Chris Olsen | "I Think My Therapist Hates Me"

The Person Who Believed In Me with David Begnaud

TikTok creator Chris Olsen joins David Begnaud to discuss his journey through addiction, recovery, and the profound impact of therapy. He re

Key takeaways

• Chris Olsen has amassed more than 14 million followers on TikTok through authentic content.
• At age 19, Chris spent nearly a year in a rehab program in Boca Raton, Florida.

Main topics

• Addiction and Recovery
• Therapeutic Relationships

Notable quotes

It's about unraveling the reason my brain is trying to find the answer in the first place.

Conclusion

The episode provides a powerful look at how confronting one's darkest

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) My mom is crying in front of me and telling me that she's been a bad mom. Speaker 1 (0:03) Do you think she was a good mom? She's been a good mom. She wasn't the drunk to me growing up. She was my mom. From the iconic therapy sessions to slow motion walks on his high heels. Actor and digital Speaker 2 (0:14) creator. One of the biggest TikTok stars in the entire world. Speaker 1 (0:18) It's Chris Oldford! Speaker 1 (0:22) Welcome to The Person Who Believed in Me. I'm David Begnaud. Chris Olson has more than 14 million followers on TikTok, and he got there just by being himself, filming his friends, his coffee order, what he did last Tuesday. At 19 years old, though, his life looked nothing like that. He spent close to a year in rehab, working with a therapist he was actually afraid of. He even named his memoir after what he assumed she thought of him. I Think My Therapist Hates Me is the title of the book. She didn't, though. And six years later, mid-panic attack, she was the only person he could think to ask for help. Chris Olson is here. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. What an intro. You are only the second person to come and make their therapist the person who believed in them. I love that choice because I'm Speaker 2 (1:14) a Speaker 1 (1:14) big fan of therapy. Huge fan. Speaker 2 (1:17) I've been in therapy for quite a while. even before I started working with this therapist. But I say to anyone in my life that I think it's a great idea to be in therapy. You could be having the best year of your life, and that is a wonderful time to start therapy, to be in it. I think what stops people a lot of the time is starting, in a way, and finding that person you feel like you can communicate with, but you won't find them until you begin. And the search is kind of like dating. in a way, which dating can suck, but then you find your person. That's Speaker 1 (1:54) the goal. I call it a wellness appointment for the soul. Infuriating, though, because you go looking for answers, and they don't give you the Speaker 2 (2:04) answers. No, no. It's not about finding the answers. It's about... Speaker 2 (2:12) so many things. Like, I don't even want to pin it down to the one thing that therapy, that I get out of therapy most of the time. It's about unraveling the reason my brain is trying to find the answer in the first place. And that unraveling perhaps leads me to the answer. But she is always the one, she will never just say. where we're going to try to end. And a lot of the time when I'll bring something up at the beginning, the question is not, okay, Speaker 1 (2:43) yes, Speaker 2 (2:44) here, the question is not necessarily about the thing itself. It's why I want to bring up that thing and what I hope to get by the end of bringing that Speaker 1 (2:57) thing to the session. And you learn you are the one with the answers. I've said to myself, why am I paying this person if I have the answers? But the reality is I needed the guidance to get me through to find the answer within. Speaker 2 (3:11) Yeah. It's Speaker 1 (3:13) kind of like a mirror held up. That's right. That's right. The person you chose is Lizzie. Now, we are not using her full name and we're not using a picture because as I understand it, she wanted to remain private, didn't feel comfortable showing a picture. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Okay. So then I think what I'd like to do is start with a picture of you and your mom. Oh, my God. Yeah. Because a lot of this conversation is going to involve younger you and her. Oh, yeah. For sure. Tell me about your mom. Her name's Maria. My mom's name is Maria, Speaker 2 (3:54) yes. Where to begin? I mean, if I begin around this photo, I had a wonderful childhood. Like, pre-teen years, I write about it, I feel like so much was almost idyllic in a way. Like, I was growing up in a suburb of D.C. My mom felt like super mom to me growing up. She was doing everything. She was taking us to... everything. She was at everything me and my sister did. She was an incredible woman to look up to when I was growing up. And that is why I think there was such a confusing shift when she revealed to me that she was an alcoholic while driving to school one morning and she's crying and telling me all these issues that she's had. Speaker 2 (4:54) And teenage me is now so confused as to what we are talking about because the mom I grew up with didn't have issues, in my opinion. And one of the things she even cited when I was at a family program at one of her rehabs is that she was like, I was doing crazy things all the time. Remember when I took you to that R-rated movie when you were 12? I'm like, as a 12-year-old, that was sick. I loved it. It was... Yes, there were eccentricities she had, but I think, but not I think, as she would describe herself, she was self-medicating at that time. And when her dad passed away, it was, there was a shift in her use. Speaker 2 (5:43) But the shift also happened around the time I was becoming a teenager. So I also didn't really like my parents at that time. There were so many things happening at the same time. And as life has gone on, our relationship has continued to have trials and tribulations. But I'm so grateful for... the good times and the bad with her. Because her going through what she went through when I was younger is the reason they were able to... get help for me as early as they did and recognize the issue and the problem. And without her being five years ahead of me in terms of sobriety, who knows where Speaker 1 (6:30) I'd be right now. So that's a wild thing that I've never heard anyone say. My mother's journey through rehab helped pave the way for them to understand my journey to rehab. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Which is probably something I wouldn't have said Speaker 2 (6:47) until after writing the book and really chronologically putting my story together and seeing the thread of my own life. Because the clearer answer, maybe the easier answer feels like... It was just hard having an alcoholic mom. And then, of course, I got the issue from her in a way. It's almost like removing accountability if I were to go down that route when there is so much gratitude. Because there's no way I think my parents would have necessarily known to do something and take a step as big as... having an intervention and sending me to rehab if they didn't know what it looked like to go down the line like that you Speaker 1 (7:43) grew up in chevy chase maryland yes mom and dad were at home you have siblings you've described pretty good life okay let's segue to your rehab 2017 you get flown down to boca raton florida you're 19 years old a man named don flies you down and as the story goes Aren't y'all at the airport and he has like two tickets for free drinks on the plane? And he says to you, knowing that he's taking you there because you were an alcoholic, he's like, hey, do you want my two free drinks? Right. Speaker 1 (8:18) Apparently, not apparently, Speaker 2 (8:20) it is actually very common if you are going to detox first before rehab for alcohol that you are supposed to keep drinking on the way there. Because if you are an alcoholic who has been going at it, you've been drunk every day of your life for a long time. If you quit cold turkey. On alcohol specifically, it's very dangerous until you're at detox. But I was not in that phase yet. So it more was like, you can have these two drinks before we get there if you want, but they'll be the last. Who was Don? The interventionist that the family had hired. Speaker 1 (9:05) Got it. So you get flown down there. They walk you into a room. Really too small for the 13 folding chairs that were in it. And there are long strips of paper pinned around the walls with words like relapse and dad died and lost life savings. Yeah. And there's a woman sitting at the head of it. What were they trying to say right there in that moment? Speaker 1 (9:36) Well, the Speaker 2 (9:37) pieces of paper that were up on the room, that were up on the walls, I kind of caught on quickly that those were the people's life stories, that each person had written those down at some point, and that was an assignment I was going to have to do. Speaker 1 (9:56) But Speaker 2 (9:57) it was clear very quickly that the environment... at this particular facility was cultivating a certain level of fear. Tough love. Tough love, fear. We're not going to prepare you for what's to come, but just know it's going to be hard was kind of the vibe. And like, toughen up immediately. There was no cushion to the fall. No Speaker 1 (10:26) hugs on the welcome. Speaker 2 (10:27) No. And if you requested one, Speaker 2 (10:32) metaphorical hug. Why did you deserve it? Because of all the things that you had just done to land you here in the first place. That was the kind of question that would then be thrown back at you. And so you kind of quickly had to realize, okay, this place, I'm fending for myself here. Could Speaker 1 (10:51) you leave if you wanted Speaker 2 (10:52) to? Yes, you could. Was Speaker 1 (10:55) there Speaker 2 (10:56) a religious undertone to this place? When connected to AA, there was, and you had to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. But in this place specifically, it was kind of up to choice. They had a spiritual leader if you wanted to partake in that, but it was more about the therapy. Speaker 1 (11:20) You described this woman in the room as a pure threat. A crisp white shirt, black pants, heeled boots that you say you suspected were made for walking all over folks like you. Yes. Speaker 2 (11:31) Yeah. Speaker 1 (11:33) It was. Speaker 2 (11:36) An environment that I was scared of and yet also almost had prepared for in a way, not from just coming down there, but it almost, it felt like both a fit and something that wasn't right at the same time. When the general idea of a place is you have been bad, so you have to endure this. Here are the consequences. Speaker 2 (12:06) I think after when I no longer had my self-medication of alcohol, I was able to buy into that pretty quickly because I felt that Speaker 1 (12:17) they were right in a way. That woman was Lizzie. That was Lizzie. That's the therapist you would get to know. Yes. How bad was it? How big of a drinker were you when you arrived? I wouldn't Speaker 2 (12:29) go to sleep sober so daily at that point. But sometimes, again, I was 19. I couldn't get alcohol myself. So if I couldn't, it would be. Speaker 2 (12:42) whatever I could get my Speaker 1 (12:44) hands on, which Speaker 2 (12:45) in college would have been weed sometimes, which I didn't even like. I was just doing it because I couldn't be sober. And then cocaine. But I couldn't afford that most of the time. So I would get myself into a bind. But I was able to find it for the most part at that point. Drinking every night, I believe, became a thing within the last Two months of being in college. Speaker 1 (13:13) Now, you had told your roommate before this happened, yeah, I think I'm an addict. And your roommate ended up going around you and basically calling your family in. Speaker 2 (13:23) Yeah. Speaker 1 (13:24) Yeah. So you had an awareness that something was wrong. Speaker 2 (13:29) Yes. Yeah. I knew what I was doing at that level was no longer normal. Speaker 1 (13:35) And when the interventionist and the family showed up on that day to confront you, were you relieved or defensive? Speaker 2 (13:46) I was somewhere in the middle of those two things. I was understanding, but I also wasn't ready. I thought I wasn't ready. But I wasn't surprised. I turned the corner, saw everyone in the room, and didn't necessarily think like, what's going on here? Like I knew. I didn't have to ask any questions. It was pretty obvious what was happening. I think maybe in another circumstance, I would have thought like, did