Darling, so are you welcome welcome to the bisexual coffee with Edith Ivey Rosenblatt and friends. These are my friends Sydney the non-binary chef and Michael Leblanc. He did not add his title. We'll just call him him.
Yeah, that's fine. I'm a power puff girl villain first and foremost.
Oh, I love it.
There you go.
Powder puff girl.
Exactly.
Welcome Sydney.
Thank you.
How are you both doing?
I'm not going to lie. I am technologically flustered right now. My nothing seemed to work on my computer, but when I double checked on my camera on my computer, everything was nice and smooth.
I'm like, you know what? I'm just going in with my phone.
I hope you guys can hear me pretty well.
Oh, we can hear you very well.
Okay. Now here's here's the real test. Can you hear this?
It's kind of loud.
Can you hear that?
Yes.
Okay.
Well then I can move the mic back just to make I didn't know how good it was going to be. It's plugged into my phone. Everything's running off battery power.
Oh, that's awesome.
We're going to clutch and pray today guys.
We're going to clutch.
We're going to clutch the pearls baby.
Clutch them honey.
But so I hope you're you're onboarding today was a lot smoother than mine.
Yeah, we've been hanging out.
That's good.
That's good. I'm glad to hear that.
That's great.
So what's going to happen here is I'm going to let you guys talk and I'm going to pull up the Reddit that was supposed to be on my phone on the computer.
We're just going to get this jazz going. How about them apples?
All right. That sounds fabulous.
I want to read something to Sydney, the non binary chef.
Okay, Sydney.
I got this from one of your videos and I was so touched that I wrote it all down and hopefully I read it eloquently.
But I just I want I want to know how you feel about it because you did a video on it. Okay.
So the thing that no one tells you is that the magic begins after you give up.
This can happen in your 20s or 30s.
It depends on how long it takes for life to exhaust you with its restrictions and rules.
You just give up your pretenses.
You give up caring what other people think you give up impressing others.
You give up saying yes to things which are really a no.
You give up playing the game.
You shed the layer layer after layer of other people's influences.
You give it all up willingly and underneath all you find is yourself, the self that is now free and you're finally ready to discover that is all you need to really be happy.
So you did a video and you were really emotional about it and I just want to know what it means to you.
So with that one, it's it cuts deep with me.
I've been taught since I was a young age that I needed to keep quiet because I've got ADHD.
I've always been hyper.
I've always been out there.
I've always been colorful.
I've always felt who I am transitioning into since I was like very, very young, like I mean the preschool age.
But I was always told to conform and fit into the certain area and growing up.
I had a lot of pressure to be that cis straight white male and bought into all the everything toxic masculinity, you know, the men don't cry and men, you know, don't feel the feelings.
And then when I joined the Marine Corps, I kind of got doubled down on that because the units that I was with initially it was Marines don't cry.
We don't talk about feelings.
And that's what initially took me down back in 2011 is I didn't know how to process the feelings and the emotions and the traumas that I was going through and that I had done through.
And so I started using drugs to try and like hide that.
And I created this entire persona based off of like Greek mythology.
I used to go by the nickname Aries all the time.
And I created this thing that no one could touch me knowing to get in.
And I was just slowly destroying myself.
And it wasn't until I hit a point where everything around me became so incredibly dark.
I was so exhausted with running around trying to just numb myself out from everything I've ever been through.
That I finally was just like, no one is coming to save me.
No one's coming to give me a hug that I so desperately need.
And it's my fault.
And I took massive accountability, like radical accountability on everything in my life.
Even the things that happened to me like when I was a kid or when I was a teenager that weren't my fault that they happened to me.
But they were my responsibility to heal.
And so for me, I dug down into the darkest pits because I had layered that little spark, that light that I was with so much darkness that I finally found myself.
And I couldn't hit anything but rock bottom.
The best thing about being rock bottom for me was I had something heavy to push my back up again so I could climb back.
So it's been a long journey.
I still have a long, long, long way to go.
I still have a lot to learn, but I'm very happy that I'm wearing that now.
Because I'm now not struggling as hard with the narcotics.
I'm not struggling as hard with sex addictions or the alcoholism or anything else like that.
I'm actually becoming a better me because I'm being more comfortable in my own skin and who I am.
And I'm making those changes so that way I can live and feel okay with myself.
That's a beautiful thing. Yeah.
Wow.
That's a story of the beginning of healing right there.
I have to ask, because as the words poured out of you,
how much have you talked about this with other people?
Is this like an internal dialogue that you've just held on to?
Have you shared this with other people before?
So back in 2015, I started in a nonprofit fighting human trafficking.
I've got a buddy who runs certain ministries out of Southern California.
He showed me that entire world of fighting human trafficking and actually doing health and law enforcement.
And then, hey, baby, I was like, okay, well, I want to join you.
I want to do this.
And I found out that me not talking about it or not talking about what happened to me as a kid kind of restricted me with getting in touch with some of the victims that we were dealing with,
as well as like trying to like tell my story of why this is happening and why it's so important.
You know, I was just another dude that was trying to help things.
So that kind of broke me out into being able to talk about things all the way back then.
And the more that I've been talking about it, especially the more than I'm finding myself,
I've been public about it on my Tik Tok.
I've been public about it on Facebook, I've been talking about with friends and family.
You know, sometimes it's bitten me in the ass and sometimes people use that to try and weaponize against me.
But I'm the one who told them and it's my history.
And whether it's something that I did or something that happened to me, I'm not ashamed of it because that's who I was.
It's the way I am now.
And your tribe's going to find you, baby.
We found you, honey.
Yeah, I was noticing your how candid you were about your feelings and what was on your mind when I was going through your Tik Toks today.
I was I wanted to have your face and kind of like your personality fresh and fresh in my mind before we started talking to you today.
And you I like how you're not afraid to talk about what's bothering you.
And I tell people all the time that, you know, the things that are bothering you are a lot smaller once they come out of your mouth.
Keep them in their chest.
And that's when they start tearing you apart.
So, dude, I respect that.
I really do.
Thank you.
It's scary because she's a motherfucker.
Yeah.
And it's taught.
It's one of those things that you can you can turn on the television at any given point in time and the commercials, the ongoing commercials and the cars and the property and the pardon me.
I worked my ass off my whole life to attain.
It wasn't even my dream.
This is my dream dream right here.
Being with you all being here podcasting.
Nice.
Being queer talking to other the podcast we formed.
I want you to know is for young people.
So your story is being told and young people are listening to it and they're learning good things.
Right.
From this experience.
Proper communication.
I also want to point out that it's also for older people who are just now coming into their own skin as well, you know, young at heart.
That's also important as well.
That's me.
I'm 55.
Just so you know, I'm on the oldest one here, but I'm OK with it.
Yeah.
It's only back physically.
It's fine.
Yeah.
So I just want to ask where are you in your healing journey?
I mean, you don't you don't know us anything.
OK, you don't know us anything.
But I just want to know how you feel about how you've healed and where you believe you.
So it's I.
I have gotten like since what was it May of 22 was one of the main pinnacle like cannon events that I've had.
I was using at that point and it took six police officers from Salt Lake City Police Department with guns drawn because I had said I was going to unalive myself via pop in the park and right at the time it was like, nope, we're not doing that.
I got the voice and everything else and that's that's kind of like my darkest moment that I talked about earlier.
And I was like, no one's coming to save me.
And I got obsessed.
Like I got like 24 seven obsessed with healing like all my entire tech talk feed, everything on Instagram, everything I was reading.
I found an author like Jay Shetty.
And I realized the more further down my journey that I've been going, even more into like EMDR therapy and everything that it's I am.
If I were like an onion like this, OK, and like magnify this to the size of the world, I'm like this big that's much into it.
I have so many more layers to go, but I'm actually processing and feeling my feelings and I'm controlling the reaction to my emotions, which is really good.
And I'm practicing like a lot of detachment, mindfulness, but it's it's I've done I've done myself a huge favor by healing as much as I have.
But it's going to be a constant thing.
And it's just it'll that's a hard thing to say because if it was, you know, it's a never ending journey for me.
So sure.
I don't know.
I don't know what EMDR is.
I'll ask you to define it.
I've learned a lot of therapy terms over the last couple of years.
But what is that?
So EMDR therapy in short is taking your physical body and taking like you reliving your trauma mentally and physically or mentally and emotionally and also like integrating some physical stuff.
So they'll do this and you'll watch your finger go up and down while you think of a traumatic event where you'll sit there and do this and tap side to side while you're thinking about that traumatic event.
They'll also got like these little vibrator things.
And what that does is it takes your perspective of you reliving it in first person the way that you did whatever trauma it is.
And it'll shift your perspective to over here or it'll shift your perspective to over here.
And the more times that you do it, the more layers of emotions that you can come down from.
So as we all like hate is.
Hate and anger is a secondary emotion or a third emotion.
And it'll help you get back down to like, no, I was really sad or I was really fearful in that moment.
Why was I fearful?
And then you can process through those in a faster rate.
There's also ART therapy.
It's not like art as in coloring, but it's accelerated a version of EMDR that does really big wonders.
I haven't done that yet, but EMDR therapy has just been massive for anyone with like complex post-traumatic stress disorder or anything.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Well, for somebody who was standing in the middle of the park and asking the cops to end them off,
I imagine that that definitely falls under the area of trauma that needs to be dealt with.
That's really interesting.
I love learning about new therapy terms and whatnot.
I've been a very big advocate for therapy over the last couple of years because I knew that I needed to go to therapy about three years ago.
And that whole year I kept like every month was like, okay, now's the time I'm going to start.
No, I'm not going to go.
Now's the time I'm going to start.
I kept going back and forth until I just got real with myself and realized I wasn't being the best person that I could be for myself or for the people who I love.
I've just been open to pretty much, well, I'm open to what my therapist is going to give me,
but I'm open to the ideas of other people's therapy and listening to their stories and whatnot because it's inspiring to me.
I like hearing other people heal and then I get to be a part of their journey somehow by perpetuating their story and let people know that it's okay to get help.
It's okay to talk.
It is.
It is so okay to talk.
We've had so many great conversations and great people and everybody has a story.
Everybody.
No one is without that story, the one that brought them on the journey that they're on and it's trippy as hell.
Yeah.
I just wanted to...
You guys are talking about therapy.
So if you all don't mind, I have my therapy.
I've been going to a therapist since I was nine and I've been neurodivergent forever and it came whenever my family went to church all the time.
I had to tune that shit out.
I had to find a way to go within my body and enjoy myself and be...
I love strawberry shortcake.
Hello Kitty.
I would cut my hair.
My parents hated that shit, but I would cut it.
I would cut my bangs straight across or I'd get my dad's hair clippers and I would shave my head.
I didn't think hair mattered.
It didn't matter to me.
In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't.
It didn't.
That's what I'm telling myself as I'm losing my hair.
It doesn't matter.
No, if you're with a cool rockin', like you guys are cool and rockin' and when you're around the right people, you never have to feel you're unsober.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah.
You never have to feel like you're not sober because you're allowed to be gay.
You're allowed to be queer.
You are allowed to practice self-care however you want to practice it.
It's such a beautiful place to be.
I've spent the last three summers traveling and being alone and that has been my therapy right there.
No, I have my partner, but I'm telling you what, no phone calls, no friends.
Michael was there, but he did limit the texting and things because it's very easy to get addicted to your friends.
That you love when you're trying to find yourself.
So that's what this woman, this they, them, I'm gender neutral too, but I'm female presenting, non-binary and I'm pan.
Nice.
Yeah.
I think that's the hardest thing is trying to be within yourself and trying to find yourself and be able to sit by yourself too.
That's immense.
Congratulations on that.
Thank you.
Yeah.
As where my label is pretty simplistic, the one that I'm giving is just bisexual.
Like I, that's just how I identify as a dude who's bisexual, but that, that turn and becoming a piece of that.
Yeah.
But that term that came, I finally came to grips with it.
Probably I'd say within the last year, this is the first year that I went to Pride.
I've never, I haven't really hidden the fact over the last 10 years that I've been bisexual.
Like all my, all my social media stuff says that if they want to find it, they can see it.
But it's the first year that I really have just kind of been not necessarily screaming at everybody that I walk past, you know, but you know, I'm, I'm just, you know, being me.
Just feeling the groove.
You're feeling the groove.
Yeah. And one of the things that, that my therapist has asked me probably every time that we've seen over the last four times, she's like, so how is your journey into telling people that you're bi?
I'm like, well, it's not, it's not too much of a journey.
I mean, again, it would not, not that I hit it, but she was pretty happy to hear that I was going to Pride last month and went, I'm sure she's going to want stories and stuff about that.
With your therapy situation, you know, of course you're dealing with trauma and everything like that, but are they also addressing you being the best non binary chef out there that you can be?
Are they asking you about that?
A little bit.
I mean, I'm switching, I'm switching therapists right now on because I was doing talk therapy for a while since I've moved out here to Minnesota and I'm finding a therapist that's specific with EMDR and I know that's some stuff that we're going to be presenting with and talking about.
But in the past, I've kind of talked about it.
We've touched on it a little bit with my last therapist.
They want to deal with more with the trauma type thing.
And I was asked by a therapist two times ago when I was in Utah, yes, me if I was actually transgendered or if I was actually non binary or like me actually being homosexual was not just an ADHD hyper sexuality.
I just want to get laid type thing.
And I'm like, no, this is really who I am.
And he said, well, what if, what if the transgender things just a trauma response?
That's not, you know, I mean, it got me thinking for like about two months.
But then I was like, no, I'm actually, I've always been this way.
This is, this is just who I am.
I've had some good reception to it that my doctors in the VA have always been really, really open to them.
We've talked about it a little bit, but we've never really gotten into, I guess, like full depth with it.
So, you know, I know people talk about gaslighting and things.
And but that's a real question.
That is a real question.
It's like, do you think it's from your trauma?
And I don't think any of it comes from trauma.
I think sometimes, you know, I know with my parents, I don't know about you two, but my parents would rationalize it the best they could.
She's this way because of I dealt with some in the church from the deacons there.
And I was very young.
And that does ruin you.
But I think it brings out, it ruins you to the point that it brings you out faster because you when you deal with trauma, you want to seek relief.
You want relief from it, right?
And the best way to get relief, I believe, is being yourself.
Yeah.
I mean, there's there's definitely something that he said about like trying to find that route and like being forced into it.
I'm especially being forced into a trauma where I like for me, when I was, you know, with my church and stuff, I went through something similar.
I was told that I couldn't be this way, that there were good men of God that we need to forgive them.
And I was like, but there's like certain things as I got older, I was like, well, I want to try this with guys in a rational way.
I want to try this with trans people and we're not rational way.
And like I experimented that I like all spectrums of people.
And it was because of that trauma, just like you that I was able to kind of find that path of being.
Omnisexual, you know, and being able to just like people no matter what they are and like being able to experience the physical ways.
I got to say that all in all, it feels very much like a chicken and egg type scenario.
Yeah.
Because because say that we didn't have the trauma.
And we'll never know because we can't we can't live split realities.
But say that we didn't have the trauma and then we still came out being having the sexual identity, the personal identities that we have and somehow able to talk to the person who did have trauma.
And kind of like just exchange notes, you know, and figure out exactly where the pathways went.
My brother loves having these kind of conversation.
He has them for every aspect of life is like, so what if you didn't meet so and so when you were 14 and I'm like, I don't know, I did meet them.
So here I am now.
That's a lot.
Yeah, he gets very introspective when he gets a couple of drinks in them.
But I've just been thinking my mom justified me coming out to her.
She justified my bisexuality because of a sexual assault that happened to me when I was young.
And she she paralleled to immediately.
She's like, that's what ruined you.
That's what caused you to go on this.
And then like we had like a couple of years and not talking and we came back.
It was just something that we did.
I would lay on her relevant, you know, relevant points of my life like, hey, mom, I'm Buddhist.
Oh, no, you're not going to heaven in a year and a half.
I'm not talking. Hey, mom, a bisexual.
No, you're ruined another year and a half of not talking.
But we would always come back.
But it's still if it's it's interesting to at least as a thought exercise, it is interesting to go if something didn't happen.
What would that be? But I don't entertain it that long because I've got too much reality to deal with to deal with to try to entertain the what ifs right now.
And the reality that I have meeting people like you, meeting new people in general, the job that I have, the openness that I have with my friends and family,
meeting new family that I would have never met before because I now feel comfortable enough to talk as myself to whoever I talk to.
I might rather prefer that person even with any of the speed bumps that happened before I got here.
Yeah, it's how you define it.
Honestly, Sydney, it's how you define it. Leblanc, it's how you define it.
And Edith, I say that to myself every day and it brings me absolute peace.
It's however I want to define it and my life and my friends are in alignment now.
I am truly at the most peace after the fires in Rio do so.
I'll just tell you, I lived through family member passing.
My stepmother had a stroke.
My dad has two fires.
I had to go to the Red Cross and live there for a couple of days.
And then I drove to Las Cruces and lived with a complete stranger.
It worked out perfectly.
She helped me get back to Rio do so.
Then I drove to Kansas City, stayed with that friend for two weeks.
And then when I got home, I was like, I am so I used to say shitty things about Florida.
I said the shittiest things.
The worst things.
Florida sucks for gay people.
I said everything when I got home.
I was like, oh my God, I'm so glad to be back.
Nice.
Yeah.
Well, it's good. You know, you got your space.
You got your space and you came back to it.
You got to see other things.
You got to see if the grass was actually greener on other sides and whatnot.
And then you just realized this is like, oh my God, there's actually people out here and they're just they're just doing their own thing.
It's scary.
Oh, shit.
Yeah.
So for the addict, I'm an addict as well.
So I was addicted to alcohol.
I was a sex addict, food addict, people addict.
You name it.
That's why I have to set these boundaries or else my life goes to utter chaos.
And I can't like you, Sydney.
I'm just not functional.
And this podcast is so important to me that Michael, I just have to tell you real quick.
So Michael and I met, I don't, I don't know how long ago, but it flowed.
We were in a flow state.
Our friendship was immediate.
He helped me with text up, even if he just got on the computer and farted around with me for a few minutes and we didn't get it.
He gave me the gift of love.
Number one, number two, he's a tech God.
I swear to God, he's so much fun.
He's got me playing Minecraft too.
So we need to play.
We do.
And that's coming.
I just had to get a job, but that's a whole another story.
Sydney, Sydney, he friends with this, this man and go on his lives.
It is heartwarming.
If you're in a funk, it brings you out of the funk.
We play these games.
They're really retarded.
You know, you have to play them to absolutely believe them.
Yeah.
Are you familiar with a jack box party at all?
Okay.
It's, it's, it's good.
Stupid fun.
It is.
And it's been, it's been too long.
I've been, I've been doing other things.
It's been hard for me to get a Saturday up, but I'm thinking this coming Saturday.
Well, maybe not the Saturday.
There's a, there's a funeral that I'm going to on Friday, jumping right into the following Saturday.
And then we will be there because I got to, like, Sydney's got to see this.
This is so funny.
On totally down.
Totally down.
Okay.
But this is the guy.
Okay.
I mean, just his content is great.
His voice is great.
We did a, an episode with freak base who you also have to meet.
Yeah.
Cool dude.
It's cool dude.
Very funky dude.
It's fun.
Literally.
Yeah.
He's got like a Daft Punk meets the, the Cincinnati funk scene, like mashup hybrid type scenario.
He loops his music.
He just has like this elevated.
He's not white.
He's just not.
He's music.
I mean he's this guy, but he's not.
Dude, just walking music.
I'll be honest with you.
That's it.
There you go.
If, if, if he was a D&D class, he would be, he'd be a bard.
He would definitely be a bard.
Oh shit.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, getting to him would be cool.
But we've got an interesting little collection of people that we have been gathering and
talking to.
And really this all comes down just to one person in my book, a guy named KJ Smith, who
is almost always in my lives and spreading his love and whatnot.
KJ is just amazing.
And so you can see his names, his name rolling around in my lives when I go live as well.
Now it's, this has been an interview that I know that Edith has really been looking forward
to as far as, you know, talking with you and whatnot.
How?
And we can cut this out if you want to, but how much do you want to talk about any active
addictions that you may have and how that's affecting your life right now?
Oh yeah.
No, I am totally open for this one.
Uh, talking that's, so I've been, I've been in 12 step programs like, uh, narcotics anonymous.
I've also worked some of the AA circuits and stuff like that because there's, they all
have their own personalities and stuff.
But, um, one of the big things in those programs is that you talk about it.
And the more you talk about it, um, the smaller that that problem becomes when it comes to
activities, when it comes to active addictions, my, my drug choice has always been my 10 times.
I love my stimulants.
I also have been like addicted to bath salts.
Um, I don't really have, here's where I kind of diverge from the 12 step is I don't have
a problem with alcohol in the sense that I can drink a beer and I can be okay with that
and like not touch it again for like weeks and weeks and weeks.
That being said, if I don't become in control of my own emotions, I can also drink an entire
bottle when I don't give a fuck and I want to.
I'm sure I've got to be very, very careful as to why, like what type of mentality I'm
in, if I'm going to be drinking.
As far as addictions, I did have a big run at March of last year.
I, I spent about $2,000 worth of my tax return on a meth bath salts and fentanyl.
And after my birthday with my son on the 23rd of March, I spent about a week that really,
really fucked up and purposely overdosed.
And that's because Utah is kind of like the front lines of my trauma.
And I really, really suffer out there.
It's really, really hard for me to stay sober because there's just so many bad reminders
of trauma or mistakes that I've made or anything else.
So I got sober.
It's been April 14th of last year and I made it all the way until this year, March this
year and my son, there's some like family issues stuck.
My son started bailing at school and he started just kind of like pulling away from everybody.
I mean, he started kind of like fucking up his future plans for joining military.
So I was like, okay, I've got to pack up.
I'm out of Minnesota.
I drove back to Utah.
I was out there since March 16th for about two weeks on my basalts.
That was really, really hard for me because I missed two weeks worth of time with my son.
I'm alive.
Before that, we did get him back up to where he needed to be.
It was just too easy for me to access out there.
It was too hard for like the environment that I was in.
I kind of realized hanging back out with actual friends who were sober or who were sober,
the type of place that they were in in their lives and the type of person that I was attracting.
And I realized who those people were and how they were around me and how much of the people
pleaser I had become because I got a lot of Minnesota's changed you.
Like I don't like who you've become blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, I was thinking about it was like, because I'm no longer fitting this mask
of what you want me to be.
I'm being myself.
And so that kind of hit and I had a lot of loss and stuff.
So I struggled a lot with that.
I still have those active thoughts about wanting to use even right now.
I know where to order it.
I know it takes almost like 10 days to get to my house from Spain.
I know that if I want to, I could go to any one place, any one street corner in the city
that I'm in and probably track down and, you know, and score some stuff.
And it's really hard for me.
So I've been getting back into the meetings.
I've been on online meetings.
I've got a sponsor out in California that I've been talking to.
I've been reworking the program.
I've been doing a lot more meditation, mindfulness, yoga.
I've got to reestablish my routine now that I'm back in Minnesota until I can get an income
or like a stable job versus just door dashing.
And I've got to make sure that I'm filing my day slot by slot of what I need to do.
Otherwise, I'm not, I could seriously screw up here, but it is easier out here than it
is in Utah.
Okay.
I totally understand.
Yeah.
Thank you.
One, because too many people get tight lit about their addictions and how they're feeling
about it and whatnot.
And that's what that's what makes the stigmas and that's what makes other people think
about their own addictions in the form of shame.
They can't build on it because it's just a swamp that they're constantly building on
and they're sinking in.
He'll be back.
It's fine.
He's the man.
He's looking at me.
He's frozen.
He's probably still talking though on his track because these are okay.
He started a new track.
See who knew what happens.
I tried doing.
I did.
Look at that.
I did.
It's not open on mine anymore.
It's some funny shit right there.
Anyway, I hope that doesn't happen again.
But what I was going to say is, see if I could just hit roll right into it.
And so the other question that I have is you said that you have a sponsor all the way in
California.
Frequent is it for an addict?
You have a sponsor that is that far away.
So it's, I mean, kind of COVID kind of dealt with that type of stuff because they've like
the narcoticsanonymousna.org website.
They've got a list of meetings, most of them like around the clock that you can join any
one of those meetings.
It's just like going over to, you know, like your local area.
I don't know how frequent it is.
The first sponsor that I had out in Utah, he kind of pushed me towards doing a podcast
thing.
And I was like, why am I listening to a podcast when I'm supposed to be?
But whatever.
But I joined one of those rooms and like in the middle of the night, I just started talking
with these guys and like, you know, sharing my story of hope and on my journey.
And he reached out to me and he's like, you know, hey, he's like, you know, are you looking
for sponsors?
Would you, you know, here's the thing, if you're looking for sponsors, you've been in
the room enough.
Alexa, stop.
I apologize.
She's cool.
We like Alexa.
It is.
She did what she wanted.
She won't.
See, look at her.
She has to have the last word.
Exactly.
But he's like, you know, if you're looking for sponsors, I just asked in the next meeting.
So I asked in the next meeting and he's like, you know, he just kind of everybody's like,
oh yeah, no, I'm willing to, I'm willing to, I'm willing to.
And he was like, okay, cool, so I live in New South.
I was not a problem there.
I don't know.
It's not a problem at all.
So I started talking with him.
He was military too.
He was in the Marine Corps as well.
And we just kind of hit it off and he's been, he responds.
He does what he can when he can and it's been working out really well.
So I joined March of 2001 and I left March of 2009.
And then I'm a second generation in the military.
My dad was in the Army.
I'm not sure about his dad, but I think his dad was like a foreign army like in Poland
or something.
Yeah, I mean, I enjoyed it.
I got out because it was one birth, one birth, they between two kids.
I mean, there's, there's a lot that happened, but there's a lot that also like I really,
I've got a lot, a lot of good lifetime friends for myself.
I feel you.
I love that for you.
The whole reason I wrote that book right there is because of my time in the military.
I was in the Navy for four years from 01 to 05.
And dude, I'm telling you, writing a book was one of the most cathartic things I think
I've ever done in my life.
Okay.
Can you show him the book, please?
Can you show him the book?
There he goes again.
See as he goes into the new screen.
I'm sorry.
It's like I got to get a camera.
Hold on.
That's okay.
Do your thing.
What a funny shit.
I'm sending this to him right now.
Beautiful.
He's the best.
He is the absolute best.
He's a good interviewer too, isn't he?
Yeah.
Yeah, he is.
Both of you are actually.
This is, this is.
Oh good.
That's what I wanted for you.
Really?
I love your sense of humor.
Thanks.
It's really dark.
It is good.
There he is.
What's happening?
It keeps telling me authorization failure and that I can't join that track anymore.
Anywho.
So this is my book right here.
I try not to advertise it every time, but it's a dink DND in the coffin hold of the
USS enterprise.
It's available on Amazon.
I could send you a link later.
It's also on my link tree.
Yeah.
But it was, it was a very cathartic experience for me to write a book.
I don't know if you're writing inclined.
I've been wanting to write for ever.
And I finally sat down to knock this out in a few months and then spent a year editing
it.
And then finally got it released a year later.
Great experience.
It took a village.
It was amazing.
And he's going to write another one.
I just have to say.
I am.
And it's not going to, it's not going to be a memoir.
It's a giant science fiction epic that I just started taking a look at my first draft last
week actually.
And we're going to be revisiting that this year.
But exciting.
So March, huh?
A lot of things happen to you in March, man.
March seems to be a trigger month for you.
Like at times around your son, you were in and out of the Navy then and whatnot.
Do you feel that?
Do you recognize that how much has happened to you in March and how much that's probably
weighing on the back door of your psyche?
Yeah.
Well, so March was like between birthdays, I don't know.
It's, it's, I grew up in a household where like my parents, it was all about mom.
And if mom was happy, then we're all happy.
March was, it was my birthday.
I was allowed to be a little bit wild and a little bit, you know, type thing.
So I slowly learned to hate my birthday.
And then just completely disregard.
I just never wanted to celebrate and never wanted to be a thing until I did.
And then, you know, let the kids celebrate.
Cool.
But then my, my third marriage, we got married on my birthday, which is in the
state for anyone out there.
Don't fucking do that.
That's bad.
Because when that marriage didn't last, when that marriage didn't last, that was kind
of the, the total thing of like, I was doing good up until we had gotten out of John Wick
four and we were going to IHOP.
And I was like, I'm going to, this is going to be my last dinner with my son.
I'm going to go commit suicide.
I had Crips that night, which is again from IHOP is not the best dinner to have for your
last.
No, it's not.
Yeah, especially when you're lactose intolerant and have ice cream.
So you set yourself up.
I did.
It was, it was horrible all the way around.
But yeah, no, it was just, that was kind of like the last little bit of a trigger because
like, it's, I don't know, like another relationship.
I was allowed to have sex on birthday sex after we had finally gotten married and things
changed a lot.
And so I didn't want to deal with that because that became dramatic.
And there's, there's a lot of bad things that happen in March and it's something we work
through slowly.
We're going to try again this year that we're, I'm not going to utilize stimulants.
Yeah.
Um, or at least maybe just wines of pixie sticks and a bunch of rainbow.
So you're, you're going to go white bread and sugar, baby.
You're going to do something to change the narrative.
That's what it sounds like.
Sounds like you're going to try to change the narrative, which is something that's
a dude, March is not good for me either.
My parents died in March six years apart.
And so as soon as March hits starting, I think it was like, uh, cause dad died, I think
two years ago, I, I just adopted the mantra.
Well, March sucks.
And then it was just like in a funk as soon as it rolled over to March one, you know,
and, uh, it was, it was right after that, that I decided to see a therapist because I
was realized, well, I have just, I have condemned myself to be negative for an entire 31 days.
That is not, that's not the way I need to be.
And so we're, we're working on with, uh, anniversary, and, well, death,
anniversary is in birthdays that we're going to change the narrative and we're going to
do something positive in the name of that.
And I, I just really can't log therapy enough.
Like I, I love it so much.
It's, it's hard.
Sometimes I feel just exhausted coming out of it.
Sometimes I'm thinking is how I need to take two months off, but then I'm like three weeks
away from like seeing my therapist and I'm like, I got some stuff I need to unload because
there are some things that are easier to say to a therapist than it is to say I loved one
and whatnot because in the back of your mind, you're thinking, I do not want to put everything
on my loved one, even though they may understand.
You know, it's, that's a good idea.
Michael.
And, and so I'm with my partner is a straight male.
And when we got together, well, I, I unloaded, I'm like, okay, I've never been this open.
I need to be very open about who I am.
So I was open about my addictions of my, my, my sex addiction and jumping like her pissed
off a shit, pack everything without him, gave him a kiss and drove away.
Cause I didn't know why I was so mad, but it was my inner child mourning the relationship
because that in my book was it.
Yeah.
You follow me?
That was it.
It's compassion is huge.
For me, your words didn't show me any compassion.
Actions didn't show me any compassion.
The emotions come between a physical relationship with your partner and sometimes that could
be triggered either due to a lack of physical or you guys weren't just gelling emotionally
and it's, we weren't selling the money.
Yeah.
It's all these, these, these, these tabs and slots that just have to line up just right
sometimes with a relationship and it's easier for I'll have to say that my, my second marriage
is definitely easier than my first when it comes to matching energies and being open
and understanding each other.
But I know that there's been plenty of times, especially in my first relationship where
like just anger and resentment built up because we weren't working on trying to align each
other at all.
Like it, we, we would just kept just assuming it's like, well, we're broken.
I guess we're just going to stay broken.
Don't, don't do that.
Don't, don't adopt that mentality.
Don't do that.
It's a horrible idea.
Well, I can tell you, so I want to tell you what happened.
So I went through all that shit over the summer.
I went through the fires and the deaths and the strokes and my dad, I'm still going through
that and just all these things were happening.
The reason I would go to addiction, it always brought me comfort.
It soothed me in times where I felt the worst and I didn't know why I felt the worst and
I didn't know how to manage it.
So you can imagine this summer I felt like shit, but I was like, okay, I'm handling this.
It's not a thing.
It isn't a thing.
The universe has a story.
I just have to wait till the end.
It's like a book.
So I'm going to wait till the end, figure it out.
I get home.
We had broken up.
Okay.
We're still broken up, but I get home.
He's perfect to me.
No more misogyny.
He gives me my space.
He's not up my ass constantly pointing out shit, telling me how annoying I am.
I know I'm annoying.
Okay.
I know.
What we've been trying to do here, Sydney, we've been trying to end our podcast by doing
a very popular thing right now and that's going to write it, finding a story that it
has to do about some kind of queer energy and just talking about it.
And I found one that is relatively long, but I think I can get through it pretty quickly.
It just, you know, we're just going to toss the story around after that.
So this is from Am I the Asshole?
Which is a very popular Reddit where people just ask that question.
Am I the Asshole?
After telling the story because they want to get a random group of internet people to
tell them if they're an asshole or not.
So this comes from a 42 year old male and it's called Am I the Asshole for hiding a
past sexual from my wife?
I spent the summer on the early 2000s and my early 20s going to all the concerts I possibly
could.
The pop punk rock scene was at its peak and now is at the perfect age for it.
I spent every penny I made at my shitty job on live music or traveling to see music.
I'm sure no one familiar with the scene at that time would be shocked to hear I was hooking
up with a lot of people.
99% of said hookups were with women, but the culture of nonconformity made experimentation
easier and less daunting than it did in the real world.
Kissing Guys and Crowds was a favorite pastime of mine for a while until I met someone who
we'll call Max.
He and I immediately connected and we spent the next two weeks or so attached at the hip.
It's not something I would even accurately define as a relationship, hence the quotation
marks in the title.
It's just intense two weeks of us getting to know each other and going on road trips
and falling in love.
Now he thought we were better as friends and he wasn't sure that he was really into dudes
at the time.
It was the most profound hurt I had ever had in my life.
It really shocked me when he told me that I had been in relationships for real ones
that included commitment and lasted for months, but I never had another relationship after
that, not with a man anyway.
It felt like that level of hurt was my warning sign to stay away.
Now I'm old, married and most of my music enjoyment these days come from the form of
me sitting at home listening with a glass of wine as opposed to sweltering crowded venues
or summer spaces.
At 43, I feel that as soon as I hit 40, I'm like, I'll do concerts, but I'm only sitting
in the yard.
I have two amazing children and most of my time in brain power has been spending on how
I can be the best dad to them and how to raise good humans in the scary world we live in.
Max and I are still friends.
He lives nearby with a lovely family of his own and we see each other fairly often.
We're all friends, including our wives, their friends as well.
Recently while going through some old stuff, I found photos of Max and I wearing the eyeliner
during the heyday that had been tucked away.
When his family came over, I pulled them out to show everyone.
We all had a bit to drink and Max said something along the line of, look, it's us in our bisexual
phase.
I can tell my wife's demeanor changed.
And once we were alone later that night, I was all but interrogated over it.
I told her it was a brief two week fling and then I don't identify as bisexual these days
or when I met her, but that didn't seem worth mentioning.
She said that I broke her trust by hiding this and she needs some time to think about
things.
This all happened on Friday night and things are incredibly tense between us.
I'd like some advice or reinsurance.
And one of the questions that were asked a lot is like, why are you still friends with
Max if you don't have anything?
It's like, he's a cool guy.
I believe what he said is he is the sweet spring and sweaty skin of my friendship when
it comes to all of my friendships.
And I'm like, that's poetic.
There are no mistakes.
If you all don't mind, I'd like to go first.
Go for it.
As the only woman on our podcast.
So wait, what?
I'm going to get it as the only female presenting human on our podcast.
Yeah.
I honestly believe love is love and I've fallen in love with people in five minutes.
I can do that.
I, Sydney, I love your face.
I look at your face and your teeth and your smile and it makes me happy.
Michael LeBlanc, I do the same.
Your cheeks, your lips, your beard, your eyebrows, everything about your face.
I can do that.
I can appreciate someone and not take from, I don't have to take from you, Sydney.
I can love you.
Michael, the same is true.
I don't need to take from you either.
I tell humans all the time I love them because I know for a fact that they probably haven't
heard that as much as they probably want to in their lives.
Exactly.
I feel the same way.
The wife is just coming from a place.
She doesn't know why he would need to do that.
She's not coming from a place of understanding.
She's coming from a place of fear.
Yeah.
In that moment, I believe he should take her in his arms if he can and just hold her and
just say, look, I'm here.
We're together.
We have children.
Let me bring you back to today where we're a unit.
You don't have to worry.
And Max is just a true friend.
You know, words mean so much, especially with the intent.
If the intent is pure, it will come across and then the other person will feel comfortable.
That's why we have so many addicts is because people are getting impatient with them and
frustrated in your shit.
And why are you acting this way?
And why are you drinking that?
And why would you put that in your mouth?
And why would you put that up your nose?
Because it relieves the pain that we have acquired through life.
Some people don't even get it ever.
Some people can't think about feeling so closed up and needing the most spectacular, colorful
escape that they can get.
Screw the feelings at the moment.
It's not about the moment.
It's about getting away from the moment.
Would you agree?
Yeah.
That was a percent.
And I got a hand at to Max, like just being open with OP here, an original poster and just
going at that time going, hey, this was cool, but, you know, this isn't this isn't where
I see me going.
And the fact that they have, you know, a friendship, you know, past that point just shows that,
you know, they had two just good hearts just willing to talk to each other.
They're evolved.
Look, the human touch is amazing.
It is amazing.
That's why it's addicted.
Okay.
You know, and Michael, we talked about touch.
We talked about erogenous zones and we talked about all of those things.
And yeah.
And it's just such a beautiful thing.
Right.
It is.
That's why we want more.
Yeah.
Like little piggies.
And Sarah Tonan, right?
Isn't that the cuddle?
Yeah, I think so.
Right.
And that's when skin on skin contact releases serotonin in the brain.
There's a drug you should try.
Just do nothing but serotonin.
Just not too strict.
Just as high as you may.
I know you may like that shit.
So there is, I didn't see this until I just scrolled all the way down, but there is an
update.
If you guys are interested real quick.
Do you have anything to say about the original post Cindy before we go into this one?
I don't know.
So I'm a little bit conflicted on it because like I understand that not everyone has a little
bit of rainbow spicy to them.
And they kind of want to avoid it.
So I understand on her end why she would be pissed because the entire informed consent
thing, but also at the same time, that's also a past thing and a past relationship and not
who she knows him to be now.
So at the same time, I understand your anger, but also get the fuck over it.
Like, I don't know.
The comments were pretty much following along the same thing.
The first couple of ones were just saying he was an asshole for not disclosing that.
But also, like if you're such a different person and you're not even thinking of yourself
as bisexual, that you're only thinking of like looking for the opposite sex or whatever
it is that you're looking for.
And then you find that both of you are in for them heterosexual passing, you know, relationship.
Why even bring it up?
Like, there are certain things, like I haven't told Marley like every little like friendship
that I've ever had because that's not important.
You know, it's not who I am right now.
So like I said, a little bit of confliction in there and took.
If I did it again, I have to tell you guys now that I'm 55, life looks a lot different.
Okay.
The patriarchy is not fuck the patriarchy.
Number one.
I'm just going to tell me what kind of woman I should be.
No, I am telling everyone else.
So they're in a marriage, which there's a contract, there's expectations, there's all
these things.
But by the time you get to my age, my ex-husband and I talk and we've grown so much, we still
love each other very much.
But life looks different at this age.
It's more acceptance, more release.
That's true.
So I don't know much of the other stuff.
There could have just been as soon as he was done with that, like society was like, we
don't want to hear about it.
He's like, well, no one wants to hear about it.
I'm just not going to tell anybody.
You know, it could have been that.
What's the point, you know, bringing up fear and things, putting fear into your relationship?
Yeah, it's, it can be poison.
So let's see what came of it.
I appreciate everyone's comments on what I posted here, constructive or otherwise.
That's right.
It's for you.
I'm always down for discussion and to hear different points of view, even if it's been
a weird week of self reflection, it's always a positive thing.
The unrested confusion or growing points.
There have been lots of conversations and lots of parties over the last few days, lots
of parties.
The most enlightening for me was between myself and Max's wife, who we can call Christy.
She's been a close friend of mine for over a decade and we have a real heart hard by
how I've been feeling, how she and Max handle things in the past and steps to take moving
forward.
It's equal parts through love and comforting, both of which were much needed.
Christy's a badass and someone who I respect a ton.
It's been a running joke amongst our family and friends.
We have no idea how Max managed to get stuck with two of the loudest people as a best friend
slash partner duo since he's so quiet.
Well Christy and I are just not.
He's always been effortlessly cool.
He was somehow above it all and in the thick of it all.
You get him fully when he becomes a friend and that trust felt like a sacred gift.
These things are a little different now with all our collective 20s behind us.
It's different now.
We're so sweet to see how easy smiles are earned and how easily smiles are earned these
days among our little circle now that we've both become dads and huge softies.
This through love and preparation with Christy led to a conversation with my wife where we
just laid down a game plan on how we were going to move forward.
She's rightly, rightfully very hurt that I kept this past relationship from her.
One of the first steps of this whole thing was me admitting as many times as I told
myself that it just didn't come up.
That wasn't exactly the truth.
The only way for it to come up was for me to bring it up and I avoided it.
So of course the action right now is to start couples therapy and individual therapy for
me.
I've got shit to talk about in a third party unbiased person sounds like a dream.
Damn straight.
So there you have it.
No divorce.
No divorces or crazy curve balls.
Just two people working through their shit.
I'm very lucky to have so much unwavering support in my life.
How special is it?
I have to get two families instead of one.
That's twice the love for sure.
So that sounds really good, right?
Absolutely.
This is the first comment.
I skipped ahead and read this and I wanted to see why they said this first.
Personally I don't see it.
It says, OP, you are so blatantly manipulative trying to frame this like your wife has issues
with your bisexuality.
It sounds like he was being really real in the post for me.
But even though you put your relationship in quotation marks, you've kept regular contact
with Max over the past 20 years.
Only now you disclose that he's your ex and you have the terminity to wonder why she takes
issue with this.
100% the asshole.
Why would you just first speak to Christy and then your wife?
Why is there a heartfelt paragraph about what she means to you and nothing about your wife?
Just nasty stuff all around.
Boy, that's very laden and full of shit, isn't it?
Yeah.
I'll be honest with you.
Let me feel some guilt and shame over some shit I did.
It was decades ago and it was only two weeks.
People are not being nice to him at all.
I would keep going.
I'm seeing things of he looks himself more than anyone else.
I'm not getting that from them at all.
And the fact that he's even to do a couple therapy is a larger step than any other couple
normally does because there's so much guilt, fear and anger that's pointed towards themselves
that they don't to release that and scare away somebody.
I really hope him, Max Christy and his unnamed wife who he didn't talk a lot about.
But to be fair, he was talking about something internal.
I wish them all the luck.
Well, you know what?
I'm bringing up my age again.
You just get here.
I'm so lucky.
I didn't even think I was going to make it to 40.
Man, look at you now.
So there's not one argument I want to have.
There's not one point I want to prove.
I don't want to change anybody's mind.
I don't feel like hurting anyone.
My intentions are always good.
I do the very best that I can.
I love 150% with every soul of my being.
Okay?
That gives me peace right there.
All that brings peace.
That's good.
I live with somebody who arguments are kind of a love language because if I'm, everything
is okay, then something is wrong.
And so she puts that out there.
She puts that out there.
She's real with me.
She lets me know that.
And so, you know, I look for those little signs where she, it's not real anger.
There's no animosity in it, but I just know it when sometimes.
Right, it's just frustration.
Yeah, sometimes I was like, oh, so this is what we're doing.
We're going to yell about a subject now.
All right, let's do this.
But so, you know, there is a place for a little back and forth, you know, because not all
of it has to come from anger.
Not all of it has to come from wanting to be right, which I'm saying that from a place
of growth as well, because I used to think that.
I used to think every argument was I need to find the upper hand.
I need to come out on top of this.
And that was just not healthy.
Don't be like that.
No.
No, and I'll just be over here with my vibrator in my cat.
Yeah, that's all you need.
That's it.
Yeah, exactly.
I have a couple.
I actually, okay.
So I know we're winding down, but I have to say real quick.
So I did a podcast, dinner wishmucks, and we had a guy that would he sent us dildos.
Like we must have had 50 dildos.
Like every size that they stick on the wall.
Really stick in the shower.
Oh, those are the best guys.
I mean, like it was, it was ridiculous.
No vibrators.
So fuck that guy.
So I had this, I had this black dildo.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's, that's a lot.
Oh, that's like three times the size of your head.
That's right.
I couldn't have done anything with that.
I showed it to friends and they looked at me like I was crazy.
So I was going to wash my car.
I put this big black dildo in my, in my passenger seat and I drove to wash my car.
So I washed and vacuumed my car and then I stuck the dildo right on the wall of the
car wash.
Yes.
So it would just protrude out.
I might have to do it as the cover for the podcast.
I feel like that's a good, I feel like that's a good ending question.
Who here has ever bought a dildo that was the right size for your eyes, but not the
right size for anything else, like way too big.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Come on, Sidney.
Come clean.
And every, every, every, every dildo that I have bought has been the right size for
my eye or it becomes the right size for my eye.
Fun fact though, I do actually have two sets of toys, of adult toys.
So I've got the one for, you know, playtime for me and, you know, whatever partner I've
got and stuff, but I've also got an entire other because I used to have a channel.
It's getting relaunched.
It's gonna be on OnlyFans where I teach people how to cook.
Yay.
Oh, I love that.
But you're naked.
Just like you had that big, no, I mean, the last time I wasn't, maybe this time, but the
last time I had like one of those big black dildos, the huge ones is about that big around
10 pounds.
That is my rowing pin for my, I've got a huge horse cock that's got like a little, the
come tube thing in it with a little syringe.
That is what I use for all of my condiments.
That's, I love you.
That's beautiful.
It's, yeah, I'm going to be relaunching that here.
That's great.
When I have the availability to do it and kids are in the house and I can cook upstairs
and do the thing.
I want to see.
Yeah.
It's fun.
There's not, there's something that we can push on a future podcast right there is like,
all right, so we're just gonna, we're just gonna watch a couple of these videos.
Just start silence and all you hear is, you just hear it like, dude, it's all right.
We really got to loosen up this dough.
Just give me one second.
Oh my God, I wanted to start an only fans.
We'll have to talk later.
You know, I'm down for a dollar.
I'm your Jewish grandmother, honey.
All right.
So how should we end this?
Yeah.
How do we end this?
Peace out.
We're to your mom.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Don't do drugs.
Drink your milk.
Okay.
Bye.
Yeah, that too.
That's all right.
I love you both with all my heart.
Peace out.
Word to your mom.
I'm going to go drink some tea again.
Damn you.
I'll be in your damn honey.
I'm your Jewish grandmother.
Bye guys.