This is the second season Of Course, They Make Me Crazy! April is so excited to have wellbeing strategist and passionate mental health advocate Michelle E. Dickinson.

Michelle is a TEDx Speaker and a published author. She is also doing great work by partnering with different company leaders to bring them a psychological resilience program that she created. But April first wants to talk about why other people’s well-being is so important to Michelle.

It comes from Michelle being a caregiver to her bipolar mother.  That is also what her memoir entitled “Breaking Into My Life” is about.

April asks, “please tell us about your early life with your mom.”

Michelle starts by saying, “Life was this strain.  And maybe her past trauma caused my mom to start exhibiting signs of bipolar disorder. I guess at the age of four and on, I remember her starting to be manic. She would sit on the couch crying for hours. It was a bit of a roller coaster for me. As you might know as a child, the one thing we need is consistency and predictability and routine. And my mom was anything but consistent. I never knew the mother I would come home to. Some days she would be in a good mood. Some days she would be angry with me, and I didn't know why. But that shaped me because it taught me compassion. It also taught me firsthand what it's like to love someone and how punishing it can be to love someone with a mental illness. How we put our own needs on the back burner so that we can do whatever we can to keep peace in the home. And that was my life. That was my childhood, my young adult life, and even my adult life just trying to do what I can to help her.”

 

Michelle continued to explain after telling her story on the TEDx Stage she realized that something beautiful happens when telling your story.  That is what led her to write her memoir.

April asks, “How was living at home with her?”

Michelle responded by saying, “It was our job to keep peace in the home, walk on eggshells, not to get her upset, not create a nervous breakdown, to do whatever we needed to try to keep peace in the home. So, my needs would go by the wayside. And then I hit those rebellious teen years and that was a whole other can of worms.”

Michelle said her mom was emotionally and physically abusive to her. She harbored a lot of anger and resentment until she started working on herself.   

She went through clinical therapy and a lot of self-discovery work through Tony Robbins and Landmark.  

Michelle says, “I was able to reach a place of forgiveness and compassion. To try to step into what life would have been like for her to try to raise a daughter and navigate a mental illness. In the back of my book, there's an epilogue about how ultimately all of this now serves me in the work I do. But I couldn't see it for the longest time because I was so focused on the effects that her mental illness and her behavior was having on me. When you focus on the effects of that, there's no space for compassion or to try to understand what life is like for her.”

 

April added to what Michelle just explained.

 

April said, “Later in life I realized that my mom who was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder did the best that she was able to do at that time. She was doing the best that she was able to do at that moment. What they do has nothing to do with us even though it feels like it.”

April shared a story about how she drove 14 hours from Memphis, Tennessee to Cleveland, Ohio after working all week because her mom called her crying about how lonely she was.  And when April arrived her mom slept the entire. She only woke up to say goodbye. 

Michelle explained that story resonated with her because her mom did the same thing, &ld