It's challenging to one day think that you're a literal god and that you control everything, and then the next day think that your garbage. It's a whiplash effect in your mind and body and spirit that is still to this day hard to describe and explain to people.
Welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Gabe Howard to the show. Gabe is an award winning podcast host, author, and sought after speaker. He hosts the Inside Mental Health podcast and is the author of Mental Illness as an Asshole and other Observations. He's been featured in numerous publications, including Bipolar Magazine, webmdhealthline dot Com, and the Stanford Online
Medical Journal. Among his many awards, he is the recipient of Mental Health America's Norman Gutrie Award and received a resolution from the Governor of Ohio naming him a quote Everyday hero. In this episode, I talked to Gabe Howard about living with bipolar disorder, an illness that is characterized by emotional highs and emotional lows. Gabe shares what phases of meaning and depression are really like and how the sudden shifts feel so jarring even though the disorder has
its own set of challenges. Gabe is a starch believer in taking responsibility for his actions. He opens up about his journey of recovery and the coping strategies that have benefited him. We also talk about the common misconceptions about people with bipolar disorder and public figures who may have
had this mental illness. We try really hard in this episode to humanize bipolar disorder, and I really appreciate Gabe's honesty and vulnerability throughout this entire check so that further ado, I bring you Gabe Howard.
Gabe Howard is so great to have you on the Psychology podcast today.
Well, thank you so much for having me. I really really appreciate it.
Yeah, fellow psychology podcaster, host of the podcast Inside Mental Health. Your interest in mental health is it personal?
It's very very personal.
I live with bipolar disorder, and I guess the answer to the question is yes, Yes, it is personal.
I mean that was a soft softball lobby because I knew today the topic of our conversation today is going to be living with bipolar and that'll probably be the title of the episode, and we're going to have as real a conversation about this as possible. We're gonna talk about the standard stigmas against it, and we're going to talk about some maybe some taboo corners of the mind today because I'm a big of it.
Yeah.
Well, I'm a big believer, Gabe. I'm a big believer in a humanistic approach that doesn't only focus on the positive. You know, I'm really all about integration. It looks like you've done a lot of integrative work. If I'm understanding your journey correctly, would you say that's accurate?
I do think it's accurate. It's been a long time. I've done a lot of work and it wasn't a quick thing. So and I'm still learning. The work is ongoing.
That's true. That's true, it never stops. There's I've only had one person in my whole life tell me that there are a hundred percent self actualized. But that's only one person. It's very hard to find out.
I don't I don't even need to meet them.
You're funny. So in starting I'm trying to think about what a good inroad to this would be. When did you start to think maybe you were different than others? Like was it as a kid? You know? In this particular way. You thought, hmm, my thoughts, my cognitions, my actions, maybe or not, Maybe there's something going on here.
I never thought that.
If the specific question is when did I think I was different? I thought I was different my whole life. But I didn't think that it was tied back to cognition or disorder or illness or or anything like that. I just it truthfully, And this is as sincere as I can be. I thought I was an asshole. I just thought I was an asshole because I couldn't do
anything right. I couldn't follow instructions I was desperately trying to, and I would for a while, and then I would zag to the left or to the right, depending on whether it was you know, maniaor depression or grandiosity or all the nice little things that come with bipolar disorder. And then when those episodes would be over, I would look backwards and I'd think, well, I'm an asshole? Why did I treat people that way? And then regret what said?
It So interesting, but you lived on diagnosed right with bipower for many years. When did you get a formal diagnosis.
I got a formal diagnosis when I was twenty six years old after being committed to a psychiatric hospital. So that's that's the level of crisis that I needed for anybody to say, Wow, something's going on here.
Yeah, and you how old are you know?
I'm forty six, So that was twenty years ago.
Man, I'm okay, cool, just to get some sort of you know, idea of No. I mean, it's amazing how fast time flies. So twenty six years old, you kind of reached this breaking point moment. Are though maybe you wouldn't frame it in such a way.
I don't want to, No, I'd frame it in that way.
It was it was an absolute okay, okay, excellent, excellent. I'm all about the person being able to drive their own narrative. So please correct me if you know. I'm not trying to be put to correct. I'm just saying I'm trying to be compassionate, So just let me know. Yeah,
And so you had this breaking point moment. And something that really interests me about bipolar something you kind of alluded to is when you're going through a mania phase, sort of the after phase where you kind of are more in a reflective mode and you're like almost like, what have I done?
You?
Know, like or almost like you know, And I personally can resonate with that to a certain degree. I tend to if I drink too much coffee, I'll go in a shopping spree on Amazon, and two days later I'll look around my room at like ten new boxes and things I don't need, and I'll be like, what have I done?
So?
Is this kind of like a just it's a more of a gradation versus like, you know, I guess what I like to do? When talking about mental illness is not treated as though mental illness is you know, a special species of human and then everyone else is normal. Do you know what I mean? I like to say it's probably just you know, it's all continuum. Would you say that's that's along the lines of a similar continue but maybe a little bit more intense and maybe with
other domeans than just shopping on Amazon. But I do regret it all often, you know.
So.
Bipolar disorder can best be described as a spectrum. This is just wider than the average person. Most people don't reach suicidal depression where they think that their mom would be happy if they're dead, and most people don't go up so high so elevated that they think they're a literal god that can accomplish anything and that the universe revolves around them. It's not that you can't be excited, right, Normal people are excited. That's fantastic, right. And it's not
that you can't be sad. It's normal to be sad, and I think everybody has experienced that. But with my polar disorder, it's just wider and you spend more time in different sections. Nobody's ever going to call me calm, right, nobody's ever going to say, you know, well that Gabe, he's as steady as a rock. No, I'm always going to be known as sort of the gregarious guy, and
that part is good. But when that gregariousness leads me to think that I can jump off one hundred story building and fly like Superman, or when that line of thinking makes me think that, hey, if I died, my mom would be so happy at my funeral because I finally made the right decision, that's when it gets into disordered thinking, and that's when it needs intervention.
Great, So it sounds like we're really much an agreement that it is a continuum. Yes, And I think framing it in that way allows us to humanize it a little bit more. I mean, I love humanizing mental illness. Is one of my favorite hobbies is humanizing ment illness. And so, you know, a lot of people. What I really want to do is I want to bring people into this conversation not treated as though like, oh, we're talking to some human with a special you know, unique
species of human with bipolar disorder. And then it's like the person totally can't relate, you know. I think, you know, we all go through moments where we you know, again, like with me, if I have too much coffee, it's does something to my brain, you know, Like there's something about dopamine, and that's relevant to this discussion dopamine. You know, when you have too much coursing through, I feel I get very excited about the possibilities of everything. You know,
It's like, oh, possibilities, possibilities. So that's you know, So the mainia stage of serious, you know, diagnosed bipolar disorders is that on steroids to a certain degree where you sort of see possibility everywhere, right, and you sort of you know, you unlimited possibility within yourself, but also possibility with every stimuli you encounter. You know, I just I just see it as dopamine on steroids to a certain degree. But then the other side, that the depression side. Do
you have tell me about your personal experience. Does it usually follow? Have you noticed a cycle? Have you noticed like like, can you chart it out where you're like, oh, I know if I'm like this today, tomorrow I'm gonna be like this. Did you notice a pattern like that or do you still notice a pattern?
Yeah, I didn't notice a pattern before diagnosis. I notice no pattern. I I I didn't really notice anything. And in some ways that's the crippling part of bipolar disorder. My parents would see a symptom of bipolar disorder, right, and you know grandiosity, right, refusing to go to school, staying up for three days in a row, thinking that
I know everything. And they think to themselves, okay, well we've got a teenager that things, he knows everything, doesn't want to sleep, and doesn't want to go to school.
So they would punish me.
Now we now know those were symptoms of bipolar disorder, and then they would punish me. But here's the part where it gets sticky. I would just naturally cycle into the middle. So in my parents' mind, the punishment was working, but it was just luck. They could have done nothing and it would have worked. It would make an air quotes, it would have worked. They could have done absolutely nothing
and I would have ended up in the middle. Or they would punish and punish and punish and punish, and I would just ramp up that behavior because you just never know what direction it's gonna go. That was the hardest part for me. It was like an intermittent mood. I just I didn't even know what I was gonna get when I woke up or when I went to bed.
And it's challenging to one day think that you're a literal god and that you control everything, and then the next day think that your garbage and that your family will celebrate your death. It's a whiplash effect in your mind and body and spirit that is still to this day hard to describe and explain to people.
That's a really powerful phrase. Have used that before, The whiplash effect for a Bible I mean, makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, It's one of my favorite phrases when I describe bipolar disorder, because I don't think that people think about that enough. They don't think about this idea of going from one mood type to another, and how that really feels both physically, it does have physical sensations, but it just mentally. Mentally, how did you have the self confidence to literally think that you could fly and now you don't have the self confidence to go to the grocery store and buy groceries or get out of bed?
What is that like? And it's it's a lot.
It's a lot. But let's get really nerdy for a second. You know, from an evolutionary perspective, there's a reason why
the genes for bipoor remain in the human population. It is quite possible, and I don't mean to glamorize it at all with what I'm about to say, but it's quite possible that the things that people can accomplish within that many phase kind of make it worth it from a genome perspective, when you look at the total you know, the total arc of things, you know, I imagine that when you're in that state sometimes you can probably I
don't know, maybe maybe maybe there's a certain threshold. Maybe there's like when it's too much, it's obviously you're not being productive, But is there a certain like if you view it as a curve, an inverted U shaped curve. We're too little and too much is not good. Do you think maybe there's a there's a kind of optimal part of mania that you're like, way more productive than you would be if you didn't have by poor disorder at all.
These are always really tough questions for me to answer, because mania it true.
Mania.
Everybody agrees that dude is manic, is dangerous, and it's not productive because, like you said, you've got all these ideas. So you wake up one morning you're going to start eleven hundred companies. And I use eleven hundred both to kind of be funny, but there is nobody in the
world that can simultaneously run eleven hundred companies. So what you have is this person that is spouting out all these ideas that sound really good, and listen, maybe some of them are really good, but they bounce from idea to idea to idea idea, and you just spread yourself way too thin. And again, nobody can run eleven hundred companies, and listen, you can use whatever number you want. Nobody can run five companies, three companies, ten companies. And that's
the problem with mania. You don't know when to say no, because no isn't part of your vocabulary anymore. But here's the second thing that I always say about mania. I think that sometimes mania gets credit for things that Frank isn't mania. I've experienced mania, and when people see me do really well, you know, they see me on a stage. Right, I'm six foot three, two hundred and forty pounds, and I stand on a stage. The spotlight hits me, There's
a thousand people in the audience. I'm holding the microphone and I'm speaking.
I'm working the crowd.
People are cheering and laughing, and I'm a public speaker.
It is my job.
Every single time I walk off that stage, somebody will say, you harnessed mania up there, didn't you. No, No, I didn't. I didn't harness mania at all. I'm just just really good at my job and I practiced and I worked really, really hard. Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones is not manic. He's just Mick Jagger. Nobody ever accuses him of having mania. So but they don't believe me.
They don't. They're like, no, no, no, no, no no.
It's that mania that allows him to really control the crowd, like that I can't get a away from that persistent rumor. It's not true, but people just don't want to believe it. So mania gets the credit for what's actually my success, which is another way that bipolar disorder is really horrible. I mean, not only is there a fifteen percent death rate in bipolar disorder, but whenever you do something well, people are like, ah, that's your illness.
No it's not, it's me. It was Gabe.
I really appreciate you saying that, just to play devil's advocate a second, when you've done something really terrible, are you also equally likely to say take responsibility and say that was me, Gabe, or do you put that on bipolar.
Bipolar disorder may be the cause of something, but it's always my responsibility. So it really doesn't matter what terrible thing I do, it's my responsibility. I want to give an example because the audience for some reason has trouble
grasping this a lot when I talk to people. If I am driving my car and I have a seizure and I run into your car, Scott, you get out of the car and you're like, hey you oh, wait, and then you see me having a seizure, you're gonna understand immediately what happened, and in fact, you're gonna you're gonna provide medical care. You're gonna call nine one one.
You're gonna say that this man is having a seizure and he wrecked into my car, and you're gonna hope that I live and do well and get great medical care, and you're gonna send me the bill for your car. And most people are like, yeah, that's that's really reasonable. It just just because you had a seizure doesn't mean
that Scott has to pay for his own damage. But for some reason, when you get to serious and persistent mental illness by polar disorder, depression, even alcoholism and substance abuse disorder, there's this tendency in the community to say, well, it wasn't my fault, therefore I don't have any responsibility for it. Nothing could be further from the truth, and frankly, it's just not an empowering statement. If you don't have any responsibility for it, then you're just owned by your illness,
and by polar disorder doesn't own me. It gets some space in my brain because there's no cure for it, and there's but it gets as little as humanly possible. I am in control, not by polar disorder, and by by saying, oh, that's not my fault, it's by polar Yeah, it wins.
I don't like that. I don't like that it ever wins. Yeah.
I love that response due to no large part that that's exactly how I would have responded to the question.
So agree with you did not coach me, everyone. I want everybody to know that Scott did not coach me. I came up with that on my own.
I didn't coach you. No, that's correct. I like it because it's it's definitely I agree with it. But I often like to tell people, you know, I don't believe there's such thing as the real self. I don't like the notion of their real self, you know. I think that it can lead us to not taking responsibility for the sides of ourselves that we don't like, you know, and only taking responsibility for the size we do like.
So that's the spirit upon which I asked you that question, because I was curious where you were going to go with it, and I'm I'm pleased you went with it where you went with it. But yeah, I I completely agree, and and I like it sounds like you've a very healthy attitude. And I would say a healthy relationship now with your bipolar side, which is not all of you, Which is not all of you, But it seems like a lot of the work you've done is changing the
relationship to that side. Would you say that's accurate.
That's absolutely accurate. Understanding what it is and what it's trying to do is the first step toward defeating it. You are right, I've got to learn to live with it because there is no cure, and part of my life is always going to be spent thinking about managing, getting ahead of, or just being aware of bipolar disorder. There's nothing I can do about that. It's it's my lot in life. It's the straw that I drew. There are worse things, but it's hard to accept that. I
do understand, and I've had a lot of practice. I've had a lot of experience. I'm forty six years old. When I was twenty six years old, it was harder. I always try to give like little grass, like something that we can really grasp. When I went to the hospital, one hundred percent of my life was controlled by bipolar disorder. And now I would say that ten percent of my life is controlled by bipolar disord. So, but it was
a hard fought ninety percent along the way. You know, maybe at one point it was eighty percent was controlled, ninety percent was controlled, fifty percent was controlled, then there's relapse. Relaps was part of recovery. Now one hundred percent is controlled again, right, I got up to fifty and I just you know, I flew too high. But now I have a consistent and again, these are Gabes' numbers, right,
there's no way to measure these. I don't want anybody to think that, you know, I took a test and found out that this is just how I choose to view it. But ninety percent is a that's a lot of life that's mine. And considering that I started with one hundred percent was owned by bipolar and I took back ninety I'm going to take that as a win.
And I think where people get in trouble is when they think they have that one hundred percent back, because that means that nobody's watching bipolar disorder anymore, and that allows it to operate however, at once unchecked.
Yeah, I hear you. I thought of another question as you were talking, because I'm not ready to completely let you off the hook with my question about when things go wrong, do you blame the bipolar? The only reason why I bring this up is and this is just
playing devil's act. In the beginning, you did kind of sound like you were saying and correct me if I'm wrong, But it sounded like you were saying, you know, I was wondering why I was being an asshole, and then I realized it was bipolar, So it sounded like you actually were in fact bleaming bipolar, which conradicted what you said later. I'm just a nerd and I hate contradictions, So can you read that for me?
I love it.
So the what I meant to imply is that I thought I was an asshole. I was doing all of these things, and since I didn't have any understanding of what was happening, I just thought, well, I'm an asshole. And to expand out a little, the people around me thought I was an asshole too, right. My parents would look me dead in the eyes and say, don't do that, and then I would do it, and I'd think, why did I do that? Well, I didn't have any understanding
of my pathology, my psychology, my symptomology. I didn't know anything, so in my brain it's like, yeah, why did I do that? And humans, they we like answers. We want to know why we did stuff. And the only thing that twelve year old, fifteen year old, twenty year old, even twenty five year old Gabe could come up with is well, I must have done it because I'm an asshole. It's a nice little bow, and it answers the question
of why are you behaving this way. It's not a good answer, it's not a reasonable answer, and looking back, I really wish that I would have thought, why am I being an asshole? Like that would have been a great follow up question, Scott, But I just.
Sort of shrugged it off.
Well, I guess I'm an asshole, and then I moved on to the next thing, which may or may not been part of bipolar disorder thinking. But again, even the parts of bipolar disorder that I can't control, even when the reason is one hundred percent because of bipolar symptoms, it's still my responsibility. I still have to take responsibility, make amends, correct it, and do better whatever way that looks like. And it can look like so many different things.
Cool. Thank you. Your team wrote an email to me and they said, Gabe Howard is quote nearly unoffendable. So I assumed we could have a have a really honest conversation today, which is really fine.
I I think I am unoffendable, but well, we will find out.
You can ask me.
Talk to your team about that. I don't know why they said nearly. Your team did say nearly, so I might want to have a talk with them about that.
We don't like absolutes around the Gabe Howard dot com. We really try to stay away from absolutes. But this might be one of those absolutes.
But I'm not sure. Time time will tell.
Let's talk about some areas that you've argued we often gloss over when we talk about bipolar the three areas hyper sexuality, lying, deceit, and anger. So let's start with hyper sexuality. Can you explain to me what is hyper sexuality? I know what a high sex drive is, but how do you know when it's hyper?
The first thing, Scott is, obviously you are a doctor and a trained psychologist, so I'm positive that there is a legitimate medical definition and I am not going to give that. I'm just sort of going to explain what hyper sexuality is. And when I know that, I've gone from high sex drive to uh oh, a high sex drive is you want to have a lot of sex. And I think that's what people think that hyper sexuality is. No, no, no, hyper sexuality is an all encompassing addiction. You have to
have sex. And I want to remind your listeners that sex isn't just penis vagina or partner sex. It's sex is also masturbation. And so no matter what you're doing, you're servicing this need to have sex. So, for example, in hyper sexuality, let's say that I'm actively engaged in intercourse with a partner. While I'm doing that, I'm thinking, Okay, who am I going to have sex with next? And then it is soon as I orgasm, I'm immediately now
looking for the next person to have sex with. And if in a short amount of time, which could be ten minutes, it could be a half an hour, it could be an hour. If I can't find a partner, then and self stimulation, masturbation, it becomes a thing. Everything is in surface to this compulsion to be having sex. Just that's what hyper sexuality is and I do think that people think that hyper sexuality is just oh you're you're horny a lot. No, but you know, being horny
is a great thing. It's being unable to control it. Honestly, it ruins sex.
I like sex. I love sex.
Sex is fantastic, but when when you have this compulsion to do it, it's it's no longer about the joy of sex. It's now about servicing that compulsion or addiction. It's a need, and then it's it's not fun anymore.
It ruins it. And I don't think that people understand that.
So how's that played out in your own personal life.
It's played out in a couple of different ways. First, I cheated on two partners. Now I take full responsibility for that. The hyper sexuality did not help. When you have this compulsion to constantly have sex, your your your spouse, your your partner.
They want to go to work, they want to do other things.
There's just there's no matching a hyper sexual sex drive unless you find someone else who is also hyper sexual. You know, maybe they can keep up for a couple of days, but you know, eventually they they've got stuff to do. They're like Hey, Gabe, that was a great weekend.
But you know, now I'm going to work.
Well now, okay, well I'm not going to work because I got to service this compulsion and I cheated.
I did.
I found other partners, I hired a lot of sex workers. I masturbated chronically, and it cost me jobs, it cost me marriages, it cost me it cost me the joy of sex for a period of time. And that's what it looked like. I'm really trying to like dress it up a little bit or maybe give myself some cover or the benefit of the doubt. But no, it looked like a chronically masturbating horn dog and not attractive and not something that anyone should want to be.
Thank you, thank you for your honesty. Can you please define chronically with me? What does chronic masturbation look like?
Like?
How many times a day are we talking? Is chronic? How do we know if we've gotten to the chronic stage.
Well, one of the ways that I knew it is after orgasm, I would start up again, right, I wouldn't. I wouldn't even clean up. But we're just we're just we're just doing it again. I know that that's very, very graphic, but.
Men can do that. Hypersexuality is refractory period refracting.
Yeah, it really limits that, I think. And plus I was twenty you know that that certainly helps as well. You know, I was twenty years old and I was hyper sexual the record that I have, and I want to admit to everybody that this was you know, ten years later I figured this out, right, I wasn't counting at the time. I didn't have a clicker, but I orgasm twenty six times in a day, which is more
than one an hour. And on one hand, there's like this part of me, this like toxic masculinity part, like yeah, yeah, I had twenty six orgasms in one day.
Yeah I did.
But listen, it was not an enjoyable day. It was an awful day. And I can clean it up and make it sound awesome, you know I can, but it's it's not a good day. I use the example of a roller coaster, right, think of your favorite roller coaster, Right, you get to ride it, and then when you when you pull back into the station, like, hey, we're closing in a couple hours, you guys want to go again. You don't even have to wait in line. You're like,
oh my God, this is the greatest ever. I get to ride the roller coaster again, but.
Then I keep doing it over.
Now you're on the fourth time, the fifth time, the tenth time, the fifteenth time, the twentieth time, and you're thinking, I just want to I just want off this fucking roller coaster, and nobody will let me off the roller coaster, except that nobody as you. You won't let yourself off the roller coaster. And I want to remind all of your listeners that I didn't know why. I didn't know why I was doing this. I was just doing it because I had to. And that's also kind of scary.
What causes somebody to behave this way?
Tell me the arc of the journey of this one. So did it get better? Are you?
Like?
Where are you at now with this? Do you only master be twelve times a day? Now? You know?
I have a very high sex drive, and I've always had a very high sex drive, And.
There's nothing wrong with that, in my opinion.
There isn't the only thing that's wrong with having a high sex drive is if your partner doesn't have a high sex drive, that can cause some issues. But I want to be clear that causing issues and infidelity are very very different things.
Right.
This is where open communication really matters. This is where deciding what you want really helps. One of the biggest things that helps. I just just to throw it out there, is one of the first medications that I was ever put on for bipolar disorder. It had sexual side effects just like WHOA, and it took that hyper sexuality slash high sex drive, you know that range, and shot it
all the way down. And I know this is going to sound funny, but I went from wanting to have multiple orgasms a day to wanting to have one a day. And for many people that sort of you know, dropping off a significant amount of your sexual desire is bad. But that was very helpful. That was very helpful to
get me refocused and on my way. There's so much to talk about there in terms of I don't want anybody to hear that sexual side effects and medications are a good thing, because for most people and most of the time, they are not a good thing. But in this particular case, it did help get me straight. The next thing I want to remind the listeners of is hyper sexuality is not one hundred percent of the time I would be hyper sexual for a while, and then I would drop back down. I was always in the
high range, but hyper sexuality. It wasn't twenty four to seven. It was moments.
Attract the mania stages. Like I assumed in the depressive swing, you were not as high sex drive. Is that accurate?
When I was really depressed, I wasn't anything.
I wasn't get up and go to the bathroom.
I just laid there, frankly, trying to will myself to death.
God, Gabe, I hear you. I hear you. Or that hit, that hit, that hit, I hear you. Because we haven't talked so much about that other side, have we yet, the depression side. In the depression side, do you would you ever feel something that would resemble the feeling of dead inside?
Yes, it's I talk a lot, it's my job. I write a lot, I host a lot of podcasts. I answer questions all over the country. I'm here right now being as honest as I can, and I struggle to describe the emptiness of severe depression. You know, it's like staring into the abyss.
I don't know.
I don't think that's a good phrase, because if you're staring into the abyss, you're actively participating in the staring. Well that that that shows you've you've you're you're doing something that that that almost sounds fun like we we we stargaze. You're staring at the stars, staring at the abyss. I mean, do you do you have an opinion about the abyss? You're you're aware that there's an abyss there that almost sounds pleasant. It's worse than that. It's it's
complete nothingness. It's it's is, it's as nothing as you can get while still being aware to some extent that you're alive, but you just don't want to be and and the pain is so intense, but it's not physical pain. It's a it's a it's a pain that that's unstoppable.
You know, you can't take painkillers.
This is why people self medicate with drugs and alcohol, because it's it's it's about the only thing that gives you a different sensation. I want to be clear. It doesn't help the pain. It just changes the pain from one sensation to another sensation, and that sensation might be more tolerable because hey, at least it's different.
I just I I lack the words.
I just lack the words to describe what this feels like.
Yeah, yeah, you know, there's something. There's something really profound here that I'm trying to articulate. It seems like there's a deep existential pain when you're in that stage. But it also seems like when you're in the grips of a Manias episode there's a great existential liveness as well. It almost seems like they're both. Can you get one without the other, because like in the Manniat stage, don't you often feel like you're fully alive? Like it's exact opposite.
It is the exact opposite, And that's we're right back to my whiplash analogy. To go from feeling nothing to feeling everything is it's just a lot. It's an incredible amount. But I want to give a little pushback on the phrase feeling a lot. I don't know that I feel alive in the mania. I certainly feel something. But when I think about feeling alive, I at least want to be aware of what's happening around me. One of the things that mania does so well is it changes what
you see. The example that I love to use is I got thrown out of a bar once. Here's what I think happened, and as I'm sitting here, Scott, if lie detectors were real and work, I would pass it because this is what my brain shows me. Went to a bar there was a local band, plane I jumped up on top of the bar. I started singing. The crowd was like, oh, this guy is an amazing singer. He's doing way better than the band. So they all turned around and they watched me instead of the band.
The band, eventually, realizing how great I was, stopped playing so that they too could gaze in my wonder. They were cheering for.
Me, Gabe, Gabe, Gabe, Gabe, and then people came over like, oh my god, you're amazing, and they walked me out of the bar so so happy that I was there and that they got to see me.
This is what I remember with every fiber of my being. Here's what actually happened. I climbed up on the bar and started screaming. This of course alerted security eventually, because they couldn't get me down, they made the band stopped playing. Everybody who was watching the band turned around to watch this and was screaming all kinds of you know, get down, motherfucker,
Get down, asshole, you stupid prick. But you know I didn't see that, and then eventually security coaked me off the bar and threw me out, embarrassing me and my family and my friends. Now, listen, I do remember that other thing. That's what's in my brain. But you and I both know my version cannot happen. First off, how did the whole crowd know my name? And nobody? Nobody can sing louder than a microphoned bar band. That's just not even remotely possible. None of my story makes sense.
But Mania convinced me that's what happened. And here's the good thing. To your point, I feel like it. Did you know how cool it is to be bigger than the band? It's it's such a great feeling, but it's not a real one. So when we determine, like did you feel alive? I felt something, but it wasn't true.
So what do I do with that?
Well, there's something at a lot of things very profound with that. I know that when I felmost existentially alive, it's usually in the quieter moments where I'm feeling a real authentic connection with someone, or I'm watching a beautiful sunset or I'm in nature. It's usually during the Pateau experience, as Abraham as we called it, not the peak experience.
So what you do, what you do with that is probably you recognize that and recognize that it's almost like a yeah, like a the devil tempting you in a way. But and I say devil tempting because I really I'm fascinated with something your team told me. They said, at one point you felt like you had a demon inside you or a demon was chasing you. What do you think what's going on there?
So I had delusions, which to explain delusions, are you feel that it's true, but you can't see it. So it's not like a hallucination where you can see it or hear it. It's even though I never saw the demons, I knew that they were there. I was positive they were there. They were always right around the corner, right under the bed. They had just left the room. They were, for lack of a better word, they were trying to hurt me, but I would always stop them at the
last minute, or if something bad happened. I was positive they had a hand in it.
And I don't know.
It's like a nineteen eighty Spy movie right where you know you've got the mark, and then the spy is following them, and the Mark keeps turning around, but the spy ducks behind the corner at the last minute, so the Mark never actually sees the spy, but the Mark is pretty sure they're being followed. That's what it felt like all the time. And make no mistake, the demons were trying to do me harm in the same way that the spy was.
Yeah, how did you confront your demons? So to speak? You know, like where like like where are you at right now today? Do you still feel the demons? Do you still feel the hyper sexuality?
Like?
Where are you right now?
I am in as close to perfect recovery as that phrase can allow. The medication did a really good job of stopping mania. The medication did a really good job of halting the demons. And once those two things were gone, that allowed me to start working on coping skills to handle anxiety, depression and things of that nature, understand suicidality. Also, it allowed me to take a good look at some of my coping skills. Right My coping skills were not healthy.
My coping skills were things like sex and food, drugs, alcohol, even even drama. You know, just get in a fight with somebody and hey, at least you can spend an afternoon screaming at somebody and you'll feel something. These are coping skills, they're just not good ones. Once I was able to look good all of that thing, all of those things, I could start making much better decisions. So where I am today is I've got the medication to help me control the extremes of the emotional spectrum that
I was unable to control on my own. And then I've got years of therapy and practice and experience and coping skills to learn the best way to handle situations that frankly I was unable to handle before. And I'm really big into example Scott. I always use the example of you know, the very first time you get in a car to drive, it is just incredibly overwhelming.
But after you learn to.
Drive, you're just you know, you're you're just chilling along. You got one hand on the wheel. You don't even realize you're doing half the stuff. You were all checking our cell phones, which is dangerous and we should stop it. But at one point we went from terrified to drive and worried that something bad was going to happen. To so comfortable and secure in our driving, we're checking our
cell phones. That's sort of my journey. Right when I first started, I just I was so terrified of everything, and I had to work all the way up to becoming comfortable in my own skin. Now, I don't want anybody to hear that I'm perfect. I do have setbacks. Sometimes a little bit of mania slips in, or a little bit of depression slips in, or a little bit of hypersexuality slips in, or a little bit of grandiosity
slips in. The real big difference is I spotted immediately, whereas before it had to do real damage before I noticed. And that's really the difference. I don't have to wait until the entire house is engulfed in flames to realize that if a couch cushion is on fire, I need to get the fire extinguisher.
Well, that's a really good point. I've personally found, not to the same degree as you, but I found that a regular mindfulness practice has been essential to me. I think, how has mindfulness played a role in this at all? In your life?
I'm not a big fan of mindfulness. And I always get booed when I say that, and I deserve it. Here's why I deserve it.
I'm not well.
You should based on what I'm about to say next. I'm not a big fan of mindfulness, but I'm absolutely a big plant, a big fan of being aware of your surroundings, your body, your emotions, and focusing on things in order to calm down, which everybody points out to me is in fact mindfulness. I'm like one of those vegetarians that won't admit they're a vegetarian, but won't eat meat, Like that makes you a vegetarian.
Nope, nope, not a vegetarian.
I just don't eat meat, right, that makes you a vegetarian.
Nope, nope.
I won't take the title. I don't know.
Why I don't like the phrase mindfulness, because being aware of yourself, being aware of your surroundings, focusing, taking a break and not reacting. And by taking a break, I don't mean a fifteen minute break. I mean you know, somebody does something that makes you mad and before the very next nanosecond I would want to jump, And now I can take a moment, take a deep breath, wait three seconds to respond, and the world changes for me.
That's a mindfulness technique. But I don't like it, so I say, I don't do it like I said you should. You should really throw something at me, it would be very very fair.
Well, that's not my style. First of all. I also think that that's your you know, sort of contrary and personality, which we're not blaming on bipolar. That's just part of who Gabe is coming out. I believe that there probably is a contrary inside to you. So I hear you that's that's cool, that is that is mindfulness. But I actually think that it is important to distinguish, as I often do, between mindfulness meditation and every day mindfulness. And you know, I'm a big fan of every day mindfulness
as well, you know, and being able. You know, we're practicing that in this moment. Absolutely Okay. A couple of the things that were the scarier realities in addition to hypersexuality, anger I believe is one and lying deceit. Where are you at with those? Now? How many times have you lied to me today?
I have never lied to you, Scott. I assure you I want to touch online form them because people hear lying in the deceit and they're like, aha, see, I knew that people with bipolar disorder were manipulative and dishonest, and that potentially maybe right. But when you start saying that everybody that's X is why you get yourself into trouble and there's certain things that we would never tolerate. Could you imagine if somebody said, well, all women are EX.
People are like, oh my god, that's so sexist. That's misogynistic. Why would you say that? But yet it exists in society where people say, well, people with bipolar disorder are X, and everybody's like, yeah, that's true, that the lion and deceit is one of them. First off, it is certainly possible that they're not lying or being deceitful at all. They're just wrong. There were no demons under my bed. I can't be more clear. Demons were not chasing me.
But I told everybody and their brother that I was worried about this, that somebody was following me, that I solicited help based on this external threat that did not exist. For people who didn't understand what I was going through, they're like, look, he's pretending that he's in danger to illicit sympathy. Can you believe that deceitful liar. Yeah, but I didn't know that the demons were very very real
to me. And I think that people don't understand that we do a lot of things to protect ourselves based on our feelings and our perceptions, and perception is reality.
And I think a lot of.
Times people with bipolar disorder are put in this really small little box that they're being manipulative and lying and being deceitful for one reason and one reason only, and that reason is malice. They're bad, they're doing it on purpose when you really need to scratch below the surface and see that there is just much more to it. Now, all that said, it's certainly possible you can live with polar disorder and be anything. We love to say, hey do you have by polar disorder? You can be anything
that you want to be. And I'm like, well what about a connord? No, no, no, no, bipolar people are good. It's like, well, wait a minute, you said we can be anything, so that by definition encompasses all of the bad things as well. But painting anybody with one single brushstroke is dangerous. But I do hope that the listeners who maybe love somebody with bipolar disorder or don't understand by polar disorder, Stop and think for a moment, Hey, is my loved one lying?
Are they being deceitful? Or are they just wrong?
Because being wrong is a very different flavor than being maliciously lying, deceitful, or manipulative.
Yeah, I needed to let that sit for a second. That was That's a good quote, all things equal. Now, knowing everything you know, do you prefer being even keel over ever experiencing a manic episode? Would you take no ever experiencing that high if it means that you'll never experience that low?
Yeah?
Oh, in an absolute heartbeat, just yes, like unequivocally yes. But I want to give pushback on the phrase even keel. Nobody is gonna describe Gabe as even keel.
I am loud, and I am funny, and.
I am boisterous, I am gregarious, and I'm all of these things right, And so that's the trick. I think that's the trick. So many people with bipolar disorder believe that what therapists and doctors and medication are trying to do is turn them into you know, boring, monotonous one trick ponies that just hello. My name is Gabe. I am cured from bipolar disorder, and I am here to serve.
I just that, and I understand that part of the treatment, especially in the beginning, if you're being over medicated, or you've got an overzealous therapist, or you yourself are being over zealous because of the pain, frustration and damage that being untreated may have caused, I can see how people end up there. I want to be very clear. If you end up a boring, monotonous person and you don't want to be a boring monotonous person, you haven't reached
recovery yet. There's still a lot of work to do. You've got to figure out how to get out of that and have more of your personality as much of your personality as you can safely get in. But you know, mania is not real, depression is not real. There's a fifteen percent death rate, right you know. We love to we'd love to talk about like Vincent van go Well, he has bipolar disorder and he was a great artist. You know he's dead right like like he killed himself.
He died by suicide. He's no longer here. You can talk about his great arts until you know, the cows come home, but he's not able to create anymore. And his family they miss him, his friends miss him. That's
what bipolar disorder ultimately did to him. Whether or not it helped him create great works is certainly up for a debate, But even if it did, it's still ultimately ended his life, and I think we do need to sit with that for a moment and recognize that these symptoms of bipolar disorder are dangerous and the people who they hurt the most are not around to remind us of that.
I don't know how Vincent.
Van Gogh feels about dying prematurely due to suicide, but I got a figure. Maybe he feels not good about it, but we'll never know because he's not here. All the tear is the people that can love his art, and that sort of elevates the romance of some of these things. Maybe in a way, that's that that doesn't serve us as much as we think that it does.
Did Vincent van go Vincent van Goch did he have? Did he have bipolar disorder?
So that's a tough one.
I'm not a big fan of diagnosing people posthumously, but the bipolar community loves to claim them, so they we don't know. Bipolar disorder wasn't a thing back when Van go was alive. You know, it wasn't wasn't diagnosed. We certainly had like mental conditions, but you know, the DSM didn't exist.
So whether or not.
He actually had bipolar disorder is up for debate because obviously no modern psychiatrists, psychologist, or therapist could evaluate him because you know, he lived not in our lifetime, but people feel like, you know, he had it and Abraham Lincoln had it, even though again these people are never evaluated by modern psychiatry.
Do you realize that you have an uncanny physical resemblance to Vincent van Goch.
I have been told that more than once. I want everybody to know I have both ears.
I mean it's really uncanny. I mean, just do a Google image of search.
I love it.
I'm gonna be gave van go from here on out. That's gonna be my new stage name.
How do we know you're not Vincent van Goch reincarnated.
I mean we don't.
And listen, remember we have people right now who believe the Earth is flat. So I think you might have started the next big conspiracy theory. I love it. It's gonna be at least this will get my name out there and hopefully can raise awareness about living with serious and persistent mental illness.
Fair enough, Well, you know, we're definitely not in the business of formally diagnosing public figures. However, when you see Kanye West, what do you see? Do you see some characteristics that are in the similar family as bipolar.
Well, Kanye West has come out and said that he has a bipolar diagnosis, so that obviously changes it we know, but there you go. Yeah, I mean that's he was evaluated and given the diagnosis, so we know that he has it. But in some ways, Kanye West has a textbook case. But you know, nothing's as simple as a as a quick answer. Right, here's one of the problems with with diagnosing bipolar disorder. Right, let's look at mania
and grandiosity. If I said to you, the whole world loves me, and I am the best there ever was, and I am the greatest, you, as a psychologist would think, Okay, well that's kind of grandiose thinking. So maybe Gabe showing some symptoms. But when Kanye West says it, he can defend it. He's a multi platinum artist. His clothing lines have made millions of dollars, but literally a couple of years ago, I think three or four now, he was sitting in the Oval Office talking to the President of
the United States. He has millions of fans all over the world. So is that grandiosity or just fact? And it does make it difficult I think if you were a public figure like Kanye West, to decide whether or not this person is actually experiencing these symptoms. Now we can move on to his personal life. The way that he's treated the mother of his children, the behavior that he's exhibited in front of his children, the things that he has said that are vaguely threatening and not connected
to reality and scale. Those things are really the bigger clues into Kanye West's illness. And I think that this is where him being wealthy and famous is doing him a disservice. I think if any ex husband, father of somebody's children behaved in the way that Kanye has towards the mother of their children, their ex wife, they would get help. Somebody would say, look, dude, you can't do that. You can't hide in the bushes, you can't threaten people.
You're scaring your children, and if they weren't arrested, they would certainly be herded in the direction of help. Kanye West isn't being herded in that direction. In fact, people just sort of watch him as a side show. He's like a a nineteen twenty circus freak show. As far as the tabloids and most of America is concerned. As someone who lives with bipolar disorder, I have a love
hate relationship with him. On one hand, he's doing vast amounts of damage, is absolutely hurting the people around him and to members of the public by saying things like well, I don't need medication, I don't need treatment by polar disorder is a gift that's very, very dangerous. But on a human level, this man is in real pain and he's missing an opportunity to watch his children grow up.
And it all because he can't get the help and support that he needs for an illness that he did not ask for and I imagine he does not want.
Yeah, thank you for answering that question. I want to understand something about the medications you've taken in your life. Are the mood stabilizers I assume.
Yes, mood stabilizers anti depressants, antipsychotics, anti anxiety. I've been on all of.
Okay, you're on a cocktail.
I got the cocktail.
Cocktail, what was the one? Okay, Well, we don't need to mention specific things. That's fine, okay, Gabe. I really want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and being so honest. Your team told me two things about you, fun facts. One you hate being called brave and you hate being called a hero. And they also said quote, ultimately, he is open to anything. I can say that after talking to you today, I agree with that.
Oh, I love it.
Thank you and I really enjoyed this conversation today. So thank you for raising awareness about what it's like to live with biboard disorder.
Oh Scott, thank you. Thank you so much for getting me out to your audience and raising the profile and having me on your podcast.
I really appreciate it.
My pleasure. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at thus Psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page the Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior and creativity.