Welcome to episode 527 with my guest Gabby. We're using a pseudonym for her. She's a friend of mine.

And when we recorded this episode, we used her real name. So you'll hear it getting beeped out a couple of times through the episode.

I didn't want you to be shocked. I didn't want you to call 911 when you heard the sound of beeping.

Let's jump right into it. Oh no, I forgot to tell you who I am, but what you're listening to, this is the metal illness, happy hour, and I am jackass.

I am not a therapist. This is not a doctor's office. Take everything I say with a grain of salt and then add a little pepper.

We added two new surveys to the website. A survey called Back in Time. Those of you who are regular listeners know a lot of times one of the questions I'd like to ask people is if you could go back in time to any point in your life and talk to yourself.

What would you say? How would you say it? And what would you say to yourself? So we have that new survey. And I don't know why it took me so long to put this other one up, but we finally have a fierce survey.

I'm not sure if you guys have any fears. Thank you all got your shit together just like me.

This is from the Back in Time survey filled out by Nathan and he writes, I'd go back to when I was seven years old and say your parents just got divorced. It's okay.

I promise they still love you in their weird ways. You don't need to seek love from everyone the rest of your life to replace what you think is missing.

Nathan, home run right out of the gate. Thank you for that. This is from the love survey filled out by rain is good. And they write, I love waking up to the sound of rain falling on the balcony and the small breeze that flows in through the crack in the window.

I especially love that second part. Not when it's winter and you're freezing your ass off, but you just get like that little, that little whiff of the fresh air outside.

This is from Back in Time filled out by Sheila. I'd go back to when I was 18 and I would tell me not to follow that boy to that college, but to try moving abroad. Every decision since 18 has been wrong.

I'm sorry to hear that Sheila.

Yeah, you know that here let me be the Mr. Sun, shiny silver lining, but a lot of times and maybe this is something that it took me living on this earth for a long time to realize, but a lot of times the quote, quote, unquote mistakes.

I don't know why I put the unquote in before I finished the world I was quoting the mistakes we make in life or the things that we think are failures. A lot of times if we just hang in there, we see that there's something that we learned from it or even a skill that we acquired or an emotional muscle or resilience that helps us later in life.

And sometimes it's even in the form of helping somebody who's in the shit storm that we walk through.

This is from Back in Time filled out by John Stoltz. Hi John, I know John, and he would go back to when he was 18 and say, bro, Ashley really wants to fuck you right now.

Hello to John and hello to Ashley if you're listening. This is an email I got from a guy who wants to be called I ain't what I want to be I ain't what I'm going to be, but thank God I ain't what I was.

And he writes about two months ago I started therapy a lot due to your encouragement to do so for which I am beyond grateful, even if it took listening to the show almost since the beginning.

And so far it's going well, even if I'm also learning patience and not to force and rush this stuff. Also thanks to your example, I'm definitely already feeling more stable and so grateful to have that support.

My question is really two questions. Can you talk about not trying to rush the healing process both in therapy and in general.

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