The Destigmatization of Mania in a Manic Culture

[Music]

thank you to everybody i feel honored to

be here

i wanted to first say that i am going to

share a very vulnerable story

so i may lose myself for a moment in

tears but i promise

i’ll pull it back i woke up in a

hotel room in mexico and i didn’t know

where i was

or why i was there a dear friend was

accompanying me

thank goodness so she was able to

support me while i figured

out the whole experience

two months before i was in mexico i had

had a significant amount of trauma which

included

my mother having a stroke and a dear

friend’s husband passing away

my grandfather passing my mother having

a subsequent surgery which

did not go entirely well she made it

through but it was difficult at the time

and then a dear friend passing come back

to mexico

my friend basically described what had

happened to me

i had a manic psychotic break from

bipolar one disorder but i never knew

i had bipolar one disorder apparently

i had a pretty good time while i was in

mexico i was

not there for about three days

at least one point i ran away i had a

nap

on a stand-up paddleboard and

i ended up buying a whole restaurant

dinner i found the receipt later

about a million people in the u.s suffer

from bipolar disorder

and that is only what’s reported

4.3 percent of women struggle with

anxiety and depression

and again that’s only what’s reported

and i estimate a lot of that has to do

with the stigmas that

surround mental health illness and what

ex

what people experience and that people

just don’t understand

and aren’t educated people who have

migraines or strokes

that’s accepted around the neurological

state of the brain

but with its with mental health it’s

just not yet understood

we see in our culture this

fight-or-flight situation

everybody’s running around like their

heads are cut off

there’s more to do there’s more to do i

want more

for us women we often are doing it all

cooking cleaning grocery shopping making

sure our kids are happy dropping them

off

at activities after school also holding

a 50-hour plus work week and

now teaching our children it’s too much

it’s unsustainable and it’s a lot like

what happens with

mania it’s unsustainable so our

experience is shared

eventually we tend to see people get to

that point where they can’t sustain it

anymore

and they crash cortisol goes up

inflammatory disease may go up we may

see autoimmune disorders

we may see people falling into you know

some sort of depressive state

or addiction alcoholism or anything else

because the body and the brain just

can’t

do it anymore that experience of high

and then low is very much similar to

what

i suffer from with bipolar disorder

my goal is to work with my therapist and

my psychiatrist

to feel and reduce those reduce those

you know excess mania and excess

depressive because it’s just not

comfortable

it’s not sustainable but our culture in

some ways induces this stuff

my story is excessive

mania drove a majority of what happened

in my life

i didn’t know until i was 44 years old

that i actually had

bipolar so i think a lot of people

spend their life with some of these

challenges and they never

know they lived or had that problem

i was did well in high school i had one

suicide attempt

but didn’t ever let anybody know i was

trying to escape from a dangerous space

at my home i went to college

i decided i wanted to do it all i didn’t

need anybody

i wouldn’t rely on anyone ever again

i signed up for rotc carried about 22

credit hours a semester

and when i graduated i was commissioned

to the us army because it was

responsible

and then i wouldn’t need anybody a few

of my jobs in the military were

interesting

and so representative who i am

one was a company commander i was

company command

of 180 soldier unit because that’s what

you have to do

obviously i also took

a role as operations commander for

all medical ops for an entire post of

fort huachuca

again why but i thought that’s what

you’re supposed to do

it was the only way i could love myself

was through success

and the only way i thought i was lovable

was through success

when i left the military i went straight

to my master’s degree here in

colorado i then got my doctorate while i

was working full-time

then we had our children and then life

went on

after our second child things sort of

went downhill

i started to feel this engine in my

chest

i call it the freight train i didn’t

feel well it started to feel like

i wasn’t fully in control of myself but

i didn’t ask for help

because why i was fine i started

two startups during that time while

working full time and raising two kids

my husband traveled a ton but i could do

it it was fine

finally i found nurture which is my

company that i have started with

two amazing people focused on self-care

here in denver

i’ll explain the irony later

we stand here now after one significant

psychotic break and a more recent

depressive break that happened but i’m

still

here the suicide attempts didn’t work

and i’m still here i want to say my

husband

my psychiatrist and my psychologist

saved my life it was the only way

that i could really be sitting or

standing in this red circle

you don’t know how excited i am that i’m

here today

my therapist has taught me a lot of

exciting things that i never knew how to

do

the first being boundaries and i want to

say that first because

when you live in a codependent situation

a lot of your life

you don’t know what boundaries are you

just don’t know how

you want to please everybody it’s been a

really fun journey and it will be a

lifeline

lifelong education

next is self-love for so

long that laundry list of things you do

more

than most people do at 11 a.m you’re

always working all the time why how can

you do all that marathons blah blah blah

everybody used to be so excited about

that stuff

i didn’t love myself i was running away

from it

she says love yourself like you love

your child

if you can’t get there yet do that

the other thing is self-care it’s hard

to even identify what is that

in my world view it should not even be a

name it should just be part of our

world and our lives but it isn’t it’s

looked down upon sometimes it’s shameful

it’s selfish which is nuts but

it’s how sometimes people think we’ve

been conditioned to

to me self-care can be a lot of things

first and foremost

if we don’t focus on our wellness we

will have to focus on our illness

that is profound statement that she

helps me understand

i see self-care now in so many different

ways than i used to

self-care equals things that aren’t

productive

taking a walk in nature nature’s feeds

your soul

enjoying music just sitting and

listening to music

i love music i go to live music but

i didn’t really think about could i just

sit down and listen to it

books and reading are magic to get into

something else that isn’t in your head

how fun and fun and laughter and joy

that is a waste of time that is part of

the human experience and if we can

basically tap

into that richness our lives change

forever

unconditional love i’ve learned finally

to surround myself and only maintain the

relationships in my life

that are focused on self care

unconditional love if i don’t live in

relationship

with unconditional love i’m constantly

pleasing i’m going right back to the

codependent

lifestyle and i’m done with it it will

put me in the grave

love if we can think as

christie was saying earlier that we are

connected by our hearts

that is everything to our planet to one

another

we share an experience it doesn’t mean

that it has to be bipolar

depressive manic whatever it is we have

a shared experience as humanity

and it’s important that we don’t think

about

the fact that oh somebody has this label

or somebody has this label or

somebody’s not good enough we are all

good enough as we

are i send love to you

you are not alone you are in community

all the time

thank you

[Music]

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