1-on-1 with Rob: Solo, Honest, And Still Trying

Raw honesty can sound louder than any guest panel, and today it fills the room. I open up about running solo, why Liam’s juggling parent life, how Mike’s been stepping up behind the scenes, and the personal storm that’s been brewing—family hospital runs, money stress, and a friendship I wish I handled better. The heart of it, though, is a tour through social anxiety and depression without the gloss: misreading social cues, panic that hijacks a good opportunity, and the long, awkward road from “what’s wrong with me” to a clear diagnosis and a workable plan.

I walk through medication not as a magic fix but as a messy process that includes bad side effects, honest conversations with a doctor, and incremental wins that barely look like wins. Think midnight mail runs that feel like heists, exposure that shows up as a weekly ritual, and experiments that redirect energy away from replaying the past. We dig into the mental habit of worshiping “what if” and pivot toward “what next,” using simple tools: pick one guitar string, take the smallest hike, sit at a park chess table with a stranger, or try a class that lets you fail safely. Anxiety management, mental health resilience, and self‑compassion aren’t big speeches—they’re repeatable moves.

I also stack the ledger fairly: the awards, the skills, the trust of people who chose me for safety on hard trails. Those moments count, especially when shame tries to erase them. If you’re navigating social anxiety, depression, or just a season where everything feels heavy, consider this your nudge to run a tiny experiment and see if tomorrow shifts by five percent. Tap play, share this with someone who needs a steady voice, and tell me: should we officially make Mike a co‑host? Subscribe, leave a review, and drop your “what next” in the comments—we’ll read them.

Transcript

Co‑Hosts, Seasons, And Life Updates

Family Health And Financial Strain

Growing Up Undiagnosed And Anxious

Diagnosis, Medication, And Trial‑And‑Error

Social Misreads, Bullying, And Boundaries

Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, And Hope

Stop Worshiping The Past

Change Through Small, New Attempts

Skills, Wins, And Remembering Worth

Direct Your Energy Toward What’s Next

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome back to Inmoderation. It is just me today. I know it's going to be really weird. I'm not used to talking to myself. And not only that, I'm not usually the person talking. We all know that Liam is the uh real voice face of the podcast. I'm uh just kind of there in the background to add here and there. Kind of like the uh the Robin to his Howard Shore. Howard Stern. Howard Stern, not Howard Shore. I don't know my famous people. Um but yeah, unfortunately, Liam is extremely busy being a parent right now. Uh Oakley does not want to sleep for him. And then we also have Mike, of course, who has started consistently being on. You know, when when Mike started coming on, we should have just called that season two. Is it too late to go do that? Is it too late to go back and be like, hey, this is actually season two? Um what do you guys think? Should we officially make Mike a co-host? Should we make it official? I want to hear from you guys, the listeners, the viewers, um, how have you been enjoying Mike being on? I will say, from my perspective, um with how things have been the last couple weeks for me, uh, it's been nice having him being an extra voice in the podcast because I haven't had too much to say, as well as um he's also been helping me off-screen. Usually it or traditionally it's been me doing everything off-screen, editing everything, booking guests. Um, and Mike has uh started helping with the booking of guests, which has taken a lot of the uh load off me. But uh Mike also just uh finished moving to his new place. Um so hopefully he's getting settled in there. But yeah, it's been uh it's been a really rough, I don't even know how long for me at this point. Um just the financial troubles here and my dad constantly in and out of the hospital, and at some points it's been scary. Some points it's been not as scary. Christmas time was we were honestly we were going into Christmas, unsure if we he'd make it to New Year's. And then on top of that, uh my grand broke her back over Christmas, and and then I also fucked things up with a really good friend, and I've been feeling shit about that. But that's uh I I think a lot of people are going through a hard time, right? We've all been there. I've unfortunately it's been a struggle all my life. You know, back in the back in the day, I was just um different. The autism wasn't uh widely diagnosed at that point. Um, I was just a different kid, particularly a shy kid, because um I have social anxiety disorder. And so I had this fear of people. And of course, we didn't know that. And so it it was just written off as he's shy. And sometimes my parents would struggle to get me to go to group events, but what it came down to was I had to act like the other children, um, regardless of my feelings. And I don't regrudge them for that. Um, in the process of all that, I also learned a lot of skills. I am very skilled at stuff. Um but it wasn't until um I was 26, I believe, that I was finally diagnosed. So I went through all my teenage years just not understanding what was wrong with me and why I was so different. And it was shortly after my mother had died. I'd also just I had finally moved into my own apartment. Um most of my teenage, early 20s, I was terrified of leaving my room. And I finally worked up to the point where I was able to move out into my own place. However, I was now scared of leaving that place. I was completely terrified to go down the hall and get my mail. I uh what I would do is I would wait until midnight, once a week. I would only do it once a week. And I'd wait until midnight, and I'd stand by my door. And if I heard even the slightest of scuffle out there, I would say, nope, not today, I'll try again tomorrow. But if I didn't hear anything, I would quickly open my door, rush down the hall, get my mail, and get back in my door and shut it. And then, yeah, after my mom died, I was looking for a job, and my sister called because she knew of a easy labor job, which I was fine with. I'm fine with manual labor. I've done it several times. Um easy labor job that was just down the road, not too far, that um she had some pull-in because she was like doing she was with um a financial company and they were like using her financial company and stuff, something like that. I don't know. Um would have been easy end for me, right? And I my anxiety just skyrocketed and I flipped out. I flipped right out. I threw my phone, I assume I hung up at some point, I don't even remember, and I just kind of crawled up into a ball in the middle of the hallway for a bit. And when my anxiety came down, I I took a look at myself and I said, Why did I do that? That was a perfectly good job. It was, you know, something I could easily do. Uh, it was my sister that was talking to me. Why did I freak out? And that's when I started to question things and look into things and look through the internet, like, why would somebody freak out about this? Blah, blah, blah. And eventually I took it to my doctor and I said, I think I have some sort of anxiety problem. And from there, we got it diagnosed officially social anxiety disorder. And that is when I started trying medications. Um, it took a bit to find the right ones. Uh, I really want to emphasize that for people. The first pills you try are never necessarily the right ones. There's multiple pills for different things. And yes, it sometimes you can get bad effects. I can't believe I'm gonna admit this on air, but um, one of the first pills I tried uh gave me what was basically described as shrapnel diarrhea. Um gave me a good anal fissure, and I'm very susceptible to hemorrhoids now. It that kind of sucks. Um but I went to my doctor, I told him that was happening. We got off that one, we started trying other ones. Eventually, I found one that works for me, and now I've been able to progress easier, both with the help of the medication and with the knowledge of well, what is wrong with me, just knowing. And then when you something happens, you're like, I know why this happened now. Doesn't necessarily feel good sometimes, and uh yeah, social doesn't necessarily feel good sometimes. Having social anxiety disorder, um, especially undiagnosed for a while. I am really bad at reading people, reading social situations. Um, there was literally literally a time, I'd say about a decade ago now, maybe a little bit more, uh, a friend and I were apparently arguing. I did not know we were arguing. I did not read the situation at all. I I wasn't able to. Um, I was simply just stating matter-of-factly this, matter-of-factly that. And meanwhile, uh he was apparently getting angrier and angrier to the point where finally he just stormed off and left the apartment. And I was left standing there, like, what just happened? I don't understand. And we're still friends. He he knows that um, like I hadn't meant to do that. Um, but it makes for interesting and sometimes unfortunate situations. And uh fuck Jeff. Um, while we're talking about that kind of stuff, fuck Jeff. So uh in uh what was it, grade eight, grade nine? Um I've this fr had this friend, I use quotations around that. He lived two doors down from me. And uh I shouldn't say grade eight, but he was he was there the entire time, all the way up to about grade nine. And like early days, uh I'd go over to his house to play, we'd play Super Nintendo, but he would do stuff like if his brother showed up, his younger brother, um, he would be he would make me give the controller to his brother, and I'd have to sit and watch. There was one year, I don't remember which birthday party it was, he stole my birthday party. He convinced everybody to go over to his house instead. There in in grade, grade eight or nine, somewhere around there, I got kicked off the bus. Well, no, I didn't get kicked off the bus. I got in trouble on the bus, and they moved me to, you know, the troublemaker spot at the front with all the little kids. Um, and it was because I was being bullied and I defended myself, stood up for myself, and of course I got in trouble, right? And so after that, I was not comfortable going on the bus. Not only was I humiliated having to sit at the front, but I got penalized for standing up for myself. And it just so happened that Jeff's mother worked at the school. And so they would always just go with her. Well, that's two doors down. I started getting rides with her, but there were days where Jeff would be like, uh, no, there's no room for you. No, you can't ride with us today. My mother would, of course, call his mother, and his mother would be like, Oh yeah, there's plenty of room. Rob can come along. We'd love it. His mother was a saint, is a saint. I don't know if she's still with us. Jeff, on the other hand, fuck you. That feels good to get out. The point being that there's been a lot of bad social situations that I've had to go through that I didn't necessarily always understand. And the the reason I'm actually friends with uh like all my exes, well, most of my exes, um, is because since I suck at all that all that stuff, I really value communication. And so whenever something happened, it would be let's talk about it. Just so you know, I have absolutely no idea where I'm going with this. I'm just chatting because I'm the one that showed up. Um But with all the all of that, there's of course dealing with depression and everything. That's always been always been a presence in my life. Um and there's been a lot of times that it's gotten really bad. And yes, I'm when when I say it's gotten really bad, I'm talking considering suicide. And it's there's times where it's something that's constantly on my mind, honestly. And it can be hard to live with that. It really can be. And I know there's others that are like that too. And we have all these things in our past that happened to us that we didn't do the right thing, that we weren't in the right place, and we feel like failures. And we feel like all we do is fuck things up. And why would it matter if we were gone, if all we do is fuck things up? There's um, you know, a lot of the advice is talk to people. Sometimes talking is not enough, but sometimes, sometimes there's things we do need to hear. The other day I was um reading this uh little thing I liked. We spend immense amounts of energy and effort thinking about our past and these little changes that we could have done, that we could have made, that we can't make, and they will have no absolutely no effect on our life going forward. But we spend no effort thinking about the things we can do now that will have immense effect on our future. And a lot of time when we're depressed, that's what happens is we're looking at all the bad stuff that happened and wishing it had been different and wishing things could change instead of trying to focus on the future. And another problem is we might carry that past and assume the future. We might be like, okay, all this stuff happened in the past. It's just going to keep happening. It's going to keep happening unless you try to do something to change it. People ask, um, how I overcame my social anxiety disorder. I haven't, by the way. I I it's still there. I'm still, I still struggle around people. There's no offense to anybody, whoever meets me. Um, and no, if you meet me, I don't mind you coming up and talking to me, but you know, I probably won't be very talkative just because I'll be, you know, anxious. Don't feel bad about that. There's there's very few people that I will sit down with and just instantly feel comfortable with them. And those people are magical people. And that's one of the ones I lost, which is why it sucks so much. I distracted myself with that. Where was I going? Um, great. This is why this is why I should have notes while I'm doing my so uh solo thing. I I don't have a co-host to tell me where I was in the middle of, oh, I don't know. I I went off on a tangent there. I was talking about fucking things up. Um, and that we um tend to take the past and assume the future of it if we don't change things. And right, I was saying that's that's the answer to how I came over, got over my social anxiety disorder, third order. That's that's where it was. It's I haven't. It's still there. I just keep trying to change things. I just keep trying. I keep putting that foot forward outside the comfort zone. I keep opening that door and scurrying down and getting my mail, even though I'd rather just let it pile up. And sometimes you fail. Sometimes you fail at it, and sometimes that failure really fucking hurts. Awkward pause because it couldn't hurt a lot. But if you assume that that's all that's ever going to happen to you, then you're not chant you're not allowing for change. We've had a couple people on that have talked about feeling your letting yourself feel your feelings, which is important because when that when the stuff happens that hurts and stuff, you don't want to bottle that up. You want to be able to cry about it. You want to be able to hopefully have somebody in your life to talk to about it. That's nice. You want to experience it, but you don't want to let it consume you. Don't hold on to it. Let it flow out of you, and that will let you start to heal. And then you can start to try to make some changes again. And I can't promise that any given change you make is going to be the right one. Like I said, I have made so many wrong tr attempts. I have been hurt a lot. I've gone through a lot of stuff. But you know what wouldn't happen if I gave up? You know what wouldn't happen if I killed myself one of the many times I've thought about it. I wouldn't have a chance to get it right. And I'd rather have a chance to get it right. Once those mistakes are in the past, they're in the past. We need to stop thinking about them. We not need to stop dedicating our time to thinking about them. Let them flow out of you, release them, release yourself from any responsibility you feel for them, and try something else. And I know some of you are sitting there thinking, I've tried everything. Well, have you tried joining an improv group and peeing on somebody? It's improv. They gotta go with it. Maybe everybody will start peeing on everybody. Who knows? Maybe you'll go to jail. Who knows? It's different. It's stupid, right? That was something stupid I just said. But have you tried it? And that's not to say everything has to be stupid, but sometimes we need to think outside the box. Sometimes we think change needs to be this specific thing that we keep trying to do over and over again when maybe it's something else we should be changing. Something that we're not even thinking of. Have you ever gone to one of those parks with chess boards and just sat down with the old guy there and had a game? I haven't. Maybe I should try to do that before, you know, I do anything drastic. Have you ever? Well, some a lot of you have have learned musical instruments. There's a lot of you that want to learn one and you haven't yet. Maybe you should. Maybe picking up a musical instrument will lead you to who knows what. I mean, I I personally picked up a musical instrument, and it's g it's something that lets me, helps me release those bad feelings. I can sit here with the guitar and pick away at it, and I can feel the anxiety come down, and I can feel the sadness flow out of me. And that's because I tried something new. I was like, I want to learn guitar. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I picked it up and I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to do some fancy thing that you see online. Don't fuck, don't try to do that. You didn't learn to walk the first day you stood up. You didn't learn to stand up the first day you stood up. It's the same thing with guitar. I had to pick one string at a time until I learned to pick two strings at a time, until I learned to move my finger from one fret to another, and then I learned to do two frets at a time. It's steps. We take steps. That's how you learn to read, that's how you learn to write, that's how you learn to do carpentry if you do carpentry. Hey, there's something. If you'd never done carpentry, do carpentry. Try some carpentry. I love carpentry. Don't recommend plumbing. Plumbing is a pain in the ass. You ever want to hear me swear a lot? Make me do some plumbing. I swear, literally. I know, like me, there's a lot of people out there struggling right now. We just have to keep trying, making a change here or there, trying something new, trying something silly, trying something out of the box. And we need to stop putting so much emphasis on the past. Instead, focus on the thing you want to change. Even if it's as silly as going to an improv group and peeing on people, which I mean, I disclaimer, you will probably get arrested, but you never know. Maybe they'll maybe they're into that. Or if it's as lovely as learning an instrument, again, it's gonna take time. I have to I there's so many people out there I know that want to learn an instrument and they pick it up thinking that they should be able to play something. You're not. You are not going to be able to play anything. It takes time and practice. And it needs you to put that your effort into that change. Stop stop giving the past your effort. Put your effort into that change. I know it's hard. There's a lot of things I wish were different. A lot of things I'd want to do over again. And they can weigh so heavy on. The mind so heavy that they can drown out the other things. I won many scholarship accolades stuff, school award things. I don't fricking care what you call them. I never really cared about them. I won them. I've won sports awards and multiple sports. I have so many different skills. I can I can build a house, plumb that house, put the electrical into that house, and then build a computer for well to run that house. I've hiked many mountains, seen many majestic views. I have been to the fucking Amazon rainforest and lived there. When the when the whole would you pick the man or the bear thing came around? I laughed because I literally have multiple women that literally pick me over the bear. Literally. I am talking, they have trusted me with their life hiking alone with me. Specifically when they want to hike, they specifically choose me. There's um a close friend, Kelsey. She started doing group hikes. And of course, group hikes have strangers. And she asked me to be there to feel safe. And that is something I am immensely fucking proud of. But all of that seems to wash away as soon as you think about the bad stuff. All of that seems to go away when you start to think you're worthless and that you're just a fuck up. And that's what happens when we focus on those things in the past, those wishes that we could change, leave them in the past. Stop giving them the time of day. That's my advice to you. Keep moving forward. Put effort into what you want to change. All that effort that was directed to the what ifs, put it into that guitar, put it into that improv class, put it into that carpentry clasp. Put it into hiking. Put it into going to the park and playing chess with random grandpas. I don't care. That's where your energy should be directed. And also, don't be your worst.