Bipolar Disorder & Marriage with Gabe Howard | RDID Ep. 101

Gabe Howard and Gabriel Nathan discuss their friendship, Gabe's mental health advocacy, and living with bipolar disorder. Gabe shares his experience of being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and the challenges he faced in accepting his diagnosis. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the complexities of bipolar disorder beyond the highs and lows. Gabe also discusses his concept of recovery and how he manages his mental health with the support of his wife, Kendall. The conversation touches on the envy Gabe feels towards mentally healthy individuals and the unique perspective of being married to someone without bipolar disorder. Gabe Howard reflects on his journey with bipolar disorder and how it has shaped his life and relationships. He discusses the impact of his illness on his marriage and the fear of being abandoned or getting sick again. Gabe also talks about the toll of being a mental health advocate and the challenges of navigating different perspectives within the advocacy community. He shares his podcast projects, Inside Bipolar, Inside Mental Health, and Inside Schizophrenia, which provide a platform for both lived experience and medical perspectives.

https://www.gabehoward.com/

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

https://oc87recoverydiaries.org/

Transcript

Gabe Nathan: GN

Gabe Howard: GH

00:01

GN: Hello, this is Recovery Diaries In Depth. I'm your host, Gabe Nathan. Thanks so much for joining us. Very happy to have you here. On today's show, we're gonna be speaking to mental health advocate, Gabe Howard. He's an old friend of mine and an old friend of Recovery Diaries. He'll be talking about his life, his mental health challenges, his marriage, and everything else in between. 

Each week, we'll bring you a Recovery Diaries contributor - folks who have shared their mental health journey with us through essay or video format. We want to see where they are on their mental health journey since initially being published on our website. Our goal is to continue supporting our diverse community by having conversations here on our podcast to follow up and see what has shifted, what has changed, and what new things have emerged. We are so happy to have you along for this journey. We want to remind you to follow our show for new and back episodes at recoverydiaries.org.

There, like the podcast, you'll find stories of mental health, empowerment, and change. You can also sign up for our mailing list there so you never miss a new podcast, episode, essay, or film. And you can find this podcast pretty much anywhere you get your podcasts. We appreciate your comments and feedback about our show. It helps us improve, make changes, and grow. And of course, make sure to like, share, and subscribe.

01:29

GN: Hi, Gabe Howard. 

GH: Hey, Gabriel Nathan. How are you? 

GN: I'm so good. And the reason is that I'm just so happy to see you. It's been a long, long time. I would like to just welcome you first of all to Recovery Diaries in depth. And you are an old friend of mine and also of Recovery Diaries. Can you just, I mean, I know the story, but can you just talk a little bit about how  we met and how you came to know about Recovery Diaries. 

GH: Yeah, so a long time ago, I mean, going on like 10 years now, but before the pandemic and before lots of things that we now consider normal and accept were going on, I got an email from a guy who said, Nathan is not my last name. And - or Nathan is my last name. Nathan is not my first name. I'm going to get this right, I swear. And you posited in that email that people must call me Howard and that Howard is my last name. Howard is not my first name, just like Nathan is not your first name. And that we're both named Gabe, so we probably have this annoying thing in common with our last name. And we have this, you didn't say it was annoying, but this annoying thing in common with our first name. And I thought, wow, that's just a lot of information. And then you went on to offer me money to write for you. So I thought it was a scam.

I was really like, okay, well, there's something going on here, but I'm about to lose my identity. But, you know, I've never really been fond of my identity. So I decided to hit reply to the email, answer, and see what was up. And the thing was up was OC87 Recovery Diaries. And I learned a lot about what you were doing. And I think at the time you were also the new editor-in-chief. It was kind of a new position for you as well. So I learned about OC87 at the same time you were learning about being editor-in-chief of OC87 and we went on to do a lot of stuff. I've written a few articles. I wrote an article with my wife that I think we're going to talk about today. We did a video, you know, “Two Gabe's Riding Around In A Car Talking About Mental Health” and it's been a really really really awesome ride and it's hard to believe it's been so long.

GN: I can't believe it either. And it's interesting that you mentioned that I had just become editor-in-chief when we met and that was all very new for me. And this is all very new for me too. This is a new podcast that we're doing. I have never hosted a podcast before. You and I have done podcasts together - quite a few - but you have been in the driver's seat. So this is a very odd experience for me, but it's kind of like full circle and sweet.

So thank you for being one of our very, very first guests. And it's a delight. I wanna ask you to talk a little bit about your mental health advocacy, because that's what prompted me to reach out to you. I had read a couple things that you had written, and I was very taken with your honesty and your integrity in how you write and how you advocate. 

So can you just talk a little bit about, you know, the mental health challenges that you live with and how you put yourself forth in the world? 

GH: So I live with bipolar disorder and I wanna disclose to the audience that if you would have asked me an hour before I was committed to a psychiatric hospital with delusions, suicidal ideation, I mean, I just, I was out of my mind. Gabriel, I was just out of my mind. But if you would have asked me an hour before, if anything was wrong with me, I would have said no. And if you would have asked me a year before, no. If you would have directly said, “Hey, is thinking about suicide every day normal?” I would have been like,”Well, yeah, that's part of the human condition.” This is the issue with being born with severe and persistent mental illness. It's the only thing that you know. So in your mind, this is how the world works.

05:48

The next thing I want to disclose to the audience is, you know, bipolar disorder is one of those things that is understood and yet not really. It's sort of like men are aware of women, but we don't know what women go through. And we can learn about it and we can try, but ultimately we're just never going to truly know unless we've experienced it ourselves. And the reason that I say that is because bipolar disorder, everybody's heard of it. Everybody's, “we know bipolar, we know bipolar, we know bipolar” but do ya?

06:19

Do you really? And whenever I challenge people on this, because people will get defensive, especially in the current everybody's aware of mental health climate, people are like, no, I understand it. I was like, what is it? Like it's highs and lows. And I'm like, well, see, we're already done. There's so much more than that. For one thing, there are the highs and lows, but there's also the middle. And I always, always, always point people to that middle, because in my mind, that middle is the most damaging.

06:47

See, that's when you meet your wife. That's when you meet the significant other. You build the relationships, you get the job, you rent the apartment, you balance the checkbook, you do everything to build this beautiful life and this beautiful foundation. You know, all the things you lose when you become symptomatic. The next thing is, is whenever you become symptomatic, people just think you're a jerk because they know that you can be good. They've seen you do it.

07:16

They've seen you pay the bills and be responsible. So as soon as you stop showing up for things, as soon as you start getting irritable, as soon as you start having all of these symptoms, they just assume that these are just bad choices that you're making, and they respond to them as if you're making bad choices. They don't respond to them with any sort of mental health care whatsoever because they don't see it because they remember you at your best.

07:45

It's like an intermittent problem with your car, right Gabriel? 

GN:I've been there. 

GH: You tell your mechanic, and like, no, I'm telling you, it did this, and the mechanic hits the key, it starts right up, and they're like, look, I don't know what to tell you. The mechanic is frustrated because you're telling them the car is broken, and they can see that it's not. You're frustrated because they're telling you that the car is fine, and you're like, look, it left me in the rain. I don't know what you want. The damn thing wouldn't start.

08:13

And that's really how bipolar disorder really presents itself to the world. But I also wanna remind the audience that that's how bipolar disorder presented to me. So I thought I could also be good. I didn't understand why I was making these bad decisions. I didn't understand why I was having these feelings. I didn't understand what was going wrong and all of the authority figures in my life, because I was a young man. I started showing symptoms of bipolar disorder, well, really at birth,

08:43

really noticeable 14, 15 years old. So my parents are running interventions. Teachers are running interventions. You know, other adults, coaches, whatever, they're running interventions. And I'm listening to them and they're very reasonable. Gabriel, they're reasonable. Hey, why did you scream I hate you at your mother? That's not a cool thing to do. Oh yeah, it's not. You're right, I shouldn't have done that. Why did I do that? Well, it must be because I'm bad. So I...

09:13

I never thought about any of this from a mental health standpoint. I thought about all of this as a deep character flaw. So by the time I was 26 years old and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, to say that I hated myself or that I had self-loathing would be an understatement. Be like describing a hurricane as a light rain. 

GN: You talked about living in the middle. And I want to know, do you feel like that now? Do you feel like you're living in the middle when you're asymptomatic? You know, you're stable, you're on medication, but do you still feel that way that you're in the middle and that something could slip at any time? Or do you call it remission? Do you recall? Do you call it? How do you talk about how you're living now?

10:08

GH: So I use the word recovery because that's, you know, just the standard practice and people recognize it. So, you know, I'm in recovery with bipolar disorder. I always say with bipolar disorder because I've sort of accepted bipolar disorder as like this awful roommate. Right? You know, he's kind of a jerk. He's loud when he comes home from work. You know, I often find myself putting his dirty dishes in the dishwasher. But at the same time, you know, he always pays his rent on time.

10:35

And he's got some good parts, right? Now bipolar disorder has no good parts, they don't. I just need to explain why I'm not just kicking out the roommate, right? So in this case, the reason that I'm not evicting bipolar disorder is because I can't, it's impossible. All I can do is just decide that you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and tolerate this roommate situation because the apartment is really centrally located and the dude doesn't screw me on the money.

11:04

GN: And the pizza's good. 

GH: And I'm just gonna go ahead and deal with it. Right? And I define recovery as living, spending more of my time living my life than I do managing bipolar disorder. You know, I point out when I was hospitalized, 100% of my life was in service to this illness. Previous to being hospitalized, so much of my life was spent, you know, just in the whiplash effect of, you know, mood swings, which isn't even, you know, everybody has mood swings. So, describing the mood shifts in bipolar disorder as mood swings is really just for the audience to kind of understand. I really can't explain what it's like to go from thinking that you are a literal God. And I'm not exaggerating. You think you're a God, consequences don't matter. And you're the most important person in the world. And people are like, so is it like narcissism? It's like, no, it's like narcissism, except you think you have God-like powers. Right.

11:57

Even the most hardcore narcissist out there doesn't think that they can jump off a building and fly. People with mania think that they can do just supernatural things. That's what the illness is. And then you go all the way to your garbage. I believed that if I killed myself, my mother and my grandmother would be proud of me at my funeral.

12:25

They would say he's made so many mistakes in his life, but he finally made a good decision. He finally got this one right. And they would just be so happy. Like it would just be this monumental event. Like think of a graduation or a wedding or the birth of a child. This is what I thought the reaction of two people who love me more than anything would be. So again, going from those two things is just mentally troubling.

12:52

To answer your specific question, do I consider myself to be in the middle now? I think that's a good analogy. It's hard to know what I actually consider myself because it's very tough, right? I'm a fan of Penn and Teller. I don't know if your audience knows who Penn and Teller are, but Teller in his entire career has been called the little guy, the little guy, the little guy. Here's the reality, Teller is six foot two inches tall. He is in the 95th percentile of height for men.

13:20

The only reason he's the little guy is because his partner and the guy he's always on television on stage with is six foot eight So the only reason he is the little guy is because the world lack context The only reason that I probably consider this or the only reason that I consider myself to be like not mentally unhealthy right in this moment is because I've been sicker The reality is is even the most recovery that I've ever achieved, it still has this this this this haze

13:49

of mental health challenges and struggle over it. But it's just such a vast improvement to where I was that I consider this to be the middle and to be healthy. But there is an acceptance that comes with, I think, living with bipolar disorder, that sometimes you have to accept that, you know, this is just your lot in life. 

GN: I have a question about envy. You said that you've seen stable people and you envy them. Do you envy Kendall? Do you envy your wife? 

GH: Oh, in so many ways, yes. Yes. Just where do you even begin? So she also annoys me, which is good because that helps handle the envy. But I envy her because she's mentally healthy, right? She doesn't have bipolar disorder. She doesn't have depression. I did feel when her father passed away, I felt no envy there because she had never experienced any sort of mental health crisis before. So the grief of suddenly losing her father, she was completely unprepared for.

15:13

It's the literal equivalent of taking a non-swimmer and throwing them in the pool. You can see their panic. You know, if you take a strong swimmer and throw them in the pool, they're annoyed, but they're not panicked, they know what to do. So I consider myself in that analogy to be, you know, when something happens in life, you know, like grief, I am in a better position to handle it than she is. So I guess I don't lack envy there, but you know, most of the time she's happy.

15:42

She's content, she's stable, she's in control. She doesn't lay awake at night, you know, crying because of the nonsense that she's made up in her brain. And how could you not envy that? It would be like somebody saying, do you envy the billionaire? Of course I do. I wish I had billions of dollars. You know how much I could do with that? I mean, the people in my life I could help right now, the hunger I could resolve?

16:13

You know, every time I see something that annoys me, I just buy my way out of it, that'd be great. 

GN: Well, don't forget about how you would help yourself because as we've often talked about, if you have serious and persistent mental illness, it doesn't hurt to be rich. 

GH: It doesn't, it doesn't.

GH: Especially in this country. 

GN: And there's a reality as well. I mean, so yeah, on one hand, I'm envious of the billionaire, but also I read the same society pages.

16:38

And you know, they go through divorces, they go through addiction, they go through mental health issues, their loved ones pass away. 

GN: Suicidality, sure. 

GH: I don't envy them then. So, you know, I think that's probably a fair comparison about my wife. Do I envy her stability? Yeah. But I'm also really glad that she doesn't suffer like I do, because who would want that for somebody they love? And there's...if we're really pushing this discussion to the scariest point, Gabriel, I don't envy the fact that the person that she loves, she has to watch suffer because that must be hard on her. I wouldn't want to watch somebody I love struggle. And that's her lot in life. 

GN: But you would want to help someone you love. You would want to help someone you love through their struggle or with their struggle. 

GH: Oh, I do.

GN:  She does more than just watch you. You know what I mean? 

GH: That is fair. She's not like eating popcorn, sipping a soda, thinking this is the bipolar freak show for the ages. Maybe sometimes. Sometimes it could be amusing. 

GN: How does she help? 

GH: So,the first thing that she does, and I know this is really stupid because people listening are probably like, oh yeah, how does she help you manage your bipolar disorder? He's got a really good thing coming here. Ready? Are you ready? You ready for what it is? 

GN:I'm ready. 

GH: She puts the little pills in my pill minder. And people think that's so stupid. You know, I hear, you know, as a public speaker, I hear the audience like, kind of like, really? That's, that really, why is that helpful? And I always point out, you know, I'm six foot three inches tall. I have gigantic hands.

18:27

and pills are fricking tiny. They're just fricking tiny. 

GN: And the little squares they go into in the thing are small. 

GH: Yeah, and the squares they go into are stupid tiny as well. So just as a matter of practicalness, it's just an annoying task. But there's subtext here. It's also, you know, sitting down and doing it just sucks.

18:49

You know, pulling out this gigantic Tupperware with all of these pill bottles and going through them and figuring out when they need filled. And it's just a reminder that I'm different. And especially, you know, now that I'm getting older, you know, my peer group, they're starting to take medications, right? So, you know, now that I'm approaching 50, Gabriel, I gotta be honest, it's getting a little easier.

19:14

Because now when I say to my buddy, hey, I had to take a pill, he's like, yeah, I took my high blood pressure medicine or I took my cholesterol pill. But when I was 30, I was the only one. None of my 30 year old friends were taking meds. They used to mock my pill minders. They didn't have one. You know, when you're young, you don't even carry aspirin in your car. Now that I'm approaching 50, I've got literally a Tylenol bottle in my- 

GN: CVS is in your car? 

GH: Yeah, CVS is in my car. You know, it's like, oh man, I went hiking and I turned my head to the left to look at a bird and now I'm gonna be in chronic pain for the next six months. But none of that happened at 30. So she's been doing my pills forever. I know it's the longest way of saying she's been doing my pills forever, but especially in the beginning, it was super helpful because then I could just kind of absentmindedly swallow them and I wouldn't have to get stuck in the thought process of, oh, I'm different from everybody I know. So that was just a huge gift. But to go on to what the audience wants - I think it's important to give the people what they want, Gabriel. 

GN: This is just us. 

GH: Yeah, I mean, they are listening. If they turn it off, then we're just talking to ourselves. And I do that enough already. In other ways, it's really helpful to have somebody who knows you well hanging around. Look, a lot of people ask me how I'm doing. A lot of people ask me if I'm okay. A lot of people send me text messages because they're worried about my mental health and things like that. And that's all fantastic. And I love all of those people. And I know that their heart is in the right place.

20:43

But here's the thing, I can't really respond to them. I mean, I can respond to them as in, yeah, hey, I'm doing fine. But I can't respond to it as in, ooh, do they maybe have some data here? You know, the reality is, is if I'm at a conference and you walk up to me, Gabriel, and say, are you feeling okay? You seem a little down. You know, I'll answer you in the moment, but I'm just thinking he thinks I'm down in this hour. You know, if my wife walks up to me and says, hey, Gabe, you've been a little down, I think, uh-oh, this is days.

21:11

She's talking about days, weeks. This is an important piece of data that she is supplying me. I can't go back to my therapist and my psychiatrist and be like, all right, I talked to nine people and three people said that I wasn't as boisterous as I normally am. Could that be a mental health crisis? Because they just see these little sections of you, but Kendall sees all of me. So when she says you've been down.

21:36

I'm taking that straight to my therapist, straight to my psychiatrist. I'm reflecting on it. I'm like, uh-oh, is she seeing something that I'm not? And in that way, that's really helpful because now I have more than one person, me being the one, looking out for my mental health. And it's somebody who I can trust because I've also trained that person. So that person doesn't say stupid stuff like, oh my God, you've been so emotional lately. We are watching a drama.

22:06

I just watched the main character lose their best friend in, like a war, like I'm sad. And I know that's dumb, but you know, once people know that you have bipolar disorder, and especially people who have been traumatized by your bipolar disorder, because you know, they were there when you were committed, they were there when you acted up, they were there when you got fired, they were there when they were afraid you were going to be homeless. You know, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you're terrified for your bipolar loved one, you start to see everything they do as a potential symptom of bipolar disorder. And, um, I understand that I did that to them, so I can't get mad at them for it, but I also can't rely on their information. 

GN: Well, it's like when I worked at the psych hospital, uh, everything that, once you're a patient, everything you do is pathologized. You, you go to group, oh, they're going to too many groups. They must be trying to get out of here. You stay in your room, oh, they're isolating. You go to all the meals while, oh, they're just, everything.

23:05

GH: Yep. 

GN: Everything becomes a pathological behavior or there's some kind of secondary gain that someone is trying to get. So it's, I mean, it's the same thing in an interpersonal dynamic when one person has mental illness, you can start to see everything through that lens. But you're very lucky that you have someone on your side who gets it. 

GH: Exactly. 

GN: Who's well informed and who's observant, and a true partner. And I don't know, it's kind of a nice segue into an essay that you and your partner wrote a few years ago. And it is called “Married...With Bipolar Disorder: One Couple's Unique Mental Health Perspective.” And you wrote a section and Kendall wrote a section. And your section is called, “Being Married To Someone Who Doesn't Live With Bipolar Disorder.” And I would love to hear you read that if you would do us the courtesy. 

GH: I would be happy to, Gabriel. 

My wife, Kendall, is amazing. This is a smart opening statement for me to make because she's definitely going to read it. However, that doesn't change the fact that it's the truth. I've been married before, have dated other women, and I know many people.

24:29

I feel quite comfortable listening to my wife in the upper echelon of awesome individuals currently roaming the earth. Kendall and I share the same values. We both love superhero movies, the Marvel Universe is the best, and curling up on the couch in front of our TV at the end of the day is our favorite activity. I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure we invented the phrase Netflix and chill. In spite of this seemingly idyllic awesome and Netflix chilliness, having bipolar disorder and being married to a woman who had

24:56

prior, no experience with mental illness has some drawbacks. Sometimes I wish she were a person living with bipolar disorder. I know that's a bit of a weird thing to say, but in some situations, it would make life a lot easier. For me. No matter how hard we try, we will never understand what the world looks like for the other person. Kendall has only ever experienced life free from mental illness. While my in-laws may be crazy, they aren't mentally ill, and no one my lovely wife knows has ever been suicidal.

25:24

In fact, when we met, she believed many of the stereotypical myths about people who live with mental illness. Our initial conversations about my diagnosis were fun. Kendall has never experienced mania, depression, anxiety, or psychosis. However, I think about these symptoms daily. These thoughts are like a bad commercial jingle I just can't get out of my head. They've caused me trauma and they've shaped my life. When people say you've overcome so much, that's what they're referring to.

25:50

I've climbed out of an abyss that my life partner has never even seen and has admitted that she didn't really know existed until I came along. Recently I was being interviewed for an article about how I dress up as Santa Claus over the holidays. The interviewer knew I was a person living with bipolar disorder and asked me if I thought that helped me play Santa better. I laughed and said I had no idea. I've never had the benefit of doing anything without bipolar disorder. That includes marriage and all the other relationships in my life.

26:19

There is a world of difference between who I was when I was untreated and who I am now, now that I have the disease under control. Kendall never would have agreed to marry me when I was in my twenties. It bothers me that there is a version of me that existed that my wife wouldn't have liked. And I don't mean a version who wore MC Hammer pants and had a mullet. I mean a version with a deep character flaws and moral deficits. I was emotionally abusive towards the people who loved me. I was unreliable, uninhibited, and unreasonable. I was unkind and unfair.

26:49

I was a bad husband to two previous women who put their faith in me and who I let down by my behavior. I abused drugs and alcohol, and there is no escaping the fact that I wasn't the type of person I'd want to be friends with. I'd love to blame my mistakes on my illness, but life isn't as simple as assigning all my negative traits to bipolar disorder and all my positive traits to my personality. It would be disingenuous to pretend that, if not for mental illness, I'd be a perfect person who never hurt anyone. I do understand that untreated bipolar disorder was a contributing factor.

27:19

But while it may help me explain my behavior, it does not excuse anything. Moreover, that understanding does nothing to remove all of my shame and regret. Kendall doesn't understand that kind of deep personal shame either. I live in constant fear that she'll realize who I was when I was sick and that will be too much for her and then she'll leave. I live in fear that I'll get sick again and when faced with the horrors of bipolar disorder, she'll leave.

27:43

Of course, Kendall abandoning her sick husband would be a moral failing on her part, and I comfort myself knowing that she wouldn't just up and leave me. She's a loyal person and one who I can trust to do the right thing. So naturally my thoughts quickly jumped to wondering just what she would do. My past is filled with people who tried to help me. My parents, for example, never abandoned me and did everything they can to help me. When I speak of moral upstanding people who will always do the right thing, my family members fall into that category.

28:10

Unfortunately, while my parents' choices were what could be deemed morally correct, they didn't understand what was happening to me, so they made some decisions that ultimately made my life harder. So I find myself thinking, is Kendall capable of helping me? If I did become seriously symptomatic again, would her choices be morally correct, yet harmful? Would the trauma of my illness drive a wedge between us that would ultimately end our marriage? Would I be left alone, depressed, and suicidal once again?

28:38

Life doesn't jump up and hand out concrete answers to our most pressing questions. I don't want Kendall to experience the horrors of bipolar disorder, not secondhand, not first-hand, not at all. As her husband, as her friend, and as a mental health advocate, I want to keep her as far away from the devastation that mental illness brings. Nevertheless, I would feel better if I had a concrete proof that she understands how the world is for me. On some level, it would be nice to commiserate with her about what I've experienced.

29:05

Deep down it creates doubt that she even understands who I am or if she really knows me at all. Does she love me or some fake version of me that I've created? When all of these feelings overwhelm me and become too much, I always hang my hat on one phrase that gets me through. Life with bipolar disorder is terrible, but life with Kendall is not.

29:26

GN: Thank you for reading that. And thank you for writing that. What was it like to revisit it? It's been years. 

GH: It has been, it has been years. It has, I mean, it's, she hasn't left. So, I mean, you know, it's not one of those that didn't age well essays. I like that. I like that a lot. 

GN: Yeah, Netflix and chill is still a thing.

29:49

GH: Netflix and chill is still a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's become much more sexualized since I wrote that I should probably point that out to the audience You know, Netflix and chill used to be like a romance thing and now it's just straight screwing 

GN: Wow So I should you if you want a Netflix and chill later 

Gh: You should not okay. You should not it has a one. I'm not sure you should have asked me back then either I mean, I I'm not much of a cuddler when it when it comes to my buddies, but

30:17

But you know what, maybe, I mean sure, if you want to lay on me, you can put your head on my hip, you know, whatever. 

GN: I think I've earned it. 

GH: You have, you have, yeah. Especially if we're cold. 

GN: But seriously. What was it like to look back on that now? 

GH: There's always like these moments where you sort of remember why you wrote certain things or you know, how much fear the audience reads versus how much fear you meant. And it...

30:45

You know, in my mind, the audience is like, well, he's worried about it, but he doesn't need to because she loves him. And what I'm actually saying is, is that I do need to worry about it because I live in the real world and people with bipolar disorder who are symptomatic get divorced all the time. And I have twice. So I think that sometimes it's read as like a love story. You know, the audience is like, well, she...

31:10

Love will overcome. She loves him so much that she would never do that. And surely he knows that, right? But we've seen it, Gabriel. We've experienced it. We've... The audience can believe in the romantic comedy version of that essay all they want. But the reality is that people with bipolar disorder and other serious and persistent mental illness who are sick get left all the time.

31:40

GN: Oh, even nuclear families break up because of serious and persistent mental illness. Parents and children and yeah. 

GH: And I've been through it before. You know, that's the, this is my third marriage and that's got to take some of the shine off of the love story, right? It's like, oh, the dude's been divorced twice before. So what is it? Just like a randomly marrying people. And you know, it was hard for me to get married the third time in some ways. Cause I thought how many times can I keep doing this?

32:08

You know, what do they say? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But I obviously believe that it would work out. You know, we just celebrated 12 years. So I mean, I don't wanna mislead the audience that it's not a love story because it is, but it's a love story that's punctuated or surrounded or clouded or fogged over by a lot of anxiety and fear that...

32:37

I'm gonna be all alone again. And that's a frightening thing. I also wanna point out to the audience since I wrote that, you know, to give like a nice before and after. 

GN: Yeah. 

GH: When I wrote that, my grandfather was still alive and it never occurred to me that people die. Apparently, even though I've experienced death, you know, I lost, you know, my great grandmother and my great grandfather and, you know, other people I was close to, we had a family friend pass away, you know, all before I turned 20. I, you know, I experienced a lot of very significant deaths before I turned 20. But for some reason, my grandfather dying was the one that got me. It never occurred to me that people could leave me by death before for some unknown reason.

33:28

Whether it's, whether, you know, the way that I thought before recovery was different, whether it was age, whether it was immaturity, whatever it was, after my grandfather's death, I started looking around and thinking, oh my God, these people are gonna leave, not because of anything that I did, but just because of life. And that started to really fall onto everyone. So suddenly it,

33:58

occurred to me that I could do everything right and Kendall could die first and then she's gone anyway. So that's something that wasn't written or even considered when I wrote the essay the first time. The only conceivable way I thought that I could ever leave Kendall in every word I penned in that essay was because Kendall left me.

34:28

GN: And as a result of bipolar disorder. So it's putting this weight on your mental health challenge. Which is very weighty anyway. 

GH: Yes. And now here we are all these years later and now I'm terrified that she's both that she's going to leave me because of bipolar disorder. That's still a fear. I haven't resolved that. Uh, but now I'm afraid she could die. So now I'm stuck with that fear too. 

GN: Yeah. And you know, the same way that you're living with bipolar disorder and, you know, living in recovery, you're also living in that fear, living with that fear or those fears that she could leave because of the illness, that she could leave because of death. And that's like, I feel like that's what recovery really is. It's being able to do the daily things of life while all of that noise is still happening in your mind, about, okay, my illness is still here. I'm fine now, but tomorrow my cheese could slide off my cracker and I won't be okay. Or this could happen to Kendall. Kendall could go, you know, get a breast exam and they could find something. I mean, all of that stuff, all of that noise is there, but because we're, and I'm going to say we're, because I'm relatively stable also, we can do the things. We can do the things that need to be done and the noise doesn't go away, it's just a little quieter. That's how I feel. 

GH: Yeah. Again, it really goes back to that I'm in recovery with bipolar disorder. I have set all the appropriate boundaries so that I can live with the roommate because not living with the roommate isn't an option. So rather than dwelling on trying to figure out how to get rid of the roommate, since that's not an option, I have focused my attention on making the roommate

36:24

as palatable as possible so that I can have harmony in my home. And in this case, I've done all of the things that I can to make bipolar disorder as palatable as possible so that I can have harmony in my head. But it doesn't mean that I'm never symptomatic or that I never have issues or again, to swing back to the analogy. It doesn't mean that I haven't accepted that I'm gonna have to put dirty dishes away or I'm gonna find.

36:53

you know, his dirty clothes on the floor and kick him into the laundry room. I've just decided that a better coping skill is just to put him in the dishwasher, kick the dirty clothes in the laundry room, and then just go on about my day. Whereas, you know, in the beginning, I would let the dishes pile up and then the roaches would come and I would let the clothes pile up and then I'd trip and fall when I was carrying something and hurt my knee and that was much, much worse. And this is much, much better. But if somebody sat me down and said, hey, does the roommate still annoy you? Yeah, yeah, the roommate still annoys me. Somebody sat me down and asked if bipolar disorder was still a factor in my life. Yeah, yeah, it's still a factor. Just much less than it used to be. 

GN: Does the roommate annoy Kendall?

GH: I mean, I'm sure the roommate does annoy Kendall. I can't imagine, especially, there's been times in the 12 years where there's things that we were gonna do that I just couldn't do. I just, I wake up too depressed and it's like, I know we made plans to clean out the garage today, but I'm just, you know what, I'm just gonna lay here like a lump.

37:52

And I'm sure that's a bummer for her. But in fairness, there's also been days that the reverse has been true, you know, where Kendall wakes up and she has the flu. So, you know, sometimes the best laid plans, right? I mean, all in all, I think it's working out. I do my best to make sure that the bipolar disorder doesn't hinder Kendall or anybody, you know, as much as humanly possible, because that's the best way to have a good life.

38:20

I mean, let's forget about marriage for a moment. Let's just talk about holding down a job. I mean, how long do you think I would keep a job if every single time I made an appointment with somebody to do their podcast for OC87 Recovery Diaries and connect at 10 o'clock to do the recording, I sent you a text message at 10:11 and said, I can't do it, I'm too depressed. And then we rescheduled it again and you got everybody out and you did it again. And then I did that again. Eventually you'd be like, Gabe, I'm pulling for you. I love you, I hope you do well, but yeah, I'm not making the third appointment.

38:50

So then I wouldn't get to be on the show and then I wouldn't get the, you know, somebody listening to this might, you know, buy my book or listen to my podcast or hire me for a speech. So you can see how the loss could just really, really mount up if I couldn't get my shit together. 

GN: Yeah. And yet that is the reality sometimes. And, you know, I've been running Recovery Diaries for years now and there are times where deadlines, you know, someone's writing an essay and deadlines get missed, someone’es hospitalized, they drop off the face of the earth and I don't hear from them for a month or two and it does it turns out that they were in a psych hospital or you know having an episode or…and so it's it's a very tenuous balance and you can be understanding and flexible up to a point and It can get very difficult and and I recognize that.

But I want to end by talking about your job because your job is advocacy. Um, and I want to talk about two, I want you to talk about two aspects of it. One, exactly what you do and how people can find you. Um, and two: is it a fucking pain in the ass to eat, sleep, breathe shit, mental illness? I'm really like, because I, my work is similar and different. Running a mental health publication, I focus on other people's mental health challenges, right? Getting essays by folks with schizophrenia and bipolar and addiction issues and working with them and publishing and doing documentary films. It's not my stuff. Yours, your advocacy is really focusing on your story and putting yourself out there constantly talking about really hard, traumatic things in your own life. And I just want to talk, I want you to talk about is there a toll there and how do you manage that and how do you and Kendall manage that?

41:03

I don't know, maybe end with how people can find you and address the second thing first. 

GH: Yeah, yeah, the, to say that there is no toll would be just a straight up lie. It would be disingenuous. First off, I feel a large sense of obligation and obligation is the right word. I feel a sense of obligation to portray bipolar disorder and...

41:32

you know, by extension, serious and persistent mental illness for exactly what it is. And that's the good, the bad, and the ugly. And the problem is, is that the world has become increasingly siloed. And I figured out very early in my career that I was really in the middle when it came to like all the various groups, when it came to all the various advocacy issues.

42:01

I really saw it from both sides. I didn't really see one side as right and one side as wrong. And I was really encouraged early in my career because I thought, oh my God, I'm in the middle. I can be friends with both sides. I was really discouraged early in my career because when you're in the middle, both sides don't love you, both sides hate you. And it's been very isolating and alone just the number of people

42:32

in my life and the number of organizations in my life and the number of times that people have corrected me vigorously with anger in their voice and accused me of causing the death of children, their children, and accused me of being responsible for stigma and discrimination all because I don't hold their advocacy point.

43:01

And on one hand, I would like to dismiss them, but until you've had a mom whose child has died by suicide look you in the eyes and say that you killed them, you don't know how you're going to react. And the answer is I didn't react well, I just cried. Because she believes it. She's damaged too. I would love to cast her as evil, you know, or mean.

43:31

Um, you know, what, what, whatever, I could just start calling her names, but she's, she's a traumatized woman who lost her child. 

GN: And who wants someone to blame, needs someone to blame. 

GH: Yeah. And for whatever reason, she believes that I'm standing in the way of other children like hers getting care. Um, I clearly do not believe that or I would change my position. Um, but there is the next issue. Uh, I believe that I have an obligation to be well-informed. I believe that it is a requirement of my job to listen to people who I vehemently disagree with and make sure that I understand, comprehend their side. That doesn't mean that I agree with it, it doesn't change it, but I really, really, really get frustrated, Gabriel, when I talk to my fellow mental health advocates that know nothing about the things that they're against. They know about the things that they are proponents of, but they don't understand where the other side is coming from. And it's always been fascinating to me that we've seen the world really start to evolve. 

You know, we as men need to understand what women go through. We as white people need to understand what marginalized groups go through. And I think that those are good, good things. But we haven't in mental health really taken it to if we live with bipolar disorder, we need to understand what parents have gone through. Well, no, that's a family member issue and we don't need to understand. And over on the family member side, they don't seem to believe that they need to understand the fears of the homeless schizophrenic. They're just like, well, they're gonna die with their rights on it, and we have to save them by taking all the way of their rights and incarcerating them forever. I can't get, I mean, even in like police reform, I was like, you recognize if we call 911, the police will come, but you are not required to have training in most precincts across the nation. Isn't that a problem for you? You're both responsible for the outcome, but you have zero education on it.

45:46

And they're like, oh, well, you must be anti-police. What happened? How did this happen? But I'm forced to listen to the rhetoric, some of which is deeply painful, deeply hurtful. I'm forced to listen. I force myself to listen. I force myself to understand. And unfortunately, in many cases I am then forced to face the fact that some of the most harmful advocacy points are also the most popular and well-funded. And that's very painful for me as a mental health advocate to know that right now in America, we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on work-life balance, and we have decimated the budget for people with schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar disorder and America is patting themselves on the back because we're finally mental health receptive but we're not mental illness receptive one iota and that's painful. I've really realized especially with the rise of the you know uber positive superpower mental social media influencer that were screwed. And that's hard because mental illness is not a superpower. I don't mind the individual reframe, but I do mind the policy reframe. If you as somebody living with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, if you personally want to believe that it's a superpower, I'm all for it. I have no qualms with you.

47:54

But society has started to reframe it as a superpower. We start to hear things about neurodivergent people are better and they're deep thinkers and it's great. And all of a sudden we have stopped looking at things as any sort of health crisis or health issue. And we've started looking at it as quirky and fun. Everybody has suddenly become Monk. Where they're not suffering, they're great detectives.

48:23

Um, no, no, this was an over correction. Toxic positivity is toxic. And unfortunately as a 50 year old white dude who, while I appreciate you saying that I'm pretty, uh, I am not as pretty as the 25 year old Uber positive cheerleader on Tik TOK with 3 million followers who talks about how having mental illness makes you special and great. 

GN: Well, if people are interested in the antidote for the 25 year old, uber positive mental health cheerleader on TikTok, where can people find you? 

GH: You can go to GabeHoward.com. Everything that I do is there. I'm a really, really big fan of promoting podcasts on podcasts, cause I happen to know that's where podcast listeners are. So I am the host of the Inside Bipolar podcast from Healthline Media. And the thing that makes that unique and really ties into what we've been talking about is it's hosted by me, I live with bipolar disorder, and a board certified psychiatrist who treats bipolar disorder. So you really get both the lived experience perspective from me and the medical perspective from Dr. Nicole, my co-host. And I think that's really valuable because those two things are just so often separated.

49:49

I also think it's valuable because obviously disagreements arise and you really get to see it from both points. And I think a lot of times people with bipolar disorder and by extension their family and friends are forced to either hear just the medical perspective, which is lacking, or just the lived experience perspective, which is also lacking. And I'd also like to point it out that both sides hate it when I say that their side is lacking.

50:13

I also host the Inside Mental Health podcast. I really like that podcast as well. I interview experts on all things mental health. They basically explain stuff to my dad. He's not on the show, but I always ask the questions like, hey, would my dad understand this? And then last but not least, I'm really fortunate to co-host with a schizophrenia advocate, Rachel Starr. I co-host Inside Schizophrenia with her. She lives with schizophrenia and she's the host and I just kind of help her. But it's a really, really great podcast and I really recommend it.

50:43

They're all available on Healthline Media. That's Inside Bipolar, Inside Mental Health, and Inside Schizophrenia. So they all start with the word inside. 

GN: Thank you so much for joining me here. It was such a delight spending some time with you. 

GH: I really, really appreciate it. You know I love it when you call. 

GN:  I'll have to do it more often. Thank you for coming and I will see you later.

51:12

GN: Thank you again for joining us in conversation today. It's beautiful to see the progression of our contributors. I wanna thank our guest, Gabe Howard, for being so open and vulnerable about something that people don't often like to talk about, which is marriage and mental health. Be sure to check out more about Gabe at gabehoward.com. On our next show, we're gonna be talking with Tree Franklin, a mental health advocate, who will be talking about and reading her beautiful essay, “Dear Mom, I Want To Kill Myself.”

Before we leave you, we want to remind you to check out our website, recoverydiaries.org. There, like this podcast, you'll find additional stories, videos, and content about mental health, empowerment, and change. We look forward to continuing to grow our community. Thank you so much for being a part of it. We wouldn't be here without you. Be sure to join our mailing list so you never miss a podcast, episode, essay, or film. I'm Gabe Nathan. Until next time, take good care.