Episode 1
Should I Be Open About My Mental Illness?
Should I be open about my mental illness? It's a more complicated question than you may realize, filled with hidden pitfalls and considerations you may not have made.
Dennis Heil speaks bluntly about his choice to be open about his mental health journey, starting with his first active suicide attempt to the Bipolar depressive psychotic break that forced him to acknowledge how bad his mental health was. From there, he speaks about some of his experiences of living openly with high-functioning autism and Type 2 Bipolar Disorder with severe depression. Last, he transitions to five questions he thinks one should ask themselves before deciding to open up.
The reality of being open about one's mental illness is not how it can seem in recovery and activitism spaces. There's so much cheerleading about it as a way to combat stigma, but rarely do you hear anyone talk about the downsides of that. People may judge you and use it against you. If you post your story on social media, it's now in the public eye for potential employers to see. Not only that, but most people aren't all that understanding, so you have to get used to ignorance.
The Five Questions I would ask myself if it were Day 1, and I was considering doing it again. (Okay, it's more than five questions, and more like five groups of questions, but whatever.)
1. What purpose does it serve? Will this improve my mental wellness or add to my life?
There's no reason to expose a vulnerability to the world unless it serves some purpose for you. I chose this path for myself because my silence is what almost killed me, and it's killing so many other people like me. I hope that by talking about these difficult subjects in the way I do that other people like me will see a kindred spirit, and know they can be better, too.
2. Can I be okay with people not understanding me, or not wanting to understand?
Most people are not going to be all that understanding. If I had to guesstimate based on personal experience, I would say about 80% are neutral, 15% are understanding, and that last 5% are angry and afraid of Bipolar Disorder because of trauma done to them. Depending on how open you are, you may find yourself arguing or being questioned a lot. For example, I'm diagnosed with Type 2 Bipolar Disorder even though I've experienced psychosis and/or psychotic features. Why? Because the diagnostic criteria specifies that you need to experience psychosis in mania to fall under Type 1. I've never had a full-blown manic cycle, only hypomania. The times where I and my professionals could identify that I experienced psychosis were only in depression.
3. How will this affect my professional life?
Severe mental illness may limit your career options or have a negative affect on your professional life. For example, when I was younger, I wanted to get my CDL and go into longhaul trucking. The problem is that certain medications and illnesses can disqualify you from that, for fair reasons. I wouldn't want to be behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer when my brain disconnected from reality. That just sounds bad for everyone involved. Not to mention, you may run into the issue where you get passed up for promotions or miss out on job opportunities because why hire a person who could be unstable for weeks or months at a time when you could just... not do that?
4. Am I balanced at the moment?
I don't have an issue with people being open about their mental illness and journey. What I do take issue with is this blanket narrative that it's a good idea without any discussion of the downsides. You have vulnerable people, newly diagnosed, coming into advocacy and recovery spaces and hearing these messages, like "Speak your truth." And it does not consider that person's well-being. What if they're unstable and plaster it all over social media? What if they're in an abusive situation where it will be used against them? What if they have a job that would fire them for it?
5. Ask yourself - am I absolutely, positively, 100% certain that I need to speak my truth and change the world!? Am I feeling bold, empowered, and fearless!?
Bipolar escalation (mania or hypomania) often causes us to feel and think in absolutes. You can see this a lot in the community, like when a person with Bipolar Disorder has a revolutionary business idea that absolutely cannot fail! And all they need is the appropriate funds to get it going! You rarely see things like doubt and uncertainty. Similarly, when you're considering this question, you should feel anxious, nervous, and even a little afraid to reveal something that sensitive to other people. If you don't, and you absolutely believe that you're going to change the world, you're probably unwell or unstable, and you should absolutely NOT do it. The advice I would give myself is to make sure that I was stable at least 3-6 months before deciding anything.
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Transcript: https://bluntlybipolar.substack.com/p/should-i-be-open-about-my-mental
- [01:18] First Psychotic Break and Suicide Attempt
- [14:30] Context of Autism and Masking
- [17:45] Second Psychotic Break and Seeking Help
- [30:20] Should I be open about my mental illness?
- [38:56] Q1: What purpose does it serve?
- [40:01] Q2: Can I be okay with ignorance?
- [41:01] Q3: Will this affect my professional life?
- [42:17] Q4: Am I balanced at the moment?
- [45:08] Q5: No, really. Am I balanced right now?
- [47:06] Informal Tip: Dealing with Confrontation
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Email: bluntlybipolar@gmail.com
I am not a mental health professional. I do not have any qualifications or certifications of any kind. I hope that by sharing my experiences, more mentally ill people will be empowered to step into the offices of clinicians to do the hard work that leads to mental wellness, peace, and happiness. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, as all I am is a mental patient with a microphone.
Transcript
Foreign hey, what's up y'?
Speaker A:All?
Speaker A:My name is Dennis Hile and I am diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder with severe depression and high functioning autism.
Speaker A:I've been living with bipolar disorder for over 30 years, 15 of which I spent undiagnosed.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:I would be diagnosed with autism a few years later.
Speaker A:In my podcast, Bluntly Bipolar, I'm going to share with you my experiences and the hard lessons I've learned trying to find some peace and happiness in my life.
Speaker A:I hope that by sharing my experiences, others can avoid learning these lessons the hard way.
Speaker A:I'm not a mental health professional.
Speaker A:I have no qualifications or certifications.
Speaker A:All I am is a mental patient with a microphone.
Speaker A:You could find bluntly bipolar@bluntly bipolar.com or about any podcast distribution service.
Speaker A:Expect new episodes on the first and third Thursday of every month.
Speaker A:Listener discretion is advised for every topics related to mental health, including suicide, self harm, and more.
Speaker A:I was about 15 years old when I put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger.
Speaker A:I didn't understand it at the time, but I'd started bipolar cycling about a year or two before I was drifting in and out of depressive psychosis, which is a thing that a small percentage of us experience.
Speaker A:Psychosis is an often misunderstood thing.
Speaker A:People tend to think it's loud, chaotic and threatening, like it's often portrayed in media.
Speaker A:Or they think of the person standing on the street corner preaching about delusions and yelling at people.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's loud, sometimes it's not.
Speaker A:Sometimes it was my brain causing me to believe things that were blatantly impossible or untrue, which is really what psychosis is.
Speaker A:More days than not, for about two or three years, I would wake up not knowing if I was going to completely believe that the weather was going to determine how good of a day I was going to have, that God was sending me messages in the newspaper, and that I could talk to God.
Speaker A:Some days I was grounded.
Speaker A:Grounded and insightful enough to think that's crazy, man.
Speaker A:God is not sending you messages.
Speaker A:And the weather is a far more vast thing than you.
Speaker A:There are billions of people in the world and it objectively cannot be about you, dumbass.
Speaker A:But then other days, it was the only truth and reality I knew.
Speaker A:Of course I'm communicating with God.
Speaker A:Of course the weather is going to determine what kind of day I'm going to have.
Speaker A:Of course this is all perfectly rational and reasonable.
Speaker A:In fact, it's the most reasonable thing in the world.
Speaker A:But that wasn't all that I had going on.
Speaker A:Not only was I dealing with that, but I also inherited high functioning autism.
Speaker A:And even though my mom may have freebase just a little Tylenol from time to time during my pregnancy, well, during her pregnancy, looking at my family, it's pretty clear that it's genetic.
Speaker A:And unfortunately, autism took a wrecking ball to my social processes and the way I relate to other people.
Speaker A:The best way I could think of to explain how I relate to people is much like I'm sitting in a room looking out a window at everyone else outside.
Speaker A:Even the people I love and have loved the most have always felt like they were always just out of reach all the time.
Speaker A:It never stops.
Speaker A:Now I'm fortunate to have people that I love and that love me, but to some degree it always feels like I'm standing alone in a room full of people.
Speaker A:But when I was a teenager, first starting puberty and bipolar cycling, God, it was terrible.
Speaker A:I spent so much time trying to feel connected to people, but I just couldn't.
Speaker A:Even though I had friends, even though I had loved ones and people close to me, I couldn't feel connected because I can't connect the way a lot of people do.
Speaker A:The brain fires off all these social processes when you socialize.
Speaker A:That's why socialization can help with like loneliness, feelings of loneliness, isolation, which can fuel depression.
Speaker A:But my brain doesn't work that way and I would not find out why until I was diagnosed when I was like 32, 33 years old.
Speaker A:And that brings me to the first part of this story.
Speaker A:I had my first infatuation, love and limerence, who I'm going to call Sarah.
Speaker A:I was about 15 years old.
Speaker A:Now if you don't know what limerence is, I find that this paragraph from Wikipedia describes my experience perfectly.
Speaker A:Limerence is the mental state of being madly in love or intensely infatuated when reciprocation of the feeling is uncertain.
Speaker A:This state is characterized by intrusive thoughts and idealization of the loved one, typically with a desire to form a relationship.
Speaker A:This is accompanied by feelings of ecstasy or despair, depending on whether one's feelings seem to be reciprocated or not.
Speaker A:That is exactly what I did not need while trying to navigate my early years of undiagnosed bipolar depression paired tastefully with my autistic social dysfunction.
Speaker A:Looking back on it, it was all cringe, creepy and intimidating behavior.
Speaker A:Not dangerous, but very weird.
Speaker A:And naturally she wasn't interested.
Speaker A:And the limerence and My mental unwellness kept my emotions locked onto her for years after she drew a healthy boundary and stopped talking to me, which was 100% justified, I would have done the same thing in her position.
Speaker A:Now, that event was one of a few that spurred a series of thoughts that culminated in my first and most active suicide attempt.
Speaker A:Not only that, another complication was thrown into the mix.
Speaker A:I learned in the past year that I was the result of an unplanned pregnancy.
Speaker A:Let me tell you, never buy a box of condoms.
Speaker A:That is buy 12, get one free.
Speaker A:Because that free one ain't a condom, friend.
Speaker A:Anyway, it was a beautiful day.
Speaker A:Had the windows open, it was breezy, the sun was shining.
Speaker A:It was a perfect summer day.
Speaker A:I was sitting in the family room in the basement playing a video game and listening to Metallica's Blackout at a soothing 200 decibels.
Speaker A:I needed a refill on my soda, so I went upstairs to the kitchen to get a refill.
Speaker A:My mental state at the time was pure chaos.
Speaker A:Everything in my head was loud, erratic and disjointed.
Speaker A:But as I was halfway up the stairs, everything in my head went quiet for the first time in a long time, like someone flipped a switch from on to off.
Speaker A:I had one thought in the silence of my mind and that thought was, you're alone.
Speaker A:No one loves you and you will never feel loved.
Speaker A:You're never meant to exist.
Speaker A:So why are you still existing now?
Speaker A:Up until that point, all of my suicidal thoughts and ideation had been more like an argument in my head.
Speaker A:I had been having those thoughts for about two years up to then.
Speaker A:But this time, instead of the counter argument, the part of my brain that normally would have argued against it agreed.
Speaker A:It said, yeah, that makes total sense.
Speaker A:You shouldn't exist.
Speaker A:You should kill yourself.
Speaker A:I detoured for my trip to the kitchen and into a bedroom where I could retrieve a firearm.
Speaker A:I set my empty glass down to the nightstand, retrieved the weapon, chambered around.
Speaker A:I sat down on the edge of the bed directly in front of a three quarter length high mirror mounted on the closet door where I could look myself in the eyes.
Speaker A:I watched myself put the barrel of the gun above my right ear and I just stared into my own eyes as the rest of the world kind of faded away into the distant background.
Speaker A:In that moment, while I had that weapon pointed at my head, it was like nothing else existed.
Speaker A:Everything was silent.
Speaker A:And my subconscious and survival instincts were hyper fixated on this deadly threat to myself, me.
Speaker A:I was hyper fixated on my own eyes, trying to See something, anything other than the emptiness and the pain I'd been feeling since bipolar depression started to swallow my joy.
Speaker A:In that moment.
Speaker A:It was like time standing perfectly still.
Speaker A:And I pulled the trigger.
Speaker A:And I heard a snap that was so loud that it caused my right ear to ring.
Speaker A:It was so loud in my ear that my first conscious thought was, am I dead?
Speaker A:Because being dead sure does feel an awful lot like being alive.
Speaker A:And then I did one of the top 10 most autistic things I've ever done in my life and started troubleshooting my own suicide attempt.
Speaker A:The gun went off, didn't it?
Speaker A:I heard it.
Speaker A:Okay, so maybe I'm a ghost.
Speaker A:Part of that lore is when someone dies in a moment of passion, particularly negative, that the soul may linger.
Speaker A:So am I a ghost?
Speaker A:But as I completed that thought, it was like the rest of the world rushed back into my perception and senses.
Speaker A:Almost like the tide coming in on the ocean.
Speaker A:I heard the birds singing again.
Speaker A:I could feel the breeze on my skin blowing it from the window.
Speaker A:And Metallica was still blaring downstairs.
Speaker A:I could feel the weight and the coldness of the weapon in my hand.
Speaker A:And I thought, oh, I'm still alive.
Speaker A:Why the hell am I still alive?
Speaker A:And the bullet had misfired.
Speaker A:It just didn't go off.
Speaker A:But because my body was in fight or flight mode, I was so hyperfocused and my sense of hearing was so amped up that the snap of the hammer was so loud that it made my ear ring.
Speaker A:And that switch in my head that I.
Speaker A:That had turned off while I was on the stairs, it switched back on.
Speaker A:I tried again.
Speaker A:I tried to put it back to my head.
Speaker A:But now everything in my person and something outside of me was screaming at me not to.
Speaker A:Every time I tried to put the peril barrel back to my head, I just couldn't.
Speaker A:I couldn't force myself to attempt again.
Speaker A:When I realized I couldn't bring myself to do it, my brain overloaded, overwhelmed, and I crashed in one of the darkest, emptiest mental spaces I've ever been in.
Speaker A:And if you want to ask how it could be darker than an active suicide attempt, the emptiness and dumbness is worse than feeling miserable.
Speaker A:Now, I would like to tell you that was my turning point.
Speaker A:That I found some hope and inspiration to keep going on, that I reached out, that I got help, and everything was happily ever after.
Speaker A:I'm sorry this isn't a neat story with a tidy arc and a comfortable resolution.
Speaker A:This is real life.
Speaker A:My life and the life of so many other mentally ill people and it's been anything but tidy.
Speaker A:Being only 15 and not understanding myself for masculinity, I modeled my response after my father.
Speaker A:My father is one of the best men I've ever known.
Speaker A:Hard working man, never missed a day at work unless he was almost dead and demonstrated his love through providing.
Speaker A:He grew up a farm boy, pretty rural, start working on a farm when he was really young.
Speaker A:Never complained, just handled his business and a friend about anyone who wasn't an S.O.
Speaker A:at all.
Speaker A:Fifteen years old, I thought, I'm a man, I just have to handle it like my dad does.
Speaker A:I just have to do what I have to do, suck it up and move forward.
Speaker A:And so I didn't say anything.
Speaker A:I kept it to myself.
Speaker A:Not only did I keep it to myself, but I chastised myself regularly over the next 14 years for being too much of a to attempt that way again or that I couldn't bring myself to attempt again in such a lethal direct way because I would have more suicide attempts instead.
Speaker A:I would do things like take pills, sometimes randomly.
Speaker A:I substance abused, a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of chemicals.
Speaker A:I'd step into the road without checking for traffic.
Speaker A:I pick fights with other men, which is actually common form of male self harm that doesn't really get talked about a whole lot.
Speaker A:And look, I'm not saying I'm a badass either, okay?
Speaker A:I can't fight, I just can't.
Speaker A:But it's better than feeling nothing.
Speaker A:And maybe I get stabbed or shot in the process.
Speaker A:Everybody wins.
Speaker A:Probably the craziest thing I did, you know, other than putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger was to be an other man in affairs.
Speaker A:I figured that if we were found out that there was at least a decent chance he would kill me.
Speaker A:And it almost did.
Speaker A:At least once I regret doing that.
Speaker A:I reason that it wasn't my fault or responsibility because I wasn't the one stepping out of a relationship.
Speaker A:But the truth is that I can only control my own actions.
Speaker A:I could have not participate and not shared responsibility in creating unnecessary suffering for others.
Speaker A:But it is what it is and I didn't really know any better.
Speaker A:Despite the strong moral and ethical standards my parents tried to instill in us.
Speaker A:After my suicide attempt and mental breakdown, I put everything back how I found it, refilled my soda and went back to playing my game.
Speaker A:Had I been successful, it would have been the strangest thing for someone to walk in on.
Speaker A:It would have made no logical sense.
Speaker A:Why be dead by A self inflicted gunshot wound with an empty glass sitting on the nightstand, music blaring from the basement, with a video game paused on screen and an open bag of chips next to the chair.
Speaker A:But that was a psychotic break, according to my first psychiatrist.
Speaker A:And that was also why I was not diagnosed with type 1 bipolar disorder, because I've never had psychosis in a manic cycle, only mixed or psychotic depression.
Speaker A:For the rest of the story to make sense, I need to give you some additional context.
Speaker A:I was not diagnosed with autism until I was in my early 30s.
Speaker A:However, after my experience with Sarah as a teenager, I realized that something was off about the way I related to people.
Speaker A:I had scared her and I didn't mean to, and I didn't understand why I did, because I didn't have any of the natural social processes that would say, hey, this isn't the right thing to do.
Speaker A:You're being weird, you're being cringe, you're being creepy.
Speaker A:The ingenious, absolutely autistic solution I came up with was to learn a lot about emotions, relationships and people.
Speaker A:So maybe I would make that mistake again.
Speaker A:I hyper fixated on socialization and read I don't know how much about emotions, relationships, socialization, psychology, all that stuff, just trying to understand what went wrong.
Speaker A:And as a result, I accidentally taught myself how to mask.
Speaker A:Now, masking is a term to describe when a person like me, who does not have a typical mental landscape, is able to act like anyone else does for a while.
Speaker A:That is, we put on a mask toward the world.
Speaker A:Not all that different from maintaining a professional demeanor at work, even when you want to throttle the people around you.
Speaker A:Even though my brain doesn't actually do many of the things that it's supposed to, I intellectually understand socialization and emotions well enough that I can mask for social situations.
Speaker A:The downside is that my brain only has two speeds when it comes to masking.
Speaker A:Either I'm masking and mostly getting socialization right, or I'm not masking and I miss absolutely everything because my brain does not do those things.
Speaker A:It does not do things like project emotion through body language.
Speaker A:It does not have body language or interpret and respond to it subconsciously like a normal neurotypical brain would.
Speaker A:There's no in between.
Speaker A:Not even the slightest hint of a middle ground.
Speaker A:It's all or nothing.
Speaker A:Why does that matter?
Speaker A:Well, after I start feeling close and comfortable with someone, I stop instinctually masking around them.
Speaker A:Instead, when I feel it, he's uncomfortable.
Speaker A:I don't feel like I need to have that switch constantly on, that's proven to be a huge problem in my relationships because once I'm comfortable and I feel like I can switch off around a partner, I would get accused of being cold, indifferent and uncaring.
Speaker A:I'd miss very obvious things.
Speaker A:Like one time a previous partner was scrolled up in the corner of our bedroom in the fetal position, crying.
Speaker A:I walked into the room to get a notebook, picked up the notebook, looked at her, thought to myself, that's a strange place to take a nap, and then left because I didn't want to disturb her.
Speaker A:I couldn't tell she was crying because she was turned away from me.
Speaker A:That's how disconnected it can be.
Speaker A:I didn't realize that being curled up in the fetal position in the corner of a bedroom might indicate some kind of problem or, or emotional turmoil.
Speaker A: So with that in mind, in: Speaker A:I was still undiagnosed at the time, and the stress of the move, moving with her, and just the general change of everything kicked me into such a severe unwellness that and experienced in a long, long time.
Speaker A:I got myself fired from my job that I'd transferred to within the first month or so.
Speaker A:No problem, I'll just get another job.
Speaker A:I mean, at the time, retailers basically hire anyone with a pulse.
Speaker A:And so I bounced from job to job.
Speaker A:I'd get 1, lose 1, get 1, lose 1, get one, lose one.
Speaker A:And was hired and fired from at least six different companies and two temp agencies in the span of like four or five months, maybe six.
Speaker A:Now, understandably, this was putting a lot of stress on my partner and relationship over the course of however many months it was, might even been up as much as a year.
Speaker A:But not only that, but she was also subject to my terrible moods, bad temper, and my ignorant and shameful emotional abuse.
Speaker A:But I was either hypomanic or mixed cycling.
Speaker A:And I wasn't sleeping more than four hours a day while trying to work third shifts and slamming energy drinks to function.
Speaker A:Which, by the way, don't do that.
Speaker A:That's a terrible idea.
Speaker A:Now, if you're not familiar with bipolar disorder, this series of circumstances is a combination of some extremely triggering situations individually, but combined together, I'm surprised it took me as long as it did to go off the deep end.
Speaker A:Once I look back at it.
Speaker A:Sleep is so important for mental wellness because your brain produces mood balancing chemicals while you're in the deeper stages of sleep.
Speaker A:I wasn't sleeping Long or deep enough to reach those stages of sleep consistently.
Speaker A:It started making me erratic, more emotional, more volatile.
Speaker A:Just about anyone doesn't feel great when they don't sleep.
Speaker A:But for those of us with mood disorders, it can be so utterly terrible and disrupt your balance for even days.
Speaker A:After one night of lost sleep one Sunday, I'm sitting in our living room on a hand me down couch from her parents garage that they'd given us.
Speaker A:Lost in my thoughts, staring out the glass patio door out of the gray sky.
Speaker A:I don't think dissociation is the right word to describe it, because I was still pretty present, even though I wasn't totally present.
Speaker A:But that day, something clicked in my head.
Speaker A:Another switch flip.
Speaker A:Like it did during my suicide attempt.
Speaker A:Except this time, instead of hopelessness and suicidality, it was unbridled rage.
Speaker A:Have you ever been so depressed that the sight of people smiling or happy pushed you toward the edge that you just wanted to eat a bullet just to spite them?
Speaker A:That's how I was feeling.
Speaker A:And my brain fixated on the thought that I should wipe their smiles off of their faces, off of everyone's faces, and make everyone else feel just as awful as I did.
Speaker A:If I couldn't be happy, why should anyone else?
Speaker A:And here's how to do it.
Speaker A:It's so easy.
Speaker A:And like in my previous suicide attempt, there was no counter argument.
Speaker A:Instead, all I got was confirmation that yes, not only is this a good idea, but it's the best idea you've ever had.
Speaker A:What are you waiting for?
Speaker A:And my mind drifted, piecing together a pretty terrible plan.
Speaker A:Lost in those thoughts, I was only somewhat aware of her walking in front of me to go pick up the cat who was sitting near the door.
Speaker A:She bent over, scooped him up, turned around and immediately dropped him.
Speaker A:The sound of him hitting the floor jarred me from my thoughts and I looked at her, the cat, then back to her.
Speaker A:Then my brain switched from not masking to masking because I was going to talk to someone who I felt was the love of my life that I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
Speaker A:And I always tried to make sure I paid attention so I wouldn't make the mistakes from past relationships I had had up to that point.
Speaker A:And so my brain just switched into masking mode.
Speaker A:It's a distinctly different state of mind.
Speaker A:To use an analogy, consider your cell phone.
Speaker A:It's not good for much if it's turned off, right?
Speaker A:Doesn't do anything.
Speaker A:You have to power it on, let it boot up, let it connect to networks and then you can use it fully.
Speaker A:That's what masking is like for me.
Speaker A:My brain needs to go through a Buddha process to mask.
Speaker A:And it's such a different mental state that it actually was enough to pierce the mental haze I was in ever so briefly.
Speaker A:That moment is still burning in my brain like it happened yesterday.
Speaker A:So there she stood in pale blue high waisted mom jeans, an emerald green turtleneck shirt of crushed velvet, little black socks with pink thread, with her hands clasped in front of her, anxiously twiddling her thumbs as she subconsciously self soothed her anxiety.
Speaker A:I looked her up and down and then I stopped on her face, looking into her periwinkle eyes.
Speaker A:And I was confused at that point.
Speaker A:We'd been together for over six years and she was looking at me in a way that I had never seen before.
Speaker A:It was so strange.
Speaker A:Why is she looking at me like that?
Speaker A:What emotion is that?
Speaker A:I couldn't identify it.
Speaker A:I couldn't figure it out.
Speaker A:And then she said to me, dennis, that look on your face is scaring me.
Speaker A:What are you thinking about?
Speaker A:Fear.
Speaker A:That's what I was seeing.
Speaker A:She was afraid of me.
Speaker A:Why was she afraid of me?
Speaker A:I'd never do anything to hurt her.
Speaker A:But then I stopped to actually think about what I'd been thinking before and was horrified with myself.
Speaker A:I was horrified at how black the thoughts were, how terrible the ideas being churned out were, and the far worse thing, just how reasonable and sensible acting on those terrible thoughts sounded.
Speaker A:When I made that realization, my brain just imploded.
Speaker A:I went from all of that rage into the blackest, darkest pit of mental breakdown and depression I had experienced in years.
Speaker A:I was borderline non functional for almost two weeks after.
Speaker A:It was so bad that I was actually diagnosed with mild PTSD from it.
Speaker A:And she left not too long after.
Speaker A:And I don't blame her.
Speaker A:I would have too if I were her.
Speaker A:And in her position.
Speaker A:No one wants to be around a 6 foot 4, mentally and emotionally unstable man with anger issues.
Speaker A:The only silver lining to that story, other than surviving it, is that it was so severe that it forced me to acknowledge that something was desperately, deeply wrong with my brain.
Speaker A:I didn't care about myself at all.
Speaker A:I was totally fine with writing off all of the harm that I had done and was presently doing to myself.
Speaker A:But this time it felt like I was still me, but all of my thoughts, morals, everything was just twisted or gone.
Speaker A:As if I was a different version of me thinking in my own head.
Speaker A:But it wasn't like dissociation where you might feel like you're observing yourself.
Speaker A:It was more like I was myself, but I was not myself.
Speaker A:And I know that doesn't really make sense, but it's mental illness, man.
Speaker A:Now, that happened on a Sunday.
Speaker A:And the next day after she went to work, I sat down and I started calling anyone that I thought could help me.
Speaker A:I called so many places trying to find one that would take me.
Speaker A:I want to say it was like nine or ten different places before the receptionist took pity on me and asked an already overworked, overbooked lcsw, that's licensed clinical social worker to see me for an intake in three weeks.
Speaker A:I wouldn't find out that that receptionist had pulled strings for me until probably six months later, she felt like she just had to do it.
Speaker A:I was absolutely terrified of losing control of my brain again and acting on those thoughts before I could do anything about it.
Speaker A:But I thought, all right, I have this appointment in three weeks.
Speaker A:I can survive for three weeks.
Speaker A:This has only happened once, so I think I'll be okay.
Speaker A:In retrospect, I should have went to the emergency room and probably went inpatient.
Speaker A:But I didn't know any better at the time.
Speaker A:I didn't know how anything worked.
Speaker A:You know, I grew up in a working class family in a conservative area where you didn't really talk about mental health or what was going on in your head.
Speaker A:You suck up, cupcake.
Speaker A:You man up and you handle your ask for help with your feelings.
Speaker A:What are you, gay?
Speaker A:Hey, maybe we can go paint our nails and braid each other's hair when we're done.
Speaker A:Fruitcake, quit being a.
Speaker A:And I want to be clear.
Speaker A:I want to be 100% clear.
Speaker A:This did not come from either of my parents.
Speaker A:Now, even though my dad fits the mold of a benevolent patriarch in many ways, he never forced those kind of ideals on us.
Speaker A:He didn't abuse us.
Speaker A:He didn't emasculate us or stop us from being silly or creative.
Speaker A:I can count on one hand the number of times he lost his patience and raised his voice at us more physically, punish us.
Speaker A:He did nothing of the sort.
Speaker A:And my mom was always kind of a whimsical, sometimes goofy woman, and she would encourage creativity in us and we would do crafts and art and things like that.
Speaker A:And you know it.
Speaker A:My dad never, like, tried to shut that down or be like, oh, no, you know that's gay.
Speaker A:Don't act that way.
Speaker A:But no, I got all this from society, from a word that many men like me hate, and that is patriarchy.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:I got all this from my peers, from friends and guys I worked with, from women I dated, from myself.
Speaker A:Trying to imagine myself as this perfectly emotionless, stoic individual like I thought I was supposed to be.
Speaker A:And I was drowning in it.
Speaker A:I wanted to be a real man, so I thought I should suffer in silence.
Speaker A:I needed to just shoulder my pain until I either got through it or destroyed me like I have so many other men and boys now.
Speaker A:After I hung up the phone to that facility, I made a decision.
Speaker A:I was going to go in, talk to these people in a completely open way that I never really had before.
Speaker A:Everything that I kept buried.
Speaker A:I was going to tell them everything that was off about me that I could identify, that I couldn't explain or understand.
Speaker A:And I decided that if they couldn't find anything wrong with me after that appointment, I was going to get drunk and end myself that night rather than risk losing control of my brain and doing something awful that was entirely out of my control.
Speaker A:As I said, the experience traumatized me and some of the scars still ache today.
Speaker A:I've never been able to fully let go of the awareness that it was possible for me to lose control of my entire emotional and mental landscape.
Speaker A:It's like I was living an entirely different reality at the moment.
Speaker A:Or in other words, I had another psychotic break during severe depression.
Speaker A:According to my psych, it was only through luck or divine providence that my mind crashed when I looked at my then fiance.
Speaker A:My brain snapped into masking because she needed me and I had to analyze my thoughts and feelings to understand her thoughts and feelings, which forced my brain to hard reboot in the worst way.
Speaker A:What if that hadn't happened?
Speaker A:Well, you wouldn't be hearing my voice right now.
Speaker A:I'd be a statistic and not a good one.
Speaker A:But that didn't happen.
Speaker A:I had my appointment and I was diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder with psychotic features.
Speaker A:Because the only psychosis I've experienced that we could determine is in the depression end of the disorder.
Speaker A:A few years later, I would be diagnosed with autism.
Speaker A:And that brings me to the title of this episode, should you be open about your mental illness?
Speaker A:A few years after I was diagnosed, I decided to start being open about my mental illness and who I was.
Speaker A:There are several reasons for that choice, but the main reason was that I was tired of being so unhappy with myself, of constantly trying to fit in and failing horribly every single time.
Speaker A:I had spent so many years feeling disconnected from people, feeling like I was standing alone even when surrounded by love, watering myself down to try to fit in so I could feel accepted and like part of the group.
Speaker A:But once I was diagnosed with autism and started to examine how that had affected my life, I realized that all that had been a total waste of time.
Speaker A:I wasn't connecting that way because I couldn't.
Speaker A:My brain just doesn't function that way.
Speaker A:I would have no more success with it than I would breathing underwater without scuba gear.
Speaker A:Then I started getting involved with other mental ill people.
Speaker A:I started being open and participating in groups and having quiet conversations with mentally ill people, their friends, families, mental health professionals.
Speaker A:That receptionist I mentioned.
Speaker A:I ran a blog for years where a lot of people read my thoughts and stories, my opinions.
Speaker A:And in that, I finally did start feeling more connection to people, even though I do still feel distant, like I'm still looking through that window at the rest of the world.
Speaker A:And nowadays, social views on mental illness and emotional vulnerability are much different than they were nowadays.
Speaker A:If you're in activist spaces or listening to advocates, you hear a lot of messaging about the need to be open, vulnerable, speak your truth, and that whole kind of thing.
Speaker A:It's packaged and sold as a way to combat stigma, which is sort of true and sort of not in my opinion.
Speaker A:On the one hand, I suppose it meets the literal definition in showing that all kinds of people live with mental illness, that it's not rare, it's all around you all the time, and most mentally ill people aren't dangerous or a threat to anyone but themselves.
Speaker A:Now, on the other hand, everyone kind of glosses over the repercussions of that choice.
Speaker A:And in my opinion, it's because a lot of times these people are preaching to the choir.
Speaker A:Essentially, they're surrounded by other people that are like, yeah, you know, rah, rah, rah.
Speaker A:But they aren't necessarily in front of other people who would question or challenge that.
Speaker A:Consider this.
Speaker A:You decide to make a post talking about your diagnosis and some of your experiences on social media.
Speaker A:You declare your mental illness and your struggles.
Speaker A:That's brave.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:However, now your name is tied to that post for any potential employer to stumble on later through a Google search.
Speaker A:If you didn't have your security logged down now, you just opened and left an unguarded door that leads directly to your vulnerability for literally anyone in the world to see and potentially use as a weapon against you.
Speaker A:What will you do if you find that you do start losing opportunities?
Speaker A:Why hire the person with mental illness that can make them unreliable for months at a time versus literally anyone else?
Speaker A:And I'm not saying that management are bad or unempathetic people, but their job is to make sure things are running smoothly.
Speaker A:That's what they get paid to do, so that's what they're trying to do.
Speaker A:And when you voluntarily throw information like that out there, you're giving them the ability to know this about you, to silently decide, well, you know what, maybe, you know, maybe they're okay now, but they won't be in six months, so maybe I should go with this other candidate instead.
Speaker A:Not only that, but people in your life will treat you differently.
Speaker A:In my experience, 80% of people just don't care.
Speaker A:Bipolar disorder isn't in their life, so they don't really think about it any more than I think about Lou Gehrig disease, otherwise known as als.
Speaker A:I don't have als.
Speaker A:I don't know anyone with als, so I don't think about it.
Speaker A:I don't really know anything about it, the symptoms.
Speaker A:I don't really even know what it does.
Speaker A:And that's how most people are about bipolar disorder.
Speaker A:Then you have maybe 15% of people who either have bipolar disorder, they're a mental health professional, or they have a loved one with bipolar disorder or some other mental illness that makes them sympathetic.
Speaker A:These people are emotionally invested or care because they're somehow connected to the illness.
Speaker A:And then you have the last 5% who legitimately hate or fear us because they've been traumatized by someone that either had or they believed to have bipolar disorder.
Speaker A:That part of stigma basically goes unaddressed because one, how do you address it?
Speaker A:And two, everyone's so focused on we mentally ill people and our struggles.
Speaker A:And I understand why, obviously, but it really doesn't take a whole lot to acknowledge someone else's pain.
Speaker A:And the people that find themselves in the blast radius of unwellness of mental illness are often told that their feelings aren't as valid, that they need to be more kind and understanding rather than even just acknowledging that, yeah, they were affected too.
Speaker A:Now, I made that realization during a rather bad face to face confrontation.
Speaker A:I'd been running my blog and dealing with trolls and all that fun for a while, but in my real life, I was working and generally kept things pretty quiet.
Speaker A:One day I was sitting with some co workers and we were kind of talking about life and depression and I mentioned my bipolar disorder.
Speaker A:On hearing that, the demeanor of one of my co workers completely flipped.
Speaker A:And at the time I didn't understand what happened.
Speaker A:But now I know I triggered his trauma and ptsd.
Speaker A:It started with accusations thrown at me angrily, then devolved into him screaming at me about all the awful things I must have done because he believed that bipolar people are evil.
Speaker A:And based on what he was screaming about, I could understand why.
Speaker A:It took me far too long to realize that he wasn't screaming at me.
Speaker A:He was screaming at his father because he was no longer a scared little boy living in fear of what his dad would do to him and his mom and his siblings.
Speaker A:He didn't have to live in fear of his dad quitting medication again.
Speaker A:He didn't have to take another beating, not without being able to return it.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Now he was a grown ass man.
Speaker A:Thankfully it didn't devolve into violence, but they did have to call the cops and I ended up just walking off that job instead of, I don't know, doing anything with it about it.
Speaker A:I thought it was probably his best so he didn't come back and start some Now I'm not saying that experience is common, not at all.
Speaker A:What I am saying is that if you are open about your mental illness, you may run into people like that, but most of them aren't going to scream at you.
Speaker A:Their instinct is going to be to protect themselves from a danger that's harmed them before.
Speaker A:And unknown trauma is not rational, especially if they have PTSD from their experiences.
Speaker A:And like I said, I'm fully aware most mental people are only a threat to themselves.
Speaker A:But that is not a message that resonates with people who have been harmed or traumatized by millennial people.
Speaker A:In the context of this point to a person reacting from a place of trauma and hurt, that rationalization is not reliable.
Speaker A:It's basically saying, just trust me bro, I'm not like that.
Speaker A:So to answer the question, should you be open about your mental illness?
Speaker A:If I could go back in time and I was approaching that question today, I would ask myself these series of questions to better understand whether or not I should Question one what purpose does it serve?
Speaker A:What will this add to or improve in my life?
Speaker A:It has not been easy for me to walk the path I have with my mental illness.
Speaker A:Despite that, the decision to be open about it has made a massive difference in my mental wellness.
Speaker A:Even in the hard times that when I cross paths with challenging people, I still appreciate the fact that I'm living authentically.
Speaker A:The hardship is a worthwhile, worthwhile trade off for me.
Speaker A:Furthermore, my openness has allowed me to connect with and help people in a way that's been so fulfilling.
Speaker A:Now, on the other hand, I know it's cost me some professional and personal opportunities.
Speaker A:One example I can give that I'm 99% sure of is I'd applied for a job manager.
Speaker A:Super happy with my experience on my application.
Speaker A:Our initial conversation however, when I went in for the interview, it was very clear someone had googled me because she looked at me with fear, stayed away from me, and declined the interview.
Speaker A:So I left.
Speaker A:Question 2 Can I be okay with people not understanding me or not wanting to understand?
Speaker A:The thing that used to frustrate me the most was people not understanding.
Speaker A:And as I previously mentioned, most people don't care if it's not part of their life.
Speaker A:After a while, you just have to learn to be okay with ignorance.
Speaker A:Otherwise you'll just drive yourself crazy.
Speaker A:And even if you're keen to educate, they may not want to learn.
Speaker A:So you just have to shrug and get on with your day.
Speaker A:Now, a lot of people have been very receptive, but it does get old after a while.
Speaker A:You know, I don't get mad or frustrated about it anymore like I used to.
Speaker A:Because why?
Speaker A:What's the point?
Speaker A:Be like getting mad that the sun rises and sets.
Speaker A:It's just the way it is.
Speaker A:Unless they have a reason to understand and care, most won't and most don't want to.
Speaker A:They have their own lives and problems to worry about.
Speaker A:So I'd focus on the people that did Question three How will this affect my professional life?
Speaker A:Make sure you understand how this could affect your professional life.
Speaker A:Look into any kind of medical disqualifications, because there are things that people with bipolar disorder aren't allowed to do.
Speaker A:For example, I had wanted to get a CDL to go into long haul trucking when I was younger.
Speaker A:But bipolar disorder can be a disqualifying medical condition for that, depending on the circumstances and what medications you're on, aside from hard disqualifications like that, you again run into the issue of how people in your field may view you.
Speaker A:Why promote the potentially unreliable person with bipolar disorder or this person that doesn't have it?
Speaker A:Will this person be reliable in 6 months?
Speaker A:A year?
Speaker A:5 years?
Speaker A:Actively malicious people may use it against you.
Speaker A:They may prey on your hypersexuality or impulsiveness when you're unwell.
Speaker A:I was friends with one guy whose best friend scanned him out of thousands of dollars while he was manic and impulsive, unable to reason.
Speaker A:And I can't tell you how many women I've met who have been preyed on during their hypersexuality.
Speaker A:Because hey, no one really treats that seriously crazy in the head, crazy in bed right Fellas, question four, am I balanced at the moment?
Speaker A:In the past I've been criticized for encouraging people not to be open about their mental illness until they felt stable and balanced for like six months.
Speaker A:I started doing that because when I first started getting involved in support groups and communities, there were a lot of narratives about being open and, and being involved and helping to fight stigma and, you know, all that.
Speaker A:My issue isn't that people were being open.
Speaker A:My issue is telling newly diagnosed vulnerable people who don't know what's going on at all to expose their vulnerability to a world that will not treat it gently.
Speaker A:It's easy to get sucked into a feeling of safety and security and the acceptance of a support group or community or with peers.
Speaker A:It's easy to think that other people outside of those circles will try to at least be even a fraction understanding, but a lot of times they won't.
Speaker A:And when I was really active, more often than not, that wasn't the case.
Speaker A:You don't want to tell vulnerable mentally unstable people with a mental illness, with a high suicide rate to trauma, dump their own wellness into the world or onto social media before they have a chance to understand what they're actually doing.
Speaker A:They are not necessarily in a mental space to make an informed, consensual decision about it.
Speaker A:They're in a distorted mentality because who goes and tries to get mental health help when things are going well?
Speaker A:You know, a lot of times your life's on fire, you have no idea what the fuck's going on and you're just trying to survive and keep your head up.
Speaker A:And you have these friendly faces telling you, yeah, you know, do this, do that, and they mean well, but they may not have experience like they may have spoke their truth into the world and got nothing but support and love for it from because they have a healthy family or they're surrounded by good people.
Speaker A:But not everyone is.
Speaker A:Not everyone is.
Speaker A:And even the good people things up from time to time.
Speaker A:So if you're going to be open about your mental illness, evaluate how balanced you are.
Speaker A:And have you been balanced for at least like three to six months?
Speaker A:And if you haven't, I would really suggest you wait until you have been so you can maximize the chances of your being stable and clear minded before you take such a big step.
Speaker A:Question 5.
Speaker A:I would ask myself, am I absolutely, positively, 100% certain that I need to speak my truth and change the world?
Speaker A:Am I feeling bold, empowered and fearless?
Speaker A:If you have absolutely no doubts and you are absolutely certain that this is what you need to do.
Speaker A:You are probably escalated, either manic or hypomanic.
Speaker A:And you absolutely should not be public about your mental illness or unwellness until you're stable in escalation.
Speaker A:For a lot of people, fear and doubt disappears under the momentum of the unwellness.
Speaker A:It's just gone.
Speaker A:And it's a really blatant sign that something is off.
Speaker A:If you understand what you're looking at, it's normal to have fear, doubt and anxiety about big life decisions or actions or important things.
Speaker A:And to be open about your mental illness is a big decision, even if it seems more normalized in our modern zeitgeist.
Speaker A:So be aware when you're looking to make that decision for yourself.
Speaker A:Don't let yourself get sucked into the group cheerleading.
Speaker A:Remember, you're the one that will have to live with the consequences of this choice, not any of the people who preach about it being a good idea.
Speaker A:If you lose your job or it screws up your personal life and you go back to those people and say, well, what do I do?
Speaker A:I was open and all these bad things happened, I'll tell you what their answer will be, because I've seen it happen multiple times and I've heard multiple stories from other people who identified with what I'm saying right now.
Speaker A:They'll look blankly at you, say, I don't know, or they'll change the subject completely, and you'll be left to figure it out on your own while your life is on fire, while your brain is unstable, while whatever chaos is going on around you that still hasn't settled down yet.
Speaker A:That's why it's so important to be stable before you make this decision.
Speaker A:Because if things go badly, it's just more gas on the fire.
Speaker A:Now, as I close this out, I want to leave you with one more final piece of informal advice, I guess is the best way to put it, something I learned the hard way, so hopefully you don't have to.
Speaker A:Don't take it personally when you run across people who hate or fear mental illness.
Speaker A:In a lot of cases, it's trauma and it's not rational.
Speaker A:Keep yourself safe.
Speaker A:But if you have to engage, the most effective strategy I found is to suspend my ego and pride and look them in the eye and gently say, I don't know why you feel the way that you do, but I'm sorry you experienced whatever you.
Speaker A:Whatever happened, I know the people around us don't often get the understanding and compassion they deserve for your pain.
Speaker A:When your lives are caught in the blast radius of our mental illness and that it's not just pretty words.
Speaker A:I very sincerely mean that in many cases, the attention is on the mentally old person.
Speaker A:And people who are harmed are asked to be kind and understanding.
Speaker A:But no one wants to extend the same kindness and understanding to make the same space for their pain.
Speaker A:And their pain matters too.
Speaker A:And if you try to hold space for them or to let them express their hurt without trying to make them feel guilty just because that person was mentally unwell.
Speaker A:It's interesting because in the Bible, Proverbs 15, a gentle answer turns away wrath.
Speaker A:But a harsh word stirs up anger.
Speaker A:And I cannot tell you how many times I've seen that work over the years, I've watched people shift completely by just acknowledging their pain.
Speaker A:Meanwhile, before I had that epiphany, I would fire just as much anger back at them because how dare you act that way towards me.
Speaker A:You too, man.
Speaker A:Do I look like a to you?
Speaker A:But all that does is confirm their fears and reinforces their trauma.
Speaker A:They look at your anger, conclude you're unstable, and that they are right to fear or hate you.
Speaker A:Now, is it fair that we're judged by the worst of our mental illness?
Speaker A:No, it's not fair.
Speaker A:But let me give you a pro tip that may help you stay out of that despair.
Speaker A:Just remove the word fair from your lexicon when talking about mental illness.
Speaker A:There is virtually no fair when it comes to mental illness or the circumstances surrounding it.
Speaker A:It's not fair that everyone can't get access to help.
Speaker A:It's not fair that we experience these terrible things, often done completely out of character, and have to live with the fact that we hurt the people we love in ways that we never would have considered in a sane state of mind.
Speaker A:There's nothing fair about addiction or suicide.
Speaker A:There's nothing fair about social apparatuses that empower and support it, choking out services in the name of cost efficiency.
Speaker A:It's not fair that so many people never have a chance to find some peace and happiness before they swan dive into the black.
Speaker A:None of it's fair and it never will be.
Speaker A:The sun rises, the sun sets.
Speaker A:That's just the way it is.
Speaker A:In that situation, I'm not worried about being right.
Speaker A:All I care about is making progress.
Speaker A:And once that wall comes down, I offer to listen if they want to talk, and then suggest they talk to a therapist about it to try and find some peace with it.
Speaker A:And to reiterate, I'm not suggesting that you do this.
Speaker A:All I'm saying is if you find yourself in the situation or you find yourself called to dive into the deeper levels of to war against stigma.
Speaker A:This is the most successful way I've found to handle it.
Speaker A:Always err on the side of your safety and caution, and do not give advice on how to handle their feelings or their problems other than seeking therapy.
Speaker A:Trauma can be a fragile thing, and you could do a lot of harm to someone if you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker A:Let our clinicians and professionals handle that.
Speaker A:That's what they dedicate years of their life to.
Speaker A:Thank you for spending your time with me.
Speaker A:If you like what you heard, subscribe.
Speaker A:Share with someone who you think it might help.
Speaker A:Be well.
Speaker A:It.
