*Season 6, King Iso: Managing Schizoaffective & Bipolar II with Scott Fears, MD, PhD (Amae Health), Part 1

Mari Fong interviews King Iso and expert Scott Fears, MD, PhD on schizoaffective and bipolar II disorder with addictions, Part 1.

He’s a rapper who’s turned his lifelong battles with mental health and addiction into life-saving music, amassing millions of streams and selling out shows across the country. Our guest today is King ISO who’s survived homelessness, suicide attempts, jail time, and was diagnosed with schizoaffective and bipolar II disorder, who also had his share of addictions. But King Iso used music to vent his pain which not only helped himself but others as well. He recently dropped his 7th studio album entitled, Ghetto Psycho and I’ll be playing a clip of his song, “Normal” at the end of our episode. 

Next, our expert is Scott Fears, MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA & Chief Medical Officer of Amae Health in Los Angeles who works with patients with serious and persistent mental illness, often with the homeless and veteran communities. He’s also led and worked at Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles (HHCLA) located in Skid Row, a very tough place, but a great nonprofit that I’m familiar with since my first fundraiser for mental health was for HHCLA. Since King Iso’s story is a fascinating, longer tale, I’ve dedicated 2 episodes to him. So let’s hear Part 1 of King Iso, share his story.

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The information shared during this interview is for general informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider for any individualized medical concerns.

Transcript

Speaker 3 0:04

Happy meeting, superheroes. Welcome to the Check Your Head Podcast. I'm your host, Amari Fong, and I'm excited to share some good news for 2026. The Check Your Head Podcast is now a 501c3 nonprofit where our mission is to normalize the conversations on mental health and addiction, be supportive of others in recovery, and to provide a variety of solutions for mental health and addiction to improve and save the lives of musicians and those in the music industry. So on our website at CheckyetPodcast.com, you'll find hundreds of solutions for musicians, but also for music fans and for the general public. Every solution is free and affordable because I believe anyone who wants recovery should be able to receive it without the barrier of cost. So when you participate in our mission, maybe you share your story with a friend or help them in recovery, or even do that for yourself, you become a superhero. Now I've been through my own bouts of depression, and with that came anxiety. So I know how tough it is. It really can be the thought of your life. So when you do the work and get better, and you will, you deserve to be a superhero. So be proud of that. Wear it as a badge of honor. Talk about it because it represents your strength and persistence. And hopefully you'll use that experience to help others as well. That really is my aim with the Check Your Head Podcast. So let's get to our featured musical guest. He's a rapper who's turned his lifelong battles with mental health and addiction into life-saving music, amassing millions of streams and selling out the shows across the country. Our guest today is King ISO, who survived homelessness, suicide attempts, jail time, and was diagnosed with ski to effective and bipolar tea disorder, who also had his share of addictions. But ISO used music to vent his pain, which not only helped himself but others as well. He recently dropped his seventh studio album entitled Ghetto Psycho, and we'll be playing a clip of his song Normal at the end of our episode. Next, our expert is Dr. Scott Fears, professor of psychiatry at UCLA and chief medical officer of Amai Health in Los Angeles, who works with patients with serious and persistent mental illness, often with addictions, and often working with the homeless and veterans. He's also worked in Lead and Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles, located in Skid Row, a very tough place, but a great nonprofit that I'm familiar with since my first fundraiser from mental health was for Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles. So King ISO's story is a fascinating, longer tale. So I've dedicated two episodes to him. So let's hear part one of King ISO sharing his story. I'm excited not only for Ghetto Psycho, which dropped on September 12th. Yes. But also, you know, so many of your other albums, I mean, you came out of the gate talking about mental health, even the titles of your last albums, being an advocate for mental health, especially for your community.

Speaker 1 3:16

100%, yes. There is one called Insanity Plea, one called Autophobia, there's another one, World War Me. Titles that are definitely going to be a representation of bringing awareness to mental illness for sure.

Speaker 3 3:33

Right. Like one is dementia. And I have to be honest with you, I have really tried to get urban hip-hop artists on the Check Yad podcast, and I had a hard time. But I find that maybe you could tell me in the urban community, it's a little bit more of a taboo to talk about mental health and addiction recovery. Why do you think that is?

Speaker 1 3:57

I think that it is because even just having normal conversations, the multiple times that I was inpatient, going to a group therapy, what I learned is that it takes somebody to start the conversation because typically it's uncomfortable. And I know that everything on the other side of being comfortable is where you progress. You have to be willing to get uncomfortable. There was a time when I was impatient and nobody wanted to start the conversation. The behavioral service technician that was in there trying to get everybody to warm up and actually speak and delve into their personal experience. Like everybody that was in the mental hospital, nobody wanted to talk at all. So there was this game that they were trying to play where they had like a beach ball and they wrote everything like name five strengths or name five weaknesses or name a traumatic event that you can work towards getting over. It was like a multitude of different things. And when you caught the ball, wherever your thumb was at, that's what you had to do. So I was just, here, throw me the ball. And I got it going. And once I started opening up about my personal experience, it was a domino effect. And everybody in the room started to, you know what I mean? So I kind of feel like there's a parallel with that with music. It just takes one person to start the conversation, and somebody else can say, you know what, I I've experienced that too. Typically because it's not something that's so popular that a lot of people shy away from it. You know what I mean? Opening up about your personal experiences, your your traumas is just isn't normal. And I try to make it that way because there's so many people that need healing that don't know or don't have anybody to talk to or feel like they can be in a safe space, or just have the relativity within conversation to talk about it. You know what I mean? I try to be that person for them.

Speaker 3 6:01

Yeah, that's amazing. And I I do find that a lot of the stories with musicians on the podcast, when other people open up and share that they've experienced, you know, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, whatever it is, they credit those people for saving their life. And sometimes just sharing even one solution has changed people's lives. So thank you for doing that. And it's so important with your fans and your community and saying those things that can move the needle toward positive change and maybe even change with our society with mental health. But your story actually started, gosh, it seemed like at birth, because I read that you at two years old, your mother said that you laid down in the street and was trying to get run over by a car. Yes. Now, do you even remember that?

Speaker 1 6:59

You know what's crazy is I I don't remember that, but the fact that she told me that story, it started to make sense when I really started to figure out, you know, doing the self-work. You know what I mean? I need to figure out like what is going on with me. Like, I had this phase of my life where I I really wanted to find myself. I want to know what it is that I'm dealing with, where are all of these things that m possibly play a part on what I'm dealing with, you know what I mean? Mentally and and spiritually and everything else. And when I go back and I would listen to stories like that, I'm like, man, maybe it's just something that's been there. Obviously, there are you know, hereditary effects and stuff like that. I found out that a good portion of my family does deal with schizophrenia, bipolar, manic depression. And I did not see a lot of my family doing that self-work, or nobody was at the dinner table talking about, oh, I'm in therapy. It was just like this is just how we are, and this is just what it is. And I'm like, this is landing me in a lot of trouble, and I need to do something about this, or I'm most likely going to be forced to, which kind of was this situation for me. I got in so much trouble and I did so much damage to myself to where it was like, all right, you can either go all the way over the edge and potentially end up losing your life, or you can start and say, I'm going to fix myself brick by brick. I'm going to find out what's going on with me. I'm going to learn about whatever it is I'm dealing with. I'm going to study, you know, ways to cope. I'm going to find coping mechanisms. I'm going to have a safety plan, a a strategy, a a change of habits, and I'm really going to try my hardest to heal myself. And I chose to go that way. And I've seen success on the other side of that.

Speaker 3 8:47

That's a really good feeling, right? To finally get to the point. I always call it the other side because it's it's like this other life that's waiting for you uh once you do the work. And the work is tough.

Speaker 1 9:00

Yes.

Speaker 3 9:00

But you mentioned your family history, which is really important. And you mentioned quite a few things, you know, schizophrenia and, you know, bipolar and all after getting therapy or or psychiatric treatment, what were you diagnosed with?

Speaker 1 9:13

Bipolar one. No, no, no, no, no. Uh bipolar two. And then um schizoaffective is what they diagnosed me with. At the time, when I did get diagnosed with uh schizoaffective, they had me on medications, and these medications were really, really amping up a lot of the symptoms. Like auditory and and visual hallucinations, stuff that I was like, I don't know if it's me or the medication, but I don't want to take this medication anymore. And they're like, well, you have to take this medication because ABC, X, Y, Z, right? Mm-hmm. And I feel like where my battle was, they looked at it as almost like I was going against the system, you know, like he's not Oh, rebelling. Yes, like he's not being cooperative. He's refusing this. The facilities that I were in, it's like they punished me because of it. So like you don't get to go home, right? There will be no discharge plan until you take your meds consistently and you go to group. And so at one point, I feel like I had to almost sacrifice what I believed in in order to go home. But I had to deal with that. If I'm telling you that these are worsening my symptoms, I feel like you should take heed to that and listen. But I'm just this crazy kid to them that doesn't know what he's talking about, and these are the professionals and listen to them. That's kind of the vibe that I got. So I was like, you want to go home? Do you have to take this? And it got to the point where I was cheeking pills and spitting them out. They were like, okay, well now we have to give you injections. So they had to give me my medication in syringe form.

Speaker 3 10:51

So is it the same medication in syringe form?

Speaker 1 10:55

Yes.

Speaker 3 10:56

So I was in the pharmaceutical industry for 13 years. And I know that if somebody's having side effects and they're not dissipating or going away with time, then you try another medication. So they didn't even listen to you and tried to soothe side effects or change medications or anything like that?

Speaker 1 11:15

I would say what maybe there would there were a few times at first, right? Yeah, okay, let's try this, let's try this. So there was this lady that I dealt with when I first got there, and she was like, You hearing things, you're seeing things right there. But the medication that they had me on, I'm like, yeah, but I feel like it's because of this. So her response was, Oh, yeah, he's seeing things and he's hearing things, so he needs to be on this. She didn't really hear what I was saying. So then it's like, we're gonna give him another medication that's for that. It's like, well, I'm telling you that it's because of this specific kind of medication. It just messed me up, and I just got took through the ringer on multiple meds.

Speaker 3 11:54

Oh gosh, I'm so sorry to hear that, but you know, with your treatment. And I would think that, God, having somebody put a syringe in you is even scarier.

Speaker 1 12:03

And the crazier part about it was that um I ended up being committed under the Board of Mental Health. So it it wasn't like a voluntary check-in where I could just go home. They were like, no, these are the terms. You cannot go home. I had to work for every little thing. I'm talking about to get regular clothes, to get phone privileges, to even go outside and get fresh air. It was like that. And and then we could talk about potentially letting you go home. And if you do go home, you have to check in once every two weeks. And I had to get the syringe injection. So one week it's my left arm, two weeks later it's the right arm. But I had to sign off on this in order to go home. These were the conditions of my release. If I did not follow these conditions, they would put me back in the mental hospital.

Speaker 3 12:51

Okay, so at that stint at the mental hospital, what was the occurrence that brought you in?

Speaker 1 12:59

Oh man. Well, there were there were a lot of things. There were a lot of things that were going on. Um I did have a very bad drug addiction.

Speaker 3 13:07

And that was to what?

Speaker 1 13:09

I was doing a lot of stuff. I was mixing definitely pain pills. Like opioids. Yes. Drink drinking a lot, definitely cocaine usage, weed wasn't that bad. I was just d doing a lot to try to to cope. You know what I mean? Deal with things that I dealt with as a young adolescent, a young teenager, and also a young adult. And I was homeless for a while. And what ended up happening was people were seeing me out and about to the point where I got petitioned.

Speaker 3 13:40

Petitioned, does that mean they are noticing that you're on the street or what does that mean?

Speaker 1 13:45

Well, put the petition process works, and this is kind of crazy because anybody can go through this. Like right now, if seven or eight people come together and they go holler at a psychiatric team or, you know, law enforcement, if you get enough people to do it, they can come get you and put you in a mental hospital. So that's what happened. And multiple people had to sign off on it and say, this person is not okay and we fear and they'll come get you.

Speaker 3 14:14

Like we were your family, your friends? Okay. So you were having different episodes and behaviors that made people worried.

Speaker 1 14:21

Yes. And at first I was very disappointed at everybody who was involved in that, but now I thank them. In my particular case, I thank them because it saved my life.

Speaker 3 14:33

That's the thing is in a lot of these stories, people, you know, at the time might be upset at an intervention or something that's against their will at the time, or maybe they're surprised by it. But they all end up saying, you know, it saved my life. And sometimes that truth you've got to look in the mirror, which is a hard truth. You can't see it at the time. But as you look back, I'm glad that you can appreciate that.

Speaker 1 14:59

Yes.

Speaker 3 15:00

And then on top of that, I read that at the age of around nine or ten, unfortunately, you were m molested by a family member. Oh my gosh. And things spiraled down. Your grades, you were an A student. And I'm sorry that that happened.

Speaker 1 15:16

Appreciation. And even at the time, I didn't understand what was right or wrong. You know, it's just something happened and then you keep going throughout life, and then you realize, like, oh wow, that was not supposed to happen. And then a few years later, like in my younger teens, I had a best friend and high school, and she was she was my everything. She was actually the person that got me to open up about my mental health struggles because I used to self-mutilate when I was an early teen. And then when I got to high school, she came to the lunch table and she seen I had multiple cuts down my arm. And she uh she just grabbed my arm and she said, uh, what is this about? And I was like, I don't want to talk about it. And she said, Well, take my number when you're ready, let's talk about it. And then we just became best friends. And um, she shared with me her poetry books, and she was just incredibly smart, incredibly knowledgeable about self and about what she was going through. The most beautiful lady I've ever known. She like embraced me. And um, I love her, you know what I mean? And she loved me. We were like best friends, and it was going away of relationship, possibly, but we just didn't do it. I think she might have felt a way, and you know, I I was nervous. I really, you know what I mean? You know, when you really like somebody, you don't want to ruin anything.

Speaker 3 16:43

Right. It's kind of like you're being trepidation.

Speaker 1 16:46

Yeah, when she made me nervous, you know, like she was everything to me. She still is. But um, we just didn't talk for like two weeks. She sent me a message like, if you love me, we would be together. I go to a messenger, I see she's on Messenger, and this is this is super crazy. I believe it was the 21st of June of 2005. I get on there, I feel like she went to type something, I went to type something, and then we just didn't send it. This was around 3 p.m. I go out for a ride with my friends, and next thing you know, my phone starts blowing up. And I turn on the news, and somebody broke into her house and raped her and killed her.

Speaker 3 17:25

Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. That is so traumatic.

Speaker 1 17:30

Yeah, and that was my that was my everything. And I feel like after that, you know, that's that's what really kind of sent me. Because she was the only person I was talking to about that type of stuff. So I I have a deep-rooted social issue with people who put their hands on women or do because I I lost my best friend. I got a big tattoo of her right here on my rib, because you know, she's my she was my rib, you know.

Speaker 3 17:56

That's so sweet.

Speaker 1 17:56

Yeah, she was only 15, 15, 16 years old. She was so young. You know what I mean? So young. It really stuck with me, and I say her name every album, I keep her name alive.

Speaker 3 18:06

And what's her name?

Speaker 1 18:07

Her name's Sarah.

Speaker 3 18:08

Sarah.

Speaker 1 18:09

Yep, Sarah was everything. She was the one to tell me tell me, write about it, you know, speak about it, like speak up about it. And she was going through her thing too. She got bullied a lot in school. She used to get, you know, beat up and jumped and stuff like that. She'll come running to me crying. We were both like rebels, you know what I mean? And I had a lot of respect for her and a lot of appreciation for her standing up, going through everything she went through. And her unfortunate, untimely demise really, really sent me over the edge. I fell into a deep depression behind that.

Speaker 3 18:38

Yeah, I can understand. I mean, that's not only a depression due to your relationship, but also just the shock of that. Yes. You know, I mean, anybody that you would love and care for, but especially her. She sounds like she was still your angel.

Speaker 1 18:54

Yes, a hundred percent. And speaking to you, I'm sure, right? Yes. And still with you. Yes.

Speaker 3 19:00

Yeah. So so tell me about that because depression is I call it one of the biggest liars out there. It'll tell you things that are not true. But they s they sound so true when you're in it. It's a tough battle.

Speaker 1 19:14

Yeah. I even read somewhere that a lot of times your brain will create lies when it's recalling a situation. Like you can still suffer traumatic effects from what your brain is lying to you. Let's say like you walk into a room and you feel like everybody is looking at you or laughing at you, and they're totally not. You can still experience a traumatic event from that and have effects from that. That's wild. You know, how many times have we gotten to arguments with people because they recall the situation where you clearly remember it, you know, play by play, verbatim, but they don't remember it that way. That's how complex the brain is. And I also found out through research that um if you constantly have been Around, let's just say negativity or just trauma or negative surroundings. You know what I mean? Like, just yes, maybe like you were around that, right? Uh-huh. Just like your whole life. It could have been a dysfunctional family or something like that. Your brain will simulate trauma when things are going good because that's what it's used to.

Speaker 3 20:18

Okay. So even a subconscious kind of thing.

Speaker 1 20:21

Yeah. So you know how people say like self-sabotage. That is a very important thing. You know, there's this saying, when life is going so good, you know, I always feel like what's about to happen bad. Like, oh, my life is going so good, I just know something bad is getting ready to happen. Is a wild thing to think about. Your brain doesn't even want to let life just be good. Like you're anticipating for something bad to happen. And when it finally does happen, you can say, I knew it was coming, versus maybe you were the one who did it.

Speaker 3 20:54

Right. It's almost like your brain wants truth. It has to align with truth. So not only are you attracting your thoughts, but you start to attract yourself to events or people that can make that happen so that it could be true in your mind.

Speaker 1 21:13

Yep.

unknown 21:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1 21:14

Scary.

Speaker 3 21:15

It it it's true. And once you realize the importance of your thoughts and how it's important to change negative thoughts to kind of change your experiences, it is a little bit of a superpower.

Speaker 1 21:27

100%.

Speaker 3 21:28

So we talked about energy and atmosphere. You know, even traveling to different cities, the atmosphere of the city, the atmosphere of your community, your neighborhood. Yes. These are all things that can affect the way you think, can affect your behavior and what you're involved with.

Speaker 1 21:45

100%. Um environmental psychology, and it plays a major part. Like if you grow up and this is something that you see. Like I had a situation that was very, very interesting a few years back where I befriended this woman, super sweet. She does hair and makeup and stuff like that. And I reached out to her because I was like, hey, you know, I'm getting ready to do some videos. I need somebody who can do hair and makeup for the models and blase blase. She's like, okay, yeah, let's talk about some ideas. And whoever she was dealing with at the time was he was very, very negative for her. And uh, he called my phone, and I didn't know what type of situation that she was in. I happened to get on Facebook one day and I seen that uh she was getting abused. It was like a post and delete type of situation. And I ended up getting on the phone with this guy because he ended up getting my number. He was like, How do you know her? Why are you calling my phone? Like, what's going on, man? And then next thing you know, he started to open up to me, but it was kind of crazy because why he was abusing her was because he grew up and that's what happened with his grandma and grandpa. To me personally, I'm like, okay, I can understand how your brain might think that that was okay because that's how you grew up. But to me, I'm thinking, let's be honest, like, that's not okay. I'm talking about she was a very, very tiny girl. She had to be at least a hundred pounds, maybe soaking wet, and not even five feet tall. And this is a big dude, and you're abusing her. And like I said, I have a deep-rooted social issue with people who are doing that because I lost my best friend that way. So I'm trying to be as what's the word, man? Um, let's just say calm. Yeah, civil as possible because like you're trying to tell me, you're trying to tell me what you feel like is a okay reason and an excuse to why you're doing this. I don't even really know her like that, number one, but I'm I'm on the defense because I have my personal experience and my beliefs, and I'm listening to you say that this is why, but it also plays into environmental psychology. Like you grew up seeing this. You grew up seeing your grandpa abuse your grandmother, and you feel like this is just the way it's supposed to be. And I told him, I was like, look, man, I'm not gonna tell you what to believe in or what not to believe in. But me personally, I feel like if you have a daughter, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want her to go through these same experiences that you are currently putting this woman through. You know what I mean? Hopefully I got through to them, but that was the last time you spoke, you know. It just goes to show like some people grow up and they see things and they're like, oh, okay, this is how it's supposed to be. It's it's definitely not what's supposed to be the norm.

Speaker 3 24:28

Yeah, and I think sometimes people either do what they're familiar with or they look at something like violence and domestic abuse and say, I will never be like that. Right. Well, at least you got him talking about it and thinking about it.

Speaker 1 24:43

You I I tried to walk him through it and say, look, man, like imagine you have a daughter. Would you want her calling you crying and, you know, face all bruised up, she's coming to you to be her protector and her provider. And I was like, How would you feel? I don't know if I got through to him or not, but I did give him a piece of my mind the best way I could, and I just had to distance myself from that particular type of energy. I just don't agree with it, and I and I feel sorry for anybody who's dealing with it on either side. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 25:13

I do. I do. I'm gonna give you a high five on that one, man. To go from a violent guy who was like pissed off at you to getting to have him talking? That's good.

Speaker 1 25:24

I I tried the best I could. Number one, because I was fearful for her, and I'm like, you're calling me thinking that this is something that it's not, and I'm like, so this is what you do. You're going through her phone, you're being controlling. I did end up seeing her mother, and her mother was so thankful that I was there for her daughter, but you know, we were just good friends, but man, so I'm thinking this is the same way I lost my best friend. One time, you know, you can say, maybe it was just one time, me. I'm like, eh, if it happened one time, it can definitely happen again. And the next time that it happens, it can potentially be fatal. There are a lot of women who ended up getting away, thankfully, and almost lost their lives, whereas it's like some of them aren't here. So I take I take that so seriously.

Speaker 3 26:10

Oh yeah. And I'm gonna say this if you're anybody that's being abused, you have the choice to get up and go. t

Speaker 1 26:24

And I understand too, in my experience, they're very fearful of this man or whoever this person is. You know what I mean? And there is a certain level of mental manipulation and torment that happens in these situations to where they feel like no matter where they run or go, this person is going to find them, so they just stay in it. Like I have to have a friend that survived the stabbing. She got stabbed a bunch of times. She still has knife marks all down the middle of her chest. Dude snuck in, you know, I don't know how he got in the house. And um she almost died. If her mom hadn't been there, she wouldn't have made it. You know what I mean? But but he would always say, you know, like, you leave me, I'm gonna kill you. So some women, when they hear stuff like that, they're like, I'm not gonna leave him. I'm just gonna sit here. You know what I mean? They don't want to speak up about it because they're they're fearful of that. And then it's like, you stay in the abuse, you could potentially lose your life. If you try to leave, the same thing can happen. So they're probably in a mental gridlock.

Speaker 3 27:28

Right. And, you know, I could see where people get threatened, you know, usually with things they love, like their family or their children. And so it's a lot more complicated. You're right. I fortunately, thankfully, not experienced that. But I I want to get back to when you were 17 and you lost your love and your your friend.

Speaker 1 27:48

Yep, I was uh four fourteen, fourteen, fifteen, something like that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 27:53

But you you got into this depression. What were some of the things that were going through your head? What were some of the thoughts that you had?

Speaker 1 28:01

I hadn't experienced loss like that, you know, and to have somebody that close that I did have that open window of communication with, like I did trust, that I did respect and love and felt comfortable with expressing myself, I didn't have it anymore. The the drug usage definitely went up. The drinking definitely went up, and I had I attempted my own life not that long after. You know what I mean? There was also trouble at the house as well. I think that was around the time my mom and her husband at the time were going through a divorce. So it was a lot going on, and you know, watching them get into it, everything was just in disarray. And I just didn't have anybody who I could open up to, you know what I mean? I didn't know what was going on with my mind or why I wanted to leave, you know. And when I lost her, that was like the icing on the cake, because I I was already going through it. That's how we met. You know what I'm saying? So I'm like, oh, I got somebody.

Speaker 3 29:00

Your lifeline.

Speaker 1 29:01

Yeah, so then when she got took away, I'm like, oh, okay, well then it's time for me to go then. Cause like I'm having this daily therapy with this person, and it's gone now, so now I'm back to square one where I'm being a loner, and the friends that I do have, they don't know. I don't talk to them about this, you know, I don't talk to the guys about this. You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 29:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1 29:19

We we're looked at as weak. I didn't cry in front of them. I didn't do none of that in front of them, but with her, you know, we sit and talk and do all that. So that really, really, yeah. And then after I did it to my own life, that's when it was like, now I'm in the hospital and now I'm getting admitted, and now it's like, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 29:39

What was the um what were the thoughts that were going through your head to convince you to try and kill yourself? And and like, did you tell friends?

Speaker 1 29:50

Did you, you know, That's what saved my life is me calling me calling one friend that I did for like, okay, you know, this is my best friend. Let me call him tell him and then it just spread like wildfire. You know, I don't know what happened, but I know that people started showing up at the door, and my stepfather ended up driving me to the hospital, and yeah.

Speaker 3 30:13

What did you tell your friend?

Speaker 1 30:15

That it's over. You know, tell everybody I love him, and you know, my I'm probably not gonna be here after I hang up the phone. Uh-huh. I took a bunch of pills. But the thoughts that I had that that convinced me that I didn't need to be here anymore was it's so crazy because definitely there's a lot of teenagers, there's a lot of young adolescents that aren't even in their teens, even young adults, even older adults, even people our age and older than us, that feel like they don't have a purpose. And that's what I felt like. I felt like I just didn't have a purpose. I don't have anybody to talk to, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what I'm experiencing, I don't know which direction I'm going in life, I don't even know what this is I'm dealing with, but I feel incredibly low, and I feel like I don't want to be here, and I don't even know how to formulate a way out of this thought process, and I can't pick myself up. So the only way out of this is for me to transition.

Speaker 3 31:11

Okay.

Speaker 1 31:12

Yeah.

Speaker 3 31:12

Now I heard that in solitary confinement it was called ISO.

Speaker 1 31:17

Yes.

Speaker 3 31:18

Which stood for what?

Speaker 1 31:19

Isolation.

Speaker 3 31:20

Isolation. Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 31:22

Yeah.

Speaker 3 31:22

But I read that twenty-three hours out of a twenty-four-hour day, you were in there solitary. Um, what made them put you in solitary confinement, first of all? Because that's that's pretty serious business.

Speaker 1 31:36

Yeah. So uh Alright, so maybe like 10 years after Sarah passed, you know, I was homeless dealing with uh the same type of drug addictions. They were amped up.

Speaker 3 31:47

Like alcohol.

Speaker 1 31:48

Yeah, a lot of that going on. I read ecstasy too. Yes, yes. I was having a lot of fun and doing and having a lot of not fun, you know. But I ended up still in a car and I was living out of this car, and I ended up checking myself in to a mental hospital.

Speaker 3 32:04

Were you acting out at that time? Were your behaviors? What were some of the things that you did that made you say, I gotta check myself in?

Speaker 1 32:11

I had reached a point in my life where I was like, I don't know what the hell is gonna happen next, but it's probably gonna be death. That's what I thought. And I was like, I don't want to die like this. So I was living out of this car, and then I remember me and my homegirl who I was with, because we were going through it. She she was selling her body and stuff like that. I was trying to tell her, we both doing stuff we're not supposed to do. We need to get our lives together. You know what I mean? And it was crazy because um she had asked me for a ride. I seen her on the strip. And she said, You can take me to my grandmother's house. I was like, Oh, okay, I got the car. We both are homeless, right? We walk over there where I had the car parked, and they had towed it. So they found it. They found it. And I had my personal belongings in there. So I knew it was probably only a matter of time.

unknown 32:59

Okay.

Speaker 1 33:00

She goes this way, I go this way, we get rid of the keys, I check myself in, I go to this one treatment center, and I feel like they are looking for me. So I ended up breaking out of one of the mental hospitals. That was a crazy situation breaking out of that mental hospital, getting chased down by security, and I made it. I got all the way out of the facility.

Speaker 3 33:21

Wait, wait, how did you do that?

Speaker 1 33:23

They had a like recreation time period where you can go outside and play cornhole or whatever. But there was like this big fence, and I just was like, I I feel like I could, I could, I could scale that fence. I could get over that fence. I was that's where I was I would see this fence every day. I'm like, can't have shoestrings or nothing. I said, My shoes might fall off, but I I can definitely make it over that fence. And the fence was high. So one day after lunch, the dude uh he hit it with his little badge. There was this door and it was this hallway, and I was like, that hallway looks like it leads to where it takes you back outside because there was only one door where they would take us and escort us out. But I was like, there's another door way down that hallway. It looks like it, there has to be another exit. So when the dude left with the lunch cart and the door was closing, I put my foot there and I acted like I was talking to the nurse, like, hey, how's your day going? And I'm looking. They don't see that the door hasn't closed. Once I stopped hearing the cart, I slipped through the door and I took off running. And they're like, yo, he's trying to run away. And next thing you know, I hear alarms going off and all of that, and I bust out of the exit and it's like a movie. Yeah, it's super like a movie. And um I ended up uh getting out into that recreational area and I jumped and I pulled myself up and I flipped myself over the fence and I just took off running. Yeah, they didn't catch me. But I ended up going to the hospital a couple months later, like a totally different hospital.

Speaker 3 34:52

Oh gosh.

Speaker 1 34:52

And sheriffs came in. They're like, Yeah, you got a petition out for the Wait, wait, the petition was that from your family? Yeah, it's from everybody. Yeah, that was the first no, that was the first time I got petitioned.

unknown 35:04

Oh.

Speaker 1 35:04

So yeah, so then they were like, Oh, you can't go anywhere. I'm like, I've never been in shackles and cuffs in a hospital, in a psychiatric, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, they put me in shackles and cuffs. And um, they drove me to like this big building where there's no escape in this building, you know.

Speaker 3 35:20

Like super locked down.

Speaker 1 35:21

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so that's where I got committed, and that's where I had to do all the work. That's when I had to get the shots. So once I was able to leave there, I thought I was going home, and I came outside, and the sheriffs were waiting for the stolen vehicle.

Speaker 3 35:37

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 35:38

Yeah, so I'm like, I'm saying goodbye to everybody, and as soon as I go outside, they're like, come on, you got something else to do now. So I'm like, damn, I'll go straight from there. And I ended up being put on suicide watch over there, and I didn't want to be on suicide watch anymore.

Speaker 3 35:51

What do they do on suicide watch?

Speaker 1 35:53

You just are in your cell all day.

Speaker 3 35:56

Are they checking you, like visually, having to check you every so often?

Speaker 1 36:00

And so I I didn't want to be there anymore. I felt like I was good enough to go back, you know what I mean? I don't want to be in here anymore. And they had me in there with some people, I just I ended up flooding my cell, like getting angry, and then they moved me from there to isolation. And I was like, all right, I'm all the way at rock bottom now. They took away all of my privileges.

Speaker 3 36:23

Next up, Dr. Scott Fears will give his best professional advice from many years of working with serious mentally ill patients. Dr. Fierce is a leader in science-based programs, identifying genetic factors, using things like neural imaging, and a whole-person approach to treatment, which supports meaningful long-term lifestyle change. Now let's hear Dr. Fears share his insight on King ISO and others who may be in a more complicated situation dealing with serious, persistent mental health and addiction.

Speaker 2 36:57

I listened to your interview with King ISO. I really enjoyed a lot of wisdom.

Speaker 3 37:02

Well, the funny thing was I had read up on his story, listened to the lyrics of his album, because he writes all about his journey, and you don't know what to expect. But w what I found was this sweet, shy, gentle man that you wouldn't expect would have everything that he went through. Right.

Speaker 2 37:26

Lots of trauma.

Speaker 3 37:27

So much trauma. It was almost like all the cards were stacked against him.

Speaker 2 37:32

Absolutely.

unknown 37:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2 37:40

Comes from heavy background of both trauma, but also, I mean, he mentioned numerous family members that had been diagnosed with some sort of serious mental illness. So I think he really represents one, someone who does have genetic kind of predisposition towards serious mental illness, and at the same time grew up in an environment that was very traumatic, right? And even pointing to the loss of this close friend of his in teenage years, you kind of look at that as a huge trauma on top of other traumas that really seemed like the straw that broke the camel's back. You know, the substances were involved, which is very common when someone is in a high degree of distress. And then once you're using substances, that in itself, the substance use, lower your judgment and insight, making it easier to keep using substances. We don't really think of nature and nurture anymore. We really think there's a combined genes and environment, and the combination of which really puts you at risk. And in him, you really see all of those elements coming together.

Speaker 3 38:49

I mean, I look back on my notes, I forgot about all the stuff that he had gone through. He talked about sexual molestation, he had family history of schizoaffective disorder, bipolar. He mentioned bipolar too for himself, and schizoaffective as a diagnosis. There's so much going on, but it opened up my eyes to what it's like to grow up in so much dysfunction in a neighborhood that had dysfunction, in a family that had dysfunction and not knowing the tools, the healthy tools to solve your problems. So he ends up doing jail time. When you come across a patient like King ISO with a similar background, I mean, where do you start to try to develop a treatment plan?

Speaker 2 39:37

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. Some of the first things that have to be addressed when he was homeless, it's really hard to do any sort of mental health care when you're homeless. I mean, life is essentially about survival and finding, you know, a warm, dry place to stay, staying safe. The streets are incredibly dangerous. Communities that have a lot of drugs. Drug use and violence. So in that sort of environment, it's very difficult to do any sort of deep mental health care or even physical health care. So through homeless health care Los Angeles, we're working to get them showers and laundry and clothes and shelter. We also do a fair amount of harm reduction to make sure that if they're using needles, for example, that they have access to clean needles, that sort of thing. But we're really focused on the need to get them into housing and casework, right? So to start, someone who's homeless and has a lot of mental health issues really need to address that homelessness. Really need to get them in a place that's stable. And the next thing that's really important, even before treatment, is community. They need folks that they can connect with. ISO talked a lot about the support he has through close friends. They check on him, they call him out when he's been absent or not communicating for a little bit. So I think the community becomes a very important element that needs to be in place. And then once those things get in place, then someone can really start to do more mental health treatment. And that can include medications, therapy, these traditional treatments. But when someone really doesn't have the basics of community and housing, really need to be able to address those and get something in place. Otherwise, it's very hard to do any ongoing treatment.

Speaker 3 41:30

Well, that was one thing that I really loved about homeless health care is that not only do you do things like clean needle exchange, which is a practical thing, right? Because a lot of people that are homeless can have addictions. And the last thing you want is spread of disease, like HIV or other diseases. And sometimes people don't understand that. People might think, oh, are you encouraging drug use? No, you're doing something that is practical until you could get them the care that they need.

Speaker 2 42:01

I always say no one starts heroin because they have access to a clean needle. That just is not how the world works. When we hand out sterile needles, it's to folks that have been doing intravenous drugs for years. And it's exactly what you say. We're mitigating additional harm to their health. It's trying to keep them alive. And when we hand out needles, we're also handing out resources for care. We're doing things like basic health care. It's a really an opportunity to engage people and in a way that they really appreciate and to respect their dignity and just say, here, we know this is something that's important for you, and we want to provide that. And here's these other resources. So whenever you're ready, we can start connecting you to these resources that ultimately lead towards the path of stability.

Speaker 3 42:54

The other thing that I learned is that homelessness often has to do with mental illness, uh addiction, teenage runaways that might be abused, or people being abused domestically, and not so much people that just don't want to work. I mean, I think there's also that societal maybe not understanding why the majority of people are homeless. Is that pretty much true? Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:20

You're correct. I mean, homelessness is a very complicated situation. For example, in Los Angeles, there are families, especially immigrants, who are out of work and just don't have the resources. And they're homeless. There can be kids involved. Those folks a lot of times can be mentally quite healthy, physically quite able-bodied, but maybe they're undocumented immigrants and have a limited access to work and resources. Those folks are homeless for a briefer period of time, maybe two to three months, while they get back on their feet. But folks that do have a lot of mental health struggles and throw addiction and substances on top of a mental health problem, it's just kind of the perfect storm of taking away a lot of folks' ability to really care for themselves. These are not lazy folks that just don't want to work. I have worked with many, many homeless folks. That's a thought that never crosses my mind. The reality is, if you're lazy, you don't want to be homeless. Homelessness is an incredible amount of work. It is much harder to be homeless than work a nine to five job. Folks have trouble finding a place to sleep. They use substances, especially something like methamphetamine, so that they can stay awake and stay safe all night because they're afraid to go to sleep, because it is so dangerous on the streets. That really points to the fact that being on the streets, being homeless, is not easy. There's no way you could really work with homeless people and call them lazy. That's not the case. And further, uh in general, all people have a wish to live a meaningful, purposeful life. Homeless folks are included in that group, you know, so they really do have a sense of loss and are looking for meaning and purpose.

Speaker 3 45:20

Well, thank you for explaining that. So once you get them to safety, you're with somebody that has mental illness and addiction. What's the next step in the process toward treatment?

Speaker 2 45:33

Trevor Burrus It really is individual to individual. There are two general approaches when someone has addiction and mental health. And the idea is you have to be working both the addiction as well as the primary mental health issue simultaneously, although sometimes you really need to focus on the addiction. In fact, often the addiction has to come under enough control that you're able to make progress for the primary underlying mental illness. When someone's in the throes of addiction, very hard to do treatment, the medications, frankly, are going to have limited usefulness because the substances are often much more powerful than psychiatric medications. So when someone is drinking a lot or using methamphetamine or cocaine, the psychiatric medications are going to be of limited benefit. It's an incredible amount of work. I mean, that waiting to get a Section 8 voucher, which is a federally subsidized voucher that allows people to find a landlord that accepts Section 8, which subsidize their housing. That process is quite long, quite complicated, takes a lot of focus and effort. And so a lot of times when someone's actively using substances, it's really hard for them to complete that process. Now, similarly, if they're in the throes of substance use, it's hard for them to engage the treatment. It's hard to sit in a room with a therapist or a provider. It's hard to get to a clinic. The substances really complicate everything and a lot of times have to take the front and center focus. At the same time, when someone is thought disordered or psychotic, you kind of have to do your best to manage that so that they can even do the substance treatment. So it can be a tricky balance. A lot of times when folks are hospitalized, one of the reasons is that they're just unable to put together a plan to take care of themselves. And they need to be in a really structured setting where we can safely detox them from whatever substances they're on, and then really bring the temperature down to the point where they can really start to think and make plans of, okay, how am I going to tackle all of the issues that need to be tackled?

Speaker 3 48:00

Aaron Ross Powell You know, all of this stuff is going on with King ISO. We don't really know what state he was in when he was taken to the hospital, but we know that he has family and friends that I think it's called a directive.

Speaker 2 48:15

He called it a petition. Not all states have some sort of mental health law that allows what he's talking about. In California, it's called LPS, Lanterman Petris Short Act. It's also called 5150. Right. So you know, Van Halen made 5150 a bit of a national moniker for crazy, if I can use that word. Every state has laws that allow either providers, public workers, or friends and family where they can say this individual is really struggling and meets criteria for involuntary treatment.

Speaker 3 48:51

I mean, clearly he had people that cared about him enough to do that. But his state of mind, he explained to me, was that it was against his will. He was given medication, I'm sure, to calm him down. He said it was intravenous, like a syringe.

Speaker 2 49:08

Aaron Powell Probably intramuscular, and it goes into the muscles. And those often are long-acting medications.

Speaker 3 49:15

Is that just to calm them down or tranquilize them in a way? Or how would you explain it?

Speaker 2 49:20

Aaron Powell I kind of call it turning the temperature down. And really we have two general purposes. One is just to bring anxiety down, just calm someone down. For example, just good old Valium, the benzodiazepines, the most common ones are Atavan and Clonopin. Those can be very helpful for just calming someone down. They can be sedative, but they're quite safe. They go to sleep and it's very calming, right? So it just kind of brings the whole temperature of the system down. We also give antipsychotics in the form of shots. They come in pills. In fact, most people take them by pills, but there's a number of them that are available in shots. And those also can calm people down. But unlike the benzodiazepines, they work specifically to help clear thoughts. So often folks can get a thought disorder. I prefer thought disorder to psychosis. I think psychosis is kind of a scary word. But if you think about a thought disorder, points to the fact that folks can have underlying psychiatric disorders that cause thought disorders completely separate from substances. And substances on their own can cause thought disorders and someone that otherwise wouldn't be predisposed to thought disorders. So for example, if someone smoked meth over the course of days or weeks, anyone, including someone that's not predisposed to a psychiatric disorder, they will develop paranoia and a thought disorder eventually. You know, it may take weeks or months, but they will eventually develop a thought disorder. Again, there are folks that are just genetically predispositions towards that. And if they add substances on top of that, it can really supercharge that thought disorder. The antipsychotic medications, they actually work in specific parts of the brain to help bring the thoughts back together. So if you can imagine just a tornado of a lot of thoughts, thoughts aren't connecting with other thoughts very well. People can develop things like delusions. Some people hear voices, the thoughts just aren't being processed correctly in the brain. So some of those thoughts emerge as voices. And the antipsychotics can really help some folks, not everybody, but they tend to help filter and help organize w what otherwise is a set of disorganized thoughts.

Speaker 3 51:55

Well, I've had depression, and with that depression came anxiety, and some of the thoughts that I know are common in depression, and anxiety, let's say in a depression, there are thoughts that are part of the condition and not really what you're thinking. Do you know what I'm saying? It's a symptom of the condition. And it's hard to decipher if you don't know about depression because you think those are your thoughts and that I should go kill myself, or nobody wants me, I'm worthless, I'm never gonna get out of this. I'm going to lose all this weight and I'm gonna die. I mean, the anxiety of I don't want to go outside, whatever the fears are is caused by the anxiety that was caused by the depression and not necessarily your thoughts.

unknown 52:43

Right.

Speaker 3 52:44

And with schizophrenia, he was getting audio and visual hallucinations.

Speaker 2 52:49

And I would say we all have this self-referential loop of thoughts that are predominantly negative. Neuroimaging research has really identified what we call the default mode network. And the reason it's called default mode is when we're daydreaming. So we're just kind of sitting quietly in a room or driving or walking down the street. Our mind goes into a default mode. Even in a healthy state, even when life is good, that default mode tends to have a negative tinge to it, kind of criticizing, like, oh, why did you say that when you talk to the store coach? Very simple things, but it tends to be negative. It tends to be this critical loop that maybe somewhere evolutionarily, maybe that helps us be a little bit more tuned in to improving things in our lives. Dangers, yeah, in a big way. Hey, yeah, I could have done that better. Or the loop can also anticipate forward of an anxiety of, oh, I've got this appointment later. And so those thoughts are kind of constantly circling. They tend to have a negative bias towards them. Now, in a healthy state, we're okay. We can kind of ignore that. And when we meet someone or start a conversation, we can get out of our heads. And that just happens naturally. We don't have to think about it. Our minds just do that. When you go into depression or anxiety or a thought disorder, that default mode just gets hugely amplified, and we lose our ability to reality check. So those looping, oh, I wish I would have said that better, or oh, I kind of put my foot in my mouth there. Instead of being able to just kind of shrug that off or move on, in depression, anxiety, or thought disorder, those things are magnified and take on a lot more weight. They become a lot more negative. So that's the you're an idiot, you're a fool. Many times auditory hallucinations, they can run the gamut, but the most common auditory hallucinations by far are these very derogatory, very angry, very critical voices that are telling you you're an idiot, you're a fool, you know. And it's an amplification that can become intolerable. At the very least, it's just a terrible distraction to have that going through your head all the time, but goes way beyond and becomes an incredibly burdensome thing you're walking around with.

Speaker 3 55:29

I talked to an artist named Mackenzie Nicole and she had bipolar, and she was describing depression, and we were trying to make similarities to what it was like, and we came to the conclusion it was sort of like being in a haunted house where you feel even though you're surrounded by people who love you, you feel all alone, it's dark, and there are voices that just keep telling you horrible things. Right. That even the little logical part of your brain says this is not true. The majority of your brain believes it. Fear and anxiety is real. And to fight against that, I always call people superheroes that have gone to the other side and learn to manage addiction and mental conditions because it's a superhero fight that nobody is recognizing that really takes a lot of strength to find the right solutions, whatever those solutions might be.

Speaker 2 56:24

Agreed. And in listening to ISO talk, you could just see how he struggled through a tremendous uphill climb, and he found the incredible tools. I mean, the things he mentioned in terms of his treatment are remarkable. Exercise, community, reaching out to making sure he's got good friends around him that he can reach out. Overcoming his resentment, you know, one of the things I really was impressed when he said is it was important for him, in fact, it was a critical turning point, is moving from a stance of resentment and the world is out to get me to I need to control what I can control. I need to take ownership over my recovery, I need to take responsibility for my behavior and how I got here. And you're right, when you're in the throes of just that negativity, it's really hard to get to those understandings and those realizations of wait, I need to do something different here. I need to flip this all on its head to be able to get out of it. It's an incredibly difficult turn to make.

Speaker 3 57:36

A big thank you to our musical guest, King ISO, and our expert, Dr. Scott Fears. For more information on King ISO, visit Strangemusicinc.com, buy his new album, Ghetto Psycho, and check his tour dates. Find him on social media at King ISO and at the real King ISO. Stay tuned for a clip of his song Normal at the end of our episode. And for more information on Dr. Scott Fears, visit amyhealth.com. That's ama health.com in Los Angeles, with AmyHealth having numerous locations across the country. And for a new 501c3 nonprofit, help Check Ahead Podcast with our mission to help others in recovery by donating any amount that makes you feel good at Chekahead Podcast.com. We currently have a superhero campaign with a goal of twelve hundred dollars, and we're currently at five hundred and twenty-two dollars and thirteen cents. So any amount is appreciated. Five, ten, twenty dollars, or even a donation of six hundred and seventy-seven dollars and eighty-seven cents to help us reach our goal. Thank you, superheroes, for your kind generosity and for listening to our podcast and watching us on YouTube. Stay tuned for part two of King Isis with Dr. Scott Fierce. And until next time, be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental health. Garbo Valley, Earshop Media, and Lemon Tree Studios in Los Angeles. Visit Check Your Head Podcast dot com where we have over one hundred solutions for mental help. Be our friends on social media at Check Your Head Podcast. Watch us on YouTube and support us with a kind donation on Check Your Head Podcast.com. Check Your Head Podcast is sponsored by a 501c3 nonprofit with all donations being tax deductible. Thank you for your support and thank you for listening.