Susan u. S. Representative smith has a new book that is coming out with a pretty stark title. Lost and broken rep. Smith well, i like the subtitle, my journey back from chronic pain and crippling anxiety. The title isnt the most optimistic, but there is a path back. Susan what is the story you tell . Rep. Smith basically, i went through a bout of anxiety and chronic pain. There were lifelong aspects of it. This is stuff that i was feeling when i was a kid. High stress, i had anxiety then, and actually a knee injury when i was 12 years old that manifested itself out. But i dealt with it without any significant problems until i was 40 when i had an uncontrollable bout of anxiety that lasted five months. Eight years after that, the anxiety came back and i couldnt find a way out of it. Shortly way thereafter, chronic pain sudden. I had three hip surgeries. That lasted about six years of struggling to figure out what was wrong with the and what do i do about it did it was a very difficult period. Susan why did you decide to write about it . Rep. Smith i wanted to capture what happened. I was coming out of it in mid2019. Was finally starting to feel better, close to where i was at. I finally got off of all the medications i was taking in april 2019. Then, the physical therapy and psychotherapy had been kicking in. Then the pandemic hit. So, i had a lot of time. So, i wrote it does to keep it fresh in my mind and remember what happened. As i was writing it and thinking about other people, tens of millions of people who suffer from some combination of anxiety my depression, or running pain. I thought it would be a story that would be help in the larger debate of how we address those challenges that so many people face. Susan over the course of a couple decades, you say an estimated 100 health care professionals. That is a lot. What does that say about our Health Care System . Rep. Smith it says the answers arent as easy to find as they should be. I think on the Mental Health side, it was probably only about 10 or 12 therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists thought i saw. The bulk of that number comes from is a goal therapists. Massage therapist, osteopathic surgeons, chronic pain specialists, personal trainers, and acupuncturists, a couple put out your trysts. I think one of the biggest things it says is that health care is very specialized. You dont really have that person who goes ok, lets look at a whole body and mind and get the diagnosis right first. The whole thing is connected. It is almost a cliche at this point. Just because your foot hurts, it may not be direct to your foot, it might be connected to Something Else in your body. Anxiety and depression can lead to chronic pain. Susan you are in a situation where you can have impact on health care policy, is there anything you would change . Rep. Smith the number one thing is universal access to health care. That does not solve the whole problem. There are too many people out there who dont have insurance. You will struggle to find a solution. I will say that of those 100 plus people, probably over half of them didnt take insurance. Universal access to health care. Second thing is, lets emphasize primary care, the doctors who are supposed to look at you holistically. The third thing is, we are way too reliant on drugs and surgeries. That is sort of the easy button in health care. It is expensive and often times makes the problem worse. Susan one thing i would like to have you explain, over the years, there are questions about members of Congress Health insurance. How does your system work . Rep. Smith it is very similar. Federal employees have a solid Health Care System, but it is not the best. Because of the Affordable Care act and we are little thing, all members of congress are forced to buy on the Affordable Care act plan. We got bumped off of the previous plan, and we had to buy into. The marketplace. I forget what my premiums are, it is five or 600, pretty significant. You may not be in the network. My wife works for king county and has much Better Health insurance than i do. She is on that Health Care Plan and our children are with her on mind it is complicated and difficult, but there are a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists who werent covered by my insurance. Susan capitol hill is a pretty small town. Are you anticipated as your story comes more widely known . Rep. Smith it is hard to say. I dont think much will change. Fortunately, i have been here 27 years. People know me. This is not going to be that shocking. I am open and honest about what is going on with me for the most part, but i will be interested to see. Susan when you wrote the book, did you find it difficult to go through, was it cathartic . Rep. Smith it was. I am an excessively logical person. I love to be able to explain things. I will have a town hall in a couple weeks to talk about it, and i am fascinated to talk through that. For me, this was like explaining it. So what happened . How did i wind up in this place in the first place . And how did i work my way out of it and what were the lessons that we learn . So, it was not really solving a puzzle, because the puzzle have been solved, it was understanding how i saw the puzzle. Susan can we work through some of the stories in the book, beginning with your origin story . Where were you rank . Raise . Rep. Smith i was adopted. My mother was a code clerk, i was conceived in prague. They were not married and my biological father did not want anything to do with it. So my biological mother gave me up for adoption to her older brother who was living in seatac. I was born at George Washington hospital, then flown to seatac and thats where i grew up. I did not know i was adopted, nobody ever told me until after both my parents had passed away and my biological mother sent me a letter explaining it to me. Susan were you able to resolve issues . At that point you were both grownups, how did rep. Smith we had a decent relationship before that, and we still do. Do is still alive actually. We talk regularly. He certainly had conversations throughout the years and talked about it. Susan there is a sad note to the story, she didnt have much choice about giving you up at the time. Rep. Smith it is funny, people think the world we live in today and all the conflicts we have the depth of sexism in america is really not fully understood. Up until probably the mid70s, the expectation was if you are a woman and you got married, you didnt need a job. In fact, if you had a job you are taking it may man who had a family to raise. The state department did not allow married women to work in certain post. They did not allow a woman who had a child out of wedlock, she could not keep me and her job that forced the decision for some extent. What i can gather from talking to her, it was an agonizing decision right to the moment of me hopping on that plane, she wasnt sure. Susan you were raised by bluecollar parents, you went to college in new york city, how did you accomplish all that . Rep. Smith first in my family to go to college. My mother basically raised me and my two brothers who were not adopted my father had big ambitions for me. That was the other thing that drove my childhood. In retrospect, he felt a responsibility. He has got to do something. So, he pushed me to do more than i otherwise would have. He expected bigs of me. Big things of me i was mediocre, i was ok. I wasnt going to be a star or whatever. I have that feeling, i got to do something. I felt like i had to challenge myself, which is what led me to go to the university in new york. I had a friend who was from new york whose family moved to seatac and we became friends, and i followed him there. Susan how did your jesuit education influence you . Rep. Smith i am a philosophical person, but i wasnt raised religious. I was baptized, never quite worked out. I was very interested in those subjects, in philosophy, the meaning of life, theology. The jesuits are a great group of people to hang out with if you want to study that it was a good education. Susan you wrote fear and insecurity were near constant companions as a child, and it didnt mix with my very large ambitions. Can you tell us that . Rep. Smith everybody, when they are young most people feel a degree of insecurity, it is part of growing up. You dont know who you are or who you want to be. Mine was a slightly higher level, i was afraid of a lot of things. Particularly new experiences. I was afraid of heights, being on the water, really afraid of interact with people that i didnt know. At the same time, i was pretty ambitious and competitive. Sports were a great outlet for that until i screwed up my knee and arm. Sports just give you a place to go and have some focus. I was very insecure and very ambitious at the same time. The great thing about college was, i am going to new york. I was petrified. My father died my first year and i was trying to figure that out. It was a very difficult and challenging experience. The main thing i got out of it was to learn how to deal with difficult and challenging experiences. I had to push myself forward pass that fear and insecurity and lack of confidence. Susan does that come into play later when you are dealing with these problems . Rep. Smith yes and no. That primarily came into play when i was pursuing what i wanted out of life. It drove me to be really into, i am just going to do it. When the anxiety and the pain hit, i had no idea what to do. For the most part, when i was trying to accomplish something, and i felt like i couldnt do it, very self pitying. But then i would be like, ok. What are you going to do . I had my little list, my little yellow note pad. When i was running for state senate, i could walk out the door and knock on doors, i could do something. Did here, what can i do . I have this feeling of unbelievable anxiety, i cant sleep, i am in pain, trying to exercise, but i cant. I was lost. I would say, no, i guess in one sense, i never gave up. Im not going to stop until either i physically cant move forward or until i find the answer. In that sense susan your First Campaign was at age 25 for the state senate. When i was reading it, i was thinking, why was this crippling anxiety to choose such a public career . Rep. Smith i didnt think it through on that level. Susan why did you join politics . Rep. Smith because of my father. He was the secretarytreasurer of his union. He was interested in politics and subjects, that is what he wanted to push me into. I have this sense that despite all of that insecurity that i had leadership qualities. That i like to solve problems and bring people together to try to find how to resolve it. I liked doing that. I liked bringing peace and order to the immediate world. I thought it was something that i could do, and also, i thought it was my destiny. I just did, ok . I thought this was what i was supposed to do. I forced myself, i was terrified of the water, so i wasnt going to swim. They were taking us to swimming lessons in the fourth raid, and i refuse to try. Then i just jumped in the water. Susan just like your political campaign, just jumped in. These the story of your life seems to be stretches of really good times and then bouts of anxiety and pain. You were the youngest state senator in the United States at the time. You had a good 15 year run. What was working . Rep. Smith confidence was the big thing. I did not have confidence prior. I have a sense of ambition but also thought, i am not going to the able to get there. I had a lack of confidence, but then won that election and found i was actually pretty good at it. If i could just think and interact with people that i sort of knew how to do this. You know, i was fortunate as well, i got to chair the Judiciary Committee two years after i was elected to state Senate Congress was available, it was a tough campaign against an incumbent republican. I was pretty good at it. During that timeframe, it was a high stress time. My general approach to getting through these difficult challenges was think, think, think, work, work, work, worry, worry, worry. That wears you down. That intense and that stressed, my knee, and my back, and a bunch of other things werent working great at the time either. Susan havent even gone to the congressional seat yet. I was trying to put the timeline together, you did have two notable incidents during that 15 year run. One was after your victory, severe bout of depression, and then in 1994, a little break down at the democratic caucus. Did either of those raise warning flags to you . Rep. Smith no, they should have but they didnt. I won that election and i was very confident. My mother passed, my adopted mother. Early the night before i got elected to state senate. And my father passed away, so i am home alone, living in the house i grew up in, life was good in a wide variety of ways but just it was depression, it was like nothing interested me. I just have this black feeling for reor four months and i told nobody about it. A colleague of mine who i interned for when i was in law School Called me one day, he was a statehouse member and i was in the senate. He asked me if i was ok, i walked past you today and you just looked terrible. It didnt even occur to me that i was Walking Around looking like [indiscernible]. It went away and i didnt really give it much thought. Whenever i felt the 1994 story is when i failed to pass a bill i was supposed to pass. I broke down in tears trying to respond. That feeling of failure just, it just broke me. Susan you also got married during this time. And had two kids. Your kids are ydults, what are they doing . They are here, actually. My daughter is 22 she is the stsistant in her office, she just graduated from college last year. My son just started an internship out there, he has a sophomore at washington state. On this long road, how where was your family . My wife was very aware of it. It kept going. I did what i could do. I didnt want to lock myself in the bedroom and stay there for a week. They were very aware of it. There is no avoiding it. Susan in 1996, you are in a very stressful position and responding to that stressed by intensity of work, you decided to run for congress. Rep. Smith i loved politics, but state senate was a parttime job. I was looking for a fulltime job in politics. They republican revolution was in 1994, i stayed in washington and got hammered with that. We had eight democrats out of the nine seat, we lost six of them or you do we lost six seats. It was a very stressful experience. So im trying to make sure i dont have a primary, and then a woman was a superintendent of construction, i had worked i hear this rumor she has got a and she is going to run for the ninth district seat. That turned out true, she did have aids, a transfusion issue, i think. She is still doing well, which is great. She became this Huge National story and we thought she was going to run. In the middle, the dcc asked me to come back to bc to do a candidate thing, which i didnt want to do. I did it, then the plane is delayed and i am stuck in detroit in january trying to connect, and there is the national news. I put my head down on the counter, the exact thing i said is, why did i do this to myself . I could have done something a lot more peaceful, and it probably spent an hour like that. I got out my notepad and said, ok, what are we going to do . She didnt run, which helped. It wound up being just a oneonone. The stress was always there, that is what im trying to get out. I stressed my way through all of that. Susan other than alaska and hawaii, you have probably the longest commute of any member of congress. You made the decision for your family to stay back in washington. In retrospect was that the right decision . Jumping on airplanes every week. Rep. Smith the Pacific Northwest is a great place to live, my wife is very close to her family who lives in portland, oregon. I am glad that my children were raised in the district. Truthfully, i dont really mind Airline Travel that much. It gives me a time to relax, think,. , organize. When i was going through the pain and anxiety, that was a different story. But it was the right decision. Susan we hear about members of congress who do as you do, because the two homes are very expensive to keep up. You lived in your office. Rep. Smith not when we first moved out, but our second child was born in 2003 and it didnt make sense to go back and forth. I stayed in my office for 18 years. I am a minimalist, do you have a pullout mattress susan in your office . Susan rep. Smith i would wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, i slipped on the couch for a while, and one of my hips started going bad i bought a box frame that i slid into the closet. Susan i have this vision of this Congressional Office building with a few members here and there in the middle of the night. Where do you cook, whered you use the restroom . Susan i have a restroom in the office, and i pay for the gym, shower down there. We had a fridge and microwave, so i would buy stuff for breakfast, but lunch and dinner i ate out susan is there a community of people who slept in their office . Rep. Smith absolutely. Prior to the pandemic, it was a lot. Paul ryan and Kevin Mccarthy he might still sleep in his office. There is a lot. They shut the gym down during the pandemic, so a lot of members found alternatives. I stuck it out in a variety of ways. It is not insignificant. Susan you were in the minority when you arrived and remained there for 10 years. What was that experience like for you . Rep. Smith if you are coming in as a freshman, coming in as a minority is not the worst situation did you are trying to figure out how do i make all this work . How do you make it work for your family . After 10 years, you start to think, is this ever going to change . A lot of the job of congress has to do whether or not you are in the majority or minority. You are responding to emails, dealing with social security, medicare, tax problems. Talking about issues and introducing bills. It is not terrible being in the minority in my view. A lot of what i do is about the constituents. Listening to them and responding to them on a consistent basis. It is different. Susan i hope i remember correctly, but i think you wrote that there was a much more congenial place until 2008. What happened . Rep. Smith that is a good question. I think keep in mind, in 1996, when i got elect, we won the cold war, kicked as in the first gulf war. The budget was balanced. It was a surplus for four years. The republicans were in charge of the house, they didnt like to be in session that much. These two have a tuesday through thursday schedule. We would fly out Tuesday Morning , thursday we were done by 2 00 and flying back so, it wasnt necessarily it was a calmer time. You would have to write a whole another book to describe what happened. I think more people became involved in politics and it became democratized. You go on the internet, social media. A lot more people got involved, a lot more people got intense about it. The tea party emerged after barack obama was elected. Engaged in two wars, the Great Recession hit, i remember standing on the floor when that bill went down, everybody is on their phone watching the stock market go. And then it just got a lot more intense, back and forth, on social media all the time, on cable all the time. A lot more of a 24 7 job and it was prior to 2008. Susan and i got more expensive to run . Rep. Smith my district is kind of ok, so i havent been in one of those intense 10 million races, but if you are in a competitive seat, you have got to raise money constantly. Susan 2005, first time you went to a psychiatrist, what was happening . Rep. Smith just anxiety, overwhelming. My life was very stressful at the weight, my children were four and 1. I was on that tuesday thursday schedule, small children. I came home one night and this overwhelming sense of anxiety just hit me and wouldnt go away. Among other things, i was terrified of the inevitability of my own death. Then i was just i had never felt anything like that in my life. It was this unbelievable anxiety, every second of every day was like an existential threat. Imagine that you are basically facing what you think is your own death, someone is coming at you with a machete, that is the way i felt every second of every day. Susan did you get relief at that point . Rep. Smith the only way i got relief was when i called up the psychiatrist. My doctor at the capitol connected me to a psychiatrist. He prescribed a benzodiazepine for me. Clonazepam. Xanax, valium. I took one of those pills and wow, it relaxed me perfectly. Susan did you worry about getting addicted . Rep. Smith the whole thing with the drugs in this whole process, half a dozen different drugs that i took throughout the whole thing. Even the ones that helped, i was constantly worried about the fact that [indiscernible]. I absolutely build up tolerance. It didnt work as well after the first time. It was a miracle. But, i cant rely on this. So, take one for a couple days, went and saw the psychiatrist, i dont know what exactly he was trying to accomplish, but i didnt understand what he was talking about, but four or five months after that, i stopped taking it and eventually i calmed down and got better. Susan that was an Election Year on top of it all. Rep. Smith in 2006, nobody was coming after me. Of any significance. That is again, weird. My seat was kind of a 5050 seat, but i have been winning it consistently for so long, nobody really challenged me. Susan after 2006, another good sixyear run. The democrats are now majority. During this period, you were thriving. Rep. Smith i calmed down a little bit. My children were older, so they were more manageable. I am not great with babies. Once they got to the point where they could communicate, things got better. It was chairman of the subcommittee, got to do that. Then in 2010, it was a very difficult year to be a democrat or you did i was stressed, but it was different. I didnt do it from a worry standpoint, i was more upbeat and cheerful and thought i had figure some stuff out. Susan 2013, you are on a flight back to d. C. And the wave came again. Rep. Smith i had a couple bad nights, but i could feel it when i was on the flight, the existential fear. It was in and out. When i am feeling it, i cant focus on anything. It is all just that sort of feeling of existential fear. Susan some words from the book, i couldnt watch tv or. About everything i saw or red. I shuttered every time i thought about telling my family, i barely slept. How did you approach this . What was your next up . Rep. Smith the basic step there was to assume that it was similar to 2005 i would just talk to a therapist, got some clonazepam to help me get through it. Got to the point where i was taking more and it wasnt working as well. So, basically i was just lost. Then i went in search of therapists. Susan during that time, you took to afghanistan. What was that trip like . Rep. Smith it was hell. I had to fly to austrian airlines, then i met up with a bunch of people will, i couldnt sleep both trips, i couldnt do anything, just sat on this lane, couldnt. A book, and then when i got there, it was like and i was not taking any medication. I was just toughing it out. It was really difficult. Susan did you have anyone that was aware of this, another member of congress or staff member who could support you . Rep. Smith my staff director was along on the trip, paul. He was with me for about 10 years. I talked to paul about it. Susan so you had someone you could go to. In 2014, that is when the physical pain went on. As you said, you went through three hip replacements. Rep. Smith three hip surgeries. The controversy on the first surgery is, did i need a iceman or what i just fai surgery where they shaved down bone, i did one of those and had two replacements. Fundamentally, i didnt understand what was going on with her body. My hips were in pain, but my whole body was twisted around because skipping to the end of the story, that knee problem i had when i was a kid and had surgery when i was 16, i did not do rehab. This side of my body got stronger than the outside. Because i favored it. It twisted my whole body out of position and caused all of my muscles to shut down and whether or not i needed those hip surgeries is something i will never know. I think if i had found the muscle activation therapist who i eventually found, Health Care Provider number 106, i think i probably could have fixed the problem and not needed the surgeries, but i didnt know that at the time it my hips did have problems, bone spurs, a slight tear, i have to go back and memorize all the terms now, but some muscle in your hip that i had a tear in. Was that the source of the pain . The answer, no, it wasnt. It was a symptom. The first chapter of the book is about 2016. What i want to do is a bit of video from you at work in the Armed Services committee. Lets show people. The threat environment is complex. We do not have the money, we had good debates, disagreed, and we voted and we passed our significant piece of legislation. Susan you changed chairs during that hearing. What was going on there . Rep. Smith finding a chair that i could have on my staff my eye back and my hips were so bad that the chair was going back and forth like this, my muscles couldnt handle it. I had to have something that was like this chair, but it hurt so bad that i needed to be cushioned. I forgot how ridiculous that chair looked, because it was cushioned, and it was comfortable. The most comfortable chair could find. Also, the bed that was in my office, my staff actually brought the bed down to the small room that is off the chamber. That markup lasted from 10 00 a. M. One day to 4 30 the next day. I could take a break and go lie down in the bed outside of the Armed Services committee room. I wasnt looking too good. Susan actually, no one would have known anything was going on , the difference between what you are experiencing and how you ejected in a very public job to the public, how did you pull that off . Rep. Smith fortunately, as i say in the conclusion, you always have some things going for you and some things against you. Crippling pain and anxiety were going against me, but i have always been reasonably articulate, i can think and i can talk or you did i was able to keep communicating in a reasonably clear way despite everything going on. That helped. I also had a ton of support from my friends and family, my staff. But, it was difficult. Susan here are some more words, this period was a blur. The hardest part was deciding what to do day in and day out i needed so much help, i really hated the whole situation. Was there a point at which you felt like you are not treating your constituents as well as you should . Rep. Smith we dont have a leave of absence, thats not really an option. I do think about that. I guess my thoughts go through this. First of all, my team and i were still serving the constituents well. I wasnt doing as much, but i was involved, engaged. I didnt just check out. I have had a lot of employees that have gone through a bunch of things. I think we need to help people. If people are going to seek help for Mental Health or physical pain, they cant be thinking, if i tell somebody i get fired. I go out of my way, if somebody is going through something, we are going to cover you. We will do more. I think that is the spirit that we need to try to help people with all of this. I think it balanced out. By the time we got to 2016, that was the moment after my third surgery that was the longest stretch. The surgery was in february, and i am not getting any better. That was the moment when but, i went back to work and said, we are going to find a way. Susan wise leadership aware that you are struggling . Rep. Smith good question, i dont know. As long as i was there voting somewhere, some werent. Susan this is 2016, fastforward to april of 2019, when you got relief. What was that period like . What were you going through in this intense combination of anxiety and pain . Rep. Smith it was a quest to find a solution. I decided i am not giving up. One way or the other. I am going to find the answer. So basically, that was a period when i saw a psychotherapist, massage therapist, all the people i mentioned earlier. Trying to find, what is going on here . What is the diagnosis and the treatment . Eventually, i found it. I found a therapist, but i just didnt know it yet, who would help me. Mental. Psychologist. They were covered by insurance, one of the few that was. He had an approach to the Mental Health issue that i rejected up first, but was right and three and a half years of psychotherapy later, i figured out why i was feeling that way. Susan your book is dedicated to him and the physical therapist. Rep. Smith muscle activation techniques. Muscle activation therapy is the basic idea that your muscles need to be activated, which is massage, mostly. They have come up with an electric pulse now. The muscle activation techniques people got into elaborate detail on it. They identified there are 43 distinct muscle patterns in your body. Basically, the movements that your body does, every single one of those movements is controlled by one of those 43 patterns. Those patterns are either turned on or turned off. If they are turned off, but will put you in a difficult position. If you have one or two patterns turned off out of 43, you are probably fine. In my case, they were all turned off at that point. They go through the process of testing which ones to see they are shut down, and they do manual massage. They have discovered this electric pulse that will work. It is remarkable. When they do the test, you cant resist even the smallest push. Turn them back on and it stops. Then they build up the resilience and that is what it took me. I saw him april of 2018, bubbly took me about a year, eight or nine months, before i started to get significantly better. And a year to get back to normal. That attention to detail that was not there with all the physical therapist i saw, really didnt know how the body worked and werent fixing it. Those two people, psychologist and muscle activation tech geeks, or the ones who figured out how to treat me. Susan do you continue with both today . Rep. Smith not with the psychologist, but muscle activation body is still my right side is Getting Better but not as strong as the left. My pelvis still shifts, i have different things. I go in every couple of months and get a tuneup. I can exercise, do everything i want, i am sitting here and not inking about the chair. The psychological part is really important. I think understanding Mental Health i talked about this and the stigma has been a big problem. We are Getting Better. A lot of people have talked publicly about Mental Health issues, and there has been kind of an awakening. There are some basics to Mental Health that i dont think are communicated as clearly to people. When i sat down, i filled out the survey. The first thing he said to me was, you dont think you have a right to exist, which i thought was insane. The point is, you have to have a basic sense of your own selfworth. A lot of people dont. It is called a healthy narcissism. The basic idea, regardless of how good you are at anything, you have a fundamental worth as a human. I dont know if it was because i was adopted and there were other challenges with my adoptive parents and the family i grew up in, but i felt like i had to prove myself every day, but i didnt have a basic worth. The prospect of failure was such a huge threat to me. I wasnt everything i felt like i had to be. I said, well, look. I am good at my job. He said, that is where your value comes from. I said, i am a good father, i am a good husband. He said, you think your selfworth comes from your deeds . And i said, well, the he said, it is because you are alive. No matter who you are as a human being, you have a fundamental self worth it can never be challenged regardless of what you do if you dont have that sense of selfworth, it is an existential struggle. And then you also have to be honest about what is going on in your life, what happened in your childhood. You cant bury this stuff. When i was first turning to struggle, a psychologist was trying to explain the concept of suppression. There is stuff in your life that you suppress, and im thinking, i am 48, i just do it for another 35 years . No, you cant. It is helpful to be honest. It doesnt have to be with a trained therapist, but you have to have people around you who enable you to be honest with yourself. What are you really feeling . That anger and anxiety you are feeling, you think its because that car cut you off, it is probably more to do with relationships that you havent addressed. A healthy narcissism and honesty about who you are, crucial steps to deal with anxiety and depression. Susan what was it like getting off the drugs . Rep. Smith it was tough. [laughter] really tough. I always knew that wasnt the answer deep down, it was just a crutch. Certainly, because i took tramadol and oxycodone for the pain, then the economies of him was a big one, but i tried an ssri, i tried celexa. Not helpful. I dont want to overstate this, there are undoubtably some people in this country need to be on medication. But we way over prescribed the stuff did in most cases, it locks our ability to deal with the mental issues were facing. Susan we have about eight minutes left. Throughout the book, you make reference to a movie, the princess bride. There is a particular scene about assets and liabilities that seems to speak to you. I dont need much time to dillydally. That is wonderful. What are liabilities . [indiscernible] if i had a month to plan, maybe i could come up with something. It doesnt make you happy . Migraines. Your strength against 60 men, and you think a [indiscernible] could make me happy . A wheelbarrow, that would be something. Why dont we put that wheelbarrow down the why dont you list that among our assets in the first place . Susan what why does that movie or the scene resonate with you . Rep. Smith something came up during the campaign. I thought no way anyone thought i was going to win. Anything you are trying in life, this is an oversimplification, but you have three things going for you, three things going against you. Your job is to maximize the one and minimize the latter. It is what it is. Deal with it, find a way through it. You can overcome many problems if you think more in terms of your assets and where you are going and what were trying to accomplish. I think if you have that positive attitude, it helps. The movie spoke to me. The main analogy i use is, he is not dead, he is mostly dead. I have a sense of humor, which is what help me get through all this. I took to referring to my experience as the weekend at bernies. I thought about it, that is not a great analogy. Because bernie is dead, and there isnt any coming back. So i came back with, he is not dead, he is mostly dead. You have got to have hope and a positive outlook. Susan your book begins with an executive summary of what you learned. So, we talked about some of the stigma around mental illness, dont underestimate the impact of Mental Health issues on the level of con licht and instability in our society. Rep. Smith we are focused on this now, i mentioned how congress has gotten more difficult. Just in general, people are more prone to conflict and prone to be angry about situations that come up. I can tell you, if you are experiencing anxiety or the russian, you are more likely to get upset about just the common interactions, the person who takes too long in the Grocery Store or the person who cuts you off in the car. I think that really ramps up the conflict, because we have so many unresolved Mental Health issues. When you are in pain, it is a lot more difficult. Susan cant rely on doctors or other Healthcare Providers to solve your problems, the complexity of the body and mind takes diagnosis and treatment difficult. Health care system is not well designed for complex problemsolving. Dont give up on science, logic, and reason, persist. Rep. Smith that is ultimately my optimism. I worry as people dive into this, this is why people all towards more cultlike ideologies. Science, logic, and reason, are very frustrating i applied it forever. There is a tendency to fall back on magical thinking or, well, there must be another solution. It does, in fact, work. You can find solutions to the problems you face. I dont mention this explicitly, no matter what, you have access to a limitless amount of information. That can be a problem, but it also means, you have resources to find the answers or people who can help you find the answers. It is important that people keep trying to find what can better treat and deal with whatever challenges they face. Susan some people listening to this will say, i am not a member of congress, i cant pick up the phone and say, i need an early appointment, where are the commonalities with the rest of the public . Rep. Smith that access is a double sword. I got in trouble because i went to too many people. You dont need access to everybody, you need access to the right people. I dont know the fact that i have that access was so help. It sent me down a lot of blind alleys. To my point, even with limited access, if you use them correctly, many times that can be more help alden if you have got all these assets that have you chasing your tail. It is a mixed bag. I was a bluecollar kid, living at home with his mother. But i use the Little Things i had correctly. Susan we were talking to you before your club date, over the next few weeks you will be talking a lot about the journey you were on and your mental and physical health challenges. What would be the best thing that would come out of this process for you . Rep. Smith the best thing would be of the country as a whole got a better understanding of how to deal with anxiety, depression, and chronic pain. If people didnt have to go to 100 Health Care Providers. Muscle activation is key. If i am dealing with chronic pain, i should start their. Mental health, healthy narcissism, be honest with yourself, you dont have to chase every emotion that comes into you. If you are feeling anxious, you can let that go. You can train your mind to better deal with what you experienced. If people knew how to get off that first step i struggled just to know that first step. If more people know that first step, it would help them. Susan your book is titled lost and broken. Thanks for the conversation. Rep. Smith i appreciate it, thank you. All q a programs are available on our website or as a podcast on the cspan now coming up, wlook at congressional ws of the day and the week ahead on capitol hill with jason dick. Then, the remaining cases the Supreme Court may rule on this month. We speak with scotusblog reporter amyowe. And, we preview the expected announcements from republicans officially joining the 2024 president ial cam pain playing field. Washington journal starts now. Host good morning, it is monday, june 5. The president s signature on saturday on the debt ceiling deal, default is averted