All The Feelings • Adulting

We don’t love making this a gendered conversation but sometimes we just can’t help it. It turns out that women might just be able to smell fear. We don’t love it, that we might keep doing stupid stuff because we can’t smell the danger in it, and so we’ve decided that we all need to hang around more women in our lives. Sorry ladies. We promise we’ll be quiet. We just need your nasal insights. Gross. Sorry.

Dem Bones

This whole show is really about bones. We didn’t plan it that way… just happened. We start with Pete’s hips. Oh, did you hear that? That little voice in your head? Listen carefully… it just said, “This podcast was inspired by Pete’s hips…”

You’ll never hear THAT again.

In any case, Pete dug into research that connects stress and anxiety to joint pain. It turns out, when your body is under constant emotional stress, it’s also under chemical stress. And THAT’s bad for your bones. Learn more from in Association of Stress-Related Disorders With Subsequent Autoimmune Disease. You can learn more from the kind specialists at University of Maryland Spine Center as they blog eloquently in: Why Does Stress and Anxiety Cause Joint Pain?

We pivot from joint stress on the bones to what happens when Tommy tries to eat them. The bones, that is. He’s a real meat-hound, but as it turns out, sucking the meat off of bones gives him real trouble, and he’s not alone. The word is cartilogenophobia and rest assured, he’s going to really bite into this one.

Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy is a small town that sits in the middle of South Australia, about an hour north of Adelaide. It's hot there — it can hit the 120s in the summer — and with climate change, it's only getting hotter. And still, 1,800 people consisting of over 50 nationalities call this slice of the Outback home. And of all the homes in Coober Pedy, more than 60% of them are underground.

Here are a few fantastic vids and resources to check out:

• This is the town where people live underground - Coober Pedy
• Life against the odds in Australia's underground town
• Welcome to Coober Pedy, the world's strangest town • The Telegraph

Hey! Guess what, everybody? Following up on a prior week’s episode in which we discovered that drone dog snipers exist at the whims of their human handlers, turns out that airborne drones need no such things as human handlers to do their business. A United Nations report says just that about a March 2020 attack in Libya. Great job, robots… taking another human job.

Tom brings a personal anxiety that, as it turns out, crushes both of us: Networking. The Muse has some tips on getting through the muck and maybe learning to love it. Spoiler, we don’t, yet, but we’re open to trying. Mostly Pete just goes into boss mode and eats business cards.

Our beloved listener submission comes from an email address that reads, “[email protected].” That should give you something of an idea of the nature of the story to tell. Wait… as I’m writing this… no, no it won’t. It’s about scars, or oulinophobia, fear of scars, specifically. But it turns out there’s a lot more at work under the surface.

At First Citiwide Bank of Anxiety, we live... where you live.

Season six of What's That Smell? will begin on August 31, 2021. Special thanks to Mandy Kaplan, Jeremy Klavens, Justine Huxley, Tara Sands, Everett Jaeger, and Justin Jaeger for their support and participation as our trailer voice cast. They are officially the best.

Pete and Tommy are diligently working on season 2 of the show. To get ready, they've asked some friends to help them put together a fond remembrance of anxieties gone by. If you haven't had a chance to binge season 1 of the show, this quick dose nonsense should get you back in the mood.

Want to get in on season 2? Email your personal favorite anxiety to [email protected] and hear your troubles aired around the world! Even Buenos Aires and Chicago! (And no, if you tell us, we won't use your name, promise)

Happy summer.

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Welcome to our exploration of the wild world of Regression. Picture this: a third-grader, furious at a kid named Joe, ends up slapping him instead of throwing a punch, leading to a spectacle worthy of schoolyard folklore. Or picture a child, under 10, attempting to stage an epic battle between Optimus Prime and Snake Eyes with a candle and a bedspread, resulting in a somewhat less epic fire. And let's not forget about the classic romantic attempt to steal a first kiss while the love interest is on a swing, only to end up with a face-smashing instead of a heart-melting moment.

These cringe-worthy memories serve as the perfect segue into the concept of regression, where stressful situations send us spiraling back to our less sophisticated selves. This can result in anything from temper tantrums and baby talk to the desire for comfort objects and an alarming inability to perform self-care. The triggers are plentiful, covering everything from poor coping skills and medical issues like delirium to psychiatric disorders like psychosis.

Along the way, we get a visit from Dr. Dodge, the ATF Therapist in Residence (of his own house) who helps us understand just how the brain works at such a young age, why we get wired the way we do from childhood experiences, and offers a dose of meditation that can ease the effort to regress and understand ourself. Plus, we have a Revolutionary escape and a classic game of ATF Regression Rewind!

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