Backseat Positivity
"Able to make serious topics lighthearted and fun - I even laughed at some points!"
Get your bi-weekly dose of positivity in this fun podcast with Dr Dawn Barlow, who helps you navigate all of the weird/best/worst parts of life!
Dawn takes you on the self-improvement journey you didn't realise you needed... Bought to you by a doctor who hasn't had life as sweet as many of her comrades. She knows firsthand just how rubbish life can be, yet has managed to turn her life around for the better!
From relationships to mental health to happiness, make sure you buckle up twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays) the join her and her guests for candid self-improvement. Don't forget of the course, the "weird thoughts" segment, where Dawn and her guests share weird thoughts from their lives.
Dawn says:
Sometimes life reminds me of being in a washing machine. It's a bit spinny and turbulent for a while, but then it stops and gives you a little break before spinning you into oblivion once more. It feels like the washing machine wants to wash something bad out of all of us... positivity.
Some might EVEN say that positivity is shouting from the backseat and no-one wants to listen to it... [backseat positivity] More than once a week, but less than 4 times a week, you can shove me in your auditory canals and listen to me chat about L.I.F.E., self-improvement, mental health and anything else that my little monkey-mind paws can grasp onto.
Sometimes other humans actually dare to join me.
It's candid, it's fun. Woo!
Backseat Positivity
The Danger of Armchair Detectives on Unsolved Mysteries
Recording a podcast on Christmas Day was both a heartwarming and challenging experience, as I found myself juggling the holiday spirit, family expectations, and the comfort of spending time with my pet frog. The festive chaos offered a quirky backdrop as I pondered the complexities of mental health amidst binge-watching true crime documentaries and shared my enduring fascination with unsolved mysteries, particularly the Madeleine McCann case. Venturing into the world of unsolved crimes, I explored the psychological impact they can have, drawing parallels with those haunting dreams of showing up to an exam completely unprepared.
The episode took a reflective turn as I examined the rise of "armchair detectives" and their struggle with cognitive biases, which can obscure objectivity and influence perceptions during public trials. Amidst such serious discussions, a lighthearted interlude about Sally's trip and my amusing battle with words like "antics" offered some comic relief. Throughout the episode, I expressed gratitude for listener support and encouraged feedback to enhance the podcast experience. Join me for an engaging mix of introspection and humor, topped with a sprinkle of holiday cheer.
Please consider helping me out, I'd seriously super appreciate it! <3
https://www.patreon.com/diariesofadoctor
Merry Christmas. I can't tell if I love or hate myself the fact that I'm recording this on Christmas Day, but I personally feel slightly neutral about it. What it's gonna take me half an hour of my day, like I don't need to be socialising all day, okay, so leave me alone. Whereas lots of people would be like, oh my god, I can't believe you're podcasting or not spending time with your family on Christmas day. Guys, I am, but I need a break from the drama. So this is my break. I'm spending time with you, I'm spending time with myself, spending time with my pet frog, and that all sounds great to me. So I personally am not judging myself. There we go, it is. Oh, the episode's actually out tomorrow, so I'm being organized. For once, I thought it was Thursday, but there we go, I'm being organized through lack of knowledge. Anyway, if you guys listened to my last episode, thank you very much, because this episode follows on from the last one. Now you don't need to listen. Maybe you do. Actually, I think you might need to listen to the previous one because I might refer back to when we spoke to this. Uh, spoke about this in the last episode and it might get not confusing, but it might be helpful if you listen to the last episode, which was about whether watching murder documentaries, true crime documentaries in fact, I called them because I thought murder, I've already said it now. So fuck it, murder my trigger on the YouTube AI bot and be like, oh my God, she's saying horrible things and we must protect everyone and no one must hear such words because she must be an awful person. Guys, I'm just, I'm just saying the word okay. So true crime documentaries. I'll try and keep the m word down to as little as possible. So true crime documentaries and whether they're, like, good or bad for our mental health. I had a feeling they were probably bad, but you'll have to go and listen to the episode to find out the true crime truth. There we go, anyway.
Speaker 1:I started to talk about unsolved crimes last week and I thought you know what this episode is long enough. So I said this might be a whole episode in itself. So I decided I would carry on with a second episode. And here we are Today. We're not standing up, we're actually sitting down, which I know is going against my MO for the podcast. Now, from now on, we are wearing funky top, though, but if I stand up. This is how close I'll be, and you can literally just see my boobs, unless I bend down, and then I'm just really close, and that that is going to be a workout to squat. That much for the whole session. So, um, we're gonna, we're gonna sit down. The room hasn't got enough room to fit too much in it and I need to be facing the window, okay, because otherwise the lighting is going to be horrendous. So a lot of this was based on the daylight hours, because I was going to do it last night and I was like, wait, I didn't bring a light with me, so just using normal lighting is not adequate. Ok, let me tell you.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you guys did not come to hear about my logistical problems with podcasting. You came to hear about unsolved mysteries. They're not mysteries, actually, they're crimes, unsolved crimes. Oh boy, do I have a mild obsession with unsolved crimes? I think the answer would be yes, because I'm going to talk to you generically about unsolved crimes, but I quickly want to cover one that is basically taking over, has taken over my life, two of them, in particular.
Speaker 1:Number one. This happened and she would be a similar, not similar age to me, probably a bit younger, but it kind of touches home a little bit. You'll all have heard of her, she's she's a household name, I would say in terms of especially in Britain, and kind of a little bit close to my heart as well, because this is, she needs no introduction. Give me a. That sounds like a round of applause, but it's meant to be a drum roll, but I only have one hand. Madeleine McCann, guys, madeleine McCann has taken up a lot of my thought time over the past 10, how long has it been? I don't even know 20 years. Number one if you don't know, I'm a doctor and if you don't know this, you don't know anything about Madeleine McCann.
Speaker 1:In fact, I will quickly go through the brief details. She, her and her family were on holiday in the Algarve, in Spain or Portugal. Omg, I don't know One of them. I think it's Spain, portugal. I want to say it's Portugal. You know when something just feels right and you're like, no, I'm pretty sure it's Portugal. Anyway, I don't know, I'm not, not, I don't know the exact details, okay, but I know it's the Algarve and I know it was south somewhere. Spain, portugal, they're. They're right, they're literally adjoining countries. So I should have checked the facts before I started. But alas, we come. We come unprepared, as always.
Speaker 1:This is like a recurrent dream in my head that I have an exam and I haven't revised for it, and that is significantly stressful. And then I have another recurring, recurring dream where I have to go on stage and I haven't learned my lines, so I learn them like two minutes before I go on stage and it's really stressful. That actually happened last night. That was a dream that I had last night. I don't know what it means. If you know, maybe I should do an episode on that.
Speaker 1:What do my recurrent dreams mean? I have a few of them. Those ones in particular are stressful and I get them quite a lot. Like haven't revised for my exam, haven't, um, haven't, uh, learned my lines from a script. That one's particularly stressful because it's like public humiliation. Like I'm going on stage and then everyone's going to be like wow, I was like shit, did I press record, um, on the microphone? I'm not sure it matters, I think it just does it anyway anyway. Uh, and then I have another one where someone I know, who wasn't very nice to me in my life, comes back to life but is still dead. Like it's still a corpse, but is like following, like is alive, like comes back to life, um is still dead, like it's still a corpse, but is like following, like is alive, like comes back to life, um, but it's like kind of rotten. So that's another one that I get quite a lot.
Speaker 1:Anyway, this is like a deep dive into my psyche. To be quite honest, I'm quite open and I don't really give a shit, so it's cathartic, okay. So there you go. I'm mentally messed up. Judge me, why don't you? Uh, there we go. I can't, okay, I go off on these tangents.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I'm pretty sure I have ADHD, but, um, I think they make the episode fun and interesting and if you have a bit of an ADHD brain, the episodes work for you. If you don't, if you like order and routine and going in one tangent, then this probably isn't for you. You could try, but you might fail. Challenge accepted, okay. So basically, the whole point was that I don't know the full details. I have watched all the documentaries about Madeleine McCann but, alas, I haven't fully come up to scratch with my knowledge before doing this episode, which you know. Please forgive me, just forgive me, right.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, she and her family. They're doctors, by the way, gps, I think and they went on holiday and they left their kids in the room that they were staying in and they had. They were going and checking on them like they weren't that far away, probably, I don't know less than 50 meters away, like they were in the. They were right next to the place that the kids were. They had two twin boys and one girl, one was madeline and there was a group they were all doctors, uh, I believe, or at least a big, you know group of them, and then they would take turns to go back and check on the kids. Anyway, they went back and checked on the kids and madeline had gone and the window was open, I believe.
Speaker 1:Anyway, to this day, 20 years down the line, or however long it's been, nobody knows where she went. Well, nobody, somebody knows, but they're not telling us. Nobody in inverted commas knows. The majority of people in the world do not know where Madeleine McCann has gone, where she went, what happened to her? Did she die? Is she still alive? Is she buried somewhere? What happened to her? Did she die? Is she still alive? Is she buried somewhere? What happened to the body? It's unknown and the kids that were with her, her twin, her brothers that were twins, not twin brothers, um, were too young to like remember anything really.
Speaker 1:And then there was a lot of oh, did the police fully investigate it properly? They locked down the place, blah, blah, blah. Did they do it properly? Blah, blah, did the parents do it? Anyway, it's been a big controversy over the past. Yeah, it must be 20 years, 2000 and something. And people pop up every so often being like, oh, my god, I'm madeline mccann. They do any dna test and guess what? They're not madeline mccann. Lots of people think the parents did it. Lots of people think she was taken and just killed. Lots of people and the body disposed of. Obviously lots of people think she was trafficked. Um, I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1:I keep my eyes open, I mean my mind open, and, to be honest, I would like this to be solved before I die. Like that is probably one of my biggest goals in life whether Madeleine McCann's mystery is solved. And if I die knowing what happened to her as a true fact of life, I think I'll be a happy woman. That's, that's it. I don't need friends, I don't need family, I don't need, you know, passing on generations worth of knowledge. I don't need happiness or health. I need to know, if Madeleine McCann, what happened to her. I need to know what happened. That's the end of it and then I'll die a happy woman. Obviously I joke, but I would. It would significantly, significantly, it would probably minorly improve my life.
Speaker 1:And that is where we get on to the true mental health of true crime, unsolved crimes in particular. Now, this is an unsolved crime. There are other ones, serial podcast. If you listen to the first episode, first series, sorry that one is all about Hayme Lin Hay, something like that, and I can't remember the guy but it was her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend and it's just a really good story. It's really well told, it's really in-depth podcast, but obviously it's unsolved. I mean, they've convicted the ex-boyfriend but it's not technically unsolved. But he says he didn't do it and lots of people think you know, there's no evidence to say that he actually did it, apart from he was her ex-boyfriend. So it's like, can you really convict him on evidence? That like doesn't really link up. Uh, there are many others, but those are the two that come to mind.
Speaker 1:Oh, a recent one that's come out is, again, not really technically unsolved, because the police have solved it in inverted commas, but nobody thinks it's right is if you watch Making a Murderer on Netflix, it's a Stephen Avery series. Basically it's three seasons. I believe I watched all of them, I binge watched them, and I ended up being really sad by the end because I thought there was going to be a conclusion and there wasn't and I was like, oh, it really bothered me inside. I was not happy about it. So that is probably the biggest problem with unsolved crime documentaries is the lack of conclusion.
Speaker 1:I think as humans and again I talked about this in the last episode as humans we love a conflict and resolution. We love a conclusion. We love to know that. You know our brains go okay, this, mean this, and then it lead to this and then that is end and we have learned our lesson. Perfect, fire, burn, do not touch again lesson. So If we don't have a lesson from it or like a conclusion, it's a little bit unsatisfying. And what do we love more? What do we what? What don't we love more than satisfaction? Everyone loves satisfaction. It's like. It's like smelling a beautiful meal and then not getting to eat it. It's like, oh, that was all like smelling a beautiful meal and then not getting to eat it. It's like, oh, that was, or like smelling a beautiful meal and then it being crap and you're like that was really unsatisfying. So our significant need for conclusion is not fulfilled in unsolved crimes. Now we can fulfill them in our own minds and go well, I think this happened, so that's probably the end right. And if they've got somebody that they've convicted where you can kind of feel a little bit more settled about that, you can go well, they've got someone, so it's sort of solved in the ones there are.
Speaker 1:There is a series on Netflix again, I watch too much Netflix who doesn't called Unsolved Mysteries. I believe it's not murders, it's mysteries, and that one I had to stop watching. I genuinely couldn't cope because there was sorry, there was no indication in the end of who it might be. It was just like unknown. It wasn't like yeah, we've got a conviction, but we don't think it's, but like it might not be them. Um, and it's solved in inverted commas. It was like now we have no idea, absolutely no idea. And then it was like oh well, this is really upsetting. So I had to stop watching it and I honestly don't know what psychopaths can watch.
Speaker 1:Unsolved murdery, unsolved mysteries brain not working today because I can't it. Just it really fucks with me, to be quite honest, like I don't feel happy in life and that's that's pretty easy for me to achieve, so I don't need something else that's making me not happy in life. So take away the the non-happy things. Hopefully my mental health will improve. I think so.
Speaker 1:Sometimes there has been like studies and things that have shown that it has led to cognitive overstimulation and people become obsessed, like there is unsolved crime obsession where people go I need to find out the answer and there are like online sleuths that's what they call them that become. I feel like this is really overexposed, but I don't quite know what to do about it. Um, half of it's going to be overexposed, but I don't quite know what to do about it. Half of it's going to be overexposed and half it's going to be like OK, great, that looks much better, but it's going to be quite upsetting for the first half of the video. Sorry, sorry, I didn't sort it out.
Speaker 1:There are people that go on these online forums and like literally become obsessed with uh, the case, and they are literally they. They call them armchair detectives armchair, so they will sit at home and they just become obsessed. And there was another one, oh, I forgot, um, have you watched? Uh, don't fuck with cats. Like you need to watch. That is wild, because there are these people that literally they all team up together and they become obsessed with who is this person that fucks with cats? And then they find out who it is. Okay, that was a spoiler. I'm really sorry. They find out who it is and then they get him and that is pretty satisfying. That is a great documentary actually Pretty horrible because he abuses animals online, which is like and videos it, which is pretty upsetting.
Speaker 1:But justice is served, so it doesn't matter. Well, it does matter. Well, I shouldn't have said that it does matter, because I love animals, but justice is served, so he can't do it to anymore. It's really awful what he does. I won't spoil that, because that is, um, something to behold in in hell. It's really awful. So the Paul Kittens if you, I'm not going to go into it here, but if you want to go and watch that, then I would recommend because it's a nice conclusion.
Speaker 1:So if we don't get a conclusion, we become obsessed, and obsession with things is generally never a good idea, unless you're like trying to become the best at a sport, and then you kind of need to be a bit obsessed with it. Or you're trying to become the best like mathematician or chess player, and then the only people that really succeed are the people who are in love with it or obsessed, or really really really talented and a bit obsessed. So you need to be like super dedicated. So people that become obsessed, they are like one extreme. Do you need to become obsessed with something that necessarily doesn't really affect you? It's questionable, but if that's what you like in life, go for it. You might find the answer.
Speaker 1:However, what it has been shown, what has been shown, is that our minds take in what we think matters, as in what evidence we think is is um going to lean in our favor and we ignore the stuff that conflicts it and we go no, that that doesn't fit with my narrative of this person committing the crime. Therefore, I'm going to ignore it, and that is I don't know what it's called. I'm going to call it a cognitive bias. Yes, that's what it's called, that's what I've written down a cognitive bias where we go, nah, um, I think it's this person, and that doesn't actually fit the evidence, doesn't fit with my narrative, so I'm going to ignore it.
Speaker 1:So these kind of armchair detectives can be a little bit dangerous because they aren't trained to ignore certain things and a bit like when you Google something medicine related, lots of people go, oh, I googled it and it told me I had cancer. And it's like, yeah, because google doesn't know what it can ignore, what symptoms it can ignore and are probably due to other things and not due to cancer, and what it should pay attention to. And that is what humans are for. We may have our own cognitive bias as doctors, but we basically go okay, yes, you might be tired all the time, that is that could be a symptom of cancer, but I don't think it is in your case because of this, this and this. And the computer won't pick up on that unless it specifically asks them. But you know, we as humans are trained to. So if your iron is low or if you don't sleep very well because you've got PTSD, or you've got children, like three young children or triplets or something, do you know what I mean? Like those kind of things that Google may not quite understand, because realistically, realistically, you put anything into google and ask it if you have cancer and it will say yes, I have yellow fingernails. Do I have cancer? Probably, who knows? My skin is green. Am I an ogre or do I have cancer, probably cancer. I don't know what would make your skin go green cancer-wise, but there we go.
Speaker 1:There have been instances of cases that, in particular in America now they publicise, sometimes live, their trials online which is crazy and on TV and it means that lots of external people can get involved. That definitely sways how the verdict goes. I would say, like you can't ignore that kind of external noise. If you're the jury Now, obviously you're making the decision as a group. But if you go home and other people are talking about it and they go, oh, I'm not sure and you're not supposed to listen to it. But come on, you're a human and like life revolve, like life is going on around you. You can't just ignore people talking and the news and um, you might see glances of newspapers, of uh, of like, let's say, the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial, which, again, not unsolved, but is a prime example, and there have been other ones, I'm trying to think of some, but I would say in particular, the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial is probably one of the most notable recent cases, especially because they are celebrities and I would say that the the media definitely swayed it, so I guess it was unsolved at the time, right.
Speaker 1:So the other thing is that often these unsolved crimes the media brings the unsolved crime back to the surface, and that can be a good thing If we don't know who did it. Great, it can could lead to unsolved, uh, could lead to wrongful convictions of these unsolved crimes, because again people are going to get their biases and go down narratives that they think make sense or they want to make sense. You know, it's like, for example, the yshire Ripper. He was just like kind of a normal guy, had a wife, he just lived in a house, he did normal things. No one thought it was him. Now, if that was unsolved, people might not think it was him because they go well, no, he's a, he's like a normal guy, whereas there's a guy, another guy, who could be a suspect or oh, it's like floating around, it could be him, but it's, he's like a loner and he lives out in the woods and he owns loads of guns and he um goes and shoots wild animals and like eats them. I don't know, you're probably gonna think it's him like, more likely than peter suckl, who is like regular, boring old person. No, he wasn't old, regular, regular old Joe around the corner. Like nobody thought it was him because he wasn't that weird. Maybe he was, but not obviously. So it's really how you like paint these pictures as well.
Speaker 1:I would say one of the biggest concerns about unsolved crimes is the effect that it has on people's psyche. Now, do you, especially if a like, if a crime's far away, like if it's in america, I'm not really like thinking about it sitting here. But if it's in bristol and it's like, uh, loads of you know there's a serial killer on the loose and nobody knows who it is, and you're like, oh god, that kind of that's like near to me, right? So if it's unsolved, there could be a lot of unease in the community and anxiety, and we don't need more of that. We don't need more anxiety, do we? Nah? So that may change people's behavior, it may change people's mental health, but it may also lead people to think like we need to try and find this person. And we need to just try and find someone so that our brains have something to go okay, it's solved, we can carry on with our lives.
Speaker 1:The murderer is off the streets and actually, for the police, as long as they've got someone who they've gone this is quite common in wrongful conviction cases is the police want the case solved. So in particular in the like Stephen Avery one where I personally think he was framed, and the the serial podcast one, they wanted someone to scapegoat. They found that person. Whether it was right or wrong, I don't know. Obviously I'm being presented information on TV like that could be biasing me either way, and I'm not sat watching the jury. I'm not sat in the jury. So do I know? Truly Probably not. But in my head it did feel like, oh, they wanted a conviction, so they latched on to someone and went down that road and that could happen. You know, if there is an unsolved crime, especially in the local community, people are going to want to solve it, and it doesn't necessarily matter if it's the right person, as long as there is some sense of conclusion.
Speaker 1:And the other thing is having not having a crime solved. It makes you lose your trust in the criminal justice system a little bit, doesn't it? You're like, oh, they don't have anyone. At least if they have someone, you've got something to go. Well, it probably is them, but they have. You know. They're just saying it's not them in your brain. That kind of works a bit better now. On another note, lots of um I don't want to say lots. Some unsolved crimes have been solved due to online detectives, um, armchair detectives, uh, new, new dna evidence as well, which we didn't have maybe like 50 years ago. You know mapping of the genome, etc. That is a relatively new thing, like within the last 50 years. So cases have been solved because of that.
Speaker 1:Now, do I think obsession with true crime is therefore beneficial or negative for a person? I think it very much depends on the person. For me it just didn't work. I was like I can't continue like this. I will watch the wrongful convictions ones, because in my head I can kind of the decision is is it them or is it not them? They are not technically unsolved. I can go is it them, is it not them? That's the answer. For me it's not like well, it could be bloody, anyone it's yes or no, was it them? The thing with the unsolved crimes for me is well, it could be bloody, anyone it's yes or no, was it them? The thing with the unsolved crimes for me is, again, like I said earlier, I just can't cope with the fact that I don't know who the bloody hell it is at all Like whatsoever, like it could be anyone. They haven't even got a suspect and that's what concerns me.
Speaker 1:If you can deal with that uncertainty, you go for it. Guys, do what makes you happy, but you have to be aware that if you start getting obsessed with it, or it takes up your life ie obsession or it starts making you unhappy or you start getting a lack of satisfaction in your life, stop, redirect your life somewhere else. Um, that's why I like working in A&E. There's a, there's a sense of resolution on the wards. It's like this ongoing cascade of ever going, ever going, ongoing, everlasting problems. A&e. I go right, that's the problem. Me fixie, or me not fixie, and me refers to somebody else, and they fixie, and then it's not my problem after that. I kind of like that, which is why my brain doesn't work for unsolved cases. So if you like the ongoing, protracted drama of not knowing, you go for it. Hun, you go for it.
Speaker 1:But your mental health may take a negative decline because of it, but maybe not. You know, it really depends on the kind of person you are. Anyway, guys, as I said last time, uh, the, what are? What are the upcoming episodes? Again, I want to do high protein diet. I want to do um, oh, I might do, you know, I might do low pressure new year's resolutions, because it is new year coming up and I always feel like everyone makes these resolutions that they're never going to stick to. Why don't we come up with ones that are like a bit more realistic? So, low pressure new year's resolutions that sounds like a great idea to me. Do I even want new year's resolutions? I don't know, because sometimes the fact that I have something to aim for like pushes me away from it. It's like this weird backwards psychology because I'm like, it's like a self sabotage. I think, anyway, we can get into my again ongoing negative personality traits in the next episode.
Speaker 1:Gossip OMG, I really want to cover that one because I'm obsessed with gossip, can't cope. And stretch marks I just add to my list as I think of them on the go, if you want a little bit of health well-being with a scientific touch, but also kind of casual like. There are podcasts like mine, but they're not as casual. Mine's more of a conversation. It's not like I sit here and script it all out. Some people might like that, some people might not. Some of it is a bit like. You know, there's a, there's a baseline script, but no more than that, because I struggle with the podcasts that are like.
Speaker 1:One day in a residential town in North America, sally went on a trip to meet her husband. Next and it's like oh Christ, please stop. So mine's semi-improvised anyway, guys, gotta love and leave ya, gotta go back to the christmas. You know, fanatics, what, what am I trying to say there? Antics, my brain is like not quite working today. I don't know what's happened. Antics, fanatics, frantics, frantic antics, frantics. Okay, anyway, um, if you liked it, please tune in for more and give it a like and stuff. I also have fan mail on my podcast uh page. I think you can go on through there, or maybe it's through Spotify as well, if you listen on Spotify. But have a look on my podcast page and you can send me some messages and say you know, maybe don't say dawn your shit, because that would really ruin my new year. But you know, leave some constructive feedback or some positive stuff, or you know, I can take negative feedback if it's constructive. But there we go. Okay, bye, kiss on the little head, I still blow.
