This program is intended for informational purposes only and does not contain medical advice.

As always, please contact your physician or qualified health care provider with any questions regarding a medical condition. Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I have to think exactly how you think I was failing a lot and I was failing in front of like my peers and people I respected.

The person you know now might not be the person you know in five years.

I'm a dangerous gay to them because I don't like, I don't do gay in the way that they think you should do it, you know.

You might enter some level in your partnership where, like, you can't give your partner everything they need.

What's up, everybody?

Welcome to another episode of Hot and Bothered with Melissa Ford.

I am in the Spotify studios in downtown Manhattan.

And I'm sitting with a guest that it took a labor of love to get our teams to finally coordinate.

Emmy nominated writer, executive producer, actress, and most notably stand-up comedian, Sam Jay.

What up, y'all?

Thank you so much for finally joining me on the show. Yes, absolutely. All right. So let's just get right into it. Self-awareness is a very long, arduous journey. And not all of us are... A lot of people do not want to do it. Yeah, they don't want to do it. They're not prepared. They're like, fuck that. But you know, it's crazy right now. Everybody thinks they're doing it, but they're not really doing it. And they're like, because they just like read an Instagram, like little quotables and stuff. And they like learn all the buzzwords, but they don't do the, like, the actual stuff. And those are like the most dangerous people because you can't tell them that they're not

healed and they're like insane what's your self-awareness journey been like man because I can tell

you all about mine and that should have been fucking hard but I'm always interested to find out

what what was the catalyst for change when it comes to you know know, just wanting to know yourself a whole lot better?

Well, like, really it was like just a lot of tragedies in my life, right?

That's what it usually is.

Yeah, like my mom died when I was 16, right?

My dad died when I was a baby.

And so then after my mom died, I was like living with my family and, just being, like, moved house to house and, like, going through a lot of, like, really fucked up shit with my family. It kind of felt like my mom was, like, the shield between me and them and the bullshit. And when she was gone, it was like, I don't know if I even really know these people, you know, like, they're treating me crazy. Like, I'm just, wow, shit is going on. And she was like the glue. The glue. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, I'm living with my aunt and I'm getting thrown out for no reason and kind of treated like shit over there. And then I go to my grandmas. And it's like, we can't get along. And I'm getting thrown out. I'm now becoming like the problem child of my family which like no one wants to deal with me.

You know what I mean and I'm just kind of like bro I'm just trying to you know figure myself out and I don't get why you guys are acting this way and then I had a really tough relationship with my brother after that and we went through a lot of stuff and we just weren't getting along and I was kind of completely ostracized from my family, and I grew up in a family that was very close, and we were always together, and we were always doing things together. And so, in, like, that isolation and kind of not dealing with them, and I was, like, drinking and getting blackout and just, just like bugging the fuck out, you know?

And I don't know.

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