Brian Can't Stop Fact-checking His Mother-In-Law
Proxy with Yowei Shaw
Yowei Shaw
4.8 • 589 Ratings
🗓️ 17 June 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The case of the reporter who can't stop fact-checking his mother-in-law.
Brian’s mother-in-law has Alzheimer’s and lives with his family. He loves her. He knows she can’t help misremembering things. And still, when she says something that isn’t true, he corrects her.
In this episode, Yowei connects Brian with Claudia Drossell, a psychologist who works with caregivers of people with dementia. Together, they investigate the emotional reality of caregiving: grief, resentment, shame, and how to accept his anger so he can protect the time his family has left.
From the episode:
— Brian Reed — host of the podcast Question Everything — on Instagram @brihreed, X @BriHReed
— Claudia Drossel — psychology p rofessor at Eastern Michigan University — caregiving resources mentioned in this episode
New to Proxy? Try Bisexual Wife Guy for a classic case, or.Jane Doesn't Like Her Dogs for another story about love, caregiving, and resentment.
For episode liner notes, show gossip, and dispatches from the emotions beat, get our free newsletter File Under Feelings at proxyhq.org.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you had to vocalize the sound of your emotional conundrum, what would it be? |
| 0:06.6 | Oh, I was just going to like scream a guttural scream. |
| 0:10.4 | That's at least what's coming to me. |
| 0:12.0 | Go for it. |
| 0:14.3 | That peaked levels here. Sorry. |
| 0:26.8 | Yeah. that peaked levels here. Sorry. This is Praxy. |
| 0:28.9 | I'm Yo-A. Shaw, your emotional investigative journalist. |
| 0:32.9 | Today, the case of the reporter who can't stop back-checking his mother-in-law, even though he knows she's losing her memory. |
| 0:41.2 | That's after the break. Ever wondered why some trends are just suddenly everywhere? |
| 1:04.3 | Newsflash, nothing gets popular by accident. |
| 1:07.9 | I'm Brittany Luce, and on the It's Been a Minute podcast, I take the things you and I are both |
| 1:12.5 | obsessing over and show you the invisible forces behind the scenes that make us love it or hate it. |
| 1:19.0 | Be smarter about what you're consuming. Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast today. Well, hello, Brian. Hi. When's the last time we were on the mic together? |
| 1:42.0 | I don't think we were ever on the mic together. I mean, we were around mics together. |
| 1:46.7 | This is Brian Reed, a man who hit podcasts fall out of. |
| 1:51.9 | You might have heard of his little show, Estown, or his other little show, The Trojan Horse Affair. |
| 1:58.0 | Brian now makes the podcast question everything, trying to make sense of what the heck is going on with journalism today. |
| 2:05.4 | I met Brian when we worked together on my first big story back in 2013, an entire hour of this American life. |
| 2:13.2 | It was this really high-stakes story about Eritrean refugees trying to get to Europe, |
| 2:20.1 | but were then taken hostage by smugglers, often tortured in all sorts of horrific ways, |
| 2:25.9 | and forced to ask their families for huge amounts of ransom. |
| 2:29.7 | I, as a reporter, felt way out of my depth. |
... |
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