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John Moe

Maximum Fun

Join host John Moe (The Hilarious World of Depression) for honest, relatable, and, yes, sometimes funny conversations about mental health. Hear from comedians, musicians, authors, actors, and other top names in entertainment and the arts about living with depression, anxiety, and many other common disorders. Find out what they’ve done to address it, what worked, and what didn’t. Depresh Mode also features useful insights on mental health issues with experts in the field. It’s honest talk from people who have been there and know their stuff. No shame, no stigma, and more laughs than you might expect.

Depresh Mode with John Moe

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, clearly does not like SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), the most popular form of antidepressant on the market. They’re used by millions of Americans on a daily basis. He has tried to tie SSRIs to school shooters despite a lack of evidence to that effect. He has suggested that it’s harder to go off SSRIs than it is to quit heroin. It’s not. Molly Olmstead, a reporter for Slate who has been covering this story closely, says that this does not mean that the government is about to try to ban SSRIs and leave patients without the medicines that may be keeping them alive. But she explains that yes, we are in the midst of a very active anti-SSRI PR campaign by Kennedy and his supporters in the so-called Make America Healthy Again movement and that campaign could presage a much more aggressive set of actions.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Is the U.S. Government Going To Take Away Your Antidepressants?

During the violent Charlottesville protests of 2017, journalist and author P.E. Moskowitz was only a few feet away when Heather Heyer was killed by an attacking motorist. 16 years earlier, P.E. was in middle school Spanish class a couple blocks from the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks. The trauma contributed to panic attacks and, finally, a mental breakdown. As they got their life back together, P.E. began to question a lot of conventional wisdom. Were they mentally ill to have such a breakdown or were they responding appropriately to enormous trauma in a difficult world? Are we looking at potential cures when we should be looking at coping or better yet coming up with ways to stop the horrors from ever taking place? They also questioned the role of drugs in mental health treatment. In the book Breaking Awake: A Reporter's Search for a New Life, and a New World, Through Drugs and in this intriguing interview, P.E. explains how they look at drugs - both the prescription and street varieties - as tools that can be used positively or negatively, to help or harm. And that patients are owed a lot more options than a shortcut to SSRIs or Adderall in their quest to feel better.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

P.E. Moskowitz on Whether Your Mind is Broken or the World Is

If you are one of the many subscribers to the Peloton exercise/media network, you may already be familiar with Kendall Toole. For many years, she was one of the stars of Peloton, exhorting users to push themselves harder, sweat more, and pursue their goals. In those cases, Kendall was positive, cheerful, always with a smile and kind words. But people are complicated and the truth is that Kendall has faced many mental health issues over the course of her life, including depression, anxiety, OCD, and suicidality. She’s in a better place now (she considers her conditions to be not cured but managed) but in an honest and moving interview, Kendall tells of her brush with suicidal ideation in college, her long stretch of depression that followed, and the words of her father that helped pull her toward a better place. You’re knocked down, he said, but never knocked out.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Kendall Toole Gets Knocked Down, Never Knocked Out

At age 59, Anne Abel had never been to a concert. Ever. Music wasn’t part of her upbringing, although emotional abuse and belittlement from her parents absolutely were. Reluctantly agreeing to join her son and daughter-in-law to see Bruce Springsteen, Anne’s mind was absolutely blown by the energy and generosity of the musicians and the crowd. Bruce shined a light on a better possible world and allowed her to have fun for the first time in her life. Something awakened. Soon, Anne booked a solo trip to Australia, following Bruce to eight concerts. In her book chronicling the trip, High Hopes, Anne describes literally rubbing elbows with Bruce and the band, experiencing cathartic joy, and opening a path to a better, happier, more fun life. Her depression wasn’t cured, that’s not how it works, but her collaboration with Bruce has helped her a lot.

Wits Reunion Show at the Fitzgerald Theater

John Moe’s writing classes at the Loft Literary Center

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Bruce Springsteen as Over-The-Counter Depression Treatment

While the acclaimed musician Emma Swift had experienced painful periods of depression in the past, fed by grief or the first Trump presidency, her psychotic break and mental breakdown in 2023 was new territory. She lost touch with reality, believing that her electronic devices had been hacked, that she was being followed, images of heaven and hell emerging. Emma actually had a sense that she was losing her mind and went to the hospital, reporting as much, but she was turned away because she wasn’t deemed sick enough. Finally, she flew back to her native Australia and went directly from the airport to a hospital where she remained for several weeks.

Looking back on it now, she sees some hormonal changes, a mugging in London, and the hard times of the covid pandemic - especially for a musician - being possible contributing factors. But says there’s no real way of knowing for sure why it happened for sure, which made it all the more frightening.

In the end, she got treatment, “came out the other side,” as she says, and was helped by a variety of treatments including hormonal therapy.
Emma Swift’s new album, The Resurrection Game, was largely written in response to this traumatic period. We talk to her about the breakdown and about the music that came out of it in a revealing conversation that is both honest and harrowing.

Wits Reunion Show at the Fitzgerald Theater

John Moe’s writing classes at the Loft Literary Center

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Emma Swift Had a Complete Mental Breakdown. Found Health. Made Music About It.

Are ChatGPT and other AI chatbots inducing psychosis? Or exacerbating it? Are people being hospitalized or even killed because the bots seem too human, too understanding, too lifelike? To be clear, the bots are not human. They are software. But they are so convincingly programmed to speak like people that users, especially ones who may already be having trouble discerning reality, begin to sense that the bot is alive and that the user somehow unlocked its sentience. Since the bots are also set up to be flattering, even sycophantic to the user, the connection is made even stronger. Maggie Hamilton Dupré, senior staff writer for Futurist, explains several recent cases where AI, lacking the judgment a human could provide, may have set off dangerous and even fatal outcomes.

Wits Reunion Show at the Fitzgerald Theater

John Moe’s writing classes at the Loft Literary Center

Math Emergency Farewell Show at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Sycophantic Chatbots and Alarming Cases of “AI Psychosis”

Alex Edelman loves going to concerts but admits that he usually goes solo. That’s because his ADHD leads Alex to show up pretty late to the show and he often spends part of it on the stairs writing something, occasionally darting into the main room for a song he likes. He can’t make it through most movies either. Alex stars in the new Peacock series The Paper, a sort of descendant of The Office. His one-man show, Just For Us, about his semi-anonymous visit to a Queens white nationalist meeting, was a Broadway hit and adapted into an HBO special, picking up a Tony and an Emmy. Alex talks about his work, his mind, the strength and fragility of his psyche, and the significance of Adam Brace, his show’s original director who passed away. 

(As mentioned on the show)

Wits Reunion Show at the Fitzgerald Theater

John Moe’s writing classes at the Loft Literary Center

Math Emergency Farewell Show at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Alex Edelman on ADHD, Grief, Infiltrating White Nationalists, and The Paper

If you’re looking for a calm mind, do you love a room with little or nothing in it? Or do you need to be wall-to-ceiling with mementos and objects and stuff to give you a sense of peace? We take a look at how the layout of your living space may have an effect on your mental well being with Dr. Beverly Walpole. She’s a clinical psychologist and the founder of Haven | Wellness By Design, a consulting service based around the psychology of design. We talk about the idea of attachment to objects and whether getting rid of them through decluttering will give liberation and ease or terror and sadness. Then, John Moe brings an annual social media mental health reflection to the podcast and offers some insight on the importance of mental health awareness and how to fight back against the forces that can make you feel worse.

(As mentioned on the show)

Wits Reunion Show at the Fitzgerald Theater

John Moe’s writing classes at the Loft Literary Center

Math Emergency Farewell Show at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Better Home Design for Better Mental Health with Dr. Beverly Walpole

When she was growing up in conservative, evangelical rural Minnesota, she knew. When she was excelling at sports, giving and receiving body slams and folding chair hits as a pro wrestler, she knew. Even when she married a woman while still living as a man, Denise knew that she was female. Denise figured it was either suicide or take action to live her truth and fully transition. With her debut special, Bougie on a Budget, now streaming on Apple TV Plus and Amazon Prime, Denise opens up her gender journey and the joys and challenges she faced along the way. She reveals that her standup career took off when she acknowledged her transgender status on stage. Denise also discusses her life with fibromyalgia, a chronic condition that causes not just constant body pain and migraines but also depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues.

(As mentioned on the show)

Wits Reunion Show at the Fitzgerald Theater

John Moe’s writing classes at the Loft Literary Center

Math Emergency Farewell Show at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Denise Winkelman: Comedian/Trans Woman/Former Pro Wrestler/Chronic Pain Sufferer

There are plenty of places online to get very serious information on mental health, delivered in tones that are somber, sober, or very dry. Ashly Burch goes a different route on her new YouTube show, I’m Happy You’re Here, employing loads of comedy, puppets, foul language, and mature subject matter to teach what’s going on in complex matters such as anxiety. Ashly is known for her work in the games Fortnite, Life is Strange, and The Last of Us Part II, as well as television series like Mythic Quest and Adventure Time. We talk with Ashly about her lifelong anxiety, her experiences with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, and the importance of demystifying mental health conditions as a way of understanding them.

(As mentioned on the show)

Wits Reunion Show at the Fitzgerald Theater

John Moe’s writing classes at the Loft Literary Center

Math Emergency Farewell Show at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group. 

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Ashly Burch Delivers Mental Health Insight Using Puppets and Swear Words

It’s not really the most direct route to comedy success: grow up in conservative Mormon Utah, be closeted about your sexuality even to yourself, try to live up to what is expected of you, ditch it all for show biz, come out of the closet, and then make it big. But we know it’s worked for at least one person: Bridger Winegar. The host of the I Said No Gifts podcasts walks us through his effort to figure out who he was, which included a long stretch of figuring he’d have to keep his homosexuality shielded for the rest of his life. We hear about a Mormon mission to Malaysia that ended very prematurely with a nervous breakdown, an offer to get treatment in a Singapore mental hospital, and a return to Utah. And we hear about the extraordinary support and kindness he received from his boss when his boss happened to be Jimmy Kimmel.

Listen to I Said No Gifts on the podcatcher of your choice.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun. 

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

The Depresh Mode newsletter is available twice a week. Subscribe for free and stay up to date on the show and mental health issues. https://johnmoe.substack.com/

John's acclaimed memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is available here.

Find the show on Twitter @depreshpod and Instagram @depreshpod.

John is on Twitter @johnmoe.

Bridger Winegar Had a Nervous Breakdown on a Mormon Mission, Which is Never Good

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