Tales of Psychiatry Featuring Dr. Ellen Bassuk, Daniel Schoonover and Susanne Antonetta

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Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.

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Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.

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The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.

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Hello. Welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.

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So today, we're going to be talking a lot about psychiatry.

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As a matter of fact, I think the working title is going to be Tales of Psychiatry

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because we have two books that we're going to highlight.

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One was written by a mother and son team

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that deals with a

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mother who was in the profession of psychology dealing with a child who was

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diagnosed with a mental illness and the journey that they had together in dealing with that.

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You know, school and, you know, healthcare professionals, the whole nine yards, right?

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And then I have another young lady who has written a book about connecting the dots, right?

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And her focus was on what happened during World War II or even prior to World

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War II and how people that we—well,

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I say people, I should say that we, I say people in the psychology field or psychiatry field even—.

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These are people that are held in high esteem, but maybe they shouldn't be because

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a lot of the stuff that they did led to what we now know as the Holocaust, right?

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A lot of the science that they did, a lot of the beliefs that they had.

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And she goes deep into that as well as, you know, gets personal with it because

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she's also neurodivergent. And I think that's the term that we should use.

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So it's going to be a really, really good show.

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It's real good discussions. People are being very open and also being very cerebral

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about the issues around mental health in America.

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So, again, I hope that piques your interest.

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It's an issue that I've dealt with personally.

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It's something that touches all

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of us Because we either are

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related to or know somebody That has gone through those challenges So I hope

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that this episode gives you some enlightenment But also gives you some hope

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Because that's what we try to do on this podcast Is continue to give people hope,

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No matter how dark the times are.

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And if you support what this podcast is doing, please show it either through

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subscriptions or, you know, just continue to listen and spread the word.

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You can go to www.momenteric.com and find out anything and everything you want

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to know about the podcast.

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If you missed an episode and you want to go back, you can do it that way.

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So I encourage y'all to do that, and I thank you all for your continued support by listening.

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I want to say this before I do my normal kickoff.

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The young lady, Grace G, that does the news segment, she just recently had a birthday.

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And I let it kind of slip because I could have said something in advance last

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week's episode, but I want to acknowledge the fact that she had a birthday.

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And from what I understand, she had a really, really good time celebrating it.

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And I just want to congratulate her on another year and continue to thank her

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for her contributions to this podcast.

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She has really been a blessing, and I have words can't express the gratitude I have.

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So on that note, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to kick off another episode.

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And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.

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Thanks, Erik. Representative Eric Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress

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and the suspension of his California gubernatorial campaign amid a Manhattan

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District Attorney investigation into multiple allegations of sexual assault.

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Representative Tony Gonzalez of Texas announced his retirement from Congress

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following his admission of an affair with a former staffer who tragically died by self-immolation.

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Progressive Democrat Annelia Mejia won a special election in northern New Jersey

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to fill a vacated House seat.

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Todd Lyons, the acting head of ICE, will leave the agency at the end of May.

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President Trump nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general,

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to serve as the next director of the CDC.

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Authorities confirmed that former Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin in Fairfax

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died in a murder-suicide after fatally shooting his wife, Serena Fairfax,

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at their Annandale home.

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In a historic political shift, Hungary's Viktor Orban was ousted after 16 years

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in power by Peter Majar's TISA party, which secured a supermajority.

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President Trump ordered a U.S. Navy blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to stop

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all maritime traffic to and from Iranian ports.

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A federal judge dismissed President

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Trump's defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal. A U.S.

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Appeals court blocked a lower court's investigation into whether the Trump administration

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willfully ignored orders to halt deportation flights of Venezuelan immigrants.

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Former Vice President Kamala Harris confirmed she is weighing another presidential bid in 2028.

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The World Bank launched its Water Forward Initiative, which aims to provide

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secure water access to 1 billion people within four years across 14 water-stressed countries.

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And NASA's Artemis II mission successfully concluded as the Orion capsule splashed

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down in the Pacific, marking the first time humans returned from the moon in over half a century.

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I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News. Bye.

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All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it is time for my guests, Dr.

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Ellen Bassuk and Daniel Schoonover.

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Ellen Bassuk, MD, is a psychiatrist, researcher, clinician,

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and advocate whose five-decade career has focused on mental health,

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homelessness, and vulnerable populations, especially families and children.

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She has served as associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School

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for nearly 40 years, and is the

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founder of the National Center on Family Homelessness and C4 Innovations.

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The author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications,

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she is a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association,

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has received numerous honors, including an Honorary Doctorate from Northeastern

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University, the Blanche F.

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Idelson Award for the Promotion of Children's Mental Health,

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and the American Psychological Association Distinguished Contribution to Child Advocacy Award.

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She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Her son, Daniel Schoonover, is a devoted animal lover and volunteer committed

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to supporting overlooked creatures and communities.

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With hands-on experience in herpetology and marine life care,

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including work at the Woods Hole Science Aquarium and the MSPCA,

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he has spent much of his life nurturing the natural world.

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Currently studying at the Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation.

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Daniel is deepening his knowledge of spirituality, recovery,

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and wellness while continuing his exploration of herpetology.

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He also volunteers at a food bank, plays electric and acoustic guitar,

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and practices martial arts.

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Whether caring for animals or helping others, Daniel is dedicated to making a meaningful impact.

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Together, Ellen and Daniel wrote the book Between Two Worlds,

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a psychiatrist and her son's quest for compassionate mental health care.

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And we'll be talking about that book and their viewpoints on mental health in

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America during the interview.

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So, ladies and gentlemen, it

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is my distinct honor and privilege to have as guests on this podcast, Dr.

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Ellen Bassuk and Daniel Schoonover.

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All right. Dr. Ellen Bassuk and Daniel, I'm going to mess it up, Schoonover.

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Did I get it right? You got it right. Yay.

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Okay. How y'all doing? Y'all doing good? Yes. Doing great. Doing great.

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Well, I'm glad to have y'all on.

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I think y'all are going to be the first father, I mean father, mother, son,

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author combo that i've had on the show and y'all have written this book called between two worlds.

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And can i can i tell y'all something it was it was a book that you know i felt,

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some relief about it but i felt a little angry when i read it and about huh

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about what parts of Well.

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And we'll get into it, you know, as we get into the interview,

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but I kind of felt angry because of all the stuff that Daniel had to deal with, right?

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And and of course you being

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the mom you know and so

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i didn't i kind

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of thought you know okay yeah there's some

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you know there's going to be some adversity all

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that stuff but it was just kind of like when i was reading it i was

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like going i you know there was one particular part where I have to think back

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to when I was like in kindergarten and my mom had to show up at the school and

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get on a on a teacher and a principal. Right.

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And I just said, and the restraint that you had in certain situations was very admirable.

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But I don't know if I would have handled it as smooth, but we'll get into that

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because I don't want to belabor on my part.

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But I just thought I'd share that with you, that it was very compelling what you wrote.

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So normally what I do is that I start off with icebreakers.

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And so the first icebreaker, Dr. Ellen, what I want you, I want you to answer

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this quote or respond to this quote.

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We have a mental health system that is dominated by political and hidden forces

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that keep us stagnated and unable to see real lasting change.

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What does that quote mean to you?

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From my point of view, the mental health system reflecting some of the problems

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in the general health care system is in relative collapse and needs all kinds

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of sustenance at this point. And.

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It starts from the top down. There aren't enough practitioners.

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There aren't enough beds.

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There's not enough patient responsiveness.

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There's not enough money in the system in rural areas, underserved populations,

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vulnerable populations. The services are very sketchy.

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That's one part of it. The other part of it is that seriously mentally ill people,

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which generally refers to schizophrenia, bipolar, and serious depressions,

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have not been properly or adequately researched at this point.

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And we really don't know a lot about them.

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The DSM, you know, the dictionary that tells you the list, is really just a

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collection of symptoms. It doesn't tell you about course, outcome,

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treatment, most importantly, treatment.

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So there aren't markers for what you need to do to really manage and care for these illnesses.

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And what's happened is that there's been a lot more collaboration now with primary care.

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And they've become, to a large degree, without the seriously mentally ill,

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the primary caretakers for a lot of people with mental health issues.

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The system is shifting and it's not necessarily in a good way.

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So it's basically, to sum it up, it's a mess.

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All right, Daniel, I want you to do the honors of...

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Starting off this icebreaker. Now, either one of you can answer.

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It's what we call 20 questions.

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So either one of you can answer the question. But, Daniel, I want you to pick

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a number between 1 and 20.

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Between 1 and 20? Yeah, this is 13. Okay.

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All right. Y'all's question is, do you think there's such a thing as unbiased news or media and why?

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No no i don't believe there's unbiased news or media because this country is completely divided.

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And and it's it's it's it's not only is it well this country is like literally

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been completely divided and you know ever since it was a country and you know

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i seeing you know fox 25 but seeing CNN,

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yeah, they're both entirely different, an entirely different view,

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and they portray everything entirely differently.

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It's like brainwashing, even.

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Okay. Yeah. Well, go ahead, Doc, if you want to add to that.

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Oh, I think there is a huge amount of misinformation.

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You don't know what's true anymore, what's not true. And given the divisions,

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which have gotten more and more extreme and have excluded large groups of people,

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you can't depend on the news to tell you really what's going on.

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It sure does look bad, though, from all of you. Yeah, it's total.

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Say that again, Daniel? Total disinformation, and it's very confusing.

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And it's very frustrating these days not to be able to know exactly or at least

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pretty much what's going on. It's frustrating.

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Yeah, it's very frustrating. And, you know, I've asked this question to several guests before.

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And mostly everybody is, you know,

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they've kind of, they've all come to the same conclusion that you came to,

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Daniel, but you're the first one to actually say the word brainwashing,

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believe it or not, in all these interviews I've done,

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which, you know, it does seem like that to a degree, you know,

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and if you, but people get defensive when you say that.

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So but I'm glad that you said it out loud.

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So why did I guess?

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Dr. Ellen, this would be more towards you.

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Why did you decide to write between two worlds?

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And then, Daniel, your question would be, why did you decide to help your mom write this book?

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Well, it's one of the only books that I know of that tell the lifelong story

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of serious mental illness and the obstacles that are in the way of adequately

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treating it and the need,

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given the current system and our current state of knowledge.

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To get creative at a certain point.

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I mean, I was a company person at the beginning, you know, trained in,

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I was at Harvard, trained in classical dynamics,

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psychiatry, and it doesn't fit the bill for any of this.

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And so over time, you sort of have to figure out how to step away from the system

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and create something that is going to be meaningful and is going to work.

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And there are emerging models out there, particularly the recovery model,

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which doesn't mean cure.

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The recovery model is in some ways a partial takeoff from some of the AA stuff.

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But we eventually set up our own treatment team, right, Dan? Yes.

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And in fact, some of the caretakers on it are people with lived experience who

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have been there. They know what the system is like. They know what you're up against.

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And they treat the illness as just one part of the human experience.

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It's not the whole person.

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And what began to really make a difference was stepping away.

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But we traveled through it, unfortunately, and Danny suffered a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

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Okay, so why did I choose to take part in writing this book and contribute my time and efforts?

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Well, I knew that if I contributed to this book, it was going to be totally

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relevant to my life anyway.

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That if it got published, it would be one of the greatest achievements of my life.

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And I wanted to address the fact that the system is broken.

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The mental health system and the educational system, it's totally broken these days.

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And I wanted to address that and I wanted to do it carefully,

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and I think it's been done in that manner and I'm really proud of myself for

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being a part of this I would not have refused if I went back in time and I got

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re-asked to be a part of the book I'd say yes,

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no regrets here Yeah, that's cool,

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Doc, how far along were you in your career when Daniel was born.

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Well, let's see, Daniel, is I was fairly far along.

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At that time, I had been on staff at one of the Harvard Teaching Hospitals and

00:22:32.099 --> 00:22:35.979
then went to the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe,

00:22:36.139 --> 00:22:42.999
which was a women's institute that's now called Radcliffe Advanced Studies.

00:22:44.039 --> 00:22:49.079
And it was at that point that Danny was born. And so I was a fellow at the time

00:22:49.079 --> 00:22:54.399
and already in the homeless world.

00:22:55.239 --> 00:23:02.599
Yeah. So how did Daniel's journey impact your life work? Did it good and bad?

00:23:04.999 --> 00:23:11.359
Yeah. So that's kind of like why I led into the interview kind of saying how

00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:15.859
the book made me feel because I kind of got good and bad out of it.

00:23:15.859 --> 00:23:18.779
So how did it impact you, good or bad?

00:23:19.539 --> 00:23:23.199
Well, it was hard going.

00:23:23.719 --> 00:23:30.119
Danny initially had a diagnosis of Tourette, which was very disruptive in the school system.

00:23:30.299 --> 00:23:32.799
They had no clue about how to handle it.

00:23:32.999 --> 00:23:38.779
We had consultants for it, and it made no difference because they don't have

00:23:38.779 --> 00:23:44.759
the training, the resources, the money for any vulnerable,

00:23:45.159 --> 00:23:48.819
disadvantaged groups, including people with no resources.

00:23:48.859 --> 00:23:53.119
They are very disadvantaged in these systems.

00:23:53.539 --> 00:23:58.099
And as we, let's see, where should I take this?

00:23:59.312 --> 00:24:04.752
Okay, I got lost here. Where might they get the funding from?

00:24:05.012 --> 00:24:12.892
They don't have that. Right, and particularly now with this administration of the DEI.

00:24:15.392 --> 00:24:19.392
That's ridiculous. It's just such a huge problem.

00:24:19.832 --> 00:24:25.572
And you can't use those words anymore, and you have to sort of skirt around it.

00:24:25.912 --> 00:24:33.152
But the system is a mess, And they don't fully take care of people.

00:24:33.612 --> 00:24:37.752
Well, yeah, you would want their training of these people to be a bit more rounded.

00:24:38.392 --> 00:24:46.232
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, as I went along, I moved further and further away

00:24:46.232 --> 00:24:48.752
from the traditional system. It wasn't working.

00:24:49.172 --> 00:24:55.312
Right. But I also got involved in the homeless world and with homeless families

00:24:55.312 --> 00:24:58.792
who were, at that point, not even on the map.

00:24:59.312 --> 00:25:05.592
I mean, this goes back to, I started with that in about 1990,

00:25:05.652 --> 00:25:11.512
so it's a long time ago, but it was right at the beginning of family homelessness,

00:25:11.872 --> 00:25:17.912
which is dominated by children below the age of six, many of whom have been traumatized.

00:25:18.772 --> 00:25:24.432
Everybody's poor, they don't have resources, and they need advocates,

00:25:24.572 --> 00:25:29.052
they need people who are going to speak for them, They need to be supported

00:25:29.052 --> 00:25:30.332
to speak for themselves,

00:25:30.672 --> 00:25:37.712
and there still needs to be changes in that part of the system.

00:25:39.112 --> 00:25:45.212
The percentage of severely mentally ill in the homeless population is mainly

00:25:45.212 --> 00:25:51.112
in the unsheltered groups and in the chronic groups, but they're not taken care of.

00:25:51.840 --> 00:25:56.080
And this society should be able to manage it.

00:25:56.320 --> 00:26:04.400
And I felt a certain amount of outrage about it all, and it affected me because it affected my kid.

00:26:04.800 --> 00:26:14.420
And all I could do was either argue with them, which never had any reasonable outcomes,

00:26:14.700 --> 00:26:22.380
so we didn't do that, But to sidestep them and to begin to create our own direction

00:26:22.380 --> 00:26:25.240
that I thought would have a chance.

00:26:25.540 --> 00:26:30.520
I've really supported Danny, and over time, it has.

00:26:31.080 --> 00:26:35.420
But it involved, and this is the direction some of it's going,

00:26:35.800 --> 00:26:39.100
it involved a lot of what they call peer workers,

00:26:39.700 --> 00:26:48.300
people who have been there, people who have had similar difficulties who understand.

00:26:48.540 --> 00:26:51.880
Right. And all this, and building up my treatment team, it helps me.

00:26:52.360 --> 00:26:55.620
But the question is, how do we help everyone else too?

00:26:56.180 --> 00:27:01.920
This book is set in that direction, helping everybody else too. Yeah.

00:27:02.600 --> 00:27:10.980
So, you know, I, my, my experience, even though I did teach for a minute,

00:27:11.360 --> 00:27:14.840
a lot of my life experience as far as work has been law enforcement.

00:27:15.260 --> 00:27:20.760
And I remember there was a situation where fellow deputy had brought somebody

00:27:20.760 --> 00:27:28.520
to the jail and, you know, they described this person as being combative and, you know.

00:27:29.974 --> 00:27:33.814
Being, you know, so they had like disturbing the peace charges, all that stuff.

00:27:34.674 --> 00:27:40.734
And, you know, when I was doing the intake for him, he had an outburst.

00:27:41.714 --> 00:27:46.994
And I just asked him, I said, do you have Tourette's?

00:27:47.354 --> 00:27:52.314
And he looked at me and his eyes got big and he said, yeah, I've been diagnosed with Tourette's.

00:27:52.614 --> 00:27:55.374
And I said, when was the last time you took your medication?

00:27:55.714 --> 00:27:58.474
He said, oh, probably been about a month.

00:27:59.358 --> 00:28:02.918
So I was, and I hadn't been trained

00:28:02.918 --> 00:28:06.898
in that, but I had been exposed to it because I'm a big baseball guy.

00:28:06.998 --> 00:28:12.198
And there was a guy that played baseball I liked named Jim Eisenreich, and he had Tourette's.

00:28:12.898 --> 00:28:17.138
And he made it to the major leagues. And so he would do things like when he

00:28:17.138 --> 00:28:22.118
would come up to bat and the announcer said that. And I was young at the time.

00:28:22.558 --> 00:28:28.078
And the announcer went into this whole thing about Tourette's. So I picked up on that.

00:28:28.798 --> 00:28:33.718
So, you know, the deputy didn't know that. And whoever filed a complaint against

00:28:33.718 --> 00:28:35.898
the man didn't know that, or else he wouldn't have been in the jail.

00:28:37.058 --> 00:28:45.518
So I related to that part when people could not relate to Daniel at the school,

00:28:45.518 --> 00:28:50.018
because it's not just, it's in society in general.

00:28:50.718 --> 00:28:53.598
Which kind of leads me to ask this question with Daniel.

00:28:54.338 --> 00:28:57.518
Your mom can give us the technical term of

00:28:57.518 --> 00:29:00.358
what schizophrenia is but i want you

00:29:00.358 --> 00:29:03.598
to describe it in your own words what what

00:29:03.598 --> 00:29:06.418
what it is not technical terms what

00:29:06.418 --> 00:29:13.938
you might call layman's terms yeah yeah oh oh it's it's so it's a disorder but

00:29:13.938 --> 00:29:19.558
that that's getting technical so basically what's your experience like what's

00:29:19.558 --> 00:29:23.918
my experience like with schizophrenia yeah it's a really,

00:29:24.158 --> 00:29:26.298
really long journey.

00:29:26.518 --> 00:29:33.218
It's like two, one step forward, two steps back again and again and again. But what goes on?

00:29:33.578 --> 00:29:38.838
Well, let's grab some of it. But what goes on is I have my visual and auditory

00:29:38.838 --> 00:29:40.058
hallucinations all day.

00:29:41.416 --> 00:29:47.356
I don't go 15 minutes without hearing them. And it's really hard to explain

00:29:47.356 --> 00:29:50.176
to somebody that they need to take meds that are very sedating,

00:29:50.996 --> 00:29:57.236
when they don't understand or don't think that the meds are helping them through the entire thing.

00:29:57.696 --> 00:30:01.816
So basically what it is, it's a major disruption in my life,

00:30:01.816 --> 00:30:05.036
and it's a major distraction for me to do.

00:30:05.036 --> 00:30:14.816
I do, and I can't reach my full potential when I have this issue with being schizophrenic. Yeah.

00:30:16.276 --> 00:30:20.916
So, Daniel, did you know or have a sense when you were growing up that you were

00:30:20.916 --> 00:30:22.396
different than other children?

00:30:23.216 --> 00:30:26.496
I always did. And if you did, how did that make you feel?

00:30:27.196 --> 00:30:33.356
You know, I always knew that I was different from when I was a kid.

00:30:33.356 --> 00:30:39.136
I always knew I was different, and I prefer to be different.

00:30:39.316 --> 00:30:41.676
Some people are just different. I'm not like everybody else.

00:30:42.016 --> 00:30:46.236
That was to begin with, but then my tribulations begun, and I'm not.

00:30:46.809 --> 00:30:49.689
That's something that's actually similar to other people. Like,

00:30:49.969 --> 00:30:53.549
I'm different myself, but if I meet other people who hear voices,

00:30:53.869 --> 00:30:55.729
I'm, like, similar to them in that way.

00:30:56.189 --> 00:31:01.529
You know, me and other schizophrenics, we share the same symptoms,

00:31:01.769 --> 00:31:08.229
yet our personalities and, you know, the way we are internally are different.

00:31:09.169 --> 00:31:11.929
So, yeah, I was different ever since I was a kid. Yeah.

00:31:13.129 --> 00:31:19.269
What did you do? tell us some of the things that you did to help help you cope

00:31:19.269 --> 00:31:28.209
with with this illness yes to cope with this illness i had ever since a few

00:31:28.209 --> 00:31:30.149
years after i developed this illness.

00:31:31.729 --> 00:31:35.089
I started doing things to ignore

00:31:35.089 --> 00:31:37.949
my visual and auditory hallucinations because they

00:31:37.949 --> 00:31:41.149
were unrelenting and they were abusive at first i used

00:31:41.149 --> 00:31:44.849
to like bounce a tennis ball i used to chew gum you

00:31:44.849 --> 00:31:47.509
know i used to turn music up i used to

00:31:47.509 --> 00:31:51.269
do all that to ignore my symptoms and then i

00:31:51.269 --> 00:31:54.789
i got a job at home depot i was an essential worker during

00:31:54.789 --> 00:31:59.889
the covid crisis at home depot and what i was doing the work they had me there

00:31:59.889 --> 00:32:04.809
like stocking shelves and helping walking around doing all kinds of tasks all

00:32:04.809 --> 00:32:10.069
day long i think it worked it sorted out my brain because the voices are basically

00:32:10.069 --> 00:32:11.569
You know, my brain was firing,

00:32:11.789 --> 00:32:17.849
and I felt like it sorted out my brain, and the voices became more benevolent, actually.

00:32:18.289 --> 00:32:22.909
And ever since then, I hear them all day long, and I hallucinate all day long,

00:32:22.969 --> 00:32:26.629
but they're not abusive like they used to be. Yeah.

00:32:27.729 --> 00:32:32.249
So, Doc, there's a chapter in the book named after this quote from Daniel.

00:32:32.529 --> 00:32:38.029
It doesn't matter, Mom. I didn't go to school anyway. I only went to timeout.

00:32:38.029 --> 00:32:44.809
So this was the point where you and Daniel's father thought it was best for

00:32:44.809 --> 00:32:46.549
Daniel to be homeschooled.

00:32:46.629 --> 00:32:50.689
Was that demoralizing or a liberating moment?

00:32:51.706 --> 00:32:54.746
I think it was a very liberating moment, actually. Okay.

00:32:56.846 --> 00:33:01.926
Very liberating not to go to school. Finally not to go to school, even.

00:33:02.466 --> 00:33:09.286
And I learned at home. I had tutors, several different tutors,

00:33:09.326 --> 00:33:12.826
which were all very nice people and very helpful.

00:33:13.666 --> 00:33:18.406
And I did try to study at Tufts University for the GED.

00:33:19.486 --> 00:33:22.906
Eventually, I did go back to high school, and I did graduate at 18,

00:33:23.166 --> 00:33:24.966
and I never thought I would graduate.

00:33:25.206 --> 00:33:28.206
I thought I would graduate like at 30 years old. I managed to do it at 18.

00:33:29.660 --> 00:33:36.620
But when I went back to school, I was under, I was able to, you know,

00:33:36.680 --> 00:33:44.520
I didn't have these pre-diagnosis, which were like Tourette's syndrome, OCD, all that abated.

00:33:44.840 --> 00:33:48.500
And after I graduated from high school at age 19, at age 18,

00:33:48.700 --> 00:33:55.920
excuse me, I went to a halfway house for people that were in psychiatric units,

00:33:56.160 --> 00:33:59.780
and it's nearby, it was in Massachusetts,

00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:07.440
and living there, I then developed schizophrenia, and it was a disaster, it was unexpected.

00:34:07.480 --> 00:34:12.420
I never knew I would be hit with that disease in my life, and it was a shock

00:34:12.420 --> 00:34:18.020
to me and a lot of people that I became so mentally decrepitated,

00:34:18.300 --> 00:34:23.360
and I needed help, and I was in an environment where the help wasn't getting to me yet.

00:34:24.340 --> 00:34:28.900
Yeah. So, Mom, was it demoralizing and liberating for you?

00:34:29.940 --> 00:34:35.560
Well, it was both, because it was clearly the end of the traditional system,

00:34:36.300 --> 00:34:42.320
and setting up an alternative system at home had a lot of difficulties.

00:34:42.320 --> 00:34:46.700
There were a lot of challenges with it, and Danny eventually,

00:34:47.100 --> 00:34:53.780
as he mentioned, was in this residential facility, And that's when the schizophrenia,

00:34:54.080 --> 00:34:56.900
that's when the voices emerged, which we didn't know.

00:34:58.040 --> 00:35:03.820
Danny, you can talk about this, but Danny didn't talk about them much until

00:35:03.820 --> 00:35:10.640
he was somewhat older and until really the big hospitalization happened.

00:35:11.439 --> 00:35:16.479
In which the voices were very prominent and really took over.

00:35:17.099 --> 00:35:24.319
And that was a hard go. So it's like trappings of both.

00:35:24.499 --> 00:35:30.679
And being outside the traditional system doesn't necessarily give you a lot

00:35:30.679 --> 00:35:33.819
of confidence about what you're doing.

00:35:35.239 --> 00:35:41.039
But the workers that we had were, as Danny mentioned,

00:35:41.319 --> 00:35:48.619
were very empathic people who viewed Danny as a kid struggling to grow up rather

00:35:48.619 --> 00:35:50.299
than a diagnostic label.

00:35:51.059 --> 00:35:53.079
That makes a big difference.

00:35:54.759 --> 00:35:59.519
Danny, did you want to add something to that? Not as of yet. Okay. All right.

00:36:00.279 --> 00:36:04.599
So, Danny, let me ask you this. How did your time at side-by-side assist you

00:36:04.599 --> 00:36:06.139
in being more productive?

00:36:07.419 --> 00:36:12.619
And also, you found this thing called Hearing Voices Network.

00:36:12.879 --> 00:36:18.859
So how did those two things help you better cope?

00:36:19.519 --> 00:36:25.379
I felt like side-by-side was a trial period before seeing if I could live more

00:36:25.379 --> 00:36:27.799
independently than I got to live at side-by-side.

00:36:29.419 --> 00:36:36.939
And so, at Side by Side, you know, keeping busy, you know, not busier than I

00:36:36.939 --> 00:36:39.779
can handle these days, but it's always been with me.

00:36:40.059 --> 00:36:43.479
Keeping busy enough but not busier than I can handle has always been one of

00:36:43.479 --> 00:36:46.419
my objectives, is to remain somewhat busy.

00:36:47.519 --> 00:36:48.939
And that's basically...

00:36:50.095 --> 00:36:53.935
Part of my treatment is actually making sure that I have something to do and

00:36:53.935 --> 00:36:57.075
not just sitting around all day listening to voices and paying attention to

00:36:57.075 --> 00:37:01.155
my hallucinations all day because that's not productive at all.

00:37:01.595 --> 00:37:10.535
But also the grounds for your movement after that into independent living. Right.

00:37:11.355 --> 00:37:17.715
Which made a huge difference. You're right. You go from phase one to phase two to phase three.

00:37:18.415 --> 00:37:23.555
You don't go from phase one to phase three during recovery. It's just that way.

00:37:23.795 --> 00:37:31.775
So I felt like being hospitalized was like phase one, side by side.

00:37:32.155 --> 00:37:36.775
Then eventually I came around to side by side phase two, phase three. I live on my own.

00:37:37.375 --> 00:37:41.875
Before I went to side by side, after I had gotten out of the psych unit,

00:37:42.195 --> 00:37:46.295
I was in Cape Cod and I had a job working at a plant nursery.

00:37:46.875 --> 00:37:51.055
And I liked it a lot but me being under the microscope,

00:37:52.035 --> 00:37:56.495
finally it was sort of decided that I could use a little more care for a while

00:37:56.495 --> 00:38:03.455
and a little more attention for a while before moving on so I felt like like I said before,

00:38:03.675 --> 00:38:09.315
some of this for me has been like one step forward and two steps back but then

00:38:09.315 --> 00:38:12.075
it goes forward again it's just you know.

00:38:13.915 --> 00:38:17.175
It's just not a straight shot To my goals.

00:38:17.335 --> 00:38:21.415
It's not, it's not, it's a, it's a pretty, it's a crooked road to my goals.

00:38:21.795 --> 00:38:23.775
Out of state. Yeah.

00:38:24.735 --> 00:38:28.135
Um, what'd you say? Crooked mile. Yeah.

00:38:29.435 --> 00:38:36.855
Okay. So this lady named Tamara Hill had written a book called Mental Health

00:38:36.855 --> 00:38:38.915
in a Failed American System.

00:38:39.055 --> 00:38:44.655
And she said, the presuming social view that mental health is not as serious

00:38:44.655 --> 00:38:46.975
as the media says it is, blots progress.

00:38:47.675 --> 00:38:53.795
So this is for Dr. Ellen. Do you feel that the media plays a part in how we

00:38:53.795 --> 00:38:57.695
view and deal with mental illness? You bet it does.

00:38:57.995 --> 00:39:03.375
Yes, it's seen very pejoratively. It's seen very negatively.

00:39:04.415 --> 00:39:08.315
It's portrayed in very strange ways.

00:39:08.595 --> 00:39:14.575
It has a lot of the trappings of the old views of serious mental illness.

00:39:15.395 --> 00:39:21.635
And it's focused now much more on anxiety and depression in the kids.

00:39:21.935 --> 00:39:28.475
So it has stayed away from, I think, one of the major groups that needs to be

00:39:28.475 --> 00:39:33.075
attended to, which are people with serious mental illness with the big disorders

00:39:33.075 --> 00:39:34.995
that interrupt their lives.

00:39:35.435 --> 00:39:39.855
And the government has, by and large, stayed away from that.

00:39:40.355 --> 00:39:47.135
And now it feels hopeless. It's in the private sector, mainly. Yeah.

00:39:47.895 --> 00:39:52.875
You wrote, Dr. Ellen, in the book, history has taught us that neither the hospital

00:39:52.875 --> 00:39:57.215
nor the community are inherently more humane,

00:39:57.375 --> 00:40:02.895
but rather that social justice issues and civil rights must be combined with

00:40:02.895 --> 00:40:07.595
moral treatment and recovery approaches. Expound on that for us.

00:40:08.667 --> 00:40:17.967
Well, there's a huge amount of stigma, prejudice, distinctions among social groups.

00:40:18.647 --> 00:40:21.507
There's, I think, a lot of racism in it.

00:40:21.987 --> 00:40:25.867
It's because the resources are so limited.

00:40:26.267 --> 00:40:31.267
There are large groups of people who are excluded. They're not taken care of.

00:40:31.647 --> 00:40:38.447
And our society doesn't seem to feel that they need to do it.

00:40:38.667 --> 00:40:42.687
I mean, if you take a look at the school shootings, you'd come away thinking

00:40:42.687 --> 00:40:46.507
that they're done by people with serious mental illness.

00:40:47.067 --> 00:40:49.267
Statistically, that's completely untrue.

00:40:49.927 --> 00:40:57.647
And there's so many misconceptions, and there has been historically, about mental illness.

00:40:57.947 --> 00:41:03.287
There are pejorative terms, and people are afraid also.

00:41:04.553 --> 00:41:13.233
They're very fearful of the major disorders, and they really can disrupt completely people's lives.

00:41:14.953 --> 00:41:21.373
The media doesn't portray it realistically when they portray it,

00:41:21.493 --> 00:41:26.593
and most of the time, they don't. It's a non-issue right now.

00:41:26.813 --> 00:41:31.973
The largest percentage of homeless people now are homeless families.

00:41:31.973 --> 00:41:36.273
The largest number of people in homeless families are children,

00:41:36.593 --> 00:41:37.953
six years old and younger.

00:41:38.473 --> 00:41:45.113
And there's no, I haven't seen anything in the media about that group.

00:41:45.453 --> 00:41:52.173
And it's a huge group now. And they're young mothers with little kids,

00:41:52.593 --> 00:42:02.093
many of whom are DV survivors or have traumatic histories and completely ignored.

00:42:02.373 --> 00:42:09.613
And the media, you know, focuses on what happens at the encampments and anything that's sensational.

00:42:09.853 --> 00:42:12.233
They sensationalize mental illness.

00:42:12.873 --> 00:42:18.933
Yeah. And then the other piece is what they, this thing called Penrose Law,

00:42:19.173 --> 00:42:24.753
which suggests that there's the inverse correlation between psychiatric beds

00:42:24.753 --> 00:42:25.973
and prison populations.

00:42:25.973 --> 00:42:32.073
So as mental health hospitals close, incarceration rates increase.

00:42:32.573 --> 00:42:42.633
And you can say homelessness as well because, you know, a lot of those, a lot of people.

00:42:43.293 --> 00:42:49.013
They're not going to be given the opportunity like Daniel and be allowed to

00:42:49.013 --> 00:42:53.773
have housing and all that stuff. So, yeah.

00:42:54.473 --> 00:42:58.893
So let me let me say let me ask you this question so we can kind of close it out.

00:42:59.493 --> 00:43:05.553
Besides reading your book, what can be done to increase advocacy towards mental

00:43:05.553 --> 00:43:08.833
health and diminish the stigma associated with it?

00:43:09.784 --> 00:43:15.544
Well, I think one of the groups that needs to be appealed to are parents of

00:43:15.544 --> 00:43:18.984
kids with mental health issues of any kind.

00:43:19.484 --> 00:43:22.724
And I think they need to become advocates.

00:43:23.004 --> 00:43:28.224
They need to protect their kids. They need to accept the fact that their kids

00:43:28.224 --> 00:43:32.824
may be different. So what? everybody's different in different ways.

00:43:33.544 --> 00:43:42.604
There needs to be a lot of press about the realities, mental illness, and there isn't.

00:43:43.064 --> 00:43:47.544
It's just sensational distortions from what I can tell.

00:43:47.864 --> 00:43:56.044
So I think a huge amount has to be done because the stigma is huge and it remains.

00:43:56.524 --> 00:44:03.564
And unfortunately, the more vulnerable groups are people who are poorly resourced.

00:44:04.761 --> 00:44:09.401
And, I mean, that's always true, and it's particularly true in this country. Yeah.

00:44:10.001 --> 00:44:15.081
So, Daniel, what advice would you give young people that are struggling with mental health issues?

00:44:15.961 --> 00:44:20.101
Struggling with mental health issues is to get treatment.

00:44:20.241 --> 00:44:25.981
If you can't afford treatment, there are places that there's hotlines you can call.

00:44:26.161 --> 00:44:30.461
There's places like, you know, I worked at a place called Webster House.

00:44:30.461 --> 00:44:35.261
It was a day place for people with psychiatric problems, psychological problems.

00:44:35.541 --> 00:44:39.941
You know, I worked in the kitchen there. It's free. They can come there and

00:44:39.941 --> 00:44:46.521
be amongst that community and then begin their self-work as well as, you know,

00:44:46.661 --> 00:44:51.741
have their self-work augmented by all the people that are available.

00:44:51.961 --> 00:44:55.181
There's always something available to get treatment in some way,

00:44:55.181 --> 00:44:58.941
you know, that doesn't cost a lot of money.

00:44:59.061 --> 00:45:04.181
There's day places to go. There's groups you can join, virtual ones online and

00:45:04.181 --> 00:45:08.261
in person, and you should reach out and try that.

00:45:08.461 --> 00:45:16.281
And the supports are critical for both the target patient and the families.

00:45:17.958 --> 00:45:25.778
Yeah. So I'm asking all of my guests this question or giving them this challenge,

00:45:25.798 --> 00:45:26.778
however you want to look at it.

00:45:27.178 --> 00:45:30.298
I need you to finish this sentence.

00:45:30.998 --> 00:45:36.958
And if both of y'all can do it or just want it, it doesn't matter. I have hope because.

00:45:39.438 --> 00:45:45.678
Okay. Answer that, Danny. I am not 100% hopeful all the time.

00:45:45.678 --> 00:45:48.558
You know, I have hope because I'm still alive.

00:45:49.418 --> 00:45:53.178
Is that good? Hey, that's your answer. That's great.

00:45:54.658 --> 00:46:06.318
That's my answer. And I suppose the general arc of history is towards justice and care.

00:46:06.998 --> 00:46:12.338
But, boy, in these times, it's really been challenged.

00:46:12.998 --> 00:46:21.958
Yeah. There's so much going on that is very offensive and particularly,

00:46:21.978 --> 00:46:27.598
I mean, it's for everybody, but the groups we deal with are targeted.

00:46:28.178 --> 00:46:34.158
Yeah. So hopefully now that we've gone through the interview, you kind of understand.

00:46:35.576 --> 00:46:41.796
How I responded to the book because as somebody that's been an elected official

00:46:41.796 --> 00:46:48.516
and somebody has been an advocate for more funding at the government level for

00:46:48.516 --> 00:46:52.576
mental health and pushing for awareness,

00:46:53.596 --> 00:47:01.536
it frustrates me that somebody who not only has been a professional in the field,

00:47:01.596 --> 00:47:05.596
but also has a personal experience with it,

00:47:05.996 --> 00:47:10.616
is just the hoops that you've had to go through, the struggles.

00:47:11.776 --> 00:47:19.736
When Daniel talks about his experience at Manville, he said he was manhandled

00:47:19.736 --> 00:47:25.416
instead of just, like I said, as a parent myself,

00:47:26.336 --> 00:47:29.556
that described me crazy.

00:47:29.556 --> 00:47:32.976
And nuts and just, you know, want to lash out.

00:47:33.136 --> 00:47:38.116
But the way that you handled it, and I know you had frustrations and stuff because

00:47:38.116 --> 00:47:39.136
you reveal that in the book,

00:47:39.196 --> 00:47:45.256
but the way that you handled it gives hope that there is a way that you can

00:47:45.256 --> 00:47:49.516
channel that anger and frustration and do something constructive.

00:47:50.396 --> 00:47:54.216
And, you know, when I look at Daniel in this interview, you know,

00:47:54.376 --> 00:48:04.436
I can see the love and the end result of the consideration and care that you put into him,

00:48:05.416 --> 00:48:09.096
to have as normal a life as he could have.

00:48:09.936 --> 00:48:16.576
And Daniel, I will say to you that you are, your answer was correct.

00:48:17.276 --> 00:48:22.996
It's like because you are alive and because you are still working through it,

00:48:22.996 --> 00:48:30.216
it's an inspiration and it's very hopeful to me and hopefully it'll be hopeful for others as well.

00:48:31.894 --> 00:48:34.834
Go ahead, Doc. I'm sorry. Well, we hope so.

00:48:35.034 --> 00:48:40.594
That was the reason for writing the book, that other families could benefit by our experience.

00:48:40.874 --> 00:48:45.714
I feel that very likely never to live a completely normal life,

00:48:45.834 --> 00:48:47.494
but I can live a good life.

00:48:48.174 --> 00:48:51.274
You know, I can help other people live good lives, even if they can't live normal

00:48:51.274 --> 00:48:53.734
lives because of their conditions.

00:48:54.734 --> 00:49:00.754
Yeah. All right. So how can people get this book? How can people reach out to either one of y'all?

00:49:01.054 --> 00:49:02.974
Go ahead and take the time to do that.

00:49:03.994 --> 00:49:07.694
Amazon. Amazon has a whole stack of them.

00:49:08.034 --> 00:49:11.494
Yeah, they've been selling out on Amazon. Yeah, they've been selling,

00:49:11.714 --> 00:49:14.614
it looks like, I think fairly well.

00:49:15.274 --> 00:49:20.634
And the reviews have been very good. But Amazon is the most successful.

00:49:21.114 --> 00:49:24.714
The big booksellers all have the book. Okay.

00:49:25.714 --> 00:49:28.794
It's readily accessible. I went to the bookstore.

00:49:28.994 --> 00:49:31.814
It's not on the shelf at the bookstore yet, but it is online,

00:49:32.034 --> 00:49:34.254
available online, and it's selling out quick.

00:49:35.114 --> 00:49:43.274
Okay. Well, Dr. Ellen Bassuk and Daniel Schoonover, I really appreciate you taking

00:49:43.274 --> 00:49:46.994
the time not only to write the book, but to come on the podcast.

00:49:47.854 --> 00:49:51.314
And I do this for all my guests.

00:49:51.554 --> 00:49:56.114
If you have, now that you've been on, you have an open invitation to come back.

00:49:56.114 --> 00:50:00.754
If there's some issues that you think that need to be addressed and you need

00:50:00.754 --> 00:50:09.814
a platform, feel free to come on and we'll reach out to B and we'll make sure that we'll get you on.

00:50:10.174 --> 00:50:13.854
But I greatly appreciate y'all coming on and talking about this.

00:50:14.174 --> 00:50:17.634
And thank you for inviting us. Yes. Enjoyed talking to you.

00:50:18.294 --> 00:50:20.734
All right, guys. And we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

00:50:41.527 --> 00:50:45.847
Time for our next guest, Susanne Antonetta.

00:50:46.807 --> 00:50:53.087
Susanne Paola Antonetta is the author of The Terrible Unlikelihood of Our Being

00:50:53.087 --> 00:50:57.807
Here and numerous other works of non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.

00:50:58.147 --> 00:51:03.347
Her accolades include a New York Times Notable Book, an American Book Award,

00:51:03.827 --> 00:51:06.847
a Library Journal Best Science Book, and others.

00:51:07.167 --> 00:51:14.087
She writes for Psychology Today, the New York Times, Ms., The Huffington Post,

00:51:14.287 --> 00:51:20.687
The UK Independent, The Hill, Orion, and The New Republic, and has been featured on CNN.

00:51:21.127 --> 00:51:26.167
She lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Her new book is The Devil's Castle,

00:51:26.527 --> 00:51:33.147
Nazi Eugenics, Euthanasia, and How Psychiatry's Troubled History Reverberates Today.

00:51:33.327 --> 00:51:37.607
And we are going to get into that book during the interview.

00:51:37.787 --> 00:51:41.587
So ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a

00:51:41.587 --> 00:51:45.607
guest on this podcast, Susanne Antonetta.

00:51:58.649 --> 00:52:03.049
How are you doing, ma'am? You doing good? I'm doing well. It's a beautiful day

00:52:03.049 --> 00:52:05.229
here in North Carolina, so I'm good.

00:52:05.749 --> 00:52:11.189
Yeah, well, you're not that far from me. I'm in Atlanta. And so, yeah, it's nice out.

00:52:11.549 --> 00:52:16.929
Of course, they got the burn warnings going on, so... Sure, sure.

00:52:17.189 --> 00:52:19.289
Trying to make sure people don't start no fires.

00:52:20.249 --> 00:52:26.149
But other than that, I like warm weather, so I don't mind it at all.

00:52:26.149 --> 00:52:29.289
It doesn't matter what time of year it is, as long as it's warm, I'm good.

00:52:29.709 --> 00:52:34.489
So we're going to talk about your book, The Devil's Castle.

00:52:35.809 --> 00:52:40.489
And I found it very, very informative. Thank you.

00:52:41.149 --> 00:52:45.009
And, you know, and how you got your point across.

00:52:45.449 --> 00:52:48.749
And so we won't be able to, because I want people to read the book.

00:52:48.869 --> 00:52:52.269
So I won't, we'll just be scratching the surface with the questions.

00:52:52.909 --> 00:52:55.909
But you put a lot into it, I could tell.

00:52:56.149 --> 00:53:01.189
Sure. I did. Yes, I did. Yeah. And that'll come out in the interview as well.

00:53:01.369 --> 00:53:07.149
So what I want to do is start it off. And normally, I try to pull a quote to

00:53:07.149 --> 00:53:08.689
kind of get the conversation started.

00:53:09.229 --> 00:53:15.609
But what I decided to do with you was to pull an excerpt from the book to get you to respond to this.

00:53:16.069 --> 00:53:22.249
I would love that. All right. So when I was 12, I wrote in my diary that life

00:53:22.249 --> 00:53:30.649
was a sort of play and humans were characters wearing garments of such complexity and intricacy.

00:53:30.829 --> 00:53:35.009
It dazzles the one who is slow enough to think about it.

00:53:35.955 --> 00:53:39.995
Slowness to think about it, I indicated, was not normal.

00:53:40.175 --> 00:53:43.975
To be slow enough was to allow your brain to break the rules.

00:53:44.095 --> 00:53:49.275
I felt then that I could do this, and my difference let those garments.

00:53:49.675 --> 00:53:54.955
I think, young as I was, I chose a word to have more magic than clothing.

00:53:55.635 --> 00:54:00.095
Dazzle. I don't know how I appeared to others as I watched those garments.

00:54:00.275 --> 00:54:05.695
I imagined I seemed socially awkward, but this is the version of the story I

00:54:05.695 --> 00:54:07.915
want to live. Talk to me about that quote.

00:54:09.056 --> 00:54:12.576
Sure, absolutely. Well, just to give people listening an overview,

00:54:12.816 --> 00:54:16.576
since they won't be familiar with the book, it talks about what happened in

00:54:16.576 --> 00:54:22.536
Germany leading up to World War II and during World War II, where they actually eliminated,

00:54:22.956 --> 00:54:27.136
killed in gas chambers, a large number of their psychiatric population.

00:54:27.756 --> 00:54:31.636
The total would probably be in all the territories they were occupying in Germany

00:54:31.636 --> 00:54:34.676
itself, two to three hundred thousand people.

00:54:35.456 --> 00:54:41.576
So, and the gas chambers were actually developed for people with psychiatric diagnoses.

00:54:42.056 --> 00:54:45.236
And one of the things I'm arguing is that we are getting to the point where

00:54:45.236 --> 00:54:48.516
we're medicalizing humanity, we're medicalizing everything.

00:54:49.196 --> 00:54:54.216
And that for many of us, you know, I'm very neurodiverse, simply existing as

00:54:54.216 --> 00:55:01.376
who we are can work with support rather than medicalizing, rather than medicating.

00:55:01.576 --> 00:55:06.236
And as the book goes on to discuss in the United States, and I go to the post-war

00:55:06.236 --> 00:55:12.076
period, that medicalizing was actually turned against things like women in menopause,

00:55:12.116 --> 00:55:14.876
and something that I write about quite extensively,

00:55:15.376 --> 00:55:19.396
the anger of Black protesters in the 1960s.

00:55:19.676 --> 00:55:24.356
They're actually psychiatrists suggesting that It was something called discontrol

00:55:24.356 --> 00:55:30.736
syndrome that caused people to, we call them race riots, I call them protests,

00:55:31.116 --> 00:55:37.896
that caused this to happen and that it should be fixed by brain manipulation, not social justice.

00:55:38.856 --> 00:55:44.876
So in using my own story, I think I'm really arguing for let's look at what

00:55:44.876 --> 00:55:49.156
we are doing, how we're thinking about the mind, and let's look at it differently.

00:55:49.716 --> 00:55:53.896
Okay. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.

00:55:54.596 --> 00:56:01.196
Sure. So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20. Oh, let's say 8. Okay.

00:56:01.736 --> 00:56:07.896
What is one thing you hope the current administration will do or not do during this term?

00:56:09.353 --> 00:56:13.933
Oh, my Lord, getting that down to one thing. Can I say just stop?

00:56:14.233 --> 00:56:19.073
I'm going to say just stop and leave it at that. Okay, that'll be good.

00:56:19.673 --> 00:56:25.373
All right. So what led you to write this book and how did you come about the title?

00:56:26.313 --> 00:56:30.393
Well, the title comes from one of my kind of positive characters.

00:56:30.653 --> 00:56:34.973
There's several historical characters in there. And one was a German judge named

00:56:34.973 --> 00:56:38.453
Paul Schraber who was committed for life.

00:56:39.033 --> 00:56:42.793
And he was committed to an institution that would go on to become one of these

00:56:42.793 --> 00:56:46.593
gas chambers used by the Nazi euthanasia program.

00:56:47.013 --> 00:56:54.213
So in the late 1800s, he gets to this place, Sarnstein, where he's being forced to, you know, stay.

00:56:54.933 --> 00:56:59.913
And he said, oh, this is the devil's castle. And he kind of saw corpses there.

00:57:00.153 --> 00:57:05.333
So one of the things I write about is how much what we think of as neurodiversity

00:57:05.333 --> 00:57:09.493
is sometimes noticing things that are happening that maybe more neurotypical

00:57:09.493 --> 00:57:11.333
people just aren't picking up on.

00:57:11.713 --> 00:57:16.673
And when I started the book was learning about the Nazis, just this program

00:57:16.673 --> 00:57:18.873
to eliminate the mentally ill.

00:57:18.973 --> 00:57:23.713
I mean, I knew, and I don't like that phrase, but I'll use it for ease.

00:57:23.913 --> 00:57:28.433
I mean, I think we know now that they, you know, attack Jews,

00:57:28.733 --> 00:57:34.013
homosexuals, Roma, and Sinti peoples, But this, to me, was a story that had

00:57:34.013 --> 00:57:38.253
really been lost and was not widely known.

00:57:38.753 --> 00:57:45.093
It's not just that they did that, too, but that they started with the psychiatric population.

00:57:45.853 --> 00:57:50.993
And so many historians, like one I quote, Getzali, said, if people had gone

00:57:50.993 --> 00:57:56.293
out in Germany and protested, this action, which you could see them doing in

00:57:56.293 --> 00:57:58.913
the very early 40s before the war,

00:57:59.933 --> 00:58:03.593
Hitler would not have done what he did with the concentration camps.

00:58:03.653 --> 00:58:06.173
He would have known that he wasn't going to get away with it.

00:58:06.413 --> 00:58:10.453
So I wanted to tell that story because I think we're always kind of on some

00:58:10.453 --> 00:58:13.573
of those slippery slopes as a culture. Yeah.

00:58:14.647 --> 00:58:16.107
All right. Before we get too deep,

00:58:16.327 --> 00:58:21.807
I need you to define two things for the listeners. The first is eugenics.

00:58:22.507 --> 00:58:28.247
Sure. Eugenics was a theory that actually started in the late 1800s with a very

00:58:28.247 --> 00:58:32.647
odd cousin of Charles Darwin named Francis Galton.

00:58:33.107 --> 00:58:37.767
It literally means good genes, although at the time he didn't know what DNA was.

00:58:37.907 --> 00:58:43.887
But there were theories that there was kind of this genetic germplasm that is passed on.

00:58:44.147 --> 00:58:49.187
And, you know, it's kind of the belief that genes are everything and that you

00:58:49.187 --> 00:58:53.507
control the population by controlling who reproduces and how much they reproduce,

00:58:53.787 --> 00:58:59.347
whether you do that through eliminating a population so it cannot reproduce,

00:58:59.727 --> 00:59:06.327
segregating that population, or simply trying to keep birth rates down in certain populations.

00:59:07.553 --> 00:59:11.993
And we, I think, still live with a lot of eugenics in our cultural thinking.

00:59:13.073 --> 00:59:17.393
So that's one idea, that genes kind of shape us into who we are.

00:59:17.893 --> 00:59:22.773
And I want to throw in here that I just wrote a piece for Slate about Jeffrey Epstein.

00:59:22.933 --> 00:59:27.953
Jeffrey Epstein and his kind of crowd were very obsessed with genes and eugenics

00:59:27.953 --> 00:59:29.493
and genetic manipulation.

00:59:30.473 --> 00:59:35.833
So it is very much still here. And I think I answered part one and forgot part

00:59:35.833 --> 00:59:39.073
two, Erik. I'm so sorry. Was there another part to that question?

00:59:39.313 --> 00:59:41.233
Well, no, I hadn't asked part two yet, but.

00:59:41.493 --> 00:59:44.973
Oh, I'm sorry. Before we get to part two. I tend to do that. That's okay.

00:59:45.173 --> 00:59:51.733
But before we get to part two, you know, one of the things that you mentioned, Jeffrey Epstein.

00:59:52.013 --> 00:59:56.233
So a lot of people would say, oh, eugenics. Well, that's, that sounds like some

00:59:56.233 --> 00:59:57.433
kind of conservative thing.

00:59:57.433 --> 01:00:02.313
The history of the United States is that a lot of, quote unquote,

01:00:02.613 --> 01:00:08.273
liberals were into eugenics, especially in the early 20th century.

01:00:08.633 --> 01:00:12.953
And that was part of the argument why people were against climate change,

01:00:12.953 --> 01:00:15.893
because they were saying that was a form of eugenics, too.

01:00:16.393 --> 01:00:19.313
You know, population control, all that kind of stuff.

01:00:19.673 --> 01:00:26.033
So I wanted to lay that out because that's one of your arguments in the book.

01:00:26.033 --> 01:00:31.473
And then the other thing is the second part is explain what the DSM is.

01:00:32.436 --> 01:00:36.356
Sure, that's super important. So in the late 20th century,

01:00:37.076 --> 01:00:41.736
when psychiatry kind of felt like it needed to be more scientific and more like

01:00:41.736 --> 01:00:43.076
a real branch of medicine,

01:00:43.076 --> 01:00:49.476
they kind of took this very obscure book called The Diagnostic and Statistical

01:00:49.476 --> 01:00:56.496
Manual of Mental Disorders and revised it and made it central to our operations.

01:00:56.496 --> 01:00:59.916
I mean, you can't get insurance reimbursement if you're a doctor unless you

01:00:59.916 --> 01:01:02.056
give somebody a DSM diagnosis.

01:01:02.936 --> 01:01:06.996
And so it's really the beating heart of psychiatry in this country.

01:01:06.996 --> 01:01:09.276
And it's a very problematic document.

01:01:10.036 --> 01:01:14.176
So, yeah, it is important to understand what it is. And the point about liberals,

01:01:14.376 --> 01:01:15.616
you know, you're absolutely right.

01:01:15.816 --> 01:01:18.096
There was no right and left in that.

01:01:18.536 --> 01:01:25.436
In fact, lots of people we think of as, you know, very right-thinking people

01:01:25.436 --> 01:01:31.336
like Oliver Wendell Holmes were very into eugenics and a lot of millionaires.

01:01:31.336 --> 01:01:34.456
It's always kind of been, in some ways, a rich person's game.

01:01:34.976 --> 01:01:40.096
You know, the Harrimans, the Rockefellers, the Kelloggs were funding these clinics

01:01:40.096 --> 01:01:43.336
where they were doing eugenic research and...

01:01:44.417 --> 01:01:47.877
Of the things that always makes me smile a little bit ironically,

01:01:48.317 --> 01:01:54.977
can you smile ironically, is that my family spent a lot of time in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.

01:01:55.277 --> 01:01:58.637
We had this kind of little shack that my grandfather built.

01:01:59.317 --> 01:02:02.497
And we would all go there and spend quite a bit of time there.

01:02:02.617 --> 01:02:09.577
And it was sort of this area notorious for supposed inbreeding and bad genetics.

01:02:09.957 --> 01:02:15.957
And so one of those sites, actually, the eugenics records office has file cards

01:02:15.957 --> 01:02:19.357
on all these families. And I like to think my family's in there.

01:02:20.517 --> 01:02:22.857
I can only hope. I don't know for sure.

01:02:24.097 --> 01:02:29.797
So yes, that was, and I think still is, you know, Jeffrey Epstein and his buds,

01:02:30.417 --> 01:02:35.037
you know, people like Noam Chomsky, they're very liberal. Larry Summers.

01:02:35.457 --> 01:02:38.877
But the things they were saying to each other in the emails were pretty awful

01:02:38.877 --> 01:02:44.657
about minority populations, about women, you know, very disturbing stuff.

01:02:44.657 --> 01:02:49.637
So I think that when you put that kind of like robe of science,

01:02:50.017 --> 01:02:55.117
that golden robe of science around something, people feel okay about having

01:02:55.117 --> 01:03:01.417
thoughts that are pretty despicable. Yeah.

01:03:02.337 --> 01:03:09.417
So like you said in your opening answer to the quote that you put your story

01:03:09.417 --> 01:03:14.697
in this book, it could have been just strictly a research book,

01:03:14.977 --> 01:03:18.537
but you interwove a lot of your personal stuff.

01:03:18.757 --> 01:03:24.637
So you revealed to us that you have been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

01:03:25.666 --> 01:03:31.046
How has that been a challenge for you in life and in the process, writing this book?

01:03:32.346 --> 01:03:36.606
I do reveal that. The diagnosis was changed ultimately to bipolar.

01:03:36.606 --> 01:03:39.886
But yes, I was diagnosed as schizophrenic when I was a teenager.

01:03:39.886 --> 01:03:41.346
I was given shock treatment.

01:03:41.546 --> 01:03:43.566
It was pretty horrendous.

01:03:44.846 --> 01:03:48.686
And, you know, it was actually kind of controversial even among,

01:03:49.006 --> 01:03:53.526
like, my literary agent, people that I work with, to put so much of myself in

01:03:53.526 --> 01:03:58.406
there. And I want to say now that so much of myself is maybe 10 to 15 percent of the book.

01:03:58.626 --> 01:04:01.046
It's not a memoir by any stretch.

01:04:01.786 --> 01:04:08.986
But to me, it's just, you know, whenever I would read these stories about euthanasia

01:04:08.986 --> 01:04:11.346
and the Nazi Operation T4,

01:04:11.586 --> 01:04:15.286
which was the one that was conducted in the gas chambers, there were six of

01:04:15.286 --> 01:04:18.426
them for this action, this project.

01:04:18.426 --> 01:04:24.706
You know, it would always be people from such a distance trying to imagine what

01:04:24.706 --> 01:04:28.886
the people involved felt, but clearly unable to do that.

01:04:29.446 --> 01:04:33.466
And I think the fact that I could have been a victim, that family members could

01:04:33.466 --> 01:04:36.786
have been victims, was just really essential.

01:04:36.786 --> 01:04:42.326
I think that I needed to be in there as somebody with a stake in it and who

01:04:42.326 --> 01:04:48.966
had witnessed a lot of the late 20th century psychiatry here in the United States

01:04:48.966 --> 01:04:51.826
and witnessed a lot of what really went off the rails there, too.

01:04:52.326 --> 01:04:58.546
So, yeah, that was important to me to do. So, my previous guest...

01:04:59.461 --> 01:05:06.401
He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia, and he felt that the illness denied

01:05:06.401 --> 01:05:09.121
him an opportunity to be at his full potential.

01:05:09.641 --> 01:05:11.741
Sure. Do you feel that same way?

01:05:12.401 --> 01:05:17.421
I wouldn't exactly say that, but I think, for one thing, schizophrenia,

01:05:17.881 --> 01:05:22.561
there's overwhelming evidence, including a study that was done by a man who

01:05:22.561 --> 01:05:25.921
headed the Schizophrenia Project at the National Institutes of Health,

01:05:26.221 --> 01:05:31.361
so Lauren Mosher, that proved that schizophrenics do much better if they are

01:05:31.361 --> 01:05:35.581
not medicated in their first break, if you can stay off medication.

01:05:35.981 --> 01:05:40.741
And one of the two subjects of my book, Dorothea Buck, was schizophrenic.

01:05:40.821 --> 01:05:45.521
And so she writes a lot about schizophrenia, about how she was treated.

01:05:46.041 --> 01:05:51.321
She was sterilized by the Nazis at the age of 19 because Hitler wanted schizophrenia

01:05:51.321 --> 01:05:55.841
out of the population, so he sterilized and killed schizophrenics.

01:05:56.501 --> 01:06:01.581
And she came up with an alternative way to treat it that actually was very effective.

01:06:02.101 --> 01:06:05.801
So one answer is that I think that you have to make sure that what's limiting

01:06:05.801 --> 01:06:07.741
you is not the treatment, but the.

01:06:08.814 --> 01:06:12.714
Problem itself or the mental state itself. And, you know, of course,

01:06:13.034 --> 01:06:19.914
yes, I do do some things to manage my bipolar, or I would have a reduced life.

01:06:19.914 --> 01:06:22.634
And when people say that to me, I understand it.

01:06:22.914 --> 01:06:27.214
I'm sure for them it's completely true, because for many people it's completely true.

01:06:27.774 --> 01:06:32.554
I would just say that we have never tried on a large scale the things that have

01:06:32.554 --> 01:06:33.874
been shown to really work.

01:06:34.034 --> 01:06:40.234
And I think that's as sad as hearing that someone feels that their lives have been limited.

01:06:41.054 --> 01:06:48.514
Yeah. All right. So many regard Emil Kraepelin, I think I'm saying the name right.

01:06:48.894 --> 01:06:54.674
Yeah. As the father of modern psychology, but your book does not put him in a positive light.

01:06:55.194 --> 01:07:00.474
Explain why. No. He was an anti-Semite. He was an extreme anti-Semite.

01:07:00.814 --> 01:07:05.514
And the head of the a euthanasia program, and the worst of the Nazi doctors,

01:07:05.534 --> 01:07:10.334
who also worked at the camps with Jewish populations, had been trained by him.

01:07:10.554 --> 01:07:16.534
The Nuremberg Race Law of 1933, which eliminated Jews, eliminated jobs,

01:07:16.694 --> 01:07:21.374
eliminated citizenship, really reduced their status, was crafted by his students,

01:07:21.394 --> 01:07:22.834
and they said it was in his honor.

01:07:23.374 --> 01:07:30.014
So he was a bad guy. We do practice Krapelinian psychiatry.

01:07:30.014 --> 01:07:34.894
Our DSM was created by a group who called themselves Neo-Krapelinians,

01:07:35.034 --> 01:07:40.634
and I think we need to get that error out of our system because Krapelin was

01:07:40.634 --> 01:07:42.154
not working to help people.

01:07:42.294 --> 01:07:45.294
He was not working out of a sense of compassion and care.

01:07:45.494 --> 01:07:51.074
He felt like the psychiatrist's main duty was to his government and his state

01:07:51.074 --> 01:07:53.754
and to cleanse the population.

01:07:53.754 --> 01:07:58.074
So his categories, which we use, he identified schizophrenia,

01:07:58.334 --> 01:08:02.114
bipolar, and other things, were not created to help people.

01:08:02.254 --> 01:08:08.114
They were created to assign value to people. And I think we need a very clear

01:08:08.114 --> 01:08:09.934
acknowledgement of that fact.

01:08:12.379 --> 01:08:19.719
You mentioned Dorothea Buck and Paul Schreiber. Why were these individuals important

01:08:19.719 --> 01:08:22.499
for you to include their stories in the book?

01:08:23.119 --> 01:08:27.099
They're just both really heroic. Buck actually lived to be 102.

01:08:27.899 --> 01:08:32.459
So she was sterilized by the Nazis. You know, her life was really destroyed.

01:08:32.719 --> 01:08:37.279
Sterilized Germans could not work or go to college. They couldn't work at high-level jobs.

01:08:37.859 --> 01:08:42.859
And she became an activist. I mean, she was protesting well into her 90s,

01:08:42.959 --> 01:08:47.779
demanding the government acknowledge what they had done to the psychiatric population.

01:08:48.639 --> 01:08:51.839
Schreber, as I mentioned, was a judge committed for life.

01:08:52.499 --> 01:08:57.419
And he represented himself and got himself out.

01:08:57.659 --> 01:09:01.919
And his filings, his court filings were so powerful. He got out,

01:09:02.039 --> 01:09:06.439
I think, in 1903 that they changed German law.

01:09:06.939 --> 01:09:09.759
And he didn't say there's nothing you know i'm just

01:09:09.759 --> 01:09:12.719
as normal as you are and that's why you should let me out he said i've

01:09:12.719 --> 01:09:16.359
had profound religious experiences and you damn well

01:09:16.359 --> 01:09:19.259
better recognize that something real is going on in what

01:09:19.259 --> 01:09:23.939
is happening in my brain and the court actually agreed with him and sort of

01:09:23.939 --> 01:09:29.839
mocked his doctor in a very interesting way so to me they're heroes but you

01:09:29.839 --> 01:09:34.259
know there's so many heroes i was you know i told the story of these three doctors

01:09:34.259 --> 01:09:36.779
who believed that, well, it's,

01:09:37.352 --> 01:09:41.212
Many other people came to believe it, but they kind of started this idea that

01:09:41.212 --> 01:09:46.512
Black protesters were suffering from this brain injury, this discontrol syndrome,

01:09:46.752 --> 01:09:52.272
and should be treated with electrodes, right? Just horrendous.

01:09:52.472 --> 01:10:00.652
This amazing guy wrote a piece for Ebony Magazine in 1973 saying this is going

01:10:00.652 --> 01:10:05.652
into the population and targeting Blacks and trying to manipulate their brains.

01:10:05.652 --> 01:10:09.712
And I mean, I guess what I'm saying is that these people come up in my story

01:10:09.712 --> 01:10:14.332
who are so heroic that it balances it out in some ways.

01:10:14.552 --> 01:10:20.852
And so Buck and Schaber were really important because they're such a great counterweight. Yeah.

01:10:21.632 --> 01:10:26.972
All right. In the book, you stated that those diagnosed with a major medical,

01:10:27.412 --> 01:10:30.132
a major mental disorder in the U.S.

01:10:30.232 --> 01:10:35.452
Have a life expectancy 20 to 30 years shorter than those who aren't diagnosed.

01:10:35.652 --> 01:10:39.012
Part of the loss of life lies in how they're medicated.

01:10:39.392 --> 01:10:44.112
One in four jailed individuals in the U.S. is in a psychiatric crisis.

01:10:44.872 --> 01:10:51.532
One-fifth of police shootings involve psychiatric episodes. Most are harmless.

01:10:51.952 --> 01:10:57.332
Is this a fair assessment of the degree of mental misery in this country?

01:10:57.772 --> 01:11:02.632
It's a very fair assessment, and I'll sort of punctuate that by saying that

01:11:02.632 --> 01:11:06.432
some of those thoughts come from Alan Francis, who's one of the most prominent

01:11:06.432 --> 01:11:07.912
psychiatrists in this country.

01:11:08.012 --> 01:11:13.612
He actually led the revision of the DSM, the DSM-IV, and, you know,

01:11:13.672 --> 01:11:18.852
just an amazingly prominent guy. And what he says is that the biggest psych

01:11:18.852 --> 01:11:20.652
hospital in the U.S. now is the L.A.

01:11:20.792 --> 01:11:27.972
County Jail, and he's quite correct in that. We are just allowing people to suffer.

01:11:28.032 --> 01:11:29.872
We're allowing people to...

01:11:31.195 --> 01:11:34.635
Fall through the cracks. And it's really tragic.

01:11:34.955 --> 01:11:38.915
And yeah, there are many, many awful police shootings. There are often people

01:11:38.915 --> 01:11:40.935
of color who also have a diagnosis.

01:11:41.755 --> 01:11:47.595
There was a black autistic teenager killed when police actually followed his

01:11:47.595 --> 01:11:51.455
car home over a very minor car stop. He ended up being shot.

01:11:51.595 --> 01:11:55.575
It's just, yeah, I mean, I could go on. But yes, it's, it's,

01:11:55.755 --> 01:11:58.875
we are in a state, I think, of crisis.

01:11:59.335 --> 01:12:02.955
I don't know how else to put it. So much of the population is suffering.

01:12:03.355 --> 01:12:08.655
Yeah. And, you know, I have a background not only in politics, but in law enforcement.

01:12:08.895 --> 01:12:14.875
And so a lot of times, and most of my law enforcement was, you know, in the jails.

01:12:15.515 --> 01:12:19.995
And so, you know, I could testify to that.

01:12:21.310 --> 01:12:27.270
Our jail, where I am in Atlanta, we actually have a section that is strictly

01:12:27.270 --> 01:12:32.510
for those who have been diagnosed, and it's not a good place for them to be.

01:12:33.190 --> 01:12:39.150
And we had a terrible tragedy that happened right when I started working for

01:12:39.150 --> 01:12:40.570
the sheriff's office here.

01:12:41.250 --> 01:12:45.050
Thank goodness we weren't involved in it. It was at Georgia Tech.

01:12:45.450 --> 01:12:50.510
I don't know if you heard about it, but it was a young man who had some issues.

01:12:51.430 --> 01:12:57.290
And but he was at school and I don't know if I can't remember if his parents

01:12:57.290 --> 01:13:01.830
said he had stopped taking his medication or whatever but somebody called and

01:13:01.830 --> 01:13:08.230
said there's a guy with a knife on campus so the campus police responded and

01:13:08.230 --> 01:13:10.570
he was out in the middle of the street with the knife.

01:13:11.730 --> 01:13:16.050
And you know the officers said put the knife down he wouldn't put it down so

01:13:16.050 --> 01:13:17.290
they shot him and they killed them.

01:13:18.010 --> 01:13:22.890
And then they realized, you know, afterwards, you know, and a lot of times the

01:13:22.890 --> 01:13:27.610
term in law enforcement, they say when people do that, they say that's suicide

01:13:27.610 --> 01:13:29.930
by cop. That's the term I used.

01:13:30.750 --> 01:13:38.630
And so the parents really have been trying since then to work with law enforcement

01:13:38.630 --> 01:13:46.170
here in Georgia and in the state legislature to try to get laws changed or at least, you know,

01:13:46.410 --> 01:13:51.910
even in the police training standards to be more sensitive to situations like that.

01:13:52.210 --> 01:13:58.250
But having gone through intensive training, they still train us to shoot people.

01:13:58.370 --> 01:14:00.450
I'm just being honest, you know.

01:14:01.170 --> 01:14:05.210
And so I think that you touched on that.

01:14:05.330 --> 01:14:10.190
And I think that's something real that we need to look at.

01:14:10.590 --> 01:14:16.490
And like I said, let me get off that rabbit trail. But I'm just saying you were

01:14:16.490 --> 01:14:19.550
spot on in what you highlighted on that.

01:14:20.725 --> 01:14:27.085
Stated in the book that Philippe Pinel wrote that the highest calling of the

01:14:27.085 --> 01:14:31.065
psychiatric doctor was understanding each patient's hopes and dreams.

01:14:31.305 --> 01:14:38.605
So my question is, are hopes and dreams unattainable in today's mental health system?

01:14:39.105 --> 01:14:43.265
I think what's unattainable is a situation in which you actually have a doctor

01:14:43.265 --> 01:14:45.605
who understands what they are.

01:14:45.845 --> 01:14:49.465
I mean, Pinel was saying, and Pinel was an absolutely amazing guy.

01:14:49.705 --> 01:14:55.325
And if you're interested in him out there, people, I wrote a column about him for Psychology Today.

01:14:55.325 --> 01:15:00.345
It was called For a Better Psychiatry, Go Back 200 Years, because he did not,

01:15:00.565 --> 01:15:03.405
you know, he went into Paris in

01:15:03.405 --> 01:15:08.385
the late 1700s, and people were literally treated with whips and chains.

01:15:08.665 --> 01:15:12.345
And he released most of his patients, and they were cured.

01:15:13.105 --> 01:15:16.825
So he demanded of the revolutionary government that they do better.

01:15:17.065 --> 01:15:20.865
And he demanded of himself and everyone who worked with him that they spend

01:15:20.865 --> 01:15:23.645
a lot of time with those patients.

01:15:24.005 --> 01:15:26.905
He said it was not as important to understand.

01:15:27.665 --> 01:15:32.205
Well, he went back to Hippocrates, who said it's much more important to understand

01:15:32.205 --> 01:15:34.345
the patient than to understand the disease.

01:15:34.685 --> 01:15:38.145
And he basically took that to heart.

01:15:38.225 --> 01:15:43.225
And he said the smartest move in medication is knowing when not to use it.

01:15:43.465 --> 01:15:47.565
But he said that unless you understood your patient really, really well,

01:15:47.805 --> 01:15:51.605
unless you understood what mattered to them, their hopes and dreams,

01:15:51.825 --> 01:15:53.785
that you could not treat them.

01:15:53.945 --> 01:15:58.585
And so we have this weird bifurcation where now you basically go to the psychiatrist

01:15:58.585 --> 01:16:00.685
for your prescription and your renewals.

01:16:01.285 --> 01:16:07.885
And it would have horrified Pinel, who started a movement called the Moral Treatment

01:16:07.885 --> 01:16:12.585
that went on for quite a while and actually worked extremely well. Yeah.

01:16:14.036 --> 01:16:19.356
Speaking about treatment, why is it important to consider holistic methods of treatment?

01:16:20.056 --> 01:16:23.896
Well, sure. I mean, one of the things we know now, and this is something that's

01:16:23.896 --> 01:16:28.156
not any longer something we can argue about because it's so well proven,

01:16:28.336 --> 01:16:30.556
is that antidepressants in

01:16:30.556 --> 01:16:35.296
a lot of studies don't come in or come in at the same level as placebos.

01:16:35.916 --> 01:16:39.956
Placebos and depression actually work 30 to 40 percent of the time if you don't

01:16:39.956 --> 01:16:47.296
know it's a placebo. They don't always even match the results of exercise, things like yoga.

01:16:47.896 --> 01:16:51.236
One thing I'm writing about right now is called social prescribing.

01:16:51.236 --> 01:16:56.796
It's very big in the UK where doctors will prescribe walks, classes,

01:16:57.056 --> 01:16:59.096
museum visits rather than drugs.

01:16:59.976 --> 01:17:04.556
So, I mean, I said this earlier, and I can only reiterate it. We know a lot.

01:17:05.116 --> 01:17:09.436
Northern Italy has made huge strides with getting people off the streets that's

01:17:09.436 --> 01:17:11.776
virtually not happening there.

01:17:12.456 --> 01:17:16.416
I think they're walking back on it a little bit, but they've had just tremendous

01:17:16.416 --> 01:17:21.236
success closing the institutions and keeping people engaged in their lives.

01:17:21.896 --> 01:17:25.676
What's sad to me is that we do have all this evidence of what can help,

01:17:25.676 --> 01:17:29.616
and we're just not using it. We're not committing the resources to it.

01:17:29.916 --> 01:17:37.356
So I do go back to Pinnell. I think he's just a fantastic model for all of this.

01:17:38.196 --> 01:17:42.056
Yeah. Why do you think, in your opinion,

01:17:42.236 --> 01:17:51.916
that is that we don't put the resources into mental health and exploring as

01:17:51.916 --> 01:17:55.856
many different ways to deal with,

01:17:56.536 --> 01:18:00.296
I know you don't like to term mental illness, but how do you, how,

01:18:01.056 --> 01:18:06.016
why do you think it is that we don't prioritize it? Because one thing you said in the book was that.

01:18:07.204 --> 01:18:13.124
Lot of us, you know, are saying, well, the pandemic kind of exposed a lot of stuff, right?

01:18:13.444 --> 01:18:19.164
But you make the argument that, you know, we were heading that way before the pandemic hit.

01:18:19.744 --> 01:18:26.004
We were, yes. Why do you think that we, you know, we don't prioritize it the way that we should?

01:18:26.964 --> 01:18:30.724
Because of a lot of mythologies about mental health that I think,

01:18:30.844 --> 01:18:36.664
you know, are often based on stigmas or just based on misinformation, that it's in your genes.

01:18:37.384 --> 01:18:41.764
That's been kind of an absurdly exaggerated thing.

01:18:41.904 --> 01:18:45.144
There is some genetic connection, but it's much smaller than most people think,

01:18:45.144 --> 01:18:47.664
and it's much more likely to be life experience.

01:18:48.224 --> 01:18:52.924
So we think it's genes. We think it's brain processes, that you can stay on

01:18:52.924 --> 01:18:55.224
medication for life, but you can't fix these.

01:18:55.504 --> 01:18:57.804
We think things like schizophrenia are hopeless.

01:18:58.204 --> 01:19:01.304
I mean, one of the scenes in the book is when I heard at 15 that I was going

01:19:01.304 --> 01:19:04.004
to live in an institution. Here I am.

01:19:05.644 --> 01:19:11.004
Schizophrenia, actually a third of the time, the first episode never recurs. People are just okay.

01:19:11.744 --> 01:19:17.644
And then another third may stay on some kind of care, but are going to do well

01:19:17.644 --> 01:19:18.944
in life. They're going to do pretty well.

01:19:19.064 --> 01:19:21.164
And another third may not, but

01:19:21.164 --> 01:19:24.704
I think, again, we're doing things that we already know don't really work.

01:19:25.024 --> 01:19:29.044
But the system works for the pharmaceutical companies. It works really well

01:19:29.044 --> 01:19:32.764
for the insurance companies. They can justify these 15-minute visits.

01:19:33.264 --> 01:19:37.264
I mean, one of the first books that kind of announced this new way of,

01:19:37.364 --> 01:19:41.464
you know, not treating people psychologically, not talking about life,

01:19:41.624 --> 01:19:44.784
getting away from Freud, was this book called The Broken Brain,

01:19:45.044 --> 01:19:47.664
The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry.

01:19:48.004 --> 01:19:52.644
And the author said, it's great, you can spend 15 minutes with a doctor, not an hour a week.

01:19:53.665 --> 01:19:57.505
Does most of us need that? It might not be an hour a week, but we need life

01:19:57.505 --> 01:20:00.125
interventions. We need help. We need alternatives.

01:20:00.425 --> 01:20:04.525
We might need social prescriptions for walks and museums. I mean,

01:20:04.585 --> 01:20:07.485
so many different things can help. It's complex.

01:20:07.985 --> 01:20:13.645
And this myth, the story of neurotransmitters, you know, we now know serotonin

01:20:13.645 --> 01:20:17.865
doesn't cause depression, either less or more of it. That's been disproven.

01:20:18.425 --> 01:20:24.485
But it's such a nice story. You know, we can do this so fast and we can put

01:20:24.485 --> 01:20:29.565
very little money into it and give people inexpensive drugs, but it hasn't worked.

01:20:29.645 --> 01:20:33.165
We've given it a chance. It's time to try something different.

01:20:33.605 --> 01:20:39.245
So what do you want readers to take away from this book when they get it?

01:20:39.985 --> 01:20:44.665
I would love for readers to understand that neurodiversity, like mine,

01:20:44.825 --> 01:20:48.725
which people will probably consider pretty extreme, I've hallucinated, but,

01:20:49.398 --> 01:20:53.178
It is its own way of knowing. It's not meaningless and it's not pointless,

01:20:53.178 --> 01:20:56.798
which was something Dorothea Buck was such a great champion for saying,

01:20:57.098 --> 01:21:00.558
that it's something that you can learn from and can even be transformative,

01:21:01.158 --> 01:21:02.858
that there's always hope,

01:21:03.558 --> 01:21:10.358
and that human beings are very complex, and it's rare that there's only one thing going on.

01:21:10.518 --> 01:21:15.418
Certainly, there could be, but with mental states and traits,

01:21:15.578 --> 01:21:19.838
it's rare that there's only one thing going on, And so there is a lot of hope

01:21:19.838 --> 01:21:26.578
and keep trying and make sure you get a doctor that respects you if you can. That's hard. Yeah.

01:21:27.358 --> 01:21:32.458
So I'm a big sports guy and I grew up in Chicago, so I'm a big Chicago sports guy.

01:21:33.018 --> 01:21:38.998
And I'll never forget, there was a young man that played for the Bears named Alonzo Spellman.

01:21:39.938 --> 01:21:43.478
And he was, you know, I think he had an all pro season.

01:21:43.558 --> 01:21:46.538
He was one of the top defensive ends in the league.

01:21:46.538 --> 01:21:49.298
And one day during the

01:21:49.298 --> 01:21:52.498
off season he was walking around lakeshore drive

01:21:52.498 --> 01:21:55.538
naked and you know the police

01:21:55.538 --> 01:21:58.438
fortunately the police recognized who

01:21:58.438 --> 01:22:04.158
he was and they got him to the station they called the bears organization and

01:22:04.158 --> 01:22:12.798
all that stuff and so what the bears did you know was they they called around

01:22:12.798 --> 01:22:16.538
to see who would take him in a trade.

01:22:17.478 --> 01:22:22.798
And so, and they explained why they wanted to trade him because they didn't

01:22:22.798 --> 01:22:28.638
have the personnel in their, you know, in their medical team to deal with that.

01:22:28.938 --> 01:22:33.198
And I think they do now. I think most of the teams do now, but the team that

01:22:33.198 --> 01:22:36.578
had the best treatment was Dallas.

01:22:37.698 --> 01:22:43.578
And so they traded him to Dallas and he continued his football career at least

01:22:43.578 --> 01:22:48.798
for a couple more years because he was getting the treatment that he needed and all that stuff.

01:22:49.058 --> 01:22:52.398
So it's very important for people to.

01:22:54.493 --> 01:22:58.033
You said take the stigma off and do what they had to do. The Bears could have

01:22:58.033 --> 01:23:02.373
been very selfish and, you know, try to keep it under wraps and all that kind

01:23:02.373 --> 01:23:06.293
of stuff and just throw him out there on the field because he was a good player for them.

01:23:06.613 --> 01:23:11.493
But they took it upon themselves and said, no, we care about this individual.

01:23:11.933 --> 01:23:16.213
And if we can get him on a team where he can still play football and get the

01:23:16.213 --> 01:23:19.253
help that he needs, then that's what we're going to do.

01:23:19.953 --> 01:23:23.913
And I just wish that more people would do that, and I hope that,

01:23:24.493 --> 01:23:30.553
People reading your book will get more of a sense of that and understand that

01:23:30.553 --> 01:23:34.513
some of the things that are happening now, especially people that are dealing

01:23:34.513 --> 01:23:38.393
with issues, you know, there's there's a history behind it.

01:23:38.393 --> 01:23:43.953
And we're still at a point where we're, you know, when you were talking about

01:23:43.953 --> 01:23:47.033
the guy Kraepelin, right?

01:23:47.613 --> 01:23:55.593
And in my mind, I was thinking, yeah, they called him a founder of modern psychology,

01:23:55.593 --> 01:23:59.113
but he was doing it for the wrong reasons, right?

01:23:59.813 --> 01:24:07.473
Absolutely. And then I thought about Wernher von Braun, who was a scientist

01:24:07.473 --> 01:24:09.993
for the Nazis building rockets.

01:24:10.193 --> 01:24:14.353
And we stole them. And he built our NASA program.

01:24:14.853 --> 01:24:19.233
So there could be some good to come out of it.

01:24:20.564 --> 01:24:24.164
But I didn't get that from the book. But, you know, but maybe,

01:24:24.184 --> 01:24:29.944
maybe there's, I guess there was some things that he kind of touched on that,

01:24:30.164 --> 01:24:35.384
I guess, helps people in the profession deal with their clients.

01:24:36.044 --> 01:24:40.324
You know, but I just, it was really, really very eye-opening.

01:24:40.584 --> 01:24:43.924
Even, I haven't seen the movie Nuremberg yet. Have you seen it?

01:24:44.724 --> 01:24:49.484
I have not. You know, I wrote quite a bit about that guy, Douglas Kelly,

01:24:49.704 --> 01:24:51.524
who was the Nuremberg psychiatrist.

01:24:52.524 --> 01:24:58.024
And I kind of almost topped out on the story. I will watch it down the road.

01:24:58.344 --> 01:25:03.304
He was fascinating. I mean, he became very obsessed with the fact that none

01:25:03.304 --> 01:25:08.084
of the Nazi doctors really were disturbed in any way. He wanted them to be.

01:25:08.264 --> 01:25:12.824
He wanted an easy answer. But he ultimately said they were like businessmen,

01:25:13.044 --> 01:25:16.844
except they considered their business world domination.

01:25:17.644 --> 01:25:20.844
I mean, they were very dry, cut and dry about it. And none of them,

01:25:20.984 --> 01:25:23.484
you know, they passed every psych test they were given.

01:25:24.344 --> 01:25:28.644
Yeah, well, I think you brought a different angle. I think the movie is more

01:25:28.644 --> 01:25:33.224
about the trial part, etc., and not about the prep before.

01:25:33.224 --> 01:25:40.204
But yeah you get into it so deep that you know one of the things that you highlighted

01:25:40.204 --> 01:25:46.424
was the fact that the I don't know if this was at the main trial or the doctor's trial but.

01:25:47.787 --> 01:25:51.527
I think the movie is about the very first trial, where it's like the United

01:25:51.527 --> 01:25:53.907
States and a couple other countries were involved.

01:25:54.187 --> 01:25:56.727
But the doctor's trial was strictly us.

01:25:57.447 --> 01:26:04.307
And the part of the defense was that the United States really shouldn't have

01:26:04.307 --> 01:26:09.007
any standing in this court because of the Tuskegee experiments.

01:26:09.647 --> 01:26:13.627
Yeah, that did come up. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. I was actually thinking,

01:26:13.687 --> 01:26:15.107
I think, of a different film.

01:26:15.387 --> 01:26:19.727
But I haven't seen the Nuremberg film. But yes, I'm very familiar with what they said.

01:26:19.967 --> 01:26:23.547
And, you know, one of the reasons that we didn't, you know, one of the reasons

01:26:23.547 --> 01:26:27.567
that the crimes against the psychiatric population wasn't prosecuted,

01:26:27.807 --> 01:26:31.247
weren't prosecuted, was that it was German on German crime.

01:26:31.687 --> 01:26:35.107
And people in the U.S. are kind of saying, well, if we do that to them,

01:26:35.267 --> 01:26:38.347
what are they going to come in here and do to us?

01:26:38.947 --> 01:26:45.227
If we're going to target crime against your own population, how are we going

01:26:45.227 --> 01:26:49.347
to look, you know, on that, you know, sitting in that defense box?

01:26:49.347 --> 01:26:55.367
So, yes, that is very real that it was a concern that we had done the Tuskegee

01:26:55.367 --> 01:27:01.507
experiments and we were, you know, we were prosecuting them for experiments they did. Yeah.

01:27:02.347 --> 01:27:06.227
On humans. Now, I think the man you mentioned, Kelly, right?

01:27:06.867 --> 01:27:13.707
Doug Kelly, yeah. He even said that he had a fear that because of racism that

01:27:13.707 --> 01:27:16.247
we would go down that same path, right?

01:27:16.387 --> 01:27:18.707
Oh, absolutely. He was, yeah.

01:27:19.347 --> 01:27:25.167
He was kind of obsessively afraid of that. And I think he was wise. Yeah.

01:27:25.727 --> 01:27:29.507
All right. So let's close out on an optimistic note.

01:27:31.267 --> 01:27:38.327
Sure. I'm asking all the guests to do this. Finish this sentence. I have hope because...

01:27:39.586 --> 01:27:41.226
Have hope because we actually do

01:27:41.226 --> 01:27:44.846
know what we need to do. We have a lot of information on things that work.

01:27:44.986 --> 01:27:50.406
And because I think that people like Dorothea Buck, people like Douglas Kelly,

01:27:51.006 --> 01:27:55.266
people like Paul Schraber, people like DJ Mason, who wrote that story for Ebony,

01:27:55.466 --> 01:28:00.606
these people come along who just demand change and they know how to, they can affect change.

01:28:00.726 --> 01:28:02.666
And I think those people are going to come along again.

01:28:02.846 --> 01:28:05.686
And Philippe Pinel, Tremendous human being.

01:28:05.926 --> 01:28:11.366
I mean, the good news is what one human being can do. And the answer to that is almost everything.

01:28:12.486 --> 01:28:18.046
So how can people get the book? How can people reach out to you? All that stuff. Sure.

01:28:18.686 --> 01:28:22.786
The book is The Devil's Castle. It's on audio. You know, it's on Audible.

01:28:23.066 --> 01:28:28.766
It's available at any bookstore, Amazon, bookshelf.org, whatever your preference is.

01:28:28.946 --> 01:28:34.766
And my website is suzantonetta.com. and I do answer my mail.

01:28:35.446 --> 01:28:40.906
So reach out through my contact form, say hello, tell me your story.

01:28:41.686 --> 01:28:48.326
All right. Well, Susanne, I greatly appreciate you, one, coming on the podcast

01:28:48.326 --> 01:28:50.206
and two, writing this book.

01:28:50.426 --> 01:28:56.166
I think, you know, it's an issue that I dealt with as a legislator.

01:28:56.446 --> 01:29:00.986
And I tell this story anytime I have somebody, we talk about mental health.

01:29:01.246 --> 01:29:05.386
You know, it was the one One thing I noticed that every year in the appropriations

01:29:05.386 --> 01:29:08.206
process, we were cutting the budget for that.

01:29:08.426 --> 01:29:12.626
And I had said that we were going to pay for that. And I haven't been elected

01:29:12.626 --> 01:29:15.506
official for nearly 20 years now.

01:29:15.786 --> 01:29:22.726
But I knew that if you kept, if we as a government that's supposed to follow the.

01:29:24.193 --> 01:29:26.373
Premise that we're supposed to look out for the general welfare,

01:29:26.613 --> 01:29:33.513
if we kept cutting money from our mental health, then that was going to be a

01:29:33.513 --> 01:29:36.193
problem, especially in a small state like Mississippi.

01:29:37.093 --> 01:29:41.253
And that was a national trend. That wasn't just the Mississippi thing.

01:29:41.393 --> 01:29:43.573
It was like every state legislature did that.

01:29:43.913 --> 01:29:48.973
And I think we're paying the price for that. So I hope that your book,

01:29:49.173 --> 01:29:50.473
along with some other people,

01:29:51.753 --> 01:29:59.253
you know, continues to raise the awareness that needs to happen so that it becomes more of a priority.

01:29:59.333 --> 01:30:04.253
And whenever we do get universal health care, that that mental health will be included.

01:30:04.833 --> 01:30:09.953
But I just thank you for the research. And I know that, you know,

01:30:10.353 --> 01:30:14.833
you went through some stuff while you were writing the book.

01:30:14.833 --> 01:30:19.033
And the courage that you had to push through.

01:30:19.633 --> 01:30:22.473
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you've got to read the book to understand what I'm talking about.

01:30:23.653 --> 01:30:26.513
And just the fact that you, even though it was, like you said,

01:30:26.633 --> 01:30:31.413
only 10% and 15%, the fact that you put yourself in there.

01:30:33.773 --> 01:30:37.013
That's the storytelling that we need to get the message out.

01:30:37.133 --> 01:30:39.093
So again, I thank you for that.

01:30:39.653 --> 01:30:42.353
I thank you so much for having me. This was a great conversation.

01:30:42.713 --> 01:30:45.673
All right. All right, guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

01:31:00.967 --> 01:31:06.747
I want to thank Dr. Ellen Bassuk, her son Daniel Schoonover,

01:31:06.947 --> 01:31:12.007
and Susanne Antonetta for coming on the podcast.

01:31:12.447 --> 01:31:17.647
I greatly appreciate their vulnerability

01:31:17.647 --> 01:31:24.607
and their scholarship in the two books they have written. Dr.

01:31:24.707 --> 01:31:33.587
Ellen and her son Daniel wrote Between Two Worlds, and Miss Susanne wrote The Devil's Castle.

01:31:34.007 --> 01:31:39.607
If you are into this issue and you really want to see some changes,

01:31:40.367 --> 01:31:42.707
you really need to read those books.

01:31:43.527 --> 01:31:47.847
I think, you know, the perspectives that they bring, again,

01:31:47.847 --> 01:31:51.707
with the combination of being vulnerable and being scholarly,

01:31:51.707 --> 01:31:57.887
It really does justice to the awareness, and we need to continue,

01:31:57.887 --> 01:32:05.987
we really need to continue to push this issue because this happens.

01:32:06.107 --> 01:32:09.207
It can happen to any one of us because all of us have brains.

01:32:10.347 --> 01:32:15.287
And, you know, our mental health is as important, if not more important,

01:32:15.447 --> 01:32:16.387
than our physical health.

01:32:17.347 --> 01:32:22.367
It's got to be a balance. And like I said to Ms.

01:32:22.407 --> 01:32:27.787
Susanne, I pray that if we do ever get universal health care in the United States,

01:32:27.787 --> 01:32:31.387
that mental health is a major component in that as well.

01:32:31.687 --> 01:32:37.507
Because everybody wants to look good, you know, feel good as far as like running

01:32:37.507 --> 01:32:42.627
or playing the sport. They want to play recreationally, all that kind of stuff.

01:32:42.787 --> 01:32:48.847
But you got to have a sound mind. And for those of you who have followed me

01:32:48.847 --> 01:32:56.367
on the podcast, you know that I have been very open about my battle with depression.

01:32:57.507 --> 01:33:00.267
I am very fortunate that.

01:33:01.660 --> 01:33:09.260
Even with my stubbornness and the personal relationships that I lost because

01:33:09.260 --> 01:33:16.240
of it, that I was able to get diagnosed and treated.

01:33:17.200 --> 01:33:24.300
And so far, I've been okay. I have moments, but I'm not in that funk that I was in.

01:33:24.500 --> 01:33:29.460
When I tell you I was not in a good place, I was not in a good place.

01:33:31.460 --> 01:33:37.660
And, you know, even from a spiritual standpoint, I had such a strong connection.

01:33:39.460 --> 01:33:44.740
And it was it was like it was just like you, you know, for those of us old enough

01:33:44.740 --> 01:33:52.940
to remember dial up on AOL, you know, you would hear the the the chirping noise or whatever.

01:33:53.620 --> 01:33:58.320
And and then sometimes you would just get cut off and you had no access at all.

01:33:58.320 --> 01:34:02.260
Wasn't like, you know, it was slow or anything.

01:34:02.420 --> 01:34:04.620
I mean, it was just like off, right?

01:34:05.120 --> 01:34:11.600
And that's what I felt like. I just felt like, you know, my brain, I was just on autopilot.

01:34:12.960 --> 01:34:21.960
And, you know, it was until I got treatment, you know, I just kind of felt defenseless on that.

01:34:22.440 --> 01:34:28.820
So, And like I said, even when I was an elected official, it was an issue for me.

01:34:30.140 --> 01:34:35.560
And it might explain when I critique myself.

01:34:37.148 --> 01:34:40.208
Level of maturity in the position I had.

01:34:41.268 --> 01:34:45.488
Because, you know, depression is not something that just pops up.

01:34:45.848 --> 01:34:48.868
You know, it's something that builds over time.

01:34:49.128 --> 01:34:56.788
It's, you know, disappointment, tragedy, trauma, whatever combination you run into, right?

01:34:57.368 --> 01:35:01.188
You know, self-esteem, all that kind of stuff that just builds up.

01:35:01.288 --> 01:35:05.788
And if you don't fortify yourself, It can it can happen.

01:35:06.368 --> 01:35:12.708
So, you know, it's like we have a natural moment of being depressed,

01:35:12.708 --> 01:35:18.408
but when it takes over, it's not not good.

01:35:18.408 --> 01:35:28.348
And so I commend my guests for being vulnerable and letting people know it's

01:35:28.348 --> 01:35:33.888
like we see the challenges out there, but they also see hope.

01:35:34.568 --> 01:35:40.748
And that's kind of the way I want to close out, you know, because it's like

01:35:40.748 --> 01:35:46.068
in the political world, we're seeing a lot of challenges, right?

01:35:46.648 --> 01:35:50.248
We've seen two members of Congress resign.

01:35:50.828 --> 01:35:55.768
Within the span of two weeks, we've lost two elected officials to violence,

01:35:56.348 --> 01:36:03.008
domestic violence, and two African-American officials at that.

01:36:03.568 --> 01:36:08.268
So you never know when it's going to hit.

01:36:08.908 --> 01:36:14.088
I do have some pushback with the Congresswoman we refer to as AOC.

01:36:16.028 --> 01:36:22.448
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez you know she was stopped by some reporters and they

01:36:22.448 --> 01:36:27.128
asked her what her thoughts were about what was going on at the Capitol and

01:36:27.128 --> 01:36:32.588
she said well we just got to get some people that you know have strong moral

01:36:32.588 --> 01:36:34.088
character and all that stuff,

01:36:34.868 --> 01:36:37.148
and my pushback is good luck on that,

01:36:37.948 --> 01:36:40.968
because all of us are human that.

01:36:42.252 --> 01:36:47.212
We just laid to rest a man who said in one of his famous quotes,

01:36:47.732 --> 01:36:50.932
not a perfect servant. I'm a public servant.

01:36:51.952 --> 01:37:00.132
I think the challenge for us is if we want to do good in society,

01:37:00.132 --> 01:37:03.352
if we want to make things better for people,

01:37:04.152 --> 01:37:11.472
doing whatever personal demons, whatever challenges you have, it can't stop that.

01:37:12.332 --> 01:37:18.172
And if it's getting to a point where you can't do good, then you need to address it.

01:37:19.212 --> 01:37:24.072
There are some people that think, well, you know, I can compartmentalize it.

01:37:24.552 --> 01:37:27.732
And, you know, when I'm off the clock or when I'm not in public,

01:37:27.732 --> 01:37:29.212
I can do whatever I want to.

01:37:29.392 --> 01:37:34.892
And then I can get out and do what I do.

01:37:36.332 --> 01:37:40.052
And politicians fall into that trap a lot.

01:37:41.612 --> 01:37:49.972
And so I just want to say that everything that you do impacts you.

01:37:50.552 --> 01:37:55.412
If it's something that is going to compromise you, then it's going to diminish

01:37:55.412 --> 01:37:58.812
what you can do good, right?

01:37:59.732 --> 01:38:01.712
So I'm not here to judge anybody.

01:38:02.752 --> 01:38:05.792
I think the actions that have been taken needed to be taken.

01:38:05.792 --> 01:38:12.252
I think there's a couple of other folks that might need to reevaluate why they're

01:38:12.252 --> 01:38:20.552
in Congress and they need to decide to step down themselves instead of prolonging a fight.

01:38:21.092 --> 01:38:26.892
But that's on them. You know, that's about as nonpartisan as it can be.

01:38:27.412 --> 01:38:30.112
Doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, Republican, Independent,

01:38:30.492 --> 01:38:37.472
Green, whatever. You know, if you did something and you know that that goes against,

01:38:39.065 --> 01:38:44.685
So what you're trying to do, if it negates the good that you're doing,

01:38:45.325 --> 01:38:46.905
then you need to address that.

01:38:48.605 --> 01:38:53.045
And for the good that you did do, people will appreciate that.

01:38:53.605 --> 01:38:59.565
Maybe not on a mass scale like you were used to, but the people that you help

01:38:59.565 --> 01:39:01.485
will always remember that you helped them.

01:39:02.025 --> 01:39:07.125
And that's the satisfaction you can take even if you're no longer in public life.

01:39:07.625 --> 01:39:11.465
If you did some good while you were there, you did some good.

01:39:12.085 --> 01:39:14.325
But you can't hold on to that forever.

01:39:16.085 --> 01:39:24.225
And, you know, it would be nice if we had people of the highest,

01:39:24.525 --> 01:39:27.825
of highest characters in elective office.

01:39:28.145 --> 01:39:36.145
That's a dream, right? But when you're looking at 435 options,

01:39:36.945 --> 01:39:38.825
you're not going to get perfection.

01:39:39.285 --> 01:39:42.585
Even with 100 options, you're not going to get perfection.

01:39:44.265 --> 01:39:48.765
And that's just Congress. I mean, we ain't got to the judges.

01:39:49.885 --> 01:39:57.005
We haven't got to the state legislators, right, who have a high profile in their

01:39:57.005 --> 01:40:01.445
state. But if you don't live in their state, you don't know who these people are, right?

01:40:02.265 --> 01:40:06.905
You know, because we've had, I've had colleagues, you know, think,

01:40:07.025 --> 01:40:10.085
well, I'm not in my state, so I can do what I want to do.

01:40:11.045 --> 01:40:16.525
And it comes back to bite them. It happens when you decide to do something that

01:40:16.525 --> 01:40:19.665
you know you ain't supposed to be doing and come back and get you.

01:40:21.085 --> 01:40:27.545
So I am the last person to judge anybody. I have not lived anywhere close to a perfect life.

01:40:28.145 --> 01:40:32.885
All I ask people to do is do what's good for folks.

01:40:33.185 --> 01:40:36.445
Fulfill the obligation that's in the preamble, right?

01:40:36.885 --> 01:40:38.725
To promote the general welfare.

01:40:39.645 --> 01:40:42.625
You're supposed to provide a, provide defense.

01:40:44.134 --> 01:40:47.834
And the key word is defense. That's why we called it the Department of Defense

01:40:47.834 --> 01:40:52.694
instead of Department of War, because we're not supposed to be going out starting stuff.

01:40:53.234 --> 01:40:57.554
We're supposed to be strong enough that when the time comes,

01:40:57.574 --> 01:40:59.754
we can defend our nation.

01:41:00.374 --> 01:41:05.414
That's the psychology behind the name defense as opposed to war.

01:41:05.414 --> 01:41:08.794
When you say you're the Department of War, you're basically saying,

01:41:09.034 --> 01:41:14.334
I am the descendant of the war god Ares, and we're going to take over the world.

01:41:14.494 --> 01:41:16.914
That's, you know, that's not what we do.

01:41:17.774 --> 01:41:24.194
We defend the United States of America. We don't, we're not supposed to be bullying

01:41:24.194 --> 01:41:26.214
the rest of the planet, right?

01:41:26.954 --> 01:41:31.174
Even though we are imperialistic in the way that we do things,

01:41:31.514 --> 01:41:34.534
we're not really an empire. We're not supposed to be.

01:41:35.414 --> 01:41:41.314
You know, we can, the strength of us, especially after World War II,

01:41:41.674 --> 01:41:47.274
is that the world knew that we could hold our own and help our friends when they need it.

01:41:47.694 --> 01:41:55.114
And we channel that through USAID and we channel that through diplomacy, that power.

01:41:56.034 --> 01:41:59.974
You know, we are the only nation that ever dropped a nuclear weapon on anybody.

01:42:01.854 --> 01:42:05.454
So people have that in the back of their minds. They understand that. Thank you.

01:42:06.622 --> 01:42:11.742
So, you know, we're supposed to come in with a position of strength,

01:42:11.742 --> 01:42:15.582
but not a position of intimidation, right?

01:42:16.702 --> 01:42:23.182
And if you have flawed individuals in positions, that compromises our strength.

01:42:24.082 --> 01:42:27.102
But are we going to get perfect individuals? No.

01:42:28.022 --> 01:42:35.182
Case in point, Donald Trump is a flawed individual, right? Bill Clinton was not perfect.

01:42:36.122 --> 01:42:39.382
Jimmy Carter was not perfect, right?

01:42:40.902 --> 01:42:44.942
He was of higher moral character than the other two guys I just mentioned.

01:42:45.222 --> 01:42:48.142
But, you know, Barack Obama is not perfect.

01:42:49.682 --> 01:42:56.462
But, you know, when you talk about people who set aside money they could make,

01:42:57.242 --> 01:42:59.222
circles they could run in,

01:43:00.690 --> 01:43:06.610
just offer themselves up for service to the nation, you know,

01:43:07.170 --> 01:43:09.690
there's an understanding that they're human.

01:43:10.390 --> 01:43:15.430
And it used to be a time where it was like through the vetting process of the

01:43:15.430 --> 01:43:22.270
primaries and the election, if you found out this person wasn't all that,

01:43:22.850 --> 01:43:29.430
you know, that's going to compromise us, then we didn't vote for them, right?

01:43:29.930 --> 01:43:35.810
And it wasn't personal. It was just like, yeah, dude, you sound good, but what about this?

01:43:36.530 --> 01:43:41.030
Like Gary Hart, for example, right? The senator from, I think he was from Colorado.

01:43:42.330 --> 01:43:45.970
Senator Hart was supposed to be the Democratic nominee in 1984.

01:43:45.990 --> 01:43:49.970
He was supposed to be the Vice President, Vice President Mondale.

01:43:50.970 --> 01:43:54.250
But word got out that he was having an affair.

01:43:55.030 --> 01:44:04.490
But instead of nixing that, right, instead of saying, look, I can't see you

01:44:04.490 --> 01:44:06.690
anymore, whatever the case may be, right?

01:44:07.790 --> 01:44:14.450
I got to be president. He dared the press, literally dared them to follow him.

01:44:14.670 --> 01:44:17.950
If you think that I'm having an affair, then follow me.

01:44:18.930 --> 01:44:23.310
Well, somebody took him up on that offer and caught him in an act.

01:44:24.010 --> 01:44:30.310
So Gary Hart's issue wasn't the infidelity. It was judgment, arrogance.

01:44:31.250 --> 01:44:35.850
You think that you could do what you want and be above reproach?

01:44:36.670 --> 01:44:41.250
That's not the person we need to have the nuclear codes.

01:44:41.410 --> 01:44:47.430
That's not the person we need in that Oval Office sitting at that resolute desk.

01:44:48.230 --> 01:44:50.210
That's the way we were in 1984.

01:44:51.090 --> 01:44:54.130
We are obviously lax on that now.

01:44:54.970 --> 01:45:00.070
Because if we were going by 1984 standards, Donald Trump wouldn't have made

01:45:00.070 --> 01:45:01.330
it out of the Republican primary.

01:45:01.810 --> 01:45:03.610
No way, shape or form.

01:45:05.217 --> 01:45:09.697
Way more arrogant than Gary Hart. He can't even say I'm sorry.

01:45:09.937 --> 01:45:11.957
He can't even say I made a mistake.

01:45:12.557 --> 01:45:16.237
So he definitely thinks he's beyond reproach, right?

01:45:17.557 --> 01:45:21.997
That's why old cats like me can't get into him.

01:45:22.717 --> 01:45:26.437
If we were just having the typical Democrat-Republican arguments,

01:45:27.397 --> 01:45:30.537
you know, you don't want to get a George Bush in there.

01:45:30.897 --> 01:45:35.957
You don't want to get George H.W. Bush in there, right? You're going to get a Ronald Reagan.

01:45:36.617 --> 01:45:38.277
You're going to have a back and forth.

01:45:40.477 --> 01:45:47.297
But, you know, and it was understood to a degree that these people were not perfect people.

01:45:47.677 --> 01:45:49.697
But could you sit down and have a drink with them?

01:45:50.137 --> 01:45:54.337
Could you talk shit to them about sports, about politics, about whatever?

01:45:55.157 --> 01:45:57.397
You know, they were your neighbor.

01:45:58.457 --> 01:46:02.397
Could you go to church with them? Could you hang out? Could you go to their

01:46:02.397 --> 01:46:05.017
backyard party? Could they come to your barbecue?

01:46:05.557 --> 01:46:10.997
Do you trust them to make the right decisions for the nation?

01:46:11.597 --> 01:46:16.617
That's the standard. Not perfection. Empathy.

01:46:17.777 --> 01:46:19.457
A sense of duty and honor.

01:46:21.152 --> 01:46:27.152
Not greed, not avarice, not a thirst for power.

01:46:28.192 --> 01:46:30.352
That's why I'm critical of the president.

01:46:31.452 --> 01:46:35.832
Have disagreements about policy all day long because if the end goal,

01:46:35.992 --> 01:46:39.592
if your goal or my goal is to do something to make the nation better,

01:46:39.852 --> 01:46:43.532
we're different individuals. So we're going to have different ideas.

01:46:44.092 --> 01:46:50.352
That's understood. That's part of the reason why you have those deliberative bodies.

01:46:51.152 --> 01:47:00.272
To have conversations because conversations and arguments are supposed to lead to solutions.

01:47:01.212 --> 01:47:02.512
That's the end goal.

01:47:03.572 --> 01:47:08.532
But if you can't admit that you made a mistake, if you can't even say I'm sorry,

01:47:09.572 --> 01:47:13.232
or you misunderstood what I said.

01:47:15.004 --> 01:47:18.164
That wasn't my intention. You can't say that.

01:47:19.004 --> 01:47:23.324
You're a dangerous person to be given that much responsibility.

01:47:24.404 --> 01:47:29.024
That's my beef. You can be mad because your gas is $5.

01:47:29.844 --> 01:47:36.064
You could be mad that we're in a war that we weren't supposed to be in.

01:47:36.064 --> 01:47:39.764
All those are valid issues, right?

01:47:40.364 --> 01:47:47.664
And we're not doing enough to stop genocide in Gaza or the Congo or anywhere

01:47:47.664 --> 01:47:52.304
else, you know, the Uyghurs in China.

01:47:52.904 --> 01:47:59.664
You can be mad about that, right? That's legitimate. But you should care enough

01:47:59.664 --> 01:48:04.524
where even if you have disagreements, that you look at the people that's out

01:48:04.524 --> 01:48:07.864
there and you look at where their heart is.

01:48:08.604 --> 01:48:17.164
And that should determine who we designate as the leader, because he's not just the leader for us.

01:48:17.164 --> 01:48:24.464
He is the representative of us on the planet, in the political world,

01:48:24.884 --> 01:48:26.964
amongst other nation states.

01:48:27.884 --> 01:48:35.824
That's the standard. And it'd been nice to say she, but we haven't gotten the

01:48:35.824 --> 01:48:38.824
courage to vote for a she yet.

01:48:40.616 --> 01:48:44.976
Us, because we should have had two by now, at least two.

01:48:45.956 --> 01:48:53.836
So anyway, you know, I wish that we could elect perfect people.

01:48:54.896 --> 01:49:01.896
You know, the CIA targets Brigham Young University, right, for recruitment,

01:49:01.896 --> 01:49:06.276
because most of the young men,

01:49:06.636 --> 01:49:10.196
young women that go on missions, they have to be bilingual.

01:49:10.916 --> 01:49:16.676
You know, there's a certain standard that they have to keep up on campus because

01:49:16.676 --> 01:49:17.916
it's a religious school.

01:49:18.556 --> 01:49:22.716
So things that we were doing at Jackson State, they don't do at Brigham Young.

01:49:24.156 --> 01:49:27.996
Right. Just to be clear. So, you know,

01:49:28.216 --> 01:49:32.596
they kind of profile those young men and women and say those would be ideal

01:49:32.596 --> 01:49:36.176
candidates Because when you're dealing with espionage, you've got to deal with

01:49:36.176 --> 01:49:40.596
people that have a moral compass that can't be compromised, right?

01:49:41.436 --> 01:49:44.616
In the military, the standard's not that high.

01:49:45.276 --> 01:49:49.976
We want you to be loyal. We don't want you to turn the guns on us if you're

01:49:49.976 --> 01:49:51.376
fighting for the United States.

01:49:53.116 --> 01:49:57.976
But the standard is not as high. And that's understood, right?

01:49:58.916 --> 01:50:04.696
But every elected official in the United States can't come from Brigham Young University, right?

01:50:05.276 --> 01:50:10.476
You could probably elect everybody from Utah, but there's not enough alumni

01:50:10.476 --> 01:50:14.816
to serve in all these positions in 50 states.

01:50:16.636 --> 01:50:22.016
But you don't have to go to Brigham Young to have high standards, right?

01:50:23.043 --> 01:50:28.443
You're raised, based on your discipline, right?

01:50:29.683 --> 01:50:35.403
So there's good people out here, and there's a lot of good people that don't

01:50:35.403 --> 01:50:42.083
run because the one mistake they did make figures, well, I can't run.

01:50:42.623 --> 01:50:45.063
I don't want that coming up in the campaign.

01:50:45.883 --> 01:50:53.503
And that's your call. But if you really want to do good and you can either explain

01:50:53.503 --> 01:51:00.263
or show that you've gotten past that moment and it's not going to be,

01:51:01.243 --> 01:51:05.543
indicative of how you're going to be in that job, then you should go for it.

01:51:06.363 --> 01:51:10.563
All of us have to be accountable at some point. And if you decide to run for

01:51:10.563 --> 01:51:15.603
office and you have to be accountable to the voters were something you did in the past, do it.

01:51:16.203 --> 01:51:22.343
That would say a lot more about the character because we're all going to make

01:51:22.343 --> 01:51:30.443
mistakes, no matter how disciplined we think we are, no matter how strong we think we are.

01:51:30.983 --> 01:51:33.643
We all have our kryptonite, right?

01:51:34.443 --> 01:51:42.643
So, you know, and I commend those folks who are stronger than a lot of us I

01:51:42.643 --> 01:51:48.003
commend those folks who stay above the fray as long as they can, right?

01:51:49.860 --> 01:51:57.400
You know, as much as I would like for ALC's desire to be fulfilled, it's not.

01:51:57.980 --> 01:52:02.960
But the thing is, when you got people and you know that people are doing certain

01:52:02.960 --> 01:52:08.380
things, then when they try to get beyond where you can reach them,

01:52:09.040 --> 01:52:12.400
you might want to shut that down. Especially if you can't.

01:52:12.960 --> 01:52:16.360
Or hope that the voters shut them down. Right?

01:52:19.180 --> 01:52:25.260
Because what they're doing not only impacts them, but it might impact you,

01:52:25.480 --> 01:52:27.440
especially if you're on the same side of the aisle.

01:52:28.060 --> 01:52:31.560
Well, all the Democrats are like that. All the Republicans are like that.

01:52:32.100 --> 01:52:34.480
That's just the way they are, right?

01:52:35.260 --> 01:52:38.380
And you don't want that stigma.

01:52:39.340 --> 01:52:41.680
Nonetheless, we are where we are.

01:52:42.680 --> 01:52:47.240
Ask that you pray for the families of those elected officials in Florida and

01:52:47.240 --> 01:52:52.640
Virginia, those children that either lost a parent or both parents,

01:52:52.740 --> 01:52:54.300
well, you lost both parents.

01:52:56.748 --> 01:53:03.328
That. Pray for those communities. Pray for the communities that lost their elected

01:53:03.328 --> 01:53:09.188
officials because they have to have the courage and the discernment to pick

01:53:09.188 --> 01:53:13.648
somebody else to step in that void, right?

01:53:14.468 --> 01:53:21.188
Again, we are in tough times, but the journey of the human experience is always

01:53:21.188 --> 01:53:24.168
going to be tough. There's always going to be challenges.

01:53:24.828 --> 01:53:31.388
In the Christian faith, we're taught that our sufferings build our character, right?

01:53:31.588 --> 01:53:37.148
And it gives us the strength to keep pressing for the high mark.

01:53:37.748 --> 01:53:46.008
So just summon that strength within you and get involved.

01:53:48.268 --> 01:53:51.548
Continue to support independent podcasters like me.

01:53:52.388 --> 01:53:59.968
Vote, petition, make phone calls. Do what you got to do. Stay engaged. Attend meetings.

01:54:00.588 --> 01:54:06.948
Do what you got to do. Read the newspaper. Read the online publications, whatever.

01:54:07.588 --> 01:54:10.388
Stay informed, right?

01:54:11.028 --> 01:54:18.848
Again, not asking people to be political junkies, but we need people to fulfill

01:54:18.848 --> 01:54:20.908
the obligation of citizenship.

01:54:22.108 --> 01:54:27.048
Step outside your bubble. Listen to a thought that doesn't agree with you.

01:54:27.668 --> 01:54:31.948
That was one of the most important lessons I learned in college.

01:54:32.988 --> 01:54:37.008
We had a teacher that challenged us. Step outside of the bubble.

01:54:37.488 --> 01:54:40.548
Learn what the other side is thinking.

01:54:41.128 --> 01:54:47.888
Listen to what they're saying and build your arguments that way instead of just

01:54:47.888 --> 01:54:50.028
going on emotion and comfort.

01:54:53.201 --> 01:54:56.501
So anyway, there's hope on the other side.

01:54:57.061 --> 01:55:02.521
The guess that I have, I had on today, proves that there's hope.

01:55:02.941 --> 01:55:08.621
The fact that Congress is still meeting, the Supreme Court is still functioning.

01:55:10.421 --> 01:55:16.541
Government still is there, Constitution has been burned up, Declaration of Independence

01:55:16.541 --> 01:55:19.041
is still on display. There's hope.

01:55:20.261 --> 01:55:28.801
If anything those astronauts prove that we can do things beyond people's comprehension,

01:55:29.581 --> 01:55:31.261
if you apply yourself to it.

01:55:32.741 --> 01:55:36.561
So I'll leave y'all with that, guys. We're going to get through it.

01:55:37.341 --> 01:55:40.301
Can't sit idly by and wait for somebody else to do it.

01:55:40.981 --> 01:55:45.621
You know, we had a U.S. president that challenged us and said that we are the

01:55:45.621 --> 01:55:48.801
change we want. So let's live up to that.

01:55:49.601 --> 01:55:52.481
All right, guys, thank y'all for listening. Until next time.