BatShit

Meet our hosts, Adam Slemon and Brad C. Hodson, and learn how and why they were first diagnosed as bipolar. Listen HERE.

TOPICS

Rationalizing manic & depressive behavior when you don’t know you’re sick. Brad’s Funeral Playlist. Misconceptions about mental illness and the curse of Arrogant Ignorance. Lack of Impulse Control. A skull full of minnows. Second guessing everything you do. Why bipolar patients feel emotions stronger even when not in an episode. Friendships & bipolar. Guilt & shame. Coke & Molly. Why mania can make you think you’ve fallen in love. Manic creativity. Misdiagnosis. Why mania is addictive. Manic relationships. Pathological lying. Compulsive overspending. Entitlement and a lack of repercussions. Clinical narcissism versus bipolar grandiosity. Finding understanding and realizing you’re not alone.

Listen HERE.

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE 1

Transcription created by Otter.ai

BRAD: Welcome to batshit, a frank and funny look at living with mental illness.

ADAM: While we’ll touch on several illnesses, BatShit is focused on those along the spectrum of bipolar disorders. I’m your host, Adam.

BRAD: And I’m your other host, Brad.

ADAM: And we’re both bipolar. So strap in and let’s see how batshit we really are.

BRAD: Spoiler alert, pretty damn bad shit. This episode’s topic is getting diagnosed, which I think is probably a good introduction.

ADAM: Yeah, definitely.

BRAD: Because not only will you hear all of our crazy manic and depressive stories, but you’ll get to know us a little bit and understand what it’s like when you’re first diagnosed with bipolar.

ADAM: Yeah, I mean, Brad, you were just recently diagnosed with bipolar.

BRAD: Yeah, just this year.

ADAM: Let me ask you: What did that feel like for you? Because I was diagnosed about a year ago. And I know that was a really humbling, I’m gonna say humbling time for me, right?Because you think you know yourself, and you kind of understand your ups and your downs, your ebbs and flows, and you’ve kind of rationalized all of these crazy peaks and valleys that you’ve gone through in your life. And then all of a sudden, you find out that that’s not entirely you. Right?

BRAD: Yeah. And that was, I had a very difficult time with that, at first. I felt for lack of a better term just broken. You know, I had, like you said, you go through all these peaks and valleys throughout your entire life, when you’re dealing with this. And I always chalked it up to “Oh, I’m creative. I’m a little different. I can be an asshole sometimes and be self absorbed.

ADAM: Not too much. Like a regular asshole.

BRAD: Yeah. A regular asshole. But, you know, and then on the flip side, I could be moody and depressed. I had a rough childhood. Who the hell didn’t? But I would often think like, “Oh, that’s why you get depressed and yada, yada.” But one of the things I’ve always prided myself on with anything, is taking responsibility for myself. To me, that was, I never had, you know, a father figure growing up or anything. And that was one of the first things I learned about being a man. Is you just take responsibility for yourself and what you do. And so the idea that when I would do these things, I would try to figure out why I was doing them look inward, and figure out a way not to do them anymore, right? And getting diagnosed bipolar, it kind of ripped the rug out from under that.

BRAD: And last year was far and away my worst episodes, both of mania and depression. And it got to the point where I remember saying several times, “I don’t know why I’m like this. I don’t want to be like this. How can I fix this?” And that finally led me to the point where I was like, “There’s something fundamentally wrong here. And I needed to see a professional.” And when I got that diagnosis, I had been latching on to all sorts of other things that had happened last year. I was in a car accident and had a concussion. And you know, that can that can lead to similar symptoms, right? And so I was grasping at straws. And I wanted these things to be true that I was grasping at because they would be temporary or fixable.

ADAM: Right, exactly. Yeah. It’s that whole idea of, you know, oh, you know what I ate wrong. Yesterday, I had nothing but like sugar and pizza, and I drank too much last night. And that’s why I woke up feeling like absolute garbage. And that’s why I feel like that for three or four days after that, right? And I’m like, well, and then you really start thinking about it. You’re like, that’s not entirely how that works. Maybe to a degree. Yeah, you eat like shit, you’re gonna feel like shit. But to stay down in that depth for that long and have it feel like, you know, you talked with friends who were like, “Man, I drank too much last night, man. I got a hangover. So it’s like, I’m sluggish today and my brains not firing.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I drank last night. And I didn’t want to get out of bed for four days. Yeah. Oh, wait, that’s not how everyone feels.”

BRAD: I’m fantasizing about what music to play at my funeral. Here’s my funeral playlist.

ADAM: Drop that beat! I think it’s funny because you mentioned that like, when you’re younger, you get this How to Be a Man type of thing, right? And finding ways to to justify how you’re feeling and find a way to work through it. Like I remember very specifically as a child, whenever I would wake up, and I’d be in a depressive state, right? And I would not want to get out of bed. My, my parents response to that and this is not on them. This is not me blaming my parents. But their response was like, Well, you’re a machine. Pretend you’re a machine. Get out. Do whatever to ignore those feelings, they will eventually go away. And you will, you’ll be fine. And while you know there is some truth to the fact that you cannot give in entirely to those depressive states, you can’t. Bipolar is a battle, it’s a constant combat against your depression or against your manic highs that you can’t stop fighting. You have to acknowledge them, you have to recognize the fact that you may be in a really depressive state or crazy manic high. And that’s, you got to even out and you got to figure out how to even out and if you just don’t acknowledge it, you don’t address it. And it becomes a part of your life. You’re like, well, this is just how I am today. I’m gonna go read a book for nine hours and not talk to anybody. Yeah. Great. You’ve developed a coping mechanism. That’s not real healthy. Like, I mean, it’s better than some coping mechanism. But at the end of the day, it’s a coping mechanism. Again, a tool. It’s a tool in your toolbox.

BRAD: You touched on something interesting there too, with your parents’ reaction to it. Because that’s how a bulk of the people I know – and I used to be like this, when I was in my 20s, what I call my period of Arrogant Ignorance. Everybody in their 20s thinks they know everything, and they don’t research shit. And they’re just it’s like, if I’m loud and blustery and angry with whatever idiot opinion I have, you’ll think it’s true.

ADAM: If I don’t slow down, and just keep going, you’ll believe me.

BRAD: Yeah, so I used to think this too. And it’s the idea that these, these mental illnesses are somehow a choice, that you’re choosing to be depressed. And you can choose to get out of it. You just got to clean up your diet, Adam, and exercise and put on some happy music.
And same thing with mania. It’s that you’re choosing to do this stuff. I would do things while I was manic, that I immediately – I remember, there was this one time, I was outside finishing a glass of wine. And for no reason whatsoever I just threw it into the street so that the wine glass would shatter. And the second I did that, like it wasn’t even reflecting on it later. The second I did that I go, Why the fuck did I just do that? Because the manic brain is just firing on all cylinders. And you have no control.

ADAM: Yeah, like I don’t know if you’ve ever had those like Tourette style moments where like, I’m driving alone in the car for absolutely no reason to scream fuck, or I want to go home or something like that. And it’s this, this feeling of like, this is the emotion I’m feeling. And I’m verbalizing it, because I don’t know what else to do with it.

BRAD: So for me, there’s this kind of idea that that I latched on to recently that I think kind of sums it up well, is when you go manic, it’s like someone opened up your head and they dumped a bowl of minnows into it. The minnows are just swimming around and bouncing off the walls and going into each other. And there’s 30 of them. And those are your thoughts. Your brain is cluttered. And it’s racing a mile a minute, right? I had a friend of mine, who was telling me how great meditation was for him dealing with his mental mental health. And as he’s telling it to me, I remember thinking, that’s impossible. How do you still your mind? How do you quiet your mind? Because I’ve never had that.

ADAM: Yeah, no way. And what’s funny is that we’re both martial artists, both of us have trained and there is a part of martial arts was about hyperfocus. It’s about tuning everything out, being in touch with who you are physically in touch with your body, and being able to take that and channel it into whatever physical activity you’re doing. And that has always been a struggle for me, because like you said, you turn that switch off, is just, and for the longest time, I thought it was me, I thought it was just, I wasn’t working hard enough. I wasn’t trying hard enough, I was not able to cope with whatever the situation is. But when I got diagnosed with bipolar, and I was given the justification, a lot of the moves in my childhood, a lot of the things that I experienced growing up started to make a lot more sense. Like, I think, looking back, which is hard, because you look back and you see these choices that you made and these mistakes that you made and these opinions that you formed and acted upon. And
at the same time, you’re asking yourself like it was that the bipolar? There was that was that how you really think really feel? You know what I mean? It’s like you sit back then and are like, did I just have a deathwish? When I started that conversation with that baseball team?

BRAD: That you have to second guess everything you do.

ADAM: Second guess. Great way to put it because you can’t always trust your emotions.

BRAD: So even when you’re not in a bipolar state. I found this really interesting. One of the physical aspects of bipolar that they’ve observed is that the amygdala in the brain of a bipolar patient is larger than that of the general population. So the amygdala governs emotional responses and the fight or flight mechanism. And so in people with bipolar those things are so heightened. Even when we’re in a normal state. Euthymia, they call it. We love harder than normal people.

ADAM: And faster.

BRAD: And faster. We hate more intensely. Our anger burns at a different temperature. You know, we’re more willing, I think to die for our friends than the average Joe.

ADAM: Yeah, there’s like that loyalty. That’s just, ya know, like, embedded in you. And I will have my wife say like, Why are you helping this person? Why do you continue to go back to this person who’s done nothing for you? If anything, they’ve actually hindered you? And I’ve been like, because I’m their friend. And like, I love my wife. And we’ve been together a long time now. And we just got married. And in that, like, final courtship, she just came to me. She’s like, you need to cut some of these people out of your life. And it’s because I love you that you need to do that. And that was really hard to do. Because I had to have conversations with people being like, look, we can’t hang out anymore. I love you, but you’re toxic. And that hurt me to say that hurt me internally to say because I was like, I felt like I was failing them. Like, you feel like you’re failing them by giving up on them. When in reality, anyone else would look at this, this relationship and be like, dude, they’ve never come to your birthday party. Yeah, they have never even seen your house. Meanwhile, you’ve helped watch their kids. You’ve, you know, been through multiple breakups with them. Meanwhile, it’s like, you’re like, Dude, why are you even friends with this person?

BRAD: Or even if you had someone that was there for you at a time, and was important to you. And you guys meant something to each other, and you kind of drift apart or whatever.
But they still hold that place for you. Right? I think for everybody else, people who don’t have Bipolar, they don’t hold that same place in their heart.

ADAM: Right. So that relationship has kind of drifted off, right? Like you look back at like highschool friends, right? And people always talk about, like the good times they had in high school with their high school friends, I would still ride or die for 90% of my high school friends, even though I haven’t talked to most of them, and 20 years, 30 years. And it’s like, well, what does that say about me? Was that does that say oh, you’re just a really loyal person? Or does that say you have an unnatural attachment to these relationships? You take a step back?

BRAD: I sometimes feel like I’m a chump, right? I feel like all I want to do for the people I care about, I want to bend over backwards to help them. I don’t want to see any of them in stress. I don’t want to see any of them hurting, you know, if I can help them in some way I can. And I often feel taken advantage of as a result. Because like you said, you don’t get that in return.

ADAM: Nope.

BRAD: You know, one of my oldest and best friends has been going through a lot of shits the past couple years and I’ve been there for him constantly. And after I got diagnosed, I reached out to him and was like, Hey, man, you know, I’m bipolar and he like commiserated with me. And I was like, I kind of need to hang out with somebody right now. And he was basically just like, I don’t have time. And I haven’t heard from him since. Just ghosted me.

ADAM: I would say right now in a work situation, like I. So there was a problem of I work by the way, we both work and live in Hollywood, we both work in the creative end of Hollywood. And I’m a finishing producer for TV and film. One of my editors, right, who’s not a guy I’ve hung out with socially, he’s not a guy. I’ve actually because of the pandemic, I’ve only met him in person, like two or three times. But he was one of my regular editors that I would hire for projects. There was a miscommunication between him and some of my upper management, right, because we’re talking about bringing them on for various things. And I was furious, like to the point where I was going to call up and scream at my boss. And I remember being like, Whoa, man, this was an editor. I don’t even know if he knows my last name. Yeah, like this is a freelancer, who knows the business who understands the ebb and flow of work, there is no reason that his being hired or not being hired for this one project should affect you at all. But my sense of loyalty my sense of devotion to these people is paramount. It’s just like, Nope, it’s this. This is how you feel. Yeah. And you have to react and act off of that which is not healthy. It’s not healthy.

BRAD: Right? And it’s at the same time, though, you know, there’s, there’s so much good and bad. I don’t want to say good that comes with a mental illness. It’s a mental illness. But yeah, but that, even though I feel like a chump sometimes and I feel like I get taken advantage of. I also kind of feel like that’s the best part of me.

ADAM: I would rather be that than the opposite, right?

BRAD: Selfish and using other people.

ADAM: Exactly. Like what is what does society gain by having another person who does that? Because I’ll tell you right now, there’s a ton of people in this world who do that, right. They’re just like, whatever. You know, me first. You never. And like what is the benefit of having another person like that, okay, if I’m the guy who’s got to, it’s that whole idea of the guy who holds the door while the rest of the platoon gets out the back, right? You know what I mean? Like the guy was like, I’ll be the guy that takes the fall, I’m happy to be the guy that takes the fall. Because I feel like I’m obligated to be that for some reason. I’ll be the guy who, who stays behind and sacrifices himself. And I’m not doing that because I feel like I want to be a hero is because I feel like that is the right thing to do. And that is what you were built to do is what you’re capable of doing. So you do, right. It’s that whole idea of like, we’re both good guys. If we see a wrong happening, we want to rectify it. If there’s a situation where someone is being mistreated, or in any way, shape, or form, we want to step in. And it’s one thing to say someone should step in, and it’s another to have this gear turn on your head and be like, do you have to get in there now? Yeah, you have to save that person, because that’s your job. That is how you are built. And that’s how you’re designed to function. And it’s, it’s not good. Because it puts you in a situation, a dangerous situation it puts you like, I’m not even not even thinking about the people you’re with. Like, what if you’re with your wife? What if you’re with your kids, you know what I mean? And then all of a sudden you see a wrong and you’re like, I’m gonna step in. It’s like, whoa, whoa, what about all this over here? But now all of a sudden your focus is there.

ADAM: One of the main reasons by the way, guys, we started this podcast is because we both want another form of therapy. We want to talk this out. And I feel like neither of us have any answers. Or at least I don’t feel like I have an answer.

BRAD: I don’t even know if there are answers.

ADAM: But verbalizing it. vocalizing how we’re feeling is is part of it.

BRAD: Yeah. And commiserating with someone else who’s been there, right? Because that’s one of the tough things for me. Everybody I hurt last year, when I just had these horrible manic and depressive phases, or mixed state phases, which those mixed feature stages are by far the worst. Jesus. In a nutshell, that’s where you experience the worst of both worlds. So you have the mania and the anxiety and the narcissism and everything that comes with being manic. But at the same time you feel worthless and unlovable.

ADAM: And all this shame upon shame.

BRAD: Oh, the shame and the guilt! You know, and so everyone I hurt last year, I’ll have these conversations with them. And they’re sympathetic. They understand, in a broad context, right mental illness, but they don’t get it.

ADAM: And how can you?

BRAD: If you’ve never experienced it.

ADAM: Yeah, people, people talk about getting excited about something or being like, elated and happy. And I go, the only way I can compare that to is one of my manic highs. That’s what I feel, I feel manic high. And part of me knows that this isn’t exactly what other people are feeling. And that’s what the manic highs is.

BRAD: You’re in this constant state of euphoria. Your brain is flooded. I mean, serotonin, oxytocin, the same chemicals you’re flooded with when you fall in love with someone. And the best way I can describe mania to anybody is imagine being on coke and Molly for a week straight, complete with the crash that would come at the end of it. And that’s pretty much what it’s like. And you get all those chemicals flooding your brain. Mania often makes people think that they’ve fallen in love while they’re in a manic state, because those same chemicals are just washing your brain the entire time, but times 10 Yeah. So it’s not just that you fallen in love. It’s the most intense, wonderful destined to be loved that you could ever experience.

ADAM: You can’t get this person out of your head.

BRAD: 24/7.

ADAM: Just like I have to be with this person. What do they need? I want to give it to them. Do they need rent? Do they need an arm? Here’s my arm. I have two arms. Why wouldn’t I give you one of my arm?

BRAD: And that’s that’s not just bad for the bipolar person. That’s bad for the target of their affection. Right? And you have relationships, you have friendships that are destroyed because you suddenly, because of the mania, think you’ve fallen in love with this person.

ADAM: Sure. Or you know, you come into a relationship at a 11. Right? Like you meet someone and you click and you click with that person and then the next time they see you you’re like, oh, by the way, anything you need. I’m gonna give it. Slow the roll, and I’m like there is no slowing. Yeah, there is no slow in the roll already happening. It’s coming down the hill.

BRAD: Here’s a collage I made of us.

ADAM: I stole your hair in your sleep and made a doll. It’s like, oh my gosh, it’s so frustrating because – and here’s the other interesting part of it because we’re both creatives, right? We will take this mania, and we will put it into our creative outlet. And we will produce in overdrive.

BRAD: Oh man, when I was manic, I would have weeks where I would write a screenplay, three short stories, and 60 pages on a novel without sleeping. You know, one of the first questions my psychiatrist asked, I met her on a Tuesday. She said, Do you find yourself getting overly engrossed when you start a new project? And my response was, Well, I started a new novel on Saturday, and I’m 140 pages into it. So you tell me,

ADAM: I mean, is that normal? Is that what other people do? But that’s the other part of it. Right? Because it’s a creative process. Yeah, how much of this is your creative process? And how much of this is the media? How much of this is just you? Like not reeling yourself in? Not fighting the mania? Right? How much of it is just you diving in and just letting go? Because you can produce amazing stuff. During that mania, the stuff that you just pound out? You know, like, you write a script in 72 hours, and you’re like, dude, nailed it. And then you go back, and you’re like, how is it better to have taken two months to do this? Yeah. And that’s, that’s one of the reasons why a lot of people get misdiagnosed at first people who have Bipolar, they don’t see the mania as a bad thing, right? Yes. And so they only go to see someone when they’re depressed, right? And everybody’s like, Oh, you’re manic depressive. I mean, you just depressive this. You have depression, here’s Zoloft. Here’s… trying to think of another one for just depression right now.

BRAD: Lithium.

ADAM: Sure, sure, sure. And they’re just like, here, this will fix it. And it’s because you’re sitting there going great. The depressive states are going to be dealt with and I guess the ride this mania.

BRAD: And the SSRIs that they give you for depression will trigger manic states. There’s so many things that can trigger a manic state. Too much coffee can trigger a manic state. And I look back on last year, and the things I was doing, just my lifestyle is, it was like I was subconsciously trying to get manic as much as I could do.

ADAM: If I could live in a manic state. I would. Yeah, like 24/7 I would live there.

BRAD: My psychiatrist described it as I constantly have this campfire burning. But last year, I went and got a bunch of oil drums and just kept tossing them into the fire. And it feels great. It’s amazing. This is the thing. The dangerous thing about being manic is not only does it feel great, there’s a period as your mania ramps up where you’re funny. You’re charming. You’re the life of the party. People want to be around you. They find you sexy. You’re flirting like crazy. Then it goes too far.

ADAM: I guarantee any relationship I’ve ever had started when I was in a manic state. Normal Adam or Depressed Adam are not starting a relationship with anyone. That includes friendships.

BRAD: Yeah, depressed Brad… Depressed Brad has pushed a few people away.

ADAM: I would love to live in that manic state all the time. The problem is the crash. The problem is the downs. And you know, we’ll talk about medication on another episode, but it’s that idea of like, the bottom of that pit is too deep. And if anyone ever tells you that you should not be on meds, they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. The bottom of the pit has been risen up. Right. So now it’s not 50 feet deep. Now it’s 10 or 15 feet deep. So a pit, it’s still a down. But it’s not a, you know, don’t talk to me for a week.

BRAD: And the same thing with the mania. It’s not as high. So for me, the mania would – if I could have kept it in that point where I was creative and charming? That would have been great, right? But then it blows past that. And you get more and more into the grandiosity. You’re full of yourself. For me, it was like I was the main character of a TV show I was in and no one else mattered. Everybody else that existed around me existed to serve my story.

BRAD: I became a pathological liar. Which I think was due to the minnows. There’s just 1000 thoughts firing, so you open your mouth and blah.

ADAM: Also, you’re like, I have this to accomplish. What do I need to do to accomplish this thing? I’ll just say this, it’s fine. It’s not a big deal, because of the narcissism, right? You’re just like, oh, this is fine, because I’m more important than everyone.

BRAD: I’d read something a psychiatrist said. So the DSM-5 doesn’t actually consider lying a bipolar symptom. But a lot of psychiatrists do. They think it might come in in the DSM-6 in the next edition. But a lot of psychiatrists do. And if you go on Reddit, or any forums – because Reddit is a great source of information hahaha!

ADAM: I’ll tell you right now, all of my life choices are based off of what I read on Reddit.

BRAD: PubMed exists, folks. You don’t have to go on Reddit and listen to BigGunz69 tell you –

ADAM: How do you know my screen name, bro?

BRAD: I just guessed. But so, the lying, I’d read this interesting thing by a psychiatrist, I believe Carolina Vasquez. Okay, so she was saying that a lot of times in bipolar people, the reason we lie, you’ve got the creativity, you’ve got the cluttered thoughts, all these things, the impulse control, but that we’re trying to express deep psychic truths that we don’t feel the facts support. So for instance, okay, I would have this a lot when I was in a mixed feature state. I would feel so worthless and so unlovable that the only way I could get that across to people was to pretend my wife had told me that, because that would crush you. Right? If your wife told you something like that it would crush you. And that was the intensity of that feeling for me. So the only way I could convey that to other people was to pretend it was told to me.

ADAM: Right. Because you’re not gonna sit there and be like, I feel worthless. Right? But if you sit there and you place blame on another individual, if you’re like, Well, this is because my wife treated me XYZ. Oh, poor Brad. What’s going on with Brad now?

BRAD: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you’re trying to convey these emotions with a story because your brain is racing a mile a minute, you have the manic creativity firing, you’ve got the cluttered brain, you’ve got the grandiosity where it’s like morality kind of ceases to exist. Also, the impulse control, you know, and when you blow past that in the mania you’ve got the risk taking,
you know, a lot of lot of people indulge in drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling. overspending. I find that a really interesting trait and it hit me hard. I mean, you would not believe I’m so embarrassed by the amount of money I blew last year. I will never say. But I find that a really interesting trait. I don’t know how it was for you. But for me, it was like there were no repercussions for my actions. And that included money, that there would not be, you’d never get to a bottom. It was like money was an infinite resource. Because the idea of repercussions was so foreign to me when I was in a manic state.

ADAM: Yeah, yeah, I totally get what you mean, because it’s that whole idea of this is giving me a satisfaction. Yeah, this moment me spending this money in this way is giving me satisfaction. And I deserve this. Because this is what I deserve.

BRAD: The entitlement.

ADAM: That’s the word. Thank you. Entitlement. Like you’re entitled to feel this way. So how could this resource ever run out? If you’re entitled to feel this way?

BRAD: Yeah, I am owed. I’m owed. Because I’m an amazing person. And I’ve gone through some horrible shit. So the world has to pay me back.

ADAM: That’s the fucked up part of it, right? Because you can sit there and be like, I was in these depressed states. So I’ve earned this manic state. I’ve suffered through these, like weeks that I don’t want to get out of bed. So I deserve to feel like a million dollars. I’m gonna spend a million dollars because I deserve this. I’ve earned this. And if the world is right, which by the way, the world does not right –

BRAD: WHAT?

ADAM: I know, I know. You heard it here first. The world is not perfect. Then there’s no way that I will ever be knocked off of this pedestal.

BRAD: And you get frustrated that other people can’t see that about you, right. Like, why don’t you see how wonderful I am or how I deserve this? How can you not understand that I deserved this?

ADAM: Yeah, like, didn’t you see when I was alone in my bedroom for two weeks? They’re like, No, we didn’t. We weren’t there. And I’m like, Don’t you watch my webcam?

BRAD: And it’s funny, because so – on the surface to someone seeing it from the outside, when you’re in those periods of grandiosity during mania. It can look like clinical narcissism. But the motivations are different. So the clinical narcissist is specifically trying to manipulate people. The manipulation is like a side effect of what’s going on in the bipolar brain. We’re not specifically trying to manipulate people. We’re just trying to get them to understand. Why can’t you see my point of view?

ADAM: Exactly right. It’s understanding. That’s all I want. I just want you to be on my level. And they can’t be. So people. Listen, this is what this is going to be. This is what this podcast is going to be. It’s just going to be a discussion about how it feels to be bipolar and how we’re dealing with it. And I know there are a lot of people out there who are not diagnosed. I know there are a lot of people out there who may be diagnosed and they feel like they have no one to talk to. So take what we’re saying here, and
let it affect you. Let it hopefully make you feel like you’re not alone. Because you’re not like, there are people out there who feel the same way you do. And though we may not show the mania and the depression the same way.
We’re going through it too. So please know that you are seen. We care about you and if you have questions or answer – answers, if you have answers, if you can do me a favor and call me like, yeah, please call me. I’d appreciate it.

BRAD: And if you’re not on medication, and we’ll cover this in our next episode. There’s a lot of stigma and misinformation about the medication that goes along with being bipolar. But trust us, it’s what will allow you to control it.

ADAM: Exactly. And how can you have a functional lifestyle without being in control?

BRAD: Yeah. And that’s what the medication does for me. It takes off the highest highs, the lowest lows, but it lets me also realize when an episode is coming on, because I’ve had a few times this year where I started to feel manic, or started to feel depressed, but I was able to recognize it and because of the medication, get myself out of that episode.

ADAM: Exactly. So Brad, I want to say thank you for having this manic idea of doing this podcast.

BRAD: Yeah. It probably was a manic idea.

ADAM: Guys, we’re gonna talk about a lot of different stuff. Girls we’re gonna talk about a lot of different stuff. And I hope as two guys going through this, that you feel some solace and you feel seen. So stay tuned for the next one. We got a lot to talk about.