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 told she'd never work. She was told.

Now, she tells.

And the story she tells is one of boundless creativity, advocacy, a passionate engagement in the expressive arts. She speaks about the system that subjugated her; pigeon-holed her, overdiagnosed and overmedicated her, took away her agency and her hope. 

Jacquese challenges herself and us to not accept culturally incompetent care, to not lay down and accept whatever is thrown at us by the medical model, a system that routinely fails to see people as complex and nuanced human beings. She holds fast to her faith, her compassion for herself, and her love of creating. Jacquese is an award-winning poet and memoirist who has rebuilt her life following decades of medications that stunted and blunted her. She still struggles, and she is open about that as she is about so much; ageism, misogyny, psychiatric harm, injustice; she pours out her heart in articles, essays, poems, and her forthcoming book. 

Jacquese has worked ceaselessly to help others, and to build the ladder, rung by rung, she uses to climb out of the pit she found herself in. Her mental health challenges may always be there, but she is learning to live and fight for herself and her dignity and her rights, every day; doing so artfully and gracefully. 

If you’ve ever felt mislabeled, unseen, or stuck in a system that talks over you, Jacquese Armstrong offers validation, direction, and hope. Her extraordinary and moving book, fabricating a home 'cause you never had one, is available for purchase here.

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 wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

https://recoverydiaries.org/

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Gabe Nathan 0:00

Hello. This is Recovery Diaries in Depth. I'm your host, Gabe Nathan. Thanks so much for joining us. We're very happy to have you here. We are so lucky and grateful to have as our guest on the show today Jacquese Armstrong. She's the author of Blues Legacy and Birthing Yourself Naturally: Motivational Reflections on a Mental Health Journey. She was the recipient of the 2019 Naomi Long Magic Poetry Award, and she has a new book coming out. It is called Fabricating a Home Because You Never Had One. 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 in 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're 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. Jacquese Armstrong, I am so delighted to

Framing Identity And Lived Experience

Gabe Nathan 1:43

have you as a guest on Recovery Diaries in Depth. Thank you for spending some time with me.

Jacquese Armstrong 1:48

Thank you for having me. It's great.

Gabe Nathan 1:52

So I had there's a question that I really wanted to start out with, but I want to qualify it because I had this weird experience growing up. I had this bizarre history teacher in 11th grade who anytime he wanted to know what, quote, Jews thought of something, he would turn to me and he would go, Hey, Gabe, you're Jewish. What do Jews think about and fill in the blank? It could be the Vietnam War or anything. And I felt, you know, I was a junior in high school, and I felt bizarre being singled out in this way and kind of being asked to speak for uh I don't know, everyone in my shared faith. And there are lots of different views and opinions about lots of different things. But and so I found myself coming to you wanting to know not about what is it like to be a black person living in America, in today's America with mental illness, but what is your specific experience? Um, what does that feel like on a daily basis living in 2026 today? Um, because you gave us a snapshot of this in 2016 when you wrote your essay for us, and a lot has changed. I was reflecting on that as I was rereading it, getting ready for today. So that was a very long intro and wind up to that question. And I'm I'm just very I'm very curious and anxious and interested in your answer.

Jacquese Armstrong 3:42

Um for me

Leaving Medication And Finding Fit Care

Jacquese Armstrong 3:45

specifically, it's it I would say it would vary from person to person. For me specifically, um I started a detox in um April 2023 for my meds, and I've totally, you know, I'm I'm not on any meds at all as of two months ago because I had a baseline for a long time. And uh I moved down to Mississippi from New Jersey during the pandemic, and so um I want to say that you know, even though I I don't feel like all the um amenities I had in the mental health community in um New Jersey because they have all kinds of organizations and everything like that going on, and I was involved in a lot of that. Um I found finally a therapist that saw me, that could see me. She was culturally, cultural, not only is she black, but she's she understands me, you know, because there's a lot of different types of black people. And sometimes just just having a black um mental health person is not, you know, you have to click. And I was just lucky that we clicked, and I found a prescriber that clicked, and she agreed to to help me on this journey, and everything has changed. Everything, everything has changed, and I I just have this clarity, and um, you know, I I had days where I still go through because of the detox, I think. And a lot of things I had to, I call them traumafiers, put them out along the way as I was coming back through. Um, I describe the experience as being born again as an adult. You know, because I had been medicated for so long, I had been in that medication bubble. I was essentially in my 20s. I had to go from scratch and relearn life. Um, a lot of concepts about life. So you know, everything everything is different. And and I don't subscribe to quote unquote mental illness, not for me anyway. You know, I I I think it's a pejorative term for anybody, really.

Gabe Nathan 6:50

What what gave you the courage? So, I mean, you were you were diagnosed in your in your early 20s and then put on hardcore medication, right? You were basically given, if not a death sentence, a something damn near to it, you know, basically telling you you're never gonna work, you're never

Courage To Detox And Question Labels

Gabe Nathan 7:14

gonna finish school, you're never gonna do anything, really. Um and you're gonna be on this stuff forever, um, just to be able to maintain some a very basic level of functioning. So you're told all of this stuff very, very early on in your early adulthood. Fast forward to 2023 when you decided, okay, I I want to kind of break free from this. What gave you the the courage to to even think that that was possible or to to dare to try that? Because that's that's scary. Um, you know, I I take a medication for anxiety. I'm scared to get off. So how did you uh how did you get to that point where you felt like, okay, this is something that I I want to do, I want to try this.

Jacquese Armstrong 8:09

Okay, so since the very beginning, they've never gotten me to a place where I was comfortable with me. I was always going through. I was always having suicidal ideas every day. You know, I just lived like that. And then in the pandemic, I lived by myself and I had no um family around. And so I was at the end of my rope. I mean, I'm I'm just gonna be honest. My my um my therapist at the time had broken down my time into like 15-minute increments so that she could check with me during the week. You know, and there was nothing more you could do because if you went to the hospital, you'd end up in the state hospital. And I I I wasn't gonna do that. I wasn't going there. So I went and moved to Johnson, Mississippi, where my parents were here teaching at Tugel College. So um I figured worse comes to worse, I could stay in the house with them, you know, because they're used to me. They know, they know what's going on until whatever blows over, right? In the meantime, uh it's just, it was like a still small voice that just asked me, just like, what's under all that crap now? I mean, is it is it even relevant anymore? And I was lucky enough to have a mental health team that would follow me down that rabbit hole and give me support while I was doing it. Um, it was very, very hard, but I'm so glad that I did because I look back in my 20s, and even though, you know, I it started out with like this African man uh dictating poetry to me while I was doing my engineering work. Now, this sounds like quote unquote psychosis, but is it really isn't just part of a creative response to a person who is having an identity crisis? And as that is what I see when I look back at me in my 20s. An identity crisis, not schizophrenia, not needing you know, like major tranquilizers and ECT. You know, they screwed me up from the beginning. I I had no choice, you know, I had to go down that rabbit hole. And I really believed in the medical model until very recently, maybe seven years ago. I didn't know whether it was for me or not, you know. Um my thing is, how do they know? How do they know you? I mean, they tell you you have a uh chemical imbalance. How do they know? And they can't answer that. And there's a lot of things they can't answer about the brain and the psyche and the emotions. And I just feel like I was bamboozled.

Gabe Nathan 11:42

There's even a lot of things that they don't know about psychotropic medications. You think you see it on the commercials all the time. The mechanism of this medication is not fully understood. You know, we don't rif they don't really know how it works.

Jacquese Armstrong 11:56

Another thing is a lot of those psychotropics, what they're treating you

Inside The System’s Harms And Bias

Jacquese Armstrong 12:02

for, the underlying uh what do you call it? Um the the adverse thing that happens when you take it. Side effects, yes. The side effects is the same as what they're treating you for, so it may be starting a spiral. You don't know that. They don't think about that, you know, and I just know that since I've been off of it, true, I'm a lot older, but I did have to go through all everything I've been through since then and think it out again and get right with it. So I don't know, it's a question mark in my mind. I did um if anybody's interested, I wrote uh an op-ed about um African Americans being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Um I use a little of my own uh background in it, and I talked to a psychiatrist that uh had done a research paper on it. Um it might be of interest to you.

Gabe Nathan 13:23

Mm-hmm. Yeah, very much so. And I I think, you know, you're talking about the medical model and and how how flawed it is, and you're talking to someone who is a former participant in it. You know, I used to work at a psychiatric hospital, and and you know, seeing up front so many poisonous attitudes um from the staff, so much pejorative language that I participated in. You learn it, you use it, you because you want to gain acceptance in the culture, and you don't want to be the one causing a problem. So you become part of the machinery, right? And you see this pyramid, and the psychiatrist is at the very, very, very top. And you can see it so clearly. Who's being paid the most is a psychiatrist, who's spending the least amount of time with the patients, the psychiatrist. Um, you know, who's being paid the least, the psych techs, who's spending the most amount of time with the patients and gaining the most information about them, the psych techs. Um, who is the least listened to? The patient first is the least listened to. And then after them, it's the psych tech. Nobody wants to hear from them. So it's the whole the inpatient system is so fucked up um and so traumatizing to the staff, to the patients, everybody. I mean, everybody in there is traumatized, I think. And we build these places as places of healing. And I was thinking about this, I said this random thought this morning when I was out with my dog. Um that um one of the most common things that I heard from patients was this place is just like jail. This place is worse than jail. Um the only thing that's not like jail about this place is they let you smoke indoors. Um that was the and I was thinking to myself, like you hear it once or twice, okay, but by the 300th time you hear a patient say it, that should be sounding an alarm bell that we are we are no better than jail. Um in in many instances worse. And we're snowing patients with medication so that they're not a problem to us. Um, just blunting their affect, blunting their emotions. And um I don't know. It's just it's just awful. And on top of that, when you were talking about diagnosing black people with schizophrenia um disproportionately, uh, you know, I also saw it with um diagnoses like borderline personality disorder. So that was being a diagnosis that was being doled out like candy to women. Um, but hardly any male patients were diagnosed with borderline. And it's like, are we looking at that? Are we looking at why? Why is that? Why are we segmenting populations and saying, okay, these diagnoses are for

Power, Hierarchies, And Overdiagnosis

Gabe Nathan 16:45

you, um, but not for you. These diagnoses are for you. Uh there's like no critical thinking happening in there. There's no reflection, there's no accountability, for sure, um, and no responsibility, I think. It's what I, you know, 11 years after leaving, I still think about this stuff and and I don't know. That's it's just really hard to to uh to reckon with.

Jacquese Armstrong 17:22

I know um I wrote in one of my essays this is what you would think. One would think that to prevail from a traumatic space to recover, you get freedom, creativity, and encourage autonomy. But here you don't. You get lockdown, you get somebody who is uh or wants to be in total control over your, you know. I I I have I have visited doctors in the beginning and and said, I'm sorry, I can't work with you. And they look at me like I'm crazy because they haven't they have barely looked at my file, and yet they're gonna tell me what I need to do, what type of medication I need to take. I I had one lady, I was already on something that was not sedative. I had gone to that route. I had like, we gotta get me something non-sedative, you know. I I can't do this anymore, right? And she wanted to right off the bat put me on some old, and I knew they were old, you know, like um, oh, starts with an R. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Gabe Nathan 18:49

Um Resperidol?

Jacquese Armstrong 18:51

I think it was Resperidol. It was like a HALDAL or something like that. And I knew it was sedating. She says, it's not sedating, you know, and I'm like, no, I don't want to change from what I have. I'm doing all right, right? She said, Well, if you're gonna come with me, you're gonna have to take this, you know, it's my way or the highway. And I just had to leave. And it's hard to find a psychiatrist when you're on Medicare, if you're on a dis on a disability. It's hard for this. And so I think that the whole nation needs to, well, you know, this is not the the right time to have this conversation in this environment, but we need to rethink this whole thing because we're wasting so much human potential. We are wasting so much creativity. It it doesn't make sense. I mean, I think about I'm still trying to get over the concept of losing 40 years of my life to this.

Seeking Dignity And Better Options

Jacquese Armstrong 19:57

That's something very hard for me to take because I was a person who had goals and dreams, and they were just snuffed out with without a second thought.

Gabe Nathan 20:10

Yeah, it's like being wrongfully incarcerated.

Jacquese Armstrong 20:14

No, we we can't continue today, so you know, we're gonna throw you away for the rest of your life.

unknown 20:19

Yeah. Yeah.

Jacquese Armstrong 20:26

You know, today it's it's it's much easier to find some alternatives, you know, if you look around for healing, you know, other than going down that hardcore drug thing, you know. Um I do uh I got a um, it's funny because I I kind of came up with this concept on my own, this arts and healing concept, and I used to make um workshops, and I even like started doing workshops for a nonprofit for that, you know, out in the community. And I actually thought I had made that up, you know, because it just came to me and and it was working for me, and so I wanted to express it with my peers and you know get them involved because they were getting the same kind of uh you know uh quote unquote treatment that I was, you know, and then I found out that expressive arts is is is a real thing. It's it's it's uh it's a discipline. You could get a doctorate in it, you know. Um, and basically it's the same premise of everything that I had figured out for myself. I got a certificate um for Social emotional arts in uh April of 2023. That's one thing that helped me through, too.

Gabe Nathan 22:07

So you said this it's not the right time to be having this conversation. And I think I'm guessing that you mean politically.

Speaker 3 22:15

Yes.

Gabe Nathan 22:16

Um when you say that. And I it's in my opinion, it's the exact time to be having this conversation. Um, because history is being erased in this country, creativity is being erased in this country,

Arts And Healing As A Practice

Gabe Nathan 22:28

truth is being erased in this country, morality, um, empathy. Uh I mean, I keep going back to I I tell this little story all the time. I I I was at a car show a long time ago, I guess during the first debacle with this guy, and um I saw uh a father holding his little son's hand walking through the car show, and he had a t-shirt on and it said, uh Trump 2024, fuck your feelings. And I was just like wow, like this is we're in deep, deep shit. Um if if that's what it is, and it's far worse than that, but I was thinking about like what kind of role model does that little boy need to be able to grow up and not be a piece of shit like his father clearly is. You know what I mean? He needs cuddle your feelings, he needs hold your feelings, he needs express your feelings, he needs create with your feelings, um, feel your feelings, and we are so, so, so, so far away from that. And I mean, part of the reason why I was really excited to have you on is because you're so expressive and you're so you're such

Creativity, Politics, And Staying Loud

Gabe Nathan 24:03

an empath, and it comes through in your writing so powerfully and beautifully. And when I met you in Cape May years ago, it was it was so palpable in person um at the writer's retreat. And like and I love that you're writing a lot and and publishing opinion pieces, and you have this new book coming out, and like you're not shutting up, you're not hiding, um, you're not turning off turning off the tap and saying, Well, I'll turn it back on in 2028 when it's safer. Fuck that. Like, uh, you know, it's it's unfortunately it's up to people who get it to not stay silent and not turn it off and to to be encouraging that kind of connection. And again, you know, you wrote you wrote your your essay for us, which I'm gonna have you read in a couple minutes during the first Trump debacle, and now here we are during the second. And and you're I I mean, I don't know. I just want to know how you're how you're coping with all of that today.

Jacquese Armstrong 25:23

Okay. Um that's part of that's part of trying to heal because you're like, okay, so I come out of this 40-year hole. I I I I I devise a ladder myself to get out of this hole, basically, because no one was helping me get out of it. To this, really.

Gabe Nathan 25:52

Yeah, great.

Jacquese Armstrong 25:53

And uh things things are just abundantly clear about everything. And you have to learn to deal with it, you know. Um I had some trepidation about this this um this this book coming out, really, because you know it it it it's got a lot of um

Calling, Fear, And Publishing The Work

Jacquese Armstrong 26:22

black history metaphors in it. Um it alludes to uh going through some times in in in different administrations. Um and to to tell you the truth, last week I was like, I had like a sustained panic attack, and I I didn't know what was going on, and I was like, how can this be happening? You know, and and I just had to kind of just you know, I was snapping off at people and which is not like me. And uh I kind of got to the place where I can identify you're scared. Basically, you are you're scared, you know. Anybody goes through that with with with work that's vulnerable, you know, it's like I really don't have anybody that's really intensely behind me on this, you know. I don't feel like I do. It's like my thing. And it's a calling. It's a calling. It's like I said to myself when I was in my 40s that you know, if I have to go through this, why wouldn't I extend to other people the information I have? Everyone should do that, but everyone's not gonna do that. And people look at you like you're crazy because you do do that. But I'm I feel driven to do it. And so I do. It's my assignment, it's part of my assignment.

Gabe Nathan 28:15

That's part of your assignment, whether people are looking at you like you're brave or looking at you like you're crazy, or whether you're scared

Creativity As Scaffolding For Survival

Gabe Nathan 28:22

today or brave tomorrow, or you know, shit in your pants on Saturday. It's you have to do the work and and find some way to be okay. And I have to imagine that the work is also part of what helps you be okay, knowing that you're responding to that call, that you're being creative, that you're resisting in the way that you can. I just helps.

Jacquese Armstrong 28:52

Yeah, if I had not written that memoir, I wouldn't be here. I really wouldn't be. And so how can I deny um talking about it and trying to put it out there and tell people about it? Because it was my latter mechanism bringing me out of that hole.

Gabe Nathan 29:11

Yeah. And it's the it's just an incredible way of looking at creativity as building scaffolding to get you out of something. And I would love to turn to the piece that you wrote for us a long time ago. I think it was about 10 years ago.

Reading: Epiphany Radical Rainbow

Gabe Nathan 29:29

It was. And it is called Epiphany, Radical Rainbow, a middle-aged woman of color lives with mental illness in America. And would love to hear you read it in your own words. And after that, a reaction that you had to rereading it for this show.

Jacquese Armstrong 29:49

Okay. Uh so Epiphany Radical Rainbow. There's nothing more cathartic than paths being made and changed inside the brain. Thank God for neuroplasticity. I had the blues on crack. The kind where you wrap yourself around yourself in a corner so tight you can't rock, can't produce tears, and a straitjacket looks inviting. Lucidity goes out to play. The stark bareness of trees in the thick wind reminds you of a dinosaur bones on an exhibit in a small room of the Carnegie. Frightening. My thoughts on a loudspeaker so loud, like the cars rolling through the streets. I expect the thought police momentarily. So I moved my lifeless shell through the town by pulling the levers in the control room behind my eyes. The machine was outdated. I saw black and light. I had convinced myself, especially in the aftermath of the 2016 elections, that life, as I had previously anticipated embracing was over. I had planned to start a career in inspirational writing and speaking from a mental health perspective. Now I fear the Gestapo would come. It's very disheartening to watch the country fall apart as you're coming together. The pressure is mounting up, and you just want to coast a little. Having walked through hell on your hands and knees for your looking for your name for three and a half decades. I started this journey at 20, my junior year at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I was studying chemical engineering and was involved in an internship program at a chemical company. The financial security I may have had, I still moan mourn for. But I stopped sobbing about it. I have a BA in journalism that I paid for and blood on the revolving door plan. The only other thing I could do is write. I spent one quarter in school and the next in the hospital for two years until I finished. If you remember the 80s, the decade when I lost my mind. The 80s were a sweet, lucrative period. Optimism and that dreaded of all words promise were the cloak I enveloped myself in. Even after the doctor told me I would never finish school and basically never have a normal adult life, I still ran. I ran like the wind. My brain had been hardwired for success since I was little, and I could not conceive of not having it, or even changing my definition for it. But I was young and strong and popped back up very swiftly like a weevil when life punched me in the gut daily. I'm a dreamer, and without a dream, my life may as well be over. So I heard no word the doctor said and played games with my situation. I said when I finish college, this will go away. When I get a job as a journalist, it will go away. When I move to a place I like, it will go away. But then I found myself in DC with an entry-level journalism position and a BA, and the voices were still arguing in my head and plotting for my demise. It was such a sweet time, though. Everyone was happy. Something happened as the decade progressed. There was a dark veil that enveloped me, and I couldn't handle the day-to-day, especially reporting. A certain nastiness appeared in the atmosphere. It may have just been my paranoia, but its vibe wrestled with my psyche until all hell broke loose to the point that I found myself in a hospital bed the next morning after a horrifying first panic attack episode. However, the American scene really is hardcore now. So I doubt if anyone would want to listen to inspirational vibes or even understand what they're for. I find that I am once again questioning a newly bought dream. This epiphany was exacerbated by a subtle, total rejection of my services for a job I sought because of my age. I asked to be considered for a peer position in a program that treated individuals in a younger demographic. They didn't even want to hear what I had to say. They wanted young blood and energy. I am now one month into 55. This is America, need I say more. In the mental health game, to be middle aged and still experience, experiencing quote-unquote psychotic episodes is to be pushed to the side until stability is enough for you. That is until the nursing home can fit you in. Those are the four balls of being on disability at middle age. It has always been my main goal to be rid of that monthly reminder and replace it with my own, but I haven't worked full-time since 2002. My only way to make it out in my right mind is to figure out something on my own using the wisdom amassed from living this long. Why are we so obsessed with youth and speed anyway? We never consider using wisdom over whimsy. That's why the country's falling apart. There is no substance. I really needed three fights to get my blood boiling, though. So I add age to living while black in America and having thought and mood disorders. Then, no, I'm female. That makes four, since the country was overwhelmingly proved to be misogynistic in our tendencies this last election. Along with age, I am dismissed as a person of color, a person with lived experience, a poor person, and a female. I am an intersectional nightmare. Mostly as a person of color writing poetry from historical context, I'm dismissed by the literary mainstream. But having a different reality, I am also dismissed by the black community mainstream. Being a middle-aged single black female writer

Reflection And New Poems

Jacquese Armstrong 36:18

of limited cash flow who discuss discloses mental health challenges and speeches makes men run. It's the reality thing that they bought into that I refuse to let fester my soul. As far as I'm concerned, the area under the bell curve shelters automatrons who bought into the system hook, line, and sinker, whether it serves them or not. They've never had to think for themselves. They blindly followed the guidelines for what's supposed to be. I had a statement I say to myself, I'm a warrior. But even warriors sometimes have the wearies. When you wonder if all the bullshit you dreamed up is ever going to play one day, the wearies, enticing your mind to turn on itself and feed like a zombie on human prey, the wearies that state that forces you to confront the mirror crack to pieces at 20, complete with cobwebs, that you were willing to be whole on a wish. It's when you realize no matter how young and vital you feel, society has nailed you in a coffin times over and you're still breathing. But weariness is not allowed for the same portion of travel in a severe and chronic mind. Keep going are the only two words I've ever known. They navigate my every move. Never mind that every idea in my head that was pursued never came to fruition. Never mind the stares and banter. Never mind the blood dripping from the sun, the deep blue solitude. In the wake of this age thing, I had to assess how much I wanted life. When you've had the odds stacks against you for so long and never had a payoff, and then you realize you're middle aged with nothing to show for it but your breath, it starts you thinking. I've lived my entire life on the Weeble principle. Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. It takes longer for it to kick in now. But there is a crevice on my brain designating this specifically. Because just then the path I was walking on the terrain in my head changed course. I'm not easily intimidated after all I've been through, especially when principal is involved. You can't tell me I'm inferior based on race or mental health status. I won't be swept like that. Like I said, it's just one more battle to add to the fight. So I'm putting the world in check. I will not let anyone, including me, dismiss my validity based on age either. This society needs to view age through a truer lens and capitalize on wisdom instead of dumbed down entertainment, deceit, folly, and reality TV. Most can see where that road has taken us. Those who have traveled the raggedy mile and refuse to have their messages, tendencies, ideas, and the pursuit of those ideas truncated possess such a wealth of knowledge, strength, and wisdom. It is unfathomable why you wouldn't want to use it. We've seen the cycle pass a couple of times. The younger set thinks they created it. Some reach an apex later in life. These are the people who have more to offer. These are the ones with thoroughness of thought in their pursuits. Personally, I hope I don't reach that apex until I draw my last breath. Okay, I have a thought disorder. And I'm middle-aged, not a self-imposed description. But I do have a thought disorder that manifests itself in quote unquote psychotic and delusional thinking patterns at times. And so it is diagnosed with that god-awful term schizophrenia. Well, I've outgrown the terminology and the world's self-righteous iron cast

Spirituality, Trust, And Meaning

Jacquese Armstrong 40:39

judgments. I decided to grow weary of that. I decided to grow weary of the fact that the diagnosis word schizophrenia is the brunt of most mental illness jokes, the supposed cause for all mass murders, and the fact that no one really understands what the symptoms are. They think it's a multiple personality disorder. Well, I decided to put them in check as well. I have a rainbow mind on a color-induced journey that never ends. What more could you ask for? So when I first read this essay again the other day after 10 years, I cried halfway through. Like I said, I started a detox journey from the psychotropics I had been prescribed in various shapes and forms for more than four decades in April of 2023. It took me a little more than a year to get to a minimal baseline of meds that were designed to hold me. And as of about two months ago, I have totally detoxed. I have come to understand so much more about my so-called mental illness and the labels they bestow on anyone they can't understand at that moment in time. Those of us who no longer present as quote-unquote normal at any given time. I'd like to share a poem I wrote a few years ago that sort of sums it up. It's in my newly released memoir. I call it The Colonial Theory of Mental Health Anguish. I was born on the intersection of clarity and injustice, mortification and rage, but told to stuff my overly large octagon into a square. And when it wouldn't fit, they came with a hammer. I saw stars, so they brought out a book and gave me a diagnosis. I'd like to share one more poem right now. This poem is not in my memoir, but it's in a collection of poetry about my mental health journey that I'm still looking for a publisher for. And this is called Truth Equals Stages: Approaching Healing. Stage one. He said, You will never finish college and you will never work. Those were the exact words that came from his mouth. I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. You would never finish college. I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. You never work. I don't want to hear that. You big fat mother trying to sever my soul for myself, giving me no empathy and impressive co-staring

Tuning Out Noise And Protecting Peace

Jacquese Armstrong 44:12

with a cigarette in your mouth, doping me up when all I want to do is finish my engineering degree. The fire under my butt is already lit. You can't tell me what's possible in the future. Psychiatrist as God is not an understanding for me. Maybe I won't finish my chimney degree, but I'll get another one. Because I will never let a mother like you beat me. Stage two. Decades later, my brain talks to my heart, saying, You always leave me with the thankless jobs, the methodical folding of the rope you dangled over the abyss from, testing the stencil strength of the tightrope for your life's walk, stocking the books on endless shelves of meticulously executed plans that never came to fruition, making sure you have tissues. I sit through the job, whatever you do at the time. Retail journalist, workshop creator, telephone marketer, and have those tissues ready. After the clock ticks, we can leave. Drive you to the cafe so you can sit and drink and deposit eggs from paper to laptop. Drive you to your therapist or the nearest park with water. When you see reds through green, and only a flow can soothe with coal train vibes, a Sonia Sanchez poem, singing blues with sister trees, a lake ripple, a god gratitude, the beauty of raindrops on the skin. You taught me that. I said we were a Rambo brain and a Bambi heart. Maybe I got it wrong. So I hang around till the next time we flow. Stage three. My God has no voice. For me to have heard him, I would have to speak his language. That is mathematical creation inspired science linguistics unknown to man. He holds the answer to simultaneous equations

Manifesto: Watusi Like Me

Jacquese Armstrong 46:40

that God, the universe, and keep us. I trust him.

Gabe Nathan 46:47

Thank you so much for taking us on that journey, that journey back ten years ago to when you first wrote that piece for us, um, to your reaction to it, um to these other pieces. I your writing is so beautiful and powerful, and I'm so glad that you're sharing it. Um it's I think it means so much, and I think it holds so much meaning and power um for other people. So thank you for that.

Jacquese Armstrong 47:25

Thank you. Thank you.

Gabe Nathan 47:29

Can you uh talk to me a little bit about stage three? Um when you were reading it, and when I was reading it before, I was so interested to hear about your thoughts about God and religion and spirituality, because so much of that is in it's intertwined with so much of human experience and you know, with with mental illness. And I'm thinking again about like that medical industrial complex. As soon as God is mentioned or religion is mentioned by a patient, you know, immediately it's like a religiously preoccupied, you know, you can like see it in there. So can you just talk to me a little bit about your relationship with God and religion and and spirituality and where you are now and maybe how that's evolved over time?

Jacquese Armstrong 48:26

I first of all I feel like creativity is like a download from the creator. It's not something you you're just a conduit, you know. You're just how he chose to let that conversation enter through. You know, um, it may just be for you, it may not be just for you. I choose to try to um try to publish mine because I feel like you know, it may help somebody out. I wish somebody had helped me out, you know. Um as far as uh what I said about God and simultaneous equations, I had always thought of my life in terms of equations. I guess because I was in engineering and I was doing so much math and science. And it's like

Closing Gratitude And Resources

Jacquese Armstrong 49:20

it's like you set up these equations and variables for your life, but when you're young, you don't realize that some of those variables are gonna be off, some of them are gonna be put in there that that you didn't even ask for or define or even know what the definition is. Um I can't exist without knowing that there is a plan, and I believe there is a master plan, and I believe in God, and I believe in Jesus Christ, and like I ended it with I trust him. That's my secure thought. I trust him.

Gabe Nathan 50:14

And I guess when I asked you earlier about like what is helping you get through this just like ceaselessly awful, it's like every day you wake up and look at the news, there's there's another, there's another awful uh thing happening that this administration, this disgusting person is doing, and and just relentlessly trying to beat people down, you know. And you you said in um where is it? Oh, it's it's at the end of stage one. Um, if you can't get the Kemi degree, I'll get another one because I'll never let a mother like you beat me down, beat me. And it's I feel like that's Trump. I feel like that's you know, uh society now. It's uh uh uh whoever the mother is, right? Whether it's a psychiatrist or you know, the the medical model or a dictator wannabe. Um maybe for you that that trust, I trust in him, maybe that's part of how you're getting through this and and not letting the mothers beat you.

Jacquese Armstrong 51:42

It definitely is. I had come to some type of realization, and and I had gotten away from that, and I'm getting more back to it. A lot of this stuff is illusion, you know? The reality is what you dwell on and what's inside of you, and that's the whole crux of the fight in mental health, is like why are you comparing my reality to somebody else's reality? You know, why don't you give me a chance to figure my own out? I mean, you know, you could help me with it, you know, you could talk to me, you we could go back and talk and figure out something, you know, from what's bothering me, what traumatized me, what happened to me, not what are my symptoms, or what's wrong with you, right? Yeah, and then you you have to kind of tune that out. But I mean, right now it's so loud. I just kind of isolate, really. I I really am. I just I don't know what to say.

Gabe Nathan 53:07

Well, I know something that you can say. Can you please take us home by reading the last poem that you sent um to us? Okay. Watusi Like Me poem. I would love to hear you read that.

Jacquese Armstrong 53:23

Okay. This is the last poem in my memoir. This is sort of like my manifesto. It's called Watusi Like Me poem. It's a golden shovel poem after Asonia Sanchez haku. I can do the Watusi, I would say, like the little girl inside the woman claiming sisterhood to trees. No man is beholden to the outrageous complications of day. Thundercloud and bolt of light with like a surrounding forest mist of scented green. And a little girl grabs for her umbrella, but the woman is not afraid of catching the rain. And the woman is not afraid.

Gabe Nathan 54:18

Not today.

Jacquese Armstrong 54:19

He works with it.

Gabe Nathan 54:22

And it's all we can do, it's all we can do, and I am so, so grateful to you for working with it, for working through it, for spending some time with me. Uh, I'm just so grateful that you exist.

Jacquese Armstrong 54:37

Thank you. I'm so glad I had a chance to meet you. It was really a great experience. And I remember fondly that um that retreat, that was just so great. I'm still in touch with some of the people that are on that retreat.

Gabe Nathan 54:53

So I love that. I love that. Um, if we can do nothing else, making a human connection between me and you and the other women at the retreat, that's huge. Um, so I'm very, very lucky and very, very grateful. Thank you.

Jacquese Armstrong 55:11

Thank you.

Gabe Nathan 55:16

Thank you again for joining us in conversation today. It's beautiful to see the progression of our contributors. Thank you so, so much to our guest today, Jacquese Armstrong. She is the author of Blue's Legacy and Birthing Yourself Naturally: Motivational Reflections on a Mental Health Journey, and she has a new book out. It's a collection of essays and poems, and it's called Fabricating a Home Because You Never Had One. 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.