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[0:00] Bobby Steggert: I'm Bobby Steggert, and this is The Quiet Part Out Loud.

[0:15] Bobby Steggert: We'd like to think that our personal identity is something that is solid and reliable, filled with objective truths—I'm a man, I'm a New Yorker, I'm a therapist—and relatively consistent attributes. I'm a good person. I'm curious. I like dogs, but I'm suspicious of cats. In truth, our identities are really nothing more than patterns and ideas that we cobble together into the shape of what we call me.

[0:46] Bobby Steggert: One of my favorite and most succinct descriptions of the main function of our psyches is that of reputation management. And it is this reputation through personal identity that we are hard at work maintaining to others, and just as importantly, to ourselves. Much of this is necessary to function in a social world—labels and constructs organize an otherwise chaotic existence. But there's a major catch here. When we feel it is too important to maintain the appearance of what we've decided is our appropriate identity, it can become very difficult to allow, let alone embrace, any experience that might contradict it, which becomes one of the most profound obstacles to better mental health. This is called cognitive dissonance.

[1:33] Bobby Steggert: I've mentioned on previous episodes that the idea of myself as a successful person for years kept me from truly acknowledging, even to parts of myself, the full extent of my struggles. A successful person is happy and privileged and shouldn't have anything to complain about. Now, this can be reinforced by the people around us who respond to the identities that we project and conspire to solidify them. We want to believe in our good press.

[1:59] Bobby Steggert: This week's guest is Patti Murin, an actress most notable as the star of Broadway's Frozen, and who, despite a practically glowing personality and upbeat optimism, has also navigated depression that many people might think directly contradicts these qualities. It was ideas about who she is and who other people have thought she was, whether it was a dramatic little girl who was boy crazy, or a musical theatre actress with big feelings, or simply a happy person who smiles through life, that kept her from addressing the deeper reality that she struggled with depression as well.

[2:37] Bobby Steggert: Our conversation also reinforces very important realities about depression that David Cromer also shared. There is simply no one-size-fits-all description of how it shows up. I have clients whose depression shows up as hopelessness, indifference, despair. Patti's presented itself in an entirely different way. Its center of gravity was connected to loss of romantic relationship and would manifest in what felt like a rollercoaster of overwhelming and confusing emotion. That, and anxiety, was an equally powerful force in the depression. When it might be much more hidden for someone who feels they're under the weight of something heavier.

[3:15] Bobby Steggert: What Patti emphasizes in how she's worked through it is that we must accept before we can change. It was the acknowledging, understanding, and embracing of the largeness of her experience into her identity, the idea of who she is, that set her on the path towards integration. Ultimately, it is the flexibility of identity, as opposed to the assurance of who we are, that allows us to grow.

[3:40] Bobby Steggert: Patti, you are, I swear to God, the very first person that anyone told me to call in terms of this podcast.

[3:52] Patti Murin: Oh, that means so much to me.

[3:55] Bobby Steggert: I did the first episode with Rory O'Malley, and he said, you need to ask Patti.

[3:59] Patti Murin: Oh, my heart.

[4:00] Bobby Steggert: So it was a year ago, but we're finally here.

[4:03] Patti Murin: Yeah, I'm so glad you asked me. Everything that you talk about is very important to me and something that I've really pledged to keep opening my mouth about as much as possible, just because it's important.

[4:14] Bobby Steggert: It is. And I really appreciate people like you who are willing to be transparent and vulnerable in a way that so many performers choose not to be. So it's a big deal.

[4:22] Patti Murin: Yeah, it's part of that whole real person thing. If you want people to look at you as a real person, you have to present yourself as a real person, because you are. I don't have the filter to be that sort of like elusive mystery actress or performer. I'm just like, nope, there it is. This is it.

[4:39] Bobby Steggert: I have to imagine that's part of your immense charm. And this is also a segue into my first question about mental health and depression for you, which is that I'm sure I'm not the first person to tell you this, but you sort of radiate joy and optimism and all of these beautifully vibrant colors in your personality. And I think it's really important for someone who is perceived as that, to also talk about the layers of their experience. And I'm wondering if that in general as a sort of contrast between how you're perceived and what you've experienced in life has ever been a challenge, a particular challenge to you?

[5:13] Patti Murin: Oh, yeah, I think so. Probably much more in my sort of younger years when I was figuring it all out, because I went on medication first and was diagnosed with depression in college, my junior year of college. And I was like, okay, and I, I don't know that I didn't take it super seriously, because then I decided to go off medication a few years later. So I feel like in that whole time period, when you hear people being like, oh, but you're so happy, and you're always so smiley and so energetic, you really take that to heart. And you think, well, okay, that's what they say I am. So I must be fine. I must be totally okay. And also, I think, as people in the entertainment industry and actors and performers and artists know, we are very often described as being dramatic.

And so it's very hard to draw the line between am I being dramatic? Or am I having some real chemical imbalances, real feelings here? So that I think also played a really big part in perhaps not allowing myself to really accept this diagnosis for myself until 2014, when I was like, this has to happen, I have to fix this.

[6:20] Patti Murin: So wanting to believe in the version that people saw and being afraid of being too much.

[6:26] Patti Murin: Yeah, yeah, yes, that's the thing. It's like, you don't want to ask for help, even though everyone offers help. And also at the time I was in college, just out of college, everyone is trying to just find themselves. And there's very few people you can turn to that have experience with this kind of thing, like actual life experience. And so as I've gotten older, I think that's why I have wanted to speak out so much because I want to be the person that people can come to, even if they just need to hear you are not alone. This is not just you. This is also me. This is half of the subway car that you're standing in right now is dealing with some version of this. Because when I was younger, I didn't have that we weren't talking about this. And so now I want to be the one to say a million times you are like me, I am like you. There are other people out there. You're not alone and you're not abnormal.

[7:11] Bobby Steggert: I love that. Yeah, we went to school around the same time. And the whole goal was to fit into this very strict shape of what we were supposed to be in terms of theater performers. And yet somehow still stand out, which is insane. That's just absurd to me. That's utterly absurd.

[7:29] Bobby Steggert: Well, what were the elements that were leading to the depression? What were the circumstances around your college experience, or maybe even before it made you realize you were struggling?

[7:34] Patti Murin: My college experience, it was because when I finally realized that I was really in more of a hole than I thought I was, it was all about a boy wasn't all about a boy. But there was a boy that I was heartbroken over. And I woke up and I was like, this reaction to that boy, there's imbalance there, because I should not be this upset over that boy.

[8:00] Bobby Steggert: What do you do to you?

[8:02] Patti Murin: Like, it was like, this is not he is not that great. And then it started all the pieces started coming together, I would either be awake at one o'clock in the morning, not sleeping and going to shop at Wegmans because I couldn't sleep or I would be sleeping the day away. That was a big one. For me, it shows up a lot of times in like laziness. It's like the lack of want to do anything, which of course, we characterize as laziness. But it is really I've realized that is how my depression shows up a lot. It's a lack of motivation. It's not being tired or whatever. And so a lot in college was a lot of that.

[8:36] Bobby Steggert: Were you perceiving it as laziness and then judging it as such?

[8:39] Patti Murin: At that point? No. Now, I've realized that that's how it manifests in me. And then looking back, I can be like, Oh, okay, that's why I thought I was just a college student. I thought I was just that's the other thing. Like you were saying, these little molds our entire lives. When I was little in elementary school, it's very clear now that I had some sort of anxiety happening or some sort of big feeling called big feelings now. And I have two daughters now and one of mine is four and a half. And I see so much of myself in her because she has big feelings. And I look and I'm like, okay, I can tell the difference between when she is really feeling things and totally just out of sorts emotionally.

And when she's actually just being dramatic, which every time she like hits her hand on something, she'll be like, I am really hurt. I'm really sick. And I'm like, Oh, you're acting that's acting. So it's been important to me to really tell the difference between those two, because it's, I think it's a massive problem with growing up with this is because you're a child, then you're a teenager with hormones, then you're majoring in musical theater in college. And of course, you've got lots of feeling. And so I don't think I was able to see what was the writing on the wall until it was really time for myself to take control of it. That's the other thing when you're under 18. It's not your decision. Ultimately, it's your guardian, your parents.

[10:00] Bobby Steggert: As a kid, were you seen as dramatic?

[10:05] Patti Murin: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I had big feelings. And it was always over boys. That's the thing. It was always over boys. And so I think that's another reason why I got put into Oh, she's boy crazy. That was the big one. Boy crazy, dramatic, social butterfly. Those were all my labels. Those were my label.

[10:20] Bobby Steggert: To go deeper. Why do you think the anxiety and the depression organized around boys? What do you think that was fundamentally about attention?

[10:27] Patti Murin: For sure. 1 million percent attention. It's kind of funny, because I look back at when I got involved in acting my very first show when I was like, I want to audition for that play. And it was sixth grade. And I am one of four, but I'm the third of three. And then 10 years later, there's the fourth. And when I decided that I wanted to audition for the sixth grade play, Cinderella was after my little brother was born. And I was like, there it is that tracks. So I always thank him for getting me into this. And yeah, I think it was absolutely a way an easy way of getting attention. But the keeping of the attention was always the problem because kids and hormones and kids are like frontal lobes and all that stuff like developing. But I think because I was so sensitive, and my well has always run very deep in terms of feelings, I think it just really affected me more than anybody else.

[11:26] Bobby Steggert: So loss of attention felt like a real loss to you?

[11:29] Patti Murin: I think so. I think so. Yeah. And then I would start going to look for attention elsewhere. Hence boy crazy. It wasn't like, there are very few boyfriends in my earlier life that I actually had feelings for.

[11:40] Bobby Steggert: They served a function for you, but they were not necessarily a match for you.

[11:46] Patti Murin: Oh, God, no. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I think I even knew it then, too. I really do. I really, truly think I knew it then. And then when I got to high school, I started dating a boy, my high school boyfriend, Rich, and he was wonderful. And looking back, I'm like, oh, he was my first solid relationship and love. And we were together for all of high school. But then going to college after that, all of a sudden, there is a whole new crop of things and people and boys. And I think it's cycled a bit. I've never really been someone that's been like, you know what, I'm going to be single for a while.

[12:18] Bobby Steggert: In college, when you experienced that major loss of a relationship and you realized you were depressed, was what was happening to you reflected to you by anyone that cared about you?

[12:29] Patti Murin: Yes. Roommates. Yeah. My roommate, Suzanne, still one of my very best friends. 100% was. She was the one. I believe she went with me to see the teacher in the drama department. I went to Syracuse University. She went with me to see her to be like, what is happening? And she was the one that was like, I think you might have depression. And we were like, oh, that's a new one. Yeah. So it was definitely seen from the outside. And because she this my friend, Suzanne, also knew, I think she might have been the first one to be like, Patty, this is not on par with this person. She was the first one to be like, this isn't matching up and there's got to be something else happening.

[13:42] Patti Murin: Yeah, I think it was like, it should have been a very quick relationship. And that's it. But it was one of those on and off together and apart kind of things. And everybody knew it was never going to be a forever thing. Yeah, I'm also thinking about attachment. And I wonder if to you in those early years, attachment meant safety. And disattachment meant something very scary. Yeah, yeah, I always liked to belong to things, whether it was like, clubs or teams or groups of friends, and yet relationships. Absolutely. I don't feel like I ever had that time in my life. Like I was saying, I was like, I'm gonna be single for a while and see how that feels. Because I just never, even if I tried to do it, I just I didn't, I couldn't. Somebody else came along and I was like, Oh, okay.

Because it just felt good to have a partner. I always have liked having a partner. I like to think that it got healthier as I got older, for sure. Started going to therapy, started working on all of that stuff. But when I got back on my medication in 2014, I had been with my husband now Colin Donnell, but we had been together for a year, we had been dating for a year. And I remember thinking at the time, if he is put up with this for a year, he is really, he's not going anywhere. What was he quote putting up with? Oh, just my like, insane, just like, my jealousy, it would come out as jealousy, insecurity, flying off the handle at drop of a hat for no reason. Little things like that.

[15:06] Bobby Steggert: Boiled down to the same fear of loss?

[15:09] Patti Murin: I guess, or it was all part of the depression. It was all part of the inner workings of my mind. I remember describing it as like, there's three voices going on in my brain at all times. There's the what's happening right now. There's this doing about something later. And then there was always a song in my head. Different songs all the time. So the inside of my brain was a circus. And also, I realized after I started going on my medication again, I'm on Zoloft. That's what I started on in 2014. And it was just for depression, even though I realized that it really took care of a lot of the anxiety along the way. I realized that my depression makes me so in my head in performance, that I can't ever be in the moment.

Because I'm always thinking about what my next line is, because I'm afraid of forgetting it. And that was very clear to me when I was out on the Wicked tour. And I was playing this great role that I always wanted to play. And I was just so in my head about forgetting my lines. And then it was almost like, when I started on the Zoloft, it just disappeared. And I was like, oh, this is great. And I happened to be doing a show at Goodspeed at the time when I started the medication and when it really kicked in and started working. And this experience on stage was like, nothing I'd ever experienced before. I could actually have fun. And I realized that those little anxieties and those little voices in my ear of fears of messing up or that terrible voice that's, oh, you're going to forget this line. Oh, you're going to forget this line. It went away. And I was like, oh, even if I do forget a line, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And it was like a revelation that I'd never experienced.

[17:28] Bobby Steggert: That's incredible.

[17:31] Patti Murin: Yeah. So that's why depression, I think, is so hard to pinpoint, because it's so different for everybody. It's like COVID. You could either have a horrible cough or your toes are blue. Literally, there's just no way of telling what it is. It's not like strep throat, where it's, oh, you got a fever and a sore throat. That's strep throat. Depression really is so individualized. And that's what makes it so evil and so difficult, because you can go for years without even realizing that's something that can be fixed and something you don't have to live with every day.

[17:56] Bobby Steggert: I wonder about depression in artists a lot, clearly. But I'm wondering if there, for you, was even an element of super high functioning with it before you were on medication? And if there was a part of you that felt you needed it to function as an artist?

[18:08] Patti Murin: Yeah, that's what you would always hear, too, is, oh, I'm afraid of going on medication, because what if I can't feel anything anymore? And I know that is a valid fear for a lot of people when they get on the wrong medication. That's the key, is that there are so many options at this point that if you do decide to go that route, there are wrong answers for you personally. And so there are people that go on certain meds, and they all of a sudden flatten out and they're like, I don't feel anything. And that's just the wrong direction. I feel like any doctor or psychiatrist would tell you that. But as an artist, of course, because that's our toolbox, that's our toolkit, what we use, it is a little bit of a fear of that.

But I found that it evened me out so that I actually knew what was joy and what was sadness, as opposed to just a roller coaster of living in a roller coaster of peaks and valleys. There was a middle ground that I would stay on, and then I could actually enjoy the peaks. And then the valleys, I'd be like, oh, okay, oh, this is, yep. Okay, this is hard. This is a hard time I'm going through right now. It didn't all just meld together. That was huge for me as well as an actor, to actually know what feelings are and what they feel like inside my body. That was a pretty great revelation.

[19:00] Bobby Steggert: It was too chaotic before to really be able to understand it all?

[19:04] Patti Murin: Kind of, yeah, because my brain was talking to me too much. It was almost like it was sending out too many signals and too many things, and I had too many cooks in my kitchen. Have you seen Inside Out 2?

[19:13] Bobby Steggert: Of course, yeah.

[19:15] Patti Murin: Of course, yes. That is why that's such an amazing depiction of anxiety, is because that's exactly what it is. That is it. And so to see that play out like that, and be like, yes, that's what my brain, that's my brain. That was just so fantastic. And I feel like while kids loved the movie, it was their parents that were crying over it because they were like, okay, yep, I know what that is.

[19:38] Bobby Steggert: Speaking of the high-functioning anxiety that depicts, before you were medicated, how did you cope? How were you making things work, both relationally and professionally?

[19:50] Patti Murin: I don't know.

[19:51] Bobby Steggert: You were working. You were making a name for yourself.

[19:54] Patti Murin: Yeah, totally. Absolutely. I think because I was so high-functioning. I think because I had also accepted it into my personality, that was helpful. Being dramatic, being over-emotional, I think that I had accepted that as who I was. And while there are definitely elements about that in me, it's nothing like it used to be. I think also just growth to getting older because it was, I think I was like 27 when I went off the medication, and then 34 when I went back on it. It's all a little bit of a blur to me because I just didn't take it seriously back then. When I went off the medication, it's funny, the whole time between the time when I was off of it and when I went back on, that was my first marriage, because Colin is my second marriage.

And looking back, I have to be like, huh, I wonder how that would have gone. I wonder if that would have happened at all if I had stayed on the meds, and instead of going back to that sort of anxious, insecure, needy Patty from my college years and stuff.

[21:03] Bobby Steggert: In that relationship, you weren't on the same page. You never were.

[21:07] Patti Murin: I don't think so. I don't know how we could have been. We're both very happily remarried now with families of our own, and so it's all good. There's no bad blood there or anything like that. But I do wonder what that would have been like. It's like the road not taken. I don't wish to know what it would have been like. I'm really happy with the way my life turned out, and I'm sure that he is very happy the way his life turned out. But when I look back on my whole journey, it makes me wonder what it would have been like in that seven-year period or so of going au naturel. What's your regret about how you functioned in that time in that relationship?

[21:35] Patti Murin: I think I was just a little more... My emotions just ran much more wild. Yeah, a little more unfocused, probably a lot more unfocused. Nothing about it... I can't say it wasn't like a dark period. I wasn't unhappy. It just took me a little while to realize that I needed something more than just massages and bubble baths and drinks with friends. The self-care of that can only go so far. I'm also looking back on it. It was 11 years ago that I went on the meds, so it's like reaching out for a distant memory that you're like, I don't really remember. I think it also probably seemed like a bit of fun then, too, because everything was so new, and I was in my first Broadway show, and so everything was great in my life. And so I think I probably leaned into the emotional dramatics.

[22:40] Bobby Steggert: You talk about the center of gravity of struggle being around relationships. Did your emotions feeling big and out of control ever get in the way of your work relationships or friendships or family relationships?

[22:46] Patti Murin: I would say... It's funny that I'm like, nothing comes to mind, but I'm so curious if anyone else would be like, yes. I remember one audition I went into, I don't even remember what happened, what was going on in my life, but I literally went in there and opened my mouth to sing and just cried, just started crying, like fully crying. But I can't even say that affected it because I ended up getting the part. I don't know. I don't know. So I can't even... I'm like, do I have to go in and cry to every audition? I would say nothing that seems out of the ordinary.

[23:30] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, you always had such a lovely reputation in terms of being a colleague, so I can't imagine that it affected the way that you worked with people.

[23:35] Patti Murin: Yeah, I don't think... I think because that was always so... That was the most important thing in my career and working with the people that I was working with and wanting to keep leveling up and all that. So I don't think that I would have let that get in my way because that was too important. I really relate to that. I had enormous anxiety, but the people I worked with probably would have had no idea.

[24:03] Patti Murin: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. It's like you were saying, where other people have, they say they have resting bitch face, I think I have resting joy face, because my general expression is just to smile. But I think that also comes from wanting to make other people comfortable and knowing that there's a friend always wherever they are. I don't think that really has anything to do with whether I personally am feeling depressed on that day or not. I don't feel like I've had to cover up a lot of stuff.

[24:29] Bobby Steggert: There's something beautiful about that. You keep on describing ways in which you had a big experience, but you allowed it to be big.

[24:33] Patti Murin: Yeah, that's definitely something I've gotten better at over the years. They could say practice makes perfect. And I have to say, I'm getting pretty perfect at panic attacks. But that's what I tell people is that, so you understand how you can best manage this, whatever it is, whether it's the panic, the depression, the anxiety, whatever, you've got to go through it, you have to go through it and find what works. And that sucks. But it's like practicing for something. It really is. It just happens to also be your inner emotional life that you are dealing with. And I think that as time has gone, I have gotten very good at letting it be. And also, I think that has led to how I am mothering my daughters in terms of these are big feelings.

That's okay. You can have your big feelings as long as you're not hurting anybody else, as long as you're not, let's not kick our legs. So we're don't kick your sister, but like really, really trying to make sure that they know that it is okay to have feelings and these big ones. We just have to figure out how to communicate about it and how to talk about it.

[25:39] Bobby Steggert: Are you consciously giving your kids something that you wish you had been given?

[25:45] Patti Murin: I can't say I wish I had been given it because it was just so different then, you know what I mean? My mom was, she had three kids within three years of each other. She was a stay-at-home mom. My dad was working. That's just the way it was. And so I don't feel like I came out of my childhood with a lack of attention because my brother and sister and I were, we would play together all the time. I always had friends. I had my best friend live down the street. So I don't have any lonely memories or anything like that. My parents worked their butts off to come to every single event that all of my siblings did. And that is a lot of events.

[26:26] Patti Murin: With four children. And so I'd say no, because then I also wonder, is there something I'm doing right now for my kids that they're going to grow up and be like, I'm not going to do what my mom did. Always. That's the story of humanity. Yeah. Yeah. We've accepted that we're probably going to mess them up somehow. But as long as it's not like in some, they're not like a serial killer or something, then I feel like we're okay. Success. As long as they're generally happy and confident and also feel like they have a support system, whether it is us that they want to talk to or somebody else like just that they feel like they have what they need in their times of whatever they're going to experience.

[27:17] Bobby Steggert: I'd love to ask you specifically about the era that you did Frozen because I know you spoke out about mental health in that period. And I just have to wonder if being a representative of kind of a big juggernaut story like that made your personal experience feel complicated to communicate about?

[27:36] Patti Murin: Yeah. No. And I think because when you watch the Disney movies or the Disney shows, you see what you want to see because people would come see Frozen and be like, Oh, what a neat little fairy tale. Let it go. It's such a good song. But other people would come see it and be like, I relate so much with Anna and her loneliness and her sadness and her searching for connection. Or like the reason that Let It Go was such a massive hit when it came out because people saw themselves in that and they heard that message and they were like, Oh my goodness. And so it all of a sudden became more than just a Disney property or a song. And so when the musical came around, you still do the work as an actor and these characters are human.

And so my big thing, and this is what I tell other people who are getting to play Anna in their Frozen Junior and regional productions, is that she is the happy character, quotes, character. But my goodness, she has gone through so much. And so there is a sadness to her. If you think about some of the lyrics of For the First Time in Forever, it's, For the first time in forever, I won't be alone. That is heart-wrenching when you take it out of context and you're like, Oh my God, she's singing it to an upbeat tune because that's who she is. That is literally, I just described myself essentially. So it actually felt like an opportunity to let that be known through the lens of something that reached many people.

[29:05] Bobby Steggert: There's real harmony there, actually.

[29:07] Patti Murin: Yeah. Yeah. And the thing about Disney is that they were like, go for it.

[29:11] Bobby Steggert: That was my curiosity. Did they limit you as an individual in terms of your expression?

[29:16] Patti Murin: As any show and any producers, they were like, just don't let go and be like, Anna feels this way, Anna. And I was like, yes, totally. Obviously, I relate to certain things about the character, but no, it was more about me and my experience getting on stage in terms of the thing. And they were so supportive. The reason that this became such a big thing for me and such a big platform is because I posted on Instagram, the first time I called out of the show was because I had a panic attack right before the show. And I was like, this isn't going to help to go on stage. I have to go home. So the next day I posted on Instagram and I was like, I was out of the show last night because I had a panic attack.

And this is what happens when my thing is like, even princesses are terrified sometimes. And it just went off. And it got picked up by so many different news outlets and so many different, I got asked to write so many magazine articles and do so many interviews. I got to go on the Today show to talk about mental health. It was huge. I got so many letters at the theater. I saved every single one of them. I have them all in folders and binders in the other room with people telling me their stories, telling me that someone saying it out loud had done so much for them. And so that's when I was like, oh, this is why I'm here. This is why I'm here. It was still pretty much right at the beginning of the Broadway run.

And so I was like, okay, I've got some time to really, and I've been doing my best to keep up with that. It's a lot harder when you're not in a show. That was so amazing because I just got to talk to so many people through so many different mediums. And because I was playing Anna in Frozen, I was somebody that people wanted to hear from. And when I called out of that first show, my stage manager was like, go. She was like, it's fine. She was like, totally fine. You do what you have to do. And Disney was like, are you okay? Totally fine. Don't worry. I had a standby, Aisha Jackson, who got to go on for the first time, the first of many times, but she got to go on for the first time that night.

Had a glorious show. And because I had her, I didn't need to take on any worry about, oh, no, is there coverage? Like you do when you do shows without understudies. I was like, she's good. She is so prepared and she's so ready and she's going to go and do this and kill it. And she did. And so it was honestly amazing. I have to say that Disney Theatricals is so supportive of their people and of their family. And I felt it a million percent then.

[31:35] Bobby Steggert: I love hearing that. I would have made the assumption that they would have protected the show over you. And it's fantastic that they could do both.

[31:43] Patti Murin: Nope, they are there. And it's nice to know that they have the resources. They also are confident in their resources. I think that is a big difference. And they know they're like, it's frozen. It's frozen. It's fine. They're like, go home. The story will be told. It's okay. It's a nice reminder that, yeah, the show will go on without you. It's a nice thing to hear. They never made me feel like, oh, we don't need you. We're totally fine without you. They're like, we're going to miss you. We are fine. It's a huge difference from where some other experiences I know many of us actors and performers have had.

[32:16] Bobby Steggert: I can only imagine that deepened your work in and experience of the show, too.

[32:21] Patti Murin: Yeah, it made me, I loved it already, but it made me really love who I was working for and love what I got to do rather than just be a princess on stage. I got to be a princess on stage and then off stage. I got to talk about things that people don't talk about and encourage other people to talk about it too and encourage other people to maybe try therapy, talk to a friend, sit down and figure out how to breathe so that you have that tool so that when you're having a bad moment, you can use it. It was really amazing. At the time, it was a whirlwind, but looking back, I'm like, oh man, I was so lucky, so lucky. I still am because now people still listen to me because of that. Every so often, I do like to put up a, even though I know it probably worries my mom when I'm like, I had a bad day today, or now I'm a mother.

That is a whole different ballgame of mental health, whole different ballgame. Now I can say to other mothers, you're sad? I'm sad too. Oh, okay, great. This doesn't make us less sad, but it makes us feel a little more connected.

[33:23] Bobby Steggert: Is that one of the most major ways you cope by sharing with others and hearing from others?

[33:29] Patti Murin: Yeah, I think so because the way other people say, now I know I'm not alone. It also makes me remember I'm not alone. I need to remember that too. Also, when the pandemic started and people started dealing with some severe anxiety and depression, people that had never dealt with it before, situational things, I felt like I could be a helper. I could be a helper and be like, this is what has helped me over the years when I'm having a panic attack and having no control over anything in the world. I have to tell you, so many people reached out to me, friends, family members, just to be like, is this what's happening to me? This is what I feel like. I felt I was like, oh, I can help. It goes back to that never wanting to ask for help when you're younger and when you don't feel like people are actually there for helping. I felt a little bit like a Sesame Street superhero, just like being like, I'm here.

[34:21] Bobby Steggert: It also probably contrasts with the often powerlessness we feel as actors.

[34:29] Patti Murin: Yes. Oh, yeah. It's the purpose. It's the purpose of it all too. Also, it's taking that sort of crappy lot in life that you've been given. My brain is a little bit imbalanced technically and doesn't work perfectly like some people's do, but taking that and making it into something that is good and turning that situation around. It took me years to be able to do that and to be confident in doing that, but I feel like now because we're talking about it so much more, I go to middle school and I do a lot of master classes at middle schools or for high school students and whatnot. The middle schoolers, their teachers are like, oh, yeah, if you don't mind talking about some mental health. I'm like, I would love to.

I would love to because they're already there in that mode. They know it. They know themselves a little bit better, I think. It allows me to say to them point blank, this is a really tough time you're in. Middle school is really hard. This is the hardest. You're supposed to be amazing without standing out. You have to fit in, but also be really cool. It's awful. To be able to have permission from their teachers and the schools and stuff to talk about things about stage fright, it means everything to me. It really does. They're the ones that are going to help next, and goodness knows the help seems we really need it.

[35:42] Bobby Steggert: I love hearing your story. It feels like you've just expanded over the past several years in this really beautiful way.

[35:48] Patti Murin: You just made me feel like I have. That was a really nice retrospective of my mental health life. Good. I guess I'd want to end with really present ways that you yourself handle, cope, deal with.

[35:59] Patti Murin: Yeah. Oh, man. I think I have really started to subscribe to the stoicism school of thinking, which I didn't know before I started reading up on it. It's not like being all stoic and nothing gets to me. It is literally about figuring out what you can control, and if you can't control it, you can't worry about it. You don't worry. No energy can be wasted on that. I think that has really spoken to me a lot in the last six months. I'm also in therapy weekly with a therapist that I absolutely love. One day, I all of a sudden was like, when am I going to realize that what I want is what I have? Then I was like, oh, shit. That moment, that was probably last summer. I was like, oh. I've really just been paying attention to a lot of the signals I've been putting out to the universe and putting out to the world.

I don't even just mean in a thoughts way, but in what I'm saying to people who could possibly hire me or want to work with me and be like, oh, having two kids is really hard, because it is really hard. That's what I'm doing right now. I can't blame people for being like, oh, she's a mom. She's busy. She might not want to do this concert one night. Just paying attention to those signals and those messages that I'm giving out and figuring out what it is that I actually want. That's a totally different business now than it was before the pandemic. Things work so different. My husband, Colin Donnell, is also an actor. He's an amazing actor. He's an actor who works all the time on many things. We've both been hanging out, doing something here and there, but for a while now.

We looked at this week, the three top grossing things are Good Night and Good Luck starring George Clooney, Othello starring Jake Gyllenhaal, and Glengarry Glen Ross starring Kieran Culkin. I was like, wow. For the first time ever, it's a really bad time to be a normal person, because it's just different. It's just different. I'm trying to think of it as a real gift from the universe that I have these two small children, one is almost five, one is going to be two in a week, which I cannot even believe, that I get to spend the time with them. I don't have to be figuring out babysitters and pickups and nannies and all that. I get to actually raise my children and be with them as much as I can.

On the flip side, as they are starting to get a little bit older, I am also trying to show them that mommy's going to work to do something she loves, to be the model for that. That helps when I'm having anxiety about being away. It's crazy. You're guilty when you're at home and you're guilty when you're away. So that's what helps my anxiety. I am showing them that they can do whatever they want. They can be a mom and they can have a career if they would like to. I don't just go to my job that I don't like, that I do love what I do. They also can find something that they love to do. God, help it if it's performing. We'll get there. I think it's a lot of that, can I control this? No. I just can't think about it right now, because there's so many other things that I can control that I need to do, like making dinner for my children.