Latest / God + Mental Health Podcast / Living With Bipolar 1 and Faith: Denise Pimentel on Mania, Psychosis, and the Book That Came Out of It

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Living With Bipolar 1 and Faith: Denise Pimentel on Mania, Psychosis, and the Book That Came Out of It · God + Mental Health Podcast

0:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome, you are listening to the God and mental health podcast.
0:04
[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Rosanna.
0:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so excited to see back in front of the microphone with you this week.
0:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really excited about today's show.
0:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be interviewing Denise Pimentel.
0:14
[SPEAKER_02]: She is a writer and educator, a speaker, an advocate and a podcast host.
0:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And has the amazing title of being a visual artist, Warner Rays in Benson, Harris, Brooklyn, and now based in suburban New Jersey.
0:28
[SPEAKER_02]: She is the author of Unshaken, a true story of a bleeding mind, a broken body, and buried grief, and founder of Warfighter Writing.
0:37
[SPEAKER_02]: She is the host of the Unshaken Voices podcast.
0:40
[SPEAKER_02]: She holds a BA in elementary education, and history, and has a master degree in liberal studies.
0:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm very excited to interview her today.
0:49
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to have a really good conversation.
0:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, how are you and thank you so much for having me here today.
0:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited that you're actually the first podcast.
1:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I am on and it's so it's weird being on the other end.
1:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, I understand for sure.
1:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand for sure.
1:07
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are listening on the audio, just know that we are also a video package as well.
1:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can click over and watch the package is will on YouTube.
1:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to let listeners know.
1:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are a little bit about your work as a year into your story.
1:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
1:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, I am an author.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my book right here on chicken.
1:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a true story like you said, thank you.
1:35
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband actually came up with the idea.
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I had people create it based on what he thought of.
1:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So although I'm an author now, I'm more of an advocate.
1:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a teacher, most of my life was spent in education.
1:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, in December of 2024, and this is in my book, I had a stroke.
2:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So that completely took me out of the classroom.
2:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a life-altering stroke.
2:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Thankfully, my husband got me to the hospital in time.
2:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were able to give me a TNK shot to clear the stroke.
2:17
[SPEAKER_00]: which then led me to finishing this book, which I started in 2017 in a manic episode.
2:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So I say manic episode because I was diagnosed with bipolar 1, so it has psychotic features.
2:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was when I was previously married.
2:37
[SPEAKER_00]: to my ex-husband.
2:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in a difficult relationship with him.
2:42
[SPEAKER_00]: He had grown up in a tough environment himself.
2:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And as my mother used to say, I tried my goal was to save people.
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was trying to save him from the environment he had lived in still.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had him come out to New Jersey and
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And I tried, he was an atheist at the time, I tried to bring him to God and the way it happens is it kind of like brings you down when you're trying so hard to bring someone else up in our faith and I went to Christian school and I remember them giving this example in a chapel we had where they put the Christian on the chair and the non-believer on the ground.
3:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said, OK, now you try to pick up the non-believer.
3:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, couldn't do it.
3:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they took the non-believer and tried to have them tug of a believer down.
3:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And that always stayed with me, but I wanted to break that.
3:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be the one to be able to pick them up.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, eventually that trouble some environment cracked, made my mind crack.
4:03
[SPEAKER_00]: was there's mental illness in my family.
4:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that.
4:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not know that mental illness was passed down genetically.
4:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So my parents didn't know that.
4:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, what I learned through the doctors is that certain environmental factors can trigger that to come to life.
4:26
[SPEAKER_00]: and unfortunately, being in abusive environment, but also I was having a bit of postpartum.
4:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I had just had my son, I guess my first son, maybe he wasn't a year yet.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I was alone a lot of the time, I didn't live near my parents.
4:48
[SPEAKER_00]: and there was some strife going on between my family and him and a therapist had told me to stop talking to my family because they thought that was the problem, but you know, not every therapist can know exactly what's going on.
5:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was still in a fear mode.
5:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't the bold person I am today.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just did that and it ended up
5:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I told you that the time when all of this was going on.
5:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I was my late 20s.
5:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
5:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So you got married, started to experience this abuse with your husband, where there early signs of that when you were dating or did it happen.
5:33
[SPEAKER_00]: There was and I still blind to love, you know, not really knowing what a good relationship should be.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: still kept going in that relationship.
5:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, I was misguided by the church I was in because and yeah, I'm a believer.
5:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Love God.
5:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Not everybody's perfect.
5:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was told if I left the marriage, I was then setting my children up for divorce because my parents had gotten divorced a man.
6:07
[SPEAKER_00]: If I got divorced, so on and so forth.
6:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's perfect.
6:11
[SPEAKER_02]: That person is trying to get the church kind of gave this narrative that if you left due to wanting to leave the abuse,
6:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
6:24
[SPEAKER_02]: That you would then the consequence of that would be the impact it would have on your children.
6:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
6:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And my ex husband was trying to sugarcoat things.
6:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of dismiss it and minimize what was really happening.
6:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and I wasn't, again, I wasn't the person I am today, and I wasn't bold, so I didn't
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: fully tell the truth.
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so I didn't want to make anyone look super bad.
6:52
[SPEAKER_02]: That's you.
6:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
6:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So on the church, there was a different, it sounded like there were a lot of different factors that played into what could have impact, is your mental health, not even counting postpartum postpartum is its own category.
7:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
7:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
7:07
[SPEAKER_02]: To tell people,
7:09
[SPEAKER_02]: When you have a baby, it literally changes your brain chemistry.
7:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, completely.
7:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
7:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And so postpartum.
7:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Not really having a lot of support.
7:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
7:20
[SPEAKER_02]: All of this led to being diagnosed.
7:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you know at the time that it was bipolar?
7:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you have any?
7:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So no.
7:28
[SPEAKER_00]: do nothing and I you know I went the first hospital we went to was near where we were living not a great hospital and they're like oh you're just you just need sleep you know I was there just didn't they didn't take me in it was like a brief visit here take a sleeping pill so
7:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking, I was having delusional thoughts.
7:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, was this postpartum or was this even just like after this whole period of time?
8:01
[SPEAKER_00]: This, I had just stopped nursing.
8:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So I, that was also a part of it because they say your hormones.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, actually what I learned is that when you are nursing, it protects your mind.
8:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So even though I had this disposition to become psychotic and have the mental illness come out, I was being protected through nursing him.
8:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And because I took that away, that's when things started getting kind of crazy for me in my mind and having these thoughts.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But
8:37
[SPEAKER_00]: they just thought, I think I didn't sleep for like five days straight.
8:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I was, they're like, oh, you're having an episode where you're not, you're not able to sleep.
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody knew there was this component, you know, the mental illness.
8:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe my dad had tried to tell them, but my mom
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: because my grandmother, my mom's mom actually was hospitalized permanently.
9:05
[SPEAKER_00]: When she was nine, she never got out of the hospital because back then, it wasn't like today.
9:11
[SPEAKER_00]: They gave her shock treatment that wasn't regulated like today that meat are actually worse.
9:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was never my mom lost her mom when she was nine years old to the illness.
9:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So of course my mother was afraid that this was what was going to happen to me.
9:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So she wanted to try to get me through this without having me be hospitalized.
9:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Because she didn't know she didn't know that today this day in each treatment is so much better.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
9:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I understand now, obviously, why there was the fear there.
9:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It skipped her, thankfully.
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: and just came to me, but her sister also had mental illness as well.
10:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
10:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yes.
10:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that's where this all began and she just blamed him because she knew he was not a great husband.
10:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So, she didn't realize.
10:13
[SPEAKER_02]: You go to the hospital.
10:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
10:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you start treatment at that time or was it kind of a long process to start?
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So like they, I said, they gave me a sleeping pill.
10:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I went home.
10:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I took it.
10:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't do anything.
10:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, bipolar, manic episodes, regular drugs do not treat the things that are, you know, you take a strong sleeping pill you can.
10:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Your, your mind is so strong.
10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It defeats that.
10:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And so for people who may not know about bipolar 1, because you give like the charm of your version in Lightman's terms.
10:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to of course talk about it clinically, but I love it.
10:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It looks like it's been in the way they know.
10:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So why don't you explain for you what is bipolar 1?
10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
10:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So bipolar 1 to me is...
11:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I can be a teacher completely normal, you know, day in, day out, doing the right things and suddenly, usually the first thing that I've learned now, because I've been hospitalized four times for this, is your sleep, is starts to diminish.
11:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You lose the hours, it starts getting less and less till eventually it gets none of
11:32
[SPEAKER_00]: praying.
11:33
[SPEAKER_00]: God, please let me sleep.
11:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the first time this happened, I didn't know.
11:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't aware, I didn't know what was going on.
11:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I was hallucinating, starting to see things, flying above me, heard things, I actually called the cops in the middle of the night because I had heard voices talking to me through the, what is the thing that you hear the kids on?
12:01
[SPEAKER_00]: The intro song.
12:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the Benny Wagner.
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so till today, I cannot watch scary movies because what I experienced in real life Hopping to me, but again, I know it was just psychosocials, you know, that kind of stuff
12:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I called the police and I said, is it too late to report and abuse of incident?
12:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said, no, but, you know, this isn't something I would do if I was in my normal frame of mind.
12:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But it did start things, a process started getting out, you know, so everything happens for a reason.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So no sleep is the first one.
12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Messing with your sleep can also trigger it.
12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you do have bipolar 1, you want to keep a steady sleep Regiment because in the summer I used to try
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: and say it later because my kids were not in school.
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have to get up and then that I would still wake up at the same time so that would cause me to start to relapse.
13:10
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to keep a strict sleep schedule.
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is you're thinking.
13:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, for example, now I am in a healthy relationship.
13:20
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband is amazing and when I started
13:25
[SPEAKER_00]: because I was really believing it was just the relationship and that I didn't need meds anymore and I didn't tell him I stopped taking my meds.
13:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So eventually I start having these thoughts.
13:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, thinking he's cheating, thinking he's hiding money.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: This guy is amazing.
13:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Like my husband has taken such good care of me from day one.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: These were irrational.
13:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Like just
13:53
[SPEAKER_02]: on the side pair and white pair and white thought.
13:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
13:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, the anxiety starts to raise.
14:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I would check the doors to make sure they were locked over and over before I went to bed.
14:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
14:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And because a lot of that stems from my past, when I grew up in New York, we would have people trying to break in the house.
14:15
[SPEAKER_02]: There were things that I, all of those things came back to the forefront and they felt real in the moment.
14:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
14:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So it is this question to before we kind of go into your relationship with the current has it when when did you separate from your ex or and how did you all like, severed that and then how did you meet your husband?
14:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So the relationship with him over time after that first breakdown, it,
14:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It was getting slightly better because he knew now.
14:49
[SPEAKER_00]: She could call the cops at any time.
14:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So things, I think we had, they gave us some free services to get, you know, marriage counseling.
15:01
[SPEAKER_00]: through the state because I also accused him of abusing my son.
15:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that was just speculation because of how he was with me and I would go out and leave him with him sometimes.
15:17
[SPEAKER_00]: and just had these thoughts like what if, but my son was too young to tell me.
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So just because I said that this state had to do, had to start a case with Difis and, you know, here I am having a mental break, you know, so they had to do all of this stuff.
15:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So things calm down in that sense, but then it still revered it back.
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we are friends now, you know, we, I was very afraid to publish this book because certain things are in there about that relationship.
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I let him know ahead of time that I did not use any names.
15:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and he was like, okay, you know, on past that, he has apologized over and over again.
16:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just not the right fit.
16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I just could not, I could not be there anymore for my psyche.
16:12
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
16:14
[SPEAKER_02]: How old were you when you all separated?
16:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I was, well, we were together for 11, 11 years total.
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I was in my 30s.
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: it was he was begging like he begged me to not leave yet before that he constantly said I want to do so it was like suddenly I took the effort
16:37
[SPEAKER_00]: to walk away and then his mentality changed.
16:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but, you know, he is with someone who is a stronger, wild woman.
16:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what he needed to thrive.
16:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's a great father to my son.
16:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm not gonna badmouth him at all.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what happened with us is the past and we have both moved past it.
17:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
17:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So how much her new husband?
17:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my, what was that?
17:09
[SPEAKER_00]: My new husband actually, we reconnected through Facebook.
17:14
[SPEAKER_00]: He went to high school with me, which is, this is a very funny story.
17:19
[SPEAKER_00]: When he was a senior, he was in my brother's class.
17:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was a freshman, so I was just Paulie's little sister.
17:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And I used to leave notes in his locker, and...
17:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And he, you know, he, he couldn't, I was too young, you know, I was like a little kid compared to him.
17:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So he would, I think one piece, he wrote me a letter and to thank you for all these nice things, you know, but, and I was like, okay, and I cried and cried when he graduated.
17:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then 20, well, was it 17 years later?
17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 17 years later.
17:59
[SPEAKER_00]: we reconnected on social media and and he was going through a divorce and although his ex wife says things weren't really what I don't know I don't know what happened there but he helped me get a place he because I wasn't working so I had a great friendship again
18:29
[SPEAKER_00]: from me toward him, but it was a great friendship now, and he knew the whole story, and he felt horrible for me, and he just fell in love with me through a friendship, and I fell in love with him, and since that day he has just
18:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I never experienced love like this.
18:53
[SPEAKER_00]: As in all of my dating relationships, it was always me trying to lift someone up and make their life better.
19:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And with him, it was completely opposite.
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was straight open with him about my mental illness.
19:10
[SPEAKER_00]: He did not know what bipolar was.
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I had my first breakdown with him,
19:18
[SPEAKER_00]: turned into this person, he had never, ever met because this amazing woman, we had like the best friendship, best marriage, is suddenly a accusatory mean, not who I was, so he was
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Also was trying to say this isn't going to be forever.
19:49
[SPEAKER_02]: She just needs to get help, you know, so thank God I want to park there for a second because I think that there and then I definitely want to talk about how this has been for you with your faith because I do think that there can still just be so much stigma around.
20:06
[SPEAKER_02]: when we are experiencing these different mental health challenges, but for relationships, I think, what advice would you give someone who might be dealing with bipolar, and or I have a really great partner, but their experience experiencing mental health challenges.
20:27
[SPEAKER_02]: the things that come up obviously are very outside of what we know.
20:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I think that there's a level of shame we have around knowing our partner is dealing with this while also simultaneously, genuinely, really loving they've been wanting to care for them.
20:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So what advice or what things would you go back and tell yourself now, especially when you are in a place where those thoughts come up, we feel so much shame.
20:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I have served clients who we just feel so much shame that I'm allowed my partner to experience this.
20:58
[SPEAKER_02]: They should be with somebody else.
21:00
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have to deal with this while also cyber-tenancy again.
21:05
[SPEAKER_02]: They're there loving us.
21:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So what advice would you give or what would you go back and tell yourself when you were
21:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, one of the hardest things when you're going through an episode is thinking you're right about everything and you you don't listen to other people trying to catch you in in that episode and
21:29
[SPEAKER_00]: For us, the best thing that works is every two weeks, we have a therapy joint appointment.
21:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So, because of everything I've been through, a lot of, I struggle with believing my feelings and thoughts at times, but I love my therapist, and I trust them.
21:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So, if there's something that has come up,
21:53
[SPEAKER_00]: that I'm either, well, I see my therapist independently, but then I also see my therapist jointly with my husband.
22:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I highly recommend that especially for someone with bipolar, one of the major things is going to see your therapist taking your medication using your community or family and seeing your psychiatrist.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So for us, the best thing since I had my first breakdown in this marriage.
22:23
[SPEAKER_00]: is to do the joint appointments because that therapist is with you alone and they're hearing everything.
22:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That therapist is then also advocating for you, but also helping you through your thoughts, but also knows your husband or your spouse best because they've had so many interactions over time,
22:52
[SPEAKER_00]: that they really work to say, okay, she's feeling this, what are you feeling?
22:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And it helps both of us.
23:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Without that, you know, the therapy, I think there would be issues especially when you're in a mental episode.
23:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of like I was saying, you think everything
23:19
[SPEAKER_00]: is right.
23:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have a third party who's there to be the voice of reason for both of you.
23:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And they really have both interests.
23:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this isn't a confrontational
23:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Marriage, you know, we have a very good marriage.
23:36
[SPEAKER_00]: This is someone who's trying to keep it this marriage together.
23:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're doing their best to help you through it.
23:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, therapy is 100% a helper in this bipolar.
23:54
[SPEAKER_00]: that I have.
23:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what I'm hearing you name if I were to like paint a visual for people, it's almost like you're building a wall of protection and it's the wall is community.
24:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, a flitty and support is like the first thing that goes when we are experiencing this is isolation and we can stay in that place because of the shame that can be attached to it.
24:19
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of some of the things like condonation, like our own personal self-judgment, when actuality, like, got created support for us to help us thrive.
24:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what I'm very famous, like, the thriving is coming from a kind of ability community support, help.
24:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And also what you say when I think it's beautiful is like the level of trust you have, yes, allows you to then say what I'm actually thinking may not be true and it's not because something's wrong with me, but my thoughts can overtake to make me to make me feel like these things are true and they're actually not.
24:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like re-grounding you in the truth of who you are,
25:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we also do a devotional together.
25:11
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been doing that's another thing we started after the breakdown.
25:16
[SPEAKER_00]: My first breakdown is we go on Amazon, we purchase a bunch of couple's devotionals and we do that together and we have had so many great conversations,
25:32
[SPEAKER_00]: through those devotionals that bring us to a place where, you know, God is first.
25:39
[SPEAKER_00]: That was one thing over time we learned to do, and that was hugely important then it's put God first.
25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: In our relationship.
25:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's let's interject with that.
25:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So talking about how this diagnosis and or just this walk has impacted your faith in God as well as we don't talk about mental health challenges enough and we kind of what I'll say is we throw Jesus glitter on challenges as if they're not
26:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think they're not real, but like, people can't explain them so we kind of just put our own theology on it, our own lack of maybe wanting to understand, and so we just kind of, well, maybe it's this or maybe it's that or maybe you're not doing this when these are actual challenges people are facing and we still serve a very merciful loving committed father and he loves us.
26:46
[SPEAKER_02]: indefinitely.
26:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
26:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Unditionally.
26:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And so talk to talk to us about how maybe this diagnosis impact your faith and what have you also realized about the Lord from this.
26:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
27:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I was first diagnosed, I couldn't believe it because it was at a time when Britney Spears was people were saying she's bipolar and here she has running through the streets naked, shaving her head,
27:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I look at that paper, I'm still getting chills now, about what I felt when I saw that, and I'm like, how can this be God?
27:24
[SPEAKER_00]: How can I have this diagnosis?
27:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And it didn't make me turn away from God.
27:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just more confusion, especially because I had people in my life saying you don't need medication.
27:40
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and even in the church, it was at a time where people were saying your faith is just not strong enough.
27:50
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not that's the one that since me over the isgenies like it gets that's the one that makes me go like Yeah, you're not praying.
28:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not praying enough, and I'm like, what do you mean?
28:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not praying enough.
28:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't do anything for this to happen.
28:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I was always a strong believer and
28:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, of course, in my teenage years, I did stupid things when I wasn't putting God first in my life, you know, I think a lot of us go through that phase where we kind of become distant and live our life the way we want instead of God.
28:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was, it was a troublesome moment in my heart.
28:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was something that I knew God could get me through.
28:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, look where I am today, especially in that first, the weird thing about bipolar, let me say this, every time I get manic,
28:50
[SPEAKER_00]: my faith, I become very religious zealot type.
28:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've read many books that talk about this happens to people who are religious.
29:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think part of you heightens.
29:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and it's so strange, but it was in my breakdown with my
29:11
[SPEAKER_00]: current husband the first one.
29:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry my current the first breakdown that I had while with him.
29:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The second one was very small because I was in a happy place.
29:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is in my book where I talk about I was sitting
29:27
[SPEAKER_00]: in my living room and there was a skylight and I looked up at the skylight and I actually took a picture of this so I have the picture where there was there was frost on it and it looked like an eye looking at me.
29:43
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'm like, and I hear God say, you're the chosen one.
29:48
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm manic, right?
29:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know now that this wasn't actually like God, doing that, but I do feel that that was the point that everything changed in my life, and I felt like God chose me to write this book, to get out to people, to show them that despite anything you go through.
30:12
[SPEAKER_00]: God is there, and everything happens for a reason, and I had to use my story to bring hope to other people.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So I found this new calling and part of what I go out now and spread in my advocacy is that your hardest times can actually become the transformative
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: things that lead you to a new purpose.
30:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe that my stroke and my mental illness was exactly what God had planned for my life.
30:50
[SPEAKER_00]: to take it to a place where I can use it to help other people.
30:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So my faith grew stronger, and I know with other people, it can go the opposite direction.
31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: But for me, it gave me a newfound purpose, and I think so many people out there have these stories.
31:11
[SPEAKER_00]: that they can use, and I'm trying to teach them through my story, the how important, even though they think there are nobody or they're struggling, they can turn that pain into a purpose.
31:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
31:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you said something earlier there.
31:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to pinpoint on it.
31:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially when it comes to this thought of we just don't have enough faith or we're not praying hard to be.
31:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
31:36
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things you said was I was always a strong believer.
31:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that
31:42
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a scripture in Genesis when I talked about Abraham, and now after Abraham had had got it told Abraham to go to the land and it said that Abraham believed and it was against him as righteousness.
31:58
[SPEAKER_02]: that our belief is the thing that ties us to Jesus.
32:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, if we believe that he died, if we believe that he rose from the dead, we believe that he died for our sins.
32:10
[SPEAKER_02]: We could best out with our mouth, we are saved.
32:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
32:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I think as humans, I think for us, the challenge that we have is we are causing effect.
32:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, this happened because it's what happened because, right?
32:29
[SPEAKER_01]: right.
32:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I think as believers we kind of want to absorb ourselves from that because we believe God can do so much and he can do anything.
32:43
[SPEAKER_02]: But
32:45
[SPEAKER_02]: The Lord says, he'll write on the dress in the unjust, right?
32:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And paying it, we're not up as often paying, but how is it that we can be with us in that, while we are not feeling like that's what you're describing is that of using this as a tool to turn away from the Lord is almost kind of been a tool to help you press in, to allow God to have redeeming power through your story.
33:11
[SPEAKER_02]: and it'd be kind of, it'd be redemptive and it has a, it has, this feels like beautiful ashes, but it's almost like he is used this now to allow you to create other things and create other, it's another purpose, like you mentioned.
33:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, when I, after my first, a very first breakdown when I was diagnosed, one of the ways I escaped from the life that I was going through with my ex is, I read the Bible from front to back.
33:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Something I had never done.
33:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Every nap that my son took, I was in the, in the word.
33:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was shortly after that.
33:52
[SPEAKER_00]: that things really came to a separation and shortly after that that I reconnected with Ryan.
33:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I truly believe that, you know, when you put God first in your life, that that is, that is, I mean, we were taught that all the time.
34:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you live it, I try to teach my kids all the time, you know, look at what happened with me, you know, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look,
34:21
[SPEAKER_00]: When I put God as number one, that's when things got better, that's why I'm here today.
34:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think people do struggle with even believers, you know, with always making that.
34:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way to live.
34:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I call it like cause and effect.
34:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we think this happened because of this and it can kind of make us feel like well, maybe God doesn't care or those in those often become the tools that the enemy will attack us with because it goes against our identity as a daughter and even one that loves God and so
35:00
[SPEAKER_02]: with your story.
35:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I really want to talk about your book first.
35:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't show it before we close.
35:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So tell us about your book.
35:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell us about the process of writing it.
35:08
[SPEAKER_02]: What was it like for you to get that out?
35:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it's obviously anytime you're writing your story, it's very like a call of the disorienting time because you're like, oh, this is a lot.
35:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very vulnerable.
35:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So talk to us a little bit about your book and the process of writing that.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did start this like I said in 2017.
35:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It took me eight years, seven or eight years to finish it because I was working.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a mom and you don't, you don't have the time when you're doing all of that.
35:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I've been a three-year-old and I'm like, kind of, thank dabbing the middle of.
35:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
35:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So you just have to put it aside.
35:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You do what you
35:55
[SPEAKER_00]: with this is with my current husband and I started a business.
36:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I started glorified writing all of this as I was in this manic episode.
36:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I was writing when he was sleeping, I was awake writing when I wasn't supposed to be.
36:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So there were multiple days that I was writing this book and just
36:19
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, why week still, he would wake up in the middle of the night, but again, when you're manic, the words flow so quickly and you can't keep up with your hand that's writing.
36:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Your mind is going so fast.
36:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So like I said, I started it when my son was maybe two or three and put it aside because I went back to teaching and
36:43
[SPEAKER_00]: just couldn't do any more and then God, you know, I had this stroke in 2024 and it gave me the time.
36:52
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the therapists said,
36:55
[SPEAKER_00]: This was the cognitive therapist.
36:57
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes, can you write, and I'm like, can I write?
37:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, of course, you know, I love writing and he goes writing is actually healing for your stroke and I had no idea.
37:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So I said, oh, okay, well, then I guess I have this book I started my memoir in 2017 that I can pick it back up.
37:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And every week, I was writing and my brain was healing, which is interesting.
37:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And I talk about, from the time I was born, you know, when I grew up in New York, some of the traumas.
37:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a cathartic experience because I put all the traumas on the paper.
37:42
[SPEAKER_00]: and put them out there, not to complain about them, but just to show people, look at what happened to me, but look what God did in my life to bring me where I am today.
37:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that shocked me, I have a Bible verse on the front, Matthew 1618, and it says, the gates of hell should not prevail.
38:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Shortly after publishing, I get a call and invite from the New Jersey Governor's Council, asking me to be a part of a breaking the stigma event.
38:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, no, like, because you have government, you know, separation of state, you know, and feeds and I was just blown away at what God can do.
38:33
[SPEAKER_00]: He can even break
38:36
[SPEAKER_00]: into a government sector, even though there's a verse on the front.
38:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And I knew that this this story was going to help so many people, but also it talks about God.
38:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But my purpose
38:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't say you need to become a Christian.
38:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, this, my faith, my community, my husband, my doctors, my therapists.
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I needed all of these things to help me get through.
39:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love the fact that even government officials who are trying to help, you know, they're in mental health.
39:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to help people no matter what.
39:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So if Fatal helps somebody get through it, they're not afraid to not use them.
39:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And my book will take you all the way through my first breakdown through the moments of my stroke where the biggest part during my stroke was, when they told me, we have to give you this shot.
39:47
[SPEAKER_00]: the clot in your brain, but then they said that you have to sign this paperwork because there's a seven, only seven, seven percent chance that you could die from the shot.
40:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So suddenly that seven in my mind was like 90, you know, I was like so scared to take that shot.
40:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So my husband calls his sister who's a nurse and says, you know, what do we do here?
40:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was in that moment.
40:21
[SPEAKER_00]: In my book, it's in there.
40:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, it was like everything froze.
40:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had a conversation with God, because I had never been placed in a situation like this where I had to make a decision that could risk my life, but could also save it.
40:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, Lord, if you want me to still be here.
40:43
[SPEAKER_00]: After I take this shot, then I'm putting this in your hand.
40:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I will still be here.
40:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take this shot and I heard him say, take this shot.
40:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I just, and then it's like, it's so cinematic because it was like suddenly everything that was frozen came to be like normal again.
41:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And took this shot and here I am.
41:11
[SPEAKER_00]: that I put in God in that moment, it was just not anything I had ever experienced.
41:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and ever, you know, like I said, I always lived with faith, but now I owe him my life.
41:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I always say that disruption is God's way of being like, like it's an interesting way he gets our attention, but it's also like,
41:40
[SPEAKER_02]: the rights of passage right to a set of steps that you never expect for your life.
41:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I agree, I think that
41:51
[SPEAKER_02]: what you're talking about, and people just need to hear that more.
41:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Government, not government.
41:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We just do need to have those more conversations about the redemptive power of God, being with us and struggles, said, don't look like what we see or what we expect.
42:12
[SPEAKER_02]: What we think is limited.
42:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So I love that.
42:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'll have all of your information for your book in the show.
42:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
42:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So Denise is in such a great conversation.
42:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I have thoroughly enjoyed talking with you.
42:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll show you where they can find you.
42:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, of course, I'll have all your information in the show notes as well.
42:33
[SPEAKER_00]: sure.
42:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can find me on my website glorifiedwriting.com or on any of the platforms among LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, I have a YouTube channel, Facebook, TikTok, which is mostly for kids, but I do a lot of adults do use TikTok.
42:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm on all the platforms, but like
43:01
[SPEAKER_00]: glorified writing to get my paint, my book on any of the ones there, there's Barnes and Noble, there's also Amazon, and I have the audio book.
43:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the process it took for me to make the audio.
43:16
[SPEAKER_00]: The audio book was
43:18
[SPEAKER_00]: was tough.
43:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's on honorable.
43:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up doing it because I got scammed the first time and paid somebody to do it and didn't work out.
43:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like, all right, this is God tell me you have to do it yourself.
43:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I went through that process and it was fine.
43:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's also Kindle.
43:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So
43:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, well awesome.
43:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you so much for this conversation and thank you for having me.
43:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, of course, of course I'll have Denise's information in the show no three wall and I'll talk to you next week.
43:49
[UNKNOWN]: Bye.
43:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you