Don’t Mind Me: Rewriting the Mental Health Story with Mädchen Amick

Transcript auto-generated from the episode audio; formatting has been cleaned up, but wording is verbatim.

I'm Cynthia Marks, and I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation, established by my late husband, Doctor Bernard Bail. Welcome to And Now Love. Mädchen Amick, actress, director and writer, along with her husband David Alexis, singer songwriter and coach. Daughter Mina Tobias, singer songwriter and actress. And son Sylvester Alexis, writer, rapper, patient, advocate and peer specialist have come together as a family to create the inclusive mental health Foundation. Don't Mind Me. Their Direct Impact nonprofit is the result of the challenges they faced as a family while navigating a very broken mental health care system.

Over the course of many years, given that at least one out of four people will be affected by mental health crisis in their lifetime, it is imperative that we open our eyes and hearts to the many challenges that exist. As Mädchen has said, everyone deserves access toward recovery, no matter the circumstances. Well, that was long winded, but there's a lot to say about you. Love it. Love all the things. Thank you for being here. And first. Don't Mind Me is so catchy and what was your intention with that? Well, I know we'll get into why we started the foundation, but as we were thinking about names, we were throwing different things around.

We knew that we wanted to incorporate mind. And then it just kind of popped up. I think for some reason, I just kind of kept hearing people when they say, Don't Mind Me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, so kind of collectively as a family, we thought, well, that's cute and sassy and not taking ourselves too seriously, but incorporating mind. Yeah, I like it a lot. And the other thing that came to my mind when I said, Don't Mind Me, almost like, stop pushing me around or stop. Sure, stop putting me in a, you know, in a category. Absolutely.

Yeah. It can be fun as like, watch me as I do something unconventional. Don't Mind Me as I do that. Or it can be empowering as well. It can be kind of a way. And I think to lighten mental health a bit and to own it and, and have it be something that comes from a possessive quality of Don't Mind Me. This is how I am. Except me, how I am. Yes. You know, we so need a lot more of that. It's so interesting. I know we'll talk about this more, too. You know, the stigma associated with mental illness, mental health, mental well-being and and how we feel like we have to sort of keep that part of humanity under wraps as if there's something bad or wrong.

And and. Yeah, it's. So not the case where all of us are just some fabulous bit of humanity. And I and I like that you're bringing this to light and helping people understand that no judgment required. Absolutely. Come from a place of love. I always say there's there is no black or white. We're all shades of gray. And the lucky ones get a diagnosis. The rest of us are just clawing our way through life and, you know, to have some kind of roadmap if there is one, is so helpful. And we saw that through our son's journey through mental health, but it also carved this path of the rest of the family to really recognize the things we need to do to keep ourselves mentally healthy.

Completely agreed. We need to destigmatize it. It feels like it's sort of like the last horizon, with acceptance and non-judgmental and non shame, of a diagnosis. You know, we've gotten to a point where it's acceptable for people to say, I'm, I'm fighting cancer or I have a heart disease or so many things, but for some reason, worse, there's still so much shame around mental illness. I have a theory. That's why it's been the last thing. Well, I feel like there's such a misunderstanding. And without the education to understand what's happening chemically in someone's brain, it is really hard to differentiate something that is part of someone's personality and personal choices.

And personal behaviors. And what is a sickness and really learning. And I had to go through the journey of learning what my son's brain was going through chemically to really come to a place. And I worked with my therapist to to really learn this, which was when was my son talking and when was his disorder talking? And I think so many families and I understand why there's no blame here. But I the, it gets very blurred and you don't understand why your loved one is acting that way, why they're saying the hurtful things are saying. And until you're able to be educated in what might be their diagnosis and their journey, can you separate that and not feel hurt and not feel disappointed and all of that, and they feel like that complexity that's still left is sort of like this, this last thing that we need to tackle so that this can now be taken seriously within our medical system as well.

And the funding that we need attached to that to help people. Yes. Huge amounts. So is that largely what Don't Mind Me is doing is bringing light to the topic and helping families and people suffering find sources for help in all sorts of ways. It is that it was really the when our son got his diagnosis and I was juggling working, I was juggling filming and traveling and and my daughter was off at college as well. My son was at UC Irvine, my daughter was at Cornell. And when my son had his mental break, we just had to navigate through a very broken mental health care system and some people very wisely have said since then, it's not broken.

It's acting the exact way that it was meant to be used. And and so it's just been dysfunctional since the beginning. It's just. Yeah. Yeah. It has. So we had to navigate through something we didn't know how to navigate through and we didn't know what the resources were. It's felt like there weren't any resources. And as we were sitting in emergency rooms, waiting rooms, talking to other families and sharing each other's journey, going, what do you do when this happens? Oh, this is what I found works. Oh, well, you know, in sharing this collective information, I just thought, what what is going on?

Why are we only finding this out if we're both in crisis and we're both in tragedy? We need to get this out there before this happens. And we need to get this out there on a broader scale. And I wasn't able to look at my career and my platform and say, I have an opportunity to highlight what we're going through as a family, and that will probably then inspire others to try to look for those resources to become educated and hopefully destigmatize mental illness within their families so they can come together as a unit to help someone through. So that along with a very broken system that we wanted to try to help change.

So I'm able to go to Capitol Hill often on different things that were trying to pass, either through the health care system or raising awareness for something or raising, you know, trying to get more funding towards something. So we're trying to tackle it from a systematic way, but then also just a grassroots let us share our story so that you don't feel alone and you don't have this probably misunderstanding that you see people in Hollywood or people with a platform are somehow untouched by the lack of resource, the lack of knowing the way forward, or just accessibility in general.

I mean, it's it's it's a major crisis in this country and around the globe. It sure is. And, I mean, I'm just stunned that really 1 in 4 people would be faced with this crisis on, on some level. And yeah. And that it's still, you know, a matter of shame or humiliation for a family who is taking care of a loved one who's got some mental issues. And, and also, I suppose there's some amount of protection that a family wants to provide to that loved one. And, and all of that keeps us 17 steps back from really being able to help those people that need our help and for you to use this platform and, and you know, your privilege to show others and to help others is really terrific.

And and you had an opportunity probably more than most people, to find good resources and, and help. And yet you and your family struggled so much. I, I get that you would want to say to everybody else if I struggled and and I am privileged enough to have these opportunities, what is happening to the rest of us? Yeah, absolutely. And I believe that the one out of four statistic is underreported underdiagnosed because until we get over these stigma issues, it's is probably higher than that. But even one out of four is staggering. It is. And the amount of statistics around people that are living with addiction that a lot of times they're self-medicating for an underlying under, you know, undiagnosed mental illness or disorder.

Same with the unhoused population. How many people living with a mental illness, it's being untreated or unrecognized. So it's just it's it's staggering. But yes, to your point, we were a family that, you know, very progressive thinking, always searching to learn and, and support one another. And you'd think that we would have every access to any resources out there. And to see that the resources just aren't there, period, is just so frustrating. Which is why once we decided to jump into opening the foundation, it was cathartic for me because I would be living in a lot of anger and frustration if I wasn't trying to do something every day to just at least try to help one person navigate this.

Yes, and try to direct them to resources. So our foundation has a resource page. We put vetted organizations on there, and they have lots of different categories for things that you might be looking for. We also feel like the financial part of it and the insurance coverage part of it is so lacking that we've set up a scholarship fund through, Don't Mind Me, to scholarship people into primary mental health care, to two facilities down in San Diego that are doing really, really amazing work. So that's how we're trying to tackle the accessibility part of it.

How are you funded for these things? Literally just donations. Like, you know, we are constantly, applying for grants. And, you know, we hope to continue that path and hope to, to get awarded some good grants. But so far, we're going to be going on our fifth year in May. It's been all just supporter based. So it doesn't matter how little the donations are or how big. Like it really helps us keep the doors open and have direct impact, you know, to people to help them. Well, that speaks highly. You're doing a great job if people, you know continue to invest enough for you to keep moving forward, and you have a big plan coming up with your in-house, your residential facility.

Yes. So, you know, once we have our three pillars, we have advocacy. And that's all the work that I've been mentioning, that we just share our story, go to Capitol Hill and advocate, so on and so forth. We have a speaker series. Our action pillar is getting people in into that scholarship so they can get, you know, mental health treatment. But then that didn't feel like enough. So we've created access, which is developmental stage of opening our own brick and mortar in the Coachella Valley. And it's just a nice way to show a pilot program of how can you bring mental health treatment accessible to everyone.

So it's really combining Medicare Medi-Cal with private insurance, and then also making sure that there's those scholarship funds available and bringing bridging that gap, you know, because a lot of times, those county funded facilities are just kind of bare, minimal. There's some that do great work just because there's a lot of people in there that just have big hearts, not that they're really being funded properly the way they should be. And then you have these like super, super high end where they're really teeing up the private chefs and the views of the ocean and the this and that and the, the quotes that we were getting that we were trying to find our son help.

In the very beginning stages, I have Screen Actors Guild Insurance, which was considered to be one of the better policies out there that was being offered. And at the time that my son was going through his initial diagnosis stages, he was still under my policy. And this was, prior to Affordable Care Act. My policy didn't have any behavioral health coverage whatsoever, no mental health coverage whatsoever. So everything that we were trying to find was just all out of pocket. And since then, at the ten year anniversary of his diagnosis, when we finally decided to start the foundation, we were back in looking for care, and I was getting at the very low end 30,000 a month quotes.

But up to 90,000 and 100,000 a month quotes. I don't care how wealthy you are, that is not fair to anyone. That's not fair to the the loved one getting the treatment, because then they have this guilt of how is I not fixed in a month for $100,000? I cost my family $100,000. Yes. And even the pressure of thinking, man, I better get myself fixed by the end of the month because I can't have my family spend X amount for another month. Yeah, and and I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter how much money you have, a hundred thousand a month. I mean, that's just that's just absurd.

Unfair. And it's taking advantage of people in crisis. And and we all we know that it takes much longer than that for a brain to heal. It can take up, one of my son's doctors said from one of his manic episodes it he will need a year for his brain to heal. It's very much equivalent to a heart attack, but it's a brain attack. I don't think most of us know that at all. At all? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, when the when the insurance companies have taken away a year treatment to six months treatment to three months treatment, now you're fighting for 21 days treatment, the brain isn't even it's not even beginning to balance or stabilize.

So it it creates these treatment centers to have to just hustle and fight for coverage, even if they have all the right intentions to help their clients. So we want to be a part of that change, and we want to show a way forward, that having that longer approach for treatment mixed in with a lot of hard work, figuring out how, you know, to build properly and get the right coverage, and continuing to lean on the community to help its community by helping to fund kind of treatment that we'd like to. Bring to the table, isn't us and them. Exactly.

It's we. Yes. So your brick and mortar will do what exactly? Ish. Yes. So what we feel is very important. First of all, we really have to create the narrative around prevent. It is so really getting the education out and families educated on what instability might look like. What are the resources available to head it off before you get to crisis. But when you do get to crisis, there are levels. So you have to be severely, severely sick in order to qualify to go in to the emergency room or into a psychiatric hospital. And that really a lot of times that's going in on a in California, a 5150, which means you're going in against your will because you're gravely disabled, danger to yourself or others.

That is very, very hard to qualify for, which I understand is sort of a pendulum from a time period that treatment was taking advantage of people and maybe keeping them in too long. So I understand that there needed to be an adjustment, but it feels like the adjustment has really swung so far. It's very hard to get your loved one in somewhere safe if they're in true crisis, but just under that acute level, there's a really big gap where you're too acute to go into a residential level treatment and acute enough to be in the psychiatric hospital.

So we want to be able to be that crisis stabilization level, that detox level. It's an alternative for the police to have to book someone because they're having a mental health crisis, or maybe they're going through detox. So we want that level and then we want to be able to then hopefully roll you right into a residential level of treatment for however long that needs to take to get you further stabilized at your. That would be with you then? Yes. Yeah. We're we're hoping to create a holistic campus that can take you through these levels of care, because a lot of times when you're going from one treatment to another, you're discharged.

You got to go get go into admissions. They got to go through. If you've even been able to bring all of your records over, like what medications were working, what didn't work, what are those notes? They don't get transferred over. And the person gets retraumatized over and over again. And all they want to do is heal. So we want to take them through that. Your approach then, is super unique. Yes, yes. And with that really that long term approach. And then from there continuing to help them get on their feet, whether it's back on their feet or on their feet for the first time, but continue to support them, you know, taking them through the next few months of, okay, let's let's help you figure out how to get your Social Security card, how to get a job, vocational skills on campus, learning about nutrition education and the inflammation that's affecting your mental health, and so on and so forth.

So really creating that really long approach that will hopefully get you through, you know, this long term healing. And then create that community that will be a lasting community. So we're going for the big enchilada. We feel it's really super important, you know, if we if we have to start small in the concept and grow it from there, so be it. But we've also identified a campus that could house a lot of people at the same time. It kind of just depends on how how the funding goes. I see and I like what you're saying is it's sort of a lifelong engagement.

So if an individual comes to your residential program for help, they'll continue to have access to care after they've found their way. Yes, that's that's huge. And it's big and having a big outreach component to it as well. And and those services that if someone isn't able to get themselves into it, the brick and mortar is having those mobile units that can bring care to people. And then hopefully eventually they feel comfortable enough to. And if it fits, you know, maybe it wants it. Maybe people need those services coming to them for a while.

So would a lot of this knowing about the availability of what you're offering come from a family who's seeking help for their loved one, who's suffering from mental health issues because the person suffering from mental health issues may not be equipped at the moment that he or she needs it, to understand that you can offer the help. So there's got to be a lot of loving support before someone can get to you. Is that right? It's true. It's absolutely true. And that's I think, the hardest thing. And I think for the individual themselves, and it's also for the ones around them, I always bring up, a scenario that if you're walking by someone on the street and they grab their heart and they collapse on the street, what usually is the reaction of the people around.

Them. Going to their aid, calling 911, staying with them until they get help? Yes. But if someone's on the street talking to themselves, everybody goes, whoa. Yes, right. The fear and the the just not being educated. They're having the same thing, but for their brain. Now, of course, you have to be careful if someone is, you know, has an outburst and maybe acting violent. You got to of course, be careful. But we really need to show that same courtesy and communal love for someone that struggling, you know, and and calling that in and letting people know, it seems like this person might be, you know, in a mental health crisis.

Now, we also need to have the system in place to help that person. That's a whole nother conversation. But we got to take it in steps and we gotta all do you know what we can. And so that person may not understand that they need the help. So it's really educating the village. It's educating the family and the support system and the neighbors and whatever that looks like. And there will be moments within it depends on the diagnosis. But like for my son, when he's in mania and psychosis, he's got waves throughout the day. And so he'll have these waves where he is very delusional thinking.

He thinks he's in an experiment. He doesn't think I'm his mom. He thinks he's being trapped and monitored. But we've been able to learn because we just stay by his side no matter what. If he's walking through the streets at night, I'm walking right beside him. My husband's following in a car right behind us. And make me cry. I know in me it doesn't mean to. There's so much love there. Yeah, but we're waiting for that moment. And there will be moments where he will swing down and he'll be lucid. And there'll be that moment where he knows he needs help.

And that's when you just got to be ready and swoop him in, you know, swooping in to whatever's available to you. You know? So that's how we as a family have to navigate that. And I, you know, I would suggest that for other families is to just learn as much as you can of what the diagnosis might be and what those characteristics might be, and how you can navigate those waves. And don't give up, don't give up, don't, don't, don't write off your loved one and think, oh, they don't want help. Or they just refuse it, or they know their mind is just sick at the moment and unstable and not thinking straight.

But they're they're in there and they want help. I think an awful lot of us can't imagine that what we're seeing in our loved one is actually a sickness, or I don't even know what we'd call it. There's just they're just a bad person and there's they're not there's no such thing. And yeah, you know, eventually, heartbroken, we shove them out of our families and many of us then see those people on the street, and then they have no family supporting them. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your own personal experience? Yeah. Of course.

Thank you. So I know your son Sylvester didn't have his first noticeable episode until he was in college. Yes, yes. That's correct. So up until then, you were a family that didn't need to have curiosity about such issues, right? And then there was an event that occurred that led to a manic episode. Yes. Yeah. So Sylvester went off to UC Irvine. He was on a D-1 track scholarship. No signs of any troubles before then. Just a bright, sweet, intelligent boy becoming a young man and just was walking home from a party one night and a body falls from the sky.

Young man had either fallen or jumped from a building and landed right in front of him. Oh my. Gosh. And he went to that young man's aid, kept him alive for until the first responders could get there. But that's when his friends and current girlfriend and coaches really noticed that there was a big shift, and they couldn't pinpoint it, and it didn't understand it, and there was just some kind of personality change and he then started self-medicating, not understanding what was happening in his brain, but feeling these incredible lows or these incredible highs starts reaching for marijuana or alcohol or whatever.

Just unknowingly self-medicating and trying to reach for something. So at first we didn't know what that was, and everybody assumed, oh, it's somebody who is using. And there was no connection to the tragedy. And so we as a family just were trying to tackle it. And getting him into the emergency room and having doctors say, oh, just seems like he has a substance use problem. You're going to need to get him some therapy. So then we followed that road. But it wasn't until he went into the psychiatric hospital and was completely clear of any substance.

But in psychosis is when that medical team said there seems to be an underlying mental illness, and we're suspecting bipolar one disorder. And bipolar one is quite a bit different than bipolar two. It is. They both have up and down waves. Bipolar one is more primarily on the manic side and the psychosis that comes with that. And then bipolar two goes more on the depressive side. But there can be a form of psychosis in there as well with suicidal ideation, etc.. But it's a bipolar one, is usually a bit more intense at times. And so when you learned that this was what was going on, was it then still very difficult to find help?

Yes, this was back in 2011 and I would say you probably finally got a proper diagnosis sometime in 2012. He was still struggling. He tried to go back to college. This was before, like an official diagnosis of bipolar. So he tried to go back to college in his sophomore year, but still had these extreme waves. And so it wasn't until the beginning of that next year did we get the proper diagnosis. And then he just went into and we went into trying to find treatment. And at that time there was really very few and far between primary mental health treatment centers.

They were mostly addiction. And I would just say we're dual diagnosis. We can also help mental health issues, which is a sign that they had some intention behind that. But they didn't have true mental health treatment. They didn't have psychiatrists on staff. They didn't have proper training for nurses and techs and so on and so forth around primary mental health issues. What qualified them was that they allow their client to go outside of their treatment center to see a psychiatrist once a week. That doesn't mean that they're providing it. It doesn't mean that they're suggesting it's just they're allowing you to go out and do that.

And so just wasn't it's just not enough. So for his his circumstance, he was getting a lot of primary addiction treatment. And they weren't understanding his waves as he wasn't following the, you know, strict recovery guidelines because he's still mentally unstable. He just kept getting getting in trouble and kept, you know, getting sort of disqualified to be there because they didn't understand the mania and they didn't understand the psychosis. So there was really, as far as you could tell, no proper place for him to really be seen and heard.

Yeah. And treated and treated properly. Yeah. And we were in the Los Angeles area at the time, and we would have to have an entire, probably dinner over how many treatment centers that he went in and out of. You know, it it was and that right there it goes to show you he's someone that which I believe everyone wants help. But he was someone that was very open to and really wanted help and just kept getting disappointed. The system was failing him and this was someone very active and wanting to recover with a support, supportive family that wanted to surround him with support and the system just kept failing him over and over for years, for years and years.

So until the ten year anniversary mark, just coincidentally or maybe not coincidentally, he was the middle of the pandemic in 2021. Did he have another severe manic episode in which his psychosis that we were able to find a great treatment center down in San Diego that really turned things around? And that's who we're bringing on to our team to help us open a place doing the same kind of treatment in Coachella Valley. That's great. And and what was it that they were doing that the other facilities weren't able to do? They had psychiatry on staff.

They had track systems. So they grouped people together depending on their disorder. So it was a more focused education for them. So instead of just anyone with a mental health diagnosis being put into one group room where you might have someone dealing with severe PTSD and maybe someone struggling with schizophrenia, and they're just not they're just not mixing well. And the education can't be, definitive enough for them. It has to be sort of a broader scope. So they had these really great track systems, and then beyond that, they actually had a long term approach.

So they really looked at it as we're looking at a year of treatment, and we're going to figure out how to keep your loved one into treatment. If it's continues to be appropriate and figure out financing, how you can afford it. And they just because our hearts are in the right place and they know that it takes that long, they just go to bat and they, you know, they get very they have great staff that knows how to build properly and be able to use your insurance if you have it. So they're just a great, great group. Was Sylvester there for about a year then?

Yeah, he was actually there for a little bit longer about 14 months. He actually then studied and became a certified peer specialist so that he can help others through. And he knows from life experience that he can really relate to someone where other people may not be able to. And so now he's doing the work and giving back. So he's he now has that job and it's very fulfilling and he's doing great. I imagine that if one is to be part of this residential experience, that one, everyone will come out with their unique take on how they were served and what that means going forward.

But for Sylvester, what changed for him during his 14 months there? Obviously he came away knowing that he could be an advocate. What else changed for him? Was he more comfortable with his mental health challenges? Understand them more? Yeah. So he first of all, the trust that was built was huge. So he wasn't just being turned in. Turned out over and over and over again. This was a team that was willing to stick it out with him through. And there were a couple of times where he was a little too acute to be there, and they said, hey buddy, just need to like go into the psychiatric hospital so that we can get your meds.

Right. It'll be just a few days and we want you to come right back. And a lot of times what these treatment centers will do is they have this strict policy that if for whatever reason you discharge, you can't come back for 30 days. And they made it clear we're there for you, we're going to be there. And they did. They showed up and they were there when he was discharged. And he went straight back in and that gave him some. He was able to to trust them and know that when they said they're going to be there, they're going to be there. And they weren't trying to trick him and they weren't, you know, so that was really, really helpful.

The long term approach was incredibly helpful because it gave him enough time for his brain to heal. And then beyond that, all of the education that he learned about his specific diagnosis really gave him the tools to then continue on. Now, what was interesting is then beyond that, about maybe a year after he completed that program, he had another chemical imbalance, and it was a medication switch that happened from a new psychiatrist. And it happens. You know, there was a lot of course, gut reaction from mom was, why did you change something that was working?

Yes, yes, that must be ongoing. It's ongoing. It's a constant thing. And you have to just be okay with the fact it's not some like, oh, it's going to fix it for the rest of your lives. Your your body chemistry changes. Medication strengths may change. Maybe you may be working closely with your psychiatrist and you both decide to titrate down, but then some instability comes with it being able to try to get back up. But he did go into a manic episode and was able, through a lot of preparation and tools that he learned and ongoing therapy, keep himself from using, so he stayed sober through it.

At one point, he checked himself into the hospital because he said, I'm going to I need I need some help and then was able to come out and then now it set him back a few months because it's just going to. But then he got back on track. And as much as he was frustrated that that happened, it ended up being such a beautiful growth and learning experience that he could trust himself, that he could get through it without totally losing floor being pulled out from underneath him. So this is what everybody has to sort of, I think, come to terms with and have peace with.

Whether you're someone who has a diagnosis or you were a supportive loved one, is, is going to be is going to be hills and valleys. And, you know, it's sort of that thing of like three steps forward, 1 or 2 steps back. But you just keep moving forward, you know, and you just keep that long term goal and approach in your mind. Well, it's clear to me that Sylvester has some pretty lovely circumstances in that he was born into this family who knows how to support him and comes to him with, you know, sort of nothing but love through this and that.

You've, you know, been voraciously curious about what kind of path to take and to find support for him, that he could trust that there's a community even outside of his family, that he knew would have empathy and would say, you know, hey, buddy, you know, we you're going to go and take care of this episode that you're having. And because we aren't equipped to do that here, but you're coming back and we're going to support you. I mean, we need that all over the place. All over the place. So pretty amazing. How do we how do we help families help their loved ones in need like this?

Yeah. I think, you know, when we're doing this sort of overview, it sounds lovely. It sounds like up here was the, you know, the problem, the obstacles. And then, oh, look how shiny and wonderful it is on this side. It's messy and it's all over the place. And we are a family that is constantly curious. I think that's really a really wonderful way to say it. And thank you, because we are we always want to educate ourselves. We always are curious about paths. It's no one way for anyone. So just staying fluid. The biggest thing I would say to families, because we are all going to experience it, sadly.

Or maybe it's not. Sadly, maybe this is just the human condition. And why do we need to look at this as a tragedy? It's just the messy human condition, which is beautiful. It is. It's got some highlights and it's got some, some lowlights. You know, I think for all of us, on some level, life is messy. And that's that's our life is. I don't know if there's anyone out there that hasn't had a messy life in some way or another. Right? So I would say for families and loved ones, know deep down that your loved one does want help. And if it seems like they don't want help, it's only because they're unstable or not.

Well, right now and just you got to stay the course trying to be there for them with a very loving, non-judgmental approach. And instead of saying, you need to stop doing this and you need to seek help and you need to, that's just our own fear, right? Talking. Yeah. It's just, hey, it seems like you might be struggling, and I'm really sorry. That must be hard. I struggle sometimes, too. This is what my struggle looks like. Could you be there for me? And I would love to be there for you. And it just opens the door to to just honestly share with one another and not come from a your your broken and unfixed.

Right. And you're, you're causing me a big problem because you're broken. I don't have time for this. I've got to go to work. I have to put food on the table. I come home and you're more broken than you were when I left. I just I am just frustrated. And you drive me nuts. Yeah, yeah. And that's by the way, that's our own fear talking, right? We're not really wanting to come off that way, but. Oh, my God, we're so scared. And we just want it not to be there. And and we also want to have all the answers. As parents, we want to know what's best for our children.

And we don't. Yeah. We shouldn't have to have all of that equipment. We just can't possibly know what all the resources are all the time. And and as families to be able to reach out is huge. And to know that there's a support system is huge. And I think too, sometimes people will have the guts to say something and say, I don't think I'm well or I don't know if I want to live anymore. And I think we go into this fearful like, oh my God, I don't know how to deal with that in the right way. I don't want to say the wrong thing. So a lot of times people will avoid it or play it down.

And really, I think if you're if you just come from well, thank you first of all for sharing that with me. That's huge. And I don't have all the answers, but maybe we can work together to figure it out. And then at least they're being heard. You're saying I'm here for you. I don't know if I know how to fix it. But let's go try to figure this out together. That could be a way forward where hopefully we're just helping more people and creating more open dialog that's non-judgmental and non fear based. There's a lot of fear, I think probably going you know coming from both sides both ways.

Yeah. Yeah. So between us Don't Mind Me and And Now Love I think we share a common message and that is love. And if we all can start from a place of love giving it and receiving it, we can truly come to each other with empathy and discover that the the ability we have to provide loving help is also deeply comforting. Not only are we giving help, but we're sort of propelling ourselves to understand the human relationship and how important it is to have compassion. And it's it's like this rock tumbling downhill that's just keeps going and you become more and more empowered by being, you know, part of the human race and knowing that it's again, it's not them and us.

We're all here together. Yeah, I totally agree. And and you know, as much shame that my son has to battle and has to work through and feels like, oh my gosh, why, why was I the black sheep in the family and why did I cause so much grief and worry in this and that really, I mean, and I mean this wholeheartedly. The silver lining to this is it really taught us as a family of, first of all, how to come together, how to go through obstacles together and learn how to support one another. It brought me to my own therapy, which I don't know if I would have ever found my way home.

I went into therapy because I wanted to be the best mom that I could be for my son. And then as I got into it, all of this stuff that I had packed away in this locked attic somewhere started coming out, and it made me a better person, and it made me more aware of how to take care of myself, and then also how to be more compassionate for my husband and my daughter and my mother in it was, really a beautiful thing that the journey of it that came into our life was such a gift. And again, we can't look at it like, you know, there was so, so his ups and downs are just a bit more extreme and they need to be managed a little differently.

And maybe, you know, he manages it with medication but also lifestyle focus and therapies and this and that. But we all have these ups and downs. And so just recognizing what is manageable, what isn't. What are some healthy ways to self-regulate. These are tools that everyone can use. You know. And it was I think because of this diagnosis that it really brought it to the forefront of our family and has really opened up our compassion and empathy and love for others even more than I think it would have been. I imagine that's that's lovely that you found the gift in there.

But for you to be able to, you know, love your son so much and think, okay, this is a lot, I, I don't know how I can do this on my own. And to get help for yourself, which, as you say, only brought you to a more loving place, is is really fabulous. And that would be what our person, Doctor Bail would say. You know, we all have to figure out who we really are, minus all the trauma that we've carried, minus all the things that we've supported, that aren't really letting us be who we really are. And once we can do that, once we can uncover who we really are, then there's there's the love that we can share with the world.

Absolutely. Another great thing that my son always says is he says his diagnosis is his superpower. Oh my gosh. And, you know, as long as he manages it and he can keep a somewhat balanced lifestyle, he he can soar. And I really we really want people to be able to get to that place where they can be proud of whatever their neurodivergent see is. Yes, we've. All got strengths, right. So it's recognizing what our strengths are and then just helping self regulate when things you know are challenging. And that's the human condition that is. And I think he's so right.

I mean, we all have a superpower and we all have our given lives. And to be able to suss out what that is is pretty terrific. I have a question, though for you regarding bipolar one and bipolar two. Is there do we know what causes that? Well, so, you know, from what I've learned, and obviously I'm not a professional, but from what I've learned, all mental illness is genetic. There's only one diagnoses that isn't genetic. And that is did dissociative identity disorder, which used to be called multiple personality disorder. And that comes on through repeated trauma in your first eight years, which is fascinating.

I ended up directing a film on that, so I learned a lot about it, but that it's it's a genetic marker that's in our families. So that's part of why I want to destigmatize mental illness, as if like, ooh, our family has this curse in this black cloud. No, it's it's in all of our families. Right. So it's just being able to recognize it. And when does it become unmanageable and when can you keep it manageable. So just the difference between bipolar one and bipolar two, just as a varying degree of that diagnosis, it's just meaning that you've got these high waves and these low waves, and they just were able to differentiate for people that stay a little more in the high waves and things peak out a lot that, you know, goes into bipolar one.

And then in those low waves, it's more depressive. As far as the facts that I've seen so far. And who knows with, you know, new statistics, but that it seems that bipolar one is usually seen in May more males and bipolar to in more females. But I know people that have those diagnoses in the opposite way. So no, I don't know exactly the accuracy of the latest polling and in science behind that, but it's just it's interesting. And and by the way, there's many versions of bipolar. It goes beyond one and two. I think the more that we learn about the brain and the diagnoses, the better, so that we have more options of recovery.

And if we're able to recognize our mental health issues as our mental health issues, a thread that runs amongst us all, I think we're better able to just say, hey, I've got this thing that's getting pretty severe here. I don't know how to deal with this myself. I see that I have these resources and I can go to them comfortably without feeling shame or feeling like I didn't do a good job, or that there's something wrong with the person I love or I'm going to lose my child because I didn't take good care of them. If all of that can just go away and we become, it would be nice to know them.

But you're working on it. I think for those affected by those challenges, too, I think a lot of times they feel very alone. They think that they're so unique. Right. And if they can find a way that they can talk to someone and it's whoever they trust doesn't necessarily have to be parents or siblings or, you know, family even, it could be just a trusted friend. But if they're able to vocalize these challenges, they're going to be very surprised how many other people are also struggling and that they're not so weird or different or alone, that it's very collective and it's very common, and finding others will really help you through?

I think so, and man, that really applies to so many things that have happened to us that we feel like we should be ashamed of, or we know we're going to be judged by. If you find that trusted person and you share that, you're bound to hear that they have a similar experience or their cousin whom they love to pieces had a similar experience, and you're not alone. And and if we could just sort of get the gumption up to share some of what we hold so dear just because we're fearful of what that sharing will result in, I mean, we'd be surprised. It's like jump off that little cliff and just find someone who can show you love.

And just on the genetic part of it. And in our families. When my son was first going through his early stages of the diagnosis, doctors were asking, do you know, do you know if this is in your family, this and that? And my husband was adopted, so he didn't know a lot of his natural parents. So he didn't really have any any knowledge of that. And I asked my mom because my dad is passed. So she was, you know, who I could ask? And she was like, no, I can't think of anything. And and then just a few years later, I was helping her move and we were going through all the different stuff, and she had these beautiful oil paintings and, and she said, oh, those were painted by my Aunt Emily.

And then those were painted by my Aunt Lorraine. And, you know, Aunt Lorraine was, I think, a much more talented painter, but I just didn't know her. And, and I said, well, why didn't you know her? And she said, oh, she lived her entire life in a mental institution. And I was like. Mom, I. Remember when I was asking if we had anything in her family and she was like, oh gosh, I didn't even think of it. And it wasn't that she was embarrassed and hiding it. It just was. This is the way the family dealt with it, which was just don't talk about it.

Sweep it under the rug. This is too embarrassing for our family. Let's not acknowledge it, which just isn't needed, you know? But you're right. And there's in a lot of families. There's just no question about that. You don't even think, well, you know, why is Aunt Lorraine in this Insta? What? What's happening with her? And and I wish I knew what Aunt Lorraine was in the institution with. I wish I knew her diagnosis and then my husband ended up because he did, like a, Ancestry.com, and he actually found a couple of sisters and, one of them had been doing a lot of research, trying to find their natural parents, and she had found a lot of, like, reporting on her and talking about a bipolar diagnosis, and that she was, well meaning and loved her kids, but just wasn't able to take care of them at times.

And, and so, you know, again, here we hear both sides of the family. We never knew it was in there. But I think that's why we want to put it out there as a family, because we want we want to destigmatize it. It shouldn't be shameful. We shouldn't be hiding it. It's just it's it's just part of navigating life. It is, it is. And if we open our eyes, we all will find situations where we can help someone who is in need in this way. And yes, we should be as receptive to offering help, if not more so than offering help to someone who's broken their leg and is laying on the side.

I mean, of course they need help, but but it should not be stigmatized. Yes, exactly. If you're walking by somebody on the street, you know, if there's any way that people can really look at that as instead of the scary thing about the way that they're acting, really look at it as their brain is under attack right now, just like maybe a heart attack, just like a broken leg, just like so on and so forth. Heart disease fighting cancer. It's just another organ in our body. It needs to be taken very seriously. The only tricky thing, you know, bringing us back to the beginning of our conversation is it does manipulate the way that they act.

So that's why you need to educate yourself so that you can differentiate what is the disease or illness and what is my loved one or friend or you. So on and so forth. So yes. And how am I equipped to help? And where should I stand back and let somebody else help? Yeah. So how do we find you? How do we help you? Well, definitely go to Don't Mind Me, dawg. Stay up to date on all of the initiatives that we have. We're also on all of the socials, so we're at Don't Mind Me everywhere. And then, you know, also just following me, you know, I'm constantly sort of cross sharing.

So I'm at Meech and Emic and I also have a the the official name MC website. My mental health work has bled into my Hollywood career, so I'm inspired by being a part of projects that are doing great things in the mental health space. I just directed an episode of the show Brilliant Minds on NBC, and then they wrangled me back to me in front of the camera on another episode of Brilliant Minds. Oh, that's so fabulous. Yeah. So it's it's great to have those two worlds colliding, because that's where my heart is right now. Yeah. And what exposure you get.

Yes. Yeah. To help us all see what needs to be done. We also have a really fun gala in golf weekend that we do every year. And this year it's at the Frank Sinatra Twin Palms Estate in Palm Springs, February 28th. It's going to be very swanky and fun. And then the following day, March 1st, is our golf tournament at Seven Lakes Country Club. And that you can find on our website as well. Oh, that's so terrific. Well, thank you. Thanks a million for being here. You're so, so busy and we really appreciate it. And I hope we get to talk again because I'd really like to follow along as you build this brick and mortar.

I would love that. I would really love that. Thank you so much for the conversation. Thank you. And yes, let's let's continue the love. Let's. There you go. Please follow, rate and share our podcast and pass this episode along to someone who might need it. All of us needed. This is And Now Love. Please listen to your dreams and live from your heart. And.