Joe Rogan Experience #2109 — Abigail Shrier Transcript

Transcript

0:00 The Joe Rogan Experience. Yeah, it was a very small, noisy group of people, by the way. Well, they tried to kick it off Spotify. 2020. Why? they're wrong. And they're using terms like life-saving gender-affirming care instead of castration and removing breasts and hormones. That's right. I think that's the scariest thing of all, that people are afraid to just

2:31 It's definitely not the American way. They like to scare them into silence. That's right. good one, they wouldn't have to shut everyone up, right? They wouldn't have to object. I mean, you know, as the title of your book, That there was a growing number of these women who were regretting their transition, You don't think that some people are going to do it and regret it.

5:26 all evidence to the contrary. And I think they're correct. They're talking about like the satanic stuff from the 80s? Which is crazy. I, you know, when I look back on it, you know, there are a few, I sort of had a few, there Testosterone creates a feeling of euphoria. All my anxiety is gone. It's very dark and I would have never imagined this. they banned those drugs, the ones that were harmful.

9:36 transition clinics in 2023 and it's fucking insane. So yeah, I mean, I agree with you. Well, actually the gender surgeons often, you know, doing the surgery, so you had a lot of surgeries This is not something that they've been doing forever, erection to actually penetrate. Like, what did you expect when you wrote the book? was gonna be the reaction to it?

12:41 It was deleted from Target. if you don't do exactly what I say There's actually a new study out of Finland showing that Your new book, Bad Therapy, Why Kids Aren't Growing Up. So what they're doing is they're making on some of the side effects of therapy the labeling feeling limited by that label, Do you think there's a place for therapy? they're ready to do the hard work of therapy. But a child or teenager is usually strong-armed

16:24 An adult can say, are very self-indulgent. not careful, especially with teens and kids, it can make the pain, the worry, the feeling But if you go, if you're a teen or kid who shows up, than antidepressants for a lot of, you know, 1.25%. I mean it's amazing, right? talked to. So I talked to this girl, Becca, that's what I call her in the book, but she was a high

19:44 make friends in college. that are going through this? why were they in the most distress? of course, I had written Irreversible Damage and I knew from that experience that very and what are your feelings on gender? There's no question. and when, and then getting the dopamine hit up is a few things. and 1988 the rates of adolescent suicide quadrupled.

23:14 they said that one in six kids between the ages of two and eight, these aren't kids with mental health in general, boys from liberal families had worse mental health than girls about things like climate change. But I also think it shows that it's in the environment we're of anxiety and depression than we do, countries like Japan and Israel, where kids have more

25:29 So that's an interesting statistic that you were saying that, so conservative families have less depressed kids, That's right. And, I mean, we can speculate as to why. There are lots of proposed reasons for that. may be more comfortable kinds of ways. That's right. Putting kids in charge. thing, the people who are making the rules aren't some expert mom hired.

28:06 their children and the children are going to rebel. and they were fairly cold. They're hovering and surveilling their kids. Why do you think it is that things have moved in this general direction? And so they sort of naively, and they had good experiences in therapy. even routine events. You have to you we learn. I mean obviously bad feelings can be devastating, but bad feelings also can

31:39 consequences of certain behavior are. It wasn't the poorest kids whose parents And here's the thing, they also ended up happy. And we spent so much time worrying about trying to make our kids happy, and we don't spend enough time trying to make them strong. my own grandmother lived through the depression. And when her oldest sister married at 17, She became one of the first judges in Maryland,

34:05 say, you've been through a lot of trauma. We should talk about it. They're not measuring in general. is improving. Sure. Good therapy is therapy for a kid who needs it. the parent has tried to stabilize the kid, the therapist like you would any surgeon. and under-dreated. Therapists are humans. No, so The medical professions, of course, do require it, right?

38:02 We've seen this with breast cancer. they're having the worst anxiety and depression? Why? It's skyrocketing. It should be going down. If and harder. Right, they could have called for a ban. They didn't I don't think they knew right away, right? It had never it never existed before no, but there's been really good evidence for the last eight years They'd never called for a ban on social media. They never issued the same warning that doctors

40:37 Long term. felt like we had to warn the public they lead to cancer. We don't want to see smartphones in schools. If we knew the consequences of social media, let's go back to like 2005 or something like There's like some state that's trying to ban TikTok for kids. They're talking about how algorithms target children demand users constant them. I would have to read the lawsuit.

43:55 What they do say is that children feel left out if they're not on social media because You can be on your phone just not during the school day. I think that mental health experts, Right. Yeah, well zoom is a little different right because you're you actually are interacting with a person even though it's through a screen The kids who went home for the lockdowns

45:59 For sure. especially kids who don't really need it, yourself and your own feelings and problems and how much of that is self-indulgent and how much of They focus the team on the task ahead. Tell me about your feelings. But is it even repressing your feelings or is it just not indulging those feelings and it is a basketball, whatever the activity, about human beings is that tasks and difficult

49:04 in that generation. We're not seeing that with these young people. And she said to me in the last decade, They tell me they're getting ready. They're working on their skills I probably would I think I would probably treat them differently, but I think that in doing these very difficult things. No one says it. Did you talk therapists when you did this? Yeah a lot of therapists. Yeah, how many of them agree with you?

52:29 your oil that much. Well, it's their business to change oil. Right. It's not, he doesn't treat a kid like an annuity. some of those therapies are extremely necessary and very successful. When this person gets, this person that you were just describing, if they get someone You know, that doesn't seem to make, make sense to me. So you discovering this at age 12,

55:00 patient who really needs you. Right. They're really hard to treat. Almost impossible. Oh boy. I mean, it's the number one symptom of depression is what they call rumination, is good for you, run errands, that's going to make me feel better. or it's your parents get killed in a car accident, of human history doesn't mean it's not painful, but of resilience. They get on. They aren't

58:14 In other words that didn't mean that dad didn't lose his job and they were forced out of the you know and you're gonna hear a story of pain and survival If you were bullied, that does have and that sort of like, You start feeling like you used to feel when you went there. that some kids have gone through. that interferes with daily life. And we're going in with medication

1:00:43 Right. It actually helps you be sharper. Because they get scared of the anxiety. Now I'm not talking about major depressive disorder and we think about what change we might wanna make Because we'll lose the motivation. That will, to make a big change, often happens after we've been brought low. Accentuate the negative aspects of whatever they've gone through no no you're talking about but mine was worse right but mine was this mine was that mine was unbearable mine was that and I think that's something that our society for whatever reason encourages

1:03:52 their buddies torn apart and killed. We're gonna put you right back with your men. with this chronically. They may need more treatment than other people. to kids, you have a much better shot that they will. That means that they've been hearing about the symptoms of PTSD, they were thinking about don't have the symptoms. Oh wow. I love that. Go out there and attack those tasks,

1:07:24 That's the ring, the bell thing. You know, they, they, they bail. They can't take the stress of it and actual Navy SEAL, but there's so many ways to be strong They're saying that, you know, I mean, this is the trauma generation, right? Anybody would. And teachers tell me it's getting abused like crazy. Of course. Yeah. You know, And she said to me, you know, my kids, I have therapists who are dealing with them.

1:09:59 It's not helping. Yes. This is gonna be very difficult for people to hear to talking about it and dwelling on it. Teaching kids they have to be afraid of everything, that they can never do anything without the you despise that and you become strong because of that. But it's very difficult to learn from a bad example sometimes, Now the teachers get involved in every squabble.

1:13:31 I'll handle it. you want to know the truth. The dads especially love the book. Dad stopped, you know, I think being a sort of a backstop and saying, he's fine, he'll The mental health experts tell you And a lot of these therapists don't know anything Are there any studies about the cultures or the civilizations, whatever countries that She showed me these tests she does with subjects behind a one-way mirror, and she hooks them

1:16:08 And one of the things she noticed in her research what was an actual danger much better. small thing whether it's someone like rolling their eyes at you or saying something that might And what is it? It becomes their identity. minimizing these kids' pain, they are in real pain and they're making it worse. I would be really fascinated to see you have a conversation with someone who is a therapist

1:18:54 I interviewed a lot of great therapists who tell me that a lot of people who have experienced So this endless rehashing of your pain, less symptoms after, you know, nine months, I think it was. And you know what? You know what doesn't have that? the years now versus the past? 42% of kids have a mental health diagnosis. What? They call it, oh, summer anxiety.

1:22:02 like, what is that internationally? Like what is it? I think we're not giving them a healthy life and that includes, I don't think we knew it was bad for us when I was a kid. Well, okay. Cheerios. fat. Your body doesn't even know how to digest that shit. Right. So we've given kids They have monitors everywhere. and then they're going through a test,

1:25:41 SnapMap. Right. It's not good for them. They don't have freedom to just be. Well, that doesn't remediate. So I really did need to see that therapist. neuropsychologist will say, sorry they're within normal range and the And the teacher has a problem with him. Yeah. some of these things, atarol, people have told me it's brutal. of Adderall? and you're getting a result

1:29:20 according to IQVIA, a health research firm. What's happening? Getting a diagnosis of attention deficit, By the way, that would have been me. Anxiety can present as ADHD and depression can present as ADHD. And guess what? unmedicated. Right. And colleagues made the case for the latter. They argue that ADHD traits likely evolved they say it's for your mental development.

1:32:43 I didn't know that there was things that I could excel at until I started doing things outside of school. I didn't know that there your brain. It's called ADHD. You need a pill so you can be like everybody else. Would horrible job where I couldn't wait to get to my pharmacy These are kids who are gonna have their sex drive deleted have the feeling, I overcame that on my own, I thought I had an HD,

1:34:39 Because one of the things they never ask is, Which will make you depressed. That's the really difficult thing I don't know. I think that there's a place for these drugs, absolutely. And so they will show up for college and say, Yeah, but you know who else is prescribing them? So it's very easy. Pediatricians are usually the ones And if the parents believe the narrative that these medications are beneficial and they

1:38:31 asked their own parents who raised kids to adulthood, right? You know, my take is I didn't have access to people that had raised successful, stable people. But the other siblings oftentimes are a mess and sometimes the parents want to take Right, there was something healthy. There was some healthy message or example that at least made the kids think, I can.

1:40:27 That's not our culture. starting a family. do it or is the way we do it? Will we cast them out? That's the difference. It's a healthy, it's different from ours, but it is healthy and you What's going on? We want people to be heard. I don't know if you've ever seen there's a hilarious video of this Listen to this. Please can we just I know it's we're all fresh and ready to go

1:44:37 and naive and you don't understand these people are mentally ill. Like, that is, that parents have an absolute ability to turn this around. and I was seated behind this family of four, okay? Well, don't be upset. He never once said to her, you know, there are other people on this plane and We have to care about others. So, but you're also, You're not going to just fix them by having them fix their kid, which is part of the

1:47:29 I'm gonna make stronger, happier, kinder kids. There are people who are good people and you can ask them, by the way, immigrants, because culture, the worse their mental health gets. Why? And part of the reason is they have social The reality of hard work is inescapable. hey, my problem is kind of trivial. Because it's not just the child. And there's a lot of research that shows that, that the old way of doing things, which is,

1:50:15 who was on retainer to talk to in case she had a problem. I mean, and they get to rise above it all. and I interviewed an expert in parental alienation, the therapist. I think it is. Don't go with it because he might just convince a kid for the rest of his life that he's got a brain problem and a limitation Sure, all the time. The one I was thinking about, I don't know the answer,

1:53:10 You know what? The truth is, they all have a good business. But what's fascinating about it is, first of all, it's fascinating seeing how the regulatory and push this stuff and try to get these doctors to start prescribing this and they don't have I'm really paranoid. they would have sleepovers. Yeah, you're not paranoid if it's actually happening right yeah, right that's a funny story

1:55:52 That's what he thought. It's real. Don't you think it is? People who love you and you love back over a lifetime, or take a chance you wouldn't have picked for them. Yeah. to navigate their world. It's really healthy to have competency. And that's something Right, but you can't protect kids from every kind of pain, right? If my kids came to me and said she said something mean to me,

1:59:04 is to make sure they never feel any emotional distress ever, boy, that's a lifelong journey and it's I appreciate you. I know you succeeded. Thanks for being here.