25 Comments
Nov 27, 2023Liked by Felicia Day

I'm amazed. I have not heard the word "Mortification" used twice in a story...Bravo!

Seriously, I'm in my late 50's and have to hold Engineering Design Reviews of my machines to groups of peer engineers. I struggle and "freeze" up to this day. What gets me thru, no matter what, is this quote a friend told me long ago... "They can't eat you, and they can't kill you". Everything else is manageable. Cheers!

Expand full comment
Nov 27, 2023Liked by Felicia Day

My hand is raised really high. I can totally relate. I'm Mr Freeze when someone asks me a question at work excepting me to know the answer, when I have no clue what they are talking about. Was I supposed to know the answer, did I miss something in an email or message, how can I gracefully back out of this situation without looking a fool. 30 seconds - 1 minute of hemming and hawing, alotof you knows and umms later, I am making big promises I don't know I can fulfill.

But it's one step at a time. Soon you we glowing like the mother effing sun to light the way for you and others. And you do glow,

Expand full comment
Nov 27, 2023Liked by Felicia Day

This is *too* real and I love it for that exact reason. (Side note; while might've been mortifying at the time, this is definitely a great advertisement for the podcast at least 😂)

Expand full comment

I absolutely love you for sharing this and can also identify... I will literally - out of nowhere - have a flashback to something awkward that I did at some point in my life - 10, 20, 30 years ago and feel the back of my brain rear up for a full rehash of the experience. I will literally say "stop it" out loud to myself and find something to distract my brain with immediately. I have an overactive empathy response as well, so it is hard. I will feel it as if it happened now instead of forever ago if I don't stop it. It happens less now than when I was younger, but I suspect, I will be 80 and still think of that "one time when..."

Expand full comment

Thanks for the link to Suika! Another good version is free on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2658820/Watermelon_Game/

It has some powerups and doesn't need to be online to play.

Expand full comment

Thanks for giving a name to my superpower. Heaven forbid I start a sentence with "it's not like" because that 1 in a billion chance person is standing right there in the room, missing a finger from a freak piano accident involving a poodle.

Expand full comment

Hi Felicia, sorry about this delayed response.

Absolutely can identify! As a fellow non-neurotypical, we all have similar emotional breakdowns in those types of situations. Heck, normies do too! It helps me to try to turn it into a superpower, sort of. If I can take the time stoppage to pull my virtual foot out of my virtual mouth, and salvage the moment, .... great! If not, at least take note from the near-death experience to learn to avoid those missteps in the future. (Good luck with that.) While I admire all your talent as a gifted actress, content creator, and everything else, .... it's the ability to show that you're just as human as the rest of us that makes you awesome. LOL. Great art is when one human can touch another is some transportative way, such as relating that we all share flaws like you describe. Keep being such a fine artist.

Don't be less, be more!

Thanks.

TTFN....

Expand full comment

Felicia, you continue to wow me with every single post, however infrequent...do what you do, you owe the world nothing, you already gave so much.

Unlike most of the comments, I don't have a problem with speaking, whether one-to-one or in public. I belong in a foreign country and culture, I'm good at it and if I hit 80% of my audience, I'm ok with that.

Here's the thing...you always hit 80% or more of your audience. Your intelligence, your beautiful articulation, your empathy and above all your honest candour, are all the marks of a truly wonderful human.

Stick with it. You are helping more people, and in more ways, than you can perhaps imagine.

Expand full comment

Owwww.

It could be worse. I laugh uncontrollably in these situations, which I inherited from my dad.

Expand full comment
Nov 30, 2023·edited Nov 30, 2023

If that's your only faux pas recently, give yourself the bronze award in the foot in mouth contest Ms. Day. I consider myself a very empathetic person but I have unintentionally created many awkward moments by saying something off the cuff, especially when I let my guard down with some one new I have met. My old friends are used to it :) . I'm truly sorry it has bothered you for this amount of time but it does speak volumes about your character. Just find a image of a kitten hanging on a rope that's states "Hang in There" and that should help a bit.

Expand full comment

You're doing ok, child.

just breathe and have a cookie with your little monster (see what I did there?)

I've not listened to the 3rd Eye thing....

Just breathe.

Gramma Jo

Expand full comment

I totally get this type of concern. I've had this feeling many times but it took me a while to get over it.

Expand full comment

If it makes you feel any better, I’ve started this 3 times now. The first 2 ended with “what are you doing? No one needs your opinion” thanks to some wonderful self esteem issues. But I’m pressing on because I think I understand the feelings you’re describing and appreciate your vulnerability in sharing.

Just reading this tells me you have made progress- remarkable progress in fact (so please don’t doubt that or yourself).Getting counseling and learning about Meditation/mindfulness in particular have been a godsend for me too. I’m forever in debt to the counselor who introduced me to Jon Kabat Zinn and his book “Wherever you go, There you are”.

You’re not alone and I hope you receive other messages letting you know that as well. What’s also cool is by doing what you’re doing you’re also creating an environment where your daughter can likely be able to share her struggles (should she have them) without fear of being labeled or judged. Which is priceless.

For most of my life I was unable to slow down racing thoughts much less stop over analyzing everything and being hyper-self critical. I still struggle with accepting praise or acknowledgment but it’s gotten so much better.

Self care/Self love just wasn’t something I ever learned or even heard of. It was more, you need to buckle down and work harder. Which of course only made things worse.

I love my parents deeply, but still remember the raised eyebrows and “you’re taking medication? Really? Just be careful” talk lol I can't really talk about many things I’ve learned as they still have a stigma about anything that may be seen as “Eastern” and not readily accessible/accepted in your local church. But, I know they can sense the difference in me and it’s helped our relationship and my ability to relate with them tremendously.

That all said, besides Zinn I’ve found the books and teachings of Thich Nat Hahn through Plum Village to be invaluable. The Plum Village app offers a number of meditations and teachings on many topics- but for me I find myself returning to those that are on self love, self compassion etc.. I would recommend them.

Anyways, best wishes and thanks for sharing. I know this probably isn’t the place, but I’m disappointed I just got that MST3K email about the crowdfunding. Here’s hoping for good news on that soon (and I’ll definitely be contributing again if/when that happens again).

Expand full comment

Sounds like you had a great host there, that at least didn't keep you hanging too too long and kept the interview moving along when he spotted you were in a spot. Worthy of a follow-up thank you note. As for the freezing, I doubt it will ever stop completely, but take a few moments to reflect on how much progress you've made. You're not the freezer (or any appliance) you once were, and inch by inch, you'll be even better. I'm betting there's plenty more times these days where you don't freeze, and you don't even realize it. Life's going to have hiccups and they stand out, but there's plenty of hours of the day when you're breathing normally. Work on the faults, but don't let them be who you are. You're Felicia after all, not Ms Freeze :)

Expand full comment

What was the movie? I'll tell you if it was actually good or not. :)

Expand full comment

I took speech class in middle school just so that I could train myself not to freeze up in front of any audience. Even with that training, I still need to be well prepared with three run throughs before I can function in the situations that you seem to take with stride. I saw you lead a panel at the Rhode Island Comic-con with grace and humor. After the panel, you went into the audience and talked with an audience member about a question she had asked. I don't remember the question, but I do remember that your whole body language showed that you cared about that fan. Thank you for being kind. People, like me, follow you because you are a wonderful person who shares her fun spirit and who is constantly reexamining her place in the world. That's why we adore you.

Expand full comment