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Back From The Borderline
has adulthood robbed you of youth’s magic? (reclaiming healing in unscheduled moments) [premium preview]
Have you ever wondered why the carefree days of your youth felt so magical? Those spontaneous adventures with friends, the endless walks, and the impromptu activities that seemed to hold a unique kind of freedom—where did they go? In this episode, we’ll explore the essence of these priceless experiences and their crucial impact on our development and mental health.
Think back to your teenage years, when unplanned hours fostered a sense of joy and liberation. Walking through city streets, hanging out in parks, and engaging in spontaneous adventures created lasting memories that shaped your friendships and identity. But what happens when this bubble bursts, and the reality of adulthood, with its demands and responsibilities, hits us like a freight train? I'll delve into how these interruptions mark the end of innocence and the beginning of a purpose-driven life.
As we transition into adulthood, free time fades away, replaced by the constant push for productivity and the omnipresence of screens. I’ll examine how smartphones and the internet have taken over physical hangout spots, and how societal pressures have squeezed out those precious, spontaneous hours. The decline of these carefree periods has devastating effects on our psychological well-being and relationships.
Remember the brief return of unstructured time during the COVID-19 pandemic? When the world stood still, many of us rediscovered the joy of unplanned activities, creating cherished memories amidst the uncertainty. But as life resumes its structured norm, we struggle to find meaning in our time again. This episode reflects on that period and underscores the need to balance structured activities with free play.
TIME STAMPS:
00:00 – 24:51.67: PART 1 (Exploring the concept of 'non-time' in teenage life, the freedom and joy of unstructured time, activities that fill this time, the reality check of external intervention, and the transition to adulthood including societal expectations, responsibility, and the decline of unstructured time.)
24:51.67 – 54:56.26: PART 2 (Discussing the mental health and social implications of losing unstructured playtime, the brief return of non-time during the pandemic, cherished memories amidst crisis, the return to structured time and productivity pressures post-pandemic, questions for reflection, and strategies to reclaim unstructured time.)
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disordered desire: performing connection, numbing pleasure, forgetting yourself
01:44:31|Desire is meant to be a creative force. Something within us that fuels connection, expression, intimacy, and imagination. But for many of us, that force has been warped and inverted. That means instead of feeling energized by what we want, we chase it compulsively. We convince ourselves that attention + intensity = love. In the process, we end up exhausted, numb, or locked into patterns that THINK are passionate but instead is just living in survival mode. In this episode, we explore what happens when desire becomes distorted and when it stops being life-GIVING and starts serving the parts of us that are still trying to EARN love, safety, or power. We move beyond diagnostic frameworks and into a more symbolic, metaphysical approach that treats desire as something sacred, but easily rerouted through hunger, grief, or unmet developmental needs.Together, we’ll walk through three common distortions of desire: the hungry ghost self, which seeks constant romantic highs and external validation; the aestheticized self, which curates identity as performance and confuses visibility with intimacy; and the numb hedonist, who turns to pleasure not to feel more, but to feel less. You’ll see that these aren’t character flaws or signs that something is inherently wrong with you, they’re merely coping strategies built from pain.Along the way, we’ll draw from esoteric traditions like the Tree of Life, archetypes like Dionysus and Apollo, and depth psychology’s view of the daimon as the inner force that carries both our gifts and our grief. You’ll learn how distorted desire is a pattern. And the thing about patterns is that they can be recognized, interrupted, and re-aligned.This conversation invites you to trace your desires back to their source and ask what they’ve been trying to TELL you. Not in the language of performance or perfection, but in the quiet truth of what you’ve longed for all along.If you’ve ever felt addicted to intensity, emotionally flat from too much pleasure, or caught in the loop of wanting what harms you, this episode offers a new framework that doesn’t shame desire, but helps you reclaim it.GO DEEPER WITH HUNDREDS OF BONUS EPISODES + WEEKLY PATHWORK PROMPTS. Unlock my FULL ARCHIVE of members-only content + Patreon exclusives:PATHWORK → Weekly self-inquiry prompts to turn insight into transformation.THE CONSCIOUSNESS STREAM → Raw, unfiltered deep dives.THE DEEP CUT → Structured breakdowns of esoteric + psychological themes.BONUS EPISODES + RESOURCES → Hundreds of hours of hidden gems.Start exploring right now for FREE and see everything waiting for you at backfromtheborderline.com.what they're hiding about your mind
32:17|In this episode, we explore the deeper truths that may be hiding beneath the surface of today’s “Disclosure” discourse. While headlines focus on UFO sightings, UAP whistleblowers, and NHI (non-human intelligence), the real story may be something much more unsettling and much more important. What if the biggest secret isn’t “recovered craft”, but the nature of reality itself? Drawing on current events, ancient spiritual frameworks, and emerging scientific cracks in the materialist worldview, we walk through three destabilizing realities that challenge everything we’ve been taught to believe. We’ll begin with the idea that consciousness is not created by the brain, but exists independently and uses the brain like a receiver. From there, we explore the participatory nature of reality itself and how perception isn’t passive, but actively shapes the field around us. Finally, we examine the roots of psychological suffering, and the growing evidence that mental illness may be more about spiritual disconnection than chemical imbalance. If these ideas were widely accepted as reality overnight, entire systems would have to fall: psychiatry, education, media, tech, the pharmaceutical industry, and even most organized religions.This episode offers a grounded, non-performative way to re-enter these questions without falling into conspiracy, spiritual bypass, or new age clichés. If you’ve felt something shifting under the surface of daily life and sensed that the world is not what it seems, this conversation will probably feel pretty validating. Now more than ever, it’s time to reclaim our perception, question our programming, and start listening to what reality is trying to tell us.✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.why psychiatry failed her: laura delano on misdiagnosis, medication, and coming back to life
02:03:29|What is the cost of being a “good patient”? For Laura, it was nearly her life.Join me as I sit down with Laura Delano, author of the groundbreaking memoir Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance. A former “professional psychiatry patient” turned fierce advocate for psychiatric liberation, Laura brings her unique and deeply courageous voice to one of the most urgent conversations of our time.At age 14, Laura was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a single psychiatric appointment. What followed was over a decade of misdiagnoses, institutionalization, and polypharmacy, where at one point she was on 19 different psychiatric drugs. Despite having access to the most elite doctors, hospitals, and treatment centers money could buy (including Harvard-affiliated psychiatrists and the prestigious McLean Hospital) Laura’s condition only worsened. Eventually, she was labeled “treatment-resistant” and attempted suicide. But she survived. And then… she walked away completely. In this episode, Laura and I explore:The psychiatric pipeline: how people in distress are pathologized and medicatedThe trauma of being misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorderThe dangers of polypharmacy and long-term psychiatric drug useWhy access to elite psychiatric care often makes things worse and not betterHer experience inside a “gold standard” BPD treatment program (and why she left it)How reading her own psychiatric records exposed a disturbing split between what was said and what was writtenWhat it means to reclaim your life after being medicalizedHow Laura came to see her “symptoms” as signals pointing to a deeper need for freedom, meaning, and reconnectionWhether you’ve been personally affected by psychiatric diagnoses and medications, or you’re beginning to question the stories we’ve been collectively told about mental health, this conversation will likely feel like a breath of fresh air. It challenges dominant narratives, honors the complexity of emotional pain, and points toward a different kind of path forward.CONNECT WITH LAURA: https://www.lauradelano.com/ https://unshrunkthebook.com/https://www.theinnercompass.org/ If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to rate, review, and share the show. And for more resources, including my Critical Psychiatry booklist, visit BackFromTheBorderline.com.the real reason you’re afraid of the devil (you’re possessed, and it looks nothing like the movies)
37:33|This episode plunges into the most feared symbols in the Western imagination: Lilith, Lucifer, the Devil, the Serpent, and the Dragon, and asks what we’ve buried, projected, or misunderstood in our efforts to exile them. Even the mere mention of these names makes many people look away. We’ve been taught, almost reflexively, that these figures are dangerous, evil, or untouchable. But that reflex didn’t just happen, it was engineered.Across time, empires, churches, and ideological orders have taught us to fear the dark not because it is inherently harmful, but because it threatens structures built on binary control. This episode traces the historical roots of that programming and explores how these symbols, stripped of nuance, became scapegoats for archetypal forces that live within all of us. Sexual sovereignty, primal vitality, sacred temptation, and untamed knowledge. When we repress these forces, they don’t disappear, they warp. And it’s that very distortion that becomes the real source of harm from a personal, cultural and spiritual perspective. This episode is a sober attempt to bring a sense of maturity, complexity, and symbolic depth to things we’ve been told never to touch. Through myth, history, psychology, and cultural critique, we’ll uncover how our refusal to face the dark makes us more susceptible to possession by it. Not in a supernatural way, but through repression, denial, and disconnection.If you’ve ever sensed that your fear of “evil” might be masking something more nuanced, more human, and more initiatory, you’re one of the few who is actually ready for this conversation. It’s my hope that you’ll leave with a clearer sense of how archetypes influence behavior, how light and dark must be held in conscious balance, and how growing into true psychological adulthood requires the courage to face what once frightened you.✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.the psychology of love island USA S7: why it broke the internet (and what it says about us)
02:06:26|This is an in-depth psychological breakdown of Love Island USA Season 7, one of the most viral and culturally polarizing seasons in the franchise’s history. Drawing from attachment theory, nervous system insight, and cultural analysis, the episode offers a detailed look at how cast members like Huda, Jeremiah, Amaya, Taylor, Nic, Olandria, and Cierra reflect deeper dynamics playing out in dating, performance, and projection.Topics covered include emotional regulation, love bombing, anxious-avoidant patterns, limerence, and how fan responses mirror broader collective behavior. The episode explores the mechanisms behind character editing, viewer identification, and the emotional architecture of shows that rely on real-time voting and public judgment. Listeners will come away with a clearer understanding of why these characters triggered such strong reactions, what their arcs reveal about contemporary dating psychology, and how spectacle intersects with vulnerability in the current media environment.If you’re new here, Back From the Borderline is a weekly deep-dive show unpacking the emotional, psychological, and relational patterns beneath the surface of our culture. Each episode blends grounded analysis with long-form reflection on identity, attachment, and the unconscious dynamics shaping how we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the world. Make sure to follow Back From the Borderline on the podcast app you’re listening to right now. New episodes drop every Tuesday. To access my book recommendations, Substack articles, or join the Patreon community, visit backfromtheborderline.com.⏱ TIME STAMPS00:00 – 12:30 | INTRODUCTION: Spoiler alert, cultural context, and why this Love Island season demanded a full psychological breakdown.12:28 – 49:49 | HUDA & JEREMIAH: “Mommy? Mamacita?” Main character energy collides with quiet avoidance. The spark that lit the season’s first fire.49:54 – 1:04:47 | AMAYA: Soft-hearted in a game that rewards detachment. Too tender, too soon, and the villa didn’t know what to do with her.1:04:51 – 1:23:58 | NIC & CIERRA: Golden retriever meets grounded queen. Can she anchor him, or will he drift again?1:23:57 – 1:44:59 | TAYLOR & OLANDRIA: She chose patience. He chose Clarke. The heartbreak that cleared a path for Nicolandria.1:44:59 – 2:06:27 | FINAL ANALYSIS: Love Island as mirror, spectacle, and modern-day shadow work.you’re NOT crazy, you’re remembering the real world.
28:48|We’ve all had moments that totally flipped our idea of reality on its head. Maybe it was an image from a dream that stayed with you for weeks, a phrase that popped into your head out of nowhere that led you somewhere unexpected, or maybe a pattern of synchronicities that couldn’t have just been coincidences. Like all of us, you’ve probably tried to explain them away or forced yourself to believe they were meaningless in order to stay aligned with what society told you “reality” was meant to be. But a small part of you knows that those moments were real - and they matter. This episode is meant to help you remember how to take those moments seriously. Through this audio journey together, we’ll step outside the narrow version of reality we’ve been trained to accept and ask what it might mean to re-enter a world that is communicative, intelligent, and alive. I share the story of a plasma orb I witnessed in the presence of Chris Bledsoe, which was an experience that shifted how I understand consciousness and reality itself. We’ll explore how plasma, which makes up nearly all of the observable universe, might function not just as matter, but as a medium for awareness. We’ll also dive into a discussion around ancient cultures, like the Dogon people, who somehow knew about invisible celestial bodies long before modern instruments could detect them, and we ask what it means that knowledge can be accessed in ways we’ve forgotten how to recognize.Let this episode be an invitation to play closer attention to the data of your own life. Your dreams, the symbols that appear in your life, the timing, and all the things that pull at your intuition. It’s also a reflection on why so many of us feel spiritually staved, chronically empty and disconnected in a world that has stripped reality of its relational depth. When you begin to see the universe not as a closed, mechanical system, but as an open field that responds, listens, and reflects, something shifts inside of you. And not just in how you think, but in how you live. If you’ve been waiting for a kind of confirmation that doesn’t come from institutions or experts, but from the deeper rhythm of your own experience, this episode is a map back to that source.🔓 UNLOCK THE FULL EPISODE + BONUS CONTENT: Want to keep listening? Get full access to this episode, ad-free listening, and my entire archive, plus exclusive Patreon-exclusive podcasts like The Consciousness Stream and The Deep Cut and access to Pathwork, my digital mystery school. Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.🔗 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODEMy full archive is available at patreon.com/backfromtheborderlinewhy personality ISN'T a prison (unless you let it be)
01:41:47|If you were to believe the dominant frameworks of modern psychology, psychiatry, and popular self-help, you might assume that personality is a fixed structure. An inherited configuration of traits, disorders, or diagnoses that define who you are and what you are capable of becoming. In this episode, we trace the deeper story of how that idea came to take root.Long before the invention of the DSM or the rise of diagnostic labels, ancient and esoteric systems treated personality as dynamic and initiatory. Drawing from humoral theory, Vedic philosophy, planetary archetypes, and role-based development models like maiden–mother–crone or fool–sage, we explore a time when who you were was seen as raw material for conscious evolution instead of a permanent identity to manage or medicate.From there, we move through the historical shift: how empirical psychology, industrial systems, and the psychiatric institution turned personality into a category to be measured, labeled, and controlled. You’ll learn how traits became disorders, how archetypes gave way to acronyms, and how modern AI systems are now using these same fixed models to classify emotional risk in everything from employment to healthcare.At the heart of this conversation is the HEXACO model of personality, and in particular, what’s known as the “H factor” (honesty and humility) as a powerful ethical mirror. We explore the characteristics of “high H”, the covert and overt expressions of “low H”, and how trauma, survival mechanisms, and cultural conditioning can pull us toward manipulative, entitled, or exploitative patterns without our conscious awareness.Instead of being used to armchair diagnose others as “low H” or toxic, this episode is meant to serve as a call to personal responsibility and psychological maturity. You’ll be invited to examine your own tendencies with clarity and compassion, and to ask whether the person you’ve become is the person you’re choosing to be. Personality is not a prison, and the story you tell about who you are doesn’t have to be the one you live out forever.If you’ve ever felt trapped by your patterns, your diagnosis, or your past, this episode will offer you a map for true inner transformation.GO DEEPER WITH HUNDREDS OF BONUS EPISODES + WEEKLY PATHWORK PROMPTS. Unlock my FULL ARCHIVE of members-only content + Patreon exclusives:PATHWORK → Weekly self-inquiry prompts to turn insight into transformation.THE CONSCIOUSNESS STREAM → Raw, unfiltered deep dives.THE DEEP CUT → Structured breakdowns of esoteric + psychological themes.BONUS EPISODES + RESOURCES → Hundreds of hours of hidden gems.Start exploring right now for FREE and see everything waiting for you at backfromtheborderline.com.what you're calling a breakdown might be a dark baptism
01:18:51|Some people call it a breakdown. Others call it trauma. But when you look closely, these moments often follow a pattern. These moments come at a threshold (whether it’s psychologically, spiritually, emotionally) and they leave you changed forever. In this episode, we’ll get into what happens when life initiates you before you’re ready. When you’re too young, too unprotected, or too unsupported to understand what’s happening, let alone integrate it. These are the kinds of events that completely reorient your entire internal world, but because they happen without ceremony or acknowledgement, you’re left to carry them alone, convincing you they’re another reason you just generally suck as a human being. We’ll also discuss why ancient cultures had rites for these threshold moments, and what it costs us to live without them. We look at how moments of betrayal, exile, loss, or violence can mark you permanently in your behavior, your self-concept, and your nervous system. And we introduce the idea of ‘conscious completion’: a ritual process of reclaiming meaning, agency, and symbolic authorship over your own breakdown moments. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN: How to identify whether you’ve experienced a “dark baptism”Why modern society lacks the rituals to process psychological and emotional ruptureHow the nervous system encodes unprocessed rites of passage as unresolved threatWhat ancient initiation practices (from Eleusinian mystery schools to folk Catholic rites) can teach us about healing through structure, not suppressionWhy trauma often repeats itself until it’s ritualized or integratedWhat “conscious completion” is, and how to begin creating your own symbolic closureFour practical components of conscious completion: witnessing, naming, containment, and releaseWhy healing is not meant to return you to a state of “pre-trauma purity”, but more of a process of reorganization and how to begin that process yourselfUnlock my FULL ARCHIVE of members-only content + Patreon exclusives:PATHWORK → Weekly self-inquiry prompts to turn insight into transformation.THE CONSCIOUSNESS STREAM → Raw, unfiltered deep dives.THE DEEP CUT → Structured breakdowns of esoteric + psychological themes.BONUS EPISODES + RESOURCES → Hundreds of hours of hidden gems.Start exploring right now for FREE and see everything waiting for you at backfromtheborderline.com.let them cook: shadow work, shame, and the stew of self
15:01|You’ve probably seen the phrase: let him cook. It gets used online when someone’s deep in a process that looks weird from the outside. Messy, maybe misguided… but people step back and give it space. The idea is simple: something’s happening. Don’t interrupt.That phrase has been stuck in my head for months, and this episode is what came out of sitting with it. We’ll talk about what it actually means to let something take the time it needs to become real. What it feels like to stop rushing yourself to be digestible, and what it looks like to stay close to your own process, even when it’s slow. Even when nobody else understands it yet.This one touches on emotional alchemy, kitchens, old wisdom, shadow work that isn’t aesthetic or marketable. The kind of change that comes from staying near something long enough for it to soften. And you often don’t talk about it while it’s happening. If at a point in your life where everything feels half-baked, or like you’re taking longer than you’re supposed to, this is a good one to sit with. No quick fixes. Just me, sitting in the kitchen with you. Let it cook.🔓 UNLOCK THE FULL EPISODE + BONUS CONTENT: Want to keep listening? Get full access to this episode, ad-free listening, and my entire archive, plus exclusive Patreon-exclusive podcasts like The Consciousness Stream and The Deep Cut and access to Pathwork, my digital mystery school. Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees.🔗 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODEMy full archive is available at patreon.com/backfromtheborderline