Secretary of Health & Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is, to put it mildly, a skeptic of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) medication, a form of meds that millions of Americans use regularly with tremendous benefit. He was once on SSRIs, went off them, then became addicted to heroin, and he believes these events are linked. He also believes they cause school shootings and cause harm to developing fetuses. There is no evidence to support this. Andrea Salinas, a Democrat who represents the 6th district in Oregon in the House of Representatives, joins us to unpack Kennedy’s latest efforts to curtail SSRI use and availability and what her minority party is doing to answer the threat.

Then we’re joined by journalist Jason Gale, author of the book After Covid: The Health Impacts That Will Last Generations, for an update on the long-term mental health effects of the pandemic’s trauma and of long covid.

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

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

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

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

Help is available right away.

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

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

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

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

If you’ve ever listened to Robyn Hitchcock’s music, you know that it can get pretty surrealistic. Some might say divinely bizarre and eclectic. Others might just say weird. All of that’s fine with the London-born, Nashville-based artist, who has been putting out music on his own and with The Soft Boys and The Egyptians for half a century. Robyn says he’s very happy to be in touch with a world beyond the view of the average human and enjoys communicating that world to the rest of us. Part of it has to do, he says, with being pretty solidly on the spectrum and seeing that not as a hindrance but an opportunity. He tells us about such matters as feathery Mexican serpent gods, polka dot shirts, the lives of Syd Barrett and Roger Barrett, and his partnership with his wife and record label head Emma Swift, who was on our show a few months ago.

Our host John Moe is a big Robyn fan and wrote five introductions to this episode. If you want to skip them (and you’d be really missing out), the interview itself begins around [12:13].

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

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

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

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

Help is available right away.

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

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

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

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

There is no Tom behind TOMS Shoes. It’s short for “Tomorrow’s.” There is a Blake, however. Blake Mycoskie founded the company in 2006 under the model that for every pair sold, a second pair would be donated to children in the developing world. TOMS took off, which meant years of constant work for Blake, traveling the world telling the TOMS story, and ultimately getting burned out and selling the company. Despite all the snowboarding he could now do, Blake found himself without purpose and lonely (all his friends worked at the company he just quit because those were the only people he had time to see.) His mental health crashed. He became depressed and anxious for the first time ever, considered suicide, and traveled the world trying every kind of treatment he could find. In the end, getting off meds that were wrong for him and good therapy helped him find the core wound that had been driving him all those years and set out to address it. Blake Mycoskie has a new podcast, No Magic Pill, about how people seek to solve their problems.

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

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

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

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

Help is available right away.

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

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

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

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Yes, the episode is about a rock singer but it’s also about any of us who grind away for the benefit of our work and the detriment of ourselves. The sudden cancellation of the band Sweet Pill’s extensive tour promoting their sophomore album Still There’s a Glow came as a shock to fans and the press. But it makes total sense given that singer Zayna Youssef had been working herself into the ground with writing, recording, designing merch and album covers and backstage passes, and everything else she could think of to make her band an even bigger success than what their first album brought. Some things she didn’t do: be kind to herself, give as much are to herself as she did the new album, or savor the success they had already had. The result was a mental and physical crisis point, a running out of gas on the part of the whole band that made them slam the emergency brake on the prospect of going out on a long tour and working even harder. In a very candid and often very funny interview, Zayna tells us how things got to this point, what she’s learned about the grind that can lead to better outcomes down the road, what her new album is ultimately about, and how the now-rescheduled tour will be different.

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

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

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

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

Help is available right away.

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

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

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

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

This episode of the show is about America, ultimately. We’re joined by Cristina Jimínez, author of the memoir Dreaming of Home: How We Turn Fear into Pride, Power, and Real Change and MacArthur genius grant recipient for a discussion of mental health in the immigrant and undocumented immigrant communities in light of events like the ICE surge, 9/11, and January 6th. Cristina fled Ecuador with her family when she was 13, landed in Queens, and, despite a lot of complicating factors having to do with legal status, went to college and graduate school. She was one of the founders of the advocacy group United We Dream, was a key player in the passage of DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and was awarded a MacArthur genius grant. Cristina talks about the anxiety and depression that hangs heavily in vulnerable populations and also why she’s actually incredibly optimistic and hopeful, even in these seemingly bleak times, because of how citizens responded to ICE in Minnesota.

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

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

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

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

Help is available right away.

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

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

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

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

I’m pretty sure you’ve been in this situation: you’re in a group setting of consequence and importance. Maybe it’s at work, maybe in school, but something is on the line. In that place are people different from you. They’re of a different race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and you begin to worry about how you are being perceived. Are you an individual in everyone’s eyes or are they seeing you for the group you represent? Does your behavior match the stereotype that exists for people like you in the eyes of these other folks? Claude Steele, distinguished social psychologist, calls this churn in his new book, Churn: The Tension That Divides Us and How to Overcome It. He says it can have an effect on your mental health, particular in the areas of depression and anxiety. Steele explains the fascinating research and experiments that led him to explore the idea of churn and offers ideas on how to stop feeling it and establish yourself as an individual.

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

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

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

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

Help is available right away.

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

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

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

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

The things that happened when you were young, especially the really painful things, can easily and often carry into adulthood. For documentarian, former high-powered executive, and actual Mister Rogers neighbor Benjamin Wagner, an adult life of terrible stress and substance use issues wasn’t really going to be solved until he understood more about the ripple effects of his parents’ divorce and a severe assault that occurred at an early age. To learn more about that connection and similar issues that other people face all the time, Benjamin teamed up with his brother Christopher to create Friends and Neighbors, a documentary now available on PBS, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime. In this conversation, we dig into the trauma, the effects, and how to figure out how you got to where you are and where you’re headed.

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

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

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

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

Help is available right away.

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

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

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

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

You have to eat. We know this. But when depression is flaring, it’s really hard to even get to the kitchen, let alone make something tasty and good for you. Don’t worry. Our Depresh Meals episode has expert ideas for just that situation from Food & Wine’s Kat Kinsman and The Sporkful podcast host Dan Pashman. To hear the full episode, become a member of Maximum Fun for as little as $5 a month. You get access to all the bonus content by all Max Fun shows ever! maximumfun.org/join

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

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

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

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

Help is available right away.

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

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

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

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh