In This Family

Content Warning: This episode discusses depression, anxiety, hospitalization, and traumatic experiences.

Gary Gulman has been making people laugh for many years as a top touring comedian and frequent guest on late night shows and star of multiple HBO specials. He’s a professional success by any measure. But that didn’t stop him from having a mental health crisis in his forties, where he gave up comedy, was hospitalized, and ultimately moved back in with his mother. In this revealing conversation with Nexus Family Healing CEO Dr. Michelle K. Murray, Gary reveals the depressive and anxious tendencies of his youth, his struggles connecting with his parents, and how a traumatic event fueled his depression.

This is an encore presentation first aired in October 2025.

Content Warning: This episode discusses suicidal ideation and attempted suicide.

Her mother was Latina and one of fifteen kids while her dad was Native American and one of ten kids. For the acclaimed author Deborah Jackson Taffa, this meant a very large number of cousins but also a sense of alienation from both her parents’ cultural roots, a degree of being neither one nor the other. Complicating her sense of belonging was the fact that she and her late mother never really bonded, leaving Deborah to feel like an outcast in her own family as well, which led to mental health problems and an attempted suicide. But Deborah was loved, especially by her father, who read Deborah’s memoir, Whiskey Tender, and said it was accurate. Deborah was the first in her family to graduate high school and is now the director of the MFA creative writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She says all the accolades her work has received, including being a finalist for the National Book Award, would have meant nothing if her dad hadn’t loved the book. But he did. 

Content Warning: this episode discusses depression and suicide. 

Childhood and adolescence can be tough for anyone. There’s so much to figure out. Author Rebekah Taussig (Sitting Pretty: The View From My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body) had an extra challenge in that she was paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair, the result of cancer diagnosed when she was a year old. After many years trying to make her disability okay for everyone else and seeing her paralyzed legs as ugly, Rebekah developed a depressive disorder. But as an adult, she had something of an awakening about disability, realizing that there wasn’t something deficient in herself, it was more an issue of living in an ableist world that refuses to provide access for everyone. Later, when Rebekah became a mom to a boy named Otto, she dealt with postpartum depression and issues of feeling that she wasn’t enough for him. Through careful work and support from her husband, Rebekah is in a good place now and here to tell a story that anyone could benefit from hearing.  

Content Warning: This episode discusses suicide, self harm, substance abuse, and violence.

Content Warning: This episode discusses child abuse and rape. 

Author Ashley C. Ford did not have it easy growing up. Her mom could be a lot of fun but could also be physically and verbally abusive and just not interested in carrying out the role of parent. She took Ashley to the dentist exactly twice in her childhood, failed to get medical problems addressed that have been with Ashley ever since, and lashed out in fury for reasons Ashley was desperately trying to understand. Ashley’s father went to jail for two rapes when Ashley was a baby, the two not meeting in person until she was in her thirties. Ashley’s story, told in the best-selling memoir Somebody’s Daughter and in this in-depth conversation, is one of making sense of a challenging family picture and working hard to understand where it all shows up in her own life as an adult with a marriage and a career. 

Content Warning: This episode discusses childhood trauma, emotional abuse and physical abuse.

Content Warning: This episode discusses bipolar disorder, suicidal thoughts and self harm.

Actor and writer Joel Kim Booster (K-Pop Demon Hunters, Loot, Fire Island) had a difficult time with the parents that raised him. They were very religious, deeply conservative, didn’t believe in psychiatric medication or a secular approach to therapy, and they home-schooled Joel until he was 16. Joel, adopted from Korea, came to find out that he was gay, a fact his parents discovered by reading his journal during his senior year of high school, and he had been dealing with mental health problems that would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, type II. The result was Joel leaving home at 17, moving in with a friend’s family who welcomed and accepted him as he was, and charting a course of self-reliance. Over time, Joel established a reconciliation with his parents in a way where everyone respected boundaries and differences. And he accepted all that came with his bipolar disorder, in terms of medication management, personality tendencies, and taking care of himself. Joel, who was recently married, shares honest, wise, and often funny insight on his life and journey.

Content Warning: This episode discusses sexual abuse, bipolar II disorder, hypomania, autism, and psychosis. 

Frank is only 22 years old, still in college, but he has come a very long way in figuring out his mental health and has already done a lot of work in helping other people. A diagnosis of bipolar disorder, type II, and some intense education on the matter helped him understand why he had been prone to hypomanic episodes. It was during one of these episodes when Frank developed psychosis, believing he was actually a character he had seen on television, which might not make sense to some people but makes perfect sense when you’re in that state. With love and care and patience, Frank’s mom guided him to some treatment and toward some answers, including the discovery that he was on the autism spectrum. That discovery led his mom to understand that she was on the spectrum too.  

Frank Cobbe is an ambassador for the NAMI Next Gen program. NAMI Next Gen is the young adult advisory group for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), composed of 12 young leaders working to improve youth and young adult mental health across the country. 

Frank Cobbe on Instagram.  

Content Warning: This episode discusses sexual violence, racism, depression and anxiety.

As a kid, it made sense to Kris that she was adopted. She was the only person of color in her immediate family and the people of color she encountered in her community and school were very few and far between. Facing racism and the n-word early on also let her know that she was very different. Finally, during college, Kris learned the identity of the person who gave birth to her and put her up for adoption. The meeting was enlightening but expectations didn't match up as this person wanted to have a full relationship, have Kris meet people she said were Kris's relatives, and wanted to walk Kris down the aisle when she got married. No, said Kris. I have a mom and she's the person who raised me. Later, Kris had a falling out with her sister from her adopted family, who cut off contact. That was a heavy blow and although she now says it was the best thing that could have happened. All these experiences of who she was, being a person of color in an overwhelmingly white environment, and the separation with her sister have led to a profound depression and anxiety that she has to manage every day. That fragile mental health experience was exacerbated by recent ICE activity in Minnesota, where Kris lives, which has made it impossible for Kris to even go visit her mother. It's an enlightening conversation about complicated families and pasts and the impact of those on mental health.

Content Warning: This episode discusses violence, murder, rape and generational trauma. 

Newspaper columnist and community business leader Ka Vang was born on a CIA base in Thailand 50 years ago. She remembers eating from the garbage when there was no food to be had, witnessing rape and murder, and fleeing with her family to the United States after the Vietnam War and the Secret War. Ka is Hmong-American, part of a large community of people who aided the American effort and were relocated, largely to Minnesota. The trauma of the war and displacement had severe mental health effects on Ka’s family, including depression, anxiety, and hypervigilance. Today, the Twin Cities region is seeing tremendous upheaval due to the ICE surge, which has seen thousands of people arrested, sent to detention facilities, and deported, even people who have a legal right to be in the United States. Ka says Hmong people who lived through the war in Asia are terrified and having flashbacks. Their children, having had trauma handed down, are rehearsing best practices for staying safe. And as for Ka, she doesn’t feel like an American amid the ICE presence and feels more a matter of when rather than if she’ll get taken.