Transcriber: Denise RQ Reviewer: Mile Živković
My dad called me from Seattle last spring,
telling me about his new ground-breaking novel
entitled "Harry Potter goes to college,"
which would follow the newly ripened wizard
and document his experiences, but on an American campus.
And so, I already know what you are thinking:
"This guy is crazy."
You are right.
In wilful ignorance, my father planned to completely ignore copyright laws,
steal intellectual property,
but, most importantly, make millions in the process.
And on top of this, on top of tackling
one of the most successful series of books of all time,
he was also in the process of writing two other memoirs,
about something that many of us have experience with,
but yet we shy away from talking openly about.
And that is mental illness.
You see, my dad is bipolar.
And so, while we were brainstorming over the phone,
the static connecting our voices from two seemingly different realities,
I once again felt the familiar weight
that accompanied my father's bipolarity return as well.
Now, I'm obviously totally open to the whole process,
but the first time that I was forced to face my father's bipolarity,
I'd barely turned 12 years old.
And, as this kid, I was confused,
because my dad is already a bit manic
and so, as a 12-year old boy, I just thought he was overly excited.
I saw him throwing himself into every facet of human experience,
and I wanted to jump in there with him.
But granted, I wasn't around to experience the darker side of the mania,
the hallucinations and the nights spent in the hospital,
but I was there when it all came down.
And so, let me tell you from experience
that depression is immeasurably crippling.
The days are hazy in memory, I'll admit,
but I do remember a few details clearly:
coming home to our house completely reorganized
by my completely unorganized dad,
and the nights spent with my ear pressed to the floor boards
trying to listen to my father cry softly below me,
as the fan above me did nothing but stir the summer heat.
Hearing your father cry is an act that kids experience all too rarely.
And so in my immaturity, I was embarrassed and afraid of
a lot more than just the fact that my Dad was slowly going crazy.
I had to not only face the vulnerability in a man
who had literally and emotionally raised me,
but also confront my own ideas
of what I thought it meant to have a mental disorder.
Through this experience, however, I've come to learn more about myself
and the human condition than I'd ever thought possible.
And I'm so grateful for that,
especially because when the inevitable call came
to extend my father's journey for another bout with mania and depression
the second time around,
I was able to accept my father's condition despite my own vulnerability.
You see, the fluidity of mental disorders is what I find so fascinating.
But yet at the same time it has prevented those very same disorders
from gaining societal acceptance in the same way that physical illness has.
Our society is so driven around self-improvement
that sometimes mental illness gets confused with mental weakness.
And this is just not the case.
In talking with family and friends, I became increasingly frustrated
by how we, as this support network jumped to totally ineffective ways
of showing our support; and we're all equally guilty.
We've all said: "Oh, you're so strong.
I know you can do it. Just keep your chin up one day at a time."
And while I'm a huge advocate of positive thinking,
just take a moment and imagine saying that to a diabetic:
"Oh, I love you. You're so strong. Just keep producing insulin one day at a time."
(Laughter)
It's laughable. Our current perspective of mental disorders is laughable.
And it's not our fault. It's just how we've been raised.
More importantly, however, our perception of mental illness is skewed
because we understand much less about the mechanisms and treatment
behind mental disorders than we do of physical ones.
We just don't understand.
And this, this is what makes grappling with a mental disorder perhaps,
one of the most difficult challenges that one can experience.
Because even if you lived in a perfect world, full of perfect people
who fully understood that mental illness is just the same as physical illness,
this idea is so ingrained into our society,
that convincing yourself that you are not weak,
that mental illness is normal, that you are normal
is perhaps one of the most difficult things to do.
So, what can we do?
For starters, I want each and every one of you right now to raise your hand,
if you know someone closely and personally who suffers from a mental illness.
Now, take a look around. It's not exactly surprising.
But what I want each and every one of you to realize is that we,
as this massive support network,
can do just as much in the way of treatment
as we can to change our own perspectives.
And, if nothing else,
just learning more about what your friend or loved one is suffering with
can never hurt.
Because for someone who's dealing with mental illness, even talking openly,
eating right, and exercising can be just as important as medication for treatment.
Again, treatment should be holistic because we're talking about
mothers, daughters, fathers, and sons,
not just cerebral soup that is somehow missing an ingredient.
The years between 12 and where I'm standing today
were spent marking much more than just time.
In an effort to understand the drastic change in my father,
I sought high school courses, I shadowed psychiatrists,
and I read articles online; and I learned a ton.
But not everything that I learned was exactly reassuring.
And in order to illustrate this point, let's briefly extend the analogy
between diabetics and those suffering from mental illness, just one more time.
So, if you were concerned that you are suffering with diabetes,
you walk into a doctor's office
and you are given multiple blood work tests,
and a concrete answer that varies by only half a percent.
Half a percent.
And yet at the same time,
if I was concerned that I'm dealing with depression for example,
I'd walk into that same doctor's office and I'm given what?
A questionnaire and a pamphlet.
It's 2014 and yet, this is how we diagnose a disorder
that affects more than 15 million Americans.
And our medications like Prozac, Paxel, and lithium
have shown to work for many people.
But again, they're grossly inefficient
because they change the chemistry of the brain as a whole,
as opposed to those specific pathways that are actually affected.
What we need to do, using American ingenuity
and the medical technology that we do have,
is design a new generation of medications
that specifically targets those regions that are affected, in order to get rid of
the awful side effects of our current options.
Essentially, what I'm trying to say
is that our perspective and treatment of mental illness should reflect
the complexity of those disorders themselves.
Now, there are many things that can and need to be changed
about our mental health care system,
but the bottom line is that we, as human beings,
owe it to ourselves to be a part of this change.
If I've learned one thing, having been raised in a patriarchal society,
is that there is nothing more weak
than telling another man that you truly love him.
And dad, I love you.
I believe in part that your journey has made us the men that we are today.
We've laughed harder for all the times spent crying,
appreciated spring for all the winters,
and marveled on mountain tops
at all the valleys that lay below and behind us.
Through your precipitous highs and seemingly endless lows,
we've both loved more and been loved more.
All in all, I've just come to the realization
of the intense beauty that exists in an uneven balance
between mania and depression.
So call those people who you've just raised your hand for.
And thank you.
(Applause)
Hey, hold on. Come back here. Come here.
(Applause)
It's awesome, that was awesome.
(Applause)