Episode 3: Funny/Not Funny: Life with a Mental Illness and Comedy-- Adventures with Retired Comedian Sue Ryerson

Unknown Speaker  0:25  
Hello, and welcome to the story human. Each week, I will tell you a story. Or I will talk to someone who has their own compelling story to tell. I'm a writer who loves to write. But even more, I love to hear stories. Did you know that humans have been telling each other stories since before they wrote, it is one of our most basic forms of communication. And we still love stories that are really old. There's just something wonderful for humans in stories. I hope to explore the treasures inside of our stories. Hopefully, we will all connect and feel close, learn together, and just maybe start to remember who we really are. So tell me, what's your story. I'd love to hear it. Today on our podcast, we have retired comedian Sue Ryerson. She's been through a lot in her life, a lot of different careers has a lot of good advice for us. But mostly what we noticed that she's got the humor thing that really kind of gets her out of a lot of things and makes her life easier. And I'd love to talk to her about that. And more. So take it away, Sue.

Unknown Speaker  1:29  
Hi, everyone. Welcome. Thank you. And thank you for inviting me, I like this. But we've talked about in the past. My sense of humor is probably my biggest lifesaver. It's like you said, I'm a survivor. I have very good survival instincts. But most of the time, it was my humor that would pull me through some devastating situations. Some just that were difficult, big changes in my life, that was the mainstay humor, and be okay, that will get me through just to find the funny like everything people think of comedians are just funny. And I'm like, No, it's just our perspective is we have a different way of looking at something totally normal, on like, what we say like happened to us happens to too, but the way we look at it is differently than the way you look at it. You look at it as the norm. We found that little tweak in there that makes it not normal anymore. So and you know, but it served its purpose. I mean, like in high school, it got me in trouble. But my vice principal who turned out to be a very good friend from seeing him a lot. At one point, say what he said, What are you going to do grow up and be a comedian. So two years later, when I started, I saw him out at dinner one night, and I handed him my card that said, comedian, and he looked me he said, You're kidding me? I said, he said, No. When I thought about it, it seemed like a smart choice. Get Paid for being funny. I'm like, what could be better. So he ended up coming. Him and his wife came to a show with another teacher and her boyfriend. So I had my vice principal and the teacher that used to actually send to be away during class. She used to send me to go to study hall so that I wouldn't just think

Unknown Speaker  3:24  
they saw at the end result, which was pretty darn good. Yep. So tell me more about it. Tell me more about being a comedian. Like how you started. I just think people are fascinated with how somebody does that.

Unknown Speaker  3:38  
I was I had a job doing collections, which would run through my entire life. I did that off and on. But I was doing collections. And I was constantly cutting up and making everybody laugh and not do their job. So I got fired. On it was actually my best friend's brother. That was my boss. And he said, I feel really weird doing this. He said, But he said you might be doing your job, but nobody else is doing theirs. They're waiting for you to say something funny. So he fired me. And that night, I went and got my friend Donna, and we went to the local bar. And we got drunk to celebrate my freedom. And we went to another like bar club type thing in town. And I slurred my way past the front door and told the people at the front door that I wanted to see the owner. Of course said why? And I said because I'm going to do stand up comedy of the community and they thought it was funny. So they brought me the owner. And I told him the same thing and he just looked me he said, Okay, and then when I was ready, like I hadn't written anything I'm like, and he said, I haven't been here on Saturday night. And he said it gets quiet in between sets. You can go up in between sets. So I did that. And it happened to be a band with three of my friends in it. So I felt comfortable, that's cool. And they introduced me, they did a really nice job of bringing me up and you know, preparing the audience for like, she's new, me to go to their bar, and do performance. And it just kept growing, and growing and growing and growing. And I did it for about 10 years. That time, but I worked during the day to could making a living as a comedian is just usually a dream. You don't. It's just fun. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. But it often on it would be a help on a job that was usually very tedious, like doing collections is very tedious work. And it's not the nicest. So having a sense of humor about it, or being able to talk about it on stage about things that I did. Help me get through that, so that I could go at night and do my thing.

Unknown Speaker  5:57  
So kind of balanced. That's a nice balanced life. Yeah, that makes sense. let off steam at night and make, you know, make a living out of it.

Unknown Speaker  6:06  
Yeah, that was fun. Because I got to travel. You know, I went up and down the East Coast, I traveled from Vermont, all the way down to Florida, all the way down. It just kept going and going and just so cool, which I've performed in Chicago, San Diego. So we've really got to see all our country. So then I took a break, I took this very long break, and I got very serious about life. I decided I needed to be serious because I had been a clown. But it didn't last. Like I I got a nice job. I moved to Atlanta in 1994 because it was the place to move, lots of jobs, economic growth, a good place to be. I bought a house six months into it. reclosure so I made a lot of money off of it, I fixed it and sold it. And what I saw a beautiful house 2000 square feet gorgeous house and decided as I'm moving into the new house, even I don't want to work for anybody anymore. I really I just don't like it. So I opened up a repossession agency. You're kidding. Oh, no. And coolest thing I ever did you get to steal cars legally, are out at 3am when the rest of the world is sleeping. Trying to get a car out of a driveway and it's parked under somebody's bedroom window. How do you do that? Oh. So I had a guy that worked for me a driver, I had two drivers and me. And part of the job was something that I got became very skilled at finding people. If you can't find them, you can't get their car. So you had to find them first. So that turned out to be my biggest selling point. I'll never you'll never lose a car. I will always find your car. I would have to prove that. So each new client I would go in and the way I would get them to restart business with me. I'd say give me 10 People, nobody's been able to find and find them in 30 days. Then I had to, you know, I put the pressure on myself. Okay, you got to do this. To get this like I had Wells Fargo. I had enterprise rent a car and huge class, little pain that they didn't know how small my company was like, it's just me and two guys. But we were very good. We were very efficient. So we seemed bigger, we could do the job of an agency. It had five trucks with two and two people. And on occasion, I would go with them. But I wouldn't get so silly. At three o'clock in the morning, I would get punchy because I'd been up all day doing business and I never signed it asleep. And we would get so set we wouldn't repo we wouldn't go get cars, we would just crack each other up. We do nothing. So this is a theme. Like my drivers, but if something went wrong at two o'clock in the morning, I got woken up. They they have to come to me. There's no choice. So I had a lot of interrupted nights. But again, I needed a sense of humor, but I'd be like, Okay, so the engine fell out of the truck. Okay. Okay. Let me think about this. And I'll call you back in five minutes. And I would think of what you had. You had to think of something. You had to figure it. I would call another repossessor that I was friends with said can you go get my truck because the motor just fell out and I don't know what to do. So, you know, you just get resourceful, but my drivers were just like they said, You never get rattled. And like I do, you just don't see it. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I said I make fun of it. It doesn't hurt as much. That's a

Unknown Speaker  10:01  
great quality, I think to not show that you're rattled. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  10:06  
Because you have to keep your cool, you know, business for yourself, you have to stay very calm, you can't let things and there's nobody to go like, I don't want to deal with this. So you deal with this, right? You have to do. So you have to have some kind of method to say, Okay, I have to stay calm, but oh my god, this is going to cost me $5,000. Like I had my driver's brother used to help us transport vehicles. Sometimes we had keys when we could drive them to an auction or drive them back to the creditor. He decided to take us for a spin on the weekend just for the hell of it. And he got pulled over, didn't have the registration. He didn't have any information going back to him. So they impounded it. It was due back at my client's place of business. Monday morning. This was Gosh. So I just steaming I'm stone like beyond bad. I can like, can't believe this guy did this. What an idiot. So now my drivers talk to me. He's like, don't don't kill them. And I'm like, I'm not gonna kill. But we have to get that vehicle out of hock now, it's gonna be at their office at 9am. So I'm like I said, Just tell him. Your brother in law. This. He's got until Monday morning at 9am. And if he doesn't do it, I will kill him. My driver just went, Okay. And I said, and I'm not joking. I said, he did a really stupid thing. I said, I trusted him. And he betrayed my trust. That's why I'm upset. I said the vehicle, we'll get it out, and we'll be okay. And they said, but he cannot work for me anymore.

Unknown Speaker  12:02  
I don't blame you though. That was crazy.

Unknown Speaker  12:04  
So I you know, I mean, I kept my cool, but I was just like, okay, you know, I can't risk you anymore. Yeah, you know, but I would see him from time to time and I'd be like, you don't have any keys on you that you shouldn't have, right? Oh my gosh. Like, you know, I just, I didn't Trump but I'm like, he made a really bad mistake. But yeah, had been very costly on my so I can't, you're a risk to me. Definitely. In owning a business you there's calculated risks, and there's risks that you can avoid.

Unknown Speaker  12:33  
There's the tough decisions when it comes down to you. Right, the buck stops with you. So how long did you have this business

Unknown Speaker  12:39  
for about five years. But it's grueling. It's all day and all night. You just don't get to rest. And I was in my 40s I guess. It was in my 40s. I was like, I'm like, I can't stay up 24 hours like I used to. Yeah. And a lot of times, I would be up for like 36 hours. Oh, no. And it was good for nothing. You know, I'd be like talking to a client slurring and I'm like, I'm not drunk. I'm just tired. And it just I had a horrible thing happened. That was just stupid. I bought a truck. My truck got stolen. My truck got stolen. When I found it a day later, I located it myself. Of course you did. Cuz I was like, It's my truck. I have to, I have to find it. But by the time I found it, it had been stripped down to nothing. Just it was a bench seat. That's all that was left. You could look through the front grille and look right out the back of the truck. There was nothing in there. It was a type of truck that was famous for its transmission. It was the best transmission built. So you could tow anything. It could tow a house, it was so strong. Yeah, that's why that's why it got stolen, if that's where

Unknown Speaker  13:54  
they wanted it. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker  13:58  
I just stood there when I looked at shock and I'm like, What am I gonna do? I don't have this I don't have the business. So two days later, I bought another truck used, but in good shape. Turns out the guy was a scam artist. He had like a little car wad. With these trucks on it specialties with specialty trucks. There was no registration and it was somebody else's truck. Because I'm calling and I'm going how come I don't have my paperwork back from me. So I traced the VIN number and found out that it belonged to somebody else. Oh my gosh, I call this dealer and I said I know what you did. I want my money back $20,000 Wow, the truck because they're like seven days to start with. And he cursed me out. And he said give me my truck. I said you don't get your truck until I get my money. Here had friends that sat outside. We hit the truck. Me My driver. I told my driver said take my truck. Don't bring it back to the office every night when you're done every morning when you're done. Put it somewhere else at another house and don't tell me where it goes. Yeah. Good. Like, he's like, Okay. This dealership hired people to sit outside my house outside my office. I Gosh. It was unbelievable. I just I was just like, I can't believe this is over a damn truck. But me being stubborn. I was like, you're not getting on. I want my money back. Yeah, I'm not gonna have they ended up they got they tried to get a warrant issued for me for theft. I had all my paperwork failing, the deal was there. But I had to go before the judge and three people in a row before me because just like 20 people going up before the judge in one afternoon. Three people before me went to jail. And I'm like, Oh, no. Like, I don't want big bertha to be my roommate. I really don't. So I'm just I'm shaking. Really, I can't control my nerves. My drivers with me at a friend's with me. And I go before the judge and she just smiled at me. She said Calm down. Tell me what happened. So now my dealer, the car dealer is on the other side. And he's just really just going to choose the judges going, sir. We're not talking to you yet. Hmm. So I so on this five foot three 125 pound little thing. He's this big, gangly, global game crash crappy, shitty guy. So just looking at to skilling like, I don't think so. And I have my paperwork. And I have my driver to attest to what happened. And she looked at the deal with the guy from the dealership and she said, Don't let me ever see you in here again. Whoo. And I go outside. So I'm like, try almost like faint. I'm not going to jail. I walk outside the courtroom. And I was I had no spit left in my mouth. Because I had been so nervous. I'm bending over at the water fountain. And a very Italian looking man walks behind me and says it ain't over. And I just stopped and I went, Oh, no, no, you didn't.

Unknown Speaker  17:42  
And this is what kills me about these people. You never did a thing wrong. No. Oh, there's no right. There's no.

Unknown Speaker  17:48  
Now we still had to truck. A week later, I think it was like a week later. I'm on my way down to visit a client. I used to go once a week to a client and go have lunch with everybody. I'll bring the lunch Ted the whole office just good PR. Yeah. And plus, I enjoy they got me out of the office for a little while and had fun. I just friendly with everybody. I'm driving quite a distance like this. These disclaimed an hour and a half away from my office. And I'm flying like, as usual, I'm late. So I'm flying like a baton to hell, my phone rings and it's my driver. He had been going to a potential new client to show the truck and because a lot of the times they wanted to see if you really had a good truck, a repo truck, it wasn't going to damage their cars. It was a setup. He got there. They put a and as he was stopping a guy jumped out of a car, put a gun to his head and say get out

Unknown Speaker  18:47  
of the truck. No way.

Unknown Speaker  18:50  
So he did cuz I had told him I'm like, never argue with somebody with a gun. Just do whatever they want. And exactly. Take whatever they want. I'm like, it's not worth your life. He was married. He had four kids. I'm like, You have to stay alive. But he called me he just said I need a ride. That's what do you mean, you need a ride? I didn't know what he's talking. What do you mean you need a ride? He said to they got to talk. And I'm like, Oh, my God. So you're frozen by the way. You are? Well, you could still hear in Java. At least we could hear each other. So I was devastated because I lost 20 grand I had no way to buy another truck. I ended up going to hawk to get another one and it just didn't work. I had lost clients because they can't

Unknown Speaker  19:38  
believe it. I can't believe the judge didn't make him give you your your money

Unknown Speaker  19:41  
back. Really couldn't. Um it was a warrant hearing. It wasn't a civil suit. Like got it going there for civil suits. I did sue them. I did sue the dealership. But when they they knew they were in trouble like this was a bad one. I found three other people they had done this to good So we were all gonna they were all going to testify and I said, whatever I get, I'll give you something. I'll give you what you lost. Just come and testify. It took six years for it to court. Oh my god. No, they hadn't gone out of business and hid any assets they had. So I won a little over half a million dollars, but I'll never see it. That's ridiculous. So I had to kind of like reinvent myself. It's like, Okay, God. So I went back to work. But shortly thereafter, is when I got back into comedy, because I was like, you know, what's missing? I don't have a creative outlet. I don't have a way of letting off steam. I just had something horrible happen to me. I need to do what's best. And that's the best way to handle it.

Unknown Speaker  20:46  
So good for your head. Yeah, that was so smart. So you got back in was that hard?

Unknown Speaker  20:52  
Initially, yeah. I was a lot older. I was like, 20 years older than when I left it. A lot had changed. I was used to doing auditions in person. And they didn't do that anymore. You sent a tape? Oh, it did change a lot. Yeah. And I was like, well, that's not right. I said, you can alter a tape. Yeah. And I found that, that that's what a lot of comics were doing. They were putting applause in. And I'd be listening, I'm gone. You suck. How did you know? But I found it very cold, very impersonal. You know, yeah, you you got to know agents, because you were in front of them. You know, and they got to see your demeanor, how you carried yourself on stage. And, you know, to see if you're seasoned or not.

Unknown Speaker  21:41  
And there's an energy thing to like, you just don't feel that energy thing on a team.

Unknown Speaker  21:45  
And, you know, it's like a lot of them like people would do. You know, do it in front of friends. And I was like, but you could hear the difference, you have no life to you, when you're doing you're just repeating words to make, you know, so making them in a club, you were taking a chance, you might have to take 10 shows to get one that was good, right? I was, that's annoying. It's a whole different world. And I was in a place that I was in Atlanta. Didn't really know anybody on the scene there. So we had to start from scratch. Wow. And my material was very dated. So world had changed in 20 years. So I had to rewrite everything and start talking about things that a 45 year old dead 46 year old that not a 25 year old. Yeah, life, my life was completely different. My attitude, my perspective, everything was different. In between all this. In my late 20s, I had gotten diagnosed as bipolar. So that comes into play. I dealt with all these stresses within additional stress of I'm not supposed to be able to handle this stuff. Yeah. That's what I got told, Well, you know, you're gonna have to take a backseat to life. I don't think so. That's, you know, No, I've never done that. And I couldn't see why I should. So I did everything with what they said was the worst mental illness you could have. I as an advantage, I was like, it makes you smarter. Like we Bipolars have elegant, elevated AI cues. That's a fact. Like, we just, and unlike its compensation, you're crazy, but you're really smart. So decide what you want to use. I'm just like, I'm going to use my smarts. My ability to laugh at things. And I have a very odd perspective, because of my illness. I don't look at things the way anybody else does that I know.

Unknown Speaker  23:47  
And I think that intersects with creativity. I really do that.

Unknown Speaker  23:50  
And so I just started to see it as a plus and not a minus. That's so cool. Yeah, I was like, it was difficult, you know, to, to come to grips with something like that, like was never going to get rid of it. It was going to cause you know, and like I knew it would cause me problems from time to time. If I went to an episode, probably going to lose my job. I might lose a friend. You know, there was a lot of risk involved in just living with that. So it's takes a lot of self examination. And being tough, having a tough shell and saying like, it's not going to be fun sometimes, but you just got to keep going and finding a way to compensate for that. Like how tough it's going to get and how you're going to be ostracized people. I had people just turn and walk away. When I told him like, you know, I've heard about that.

Unknown Speaker  24:53  
God can't deal with it. Some people just can't deal with stuff.

Unknown Speaker  24:56  
No and I used to say most hit too close to home.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
Oh, yeah, in a lot of ways,

Unknown Speaker  25:03  
yeah. And like they have somebody in their family or has them or there was usually extenuating circumstances. And once I hear that I understand. But I also started to think that's just to be not everybody is going to understand not Yeah, but he is going to be accepting, that's part of your life to be smart about who you talk to about it. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  25:27  
I'm very impressed that you realize that so easily. And you're very clear.

Unknown Speaker  25:32  
It wasn't really that easy. I had to make a lot of mistakes first and and figure it out, and trust people and find out that, you know, the stigma was so strong, that it was an uphill battle. You know, I mean, I got diagnosed so long ago, that you just didn't talk about it was called manic depression. It wasn't even called bipolar at

Unknown Speaker  25:50  
that. Right? It was, it's changed a lot in 20 years. And

Unknown Speaker  25:55  
I got to a point where I was like, because you had to hide it.

Unknown Speaker  25:59  
Yeah. And that means that builds shame. We talk a lot with other people, I talk about shame and what that does to us. And it's not something you should be ashamed of. But if you have to hide something, you end up feeling shame.

Unknown Speaker  26:11  
And it's just uncomfortable. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  26:15  
Can't be yourself.

Unknown Speaker  26:17  
You know, it could be because of the illness, I'm prone to outbursts, I get excited about something good or bad. You just see me like just, I don't have a lot of control over it. And then I have to go, okay, slow down. Take another look. That took time to learn. Yeah, but when it could happen on a job. See, that's scary. And of course, I mean, I didn't tell the monkey are hiring somebody that's bipolar, and I'm prone to outbursts. But other than that, I'm a really good worker. Can't do that.

Unknown Speaker  26:50  
So really hard, right.

Unknown Speaker  26:54  
And a lot of times, just socially, you know, socially, at one point or another, something going to happen or something you say, will tip somebody off that there's something else going on. I had to be more choosy about who I socialized with, they had to be at a certain level, so that I could actually say to them, Look, if I all of a sudden change moves, or if I do this, or if I do that. This is why. And don't worry, I go back to normal pretty quickly. You know, and I'll get past it. But you just have to allow me certain things. I'm like, not excusing my behavior, but I'm giving you a reason for it. So that you don't you're not confused about how I changed from who you met, like I really didn't change as a temporary champ going back to. So it's just as I got older, I got better and better at choosing people.

Unknown Speaker  27:51  
Yeah, it's like a filter. Right? You can't do lightweight people.

Unknown Speaker  27:54  
Now. And I mean, I did meet people that even when I got older that which is so stupid about it. Yeah, I would spend, you know, I would take a lot of time with them explaining because they might ask questions, and I'm like us questions. I'll answer them. Because then yes, knowledge. Yeah, meet somebody else, you'll have this background. I had somebody after I had talked to them for like, the better part of five years, intermittently talking about this. He said to me, it was after one of the mass shootings. Well, aren't people that bipolar do that. They just went what? Out? And I said, No, there's just evil people in the world. And they do things like that. And I said, it's not always a mentally ill person. Some people are just

Unknown Speaker  28:41  
Yeah. Well, they they said it usually isn't like that. That whole idea that mentally ill people are violent and do these things. That's not true.

Unknown Speaker  28:50  
No, and in particular, bipolar people are much more prone to hurting themselves. We have the highest suicide rate. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that makes me really sad. I'm 60. So I'm really proud of Mike. I didn't do it. He made it. He made up. And, you know, at this point, I'm just too lazy to do it. So extra much effort. So but so plump people disappointed along the way where I really thought they were getting it and then I found that that they did they would fall back to media, being you know, saying things that were wrong, you know, that say, but I would just say Don't you know somebody firsthand. So why would you say something like that? You're like, where's your head? Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, Have you ever seen me do anything violent? No. Yeah, that hurts. To hear somebody say that. And I had another friend that was comedian friend that she was dating a very good photographer. I wanted him to do my headshots, but he was just too much money. But he decides that via my friend he gets it. He says, I'd like to do a shoot with you. Concerning bipolar was like, oh, cool, like, yeah. And I had just gotten done with a documentary. So it was kind of dovetailing. I was like, this would be cool. But this was his idea. He said, I wanted to an overlay of like, Photoshop. Like another person coming out of your head, and I want nobody else in here.

Unknown Speaker  30:26  
You have the wrong. You're thinking of di D, right?

Unknown Speaker  30:29  
Yeah. And I'm like, you're talking Sybil. You know, it's like, and he was too young. He didn't know what I meant. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  30:38  
Look it up on Netflix. It's there. But I just saw, like I just said, we don't have split personalities. Yeah, we have one personality, like everybody else. And they said, and that's not our whole being. Right? We're not a disease. We're a person with a condition. You have

Unknown Speaker  31:04  
Bipolar, you're not bipolar. Right. It's really important to remember that that tell me about that documentary. And you did a couple right.

Unknown Speaker  31:11  
Yeah. Did a couple. One. I just, I just wanted to do. Yeah. All right. I just find mental illness in general and bipolar, especially very interesting. It's because it's such an aberration. From that, and I'm like, but like to understand it, to see it and to experience it. Even second hand, and I'm like, it's just a really interesting thing. And it will help you to understand people in general.

Unknown Speaker  31:41  
Yeah. You're fascinated with the brain. I know. I Yeah. Yeah. Because the brain works. What a

Unknown Speaker  31:47  
wonderful, resilient piece of your body. Yeah, you know, and I'm like, everything depends on your head. So when something goes wrong with your head, you better find a way to deal with it. Yeah. You know, because the rest of you depends on that. So I went to this group called Nami, the National Alliance for the Mentally ill, huge group. They're all over the United States and Europe, and just starting sitting in on a couple of their group things. And I was like, you know, I think it would be better if, like, we did the talking us. Like, because like, these are people that don't have it. So how can you tell me when I'm supposed to do? You don't do it. But I became friendly with a couple of people at this place. And I walked in one day, and I said, I need four crazy people. So I said, you have access to them. So can you get me some people like me? So the director said, I have to get in touch with them. And get the okay from them. And they'll contact you. So I got three girls took a while for them to come forward. And they were three pipes. And in that culture, they don't believe in mental illness they're starting to, but it was very difficult for them, you know, they just don't believe in it. Just pray, pray, and it'll go away. Yeah, that's tough. So I was like, wow, how cool is this? That I got these people that aren't supposed to be talking about it. Going on film, and talking about it. It's excellent. And we had an absolute blast, we had to keep cutting away, because we would get too stupid. And goofy because we were finding out the similarities. Oh, you did that too? Oh, my God, I did that I did. And it was just like us. We were like, we found a group just like us, like, yeah, we found each other. And we're like, we don't have to pretend we can just be us. So it was really interesting. Yeah. And I mean, it was a budget of like, $1,000 or so is not the best documentary, but we used it for going to mental health groups. And we would show video, we got invited to conventions, and all kinds of things. We're going to have a mental health day at a huge a couple of universities. We went there and we would show the video, and then have a question and answer period. And they always telling you earlier that the video was like 32 minutes long, and the question and answer was two and a half to three hours. Wow. People had questions. Oh my gosh. And it was their opportunity to ask people that actually had the illness. And we were very upfront. You know, we were sometimes one of us wouldn't feel good would be having a day and I'd be like, so that's what it's like. You know, so cool.

Unknown Speaker  34:49  
Yes, having a day

Unknown Speaker  34:51  
today. You know, and I'm like, This is what's going on with her like No, no, go ahead and tell them. She would tell them what that day was like. So we've gotten to be Very entertaining, very educational, we would have people the nicest part because I said the whole idea is to get people to recognize that they need help, or that they can help somebody. Yeah, this isn't the end of the world. You know that you're still life beyond diagnosis.

Unknown Speaker  35:17  
That was so clever of you to start with that. I mean, it just amazes me that you were at this famous Institute. And you had to say, Hey, we should probably talk about ourselves, you know, the ones who actually go through it.

Unknown Speaker  35:30  
Yeah, cuz I was like, like, I went to doctors. I only went to one therapist, and she kept insisting that my parents must have beat me when I was small. Oh, my gosh, my problems, and I was like, That couldn't be the furthest thing from my life. I know. You had a great childhood. Yeah, I had this idyllic childhood. And I'm like, and you were the baby? Yeah, even better, right? I got away with murder. No, cuz I was the blond haired little kid. And I was like, I just like it. This is your idea of helping me? Yes, terabits me. In addition to genetic predisposition, I had it. Yeah. That had it nice. It was in the background. And like, I had no choice. This is just what happened. It's not human environment. It's from my, it's in my head. So I never went back. And I just did my own form. But I just studied more and more about it, you know, and decided that rather than hiding everything, and not getting the information out there, that we're not really that different. And it's a small percentage of your life, a large percentage of your personality and your intelligence are the same. Yeah, or better.

Unknown Speaker  36:42  
And I think it's great. You get that you get that news out, it really helps demystify it. So what is your advice for people that don't have bipolar? Like, what? What do you wish they knew when dealing with people who have bipolar?

Unknown Speaker  36:57  
I wish they wouldn't separate it from any other illness?

Unknown Speaker  37:03  
Dummy. What you mean by that?

Unknown Speaker  37:05  
Yeah, don't make the distinction of physical, that it's not a physical illness, it's the same thing. And I love that illness is an illness. If I had MS, you would immediately be sympathetic. And say, Well, what are you doing for it? And how do you that's not the case all the time. When you say, I have a mental illness? Oh, you get the ice cold? Oh. People get uncomfortable when you talk about it. And I tell my diabetes, and I started talking about my insulin would that bother you? Well, no. And I'm like, so why does this?

Unknown Speaker  37:44  
That's such a good point. We have to get to that point, right? People have to realize it's it's an illness. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  37:50  
And you treat it that's one of those things that you don't get rid of. And there's a lot of things like that. Yeah. That you just learn to live with. Um, I can't answer an unusual question. I had it as a nice guy, as a friend of mine. He said, Is it painful? And I just sat there and I went, well said, it depends on what you classify pain as. And they said, If you mean like a booboo. I don't have, you know, like, a pain of my knee. Or I said, it's not that kind of pain. I said, but I said, there's anguish. When you feel your worst, desperation. And loneliness, because you feel like you're the only person in the world that feels this way. And I said, I said, That's painful. Yeah. So he says, so is there pain, yes, but not what you're talking about, not what you think of as pain. And I said, but if I had a physical disability, it would be easier to understand pain. Yeah, it's just a pain that you're used to, you think of as pain.

Unknown Speaker  39:03  
So I can't thank you enough for sharing what you did with us. I think we all learned more about how to show sensitivity, about mental illness, but also how to laugh more, which I really appreciate. So thank you so much. Please come back and join us next week on the storied human. And be sure to read the show notes for this episode. I've included links to Sue's documentaries. And if you're interested, there's a link to Nami, the National Association for the mental ill. So there's some good information there. And thanks again for joining us. And we'll see you next time. Monday. Every Monday new episode on the storied human. Take care. And now enjoy a few more bars of my new intro and outro song written by my son Brendan Talion. I love that verse. Lilian feel, and I really like having his original music on my show. So enjoy

Transcribed by https://otter.ai