The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Be There: My Lived Experience with My Sister’s Bipolar Disorder by Linsey Willis

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

Be There: My Lived Experience with My Sister’s Bipolar Disorder by Linsey Willis https://www.amazon.com/Be-There-Experience-Sisters-Disorder/dp/1637559283 Betherebook.com Be There is a compelling, insightful, heart-wrenching, and sometimes hard-to-believe memoir about a younger sibling’s lived experience as a lifelong caregiver for her sister, Betsy. A brilliant, beautiful, creative, and funny Ivy League-educated woman, Betsy’s diagnosis of bipolar disorder in 1975 at age 21 altered a life that would have otherwise been productive and happy. Anyone who has a family member, significant other, or friend suffering from bipolar illness can find confirmation that they did not cause, cannot control, or cure the illness, but they can cope (The Four Cs). This book offers the peace of mind and healing that come from understanding the illness. There is a discussion, with scientific references, of the genetic link to mental illness and the many characteristics of bipolar disorder. Dr. Linsey Willis engages the reader through the sharing of photographs, historical documents, commentary about a state psychiatric hospital, Betsy’s graphic yet engaging, hopeful letters, and examples of her many disturbing bipolar behaviors and actions.

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Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hello, Zavos, here from thexvoss Show.com. Ladies, young there, and the air, ladies to see the mixed official, welcome the big show. As always, we bring in the most amazing authors' minds and stories in the show to share with you, all and your audience, or your friends, family, relatives. So that's why you should refer them to show so they can get smarter too, and they can get more

learned. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own. and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Faw show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today's featured author comes to us from books to lifemarketing.co.com. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book's success. The book that we'll be reviewing today talking about is called Be There, My Lived Experience with My Sister's Bipolar Disorder by Dr. Lindsay Willis. She's going to be joining us in the show and talking about her insights and experience,

and maybe if you experience some of the things in your life, you can utilize the blueprints that she's managed to develop to get through some of these things and help other people. Dr. Lindsay Willis is an author with 45 years of experience as a human resource management, an organizational consultant, expert witness, coach, and educator. She has provided services to clients in the private sector, city, county, state, and federal. government agencies and companies in the U.S. and internationally. Her passion for excellence and dedication to developing leadership qualities and others has served people in many ways. Police personnel have been promoted in management ranks through the U.S. college students

who receive stipends from her book royalty fund. That's very nice. And a court case where she was an expert witness have been settled. She's also the officer of mastering the assessment center process, the fast track to promotion, and developing your innate abilities to experiencing assessment center exercises and harnessing the innate abilities, I think. So welcome the show. How are you, Dr. Willis? I'm great. How are you, Chris? I am excellent. I am excellent. It's wonderful to have you. Give us dot coms or any website, social media. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs?

They can go directly to my website, be therebook.com. And if they want to learn anything else about me, they can go to my L.J. Craig website that has to do with my business. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside this book? There's a lot to unpack inside the book, although it's an easy, quick read. It provides an overview of my family background and where I feel like the illness started with my sister.

Historical references to my great-grandmother who was bipolar, although she wasn't diagnosed officially. because back then they didn't know what it was. And then it takes you on a journey through, you know, learning about the categories of bipolar disorder and the different chapters in the book deal with my sister's characteristics that she demonstrated and three self-help chapters for people. And then the last part of the book covers the 20 years I missed

because I started writing the book 40 years ago and then set it down for 20 years and then picked it up again, finished it. So it's a, you can read each chapter separately, but it takes you really on a journey through my life alongside my sister's life and what I had to deal with and how I dealt, how I was always there for her. How, how will give us the definition of what bipolar disorder is so we can lay a foundation for that. And it gives us an insight to the journey. When, when, when did you get diagnosed with bipolar? What were some of the issues, you know, that were going on? kind of give us the beginning of that journey maybe that you can cover in the book.

Bipolar disorder is a disorder. It's a chemical imbalance of the brain and the manic side and then there's the depressed side and the experts have determined there are three to four types of bipolar disorder. I provide an overview in my book about that, although I'm not claiming to be a psychiatric expert. But, you know, the manic phases can be really, really crazy where the person doesn't sleep for hours or days. The depressed side could be the office. They may sleep for days.

And during these phases, they exhibit very, very bizarre behavior. They do very weird things. And so many examples of those behaviors and things that my sister did. And I experienced and dealt with it. And so did my parents. Are I in the book. Regardless when we found out about it, my sister demonstrated weird behavior.

when I was growing up as a teenager in different states and she was using drugs back then, you know, marijuana and ash and how it's legal, can you believe it? You know what I read in the paper today, the Wall Street Journal? I read an article about teenagers using marijuana, and one of the effects of this can be depression and bipolar disorder. Now, I think, I found that very interesting when I read it because back when we were growing up, you know, it was illegal. But my sister, I don't think the use of the marijuana and the hash and smoking hash, what have you, caused her bipolar disorder because we had it in our family background.

And it is. Yeah, they found that it is genetic. But you can also, you can also get bipolar disorder through other things that happened to you as well as what they just said in the paper today. Did she experience any trauma or was there anything that triggered it? Maybe. There was. Some people, go ahead. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Could you finish this question? Oh, sure. Some people use drugs to medicate their trauma. You see a lot of that in rehab clinics and stuff like that. You find that a lot of them have unresolved, unhealed trauma, usually from childhood. And they're using the drugs to cope, which is a poor coping mechanism. But, you know, we don't get an instruction manuals.

That's why we do the show. Was there something maybe that happened to her? Maybe you think she was a hereditary. I know in the 60s when we were living in two different. States, actually, yes, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, people were smoking pot and, you know, it was illegal, it was over smoking pot and what have you. But she had some trauma in her life. We had to move. She was uprooted her senior year in high school and had to leave her boyfriend. Oh.

And then after we had to make new friends, although we were always good at making friends. So that was probably traumatic. But then her boyfriend ended up going out with her one of her best friends. and then her boyfriend died of a drug her best friend that she moved away from had died of a drug overdose she found out about that and then his boyfriend died of a drug overdose wow we lived in affluent communities it wasn't and mental illness is not is not segregated only poor people get it anybody can get it yeah those were traumatic events and then she just really started disliking my father very much because he uprooted her in her senior in high school, but he wanted to get this guy because he thought this guy was causing her to use the drugs and what have you. Oh, traumatic.

And then other things happen. Other friends die. We had some friends that died in car accidents. It was like that. So those, some people don't handle those traumatic events very well. Yeah, I mean, you know, especially, I remember being in love in high school. boy it's everything you know your whole world and so yeah I can see how that that could be traumatic and so as you how many years was she alive and and give us kind of a kind of a rundown of the

journey I mean I don't want you to give way the book people should need to buy the book to find out but what were some of that how did you how were some of the things that you did to deal with it and process it but answer your first question she lived till age 67 and I believe she lived that long because my parents and I were always there for her. We always provided extra funding. And I guess she had heartiness and resilience and she fought the illness. But what did I do to cope with all this? Oh, a variety of things.

Isn't that with the question you asked me? Yes. Oh, I cover a lot of coping mechanisms in my book. But I think the most important one for many years was my former, my deceased husband and who died almost two years ago, we were marathon runners. And we did triathlons, we were always exercising.

And so that helped, you know, when you're running a marathon and training and doing long distance, the endorphins kick in and it's like a drug. Oh, yeah. You know, that was a key coping mechanism

because you're, you're, it feels great to exercise and it feels great to, you know, get the runners high and just, it's very healthy. Mm-hmm. Not when you get older, though, because then your bones and you can start getting injured when you get older.

Yeah, I've seen that movie as they got older at the gym. I picked what the hernius. Why did you write this book? Why was it important to get this on paper and share this other folks? Well, my mother and I initially wanted my sister to write her life story to give her something to do after she could no longer work anymore. And then moved them with my parents when they moved to Florida in 1989. but we knew that she wasn't going to do that. So I just started, I picked up the task and I just started to write.

And I provided the first draft to my parents back in maybe around 1993. And they thought it was pretty good. It was the first rough draft. And I just continued. And then I just put it down for 20 years. I just couldn't, life got in the way and I just couldn't do it anymore. But I said, one of these days, I'm going to get this book finished. And I wanted to tell the story.

her life. I wanted her to be remembered because she could have been a very successful person and her life started out that way. You know, very smart, very athletic, very attractive, great figured, you know, Ivy League, smart woman, Ivy League educated person. Just have the whole world at her hand, so to speak. Yeah. It's unfortunate. And you love it. You love it. It's unfortunate. And you at sometimes some of these things that are out there and stuff. You talk about the four Cs. Can you tease a little bit of that out and what that is? First of all, you have to realize you didn't cause the illness,

but it took me a long time to accept the fact that whenever she blamed me for her outburst, that I'm not the one that caused the outburst. The illness is genetic, for her it was, at least. And I, you know, the chemical imbalance of the brain. We knew it was genetic because my great-grandmother, the stories of her were very similar to my sister. You've got to get to the point you're not the cause of all this. And then you can't control it. So you do your best to cope while the person is going through a manic and depressed episode,

but you can't control or control the narrative of the situation. You can do the best of your ability. Like when my true sister tried to shoplift, I said, no, you can't shoplift, that type of thing. Or you tried to hit my mother with a shoe. You try to stop that. So you can't control everything. And you can't cure it. Yeah.

Nothing will cure it. Medication will, you know, reduce the symptoms or, you know, make it easier for the person to cope. live. And then the most important one is you must cope with it because I would suspect that a large percentage of people who have family members who are bipolar as well as mentally on, I know many people that have been through this. The families absolve themselves of responsibility, have nothing to do with the person anymore or the spouse divorces them and that's it. How is that person? I have no idea and I don't care where are they. I have no idea where they are and I could care less where they are.

I want them out of my life. Wow. There does seem, you know, come to a point where sometimes with certain people, I mean, I've had to exercise people for my life, too. I mean, you can care for them and try and help them, but, you know, sometimes they're, they can, you know, they can be dangerous too. I've seen, what was that one choice to watch where they would, I think it was called intervention, you know, when they would do interventions of people, that else was problems.

And, you know, you'd see these people and they're either, They have some, clearly have some mental issues. They're using drugs to cope. And, and, you know, the people are like, hey, you know, I love you, but I can't have you in my house because you stole the silverware last week. And, you know, I had one friend I didn't know who was on heroin. You know, he came over the house to watch some movies. Like a week later, I'm like, where's my DVD player?

How was my DVD player? And he stole a DVD player. It wasn't expensive or anything, but, you know, I could get $10 for whatever. They stole that on my house. And, you know, I called them up and said, you either go get it or I'm calling the police and, you know, you're going to jail. But yeah, you had heroin problem. And, you know, there's, they're kind of a point where sometimes you feel like you almost have to alien some of these folks from your life once they get so bad. What are your thoughts on that?

You make some really good points. I know that people that use drugs, you know, us, when they do steal, not all of course, because they what they steal, they lose that. money to buy more drugs. And part of bipolar disorder, one of the characteristics is kleptomania. Oh, really? Yes, my sister stole. Now, I'm not an expert. I have quite a bit of knowledge, but I'm sure there are cases of people who have bipolar disorder

who they have never stolen or to never admit that they stole. But Betsy stole things. And she stole my mother's diamond wedding ring. Yeah. She tried to steal money out of my purse. You know, she would take my clothes and, you know, just steal my clothes. And then so, oh, I've borrowed it. I have girlfriends who do that, but that's different.

So that's, you know, part of one of the characteristics. Pathological line is another characteristic. And somebody would like to steal because I never stole that from you. So they're lying to cover up their behavior. And because pathological, they can't help themselves. It's just part of their. persona. Yeah. It's really sad. Is there any sort of, did you guys find that any sort of medication really helped or any therapies of any types that she, did you find? For the first 12 years

of Betsy's life, she was on lithium, which is a drug made out of salt. I don't even know if it's still in the market, but she was, that was her miracle drug and a lot of tranquilizer. And then it all fell apart and she couldn't use it anymore because it became toxic. Oh, really? There are a multitude of drugs on the market that, you know, people can take. They're advertised on TV now, for example, you know, I mean, there's so many of them, you know, that people take and the psychiatrist will determine which is the best medication based upon what the patient says their symptoms are or how they feel.

But, you know, not every drug works for everybody and you have, should have blood tests. on a regular basis. And my sister was really smart. Whenever she felt like she was becoming suicidal or too manic, she would check herself into a hospital. Really? But over the years, she became an addictive personality. She found that she liked painkillers.

And she was, you know what she did? One time I bought her, I bought her the book called the manual on psychiatric disorders. And I forgot the name of it. And I wouldn't buy for her again because she, lost it. But she could go in there and she could read about all the disorders and all the characteristics and stuff. And then she would try to self-medicate. Because she was, she had a master's in social work. And she was, she worked as a psychiatric social work for 12 years. Really?

She worked with people in hospitals. So she, and I, I wonder how many people that are in, in that field as social workers or clinical psychologists, they themselves have a problem. And that's why they went to the field. Yeah. So there's a, there's a lot of, that that goes on, and I'm not, certainly don't, don't write me, folks. I'm not saying that everyone in the field is from that background. But I remember coming up in my early years, and there was a lot of girls that, in fact, I say this to a lot of women that tell me there in psychiatry, if they're single, I go, what happened to was a child? That's my first response when they told me there in psychiatry. And a lot of people go in in psychiatry that have childhood trauma and damage,

because it's cheaper to go learn it than pay for the next 10 to 15 years of therapy, I guess. I don't know, that's just my theory. But, you know, I mean, if you want to fix yourself, you know, going and getting a dream in psychiatry, can be helpful, you know. Maybe you can give you some insight to what's in there. But I have met a few crazy-ass psychiatrists, too. But, again, I'm sure there's a few people. Regarding the therapy, my sister, when she was in psych hospitals, she would be in the group therapy sessions.

And she loved doing that because she said she would run the session. And then where she lived for 15 years until the place burned to the ground, and that's covered in my book. And that's horrific story. One of the guys, social workers that worked there for many years said, your sister is so smart. We have any group therapy sessions. And she helps run the session, even though there's a psychologist there. She's really good of running the session and helping people. Wow.

I mean, you know, it's, you look at the potential of these folks and, you know, why we don't work more to help them. So much of our society day, we just, people that have drug problems and many times they're, they're using them to treat trauma. And then it's unresolved. You know, we don't support these people. We just throw them in jail, 90% of the time. And then if their parents have money or they have some money, you know, they'll throw them into rehab. But, you know, when I was growing up, you know, I was growing up, you know, We used to have, and this is a whole political discussion on Reagan and all that, but when I was growing up, we had county medical institutions where if you were kind of having trouble as a teenager or anybody, really, but some of my teenage friends got placed there, they placed you down there for a week or two or a month and, you know, see if they could work on you.

And that was all disabled under Reagan. And then we just- Yeah, then we just- Yeah, then we just started throwing people in prison after that. And so it's unfortunate because, like you mentioned or imply, you know, there's so much wasted talent and contribution these folks could make if we could just get them some good help and support. And families now are stuck with that, you know, supporting that. When did you start being a caregiver? Let me address that issue of families.

You know, nobody wants to pay for it. Mental health has been cut from the budget of late. Only if you have a good insurance plan will even get some visits to, you know, therapy. And then after a certain number of visits, you can't go. If you don't have health insurance and you can't even afford Obamacare, then what do you do? You do nothing. And if your family can't afford to pay for the doctor's visit, so you're stuck. And of course, there are those cases of people that refuse to go on any medication because they don't think there's anything wrong with them.

I think it's everybody else. Everybody else is at fault. regarding we don't have enough mental health facilities in the United States. We have these walk-in medical clinics now, these fast, that's for urgent care. But what goes to when urgent care is matter? Are they going to get psychiatric care? I don't know. If they don't have insurance, you're not going to get anything.

Yeah. It's really unfortunate. We should have had more of that. And throwing people in jail just ends up costing us lots of money. And they don't get better. They just, in fact, sometimes, you know, You know, jail is just a citizen in college to just get better at being a criminal. What was the most difficult, memorable experience made, being a caregiver to your sister?

It's very hard to be a caregiver. I covered many examples, but just never knowing when the phone was going to ring and there's going to be something else happening. Or having it happened already that I'm going to have to respond to and my parents too. But then when my parents passed on, they made me promise that I would always be there for her. Of course I would. I'm going to take care of Betsy. And she, thank God, Chris, she had Social Security disability insurance. I respect the majority of people that didn't have a work history because they weren't lucky enough to be my sister with our family background,

going to college and having those funds. they're not going to have any way of coping with that. Sorry, I lost my train of thought, but she was lucky enough to have gotten the education to be able to get work experience subsequently because she had work experience in high school. And then when she got out of college and grad school, she had work experience.

And she worked while she was going to college just to have extra money. My mother was able to get her on Social Security disability. Now, it's not a lot of money. But let me tell you, if she didn't have that, she wouldn't have gotten, we would have had to pay for everything. And it would have interrupted my parents. So most of these people, I would suspect, don't have any work experience or can't get a job because they don't have the education.

And even if they do, they lose jobs. Like, for example, a dear friend of mine, he was helping a woman for many years he met at Publix. And he found out that she has, based on all the experiences he had with her. She's got bipolar disorder. She would never go for help. She's had so many problems, alcoholism, car car problems, losing her

license, up and down behavior, manic or depressed. But she said, I'm not going for help. And the minute she started, you started advising her to go for help, their friendship ended. Oh, wow. And the family disowned her. I want nothing to do with her because she would never

go for help. And I can guarantee you there's hundreds, if not thousands of cases of people like that. That if they have a job, they're going to lose that job or lose the next job and the next job because of their mental illness. Now, you talk in the book about something called the Be There Movement? Tell us about that. It's something I have initiated in the past couple months, and it just came to me and

it thought that you have to be there for the person. And I want everybody in the world who has mental illness and who reads the book. and has been a caregiver can be part of this movement. And my vision for the movement is as follows. You buy the book, you learn about my book and more about bipolar disorder by going to my podcasts on bipolar disorder. And then eventually, if I'm lucky, like you are Chris and have worked hard, people will tune in to my podcast to learn more about bipolar disorder.

by bipolar disorder and they can donate and then they can maybe be on the show to talk about their illness. The whole world gets part of it and also we're doing wine tastings. Oh, really? We have a big picture process that I'm working on. We've already had wine tastings and then you get money from the wine. You sell wine but then people buy raffle tickets and then they can win a basket of wine, two bottles of wine, red and white, a box of chocolate, a tote bag with, you know, my sister's foundation logo on it.

And, you know, I covered in my first podcast. And all the money that comes into this, into the Be There Movement through donations, book, sales, wine tasting will be donated to my Betsy Craig Foundation, which will be distributed to charities and to order. organizations that disseminate money in my community and so forth. That's wonderful. How long have you had the foundation going and what's the name of the podcast? I created the foundation last fall,

I'm doing business as an under the state of Florida. And it's a legitimate doing business as the podcast like two months. I think I did my first one in January. Oh, congratulations. And then the second one was interviewing somebody whose daughter has bipolar disorder and she's successful and she has a job and she's getting her master's degree. So she's a success story.

So I'm going to have people on my podcast that are experts in the field as well as people that have experienced the illness and so forth. This is what we love about the Chris Voss Show. People sharing their stories. Stories are the fabric of

the lives, as I always say. But also, you know, without them, we'd be nothing. But sharing our stories is basically sharing blueprints of how, you know, survival happened, how we rose from the ashes many times, how we learned lessons, and the other way we kind of learn. We don't get an owner's menu to life. So stories are we sharing. So it's so great that you have a podcast. You can share those stories and share potential, you know, advice on how to fix stuff. I mean, I go to my social media a lot of times and I'm like,

yeah, my dog, did this. What are you guys doing to work on this, whatever it is? And having that community that can help you and give you advice or ideas, you know, I mean, the Chris Fos show, people are like, you know, you've had 20-inter shows. Is there anything you have, you know, do you ever get tired of talking about the same thing sometimes or same topics, you know? Oh, it's another book on leadership, you know, but a lot of times they get different perspective from those as well. So that's the beauty of these things. And I just, I just love them. I think they're great because you can change and impact lives through these mediums like books and, and podcast. And you'll never meet most of the people, but you'll change their life.

How is writing this book, Impact or Change Your Life, would you say? Adding on to what you just said, Chris, you know, they tune into the podcast and they, here's some people talking that we're willing to be on the podcast, and they've read the book, and they've gone to a wine tasting, and they've learned, you know, a variety of modalities, so to speak. They realize, I'm not alone. There are, there's a place for me to go. I can go listen to a podcast. I can, you know, go learn about mental health centers. I can, you know, do a variety of things to make my life better. And it's a big vision. It's my, it's my, it's my rest of my life's map that I plan on doing this for the rest of my life. It's one of the things I do is keep pushing this book. And so I apologize, would you repeat the other question for me? The other question was, how has it changed your life? And I think was it, I might have thrown a two question there. Sorry. I think my sister made me a better person, made me realize that part of my genetic makeup is to care for others and be there for people.

And it's changed my life because continues giving me a purpose in my life that she's deceased. I'm alone now. I don't have any other sisters or brothers. and I'm remembering her and using her memory in the book to help other people and spread the word and make it bipolar disorderly as important an illness as, you know, people are willing to talk about, people will talk about their diabetes, they'll talk about their heart attack, they'll talk about their cancer diagnosis, they'll talk about all their other diseases or illnesses they have, but they don't want to talk about their bipolar disorder,

They don't want to admit that there's something. They have a chemical imbalance of the brain because people may run away from them. And I want that not to be the case, that people will be more open about it and say, here I am. So you think it will change the people, the lives of people suffering from the illness, if they can read your book and it will make a severe difference? In that that they can learn how to cope with it and how to deal with it. And, you know, learn about the resources for getting help. And recognizing that, oh, my God, maybe somebody reads them.

They said, oh, my God, I always thought my daughter or my husband or my sister had something wrong with them. And now I think I can direct them to get some help and go to counseling with them. And just by reading it, the person reading it says, oh, God, I feel so much better because I know I'm not alone. There are other people out there like me. I'm not saying it's going to change the world. I'm not like the Steve Jobs phone did. Of course not. but it can make the world better for those suffering from this illness.

Yeah. And you bring up a good point. We find that we're not alone. So many times when so many times, you know, we get caught in our victim estate, you know, sometimes, you know, we're just getting beat up by life and we just feel really victimized. And sometimes we can get a little stuck there. And so having someone who can reach out of hand and go, hey, I know how to solve this problem for you. And realizing you're not alone.

And that's the great thing about stories is when you hear them, you go, oh, I thought, I thought, I was the only one in life was just picking on me. So, yeah. Can I give you an example of this? Yes, please. I just couldn't believe it. But I actually didn't surprise me. I was in the hospital last year in August for two weeks.

I had a standard customary endoscopy. And then when I woke up from it, the light sleep, I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't swallow it. They had perforated my esophagus. So one of the worst experiences of my life that actually, in so many ways, it changed my, that experience changed my life. I met three people in the hospital.

I can't believe it. A woman that came to visit me, she was a volunteer, and she asked me if there's anything, you know, Candy Striper, the old fashion candy striper, is there anything I can get you? You want me to chat with you? You know, because you're in bed all day. I was in a pick line. And we just started chatting. And I don't know how the subject came up.

She and her husband take care of her husband's daughter who's bipolar. Oh, really? Completely support the daughter. She can't work, but he's well off. She has a nice apartment. Most people don't have that. And then one of the nurses that was taking care of me, he was a contract nurse. We were chatting.

And he's dealt with a lot of people with mental illness as a nurse. And then another person, the nurse heard me talking on the phone to somebody that called up about dealing with my marketing for my book. And she said, oh, my God, you wrote a book about bipolar disorder? I said, yeah. And she said, my sister died of bipolar disorder. Oh, wow. My sister committed suicide.

My mother died and my sister who suffered from it her whole life couldn't live without my mother and killed herself. So three people in the course of 14 days in a hospital, you meet. You're not alone. Yeah. You're not alone. It's all over the place. Wow. They all bought the book.

too. Good. That's good. That's good. What suggestions would you have to help caregivers navigate the mental health system? We're caregivers to my sister who has MS in a care center. And it's sorry to be a caregiver. Wow. It's, wow. Be patient. Make a contact with someone there at that center who you can establish a relationship with who will be your lifeline. I did that with a woman where my sister lived. You get to know the person. Then you'll have a direct contact. be patient, understand that the bureaucracy is very, very chaotic sometimes, but people really are doing their best to work through the process of dealing with all the paperwork, and things don't happen overnight, finding housing doesn't happen overnight, can't get help

through one person, talk to somebody else, don't yell and scream at anybody, don't get, be nasty to the person who's trying to help you because that person is your lifeline. And you're not alone, and don't say that all the government bureaucrats that work in both in working these systems. They're all incompetent and, you know, are ruthless or ignorant or whatever. That's not true. There are a lot of helpful, educated people working in government. I worked in government, first part of my career.

A lot of people think they're stupid. They're losers. A lot of are highly educated. The majority of them are educated. And they really, they're doing it not for the money. They're doing it because they really care and they're providing a public service. So don't use the people that are helping you and have respect for them. Yeah.

Oh, definitely. That was a mouthful. That's a good advice. Sometimes there's a lot of drama that can go on in these environments too. Sometimes, you know, we've seen people at the care centers that they're really awful, that what they do, or they just don't do their job. I mean, we've got a million stories on that stuff. So as we go out, give people a final pitch out to pick up your book.

Tell them, is there anything we miss? Maybe other questions I should ask you? What can you do? How can viewers help you with the Be There, movement. The book, by the Kindle book, the audio book is being finished by a company in England, and that'll be out soon. I'm going to have a donation site put on my website. Even if you donate a dollar, we can raise money, and that money will be put into the foundation. I will let everybody know where the money's been disseminated, how it's been spent.

Just be part of it, watch the podcast. You know, you can even email me and tell me people you know that you think we'd want to be on the show, that would help me. People, you know, would be willing to talk about their illness so we can have them on the show. And, you know, whenever we have wine tastings, we're trying to do four a year. We did four or five last year. Throughout the United States, we did one in Midtown Manhattan last year to attend a wine tasting. Be there for the people that are ill. Help them.

Help them do it. It's been wonderfully having the show. And so brave, Lindsay, to share your story so that hopefully we can help a lot of other people out They raise awareness and also, you know, raise awareness about being a caregiver. One of the problems a lot of caregivers have is they're, you know, they're kind of at their wits end, they're constantly caring for a person, they're constantly aware of, you know, like you mentioned, the calls, and they can come in and stuff. And it can be a highly stressful environment, you know, and we often talk with caregivers

about how, you know, you've got to put the oxygen mask on first before you can help other people. Because a lot of caregivers will wear themselves down to the bone, emotionally, physically, and then they're the ones suffering the most. In fact, caregivers usually do suffer the most in taking care of other people. They usually develop by Alzheimer's and dementia, much faster, taking care of people that have those things. I was taking care of my husband.

He had dementia and he died while I was, I had long-term care help, but I was cared for him here and my sister long distance at the same time. So talk about resilience and perseverance. That's what we have to have. Must take care of yourself. You take a walk. exercise, don't drink too much, go out and buy yourself.

Some things, spend some time with some friends. Pet an animal. There's so many ways to reduce your stress. Yeah. And it's so important you have to take care of yourself. But yeah, a lot of families are going through that right now with multiple family members. They call them the sandwich generation. They're sandwiched between young kids and technically diapers and parents who are technically

in diapers. and maybe they should call them the diaper generation, but they're sandwiched between these two groups of people they have to care for suddenly. Because a lot of people are living longer. This wasn't a thing like 100 years ago that people lived to 80, except in rare cases. You know, and our whole systems aren't really built for it.

You know, every time I'm wandering, I'm just like, you know, it's funny, I made it this far because most people are, a hundred years ago, we're dead by now. So it's one of those things where you're just like, Like we got to take care of ourselves. And it's good that we take care of each other. And that's a great story. So as we go out to tell people the dot-coms or socials

or wherever we want them to find you on the interwebs, one last time. Be therebook.com. I'm now on the YouTube channels and Spotify channels. Still marketing. There's a lot of people put Lindsay Willis in there. You can, you know, a lot of my interviews are already out there just by typing my name in. And just, you know, just sharing your knowledge.

And also just buy the book. on Amazon. And then when the audible book comes out, the sales will go up, I'm sure. It's a great book. The reviews are great. Read the reviews on Amazon. They're not that many, but they're all fives. That's great. The reviews are outstanding. Thank you very much

for coming to this show. They appreciate it. I appreciate it, Chris, and thank you. It was a great interview and have a great day. Thank you. Thank you. You too. And folks, order up her book where refined books are sold. It's called Be There. My lived experience with my sister's bipolar disorder out September 10th, 2024 by Dr. Lindsay Willis. Thanks for us for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss.

LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. That's a crazy place on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Good. Tell me too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast. It'll lead to people thinking you're Smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed. Doug.

Thanks.