Recovery Warfare with General Gregg F. Martin [Part 2]

Picking up from Part 1, Gregg is now stuck in what he calls “two years of bipolar hell.” But when he is finally prescribed lithium, within a week his depression lifts. Coming out of depression, he still had work to do—repairing familial and professional relationships. 

Greg had also been angry with God for abandoning him and forcing him to live in misery. Lithium not only put Gregg’s depression at bay, but it also allowed him to repair his relationship with God. As treatment begins working, his faith gradually returned, becoming instrumental to his recovery strategy. 

Most inspiring is how Gregg transformed his diagnosis into purpose. After losing his military identity, he discovered a new mission in mental health advocacy – work he now considers more important than his distinguished military career. His recovery philosophy centers on medication management, therapy, healthy lifestyle choices, and maintaining an "attitude of gratitude" even during difficult periods. And Gregg makes a stunning admission: if given the choice between never having bipolar disorder or his current life as an advocate, he would choose the latter.
 
 Share an episode of Bipolar She during Suicide Prevention Month to help normalize these crucial conversations about mental health. Together, we can reduce stigma and potentially save lives.

Transcript

Lithium's Life-Changing Effect

Speaker 1 0:00

We are supported by the Soar with Tapping app. Tapping is a powerful science-backed tool that calms your nervous system. I've been using Soar with Tapping nightly for insomnia and I am sleeping well. Visit the Soar with Tapping app at Apple and Google Play stores to start your journey towards freedom right from your phone. Welcome to Bipolar she. I'm your host, janine Noel. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, a reminder that suicide can be prevented and we all need to pay attention to the mental health of friends, family and community members. In part one of General Gregg's episode, we left off at his description of suicidal ideation. In today's episode, we learn about the aftermath of being fired by the US Army, how Gregg's mania burned bridges with colleagues and how his family made it through. And ultimately, we learn how Greg was able to shift his mindset for recovery, reconnect with his faith and discover his purpose. But it was not easy. And now on with the show.

Speaker 2 1:18

And he said I'm really worried about you becoming actively suicidal. And so I said okay, because I wanted to get better, and so I went in and spent a good bit of time in the psych ward in the hospital.

Speaker 1 1:31

Was that when they put you on lithium?

Speaker 2 1:33

It didn't happen for about six more months after I got out of the hospital, when the depression just didn't get better at all. Then they prescribed lithium and within a week of going on to lithium my depression vanished. It just went away. After two solid years of living in bipolar hell, the depression lifted, and that was just with lithium.

Speaker 1 1:58

Yeah, it was so interesting because for a while lithium was getting a bad rap and then it kind of came around. It's very helpful medication for me as well. So, during this time, your home with your wife, your kids, how is this impacting your family?

Family Impact and Warning Signs

Speaker 2 2:17

You know, my wife said when she met me when we were in our early twenties that one of the things she really liked was high energy, fun, spur of the moment, life of the party, all these creative, all these attributes that over time just gradually increased and increased until I went into full blown mania a couple decades later and she said, looking back, she feels like she was the frog in the proverbial pot of water. So she's in the pot of water, somebody puts a light on under it and the water gets hotter and hotter and hotter over years and years and then it finally it starts to boil and she realizes she's in a pot of boiling water and that boiling over was at the end. She's in a pot of boiling water and that boiling over was at the end, just before I got fired.

Speaker 1 3:06

Wow, it's kind of amazing how you're passing for normal for so long. My question is it's the trauma of war that is the catalyst here, but when you look back, do you see other things that impacted you that could have led to the bipolar?

Speaker 2 3:28

Well, my mother told me when I was young, in my 20s. She said you're very successful and you're doing great and we're proud of you, but you don't get enough sleep, you drink too much alcohol and you take your work way too seriously, said that's an unhealthy combination, that's not going to be good for you and I'm worried about your health over the long term. And she was exactly right and I didn't take her advice. So, because of my energy levels, I never needed much sleep, I just didn't. But over a period of years, from my 20s onward, I started getting less and less sleep, fewer and fewer hours. So I went from, instead of a healthy level of eight hours a night, I was pretty much getting by on six, and then cut to five, to four, to three, and so for years and years I was going on two, three hours of sleep a night. And that's before I had the official onset of bipolar disorder.

Speaker 2 4:27

I am not and haven't been an alcoholic. I've looked hard at that to see am I an alcoholic? Do I have alcoholism? And based on everything I know and talking to doctors and so forth, I'm not. But I think drinking, you know, liberally not to extreme levels, but liberally, I think probably had a negative effect on me. And then I took my role as an army officer and an army leader, which is really life and death business. I mean you have the mission to deploy your soldiers to war to fight and win and come home safely. I think that pressure in internalizing it for all those years had an effect that probably pushed me closer and closer to triggering, to onset.

Speaker 1 5:21

I find with your story. It's interesting to me because it doesn't seem like you had a stockpile of shameful and embarrassing moments that weighed on you Personally. For me, there are so many moments where I've said things or behaved in a way that I just feel like I could never share it with the world, and it makes doing the podcast or writing a book be a little frightening, like what could I say about myself? What can I share? What would you know be really upsetting to listeners? We talked about this before, but you're able to put yourself as an outward-facing advocate for bipolar illness and, at the same time, you're able to be grateful for this illness very quickly and for you it seems it clicked pretty fast. I'd love to know your mindset and how you got okay with standing up, giving your story and fighting for better mental health cures and really going for it.

Mindset for Recovery and Advocacy

Speaker 2 6:28

Yeah, you know, I never thought of it until right now, but it may be something to do with my bipolar brain that my brain is able to do sort of mental gymnastics in a way that if I didn't live with bipolar disorder and have a bipolar brain, maybe I wouldn't be able to do it. But I would say I've always had a very objective, pretty rational approach to things with my own thinking. One of the strengths I had as an army officer was and a lot of things go poorly and they don't go well. It's not all success, but I was always able to take the bad with the good. So when things are going well, that's great, I mean it's good, you kind of ride that wave and everything's you know, happy and positive. But when things go poorly and you get, you know, criticized or beat up or you fail you, I was always able to say you know what, like even when I had really hard mean negative bosses, I would always be able to listen to them and say you know what. They're right, they want the same thing I want. They want a unit and soldiers that are well-trained, well-prepared to fight in order to keep them alive and win the battle. And so they are ripping into me and telling me how bad I am and how stupid I am and what a lousy job I'm doing. But they're not doing it because they have anything against me. It's because this is their personality and their leadership style. So I am going to essentially discard all the smoke and the flame and the anger and the meanness and I'm going to distill out the gold nuggets and the gems and take those and apply them and make myself, my unit, the soldiers, better and better. So I mean I've always had this ability to sort of sift through kind of the chaos and the bad and distill it and get the good.

Speaker 2 8:29

And then a big part of that is my religious faith background, having this idea of an attitude of gratitude. So I mean my favorite verse from the Bible is be joyful, always pray continuously, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you. And so I am able, in the worst of situations, to say thank you, thank you for my blessings, thank you for this, even if it's a terrible thing that happened, thank you. Out of this terrible thing, good things are going to happen. So I mean those have always been sort of my hallmarks and strengths of personality, in fact, our slogan when my brigade, when we were in combat in Iraq, was attitude of gratitude in all circumstances. So everybody, and then the troops, transformed that into embrace the suck, you know, as only the troops can do. They said attitude of gratitude. That's great. Let's embrace the suck, embrace the pain and do something positive with it.

Faith Lost and Found

Speaker 2 9:35

I mean, it was not happy to get fired, of course. When I got fired I was in extreme mania and I actually, right there in my boss's office, thanked him and gave him a big hug and said thank you because God put me here to do a great job, important things. Thank you because God put me here to do a great job, important things. Now he's going to put me somewhere else to do more important things, which is actually true that because what I'm doing now is more important than what I did in the army, with the whole mental health advocacy. But then it didn't stay good, it didn't stay happy, it didn't stay grateful.

Speaker 2 10:06

I essentially spiraled into terrible crippling depression where I was completely miserable and wanted to die and thought I was worthless and all that. But I will say, when I got diagnosed, which was about four months after I got fired, right there, I did say thank you, doctor. I appreciate this because I knew during this terrible depression there was something wrong. I didn't think there was anything wrong when I was in mania. When I was in mania I thought everything was fantastic, but in depression I knew there was something wrong. Now you've given me a diagnosis, you know a face with a name on it that I can do battle with and I can go to work against and go to war with.

Speaker 2 10:53

And so right then and there I said you know, there's all this stigma about mental health. People already were sort of stigmatizing against me because I had been fired. That was an embarrassment that I was a two-star general to get fired, not good. My behaviors and my decision making and impulsivity and recklessness in the way that I was making decisions and everything had been pretty bad. It actually traumatized a lot of the people I worked with. So many of them wouldn't talk to me. To this day they don't talk to me, won't return a call, won't return an email and they've basically shut me totally out.

Speaker 2 11:32

And so I definitely understand and know and feel the whole stigma thing. But I said you know, this makes no sense. Like right away I said you know if I had a heart disease or cancer or diabetes would I feel like really bad and ashamed of myself or embarrassed because I have this disease and I learned enough, quick enough that you know bipolar disorder is an illness of the brain, which is a physical organ, and so I said you know I'm, I'm not gonna be ashamed or embarrassed by any of this. And so I didn't have any qualms about telling people that I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I mean I any qualms about telling people that I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder? I mean I told my family, told everybody that I worked with, I told friends.

Speaker 2 12:15

I pretty much was an open book about it. I personally apologized to people. I put a kind of a blanket regrets in the book that if I offended you or hurt you or did anything that made you feel bad or harmed you in any way, you know I deeply regret it. So what more can I do? I mean that's, that's it. I did what I can do and I'm not going to hide and cower and be ashamed and you know, live my life in a cave. I'm just going to. You know I've made other mistakes aside from bipolar disorder and my thing is get up, dust yourself off and move forward.

Speaker 1 12:56

We all need to do that. I have one question, because the religiosity thread of your story is very interesting to me how we can have delusions and religion can be a complication if you have bipolar disorder. But it's obvious that you've stayed with your Christian faith and I'm curious when you had depressions, was there ever a time where you lost faith in God?

Speaker 2 13:24

No, yes for sure. When I was in bipolar hell for two years, I just felt completely worthless. All I wanted to do was die. I had no energy, no interest, didn't want to be around people, etc. On religious overdrive to, I was really angry at God, very mad at God. You know God, why did you inflict this on me? Why did you abandon me? You know you've really done me wrong. So, yeah, I was very upset, and one of the things like retiring as a senior military leader you know the expectation is is that you'll get, you know, some kind of a quote, high-speed job in the corporate world or the government sector.

Speaker 2 14:14

I had lots of people who, most of them, didn't know that I had been fired or come down with bipolar disorder, who were essentially pursuing me to work, and so, for the most part, I could hardly respond to an email or a phone call or I just was, you know, physically incapable of it. My mind wasn't working, and so I actually did get it together enough to do a few interviews, and they were absolute disasters. I mean I couldn't keep a train of thought, I couldn't answer simple questions. I mean I was unfocused, incoherent, and after that happened I just said, man, god, you've really abandoned me. So yeah, and then I went long periods where I didn't go to church, didn't do any religious events at all, and instead of praying I just complained and was mad at God.

Speaker 1 15:14

When did you find God again? How did that process go?

Finding Purpose in Mental Health Mission

Speaker 2 15:19

So the process when I was in very, very bad depression for about two years depression for about two years when I went to the VA hospital and was an inpatient, my morale went up. I actually felt pretty good. I was pretty happy because I wanted to get better. I didn't want to live in this state. I didn't want to kill myself. I wanted to die, but I didn't want to do it myself. And when I went into the VA hospital and I had the attention and the focus of this very excellent team of medical professionals, it lifted my spirits and I said, thank you God, I'm finally getting the help I needed. I want to get better, help me, get better, help me, help me, help me. And there was a really good chaplain at the VA and so she and I really hit it off. I would talk to her and get counseling from her and prayer, and things started to go better and my faith was sort of rejuvenated. But when I left the hospital I sank back into depression again and I didn't come out of it until I started taking lithium.

Speaker 2 16:27

Once I started taking lithium, my energy came back, my interest came back, enthusiasm, zest for living activities. I started swimming and hiking and riding my bike and was upbeat and happy. And with that change of fortune then I was like, oh, thank you, god, this is wonderful, thanks for saving me, thanks for pulling me out of the depression, this is great. And then I started saying, okay, I need to come up with a strategy to recover. I can't leave this to chance, and that's part of that was my army training. Was you always have to have a strategy, a mission, a focus, a purpose, priorities? And I said, okay, I'm going to come up with a strategy. And the strategy had many different elements to it, but one of them was that I really wanted to strengthen my faith and get my faith back Not crazy religiosity, but good, strong, solid faith. And so I would say my religious enthusiasm and strength started to come back during those years.

Speaker 1 17:34

Yeah, it's amazing how depression can take away faith and how lithium can bring it back.

Speaker 2 17:42

Yeah, you're exactly right. One of the things in the Army, you always had a purpose, which is fight and win the nation's wars. And so, as I started my recovery, I didn't have a purpose, which is fight and win the nation's wars. And so, as I started my recovery, I didn't have a purpose. I mean, I knew I needed to rebuild my faith, I needed to rebuild my marriage and my family, I needed to start working out again and getting back in good shape, I needed to develop a new circle of friends, I needed to have a fun for my spirit. But I didn't have a focused purpose and I had to think a lot about that and talk to mentors and elders and smart people, and I read lots of books about retirement. And so one day it was I think it was One day it was I think it was around 2019, 2020, it just fell on my lap and I said your purpose is sitting right in front of you and it's sharing your bipolar story to help stop stigma, promote recovery and save lives, Because too many people are dying of you know these mental health diseases, bipolar disorder, etc.

Speaker 2 18:52

Dying of you know these mental health diseases, bipolar disorder, etc. Suddenly, I got this very clear sense of purpose and mission and now for I'd say the last at least five years, this has been my laser like focus of a mission is doing this, and so all of that together, I mean it really astounds me how much I'm into it. I mean it really brings me tremendous joy and satisfaction and fulfillment to have this mission, this sense of purpose, and I feel I'm really, really grateful. People have asked me. They said if you had a choice to have never gotten bipolar disorder, If you had a choice to have never gotten bipolar disorder and had the life you were on, or to have gotten it and be where you are now, which would you pick? I said I would pick having it and be where I am now, because I really believe it's the most important work I've ever done and I mean I'm helping way more people in this version of my life than I could have in anything else and so I'm grateful for the whole experience.

Speaker 1 19:56

I love hearing that and I can't recommend the book more. I don't think I'm there yet In terms of. I mean, I have the same mission. You know the advocacy to end the stigma and really ultimately, you know, find cures for these illnesses. But I'm not sure I can say I would go through it again to be where I am right now. I don't know if I'll ever get there, but I can still be grateful to be doing this work and grateful that it's a part of my life. Maybe I'll get to where you are someday.

Managing Recovery's Ongoing Journey

Speaker 2 20:35

You know. The other thing, though, is I mean this has not been a steady, smooth journey of recovery. I mean I've had lots of ups and downs. I've had rough patches that just go with the territory. I haven't had a full-blown relapse, but I have had return of manic symptoms not full-blown mania, thank God and I have had return of depressive symptoms not horrible crippling depression, but I have had return of symptoms which are fairly rough patches that are very disruptive on life, relationships and things like that. And then you know, changes in medication can be rough. You aren't easy. I'm in one right now. Change of doctors my doctor retired, so my VA doctor retired. I had the opportunity to go with a civilian and I said yes, because I've known this person and they have stellar reputation, they're super smart. So I'm going with a civilian provider, so away from the VA or the military.

Speaker 2 21:43

Changes in life situation so we're never out of the woods, and the big thing to me with managing bipolar disorder is to keep it under control. You know work the medication and the therapy, work with the professional team, live a healthy life with. You know sleep and diet and low stress and exercise, and all that. And then this idea of purpose, just putting that purpose front and center every single day, people being around, people who are energizing and fun and happy, who don't pull me down. I'm lucky I live in a place, you know, and this is a blessing.

Speaker 2 22:26

The sunshine and the brightness have really helped me with my brain. And then there's really no substitute for perseverance and mental toughness to just keep going and realizing that we're in a marathon, not a sprint, and that, you know, you got to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when you're having bad days and bad periods. And then this whole idea that I've gotten from therapy, of being able to think objectively about your own thinking, because a lot of times it's our own mind that plays tricks on us and can lead into paranoia and other delusional type of thinking. And so every day I think about those principles and I just try to keep a grip on myself. And then just overarching attitude of gratitude. You know, I'm just so fortunate to have my wife and, you know, a house and family that didn't abandon me during, you know, when they easily could have.

Speaker 1 23:18

Yeah, it's an inspiring story, definitely. I love that, just putting the purpose front and center every day and really going after that. So thank you for inspiring me today and thank you for your wisdom, and I'm excited to see you doing more and more out in the world.

Speaker 2 23:40

I mean you ask such great penetrating, piercing questions. I mean really remarkable. What you're doing is so important in the big scheme of things. So thank you.

Speaker 1 23:54

Thanks for listening. In honor of Suicide Prevention Month, please share an episode of Bipolar she. We need to get these stories out there and normalize the discussion on mental health. Please share an episode as we march forward for better mental health. And again, thanks for listening.