A note to our listeners, this episode contains discussion of suicide and violence against children.

You have to be careful not to judge a person too much on traumatic events in their past,

including if the events took place before that person was even born.

Yes, those events may be phenomenally huge, but a person is made up of all

sorts of experiences. Happy, sad, significant. You live long enough, yeah, there's going to be some

door dings and rust patches on the car that is your life. You can't define a person by one thing.

Granted, understood. Of course, you shouldn't dismiss

something huge and traumatic that happened in a person's life either or before a person's life.

Generational trauma or intergenerational trauma or transgenerational trauma, that's a real thing.

What happened to your parents helped shape who they became, and that parent, molded in part

by that trauma, well, they made you and all the genetic and environmental factors that turn you

into who you are. And again, it might not define a person,

but it shouldn't be ignored either. In summary, the big trauma, it isn't everything, but it is something.

And therefore, knowing all this, let us proceed. It's depression mode. I'm John Moe. I'm glad you're here.

Liz Mealy is a very funny New York comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central and NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

She headlines at comedy clubs around the country and has released several specials, which you can watch on YouTube.

Her latest is called Murder Sheets.

I have one rule in my life. I have exactly one rule I tried to live by.

I'm not allowed to do edibles.

Yeah, I've had it for 10 years.

I break it every year.

The main reason for that rule is mental illness runs in both sides of my family.

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