Recovery Diaries In Depth
Welcome to Recovery Diaries In Depth; a mental health podcast that creates a warm, empathic, and engaging space for discussions around mental health, empowerment, and change. Executive Director and podcast host Gabe Nathan brings a unique combination of lived experience with mental health challenges, years of independent mental health and suicide awareness advocacy, and an understanding of the inpatient psychiatric millieu as a former staff member at a psychiatric hospital. This extensive background helps him navigate complex and nuanced conversations with a diverse array of guests, all of whom are vulnerable and engaged; doing their utmost to eradicate mental health stigma through advocacy, storytelling, and open conversation.
Guests who have previously contributed a mental health personal essay read their essays aloud during the podcast and then chat with Gabe about what has changed in their lives since their essays were published on the site. By engaging in deep discussions with people living with mental health challenges like bipolar disorder, trauma histories, addiction issues, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive or eating disorders, Recovery Diaries in Depth further carries out Recovery Diaries' mission to #buststigma by showing people that they are not alone, instead of just telling them. This mental health podcast features guests from all over the world and, while their own personal experiences are unique, the human experience is what unites, inspires, and connects. Subscribe, like, share, and enjoy!
Recovery Diaries In Depth is supported in full by the van Ameringen Foundation.
Episodes
37 episodes
Anxiety, OCD, and a Brain That Tries to Protect: Kayla Ackelson | RDID; 213
Today, Kayla Ackelson lives, breathes, and thrives through independent expressive, mixed media artistry. But it wasn't always that way. For years, she struggled with incessant worries-- about everything, from swimming to sleepovers, movies, the...
From Wanting to Die to Yearning to Live; in Conversation with Levi Mericle | RDID; 212
From ages 13-19, Levi Mericle wanted to die, pretty much every day. There was reckless, impulsive behavior, suicide attempts, hospital stays, agonizing torment for Levi and assuredly endless nights of the most intense anxiety possible for his d...
A Black Woman's Experience with Mental Health; Jacquese Armstrong | RDID; 211
For decades, Jacquese Armstrong let others write her story. She was labeled, marginalized, medicated, and was essentially given a life sentence by physicians who spent no more time with her than you spend with the clerk at a 7-Eleven. She was t...
Excuse Her While She Obsesses; Unpacking OCD with Manndi Maphies | RDID; 210
Manndi Maphies lives with obsessive compulsive disorder. It was undoubtedly present in her childhood, where she exhibited behaviors that could be perhaps described as "quirky" but her OCD caught fire following a miscarriage, followed by a new p...
Refusing to Disappear: Life with Schizoaffective Disorder with Sarah An Myers | RDID; 209
“If I don’t communicate, I feel like I’m disappearing.” This is a bedrock principle that guides Sarah An Myers in her advocacy for schizoaffective disorder, her writing, an...
Bipolar, Books, Breakdown; in conversation with Erika Nichols-Frazer | RDID; 208
Erika Nichols-Frazer joins us today as our guest. She's an old friend of Recovery Diaries, having published three essays with us; Lies Mania Has Told Me,
Manning Up Means Getting Help with Suicidal Thoughts: Chris Russell | RDID; 207
Today, Chris Russell is a grounded, hopeful human being who helps others navigate suicidal ideation as a volunteer for the Suicide/Crisis Lifeline. He definitely still has his struggles...
From Hiding To Helping - Schizophrenia Advocate Rebecca Chamaa | RDID; 206
At a recent conference for health advocates from all across the country, our Executive Director and show host, Gabriel Nathan, was reunited with an extraordinary woman and schizophrenia advocate, Rebecca Chamaa. Years earlier, in around 2015, R...
Surviving Suicidality in a Wonderful World: Javier Ortega-Araiza | RDID; 205
Javier Ortega Ariza is a compassionate, sensitive writer who has published two essays with Recovery Diaries, including his moving and powerful essay “
Living & Thriving with Illogical and Irrational Anxiety: Nicci Attfield | RDID; 204
We are so lucky here at Recovery Diaries to have an international community of special, sparkly people coming to us to share their mental health recovery stories. Today's guest on the show is Nicci...
A Black Mental Health Advocate & Survivor Speaks: Jasmin Pierre | RDID; 203
Jasmin Pierre is the creator of The Safe Place, an award-winning app that offers free and affordable resources centering on Black mental health. Jasmin created The Safe Place for so many reasons-- because, when police respond to psychiatric eme...
Police Officer Trauma & PTSD: Officer James Jefferson | RDID; 202
Officer James Jefferson, an 18-year police service veteran and wellness coordinator in Canada, is done with the "blue wall of silence." He speaks openly, candidly, honestly, and earnestly about mental health issues in law enforcement, and the s...
From Squalor and Fear to Thriving and Helping; an Interview with Psychotherapist Sheri Heller | RDID; 201
Sheri Heller is many things. She is a psychotherapist, a coach, an interfaith minister, and a supremely talented writer. She is also a trauma survivor, having been raised in the chaos and pain of a home where her mother was suffering from chron...
Mental Health On The High Seas: A Conversation with Writer/Filmmaker Stephen O'Shea | RDID; 124
The most dangerous period for a veteran isn't during during enlistment, but that first year after leaving the military; and the danger almost exclusively comes from the self; a severely elevated risk for suicide. In fact, the suicide rate for n...
A Vibrant Voice with DID Explores Trauma through Writing | RDID; 123
Elizabeth Ann Devine is a non-binary author living with ADHD, PTSD, OCD, and dissociative identity disorder. They have been twice published on Recovery Diaries, and we were delighted to welcome them onto Recovery Diaries in Depth to share their...
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Burnout, Bravery, Breakthrough: A Conversation with Artist-Scholar Shumaila Hemani | RDID; 122
From her earliest memories growing up in Pakistan—where her dream of pursuing music seemed impossible for a woman—to the hallowed halls of Harvard University where overwhelming expectations led to debilitating burnout, Dr. Shumaila Hemani revea...
Hoarding, Helping, Hoping: An Interview with psychologist Deborah Derrickson Kossmann, author of "Lost, Found, Kept: A Memoir" | RDID; 121
"Love is what gives us the strength to balance the anger."It seems improbable that a human being who has shouldered the weight of so much trauma, so many secrets, so much shame could come to this conclusion, but this is part of what make...
How a Chance Encounter Led to a 30-Year Therapeutic Journey; in Conversation with Brian Marshall | RDID; 120
NAMI asserts that the average length of time between onset of mental health symptoms and reaching out for help is eleven years. That is an excruciatingly long time to be living with mental health challenges without professional help, and the re...
Walking Across America for Men's Mental Health, a Conversation with Tim Pereira | RDID; 119
People do all kinds of things to bring attention to mental health and suicide prevention. There are people who have ridden bicycles nude around the United Kingdom. Some take ice baths and do push-up challenges. A few years ago, the host of this...
An Author with Pure OCD Writes, Survives, and Thrives in Turkey
What happens when your own mind becomes your greatest fear? When intrusive thoughts flood in that feel completely alien to who you really are? In this intimate conversation, writer Pinar Tarhan takes us deep into her experience with Pure Harm O...
A Doctor in Rwanda's Life with Anxiety | RDID; 117
Florence Mukangenzi is a doctor in Rwanda who lives with mental health challenges, including anxiety. In 2017, back when she was a medical student, she wrote a beautiful essay for our site called "
A Punk Rocker with Bipolar Finds Hope and Healing | RDID; Ep 116
Jason Schreurs calls himself a “punk rock weirdo”, but he’s also a mental health group facilitator, writer, creator, advocate, podcast host and someone who lives with bipolar disorder. You could say that bipolar and punk come together in a u...
A Writer & Therapist with Pure OCD and Anxiety; with Hannah R. Goodman | RDID; Ep 115
Hannah R. Goodman is busy: she has a Substack, she’s a writer and novelist, she is a therapist, she’s a spouse and a mother. She has a lot going on in her life; and a lot going on in her head, ...
Work, Life, and Self-Care with Bipolar Disorder; with Sheila O’Shea | RDID; Ep 114
Sheila O'Shea is a writer with bipolar disorder; two of her intriguing and vulnerable personal essays reside on our website, www.oc87recoverydiaries.org. In one of her essays, she writes about the importance of drawing
Kindness is a Powerful Choice; with Dr. Erica Harris | RDID; Ep 113
Erica Harris is an emergency physician at Einstein Hospital, and she also serves on the Board of Directors of Recovery Diaries. Our "Recovery Diaries in Depth" interview with Dr. Harris is a wide-ranging, empathic conversation that you will be ...
