Well, today we would continue with the socio-cultural causes behind psychological disorders. We had already talked about the importance of the significance of violence and how it can become a primary responsible cause for several type of psychological problems. We did take into account the fact that large number of clinical symptoms which was later on known to the practicing world, the scientific world, the research community, the academic community, large chunk of that has been an outcome of the world war, second world war especially. Some peculiar type of human behavior was even identified, it was later on listed in the DSM classification which was basically a by-product of the Vietnam War. There has been a whole history of how violence that persists in the culture keeps on influencing the psyche of an individual. And if you have seen the visuals from Middle East right now, many a times you would realize that you have very disturbing type of visuals. Now, imagine a situation that we at a distance of few thousand kilometers find only the visual to be so disturbing, how disturbed the individuals who would have actually been experiencing it, they might be feeling. In fact in our own country especially two specific regions of our country selected part of the north eastern region of India and Jammu and Kashmir that region. There has been a whole lot of study, less from a psychological view point because it is very difficult to get the primary data in most of the cases. But mostly studies which are part of media studies, which are part of sociological studies and if you combine them together you would realize that this whole issue of violence which has persisted in certain geographical locality for more than a decade, how it has adversely affected the psyche of the individuals. I must tell you several years back there was a painting competition for the children who belong to the north eastern region. I am sure you must be aware that the armed forces they conduct good will tour for school going children, which are basically like taking children from these conflict regions. They arrange for their tour to India and then these children are made to go for tour to some selected regions of the country. The reason being is that first you get a chance to see the rest of the India, two you get a chance to appreciate the non-existence of conflicting involvement and three and most important for them that is that you realize that armed forces is your friend not your enemy. So, a part of one such exercise was this painting competition for the children from the north east and it was very surprising to see that the children who wore from the north eastern region a large majority of them had painted some or the other reflection of violence.  So, now children right from the beginning those who have seen only such type of situation for them life is all together much more different. You must be aware we had discussed this case of the conflict between when this Bosnia-Arjagovina conflict was on the army commander who ordered for a gang rape finally, got the women tested if they have been impregnated or not. And then later on you know talking to the court of law and saying that this was something like a victory forever we had discussed this very example here in the class. So, these are situations which makes you realize that you are really at risk and because you are at risk you realize now that certain changes automatically starts coming within you. Now, this violence was at a larger scale when you realize that the whole of the geographical region where you are living is under constant threat and the threat is for your own survival the threat is also for the survival of your loved ones. There could be a situation where you have violence within the family. So, now it is very limited area, but then once again you become the primary victim of the violence inflicting situation. And this is usually a case where you realize that two or more members of the family they are mostly engaged in conflicting situation and the conflict usually tends towards some degree of violence. And usually you find that it is not an individual family, but the whole locality has some type of violence prone type of a behavior. We have certain segments in our country I do not know how many of you have been to sociology courses, but in sociology you come to know that the way the notification for the tribal community was done in our country. Few tribes were identified that these are the tribes you know which are engaged into unlawful activities the way the law was defined at that time they were defined that these are the tribes they were identified and that was a long list. And right after independence the government of India decided that they will start rehabilitating these tribes making them realize that what you do basically is an unlawful act, theft for example, stealing for example, prostitution for example. All these were you know categorized in the constitution of India as illegal activities and then the government had a long list of tribes saying that fine these are the tribes which are mostly engaged into such type of activities. And whole you know a government machinery was put into place so that these tribes can be rehabilitated they can be you know offered some type of livelihood and the primary intention was to disengage them from doing whatever they were involved simply because what they were involved was unlawful according to the constitution of India. I do not know if you are aware that very close to IIT you know in the Kalyanpur region you have one such tribe which was rehabilitated. So, if you are interested you can dig out the details you can still find their houses there it was the government plan to rehabilitate them here. Now, these were basically the attempts to make the whole of a geographical region or surgical part of any geographical region much more conducive enough for the survival of human beings. But even in cases even in the last module when we were talking about aggression one important thing about aggression was that if you are born and brought up in an environment which is full of violence full of aggression then you start somehow repeating it reflecting it in your behavior. You do not find wrong in doing whatever otherwise would be considered to be an errorful not doable type of an act. Psychologically speaking two things are important over here one that repeated exposure of violence will know make you gradually become desensitized to such acts. You would find a student among your own group who would be very sensitive to even as a some type of a name call for example or if you use a slang for that very individual that individual takes it as a great insult. If that individual has lived in an environment where such things are not practiced it is a very decent type of a living where you realize that such words are not used. Similar to you know children who are born and brought up in an environment where on the minus you know minutest of the error that you commit you receive a physical punishment and there would be a huge difference between these things. Similarly if you are born and brought up in a family in an environment where you know guns, shouts, knives know these things are easily available very generously used pre and post uses you can see very conveniently. You become very desensitized to these things very close to Kanpur it our onwards when you start moving towards the west carrying weapon is usually considered to be an object of pride. You do not consider it to be indecent act and more and more you move towards the stern side such things are not considered to be a replicable act that is basically the difference in terms of how gradually you get desensitized because children when they are born when they are growing up they do not know whether it is stern or the western part of a given province they are not aware of the social norm they are not aware what is legal what is illegal it is basically what you see in your surrounding and you start gradually imitating it.  So abusing slapping stabbing killing none of these are cause of concern for you and because you are you get gradually exposed to it therefore there is certain degree of psychological numbness to such type of experiences this is what is called as systematic desensitization in psychology. So violence the worst thing that it does to you is that is to makes you extremely condition to certain format of behavior which otherwise is not considered to be a healthy format of behavior one and two in such type of situations which otherwise causes deep sense of pain to others it does not hurt you anywhere. Problem comes from a pathological view point when either you over do start when you start over doing that this would mean that you become a psychopath or when you are under sustained fear and then you start showing a whole range of symptoms gradually we will come to know many of those symptoms but this is the whole story behind you know these type of socio cultural environment. Then another important thing where you have prejudice against a group and therefore one smaller group which is discriminated compared to the majority who rules the community and I am sure you must be aware of certain things that was later on in inculcated as policy matter in our country I will come to it little later but right from the beginning if you read you know the cultural history of our country you would realize that selecting individuals or group of individuals based on their caste, class, creed, sect, religion this was too common until later you find certain things being happening and that was a way wherein a group of individuals were always deprived of certain privileges that another set of individuals used to enjoy even in our epics you find the description of it you take Ramayana for example and you realize that Ram when he was he returned back and became the king he was told that there is somebody in your kingdom called Shambukh who belongs to lower class and he is not supposed to know live a sagely life and Ram went and assassinated him killed him that you belong to certain group and it is the privilege of the Brahmins to practice this and therefore you do not deserve to live in Mahabharata you find the same description when you have you know what was his name Karn okay willing to learn from the same guru and Ronacharya refuses him and says that fine because you do not belong to the Chhatriya clan therefore you would be deprived of the privilege of sharpening your skill okay with in the same Mahabharata you find the description when I am still not getting the name the boy who you know consider to Dronacharya as his guru and practiced on his own a club where you know you have whole lot of description so right from epics till today you would realize that there is a whole set of you know discrimination that is somehow inbuilt in the culture the way we live now if you realize that there you have deliberately been you know taken out from the group and certain disadvantage is put to you this itself in turn could be extremely detrimental for your mental health whole set of things you can realize we have talked about the biological causes behind certain type of psychological disorders at that time we had talked about mental retardation what I must tell you that if you statistically look at those who are mentally retarded approximately 3 to 5 percent of mentally retarded are retarded not because of biological reason but because of sociocultural reasons okay something that should actually not happen but it happens okay in psychology you would find good amount of literature on sensory deprivation okay that you are deprived of certain sensory stimulation okay in the formative years of your life and therefore certain domains of your brain does not grow the way it should actually have evolved okay and coming back to the example that I told you that we will take up later in our country you know somebody at AIMS the All India Institute of Medical Sciences conducted whole lot of research to force the government convince the government force it to you to inbuilt it in a plan suggesting that no iodine deficiency is extremely important for individuals because it has to do with cognitive development because it has also to do with the whole problem of thyroid deficiency okay but recently if you look at the set of research especially the type of research being conducted within our own country in terms of certain nutritional deficiencies and the under development that takes place in the brain and under development studied on the basis of the functional magnetic resonance then you realize that even but I mean B1 vitamin B12 the deficiency of these two vitamins is also extremely common in our country okay and because you are a deficient on say B1 or B12 finally your brain gets affected okay somehow this is still not part of our policy and therefore we have iodine based salt but we do not have food ingredients where the government policy ensures that you have B1 and B12 in the food or supplementary stuff okay so somehow it has been realized you know that if you have been deliberately deprived of certain privileges on the basis of certain discrimination that the society practices it itself you know could backfire okay and it could lead to both the types of things know either you know it induces certain type of psychological problem within you or it could even lead to certain degree of you know in built aggressive tendency within you because you would definitely ensure that you flout the cap that has been put above you important thing once again is also the continuous struggle that you have to make in terms of making your life very very stable okay a large chunk of our population which has to continuously struggle for food both the times there are shocking statistical figure if you look at them okay that is a large percentage of the population in our country which has the opportunity of having the food only once in a day means you cannot have two meals in a day okay large large population okay and especially in last 10 15 years a shocking statistical figure is now becoming glaringly visible which is that those who could afford okay have become much more affluent and can afford more and those who were deprived and did not had the opportunity to afford the meals two time they have become much more poorer okay this is again a very different type of skewed development that we find in our society rich becoming more richer and poor becoming more poorer okay this is again a very different type of thing but we are any of not right now not looking at things from a demographers viewpoint what we are primarily suggesting is that if you have to continuously struggle for your survival you gradually realize that certain things by default will start reflecting in your behavior know for example anxiety okay now somebody who has continuously been struggling and is completely unsure about what is going to happen say for my evening meal okay you are bound to remain anxious all through know because there is a great degree of uncertainty that has been inbuilt you live in a hutment and you always know have a looming fear that any day know the municipal corporation bulldozer can come and destroy the whole hutment where we live okay now if you live with such type such type of uncertainty in your life okay it is bound to know make you very very susceptible to certain type of psychological problems and very interesting is the last point that is the whole speed at which the changes are taking place know the whole know accelerating social changes does not allow you to adapt to you with the frequency okay with the speed at which the changes takes place all changes will take place very rapidly okay and you take time to know adapt to it by the time you adapt to one know change that has taken place within that time another big change will come into being you can ask your grandparents and in many cases when your parents would narrate you very interesting stories stories that you have not seen okay large part of it we saw right from our adolescent years till adulthood okay where many many new things were introduced know especially for example the whole railway reservation for example okay even earlier days you asked all those who had to travel and work planning to get their seats reserved in the train okay they would have to stand in the queue you know one day in advance say approximately 12 hours in advance the earlier graduates of IIT Bombay will tell you that you know during vacation when they had to come to this part of the country okay the whole night they would spend on the platform okay waiting in the queue okay because it was very difficult to get a reserved seat in the train okay less number of trains and then it was everything was too manual too slow so right from the manual days know to a time when now we have all types of internet based booking okay imagine you know those who were you know caught in between okay those who were habitual of doing this okay how they would have switched to completely online based things I can share a very interesting example with you a couple of years back I was traveling in a train and one of my co-passenger happened to be the one who was given the responsibility of training these railway booking clerks the first set of railway clerks okay who were into manual mode okay and they were you know supposed to be trained on computer how to do the reservation and he was you know narrating all his experience very interesting thing that he shared with me was that every day three or four systems will have certain problems okay there will be some technical snack and the concerned trainee will say that fine fine said the system is not working okay and the whole intention was know that any how I should get rid of this so great degree of reluctance and then what he did was he said that I introduced that card games on the PC you know so the moment these card games were loaded okay none of the system used to crash none of the system used to develop technical snack all of them enjoyed playing the card game so first one or two day was invested only in the card game okay and then gradually okay those who were shifter in playing the games on their pieces these games were deleted and then they will complain and then finally no because you have proven your ability in playing the card game this means that you can operate a PC now start doing the reservation okay and this is how they were trained okay in those days I still even I remember no going to a reservation counter asking somebody who is doing it using a PC and who would take a longer time compared to know what a manual booking would take okay and I won't take the name but I know a very prestigious institute of this country where when the first time in the PC was introduced the head of that unit would say that this should not be switched on no typing would take place on the PC okay he would ask his clerk the office clerk to type it on a manual typewriter he would correct it manually when all corrections are done manually then he will ask the operator now type it on the PC okay and this is not a very old story hardly 40 year old story perhaps 40 year old story okay in one of the most prestigious institutes of this country okay these are interesting changes what I am trying to say is that technology will come very swift adaptation takes longer time when I say ATM machines were introduced okay whole lot of problem no I know I am sure you must be aware of this that all banks had to know introduce one special feature in their ATM machines that if you do not press a button for a certain time it will ask you that do you need more time okay because it was realized that people had great degree of difficulty because they will read all the instructions okay and many things would be confusing for them no cash withdrawal versus fast cash okay now how do I decipher what means what okay problem was also in terms of no ATM machines of different banks touch screen versus buttons okay buttons on both the sides versus button only on the right hand side okay and especially in user design you will find lot many studies on motor functioning the speed of motor functioning versus that speed of transaction on the screen okay and how no the whole struggle for this ATM machine took place okay there you will find even interesting cases like no special type of mobile handsets designed for elderly group okay because they will they want very high volume they want very minimal functions okay and they want larger buttons so that even with the shake of the hand if I press one only one should be precise not that by the time it reaches the no handset it goes to three that should not happen but another shocking part of this accelerating social change that we have not realized okay is no the whole set of the youth who considers that they are very good at in in terms of shifting from one to the other module okay but then there is a whole lot of no changes that has taken place okay when we talk of accelerating social changes it is only 55 plus who have difficulty especially 60 plus and usually no you would realize 40 45 plus who would reluctantly accept technology and that too very selectively okay but one important segment your age group okay which is you know usually considered to be very what you call dynamic young age group which never shows any problem with adapting to any technology but when you look at the psychiatric clinic the changes that has taken place in last 20 years okay you would realize that a large number of patients going to psychiatric clinics with especially two types of psychological disorders are the young age group your age group okay anxiety attacks panic anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder these two are nowadays in last 20 years it is largely the younger population which has gone to the clinic with these symptoms and one of the primary responsible you know change reason for that could be the speed at which they have to adapt to different types of things okay now we come to the psychological causes nature intensity duration and appraisal of the life circumstances how life has been for you one how intense has been you know the experiences that you had the duration of those life experiences but far more important the appraisal process you remember even with respect to adjustment and maladjustment we had talked about the appraisal mechanism you remember goal congruent and go long incongruent emotions and the appraisal of those emotions and finally how they influence the adjustment similarly it's of course the nature the intensity the duration of certain types of life experiences does matter but what matters far more is that you know how one you know goes for appreciating those experiences there could be life experiences okay which could be extremely adverse but then later on you remove certain part of it the good part of human being is that after an episode is over and a time has passed okay we have a tendency of reflecting the upon our past dragging few life experiences and when we recollect those experiences largely those are life experiences minus the emotional valency say for example you gave your mid semester seats for reevaluation okay and you were returned it back saying that fine this is what finally is the score no change has taken place and you find very bad okay you feel it's terrible thing to happen to you five years down the line ten years down the line when you recollect that experience it comes only as an experience no no this nature of the the valency of that emotion is lost so it's neither happy nor sad you just say it happened once okay many of adverse life experiences comes this way but that largely depends on you know how you know actually get into the appraisal process of the life experiences we have talked about it you know when we were going through a stress and post-traumatic stress I am just you know touching it once again the whole issue of you know accommodating experiences versus assimilating experiences okay so whether you accommodate your experience whether you assimilate your experience and then when you recollect your experiences okay is it that you go in a diminutive state okay or is it that you know are much more into the reflective state okay so more and more diminutive individual you become more and more prone you become to certain type of psychological problems no more and more reflective you are you accepted that fine it happened to me but I know it happens to many individuals I don't know why I was selected for this type of life experience but anyhow it has happened I have experienced it I have learned something from it I have become much more grown up much more mature okay that could be one way of looking at it and if you look at life from this point of view okay then you realize that your susceptibility to certain type of psychological problems minimizes okay Another important thing is the maternal deprivation no if you are deprived of that you know nurturance affection love care concerned okay you have to pay you might have to pay some psychological price for it there are once again you know interesting studies in psychology where you know you will find that the effect of deprivation has been seen right now we were referring to sensory deprivation okay in terms of maternal deprivation you cannot know isolate a human child from the mother and say that now you are put an in in now you are put in an experimental setup and for too long years you will be without your mother and I will see the effect on your psychology that thing is not possible on human babies but you will find a couple of studies on animal babies no especially monkeys chimpanzees okay because they are considered to be much more closer to the human race therefore you would find couple of studies and one very interesting study you will find is where the baby monkey was kept in a cage okay and it was all artificial mothers kept in different cages no so it was a wire mesh basically with a head of a mother monkey okay so it all wire mesh with the artificial head versus when you have a furry type of a cover over the wire mesh okay and then it was realized that whenever this loud sound will be generated in the cage this baby monkey will by default go and catch hold of the wire mesh even if it is wire mesh the baby monkey will go and catch hold of it okay there are very interesting video clips of it no you must watch it sometime okay that how fear forces you to select an object and surrender to it saying that fine you can only safeguard me okay and you can see it in human babies no the moment the child realizes that there could be you know situation which is too scary okay or the child cannot comprehend whether it is good or bad okay for its survival the child will immediately go and surrender to the mother mother herself could be at risk okay but the child always feels that I am at the safest hand in the world okay now it has been realized over studies that absence of such caring figure in the early stages of life could make you pay a psychological price for it and certain type of psychological disorders are largely you know I can imagine that it could the chances of having those symptoms are higher in those who have experienced such type of deprivation in their life then comes the pathological family pattern okay the family itself has no certain type of disturbance that lies within even in socio-cultural pattern we were talking about no violence that persists within the family here we are talking about the pathogenic type of pattern that persists in the family all psychological disorders you will find that no a certain percentage is dedicated to biological transmission that is the chromosomal transmission and another but the bigger percentage is dedicated to this pathological family pattern that if others in your family had this type of problems then the chances of you showing it some time in your life increases maladaptive type of family structure there is a great degree of disharmony within the pattern within the family okay interpersonal relationship that the individual has seen or himself or herself has maintained okay has certain degree of pathology okay and if you have been under the influence of severe stress for a sizable duration of time okay then also the chances are that you can develop some problems like this what we would do now is that we would broadly look at two categories of psychological disorders that are traditionally talked about that is the neurotic disorders and the psychotic disorders and what we would do is that based on certain criteria we would look at the basic difference between the neurotic and the psychotic type of problems remember that our primary focus is still on going into the diagnostic details of the personality disorders and the adjustment disorders but before we do that we will see this broad distinction in terms of general behavior if you look at the neurotic and the psychotic patterns of disorders and you compare them you realize that the neurotics have the maladaptive avoidance behavior okay they also show certain mild to moderate degree of impairment in terms of their personal and social functions that they perform okay and therefore if you realize that there is an attempt to adjust but it is maladaptive and largely it is avoidant in nature 1 2 in terms of personal and social function you realize that the individual shows certain degree of mild to moderate degree of impairment if you have been a victim of one type of a neurotic disorder compared to it in the case of psychotic disorders okay there are severe personality decompensations no so you show the nature of the problem becomes much more severe okay in the case of neurosis it was mild to moderate impairment compared to that in the case of psychosis marked impairment is seen okay in terms of contact with reality okay and therefore the impairment that is seen in terms of personal and social functioning is also very very severe in nature okay in terms of nature of symptoms okay in neurosis there is wide range of psychological and somatic symptoms okay but what is very good is that you do not have any hallucination okay means you do not see or listen things in the absence of it or other extreme deviations in thought emotion or motor activity is also not seen in the case of neurosis whereas in the case of psychosis you find wide range of symptoms okay and usually they are extreme deviations in terms of thinking in terms of feeling in terms of doing so cognitive, cognitive, effective all the three domains are severely affected in the case of psychosis on both the criteria what you realize is that neurosis the severity is less in the case of psychosis the severity is much higher then comes the difference between these two set of disorders in terms of orientation okay in neurosis there is no usually no orientation problem is not apparent and if there is an impairment of orientation that is of a very slight order okay so you do not get disoriented in terms of environment in terms of time in terms of place in terms of person so who are you where am I okay those things are not seen in the case of neurotic disorders and if there is a possibility that is the slightest of the possibility whereas in the case of psychotic disorders you find that there could be frequent loss of orientation okay with respect to time, place, person in the environment okay so you remember that amulad no ab may kahau so repeatedly that thing can happen no so you are at a different place but psychologically you feel as if you are somewhere else so complete disorientation might take place in terms of insight okay that is attempt to understand the self in neurosis frequently some understanding of own maladaptive behavior is usually seen okay and usually what happens in the case of neurosis is that you feel that I have this thing in my behavior I think others do not have it therefore it might be a problem but you also simultaneously express your inability to control it for example you know that others wash their hand twice they will apply so okay and then they will wash it once they will open the tap and then they will wash it twice and they will see that no there is no stain or no mark of the soap left and that same but when you wash it you wash it three times okay three times you take soap three times you clean your hand you rub it rub to the two palms and then you rinse it okay and you realize that the frequency of washing and the time is spent in washing hand in you is far higher compared to others in your hostel but then simultaneously you also say that no no no but you know I cannot stop it I feel still there might be some jumps no I have seen ads showing that no even after cleaning from certain type of no antiseptics one or two jumps are also shown in the no clean zone so I think there must be something so I clean it twice thrice professional will tell you that this is basically a symptom of OCD you have some obsessive compulsive problem okay you do not you do not know the name you do not know the symptoms and therefore you do not consider it to be a disorder all you consider is that I probably have something but you know I cannot control it that's the sense in neurosis in psychosis there is a marked impairment of understanding of current symptoms and behavior no I am sure you must have heard this joke that once some prime minister visited you know ward of a mental hospital and introduced himself at I am Mr. X the prime minister of India and the person said yes yes before coming here I also used to say that I am the prime minister of the country okay so that's the gross sense of disorientation that you find in terms of self understanding no in the case of psychosis so there is a marked impairment in terms of understanding actually one own self okay and then we come to the physically destructive behavior in neurosis behavior by the neurotic individual is rarely dangerous no it is not injurious okay to anyone including the same individual no if you wash your hand 10 times okay you can wash it to the extent that no your part of your skin starts peeling off okay but other than that no you do not cause harm to anybody including your own self okay but in the case of psychosis in many cases you might realize that the behavior of the individual is detrimental for the self or it is dangerous for others okay and then because we have talked about the causal factors if you compare these two set of disorders in terms of the causal factors then you realize that in for neurosis the emphasis is more on the failure to acquire the needed competency no certain competencies were needed in you and somehow you do not have it okay or you have no learnt to cope with a given situation but your learning is maladaptive what you have learned is not the appropriate way usually broadly you can say that this is what leads to such type of problems compared to that psychosis basically you know it is a maladaptive learning decompensation under excessive stress and in large number of cases it is due to some changes in the biochemistry of the individual no so some neurotransmitter not being secreted to certain level okay and that becomes the reason for one or the other type of psychotic disorders and if you look at the pattern in the clinical practices you would realize that for neurotic disorders usually medicines are not needed you know you provide certain type of counseling you provide certain type of behavior modification techniques certain type of psychotherapies are provided and that can bring the individual back to the normal pattern of behavior no so say if somebody has a say panic attack for example no suddenly you happen to cross the road near this entrance of the literal complex you saw a Tata sumo coming from the other direction at a very fast speed and suddenly you know you had tremor in your entire body you had profuse sweating your heartbeat increased and all that was just for a moment okay then suddenly you regained your consciousness you realized okay I have thankfully I didn't try to cross the road at that time this is a panic attack okay say for example you keep washing your hand multiple times okay you are always you know scared of the fact that no because I came here and sat in the class the chairs I don't know who are the people who sat here and therefore my clothes must have got contaminated no some jumps might have come so every time when you go back to your room okay you remove all your clothes and put a new set okay you could be phobic to know certain type of jumps actually that you never see this could be a phobic reaction okay so for such type of things you do not need you know what you call a drug for it whereas in terms of treatment of psychotic disorders say for example schizophrenia for example paranoia for example unipolar depression for example okay manic depression for example okay now it's these types of psychotic disorders okay the consultant psychiatrist will recommend a drug to you okay you have to depend on certain type of drugs because these are the externally induced chemicals to your body which will finally stabilize the biochemical regulation within the brain and once that biochemical stability is retained in the brain then you know you can simultaneously you know start giving certain type of psychotherapy so that the dependence on the drugs starts reducing okay you cannot make somebody you know completely dependent on the drug for the entire life so that's the basic difference between the neurotic and psychotic disorders tomorrow when we meet we would first talk about the whole set of neurotic disorders we would deliberately ignore psychotic disorders because that is under the purview of the psychiatrist neurotic disorders are something that psychologist would know would be very helpful in terms of getting you out of it so we will look at them the whole range the symptoms and then we would move to what we actually intend to that is adjustment disorders and personality disorders


Hi, welcome to the All Things LGBTQ Interview Show where we interview LGBTQ guests who are making important contributions to our communities. All Things LGBTQ is taped at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which we recognize as being unceded indigenous land. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show. Hi, everybody. I'm here with Meka Jamila Sullivan, who is a very distinguished figure on the literary scene and a lot of exciting events are occurring involving the paperback release of her excellent novel, Big Girl, which we will, I know, the hardcover came out a year ago and there were all kinds of launches and I was privileged enough to read it in hardback, but now there's going to be a whole new cycle of launches with the paperback edition. We've got a really busy schedule in June. It's exciting. I can't wait. Let me, for viewers who don't know, let me read a short bio if you don't mind. Meka Jamila Sullivan PhD is the author of the novel Big Girl published by Norton in 2022, a New York Times editor's choice selection, and a best books pick from Time, Essence, Vulture, Ms. Goodreads, Libraryreadsandshereads.com. It's been also nominated for several noteworthy awards. Her previous books are the Poetics of Difference, Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora, Winner of the MLA William Sanders Scarborough Prize, and the Short Story Collection, Bluetalk and Love in 2015, Winner of the Judith Markowitz Award for Fiction from Land Literary, and if I just may add, I love that collection. One of your interviewers said that one thing that's really striking is that the characters live with you after you've, I mean, it's really, really impactful, and the characters live in the story. You know, I still remember the stories that were hitting me. Thank you. That means a lot to me. Good. Her writing has appeared in Best New Writing, Kenyan Review, American Fiction, Prairie Schooner, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, The Cut, American Literary History, Black Futures, American Quarterly, GLQ, Lesbian and Gay Studies Quarterly, Ebony, The Root, and others. So you are very prolific. You've earned honors from the Center for Fiction, the American Association of University Women, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Your novel Big Girl was a phenomenal book club pick, and in WNYC 2022 debut selection. Of the novel author and activist Janice Mock, whom our audience probably knows, observes Big Girl, gifts us a heroine carrying the weight of worn out ideas who dares to defy the compulsion to shrink, and in turn teaches us to pursue our fullest, most desirous selves without shame. While author Taise Lehmann says there are three books on earth that I would give anything to be able to write and reread until the sun burns up, Big Girl is one of those books. Do you have to know what the other two are? I know. I'm so curious. I hope so when they have the chance to ask him. It's just such a tremendous honor to be at that and to have work in someone's mind in that way. It's fantastic. He continues, a new American classic that we as a country and culture desperately need, and that I can't underscore that point if I agree. Mecca is an associate professor of English at Georgetown University, born and raised in Harlem, New York. She currently lives in Washington, DC, and your academic pedigree is that you have a BA from Smith and an MFA from Temple and a PhD from University of Pennsylvania, very illustrious. That's right. So welcome. Thank you so much, and I'm excited to have this conversation. Well I was excited that you accepted our invitation, and I'm very excited by the book and by your writing that I've had a chance to look at over the last year, including your introduction to the letters of Pat Parker and Audrey Lord that Julie entered. Did you edit it with her or did you? No, no, I just wrote the introduction.  The correspondence between the two of them was just fantastic, and it was such an honor to write that introduction. I know it, and I learned many things. Yeah, me too. I mean, I reread it pretty often, and I think it's like any great literature really that you learn something new every time you read it, even though this is this, you know, sort of set of letters between these two incredible colleagues and friends. I know. I know. Great loss. Yeah. Did you know her? You're too young, probably. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. I think we have the privilege of hearing her read so often when I lived in Boston. I learned. Yeah. But I didn't know her. So let's get to the book. You've experienced the first book launch and you've been touring and you've been well reviewed and interviewed a lot in the critical reception so far to the novel. Have there been any surprises? You know, that's a great question. I mean, in some ways, no, you know, as an artist and as a writer, you know, just the fact that people are reading honestly feels like such a gift, and that's not lost on me. And that's sort of that never gets old. So every time I get to talk to someone who's actually read my work, you know, that just there's something very special about those conversations, even when they're happening in print. Right. So print reviews. So from that standpoint, you know, I think every time I feel that it's a similar kind of feeling in terms of the content and the kind of, you know, the kind of details of the reception. I guess the only thing that has stood out to me that was maybe a little bit surprising early on was that, you know, readers tend to kind of have one of two responses to some of the more challenging material in the novel. I think some readers tend to sort of see it as a kind of, you know, sort of steeped in reflections on pain, on trauma, on the kind of intergenerational trauma that we experience around body shame, shame around gender, around sexuality. And I think others, other readers to see it are more sort of, see it more readily as a kind of a chronicling of the sort of processing of that trauma and moving toward joy, right? And sort of really seeing the joy, the pleasure, the kind of vibrancy of the novel. And so it has been interesting to see how readers, you know, what kind of path readers take in coming to the, again, the healing, right, the kind of the joy, the vibrancy. I think the reflections on pain, on trauma and sadness are tough for some readers, but eventually they all, you know, in my experience at least, everyone sort of gets to, you know, what I hope is at the core of the novel, this sense of joy that cannot actually be sort of beaten out by trauma, right? That the joy is there in the beginning and, you know, not to spoil, but it's certainly there in the end, right? That's the kind of journey that the character is taking. So it's been interesting to see how readers sort of navigate that trajectory. Do you think in your in-person events, have people felt the need to share their own trauma about weight issues? Oh, yeah. I've heard, I mean, it's, and it's really, you know, it, it's an interesting experience, right? I mean, I wrote this book because I, I needed it and I knew that if I needed it, it meant that others needed it too, but it really isn't until, again, you sort of connect with readers and you see just how many people around the country from different walks of life. And, you know, I'm talking about people of all ages, all backgrounds, really connecting with this sense of body shame, with body stigma, and also with that sort of kernel of, you know, of joy, of kind of like self-satisfaction, that sense of, you know, a kind of commitment to oneself that is always there, even in the face of all these external pressures that, you know, seek to maybe shrink us as that great quote from Janet Moxas, right? So, you know, that's something that I knew I connected with and I had an inkling that, of course, in American culture, this is something that we know queer people deal with, that women deal with, that, you know, a bunch of sort of marginalized people deal with, and yet seeing that and, you know, talking to folks, right? Face to face, hearing everyone's stories. It is, it's a powerful thing and it is a lot to hold sometimes, but it's not that difficult when you, you know, for me at least to put it in context and realize, this is why I wrote the book, right? I wrote the book because this is a story that so many of us share and being able to create a space for folks to kind of think about what that means in their lives, that's, that's a real honor, you know, and something I take very seriously.  And if so, in what way? Oh, it's a curious question. Yes, it is super queer. Uh, it is a very queer novel, I would say in a lot of ways, but particularly because, you know, it follows a character named Malaya Clondon, right? A big black girl through her childhood as an eight-year-old into her teenage years, and of course in her teenage years is when she really sort of starts to come into a sense of her erotic identity, as is the case for a lot of folks. But the truth is, her sort of connection with this idea of a forbidden desire, that's with her very early on. The idea that what she wants, what her body wants, is forbidden, is illicit and is wrong, right? That's a sense, that's her part of her sort of orientation into the world from a very young age. And of course, I imagine this resonates with a lot of people who, you know, have had those kinds of forbidden desires, illicit desires, maybe even before they had language for them, right? This is Malaya's experience.   So it's queer in that way. But also, and I think in some ways, you know, on a deeper level, that sense that Malaya is constantly grappling with other people's ideas of what her body should want, what her body should do, who she should be essentially, right? What kind of gender she should inhabit, that this is the, this is her coming of age, is sort of defining all of those things for herself. And of course, you know, that's a kind of hallmark of the queer coming of age novel, right? And this is absolutely Malaya's story. And there's that scene at the Christopher Cat bar, which I loved. You grew up in Harlem, right? I sure did. And spent a whole lot of time hanging out in the village. So yeah. Well, you've agreed to read a little passage for us, if you wouldn't mind, and to give us a flavor of the language. Yes, absolutely. And my hope is that this section sort of gives a taste of that, her kind of secret pleasure taken in illicit bodily desire. So this is at the very start of the novel, there's not much setup that's needed. Malaya and her family have moved to Harlem recently from the Lower East Side, and she is with her mother, she's eight years old, she's with her mother at a Weight Watchers meeting. Well, don't everybody speak up at once now. Miss Adelaide, the meeting leader, laughed over the collar of her lavender suit. Malaya sat in a sea of fat women on folding chairs and watched Miss Adelaide walk to the front. Miss Adelaide caressed the plastic easel, flipping back a page marked emotional triggers pie chart and exposing his sheet as clean and white as the face of a new tub of cool whip. She stood there, her hips sloped prettily out before her arms loose and easy along her waist.  Miss Adelaide shifted into another breathtakingly casual pose, resting her weight on one tall plum-colored high heel and letting a hand float up to stroke the paper. I want you to think about your favorite food. You know, we all have that one food that always gets us in trouble. I want you to think about it. Call it out. Malaya listened, catching a few coughs, small squeakings of the metal seats. The rustling of a paper bag somewhere in the back of the room brought saltwater to Malaya's mouth as she thought of removing french fries from their paper bag. She imagined the strips bending over one another in their red and white striped dish, salt crystals hitting them from all sides and sparkling like glitter. All right, now I know it can be embarrassing. Miss Adelaide leaned back, posed, then moved slowly toward Malaya and her mother, Na'ilah, who sat a seat away to leave room for both their hips, Na'ilah always said. Malaya thought nothing of Miss Adelaide's first steps, except how nice it was the way the tapping of the woman's heels seemed to punctuate the soft rub of her shimmery pantyhose. But within seconds, Malaya could smell Miss Adelaide's perfume in her face and found herself staring directly at the silver buckle on her purple suede belt. Fear frothed up in Malaya's chest as the synthetic cherry stink of Miss Adelaide's uncapped marker prickled the insides of her nostrils. She would lie, she decided. She would disclose a passion for yogurt, welcome and unusual in a girl of eight. Her face puffed with earnestness. She would tell the woman that she was centered, committed and in control, that she'd take fat free frozen yogurt over cookie dough ice cream any day. She would make her mother proud and force this lean purple creature to go back and check her scale. Those red numbers could not be right. This girl could not weigh one hundred sixty eight pounds committed as she was. It was Malaya's specialty, this kind of invention. It was how she helped other children pronounce her name, Malaya, like I don't tell the truth. She parted her lips prepared to declare her fidelity to the program. Miss Adelaide's mouth was plump and her red lipstick looked like jelly sliding over her lip line into her deep brown skin. She tugged at the empty chair from between Malaya and Nayla, gently easing it from between them. I'm sorry, baby, she crewed. Did you want to say something? Malaya's mouth went dry and nearly. She paused wondering if her lies were worth telling now that it was clear she wasn't being asked to give up anything more than an empty chair. She shook her head, no. I'll stop there. Thank you. And then Miss Adelaide appears later in the novel. Yes, she does. Yes, she comes back. She's definitely part of the community and part of the kind of the ethos around weight. Right. She represents so much around weight and food and body.  I think maybe more than men. But that's a generalization, I suppose, but I certainly was subjected to that whole, you know, such a pretty face thing that you know. Oh, my goodness. Right. Right. I think you're right. I think it is gendered, right? I think the way we understand body shaming is absolutely gendered. I will say, though, it's been really interesting in this touring experience. I guess is another thing that has been surprising to a certain degree. How many people of all genders have really connected with this sense of body shame, especially those that grew up in the eighties and nineties before we really had any language for body shame, for fat phobia, for diet culture, right? Sort of in the absence of all of that language, this was just the culture that we all lived in. And so it's been interesting to hear the stories of people who didn't, you know, grow up identifying as girls or as women, but still internalized a lot of that stuff, right? And still had a lot of those same sort of struggles. You know, I haven't a great aunt who is a mom there figure. Oh, wow. You used to say to me, well, you have such small hands and feet. You know, I mean, it's just I really contend that it's maybe one of the most pervasive unnamed forms of prejudice is circulating. I agree. And yet it is named at this point, right? So it is an interesting thing, right? You know, at one point, I do think there was a way that we could say, OK, well, part of how it continues to exist is because we haven't found language for it.  And yet, you know, yeah, I think it's it's truly it's pervasive. It absolutely is.  Exactly. And if you look at advertising, absolutely. And part of it, I think this is also, I think, a connection to queerness, right? Part of it is that, you know, even within sort of medical, the medical field and medical industry, right, there's this sense that your body shape and size is connected to your morality and that's kind of there's a there's an echo of queer phobia there, right? And lesbophobia and homophobia that, like, if you just were strong enough, or if you were the right kind of person, your body would be something other than it is, right? Transphobia as well, similar kind of narrative. And so I think that that kind of nexus of oppression is all sort of baked into our culture. And again, into, you know, the the kind of ethos of folks that we look to as medical authorities. So I think that that's a big part of it as well. May we switch gears and let me ask you if this novel is a love letter to Harlem? Yes, yes, let's absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I love Harlem, New York, you know, I haven't lived there full time since I was, well, really, since I was just the year after I graduated from college, I'd spent one more year living in Harlem and said I haven't really lived there full time in many, many years. And so I mean, I think in some ways, that's the best distance from which to really write a full, robust love letter, right? That like, you know, there's a sense of a deep connection to Harlem. And also I feel very much aware of, you know, some of the ways in which the Harlem that I knew has changed, right? I wouldn't say it's gone, but it's it's changed. And part of what's happening in this novel is we're seeing that process of gentrification, essentially, right?  We're seeing large kind of chains, you know, sort of supplanting them and replacing them. People are moving out of the neighborhood in droves. New 10 new, you know, neighbors are coming in with a very different kind of regard for the neighborhood or maybe even a disregard for the neighborhood and the people who live there, right? And yet, at the same time, there's this sense of a kind of resistance, there's this sense of Harlem is not going to go down without fighting, right? And so there's this, you know, there's a again, a kind of vitality even in there is to resist gentrification, to resist erasure. And in some ways, that mirrors Malaya's story, right? That even as external forces are kind of trying to change her trying to make her into what they want her to be, there's something in her that's not going to let that happen, not entirely, right? And she's going to sort of control her own story as much as she can from a really kind of creative place within. So yeah, it's my love letter to Harlem as it was Harlem as it is, and also to the kind of, you know, long trajectory of this, you know, very deeply storied neighborhood that means so much to me personally. One of the most moving passages, which is kind of heartbreaking is Nila's conversation about how, you know, she and her husband, Percy, bought the brownstone and all their hopes and that they didn't expect to be equipped themselves. But you're you turn that around your right and make it accepting and accepting even of gentrification. Yeah, I mean, I think it's always that's the story of gentrification. It's interesting. I live in DC right now in a neighborhood called Columbia Heights. And it's got a very similar story in some ways to the story of Harlem, right? Where, you know, on one hand, when middle class, when black folks who have access to kind of class mobility are able to purchase in a neighborhood in a black neighborhood, it means so much, right? Again, it means sort of moving toward a middle class. It means moving toward a kind of community. This is what it means for Percy and Nila. They're imagining that they're going to move from this tiny little apartment on the lower east side to Harlem, right? This sort of world of black culture of community. They imagine Malaya being able to play outside, you know, and, you know, having just a whole crew of friends her age where that she can sort of experience a kind of freedom within a black world in Harlem. This is especially important for them as they're planning for Malaya's childhood, because she goes to school on the upper east side of Manhattan. So they know she's not going to get black community at school in the same way, right? So they really want home to be that for her. And of course, you know, the minute they're able to buy this, this beautiful brownstone and they're planning to fix it up and they've got all these visions for it, it's the height of the crack epidemic. And so one day Malaya comes home, she's done this playing on the street that they want her to do, you know, hanging out and the game they're playing is collecting the colored caps of crack files, right? And so this is a real moment of deflation for her parents. And she's not, you know, it's someone where we sort of see this is the cost of of class mobility in some ways, right? Pre gentrification. And then when, you know, when gentrification begins to happen, there's another sort of swell of excitement while, you know, the street sweepers are actually coming around while people the public services are actually investing. And yet then Malaya's parents realize, Oh, this is not for them. This is for the new tenants, the new residents, right? This is for the new the, you know, the gentrifiers, the new folks coming in. And of course, they still have to keep going. They still have to find creative ways to survive and to maintain that sense of home and self and community. So that's, yeah, that's absolutely I think it's the story of gentrification is absolutely the story of Harlem. And it's the story of Malaya's family as well. Would you mind talking about the character of Ethan well born? Yes, when born function in the novel. Yes. Okay. So Ethan when born is she is she's sort of she enters the novel as Naila sort of colleague kind of frenemy, right? Whereas she's Naila is a psychologist. She is, you know, she's an academic, an academic psychologist, right? But partly because she's the only black woman in her department, she teaches at a sort of well resourced Upper West Side University, right?  So she's very active in these academic groups, these black psychologists of New York groups. So she's got a community of peers. And Ethan when born is one of those people, she's another black woman psychologist. She's absolutely Naila's peer. And in some ways, I think Naila is threatened by her, partly because she's a big woman who just takes up space. She's not afraid to take up space.  She dresses in bold colors. She wears a lot of jewelry. She also travels a lot, right? And so Naila as someone who was raised by her mother, my mayor, right? Who you mentioned, she's raised by her mother to shrink herself, right? And to really try to sort of fit in. And, you know, it's often at her own expense, at the expense of her well being, even when born is the opposite. And she's just like, I'm out here.   So of course, Malaya notices this growing up and sort of seeing, you know, how this woman seems to affect her mom. But the woman remains a mystery. Malaya is a kid. She doesn't really get to know this woman well until something happens. And her mother suggests that she seek help from a therapist. And Malaya as a teenager is like, okay, I got your therapist. I know exactly who I'm going to call, right? And so she goes ahead and calls Ethan Winborn. And at that point, I think, you know, I think we see Dr. Winborn come into kind of fuller view as a kind of a really sort of loving, you know, nurturing, caring character who in addition to representing a kind of free big black woman also represents a kind of an ability to care for Malaya that she hasn't quite hasn't quite seen with other relationships with adult women in her family. In the sense that this is someone who really has, you know, you can't really give what you don't have, right? And in some ways, what Malaya is looking for is a kind of self confidence, and a kind of, you know, sort of self esteem and a kind of valuing of herself, that the women in her family don't quite have, but Ethan Winborn does have it. So they establish a really beautiful relationship that helps prompt Malaya to really step into herself to really, you know, again, indulge in the pleasures of the body to indulge in the pleasures of various relationships, and to express herself creatively, and to move about the world in a kind of freer way, as modeled by Ethan Winborn. And what I loved about that whole relationship is that it departs from the conventional therapy. So tell me about your childhood kind of thing. That's right. Just listens to her and help. And Malaya doesn't come clean about a lot of things.  That's how I help them understand my name. Lie, lie, lie. Exactly, exactly. Yet she's able to guide her into, you know, finding herself and exploring her wild side. It's a lovely part of the novel really rich, I think. Thank you.  This is another thing like diet culture, right? It's that it's really only in the last several years that we've been able to have sort of full, you know, widespread conversations, public conversations about mental health. And yet they have been there in queer literature and feminist literature, and in black women's literature, specifically, I'm thinking about Tony K. Bambara's The Salt Eaters, right? There are, you know, there are these moments where we have important, you know, conversations and important scenes related to mental health. And I really wanted to make sure that that was part of Malaya's story and centered in Malaya's story that sometimes the relationships that we need to sustain us don't come from family. Sometimes they're not organically there. Sometimes we have to seek them out in the form of people who are trained, you know, and who sort of made it their life's work to give us that kind of care. And this is this is the case from Malaya. And she departs from the conventional paradigm of terms of talk therapy. Absolutely. That's right. It's a it's a kind of a listen therapy in a way, right? She, you know, she lets Malaya talk. And your point also, I think, is really important, you know, one of the things that is important about that relationship is she lets Malaya talk without trying to change her, right? She's one of the few adults in Malaya's life that really has no investment in changing her. She wants to help Malaya see some of the things that Malaya might want to change in her own life, right? And I think that's in some ways that's hopefully what a good therapist does. But that sort of hands off approach giving Malaya space, the ability to take up space, even in that small space of her office. This then has these effects where there's an outward ripple where then Malaya is, you know, better, she's more willing and better prepared to take up space elsewhere in her life. I know, and the progress is really subtle. And, you know, as she begins to find her voice, oh, I can make a joke. Oh, it was really, really well. Good. Thank you. I'm glad to hear that. Let's talk about community in the novel and also your personal community. As we mentioned before, we started taping your acknowledgement list is voluminous. And so I'd like to talk about Malaya's community and the function of community and then I'll go on to you as a writer. Well, thank you for that. Yes. So I mean, you know, as we kind of touched on community is really important, not only to Malaya, but also to her parents, right? Her parents have both grown up in black communities, you know, the mother in Philadelphia, the father there in Harlem and community, they are aware that community has sort of shaped them and molded them and helped them be who they are and get as far as they have, especially in terms of again, class mobility, they both are the first in their families to graduate from college, right? They have these sort of high power professional jobs that don't quite pay enough still, right? So there's still this element of struggle. Community has been the buffer in some ways against some of the kind of, you know, oppressive external forces in the world. So they really want that from Malaya. And yet, for a few reasons, right, because of everything that's happening with crack in Harlem in the 80s when they get there. And then also because of kind of ostracization within their families, right, both of them, Percy and Naila, both of them are sort of criticized for Malaya's weight. And so there are these sort of barriers to accessing the kind of community that they want for her. And in some ways, the family then sort of becomes a little bit insular, a little bit isolated, right? And the, the, the kind of tensions between the parents start to really sort of build Malaya feels that it's her fault, right? So they, you know, this, this family of people who really wants nothing more than connection and community end up kind of being these sort of isolated satellites, right? Sort of in the same space, but not necessarily connected until Malaya sort of graduates from elementary school and moves to high school, right? And then suddenly there's this community of black and brown kids from the outer boroughs that sort of come in. And this, they have this sort of amazing, amazing kind of vibrancy to her life that she's so excited about that really sort of gives her a taste of what community might feel like if it were sort of on her terms, you know what I mean? It's not a hundred percent. But you know, there are these moments of feeling like true acceptance and just joy and fun and hip hop is a big part of that, right? That like they bond around hip hop in some ways, hip hop, you know, is a kind of it facilitates community, you know, with these kids who, you know, they come from different different parts of the city. They may not have a ton in common except they're in this white space and they've got this music that sort of keeps them together. So that's a big part of sort of how Malaya sort of cobbles together or collages, right? If you will, a community together for herself. In terms of my community, I mean, I've been fortunate that like I haven't had to work quite so hard, right? I've been very, very fortunate to just have really phenomenal people in my life at various stages. So my acknowledgments, I think they reflect that I did my best to really sort of dig deep and go way back to the kind of earliest influences, the folks who, you know, from a very from the time I was Malaya's age, honestly, have been that community have supported me, you know, as a person, but especially as a writer and an artist. So that includes early teachers. I think probably the earliest teachers, my elementary school art teacher, who I guess I probably started taking classes with. I was it was maybe the first grade, you know, might even have been kindergarten and Rosenthal was her name.  I went to Hunter College Elementary School and High School in the city. Several teachers there were just, you know, so encouraging and nurturing, but especially just, you know, really kind of gave me tools for seeing myself as an artist at a very young age, which I think is pretty rare. We don't always get that, you know, and then I just really kind of built out from there.  So I've been really fortunate to kind of have a pretty robust community stick with me for many, many years, you know, and I think also because I've been working on this book for quite a while, it's nice to have something nice to sort of celebrate and share with your community, which is why, you know, I love doing all these events. I feel like I get to sort of really, you know, folks who have been, who've been part of the process of writing this book. Now we all get to sort of see it out in the world. And that's just been really beautiful to me. It has been a long fall, though you started. The idea became when you were a little kid. You just, you know, and it became a version of it, became your MFA thesis. That's right.  Yeah, it really has. I mean, in some ways, you know, it's followed me. I think I've also followed it, right? Like, you know, I've had to really kind of carve out space and time for this book because it's just it's the it's the one. It's the book that helped me to know I wanted to be a writer, you know, this idea. And I just knew I wasn't going to let it go, even though there were moments for sure where I thought, oh, maybe this is never going to happen, you know, but it was an important story to me. Again, it's one of those things where I just, you know, I knew that I really needed to read this book. And I just, you know, I knew that if I really need a book like this, then I can't possibly be the only one. Where do the short stories fit in? So, well, as you probably know, right? One of the short stories actually is, you know, sort of carved from the first chapter of this novel. And it's so funny, often people ask me, oh, what was it like to turn a short story into a novel, but it was actually the opposite, right? This novel, I've been working on this novel long before I thought about a collection of short stories. And I sort of carved that story out of the first chapter of the novel. So which is to say, you know, the stories, part of it is that, you know, working on a master's in creative writing, the short story is a common sort of part of the workshop experience, right? You know, it's easier from a pedagogical standpoint or from a teacher standpoint, it's easier to have students write short things, several short things across a semester than, like, take a semester and write a novel. So I ended up having a lot of story drafts from my master's experience. And I knew I kind of wanted to develop them and try and publish them. In fact, I started publishing while I was working on my master's, publishing those short stories while I was working on the master's. Then when I started my PhD, naively, I sort of thought, oh, well, I'll just, you know, write this novel real quick and then I'll be off to the races and all, you know, all the things that are happening now, right?  And it turns out that that wasn't the case. And so the PhD was a lot more demanding than I thought. But writing the short stories allowed me to kind of stay alive as a writer, you know, and that's your point about community. It allowed me to kind of stay within a community of writers, right? Because I was able to publish to, you know, to, to draft, to revise, to send work out to my writing community and get feedback and all of that while I was working on this PhD in English literature, which at the time felt like a whole different intellectual world, though it shouldn't happen, my opinion. But, you know, the way the kind of structures of academia existed then. And I think often still exists now, right?   And for me, I really felt like I was sort of straddling these two worlds. I often say the only thing I've ever really been closeted about was the fact that I was a creative writer in this English PhD program, right? That like, you know, but the short stories helped me to kind of keep that part of myself alive and keep that part of myself growing. And sorry, DC Sirens. I don't know if you can hear but help me to keep myself, you know, alive and that part of myself alive and keep myself growing.  And so my agent was sort of like, well, you know, have you ever thought about putting these together as a collection? And I kind of had it. But I did, you know, and and it really I'm so glad I did because it really helped me to again, sort of keep that that sense of myself as a creative writer, you know, front and center as I move forward into my academic career. Did you get the agent from the MFA program? No, actually, I met my agent at Breadloaf, which is a writer's conference, right? That happens every year in Vermont. Yeah. So I met my agent at Breadloaf while I was sort of in the midst of drafting or finishing, I think, the draft of the novel. And we had some great conversations about the novel, but she didn't, you know, she was sort of like, OK, while you're finishing this up, what about a collection of short stories? And so, you know, it gave me the idea to kind of put one together, which was, again, a really kind of cool process. I think Audrey Lord might have said it's easier to write short stories and just in terms of time management. Oh, that's interesting. I mean, I think it's true. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they're a finite, right? And, you know, if you're if you're in a graduate program or if you're working a full time job, right, you know, it's it's easier to carve out a weekend, right, to kind of just immerse yourself in this fictional world than it is to carve out, you know, three or four months at a time to really kind of work through a novel draft. So so yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Well, the novel was written almost in fits and starts, would you say? Yeah, yeah, for that reason. Yeah, for that reason. I mean, but, you know, it's funny. It depends on how we define writing, right? I mean, if writing is sort of like pen to paper or, you know, fingertip to keyboard, then yes, I would say that happened in fits and starts. But in terms of the conceptualization and the dreaming and the thinking and the kind of rethinking that was really going on continuously. And so when you had some time to work on it, you sat down and started writing. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And in some ways, like, you know, when I was doing the PhD, it was sort of like a treat, you know, sort of like at the end of each semester, you usually get a little break and, you know, some of my friends would be like, OK, now we're going to Cancun or we're going or I'm going home to my mom's or whatever, right?  And I that's pretty much how I wrote the first kind of major revision was in that way over several years, just carving out a week here, a weekend there. Sometimes over the summer, I would get a month or two. Residencies also were really helpful because there's residences. Your time sort of looks different and feels different. It might be the same two weeks, but when you're just sort of in a cabin in the woods somewhere and someone is, you know, very helpfully preparing your meals and you don't have to worry about those things, you get it feels like even more time. And so that was really helpful for me in this process as well. I've heard that that's one of the values of MFA. Is that let you take some time? I agree. I agree time and also I think deadlines. And so I have, you know, when students, a lot of students sort of come to me asking whether they should pursue grad school at all. And if so, should they do an MFA or a PhD?  Or, you know, you have to think about that, right?  And also, are there other ways for you to create community and deadlines for yourself? Because in some ways, I think that's what a lot of these programs offer. If you can find a way to do that, then, you know, it opens up a whole lot of other possibilities, I think. Just doing a PhD, from my experience, as you say, is a huge awakening. Truly. I'll get my PhD and then 10 years later, I finish my district. Right, right. Exactly. It's another sort of alternate times, right? What is a year really? The things that you felt were possible in a year suddenly are taking four or five years, you know? Exactly. Yeah, it's a lot. But in terms of the novel, you see and working on it, you changed your idea of point of view during the process of writing that. Yeah. Can you talk a little about that? Sure. So, yeah, the very first draft, it switched point of view. It was all third person, but it would switch from Na'ilah from Malaya's point of view to Na'ilah's point of view to Percy, the father to Shanice, who's the best friend and love interest. And that was important to me because I really knew, I knew that I wanted to tell a story of Malaya's body that she herself couldn't fully tell, right? Especially when she was much younger. I knew that I needed to sort of include perspectives on her body that she didn't have and that she didn't understand. And in some ways, it was important that she not understand these perspectives on her body because some of them were off and were damaging to her, right? And so I needed her to sort of be the kind of emotional and intellectual center while also bringing in some of these other perspectives just to kind of show a fuller picture of the world that she's living in, right? How exactly does her mother feel about her body? How exactly does her father feel about her dieting? How exactly does Shanice feel about her attraction to Malaya but also this sort of weird competition that exists between the two of them? So that was my thought with that first structure. And after kind of a few passes with that structure, my agent just sort of said, well, you know, what if you just try it from Malaya's point of view?  You know, like, why do I have to do this? But you can't stop thinking about it, right? And you start to sort of answer that question. Well, here's maybe one reason why I might think about doing this. And maybe there's another reason why this might not be such a bad idea. Maybe this is a reason why this could actually help over here. And so as that, you know, sort of negotiating my feelings about that suggestion, I thought, OK, I might as well just try it. And what I've learned in that experience is that I can tell Malaya's story from Malaya's point of view while also bringing in the evidence of these other points of view, right? Even if I'm not sort of offering the reader direct access to these other perspectives, evidence of how Percy feels about the fact that his daughter is dieting in this way. Evidence of Nayula's sort of internal shame around her own body and how that impacts Malaya and her relationship with Malaya, right? That there are ways to sort of bring those in. And in some ways, I mean, I think in addition to sort of just depicting these characters in scene interacting with one another, another strategy that I used was, you know, kind of slipping a little bit out of Malaya's perspective into a kind of slightly omniscient mode. So, you know, for like literature nerds right out there, I mean, probably will notice there are some moments where like, well, that isn't exactly Malaya's perspective. There's there's a little bit of a kind of narrative intrusion or interruption that doesn't kind of disrupt the story, but provide some of that context that Malaya doesn't quite have for herself yet, especially early in the book. And so that for me was the way to kind of make the point of view work in a way that felt right to me. It really there are strong similarities to the bluest eye in terms of childhood coming of age kind of thing.  Malaya makes it through. Yeah.  So thank you so much for that.  And in fact, you know, we were talking about sort of the moment when I realized I wanted to be a writer. It was reading the bluest eye. I was it was, you know, a year in the fifth grade. I read the bluest eye. I read and is that he shone gaze for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enough. And I read Jamaica concave Lucy. And all of these are books about the experiences of black girls and their bodies. And yet they're all written for adult audiences, right? But as this 11 year old, I'm like, wait a minute, like, this is something that I could do, right? Writing about black girlhood is something that I could do that black girlhood is meaningful enough to kind of rise to the level of literary importance. And the the practice of committing those stories to paper is something I could do with my life. And it was truly just a mind blowing moment. So the bluest eye has always been really important to me. And I appreciate what you're saying that what's interesting is that as an adult when I revisit the bluest eye and especially teaching the bluest eye now, right? I feel very much aware of the kind of the the ever presence of pain, of trauma and of sadness, right? Throughout that novel. And especially at the end. But what was interesting about encountering that novel as a young girl, you know, sort of not far from the age of the protagonists, right? Pakola and Frida and her sister, Claudia, you know, I did see moments of joy, right? Because I saw these three girls playing. I saw these three girls, you know, these two girls sticking up for their friend, right? Who's experiencing all of this pain and being, you know, sort of really vilified and scapegoated in lots of ways by the world around her, right? And so I think that really shaped my sense that like trauma and healing in some ways they occupy the same space. They begin in the same place, you know, and I think kids sort of get that they have to in this way that I think is really powerful. And so, you know, in some ways I try to bring that same sensibility to Malaya's character, right? They're like even in the Weight Watcher scene, for example, when she absolutely sort of internalizing a kind of a history of trauma and body shame in this Weight Watcher scene. And yet she's like, I refuse. I'm going to take joy in imagining French fries and look at the colors of the fries. And these women are ridiculous and I'm committed to my fries and this is fun, right? Like I can create spaces for fun, which ends up meaning create spaces for survival. And I think this is what we see in novels like The Bluest Eye and hopefully in novels like Big Girl, right? That this is what we do. This is what we have to do to kind of move forward and survive. Are there any last words that you want to share with the audience? Buy a copy of Big Girl. I'll go back now. The people that I'm excited about because first of all, I like this, I just love this cover. It feels so kind of sweeping and cinematic to me. But also it has a reading group guide. And so, in fact, you mentioned that you were thinking of bringing it to your reading group. You know, I highly encourage folks to pick it up. The reading group guide, I think is really exciting and kind of brings up some really interesting questions and topics for conversation. I also love talking to reading groups. So for anyone who does choose to kind of bring Big Girl to their reading group, please hit me up. I am pretty easy to find on Instagram or my website. And yeah, get in touch and we'll see if we can connect around the book and also events. If you know, depending on when you're seeing this, you know, I'm doing a paperback tour and I will be kind of in a number of cities across the country. So if I'm coming to your city, I hope to see you. Please introduce yourself and say hi, say that we met on all things LGBTQ. Mecca, thank you. Thank you for the little plug for the show, too. This has been lovely and good luck with the book tour. And I hope you're able to join us again to tell us how it lands and what you let me ask you now. You're going to finish the book tour. What are you working on next? So it's early stages, but I'm working on another project, two two projects that are connected. But you know, what I'm what I feel like I can sort of share about these projects right now is that they are queer. They are fun. They are very sort of different. It's a kind of fresh mode for me. And I'm super excited about them. I'm having a good time at this point. Wonderful. Well, we would love to have you want to talk about it in greater detail, both when they're finished and before if you'd like. Let's do it sounds good. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. It was great. Yeah, take care. Thank you for joining us. And until next time, remember, resist.