The wellness industry killed my brother

Fair warning, in this episode we’re talking about suicide and abuse. A few weeks ago, Grant’s brother Drew died by suicide. He was a life coach. Today, Grant tells Drew’s story, and with Ryan, they take a look at the wellness industry and its ties to a variety of conspiracy theories and scams. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255). You can also reach out to the Crisis Text Line, a free, 24/7 confidential text messaging service that provides support to people in crisis when they text 741741. Find other international suicide helplines at Befrienders Worldwide (befrienders.org). Buy tickets to Panic World’s FIRST-EVER LIVE SHOW on November 28 in NYC! Along with Katie Notopoulos, the Garbage Media team will inflict the worst things on the internet in 2026 upon an unsuspecting Grant. Tickets: https://caveat.nyc/events/garbage-day-worst-things-on-the-internet-2026-2026-11-28 Get the extended conversation, as well as other ad-free episodes, bonuses & exclusives, and access to our members-only Discord, on our Patreon. Sign up for a membership for just $6.66 a month at https://www.patreon.com/PanicWorld. Credits - Host: Ryan Broderick - Producer: Grant Irving - Production Coordinator: Josh Fjelstad - Researcher: Adam Bumas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot stop your new clients from emailing you at 3 a.m.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  We can help you sell, market, and hire in one place. We cannot help you be in three places at once. And while we can't help you organize your calendar, LinkedIn can help you land more clients so you have a calendar to organize. Grow your small business on LinkedIn. Learn more at LinkedIn.com/smallbusiness.

• 0:30Ryan Broderick?

  Score the best gifts at Dick's Sporting Goods. Find picks she'll love from FP Movement, Kaliya, UG and Hydro Jug. Check off his list with must haves from Nike, TaylorMade, On and Turtle Box. And finish the kids wish list with trending picks like trading cards and squishies. Plus favorites from Adidas and Baseball Lifestyle 101. Shop on Dick's.com and in the Dick's app.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Hey, this episode involves conversations around suicide and abuse. Nothing graphic, but be warned. And we will be back to our normal kind of demented content next week. But this one's heavy.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  And for the worst transition in humankind, just a heads up on our Patreon, Patreon.com/panicworld. There's a little bit about Ryan and I discussing what makes us interested in the show, how we view the show, the show's purpose, that didn't like quite fit in with the episode. So that is included on the bonus side. If that's something you want to hear, that's there. Just a heads up, there's some extra content this episode. And just a heads up, this is gnarlier and more personal than normal. Take care of yourself.

• 2:03Ryan Broderick?

  Hello, Grant. Welcome to Panic World.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Are you not going to do a flippant intro? That's, that hurts me.

• 2:09Ryan Broderick?

  This is it. Welcome to Panic World. You're the guest now.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  So, so glad we're not doing this in person, in flesh.

• 2:16Ryan Broderick?

  I have like an anime music video compilation playing instead of looking at the screen. So I don't have to engage in any intimacy here. Perfect.

• 2:29Ryan Broderick?

  Today we are doing sort of a more serious episode. And I do want to warn our listeners that this is probably going to be the heaviest episode we've done. And it's the reason why Grant is the guest. But recently, Grant, your brother killed himself. And I spent the morning of today's episode editing a piece that you've written about that to go along with today's episode. And, you know, the kind of working title of this piece, this sort of working idea, you know, behind it is that your brother was a life coach. He was attached to the wellness industry. And it, among other things, kind of led him down the path where that ended with him killing himself.

• 3:11Ryan Broderick?

  So where I want to start, I suppose, is your relationship with your brother. Was there a moment when you were super close and stopped being like, how did those dynamics develop over time?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was a six-year age difference.

• 3:27Ryan Broderick?

  Is he taller than you?

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Slightly.

• 3:29Ryan Broderick?

  Okay.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  We had two very separate childhoods. There was like a very clear juxtaposition in like, I was like given a gift card that was given to him to like buy a CD because like he didn't care about music. He just like gravitated away from like normal things. I was like, this guy's I'm living with is kind of weird. But like, he's your older brother, so you still look up to him.

• 3:51Ryan Broderick?

  Brother relationships have always struck me as being really weird. And even the nicest ones make me really nervous. I have a little sister who is kind of a jock and also a hustle bro. You know, I'm not totally like unable to imagine it. But the dynamics of two brothers like really freaked me out, I think, even the nice ones.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're like, we refer to it as a kid where like, I was like more athletically gifted than he was or like whatever, but there was little brother syndrome. So like, he would win, like, we would play ping pong, we would wrestle, whatever. He would win not out of talent, but out of like, there's a thing in my head that I'm like, he's the big brother. But there was always that like kind of understanding of resentment of him being like, this guy who like popped up in my house is like able to get along with more people and just like has an easier time getting by than me. But we were always in touch. We were always in touch up until like late adulthood.

• 4:50Ryan Broderick?

  You were. And we'll get to sort of that in a bit. But another, another part of the piece that you wrote sort of deals with the differences between how you and your brother grew up. So, you know, I think you slightly alluded to it just now, but I mean, it seems to me that you both had vastly different experiences like within your own family. Is that right?

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, wasn't even like unspoken. It was like Drew was my dad's protege. And like I was viewed as my mom's kid. Sometimes they would try to win me over. It was clear that like I was not like them. The like cultural politics ran into this like, like from a start, like they just had a disposition of kind of resentment and like wanting vengeance. And like, it always made me kind of flinch. The words weren't there, but like even as like a kid, they're like, this fucking lib who lives in our house was kind of like the attitude.

• 5:47Ryan Broderick?

  So I was going to ask that, like, was it coded in terms of left and right wing concepts? Or was it purely interpersonal? And the reason I think it's important is because in a lot of episodes of this show, we've talked about kind of the type of person that gets sucked into something, you know, larger than them. The type of person who goes off the deep end because of what they're seeing online. And, you know, it has always been kind of unclear to me if it's totally hardcoded to left and right politics. But it sounds like what you're saying is like, there was kind of this like fuck the libs.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:23Ryan Broderick?

  Thread.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  My dad was the classic fucked snoozewatcher who was saying he was an independent who only ever, and was actually a libertarian and said it like with an extra like accent. I would say they actually both got radicalized by different eras of like right wing.

• 6:42Ryan Broderick?

  Your dad and your brother.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  My dad and my brother, mishegaw.

• 6:44Ryan Broderick?

  So was there ever a moment that you can remember? Like where your dad changed into a different kind of political sort of entity? Like you talked about, he's always been a Fox News guy, but like even Fox News, you know, isn't the same Fox News. Like, do you remember like an era, a moment, a threshold that your dad sort of passed through? Where you're like, okay, like this is, this is different. This is worse now.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, like the two things went hand in hand, but like Bush was president. So he couldn't blame the federal government. And then Obama was president, and then he can blame the federal government for everything. You know, he was like unemployed during both and he was, and he was sullen all the time. But, but, but now like, there was somebody who didn't look like him who was in charge, who to like, and like throughout the Obama administration, it like only devolved.

• 7:40Ryan Broderick?

  Is it fair to call your dad racist?

• 7:42Speaker 02

  In the way that like he had black friends and would say lots of really racist things.

• 7:46Ryan Broderick?

  Classic. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Very familiar.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  But I think more than he was racist, he hated women.

• 7:53Ryan Broderick?

  You and I have much in common with that kind of person. Although I think with your dad and the story of both him and his relationship with your brother, I think it makes it very clear that like, if you were to strip away the politics of, of all of this, the sort of contemporariness of it, there is something I think larger and more pathological, right? Like, so your dad killed himself.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:24Ryan Broderick?

  And, and this is a question I wanted to sort of hear. It's tough to say I want to hear more about this, but this is a question I had sort of hearing about this, which is he killed himself with your brother's gun. How did that happen? And like, sort of what did that do to your brother?

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. So.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Those are the questions. My brother was basically my dad's sidekick. They were living together in Florida. They kept living together years after my brother graduated.

• 8:49Ryan Broderick?

  And it wasn't like a healthy dynamic, right?

• 8:51Speaker 02

  No, my dad didn't really have friends like, like they went out to like clubs to hit on women together. Like it was gross.

• 8:58Ryan Broderick?

  I see.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  And so then my brother met the woman who would become his ex-wife. And my brother just always, he was the kind of kid who like, when he had a friend, he was their sidekick. There was always somebody who like was incredible, who he was like, this guy has all the answers. He was like looking for a cult leader. It was a chiropractor he worked for. It was like.

• 9:22Ryan Broderick?

  The chiropractor, industry man, Jesus Christ.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  It was, it was.

• 9:25Ryan Broderick?

  We should, but we should do an episode.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  We should do an episode about chiropractors. It was like a guy who was like teaching, like, who was a club promoter, teaching like pickup artist shit. You name the kind of like embarrassing man that we've talked about on the show. My brother has been the sidekick of them. The like godfather of that was always my dad. Till he met his ex-wife.

• 9:47Ryan Broderick?

  Your brother.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  My brother met his ex-wife. They, as I remember it, shacked up quickly.

• 9:53Ryan Broderick?

  Did that affect their dynamic, their sort of Batman and Robin kind of thing?

• 9:56Speaker 02

  You know, I think my dad was threatened, but he tried to be chill. But also like, my dad lived basically on a house of cards of credit cards that he was racking up tons and tons of debt that like he just was in complete denial about. That bottomed out shortly after my brother moved in with his to be wife fiance. I don't know what they were at the time. And my dad moved in with them, which was very benevolent of her because my brother just moved in. She was much more financially successful. They were willing to take in my dad. And then as what was relayed to me is my dad hit on her. I think, I think like really in fear of the power dynamic of like, they just asked that he walk the dog.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  And he didn't one day. And that led to a huge fight after the dog shit in the house. And like, he was kicked out.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  My brother tried to repair the relationship and he was like, I want to stay in touch. You just can't call my wife a bitch.

• 10:56Ryan Broderick?

  One ground rule, right?

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Drew, Drew's my brother. I don't know if I said his name, sorry. Drew tried to mend fences there. And the betrayal of his, of like the kid he like groomed to just like always be his sidekick.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  When he moved out, when he was kicked out, he stole my brother's gun. Ended up shooting himself in this condo with it. His suicide note was just in, was mostly insults towards my brother. We were cleaning out his apartment and he left little like digs at my brother and his ex-wife.

• 11:32Ryan Broderick?

  This, this sounds like a silly question, but I think it's sort of important to establish. Like, I mean, was your father ever diagnosed with any kind of mental disorder, personality disorder? I mean, this is not.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Does this sound like a guy who's.

• 11:44Ryan Broderick?

  Well, it's not normal.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Willing to go, go to therapy, Ryan?

• 11:47Ryan Broderick?

  No, but you know.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  He believed in therapy for everyone else.

• 11:51Ryan Broderick?

  At some point, the system like catches you and maybe someone in some authority role was like, I think that guy has some problems. Like, did you ever sort of go like, I think he's maybe got this or that? Not to speculate too wildly, but I'm just trying to get a sort of a sense of like, what? Was he a, was he an up and down guy? Was he a, was he a, an always sort of off the rocker guy?

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Many, many psychiatrists have said that he's a narcissist.

• 12:16Ryan Broderick?

  Sure, okay.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  I do think he like loved and cared about us individually. That was just bewildering for him to imagine, like, as long as that didn't like,

• 12:27Speaker 02

  push up against any sort of things he believed or felt. We like watched a reality TV show together and he like called a woman a bitch. And I was like, I think she's just stressed. And he like, wouldn't talk to me for like a day.

• 12:41Ryan Broderick?

  When your dad died, you were 24, so your brother would have been 30, yeah? Give or take?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  I was 24 or 25. He was 30 or, you know, between 29 and 30.

• 12:49Ryan Broderick?

  So.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. I like, my brain will not remember the years of.

• 12:54Ryan Broderick?

  And you know, nor, nor should you. That's a, that's a little gift that your brain can do to you.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  About every other year, there would be a day I wake up and I'm like, I feel kind of weird today. And then I check with my mom and then it's like the anniversary of my dad's suicide, but I have had no idea. It was approaching, could not tell you the month it happens.

• 13:12Ryan Broderick?

  The reason I, I wanted to sort of hit the, the time here, not just to orient ourselves in the story, but it does seem to be, according to your telling and what I've read, you know, from you is that, that this is a major moment for your brother in terms of the rabbit hole that he goes down. And what I think is really fascinating

• 13:34Ryan Broderick?

  about how you tell this story and how you think about it is that you are probably one of the few people I've seen make this connection. The only other person I've seen make this connection recently was I went to a Q and A with David Cronenberg after the release of the movie The Shrouds, which is not my favorite Cronenberg movie, uh, not enough fucked up puppets for me in it. But he talked at the Q and A afterwards about how everyone his age, as they're getting closer and closer to death, are becoming more and more conspiratorial. And his theory was it was the amount of funerals that older people end up going to. And it was actually sort of the presence of grief and the unprocessed grief and the presence of death that was making people turn, turn towards Fox News, become anti-vax.

• 14:18Ryan Broderick?

  And he was like, in, in Cronenberg's theory was that COVID had did, done that on a population level. That like, following this like mass death event, the conspiratorial thinking just like went through the roof across the population. And the moment that after, you know, after your dad dies, that's the moment that your brother seems to sort of really start exploring alternative woo woo, you know, spaces, starting with the secret. I mean, do, do you feel, this, this is again, a very silly question because I think it's, you know, from your telling, it's very obvious, but it, do you feel like that was a way to kind of process and not process your, your dad's death? Like by, by going that direction for your brother?

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Exactly. It's the slow trickle that I really tried to like get at here is like, his wife at the time or his girl, whatever she was, she was like one of those like business mixed think, grow rich, sort of like make a vision board. You want to be successful in the workplace, like you gotta like clear your chakras.

• 15:19Ryan Broderick?

  Well, okay, so I actually, I wanted to, I want to stop you and ask this question because I, I, were there class dynamics at play? I mean, you talked about finances sort of being part of the relationship between your brother and your dad and your brother's ex-wife. Like, like, how do you think class dynamics played into this? Cause I, I think it's part of a lot of the stories we tell on the show that there, there are these dynamics. We just never really get a close look at them.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  She was already successful in like doing something normie in corporate America, like all of her stuff was.

• 15:47Ryan Broderick?

  I wish that was true for us, you know, a nor, a nice normal email job.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Real project manager vibes, but like, but like she grew up or like was in the military. Like I remember she told me, she was like so proud to tell me this, that as a kid, people were like, why are you a Republican? You're poor. She said, because I'm going to be rich.

• 16:06Ryan Broderick?

  That is such a thing. I, it, I mean, for anyone like this in my own family, that is like, that is the story. It is the people who they know what it's like to be poor and they've created all kinds of, you know, they've created all kinds of bizarre systems to make it sure it never happens to them again.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  And for my brother, it was like, he was a bartender, like no shade to bartenders, but it was like, everything that was happening to him was like, he was imagining the TED talk about his origin story, about how he was about to be extremely successful. And she

• 16:41Speaker 02

  totally was his cheerleader and champion and being like, yeah, you're like, you're, you're gonna be a huge success. He was trying to start like a liquor business and they like talked about like, you know, being the next Fireball.

• 16:54Ryan Broderick?

  Okay, that's a very funny idea, but it's honestly like kind of an untapped market right now.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  It was honestly, it was like.

• 17:00Ryan Broderick?

  Did you ever try it?

• 17:01Speaker 02

  I helped name it. It was, it was called mischief and it was like pistachio based and like, it was like pretty decent.

• 17:06Ryan Broderick?

  Actually, like with the whole Dubai chocolate thing.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, their, their time could have come, yeah.

• 17:12Ryan Broderick?

  A pistachio liquor named mischief is pretty fun, actually.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  There was like a little pixie on the bottle.

• 17:16Ryan Broderick?

  Kind of like, like the green fairy kind of riff?

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and the drink was green, like it, it had some, it had some, you know, potential, but uh, that is not the road.

• 17:25Ryan Broderick?

  Of course.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  He went down.

• 17:27Ryan Broderick?

  How did he, how did he discover the secret? A topic that we have not covered yet because I, I feel like a lot of podcasts in our world have gone down that road before, but like, it is like such a massive, I, I feel like it was a mass radicalizing event in the nineties.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  It came out, he like, we like, like when he was a teenager and he like, he would talk about it. Like he always had some like, you know, I would say something, he'd be like, no, no, no, you gotta say like, when you're a blue belt, not if you become a blue belt.

• 17:59Ryan Broderick?

  Like in karate?

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was already primed for this, but then.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Dad was kicked out. They were making like vision boards and like, I remember they like, they like put like Akapoco or some shit on a vision board. And then they got an email that they like their points could get them like a cheap trip to Akapoco. And this was like, I think, I think this was when we during when we were like literally emptying my dad's house. And the, the ex-wife was like, at the time they were together was like, that's spooky. Wow. Like we, we put that there and now we have the opportunity like, like, look at this. So, and, and Drew by that point was like, I don't fight with anyone. I am like a peaceful person. I've accepted our dad's death. This doesn't affect me at all. I just feel bad for

• 18:51Speaker 02

  everyone else. I'm like a being of light and love and I'm here for everyone else. I don't know exactly what was going on at what at that stage within their household. Once my dad was kicked out, they were going in deeper. By the time I got there next, him and his ex-wife, I, I, or I, I called her Tiff in the piece, like bickered about something momentarily. And he then was so, he just took a second. He was like, breathing in. And I was like, what's the deal? And I was like, and I was like, normal. None of us would register this as like bickering or fighting, or like anything but normal. And he's like, I can't believe I'm letting our dad get to us enough that to cause disruption between Tiff and I. By that point,

• 19:36Speaker 02

  he was not accepting any sort of like, your dad just like killed himself. Like you should be pretty fucked up. It's like how you should be.

• 19:42Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. The, the email anecdote is really interesting to me because, you know, there's no way to prove this, but it, it is this question that I've had many, many times over the years where it's like, a lot of the algorithms, a lot of the data sort of structures that govern our lives were created by people who were connected to the woo woo hippie nonsense worlds of the West Coast. And they've kind of mirrored the way a lot of that subculture wants reality to work, which is like you manifest inside yourself and then it arrives. And it's like, I do wonder if there's this connection. Totally. I do wonder if there's this connection, you know, over the last two decades between people who are predisposed to conspiratorial or narcissistic

• 20:27Ryan Broderick?

  kind of delusions of, of, of, you know, oneness with the universe. And then their data trail is providing that experience to them. And like,

• 20:36Speaker 02

  That's brilliant. Totally.

• 20:38Ryan Broderick?

  I don't know. If free, if it, it makes me freaked out. You know, you and I are both constantly trying to figure out what happened to our families and loved ones in different ways over the last couple of decades. And like, that is one thing I come back to a lot. Like you, you and I laugh at like the coupon arriving at the right time, but like, a lot of people don't laugh at that. They're like, I did this.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Right, right. And it's like, it's like, it's like you put it on the fucking board with your like sensors, but you're telling me you didn't Google that shit. You didn't Google some resort and like, have it primed in there, you know, like, like, right. It's, it's, um, and there's just like, there's no way to enter, enter the chat that way. It's like, you're being real negative. Like, like, it's like a complete affront that is like, no, can't, can't even start that convo.

• 21:23Ryan Broderick?

  I, I think this is a good place to take a short break, either for the very unfortunate advertiser that has to try to run on this episode, or just a, just a general kind of palate cleanse. Um, so let's do a quick refresh, hear that music and come back in good spirits. BRB.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  We're so, so grateful for Oprah for sponsoring this.

• 21:47Ryan Broderick?

  I want to thank Oprah, Dr. Phil.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 21:51Ryan Broderick?

  For sponsoring this episode. Hello, Panic World listeners. We are very excited to announce that we are doing our first ever Panic World Live on November 28th at Caveat. We will be doing a live taping of our annual worst things on the internet. We did manage to get Katie Notopoulos to agree to leave her posting station and come out of her gamer nest and record with us. Tickets are going fast. It is not a huge venue. So if you want to get those tickets, you should go to the description in today's episode and click on the link that says Caveat and then

• 22:36Ryan Broderick?

  buy a ticket.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  And you, for the first time ever, in the history of worst things on the internet, which predates the show by a lot, can now vote on where things rank if you are there at Caveat.

• 22:47Ryan Broderick?

  Let's not, let's, let's not, let's not agree to that one yet.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  You may be able to vote.

• 22:53Ryan Broderick?

  Uh, we're still figuring out exactly how we want to do this. Um, but I'm very

• 22:57Speaker 02

  You can heckle Ryan about vote.

• 22:58Ryan Broderick?

  That you can do. Come to Panic World Live at Caveat on November 28th. Click on the link in the description of today's episode.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  If you're looking for us on the Caveat website, which is a stupid thing to do, we're the one with the, uh, with the special brony, uh, hole.

• 23:12Ryan Broderick?

  We, yeah, look for the, look for the, look for the, the brony flashlight on Caveat's website and click that link.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Priceline Negotiator. It's me, the Priceline Negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars. Seems like they just started. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals than Priceline. Please stop. Priceline. Touche. Priceline. Priceline.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot make your email response time faster. We can help you sell, market and hire in one place. We cannot help you find space for your three desk drinks. Why do you have three? And while we can't help you find the perfect volume for your presentation video, LinkedIn can help you find the perfect audience for your business. Grow your small business on LinkedIn. Learn more at LinkedIn.com slash small business.

• 24:21Speaker 04

  Score the best gifts at Dick's Sporting Goods. Find picks she'll love from FP Movement, Kalia, Ugg and Hydro Jug. Check off his list with must haves from Nike, TaylorMade, On and Turtle Box. And finish the kids wish list with trending picks like trading cards and squishies, plus favorites from Adidas and Baseball Lifestyle 101. Shop on Dick's.com and in the Dick's app.

• 24:47Ryan Broderick?

  Your brother is now kind of like being pulled by the gravitational forces of woo woo, no bummer's, magical thinking. But to sort of hear you tell this story, there is an, there's like another moment. And I think, I think when we're talking, when we're talking about someone who has gone down a road like this, it is like really important to signpost like when behaviors change because I, I think there are probably people who are listening to this who will be able to say like, oh, actually someone I know just kind of shifted from the no bummer's mood board stage to this next stage for your brother, which is,

• 25:28Ryan Broderick?

  you describe it, um, as kind of the entrance of, of the angel. What, now, what do you mean by that? Like, so has Drew gone like metaphysical here? Is this a person? Like, what, what happened here?

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Let's go one step back. After dad's death, Drew was like in this like all positivity thing. But then he would just like every couple, he would like call us and you'd call me and be like, or like call my mom or whatever and be like, our childhood was kind of bad, right? Do you remember specifically what happened?

• 26:01Ryan Broderick?

  Right, right. Okay.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  It was like a surprise to him. And, but he was like, he's like, I gotta just like figure out the like, the secret key. And then I'm going to turn off these bad feelings that are still happening to me.

• 26:12Ryan Broderick?

  Oh, boy.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  During that time, Tiff took up with some life coaches.

• 26:17Ryan Broderick?

  Okay.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Who I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing in a convers- it is probably the closest I felt like, and I've talked to like Nazis. I felt like somebody might like punch me during an interview.

• 26:29Ryan Broderick?

  Do these life was coaches have like a organization?

• 26:33Speaker 02

  I don't think anymore. I think that they like broke, they, they broke up.

• 26:37Ryan Broderick?

  Or was there like a denomination or sort of a, like what were like, what can you tell us sort of about that, that crew?

• 26:45Speaker 02

  One of the guys who was like the leader was like ex-military and was like, I've healed my PTSD. And like, okay. And this is when like electromagnetic pulse it, like they were like, they're like, oh, don't put your cell phone in your pocket. This was when they like had, like they, like I started seeing their, like their outlets. They had like things in there to like block the electromagnetic rays.

• 27:07Ryan Broderick?

  Years roughly was this happening?

• 27:10Speaker 02

  2017.

• 27:11Ryan Broderick?

  Okay. So, so we're talking like peak Facebook. Okay, cool.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  The other guy who was a part of it, he was like a Wall Street guy who they like had healed or like, like something sort of like really bro, bro finance guy. Much, you know, he was their charmer.

• 27:27Ryan Broderick?

  Were there political undertones to any of this?

• 27:29Speaker 02

  I kept asking them, why do you want to, why are you like only, why do you call so much? Why, why are these the people you want to help? And they said, these are the change agents.

• 27:37Ryan Broderick?

  Okay.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  They, they had a real trickle down economics of spirituality. I think I actually said that phrase and they're like, yeah, totally.

• 27:43Ryan Broderick?

  So the change agent thing, I'm, okay, I'm glad I asked this because like, I remember from like 20, like basically from Trump's first election on, there was this like year to year period. And I definitely, I was living like in Europe at the time, but I, I saw sort of the, the tendrils of this feeling of like, we have shifted reality. We have, we have broken politics and we have changed the way things were supposed to be. And we did it through like the power of thought and sort of wanting it to happen. And, and, and then, you know, I, you know, at the time I was covering far right stuff, but I remember seeing it manifest, like manifesting in other places where I was like, oh, that's really strange.

• 28:26Ryan Broderick?

  Like, um, cause like a year later, you start to get like TikTok and you get like TikTok cults. And you get kind of like this idea of like, I'm going to use the power of the internet to end like my soul to like manifest reality. It was really, in retrospect, it was a really scary time.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  This was exactly what this like, this team was. And when I talked to them, it was like, we have the truth. I'm able to heal this. I'm able to heal people. And like, I can tell you I'm healed because you can talk to me about any of the horrible things I saw during war times or whatever. And I will not, it will not affect my mood.

• 29:05Ryan Broderick?

  A real look how normal I am kind of thing.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  To them, healing was like, no, no bad thing that has happened to me can hurt me. And a lot of their advice, you gotta cut out the negative person within your life. They're holding your back that like people are toxic to you. And like, you just gotta make your life that you, you can insulate yourself to not be affected by anything. And

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Naturally with Drew and with Tiff, there was a falling out over, over how to run their lives and Drew discovered that he had the, had the same capabilities as these life coaches, except more so, and that there was an angel that he could channel that would speak only through him.

• 29:52Ryan Broderick?

  So this is a metaphysical entity that he is.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  This is a metaphysical entity called LA who spoke in a different voice than Drew and was a little bit jollier, but that like Drew was in conversation with and basically as far as I can tell was doing the same exact advice and, and being sort of presentness as these other life coaches, but now it was Drew with this angel doing it during the sessions, the, the angel would just talk.

• 30:23Ryan Broderick?

  Sessions with who?

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Drew found himself enough, enough clients that he had a half a million dollar house by the time.

• 30:32Ryan Broderick?

  Okay, so let's pause for a second because I have a lot of questions. So, and I'm just gonna try to summarize.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  What's there to be?

• 30:38Ryan Broderick?

  You're right. You're right. Episodes over. We're good. I got it. I got the broad strokes. All right. See you next week.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  Your brothers don't all talk to angels?

• 30:43Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. Okay. So hold on. Yeah. All right. So I want to summarize sort of just to make sure I understand. And then I have a lot of questions. So, so Tiff, the soon to be ex-wife, transitioning into ex-wife, introduces him to life coaches that are sort of broadly kind of like manosphere, cure your PTSD, but not quite like, not an emphasis on sexuality, more like an emphasis on like development and changing reality, kind of vaguely secret-y kind of people. Right. Okay. And he gets in with this.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  I'm sure there, there are some weird sexuality stuff.

• 31:14Ryan Broderick?

  Oh, I'm sure they're, I'm sure, I'm sure they're all doing semen retention, which is not weird at all and actually normal.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Simultaneous to working on that, I was, uh, doing a series on sex parties in New York and I saw one of the life coaches at a sex party.

• 31:27Ryan Broderick?

  Okay. We're going to come back to that as well. Um, this is in Florida. This is all happening?

• 31:32Speaker 02

  Uh, one of the life coaches lived in New York. They lived in Drew, Drew and Tiff lived in Florida.

• 31:37Ryan Broderick?

  But they were connecting with them online?

• 31:38Speaker 02

  In, I think travel.

• 31:40Ryan Broderick?

  Um, so he gets involved in this network. This network, you know, has all kinds of schisms and breakups, the way all these like freaks do, but it ends sort of like with your brother holding the hot potato and now he is a life coach. He can now channel a metaphysical entity that he's calling LA or the angel that is sort of like helping him life coach people and make money. So he's sort of entered the pyramid scheme.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 32:02Ryan Broderick?

  Okay. And we're talking like this happened in six months, a year, two years?

• 32:05Speaker 02

  They were with the life coaches for maybe six months.

• 32:08Ryan Broderick?

  He's like, forget about mischief. My pistachio flavored liquor. I'm becoming a life coach.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  There was a brief period where at once he became super spiritual, the mischief was renamed like Foggy Mountain Third Eye Liquor, like.

• 32:20Ryan Broderick?

  Honestly, that's good though. That's it.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  And he wanted like a drag in on it.

• 32:24Ryan Broderick?

  That's cool. That's, I mean, like, no, look, look, cult or not, that's cool. Uh, I gotta give it to him. Okay. Um, all right.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  But yeah.

• 32:33Ryan Broderick?

  Do you, do you have any anger for Tiff? Have you talked to her? Like, I mean, I wrote about her very carefully for fear of liable because she's a living person there. Um, and that's fine. I'm actually, you don't, I'm curious how you feel. Like, I mean, had, one, I guess, one, have you talked to her? And two, like, how do you feel about her? Like, obviously, like, everyone in this story are like adults, they, you know, a life is a, is a series of choices you make, but this woman kind of brought your brother into a predatory community at a very vulnerable time in his life and set off sort of the dominoes that brought him to where he is, right?

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Drew died at 42 or 43, around there. He signed a will four months before his death, leaving everything to Tiff and her boyfriend. Um, Drew called her at 2:00 AM, I think is what the detective told me. She did not answer and she's the one who found him. She was, I think it's pretty weird for a healthy 40 person in their 40s to sign a will and then kill themselves four months later. Uh, I was told that he was having erratic

• 33:50Speaker 02

  moods and just nothing was done. Um, if there was, yeah, I, I, I, um, if I were her, I would have trouble sleeping.

• 34:05Ryan Broderick?

  Do you know if she's still like connected to these sort of new age communities, like even from like social media or sort of impact?

• 34:14Speaker 02

  I'm sure they like, she was helping him get clients originally as a life coach. I think I.

• 34:20Ryan Broderick?

  Okay.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:21Ryan Broderick?

  I say this not to be dismissive, but actually, you know, maybe it's some comfort, which is like, this is like extremely textbook. Her behavior in particular. I, there is, there's this tendency, you know, I think we've even felt it from our guests before, this tendency to kind of write off woo woo people as being like these like harmless gadflies in the ecosystem of conspiratorial nonsense and that the neo Nazis and the occultists and the satanic cults and the comm network people, they're the real bad guys. And, and I have a lot of anger towards the positive people. Cause I, I, I sort of almost, you don't gotta hand it to

• 35:05Ryan Broderick?

  ISIS. That's our rule for this show, but I do think there is a certain, I, I have a certain understanding and respect for people who are like, I am feeling angry and here's a way where I can go be angry. And I don't have that same feeling about the people who are like, ignore your feelings. Come embrace the, the eternal sunshine of this area. And I think it is so, so predatory and insidious in a way that is just not, you don't see that in other corners of this, of this world.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  My brother never followed a good cult leader. Um,

• 35:39Ryan Broderick?

  Well, it sounds like he became one.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  But sure, but, but I would also just like, he just like, was always, I remember growing up being like, man, if Drew like lived in the Middle East, he'd like, would be in ISIS. Like he just like, was like such a, like, he just like was a.

• 35:52Ryan Broderick?

  You're saying that he was a, he was a SoundCloud rapper from East London?

• 35:56Speaker 02

  If the gears were a little bit differently, I think he would have been.

• 35:58Ryan Broderick?

  What do you mean by that? And I don't, I'm not challenging you. I would just want to hear more like, because we talk about this kind of guy, like, and it sounds like your brother is this kind of guy. So what do you mean by that? Like he, he's lost, he's easily, he's easily manipulated. He's emotional. What, what do you, what, what do you mean?

• 36:15Speaker 02

  He was looking for somebody to have all the answers. He like, I think his self, his self living was just, by the time I was existing with working memory, that was a guy who hated himself.

• 36:26Ryan Broderick?

  Because of your dad, you think?

• 36:28Speaker 02

  I think because of my dad.

• 36:29Ryan Broderick?

  Like a cycle of abuse kind of?

• 36:31Speaker 02

  He told me once the angel was within him, that he's really sorry for how he treated me because he was just, he hated my self-confidence. And he, then he thought he had found it, but like, so like on the Tiff front, let me just close that loop.

• 36:46Ryan Broderick?

  Sure.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  My brother is responsible for the people he's chosen to follow. What's interesting to me is that he, he grew up, he like, he had the soul of a shit poster. He was always antagonistic. Like he just wanted to like, to goad people, but the first opportunity somebody told him it was okay to be sweet. And like, like he wanted to be. The first opportunity he had for somebody to, to be like, you can be a helper. He wanted to be. I think that there was a sweet person inside of him who had a lot of pain that he couldn't really deal with. But unlike my dad, I think that there was like, that like, under the miraculous conditions of, of intervention, there was a person who like, wanted to understand himself

• 37:30Speaker 02

  better and like, wanted to be like of use and like a good guy to other people. I, I don't know what you do with that one. The end result is I think he like harmed tons of lives.

• 37:39Ryan Broderick?

  Did you ever try to reverse engineer where he may have picked up the angel thing? Like Google stuff he was saying?

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Like, they told me that, that there's a history of, of these channelers for these angels that had business models that were very similar, where one person was sort of like from the business world and connecting them. And then there was a person who was able to like be the vessel and communicate with the angel. They were not the first. They were just one, they were one of the chosen.

• 38:14Ryan Broderick?

  Just out of curiosity, just typed in a few things you said. And I did find the most incredible website I've ever seen in my entire life.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 38:23Ryan Broderick?

  Does this feel like the kind of vibe that we're talking about? So just for audio listeners, this is a website that I'm not going to give you the URL for, but it does say, meet the angel channeler Carol. And it is a older woman named Carol who has sparkled herself and she's claiming to take Venmo and Zelle. And in exchange, she will talk to angels for you psychically. Is this sort of the, the general kind of vibe we're talking about?

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Except Drew started being able to like buy BMW, like he was able to stop bartending and live off of his angel money for like years.

• 38:59Ryan Broderick?

  Did you feel like this person was spinning out of control in some way? Or did it kind of surprise you? Cause it seems like from the outside that like, he has found this weird, this one weird trick to wait, to make, you know, million, you know, millions of dollars. Um, and things are going well. So.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  That is how I originally rationalized it to not push back because like, like I just lost one family member, like not rocking the boat here. Um, and like, he had some funny positions on vaccines and sunscreen and I just, I just like thought not, not pushing it. But imagine trying to be feeling awesome all the time.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  When like your brain is fucking us like a sewage tank. He had severe emotional distress that he couldn't do anything with and that he had to believe that he fixed. So if he doesn't feel great, that means something is secretly terribly wrong. So as the years progressed, he started to have more and more. He was like, I'm fantastic, but something came up that like I'm unprocessing or I like that I just.

• 40:13Ryan Broderick?

  The hidden memories kind of thing he gets really stuck on.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  And so it became like my dad tried to drown him as a baby and then it became my dad molested him.

• 40:24Ryan Broderick?

  Which you don't thi- you don't think happened.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  I don't know. I have talked to therapists who say that like we as a culture have such a bad understanding of like emotional abuse and grooming generally. That like people say to them all the time, like I have to have been physically abused. If like for, for me to have such like strong visceral reactions to my dad, like my dad, like fuck this kid up.

• 40:47Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  It was inappropriate and it was violating and it was all of the feelings one experiences when they are taken advantage of.

• 40:56Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  But as yeah, as uh, to speed things up, like as the years progressed, like it became harder and harder to stay in touch with him because he kept trying. He kept talking about things that like more elaborate satanic panic sort of things that like just didn't happen.

• 41:11Ryan Broderick?

  Do you mean that he thought Sa- Satan was like a real?

• 41:14Speaker 02

  No, I, I mean, like eventually like we're skipping, he like, he goaded my mom into trying to kill herself, which she did. And then like basically there was a huge rupture and the family stopped talking like the angel was giving my mom. Guidance and like wrote her note being like, why don't you kill yourself basically? And she tried and then basically like.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  That was 2021, 2022 and like then like the, the, the family was basically on the outs from Drew. After that point, and once he was not getting that attention from them, then it became. My mom was part of the abuse and my parents were having sex parties and they were showing him poor, you know, like it just became. More and more and, and then it included, and then like he, my grandmother finally like, like he stopped talking to my grandmother and then she became a part of it. It just one by one, it became this more and more elaborate conspiracy. Like, I don't know what happened with my dad, but I like, I know my mom and my grandmother pretty well. There was not ritualistic organized abuse.

• 42:19Ryan Broderick?

  No, I, I mean, you come back to this idea. That, you know, it's basically like he's not wanting to process other things. And, and, and, you know, I, I almost think it's almost beside the point in a lot of ways, you know, we, we want to, we want to sort of understand why someone would kill themselves. And we want to understand, I think, why someone would go through the slow motion version of that, that we see with a lot of people and a lot of families. Where it's like, you're consuming so much conspiratorial nonsense that you effectively remove yourself from, from the daily, you know, lives of people around you. Like they, they disappear, you just, you know, you disappear into it.

• 42:56Ryan Broderick?

  But like, what was he trying to, I guess, what do you think he was trying to do by building this kind of mega arch conspiracy? Like, um, do you think it was just not wanting to, to process things or do you think? I don't know. I.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  I think it's very simple. He believes he has a superpower to heal people's pain, but he's still in pain. So why isn't it working for him? I say in there that like the first person he grifted was himself. He totally had to believe that he was special, that he had this ability. So if he's still feeling bad and he's still ruminating on the shitty things that happened to him. There has to be a secret bigger reason that, that he hasn't uncovered yet. That explains why.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  He's lonely, that explains why he can't make, he. Never had a long-term relationship.

• 43:51Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Outside like that explains why he's still angry.

• 43:57Ryan Broderick?

  I do think. Right now, more than maybe ever. There is this real desire that is largely American, but we see it in other countries a bit too. To sort of your life to the lives of others via the internet and, uh, you know, media. And also. Distrust institutions and also.

• 44:25Ryan Broderick?

  Believe that you can fix all that by going deeper, deeper, deeper inside yourself. And there are all kinds of mechanisms largely automated now. That will help you do that and make you feel better about doing that at every turn. I don't know. I think of stories like your brother's as sort of a series of off ramps not taken. And, and, and just like a car getting off a highway, I don't think. Us from the side of the road can be like, let me just push your car over to where it needs to go. Like that is a person who is choosing not to get off that road at every turn. And, and the modern world has made it very difficult.

• 45:08Ryan Broderick?

  And, and in fact, it has made it feel bad to get off that road. It is very easy to. Define yourself by the kind of bizarre conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo that you're, you're consuming. And then like feel weird about turning your back on it.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it would, it would have destroyed his life.

• 45:27Ryan Broderick?

  So say more about that, cause I am curious, like by the, by the, by the time he is like life coaching as this angel channeler, like is he fully surrounded by people who are reinforcing? This erratic behavior, do you, would you say?

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Look, after, after goading my mom, we, we only talked a handful of times.

• 45:45Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  After that.

• 45:46Ryan Broderick?

  And, which is your right to do that. I mean, there's a, there's, there's a turn in all these stories where you, for your own safety and your well-being have to be like, I'm out of here.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  The last time I will have ever spoken to my brother. My mom was in a mental health crisis. He was living 30 minutes away. Uh, I tried to get him to take her dog for a couple of days so I can ensure that the dog was safe. And so that was like one thing less to worry about. He had a dog, it's like. You don't have to talk to her. You can think she's a demon and a dog should not be hurt, whatever. This guy who I had always known as didactic and who would always kind of like. He couldn't sit with the, with the, with the severity of the situation. I like thought that at some point we would sit down, have a whiskey and like hash out our different versions of reality.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  And what I realized like he'd been in this bubble for so long. That I was like, I think our mom's gonna die. And he's like, you know, if you ever really need me, I'll be there. And I'm like, this is this call and he could not handle that. He had removed himself from that, like life feels bad and full of conflict so much. He couldn't actually hold on to it. His Instagram videos that like the, the last one was posted one, like a week before he died. My brother was charming. He like, he had like, he like had a twist on things. And he was just saying the most basic ass gibberish. He like mushed his brain. It was not the person I knew. And I think that just like, that's what happens if you like.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Are sheltering in a, like you, you, you stop it. If you live in a cave and there's not enough light, you like stopping able to see things like he like stopping him to process outside of there. I don't know if any of that made sense.

• 47:31Ryan Broderick?

  It does. I think there's like, there's absolutely a mania that comes with a lot of this stuff, that, that sort of feeling. Of like, I'm plugged into the forbidden knowledge and like what I'm, you know, Q and on people talk about all the time, this idea of like. I'm getting updates and I'm, I'm part of it now. I'm, I'm, my hero's journey has started and, and, and I'll, I am in it. And.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Have you ever known anyone who's ever like fully disa- like, like I've had friends who like, they were chronically sick. They started getting some kooky thoughts. They started to feel better. And if you ask them about like Western medicine now, they'll have some funny answers. But they like know how to comport themselves in the world more. But like, I've never met anyone who's able to like fully be like, yeah, I was on some crazy shit for a minute.

• 48:16Ryan Broderick?

  I have had a couple of close friends radicalize and de-radicalize. It's kind of the only thing I hold on to and why I make this show. Is because like I, I put in the time and the effort. To convince a very close, important person in my life to stop being a gamer gator. And it took. It took basically, maybe I've told this story before, but we sat on a, we sat on a bench in McCarran Park, shout out the turkey's nest. And he had embarrassed me at a party the night before he was visiting. And he was surrounded by journalists at the party. So obviously in 2014, he started saying fucking crazy bullshit that he saw on Reddit about games journalism and ethics and games journalism.

• 49:01Ryan Broderick?

  And all the women were not happy about it. And I said, we are not getting off this bench until you like, listen to me. And I also said, you can ask me every single question you have. I will be happy to tell you about it. And he didn't immediately get better. For years, he would make little snide remarks about it. About 10 years later, he is pretty open to admitting that he got the wrong end of the stick.

• 49:31Ryan Broderick?

  And I hold on to that because I'm like, okay, it is possible. It is, it is possible. And it is totally dependent on like your relationship with that person and whether you want to do that, whether you want to spend a decade. Sort of tap dancing around this bizarre thing that this person has decided they believe.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  I think it's also like, how much does that person need that thing? Why do they like, in your friend's case, like, why did he? Why was he drawn to Gamergate, do you think?

• 49:55Ryan Broderick?

  Uh, he was drawn to Gamergate because he liked video games and he didn't use social media other than Reddit. So for him. His experience of the internet, which had at that point been one website, was just telling him, this is the way the world works. And obviously, like every man on earth, it's gratifying in a misogynistic context, even if you don't see yourself as a misogynist. That we are all, that is the disease we all carry. And so, you know, it's, it makes a certain amount of sense. Especially if you don't have anyone to talk to about it. You're just like, okay, like, yeah, everyone on the website I use is saying this and it kind of fits with like. What I've been raised to believe is definitely true about the world. And so like.

• 50:36Ryan Broderick?

  I made that decision. I have, you know, I've talked, I've definitely talked about my relationship with my dad on the, on the show over the years and like, I have made the decision to. Within reason, continue to have fights with him about Trump and everything else, RFK. He's really into AI micro dramas now.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  That seems better.

• 50:56Ryan Broderick?

  No, it's, I mean, he's sending me all kinds of, he sent me a thing about crystals this morning, like he, you know.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  Does he believe that they're real or is he just like, this is the best TV show?

• 51:05Ryan Broderick?

  Oh, he's like, I can't get enough, I can't get enough AI micro, I can't get enough of these AI videos. And he sent me. He sent me, yeah, a video the other day about crystals or something. I mean, it's, um.

• 51:20Ryan Broderick?

  I make that decision. I, I make that decision and I do it because it hasn't gotten to a point where I feel threatened. You know, I don't, it's not a safety issue, but it also seems like no one in your brother's orbit that was still agreeing to talk to him. If there were anyone, I guess he had clients, but like, he, like by that point, it seems like he's now completely hermetically sealed inside of. With this filter bubble that he's found himself in.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  That's my assumption. Looking around, I went to, I would say, but again, I went to his apartment once.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  So like the most deep personal fucking place I've ever been besides for like a ton of crystals. It was like so fucking eerie.

• 51:59Ryan Broderick?

  Oh, depersonalized as in like, there's nothing about him really, you know, in the space.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, just like doesn't feel lived in by a human. There was no favorite hoodie on the, like, in.

• 52:11Ryan Broderick?

  Did he have a closed chair?

• 52:13Speaker 02

  No, like, yeah, okay. But I will say like, like. He never tried to call. He wrote the thing to my mom. I sent him an email a bit after being like, this is fucked up. But like, if, if he ever tried to call me, I would have answered. There was a best friend that we grew up with who would have answered the phone. There was people still for him to call that were out of this hermetic seal. Who I think that like, I gotta believe that he knows would have answered the phone, but we would have just told him he's being fucking crazy. Like with love.

• 52:48Ryan Broderick?

  Are you all from the Philly area?

• 52:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:51Ryan Broderick?

  See that man? Yeah, you guys, you guys, we don't talk like that outside of Philly, you know, you guys have a different way of doing things.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  We would have told him like, like LA is a, is a superhero you made up.

• 53:03Ryan Broderick?

  The angel, yeah.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  He, he wrote in the note, like, everything he's done to possibly help himself from healing this trauma. Hasn't worked, so he's no op, option left.

• 53:12Ryan Broderick?

  The trauma of your, of your dad.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  The trauma, well, now the trauma of the.

• 53:17Ryan Broderick?

  But also the, the macro conspiracy that he's built.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  The, that he was exploited for fucking Satan or some shit.

• 53:24Ryan Broderick?

  And I, I'm gonna tap, I'm gonna tap in here real quick and just reiterate that like, in an instance of, of self harm, uh, you know, of someone killing themselves. There isn't always an, there isn't always an explanation. There doesn't have to be, it's all, it's sort of, it's, it can drive you nuts trying to figure it out, but. I think when we're sort of talking about the, the radicalization structure that brought your brother to that point is, it is. Interesting and, and I think important to note that like, he had, he had built this thing. That was like weighing on him and he'd continued to add to it over the years.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  And I've seen this on like much smaller levels where like, I worked with somebody whose husband went to like an ayahuasca retreat. To deal with their things and then he got back and he was still like freaking out. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. He went to like Peru or whatever, but he hasn't tried an antidepressant. Like, like.

• 54:19Ryan Broderick?

  Men will get one shot at by an, a Babylonian blood god before, in the astral plane before going to therapy. Yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  Trying a little Zoloft?

• 54:28Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. I mean, it doesn't fit the hero's journey.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:32Ryan Broderick?

  For a lot of people, if you go through the process of like, asking yourself what's wrong and getting outside perspectives on what's wrong by people who have. Medical licenses. You actually will come out of it, you know, a little humbled, your ego might be a little bruised and you might feel better. But if you don't want to do that, you can go take like frog venom in a Peruvian forest.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:57Ryan Broderick?

  Um, because in a lot of ways that is easier than having your ego dinged or maybe with someone like your brother facing something. Truly horrendous, like, like, you know.

• 55:11Ryan Broderick?

  Facing that thing head on is, is, is a, is a nightmare for people and I, you know, I.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  And now you don't know who is also like a predator. I was talking to the detective. An hour after finding out my dad, or I'm sorry, not that, this time. I was talking to the detective. An hour after finding out my brother killed himself and I like said something about. His unpro, I was like, like his unprocessed memories and the conspiracy in there. And the, the detective was fucking arguing with me that, that this was real. Or, or that like, that she's had people in her life who have uncovered memories too. And that like the crystals in this house meant that he was like a spiritual person. Like, who knows what that therapist believes? Who know, like, you, like.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  We all have self radicalizing devices that like, you don't know when you're talking to somebody now who's like on some RFK shit.

• 56:13Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. Your brother's life in a lot of ways is this incredible testament to the, the, the American man and sort of, you know, all of these. All this hand wringing right now about like the sickness of the American man, but it's like, to go from like, the abusive shadow of, of. The, the boomer generation to entrepreneurial hustle to woo woo. To full on delusions. I mean, it is, it is all there and it, and it's reinforced in every. Way. And I guess like the question I kind of want to like end on thinking about and asking you is like.

• 56:49Ryan Broderick?

  Am I good? Yo, you good, bro? Yo, you, yo, you all right? Um, no, I guess like, you talk about how everyone right now could be like this. And I actually, of all the things we've talked about today, I think that's the least conspiratorial idea I've heard, which is like, yes. A large chunk of the American population are secretly very crazy right now.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  It's a moment you realize like, oh, every family has somebody who struggles with addiction or mental health. It's like every family, like it's. When, I, I will say, like, one comfort I've taken in the past three weeks. Is because we've talked about this and we've done the call in episode before and I was like, I know I'm not alone. It is a matter of degree and specifics, but like. Making the show and like the relationship we have with the listeners through this, like, I think like we all feel really alone, like. It is fucking embarrassing to say that two men of my nuclear family killed themselves.

• 57:48Ryan Broderick?

  I wouldn't say embarrassing.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Well, I've already to my feelings.

• 57:52Ryan Broderick?

  You do. I just wanted to let you know that like.

• 57:54Speaker 02

  Do you, do, like, like, like, there's gonna be a day where somebody's like, where I'm meeting, like, I'm getting to know a stranger and they're like, oh, so what's like, what's your family like? And like, I have to like, like, it is.

• 58:04Ryan Broderick?

  I don't think you have to tell everybody right away. I don't, I don't want to be northeastern about this, but you can.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  But knowing that like. It's actually highly relatable. Even if it varies in severity, I don't know, I take some comfort in that. We're, we're actually all in fighting this dragon of, of missing. Disinfo hero's journey together.

• 58:29Ryan Broderick?

  And the question I wanted to sort of ask you, kind of wrapping things up is like. Do you think you would feel?

• 58:37Ryan Broderick?

  Not better, but like different. How, how do you think, how differently do you think you would feel if

• 58:44Ryan Broderick?

  what your brother was sucked into was like a name brand delusion? Oh yeah, my brother was a QAnon guy and we like didn't talk to him and it got really dangerous and scary. Or my brother went to the insurrection or my brother was an anti-vaxxer who got measles, like measles or like.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  It is easier and I mean, the relationships are different. It is easier for me to have empathy for my brother than it is for my dad. The last conversation I ever had with my dad, he, and he probably, he like had to know he was gonna kill himself. Like, I mean, he was preparing notes. He like goaded me into a conversation about how uh, global warming isn't real. I see Drew's desperate attempt at fixing himself and like following all of the wrong instincts. And that is easier for me to think like, it's just a guy who wanted to feel better. Cause like, he feels really fucked up and it's like really understandable for him to feel fucked up. He just has the worst fucking instincts in the world versus if he had taken on some like, I hate women.

• 59:44Ryan Broderick?

  Right, right. Like if he had gone into debt from polymarket or something, like it's a different.

• 59:51Ryan Broderick?

  He was trying, in a lot of ways, he was trying to do something good. Or trying to help, trying to change, but it was like, every road was, was wrong.

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think he could have gone down any of those roads, like all of those things were way more likely than him ever ending up like, being somewhat well adjusted with like a normal ass job. But like Marty, my partner, my partner pointed this out to me, when he killed himself in like that much pain,

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  he did it in the most considerate way possible. He went to a park. He put a note on the car for, to call the cops. He put a note saying like, don't let any children come here. This was a person who I think did a lot of damage to people. I can't imagine what it's, what, what he's done to his clients, but who fundamentally cared about other people. Um, and that fucking sucks.

• 1:00:45Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, it does. All I can really say is, uh, Grant, if people want to follow you online, where can they do that?

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  Patreon.com slash.

• 1:00:54Ryan Broderick?

  No, what I, what I will say is, um, thank you for coming on and talking about this and

• 1:01:01Ryan Broderick?

  I, I know for a fact that you are not the only person who has had to go through something like this, will go through something like this. So if there's any kind of solace to be found, it is just that you are part of a big club, unfortunately. Um, and there is gonna be a lot of people who are helped by hearing this. I'm sure there's all kinds of people who have found themselves at different parts of that journey that we talked about today. So thank you for being open and, and, and willing to talk about it.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  You can just email me directly if.

• 1:01:34Ryan Broderick?

  Grant@garbage day dot email, shoot him an email.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, if, if this, if this, if there's enough feedback that, that people want to share their own experience and we want to do another coping with our conspiratorial families, like, I'm game. And I, I know that this thing I'm about to say is just totally my own craziness and no one else is thinking about this, but like, I am sorry that we are behind on Patreon content.

• 1:01:58Ryan Broderick?

  Oh my God, shut up.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  I am, I am like we.

• 1:02:02Ryan Broderick?

  Shut up, shut up. And, uh, on that note, if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK-8255. Um, and do not, uh, even think about complaining about Patreon bonus content, please. Thank you again, Grant. This was, uh, not a good conversation.

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  As fun of a conversation as you.

• 1:02:32Ryan Broderick?

  I'm not even gonna say that. I'm gonna say, but it was an important one. So, thank you.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

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• 1:03:09Speaker 04

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