The One You Feed - Gabe Howard on Mental Illness

Episode Date: August 20, 2019

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer, speaker, and host of the weekly Psych Central show who lives with bipolar and anxiety disorders. His new book, Mental Illness Is an A-Hole – And Other Observations, is what he and Eric discuss in this episode. You’ll be captivated by Gabe’s story as he tells it – it’s compelling, relatable, inspiring, and educational. Whether or not you have bipolar disorder or another mental illness, chances are you know someone or some people who do and so this is an important episode to listen to – you’ll deepen your understanding of what it means to live with mental illness. Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Gabe Howard and I Discuss…His book, Mental Illness Is an A-Hole – And Other ObservationsWhat bipolar disorder is (and isn’t) and how it shows up in his lifeHis compelling storyThe myth that people with mental illness come from bad familiesWhen he went to the ER because of suicidal thoughtsHow he defines recovery: spending more time living life than managing his bipolar disorderThe 4 years he spent in a battle with his mental illnessHow you have to learn what works for you – and how that takes timeThe role of medication in the treatment of mental illnessHow it stings when your body lets you downEric’s experience taking and not taking medication for his depressionWhole health wellnessSuicideDon’t choose a permanent solution to a temporary problemHow suicide doesn’t end the pain – it transfers it to someone elseGabe Howard Links:gabehoward.comTwitterFacebookSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's episode is brought to you by our newest Patreon members, Renee, Dan, and Jasmine, and all the rest of our members who support the show. If you'd like to become a member of our Patreon community and enjoy the many benefits of the membership, go to oneufeed.net slash join. It is always fascinating to me, just as an observer of human behavior, that anybody would think that every single person with any illness would be exactly the same. Welcome to The One You Feed.

Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure? And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead.

The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Gabe Howard, an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar and anxiety disorders. He is the host of the weekly Psych Central show. His new book is Mental Illness is an Asshole. Hi, Gabe. Welcome to the show. Oh, thanks, Eric. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to have you on. You and I have met in person. We're both people in Columbus, although unfortunately for today, we are not both in Columbus. But, you know, so we've gotten to

meet in person, which was nice. And we're gonna talk about your book, which is called Mental Illness is an Asshole and Other Observations. But before we get into the book, let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops, he thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,

which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I think as with all things, wherever you give the most attention is going to grow the biggest. And if you give the most attention to something negative, you're going to have more negativity because you're, well, feeding it as the parable states. And that really feeds into a lot of what I do. When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it was only negativity. Crisis and mental illness doesn't need any help. It's all over the news. It's everywhere. And because that's what society is feeding, people misunderstand people like me. They're scared of people with mental illness and they don't get the help they need if they're

having a mental health issue because they think, hey, I'm not a violent psychopath and that's all they understand. So in my work, I wanted to feed the other side. Again, to go back to the parable, I want people to understand that there are people like Gabe Howard walking around all over. And when you look at me, I'm just a dopey looking redheaded guy. You don't look and see a bipolar. You just look and see a middle-aged man. And that's good because I was able to get the help that I needed. And that's really what I'm trying to put out there. I'm trying to essentially feed the other side because especially when I started, a lot of people weren't doing that.

talked a lot about it. So I thought we'd start this conversation by you telling us a little bit about what bipolar is, kind of how it maybe showed up in your life and some things that people should know about bipolar. That's a big question. So I'm glad that you've got a long show. First, let's start with the technical definition of bipolar disorder. The technical definition is extreme highs and extreme lows. So and sort of vacillating back and forth. So the extreme lows would be like suicidal depression. The extreme highs would be godlike mania. And then everything in between. The thing that I want people to know about bipolar disorder, and I think the real sticking

point for a lot of people, is they think people with bipolar disorder are either one pole or the other, the extreme low or the extreme high, when in reality, it's better described as moving back and forth between two poles, which means that sometimes you will be typical, you will be normal, you will be fine. And I think that that's a very dangerous thing because whenever you hit one of those extremes, people remember you when you were okay. They're like, well, I know Gabe can pay attention if he wants to. I know Gabe can achieve on a high level if he wants to. I know that Gabe doesn't have to be a jerk because he was fine at my birthday party last month, and now we can't get a hold of him. So he's choosing this behavior. I guess I could describe bipolar disorder as sort of an intermittent

illness. Sometimes you're sick, sometimes you're not. And that makes it one, harder to get diagnosed, but two, harder for people to understand and have compassion for you. They just remember you when you're great. And then they remember that you hurt their feelings or that you were unreliable or in some cases that you did something terrible to them. And, you know, that looks a lot of different ways. Right. One of the things you say is that one thing to know about bipolar is that the symptoms aren't necessarily equally split. So the people who do know bipolar is really high, really low. They assume you get, you know, maybe equal amounts of both. And that's not necessarily the case.

It's not only not necessarily the case, it's pretty much never the case. One, I don't even know how you would figure that out. Every time you're a manic, you press a button. And every time you're depressed, you press another button. I mean, it just, it's really just not the reality. There's no real way to decide which one is more present than the other because both are damaging in their own way. And again, you, you can't help, but remember that center part that, that everything is okay. You're just whoever you are, that middle. So I don't even know where you put that. But yeah, yeah. So many people are like,

oh, well, he's depressed today, but tomorrow he's going to be super happy. So that's a good trade. One, that wouldn't even be a good trade if it was true. And two, as you said, it's just not even the reality. And so sort of expanding that theme is that everybody's bipolar will look a little bit different. Yeah, everybody's everything looks a little different. So it's it is always fascinating to me just as a observer of human behavior that anybody would think that every single person with any illness would be exactly the same. That's just fascinating to me.

But it really is the belief of society that every single person with a specific mental illness, in my case, bipolar disorder, are going to be exactly the same as all of the other people with that illness. I think if they stop and think about it, even for just a moment, they'd realize how crazy that is, pun intended. Right. So tell us a little bit about realizing you had bipolar and what treatment has looked like for you over the years. This is an absolutely fascinating story. And I am biased, I'll admit it. But looking at all of it, and really putting the story into, you know, a speech and a keynote

and writing it down, has really just left me kind of in awe of everything that happened to me. And that's not as exciting as it sounds. I was born with bipolar disorder, but nobody noticed. I thought about suicide every day for my entire life, as far back as I can remember. And I tell people, yeah, when I was 10 years old, I thought about suicide. When I was four years old, I thought about suicide. And they're like, well, what about on good days? On good days, I thought, hey, I'm happy. I'm not going to commit suicide today. And on bad days, I would think, is today the day? I'm getting closer. I'm weighing these pros and cons. And when I looked out at everybody else, I just assumed that they were doing it too.

Because this was the only thing that I ever knew. I just assumed that this was part of the human experience. I assumed that everybody was contemplating suicide every moment of every day. I had no idea that it was abnormal. And neither did my family. Everybody at this point, they're like, okay, well, he's gonna zag to the left and tell me how horrible his parents were. Yeah, they weren't.

My parents are good people. They're married to each other. They loved me very much. My father is now a retired truck driver. My mother was a stay at home mom. We were a close knit family. We ate dinner together. We vacationed together. We fought together. They knew stuff about me. I knew stuff about them. So it wasn't that they were absent or not paying attention. They just had absolutely no mental health or mental illness understanding or training. Except, of course, for the pop culture earmarks, the stereotypes.

They believed that people with mental illness were violent. I wasn't violent. They believe that people with mental illness were, you know, rocking back and forth in a corner, drooling on themselves and not intelligent. I was the opposite of that. I was the life of the party. I was charismatic. I was outgoing. I was extroverted. And of course, the biggest one that they believed is that people with mental illness came from bad families. My family was great. They were good people. My mom loves me. My dad loves me. My grandparents, even my siblings. And that pains me to say because who wants to like their siblings? But I did. I love them. They're fine people. We just had no

idea. And after I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and my parents learned what it was, my mother said, oh my God, I always called you my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde child. I'm like, mom, you're literally describing bipolar disorder. And she's like, we didn't know. And they didn't. I got help because I was lucky. I ran into somebody, a woman I was casually dating at the time. And listen, I say casually dating because this is a family show. She understood what mental illness actually was. She recognized the symptoms of bipolar disorder. She recognized the symptoms of suicidality. She saw it all. And which is amazing to me, she intervened on my behalf. She walked up to me and said, are you thinking about killing yourself? And I looked her right in the eyes and I got excited. And I said, yes, yes, I am. And I got excited because I thought this meant that I would have help, that she would help me. And this was fantastic. And then she looked at me like I was crazy

and she panicked and she started just, oh my God, we have to go to the hospital. I said, the hospital? I'm not sick. And she said, no, we have to go to the emergency room right now. And I said, the emergency room? That's where you go. Like if you break your leg or you get in a car accident and you're having a heart attack, I just, I, I, I was just flabbergasted that she was behaving in this way. And she said, I'll tell you what, here's what we're going to do. Get in the car. We'll go to the emergency room and we'll ask the doctor if this is where you need to be. If the doctor says that this is where you aren't supposed to be, you will win the argument. And I will take you to dinner, any place in the city, my treat. And apparently, even in my suicidal, delusional,

and depressed state, I still had the overwhelming desire to win an argument. So we hopped in the car, we drove to the emergency room, we walked in, she said to the intake nurse, this is my friend Gabe, he wants to kill himself. And things started to happen. They put me in a room. A social worker came to visit me. They started asking me questions. There was forms. Other people came to see me. They started doing, I don't even know, but what they did clearly was part of a protocol. Like they had seen this before. Like other people like me had been there before. And at that point, I pretty much blacked out. I don't remember anything past the realization that, oh my God, there is something very wrong with me. And I want to be clear, when I got in that car to ride with her, I was 100% positive I was going to be right.

Not 99.9, not pretty sure. No, 100% positive that she was wrong and I was right. That was the level that I was at. And the next morning I would wake up in an inpatient psychiatric hospital where i would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder that is quite a story and speaks to how we can not even have a clue sometimes what is happening with us so you're diagnosed with bipolar then you're in inpatient psychiatric hospital what has your recovery looked like in broad strokes so i spent four days and three nights in the psychiatric hospital. And when I walked out, I always say that that began my four year epic battle with mental illness because I had to fight it. And it took four years from the time that I was diagnosed until the time

that I reached recovery. And I always explained that what recovery means to me is that I spend more time living my life than I do managing bipolar disorder. And I'm going to spend some amount of time managing bipolar disorder every day for the rest of my life. But the day that I walked out of the hospital, 100% of my time was managing it. And now it's probably 10% overall. And as long as I pay attention, as long as I do the right things, take the medication, go to the doctors, report symptoms accurately, and be open to the idea that I can get sick again so that I can get the medical care ahead of the time instead of in crisis, I'll be okay. Probably. That probably always, of course me, but, but I should be okay. But yeah, four years of my life was spent battling an illness that one, I didn't know existed until,

you know, that morning and that I thought would be cured overnight because there's again, misconceptions abound. There's just so many of them. And me and my family, we believed them all. We believed every single stereotype. And I think that that made it lonely and depressing and sad and scary and frightening. But that's what it looked like. That's what it looked like. Trial and error, ups and downs, goods and bads with progression. Right. And I think so much of learning to live with mental illness of any sort, whether it be bipolar, depression, anxiety, whether it be addiction, you know, my experience with those things has been similar to yours that it took me a while to figure out what actually works for me. You know, it was it was as much it feels to me a

learning process as it was anything else. Now, some of that learning was happening chemically because it was about finding the right medications or different things. But the vantage of looking back, I just see how I was learning. Okay, that works. That doesn't. Oh, that helps a lot. That doesn't help as much. Oh, I need more of that than I thought I did.

You know, kind of on and on like that. I need more of that than I thought I did, you know, kind of on and on like that. And I actually really love that definition of recovery because I often say I don't know what to say about my depression. Right. Because I never know. Like, do I say I'm recovering from depression? I have depression. I don't have depression. But by that standard of I spend more of my life living it than I do managing it. I am in a wonderful state of recovery. That's exactly right. Recovery looks different for everyone. And I think that that's something that the greater society has to understand. I am very lucky in a number of ways, but

specifically, I'm very lucky. I work a full-time job. I own a house. I'm married. I go on vacations. There's a lot of things that I wasn't able to do when I was first diagnosed that I am now able to do 15 years later. And that's fantastic that I was able to reach this level of recovery. But listen, there's people out there who live with bipolar disorder that aren't able to work, or they're not able to work full time, or they're able to work part time, but they can't really leave the city because they get too uncomfortable, or they're not able to drive because driving just creates too much anxiety, or it's too much risk for them. But all of those people can consider themselves

recovered as well, because they're living the best life within the confines of their illness. And I think that that is so valuable because so often people are like, well, you can't be recovered with bipolar disorder because you're on disability. Listen, that's wildly inappropriate and incredibly unfair. It's like saying that somebody in a wheelchair can't live their best life because they can't walk. They're living their best life within the confines of the cards they were dealt. And I think that is just so vital for people to remember. And society just often forgets this message. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

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Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed jason bobblehead it's called really no really and you can find it on the iheart radio app on apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts my first real dealing with quote unquote mental illness was dealing with my addiction right and in those days at least in the programs it was a very clear thing you're sober you're, right? And I think there's more nuance to it than that than I used to. But so it was very clear, like, you know, the line of recovery was very clearly demarcated. And it's not so much with other mental illnesses. But I think the question that is so interesting to me, and it's one that I have wrestled with on and off and still do to some extent, is how do

you know when the recovery you've got is good enough? And how do you know when I need to keep trying different things? And I know you can't answer that question for every person. It's individual. I'd just be curious about how you would think about that. For me, I just wanted to get as far as I could. And some of that is unhealthy. I'll be the first to admit because I call it moving the goalpost. When I was first diagnosed, I wasn't working. And I said, look, I'll be happy as soon as I can work part-time because I'm tired of being in the house. And then as soon as I got a part-time job, I was like, well, I'll be happy as soon as I'm working full-time. And as soon as I got a full-time job, I was like, well, I'll be happy as soon as I make more money. And as soon as I got a job making more money, I was like, well, I'll be happy as soon as I'm working full-time. And as soon as I got a full-time job, I was like, well, I'll be happy

as soon as I make more money. And as soon as I got a job making more money, I was like, well, I'll be happy as soon as I use this money to buy a house and just on and on and on and on and on. So I do caution people, you've got to be happy with what you have, but that doesn't mean that you can't work toward more.

The reality is, is I did not know how far I could go. And as I sit here right now, I I did not know how far I could go. And as I sit here right now, I don't know how much further I can go. There is a possibility that my chosen career of, of being a speaker and a writer and a podcaster could, could cause me to relapse. That is a very real possibility. There are not a lot of people with severe and persistent mental illness that can hop on a plane and fly to a different time zone and then fly back and be okay. Because that's really hard. That's hard on people who aren't managing mental illness. I am very fortunate that I have learned coping mechanisms, I have the right medication, and I have the right plan every time that happens. I know what to do before, I know what to do during, and I have the right plan every time that happens.

I know what to do before, I know what to do during, and I know what to do after. But, you know, I'm a crisis point, a panic attack, an anxiety issue, or a breakdown away from, look, Gabe, you can't travel anymore, or you have to travel a lot less, or who knows. That's part of honestly managing your symptoms. That's part of taking an honest account of what you can and cannot do. And as you said, that looks different for everybody. Right now I travel one or two times a month

and I can absolutely handle that. But I don't know if I could handle one or two times a week. So, if tomorrow somebody says, "'Hey Gabe, we wanna pay you a million dollars, but you got to be in a different city twice a week. That very well could be way too much for me. And that would be hard because I want the million dollars, but I got to decide what's more important wellness or the million dollars. But to be fair, I don't know. I don't know that that won't work. How are the cities set up? Are the

cities next to each other? There'd just be a lot of questions that I would have to ask and a lot of honest stock that I would have to take. And I'd want to make sure that any backslide wasn't past the point of no return. Because some backslide is just normal. It really is. We're not always exactly the same. We're human. So let's talk about medication for a second. You just brought it up. I love in the book, you describe you're at an event and there's a couple saying to you, you know, we've tried medication with our son. None of the medications work for him. And maybe you can talk about how you answer that question. I absolutely love this question because I really think that people

just have a general misunderstanding of how to treat people from a medical standpoint. If you have any illness, let's talk physical illness, let's talk your diabetes, your cancer, your headache, and you go to a doctor and the doctor prescribes you medication and that medication doesn't work, you go back to the doctor and the doctor prescribes you medication and that medication doesn't work. You go back to the doctor and the doctor's like, oh, I'll prescribe you a different

medication. And I threw headache in there because what are there, you know, seven or eight different popular headache remedies from aspirin to Aleve to Tylenol to ibuprofen. And we all have a different one that we swear by for our headaches. And we all take a different amount, one pill, two pills, three pills. And that's for something as simple as a headache. But for some reason, when we talk about mental health, people are like, well, I was diagnosed with mental illness. I went to the doctor. He gave me pills and it didn't work.

Quack. That doctor's a liar just pushing pills on me. I'm like, why is this happening? Why is there so much stigma about the cure that you thought the doctor would magically give you the right pills right up front? And second, there's a couple of hundred psychiatric medications. And I myself, with bipolar disorder, I'm on seven different medications, which is not uncommon. Cocktails are very common for people with severe and persistent mental illness. So the fact that you would have to take

multiple medications and the fact that the dosage isn't magical and the fact that you would have to be prescribed these medications one at a time so the doctor knows which pill is causing the good or which pill is causing the symptom or just how the pill is working for you. This really creates a scenario where you have about, you know, what, trillions of combinations, literally trillions of combinations. And people are like, look, I tried one and pills don't work for me. Yeah, you got to get into the billions before I'm going to start believing you. Yeah, you got to get into the billions before I'm going to start believing you. And listen, I always like to put a little, you know, like asterisk right there and say,

look, you're not going to have to try billions. Doctors are really intelligent. They've gone to school for this. They understand what to look for so that they're not just guessing. It is trial and error, but it's educated trial and error. And that's why it took me four years to get on the right medication, because we had to try all of these and get closer and closer and closer and closer. And while it took four years to go from diagnosed to recovery, that doesn't mean that I didn't see constant improvement along the way.

I also saw setbacks because that's part of recovery as well, but I saw improvement as well. But I saw improvement as well. I really think medication just gets an incredibly bad rap because I just don't think people understand how medical treatment works. And mental illness really does impact the young. 16 to 24 is the average age of diagnosis. And what 16 to 24 year old really understands medical care. I mean, honestly, we all think we're invincible. Right. And you go on to say that, you know, mental illness is a medical illness, and it needs medical intervention. What that medical intervention looks like is between the patient and their doctor, it shouldn't be between the patient, their doctor, and society, which I

think is what you're speaking to here, where there's a lot of opinion out there about medication or don't take medication, or it's good, or it's bad, or it's a big pharma thing, or it's all these different things. As is typical of me, I sort of see this middle ground, right? I see what some people are saying, which is, you know, you mentioned you're not feeling good, you go in, your doctor writes you a prescription for something, and that's the end of the conversation. That is, to me, not the right approach. I also think that swearing off medication because you think there's something wrong with it, I don't know that I'd be here if I had done that. You're absolutely right. And I have a joke. I'm like you, I consider myself a moderate in the

mental health advocacy debate, which I thought meant both sides would love me. But in reality, it means that both sides hate me. But you're right. You are so right. It is so individualized. And there's just a lot of shame that comes with being young and taking medication. And there's this idea of weakness. If you take medication, you must be weak. I'm like you, I understand that. I'm not gonna tell you that when I was 25 years old and I was carrying around what I called a granny pill minder

and I was swallowing seven pills a day and my grandfather was taking one. He's my grandfather for Pete's sake, and he's on one pill. I'm his 25-year-old grandson, and I'm taking fistfuls every day. I'm not going to tell you that that didn't sting because it stung. But I learned in therapy, and I learned with experience that, yeah, it stings when your body lets you down. It stings to be sick. It stings to be different. That's not the fault of the treatment. That's the fault of, hey, we all have egos and we think we're invincible. As soon as I got out of my own way, I realized this was my best shot to my best

life. And that made the pills so much easier to swallow because frankly, I would absolutely unequivocally not be here without my medication. I would lose my job. I would lose my house. I would lose my dog. I would lose my wife. I would lose the ability to speak in complete sentences, but I guess that makes me strong. I don't see it that way anymore. But I did have to work that out for myself. That was not my opinion on day one. I had to mourn the life that I lost. And that took time. Yeah. And you know, I agree. I think that, you know, my approach to medication was, you know, when I started taking it, I was like, you know what, I want to do all and my depression was bad, but it wasn't completely crippling. So I was like, I would like to make sure that I'm taking care of myself

physically. Am I exercising? Am I eating well? Do I have social connection? Like, am I doing the things that that people say help depression, and I realized I was doing all those things. And I was still freaking miserable. So I went on medication. And people have heard me tell that story before the part of the story that nobody has heard yet, because I haven't really shared it on the air yet, because it's pretty recent, was about a year and a half ago, I said, you know what, I've been on these medications a long time. And I don't know if I still need to be on them, because I'm doing pretty well. So I'm going to make an attempt to get off of these medications. And I did it very, very slowly. I did it with doctor's helps, or I did it with a doctor's help, all that I did it the quote, unquote, right way, extremely conservatively. And the verdict turns out to be at least right now,

that yes, I did need to be on some of those medications, because I got all the way off, and I had a period that was okay. And then I went know what boy I am slogging through life way more than I am used to like it's depression there's no cause for it I'm still doing everything in life that I was doing before and I take the medicine away and I suddenly feel lousy right and I share that only because for me it felt important to see to make sure I needed them but now that that I know, at least for now that I need them, I have no problem with that. I have no issue with being on medication because it makes life so much better for me. And that just seems to be the way I am built and designed. What I love about your story, I've got a couple of things to say about it. But my favorite part

is that you, you told everybody that you did it conservatively and responsibly and with a doctor's help. I understand the, do I still need this? I've been doing the same thing for 10 years. Has my body updated? Let's face it. We all look different at 40 than we did at 30, and we look different at 30 than 20. It's not unreasonable to think that your makeup has changed because as we age, our makeup changes. So you did it the right way. So often I hear that story of, I don't think I need this anymore. So I quit cold Turkey and I didn't tell anybody. And that is a terrible idea. It is a dangerous idea and it often ends not well. Let's just go with that. Yeah. I mean,

And it often ends not well. Let's just go with that. Yeah. I mean, it took me a year. Over a year was the weaning process. Probably closer to 16 months. So when I say slow and conservative, I mean it. Yeah.

There's another part that I want to talk about for a moment. And this is what I love and hate all about the internet. In your story, you said that right after you went off, so Eric is 100% off of psychiatric medications, that there was a period of time where you were fine. And then it sort of started to trickle downhill for you. Is that a fair statement? Is that correct? Yeah. And I actually never got, to be clear, I never got 100% off all the medicines. There was still one that I was on a much lower dose of, but I was still on. So I was still in the weaning process. Okay.

So let's adjust your story a little bit so that I can make my point. Thank you for your honesty. But let's pretend that you would have gotten all the way off. Because that's usually, honestly, where this story ends up, either because it's cold turkey or because people are highly motivated to get all the way off. And now they're on zero medications. And they do because this is how our bodies work. We feel okay for a couple of months, either because we still have it built up in our system or because even, like I said, with bipolar disorder, there's that period where

you do absolutely nothing and you'll feel just fine. Depression works the same way. You do absolutely nothing and you'll feel just fine. You know, usually right before the downturn. And this is what I hate and love about the internet. Somebody will go completely off of their meds. A month later, they're still feeling fantastic and they get on YouTube and they make a video. Hi, my name is John and I was big pharma, pumped me full of drugs and I'd stopped taking them and I'm just fine. Look, I just climbed this mountain

and went to Disney World and met the girl of my dreams. Big pharma is a scam. Stop taking your meds. And then that video gets uploaded to YouTube and two months later, when they end up in the psychiatric ward or they end up depressed and that girl leaves them and Disney has them arrested for running naked through the streets, they don't go and update that video. That video lives forever as testimony that you

don't need medication and that big pharma is scamming you. Please do not believe those videos. One, even if they were true, which they are not, that doesn't mean that it will be true for you. Bill Gates can take a bath in $100 bills. You can't. Don't do that. Bad idea. Those $100 bills are probably important for the rest of us. Bill Gates can soil them all he wants. Right. Yeah. And so, I mean, I really love that, you know, kind of what you said in the quote I read in the beginning, right? This is not about a debate with society. It's not society to weigh in on whether you should or should not be taking medicine because that's an individual question and there are so many variables. So is there a place for reasonable criticism of drug policy? Sure. Right. But unequivocally, but to take that, to take that or to take any demographic thing and boil it down to a person, an individual is very dangerous because as you've said multiple times, everybody is so very different. Our experiences, our upbringing, the level of recovery we've had through therapy, you know, our biochemical makeup, everybody is different. And so whether you need medicine or not, is not a question that really involves anyone else. It means what do you need to be living your best life? Exactly. And that really is the message that I try to get out there.

living your best life. Exactly. And that really is the message that I try to get out there. I think that a lot of people are listening to the wrong people. And it flusters me so much because some of the industries that people are listening to are also billion dollar industries. You know, the natural supplement industry, the cannabis oil industry, the alternative medical industry, they talk about these like, oh no, they're just trying to help me. These are also billion dollar industries. So if you don't trust doctors and pharmaceutical companies because they're billion dollar industries, you should also be wary of these other industries because they're also billion dollar industries. They're just also unregulated and they can lie to you. Pharmaceutical companies

are at least overseen. I agree that they probably need more oversight. And there is a definite discussion, like you said, about the way that we prescribe, the way that we monitor and science, but it's still some, it's still more than zero. The industry that people flock to, to listen to zero oversight. And they're like, well, that's how you know they're honest, because nobody's paying attention. And again, that just scares me. It scares me, terrifies me. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

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For me, ultimately, you know, middle way, right? It's one of my philosophies in life, the middle way. For me, I really look at depression in me as, you know, I've said before, I throw the whole kitchen sink at it. Medicine is a part of it, but it is not sufficient, right? There have been lots of other things that I do. You actually say at one point in the book that in order to manage a mental illness, and you're talking about bipolar in this case, a person has to have a lot of skills. There's not one thing that you learn and do. You actually need to manage multiple skills. And that's been my experience with depression is it's taken a whole bunch of different things sort of patched together to equate recovery. Exactly. Could you imagine if

all you needed to do to be a quarterback on a professional football team is throw a ball? You don't have to have cardio. You don't have to be a fast runner. You don't have to have defense or teamwork, nothing. As long as you can throw the ball, you're the top quarterback in the world. That's nonsense. The top quarterbacks, they have multiple skills, multiple skills. And that is how it is for mental illness. If you just have one skill, that's a problem. And so many people rely way too heavily on medication. Medication, it's a necessary thing. It really is for most people with serious and persistent mental illness.

I'd go as far as to say that it's required probably for 99.99% of people. But if all you do is swallow the pill and expect your life to get better, it's not. Absolutely, it will not get better. Pills are not magical at all. They are one component. And I don't even know that they're the most important component. Because again, that's just a nonsense argument. It's like saying, what's the most important part of your house? I don't know. If any of it's missing, I'm going to be pretty ticked off at my house. So I guess I like it all equally. And then people debate, but electric is more important. You won't have internet. Okay. This is stupid. I want it all. That's what we need to focus on. Whole health,

holistic wellness, not just we're a little bit better. We're completely better because even though I have bipolar disorder, I can't go out and weigh 600 pounds and be like, what I treated bipolar. Yeah. That's, that's not going to work. I can still get diabetes. I can still have bad knees. I can still, you know, try out for 600 pound life. So I have to take care of my physical health as well. I don't get a pass. I can have multiple illnesses and I don't want that. One is enough. And yeah, I mean, my experience has certainly been that those physical components are so critical to my managing of depression. Not to mention, as you said, all the other diseases I could get and what I have been so happy about is the right word. But as I

look at a lot of these lifestyle behaviors, you know, let's just say basically exercising and eating pretty well. And, you know, for me, a contemplative practice. And the good news is these things seem to help all kinds of things. So it's not, you know, in my case, it's not like I have to be off doing all these strange esoteric practices for my depression that are not also improving my life in lots of other areas at the same time. Exactly. Diet and exercise is important, whether you're mentally ill or not. And we need to remember that, you know, drinking lots of water, getting a good night's sleep. All of these things are important. And and people understand that. But

let's talk about something that you mentioned earlier in the show, which was you have friends, you have family, you have people around you, you go out in public and you say hi to the person who sells you coffee. That is also something that we do that contributes to our overall wellness. It's important. It sure is. So let's change directions here because we're running near the end of time, but I really wanted to hit this because I've never heard anybody say this in quite the way that you did. And it's about suicide. So obviously very serious, very heavy topic, but I just want to kind of read what you wrote, because I think this really struck me. The mentally ill do not commit suicide. It makes it sound like they did it on purpose, or they had a say in the matter, but they don't, really.

Their illnesses were in control. The entire concept of committing suicide as it relates to mental illness is nothing short of tragedy. The context of this quote is you're saying this to somebody, your son died by suicide. More specifically, he died from his mental illness. Your son didn't kill himself. The illness killed him. Of all the things that I've ever written, that's probably the most poignant one. Because when somebody dies by suicide, we've all, all heard the horror stories. People not being allowed to have funerals in the churches that they were members of since they were children, being shunned by family and friends because, you know, after all, your child did it on purpose. We've heard things like, how could he be so selfish to do that?

Didn't he love us enough to stick around? And there really just is this blaming of people who are dead. And I tell so many people, I'm like, look, they're not faking. They're not doing it to you. This isn't manipulation. It's not part of an overall plan. If you need proof that this person was sick, it's that they're no longer here. And I don't understand why we talk about suicide the way that we do. And not only is it tragic to the memory of the person who has passed away, but it's just so cruel to their family because the message is clear. Your family member didn't love you and did this to you. And that makes it so hard to mourn and move on. And I just can't even imagine. I can't even imagine. Had I died by suicide, the idea that my family would have thought that it

was about them in any way, it had nothing, nothing to do with them. And it had everything to do with an illness that I did not understand. I did not ask for, and I did not know I had that desperately needed medical intervention. And because I got that I'm here. Had I not got that, my mom and dad could be walking around right now saying, well, Gabe was so selfish. I can't believe he did that to us. I just can't even imagine. I can't even imagine. Right. And you go on to say like, it's normal to be angry, but be angry at the illness. Yeah. Put the blame where it goes. I I'm, I'm a big proponent of that. And I want to pivot on this topic a little bit. First, I agree with you a hundred percent. And

like I said, I'd never heard somebody say it that well. I want to pivot on that point to people who are struggling with the thoughts of suicide because you also to hang on and fight quite literally for your life. Suicide doesn't end pain. It ends life. There is no feeling of relief because there's no ability to feel. But the pain remains. It's transferred onto the people left behind. left behind. Mental illness works just like any other illness. The person who has the illness can do things to impact the outcome. It doesn't mean that you'll win. It doesn't mean that it always works, but there are things to be done. When it comes to mental illness, one of the things that we can do is call a doctor. We can call 911. We can go to the emergency room. We can tell somebody that we need help or we're going to die. And this is just so incredibly important. And a bigger thing that we can do is catch it early. The earlier you realize you're sick, the easier it is to treat and again, in a manner of speaking. But we want to do something. And if you are all alone and these thoughts are in your brain, please, please do anything you can to fight. And I'm just hoping that somebody remembers these

words, that it doesn't end the pain, it transfers it to somebody else. Because if they can remember that, maybe that will allow them to hold on. But if they can't remember it, if their illness wins, listen, we all talk about fighting cancer, and he fought cancer, and he beat cancer. But we do need to understand that no matter how hard you fight, not everybody beats cancer. It's the same thing with mental illness. No matter how hard you fight, not everybody beats it. Not everybody can beat it. It is an illness after all. But I do want to tell the people suffering, if you can hang on, you can win.

If you can get treatment, you can win. If you can get help, you can win. And that's the part that you can affect. That's the part that you can control. You have to do your part. Remember when I said that medication wasn't magic? It's not. You have to help.

And I just really want to empower and encourage people to help. Well, that is a powerful and beautiful place for us to wrap up. You and I are going to go on and have a post-show conversation where we talk about key mistakes that people with social anxiety can make, especially at the beginning of a friendship. And I also want to talk a little bit about this dance between how other people see us and what we can accomplish and what we see in ourselves. And so I want to, I want to talk about that too. And you and I will do that in the post-show conversation listeners, you can get access to post-show conversations and other things at one you feed.net slash support. Gabe, thanks so

much for coming on the show. I have really enjoyed this conversation and I think it's really been powerful and hopefully really useful. Thank you so much for having me, Eric. I really appreciate it. It has been a pleasure. Thank you. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support.

The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer.

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