Recovery Diaries In Depth

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Sheila O'Shea is a writer with bipolar disorder; two of her intriguing and vulnerable personal essays reside on our website, www.oc87recoverydiaries.org. In one of her essays, she writes about the importance of drawing boundaries at work and the other piece is devoted to how she learned she had bipolar disorder. Our podcast interview with Sheila delves into material and themes from both essays. Sheila talks openly about working with bipolar disorder, the frustrating necessity of educating employers who know next-to-nothing about mental illness, and the benefits of working from home. Sheila describes bipolar disorder as leaving her work life in tatters, but she is continuing to work, this time on her own terms, and living a healthier life.

Sheila also talks about "the unpleasantness", which is how she refers to how her bipolar disorder was finally diagnosed, and speaks candidly about her time spent in a locked, inpatient psychiatric hospital; one of the most highly stigmatized and feared places on Earth. "It was really fucking boring," Sheila says with a laugh. Most stories about psychiatric hospitals are replete with horror stories, but Sheila's description reveals the often ceaseless banality patients encounter in these facilities where there is often not much to do and the most exciting thing that happens is your discharge. 

Exploring hypomania with thoughtfulness, Sheila openly admits that there are "advantages" to hypomania-- creativity and productivity being chief among them-- but that high always wears off and the crushing low comes hard; it is this knowledge and understanding that has prevented Sheila from going off her medication, and it's what keeps her stable. Sheila's insight, awareness, and openness made her a great guest, and you'll enjoy her conversation with our host, Gabriel Nathan. Check it out; like, share, and subscribe to Recovery Diaries in Depth. 

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

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Erica Harris is an emergency physician at Einstein Hospital, and she also serves on the Board of Directors of Recovery Diaries. Our "Recovery Diaries in Depth" interview with Dr. Harris is a wide-ranging, empathic conversation that you will be sure to want to hear.

Dr. Harris's experiences working in emergency medicine, surviving the trauma of COVID, are discussed in her interview and are also the subject of a beautiful documentary film we made several years ago, during the height of the pandemic where she thought about ideas of vulnerability and heroism, juxtaposing her career as a physician against that of her grandfather, a coal miner who fought for miner's rights and safety. 

In today's profit-driven medical industry, many healthcare providers feel immense pressure to see as many patients in a shift as possible to maximize profits, but Dr. Harris emphatically believes that kindness and empathy don't cost anything and they don't make interactions take any longer. She is a true believer in vulnerable, intimate moments with her patients. She also is a strong advocate for de-stigmatizing and normalizing mental health, openly sharing that she is in therapy.

Dr. Harris knows for sure that helping others, whether during a pandemic or not, has its toll that it takes on the mental health of providers, but she is here to remind us that vulnerability is a strength and that we can get through anything.

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

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Child sexual abuse and trauma, particularly at the hands of family members, is often called "unspeakable" and yet Morrene Hauser is breaking silence and shattering taboo by doing just that. She is determined to not allow shame and stigma to force her into being quiet. What Morrene endured growing up is unfathomable to most people and yet, at nearly sixty years old and living a full, rich life, she is living proof that there is life after childhood sexual abuse.

Morrene wrote an essay for Recovery Diaries last year called "My Very Own Sunshine: Healing from Trauma with Horses" and she returns to Recovery Diaries as a guest on this episode of Recovery Diaries in Depth to talk not just about her beautiful, moving essay, but to engage in a frank discussion of recovery from abuse and trauma. Morrene's recovery involved therapy, a drastic reduction in alcohol consumption, which Morrene acknowledges she was using as a maladaptive coping tool, and two other elements: writing and horses.

The first, writing, Morrene didn't discover until later in her life, but it has become a therapeutic, healthy, cathartic outlet for her to express herself, come to grips with what happened to her in her youth, and to help her connect with others. 

Horses, however, have almost always been a part of Morrene's life, even when she was a child in the midst of constant horrors, horses were there to bring her peace, comfort, respite, and the kind of love she never received from the human beings in her life. Horses are still a part of her life today: she wouldn't have it any other way.

Morrene's interview is a wonderful reminder of the strength of the human spirit; listen, share, like, subscribe, and hope.

CW: This episode features discussions of child sexual abuse and trauma. Please visit https://rainn.org for extensive resources and help related to these issues.

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

https://recoverydiaries.org/

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Reed Smith is a man of many talents, skills, abilities, and interests. He is a filmmaker, a screenwriter, a podcast host, and a creative, talented man. He is also living with autism. Recovery Diaries is committed to featuring a diverse array of autism spectrum stories, and Reed's journey is exciting and engaging, as you will see in this latest episode of Recovery Diaries in Depth.

In 2017, Recovery Diaries made a film about Reed's interests in screenwriting called "Living with Autism: A Screenwriter's Story" but our relationship with Reed actually goes back quite a bit further. Reed met our Executive Director and podcast host, Gabe Nathan, back when Gabe was working at a non-profit performing arts center for children and Reed, then 14, was Gabe's student in acting and writing classes. Gabe is fond of saying that he learned far more from Reed than Reed did from him and he never forgot Reed's interest in creative storytelling and film.

Fast forward to Reed's early twenties; he was in film school and interned at FreshFly, Recovery Diaries's filmmaking partner in all our documentary films. There Reed was able to gain hands-on, practical experience in documentary filmmaking, and Reed's interest in various genres only blossomed. 

Reed is currently navigating post-production on an ambitious film he made about making, keeping, and navigating friendships as a person with autism. We are already looking forward to having Reed back on RDID once his film is complete!

It was such a joy bringing Reed back for a podcast interview to talk about his life, his thoughts on cinema (he has many, and expresses them enthusiastically and earnestly in his own podcast, "Cinema on the Spectrum.") his experiences with bullying and the intricacies and nuances of friendship in this wide-ranging and thought-provoking podcast interview between two friends with shared interests and passions.  

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

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What do you do when you've got to record a podcast episode but your guest cancels last minute due to COVID? You interview Chat GPT, of course! Or... maybe it's Chat GPT interviewing Recovery Diaries in Depth's host Gabriel Nathan. Either way, you get a fascinating episode where Gabe fields AI-generated questions about mental health storytelling, advocacy, and suicide prevention. The questions may have come from a bot, but the answers are decidedly human, in-depth, relevant, and may just spark a lifesaving conversation between you and a loved one.

What are some common misperceptions people have about suicide?

What are some early suicide warning signs?

What are some of the biggest threats you see to Americans' mental health in the near future?

How do mental health stories help people?

These are just some of the questions Gabe tackles during this episode. Gabe brings his wealth of experience as a front-line staff member at a locked, inpatient psychiatric hospital, as tireless suicide awareness/prevention advocate, as a writer, editor, creator, and leader of Recovery Diaries, as well as his own lived experience with mental health challenges to create a dynamic, thoroughly human episode. Sure, his voice may get tired as he fields question after question, but you won't get tired as you listen along, enjoy, think, and feel.

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

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It seems only fitting, as the New Year begins, that we take a little look back-- not just at 2024, but at the beginnings of this entire mental health storytelling organization. So we cordially invite you to sit back, get in a comfy, meditation-esque position and join Recovery Diaries Executive Director Gabriel Nathan and writer, editor, RDID producer Laura Farrell, also a somatic therapist, as they talk about how they came to be involved in mental health storytelling, and what they hope to achieve through this new podcast venture.

Gabe and Laura have been colleagues at Recovery Diaries for over ten years and they both came to the organization through a heavy dose of serendipity; Laura through a connector while she was looking for work at Philadelphia's local public television affiliate; Gabe through his work in development at a local, non-profit psychiatric hospital.

While they may never have intended to end up at Recovery Diaries, they have both gained so much from the organization; from helping individuals with mental health and/or addiction challenges tell their stories through essays and films to gaining a greater perspective about the intersection between storytelling and mental health-- it has been quite a ride! And that ride continues, all these years later, with the creation of the Recovery Diaries in Depth podcast. As essay reading is a core component of Recovery Diaries in Depth, in this episode, Laura reads an essay she wrote for the website several years ago about magical thinking as a trauma response. After her reading, she and Gabe explore the essay’s themes and meaning, particularly in the current political climate.

So join Gabe and Laura as we take a peek behind the curtain at this organization that specializes in stories of mental health, empowerment, and change.

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

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Rebecca Wei Hsieh finds her voice, writing about suicidality and OCD in her personal essay, "Now What?: Suicidality and Planning for an Uncertain Present". She wrote it several years ago, when she was at the very beginning of her career, coping with family relationships she deemed "fractured" and it seemed like the future was impossible to plan. In many ways, Rebecca was, at that point, not that different from others her age navigating the complexities of life and family, but Rebecca was doing all of that while attempting to extract herself from thoughts of suicide and symptoms of OCD that were, at times, controlling. Now it's 2024 and Rebecca is well established in her career, she is doing the work of maintaining her mental health, she is slowly exploring rebuilding some family relationships, and her views on life, work, and mental health are explored with an introspective sincerity on this episode of our podcast, Recovery Diaries in Depth.

Rebecca shares about how publishing her essay under her real name was an empowering decision and one that she embraced as a component of her mental health journey. Perhaps one of the most powerful and heart-stopping portions of the interview is where Rebecca vividly describes how, at age 12, she told her mother that she was struggling with thoughts of suicide.

Rebecca Wei Hsieh doesn't shy away from talking about the hard stuff, the real stuff, the issues we need to be speaking about and addressing. People like her are the reason why we do this show. We're so proud to have had a chance to speak with Rebecca and to share her with you. We hope you enjoy her interview, and her wonderful essay reading as well.

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

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What if the very challenges that seem to hold us back are actually the keys to our success? Join us as we uncover this possibility with Dr. Rachel A. Davis, a psychiatrist and medical director who turns her personal journey with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) into a source of strength and empathy in her professional life. Rachel shares the transformative experience of becoming a living organ donor, a milestone that marks her triumph over childhood health anxieties and her unwavering dedication to the medical field.

Rachel's story is one of resilience, from her early years marked by religious scrupulosity and health anxiety to her pursuit of a medical career despite these challenges. With candid reflections, she reveals how a tough-love upbringing and specialized OCD treatment helped her navigate these anxieties, ultimately leading her to thrive in high-pressure environments. Her experiences as both a medical student and now a practicing physician highlight the nuanced ways OCD has shaped her approach to patient care, making her a compassionate and conscientious advocate for mental health within the medical profession.

As we explore the evolving culture in medical education, Rachel offers valuable insights into the importance of mental health support for future physicians. Her dedication to breaking down stigma and fostering open conversations about mental well-being stands as a beacon for change. From the pressures of medical school to the shifts in educational approaches aimed at reducing stress, Rachel's journey underscores the importance of supportive environments where medical professionals can excel, not just survive. Tune in to discover how Rachel's personal battles have fueled her passion to transform the landscape of mental health in medicine.

https://www.youtube.com/@TransplantTalks-Podcast

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

https://recoverydiaries.org/

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What happens when a professor decides to break the silence on mental health within their academic community? Peter Leman, a writer and English professor from Utah, joins us to share his courageous journey of speaking openly about his struggles with depression and anxiety. His heartfelt essay not only resonated with many but sparked a movement towards empathy and understanding among students and faculty alike. Discover how the power of storytelling can transform lives and create supportive environments in places where stigma often prevails.

Throughout our conversation, we look at the vital role of support systems during moments of crisis. From the unexpected intervention of a gentle Bernese dog named Nebo to the profound impact of recognizing suicide risk among loved ones, these personal stories underscore the importance of being a safe haven for those in need. We discuss how proactive communication and direct engagement can be life-saving, especially for students far from home who may be struggling silently. By fostering awareness and equipping young people with the tools to support their peers, we can make a significant difference in preventing tragedies.

Finally, we delve into the challenges faced by faculty in supporting student mental health amidst an already demanding academic environment. Peter candidly shares the emotional toll of balancing personal and professional responsibilities, particularly in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we explore the necessity of compassion and presence without the pressure to fix everything, you'll hear inspiring stories of advocacy and change. We leave you with a reminder of the importance of creating inclusive environments and invite you to explore additional resources and stories of empowerment on our website, Recovery Diaries.

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

https://recoverydiaries.org/

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Katie Dale, advocate and author, joins us on Recovery Diaries In Depth to share her powerful journey through mental health challenges and advocacy. Known for her poignant essay "Finding My Faith Despite Losing My Mind," Katie opens up about her experiences since 2017, including her role as a case manager at a nonprofit in Missouri. She discusses the profound connections she has built with individuals facing hallucinations, underscoring the importance of trust and empathy in her work. Now residing in Germany, Katie continues to explore new life chapters, emphasizing recovery's ongoing nature and the transformative power of embracing change.

Our conversation with Katie delves into the profound intersection of faith and mental health, particularly through her experience of losing a child at the onset of COVID-19. This life-altering event prompted deep reflections on spirituality and personal development, highlighting the necessity of evolving one's narrative. We discuss the challenges of balancing personal stories with future possibilities, and the indispensable role of medication and therapy in managing conditions like bipolar disorder. Katie's insights provide a compelling reminder of life's unpredictability and the vital importance of gratitude in the face of uncertainty.

Reflecting on her journey, Katie shares the lessons she wishes she could impart to her younger self, especially the importance of perseverance and extending compassion. We explore the journey toward being less judgmental, understanding others’ beliefs, and fostering empathy in our communities. As we envision a hopeful future, there’s a call for truth and empathy to spread like wildfire, contrasting with the prevailing societal divisions. Through the metaphor of an iceberg, Katie encourages us to see beyond the surface of people's struggles, fostering greater compassion in our daily interactions.

https://katierdale.com/

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they're always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting www.wannatalkaboutit.com. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call, text, or chat 988.

https://recoverydiaries.org/