001 Break Ups & New Beginnings

Nic talks about the end of Bitchy Shitshow, signs that a relationship isn't healthy, and what's in store for Pynk Spots!

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Nichole [00:00:01]
Hey everyone. So before we get into the first episode, which I did via live stream on YouTube, I realized that I was a bit nervous for this episode and there was a lot to go over and it was very sensitive. So there are some things that I didn't make quite clear that I would like to clarify here before we get into the actual episode. So especially just in case this is your first episode with me and you are not familiar with my previous works, just to give you some context: I had two previous podcasts with a friend for several years. We gained a pretty good following, very small audience but very loyal. And the shows were a big deal to us and to the people who followed us.

[00:00:56]
And recently, right before this episode was recorded and this podcast was launched, that person and I had a falling out and stopped making the show. So this episode is to kind of talk about what happened there. So just to give you some context, even if you're not familiar with our previous work, I think the content of this episode largely is still really beneficial because I talk a lot about how to know when it's time to leave, you know, signs that a relationship may be unhealthy. And just, you know, very personal about the experiences I've had since discovering that I was autistic. Things that I've been processing during 2020 and all the chaos that has ensued this tumultuous year. So I just wanted to set the scene a little bit for anyone who might be new and not familiar with the background and the reason that this episode is so dramatic.

[00:02:06]
And then I also wanted to say that I'm going to experiment with not editing the episodes at all. As some of you may know, I do these episodes live on YouTube tube, I record the audio separately from the YouTube video but it's the same content obviously, and I'm attempting to make producing this show as seamless and streamlined as possible. So given that since I'm on a live stream I can't really edit anything there unless something really wild happens, I'm going to try to just keep the audio the same. This serves two purposes. Obviously, it's going to save me time from having to edit the audio. But additionally, it'll allow me to use the same transcripts for both formats, which is a really big deal to me. I want to make sure that the transcripts are available and that there's also captions on the YouTube videos.

[00:03:03]
So yeah, so just hang in there if you hear little things like my mouse clicks or if there's occasionally a little bit of maybe silence, I'm hoping it can just add to the ambiance of a very organic conversation. I think especially when I'm collaborating with other people, this will be even less of an issue. But yeah, I'll just try to keep my eye on it and if I feel like editing is necessary, then I'll start doing that. But yeah I just want to kind of go with the flow of the raw, uncut kind of vibe of the show and frankly, save myself some work. All right, I think that's all you need to know before going in. Just thank you so much for tuning in and let's get on with the show.

Introduction Voiceover [00:04:03]
Welcome to Pynk Spots, a queer anarchist space where we smash the patriarchy by celebrating what is strong about being soft. Here we'll explore what is vulnerable, raw, hurt, healed, sensual, queer, and controversial. So join me and my friends from around the internet as we talk about deep shit and prove, as Janelle Monáe said, that pynk is the truth you can't hide.

[00:04:37]
So before I get into the goss that I know we're all here for, I just want to take a minute to, first of all I just really want to thank everyone who, you know, has been so supportive over the break. I really want to thank everyone who donated to the fundraiser that y'all did October 1st. That was incredible. It really helped me out a lot. It improved my material conditions. It bought me a few extra months of secure housing. So I just want to say thank you so much to everybody who participated in that. And the burn book was incredible, I loved reading everyone's comments and the fan art and the memes and everything else, so this was amazing.

[00:05:31]
Yes, so as you know, we're here. It's a new show, new day. So before we jump into everything else, I just want to take a minute to talk about what this show is going to be, what I envision for it. The biggest thing over the break, you know, I figured hey, if I'm going to come back and I'm going to keep doing this work, which I definitely wanted to do, I really wanted to think about what are the most important parts of this work? What's the stuff that I love the most and what do I think that I really have to offer to the movement? So in thinking about it, I think it's probably not overly surprising that obviously queer anarchism was top of mind and everything that we've been talking about all year around that, which is a lot of community building, it's smashing the patriarchy, right, by embracing sensuality, embracing community, embracing self-discovery, I think, in self-advocacy, but in a way that isn't combative.

[00:06:46]
So I realized what I really want to come back and do is to have really deep, vulnerable, important conversations with people that I've connected with over the years, you know, all of the years of doing this work. So other content creators, as well as people who are just friends. So that's what this space is going to be. The pynk spots are going to be the raw, vulnerable, controversial, sensual things that I'll explore with other people. And we're going to do our part in smashing the patriarchal kind of values that we tend to have, even in radical leftist spaces, by creating a softer space where we can sort of celebrate the strength and softness, right. So I'm really excited.

[00:07:37]
My first collaborator that's going to come on is Kye from Feelin Weird. I got recommended to them from a listener. They were looking to maybe talk to someone about autism and we've ended up becoming really good friends via email. And so they're going to be on the next episode to talk about shame and judgment, self-judgment. And then I have a bunch of other guests lined up but we're going to be talking about some really deep shit, having, you know, great heart to heart conversations. And I'm just going to bring on people that I have some kind of connection with so it's not like an interview, it's really two people deeply talking to each other and collaborating in a conversation. So stay tuned for that.

[00:08:25]
Another thing I realized over the break, and you all will laugh because you were encouraging us to post less often or take a break, is that our schedule was a bit much. We were doing way too much. So I'm going to be posting twice a month, I'll live stream twice a month, once a month, or really every two weeks. So once every two weeks it'll be a collaboration with someone and then I'll do a solo advice column. And then that way it's much easier for me to keep up with the posting schedule, will be easier to schedule collaborations without getting overwhelmed. It'll be more sustainable. And then I hope to start doing some scripted videos to maybe make up for the content that's been removed. And just for things that I might want to talk about but don't necessarily fit very well into a collaborative, you know, free style conversation.

[00:09:25]
So I'm very excited for that because y'all know, I love talking to other people and I love giving advice. And I think between those two different formats, will be able to cover a lot of really cool ground, talk about, you know, some really important emotional topics, do some good work together. And my pipe dream for this channel is to eventually become sort of a home for people in leftist spaces to come have these conversations. Because a lot of the people I want to work with do amazing work on their own channels, but their format doesn't necessarily lend itself to having a really deep conversation about something personal. So I'm kind of hoping to become the Barbara Walters of queer anarchists. I'll have people crying on my channel, baring their souls to me.

[00:10:18]
All right. And then just in case anyone's curious, the name Pynk Spots came from a bunch of different places. I think for a lot of you, the p-y-n-k is a nod to Janelle Monáe's song of the same name because how can we not stan? Her song is actually a riff on an Aerosmith song called Pink which I also loved, I used to be a big Aerosmith fan. And that song also celebrates what's, you know, sensual, sexual, passionate. And then also when I was much younger, I had an ex-boyfriend write me a card where he told me he was going to kiss me in all my pink spots when he got home. And I remember feeling like that was such a tender, sexy, kind of cute, beautiful thing. And so that phrase always sort of stuck in my head. So when I was branding this channel, I realized that I wanted to pull on those different sources to come up with a brand that would really explore, you know, this whole idea of let's be tender together to be stronger together. So that's where we got it from.

[00:11:33]
All right. Before I get into what everyone's here to talk about, I do very seriously want to give, and I apologize, you can see I was rushing- so you all don't even know. I created this amazing intro video that has like this thing that responds to the music and a timer, and then of course I go to export it and it's going to take over an hour to export. Anyway, I'll just say I was rushing, didn't get my lipstick on and you can see part of my bedroom. But it's OK. It's my pynk spot today is my messy clothes.

[00:12:14]
OK, so yes, I want to take a moment to talk about some content warnings. I know from experience, from talking to some of you over the years that some of you can be very triggered by people ending a relationship, by relationships themselves ending. So I want to take you, I want you to take that very seriously, that if that is really going to upset you, maybe skip this one. You know, there's plenty of people, I'm sure, who can catch you up after so just consider that. And also consider if it's going to be very upsetting to you to have your perception of someone changed, be that me or Callie or both of us. You know, obviously when these things happen, it's difficult to not have to, I don't know, I guess reevaluate what you thought of somebody or the ideas that you had of someone. And I know being a public figure, which sounds so ridiculous to say, but being a public figure, I know that both of us, you know, we probably represented things to a lot of people. So I just want you to be really careful with yourself and just think about, you know, if this is stuff you're OK with hearing. I'm certainly not going to try to do some kind of smear campaign today, but I am going to be honest about what happened. And I just want you to, you know, think about what your needs are.

[00:13:46]
Relatedly, I want to set some boundaries today. So I want to make it very clear, this is a little mad mommy time, I want to make it very clear that I'm here to tell my story. I am not here to get people's approval. I'm also not here to get people to choose sides. I don't think that that is... It's not mature and it's not something I'm interested in. But I know from some of the people I've heard from that, you know, there's this sense that someone has to be the villain here. And I know since I'm the one who's left, at least at the moment, with a public platform and doing creative work, that there could be an impulse for me to have to prove that I'm right or validate my existence here in some way, and I'm not here to do that.

[00:14:41]
I'm here to just say what happened, explain what happened, you know because obviously, like I've had to take all the episodes down off the internet and that was very upsetting for all of us. So it's just to give us all a bit of closure and for me to be able to be honest, because obviously this was a really big experience in my life and it's something that will come up in the future. You know, there's no way I can do this kind of work and this isn't going to be referenced in some way. So, yeah, this is just a way for us to kind of understand what happened and move forward.

[00:15:19]
So in saying that, what I'm trying to get at is that, you know, if you are upset, if you're hurt, if you're sad, that's totally understandable, but I can't be the person to process those feelings for you. I have my own feelings that I'm dealing with. I have a lot of stuff that I'm processing on my own. So I just encourage you, you know, of course, talk to each other, talk to loved ones, talk to whoever you need to. But I cannot be the person who tries to, like, process this whole thing for you and make it make sense for you. What I'm going to say today is what I have to say and then I just want to move on. So hopefully that all makes sense.

[00:16:02]
And I think it just goes back to also the content warning. You know, if you know that you're someone who tends to vilify or get angry at the person who left a relationship, maybe this isn't the episode for you. Maybe this isn't the platform for you. I want to be able to move forward and not feel like I have to justify what I've done in my personal life in order to continue to have a professional life. But I do understand that, like Callie and I built something really, really special, and I know that it meant a lot to a lot of people. And that for a lot of people, it wasn't just the work that we were doing, but it was also, you know, the relationship that we had and the way that we made other people feel like they had access to a friendship like that. So I am very sensitive to that. I'm just asking for the space to, you know, be an actual human person with stuff that I'm processing. And, yeah, hopefully that all makes sense.

[00:17:06]
So I think, you know, we had, I'm part of the Total Liberation Discord run by Mexie and Catherine and Leslie from Mad Blender, and they've been having these calls, which have been really incredible for people who are in the Patreon community. And we had one this past weekend and we talked about, you know, what we're doing to have hope. Right, what ways we keep hope alive, what ways we see that we can build. Because obviously we are living in a time that's difficult in so many ways, right, and there's a lot of the doomer culture going around. So it's like, OK, you know, we can talk about problems, we can talk about politics and stuff, but how do we build, how do we find joy, how do we maintain ourselves in this time?

[00:18:11]
So I talked about something that's occurred to me recently. Also, I'm getting to the tea, but we're going to go on a journey because, of course, I want to contextualize all of this in a bigger framework. And what I'm hoping is, as I tell my story today, it resonates with other people and you can feel some sense of empowerment or validation or something for yourself. So I'm going to kind of start high level and then I'll get into what I'm going to get into. So what I brought up on this Discord chat was that I, you know, throughout this whole year, obviously I've had a lot of self-exploration and discovery. Realizing that I was autistic was a big one. It really threw me for a loop. And I'm still processing a lot of anger about that. And that's something that I, you know, talked about on the show. But something that kind of occurred to me as I was looking around at everything is that, you know, I feel like the outside world is so scary. It feels very unsafe all the time and I realized that I didn't want to replicate that sense of unsafety in my personal relationships and in my personal life.

[00:19:37]
So I had to start looking around and really questioning, you know, I could feel in my body that there was a lot of energy being spent all the time. And I felt like, you know, I quit my job, I've been unemployed, I've been trying to rest, I've been doing my best. Like, why am I still so tired all the time? Why do I still feel this tension in my body? What is going on? And you know, I think there were a lot of factors to this. Like I've had to realize that I put a lot of energy into managing other people's emotions and reactions to things. And this is something that I was raised to do, right? I had a mother who was very comfortable making me responsible for her emotional well-being. And this is actually a conversation that I'm going to have with Kathrin when she comes on the show, we're going to talk about this more in-depth. But I've come to realize that, you know, I've had a lot of conditioning in my formative years, that my well-being does not matter as much as someone else's well-being if I perceive them to be fragile or needing me in some way.

[00:21:12]
So I end up in a lot of situations where I tend to put my own needs aside to try to be supportive to someone else and in that, part of why I brought the managing emotions up is a big part of that, is that I'm always thinking about how is the other person going to react to things? So I'm doing a lot of work all the time to be like, oh, I don't want this person's feelings to get hurt, or I don't want this person to get mad or I don't want this person to feel this way, right? And I start to think, I kind of infantilize people in a way, although I wouldn't say it's just something I'm doing. I mean, these people often do things to make me feel this way, right? Make me feel responsible for them.

[00:22:02]
But, you know, I just develop this sense that this other person's so fragile, they can't handle anything and because I have a stronger sense of self or I have my shit together in certain ways, like I have to be the person to do all this for them or to try to protect them or to try to manage things for them. So this has been a huge pattern throughout my life. And the problem with this, some deep work that I've started to do this year is that even though it's coming out of a good place of wanting to protect other people, and I do it with all of you. I do it with all of you all the time. I'm always thinking about, like especially during this break, like I always think how is our people, our community, how are they going to feel about stuff? Right, like I don't want to disappoint anyone, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, like I'm constantly...

[00:22:57]
When I was thinking about this episode today, I was like, how do I tell them what happened without them feeling abandoned or hurt? Right, or having this loss of faith in someone, again, whether it's me or it's Callie or just the whole premise in general, whatever. And I realized like I had... I have to stop doing that. I realized that even though it's coming out of a good place, this is incredibly - I wouldn't say incredibly, but it's manipulative first of all, right? And then secondly, what ends up happening is I get super resentful of those relationships in my life. Because I have really fought, I mean fought tooth and nail my whole life, to just have a good life. To be healthier, just to have peace, to feel safe.

[00:24:00]
I remember I went to a naturopath like years ago when I, you know, still continuing to try to figure out what's wrong with me, how do I feel better. And he asked me, you know, I was talking about some of my symptoms and he just looked me in the eye and he was like, do you feel safe? And I was like, uhhh, you know, at first I was like, yeah, I can pay my - because I always think about financial security and I was like, well, I can pay my bills. Yeah, I think like, I guess I'm probably, I probably feel safe. But it stuck with me and the more I thought about it, I was like, I don't feel safe. I don't ever feel safe. I always feel anxious. I always feel like I'm doing something wrong. I always feel like there's all these things in my life that are precarious or that need to be managed. I always feel like people can't handle the full me. And that's something the show has been really helpful with, because even though you're still seeing a certain side of me, I do feel like I've found a lot of acceptance in being myself. I mean, I am really myself on the show and I've found this amazing community of people who are like here for it.

[00:25:18]
But, you know, I've realized like even with close friends, I have not... I haven't told them when I've been upset about stuff, you know? And it's stuff that I know if I just talked to them like it would be OK but I don't say it because I don't want to hurt their feelings, or I don't want there to be weirdness in our relationship. So, you know, it's just this whole analysis of like everyone in my life, everything in my life, all the places I'm expending energy. And the ways that I was replicating this idea that my life was expendable, like my life was just here to serve other people and to be this like... I want to say crutch, and that feels a little dramatic. I don't mean it quite that harshly, but like... And just to be resentful, like it's not fair to be resentful to people when you're not being honest with them, right, and it's something I've gotten a lot better at confrontation over the years and speaking my feelings to people, but I still do it. I still have stuff where it's like I could have just said it and, you know, talked it out and I don't give people the chance to show up for me in a lot of ways.

[00:26:45]
So this did lead me to analyzing my relationship with Callie. And it wasn't like a black and white thing like one night I sat down and this all occurred to me at once. It was just really over time these sorts of things were occurring to me and 2020 has really kind of blown the doors off everything. It's just been a year of chaos, everything's gotten shaken up. And I decided somewhere along the way, I think subconsciously even, to just lean into the chaos and be like, if everything's going to get all fucked up anyway, I might as well just embrace some of the stuff that was scaring me and just go for it and see what happens and see what shakes out.

[00:27:35]
Because this year, I mean honestly, a big thing too, is when I started to worry about my housing and my income in a very, and I mean it's still a big concern. I'm making moves to deal with it, which we can talk about in the after party. But, you know, it sent me back to like, how I used to feel as a teenager and as, you know, someone in my early 20s where it was like literally how do I eat? How do I pay my rent? How do I keep a roof over my head? You know, it's sent me back into that, like, deep survival mode. And I don't know how you all feel if you've been through stuff like that, but it just really, it made it so I just couldn't, I was like, I'm dealing with real stuff, I can't deal with bullshit anymore, you know what I mean? I can't keep doing this where I'm trying to placate people where I'm not being fully myself or fully honest about things where I can feel that I'm masking extremely hard in certain situations.

[00:28:50]
So all of it together, you know, being in this space where I'm like, OK I actually have to think about like... Like I'm scared. I'm actually deeply scared. I don't know what's going to happen and I'm in a space where I have to think about how to take care of myself. I just couldn't do it anymore. So I want to talk about some stuff generally, wink, and then I'll talk about specifically what happened. But part of what I want to do, I mean, I think a lot of that was probably relatable or validating, from the comments it seems like it was. But, you know, we did an episode recently about how to know when it's time to leave. And in that episode, I said very clearly that if you want to leave, that's all the reason you need. You don't have to validate why you want to leave, right? So I just want to reiterate that. Hold on a moment.

[00:29:57]
It's hard not having someone else to talk so you can have water breaks. So, yes, so I just want to go back to that. And that's what I mean when I said at the top that, like, I'm not here to justify the fact that I didn't want to be in this relationship anymore. What I really want to let you all know was just how it was handled so that hopefully you can still have faith in me and the work that we did on the show. But yeah, it's valid to just not want to be with someone anymore. Or not want to be in a certain... To want to change the dynamic with somebody. That's perfectly valid in and of itself.

[00:30:43]
Other things that are valid, well I want to say that's valid, but then there's also stuff that I think can sneak up on us over time and it's the kind of stuff that's really easy to feel like you're being oversensitive to, or to have other people downplay it. But I want to validate that there are things like if you find yourself in a relationship with someone and you feel like you can't ever do what you want to do, like it's always hard to achieve your goals or just stick to something. Like an example is, you know, if I, I've had this happen many times in my life so that's what I'm saying, like a lot of this is kind of general as well.

[00:31:36]
I've had many times in my life where I stopped drinking because I'm chronically ill. Alcohol is really bad for me. It exacerbates all my issues. And also I don't have an addictive personality, but I am compulsive so a lot of times once I start drinking, I want to drink and drink and drink all the time and it takes me a while to get out of that like loop. So it's nearly impossible for me to just have a drink like one night. It ends up being like having a drink for two weeks and then I'll just stop, you know? So I just know that about myself. I feel better when I don't and it's easier for me to take better care of myself when I don't. So, you know, I would try to not drink. And then you find yourself around people where they're, like, constantly asking you if you're still not drinking or if we can drink tonight. Or they may pull out bottles of alcohol and then be like, oh yeah, I forgot, sorry.

[00:32:40]
So it's not like the other person, I mean, sometimes people can be sabotaging you on purpose. But I think a lot of times, like the other person isn't being a villain. And, you know, there's a lot of rhetoric - and we've talked about this a lot - there's a lot of rhetoric around willpower, right? So it's like, oh you should be able if you want to eat a certain way, because I do a lot of elimination diets and stuff, too just trying to figure out if some of my issues are food allergies, and as a gluten free vegan, that can be very difficult. There are times when it's like literally what can I eat right now? You know, and you go to someone's house and they have like your favorite junk food and your favorite candy and your favorite dessert and, you know, they keep offering it to you. And it's like, OK yeah, like I'm responsible for what I do with myself, so I can't exactly blame it on the other person. But I also can step back and kind of say, you know, things are just hard when I'm around this person. When I want to do stuff, it's harder for me to do it than it is maybe around other people.

[00:33:58]
Like I can compare and I can see that sometimes there's ways for people to engage with me that makes this easier and helps support my goals. Whether or not people even get what I'm doing. I've done a lot of weird shit to try to get better. And I know it's weird and that's fine, you know, but I can look around and say, OK, there's people here who really have like, even if I know they think it's weird and they don't get it, they're just like, all right, this is what you're doing, I support you. Like, I'm going to do whatever I can to make it easier. Sometimes it just means, like, not making it a big deal. Like me not drinking should not be a big deal, you know, and I have friends that I hang out with where it's not a big deal. And then I have friends they hang out with where it is a huge deal.

[00:34:43]
And I often find myself... A lot of my compulsions are very socially driven. I used to be a smoker. I know, boo. And it was funny because I was never actually like physically addicted to cigarettes. I was addicted to the ritual of smoking with other people. And if you haven't been a smoker, I'm sure you don't get it but it's a deeply social activity. Like going out with your best friend after a night of drinking, like you sneak out of the bar together and it's winter and it's freezing and you're like giggling together. Like, you go out and you try to bum one off someone. It's just like a deeply social activity. And that's what actually made it really hard for me. So I'm like that with drinking and I'm like that with eating and it can be really difficult for me. I just found that there are people in my life where I'm like, hmm, every time I'm trying to do something that's important to me, it's hard around certain people.

[00:35:49]
I think other stuff like, you know, if you feel drained around a certain person, even if you don't know why, like that can be a valid reason to just be like, I want to change the dynamic here. I've noticed, I think now realizing I'm autistic as well, especially because I used to blame it on my introversion. You know, there's just certain people where I just feel really tired after engaging with them and I need a lot of time alone to decompress, even if it was just the two of us hanging out. So that can be a thing. It can be a big thing, I think, when you have, and I guess it kind of ties into the goals, but like when you try to set boundaries and the other person doesn't say no, but you just don't, also don't quite get like the boundary met.

[00:36:44]
It could be like, oh, you know, I know I need to leave by a certain time today. And it's like, OK, but then it's like stuff just keeps happening and you don't get to leave by that certain time and then you're overtired and then your whole night gets fucked up. And for people like me, usually can mess us up for up to a week if that happens. So I think that is a big thing to look out for. That's really valid. And I think here, too, a big part of it is that like if you talk to someone and you try to express these concerns and then they don't get resolved. They're invalidated or it's like, "Yeah, oh I'm glad we talked about that," but then it keeps happening. That is a really valid thing and I think that happens to a lot of us.

[00:37:37]
And especially, I think, in close relationships, right where you get comfortable and you get used to each other and you really get into... I was talking to my therapist about this once and she was saying how for people who grew up a certain way and have certain family dynamics, it can feel very normal and even very comfortable to be really enmeshed. And that's how she put it and that word always stuck with me because that is what it feels like a lot. Is that your, you know, you just get into these patterns and then you can't get out of them. And you try, and you know that like you're participating in it so it gets very confusing to you of how to handle it. Right, because it's like I'm here. I am half of this thing that's happening. And yet somehow with this person, I'm not able to do these things, but with other people I am. And I don't really understand what's going on and I've tried to communicate it and it's not received in whatever way. Like sometimes it's superficially received but like I said, then it keeps happening.

[00:38:51]
So, you know, these things all pile up over time. And with that, I had built up resentment because I had been like trying to manage someone else's feelings and try to protect somebody else, but not being protected myself. And just not feeling like there was a lot of conflict resolution for me. There were things that I had been resentful for years, and I had tried to get some kind of like resolution with it, bringing it up and it was often shut down, it was invalidated, it was ignored, it would keep happening again. And then there was also... There was also the pressure of the show. And I'll be honest about that, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, whether you're internet famous or not.

[00:39:54]
I think a lot of us get into, I think this happens with romantic relationships especially, right. Like we get into a relationship and then other people see us in a certain way. And it's kind of like, again, it's something where you're like, I'm participating and yet also this is sort of gotten out of my control. So other people, you know, see us and then they want to think... They want to think the best because they want to have an example of like someone to look to have hope, right. To believe that this is possible in the world.

[00:40:32]
So, you know, with the show, it was very hard for me because there were things about my dynamic with Callie that had always made me very uncomfortable and I felt like we sort of talked about it, but I don't feel like it had actually gotten resolved. And then we had the show and I started a business with her. Which in hindsight, I probably should, I should have like had the business under my name and then asked her if she wanted to collaborate with me, like be a co-host. Like still participate and have creative input and stuff, but not like share the business. Because I always had some concerns about that.

[00:41:22]
So yeah, we start this little show, who knows what's going to happen with it, and it really was for me about the work that we were doing. And then over time, what I realized was that for a lot of people, maybe you like the work we were doing, but a lot of it was about the friendship. And that made it really hard for me because I didn't... It made me start to feel fake because I was like, well, in my head there's a lot of issues here and I can't quite seem to get them resolved. But we do have really good on-air chemistry, right, and there was obviously good things about our friendship. And now we have this business together and it's growing and it's become this incredibly important part of my life.

[00:42:28]
I mean, just generally having a platform is incredibly important to me. Like I feel lost without it. Right, I had a nice break, which is something I'll talk about at some point. Like I had a lot of epiphanies taking a break and I should have done it a lot sooner. But, you know, in general, like over the break, I was having to think about trying to find work. And I think I talked about this a bit before we went on break that, you know, I had been offered, like, to apply for a corporate job and if I had, I really wouldn't be able to do this work anymore, it would take up all my time. And I just was like, what would even be the point? What would be the point of life? Like, how could I be alive in any meaningful sense if I wasn't doing this work?

[00:43:25]
So they're just... It just grew and grew and grew over the years that, you know... Like one of the, like I really meant it when I was like, stop shipping us because it would make me really uncomfortable. But at the same time, it's like I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I don't want to seem like I'm being mean or too intense or too, you know, harsh or whatever. And a lot of what would come up on the show, there wasn't really a way for me to be like, well, that's not true. Or we have issues with that. You know what I mean? Like, they're just, it just became this very weird situation where I feel like everyone's idea of us kept getting reinforced by the work we were doing on the show. And the work we were doing on the show wasn't necessarily bullshit. But I also was really struggling all the time because there were a lot of times where I had to pretend that something was OK that wasn't OK. And there was no way for anyone else to know that because it was like super behind the scenes. And it would often be one of these things that, like, I had tried to bring up and couldn't get resolved over and over again.

[00:44:49]
So, you know, I'm not going to go into the specifics because it doesn't really matter. I hit my breaking point over something very small, but it was just like a thing that came up again and didn't get resolved again, you know? And it was like all of the stuff I had just talked about, and particularly being in a place where I'm like, I'm trying to fucking like make sure that I have a home right now. I just like I can't do this anymore. So I sent Callie a message and I said, you know, I'm, like I said, you know, there's, we just don't have conflict resolution. And I have like seven years' worth of resentment built up at this point. And I, you know, I was like, I don't want to make you feel bad. I'm not here to be, like, mean to you. I just like, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep being this close, in this close partnership, in this close relationship and not feel like I have space to advocate for myself or to be heard about my things.

[00:46:05]
Because like the little altercation we had was again, it was over something I was like trying to get resolution for, literally that happened five years ago and I still like, could not get resolution for it. And often it would be like shutdown. It's like the conversation gets shut down and then the next time we talk, we're supposed to act like everything's fine for the most part, that was sort of the pattern. And I'm not good with that. If I'm mad, I'm fucking mad. I'm sure that surprises no one. I, you know, if something's not resolved for me, it's not resolved for me. But I learned over time, like, things are not going to get resolved.

[00:46:47]
And before, there was always another speaking engagement. There is always travel. Right, there was always like episodes to do so, like I had to push it down and I had to just kind of move on because we were always engaged in public stuff where I can't, like, sit there being pissed and nonresponsive. And, you know, I think that there's like, obviously I could have set harder boundaries, I could have done a lot of things earlier. But that just wasn't the dynamic, right? We both have trauma and our trauma is like opposite but interlocking if that makes sense. And it was sort of like a perfect storm of the different ways that we had adapted throughout our lives and the different roles that we saw ourselves in with things that kind of got us into this like incredibly enmeshed, right, partnership.

[00:48:00]
And yeah, and that's kind of what I meant too when I talked about boundaries before. Like, I would try to draw some boundaries of... Just around our relationship. My therapist was like, this is a pretty intense situation, like you work together, for a long time I was serving a sort of a mentor, like therapist role. And Callie talked about that publicly so I don't feel like that's too private. But, and then we were friends and we were sort of acting as life partners with, like traveling together and making all these plans together. And she was like, you know, most people, if they can pull off two different types of a relationship with one person, that's pretty big. And we wrote it out one day and it was like we had, I don't know, five or seven different dynamics in our relationship. And she's like, this is a lot. Like this would be a lot for anybody.

[00:49:01]
And it's very hard to keep that level of engagement with each other healthy. And especially if you can't really resolve stuff with one another. Because I know she too, like the incident I brought up, she was mad because she, like she has her own hard feelings about that incident, right? So it's not just on me. Like, I really do mean like collectively we together just did not have good conflict resolution.

[00:49:31]
And so, you know, I told her I'm still happy to be friends, like friendly. I'm still happy to work with you and do the show with you. I was like, I'm, you know, I know you've got to think about things and make your own decisions so just let me know. And initially, she said that she wanted to continue to do the show, but that she needed time, that we needed time to adjust to the new dynamic. And so I was like, OK. And then I eventually, you know, started, I had networked with Kye, who again is going to be my first guest, and I wanted to come back mid-October. So I sent her a message and was like, hey, I scheduled this collaboration. I also was, you know, she had been off social media so I let her know about the burn book and all the nice stuff that you all had done for me and also us. And, you know, I was just like I'm OK to do this collab by myself. I would actually prefer it that way.

[00:50:41]
One of the ways I'm advocating for myself better is realizing that I just am way better in a one on one conversation than more than that, so I'm trying to, if I do a collaboration, just do it with one person and be able to focus on that person for the most part. So I was like, yeah, we got, you know, really close over email and I'm happy to just kind of do this on my own. And I was like, you know, just let me know if you want to do an episode before that or if you want to just continue to have a break. I was like, I can, you know, you can just do whatever you want to do, whatever feels right to you.

[00:51:21]
So she wrote back and said, you know, I don't think I want to do the show anymore and I don't want you to do this collaboration, because if I don't want to do the show then that's going to be the last episode and that would be weird. And I responded and said, you know, well I fully plan on continuing with the show, so it won't be the last episode. And I was like, if you want to, I said you have like, every option, right? Like, you can quit the show if that's what you want to do. If you want, I can make you a contract where you could do episodes whenever you want to, and you can either do them with me or you could do them by yourself or with someone else. And we could even work out a deal where you get paid for every episode that you do. I was like, if you want to be bought out, we could talk about that.

[00:52:23]
So I gave her a bunch of options of like either still being involved or stepping away from the business, but like obviously with acknowledging that she was part of the business and I wanted to, like, make that as fair as I could. But yeah, I was very clear that I'm like, you know, this is... This is my baby. Like, I'm not going to just stop doing the show just because we're not friends anymore. And then she came back and basically said that if we weren't doing the show together, there was no show. So she was not allowing me to do the show by myself. And then that's when I ended up, you know, there was a bit more to it than that but that was the gist between our back and forth, was that if, she said if I wanted to have my own project then I needed to start over from scratch. So she was trying to not allow me to use, like, rebrand any of the channels, keep the social media accounts, anything like that.

[00:53:32]
So at that point I hired a lawyer just for a consultation and asked, you know, I was like, obviously if I don't have her consent I'm not going to use her, I'm not going to use the brand names that we built together, that's fine. And I'm not going to use her work. Like, I'm not going to continue to profit off of work that we did together if she's not allowing me to use it and if she's not comfortable with me continuing to use it or for it to be out there and benefiting me in some way. So what I consulted the lawyer on was like, I just want to rebrand the accounts that we have. I'll delete all the stuff, all the stuff that we did together, you know, am I OK with that? Am I in a good position for that? And the lawyer was like, yeah, that's fine. She's like, she'd be really hard-pressed to, you know, she's like she can take you to court because you can take someone to court for anything. But she's like, she'd be pretty hard-pressed for any real, like, consequences to come from that.

[00:54:36]
So that's what I did. And I wrote up a dissolution agreement that outlined everything and sent it to her. And what I did with our finances because she still wasn't, she wasn't giving me like, anything that she wanted. She just kept saying that like I couldn't use any of this stuff. And to be perfectly honest, the second she told me I couldn't use any of the stuff, I took over all those accounts and I didn't do anything with them, but I kept them so that they couldn't be like deleted or, you know, she couldn't do anything with them in the meantime. So she saw that as a very aggressive move and it was an aggressive move. I feel fine with it. But, you know, if someone wants to judge me on anything, I think they could judge me on that and that would be fine.

[00:55:33]
So I sent her a dissolution agreement and the other thing I want you all to know is that with the finances, I took out my expenses and I didn't take all of them. I actually didn't reimburse myself for like hundreds of dollars of expenses because I wanted her to have some kind of decent payout. I took out the money that was raised for my housing and then what was left, I gave to her one hundred percent instead of splitting it, which I would have been like well within my rights to do. I gave her the full amount so that she could have some kind of a decent payout.

[00:56:12]
And yeah, I sent her a dissolution agreement. I outlined everything. So, you know, I outlined that I would be keeping the accounts but that I would be deleting everything that had her in it from the internet and I would retire the two brands that we had built together, so I wouldn't be able to make money or do anything under those names or using her likeness, you know, her work. I gave a detailed list of what I did with the money so that she could see like what expenses, see that things were legit. And then just little bits and pieces, you know, it was just like little nitpicky things, tying up loose ends.

[00:56:55]
So anyway, she came back and wanted to add an NDA basically, like a gag order, to the agreement to not allow me to talk about any of this publicly. And she wanted an extra thousand dollars, which would have had to come out of the housing funding that I got for like paying my rent. And she said she wouldn't sign or leave the social groups until that happened. So at that point, I had been very professional and, you know, like everything we were doing was back and forth in writing. So I was like very careful about what I was saying and I tried to stay like, yeah, like professional to stick to like the logistics of everything.

[00:57:49]
At that point, I lost it because I felt like she was trying to silence me about, you know, how she had reacted to this whole situation. And also I just felt like the whole thing was so not leftist and not fair, I guess. Like, it just felt really shitty and very aggressive. And I'm leaving out a lot of details just because I don't need to go there with all of you. But, you know, it got to the point where I was feeling, like, unsafe. Not that she would do anything specifically necessarily, but how you just generally feel like, oh, there's a person in the world who is really mad at me right now and is like actively trying to make my life difficult.

[00:58:40]
So, yeah, I just at that point, even then I wasn't like mean. I didn't say anything like, yeah I didn't say anything like mean but I was just very honest and was like, you know, I just think your behavior is pretty gross and I hope that you like see that someday. And you know, the lawyer had said the disillusion agreement was basically a formality. She was like, you're fine to do whatever, like what you said you want to do, but if you can get her to sign it, then it'll be nice because you both will know that it's over and that like you're both safe. So yeah, I told her it was like I'm not meeting your demands because I don't actually need this letter signed. And she was very angry and, you know, basically wrote back that like we were done, that our business was done, and to not contact her again.

[00:59:37]
So that's where we ended up. And it's... it's really, this is why I set the boundary in the beginning because it's like. I'm having to, you know, I had to, like, whip together a new show, new branding, do all this stuff. I'm not saying poor me, I'm just saying, like, I'm trying to process that someone I spent so long with and tried really hard to be good to... I've had this happen to me so many times in my life where someone meets me and they decide that I'm like a person to them. And then it's almost like that's where that feeling of like my life doesn't matter kind of kicks in because it's kind of like these people don't even really care what I want. It's like you're my person now, so you have to be my person. And if you try to leave me, I'm going to try to hurt you in some way, right?

[01:00:40]
And I've had people try to hurt me by hurting themselves. I've had people try to hurt me by scaring me. I, fortunately, haven't had someone, like, physically hurt me, but I've had people stalk me and I've had people turn friends against me. And it just is like this trauma that I, it just constantly gets like, re-activated all the time. And so I'm dealing with all of that so, you know, from that story you may think that I'm out of line in some way and that's fine. All I can say is that, you know, Callie was my biggest source of support in San Diego. I'm very vulnerable in the sense that I'm kind of a poor person, basically a poor person again. I'm chronically ill. I don't have a car, right, I have a tiny apartment. And I knew that our show was dependent on... I had realized over time that our show was really hinged on our relationship.

[01:01:57]
So I know some people think that I like pulled some Machiavellian scheme here to, like, steal the show away or deplatform her and... I didn't. I tried actually very hard to keep her platformed. I did try to get the business and I have been trying to get the business for years. I think the biggest thing that people don't understand, I think, especially from this year, is that I think it was pretty obvious and we were pretty open to everyone about the fact that I was doing so much more work than she was. But what wasn't well known was that that was not our agreement. I had agreed, obviously, to take on more because I was taking the year off to try to grow the business. But when we had our business meeting at the beginning of the year and we had had several business meetings like this, she was pretty disengaged at that point. And I offered her, as I had offered many, many times, for her to just be the talent.

[01:03:07]
So again, we could draw up a contract where she would have some creative control. You know, she would have a lot of input on the show and would have like things that she still controlled on the show, but she wouldn't be an actual partner. I had more equity in the show and then I had more sweat equity in the show and yet we were seen as equal partners. And it was difficult for me. I often had to get her to approve me spending money on stuff. Which, you know, if you've been in this situation business-wise or maybe even in a romantic relationship or you're sharing finances, it's just really difficult to be the one who's like in it day after day and then have to go beg someone else for money. And it didn't feel even, it felt like I was always asking her permission for stuff and she was saying yes or no.

[01:04:07]
And I had always actually wanted to open the show up to being, to normalize us working with other people. I had wanted for years for us to take times during the year to collaborate with other people so the other person could get time off. And, you know, just I had a lot of ideas and a lot of energy in the business and I was doing the work. And so yeah, I did try to be sole owner of the business, but I didn't do it in some schemey way. And when we had this business meeting, you know, I offered this to her again. I was like, take some time, like don't answer me today, really think about it. Like, do you feel like you want to be a manager, like you want to be an owner? Because she would suffer a lot of like guilt and like bad self-esteem from not doing enough. And I was like, you know, you could just have the best parts. Like, you could just have the parts that you really like. You could help decide topics and you can show up and do the live streams, like that would be fine.

[01:05:20]
And I was always, you know, with an eye towards, like, having her financially compensated. It wasn't about like getting more money or anything like that. But she said, you know, no, I want to really do this. I really, I want to really go for this. I want to be a full partner. I'm into it like, let's make this the year that we go for it. And then, you know, pretty immediately just still wasn't doing the work, frankly. So that was a huge frustration for me, it was a huge frustration and it was hard for me to not feel like the business was a way to have a tie to me and to keep control over me. And it was not surprising to me that when I tried to change our friendship, that the first thing was to take the business away because that was what was going to hurt me the most financially and emotionally. And that's hard.

[01:06:25]
You know, none of us want to think that of her or of anyone that we follow and that we like. But that's what happened, you know? That's as neutrally as I can tell it, and obviously I'm extremely biased. I could read you all the transcript of what we said back and forth, and you all would have different interpretations of it. Or I could let you read it yourself, you know. These situations are just inherently not neutral. But that's the best I can say, is that I knew, I've taken, I've lost a ton of people on Patreon, I lost YouTube subscribers. I don't know about Instagram or Twitter, but those are the two platforms that really matter to me. I lost a lot from this happening before anyone even knew what happened, and I always knew that.

[01:07:22]
So all I can say in my own defense is that I would like to think that I'm more clever and evil and schemey than to do something that would knowingly hurt my business and push me into having to rebrand at a time when I'm absolutely exhausted and completely stressed out. You all know from the Bitchy Shitshow launch that that was so much work and very stressful and launching this was pretty much the same. I've been a mess for the last three weeks trying to get this together. And very lucky that I actually love what I came up with. But, yeah, it just, it wouldn't be the move is what I'm trying to say for me to, like, steal the platform from her, deplatform her and take everything over for myself.

[01:08:25]
I mean, I never intended the show to be about our friendship, but, you know, that's what people took from it so it doesn't make any sense for that to be what happened. What happened was I needed to draw a really hard boundary in my own personal life, and because of that, what we had built could not be sustained. And that's really sad. It's really sad. It's sad for everybody. And I know she's really struggled. And I know that this has totally, this is like her worst nightmare. This has got to be just absolutely blowing up every, like, attachment trauma or attachment injury and source of trauma that she has. I would guess she's probably not OK or not doing very well. It sucks. It sucks. I would never have wanted this to happen this way, but I also kind of always knew that it would and it kept me in place trying to be happier and trying to make things better long after I knew that they wouldn't be.

[01:09:48]
And, you know, it's hard because, like I said, our on-air chemistry wasn't fake. We had it. It's weird to say, but it's kind of like how you can have really good sexual chemistry with someone who's trash for you. I'm not saying she was trash for me, that's too harsh. But, you know, we can have weird kinds of chemistry with people and it can be very authentic and we can really genuinely enjoy things about them and get along really well in certain ways and then also just be really not a good fit in other ways. Like those two things can be true at the same time. And I think what was hard for us is that we unintentionally made a business I guess. This feels more, it's not a business in the sense of like money or income, but like a purpose, like a creative output, you know, like a thing. We built a thing that was centered around the best parts of our relationship.

[01:10:56]
So what you saw on air wasn't completely inauthentic. Although, you know, like I said, there were a lot of times where I had to kind of bite my tongue or I couldn't be fully honest because it would have just been weird and seemed mean. But it just happened to be a format that worked really, really well for us. And that was kind of what I always wanted, was I wished we had been able to be more like, more collaborators and maybe like casual friends than like this incredibly enmeshed relationship that we had. And it all got away from me. And like I said, you know, I can be criticized, too, for not setting harder boundaries or speaking up more in certain ways. But I think we all understand how that happens. And, you know, I can't blame Callie for wanting that security and for, yeah, wanting someone who is always going to be there and someone that she really enjoyed being around and enjoyed having this creative output with, you know? That's all very human.

[01:12:17]
But, yeah, that's what happened, folks. So I just want to reiterate that for some reason, of course, the comments froze. Friggin StreamYard. Whoa! OK, there we go. So I missed everything you said which is probably good because I was nervous about people being mad. But yeah, like it's OK to be sad. I've gotten a lot of messages about me having to delete content and, you know, people are saying like, to bring it back and I can't. Like that would open me up to all kinds of stuff. And to me, you know, like this was really hard for me to know what to do because I really care about consent. And Callie clearly did not consent for me to talk about any of this. But I had to... there has to be a line where, like, someone can silence you and where they can't. So for me, like I had to at least tell this portion of the story because it's my story. But, you know, there's a lot that, like using content that she made without her permission to me is like way over the line and I won't do it.

[01:13:45]
Anyway. And then on top of that, I'm not going to... I'm not going to open myself up to that kind of risk. Like if I continue to have a business and continue to make money and continue to do stuff while I'm still having a platform that is using her material, like she has a very clear case to come back at me later and, you know, try to get money or try to shut me down or something. And honestly, I would feel like that was fairly valid because, yeah, she didn't say I could use that stuff, so it would be pretty shitty to use it.

[01:14:24]
She, you know, she thinks I'm way out of line. She thinks I had no right to continue to use these accounts. And all I can say of that is that there was no way I was going to let this shit that I had spent the last five and a half years, but especially the last year, busting my ass to build, to just be like delete it off the internet. That didn't make any sense to me and it just seemed really punitive. So like I said, I think people could judge that as me being overly aggressive or doing stuff without her permission. But that's what I decided to do. And I stand by it. I don't apologize for it whatsoever. But I could get if someone thinks that that's like, whatever.

[01:15:11]
So yes. So that's what happened. I don't think anyone here would, but please don't contact her and be mean or criticizing or whatever. If you want to contact her and just support her, I think that that's probably nice. I honestly don't know what she needs right now, but I know she's started a new Instagram account. I think she announced it in the Facebook and the Discord groups, which I'm no longer in. It's @Calliewiththelaugh, if I remember. So you can follow her there. I think she has a Tik-Tok as well so there's ways to connect with her. And yeah, and I don't think, you know, I think you can just send her well wishes and not really need to get into it.

[01:16:00]
And that's how I feel too. If you have anything nice to say to me, I will take it. I need it. I'm not even going to lie. But, you know, if anyone can't follow me or follow the show because of any reason, because you think I'm a monster or just because, like, you just, you know, wanted the dynamic and that's it. Like, that's totally fine. No hard feelings. But I just won't, I won't try to like... I won't deal with people who are vilifying me. If you want to think I'm a villain, that's your right. But I'm not going to, like, be nice to someone who's vilifying me. So that's how I feel about that.

[01:16:44]
So. Holy shit, I don't even know how to end this. What a day, my goodness. So yeah, if anyone's new listening to this, hi, welcome. You're joining me at the end of a very tumultuous time in my life. I thought about not doing this as an episode, but I hope a lot of what I talked about, especially earlier on that wasn't specific to this situation, would resonate with a lot of people. And even though I'm here by myself and this is a pretty one off episode, I do think it sets a really good tone for the kind of work that I intend to do on this channel. I want to have these kinds of conversations, you know, where we are just like spilling our guts and just really digging deep on stuff and letting other people hear it and participate in it and relate to it. And I'm hoping with the advice columns that can keep it a bit more interactive as well. So I always love when you all send questions and then I get to really engage with, like, what you are thinking about. I always really love that.

[01:18:04]
So that being said, if you have a question you want me to answer, you can send it to pynkspots@gmail.com. And that's p-y-n-k spots@gmail.com. And the next episode is going to be November 29th. That will be with Kye and we're going to talk about shame and self-judgment and how it's made us both question what we're doing all the time. Kye has an amazing platform called Feelin Weird and actually was a huge inspiration for this show. So I'm really excited to talk to them about all of that and I'm just really honored to have them on as my first guest because they really, Feelin Weird, they have conversations, very vulnerable conversations with other people about what generally makes people feel weird. So they talk about all kinds of cool shit like addiction and anxiety and queerness and sex and all kinds of stuff. Their show's incredible. I can't remember off the top of my head who referred me to them, but like, thank you. It's become one of my favorite podcasts ever. And I'm just like, I can't wait. Just even from the emails we've had, I like literally can't wait to talk to Kye, it's going to be amazing.

[01:19:26]
So if you haven't already, like, subscribe, donate on Patreon if you want. I've lost so many people so if you can spare a few bucks, I'll ring the tip jar. And yeah, I just thank everyone for listening and all the comments have been, I actually wasn't going to read the comments today, but I decided to leave them up and everyone's been really mature and supportive. This is by far the largest live stream I've ever done, I can't even believe it. I was like, wow, maybe I'll hit like sixty today because this is controversh. And I like, we got over one hundred and fifty people, it's incredible.

[01:20:06]
So thank you all. Thank you all. Thank you all. For those of you who are on the live stream, I would love to hang out and have a little after party, maybe talk about TV and movies or something. And for those of you listening at home or watching the replay, thanks for joining and I'll talk to you next time. Goodbye.

Pynk Spots

001 Break Ups & New Beginnings

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