Beyond Introspection: A Podcast About Neurodivergence & Identity

Parent & Child Genetics (w/ Special Guest!) - Part 2

• BeyondPodcast • Season 3 • Episode 5

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Harvey and Pen are joined by Pen's dad as they talk about genetics, nature vs. nurture, and the strange things you can pass on to your children. Part 2 of 2.

Featuring: A variety pack of emotional issues you can pass to your kids; Is it depression, abuse, or ADHD? Who knows! Not us; We talk about dopamine again; Frontal lobe uses: 1) Not being an ape. 2) Not accidentally kissing your best friend; If you're interested, please use us as a study! Seriously, we're very interesting; You cannot separate the parts of yourself. 


Suicide Hotline & Resources for Trans People: 

https://translifeline.org/


USA Suicide Prevention: 

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/


International Suicide Hotlines: 

https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines


Suicide Hotline & Resources for LGBTQ+ Young People: 

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/


Ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources:

https://linktr.ee/blacklivesmatte

Resources to support AAPI (Asian-American & Pacific Islander) communities:

https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/

https://stopaapihate.org/


Resources for US Immigrants:

https://www.informedimmigrant.com/


Resources to Support Undocumented Immigrants in the US:

https://immigrationjustice.us/

Harvey:

...anxiety. I've been told on several occasions that my Generalized Anxiety is some of the worst clinicians have seen. Um, that severity-

Pen:

Oh, no, that's not - that's not a fun thing to win at.

Harvey:

No. It's helpful for me to know because I go, okay, my Generalized Anxiety is genuinely really bad. But the... the significance of it is something that ramped up with with me individually. And because I don't have siblings, I have no - no biological siblings, I have no way of knowing if that would have rung true for someone who was genetically similar to me.

Pen:

Yeah. Yeah, I have.... I've definitely had that thought sometimes of - it would have had to be a twin for me, because no way. No way. No way.

luckydad:

We would not have accomplished a second, no.

Pen:

No, you guys had broken up before mom found out she was pregnant.

luckydad:

And then again before you were born.

Pen:

Which - which I think, um - I maintain that you guys handled it very well, particularly for how young you were.

luckydad:

And the environment we were in.

Pen:

Yeah.

luckydad:

I mean...

Pen:

Like, hey, remember what I said about generational trauma?

luckydad:

I was trying not to give you the PTSD that I was given. I didn't know it was PTSD at the time. The main thing I was concerned with is I didn't want to punch my kid.

Pen:

Which is a... there's a level of self awareness in there. That is very, very good... very good starting point, if nothing else. And also, you know, I'm down to not get punched.

Harvey:

Major part of-

luckydad:

I haven't yet!

Harvey:

Major part of why I'm wary to have kids, because I know, like, I am definitely part of the group of people that's predisposed to perpetuating emotional abuse.

Pen:

Yeah, it's - it's a... it's a complex - I have no interest, necessarily, in passing on my genetics. They're not the worst that they could be, sure, but...

luckydad:

I think you're kind of great.

Pen:

Thank you. I like myself very much.

Harvey:

I'm not gonna be able to have kids anyway, so at least I won't pass on my genetics.

Pen:

I have no interest... I mean, also, if I got pregnant, it would be one of the worst possible things for mental health.

Harvey:

We've already developed a plan - Pen and I have already developed a plan for if, God forbid, you manage to get pregnant.

Pen:

We have?

Harvey:

Yeah.

Pen:

I don't remember it.

Harvey:

No, we've - we've discussed a whole plan about, like, I'm the one who's going to give you a ride to get an abortion. We've discussed where, you know...

Pen:

Okay, cool. Yeah. Good, good, good. Yeah. That's one of those things, uh, I remember having that conversation with my mom, and, like, she's... she has, uh, semi-complex thoughts on it, but...

Harvey:

Which makes sense.

Pen:

Yeah. It's at - it's at the point of like, "Well, it's not actually about me." And it's like, yeah, that's good. mom. And, you know, I'm not going to get into what I think about people who have the, you know, whether or not it's murder and whatnot, but I can tell you, if I got pregnant, it's one life or two, like, that's where we're at, folks. So I won't be passing on my genetics. Thank you for the offer, but no. No, I don't think so. Which is, you know, if I'm not passing on my genetics, and I don't have a twin, then I can't... that's not. uh, something I'm going to be able to see as well, the exact ways the both - both you and mom have impacted me. I just have my own brain to look at, which I look at all the time. One of my favorite hobbies,

luckydad:

...do you still - I know, uh, in the past, it's not a subject we've talked about in a while, but do you feel that you still experience depression, or is it something that...

Pen:

Oh, that's-

luckydad:

...is part of your... if you were to self-diagnose, right now, would you include it in the diagnosis?

Pen:

Um, I have depressive episodes for sure, but I see it as more linked to my ADHD, which is, you know, I learned... it was after I learned that ADHD can... one of the reasons that depression and anxiety are fairly often comorbid with ADHD is because ADHD can cause them. Especially, like, ADHD is heavily characterized by emotional instability and difficulty with - with emotional regulation. So I wouldn't... I wouldn't diagnose myself - diagnose myself with major depressive, because it isn't consistent, and it always comes from a source, which is actually true of how my depression has always been, which makes me, you know, suspect that it was it was always related to the ADHD, and particular my response to my environment. This is something that Harvey and I have talked about a bit, because Harvey's got, uh, depression, and...

Harvey:

Persistent Depressive Disorder, sometimes called Dysthymia.

Pen:

And I... I've had clinicians bring up with me, uh, potentially that, but we've discovered that that would not be so terribly functional, because for me, there is always some kind of root cause. Like, I absolutely have depressive episodes, but they don't do the, like, coming out of nowhere thing that... that makes depression more distinct.

Harvey:

Whereas for me, my episodes come out of nowhere, or if they are triggered by something, they are disproportionately severe. Like...

Pen:

Bummer.

Harvey:

And this is conceptually funny, but not in reality, the flea situation with my cat this past month genuinely made me suicidal for a little while, which, people who don't have depression don't do that.

Pen:

Yeah, that's true.

Harvey:

I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that there - when people without depression, when their animal gets fleas, they don't want to kill themselves.

Pen:

[Laughter] I'm sorry.

Harvey:

No, it's a little bit funny. It is.

Pen:

I forget that people never have that kind of emotional reaction to things, though. Like, there are people who never have to have [inaudible]

Harvey:

Oh, God, that's true.

luckydad:

That is shocking to me, that people... and... like, I... when I started ideating and attempting suicide when I was nine...

Pen:

Well, there we go. That's...

luckydad:

I thought it was strictly in response to my environment, because I was a very abused child. And there were quite a - quite a number of things that made my young childhood, and, you know, until I moved out, really terrible. Which is, again, why I didn't raise you.

Pen:

Yeah, that's good.

luckydad:

But I've always associated my depression with those horrible things that happened to me. But now I am in a very stable, safe, happy environment most of the time. I don't have externalized things that cause me to feel depressed, other than...

Pen:

You have a nice roommate...

luckydad:

a couple years ago, one of my cats died because of fleas. And I know it wasn't my fault. You know, it was probably a pigeon flying by, a screen door was the only thing in front of the regular door, and I... but I should have taken care of them and gotten them protected against fleas prophylactically. And I didn't, and...

Pen:

Liza was... was getting up there, too.

luckydad:

She was. She was 14 years old. And she was a stray, and the runt of the litter, and many, many reasons that it wasn't surprising when she went, it was surprising that she lasted that long. But the other two cats also had fleas. And when I took them to the vet, he... he looked at me like, "You horrible monster, how could you let your cats get like this?: He didn't say it, but that's how I interpreted it, right? Which may have nothing to do with what was going on in him, and only to do with what was going on in me, because I am a depressed person. I am always interpreting things in the worst possible way and making sure that I'm the only person in this situation to blame.

Harvey:

And that's a major symptom of depression that isn't talked about very much, that there's this very consistent cognitive distortion that makes everything negative, and bad things your fault, and good things outside of your control.

luckydad:

Ding, ding, ding!

Pen:

It also... it reminds me of rejection-sensitive dysphoria, particularly in, like, perceiving things to an extreme. If there is, like, a hint of... of the negative, that hint becomes all of it, and is very consuming. And, you know, rejection sensitive dysphoria, RSD, the way that it is phrased and things is, you know, when there is some kind of action that happens, like externally, and then it becomes a very extreme and disproportionate response emotionally. And that is... that is very much an ADHD thing, and I think that that is, uh... I don't know exactly how it's related to the depressive parts of ADHD as well, but certainly, experiencing emotions very, very intensely is a heavy characteristic of that. Not that I'm saying that's necessarily where it is, but certainly, um...

luckydad:

It's interesting to me to think that it may have been more than just environmental causes...

Pen:

Yeah.

luckydad:

...that made me so depressed, so anxious, especially as a child, and still, I have a very hard time leaving my house these days, because there might be people who will see me, and if they see me, they will judge me, and if they judge me, they will make me feel bad. And that's just not true, and I know it's not.

Pen:

Hmm. If only logic!

luckydad:

I'm not able to conquer that half the time.

Harvey:

Yeah, um, and I'll tell you as far as where RSD comes from, in my baseline understanding of how the brain works, I'm going to tell you a story about cells.

Pen:

[Clapping] Woo!

luckydad:

Yay!

Harvey:

Because ADHD is associated with a decrease in dopamine, that is...

Pen:

God, I love more dopamine.

Harvey:

ADHD - or, not ADHD. Dopamine is the happy chemical, and that does more than just provide pleasure. It also contributes to resiliency. If you have a higher baseline ability to be happy, it's going to be easier for you to bounce back from negative things. So when you have...

Pen:

Baseline stability.

Harvey:

Yeah. So when you have that lower dopamine, it's harder to bounce back just because your baseline is already lower. Dopamine isn't always implicated in depression, but sometimes it is. There are certain forms of depression, and it really just depends on the person that is also, you know, associated with less dopamine. I was recently put on another medication called Wellbutrin. That is a norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor. So it does the same thing as a - as an SSRI - as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor - but in a d... but two different neurotransmitters.

Pen:

You want to know a fun fact about Wellbutrin?

Harvey:

What's that?

Pen:

I've been on it before. That's not the fun fact. The fun fact is why I was on it. It was after I was diagnosed with ADHD, that was the first thing that my. uh... my psychiatrist tried, because for some people, Wellbutrin, specifically or, you know, dopamine reuptake inhibitor... I know you said it different, but that one.

Harvey:

Norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitor.

Pen:

Thank you. Sometimes that works in treating ADHD.

Harvey:

And that's precisely because it increases the amount of dopamine available.

Pen:

Yep.

Harvey:

That's why Wellbutrin works. Possibly sometimes. I'm on it for anxiety, because norepinephrine is implicated in anxiety. I have really severe anxiety.

Pen:

That's true.

Harvey:

Anyway, that's why you might see some RSD symptoms and people with depression, because sometimes there's not enough dopamine either.

Pen:

If nothing else, a lack of dopamine, you know, it is harder to stabilize your emotions.

Harvey:

Because dopamine is necessary for the function of your frontal lobe.

Pen:

Yeah, and the frontal lobe is good for being... not an ape?

Harvey:

Mm-hmm.

Pen:

Is... that's true! It's what separates us from the apes.

Harvey:

I mean, and to be fair, apes do have a frontal lobe, it's just not quite as developed.

Pen:

Yeah, it's... it's what makes us, um... makes human beings, human beings.

Harvey:

It's the fact that ours is so big.

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

And so wrinkled.

luckydad:

The sapiens part, right?

Pen:

And... Yeah, yeah. So that is... that is where, sometimes,

Harvey:

Mm-hmm. I've... you've talked about things, luckydad, in ways that have made me think, like, "Is that RSD? Was that RSD?" And you know, I am... I'm being very armchair, or, I suppose, kitchen table, psychologist. Thank you!

luckydad:

Recording studio.

Pen:

Recording studio... psychologist about all of it, and-

Harvey:

We're both/and household.

Pen:

We are a both/and household.

luckydad:

Yes, and...

Pen:

I, um... we... so I... I do not actually have - I'm not actually qualified to make these kinds of diagnoses, obviously. I also know...

luckydad:

But please continue to do so, because it has encouraged me to try and find out for myself.

Pen:

There's also, like...

luckydad:

I don't take you as true, I take you as, that's a good thing for me to look for.

Pen:

Exactly. And that is... that is the part of it like, uh... like, we've talked about self diagnosis before, and... and the - the potential uses of it. There is a difference between self-diagnosis and... and a professional diagnosis. Still, you can look at yourself and see symptoms and be like,"Oh. Uh - oh."

Harvey:

And sometimes, it's okay for self-diagnosis to be where you stop.

Pen:

This is - that was an older episode where we talked about it. God, was that INTRO to Diagnosis?

Harvey:

It was. That was, like - that, like, our fourth episode.

Pen:

Yeah.

Harvey:

Maybe?

luckydad:

If you're listening, hi, Jenny. My therapist has also listened to that episode on my recommendation, which was specifically because I was trying to explain to her - well, I mean - I did it in context of, here's what I think is going on, and here's why I think it's important for me to present that to you. Please listen to this episode of a podcast my kid made, and you'll also learn more about my kid.

Harvey:

Oh my God, like, twenty-some- we did it! We did the dang thing.

Pen:

We did the dang thing?

Harvey:

We did! We did the goal of our podcast.

Pen:

We did! Woo-hoo!

luckydad:

For those who weren't watching at home: they just shook hands.

Pen:

Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, we did.

Harvey:

You could have lied. You could have said, "They just started kissing each other on the mouth as sloppily as humanly possible."

Pen:

Harvey, you can't keep saying it.

luckydad:

That's audible.[Laughter]

Harvey:

Maybe we're really good at hiding it.

Pen:

Harvey, you can't keep joking about it. One day, we're both going to be really, really tired, and neither one of our frontal lobes are going to be working...

Harvey:

...and then we're gonna kiss on the mouth.

Pen:

And then we're gonna kiss on the mouth.

Harvey:

And we're going to report it to the podcast when it happens.

Pen:

Well obviously. I'm going to tell everyone I know. Well, not everyone. Like, very specific...

luckydad:

Instead of making out, you'll ape out.

Harvey:

[Laughter]

Pen:

You know what the worst thing about your jokes is?

luckydad:

That they make Harvey laugh?

Harvey:

That they're funny?

Pen:

No. That I would make some of them, and I would be proud when I make them, but when you say them, it's exhausting.

Harvey:

Genetics!

luckydad:

Does it wear out the muscles above your eyes when they roll so hard?

Harvey:

That sounded like a Mitski lyric. It really did. So, what other fun things about genetics do we wish to talk about?

Pen:

Um...

Harvey:

If there is anything else?

Pen:

Well, there's - I think, in a future episode, we can talk more about genetics research and and neurodivergence.

Harvey:

Ooh, and genetics - genetics research has a lot of ethical stuff that I could talk about.

Pen:

That is... uh, that - that side I linked you to. Or, did - I don't know, if I actually linked you to it. I will link you to it. It's got some very, very interesting things related to that. But when it comes to... oh, you know, a lot of this actually has ended up coming to- I'm glad we talked about self diagnosis, because all of this is, um... none of the three of us are professionals in psychology.

luckydad:

I was about to say!

Harvey:

I functionally have a bachelor's degree, short of formally graduating. But that doesn't make me a psychology professional, just means that I know stuff.

Pen:

We are not doing research studies and things.

Harvey:

Well, I mean, I am, but...

Pen:

Well, I mean about this, specifically.

Harvey:

That's true. That's true.

Pen:

Like, luckydad and I have never been a part of a research study.

Harvey:

I don't research genetics.

luckydad:

Although, drumroll, please: If anyone out there is listening, I don't know if you want to use us for a study, but we might be interesting. I'm not...

Pen:

Oh, yeah, no, I think it'd be rad. Someone should pay attention to us! I am saying that...

Harvey:

Someone should pay attention to y'all and give you money!

luckydad:

Desperate need for attention? You inherited that from me, too.

Pen:

So, someone should pay attention to us. What I meant when I said that, my intention in saying it, was I genuinely think that we're a very interesting case study and the kind that you're not just gonna, like... you can't manufacture this without an ethics board going, "What are you doing?!"

luckydad:

Right.

Harvey:

Which is why we - which is why twin studies are so important, because the kind of insight that twin studies gave us would be completely and utterly unethical to do experimentally.

Pen:

Yep.

luckydad:

It's - there are occasional twin studies that have happened where the twins did not... they weren't raised together.

Harvey:

There's like... there's, like, a case of, like, two firemen, I think. Yeah.

Pen:

Yeah.

luckydad:

It's a rare thing, of course, because why would you do that to your twins? But - outside of fiction. It's really popular in fiction. But, yeah, we're - we are an example of...

Pen:

The kind of like you stumble into it.

luckydad:

The twin study where the twins were separated and raised separately.

Pen:

So, you know, pay attention to us for that. But as soon as I said it, I was like, actually, also, just pay attention. Like, we're very cool. And my ego can always use a boost.

Harvey:

And me? Well, I'm here for moral support.

Pen:

Harvey's here, because Harvey has so many cool things.

luckydad:

So, Harvey, when you start your PhD, and you need to study, we can be your subjects.

Harvey:

If I was even remotely interested in genetics.

luckydad:

Well, there's that.

Harvey:

When I start my PhD! That's quite the amount of... what's the word I'm looking... confidence that you're putting in me here.

luckydad:

I was gonna say, I'm not your parents, so it can't be pressure.

Harvey:

It's not!

Pen:

If you ever...

luckydad:

So, Pen, when you start your PhD...

Pen:

Well, I'm going to get a doctorate in Communications someday. Not right now, though.

Harvey:

Dr. Novus.

Pen:

That's part of it. That's not the main part of it, but, like, nonzero

Harvey:

Yeah, I was gonna say, Dr. Green sounds less cool. But...

Pen:

Well, that's... that's okay. It's a gender neutral title, and I'll take that! People can call me Dr. Harvey for all I care when I get my

luckydad:

Apologies to all the Dr. Greens listening. PhD.

Harvey:

No, just for me, I need to be dramatic. One of my middle names is Atticus, for God's sake, like...

luckydad:

Oh, that is wonderful!

Harvey:

Thank you! I picked it entirely because one of my partners said it would be sexy if someone had the name Atticus, and I was like, [clap] done.

Pen:

Harvey, you're one of my most favorite people in the entire world. And I feel like things like that, it really like gets to the root of why we get along so well.

Harvey:

I do whatever I want.

Pen:

As well you should. But... oh, God, there was something, I had something a while ago, and I don't know exactly what it was. I know we were talking about us being particularly interesting and unusual sort of case for... for genetics and neurodivergence, and that's... yeah, 'cause it can be difficult to... to get to the exact of it, and it can be very interesting to see the sorts of things that get passed on from - from parent to child, the things that make your brain wrinkle in specific ways. I assume that's a thing. I don't know anything about brains. I've held up - I've held a fetal pig's brain in my hand, and that's the best I can do.

luckydad:

But wasn't that just the most interesting thing?

Pen:

That was... it's the kind of thing where you're, like, huh! Didn't know you can do that.

luckydad:

I felt vast amounts of pride, there was fascination, there was, "Oh my god, I can't wait to gross everyone out."

Harvey:

Probably...

Pen:

Pride? What part of it was pride?

luckydad:

That I got - because it took the - the first pig, the- I pushed too hard with the scalpel, and it cut the brain.

Pen:

Oh, so did I get pride because I got on my first try?

luckydad:

Well, for me, the pride was, on the second pig, I was able to extract a brain whole.

Pen:

Oh, fair enough, fair enough.

luckydad:

The first one didn't work that way.

Harvey:

I think the closest parallel that me and my dad have is using a substance, going somewhere you typically wouldn't be, and then waking up the next day not entirely sure what happened.

Pen:

Oh...

Harvey:

My dad went to a party in DeKalb. DeKalb, Illinois, got really drunk, and then woke up in Wisconsin the next day, not totally sure what happened. And I... I've been told the story of the time I greened out in a Walmart parking lot in Naperville, Illinois. But...

Pen:

Oh, yeah...

Harvey:

But I don't actually remember any of that past the point where I realized I was too high.

Pen:

Oh, buddy, yeah.

Harvey:

So that's probably the closest thing, but my dad also raised me and has told me his stories. And the older I've gotten, the more reckless I've become. Pen very gently scolded me for what I did that night, as you should have.

Pen:

I mean, not much, honestly. You called me in tears, so I certainly wasn't gonna say anything then.

Harvey:

It was very gentle. And it was very much like, "That was kind of risky," And I'm like,"Yeah."

Pen:

It's a little bit, "I'm glad it worked out well. I'm glad you called me." But when you called me, you were like,"Please don't be mad," and I was like, well, I... well, I - wasn't planning on it, but definitely, we're gonna be... we're gonna handle this with... with just the gentlest gloves we can find.

luckydad:

And that's happened to me several times. We're not related, are we?

Harvey:

I don't know! Probably not. I had a much more reckless 20s than you two are currently.

Pen:

That - yeah, yeah.

Harvey:

What's, um... what do we think about some closing thoughts on genetics, and linkage?

Pen:

It's weird, and it's not what people tend to expect. I think that that is a worthwhile- that is one of the things. That is one of the reasons that I like bringing up "Hey, you'll never believe what my dad and I both did," And it is true every time.

luckydad:

Right.

Pen:

No one has guessed!

Harvey:

Yeah, I think you both-

luckydad:

Without it being genetic, like, you'll never guess what I did.

Harvey:

I don't think that would even be on the top 25,000 things I would guess.

Pen:

Yeah, it's a very specific thing. But one of the reasons I like telling people that is, like, because I think there is a tendency, broad strokes, to prioritize nurture over nature in, specifically, how, like, a person's, um... in, like, general perception on how a person develops, and the things that they do, to...think that like their parents

Harvey:

I think that's true.

Pen:

influenced them more by being the people who raised them. And I think that it can be very worthwhile to... to know, and to realize that that is not always the case.

Harvey:

Right.

Pen:

Because you didn't raise me even a little bit. And... and we have similarities like that specific story, but also, like, a laugh, and handwriting, and things where it's like, that seems unlikely.

luckydad:

Like, none of the things that we have discovered that we have in common are things that I've ever heard anyone mention in terms of genetics.

Harvey:

And meanwhile, my dad raised me for the most part, and there are very real ways in which we are remarkably different people. Like, I take fewer risks, certainly, and also, just the things that we find important, and the things that we're interested in are very different. If we are thinking about nurture as the most important thing, there's no reason that should have happened. But it's because of something in my nature, there's something about me, fundamentally, that makes me different from my dad.

Pen:

Yeah. And that is - you know, oftentimes, when I... when I'm talking about, at the end of these episodes, like, "And I think this can be very important to consider because..." I don't have a very tangible because with this one. I think that it is important. I don't have a, like, "So you can examine it in this particular way." Because I don't know exactly what the implications of all of it are. But I do think - I mean, I always say It's worthwhile to know things about yourself, and to examine your life through a slightly different lens, and realize, like, oh, it's not what I thought it was.

luckydad:

For myself, speaking as both a parent and someone who had parents, has? Never quite sure. Um...

Harvey:

I'm not the language police.

Pen:

That seems like a decision that you get to make for yourself.

Harvey:

When I say I'm never quite sure, it's because I don't know either of my parents anymore. So they could have died today, and I wouldn't know. Um... that wasn't a light thing to say. Feel free to cut that. No, we say so many dark things on this podcast.

Pen:

We're talking about brains.

luckydad:

I would say in terms of, like, parental responsibility - and I don't mean that in the sense of you are responsible for raising your child, and... or you are responsible for making them into this or that - I mean, sort of where the blame lies. I have always blamed my father for my depression, because of the abuse. If that is part - partly as a symptom of ADHD, which no one can cause in someone, then, you know, the trauma, a contributing factor, certainly, but would I have been depressed without it? That's an interesting thing for me to think of. And to see that you have many traits that I have that I would have liked to blame a parent for due to nurture. So the thing about parental responsibility that's interesting to me is just like, how much of it is actually nurture? Is there something that parents can take away from this saying...

Pen:

Oh...

luckydad:

And then, is there something that we as children of parents, or as offspring of parents, none of us are children anymore, but as we blame our parents for things, and how much of that was actually in their control? How much of it is nature and how much of it is nurture? And it's for that reason that I would like to invite a studier to use us as participants?

Pen:

Yeah, that is...

luckydad:

I think there's a whole lot of healing, conceptually, in there, right?

Pen:

That is true. That is something that I have experienced, particularly with my mom, there's a lot to be said, I think, for being genetically predisposed to a thing. Like, I feel quite confident that I'm genetically predisposed to anxiety, possibly, specifically, social anxiety. And, you know, the way I was raised, the environment that I was in, all contributed to how relatively severe all of that is. And also, like, you know, if your kid has ADHD and is more prone to RSD, the way you treat them will impact how that pans out in their life and things like that. So it is - it is, as always, very much a both/and situation. Like Harvey, you are predisposed to anxiety.

Harvey:

Uh-oh!

Pen:

The way you were raised, I would say, probably contributed to maybe one or two parts of that.

Harvey:

Or five. Or all of them.

Pen:

Maybe.

Harvey:

You know, my closing thought here is decidedly more academic than it typically is. Because usually, I'm just like,"Believe in yourself! Don't give up! There... there is life ahead of this!" And, can you tell I want to be a counselor? Anyway.

Pen:

A good counselor! A lovely counselor. A lovely person.

Harvey:

Well, thank you.

Pen:

We love Harvey in this house!

Harvey:

That- it's such a shame that what I just did is not intelligible-

Pen:

Do you know how much I wish people knew all the little dances that you do? If I could find a way to insert that into Reaper, that would be - that's my...

Harvey:

Maybe - maybe we do one of those awful things where you draw a picture with a waveform, but it actually just sounds awful.

Pen:

It just sounds horrible!

Harvey:

Anyway, the...

Pen:

This is my bad - this is my bad.wav.

Harvey:

The, um, closing thought I want to leave is that...[meowing] Yeah, thank you, Benji. The, um... nature and nurture are very interdependent.

Pen:

Yes.

Harvey:

When you were talking about how, you know, I wonder how much of this is nature and how much of this is nurture? What is true, and especially with the development of depression, like you were talking about, luckydad, it's - it's both. Sometimes what does happen is that people will have genetic predisposition, and that means there are literal, either chemicals or sort of markers on DNA that are dormant. And sometimes, it takes...

Pen:

Chillin'.

Harvey:

Yeah. And sometimes it takes an environmental trigger for those things to manifest.

Pen:

Yep.

Harvey:

So it could be that you were genetically predisposed. It could It also be that trauma was the thing that flicked that on. There's a word for that. The, um... methylation!

Pen:

Ah...

Harvey:

It's sometimes - there's a - there's a methyl compound that needs to sort of occur to cause that to happen. And so, that - that's also true of certain physical ailments, that there is a gene that will lie dormant...

Pen:

Chillin'.

Harvey:

...chillin'. And then they will be exposed to some kind of environmental stressor, like pollution, and that will cause that gene to express itself. So, all of that to say, I don't think it's a useful paradigm to consider nature and nurture as inherently separate, when actually, they are two of the most interrelated things in psychology.

luckydad:

Both/and.

Pen:

And that is - that is definitely, if there's one takeaway from all of this episode, you cannot separate the parts of yourself.

Harvey:

Nope. There's no such thing as nature and nurture being separate. It's not a useful paradigm, and I think it's time that we move past it.

Pen:

Well, that's an excellent point, and we're all so smart.

Harvey:

Aren't we?

Pen:

Yes.

Harvey:

So, stick around for just a few more moments, and we will tell you a little bit more about how this podcast is made. luckydad, thank you for being here.

luckydad:

Thanks for having me. Long time listener, first time caller.

Pen:

You worked in radio, you dork! [Laughter]

Harvey:

Beyond Introspection is an independently-run podcast by Pen Novus and Harvey LaFord. Music by Girl Lloyd. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at ByndPodcast, or you can email us at beyonddot - that's D-O-T - podcast@gmail.com. We publish on Buzzsprout, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can find the links to our social media and email in the podcast description. Got feedback for us? Feel free to reach out on social media, or via email. We'd love to hear from everyone. Take care of yourselves.