Sense of Soul - BiPolar NOT Broken

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

Today on Sense of Soul Podcast we have with us Sara Schley. She is an organizational consultant for social and environmental justice, a mom, step mom, wife, spiritual teacher, outdoor leader, Shadow Work healer, business entrepreneur and published author of the book “Brain Storm: From Broken to Blessed on the BiPolar Spectrum.”  After 40 years of wrestling with shame and fearing the stigma, she is coming out…sharing her story of what’s it’s like having and surviving BiPolar II. In her book, Sara tells her life-changing story to help end the bipolar stigma, bring new understanding, and save lives. Millions of people suffer needlessly, not knowing that their perplexing condition is a treatable variant of depression on the Bipolar Spectrum. New understanding and treatment can change everything. Read this book if anyone in your life suffers from persistent, debilitating depressive illness. It just might save their life. Save lives! Buy your copy and support the campaign to get this book into the hands of so many that need it!  https://saraschley.com/ www.SeedSystems.net YouTube: Sara Schley https://youtube.com/channel/UCg1IuT_HPGKZetoaaS9l0zg   TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@healwithsaraschley   Instagram: @healwithsaraschley   Visit Sense of Soul at www.mysenseofsoul.com Join our Sense of Soul Patreon!! Our community of seekers and lightworkers who get exclusive discounts, live events like SOS Sacred Circles, ad free episodes and more. You can also listen to Shanna’s new mini series, about the Goddess Sophia! Sign up today and help support our podcast. As a member of any level you get 50% off Shanna’s Soul Immersion Healing Experience! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul podcast, we have with us Sarah Shealy. She is an organizational consultant for social and environmental justice, a mom, a wife, a spiritual teacher, an outdoor leader, a shadow work healer, a business entrepreneur, and a published author. She joins us today to talk about her new book, Brainstorm from Broken to Blessed on the Bipolar Spectrum. Thank you so much for joining us. Hi. Hi. Shannon and I were just talking before you got on about how we've never had anyone on to talk about bipolar.

I saw a sense of soul. And I actually, you know, in my other life, I'm a spiritual leader in my community, but that's not in the book at all. You know, I actually wrote an earlier book prior to the current book, which is about Sabbath. When I talk about practices for healthy brain, one is spiritual practice, whatever yours is, you know, not a dogmatic one, whatever's going to work for you, but how that's part of it. Yeah. Mandy and I started our journey with kind of mental health.

I mean, I know for myself, I had anxiety like my entire life and I never knew what it was. Mandy and I are both 46. So we're kind of in the generation from, you know, suck it up. We don't talk about our feelings so much. And we just kind of push on and do what we got to do, put on that happy face and not kind of address what's happening inside. You feel like maybe I'm broken or something is wrong with me, which is the name of your book from broken to blessed, which I love that you have to go through the dark night of the soul sometimes to find the blessing. Right on. Yep. So tell us how you got there. How did you discover that you had bipolar? You know,

like, how do you get there to a place where, you know, you finally get that diagnosis? Okay, well, it took me five psychiatrists and 25 years to finally get that diagnosis. Okay. Well, it took me five psychiatrists and 25 years to finally get that diagnosis. Okay. So I had my first episode of, you know, I later found out it was a bipolar depression, severe depression when I was 21, a senior at Brown University who seemed to have it all, you know, as a varsity athlete, I had a 4.0 in science. I was heading medical school and then crash. But like I said, it took 25 years and five psychiatrists because what I have is known as bipolar Roman numeral two and distinction there. So I'm on the bipolar spectrum, like it says on in the book. And I intentionally chose the subtitle from broken to blessed on the bipolar

spectrum because I wanted people to understand that there is a spectrum of bipolar. As when I asked people, did you know there's a bipolar spectrum? You're shaking your head. No, 99 out of a hundred people have said no, including health practitioners, including professional therapists, et cetera. It takes on average, 11 years to diagnose someone on the bipolar spectrum. Because, you know, typically, when you hear the word bipolar, what comes to your mind? What do you think? Mood swings, you know, up and downs, manic. Exactly. So most people say that I've asked to say mood swings, you know, big highs, big lows, wild all night sprees. And what they're

actually describing is just one end of the bipolar spectrum, what's typically referred to as bipolar one, or manic depression, right? But it turns out we learned there's this whole spectrum. So why is bipolar two and the other forms of bipolar down the spectrum difficult to diagnose? In my case, I don't't bipolar two, people do not experience and do not manifest with that extreme mania. So I don't show up as manic, but I have the depression and people therefore I'll be consistently misdiagnosed as depressed. When I actually have a bipolar brain. People are scared of the word bipolar too, for some reason, the labels, right? Right. A lot about the labels. You know, my son reason, of course the labels, right. Right.

A lot about the labels, you know, my son is autistic and he's on that spectrum. And so, you know, when you're talking about a spectrum, it's just, it's a little confusing to say, you know, people always ask me, so where's the out on the spectrum, you know, and I can kind of say, you know, it's kind of somewhere in the middle. So is it like that? Yeah. I mean, I think for, I write in the book, the brain is as vast as the universe and equally uncharted.

You know, I think the brain is tremendous complexity and in years to come, we'll see how rudimentary our understanding was, you know, in the early 21st century. But as it stands now, I think there's this understanding that it's kind of like people on the podcast won't see, but behind your face right now is the rainbow, you know, so there's just a whole spectrum of colors. And at one end would be bipolar one, huge manic depression at the very other end would be unipolar, sometimes known as depressed, which those quote unquote, like clinical depression or major depression on one end, and then all the forms of bipolar in the middle.

And so why does it matter to get the diagnosis right, you might ask, or how can you diagnose this? In my case, if I, you know, let's say I had been lethargic, low mood, negative affect, you know, no desire for stuff I love anymore. And I dragged myself to the doctor, a friend dragged me to the doctor, they look at my symptoms, and they think, oh, she's depressed. And they write me a prescription for an antidepressant, right. And indeed, 70% of the 71 million prescriptions written for antidepressants last year were actually written by primary care physicians with little to no zero psychiatric training. Right. It was actually my gynecologist who wrote my first

antidepressant. Yeah. And you know, God bless them. I don't want to put them down. They're doing the best they can, but they don't have psychiatric training. So this is not where you want to go for your psychiatric meds. It turns out that, you know, in a conservative estimate, one out of four people who appear to be depressed in that doctor's office actually are bipolar. And in my case, the antidepressant meds actually make my brain worse. So I go in, I get misdiagnosed, they give me that med, it makes me worse, I go back, they think, oh, she's sicker, let's give her more antidepressant. So it's a vicious cycle that can make you, you know, more psychotic, more anxiety, more insomnia, and sadly,

in some cases, you know, suicidal, you know, and have to make the caveat because I'm not a doctor, I'm not talking about, you know, prescribing. And for some people, because the spectrum is difficult, for some people on the far end, the antidepressants will work. But if you find out that it's making you worse, or another thing is if you get an antidepressant actually triggers mania, which might just be bad temper, it might be like hair trigger temper that you didn't used to have. Those are signals. So how do you know? Well, there's there, what happened in my case was the fifth count them five psychiatrists that I finally went to, he had schooled himself on the complexity of bipolar. The previous four had not. And so he asked me, he used a very simple 11

question bipolar spectrum diagnostic test, which is available for free on the internet. He happened to know it was in Dr. Jim Phelps's book. Dr. Jim Phelps has written a number of groundbreaking books on the bipolar spectrum. So he has the book, he takes out the test. It's 11 questions. And he says to me, so was your first incident under age 25? Yes. And do you have a family history of mood swings or mood challenges? Well, yeah, my mother and my grandfather suffered terribly, you know, and if you were giving antidepressant when you were given Prozac or Lexapro or one of those standard antidepressants, did it seem to work and then make you worse? Well, yeah, absolutely. He goes, okay, we know what you have done. So it took them all 15 minutes with the right questions to diagnose what had eluded the medical world for 25 years.

And I'm getting to saying this because this saved my life. I've taken some tests like this. The one about the incident though, before 25 was so confusing to me because I think women, especially have such a hard time knowing if it's hormones, if it's pregnancy, if it's a life event, if it's just anger, like, how do you really know what, like, what's an incident? In my case, it was very extreme so very obvious I mean I went from being a high functioning like I said star kid at an Ivy League school to the next day I couldn't get out of bed I couldn't add two plus three I couldn't navigate my way to class I didn't want to see my friends I mean it was night and day for me so in my case easy to say yeah under 25

in the examples you're saying I'm'm not sure in this way how those diagnoses are difficult, but in the 11 question one, you only have to have like three of them right to have a potential for bipolarity, right? In quotes, I'm saying, right. So I ended up having eight out of 11, you know. Sarah, did you have something, anything before that incident? I mean, as a child or nothing, so it manifested that. Wow. Fast. Yeah. Night and day. Now I did have a mother who was from the same thing, but she was not diagnosed as bipolar. You know, I had a grandfather who suffered probably from the same thing. He was not diagnosed in the fifties. He went through electric shock, but they had similar patterns to me. They're very high functioning, very, you know, dynamic and then crash. So I had like an inkling

about it that maybe my mom was bipolar. And how did I know? How did I know? She didn't, she would never use that word. Cause like you said, like it's got a major stigma. It's even worse. She would say I was depressed, but no, she wouldn't say she was bipolar. The only way I had an inkling about it was because I knew that she took lithium for years and lithium worked for her. And I had done a paper in high school that said, if lithium works, you're bipolar. Doesn't work if you're not. And I finally said to my sister, Martha, could it be, do you think mom was bipolar? Like, why aren't they asking me about this? So she helped me find the bipolar doc. Cause when you're really sick, you can't do that research. I couldn't figure it

out. You know, today, have you found that there's a medication that works for you? And Oh yeah, I'm doing great. Yeah. You don't become like immune to it. It doesn't work. I mean, I have to pray every day because it's like this brain isn't going to change. It's not going away. It's not a cure, but the medication that I take is beautiful. You know, it works perfectly and I don't have any side effects. So it's partly why I wanted to write the book was for people to understand, you know, if my doctor hadn't asked those 10 questions, God knows where I'd be right now. I was ready to leave the planet. Did you continue seeing this doctor and have you ever contacted him to let him know like how

much he's changed your life? Oh, he knows he's my buddy. I bless him every day. I, because of my medication, I have to see him every six months. So typically our meeting is how you doing? Great. Any changes? No. You're having any side effects from the medicine? No. Anything else you want to tell me? No. Okay, great. Then we spend the next 20 minutes talking about whatever is up in our lives. So basically, yes, he knows and he's in the book and he encouraged me to try to give some talks at bipolar conferences, which subsequently I have done. So I think he's kind of proud of that now because he's in his eighties. Oh my gosh, that's so awesome. You know, I got frustrated with the diagnosis of bipolar because

I had gone to numerous rehabs back in the day for alcoholism. And I also had been in like detox facilities and I saw it being thrown around so easily diagnosing people in one day that were alcoholics. And it was frustrating to me, my brother and I all got the diagnosis when really it was because we were heavily drinking and had no self-love. You were diagnosed as bipolar. I missed that. Oh yeah. And it was a doctor who came in and sat at the edge of my bed in a detox. And he was maybe in the room for like one minute. Oh boy. Yeah. And so, you know, you take away the alcohol and you do some work and find some self-love.

And it was frustrating to me because they put me on Seroquel and I gained all this weight and I felt more fucked up, excuse my language on the Seroquel than I did drunk. So I've just seen that happen to so many alcoholics. They just immediately diagnosed them as bipolar. So it was frustrating to me. Wow. Your experience, Mandy, that's the first time I've heard bipolar overdiagnosed. Usually it's more than 11 years average to get bipolar spectrum diagnosed. And it sounds like that's conflated with alcohol addiction somehow. I've often compared specifically bipolar, but I think all mental illnesses not treated

as like an alcoholic who is not being treated. I see, like, I have to do the same thing. Like me, I'm having a relationship with them. I have to do the same thing. I have to detach with love. Yeah. It's so interesting because when Mandy was diagnosed with that, you know, you wonder, you know, it is kind of, I don't know, there must be some similarities there. I can see how maybe there's a connection or something. When you're in the addiction, you must be having the same characteristics in some way. I mean, because even me on the outside and treating them the same. Yeah, I mean,

Mandy, you should speak to this. But I think a lot of the addictions are self-medicating for some undiagnosed, right? There's some pain that you're going to self-medicate for, you know? You're 100% correct. For me, a lack of, it was a lack of self-love and trauma that I had not healed that I was self-medicating. Yep. Very, very interesting. But I agree, Shanna, they come across the same. Sarah, I wanted to also tell you, you would love this book. It's called Where Madness Lies. It's by author Sylvia True. She's a teacher, actually. Her book is about the genetic connection to the mental illness and how her mother had it, but never let her children know about it. And her mother had it.

And this all stemmed back to the Holocaust and how they pretend they didn't have these things because they were the first people to be killed off because they didn't want any mental illness. So they hit this mental illness and became very generational. And when she discovered that she had just lost her mind and her mom kind of came bedside and admitted that to her, it was so freeing for her. And I do like to see it in my family as well, like this generational mental illness and Sylvia, her daughters did as well. But then when they were all able to kind of bring it out to the forefront, this can maybe change in our DNA in some way if we embrace it and we acknowledge it and bring awareness to it. Yeah, I missed the name of the book. I'd love to get it.

Where Madness Lies. It's such a good book. Where Madness Lies. I mean, you're opening up a whole nother area of study, which I'm a kindergartner in, but this whole arena of epigenetics, which talks about ancestral trauma and the changes in our genes. And I'm actually taking a class right now, online epigenetics and the microbiome out of Stanford, which is like the two areas that fascinate me. And there's one class on both. But that whole ancestral trauma piece, and they've actually found gene markers, Rachel Yehuda, Dr. Rachel Yehuda did the

original research on Holocaust survivors, found genetic markers. And the way I think the description for epigenetics that I found easiest to imagine is the metaphor of a light switch, dimmer switch, that it's not actually a change of the DNA, but it's how the DNA expresses itself and the damage can go up or down based on trauma. I found that actually hopeful as a mom of my kids, because we, my husband and I were very, very dedicated. We both grew up in trauma households and we were dedicated to making sure that as much as possible, we could have a shame-free environment. I think we succeeded in that if you ask the kids. So I think, yeah, nature, nurture, there is, and genetics isn't destiny, but genetics is definitely a piece of it. So that's important to embrace too, you know, not your fault.

You've got the gene, get the medicine. I love that. I love that we've moved more towards being authentic with our children. So unlike Sylvia and hiding it, we let them know. And that way they can have that awareness and maybe then be shame free, like you said. Yeah, exactly. And my kids, if you read the book, you'll see the opening prologue. I put in a dialogue with my kids. They were at the time 17.

They're 20 now. I was sharing the dilemma of whether or not I should publish the book. On the one hand, yeah, it could save lives. It could really be healing. In our tradition, it says save one life, save the world entire. You know, on the other hand, what about my reputation? What about my career? I have a consulting business.

What about my clients? What about you guys? I don't want you to feel embarrassed of your mom and their twins. And they like simultaneously in the same breath scope, mom, you have to do this. You know, like this is the most important thing you can do. Don't worry about the stigma. Our generation doesn't care. You guys do. I think that piece about telling them took me a long time before I was comfortable telling them because I didn't want them to be embarrassed or I didn't want them to be as scared that they were going to get the gene, you know? Yeah. When I was reading your bio on your website, there was something that jumped out at me. A few things that I wanted to ask you about. You added in,

I have the extreme privilege of white skin in America, which gives me access and allows me to benefit from these roles. And your roles were a consultant for social and environmental justice, a mom, a stepmom, a wife, spiritual teacher. Why did you feel like you wanted to add that into your bio? Well, I do have done a lot of work professionally on justice, equity, diversity, inclusion. So I have more awareness, I think, than I used to have. And, you know, some of my friends who are psychologists and work in the trenches day to day, and early reading the book, they're like, well, I don't want our clients or people of color to feel worse, you know, because, because I did have access to therapists and alternative practitioners, chiropractors, and I could take

a break because my husband could work. And, you know, and I have some family to fall back on. You know, there were months where I was completely sick when I was younger and, you know, my folks stepped in. And that's the privilege that not everybody has. And I just wanted to acknowledge that difference. And even in the book, I put a disclaimer in, I'm going to read it to you because it took me a minute to figure out how to say this right. Because my friends, the professionals said, hey, you might want to say something about this.

So I said, my story is that a middle class white woman with privilege, not everyone who reads this book will have access to the resources. And here what I say is, if you are a member of a traditionally marginalized community and on the bipolar spectrum, I hope that my story will help you feel less alone because despite our differences, you and I share a similar brain pattern. Okay. So that's the thing. It's like, you know, it's going to be tougher, I think, in our country for people of color and traditionally marginalized communities. And there's data to show it, you know, higher incidence of suicide, higher incidence of homelessness, all that. So all the social economic racist factors that we have in our country overlay with the

bipolar brain is going to make it tougher. I had everything going for me and it still practically killed me. Right. So, yeah. I was really called to something that you wrote in an article called my bipolar two and a better person because of it. I'll quote you. It says, this is what it feels

like for me. I'm a veteran of my own internal wars, a survivor of inner trauma. I bear the wounds of battle. I'm grateful to be alive to tell the tale. That just, yeah. Yeah. Wow. it got me I mean I even just reading it right now I feel energy from yeah me too goosebumps uh because I I know that there's you put words to probably something that many of our listeners right now have experienced yeah for sure I mean I wrote that so here's what happened same go further down the line and I this memoir was 15 years in the making of me going, I'm not pressing send yet. I'm not ready to come out yet. Finally, my editor, and I was still hemming and hawing, she's like, it's a great book. You got to get it out there. And she's like, okay, here's your homework. You're going to go home and write this essay. I'm bipolar and a better person because of it. And when I finished writing that essay, which you just quoted from, I was ready. So she was right. And I came up with four things. You want to hear what they are? Yeah. I know that you've got them too. If you went to the hell and back club and so many people will resonate, but I wanted to say,

I'm calling it bipolar pride. I'm like, okay, stand up and wave the flag of take off the cloak of shame and wave the flag of pride because you're a survivor baby and you've earned it. The four things that I, that came to my mind was one emotional fearlessness. Okay. This person is a good friend to have because there's nothing that you can do to scare them off that their brain hasn't already done to them. They will not leave you. Right. So I'll go as dark as it gets for you. And I'm going to be right there. You're not going to scare me. Secondly, nonjudgment, you know, there, but for the grace of God, I would be in the streets and I know it grace of God and my, and my good family and my husband, you know, so I'm not going to judge you. You know, that person in the streets,

a person who's addicted, the person is, I will never judge you. You know, my friend was an opioid addict, overdosed, not on purpose suicide, but died, left two kids, little kids behind. I'm not judging him. I've been there. I haven't been there with addiction, you know, that kind of addiction, but so, you know, compassion. And then the third thing is, well, if you do your healthy brain practices, because you know, you're going to have to do them to keep yourself alive. You've got this great discipline and that's contagious. And your friends love that too. My friend, one of my friends says, you are my North star for self-care because, you know, I'm going to work, I'm working out, I'm resting, I'm taking naps and this and that I have to eat right up. I'm very disciplined, you know, but then they say this is inspiring for them. And then finally it's gratitude. And you're

nodding your heads. The people don't see the nod head. Yeah. If you have been to Helen Paulette back club, you lived in the inner hell every day that your brain is working as a blessing and a miracle, you know, and I feel it and people who don't know my history will go, is she for real? Like, can somebody be like that grateful all the time? And I'm like, yeah, you don't know why here's a book. It'll explain. Oh my gosh. I cannot wait to read it because everything you just said so resonates with me. And to go back to what Shanna read, the words you chose to describe that inner hell, that war going on in your brain. And I'm curious, even with medications, is, is this something you, you have to consciously battle every day? I mean, no, no, but because I resisted medication for many years, because my

mom was on it and God bless her. I love her, but I didn't want to do that because I judged her at that point that she didn't do all the stuff. Like mom, just get up, you know, get some exercise, eat right. Get in, just like do something. You know, I was like this frustrated kid. Cause I didn't know I had it too. I didn't have compassion at that point. So I didn't want to do medication because that wasn't going to be me. So I did every other practice. One of the practices that I've been doing for close to 30 years is called shadow work. And it's a personal growth technology, transformational healing practice, which we could do a whole other podcast on? I credit that work with a lot of my emotional psychological healing, right? So not enough, I still had to have medication, but really important for all the wounds that I grew up with that so many people have, right? I don't think if I only

did meds, I'd be fine. You know, because my dad had an alcohol problem, my mother was depressed, we had lots of stuff going on. We had all the secrets. I grew up in the 60s, parents from the 50s, post-war, you know. I would not be who I am without doing all the corollary therapies too. And I do a lot. But my brain is pretty nice and clean right now, yeah. Even. That's amazing.

It's a miracle that they have these drugs, right? If you can get the right one. But like you said, for years you were on the wrong one. So I could see how maybe someone would give up and say, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yep. I can relate recently because I was living in flight my whole life. My nervous system has been through so much. I was so jacked up, like constantly living in flight and the pain in my body and the constant, I'm

going to use your words, war in my head. It's like, finally I got on Cymbalta and it has literally changed everything about my life. Good, good, good. Yeah. And I'm sorry, I didn't get a chance to just honor what you said earlier about your experience in detox and rehab and the wrong meds and the wrong diagnosis. And I just want to say, I'm sorry that you've been through all that because that sucks to quote a word. Yeah. But I'm like you, I'm so grateful for all those experiences.

And you know, I'm so grateful for the people that I met in those places too. I love what you said as far as broken to being blessed, because I always picture like the stained glass window and this beautiful stained glass window, like in a church or something and a ball or a rock goes through it and it's shattered. And I always loved that quote that sometimes something has to be broken to let the light in. And if I had never gotten to that place of being so broken, I don't know that I'd be living in the light that I do today. I feel so sorry for the people that go to that dark, dark, dark, dark place that you and I have been at, where we just want to remove ourselves from earth. And they don't have that little blessing that

happens or that person that steps in or that support to just literally, it's a miracle. It's a miracle that gets them to where they need to be to get help. Yeah. You know, and I will tell you, even yesterday, I saw a man like laying on the road here and he was clearly mentally ill. It's so sad to me because a lot of people don't have insurance and a lot of the care and these, you know, psychologists, the therapists that we need to see don't take insurance and you have to pay cash. So it's a broken system. I don't know how we can fix it, but it really does. Unfortunately, a lot of times come down to money. I mean, I can't tell you how many people I know that have mental illness that want help, but can't get it because they can't afford it.

Yeah, I know. And that's part of why I was saying white skin privilege, because, you know, there is a correlation between that and economic privilege in our country. But yeah, I mean, so much broken. Oh, my goodness. So much broken. But we just have to take one step at a time. Right. I mean, partly about the book was that I want to destigmatize. Right. I say the book has my own personal mission, mission of the book, too. And the stigma, they don't think bipolar. You know, I have a beautiful home. I have a nice, lovely husband. I've got kids now, grandkids, you know, successful career quotes, you know, this is not the face of bipolar. Right. So I want to show people, yes, this is the face of bipolar

and let's tell our stories. And because if we can maybe take it out of the closet and then maybe start to destigmatize, more people will seek help. More people might, you know, go into therapy, more people hopefully research more people to, you know, change the laws that aren't working healthcare, you know, mental health parody, all that stuff, you know, don't get me started on the mental health deserts that I've been reading about. Well, what do you mean by that?

Okay. We're going gonna get started. Yeah, you're gonna have to go there. Yeah, yeah. So you know, as a result, after writing the book and getting us in podcast, and for this TED talk, I just did doing more research, and I've been working with a few different bipolar doctors and some different panels, which is really an honor. One of the things I've learned is that there's these, first of all, we're living in a pandemic induced mental health tsunami. No question, right? I mean, the demand for mental health resources is through the roof. One in five Americans and 66 million people are dealing with a mental health challenge, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. One in two young people, every other kid, anxiety, depression. I mean,

there's just massive need and nowhere near the resources in a good day, let alone in a post pandemic day. But I did some research and I find out, first of all, there's, I don't remember the number, but it's a very small percentage of people going to psychiatry. And then most of those are on the coasts, Texas and Florida,ida go figure so what happens if you're in the vast middle of the country and you're sick you go to your primary care doc and your primary care doc has zero psychiatric training my niece just went through it she's a pcp i asked her molly how much one month whoa are you serious and some don't get any. But most of psychiatric inquiries begin in the primary care office because, A, the stigma, they're not going to psychiatrists.

B, there's no psychiatrist for 10 hours. C, you wouldn't catch me dead in a psychiatrist's office. It's back to stigma. So the inquiry begins in the primary care doc's office. They don't have psychiatric training. Back to what we were talking about before. And this is in a place where I know in 2020, 45,000 people died of suicide. So this will depress you. Sorry, I don't mean to, but incidents of suicide went up 51% last year in teenage girls, suicide attempts 50 went up by 50%.

1.20 million attempted suicide in 2020. Yeah. And it got worse in 21 and 22 from the pandemic. Right. I know. My good friend, he's a fireman. He was telling me he has seen more suicide this last year than he ever has in his life. And it's getting younger and younger, like 11, 12, 13.

God. And it's just so painful. It's, it's just so sad. I think my brain right now is also trying to process this whole Texas, Florida thing that you just said. I might be wrong about Florida. I do remember it was Texas. So that stood out to me, you know, because Texas was the only red state in those where they described the psychiatrists are. I found that about 10 years ago, it was the opposite and it was so frustrating to me.

So to become a certified addictions counselor, I had to go to school for a year. And then I also had to do 5,000 unpaid volunteer hours at a rehab or under a doctor. Do you know how long it takes to do 5,000 hours? We're talking years because most of these places also don't let you do 40 hours a week. So it was almost impossible to become a therapist. And if you go online right now and you look up jobs, the hospitals needs psychologists and therapists so bad. Like there are so many. Oh no, it's overwhelming. But also that they just changed the law that you don't even have to do those hours anymore. They did insane. That is absolutely insane. Yeah. It's also terrifying. I mean, I remember when I was looking into hypnotherapy,

you don't even have to, yeah, it's not even, even monitoring. You don't even have to have a license or a certification. It's not in every state, but here in Colorado, yeah, you didn't have to have a license any longer. They don't require it. It's just insane. Do you think why their numbers high in the suicide and all that? Cause they're, they're not diagnosing or yeah i mean so the suicide risk with for people with any kind of bipolar is twice as high as people with any kind of with unipolar or major depression in other words people with bipolar are twice as likely to take their own lives as people with quote regular depression so that's why getting the

diagnosis right is literally a matter of life and death. Go back to the 11 questions screened for bipolarity. Dr. Jim Phelps, who wrote the book that I'm referring to, he is trying to educate nurses and general practitioners for, you know, the last 30 years of his career, just screen for bipolarity. You know, take five minutes and do that. Because if you put them on lithium and they're not bipolar, it won't work, but it won't hurt them if you put them a little amount, right? If you put them on SSRI and they are bipolar, it could hurt. So it's sort of the opposite of how it's been being handled. So my mom has, you know, I'm dealing with this. I've been dealing with this my whole life, but you're right. It's first of all, very hard to get a diagnosis for anything, unless you

are consistently going to therapy because it takes so long to be able to diagnose people with certain things. So she's definitely been diagnosed with, you know, depression and all this thing. But we know that it's so much more. We all do. But she never goes to a doctor long enough. She gets the meds and then she, after a while, says, oh, I'm good. I don't need the meds anymore because I'm healed and stops taking them.

And then you can see it coming back almost immediately. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's really hard. I think it's really hard. Mother daughter to just pay. Oh, right. My latest thing.

I call it since the book came out and people were responding to it and stuff. And they've said either if they knew me personally, they'd be like, Oh my God, I never knew you suffered so much. I'm so sorry. I wish I could have helped or Or if they didn't know me back then, they're like, oh, I don't know what to do with my cousin or my nephew, my niece, or my uncle, my brother, you know, my best friend. I'm like, I'm afraid, but how do I help? So I came up with what I call your EMT, Emergency Mental Health Team Toolkit. And it's got four things in it. But all my things

have four things because it's But all my things have four things because easy to remember. It was what I just thought of just now because the fourth thing for you or four is create a posse. You can't do this on your own. It's too much for any one person to handle and you will burn out. So you got to get support of other people who are going to be able to be available, you know, backup, you know, good news is that community of support will serve all of you, you know, someday you'll need it or somebody, somebody else will need it. And, and it's a, it's a community of love and friendship. Right. So you got to get support. Yeah, I know. You know, I remember when I had called a mental health place for her,

I called a few and, you know, what can I do? What can I do? do you know I'm at a loss and they're like unless she willingly walks in on her own you know or has threatened to kill herself you know there's nothing really we can do and and that just you know it's really hard because on the outside she looks okay actually talking to her you didn't know, you may even believe all of the things that she says, you know, very, very hard. Yeah. It's really painful. Well, and you know, I'm going to ask both of you, what does that look like for you today? Sarah and Shanna, I mean, having to go back and do work and probably find some really, I mean, have you had to like dig and find forgiveness for the childhood, you know, that you were raised in talking about shadow work? Have you had to go back and really find that forgiveness for your mothers?

That's what I did all those years of shadow work, my friend. Yeah, sure. Forgiveness for mom, forgiveness for dad. You know, my mom's been gone seven years. So there's been a lot of healing in that time. And I had a dream. She suffered a lot in this life and I think she's in a better place, but I had to do a lot of work around it. Yeah. And the shadow work, interestingly, because I've also been a facilitator and I started a women's initiation before my girlfriends called Women in Power, where we've've worked with lots and lots of women over the years. And typically always the work begins with mom and dad, no matter what the issue is, right? So I've had to do a lot of work around both of my relationship with both of them. And I can

say at this point, yeah, there's healing, there's forgiveness, there's love. My husband is kind of a poet and he wrote a line that I love, which says, there may be bees among the flowers, but all of the honey flies away. There may be bees among the flowers, all but the honey flies away. That's how I've kind of found my relationship with my parents. Now they're gone. It's like, it's the honeys that's, that stayed. And the other stuff is, you know, forgiven, take some work. Beautiful that he wrote that. Yeah. He's written a lot of some beautiful lines. Yeah. Sounds like you have an amazing husband, Sarah. Peace. So there's a chapter there in my book that's called Joe's a rock. And I kind of dedicate

the chapter to how much he showed up for me. And so he says to me, you know, I love your book. I'm so moved by your book. I'm so proud of you in the book. There's only one thing I would change. The title should be Joe is a rock. The story of one man's journey, of course, is a joke, but yeah, no, I'm, I'm very fortunate. He's from the Midwest, man. They just show up day after day after day. I always thought that my dad, like when he was on his deathbed, that was like one of the reasons why he was holding on so long because he literally was like, oh my God, I don't want to leave, you know, my kids with this because, you know, he knew it would be such a challenge. And I cursed him since for leaving me. But, you know, I too, I remember part of the beginning of my journey was really discovering and separating myself from her stuff and me. Because I was always searching for what did I do?

What did I do? How can I make it better? How can I make it better? And then when I figured out, oh, my God, it's not me. There's nothing I ever did. And I can't make it better how can i make it better and then when i figured out oh my god it's not me there's nothing i ever did and i can't make it better yeah but i have nothing but compassion and empathy for her i see it as a sickness i don't take it personal you can't because it's not yours and that was my saving grace to be able to detach from that yeah yep i mean two things i just want to mention one you guys are in aurora the Shadow Work founders and creators are in Boulder and they're absolutely brilliant. So connect if you want. The other thing is back to something you said earlier, Mandy, to your listeners, I want to say, if you're feeling great is because of the medication. I've seen it over and over again happen with my mom. And she was on vacation in Florida and brilliant. I'm putting in quotes,

brilliant primary care doc said, Oh, sure. You can get off it. At which point she completely tanked like worse than ever. So for me, when I finally came to this surrender, I guess it's almost like a 12 step thing that this has power over me. I need my meds. That was a brilliant breakthrough because I will never get off these meds. I know it's at risk if I do. Do you know that when my mom was on meds and she was only on one time for like a long period, I had never known her like that. And so it was amazing. It was like, it was like, it was incredible. Right. Mom, listen to this podcast. No, Sarah, when you wrote this book, what was your hope for readers? My hope was very simple and the stigma,

save lives, maximize healing. And the stigma is look look, this is me, this is you, this is millions of people. You're not alone. Let's just take this out of the closet. One, save lives is understanding the bipolar spectrum can absolutely save lives because if you're on that spectrum and you have the wrong diagnosis, you're twice as likely to commit suicide, et cetera, et cetera. If you're on the spectrum and you get the right diagnosis, you can have a medication that is going to save your life. Not only save your life, give you your life back. It's like a miracle, right? A brain that works instead of a brain that doesn't work. So, and then maximize healing towards the end. I put in practices for healthy brain. I call them. My friend told me, look, you're my North star. Like I said, you need to

put those practices in the book. So part two is about that. Have you ever heard of soul contracts? I have not. So a lot of people believe that we agree to the life that we live before we come here, that it's to help us evolve or to grow. And at first, I was like, I would never ever agree to come to earth and lose my brother to go through addiction. And then I thought about it and I was like, but I did evolve through it. It's an interesting thing to think about soul agreements and soul contracts, you know, in my next life, you know, am I going to, cause I believe in reincarnation, am I going to come back and agree to being someone who suffers from bipolar so I can learn

even more? And it's very interesting. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I believe that literally, but I believe a lot of the implications, you know, what's my soul's purpose or what am I here to do on planet earth? And I don't remember where I got this quote from your wound to your passion, to your gift, you know, and that's kind of what you two are doing now, I think. And similar to kind of what I'm doing now is like, this is my most shameful area. I took me 40 years to come out of the closet, ladies, 40, your most hidden dark secret from that becomes your passion that you want to share with the world because, and it's going to be your gift. You know, I've been a sustainability, environmental, social systems, thinking consultant for years, and I'm good at it. But this is different because this is what I've lived from the inside.

If you could choose a few words to describe what it felt like to come out and to tell everyone, how did it feel? Terrifying. And then absolute freedom and healing. Like my heart was beating. I was nervous. Somebody's going to kill me. You know, all the stigma that's internalized, vast shame that's internalized. And then what happened instead? I got the most beautiful response from people, letters and phone calls. And thank you so much for your courage. I mean, this keeps going on every day. I'm getting that, you know, my colleagues and clients about you guys age a little bit younger and them writing me and going, thank you for showing me the way to do this. I've been afraid

to tell people I feel like 20 pounds lighter. My gosh. And you have a YouTube as well. Is that right? I do now. Yeah. So you're really sticking out. You know, my theory was if I'm going to come out, I want to go big. I want Oprah. You know, I want Selena Gomez. I want Reese Witherspoon. So if you know any of those ladies, because I really believe, I mean, we know that there's at least 7 million people with bipolar right now, at least half of them on the spectrum. I believe those numbers are way underreported because of the stigma and because of misdiagnosis and these people are dying and they don't have to die. So let's get it out there. Like now that I came out as like shout from the rooftops, you know, yeah. I love what you said at the end of what I had read. You said bipolar two has taught me emotional fearlessness, gratitude, discipline,

and compassion. Instead of shame, there's pride. And if you have a bipolar brain, I invite you to be proud too. Who wrote that? That's pretty good. That's good. I think that that is the most beautiful message I have ever heard on bipolar or about mental illness. Like be proud of who you are, have acceptance, right. Get the help you need, you know, nurture yourself. Yeah. So you can have a lot of deserve to suffer. You did nothing wrong.

You know, you're innocent. You maybe got a genetic proclivity to this, or you maybe got something else, you know, you know, you're a survivor. Like I said before, girlfriend celebrate. Yeah. It's not easy. Love it. You know, it is not. Absolutely beautiful words. You have, you know, beautiful ways to say things. I think you're a poet too. As making me feel good. I'm gonna come back.

You had mentioned 12 steps earlier. Yeah. Are there groups for people that are bipolar? I did put on my website because I've learned some resources. There's something called the DBSA, Depression Bipolar Support Alliance, and it is free. It's a peer-to-peer. It's around the country. You can put in your zip code and find a peer counselor near you. So I think they do good work. And then there's others that I'm not as familiar with, but I put them on my website because I asked around people I trust who are doctors and stuff, if they're going to come to

my website and they're going to be wanting to get help, who would you recommend? So awesome. Yeah. And that's sarahschley.com. Same as my name is spelled. You'll probably have it in the notes, something in the, if there's someone out there, one of our listeners that, you know, has struggled and might think that this is something they need to be seen for what is step one. If you are in a painful enough, difficult enough place right now that you can't make the phone call to find the doctor, you get a friend to do that for you. You tell them or your husband, your partner, whoever it is, I am struggling. I need help. I need you to find me a doctor. And why I'm saying that is like I say in the Ted talk for me,

when I'm in my bipolar flare, my brain doesn't work. It's not people think, oh, you're sad. No, you're not sad. Your brain's broken. I cannot do simple tasks. I cannot remember the phone number. I cannot know where, you know, where I put the tomatoes. So you really need to back to the emergency mental health team toolkit. The other one was reach in. Don't expect them to reach out. You make the phone calls, you make the appointments, you tell, take the kids to school, you pick up the kids, you put, fill the freezer, you know, you choose the peanut butters. These tasks are going to be Herculean for your friend. And so I would say my first step is get somebody to get me help. Oh my God. I absolutely love that. Never heard that. See, here you are. You have a way with

words, reach in. Don't expect them to reach out. I've even seen with my friends. Oh, I know my friend is struggling right now. I said, I'm here if you need me. And then I'm like, they're never going to call me. You have to reach in. Don't expect them to reach out. They won't. They're ashamed. They're exhausted. They can't find your phone number. They don't want to bug you. They think they're worthless. So why should they take up your time, even though that's all a lie, but that's what the brain's telling them. Yeah. So you got to reach in. Don't expect them to reach out. Yeah. Awesome. So tell our listeners where they can find you and where they can find your book. Okay. Thank you. They can find me on sarahschley.com. I hope you'll spell that out for them. S-A-R-A-S-C-H-L-E-Y.com. There you can find blogs. You can find a link to

my YouTube channel. You can find the resources page that I mentioned where you can get to the diagnostic test or get to DBSA, et cetera. Then the book, you can also buy the book from there. So that's easy. Or you can just Google brainstorm by from there so that's easy or you can just google brainstorm by sarah schley and my book will come up brainstorm there's other brainstorms because you got to say brainstorm by sarah schley brainstorm from broken to blessed on the bipolar spectrum it's there's an audio book if you're too stressed to read all the other kinds of books hard soft and i hope you'll read it. I hope you'll leave a review. The reviews have been stellar and really rewarding for me to see. And people say they read

it in a night, like it reads like a novel, you know, so I can't wait. Yeah. I absolutely love the title brain storm. I've had many storms in my brain. Yeah. It's a capital S. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And now it's time for break that shit down. Love yourself. You can do it. Reach out for help. Gosh, you've been so lovely. I just respect what you're doing and took 40 years, but gosh, really are saving lives. So thank you very much. Well, thank you both so much for having me. It's been delightful to talk with you.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your heart and your authenticity and vulnerability. And thank you for having that courage to come out with your story because more people need to read it and know they're not alone. Amen. Stay healthy out there. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.