Name: The Side Effects of Isolation Are Real
Uploaded: 2025-01-07T21:00:06.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Side Effects of Isolation Are Real' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-01-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Side Effects of Isolation Are Real' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-01-07. Transcript available.

Let's talk a little bit about unprocessed trauma.
So you talk about emotional isolation as being something that really negatively
nurtures unprocessed trauma.
So once you're hurt as a child, you tend not to trust other people.
So you could be in the middle of a crowd and be laughing and interacting, but
still feel quite alone emotionally.
Maybe you've had that feeling.
Oh, yeah.
You know, and that emotional isolation itself then has effects on your body and
on your mind.
So the people who are lonely, and the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Admiral Vivek
Murthy, just issued a paper on loneliness in the United States.
And loneliness, and there's an epidemic of loneliness.
People are describing us as lonely in much higher numbers as they did 20, 40
years ago.
No, loneliness is as much of a risk factor for physiological illness as smoking
15 cigarettes a day.
Really?
Yeah.
So loneliness is both a manifestation of trauma and a cause of tremendous
stress, which then undermines physiological and mental health.
Okay.
Say that to me one more time.
So loneliness is both an outcome of trauma.
So it's an outcome of trauma.
So something traumatic happened, it wasn't processed properly, and then now you
will feel lonely.
You will feel lonely.
You will isolate.
Because look, if I am always being a nice guy so that you will like me, but
inside I'm feeling all these emotions that I'm not sharing with you, that's
pretty lonely.
Even though you might like me because I'm showing you this nice side of myself.
Right.
That's not really me.
That's not me.
What is it about not being emotionally, about not being emotionally isolated
that allows one to process a trauma?
Yeah.
So I did a day-long event here in L.A. just a day before we were recording this,
and I worked with a woman called Kimberly Shannon Murphy, who is one of
Hollywood's top stunt women.
She just got a lifetime achievement award.
Nice.
Congratulations, Kim.
And she worked with Cameron Diaz and Uma Thurman and Tom Cruise and all these
people.
A lot of artists.
No.
She was sexually abused by her grandfather all throughout her childhood and
adolescence.
And, of course, the family was in denial.
Nobody noticed it.
If they noticed it, they kept silent about it.
She was totally alone with it.
So that's what induced the wound.
And had she been able to talk to somebody and say, this is happening to me,
please help me, she would not have been traumatized.
So the trauma happens when a child suffers and has nobody to share that
suffering with.
Whether it's the extreme suffering or sexual abuse or the milder, you might say,
suffering or just not being seen for where you are.
If you're alone with it, you can't process it.
So what happens later on, to answer your question, when you meet somebody where
you feel safe, and now you can express what's happening with you, that's what
helps to process the trauma.
Got it.
So it requires compassion and safety.
And ideally, I mean, I criticize the 12-step groups, not for what they do,
because I love what they do, for what they don't do.
I don't think they talk about trauma enough.
That's my view.
But a 12-step group that's properly run will offer you support and safety, so
now you can share yourself and be seen by others.
Yeah, I mean, I've gotten even into the intimacy disorder groups, and those are
a lot more potent with people talking about their emotional disorders and traumas
and things that happen.
And it's not a crybaby group either.
Sometimes we talk about trauma, but I don't talk about it from like a crybaby
place.
No.
I like to talk about it from like, this is important, and it's important to
learn about, and I like to share what I learn about from it.
It's not about people victimizing themselves or trying to present themselves as
victims.
It's saying, this is what happened to me, and it's my responsibility to learn
from it.
That's the truth.
And it's my responsibility to grow from it, not to wallow in, oh, look what
happened to me, and I can't help it.
That's nonsense.
Oh, I'll tell you this, Mr. Monte, that a thing I realized I was addicted to a
few years ago, self-pity.
And I didn't even know it.
I kept always thinking, man, what's wrong with me?
I have to fix this.
Every day, nothing was enough.
And then I realized that even though it seemed like I was trying to make myself
better, the truth was that I was always seeing myself as less than, because
those things have to both be present at the same time.
Because I can only get better if, you know, I have to, there's not, I'm never
enough.
Well, that, that.
And by never being enough, though, it, I'm trying to figure this out.
Well.
I got addicted to self-pity.
I got addicted to, like.
Can I jump in with a thought?
Yes, please.
Thank you.
Dear God, please.
It did something for you.
It took away responsibly from you.
Now, human beings have a hard time taking responsibility.
I mean, you know, I, I, I have a hard time taking responsibility, you know, uh,
we all have a hard time taking responsibility.
So when you're in that self-pity mode, you're suffering, but you don't have to
take responsibility.
I'm suggesting that's what it did for you.
Yeah.
I think, um, yeah, maybe there was a part of me that wanted to keep it around
because it always let there be something wrong with me too.
That's right.
You know, like if I never solve this, if I'm never enough, then there'll always
be something wrong with me.
Yeah.
Does that make any sense?
It makes sense because again, it, it, um, takes away the challenge of growth.
Right.
I mean, we talk about growing pains.
Growth is painful.
Oh yeah.
People go from damn seven inches to seven beats, six and a half, six, one or
whatever.
Yeah.
And, and, and, and emotional growth is also painful.
And so when we don't grow, at least we avoid the growing pains.
Right.
You know,