Even Tacos Fall Apart

MommaFoxFire
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

The "Even Tacos Fall Apart" talk show includes interviews with actual mental health professionals and conversations where real people talk about the messy side of mental illness, disabilities, wellness and life in general. My goal is to normalize mental health conversations and reduce the stigma around illnesses. We all struggle at different times in our lives, but that doesn't mean we're unlovable - after all, Tacos Fall Apart and WE STILL LOVE THOSE! mommafoxfire is a MH advocate and variety gaming streamer on Twitch: twitch.tv/mommafoxfire tacosfallapart.com

  1. Traumatic Brain Injuries, Gamification & Rebuilding with Dan MacQueen

    17h ago

    Traumatic Brain Injuries, Gamification & Rebuilding with Dan MacQueen

    This episode is equal parts gut punch and practical toolkit, built for people who are tired of being told to just stay positive. More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/dan-macqueen Dan MacQueen was 28 years old when an optometrist appointment changed everything. What started as persistent headaches and a terrifying moment of blindness on a London tube platform ended with an emergency brain surgery, a massive hemorrhage, four weeks in a coma and months of relearning how to walk, talk and smile. In this episode of Even Tacos Fall Apart, Dan sits down to talk about what it really took to rebuild his life and the framework he now uses to help others do the same. Dan is quick to point out that he is not some extraordinary person. His brain scans came back average after two emergency surgeries, and he took that as a good sign. His whole approach to recovery and resilience is built on the idea that anyone can do this. You do not need to be exceptional. You need to be willing to try, fail, and try again. A huge part of how Dan made it through was gamifying his recovery. From timing how long it took to get into a wheelchair and shaving five minutes off each week, to tracking his swim laps in a notes app going back years, he turned the grind of rehab into something he could measure, compete against and win. He talks about the Monopoly strategy he pulled on his family, the icebreaker hack he developed for walking through crowded London streets and how Mario Kart taught him more about navigating life patterns than he expected. Dan also gets into the three things that drove him forward: proving people wrong, proving people right and being of service to others. His nurse planted the seed of that first one when she pointed across a park and told him the kids over there did not think he was good enough to talk. He yelled back across that park loud enough for everyone to hear. Spite works. So does love. Ride whatever wave shows up. One of the most practical tools Dan shares is his decision-a-day framework. Every morning you decide that today you are going to fight. Tomorrow you decide again. You do not have to commit to the whole mountain, just the next step. Pair that with his aim small, miss small approach to building habits and you have a system that is genuinely hard to argue with. He went from two minutes of morning meditation to twenty. One block of walking to a full route. Five minutes in the pool to over a hundred laps. This episode covers traumatic brain injury recovery, stoicism, gamification, resilience, motivation and what it actually means to be better than yesterday. Dan is still in the thick of it, still having eye surgeries, still stumbling through the back streets, and still showing up. That is exactly what makes this conversation worth your time.

    1h 16m
  2. Anxiety Disorder & Treatment with Tyler Coates

    May 26

    Anxiety Disorder & Treatment with Tyler Coates

    If you've ever lain awake at midnight rehearsing a conversation that hasn't happened yet, planned out every possible response before a difficult talk with your boss, or felt your heart pound before a presentation for days in advance... you're not broken. You might just be really good at anxiety. More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/tyler-coates In this episode of Even Tacos Fall Apart, we sat down with Tyler Coates of The Composed Mind, a mindset coach based in Melbourne, Australia who spent years struggling with anxiety before he even recognized what it was. His story will sound familiar: he wasn't spiraling in an obvious way. He was just playing out conversations on a loop, needing certainty before he could feel safe, and quietly running on stress he didn't have a name for. Tyler breaks down what anxiety actually is... a strategy. The brain's attempt to manufacture certainty and control when things feel unpredictable. And once you understand that, the whole experience starts to look different. We talked about the difference between feeling anxious and having an anxiety disorder, and why that distinction matters more than most people realize. We got into the physical symptoms (the racing heart, the sweaty palms, the full-body heat) and why Tyler compares them to a brutal workout without the endorphins. We also talked about the stuff that tends to fly under the radar: over-rehearsing conversations, avoiding social situations, sticking to the same restaurant order every single time because at least you know it's going to be good. One of the most interesting threads in this conversation is the idea that anxiety lives almost entirely in the future. It's built on worst-case possibilities, not probabilities. Tyler makes the point that even someone who experiences anxiety constantly can't conjure genuine panic about being on Mars in two hours... because the brain won't buy what it can't conceptualize as real. That same principle, turned around, is actually the beginning of how anxiety gets treated. We covered treatment options honestly and without pushing any single approach... medication, CBT, journaling, exercise, nutrition and the deeper belief-level work that Tyler specializes in, which involves identifying the core story someone is running underneath the anxiety. For Tyler, that story was "I'm not good enough." Once that belief dissolved, the anxiety stopped having anything to attach to. We also talked about why anxiety is likely underreported in men, the role judgment plays in keeping people stuck, why having one person in your life you can say the quiet part out loud to is genuinely one of the most powerful things available to anyone, and how the stigma around mental health quietly costs people years they didn't have to lose. This is a real, honest, funny conversation between two people who have both been in the thick of it. No fluff, no toxic positivity. Just a clearer picture of what anxiety is, where it comes from and what it looks like when it stops running your life.

    1h 17m
  3. Ghosts, Spirituality & Adrenaline's Impact on the Body with Tina Erwin

    May 19

    Ghosts, Spirituality & Adrenaline's Impact on the Body with Tina Erwin

    Anyone curious about the science behind trauma, the truth about what happens after we die, or why the hell they still can't seem to calm down no matter what they try will find something in this conversation worth holding onto. More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/tina-erwin What happens when a retired Navy commander who spent 20 years working with the US submarine force also happens to help ghosts cross over? You get one of the most unexpected and genuinely fascinating conversations we have had on Even Tacos Fall Apart. Tina Erwin joined us for Mental Health Monday, and she did not disappoint. Tina has written nine books on metaphysics, developed the Crossing Over Prayer, and spent decades helping trauma survivors understand something most doctors never look at: what adrenaline actually does to the body after trauma, and how to get it out. Adrenaline doesn't just flush out of your system after a traumatic event. It can stay in the body for years, quietly poisoning everything. Tina calls it adrenaline poisoning, and she explains how it connects to a condition called pyroluria, a deficiency in vitamin B6 and other key nutrients that can trigger rage, anxiety and in some cases murderous ideation in people who have no idea why they feel the way they do. She has worked with veterans, abuse survivors and teenagers who had been failed by every conventional approach, and she has seen people transform once the nutritional and biological piece gets addressed alongside everything else. Then there is the ghost work, and yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. Tina helps earthbound spirits cross over, and she teaches regular people to do it themselves through the Crossing Over Prayer, which is free on her website. She walks through why some spirits do not cross, what it feels like to live in a haunted space without knowing it, and why she believes you should not have to hire a psychic to help your own loved ones move on. She also shares a true crime story involving remote viewing, a storage unit in Virginia and a missing woman who had been trafficked for over a year. It is the kind of story that is hard to shake. What ties all of it together is Tina's core belief that science and spirituality are not in conflict. They are, as she puts it, the same thing. Whether she is talking about quantum entanglement, nutritional deficiencies or helping a guilt-ridden ghost finally accept that they are loved, she is always pointing toward the same goal: helping people stop surviving and start actually living.

    1h 14m
  4. Turning Pain Into Perseverance & His Journey with Depression & Anxiety with Noah May

    May 12

    Turning Pain Into Perseverance & His Journey with Depression & Anxiety with Noah May

    If you've ever felt like you were drowning while everyone around you seemed just fine, this one's for you. More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/noah-may Noah May has lived with depression since he was 13 years old. He was bullied relentlessly, watched his grandmother disappear into Alzheimer's, grew up without a father, and by the time anxiety hit at 18, the physical toll was so severe he lost 20 pounds, could barely open a bottle and his legs shook walking down stairs. This is his story, and he's not holding anything back. In this episode of Even Tacos Fall Apart, Noah opens up about what those early years actually looked like, not the cleaned-up version, but the real one. The suicidal thoughts at 13. The porn addiction he developed as a coping mechanism. The friends who looked right through him. The teachers who didn't do much better. And the moment his mom caught him, sat him down and instead of just punishing him, asked what was really going on. That one conversation changed everything. Noah talks about being diagnosed with clinical depression at 14 and anxiety at 18, what it felt like to finally have names for what his body had been doing, and why he waited years to try therapy because he genuinely believed it was only for people who were "crazy." He also gets into the physical reality of an anxiety disorder that most people don't talk about, the kind that doesn't show up as a panic attack but as months of unexplained nausea, dramatic weight loss and a doctor who had no idea what was wrong. The conversation also goes into what his healing looks like in practice. For Noah, it's been podcasting, writing poetry, finding the right medication and building a support system from scratch after leaving behind a high school class that never really saw him. He's candid about the fact that most of those people still haven't reached out, and that he's made peace with it. Noah is a journalism graduate from Auburn University and the host of the Lethal Venom podcast. He's turned his own pain into a platform for other people who are still in the thick of it, and his whole thing is simple: you shouldn't have to feel alone in this. If you've ever felt invisible, been told to just get over it or wondered whether things actually get better, this episode is for you. Keywords: depression, anxiety, mental health, depression and anxiety, overcoming depression, mental health podcast, living with depression, teen depression, clinical depression, mental health awareness, depression recovery, anxiety symptoms, mental health journey, Even Tacos Fall Apart, Noah May

    1h 11m
  5. Resilience, Healing & Self-compassion with Malisa Hepner

    May 5

    Resilience, Healing & Self-compassion with Malisa Hepner

    If you've ever been called resilient when what you really needed was a hand, this episode is for you. More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/malisa-hepner Malisa Hepner has lived a lot of life. Foster care, addiction in her family, incarceration, profound loss... and she went beyond surviving to build a career helping others navigate the same kind of pain. As a therapist, speaker and podcast host, Malisa brings both clinical expertise and raw personal honesty to everything she does, including this conversation on Even Tacos Fall Apart. We dig into what resilience actually means, because it's not about bouncing back fast or being "God's strongest soldier." Malisa talks candidly about how she used to resent that word, how it felt like people watching her drown while cheering her on. Her reframe of the word is powerful: resilience is the ability to show up authentically, find meaning in the mess and know that nothing outside of you changes your worth as a person. Self-compassion gets a real, practical look here too. Malisa walks through how it started for her as a single decision... a decree, really... to stop tearing herself apart and start treating herself like someone worth caring for. She talks about the body-based tools she uses when grief or anxiety gets loud, how to get out of your head and into your heart in about 90 seconds, and why your brain is genuinely lying to you most of the time it feels like catastrophe. One of the most powerful threads in this episode is vulnerability. Malisa was told by a trusted friend that she was emotionally unavailable, and she was furious! ...until she realized the friend was right. She had been retelling her trauma like it happened to someone else, using humor as armor, and calling it healing. That moment became the foundation of her podcast, Emotionally Unavailable, and a whole new chapter in her own growth. This episode was recorded just one month after Malisa lost her son to an accidental overdose. She shows up anyway, in real time, and shares what grief is teaching her about trust, connection and asking for help. It is one of the most honest conversations we have had on this show. If you are navigating trauma recovery, complex PTSD, perfectionism or just trying to figure out how to be a little kinder to yourself, this conversation could help.

    1h 26m
  6. Trauma Reactions & Gaming with Joy AKA Compassion & Consoles

    Apr 28

    Trauma Reactions & Gaming with Joy AKA Compassion & Consoles

    When Joy, known online as Compassion & Consoles, joined MommaFoxFire on Even Tacos Fall Apart, the conversation went deep fast. Joy is a licensed professional counselor, a doctoral candidate focusing on anxiety and trauma, and someone who uses her own lived experience with mental health to inform the work she does. This episode covers trauma reactions, gaming as a coping tool, how schools fail kids with unrecognized trauma, and why the DSM does not have all the answers. More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/joy-compassion-consoles Joy pushes back on the narrow definition in the DSM, which limits trauma to things like threats to life or sexual assault. Her take is more practical: if an experience overwhelms your ability to cope, not just in the moment but over time, that counts. Chronic, ongoing situations where you have no escape and no control can be just as damaging as a single acute event, even if a textbook does not say so. Invalidating someone's trauma because it does not fit a checklist is its own kind of harm. Social support is the single biggest protective factor after trauma. Studies consistently show that having even one safe, supportive adult can make an enormous difference, especially for kids. Other risk factors include pre-existing anxiety, avoidant coping patterns, genetics and family history. The less control someone feels they have in the aftermath, the harder recovery tends to be. This is where Joy gets fired up, and rightfully so. Children who have experienced trauma often cannot put what they are feeling into words, so it comes out as behavior instead: running out of classrooms, ripping up work, shutting down completely. That behavior gets labeled as defiance, ADHD or ODD, and the actual cause never gets addressed. Joy is direct about it: she has never worked with a kid diagnosed with conduct disorder whose behavior was not better explained by trauma or anxiety. Slapping a behavioral diagnosis on top of a trauma reaction does not help the child, it just gives adults someone to blame. Joy is a single-player, narrative-driven gamer. She talks about how games like Detroit: Become Human and the Uncharted series offer something genuinely valuable: story, agency and a chance to emotionally invest in characters in a low-stakes environment. She also gets honest about anxiety spiking during combat sequences and having to walk away from games entirely, which opens up a real conversation about how gaming intersects with stress responses. Drawing from both research and personal experience with an eating disorder in her late teens, Joy explains why thought suppression backfires. The more you try to block a thought, the louder it gets. Mindfulness-based approaches, which focus on noticing and accepting thoughts rather than fighting them, are a better fit for trauma recovery. The episode closes with a look at mental health needs in the workplace. Reasonable accommodations are legally required, but many people do not feel safe enough to ask for them, and many employers do not know how to respond when they do. A pool table in the break room is not employee support. Find Joy on Twitter at Compassion & Consoles and follow Even Tacos Fall Apart for more conversations about mental health, gaming and the messy, real stuff in between.

    1h 27m
  7. Unmasking Without Spontaneously Combusting with Angie Dixon

    Apr 21

    Unmasking Without Spontaneously Combusting with Angie Dixon

    If you've spent most of your life feeling like you're performing a version of yourself that's just slightly off from who you actually are, this episode is for you. More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/angie-dixon Angie Dixon is an author, artist and creator of the Leonardo Trait, a framework for understanding the kind of brain that runs on curiosity, cycles through a hundred projects at once and absolutely refuses to pick a lane. She's also late diagnosed autistic, and she spent decades masking before a severe back injury seven years ago forced everything to stop, and forced her to finally start living as herself. We talked about what unmasking actually looks like, and it's not the dramatic transformation the word might suggest. For Angie, it started with novelty t-shirts. She began wearing them to physical therapy because those were the ones without paint on them. That small comfort became her whole wardrobe. Unmasking, she says, tends to be gradual, personal and a lot less cinematic than people expect. One of the most clarifying things Angie said in this conversation is that neurodivergent people are not broken neurotypicals. We're not a defective version of something else. We're just different, and that difference is worth protecting rather than hiding. We also got into the Leonardo Trait itself, which Angie describes as profound creativity in a chaotic world. If you think in spirals instead of straight lines, have 37 browser tabs open in your brain at any given moment and feel like the self-help books everyone else loves were written for someone who is simply not you, you might be a Leonardo. Angie was diagnosed with autism at 55 after nearly 20 years of writing a book she thought was about creativity, only to realize it was actually about neurodivergence the whole time. That realization sent her back to the drawing board, and the result is a manifesto about being who you actually are rather than the acceptable version of yourself you've been performing. We talked about burnout warning signs, what to do when rest isn't enough, how to stop treating unfinished projects like personal failures and how to figure out the difference between professional adaptation and genuine self-erasure. We also talked about her AI assistant Ziggy, who once told her that a plain t-shirt would make her look like she was about to hold a hostage. If you're questioning whether you've been masking your whole life, Angie's take is simple: if you're asking, you probably already know the answer. Find Angie and her Unmasked summit at her website, and check out the summit itself, which was designed specifically to be the least overwhelming format possible: email only, no endless video calls. Even Tacos Fall Apart is a Mental Health Monday podcast. New episodes weekly.

    1h 12m
  8. Getting to Good Riddance - Breakup Survival Without the B******t with Dr. Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt

    Apr 14

    Getting to Good Riddance - Breakup Survival Without the B******t with Dr. Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt

    If you've ever missed someone you knew was wrong for you, waited for closure that never came, or just needed someone to tell you the truth about healing... this one's for you. More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/jodie-eckleberry-hunt-2 Breakups are messy. The grief hits you in waves, the anger blindsides you at random moments, and somewhere in the middle of it all, you find yourself missing someone you know was completely wrong for you. If any of that sounds familiar, this episode is for you. Dr. Jodie Eckleberry-Hunt is a board-certified health psychologist, author and no-b******t self-help expert who joined us on Even Tacos Fall Apart to talk about her book Getting to Good Riddance: A No-B******t Breakup Survival Guide. She wrote it during COVID lockdown, at least partly because so many of her clients were coming in saying they were done... all that togetherness pushed a lot of people right to the edge. So what's the biggest piece of b******t people tell themselves after a breakup? According to Dr. Jodie, it's the self-blame spiral. Replaying everything you did wrong, convinced it was all your fault. The truth is, most relationships fail because of two people. And while accountability matters, flogging yourself endlessly is less accountability and more pain with no payoff. We also get into why "good riddance" is more useful than chasing closure. Closure sounds great, but the reality is you might never get it. Good riddance reframes the whole thing: this relationship wasn't right for you, and you deserve better... or at least different. Dr. Jodie recommends giving yourself six to eight months to heal before dating again... and that clock doesn't start until you go no contact. Still texting every day? You haven't actually broken up yet. The no-contact rule is extremely practical. You can't clear your head when you're constantly stirring the pot! We also talk about the role anger plays in healing (spoiler: Dr. Jodie actually loves the anger phase, it's energizing!), why following your ex on social media is actively working against you, and how to rebuild your identity when a long-term relationship has quietly swallowed it whole. One of the most powerful tools she recommends is expressive writing... there's real neuroscience behind it, and it helps you reconnect with who you were before the relationship defined you. And if you're wondering when to bail on a relationship that isn't working yet, Dr. Jodie gets into that too, including a thoughtful, honest conversation about abusive relationships and why "just leave" is advice that completely misses the reality of what people are dealing with. Her top piece of advice, straight from the episode: Why the hell do you want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with you? It's a good question. This episode helps you sit with it... and eventually, answer it.

    49 min
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About

The "Even Tacos Fall Apart" talk show includes interviews with actual mental health professionals and conversations where real people talk about the messy side of mental illness, disabilities, wellness and life in general. My goal is to normalize mental health conversations and reduce the stigma around illnesses. We all struggle at different times in our lives, but that doesn't mean we're unlovable - after all, Tacos Fall Apart and WE STILL LOVE THOSE! mommafoxfire is a MH advocate and variety gaming streamer on Twitch: twitch.tv/mommafoxfire tacosfallapart.com

Information

  • Creator
    MommaFoxFire
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    183
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © MommaFoxFire
  • Show Website
    Even Tacos Fall Apart