It's Depression Mode. I'm John Moe. I'm glad you're here. And I think I know why you're here,

at least in part. It's because we talk about mental health in a pretty blunt and honest way,

in a friendly and approachable way, too,

I hope.

But in a way that breaks through the walls around the topic of mental health, it's not something

people talk about much.

I made this show because I think mental health needs to be talked about a lot more,

so we could save more lives. I think more open,

honest conversations about this stuff can mean fewer people having to live in agony and more

people getting to live. That being said, the topic of mental health, let's be real, it's hard and scary. That's why I got

in touch with Anna Sale. She's the host of Death, Sex, and Money, a podcast from WNYC that deals with

topics we are reluctant to talk about. Anna's also the author of a valuable new book. Let's Talk About Hard Things.

I asked Anna why some topics are so painful and awkward to talk about.

I mean, certainly there's a lot of, a lot of reasons things can be hard, but I think one of the fundamental things that we come up against when we consider, oh my gosh, am I going to bring up this conversation?

It's the first place we often go is to say, like, how do I bring this up in a way that's going to make

this thing less hard how do I like present this in a way that it's either already solved or it's

something that talking about is going to fix and if I can just find the right words that's going to make this

hard thing less hard, then this whole conversation will be less hard. And in fact, that's actually

when you make yourself do that labor, that just makes you keep confronting our own lack

of control around hard things, which is what makes hard things hard,

you know?

So is the idea, is what makes these conversations so scary in part because it's a risk for

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