Latest / Authentic Living / Jason Finucan shares his struggle with bipolar Disorder and ways to reduce the stigma to zero

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Jason Finucan shares his struggle with bipolar Disorder and ways to reduce the stigma to zero · Authentic Living

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  Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have conscious conversations
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  about things that really matter in our lives.
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  And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
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  Everyone.
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  It's, Roxanne Durgesh.
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  Welcome to Authentic Living in World of Roxanne.
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  This week, I have a colleague, Jason Fanucan, that is based in Montreal that will speak to us
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  today.
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  Jason, thanks so much for joining us today.
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  My pleasure.
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  So Jason, is, he speaks on, mental health and I'm gonna just read a little bit of his bio bio
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  on some of the things that he's done.
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  Upcoming really, really soon.
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  He's releasing his first book, which is, Jason 1 stigma 0.
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  My battle with mental health mental illness at work and in at home and at the workplace.
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  He's a mental health advocate, stigma fighter, He's a professional speaker and has been doing
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  that for quite a while.
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  I believe since 2006, I I remember reading, and founder of stigma 0 and the instructor of the
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  programs found in the stigma.
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  There's a stigma 0 online training program.
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  Jason's worked face both physical and mental illness and shares his personal experiences and
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  the impactful storytelling techniques blended with, research, to mobilize knowledge and
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  perspective His goal is to bring everyone to understand the importance of the topic so
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  they're import they're empowered to make a change and ultimately join his vision for
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  future without stigma.
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  That would be so nice as as, someone that's we have worked in the field, Jason.
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  And, I think we think we're coming along, but there's a lot more work to be done.
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  Yeah.
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  I would agree with that.
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  So Well, so thanks for taking the time today.
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  And, I'm gonna just jump right into it and, ask you, obviously, we know I'm gonna see him.
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  We know how you got into speaking, about mental health, but tell me a little bit about about
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  your life here.
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  Did you grow up in Montreal?
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  No.
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  I am an Ontario boy, actually.
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  I I am.
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  I was born in Newmarket, and I lived for I was born in 75 in the 1st 26 years of my life.
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  I lived within a hundred kilometers of Toronto.
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  I was, yeah, I was in Newmarket and then in Toronto briefly.
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  And then I went to high school in a Rilia, Ontario, an hour a half north of Toronto.
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  And I went to University of Waterloo.
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  And so the the seeds of me being a public speaker, as a profession, we're we're honestly
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  set early.
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  It was one of the skills that I just at an early age.
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  I remember giving a, I think I read a poem at a, I don't know, a Christmas special or
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  something at my school.
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  I was in grade 4.
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  My dad, my dad was blown away that his son who because my dad hates public speaking, and here
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  his son was up on the stage in front of hundreds of people, comfortable.
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  And it was just one of those things I I never was uncomfortable in front of a crowd.
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  And then when I said I went to University of Waterloo, I actually took a degree in theater
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  and speech communication.
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  So I spent 4 years doing nothing but performing and learning how to perform and learning how
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  performance is interpreted.
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  And that helped me immensely.
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  I I didn't know at the time I was going to be a a speaker, but I knew I liked it.
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  And it definitely helped me to hone those skills.
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  But I moved to Montreal in 2000 and, 1, actually.
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  It's it's easy to remember for a sad reason.
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  I moved just days before 9 11.
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  That weekend, that Labor Day weekend.
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  And, and I've been here ever since, absolutely love it here.
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  Well, it's amazing.
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  You're a you're you're undergrad, like, was kind of prepping you for something that you,
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  you know, and now you've been speaking for such a long time.
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  So so tell me about the the kind of the the path, like, when you start to struggle.
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  Did you did you kinda know when you were younger that there was some issues.
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  I mean, I, you know, I was just actually talking to my son, and I was telling him that,
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  I I was about to interview you.
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  And I we talked a little bit.
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  He says, well, what I said, he said, well, what does he struggle with?
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  So I told him what from what I read on your site that it it's bipolar that was the
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  struggle.
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  And he goes, well, what is that, mom?
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  And I said, well, the only way I could explain to him and in, you know, a teenage, terms is
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  that there's a lot of high highs and low lows.
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  And the space in between is quite rapid, and he goes, oh, interesting.
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  He says, oh, that seems, you know, don't we all go through highs and lows?
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  I said yes, but sometimes not at at such a a progressive, level.
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  So I don't know if I, you know, explain that as well as you might be able to do it, you know,
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  day to day.
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  I'm sure you speak to a lot of different people about it.
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  You you're, definitely part of the way to to describe it is the the severity of the change,
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  but it's also the severity of the actual high and the actual low.
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  So an individual who goes through a healthy high or a healthy low, the way I describe that
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  as, I mean, as humans, you're absolutely right.
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  We're not just going to exist on one, you know, one plane.
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  We're always going to go above and below what what I would describe as our baseline, our, you
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  know, whatever is our normal, you know, for energy levels, amount of sleep, etcetera.
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  But the thing with bipolar disorder is that when the highs come, they come very forcefully.
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  You have no control over it.
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  And for, in my case, they lasted for weeks months at a time.
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  So I would be in this elevated state for a very long time with no ability to stop it.
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  And then when I was in a depressed state, whether it was mild, moderate, or severe, that
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  depressed state would descend on me, and I would have no control over it.
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  And it would remain again, for sometimes months at a time.
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  That's not something that you would describe as a normal or healthy experience of highs and
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  lows.
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  And, for me, when it started, I I actually was very late onset of of bipolar disorder.
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  It's very common for it to begin in the late teens, early twenties.
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  That would be the more, standard time frame.
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  But for me, it I I had absolutely no symptoms until my mid twenties and no significant
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  symptoms till I was 26.
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  Wow.
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  That was very odd.
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  That it that it took that long to to begin.
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  So when it began, it began with a mild depression, and I had never experienced any
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  form of clinical depression in my life, up to that point, not for one minute.
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  I mean, every time I'd ever felt down or sad or or or low energy, there was a really good clear
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  reason for it.
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  But now I, you know, here I was in Montreal, my career was going well.
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  My personal life was great.
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  I had a wonderful girlfriend who I was planning to, you know, propose to and had a job I loved
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  working for McGill University.
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  And suddenly, I felt awful, and and it lasted for 2 months.
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  And that was in 2002.
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  And that was a year after I I got to Montreal, and that began a cycle of I would go down into
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  a depressive, episode for a couple and I would go right past my baseline overnight into a
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  hypomanic, which is like mild mania episode, and that would last for a few months.
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  And I just went back and forth for two and a half years before I was finally diagnosed and
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  treated.
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  So at one point, you know, did you start to realize mean, I'm gonna assume at first you
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  thought, mhmm.
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  God, this field internally, that's you're gonna you know, something's changing.
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  Mhmm.
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  At what point did you start to to write.
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  Did you recognize it?
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  Did your girlfriend recognize it?
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  Did people at work start to react to you differently?
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  What started to happen that, you know, made you realize Something's something's arrived here?
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  My girlfriend noticed it immediately, and she was the most, on top of it.
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  And also she was the least affected by stigma.
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  She to her, it was just there's something wrong here.
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  Like, I think you you might have a mental illness or you might have depression.
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  She started doing research.
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  I had an enormous amount of stigma towards mental illness without knowing it.
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  And so when it happened to me, there was this long period of denial in my own mind of just I
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  can't have a mental illness because I was associating mental illness with a character
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  weakness or someone who wasn't trying hard enough or wasn't, you know, willing to do the
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  work, and I knew I was willing to do the work.
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  So I went through this you know, self stigma is a real problem that I'm now currently trying to
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  solve in others.
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  And that problem basically is when you take all this stigma about mental illness, and you apply
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  it directly towards yourself, and it causes a massive delay in in diagnosis and treatment.
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  So as much as I knew something was wrong, I wasn't willing to even entertain the idea that
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  what was wrong was a mental illness.
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  So Right.
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  I actually there was a period there about a year into symptoms that I sought out talk
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  therapy with a psychologist Mhmm.
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  Which can be a brilliant strategy for a lot of people in that situation, but for me, it wasn't
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  a strategy.
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  It was procrastination.
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  I literally chose talk therapy to avoid the idea that I would be diagnosed and have to take
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  medication.
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  And I was fortunate that the therapist was brilliant and was very astute and after several
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  sessions listening to me, you know, go over the things I'd gone through in my life to see maybe
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  was this connected to some past trauma?
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  And she was the one who said to me, look, you're you don't need me.
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  What you have is almost certainly bipolar disorder.
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  She said, I can't diagnose you.
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  Because I'm a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, but my professional opinion is you need to see
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  a psychiatrist.
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  You probably are going to be diagnosed as bipolar.
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  And you almost certainly need to take treatment.
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  And hearing her say that was the first domino of that fell for me of stigma.
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  That was the first time I began to look at my illness as an illness, not as a business or a
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  character flaw.
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  And that was the beginning of me it would I still had a lot of difficult things to go
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  through, but it was the beginning of me becoming, I guess, coming to terms with, I have
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  an illness that I need to manage.
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  And once I started thinking of it in those terms, I eventually was able to get treatment
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  and and recover very well and and live with it very well.
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  Well, I think you had a an astute, psychologist that would recognize something that's, you
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  know, like myself as a psychotherapist, with my training, yeah, obviously, you know, right,
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  because talk therapy is not gonna wheel you out of this.
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  And, like you said, you know, it's not it's not like there was there was any drugs happening at
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  that point or anything in your life.
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  So sometimes you kinda try to weed out all the things that potentially could be happening.
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  Was there trauma before age five?
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  You know, all those things as as a psychotherapist, you're looking for potentially
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  that could kind of impact some of the symptoms that we see with say complex PTSD.
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  But she recognized that there wasn't any of those things.
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  Yep.
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  And she kinda started to realize, oh, goodness.
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  This talk therapy is not gonna talk you out of this.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, but somebody without the specialty would not recognize that, it would have kept
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  going.
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  You know, and then obviously you'd you'd you'd go through those circles.
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  Right?
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  Like, you go up, you go down, which would be even worse on you.
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  So, obviously, when you're on the high and you can't stop and you're thinking, why can't I
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  stop?
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  And when you're at the low and you can get out of bed and you can't do any of it, that's tough
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  on you too.
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  Oh, it was it was it absolutely took my life and turned it upside down because I was
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  suddenly trying to work through, essentially, you know, I went through 3 straight years where
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  I wasn't at my baseline for one minute.
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  I had started, you know, the the first departure for my baseline was a depression, and
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  then I went directly up and then back down and then up and then down.
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  And it went like that for almost 3 straight years.
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  That is an incredibly long time to never feel like yourself.
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  For sure.
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  And
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  so that that, you know, and it affected work for sure.
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  Both the highs and the lows affected work, you asked if people were noticing when it was mild,
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  it was less obvious because mild depression, you can just seem a little distracted.
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  Or tired or, you know, maybe you're you you you write it off like, oh, maybe you've got a flu
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  or something.
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  If you if you are mildly hypomanic, that is extremely hard to notice if you're a colleague
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  because the the symptoms really are so close to a type a personality with energy.
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  It's it's really not that different, but where the difference lies is in your personal life
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  because you suddenly need less sleep.
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  Your energy never goes away.
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  It's 247, even when you're asleep, I I described my sleep during hypomanic and manic,
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  phases as active.
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  It was like your there was this sort of constant buzz of energy going through your
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  body, and your colleagues might not notice a mild hypomanic face, but your partner will.
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  Because they'll notice that you're like, wait.
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  Why are you suddenly only getting 6 hours a night when you used to get 7 or 8?
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  You know?
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  And and why do you wake up at 6 in the morning when you used to drag your butt at a bed to the
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  shower, now you're jumping out of bed with all this energy.
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  I mean, that's a big change.
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  And so
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  the key, that's why knowing your baseline is so important.
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  If you're going to try to determine what's happening to you in the realm of a mental
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  illness you need to know what is your healthy normal because, like, one of my friends, his
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  healthy normal is 5 hours sleep a night.
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  That's normal for him.
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  That's good for him.
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  That works for him.
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  If I did that every night, I'd be sick.
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  So these are important things to understand about yourself.
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  And I I had figured that out, but when I look back at the way I went through all of this, in
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  no way would the experience have been easy or simple, even if I did not have stigma towards
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  mental illness, but it would have been far easier, far faster.
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  I would have sought treatment much earlier And I would it would have been far less painful for
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  sure if there was no stigma from the outset.
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  Mhmm.
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  I mentioned at the beginning in my bio, there is key experience that I went through that
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  really helped me ultimately get to this realization.
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  And that's why my book is called Jason 1 stigma 0.
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  It's because finally beat Sigma.
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  It Figma owned me for a long time, and then I finally found a way to beat it.
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  And the way I beat it was to look back on the experience I'd had when I was twelve years old,
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  I had had open heart surgery for a heart defect.
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  And when you're a twelve year old boy, and you have a heart defect, you are understandably
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  supported and rallied around as much as you can imagine.
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  I was never judged or questioned or, nobody asked about my will or my character or how hard
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  I was trying.
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  Nobody questioned the treatments I was given.
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  Everyone recognized that this was something happening to me, and I needed empathy and
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  support.
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  And I never judged myself.
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  I didn't feel guilty that my heart wasn't working.
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  But when I was in my twenties and my brain wasn't working, I felt all those things.
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  And it was only when I realized what would I have done in my twenties?
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  You can instead of bipolar beginning, what if my heart problem had come back?
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  It could have.
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  It's a nerve defect in my heart.
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  What if it grew back?
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  Would I have felt ashamed or scared what I have not spoken about it at work, what I have
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  stigmatized myself, not at all.
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  I wouldn't have done any of those things.
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  I would have talked about it openly, because it's a failure in my body that's not my fault.
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  And I would have received empathy and support.
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  But because of the stigma around mental illness, none of those things happened.
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  Part of it was my fault and part of it was because others had stigma towards my illness as
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  well.
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  And that was the light bulb moment that that I realized Wait a minute.
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  We're looking at these illnesses incorrectly.
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  We're treating mental illness as different than illness.
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  It's it's it's though we're treating it as a personality problem.
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  And as long as we can sort that up and separate that out, that's how we can get rid of stigma.
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  And that's how we can begin to respond properly to the instances of mental illness in our
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  lives, whether it's personal or profession.
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  So did you did you continue to talk about it with a professional, or did you kinda get
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  support from your family, from your your partner, to be able to kinda the self
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  realization.
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  Hey.
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  I it's something there's there's an imbalance.
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  Bottom line.
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  Right?
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  Like, I mean, because I often say it's my clients, you know, I said, if I fell and broke
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  my ankle right now, you would rush me down to the closest emerge here in Niagara.
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  I said, but I've if I've all of a sudden, I have a nervous breakdown, nobody would know or
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  they they think twice about what they're gonna do because we're so afraid of that, but really
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  what's the difference?
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  Once physical, once once, mentally and emotional, but we're one system.
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  We're one person.
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  That's right.
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  But we treat it completely differently.
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  Right?
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  We really do.
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  And it's and there's no reason for it.
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  And, the way that I'm I'm I'm very I can be very stubborn, and I was in in the wrong way
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  for a while in that I had this stigma and I had this resistance to a a diagnosis of mental
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  illness, I was afraid of taking a medication.
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  I I don't and I don't know why.
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  I just was.
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  I had a stigma towards it.
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  But when that, when that psychologist said that to me, it was like when I say the first domino,
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  I mean, it was literally like that.
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  There was a wall in front of me.
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  She knocked down the first domino, and then they just kept going.
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  So from that moment on, the stigma just it evaporated, and I need a conscious decision to
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  treat my bipolar disorder or whatever this illness was that I was facing in the same way I
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  would treat my heart problem, which is it's an illness.
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  I need to learn about it.
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  I need to manage it.
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  I need to be active in the relationship with my doctors to, you know, understand what I should
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  be doing and not doing.
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  And once I went on that path, as I said, I wasn't it wasn't smooth sailing.
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  I still had a few very severe depressions.
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  I had a manic episode.
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  I ended up hospitalized as a result of the manic episode, but none of those things happen
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  because of stigma.
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  Those things happen because the illness just it just became extreme for a bit.
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  And I I had to go through that, but in fact, the ability to get over the stigma just prior
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  to that extreme period helped me to survive that extreme period because I recognized while
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  I was going through it that my body was failing me.
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  That it wasn't me.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  That gave me hope that all I had to do was find the the right treatment, and I would be able to
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  get back to me.
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  And ultimately, that's what happened.
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  I was I was diagnosed as bipolar in in February 2005 while in the hospital.
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  And, after my manic episode, and I was given a new treatment that I'd never been on before,
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  which was lithium.
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  And, I I was told it would take months before it was therapeutic because it's a very tricky
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  drug, you you you can't have too much of it in your blood or else it's toxic.
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  So we we could do a stair step approach you know, it's kind of creeping up to the
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  therapeutic level.
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  And it was June of 2005 was the end of that 3 year run where I had not been at my baseline, I
• 20:04
  was taking 5 pills of lithium.
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  So 1500 milligrams, of lithium.
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  And I saw my psychiatrist.
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  I still was depressed.
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  And he said, look.
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  You're you're not quite at the therapeutic level.
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  We're gonna increase it by one more tonight.
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  Or now, and he said take 6 pills tonight and give it weeks to 3 weeks.
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  And if you don't feel any better come back, we will likely need to add a second medication.
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  And that night, I took 6 little white pills instead of 5.
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  I woke up the next morning, and the first words out of my mouth were I feel like me.
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  I didn't feel the word isn't better.
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  The word isn't good.
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  The word is I feel I feel absent of symptoms of bipolar disorder.
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  I don't feel down.
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  I don't feel up.
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  I just feel like me.
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  And it was the first time in 3 years, and it was a very exciting moment because I gave me
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  hope that, okay.
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  This is a chemical imbalance, and I've found the treatment that is correcting that
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  imbalance.
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  And from that day on, I have taken the medication very, happily.
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  I don't have any, compliance issues with the medication because I view the medication as a
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  as a a matter of fortune and luck that I even have a treatment that works so well.
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  There's many people with mental illness that don't find a treatment that works so well.
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  So I take it happily, and I have never, since that day of in 2005, I've never experienced any
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  of the upside of bipolar.
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  No hypomania.
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  No mania at all.
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  I have had some depressive episodes and needed to treat those separately, but that's that's
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  it.
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  I've only had to manage that side.
• 21:42
  So you've kind of worked on kind of obviously working with your cognitions and understanding
• 21:47
  when your bot when your body's getting run down, you're you're are you constantly having
• 21:51
  to still look at those things even though you're taking the medications because I would
• 21:55
  think that there's a, you know, I also say there's a psychosocial part to it to learn, you
• 21:59
  know, just to be able to recognize if you're working a bit too hard or you know, if you're
• 22:03
  if there's conflict or whatever, like, all of us have to be able to recognize certain things
• 22:09
  and continue to to work on ourselves.
• 22:12
  Absolutely.
• 22:13
  Yes.
• 22:13
  Yes.
• 22:13
  So there's a term that I use, been using for years, and it it helps me to understand what I
• 22:19
  need to do to manage my illness and and I with others to try to get them to see it in this
• 22:24
  way, but I believe that the only way you can survive a chronic life long illness, like
• 22:30
  mental illness.
• 22:31
  Like, I mean, bipolar is not something that's going to just go away.
• 22:34
  It's not it's not something that I recover completely from.
• 22:37
  I have it.
• 22:37
  So I view it as I need to own my illness.
• 22:40
  I need to accept it because if I don't fully accept it, then I will always resent the
• 22:45
  treatment.
• 22:46
  I will be sloppy about managing it I will, you know, maybe get lazy.
• 22:51
  So I view it as, yeah, I don't like that I have bipolar.
• 22:55
  Of course, I'd rather not have it.
• 22:56
  But I do have it.
• 22:58
  And so I need to manage this illness, and that management doesn't stop.
• 23:02
  You're absolutely right.
• 23:03
  I watch and it's not as exhausting as it may sound when you first hear it, but I I have
• 23:08
  systems.
• 23:08
  I have basically charts that I use to track my mood to say, have I gone above my baseline at
• 23:15
  any point in the last month?
• 23:17
  And eventually, you start doing it by quarter.
• 23:19
  If if things are going well, But I also ask myself very honestly, am I going below my
• 23:24
  baseline?
• 23:25
  And if I am, is it a few days?
• 23:27
  Is it more than a week?
• 23:29
  Is it 2 weeks?
• 23:30
  And so I know I can show you charts that I have, been keeping since well, I actually did
• 23:36
  them retroactively all the way to 2 1000.
• 23:40
  And I've I have them to today, their annual charts, and they simply show if my mood above
• 23:45
  or below the baseline.
• 23:47
  That is so vital for me to, you know, understand trends, understand for example, if a
• 23:56
  depressive episode happens, I always ask myself, okay, what happened the previous 3
• 24:00
  months?
• 24:01
  As you say, was I run down?
• 24:02
  Was I overworked or as I doing too much.
• 24:05
  And I have become quite good at finding my, enter what I I considered as an energy output
• 24:12
  balance.
• 24:14
  I can only do so much in every day, so much in every week, so much in every month.
• 24:19
  If I go beyond that, I will pay a price.
• 24:22
  And usually that price is a very short depressive episode of 1 to 5 days.
• 24:28
  I minimize how often those happen by managing my energy output.
• 24:32
  So that is active ongoing thing that I do.
• 24:36
  And, you know, and a big way I do that is sleep.
• 24:39
  I'm someone, as I say earlier, you know, 5 hours a night would be awful for me.
• 24:43
  I like 7 to 8.
• 24:45
  If I get 6 hours of sleep on any given night, it's no big deal, but I make sure the next
• 24:50
  night I get 7 or 8.
• 24:52
  You catch up.
• 24:52
  Don't allow 6666.
• 24:55
  Because that will absolutely affect me, and I know that.
• 25:00
  If I have a huge workday, you know, I gotta put in a 15 hour workday where I'm really, really,
• 25:06
  you know, I or I'm in a crunch.
• 25:08
  I never let my crunch sort of schedule last longer than 3 to 5 days.
• 25:14
  Then I pull completely back, shut it off, and rest.
• 25:17
  And those are the ways that I've been able to manage, the illness.
• 25:21
  And what has resulted is in the last 5 years, I average 2 to 3 very short depressive episodes a
• 25:28
  year.
• 25:29
  And that's that seems to be all that I'm I'm having to deal with.
• 25:34
  And they're predictable.
• 25:35
  When they come, I know as soon as they hit me, I wake up and I feel It's like I get the flu.
• 25:41
  I feel awful.
• 25:42
  I feel exhausted.
• 25:43
  I feel my mental acuity is suddenly gone.
• 25:47
  And I I don't I don't experience depression like sadness.
• 25:52
  For me, it's more like, being shut off.
• 25:55
  It's like you're you're under fed.
• 25:57
  Your energy levels are super low.
• 26:00
  You don't have access to any kind of any kind of fire or energy.
• 26:03
  And I just simply shut it down and rest.
• 26:06
  I clear my calendar and I rest for a couple of days.
• 26:10
  And and I always so far knock on wood that, you know, they only last 3 to 5 days and I bounce
• 26:15
  back, and I feel great after that.
• 26:17
  So So the people around you, they must be, like, we you you must do you have a family,
• 26:22
  Jason?
• 26:23
  No.
• 26:23
  I I'm married, but,
• 26:24
  okay.
• 26:25
  So but your your wife must know that, or I I know you have a business partner too.
• 26:29
  Yes.
• 26:29
  So they're they're kind of I'm sure you talk about this.
• 26:32
  The things that you're experiencing if you're if you're you realize goodness of, you know,
• 26:37
  I'm on a crunch or whatever.
• 26:39
  So they are kind of aware of what kind of things are happening with you.
• 26:42
  Absolutely.
• 26:43
  And and one of the things about speaking openly about an illness, and and for a second, let's
• 26:47
  not think about it as a mental illness.
• 26:49
  Just think about it as an illness if if you were, in the midst of chemotherapy treatments
• 26:55
  because of cancer.
• 26:58
  If if you planned on doing this meeting and and and having this interview with me, but then
• 27:03
  something you had a averse reaction to your chemo treatment on Friday.
• 27:07
  You didn't recover fast enough.
• 27:08
  You would tell me.
• 27:09
  You would say, look.
• 27:10
  I'm going through treatments.
• 27:11
  What's happening?
• 27:12
  I can't have this meeting for that reason.
• 27:14
  And we would anyone in my position would feel nothing but empathy for you recognizing that
• 27:19
  you've got this challenge that you're you're struggling against, and we would say, okay.
• 27:23
  No worries.
• 27:23
  We'll reschedule.
• 27:24
  That's the attitude I bring to my mental illness.
• 27:27
  If it interferes with my life, I speak openly about it to anyone that I am, that I'm
• 27:33
  interacting with.
• 27:34
  So my wife knows, my family knows, my friends know and my business partner knows.
• 27:39
  And that is very important.
• 27:40
  You need caregivers in your life who can support you and who understand that what you're
• 27:47
  facing is an illness.
• 27:49
  And it's something that is beyond, you know, it's beyond your control.
• 27:52
  And it it deserves that empathy.
• 27:54
  Obviously, if I was having an issue, say with a chemotherapy treatment, you would be very
• 28:00
  understanding, you know, you would say, okay, Roxanne, no big deal.
• 28:04
  So it's really about sharing at the same level.
• 28:08
  Sharing at the same level, and and here's the thing about stigma that's that's fascinating is
• 28:12
  that if I have like I did, a stigma towards my own illness.
• 28:18
  If I'm uncomfortable speaking about
• 28:20
  bipolar, then I'm gonna talk
• 28:20
  in circles around it.
• 28:23
  And that is gonna make you very uncomfortable about what you can say to me because you
• 28:28
  understand you'll actually you will sense my discomfort and you will want to respect my
• 28:36
  privacy and it will tie your hands.
• 28:39
  But if I speak openly about bipolar disorder, it frees you up to do the same thing.
• 28:45
  So it's an unfortunate reality, and I've said this to a lot of people that I've spoken to who
• 28:50
  have their own, they have a mental illness and they're afraid of the stigma.
• 28:55
  I say to them it's counterintuitive, but the best way for you to fight stigma is for you to
• 29:00
  defeat it first and then just start speaking about this as frankly and as flatly as you
• 29:07
  would any other illness.
• 29:09
  Right?
• 29:09
  So, you know, with with so your point is that the more comfortable you get with it as the
• 29:15
  person, people around you will get more comfortable, which I think is a is so so true.
• 29:21
  That said, let's talk a little bit about the workplace and kind of I know that's you you,
• 29:26
  you know, you do a lot with, stigma 0 with workplaces and you're lucky, unfortunate to be
• 29:32
  in a space to be able to be around people that you work with that understand it.
• 29:36
  But to the average person and and work, what do you find that you're seeing out there when you
• 29:42
  go out to do trainings for stigma 0?
• 29:44
  I am seeing that there is a lot of truth in the way you said it at the beginning of this, this
• 29:49
  interview.
• 29:50
  We are headed in the right direction, but we have a long, long way to go.
• 29:55
  So people people are, less stubbornly, stigma, astigmatic towards mental illness.
• 30:02
  So in the past, people would actually defend their intellectual position as viewing,
• 30:11
  depression as a weakness you're not gonna hear that as much anymore.
• 30:14
  I think people recognize that that's not, you know, that's not a strong place to stand, and
• 30:19
  they see that that we need to look at it in this way, but getting to the place where people
• 30:24
  feel comfortable telling their manager about the fact that they're struggling, with a
• 30:29
  diagnosis of or maybe pre diagnosis, but they suspect they might have anxiety disorder, for
• 30:34
  example, that is still in a lot of workplaces, and it depends on the relationship with the
• 30:41
  managers, the HR, etcetera.
• 30:43
  And that's why we built the program that we built.
• 30:47
  This online program is it's called create your Sigma 0 workplace, and we're simply trying to
• 30:51
  train employees managers, and HR and senior leaders.
• 30:56
  We have 3 different tracks, trying to train them in how to have these discussions And we're
• 31:03
  also challenging the companies to recognize that if you want your employees to feel
• 31:08
  comfortable speaking to their managers, about a mental illness, you need to establish a culture
• 31:14
  that is that won't allow stigma to exist.
• 31:18
  That's not going to happen overnight, but it can happen.
• 31:21
  And in fact, it can happen faster than you think if everybody gets on board and it's
• 31:25
  communicated properly.
• 31:27
  Because people want this stigma to end.
• 31:30
  They're just not sure how to make that happen, and they need to trust that it's happening on
• 31:34
  both sides.
• 31:35
  So some of the things are, we do we do say to employees, look, you have to protect yourself.
• 31:42
  You can't you can't talk about it if you feel that you will be discriminated against, but we
• 31:48
  also challenge them that if you see the company is heading in that direction and doesn't, you
• 31:53
  know, doesn't want to allow stigma, then it is partly your role to participate in this culture
• 31:58
  change.
• 31:59
  And it feel good with your manager and your HR person to talk about it and to to to recognize
• 32:05
  that you have a right for reasonable accommodation.
• 32:08
  And, you
• 32:09
  know, and that reasonable accommodation might be very simple and minor, like, slight schedule
• 32:13
  changes that allows for you to live and work in a healthy way.
• 32:17
  The other thing that we focus on a lot in the workplace is recognizing that managers actually
• 32:23
  have a very difficult role because HR are trained to deal with these sensitive top topics
• 32:29
  and conversations.
• 32:30
  Managers are just people who were good employees and who elevated on the level of
• 32:34
  manager in their area.
• 32:35
  It doesn't mean they necessarily know how to sit down and have a conversation with someone
• 32:39
  about depression.
• 32:41
  That is not easy to do in the workplace, and I believe the managers have been under trained
• 32:46
  for a very long time in this area.
• 32:48
  How do you have that conversation in a way that respects the individual?
• 32:53
  That respects you you as a as a person and respects the company and how do you know when
• 33:00
  you should be bringing HR in?
• 33:02
  1st.
• 33:02
  And you don't need to bring HR in.
• 33:04
  These are all delicate questions, and we spend a lot of time in our program covering that.
• 33:10
  How to respond as a manager?
• 33:12
  In very tangible ways.
• 33:13
  You know, here's a scenario.
• 33:15
  You have an, you have a a team member who has been an amazing you know, like a pillar of your
• 33:21
  team for 7 years.
• 33:22
  Great work, consistent.
• 33:24
  Everything's good.
• 33:25
  And suddenly, their work drops off.
• 33:27
  Their energy levels are low.
• 33:29
  They seem distant.
• 33:31
  Now at that moment, you have no idea whether the reason this has happened is because their
• 33:37
  parent is dying they're getting a divorce.
• 33:40
  They've recently started struggling with alcohol, or they have a mental illness.
• 33:45
  It could be anything like that.
• 33:47
  Mhmm.
• 33:47
  The question becomes how do you have a conversation with that team member without
• 33:52
  invading invading their privacy?
• 33:54
  What showing them support and giving them their due, which is, look, you have been a great
• 33:59
  employee for a long, long time, but you haven't been yourself these last 3 weeks.
• 34:04
  I just want you to know if there's anything that I or the company can do to help you let us
• 34:09
  know.
• 34:10
  You don't you know, like, that kind of conversation can happen.
• 34:13
  And often, when it starts with that level of emotional intelligence and empathy, the
• 34:18
  employee will disclose because they will feel comfortable.
• 34:22
  That Right.
• 34:22
  And I mean, and they have to accommodate them.
• 34:24
  Like, that's the thing.
• 34:25
  You know, of you know, and if if if it's the uncomfortability of the manager for whatever
• 34:30
  reason, like you said, your even yourself stigma, that person has to recognize you've got
• 34:34
  you're in this you're in this, authority position because you get tactical things done,
• 34:39
  but you're dealing with people.
• 34:41
  And to recognize what kind of things you do to make people comfortable to say, yeah.
• 34:45
  You know, actually, you know, I'm going through a separation or you know, I'm I'm I've been not
• 34:50
  sleeping well or, you know, I've been maybe drinking a little bit more.
• 34:54
  And, you know, of course, they could go off CEAP services, whatever is to be able to know
• 34:58
  how to have that conversation in a kind caring way to say, I support you.
• 35:03
  I see you.
• 35:04
  I hear you.
• 35:04
  I recognize that you need something.
• 35:06
  Go get the assistance.
• 35:07
  We'll loop back.
• 35:09
  A lot of people are so afraid because it's like, well, I'm stepping into their personal
• 35:13
  life.
• 35:13
  Well, to some degree, just being kind and gentle is the best way to do that.
• 35:17
  Absolutely.
• 35:18
  And I also remind companies that Look, I've I lived it.
• 35:22
  I lived it as an employee.
• 35:23
  Right?
• 35:23
  I was the employee who was sick.
• 35:25
  And, yes, stigma caused a lot of challenges in, but that that does not absolve me, I signed a
• 35:32
  contract with my employer to do a job, and now my health is getting in the way of doing that
• 35:38
  job.
• 35:39
  Employer is not at fault at all.
• 35:41
  It's it and I know I'm not at fault, but I am responsible for Finding a way to either work
• 35:49
  within the bounds of my new reality, which is this illness is limiting me in my job.
• 35:53
  So maybe I need to take a leave of absence.
• 35:56
  Or maybe I need a reasonable accommodation, but I can't just shut down and say nothing to my
• 36:01
  employer that completely ties their hands.
• 36:04
  Right.
• 36:04
  I'm doing a job in accepting payment for that job.
• 36:07
  Part of that responsibility is that communication.
• 36:09
  Now there is the other side of the coin, which is if you have a truly negative stigmatized
• 36:15
  manager who might discriminate against you, then, of course, you might be afraid to discuss
• 36:20
  it.
• 36:21
  And that the the the global problem we're trying to change.
• 36:24
  But what I'm seeing in a lot of workplaces is is that that is not as common anymore.
• 36:30
  It is there.
• 36:31
  But there are fewer and fewer truly mean spirited, discriminatory people when it comes
• 36:37
  to mental illness.
• 36:38
  It's mostly just that their empathy and their emotional intelligence is a little low, and
• 36:42
  they need to understand.
• 36:45
  They they're not seeing the mental illness as an illness.
• 36:49
  And they're they're caught in the trap I was in originally, which is that, ah, it's just he's
• 36:53
  he's just distracted and lazy.
• 36:55
  You know, they're they're writing it off as a personality thing.
• 36:59
  And I'm finding that once people are fully grasping the physicality of mental illness,
• 37:05
  they begin to treat it more like the cancer or the broken leg or the other analogies that
• 37:10
  we've been using.
• 37:11
  They recognize it as as I always say something that happened to that person.
• 37:16
  Not something that they did wrong.
• 37:18
  That's a very simple turn of phrase, but it's powerful because when when I see that you did
• 37:25
  something to yourself, I feel a little less empathy for you.
• 37:29
  But if I see that it happened to you, My instinct is going to always be to have a bit
• 37:34
  more empathy, and that's so important.
• 37:36
  So it's really, I mean, if we can get raised peep people's empathy levels to just say,
• 37:41
  You're working with people regardless of what the issue is.
• 37:43
  If someone's struggling, just, you know, don't it's not always performance related issues.
• 37:49
  It may it may show up that way, but why is that if that person has been a stellar employee for
• 37:54
  5 years and and all of a sudden, you know, you're recognizing something's progressively
• 37:58
  changed, or maybe it's changed a little bit over time.
• 38:01
  It's about having just a normal conversation, a 2 way conversation to say, Hey.
• 38:06
  I've noticed X Y Z, which is factual to get the the employee to be able to elicit some some
• 38:11
  kind of information.
• 38:12
  Yeah.
• 38:13
  You know, I know I've been late lady lately, but this is what been going on, whatever.
• 38:17
  Okay.
• 38:17
  You kinda get them the right support.
• 38:19
  But if people are are afraid to think if I have depression and you're my employer, and you're
• 38:24
  gonna judge me, then I'm gonna shut down, and that's not gonna help anybody involved.
• 38:29
  Not at all.
• 38:29
  It just it just drags out the problem.
• 38:31
  And, and, you know, the studies have shown over and over and over again that it's actually not
• 38:37
  the absences that are costing the most when it comes to the lost productivity about mental
• 38:42
  illness, it's presenteeism.
• 38:44
  It's people trying to work through their illness as doing so at, let's say, 60%
• 38:49
  capacity.
• 38:50
  Mhmm.
• 38:51
  Move a workforce of 10,000 people and 2000 or 3000 of them are working through an illness
• 38:58
  because they're afraid of disclosing it and they're working at 60% capacity, that is so
• 39:03
  much worse than a few of them taking a leave of absence and then coming back when they recover.
• 39:08
  And so one of the things I have to to train my, clients about is that a successful
• 39:14
  implementation of a program like this will in the 1st 18 months to 2 years show an increase
• 39:21
  in medical absences due to mental illness.
• 39:24
  You can't avoid that.
• 39:25
  There are people currently who need them, who will now get them.
• 39:29
  And if you think of that as a bad outcome, you're missing the point.
• 39:34
  In fact, that has to happen But what will happen is many of those individuals will now
• 39:39
  find a way to recover, find treatments that work for them, and then they'll come back, and
• 39:43
  they will be productive employees.
• 39:45
  And the faster we can get that process going, the better.
• 39:49
  And another analogy that I use that that does work very well to get companies to understand
• 39:54
  why they need to address this actively or proactively is that imagine if you had a
• 40:00
  company of a thousand people of whom 600 were women between the ages of 2 131.
• 40:07
  And you just were thinking, I really hope none of them get pregnant.
• 40:12
  You would be a pretty foolish business.
• 40:14
  Right?
• 40:14
  If you didn't have policies and plans in place for Matt leave, you're just not doing your job.
• 40:20
  You're just you're just you have to understand.
• 40:22
  But that's what's happening with mental illness.
• 40:25
  Companies are hoping to not have to deal with it rather than proactively dealing with it.
• 40:30
  And unlike a mat leave where you physically show and then you, you know, you've gotta
• 40:35
  disappear while you go and give birth, you can actually work with a mental illness for years
• 40:41
  at 50, 60 percent capacity and and and and could have go under the radar.
• 40:46
  That is not good for the company, and it's not good for that individual.
• 40:49
  So a lot of this
• 40:50
  And it's not good for morale too because I've been just, of course, by, you know, if I come
• 40:55
  forward and I'm not treated well, the how many people are not gonna come forward that are at
• 41:00
  60%.
• 41:00
  So if, you know, if you do it well with the person coming forward, then others are gonna
• 41:05
  say, you know, I recognize there's assistance for me.
• 41:07
  I can get the right kind of support And
• 41:09
  then you
• 41:10
  like you said, in that benchmark of the 18 months or 2 years, then people kind of get the
• 41:14
  right things where that short term disability doesn't come and become a turn style.
• 41:18
  But it actually someone goes off.
• 41:20
  They get the appropriate treatment.
• 41:22
  They get, you know, the appropriate medication, and then they come back to work, and they learn
• 41:26
  to accommodate accordingly until they can kind of do that work hardening to get back to up
• 41:30
  back a 100% to their job.
• 41:33
  Extremely well said.
• 41:34
  That's exactly one of the main points that we make is that is that if you encourage people to
• 41:41
  come forward and then mishandle it, you will you are missing such an opportunity and you
• 41:47
  will shut a lot of people down for a long time because they're watching.
• 41:50
  And there's another thing that we do, and this is an important thing.
• 41:54
  We have had companies ask us, we like your program, what if we just wanted to do managers,
• 42:00
  or what if we just wanted to do HR?
• 42:02
  And we always say to them, look, you can do that, but it won't work.
• 42:06
  This cannot train a part of your organization on this project.
• 42:13
  This has to be done wall to wall.
• 42:15
  Every employee, all the way up to the go.
• 42:17
  And the reason is everyone else needs to trust the other.
• 42:21
  Has taken the same thing and is on the same page.
• 42:24
  Because if I'm in a manager, how am I supposed to help my employee if they haven't taken this
• 42:29
  training?
• 42:30
  Right.
• 42:30
  And if I'm an employee, how do I trust my manager if they haven't taken this training?
• 42:34
  It doesn't work.
• 42:36
  Everyone needs to be like, we're trying to turn the Titanic here.
• 42:39
  You know, in in a sense of culture change is slow and difficult, but it's possible if
• 42:44
  everyone gets behind it, everyone communicates it, And and there's precedent for this.
• 42:49
  It's it's happened over and over again.
• 42:51
  I mean, it's still sadly happening in in a lot of places with sexism.
• 42:55
  But there is a way to go from in the fifties sixties over at sexism in the workplace was not
• 43:02
  only commonplace.
• 43:03
  It was totally accepted.
• 43:05
  And now overt sexism in the workplace is 100% not acceptable.
• 43:10
  And that culture change is something that can happen.
• 43:14
  And that's something that we can do in this this this topic of mental illness and stigma.
• 43:19
  We can create a a world where having a stigma towards mental illness is just not appropriate.
• 43:25
  It's not acceptable.
• 43:26
  It's not okay.
• 43:27
  And the more people get on board with that, the faster that it actually does change.
• 43:34
  And I think you're so right.
• 43:36
  Right?
• 43:36
  You go from the kind of the macro to the micro.
• 43:38
  You have to you have to hit everybody to understand.
• 43:41
  Exactly what depression is or what is, you know, an anxiety disorder or a seasonal defect.
• 43:47
  Like, whatever the issues are, which will come, like, we know, and we know that It's on the
• 43:52
  increase, be it more situational, which is could be versus endogenous or biological, like
• 43:59
  people should know that they, you know, even if they are going through something, if you've
• 44:03
  gone through a death, for instance, yeah, you're gonna be upset.
• 44:06
  You're gonna be down, but, you know, when is it that it's you know, the time period before you
• 44:10
  could kind of, you know, get back and have dealt with it versus, oh, this is still
• 44:15
  continuing.
• 44:15
  That's right.
• 44:16
  You know, it's something a bit more.
• 44:17
  So I think it's you're so right because a and a lot of people go, it's mental.
• 44:21
  It's mental illness.
• 44:23
  I I don't know what to say, and they then they don't they don't manage their employees.
• 44:28
  Because they're just afraid to have normal conversations instead of saying, hey, Jason.
• 44:31
  How are you doing?
• 44:32
  They're thinking about how they're gonna say hi to Jason because they're afraid they're gonna
• 44:35
  trigger something.
• 44:36
  Which is completely ridiculous.
• 44:38
  Yes.
• 44:39
  Exactly.
• 44:39
  You don't no one with a mental illness wants to be treated just like no one with a physical
• 44:46
  illness, like a like a cancer or anything like that wants to be treated that differently.
• 44:50
  We just don't want to be stigmatized and don't want to be discriminated against.
• 44:53
  It's it's not that complicated.
• 44:55
  And and when you realize it that way, it's that's a big part of what we teach in, in this
• 45:02
  program that it's demystifying.
• 45:04
  A lot of it is is that.
• 45:05
  It's just bringing clarity to the these terms and these you know, the types of language that
• 45:12
  is good and that isn't.
• 45:13
  And, there's one exercise that I do in my keynotes, and I do it in the program as well.
• 45:19
  And it's I find it so effective.
• 45:21
  It's to let people know, look, don't it's don't feel guilty that you have stigmatized thoughts
• 45:27
  towards mental illness.
• 45:29
  It is our society has set us up for it to it's like a trap that we fall into to be stigmatized
• 45:36
  or to have stigma towards mental illness.
• 45:38
  Because we have listened and heard unbelievable numbers of words that are stigmatized towards
• 45:44
  mental illness that we've not heard towards other things.
• 45:48
  So I I do this.
• 45:49
  I say I'd like you to save space.
• 45:51
  It's gonna be a bit weird, but I'd like you to come up with the worst, most stigmatized, most
• 45:57
  discriminatory words you can think of about mental illness, and I'll start.
• 46:01
  So I say psycho, crazy nuts, and then I get them to go.
• 46:05
  And they're always uncomfortable at first, but then they go, then the words start coming.
• 46:09
  And then they keep coming, because there are a lot of them that we know.
• 46:14
  And so I actually create this chart that I show afterwards.
• 46:17
  It's got a 100 words in it.
• 46:20
  Discriminatory words about mental illness.
• 46:22
  And then I afterwards, I showed them a chart, and I'm like, look, these are words that have
• 46:27
  been fed to us.
• 46:28
  Throughout our lives, from movies, television, and people around us, we have a vocabulary to
• 46:35
  draw upon who be stigmatized about mental illness.
• 46:39
  Mhmm.
• 46:39
  Now I say the same question.
• 46:41
  Think of discriminatory, stigmatized, negative judgmental words this time about breast cancer.
• 46:49
  Mhmm.
• 46:50
  Room goes silent.
• 46:51
  You can't think of one because you don't
• 46:54
  think of it as something that happened that the
• 46:56
  woman did wrong.
• 46:57
  It's something that happened to her.
• 46:59
  And so my point in doing that is to re to really get rid of stigma is a little bit like
• 47:06
  losing weight.
• 47:07
  It's actually a discipline.
• 47:09
  You have to watch a diet and you have to make choices and you have to work out you have to
• 47:16
  choose to lose weight.
• 47:18
  Well, you won't just lose weight easily.
• 47:19
  It's it's a choice and it's a process.
• 47:22
  Sigma is one of those things.
• 47:23
  You can you can say I I intellectually agree that mental illness is not that person's
• 47:29
  fault, but you still have to choose not
• 47:29
  to think those negative thoughts.
• 47:33
  Because they're just there, not because you're a bad person, because the words would be
• 47:38
  Absolutely.
• 47:38
  And it's and it's ongoing.
• 47:40
  It's ongoing, and you have to you know, commend people that are making the changes even when
• 47:46
  nobody's looking Yeah.
• 47:48
  To, you know, I think that becomes very important.
• 47:50
  And obviously with me, you know, seeing it from, you know, I've worked trauma and
• 47:54
  frontline with the police all the way up to running different facilities with mental health
• 47:58
  and addictions and incorporation.
• 48:00
  So I've seen it at every end.
• 48:01
  Yeah.
• 48:02
  It's really about recognizing where people, and we all gonna have something.
• 48:05
  We all have something that we do with an ongoing basis.
• 48:09
  And with it on the rise, we have to recognize that we need to support people so that they can
• 48:13
  live the best lives possible.
• 48:15
  And it's this training program sounds amazing.
• 48:18
  Jason.
• 48:18
  So why don't you tell people, anyone that's, if it's companies that could are interested in the
• 48:25
  training and for also for about your book where they can reach you to once, and I know the
• 48:30
  release is about to come soon.
• 48:32
  Yes.
• 48:32
  Thank you.
• 48:33
  So the program and the book are both available at, it's triplew.stigmazero.com, and it's, 0
• 48:41
  spelled out.
• 48:42
  So stigmazedero.com.
• 48:45
  And the website is, it very clearly explains what the Sigma Zero online training academy is.
• 48:52
  And how we offer, employers.
• 48:54
  This is definitely a B2B offering.
• 48:57
  That said, if there are any individuals out there who wish to take the program, we don't
• 49:02
  we're we're not closed to that.
• 49:03
  It's just that that's not our main model.
• 49:07
  We do encourage you to reach out to us if you're interested, for that.
• 49:10
  We don't wanna, you know, we're not trying to limit it.
• 49:14
  On the website, you can, you can, try to get started right there and it sends us a note and
• 49:18
  we create, we create a meeting.
• 49:21
  This is not something that is is purchased online immediately.
• 49:24
  We always want to have a consultation, provide a demo of the course, so that each each company
• 49:30
  can really get a sense of what it is that we're trying to do.
• 49:33
  And then we offer a full onboarding guideline on how to get this thing going within a
• 49:38
  company.
• 49:39
  And as for my book, at the same website, there is a tab that says simply book.
• 49:43
  The book is called Jason One Sigma 0, my battle with mental illness at home and in the
• 49:49
  workplace, and that will be released in print, ebook, and audiobook formats in March.
• 49:56
  I actually don't have a date yet, but if you go to, the book page of our website, you'll see
• 50:02
  there is a spot for a pre order request If you pop your email in there, you'll get an email
• 50:07
  when the book is available.
• 50:09
  So, yeah, thanks
• 50:10
  so much.
• 50:11
  Can't wait to to read it.
• 50:13
  Sounds quite interesting for more conversation today.
• 50:16
  And, you know, when I listen to to Jason Agreed enforces so many things that I talk about.
• 50:21
  I I talk about being authentic, but, you know, if we're gonna be connected to ourselves,
• 50:25
  really, internally, our map is our map and what were given, were given, and we have to learn to
• 50:31
  deal with whatever's happening for us.
• 50:32
  And we all have different things going on in our lives all the time.
• 50:36
  And, just to stay connected to yourself as much as possible, whatever those needs are, if it's
• 50:41
  if it's anything from you know, I'm, you know, mentally ill to I've got something going on
• 50:47
  that situational that made me be being making me feel uncomfortable to go forward if you're
• 50:52
  at work, be able to approach the people that you know are sensitive and kind.
• 50:57
  But if you don't go forward, then nobody can assist you to get whatever you're needing,
• 51:00
  whether it's an accommodation, or just you being able to sit, you know, take some time off
• 51:04
  to be able to address these concerns.
• 51:07
  So thanks again, Jason, for, coming on and, maybe we'll we'll have you on again at some
• 51:12
  point once the once the book's released.
• 51:15
  And, for anybody trying to, get more information on me, about, authenticity and
• 51:20
  leadership, you can reach me at Roxanne Derhaj.
• 51:23
  Dotcom.
• 51:24
  Take care, and, we'll chat with you next week.
• 51:28
  Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne creating the space for positive healthy
• 51:34
  change.
• 51:35
  Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with visit
• 51:41
  roxannedurhaj.com/blueprint.
• 51:45
  We'll see you next time.
• 51:47
  An authentic living with Roxanne.