worked. It’s like, really, that’s as quantifiable as you’re going to get is you gave me the pill and it worked and I feel better so therefore I must have been depressed so that scares me and I’m a big fan of data and so I want to bring up that it’s about a lot more than just pills and there are other ways to fix it and the neurofeedback was probably the number one thing that transformed me and got me over that hump and I talk a lot. That huge pit in my stomach that I lived with for years, and within 10 or 15 treatments, doing the neurofeedback that was gone, and I had never seen it since. So I want people to understand there are a lot of different ways to approach it. It’s not just I feel like crap, which means I’m going to need a pill the rest of my life.
Brian LaBelle: I think that’s well said, and I think it’s approaching it in the direction that you’re comfortable with. First of all, it takes an extraordinary amount of courage to say, “Oh my gosh, I might be suffering from depression. I have a problem, and I want to talk to somebody about it. I know nine times out of 10, when I talk to people who are suffering, they suffered for years with depression before they ended up seeking help just by way of pride, or that they were embarrassed, or that they didn’t even think it was a problem. You know, seeking taking that first step and talking to someone is is huge, and then talking to someone you’re comfortable with to seek out a solution and define a plan. And Zack, your plan sounds fantastic, and I’m glad you’re talking about it because there are a lot of people out there that just you know won’t get help for the sake of they don’t want to take the pharmaceuticals. But what you’re saying is that they may there might be other solutions, and I agree with that. There’s a lot of possibilities, and to explore those possibilities takes a lot of courage.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and I think that most people think, and I thought too for a long time, that it’s either I’m going to be this way or I’m stuck on a pill for the rest of my life. And the lesson that I really learned from Dr. de Mello is that it’s not about being on it for the rest of your life. It’s about being on it for the interim, right? It’s like wearing a cast. If you break your arm, you don’t think to yourself, “Oh my God, this cast is going to be on me for the next 50-five years. You think, “All right, well, this is going to be really inconvenient for about six weeks, and then I’m going to be better, right? And I I’ve always kind of looked at medication the same way, where every once in a while I fall down and I break my arm again, it’s like, all right, I’m I’m gonna have to be cautious and make sure that I don’t injure myself further. So I’m gonna have to go back on some form of medication to balance myself out. But then I’m at the point where I continue with my program and I move forwards and I’m great and I have nothing in my system for months or years, and you know I’m not like I said, I’m not cured, but people really need to understand that there’s so many more approaches than just you’re stuck on a pill for the duration of your life.
Brian LaBelle: I like what you said about breaking your arm because it’s a good analogy. If you break your arm, you’re going to take the medicine to relieve the pain, and you’re going to put your arm in a cast, and it’s going to heal. And and and the sim there’s there’s similarities. I wish people looked at mental illness like you like breaking your arm because people who suffer don’t you know always have the support system around them to get them the help or to push them in the direction to to deal with a broken mind and a broken mind needs not only any kind of pharmaceutical treatment, or whether it’s holistic, they also need the the therapy of the of communication and and discussing and counseling to understand why they have these issues. So so if you break your arm, you’re going to get treatment. I wish that people were more accepting of mental illness, and they thought, okay, you know, I, I, I, my brain is broken. I’m going to go fix it.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, because that’s what you do with your car. You’re not ashamed if your carburetor goes out, or you need to, you know, fix your spark plugs because you’re not firing at the right timing. You’re like, ah, my car’s broken. You know,
Brian LaBelle: That’s a social problem that we have. I think in in in our country and many others, maybe, is that you know we’re not supposed to. If we’re if we’re if there’s something wrong mentally, then we’re we’re crazy. Well, that’s you know, that’s a very old thought process. That’s ridiculous. I mean, we’re we’re we’re in the 21st century now, and people fall down, and they fall down because of of things that are happening in the brain that they they can’t they can’t control, and they should never be embarrassed or feel embarrassed to you know seek help for that.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know if you guys remember this would have been maybe five six years ago, but there was this huge fight between Brooke Shields and Tom Cruise, because she was on antidepressants after having one of one of her kids. I don’t remember which one, but she had just given birth, and she was going through postpartum depression. And Tom Cruise was saying, “Well, you can cure it with vitamin D and this and that and the other thing. And they had this huge fight about it, and it really kind of became one side or the other. It was like either Tom Cruise is crazy and Brooke Shields is right, or it was the opposite, where Brooke Shields was just weak and Tom Cruise is a genius. And what the conversation that never really came out of that is that they were both right, and I don’t think anybody ever really pointed that out because she was at that point where she needed some form of medication, but he. Was also right in that you can prevent these things just through holistic nutrition, but I feel, and he kind of came back to that point eventually, where he kind of accepted that. But because he’s you know a member of the Scientology group, that’s a big thing for them. I’m really a big believer that they were both right. That yes, there are points where you’re going to need the medication, but there are also points where you don’t have to depend on it, and you can do it completely naturally. It just takes a lot of work. Like I’ve never said anywhere on my website, on a podcast, in a blog that my program is easy. I actually go out of my way to make people know that this is hard. You know, because anything that’s easy is not going to be worth it, right? Anything worthwhile is not easy, and anything easy is not worthwhile. So I’m trying to develop something that’s a challenge, but that you’re going to get a lot out of. And I feel the same way with you know my battle with dealing with depression issues. Is that if I just sit back and say, “Oh, I’m cured, and I’m going to eat a bunch of crap for a week, and I’m not going to exercise, and it doesn’t even take seven days, and the red light goes on, and I’m like, “Okay, I already see myself going down this road, and I need to be really, really careful right now. So it it can happen very, very fast.
Brian LaBelle: Yeah, Zack, and you know, I’m I’m not exempt to feeling depressed. I’ve suffered, you know, off and on through you know life with with mild depression, and and and it’s not a severe one. And and that’s the thing to talk about too is that there’s so many levels to this. There’s the very mild case. There’s severe. There’s manic. There’s bipolar, and all of these have different paths and extremes for treatment. You know, I too was on you know medication for a short period of time after my divorce, and you know things happen, and those things are triggers. And listen, my brother Chris, he he was a healthy kid all the way up until the age of 30, and then it just took one thing that you know triggered the bipolar. So some people are born, you know, with this genetically because you know they have it. Their ancestors might have suffered from it, but to understand that that this can happen to to any which one of us, and I would say that nine times out of 10, we know somebody who is is not feeling good right this second, and and that’s okay, you know. And you shouldn’t feel embarrassed that you don’t feel good, because it it’s a constant. And and and seeking support is is the number one step to to you know trying to work with that problem, whether you have something in the most mild form or severe or bipolar, whether you want to you know seek out holistic. Whether you want to go talk to a counselor and and forget about talking about medication, but maybe you just need to get some things off your chest. There are a zillion paths to a solution, but you got to get on that path,
Zack Arnold: Right? And the the other thing that people need to understand, especially in our industry, is that you had mentioned there are a zillion paths to the solution. There are a lot of different paths to the problem too, and a lot of those paths lie in this industry. And what people, what a lot of people don’t know, and maybe they do, and I’m you know just naive, but I didn’t know this is that stress is one of the number one factors that can lead to depression because you’re constantly raising all of your stress hormones, and your you have your parasympathetic and your sympathetic nervous systems. One of which is the fight or flight response, which we’ve just instinctually developed because we’re saying, “Hey, a lion is chasing me, therefore I need to raise my stress level so I can run faster and have adrenaline. But now we’re at a point where that’s happening to our bodies 24 hours a day because of all the stimuli that are around us, whether it’s phone calls or emails or projects and deadlines and things are just moving so quickly. Over time, your chemistry inside can get completely out of whack just because of the stress, just because of being sedentary and because of having poor diet. So if you’re listening to the show and saying, “Well, everyone in my family’s healthy and I’ve never been depressed before, so I’m not genetically prone to it. So I’m fine. Well, guess what? Just your environment as an editor or visual effects artist-that’s enough to lead you down the path towards depression if you’re not careful.
Brian LaBelle: Yeah, diet, you know, is is a very important part of of trying to stay healthy. And I’ve shifted all my diet around, man, just for the sake of you know avoiding any kind of you know mild low between dieting and exercise, that’s a big component, man. It really is. Your body’s made of you know chemicals and reactions, and it’s important, seriously important, to consider if you do have loved ones or if you are suffering to to try the best you can to eat right, and to eat you know a balanced diet, and and choose the right organic choices that we’ve all been discussing.
Zack Arnold: Well, as long as we’re on that subject, I’m going to bring this conversation up a little bit because we’ve been down for so long. Yeah. So let’s get off this subject. You guys are both in my 10. Group and we just finished, so let’s talk a little bit about you guys because I really haven’t checked in with you for a long time. So let’s end this conversation on a high note and walk me through how things went for the the duration of the test group now that we’re finished.
Kylee Wall: Well, it went okay. I didn’t finish my running program because it got so freaking hot in Atlanta, like over 100 degrees, and I was like, I don’t think I’m gonna do, so I tried to stay active inside. But I found myself throughout the whole program, like I would get up at work way more than I ever did before, and walk around like every half hour. I’m like, okay, I’m gonna go run around outside or something. So that was really great. I kept up on doing some push-ups and things like that. So basically, overall, my activity level stayed up, and then like two weeks ago, my Fitbit fell off. Oh no! So
Brian LaBelle: Feeling, I know that feeling.
Kylee Wall: And I was like, no. I mean, like the Fitbit. I’m surprised it doesn’t email me. Like, are you okay? It should do that. But yeah, overall,
Brian LaBelle: Lost now. Is it gone?
Kylee Wall: Yeah, it’s lost.
Zack Arnold: They’ll send you another one. Just email them and say, “Hey, I lost mine, and they’ll probably send you another one for free. Really, they’re really good about that. They
Kylee Wall: Probably know that the bracelets aren’t so secure. Yeah, I’m sure they’ve heard that.
Zack Arnold: Yes, a lot of people are complaining about losing because the bracelet comes off. So they’ve been really good about replacing them.
Kylee Wall: Oh, I’m gonna do that because I I was really enjoying looking at my activity levels every day and trying to like compete with myself like the previous day and stuff like that. So that was really helpful. Right. But I found like even without it, like I was able to you know stay motivated. Like when you count calories, you at a certain point you can stop because you kind of know where you are. So I kind of had that same awareness with my own activity level, but I like to have a Fitbit, you know, for checking in to make sure I’m not just trying to convince myself that I’ve walked a lot more or run a lot more than I thought. But just having the motivation and seeing the posts and stuff that people are doing every day, it was really helpful. I feel better than I did when we started.
Brian LaBelle: I like seeing everybody work together. That’s been the most enjoyable part of this process. Is to see the peer to peer support of everybody working to stay healthy mutually together, and it’s done wonders for me. And it’s gotten me on a soapbox when I go around town, and I’m talking to friends, and they’re saying, “Wow, you look great, Brian! You lost weight. You you look toned, and and you look healthy. And and you know, I I end up on this soapbox that suddenly I’m on about you know, well, I made choices to eat right, and I I joined a wonderful group of people who are in this business who suffer the same stress levels and and suffer the highs and lows and we’re all working together and that that’s how I’ve gotten this way. I can’t say that I’ve done it completely by myself because if it wasn’t for the group and the support and going to Fitbit, you know, and looking at you know Daniel way ahead of me and Natalie, you know, on my heels or vice versa, the leaderboard and and and choosing to eat right through all these wonderful products that are out there now that are healthy and organic, you know, those are the things that I’ve grown from. I didn’t have much of an education about nutrition, and I still don’t. And I’m not going to say that I do, but what I am now aware of is what I put into my body and what I choose to do for my body in the morning. And I do 40 push-ups without fail. I do, you know, 25 to 30 chin-ups without fail. I if I don’t go for a run, I’m gonna get it in my speed walk, you know, throughout the day. And these are the things that are so valuable to my energy level and so valuable to my spirit and my my well being as far as my mood. I have a much more balanced mood now than I did when we started this, Zack. I can’t tell you how much just the exercise does for balancing your stress, making you feel more calm about decisions or what’s going on in your life, whether it’s good or bad. It just levels things out. I look great. I feel good. Things couldn’t be better.
Zack Arnold: Well, and I going back to the the comment you made about diet. I now officially have you hooked on the the bulletproof coffee and the oil. Is that correct?
Brian LaBelle: Such an advocate for it. I love it. I’m in. I’m right now. I’m currently out of the bulletproof the the oil, and I can’t tell you what it’s doing to me. It’s just so frustrating. I’ve now substitute the coconut oil, which is absolutely fine until I get the other stuff. But I, you know, it’s it’s been wonderful. And and sometimes there’s you know it’s good health, but there’s also the placebo of you’re doing something good for your body. Okay, so you have both. It’s it’s healthy for you. It it’s gonna do great things to you mentally and energetically. But there’s also the very simple placebo of you made a choice to be healthy. You’ve made that choice to be healthy. Your mind becomes healthy, okay, just on that alone. So so it’s it’s a compounding reaction that occurs,
Zack Arnold: Right? And I I love that that that thought. I’d never really put it that way before about the placebo of choosing to be healthy. But one thing that just popped in in my mind is that even when you make poor choices, as long as your mindset is the same, you don’t you’re not like falling off the wagon, so to speak, right? Because you don’t feel like you’re fighting willpower and saying, “Well, I really have poor health habits, but right now I’m fighting that and trying to do better. Once your mindset changes, you can have half a piece of chocolate cake and enjoy it, but then the next day you know you’re going to continue to make healthy choices because that’s a mindset. And I love the way that you put that. That’s great.
Brian LaBelle: And and and there’s days that you don’t do the whole workout. There’s days that you know you’re not gonna you know push yourself to the limit you did the day before. But what I learned about it is I’m always gonna do something, and I’m always gonna do one form of exercise, or I’m definitely gonna be out there and I’m gonna be walking or I’m gonna be running. That’s a guarantee, and and that’s better than not doing anything at all. So for those that feel like they want to go and get that gym membership, you don’t have to get a gym membership, and I that’s the biggest misnomer. You don’t have to go to Gold’s Gym and spend three hours there. You can do this at your in your house. You can wake up in the morning and make yourself a smoothie. Choosing, you know, a kasha. Choosing the bulletproof coffee. Choosing the shakeology. Whatever your choice is, that’s a healthy start to your morning. And eating right, and and just doing a little bit of exercise for 20 minutes, right in place, right in on. You know, you don’t need a lot of space. You said this makes a big difference in your your mind, body, and health. It really does.
Zack Arnold: All right. Well, I’m going to put you on the spot right now, Brian. The last conversation that we had in person was that you were going to jump on your laptop and you were going to register with the Fitness and Post team to go to the Spartan race. Yeah. And I I have not seen your registration pop up on my team yet? So what’s going on, my friend? That’s true,
Brian LaBelle: And that might be a monetary issue for now. But I am, I am signing up. I’m not forgetting. I promise that that’s my that’s my vow. So I’m going to do it if I have to drag myself through each obstacle. I feel like I’m in really good shape. I need a lot more training. I need to do a lot more box jumps. But I’ve been really working heavily on the the things that were weaknesses for me, like climbing the rope and doing my my chin ups, trying to get my upper body and gears. So just because I haven’t signed up, it doesn’t mean that I’m not. I promise I’m in.
Zack Arnold: Well, I’m I’m very glad to hear that, and I want everybody that’s listening to know this is another shameless plug. I’m very fully aware of it, but I’m going to be starting a new challenge group soon. And near the end of the challenge group is going to be the Spartan Sprint in Malibu in December. And I have a couple of people that are already signed up for that. And if somebody’s thinking to themselves right now, “Oh man, I’d love to do that someday, but I just I don’t know how to train or whatever. Like, if you want to train for a Spartan race and you want to conquer one, and the Spartan sprint is only three miles, it takes less than an hour to get through. This is the way to do it, and I’m starting a group september 1. So I’ll leave a link in the show notes. But if anybody’s kind of on the fence and they’re saying, “Well, I really want to get motivated, but I don’t have that motivation, signing up for something and being accountable to a team will get you to wake up every morning and do the things you need to do, just out of complete fear of getting annihilated on the obstacle course. That’s where I. That’s where I started. That’s
Brian LaBelle: Absolutely correct. And and for anyone who wants something, you know, some people need that goal ahead of them. They, well, I’m training for this or I’m training for that. Well, the Spartan or any kind of 5k or whatever it might be, is so valuable to your health to to to set up a goal, and and the fact that you can do this with a team is even better because you can work with your team to get there together. And what’s great about modern day technology now is that we don’t even all have to be in the same room together. We can just look at our Fitbit devices, and see what each other’s doing, and I can sit there and go, “Wow, I need to get going because I’m way back on the bottom of the leaderboard.
Zack Arnold: How about you, Kylee? Am I going to get you to come to a fitness and post start Spartan race? Because I know you’ve done the Warrior Dash.
Kylee Wall: I totally would if I was there. I would definitely sign up.
Zack Arnold: We need to start a Kickstarter campaign so we can get Kylee to fly out to LA to do our Spartan Spartan job.
Brian LaBelle: Be a part of it, or you know, in Georgia, I’m sure there’s wonderful opportunities for for some Spartan fun too.
Zack Arnold: There’s got to be plenty of zombie runs in Atlanta. I mean, come on, it’s zombie central out there with Walking Dead.
Kylee Wall: I know, right? I don’t like zombie runs because I don’t like. Being chased.
Zack Arnold: Ah, okay. Well, then that’s probably not for you.
Kylee Wall: Well, if I train hard enough, it won’t matter, though, right?
Zack Arnold: That’s right. That’s right. That’s the whole idea.
Kylee Wall: Yeah, I need to train for another some kind of obstacle course because those are so fun. But man, is that rope wall, man? Oh gosh, the
Brian LaBelle: Rope is tough. The rope.
Kylee Wall: That was the one thing I could not do.
Brian LaBelle: Everybody has that nemesis obstacle. I I still think of the the freaking crazy bars trying to do the jump from one bar to the next. Those white parts, you know those
Zack Arnold: Right.
Brian LaBelle: And I’m still haunted by not doing them. I’m going to beat that thing. I swear to you. Yeah,
Zack Arnold: That’s the thing that keeps you coming back. Is you think, oh well, I’ve done one obstacle course, so I’m done now, and it it just doesn’t work that way. It’s very addictive. Yeah. And then you say, well, I made it through, and that was my goal. But next time, I’m going to do better on this obstacle, or I’m going to beat this one because I went through and finished the Spartan beast in June, and that was over 13 miles, and I made it. But there are so many things that I did poorly, whether it be my time or whether it be failing at obstacles, that I look at it as well. Yes, I finished, but next time I want to nail it, and that’s going to take a ton more work than just the basic training that I was doing before. So it’s just a new goal. So that’s that’s really my way of preventing the idea of saying, well, you know, I’ve I’ve done my 90 days and I’m in better shape, so I’m done now. Now it’s just about these benchmarks, and I mentioned this on last week’s show too, but it’s really just about setting a new goal every three to four months, so you never get in that rut and fall off the wagon and say, “Well, you know, I’m going to get out of shape again and eat Doritos all day. And I just say that from personal experience because I’ve done that like five times.
Brian LaBelle: And we all know what that feels like when you do sit on the couch and eat Doritos. It’s it’s an awful feeling, and and that’s when we get closer to that dark side that we don’t want to be next to.
Zack Arnold: Exactly. All right. Well, I think we’re going to call it a show. I’m really, really, really, really super happy with the show. This has been great, guys. So I well thank you, you both being here. Absolutely,
Brian LaBelle: Man.
Kylee Wall: Awesome. Thank you so
Zack Arnold: Much, guys. I really appreciate it. And obviously, our group is done, but we’re still gonna, you know, stay in touch, and I want to keep this thing moving much longer term. So, bet, and I’m spreading the word like crazy too. Cool. All right. Well, thanks, guys. Have a great evening.
This episode was edited by Kristin Martin, show notes were prepped by Maciek Kaliski, and the show was executive produced by Kanen Flowers. We are a member of the THAT STUDIO podcast network.
The music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Dorian Cheah from his brilliant album ARA.
In this episode I speak with Dr. Michael Mark, a neuropsychologist and the co-founder of NeuroEdge Inc, a brain treatment center in Southern California. We talk about different types of neurofeedback, biofeedback, and BCIT (Brain Computer Interface Training), understanding cognitive function at the electrical, neural, and chemicals levels, and most importantly, how to quantitatively measure brain function and improve it.
