The Jordan Harbinger Show
1115: Schizophrenic Spite Dims Golden Years' Light | Feedback Friday
Fri, 14 Feb 2025
What happens when your parents' peaceful retirement plan collides with a neighbor's deteriorating grip on reality? Find out here on Feedback Friday! And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [email protected]. Now let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Your elderly parents bought their dream retirement home to be closer to their grandchild, but their next-door neighbor's increasingly erratic behavior has turned their golden years into a nightmare of harassment and intimidation. How do you protect your parents without making things worse? You're in a prestigious high school choir group and your teacher is crossing boundaries — encouraging dating drama, trash-talking students, and making inappropriate requests. The situation keeps escalating, but you're worried about speaking up. What should you do? After divorcing your unfaithful ex who subsequently made a string of chaotic life choices, you're faced with a moral dilemma about enforcing court-ordered child support payments that could leave her homeless. Is revenge worth the collateral damage? You're trying to negotiate better pay for entry-level positions while juggling college, but employers seem resistant to standard negotiation tactics. Is there a secret playbook for when you're starting from zero? Recommendation of the Week: The Fidelity Debit Card You recently had a baby and got scammed by fake buyers who came to your home to "purchase" your photography equipment. Though you got an unexpected resolution, you're haunted by shame and self-doubt. Why do victims often blame themselves? Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [email protected]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1115 And if you're still game to support...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of Feedback Friday?
Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the soothing red fire retardant helping me douse the flames of these apocalyptic dumpster fires, Gabriel Mizrahi. Ooh, we don't use the R word anymore, bud. Ooh, my bad. The soothing crimson fire retardant helping me douse the flames of these apocalyptic dumpster fires. That's better.
Thank you. Good catch, Gabe. You got to keep a PC out here. I'd be canceled already if it weren't for you. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker.
During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from former cult members and arms dealers, rocket scientists and astronauts. This week, we had part two of my interview with Dr. Alok Kanoja, author of How to Raise a Healthy Gamer. We discussed mental illness, confidence, dating, culture, and communication. It's not just for gamers.
It's not just about parenting gamers. Really interesting show, as was our first round. That guy just has a ton of wisdom to share. Smart dude and great at delivering it. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites, and just generally fancy ourselves the first responders of the advice world. That's not inflated at all, is it?
Not narcissistic, even in the least. All right. Before we kick off, I want to share an exercise. that I've been doing when I'm facing a big problem. And it may be a problem that I can't really wrap my mind around.
Whenever I'm dealing with something super tricky, something that bothers me and I'm not sure why, I write down maybe a page, maybe even two pages of all the reasons I don't like it, all the different aspects of the problem, why it's such a problem in the first place, everything it's bringing up for me, all the ripple effects and implications of the situation. Really anything that comes up.
And I think a lot of people do this, they journal or something like that. I usually do this on the computer. But I delete all but the two or three sentences that capture the real problem or some of my main concerns. You might end up with a couple paragraphs and then you weed those down. Now I know it sounds super obvious. Like I said, it's basically journaling.
But there's something about having permission to go a little nuts, be neurotic and anxious and messy on the page, And then you just literally start crossing out or deleting all the superfluous noise around the problem, and you boil it down to its essence. And once I have those two or three sentences, I might jot down a few bullet points for each that would meaningfully address the problem.
And bam, I've got an action plan. I feel way less overwhelmed and freaked out by the whole thing. And I wanted to share that with you guys. Not the most original, maybe, but it was definitely... something that changed the worrying game for me. So give it a go and see if it helps you. I have a feeling it will.
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Chapter 2: How can you handle a neighbor with erratic behavior?
This is one of those best for nebulous problems, emotional type stuff, situations with a lot of moving parts. But yeah, this one's a winner. As always, we've got some fun questions. We've got some doozies. Let's dive in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag?
Dear Jordan and Gabe, about six months ago, my parents, who are 80 and 72, bought their intended retirement home near my family and me in Ontario, Canada. They wanted to be closer to my daughter, their youngest grandchild, have her over for sleepovers and take part in babysitting duties. Unfortunately, their new neighbor is literally insane, possibly schizophrenic.
and is now making their lives very difficult. At the beginning of my parents' time there, she seemed fine, if a little eccentric. She would keep to herself, often ignoring them. But they could hear yelling at someone or something in her house at all hours of the day and night, and she could often be seen dancing and smoking pot on her front steps throughout the day. Again, weird, but harmless.
Fast forward three months to this past winter. My husband went over to my parents' place to shovel their driveway while they were out of town. And this woman came out of her house and started screaming at him that he was trespassing and going to prison. She had met and talked to my husband a couple times before this, so she knew he wasn't a random stranger on their property.
She continued to berate and scream at him for a good 30 to 40 minutes about going to prison and being raped and then Wrapped it up with some good old conspiracy theories about the neighbors across the street, chemtrails, the government, etc.
That is so disturbing and also just irritating, man. So they have their very own Josh situation, huh, Gabe?
Their very own Josh, man. This is bringing up a lot of stuff for me. I am so sorry this is happening. This event seems to have unleashed her full crazy because ever since then, she's been an unrelenting source of stress and harassment for my parents.
They cannot leave their house without her coming outside to yell obscenities at them or accuse them of trying to steal her identity or trespassing on her property. She makes lewd comments to my 80-year-old father when he's home by himself. If she doesn't come out of the house, she bangs on her windows, screams, and blows a whistle nonstop while they or anyone coming to their house is outside.
She has a blinding security light pointed right at my parents' living room window that is on day and night. My mom had to install a blackout curtain to try and block it out. This is awful.
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Chapter 3: What should you do if a teacher crosses boundaries?
Now, while you do that, you also have to contact your local department of mental health or whatever it's called in your area. And you need to do that on an ongoing basis and keep asking them to do a wellness check on this neighbor. This is not just about getting her in trouble to retaliate or to make her life more difficult.
This is about hopefully putting her in touch with the resources that she needs. I don't know if Ontario will be more or less responsive than we are here in California, but eventually someone should come out and maybe if they're not cops in uniform, your neighbor will be a little more open to talking with them. I don't know, worth a shot.
There's also something called the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team in a lot of areas. I know it exists in Toronto. Not sure if you guys live in Toronto, but if so, this is a team made up of nurses and specially trained officers that the police can send to calls involving people with mental health issues.
So when you follow up with the police, I would literally say I'm requesting a visit from the MCIT or the MCIT. Not sure how you guys say it up there. What your parents need to prove, I think, to the authorities, especially any mental health people, is that this woman meets the criteria for at least an assessment and possibly involuntary hospitalization. under the Ontario Mental Health Act.
And the main criteria are that the person is a danger to themselves or others, and that they have a recurrent mental disorder that is likely to cause serious harm if left untreated. It's interesting. I looked into this a little more.
The MHA also seems to say that if the person's condition is getting worse, if they're likely to suffer significant deterioration, then that's another criterion for involuntary hospitalization.
Oh, she said the neighbors across the street said she's never gone on quite this long before. Is that an indication?
Yeah. So that gives me some hope that she does meet that criterion. And that would be something else that your parents should document and that they have to communicate to the mental health folks that this woman is noticeably decompensating. And honestly, everyone is worried about her and she deserves a second look.
There was a comment in the subreddit today about how you expand people's vocabulary with this show. Criterion being... The singular of criteria and decompensating. People should go ahead and write that down. We'll wait for you. It's just the singular. Yeah. Is the bar getting lower? I mean, I don't think a lot of people know that datum and data. I would never say datum ever.
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Chapter 4: How to manage a moral dilemma with child support?
Man, now I'm feeling for the previous owner because I'm fully on our friend's side here. I just want her parents to ditch this house and live in peace. So I really can relate.
It would be funny if they didn't disclose the neighbor. They sold the house. They get sued in a couple of years by the next owners and the cycle just keeps happening until this other neighbor died. Just musical lawsuits for the next 30 years.
Pretty sure this is the plot of 80% of horror movies involving a family in a house. There's always that scene where they start investigating and realize the previous owners dealt with the same thing and no one told them like, oh yeah, we left because of all the people that come out of the closet at night.
Ethan Hawke is in that movie.
Yes. Well, mandatory.
Yeah. So unfortunately, what I learned from the jaw situation, as you probably know, is that the system is very flawed, very limited. It's overwhelmed. It has a ton of cracks and people like this woman easily fall through them. The sad reality is that people often need to be a lot better or they need to be a lot worse for a situation to improve.
A lot of mentally ill people fall in this middle ground where.
can take care of themselves and they're not a true danger to other people and so the cops really can't do anything but then the people who live around them are forced to suffer which again we keep coming back to it's just terrible it's so annoying it's more than annoying it's maddening but this is the world that we live in so i'm hoping i'm praying that this woman either makes a mistake or crosses a line that gives the police or the mental health people a reason to get her evaluated or something changes maybe she moves away on her own
Maybe she goes through a period where her psychosis calms down a little bit. Maybe she dies, unlikely to happen soon, but you never know. And maybe things miraculously get better on their own.
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Chapter 5: Are there effective strategies for negotiating entry-level pay?
And I think it's kind of all the data you need to know that something wasn't right about that situation.
And on top of it, she's maybe doing this with other kids or she could. So this is bad news.
Right. It sounds like there's a pattern of this behavior. It's getting worse. So my strong feeling is that you need to report her. And here's how I do it. First, I'd get together with your friends, inquire anyone who's had contact with her, create a shared document, document every concerning interaction or experience you've had with this teacher up till now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Chapter 6: Why do victims often blame themselves after a scam?
So I'm not just saying focus on your kindness and just let go of your anger. I'm saying be angry and have compassion. And they are compatible feelings. That might also be a huge step toward a kind of forgiveness toward your ex. And that forgiveness, which as we talk about all the time, is a process that could in time help ease this very understandable burning rage that you feel.
It's funny you mentioned channeling your rage into work and the gym. It's like, how'd you gain 25 pounds of lean muscle over the last 18 months? And why do you spike the TPS reports to the manager's basket? Wham! Let me tell you a little tale called Sucks to Suck. Sucks to Suck. Wham! Look, Tom, we appreciate your hard work, but... You don't need to dunk on everyone in the office.
We're all in the same team here. This is the fifth Keurig machine we've had to replace this month. Yeah. You push the lever down. You don't have to use your hammer fist on it. I guess I'm realizing that a lot of this job is it's really just bearing this anger. All jokes aside, because she's probably going to continue acting this way and continuing to provoke him. And he ultimately can't fix her.
In a way, people like this, triggering other people's rage is all they have because the rest of their life is completely out of control, right? It's like, oh, I can always get a rise out of my ex-husband. So the answer might just be letting the feelings be and increasing your capacity to tolerate them.
Ultimately, Gabe, it sounds like his revenge is handled because he's a solid dad and her life just sucks. It sucks, everything about it sucks. All that said, I do sincerely hope that your ex finds a way to take care of herself better, and if there's anything you can do to gently nudge her in that direction without enabling her, if she's willing to hear that stuff from you or whatever, I would.
Do that for her if you can. Again, I'm not getting the vibe that she even wants advice or help from you other than the occasional bailout check, but if there's a window, I would take it. Who knows with somebody like this? I'm very sorry you and your kids are going through all this. You guys don't deserve any of it, but it is an interesting opportunity to learn how to work with a tough situation.
Sending you guys a big hug and wishing you all the best. You know what else sucks to suck? Missing out on the crazy good deals on the fine products and services that support this show. That one got stuck in my craw if you couldn't tell. We'll be right back.
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