0104 Hiding Bipolar, PTSD & Shame: On Telling the Truth and Healing

Natasha Pierre spent years carrying a secret that shaped every room she walked into: the fear of being found out. Under the ambition and the “I’ve got this” energy lived survivor’s guilt, PTSD, panic, depression, disordered eating, and a bipolar diagnosis she didn’t feel safe naming out loud. The most powerful part of her story isn’t just what she survived, it’s how she learned to stop letting shame run the show.

We start with her childhood where she learned ownership early by helping run a tourist shop and chasing big dreams. She shares about school life, feeling unlikeable, getting teased, being sick often, and later discovering old journal entries that revealed how early depression had really begun. We also talk about why adults should treat kids’ behavior as information, not attitude, and how curiosity and support can change a life.

She shares about mental health treatment and self-advocacy. Natasha breaks down what hypomania can feel like, why sleep is a non-negotiable, how “medication roulette” works in real life, and why symptoms can overlap with ADHD and autism. She also shares what shifted when she finally told the truth publicly, and how her books connect to reclaiming happiness and using imposter syndrome as a signal for growth.

Subscribe for more honest conversations about mental health, trauma recovery, and living well with a diagnosis, and if this resonated, share it with someone who needs it and leave a review. What’s one “clue” about your mental health you understand differently now?

Transcript

Shame, Survival, And Self-Discovery

SPEAKER_00 0:00

For years I lived in shame. I was embarrassed. I was diagnosed with was survivor's guilt. Life is good, but how can it be great? Life is great. Okay, how can it even be better? And I wanted to inspire. I've always wanted to inspire people. So it means I wasn't not eating to be thin. I was not eating because I was, you know, paranoid that I would be poisoned.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

What do you say to people who kind of maybe feel today that they may be a bit lost and they can't even hear their own voice and know what they're truly, truly deeply passionate about?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Go out and explore. There's so many things that you can do besides only being on social media.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

How were you or how did you begin to start to unravel it and treat it and work through it?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

You have to be your own self-advocate. I'm just grateful that I lived long enough to be able to get those diagnoses and really be in charge of my own recovery.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Natasha, welcome to Multispectrum. I'm so excited to have you on air with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this.

Island Childhood And Learning Ownership

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Why don't we begin from the very beginning, Natasha? Why don't you just tell us a little bit about your childhood and what was it like growing up?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

So I was born and raised on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands. So a tiny teeny island in the Caribbean. And, you know, I had what I would call at the time a very traditional, I guess, childhood, you know, two parents. Um, my siblings lived with me, very calm. I I mean, I guess what would make my childhood different is that very early on, my parents allowed my sister, my older sister and I, to open up our own store. My mom already had a boutique, and so I think I was 12 at the time, and my sister was 15. We opened up our own storefront and it was a tourist shop, and we, you know, we sold items to the tourists that would come to the area. So that was kind of a unique experience for me as a child. I would say, you know, at the time I felt I was very, very common, very typical. I knew I had some different things, maybe weird, even if you would call them, but they were me. In hindsight, I see how I was just, I was a different child. My my focus, my drive, my ambitions, my interests, sometimes even my hyperfixations, they were all different, but they all shaped me and made me who I am today.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

I love that your mom kind of really encouraged you guys to start sort of like working at such a young age and like, you know, developing a concept of like savings and money and having that sort of like business drive. Would you say that's kind of like um what shaped you as well in a way to sort of be so ambitious and career-driven today? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Absolutely. You know, I share that my first experience with work. I'm doing everything. I'm cleaning, stocking, selling, ordering, doing everything that, you know, an owner would do. And then a few years later, you know, my parents allowed us to open up our store because uh the store was actually, my mom's store was actually named for my sister that's right after me. So the third girl. And we're like, you know, why wouldn't you name it after one of us? And so they allowed us to open up a store with our names, which, you know, was was hilarious. My older sister, Stacey, I'm Natasha. We named it Stanasha's. Oh just, I can't even believe we did that. But it was, you know, it was teaching us from a very early age the, you know, the the culture of ownership. And that it doesn't matter if you are the cashier or you full clothes or you sweep the floors, everyone is required to ensure that this this business, this operation functions and is successful. And so we were doing everything from a very early age. And that's kind of how I entered the workforce. That's how I approach life. I don't just have one role, one job. I'm there to make it better. And that's just that's just been me.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

How were you navigating like school life and all of the other aspects of like growing up at the time while doing this as well?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

I think it was easy. You know, I go to school and right after school, I would go to, you know, our store and relieve the employee that was there, and then I'd work until closing time, six, seven. You know, I'm doing my homework at the store, or I get home and do my homework then. Uh, we kept it open for a few years, and then I think by age 14, so uh maybe two, three years later, we closed it because I was doing more in the community. I started, you know, working in TV. So I was hosting a teen talk show, modeling, acting, speaking, doing a lot of things in on the island. And it was, it was all fun for me. And that's why I encourage, you know, children today, go out and explore. There's so many things that you can do besides only being on social media. I had so many experiences by the time I graduated from high school that it really not only prepared me for college, but prepared me for life. You know, today's kids, I notice, they're sometimes shy with speaking face to face. You've got confidence with texting and with, you know, social media and email, but are you confident enough to speak to an adult, to ask for what you want, to advocate for your own needs? And those were things that I was doing from age nine, you know, negotiating and communicating with adults. So it really, it really laid a foundation for my success as an adult.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Do you think that a part of it was also like you were able to enjoy it because it was sort of given to you as an opportunity or presented to you as like a fun opportunity to like learn and grow, as opposed to it being sort of like this is your livelihood, like our lives, our families, life depends on this. Because you were doing it to explore yourself, to build your personality, to build, you know, your skills, your skill sets. Um, and so yeah, the whole the whole way that you viewed it growing up was like, oh, this is a fun activity, you know, was very encouraged.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Absolutely. This wasn't a chore, it wasn't work, it wasn't an obligation. It was something that I was uh involved in from the inception, from the name to picking the location, what items we were gonna sell, what would be displayed in the windows, what music played as people shopped, what was selling, what wasn't selling, making deposits, hiring and firing. These are all things that I was doing before age 14. And so it was fun for me, it was exciting. And yeah, did I, you know, miss out on Saturday morning cartoons? Yeah, but at the same time, I was learning something that's proven to be invaluable for me and and it was fun.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Would you say that that um sort of attitude of positivity and excitement towards all of this is something that you carry forward with you today as well, in just your general view on life? 100%.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

I, you know, I always say that I don't know how to do something I don't like for a long period of time. I'm like, why would you want to do something that you're not interested in? From a very early age, everything that got my attention, everywhere that I placed my focus and my time was something I was genuinely interested in. You know, whether it was being on TV, working in my parents' store or in our store, writing for the newspaper, um, where I volunteered, even some of the other jobs that I had as a teenager. They were all things that I was interested in, and I carried that into adulthood. So the work that I've done, the jobs that I've had, where I've volunteered, what boards I've served on, it's always been aligned with my interests, with my passions. And I find that there's greater joy and there's greater fulfillment in doing things that I am naturally drawn to, as opposed to forcing myself to fit or forcing myself to like and enjoy something that everything inside of me is screaming, you know, leave, run away, go away. So passion and that alignment is is huge for me.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

What do you say to people who kind of maybe feel today that they may be a bit lost and they can't even hear their own voice and know what they're truly, truly deeply

Finding Your Voice Beyond Noise

SPEAKER_01 8:05

passionate about? Um listening to this episode today about I think you just said it.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

There are there are a lot of people, and I see it even in in my work and with with my clients, that they can't hear their own voice. And my next question is always why? What what's noisy? What's creating the noise? And sometimes being able to hear your own voice requires you to separate from the noise. And that noise may be people in your immediate area, family, friends. It may mean, you know, taking the social media apps off your phone and just, you know, looking at them on your desktop. It may mean turning off the television. Whatever is the noise that you're hearing that's drowning out your own voice that allows you to be clear on your compass and clear on the direction that your life should be moving in. Silence the noise. You know, I think for me, one thing that has been a theme throughout my life is self-awareness. I'm very self-aware. I spend a lot of time with myself, even as a child. I spent a lot of time with myself. I think a lot, and I am always reflecting on me. Well, why did I respond that way? Why did I think that? Why was that my first thought? Why was that my first response? Why did I feel nervous? That made me happy. How do I get it? I'm always thinking about my life because yeah, life is good, but how can it be great? Life is great. Okay, how can it even be better? And it's not about being, you know, in a place of discontent. It is wanting to ensure that I'm always aligned with me, with my inner compass, with my North Star, that I'm doing things that genuinely fuel me and make me happy. Because if we're not listening to ourselves, if we're not motivated and driven by what we desire, it is so easy for another voice to come in. You know, we are between social media and all of the commercials that we see. There is something you spend one hour watching TV or scrolling on social media, and there will be a message to tell you why something is wrong with every part of you from hand to toe. What conditioner and shampoo you should use, what clothing you should use, why you need to lose weight and get on this weight loss medicine. Those have just increased so much here in America. You know, who should be your friends? Why aren't you traveling more? This should be your work. Well, all of those things are gonna be true for someone, but are they all true for you? And and, you know, being swayed, being influence in this world of influencers, you know, sometimes we have to pause and step back and say, you know what? How do how am I influencing me? What is it that I want?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

I love it. I feel like these are very essential questions that we should be asking ourselves. And I feel like this has sort of been a point of like action or actionable uh point that has been raised many different times. But journaling is so massive because it's the one thing that is not taking in the voices and the noises of other people from social media, from TV. It's literally just you and a blank piece of paper. And you can literally start if you have no thoughts in your head, you can simply start by writing, I have no thoughts in my head right now. Doop to doop, you know, and allow whatever it is that comes through your head to flow on that paper. And sooner or later, these kind of questions will start to arise. These kind of that flow will start to pick up. It can be picking up a coloring book and just, you know, coloring and letting that sort of mind just wander in its natural kind of state, and it is where sort of like your inner voice starts to kind of speak out to you a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

So I love journaling. I've been doing it for seemingly forever since I was a child. I've got stacks of journals that I feel that I and I love seeing my own evolution. So, you know, I go back to high school and I'm writing things of, you know, what I'm wearing today and who said hi to me, you know, those kind of childish things. And over time I see how I'm able to look at how I have, through journaling, walked myself through problem solving, how my perspective has shifted, where my growth is in different areas of my life. I'm a huge proponent of journaling. And just like you said, I tell people, you know, if you have nothing to write, just keep writing. I have nothing to write until something pops into your head. And pretty soon, after you write it four or five times, you'll have something to write. You know, I think we're in this day of wanting to do everything correctly and everything in the right way. Journaling is like meditation. What works for you? You know, the journaling that might work for me may not work for you. The meditation that works for me may not work for you. Do what works for you and keep tweaking it and changing it until you find, you know, your right rhythm and groove. And yeah, there's so much when it comes to self-care and self-love and the healing journey and all of those buzzwords that we hear about. It's not cookie cutter. You've got to do what is gonna work for you.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

I know I know you mentioned that you were a little bit different growing up, um, and your in your actions and your thinking. Can you just elaborate a little bit more on that and what did that look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Absolutely. I knew from a very early age things that you know I was interested in. I was interested in modeling, in acting, I wanted to be on television. And I also recognized that the way that other kids studied didn't work for me. So one of the things that I did with with studying, I would line up my stuffed animals on my bed and I would teach my stuffed animals. I would teach them my homework, I would teach them, you know, whatever I had to read that day, and that's how I retained the information. I wanted to be on television and I taught myself how to look at a camera and how to read from a teleprompter. And it wasn't because I had a teleprompter at home, I would watch, it was Peter Jennings on ABC Nightly News way back then. I would record his broadcast. And growing up in the Virgin Islands, I had a stronger accent, and I would train myself, I would repeat everything that he said so that when I had my big moment on television, I would be able to speak in a neutral accent and I'd be able to broadcast the news. And so I would put a dot on my wall and pretend that that was my camera, and I would just stare at that dot and just speak. I practiced speaking without any ums and ahs, and you know, I would have a question and I would answer it. So I trained myself to be that. And I was doing this from age nine, not typically what someone at age nine might be doing, but I was I was doing it. I was practicing poses in the mirror, walking in my mom's high heels because again, I wanted to model. I would create my own plays and do them in in talent shows. And I was very clear that I wanted to do things that were fun for me. Did I try golf? Yes, didn't enjoy it. Did I try piano? Yes, didn't enjoy it. But what I loved was communications, writing, being on television. I loved those things. And so from a very early age, I just knew that I needed to be ready for whenever that opportunity came. And I was doing this from age nine, and by age 14, I was hosting a teen talk show.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

This is a very, very specific kind of field to want to get into. What sort of inspired you to want that? Was it just watching TV that inspired you, seeing some celebrities that great question.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

I I'm not sure what it was. I knew I loved writing, and I don't know if that came from how much I journaled. I don't know if I if that came from an English class and it just sparked my attention. I knew I had a vivid imagination, but I was always drawn to television. You know, back then it was Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters, you know, Peter Jennings, of course, they were on the news. I also wanted to do public speaking. You know, Les Brown is someone who I admire, and I've read his book several times. I have, you know, one of his books from my childhood. It's tattered and a little bit raggedy, but I still have it. And I wanted to inspire. I've always wanted to inspire people. Maybe some of my desire to do that came from what I felt were my own adversities and hurdles that I had to overcome as a child. But woven through everything that I wanted to do, I wanted to inspire people. I wanted to give people hope. I wanted them to feel better. And and also I knew that I was different slash weird. I did I write backwards and I started writing backwards in first grade. And it it happened from I would write with both hands. I was ambidextrous, and I had a nun in my school tell me that I needed to pick one hand or I would mess up my brain. So in my five-year-old defiant mind, I'm like, fine, I'll write with my right hand, but I'll write backwards and forwards. So I write as well, I mean, forward, backwards. It's it's pretty much the same. My journals are mostly written backwards. And even when as a child, when I would be teaching my stuffed animals, my dad allowed me to write with chalk on my bedroom walls. And I would write backwards. And it is just, it's different. It is, I don't know if it came from just me being defiant and I'm absolutely going to be my own person. I don't know if that's some of my inner Aries that I didn't want to be told what to do. But I always had that fire and passion as a child that I'm going to chart my own course. And if you tell me no, I will show you why it is a yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

What would you say, like your teachers and your friends back then would describe you as?

SPEAKER_00 17:35

My teachers would say that I was um quiet. I was a great student. I'm the one that's sitting in the front row of the class. You know, I'm I'm helpful. I'm probably hard on myself. And in very particular, I wanted perfect scores. And there was one semester where I achieved a perfect score, 100% on every test, every assignment, every exam. And so I had 100 across the boards in biology of all things. But I was very hard on myself, or I had standards for myself in terms of my grades, and I was studying. So I wanted to see the results of my efforts with studying. So I think my teachers would say that, you know, great student, uh nice girl, a little too hard on herself, a little bit of a perfectionist. I was sick a lot as a child. I had asthma and it was late diagnosed. So I was sick a lot. I remember not feeling well a lot of the time. And I mean, I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to be around anyone. I just wanted to come to school, do what I had to do, and and go home. I did have some friends. I did hang out with people, but I was so focused on school and being number one and being the best and and learning. I really enjoyed learning. So hanging out even into high school. I didn't do a lot of of hanging out. Not because I wasn't invited or there were weren't things to do. I just preferred my own world.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Natasha,

Early Depression, Belonging, And Trauma

SPEAKER_01 19:10

at what point did things turn around for you then? At what point did things, the adversity sort of really kick in for you?

SPEAKER_00 19:16

You know, I'm tempted to say, like, which ones? I think I've always dealt with with adversity at different stages in my life. You know, being sick and dealing with asthma as a child, definitely something that I had to hurdle. I feel that even in high school, that I was different. I had friends, I knew people, people knew me, but it was a different experience because I was also that girl on TV. I'm the girl that's hosting, you know, the teen talk show that's aired territory-wide. And so my friends tended to be people who were also in that same space, who were also, you know, on the cast of the the talk show. I was different because I also had a business. I had a business that I was running. I and then I was sick. And I'm in school and wanting to be the best. So it didn't make for a very easy experience. I definitely felt that there were people who did not like me. And, you know, that's hard when you want to have friends as a high school student. Going into college, I felt, you know, different even more. Going from a small island to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, first, it's like warm island to cold city. It's dark, it's gray, it's different. You know, in in high school, I was one of the top in in my class. And then going to Pittsburgh and to my school, Duquesne University, it's like, okay, it's like 10,000 number ones, 10,000 top students here. So that was an adjustment. Weather was an adjustment, different cultures were an adjustment, not even for me. It was really other people and how they received me coming from an island. That was an adjustment, but I found my space. I think where the adversity kicked up in a different way was likely my sophomore year of college. And that's when I was feeling or experiencing more mental health symptoms. I was noticing it more. And in hindsight, the clues were there. You know, from grade school to high school, the signs were there. I think it just caught up with me in my sophomore year of college.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Oftentimes it's one of those things where it's really funny because like as kids, things happen to us, but we live so in the present moment. We're just so absorbed in like the minute by minute minute, moment by moment situations that are happening. You can get scolded at one minute, and then the next minute you're running around the playground laughing with no awareness of how deeply etched the words, you know, at that scolding may have touched your soul and has just laid itself resting. In you for it to only erupt later on in your life. And the next thing you realize, you're a full-grown adult and you're like, why am I dealing with like feelings of abandonment? Only then to realize it really steps back all the way back. And then it's all about undoing all of those kind of narratives that we've held in our heads from something that may have been really unnoticeable in the in the very moment. What were the what were the signs? Maybe we can start off by saying, what were the things when you look back on that you recognize now that kind of connect with uh what came to you later on?

SPEAKER_00 22:31

The first thing that comes to to mind that is still with me today is the the thought that I'm not liked, that people really don't like you, people really don't like you. And it's something that I have to work through and overcome more often than I care to. But that that came from my childhood, and it was really from how people treated me, but also from how I saw myself. I was sick a lot, and so I felt that people, you know, didn't want to deal with me. I had allergies and eczema as a child, and so I wore, you know, long sleeves and long skirt and you know high socks because I didn't want people to see see my skin, got teased for that as well. So every name lizard girl, alligator skin, you know, raisin brand, I got teased for that. And there were people who also didn't understand my drive and my ambition when it came to school. So I was the nerd. I was the, you know, the weird one. Then there were people who didn't like that, you know, oh, she thinks that she's better than everyone else because she has a store, she has a business. Then I was on TV. And so I had different stages of my life where I just wasn't liked at all. And that carried, that stayed with me through adulthood where it's not even that I am wanting to be liked. I think I've dealt with a lot of that in therapy, but it is sometimes I enter spaces with the expectation that, all right, yeah, somebody, you know, won't like me, me here. And even after, you know, grade school, it's going to high school, it was me being sometimes the only woman or the youngest or the thinnest. I was a model for several years, professional model and acting. So then it's like, oh, okay, she thinks she's prettier than everyone else. So there's always been spaces and pockets throughout my life where I'm like, I'm not liked or I'm not going to be like, and I am still working on ensuring that I enter spaces, not with that as a forefront, but hopeful that this is going to be a supportive space. I dealt with depression, you know, from an early age. And when I trace it back, is there any one thing that contributed to depression as a child? No. But yet, fast forward, and I'm finding poems that I wrote when I was nine and twelve and fifteen about suicide and wanting to jump off of buildings. And it was so shocking to me as an adult to see this in my journal. Like, whoa, okay. So you were dealing with this all along. And fast forward to adulthood, I still, I still see it woven, woven in there.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

And you know, as a child as well, it's one of those things where, let alone there be a diagnosis, people generally tend to struggle with the concept that a young child can experience depression at such a young age. It's like, what do you mean? You know, it's not depression. You're just feeling a little bit sad. Like go to bed or have a chocolate, you'll be fine. So oftentimes, like real mental health diagnoses are not being given to a little child. Because often we we always associate it with like an environmental situation, right? Like if their environment is good, then what's there to what's there to be? Um, but maybe we sometimes fail to understand that carry traumas of our ancestors. We carry traumas, wound like mother wound traumas. You know, there's there's so many things. It can be genetic, there's so many reasons for why even a child can experience depression, and it can be just as serious as that of an adult. But it's only really when we hit adulthood that we start to kind of pay more attention to it and and seek the necessary, you know, diagnoses to have treatments necessary.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Um, did you ever tell your parents or did your parents ever have any hints or ideas that never never shared, you know 20, 30, 40 years ago, we weren't talking globally about mental health in the ways that we do now. And so there wasn't even language for how I was feeling. Yeah, there were days that I was sad if I was sick. There are days that I was sad if, you know, I didn't pass a test. But uh, you know, beyond just the situational things that happened in my life, there's really no reason for me to be as sad and as depressed as I was. And and I get it. I know sometimes, especially in America, you know, clinicians delay with wanting to diagnose a child with anything. I understand why they would do that. And I also believe that there is an opportunity to pay attention to the child a little bit more, to see what else is going on. And I and I find so often that it's almost like adults forget what it was like to be a child. They forget all of what they noticed as a child. So how is it that you can go through a divorce and you can be sad, but you just think your child is fine? Why isn't your child receiving therapy or some counseling or some coaching to help them navigate this time? You know, children, again here in America, will deal with, you know, um uh school shooting. They'll see something on the news, or they will, you know, have a lose a friend, you know, whether it is to suicide, to illness, to whatever, their best friend moves away. And they're not talking to their children about it. They just go on, like, okay, well, you know, it's just another Tuesday. No, it's not. Those are significant experiences that are now in that child's memory. You know, um, if it's a trauma, it's in their body. And when you couple that with the epigenetics, with all of the ancestral experiences, there's a lot that's going on for that child, and they don't have life experience or the context to even begin to articulate what they're feeling.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

And the other aspect as well is like the idea, the concept of autonomy, right? Because a little child is on a schedule, they have parents that are dictating the terms of their day-to-day life and business. Plus, just like what you said, they don't have the words to articulate what they're really experiencing. Right. Um, oftentimes, you know, again, like trauma or pain, emotions, sadness, it's very much a very physical kind of thing on a child's body. So if a if you notice that your child is experiencing uh regular stomach pains or regular certain kinds of uh conditions, usually that's something a lot deeper. There is some depth to it, there's some emotional depth to it as well. Um, but we don't pay attention to that. We just kind of think that the child is complaining about a physical kind of symptom. And really, it's when we tap into adulthood, we have more autonomy to decide what to do with our lives. And only then can it like manifest in a way that people take it a little bit more seriously, but we fail to understand that children are very intuitive, they're extremely intuitive.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

And I share this with parents all the time. You know, I've had parents tell me that, you know, oh my gosh, he always has a stomachache before school. Okay. Is that physical or is that emotional and mental? Because you should be curious about that.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

You know, if you're you don't have to fight with your child to go to the grocery store, the store, or the park, or anything, why are they having such an adverse reaction to going to school? Is there something happening at school? Or do they need to be checked by a doctor for those symptoms? And, you know, so many times parents are like, no, she's going to school, and you know, that's what it is, and you know, they just force them. Okay, but what else is going on? I had a parent whose child, you know, was definitely potty trained, you know, and all of a sudden started, you know, bedwitting. Like that's not something that naturally occurs for a nine-year-old. What is going on? Why all of a sudden is this happening? And so I encourage parents to get curious. Like your child is not just being annoying, they're not trying to get on your nerves. Everything that a child does is information. Whether they say please and thank you, or they start bedwetting, or they start, you know, cursing, or they're being a bully. There's it's all information, and it is the the adult's responsibility to use that information accordingly.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

You mentioned that you noticed the depression kind of really manifest for you a little bit later. And you you say that looking back, you know, you know that it was kind of always there along. Um, was it depression that you were diagnosed with or was it something else?

SPEAKER_00 30:39

So that's

9/11, Survivor Guilt, Diagnoses

SPEAKER_00 30:40

one of the things. The first thing that I was diagnosed with was survivor's guilt. I'm like, what is that? And that came from me being in New York for 9-11. And uh I was supposed to be at the World Trade Centers on that day. And uh shortly in the days after I started fainting all over New York City. I got everything checked, you know, head to toe. And then one of my doctors suggested me seeing a psychiatrist. And when I saw the psychiatrist, you know, she shared that I was dealing with survivors' guilt, and I wasn't really a diagnosis, but it was the anxiety and the panic that I was experiencing that was causing me to faint. That led to a full diagnosis of bipolar disorder and uh, you know, bouncing between mania and depression, hypomania and depression, panic disorder, major depressive disorder. Um, I also was diagnosed with PTSD because of the World Trade Centers and also because of the hurricanes that I experienced in the Virgin Islands and EDNOS, which is an eating disorder not otherwise specified. So it means I wasn't not eating to be thin. Uh, I was not eating because I was, you know, paranoid that I would be poisoned. So all of those diagnoses came about in my early 20s, and uh it was a lot. It was bittersweet. It was sweet because I finally had a name, a term for what I had been experiencing, what was so painful emotionally and mentally, too painful for me to articulate, but someone had heard of it. So this is great. All right, wonderful. Now, how do I treat this thing? But then it was also bitter because what does this mean for me? What does this mean for my goals and life? And will people judge me? I was already feeling ostracized, you know, and different. How does this make me more different? And so once I got those diagnoses, it was almost like my life was flashing before my eyes. I was looking at everything, replaying different moments in my life and realizing, oh, that was actually depression. That was actually, you know, panic. That was actually a manic or hypomanic cycle. And I was like, oh, okay, I get it now. And I'm just grateful that I lived long enough to be able to get those diagnoses and really be in charge of my own recovery.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

How were you or how did you begin to start to unravel it and treat it and work through it?

SPEAKER_00 33:04

I started with the bipolar disorder because I had no idea what that meant prior to, you know, when I was diagnosed, it used to be called manic depressive disorder. And I started there because I didn't know what it meant. So I had to research it, then I had to understand what it meant for me and how it manifested in my life. And at that time, I was when they call uh rapid cycling mixed states. So I was going between depression and mania several times a week, sometimes several times a day, which is absolutely exhausting. I was very symptomatic during that time. And I had to figure out what that meant for me. I started medication, you know, which many for many people is like a medication roulette because you try one thing, it's not working. So you've got to go up, you've got to go down, you've got to, you know, switch to something else, you've got to manage all of the side effects that come with starting a new medication. But I was so determined to get to a place of meaning to say calm or peace. I wanted to understand this diagnosis. I was eager to get back to my life, and I wanted to know how has this diagnosis impacted my life up until this point? And what could I do to ensure that it didn't impact me in the future? Now, the time between my diagnosis and when I finally publicly shared my diagnoses for 20 years, maybe, you know, uh, it was a very long time because I was I still had so much shame. Society still has so much stigma around mental health. And I I needed to be able to understand and articulate what it meant for me first before I could share that with the world.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

So do you feel like for you when you were in your mania stage that you were not recognizing it and more it kind of came to your awareness when you were in the depressive state? Or yeah?

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Yeah, it would definitely, I would know that I was in a manic or hypomanic state when I was heading toward depression or when I had that period of, I call it a five. So it's like, you know, if zero is, you know, depressed and suicidal and 10 is absolutely hypomanic, haven't slept for five days. When I was at that five, I'd be like, oh, okay, so I guess that was mania because mania, when it starts, it feels great. You're excited, you're happy, you are energized, you can take over the world. I am going to write three books this weekend. I'm going to walk to California and prove that it can be done. I'm going to do 52 podcasts in this month. You have all of this excitement and energy, it's the delusions of grandeur. And then as soon as it begins to fade, and you're like, okay, why was I writing three books at one time? No, I'll just focus on one. And then as it continues to slip, he's like, I don't want to write any book. This is dumb. Who's going to read this book? I'm just going to lay here for a while. And so that that emotional, mental, and sometimes even physical shift and swing could be so exhausting. But that's when I first got diagnosed. Now I'm aware of what sounds and what looks like mania. Like, okay, that was one night that you didn't sleep. If you don't sleep tonight, then we're shutting everything down so you can get some rest. Or, you know, when I have an idea of yes, I'm going to build a website in an hour. Like, okay, yeah, no, you're not. Let's uh let's do something else. And it's the same thing with depression. If I've got, you know, two days back to back where I'm not leaving the house, it's like, all right, okay, now we need to shift. We need to read something differently. We need to get you outside. Sometimes it's a medication

Managing Bipolar With Self-Advocacy

SPEAKER_00 36:55

shift. Sometimes it is, you know, making myself go out and hang out with friends. Sometimes it's paying attention to what just entered my ecosystem. Is it news that I received? Is it a full moon? Because three days before, three days after the full moon, moods can fluctuate. What's going on? So I'm very self-aware so that I'm the first person that knows that my mood has shifted and I'm not bringing that to anyone else.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

I interviewed a general, um, an army general who had bipolar for a long time. And he was he was kind of living in a state of mania for several years. It was years, and he got promoted and he had all this energy in the workplace until it started becoming hallucinations and delusions, and it got to a point where his whole life he was like going up, climbing up the ladder. He was seen as this really, really energetic and really positive person until at some point people were like, You need to calm down, you need to slow down. And there was no concept of that. And when the depression hit is when he knew that that something was wrong, and he decided to go and get himself checked out. So, you know, it was like it was it was that switch into depression as well that kind of made him realize that I'm I'm at a brink of really doing something very, very bad here. Um but he mentioned that he did have a lot of hallucinations and delusions. Was that something that you also experienced, like some hallutions, actual hallucinations?

SPEAKER_00 38:16

No, I have in in my life. It is, you know, my diagnosis is bipolar too. So that's on the hypomanic side. I don't get into the paranoia and delusions um typically associated with someone that has bipolar one. But I it I would say that mine are in a different form. So it's the stories that I made up in my mind, usually about people who don't like me, usually about why I don't I'm not liked and I don't belong, and you know, people are talking about me, and and none of that is is happening, or at least not to the degree that I I think. And the thing about mania and hypomania is that it feels good. It feels good when it started. So I understand that generals like I get so much done. And there are times in my life where I've said, you know, I I I want to be manic because then I can get this this you know house cleaned, you know, I can get caught up on some things. Just give me like two nights. But, you know, the the the the draw to hypomania is to be productive, but in that productivity, it's dangerous because you're not sleeping. And not sleeping is like, you know, the kryptonite. It's what can really send you into a hallucination or paranoia cycle, or even to the opposite with depression. So it's it's it's something that you have to balance. It can look differently from person to person. But I am, you know, I'm I'm on it and I'm studying me and always researching to understand how to to better live with it.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

Yeah, that's that's amazing. Um yeah, because it's not easy to kind of have to navigate something like this, not only with trying to with getting a diagnosis and trying different kinds of medication, knowing some of it may work, some of it might have worse symptoms and stuff, but to also kind of recognize that it is really tempting to go into that mania because of I know how powerful I can become, but I have to kind of stay on track and not let myself get go too far with this.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

You know, I knew when it with 9-11, I knew that it was there. I knew that it was something that I was dealing with, and it was um, you know, just thoughts. You know, it was the scent of New York at that time. Every year on 9-11, I'm off social media, I'm off the TV because I do not agree with showing those scenes over and over and over. It's like every year we rip the band-aid off and we watch it again. Like, why are we why are we doing this? So I stay away from that. With the hurricanes, it was when I moved to Tampa, Florida, that I realized how much I did not like thunder and lightning because Tampa is one of the lightning capitals, you know, of the nation or the world. And so there's a lot of lightning and thunder here. And when I moved to him, like, okay, well, no one told me about this, and I hated it. So I would go into my closet and hide. The EDNOS, I, you know, have I'm aware that I've had disordered eating, and it's not related to, you know, wanting to be thin or or skinny. It's at times I I just don't want to eat. I don't have an appetite. How it has presented for me, I've had times in my life where I did purge, and so I've torn my esophagus before from purging, and extremely painful, by the way, extremely painful. And when you're living with something like bipolar disorder, and you at times feel out of control, you want to control what you can. And one of the first things that you control can control is what you put in your mouth. And that's one of the things I did.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

It's uh it sounds like it's pretty intense, like that, the experiences that you were having. And it kind of I also kind of understood because I was about to ask you as well initially about how you were being diagnosed with it, um, or how do usually um like um psychiatrists would they diagnose you for something like this? Is it usually just a couple of sessions of therapy and discussion with you, hearing what your experiences were to be able to diagnose you, or are there actually any um chemical tests, medical tests that they do that they conduct to be able to diagnose this? Yeah, I'd be curious as to how they kind of came to this.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Yeah. And so my initial round of diagnoses uh was self-report. So I'm I'm the historian and it was meeting with the psychiatrist, sharing, you know, my life experiences, sharing a lot about the symptoms that I was having at the time, when they would show up. And then uh, you know, over those two sessions, coming up with a, well, they came up with a the diagnosis that really fit. And I've had many people ask me, like, well, Natasha, are you really bipolar? Are you really this? I'm like, listen, the medicine worked. The medicine worked for me at the time, you know, it made me less suicidal, less depressed. And so I'm okay with that. Fast forward, you know, I had uh two years ago, I had updated diagnoses because with new information, you know, we we explore. And the psychiatrist that I met with and and the psychologists after, they're like, you know, you may not be um bipolar type two. You're actually with the symptoms that you have are more bipolar type one. And that's like, interesting. Okay, so and what next? You're like, yeah, and there's also an ADHD component. And this is why it's so great to remain close to your doctors, your clinical team while doing your own research. Because bipolar disorder, there's some symptoms that overlap with ADHD, attention, deficit, hyperactive, hyperactive disorder. Some of those symptoms also overlap with autism. Bipolar disorder in it is major depressive. Disorder. And all of those things combined can lead to panic and anxiety. So symptoms overlap and mirror themselves. So really the treatment that I received in terms of medication was managing and lessening those symptoms. And yeah, you know, I have heard of some people doing some testing, you know, chemical testing, brain scans, things like that. For me, and in my experience, it is something where, you know, I self-reported, I shared what I was experiencing, and I'm very, you know, communicative with my team. So if I'm on a medicine and I'm like, okay, that is definitely too strong. I still feel like a zombie, then we we scale it back and I communicate with them because I want to be an active participant in my recovery, in my treatment. I want to feel better. And my goal when I work with people, when I advocate, when I have my clients, is you have to be your own self-advocate. You have to push and fight for what you want and what you need. This is mental health is something that changes over time. You know, during COVID, I saw an increase in symptoms. Why? Because the world was heavy. There's so much going on. People were experiencing so many things. So depending on what's going on in your life, you may need a little bit extra support. You may need to see your therapist once a week instead of once a month. You may need to go back on medicine. And it's okay because mental health is health.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

I love that you said that it's also ever-evolving because I think a lot of people fear being uh diagnosed because they fear that it's like a label they're gonna forever be attached to. But it doesn't necessarily have to be the case. It's you know, a lot of it is very manageable, um, and a lot of it can be changed and altered along the way as well, as you learn how to kind of like manage and live with it.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

You know, and I've been recommended to do autism, you know, testing, and that's probably something that I'll do in the future. The term newer divergent that came about in the last what five, ten years. When I look at the definition, when I hear people's stories, I'm like, yeah, I can definitely see how newer divergence was part of my my childhood. I could definitely see that. But what I I tell people are all of these things are just, you know, it's ingredients in the soup, ingredients in the jambalaya or the paella that makes you you. I am a middle child, I am an Aries, I'm a Caribbean girl. Throw in, I also was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but I'm also a speaker and an author and an advocate and an activist and so many other things. And so there isn't any one thing, and that's really what made me want to be public with sharing my story and my experiences. This doesn't define me. And if you allow it to define me in your eyes, that's on you. That's not my issue because there's so much more to me than just that. Does it affect my life in different ways? Yes, but if we're not ashamed to say, you know, oh, I live with lupus or fibromyalgia, why should I be ashamed to say that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder? It's I didn't ask for this, it's a health condition.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

Yeah. Did it ever define you though?

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And and for years, for years, I lived in shame. I was embarrassed. I was looking at it as as a flaw, you know, as a failing, as a character flaw. I thought that I could just read enough self-help books

Stigma, Going Public, And Hope

SPEAKER_00 47:30

and motivate myself out of depression. I can just will myself through these panic attacks. I can just, you know, compel myself with, you know, positive thinking. No, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. You know, that's like saying, telling someone, like, okay, I'm just going to will my blood sugar to be normal. Okay, let me know how that works. This is something, and and I tell people I have tried just about everything in my quest to get to a place where I can manage the fluctuations of my mood. Therapy, coaching, counseling, reading, TED talks, playing with puppies, buying myself flowers, tapping, cleansing my gut, changing my diet, meditation, sea baths, you know, going to the I've done everything. I have done, you know, research different religions. I have done it. It's not something that is that is a one size fits all or a quick fix. This is something that you have to learn you. You can line up 10 people with bipolar disorder. They'll all say that they experience depression and episodes of mania. But how it manifests in their life is going to be different. Someone is going to say, when I'm when I'm manic, I I gamble. Another one will say, when I'm manic, I I spent, you know, my mortgage on clothes. Another one will say, you know, I I quit my job. Something that I've done. And so it's it's it's different and it's something that needs compassion and empathy in the same way that we would give compassion and empathy to any other health challenge.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Do you feel like for you, when you were trying to control the situation, you know, when you mentioned that you um it defined you and you were seeking out all of these things and you were trying to will it to change, do you feel like that actually helped? Or do you feel like that the moment that you kind of let go of this need, need, need to change and you stop define letting it define you and letting it control you, that the change actually happened. So at what point did that kind of narrative change for you when you start to really love yourself with it?

SPEAKER_00 49:34

I'd say it was a journey between 2016 and the ended September 22nd, 2019. It was me, I was having a recurring dream, well, nightmare, that TMZ would put a camera and microphone in my face and say, Isn't it true you were diagnosed with bipolar disorder? And I'd wake up and I'd panic. I was so afraid of people finding out. You know, for years I lived with this quietly, silently to myself. And it was taking over my life. I realized that the pain of remaining in the shadows was worse than the pain of anyone finding out the diagnosis. And it's like, okay, I'm just gonna share.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

So once you started sharing this, what were the responses that you were getting and how did it get to you to where you are today?

SPEAKER_00 50:24

So I shared in a very big way. I participated in a show called This Is My Brave, and it's a nonprofit that seeks to end mental health stigma by through storytelling. And I opened the shows in Orlando, Florida, September 22nd, 2019. And I, in my six, seven-minute, you know, performance share, I told the world, I put it on YouTube, I shared it on my social media. I'm like, okay, this is me, it's out. And the response was phenomenal. It was, oh my gosh, you're so brave. Wow, thank you for sharing. Um, you know, I never knew. This is amazing. I deal with it too. So the response has been great, and it really fueled me to continue on this path of being a mental health educator and coach and speaker because I know that there are more people who are living in shame and living in silence and in fear. And it's not about everyone being public. You know, I this is my story. This is this is my journey. I'm not calling for everyone to post on their social media what they're dealing with. But it is for people to become a greater self-advocate and ask the questions of their doctor, ask for what they need, you know, reach out for support, knowing that there are other people who understand that they're not alone, that it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to try something new and different. Therapy is okay. Trying medicine is okay. What's going to get you leading a fulfilling life? Whatever that is, it's okay to do that. And that's what I want to do. I want to give people hope. I want to, I want people to know that it's that there's nothing wrong with you. You're not defective, you're not flawed, that it this is a health condition, just like anything else.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

Final question, please share with us your books.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

So, my first book, um, Provoking

Books, Imposter Syndrome, Closing

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Thoughts, Volume 1, that was a project I did because I was tired of saying that I'm about to write a book and never writing one. So, from my journals, I took 101 quotes from my journals and I put it in in a book. My next book, Jumpstart Your Happy, get closer to happiness now, is all about how I lost my happy. From 2019 to 2023, I lost 18 people. Um, and of course, that's during that COVID time too. So I lost 18 people. I went through two professional work splits. I had several friendship breakups, and I was also in the hospital with uh organ failure and sepsis. And it was a period of time where I lost my happy. I was angry, I was a megaholic, just negative all the time. And I wrote a book to detail how I was gonna get my happy back. And so that one came out in September of 2022, and my most recent book is Imposter Syndrome is your green light, why doubt is your superpower. And I wrote that one because I recognized that there are still areas of my life where I was self-selecting out of opportunities. And as I spoke with clients, I kept hearing it over and over imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome. I'm like, you're smart, you're brilliant, you're capable. What are you, what are you doubting yourself for? But it's something that we, we, many of us feel. And so I wrote a book after thinking about how it showed up in my life to show that self-doubt, when it shows up, that's really your opportunity to proceed. Because it only shows up right when you're on your growth edge, right when you're about to do something new, right when you're about to do something that you consider to be meaningful in high stakes. You're not getting nervous, and self-doubt isn't showing up when you are making a sandwich. It's only showing up when you're about to go for a promotion, write a book, launch a podcast, do something exciting. And so when it shows up, use it as a green light that that's your permission to proceed and go full force.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

I love that. That's so powerful. Otherwise, I was just about to ask you for like final messages, but I feel like that in itself is such a beautiful message. Um, thank you. Can they find your books on Amazon? Do you have it on your website? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:30

Yeah, they're on my website, natashapier.com. All of my books are on Amazon. And for my, let's see if I have it for this one, the imposter syndrome one. This one is, I did it on its printed book. It's on Kindle, and I also did an audio book for this. So it is on Audible. And uh heard that people love reading the book, but they also love hearing me read the book or hearing me say it. So the book is in my words, it's my voice, and yeah, they're all on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Amazing. Thank you so much, Tasha, for today, for sharing your journey, for the insight, and for everything, really.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe. You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description. I'd like to recognize our guests who are vulnerable and open to share their life experiences with us. Thank you for showing us we are human. Also, a thank you to our team who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

That's the fundamental.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

I'm Jenica, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to Multispector.