This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

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

[0:15] Bobby Steggert: We enter into the world freer than we will ever be again. Our needs for food or sleep or comfort, in most cases, God willing, are immediately met by our caretakers. We're not yet conscious of the social conditioning that will slowly but powerfully transform us as we grow older. But it's inevitable. And eventually, we begin to observe our environments and learn, extremely early, how to bend to the expectations of our parents and our communities in order to survive. One of my favorite psychologists is Donald Winnicott. He was an extremely influential child psychologist in the mid-20th century, who introduced the concept of good enough parenting. Look that up, and it will provide very wise relief in terms of the impossibility of being a perfect parent.

Winnicott also introduced the idea of the false self in child development. So he posited that we're all born with an inherently true self, and that we must construct a social persona when our truest emotions, needs, or desires are suppressed or denied by our caregivers. This happens when parents, knowingly or unknowingly, impose their expectations on a child, forcing them to adapt and present a version of themselves that meets external demands, but is disconnected from the authentic self. This is a brilliant survival strategy, while it's also ultimately very damaging to the self, which, without these constraints, is spontaneous and rooted in true feelings and thoughts and desires. And even the most well-meaning parents can contribute to this problem.

I've shared my own version of this, in which my parents loved me with all of their hearts, while still holding implicit expectations that I'd be someone I simply wasn't. Shedding my false self, and in parts terms, working with all these parts that have protected my true self for so many years, is truly my life's work. It is the life's work of my guest today as well. Alex Brightman is a supernova of talent and a deeply smart and vibrant soul. He and I did the Broadway production of Big Fish together. This was just a couple of years before he stepped into his rightful place as one of our best comedic leading men. Alex's story is very parallel to mine, and yet entirely different. He developed a false self through a need to please and succeed, and while he wasn't running away from his sexuality, you'll hear a very similar story about all the ways in which he felt he had to present something inauthentic in order to survive.

He is currently in that thorny unlearning, an experience without a complete narrative, a tenuous process, and one that he is grappling with today. I think it was especially meaningful to both of us to look back on our time together a decade ago, both of us feeling so at a loss as to how to address and even think about tackling the deep sense of pain and misalignment we were both in. And today, to encounter each other again, older, wiser, but lighter and fuller.

[3:35] Bobby Steggert: Okay, so I have to tell you something. I got up to pee last night, and I was thinking about seeing you today. And I remembered during the run of Big Fish on Broadway, I was having a really hard mental health moment, and you gave me a bottle of Prozac. Do you remember that?

[3:56] Alex Brightman: No, I don't, because I also was in a bit of a hidden turmoil moment of my life, but not as open about it.

[4:04] Bobby Steggert: I must have shared something about depression with you. And you were like, I'm not using these drugs. I tried them, and they didn't work for me. So why don't—

[4:12] Alex Brightman: Now I remember.

[4:13] Bobby Steggert: And for anyone listening, talk to your psychiatrist.

[4:17] Alex Brightman: Really don't do that.

[4:18] Bobby Steggert: But that was so generous of you. It was so beautiful that I felt safe to tell you that, and you felt safe to try to help in that way.

[4:27] Alex Brightman: Over the course of being an adult, I have found that a lot of people tend to just open up when I'm around them. And I think there's something about being receptive to it, but also knowing that I'm not going to placate, and I'll just listen and deal with whatever's there. People tend to treat me like an open-faced sandwich a little bit.

[4:47] Bobby Steggert: In my memory, it's also that you were pretty transparent. Maybe not about exactly what was going on with you, but you were transparent about certain neuroses and anxieties, and that was something that you shared pretty openly.

[4:58] Alex Brightman: Yeah. I think also it helped me, because I wasn't really in that moment ready, I think, or just didn't have the right— I don't know. It just felt easier to go, oh yeah, everything's cool. Everything's fine. And I think when you say everything's fine, it is the code word for things aren't fine.

[5:16] Bobby Steggert: Yeah. And isn't it such that life is never 100% perfect? There's always something to be struggling with.

[5:23] Alex Brightman: I know, but I didn't like that.

[5:25] Bobby Steggert: How inconvenient.

[5:27] Alex Brightman: Yeah, it was very inconvenient to not have the answers and to just sit there with it. And I remember now, because the Prozac made me feel like my head was in a fishbowl, and not in the way where the doctor's like, give it some time. They said, you'll know immediately if this isn't for you. And I did. I found myself really zoning out, really not being present. Maybe feeling good because I was distracted, but the side effects were so much worse than what I think it was doing. So I gave it up quickly, which is why I think I had a pretty full bottle for you.

[5:56] Alex Brightman: Yeah. And I tried it, which again, don't do that. Talk to a psychiatrist. And it didn't work for me either. For a similar reason, I felt disembodied.

[6:04] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, me too. And now being on Lexapro, and being on a few other things for getting rediagnosed over the pandemic with manic bipolar, which just fit. And then the drugs that came along with that diagnosis was right.

[6:19] Alex Brightman: Are you on a mood stabilizer?

[6:21] Bobby Steggert: I am. I'm on Lamictal, or Lamotrigine if you're nasty.

[6:24] Alex Brightman: I think it would be helpful for you to describe the sense that you feel, either in your head or in your body.

[6:31] Bobby Steggert: Let me contextualize it by saying that a lot of my life, I felt a little pit in my stomach, and didn't know what it was, and just felt guilty for no reason. Whatever that feeling is when you forget something last minute. I forgot to turn the coffee pot off, and you get that little sinking feeling, like a dull roar of that kind of a long time. And then I can't remember exactly what anxiety medication I was on, but I remember feeling, okay, I guess this is a little better. Is this as good as it gets? And then getting rediagnosed and getting someone to take a little look again, who said, maybe it's manic bipolar and got these meds. After about a month, my shoulders felt lower, and other people started to notice before I did.

So my wife was like, you just seem a little calmer. And here's the feeling I had in my head. It really put my brain on tape delay. So I didn't have to immediately react. I could listen, I could adjust, figure out, is this a problem that I need to solve? Or is this just somebody venting?

[7:27] Alex Brightman: Because a lot of the time, I would come up with solutions for others that maybe they weren't even asking for.

[7:31] Bobby Steggert: So it was more of a tempo thing than anything? It started to slow you down?

[7:35] Alex Brightman: Yeah, it did. It started to slow me down in a good way, because I was so the other end of that spectrum, that I think maybe I found a bit of a balance, if not a little towards the other side, which I'm fine with, and maybe it'll balance out. But it didn't affect my work, which was nice. That was my worry. I think it's a lot of people's worry that consider themselves artistic or multi-hyphenate or a thinker. But it didn't.

[7:57] Bobby Steggert: That's such a wonderful thing to hear, because it could be so easy to identify you, especially your wit and your intelligence with the disorder.

[8:07] Alex Brightman: I've always been quick. I've always been, in my opinion, funny. But also, like you said, I consider myself witty and subversive and not just taking the jokes that are over the plate, trying to find elsewhere, with no fear of failure. So I was just really worried that I would be a little less sharp. But I don't think so. I guess that's subjective. I guess if you ask some of my friends, they might disagree, but I don't care. My own criteria led me to believe that I feel better.

[8:33] Bobby Steggert: You can be sharp and still take more time.

[8:36] Alex Brightman: Oh, yeah. And potentially sharper because of it, because you have taken the time to go, I don't need to give everything. It's quality over quantity, and I think I had it backwards. It was like, the more I say, maybe one of those things would hit, rather than being thoughtful and going, this is the thing. So you only have one swipe at it.

[8:55] Bobby Steggert: It's more economic.

[8:57] Alex Brightman: Yes.

[8:58] Bobby Steggert: When we talked earlier, you threw out a psychological term that was very exciting to me and that I might be one of the only people who had heard about Donald Winnicott, right?

[9:06] Alex Brightman: Well, you call him Donald. I didn't realize you guys knew each other.

[9:08] Bobby Steggert: Oh, yeah. Donnie, yeah.

[9:09] Alex Brightman: Donnie Dubs? Donnie Dubs?

[9:10] Bobby Steggert: You brought up the concept of the false self. And the reason it really resonates with me is because, of course, as a gay kid, you develop a, quote, false self to survive a very straight world. And it's a way to get through. As you discovered that term, and you thought about your early history, how do you relate to the idea of false self?

[9:30] Alex Brightman: First of all, the minute I heard about it from my therapist, within two minutes, it's all I have been thinking about up to this moment and beyond, just because it so resonates. And as far as I consider it, for myself, I feel like looking back, there's been a lack of pursuit, because things have come my way. And so I either acquiesce, because I go, I should just, who doesn't want to do something? And then I end up maybe resenting part of it and going, why do I resent this so much? Maybe it's because I didn't want to do it in the first place. And that goes with, like, jobs, but also going out. I think if I was invited out by my girlfriend or even my wife, I feel like that invitation is not a yes or no question.

And so I just got to do it. And I found myself getting cranky, getting low, feeling angry. And if I just said, I don't feel like going, I want to find a creative solution around this, no, then I would have been much happier being by myself rather than being out with others and resenting the entire evening.

[10:26] Bobby Steggert: How are you acquiescing as a young person? It's an interesting question. I think this does go back to parents, things that I needed or wanted, I got. I think it comes with slight privilege. I think it does come with that thing of anything that I want, I think my parents or somebody around me can help me out and get. So I didn't have a lot of, like, independent solutions for things. And I know that asking for help is good, but I think that it was expected. So I would just be like, I don't need to come up with solutions because they're already here. And when it came to my art, I was doing theater since I was nine years old. I played a lot of leads. So things just came easy. And I didn't really get to explore loss.

No one died in my family until very recently. I had a lot of green lights. And so I never got a chance to explore what it meant to hit a red. And so I didn't have the opportunity to come up with creative solutions to things about pursuing what I want. And that affected a sense of autonomy?

[11:19] Alex Brightman: Definitely. I think that I, like many, have my parents and a few other people on my shoulders that are always second guessing me. Here's a great example. My wife and I wanted to buy a car. And my mom's response to that, as I'm a 37 year old man, and my mom's response to that was, do you know how much parking spots cost in New York City? So to not trust that I did my research to not trust that this is something I wanted to do, it affected me still. A 37 year old makes like, wow, should we get a car? All of a sudden, it was that thing from birth, this being second guessed. If you're doing the wrong thing, it's not great. You should be doing the right thing. And I think that a lot of second guessing has affected my life since childhood.

[12:02] Bobby Steggert: Are you sure? Is that what you really want to do? Are you doing the right thing? And it's so subjective. But I never saw it that way. It was objective. Every time I would hear something like that, I'd go, oh, they probably want me to do the other thing.

[12:11] Alex Brightman: I hear in that your mom's anxiety. Is that what it is? Or was there some other motivation for her needing to control?

[12:21] Bobby Steggert: I'm not sure, honestly. And it's a slightly difficult subject to tackle. I think just with that sort of generation as well. I have tried little moments to do it. And as much as we love each other, because we do, we're close to which leads me to believe I should be able to have these conversations. And perhaps I can. I just have had so much time when I would come to them and others with a problem. The answer, and this is not exactly how explicitly it was said, but it's that isn't a problem. So you shouldn't have this problem.

[12:50] Alex Brightman: Problems in your family were seen as what?

[12:53] Bobby Steggert: Failure. Weakness. Brush it under the rug kind of stuff until it came to a point. Or just don't bring it up at all, because it's like, what do you have to complain about? That's like the medication of that generation. What do you have to complain about? What's the deal with you?

[13:08] Alex Brightman: So far, the picture I'm getting is Alex in false self with someone who had no problems, who rolled with the punches and who did not learn to trust himself.

[13:17] Bobby Steggert: And didn't explore or really like negativity or failure.

[13:24] Alex Brightman: Felt it a lot. Felt it really deeply. But covered it with, it's all good. It's fine. I got other things going on. And that is up to now. And I don't book a role that I really want. I tend to go, yeah, that happens, even though inside I'm a little bummed. And I've had a hard time expressing being bummed because it is that thing of like, you're doing your dream. You're living that dream. You're a two-time Tony award. That kind of stuff. Yes, that does temper it. But I'm still sad. So I understand that. Yes, things are great. But it doesn't mean I can't be bummed about things. And I think I never had that part allowed because it's like, don't feel those things. Feel other things. Because if you feel other things, you'll just feel better. Sure.

[14:06] Alex Brightman: And it sounds like your success and the privilege you gained through that success reinforced that idea. What do you got to complain about? What's wrong in your life? Completely. People would cut off their arm to do what I'm doing. So that made it very difficult to complain. It still does, by the way. The only people I really feel like I can complain to or commiserate with at this point in my career are other people at a similar level. Because if you are coming down from on high to go, man, all these Broadway shows are killing me, and you can't say that to people. You can if you have trusted friends, but it's left me with four true friends, I think, and a lot of fun acquaintances, and I'm friendly with a lot of people and vice versa.

But when I look at it, I think I didn't spend a lot of time cultivating friendships because I was more of an introvert than I let myself believe. And I think once I started exploring this idea of I really like spending time with myself and haven't done that in 30 fucking years, led me to believe I didn't cultivate a lot of friendships because of all that anxiety. Because getting close to somebody potentially means I do have to open up about that stuff. Intimacy requires mess. It requires a bold stroke of vulnerability to go, I'm actually not that happy right now. And for people to, even if they don't understand it, to be able to accept it.

[15:24] Bobby Steggert: We'll be right back. Tell me also how humor played into the false self.

[15:37] Alex Brightman: Yeah. Humor is a shield. It's been, for me, it's been the sort of way to whatever's going on outward rather than put it inside of always. Here's the other thing. I think that I spent a lot of time performing for others to make sure they're okay. I think that definitely was part of my family growing up. It was like, if things were a little negative, I could always come up with a joke. I could lighten the mood.

[16:04] Bobby Steggert: Did you take on that specific role amongst siblings?

[16:10] Alex Brightman: I have a 14-month younger brother and we're very close still. Less close as you grow up and you move and stuff like that, but we still talk all the time and we've always been friends. But yeah, I think the family dynamic I became, and we've talked about this term, which I think is actually the family jester. The one that if everyone else has problems, I certainly can't have them. I have to make sure everyone else is okay before I can be okay.

[16:30] Bobby Steggert: Were there other obvious problems that you were responding to or was this sort of a blanket reaction?

[16:35] Alex Brightman: Sort of a blanket reaction. I think it just bled out into friendships, teachers, making sure. My wife talks about it all the time. I'm so friendly to people over the top. I will always ask a waiter, what's your name? How are you doing? Which is great. Who am I doing that for? Honestly, just to look like a better person so that later when the waiter talks to their friend who doesn't know me, they could go, that's a great guy. And somehow that actually does inhabit my system. Just be nice. So nobody thinks you're a jerk. And the way I can do that is with comedy.

[17:07] Bobby Steggert: This is a complex question, but were you dealing with any parts of you privately that felt like a jerk that you were trying to keep from being revealed?

[17:14] Alex Brightman: What do you mean? So let me speak for myself. The part of me that can be super polite and accommodating is aware of the rage I felt on my life. And it's a part that sort of polarizes against that rage and is afraid of that rage being exposed in an inopportune or inappropriate moment. And so those parts actually have a relationship to each other.

[17:41] Alex Brightman: I think that's right. I do. I think I've I had a bit of a creeping anger problem. I don't know if it was a problem, but I got this sort of bringing my politeness to a point and then feeling as if I'm owed something back. Like I've given out so much to some people, whether it is with my art or with just my kindness or with my comedy, that at the end of the day, my cup's empty because nobody else felt the need to fill it. So there's resentment.

[18:10] Bobby Steggert: Yes, there is.

[18:10] Alex Brightman: And I do. And I do selfishly. I think like a lot of the time, and I've talked about this before, I get to the point of the day where I go, OK, what do I get now? How do I get filled up? Because I'm empty and I'm tired. And if nobody can do that for me, and sometimes that's an impossibility, I still am like, I guess I'm just the guy that does everything. And it builds into this sort of slightly irrational anger. Like I just start picking apart little tiny things of what's happening to just me. And I think that is a reflection of giving out so much. And again, it doesn't put me in a position of heroism. It's just how I functioned for such a long time, just being funny for others, making sure everyone else was having a great day and just forgetting about myself, being selfless, not in a great way.

[18:52] Bobby Steggert: How did you think you were filling your cup in the earlier years?

[18:56] Alex Brightman: With my career, with art, with being in shows and getting accolades, people going, you are so great, with compliments and with stuff like that, which are pretty base sometimes, because it's just like you did a good job in the show. It feels good, but it evaporates quickly if we're going to keep using the filling cup metaphor.

[19:15] Bobby Steggert: Yeah. So complicated, because mixed up in that is genuine passion. And the fact that you really do come alive on stage and that's something pure as well.

[19:24] Alex Brightman: I genuinely, and this is real, I still, and I hope to change this at some point, I feel most like myself on stage. I do. Even if I'm playing something insane, like even if I am playing something that is so masked, you can't see me there, I just feel no anxiety on stage. I get nervous in the right ways, but I just, and I think that the minute I get off stage, I miss whoever that was. And I'm getting, I think with therapy, with really investing in therapy, I think I'm getting to the point now where I can shed that and still be me when I get home, rather than trying to come home and be the same performer that just left the stage, which sucks for not just me, a wife, a family, coming home and expecting the same amount of like, well, he's here from somebody who loves me and doesn't idolize me. And it was a tough complication coming out of a stage door and feeling like a Jonas brother or insert whoever's popular now.

[20:21] Bobby Steggert: What do you do with that feeling?

[20:21] Alex Brightman: This is really morbid, but I understand why Janis Joplin killed herself or died or not killed herself. But I understand why people like that can't shake it. It's why people go and drink, which I did, I don't drink anymore. Go search for ways to make the night not end because of how good it felt to be that performer and to continue performing into the night.

[20:41] Bobby Steggert: It's so interesting for you too, because I really relate to what you're saying, but you just take your two huge Broadway outings, and both of those characters are such extroverts. I was playing these complicated, quiet people, and you were playing these people who are bouncing off the wall. And so that must have also felt so much larger than life in terms of your experience of the role and the response to you.

[20:59] Alex Brightman: Yeah. And still does. People have come up to me and I think didn't get what they expected in life because they wanted the thing they saw on stage. And it always reminds me of a Steve Martin quote from his book, Born Standing Up, when he says, people are always disappointed when they meet me and find out I'm not Steve Martin. And I was like, I so resonate with that.

[21:26] Bobby Steggert: What you said about feeling more yourself on stage than ever. What happens to the jester part that for so long was connected to pleasing others that then frees you on stage?

[21:34] Alex Brightman: It's a very easy answer. I don't know anybody in the audience. I have to continue a relationship and continue this act with people. I think being vulnerable to admit to people that have so long seen me do this, to go, I need to redefine who I am to you. That's really tough after over a decade and especially with like parents and a sibling to not feel like I've made some change for some reason. I mean, there is a reason, but there is suspicion when it comes from 37 years to go, oh, so you've been tricking me this whole time? There is that fear of mine on stage. I make people laugh and then they go home. I don't have to really commit to them personally or emotionally for more than two and a half hours.

[22:21] Bobby Steggert: Right. So there's not actually the risk of intimacy.

[22:24] Alex Brightman: Correct. And I think that again, with therapy, that's a big one. Intimacy is so difficult for so many people. And I thought that being close to somebody was intimacy. And I don't think that's the same thing. Being close, being friends, saying things about yourself, but not really being able to reveal the stuff, like the big stuff. And I think that is intimacy. I don't know, man, it's easier to like say less about yourself so that everyone else is happy. I don't think that's unique. And I think I am victim to it.

[22:54] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, I was a victim to it too, because oftentimes I thought, oh, because I'm successful, I already take up too much space.

[23:03] Alex Brightman: So right. And we talked about this with my wife, but also my friends. I think that a good example is like when I enter a room or when I go to dinner with others, a lot of the attention is focused on me. And I don't always want that. And I don't want to always feel like I'm being interviewed by close personal friends. And that's a lot of what it feels like. It's like I'm being interviewed. I'm coming prepared to be in the spotlight, which the thing I didn't consider that takes away other people's light. And that was including significant others. I was always in my element, which wasn't allowed to share with others. And so that's really difficult to just arrive. And that's all I had to do to become the center of attention.

I didn't do anything. I just arrived. And so that is a tough, weird responsibility to navigate because you do feel like the center of attention because other people have done it. And I don't help, by the way, I didn't help by being gregarious and entertaining and loud. So I'm not, that's why I say I'm not fully victim to it. I was given a thing and then ran with it, given certainly an inch.

[24:08] Bobby Steggert: This is so layered. So there's the part that is trying to please others. And then there's the part that's aware that you're taking up space and might feel guilty about it. Is there also a part that was very hungry for the attention that really wanted the validation?

[24:23] Alex Brightman: Yes. Yes. And I think that goes all the way back to family. It still goes back to when I'm doing something or I get a role. The first person I call now is my wife, but right away, it's my parents. See, I'm doing good stuff. Look at me. I am hungry for them to go, what? Oh, even though they know, they've seen what's going on. They understand. But I do, I still feel the need to let them know that everything is still going great. And I think you can already see it. So for me to do that, I think does go back to my parents being invested in what I was doing once it started to go well. They were super supportive. They never, ever thought twice about me doing theater. They just loved it in the same way my brother loved things and they were super supportive.

I just think that it became about showing them that I am continuing to do the right thing by doing this. And whenever I bring up, I'm going to spend next year writing or I need a break from this. There is explicitly, so you're not going to act again. And that's not what I'm saying. So yes, there are other people in my life that are hungry for me. And that is not the greatest feeling.

[25:31] Bobby Steggert: Yeah. Because then you'd feel like you'd be letting others down.

[25:36] Alex Brightman: A hundred percent. And I feel like I do that with people that I'm not even close with. Like when I get an email about doing a concert, when I used to be like, I'll jump at anything to now being a bit more choosy. I have such a hard time writing an email that says, thank you so much. I am not interested. I always go, I'm not available, but contact me in a few months. And it's like, I don't even want to do that. I'm doing that for you. And again, I'm not talking out of school on myself because I think that it's just a learning process, but I have such difficult times saying things like, I am uninterested.

[26:05] Bobby Steggert: So you're attempting to shift boundaries. You're just in the middle ground there. What's the most uncomfortable thing about redefining yourself to people in relationship?

[26:13] Alex Brightman: Thinking that they think I was hiding something this whole time. And so what else are you hiding? And nothing specific, just like, oh, so this whole thing has been a ruse when in fact, it's just a part of me, but that's the hardest part. And it's self-inflicted because I could ask and I should ask. And sometimes I have, but yeah, that's the hardest part.

[26:34] Bobby Steggert: And what about your marriage? I'm sure that's the most intricate thing that you've had to navigate as you have realized these things.

[26:39] Alex Brightman: I can say with certainty that my wife is a gigantic reason that I am now who I am because she doesn't play that game, the placating game. She is wonderfully bold and really knows who she is and nobody's exempt from certain problems and she goes to therapy and all that, but she is wonderfully no poker face, very bold. It hurts me when you did this. And she's also very free with compliments, which is something I never had in my relationships. This idea that like when I say you're beautiful, she says, thank you. She doesn't do the sort of, yeah, but I am feeling a certain way, which a lot of people do in the arts because they feel like they have to temper their positive emotions with something that's a little, I'm not perfect, but she taught me how to freely give a compliment, how to accept them, but also certainly calls me out on my bullshit.

And that's really helped. And at first it was really scary to the point of going like, is this worth being called out this much? And I feel really like it's going to the principal's office. And now I love it. True. I really like being able to say, God, you're right. You're so right. And I'm not mad about that. You're right. I'm a little embarrassed. I'm a little like feeling called out. I've always had so many yes people around me that it's so nice to have someone super realistic.

[28:00] Bobby Steggert: Did you understand that's what you were attracted to in her?

[28:00] Alex Brightman: No. What did you think you were attracted to? I thought she was funny, which is a big part of my life. I'm always very attracted to a nice smile and a nice laugh. And I think that says a lot about me, but she's smart and she was.

[28:13] Alex Brightman: And was in a long-term job that she loved and has a great relationship with her sister and family. The way she connects with her family feels like the right way. Like, to me, it's like very opposite. I don't know if this is something that people understand, but they have so much history that they are able to conjure up. Do you remember when that was with this person? And they all join in. They all have the same stories. Whereas I feel like sometimes I'm recording my stories back to my family and then years later, it's like, do you remember this? And it's like, not really. There's a lot of ingesting on her side that I envy. Love being around. Love her family because I feel very comfortably accepted, but also I've had really serious conversations with them.

And I just lost my father-in-law in January, which was really devastating. Because again, it's like somebody who I could, I felt like I was connecting with. And that was just taken from us. And so that's one thing I was really attracted to was this beautiful thing that I could maybe learn how to be a part of in that life, but also in my life. I could find ways to ask questions and be interested because I've been so interested in myself. But it turns on itself. You've been interested in yourself because you're also reacting to a history of people pleasing, which you resent.

[29:33] Bobby Steggert: Yeah. Yeah. But also I had a bit of what I would consider not an addiction necessarily, but I had a bit of a gambling problem all of a sudden, and it was essentially just slot machines. And I loved it. And then you didn't, because that's how addiction works, right? It's like, it's fun until it isn't. And so I went to Gamblers Anonymous and just learned a lot of things like that. And it was really, I was in danger of ruining a lot of my relationships.

[29:55] Alex Brightman: Were you going to casinos?

[29:58] Bobby Steggert: Yeah. Yep. And my therapist and I talked, and I think that one of the reasons I really enjoyed it was I owed nothing to nobody and it didn't require any skill. And I was just by myself with a thing. All that was asked of me was to press a button. It was mindless.

[30:13] Alex Brightman: And it was mindless. And it's been a search for so long to find something that's mindless. And especially in a career in the arts, your hobby, which is thoughtful, but sometimes it's mindless because it's fun. My hobby became my career. And that is hard. And so then I was like, writing could really be an antidote to this. And then that became a career. So I kept losing hobbies to jobs. And frankly, no one likes their job all the time.

[30:44] Bobby Steggert: Something that becomes monetized can't ever be purely joyful.

[30:48] Alex Brightman: I 100% agree. And as grateful and lucky as I feel, although it's earned privilege, in those respects, I think I've done a lot of work to get it. It's very difficult to sometimes be passionate about something because it is your job. You need to do it. I bought a house and I want to pay for it. Not all the time are you doing these things anymore for the love of the game. And that is a really tough pill to swallow because I spent so much time in community theater where you had to do it for the love of the game. It's because that's all there is. It's like friendships and I love doing it and that's it. But when money came into the picture, it did skew how I felt about this.

[31:26] Bobby Steggert: We'll be right back.

[31:30] Bobby Steggert: I'd also like to ask you about a diagnosis in adulthood. What did it mean to you to get diagnosed as bipolar one? And what has been perhaps the benefit of a diagnosis?

[31:39] Alex Brightman: To be completely honest, it didn't. I'm not scared of it. I just I was happy, as my psychiatrist put it, really what this is. It is probably what you have, but really what this is like something we need to put on paper to get you the right meds. And that's great. I was like all about that. I'm all about let's just get me better. I don't care what I have necessarily. I don't consider it a stigma. I immediately started talking about it. And in that sense, I feel like I have been an open book a lot of my life about just what's going on just because I don't know. It didn't seem like a huge deal and it felt like a really big relief, actually.

[32:16] Bobby Steggert: How was it a relief?

[32:18] Alex Brightman: Because I felt especially when the meds started working, I felt recognized rather than somebody going, that seems like anxiety and depression. And I know that's real and I know that's probably part of it. But to have somebody take a deep look and it actually might be this. It was such a relief to find out that this was correct for the moment. Seems correct. And I'm thrilled that I found I'm a big fan of better late than never. And it was a decade of me being on what I would consider the wrong meds. So it made me feel really relieved. And the only big rage I have is I didn't have it 10 years ago, because I would say I've made life mistakes, little ones here along the way that I think wouldn't have been a bigger problem if I was just on these meds.

Impulsive, encouragement to be impulsive, because that's my career. Getting paid to be impulsive is crazy because then you're just cultivating impulsiveness in your life because you know it's going to be useful later. But impulsiveness in life has not served me very well.

[33:20] Bobby Steggert: I don't prescribe medicine, but to prescribe someone with bipolar disorder and antidepressant can put them into mania. Is that what happened for you ever?

[33:26] Alex Brightman: Yeah. Yes. If that's the case, then yeah, some of it is partly to blame on that, I would say, that I just felt in a different state, the same state I felt when drinking. Because I was like, this seems to work sometimes. So it stands to reason that the more I do it, it'll just keep working. It's rather than questioning it.

[33:45] Bobby Steggert: Do you miss manic episodes at all?

[33:49] Alex Brightman: Yeah, there is a part of me, I think, that likes to be pat on the head and to be taken care of. Because I do think it goes back to taking care of everybody else. There's just like, these manic episodes require others to go, you're okay. Are you okay? What do you need? And that puts you in a different spotlight.

[34:04] Bobby Steggert: Oh, Alex, that's so interesting, because my mind went to missing the energy and the feeling of invincibility. And you're saying something different.

[34:13] Alex Brightman: I feel lots of energy, naturally. I don't know if I need any more. So manic episodes took it out of me. It shut me down. And other people had to discover it rather than me saying, hey, I'm not feeling great. So having it be discovered, there was a little resentment that took you long enough to discover. They had to come to me for these things. And now I think it's a little different, where I do say to my wife or someone, hey, just so you know, I'm not in a great space today. And if you're sensing something, it's not you. It's just something. And I just need you to know it. So there's no suspicion. That's been really helpful. Because it's cyclical. It's like, I don't want you to suspect anything. Now it makes me seem suspicious now. So rather than doing that and just being quiet about it and just being short and mad at the person on the street, which is just displacing what I'm feeling. Now it's just being able to say it. We both say it now, which is nice.

[35:09] Bobby Steggert: What's also different? What are you learning about what's different now that you've made all these significant changes?

[35:16] Alex Brightman: That going with your friend, Donald.

[35:20] Bobby Steggert: Donald Whitacott.

[35:22] Alex Brightman: D-dubs. I have learned that pursuing things is great. But one of those things is rest. You can actually pursue rest. Rather than going, I have three days off all of a sudden, I should rest. And then you don't because you weren't planning on it. I should use this day to do everything else. But now if I go, I got to take five days off. I have to do that because it's going to reset me. Because one day off is not enough for actors. Sorry, it's not. It's a nice thing. I have not executed it perfectly. But I do think pursuing rest is another thing that I believe now rather than just nodding my head to my therapist and going, that's a good point. That really struck me when he said, you've pursued things.

One of the last shows I did called The Shark is Broken, I pursued that role. It was not an audition. I did not get a call about it. I saw a headline and pursued it. And he said, that's the happiest I've ever seen you when you pursued it and then got it and then made good on it. And it was like something you chose, true self, finding a creative solution into something. I want to be in this show. Boy, I hope it comes my way. That wasn't it. I actively got myself there. And he said, that is the energy that I think you need to use to pursue rest. And I think with the medication and with the therapy, I'm so down with it. And I just I'm a little bit of a slow beginner with it.

[36:44] Bobby Steggert: What does it mean when it's working, the pursuing rest?

[36:48] Alex Brightman: I'll get back to you on that.

[36:49] Bobby Steggert: You hope it will mean.

[36:51] Alex Brightman: I hope it will mean that I wake up and don't feel like I'm at the top of a roller coaster. I hope that it will just mean that if I want to spend another hour in bed, I can and not get up and open my computer to a blank screen and sit there hoping something will come. I need to be able to be OK with watching a full movie without thinking in the middle of it. I have an idea for another movie. I want to be an audience member. I've been on the other side of that for so long that it's very difficult for me to be like genuinely and wholly entertained. I would like to have my cup filled up with a movie that I can think about and not just tell people I saw and what I thought of it and things like that. I think that I'm hoping that genuine rest means not a vacation, just being able to sit on my couch for five hours and not feel guilty that I haven't done anything. It is so new. But I do think that with a little practice, I'm on my way there, which is lovely.

[37:43] Bobby Steggert: So when we talked earlier, you said that you had bought a house, but you haven't lived in it yet because of travel and work. And so do you know in the future when you'll first get the chance to get a real break?

[37:56] Alex Brightman: Yeah, in a month. In about a month, I'm done with this show that I'm doing, which is the culmination of so much travel and nonstop work. I will have genuine big amounts of time to do nothing and to try and keep it that way.

[38:09] Bobby Steggert: What does that bring up for you?

[38:11] Alex Brightman: I'm terrified. I'm genuinely terrified. It's because this is how I am recognized. Meaning how I feel seen is being the guy that's working, is talking about working, is enhancing the way I work, finding different ways to work. If it's not on stage, I got to open my computer. I have to do this. I have to do this. And I think there's a lot of it that I don't have to do. And I think that was the big discovery. I have to do this. I got to do this. And it's no, you're putting that on yourself. So I am scared to venture into this idea of what do you have to do today? Nothing. Maybe I'll go take a walk.

[38:43] Bobby Steggert: I'm thinking about how Hillary Clinton said that's what she did after she lost the election. She just walked through the wood.

[38:49] Alex Brightman: Here's the thing. I'm not a nature person. We live in nature, which is awesome. And I'm getting to love it, truly. I really like being away from the madness of the city. But I think it's some of the fake it till you make it. I do think that if I went on a walk and the purpose of the walk was to walk, not my dog, to walk, to go on a walk and think, and just, or not think, just look at a tree and go, ah, a tree, which is I've never had that thought. I don't understand people that can walk around the world and go, there's a building, there's a person, there's the street, and not be like, what am I going to say to this person when I get to my job? Drive myself Woody Allen crazy in my head.

[39:29] Bobby Steggert: In parts terms, all parts have an agenda, right? And so your gesture part had the agenda of pleasing and entertaining, and all these other parts have all these other agendas. It sounds like what you're looking for is to be in a self state where there is no agenda, and that's uncomfortable.

[39:41] Alex Brightman: Or some middle ground where I don't have to walk my dog, and when I encounter another dog on the street, have to come up with some quippy thing for that person I'm never going to see again. It's like that middle ground of being able to go, hello, and then goodbye. Because every single person in my life that I meet, even strangers, are like an audience, and I need to stop seeing people that way.

[40:02] Bobby Steggert: An audience to entertain.

[40:04] Alex Brightman: Years ago, if I could, I would have had a comment card for my interactions. How was that? Would you recommend me to a friend? That kind of stuff. And now I think it's getting better, but it's still definitely, it's so ingrained that I don't even know when I'm doing it. I bite my nails unconsciously. It's the same way. I don't even know I'm doing it until I'm bleeding.

[40:24] Bobby Steggert: When did it first occur to you truly that you're lovable?

[40:29] Alex Brightman: With my wife.

[40:31] Bobby Steggert: Yeah, with my wife, who really seems to let me know a lot how much she loves me for what I am. That's when I truly, I think, felt lovable. Loved, I've felt. I feel loved by my family. I feel loved by friends. But feeling lovable and not so angular or sharp, or that there's this tight moat around me, I do think my wife has continually helped with me feeling lovable unabashedly.

[41:02] Bobby Steggert: Lovable and not have to do anything to feel loved.

[41:05] Alex Brightman: And I think that is the most special thing I have found in my relationship, that I don't have to do something all the time for her to just enjoy my presence. Sometimes let me look at you. Just let me look at you sipping coffee on the couch. I'm down with that. We've been together for 10 years, and so it's okay to just be in the same room and feel loved and lovable. But yeah, it started with her.

[41:26] Bobby Steggert: That's beautiful.

[41:27] Alex Brightman: That stupid saying, love heals all, but it truly, really does.

[41:31] Bobby Steggert: It really does.

[41:32] Alex Brightman: It really, it does.

[41:33] Bobby Steggert: She has slowed me down.

[41:37] Alex Brightman: Yeah, boy, I could choke up right now. But yeah, it's true. I don't think I've ever been asked that before. When did you feel lovable?

[41:45] Bobby Steggert: It's a great question.

[41:46] Alex Brightman: And I'm sure that if anybody listens to this that knows me, they're going to be like, wait a second. I thought, I think he is, but I don't know. I've never really felt lovable. I've felt, I don't know. I don't know. That's my answer.

[41:57] Bobby Steggert: How beautiful to not have the answer.

[42:00] Alex Brightman: I love it. I'm a big fan of I don't know.