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Coming up next on Passion Struck.
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The structure and the routine of military life basically creates guardrails that you stay within because that s what you have to do because you re in the military.
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So for years, I would say from 2003 when my onset for bipolar hit me,
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Up until probably 2013, that structure played a significant role in keeping me on track inside the white lines, on the railroad tracks.
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But by 2014, my mania and bipolar disorder had progressed to such a level that those parameters no longer were enough to keep me in line.
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And I just started to go out of control.
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And that s when people started sending in anonymous complaints to the chain of command describing my behavior, which read like a listing right out of the psychiatry manual of someone with mania.
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Welcome to Passion Struck.
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Hi, I m your host, Jon R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world s most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.
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Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
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If you re new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.
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We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.
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Now, let s go out there and become Passion Struck.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 346 of Passion Struck, ranked by Apple as one of the top 10 most popular health podcasts and the number one alternative health podcast.
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Thank you to all of you who come back to the show every week to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world.
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Passion Struck is now on syndicated radio on the Brushwood Media Network.
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Catch us Monday and Friday from 5 to 6 p.m.
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Eastern time on your evening commute on Apple Music, TuneIn, or wherever you listen.
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If you re new to the show, thank you so much for being here.
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Or, if you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, we have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans  favorite episodes that we put in convenient topics to give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show.
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Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started.
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And in case you missed it, earlier in the week, I interviewed two amazing guests.
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The first was my friend, Harvard professor, and number one New York Times bestselling author, Arthur Brooks.
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And we explore Arthur s new book, Build the Life You Want, which he co-authored with Oprah Winfrey.
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In this episode, we invite you to begin a journey towards greater happiness, no matter how challenging your circumstances may be.
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Drawing on cutting edge science and years of helping people translate ideas into action, Arthur shows you how to improve your life right now, instead of waiting for the outside world to change.
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The second was with Robin Steinberg, an American lawyer and social justice advocate who is the chief executive officer at The Bail Project.
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We discussed her book, The Courage of Compassion, A Journey from Judgment to Connection.
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And if you liked those episodes or today s, we would truly appreciate a five-star rating and review and sharing it with your friends and family.
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We and our guests love to hear from our listeners, and those ratings and reviews mean so much, not only the popularity of our show, but also getting more people into the Passion Star community.
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Today, I have a truly remarkable guest with us, a man whose journey is as inspiring as it is eye-opening.
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Major General Greg Martin, a name synonymous with leadership, dedication, and service.
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Throughout his 36-year military career, Major General Martin exhibited qualities that earned him respect and admiration.
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Athleticism, wit, and a natural knack for leadership propelled him to lead thousands of combat engineers through the challenges of war.
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But life, as we know, is rarely a linear path.
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Only years later would General Martin learn that the very experiences that shaped him also took an invisible toll on his mind.
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The pressure of orchestrating numerous life-or-death missions daily during the Iraq War triggered a chemical imbalance leading him down a path he could never have anticipated.
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Today we delve into a journey of profound significance, one chronicled in his new memoir, Bipolar General, My Forever War with Mental Illness.
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This candid memoir provides a gripping account of General Martin s personal odyssey with undiagnosed mental illness weaving through the highs and lows of his military ascent.
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From his initial days of hyperthymic vigor and mild bipolar disorder, enhancing his performance to the eventual escalation of these forces, both allies and obstacles on his climb to a two-star command.
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The story takes us through his descent into a full-blown manic episode that ultimately led to his removal from command.
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his forced retirement, and the deaths of depression and psychosis that followed.
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It s a tale of courage, resilience, and the unwavering support of loved ones that guided him towards recovery.
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Bipolar General is not just a memoir, it s a beacon of understanding for those navigating the complex landscape of mental illness.
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From the treatments available for bipolar disorder, including medications and electroconvulsive therapy, to the exploration of why conditions like this can go undiagnosed for so long.
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General Martin s experiences shed light on the need for awareness, support and action with and beyond the armed forces.
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Stay tuned for a conversation that might just reshape your understanding of mental health altogether.
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Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life.
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Now, let that journey begin.
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I am absolutely thrilled to welcome Major General Greg Martin to Passionstruck.
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Welcome, Greg.
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Hey, thanks a lot, John.
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It s really an honor and a privilege to be on with you.
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It s an honor and a privilege to have you on as well, sir.
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And thank you for joining us.
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Can you start by sharing what inspired you to write Bipolar General and what you hope readers will take away from your story?
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Sure.
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What inspired me to write the book was that I had been through a very intense bipolar experience after a very successful military career and figured I owe it to a really human race to tell my story, the good, the bad, the ugly, the raw,
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jagged details of what it s like to go through bipolar disorder in an acute state.
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Once I got diagnosed back in 2014, I said, I m going to tell my story.
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The wiring in my brain got damaged.
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My chemical balance went out of whack.
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And then I had a really tough, difficult journey through bipolar hell where eventually I was able to get the right medication
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the right therapy, the right lifestyle to launch a journey of recovery.
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And it just dawned on me that this disease is three to 4% of the population, which is a lot.
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And it s generally not all that much talked about because there s stigma, shame, embarrassment, none of which affected me at all, because to me, the stigma is absolutely illogical.
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it would be like having a stigma about cancer or diabetes, which just like bipolar disorder and other mental illness are physiological in nature.
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So there s no need for a stigma.
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It just doesn t make sense.
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So part of my reason was to get the facts in my story out there what happened to me as after a very successful military career and help give people knowledge, inspiration and hope that they can get better over time if they take the right steps.
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get treated, and then stick with it and work on it.
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Those are the big reasons that really inspired me.
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The other one is I ve got two of my three sons live with bipolar disorder, and I thought it would be good to demonstrate to them through my example that I m going to tell my story.
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I m not ashamed.
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The stigma doesn t affect me at all.
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And I think it s been an inspiration for both of them as well.
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Thank you for that.
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And I was hoping we could take a couple of steps back on your journey so that the audience can get to know you a little bit better.
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Can you discuss your early life and what motivated you to pursue a career in the military?
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Sure.
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My early life was marked by very high energy, enthusiasm, drive, problem solving ability, creativity, and the like.
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And I ve since found out that there s an actual psychiatric condition, which is not a mental illness, but it s a condition, a personality type called hyper
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thymia.
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And hyperthymia means that you live in a near constant state of low level mania.
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So if you have it, it s really good, it gives you an advantage.
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And I ll talk about that in a second.
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But the disadvantage is that if it creeps ever higher, which happened to me, it went up and up year by year, decade by decade.
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And it then can very easily move into real mania and bipolar disorder, which is what happened.
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So what happened to me and why did I join the military?
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Coming out of high school, I m a good athlete, student, leader, and I wanted to go to the best college.
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that I could go to, but my family didn t have much money.
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So the service academies were really the school of choice where you could go there, top-notch school, and then Uncle Sam paid the tuition.
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So I decided to go to West Point, which was a great school.
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It was a really good choice for me.
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The people, the culture of the school, the program, et cetera, were really good.
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And I graduated near the top of my class, and then went out into the Army.
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The branch that I chose was Corps of Engineers, and I served mostly in combat engineering units, and I was very successful.
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Graduated from Ranger School, had very successful Army career, got very top ratings.
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all the way from second lieutenant up through two star general ran seven marathons under three hours, including a 236 went to grad school at MIT, the army sent me got two master s degrees and a PhD been married for 41 years with a
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wonderful woman who s my wife and was key to my recovery from bipolar disorder.
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Two, three great sons, grandson.
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So my life has been marked by success and achievement from high school all the way through to star general.
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And so it was a great career for me.
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I told you why I went in to West Point.
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The thing that kept me in though, was once I got out into the field army,
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As a lieutenant, it was a platoon leader and a company commander in all those leadership jobs.
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I just fell in love with the soldiers, leading soldiers, doing the army missions.
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And this was during the cold war in Germany that were important.
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They were dangerous.
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They were energizing and I just loved leading the troops.
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And so that s what really kept me going and kept me serving in the army.
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Greg, I d like to go back to understanding more about hyperthymia.
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Because in the forward, General Dempsey, who was the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described you as an outstanding officer and leader.
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Bright, energetic, enthusiastic, outgoing, creative, driven, and innovative.
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And he thought that you were one of the most transformational officers that he had ever worked with.
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How did that correspond to being in this hyperthymia state?
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Pretty much all of them.
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I was really fortunate that I worked for General Dempsey the first time when I was a battalion commander, and he was the commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
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So I was a lieutenant colonel, he was a colonel.
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Worked for him, he was an inspirational, wonderful leader.
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And then over the next
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decade and a half, I worked for him about three more times, including when he was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
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And then I actually worked around him a few times when he wasn t my boss, but we were in adjacent units.
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So he was probably the best leader I ever served with.
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He was inspirational, very positive.
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You didn t want to let him down.
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Brilliant mind, brilliant war fighter.
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He got to know me really well.
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initially as a battalion commander prior to my onset of bipolar disorder, but clearly at a high state of hyperthymia.
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So by that time, I had moved pretty high up the bipolar spectrum, which is a new way of looking at bipolar disorder.
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It s not an on-off switch, like one day you don t have bipolar disorder,
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then you flip a switch and the next day you do.
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It s more of a gradual spectrum.
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And so when General Dempsey had first been my boss, I was 40, 43 years old, and was fairly high up the spectrum.
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And he noticed all those things that you read off.
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Then the other jobs that I had, where he saw the same traits, I was then in
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a state of bipolarity.
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So the disease had kicked in.
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It was during Iraq with the thrill, the euphoria, the stress of trauma of combat.
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That s what triggered my genetic predisposition for bipolar disorder.
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And I went into a state of mania for the most part.
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And the mania was high functioning.
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It wasn t super high.
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So it wasn t a destructive, out of control mania.
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And so General Dempsey saw me
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really at a very high level with both hyperthymia and then mania.
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General Martin, I was hoping that you could take us back for a moment when you first realized that something was amiss.
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Because the way I understand it, this was a slow progression.
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And when it was in its mildest states, it actually produced an environment in which you thrived.
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But as it progressed, it started to hamper your abilities and ultimately cultivated in severe mania and depression.
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Correct.
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After my onset in Iraq, I felt great.
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My performance went up, my energy level and so forth all went up.
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But when we got back from Iraq, back to Germany, I then realized I had gone from feeling great
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and full of energy and enthusiasm to being depressed.
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During our post-deployment medical screening, I told the doctor and the nurses that I believed I had depression and that I was super high in Iraq and I was just on fire in a positive way.
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And then after we got home, I fell into depression.
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And they asked me, what do you do to deal with your depression?
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Because I was still a brigade commander.
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I told them, I listen to motivational music, I recite motivational Bible verses, I try to do PT vigorously, and when none of that works, I drink alcohol.
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And they said, oh, you re fine.
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There s nothing wrong with you.
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And so they didn t make any attempt to go back and connect the dots with how manic I had been in Iraq.
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So that was the first time I thought there was something wrong with me with depression.
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But then 10 months later, I came out of the depression.
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It just lifted on its own.
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And oh, by the way, it was February when we got back from Iraq.
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In July, August, that same year, I was still very depressed.
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Went to the doctor again and said, hey, I m depressed.
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I think there s something wrong with me.
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And they examined me, talked to me and they said, no, you re fine.
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There s nothing to worry about.
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And then ultimately, I came out of the depression and went back into what was mostly a manic state for most of the next dozen years.
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And then again, in 2011, I went into pretty strong depression.
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I went to the doctor again, this time when I was commandant of the Army War College.
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And again, they told me, oh, you re fine.
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They told me I had a sleep disorder, which was true, but they made no attempt to get to the mental health issue.
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And so those were three times I was depressed and I thought there was something wrong with me, went to a military doctor and all three times they said, you re fine.
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And then from then on, I said, okay, I m fine.
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I went back into mostly mania.
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And it wasn t until I went into full blown acute mania in the summer of 2014, when I was the president of National Defense University.
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And I knew that there were reports going up the chain of command about my behavior.
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totally out of control, over the top, clearly manic symptoms that were reported up the chain.
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And I started wondering, gee, I wonder if they re right.
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I wonder if there is something going on.
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But the problem is when you re in a state of mania, you feel so great.
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You feel like the smartest person in the world, that you have the answer to the most complicated problems.
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So even if people tell you there s something wrong with you, you don t believe them.
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You re just like, no, there s nothing wrong with me.
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I m the smartest person in the world.
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I m doing great.
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I feel wonderful.
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I m doing a great job at work, which I continue to get top ratings all the way through the time I got pretty much fired.
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And so then when the chairman removed me from command, he gave me an order to go get a psychiatric evaluation.
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So I did.
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I ended up getting three of them that month when the doctors came back saying Martin is fit for duty.
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He s healthy.
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There s nothing wrong.
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That result went over to the Pentagon to the chairman s staff and they said, we don t believe it.
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Let s have a redo.
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So I ended up doing three of these evaluations.
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All three said fit for duty.
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You re fine.
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There s nothing wrong.
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And so I believed what the psychiatrist said.
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So I said, there s nothing wrong with me.
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But then over the next three or four months, I spiraled and then crashed into absolutely horrible depression with psychosis.
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And by November, I was barely functional as a human being.
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couldn t get out of bed, couldn t decide which foot to put my socks on, couldn t decide anything, was withdrawn, had no energy, felt horrible.
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And at that point, it was way worse than the earlier depressions I had.
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I went back to the same doctors and said, Hey, doctor, I know you said I was fine, but there s something really wrong with me.
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And it was at that point, the psychiatrists were able to
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to connect the dots that I had been in a very high level, which was mania.
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And now I was in a very low state and they correctly diagnosed me with bipolar disorder type one, which is real mania and real depression.
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And then they diagnosed me as well with psychosis, which accompanies about 50% of people with bipolar disorder also experience psychosis, which is typically a combination of delusions
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and hallucinations.
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The delusion is to ardently believe
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something is true that is in fact not true.
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So that s what a delusion is.
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So I believed things to be true that weren t true.
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Hallucinations are seeing, hearing or feeling a reality that is not real.
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So it could be seeing visions, could be hearing voices.
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It could be like in my case, I mean, I actually had the experience that I was, you know, flying.
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and outside of a plane that I actually rose up in the air and was flying.
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And that s not reality.
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I never flew.
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It didn t happen, but I felt as though I did, and I believed it to be true.
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So people who might not be familiar with bipolar disorder, you ve provided some of the symptoms, but could you provide maybe a 50,000 foot level overview of what it is and how it affects individuals?
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Because I think sometimes people confuse bipolar with schizophrenia.
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Sure.
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So bipolar disorder is characterized by the psychiatric community as a mood disorder.
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And so the nature of bipolar disorder is that you cycle between high elevated states, which are called mania, and then you cycle or swing into very low
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down depressed states.
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You cycle between mania and depression.
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There s several different varieties and flavors of bipolar disorder.
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I had bipolar disorder type one, but there are several other types that you can have.
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I think everybody understands pretty much what depression is and what the characteristics and symptoms are.
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Very low energy, hopelessness, no interest in anything, things that you used to be all passionate about, you don t care about, you don t want to do, you feel miserable.
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Oftentimes, you either sleep all the time or you can t sleep at all.
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As far as diet goes, you either eat
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constantly or you lose your appetite and you don t eat at all.
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Let s see, what other things?
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Lose all interest in sex.
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You oftentimes are confused.
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You are withdrawn.
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Again, you have no interest in pretty much anything.
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And those are some of the main symptoms of what depression is.
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And it goes way beyond being sad or feeling down.
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Because what depression is that the biochemistry of your brain, the chemicals that reduce happiness are basically your brain stops making them.
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So your brain goes from active and alive and energetic to it just basically quiets down to the point where it s actually goes black.
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you re totally hopeless.
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And it s because those critical biochemicals are not being produced by your brain or they re being produced at such a low level, you can barely function.
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The other characteristic is rumination.
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You re continuously going through your entire life, every mistake you ever made.
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You re extremely negative and pessimistic about everything to include the future.
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Oftentimes you have continuous thinking and ruminating about death and dying, and you also often have suicidal ideations.
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And people in severe depression oftentimes die by suicide.
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In fact, a person with bipolar disorder, their probability of suicide is 30 to 40 times higher than people without bipolar disorder.
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So very dangerous
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disease and condition to be in.
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So I covered the depressed side.
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The manic side is just the opposite.
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Extreme energy, don t need sleep, extreme enthusiasm, rapid speech.
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For me, when I was in full-blown mania, I was sometimes talking for hours at a time.
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If it was a 50-minute meeting, it might go for two plus hours.
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You are so enthusiastic and bubbly, it seems weird and strange.
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You have grandiosity where you have these incredible ideas that you re on a mission from God.
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For me, I thought I held the key to world peace.
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I thought I was the smartest person in the world.
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I thought there was no problem I couldn t tackle and solve.
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I believed that I was on a direct mission from God and that he had made me in the U.S.
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military analogous to the Apostle Paul.
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who was really the builder of the early Christian church.
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And so I thought I was on that kind of a mission, this grandiosity.
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Another big symptom that hit me hard was religiosity.
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So extreme religiousness to where I was doing 20 to 30 significant religious events
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per week, going to multiple churches, multiple Bible studies, memorizing dozens of Bible verses, multiple prayer breakfasts, doing discipleship training at three different groups in and on.
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There was a period where I was going to an evangelical charismatic church, going to a Presbyterian church, and then I would go to two or three Catholic services, getting communion at all of them,
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There was a period where I went to mass every day for 49 days and did confession every single day with the priest.
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So I was extremely over the top religiously.
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Other symptoms of mania are recklessness, where you don t have the normal self-control and checks.
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on your behavior and spending tremendous amounts of money on things you don t need, buying all kinds of extravagant things.
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Another one that s common, but thank God it didn t strike me, is a wild, promiscuous sex life where a lot of people with mania just go wild in that regard.
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And again, I was really fortunate I didn t have that.
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What causes this manic behavior
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is your brain chemistry is out of whack and your brain is creating too much in the way of endorphins and dopamine and other chemicals that cause this rise.
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When you go into depression, what happens is the brain slowly stops making as much of these chemicals and you fall into depression.
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And the scientists have actually done a pretty neat study where
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They can take colored images of the brain of somebody who is mathematic, and the brain is lit up with because the brain is flooded with all these chemicals until it appears to be yellow, bright yellow, orange, red.
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But when it transitions into depression, it turns into dark blue, dark purple, and black, showing that the electrons and the chemistry of the brain have gone from really intensely alive to really dark and non-functional.
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Another common characteristic is what they call flight of ideas, where your brain is going so fast, you have one idea after another.
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And I clearly had that.
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People can t keep up with the ideas because they re coming too fast.
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By the time someone could begin to get their head around the first idea, I d have two or three more.
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And of course, that makes it very difficult for people.
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That s not an easy boss to work for.
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The list of all of them is in
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DSM-5, Diagnostic and Statistic Manual 5, which is the American Psychiatric Association s Bible for Psychiatry.
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Greg, from commanding an engineer brigade during the Iraq War to serving in numerous leadership roles, these must have all shaped you in very profound ways.
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Can you reflect on how your military career significantly impacted your outlook and approach to this mental condition and the resilience that you showed?
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Yes.
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One of the things that kept me from really going out of control earlier than I did prior to 2014 is that the structure and the routine of military life basically creates guardrails that you stay within because that s what you have to do because you re in the military.
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So for example, you have to get up early, you have to go to PT, you have to be there on time, you have to be at your meetings, you need to be organized, you need to do things during the day.
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And then in the evening,
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you have to go to bed at a certain hour, you won t be able to function.
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For years, I would say from 2003 when my onset for bipolar hit me, up until probably 2013,
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that structure played a significant role in keeping me on track inside the white lines on the railroad tracks.
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But by 2014, my mania and bipolar disorder had progressed to such a level that those parameters no longer were enough to keep me in line.
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And I just started to go out of control.
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And that s when people started to write anonymous articles and started sending in anonymous complaints to the chain of command describing
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my behavior, which read like a listing right out of the psychiatry manual of someone with mania.
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Once I was diagnosed in November of 2014, when I was in a terrible depression, that depression and psychosis lasted for two years.
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I was in what I call bipolar hell.
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for a period of two years.
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I think the military helped me a lot because I didn t quit.
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I didn t give up.
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I didn t commit suicide.
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I tried my best to get out of bed every day.
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I went to my doctor s appointments.
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I had one friend where I lived in New Hampshire who I would go visit on a regular basis and we would drink beer and smoke cigars.
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And that was one of the only social things that I did.
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I tried hard to get out of the house and go for a walk with my wife.
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And so I think the perseverance, the willpower, the mental toughness to not quit and not give up helped me quite a bit.
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When I got diagnosed in November, 2014, even though I was in terrible mental condition, I embraced the diagnosis.
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I hugged the doctor.
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I said, thank you for giving me a diagnosis.
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I knew there was something wrong with me.
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Now I know what it is, and we can together get to fixing it.
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And when I did inpatient some months later, I had the same attitude.
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I really embraced the program that the doctors and the psychiatrists and the nurses, they had for me.
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I embraced it.
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I worked hard at it.
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I did all the stuff they said, because I wanted to get better.
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So I think the Army, the military helped me in all of those aspects.
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The other thing I asked my wife, I said, hey, when I was such a basket case, did you think about leaving me and just abandoning me in the marriage?
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And she said, I didn t do that because you never gave up.
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You never stopped trying.
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You always kept working and trying to get better.
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So I figured as long as you re trying to get better, I ll stick with you and not give up on you.
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So I think those are all ways the military helped me.
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I remember reading in the book that she also said many of those things were one-off situations, and that you all would talk about it, you d get the message she was trying to convey, and then you would respond to her concerns.
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And so she was satisfied that you had heard her, that she was able to express her concern and move on.
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So it seemed like it was a combination of multiple things that, through the strength of your wife, allowed her to support you.
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Absolutely.
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You described it perfectly.
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The book describes various treatments for bipolar disorder, from medications to electroconvulsive therapy.
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Can you share your thoughts on the effectiveness of those treatments and the role that they played in your journey to recovery?
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So nothing worked for me until I was prescribed lithium.
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Going back to November 2014, Walter Reed Military Hospital, the psychiatrist who diagnosed me, he probably tried 10 different medications and none of them made a difference.
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All they did was make me groggy and sleepy and all I wanted to do was lay down and fall asleep.
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And that continued.
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When I left the military, I went up to New Hampshire, I hooked up with a civilian psychiatrist.
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He tried a couple of medications that I still to this day take eight years later.
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And both of those are good medications.
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They re called Lamotrigine and Lirazidone.
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They re good medications for my condition, which was bipolar disorder plus psychosis.
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But they didn t do the trick.
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They couldn t pull me out of the depression.
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They couldn t pull me out of the psychosis.
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And then when I went to the inpatient at the VA, we did electroconvulsive therapy, which works really well for some people in lifting them out of depression.
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It made me feel better for a couple of hours and then it would go away.
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And I did it three days a week for a month.
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Didn t do any good.
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And it was finally in this August of 2016, my wife was at her wits end and she called my doctor and said, hey, nothing s working.
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His depression is still as bad as ever.
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He still has hallucinations and delusions.
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There s something else we can try.
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And so we talked to the doctor and the most successful medication probably in history for bipolar disorder is lithium.
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which is a natural salt that s on the chemical periodical table.
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It s harvested right out of the earth and then processed.
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But the thing about lithium is it works really well for some people with bipolar, which it did for me, but there s significant side effects.
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It can damage your liver, your kidneys.
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It gives you tremors.
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Luckily, I haven t had any problems.
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I do quarterly, so my organs are fine.
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I do have tremors in my hands, but we decided to try lithium.
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This was at the end of August, seven years ago, and it was amazing.
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Within three or four days, my depression just lifted.
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It vanished.
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The psychosis went away.
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I felt really good.
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I felt like I had
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before coming down with bipolar disorder.
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And that was seven years ago.
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And I literally since then have been day by day, month by month on this recovery journey, where it took me a little while to rebuild my marriage, rebuild my life.
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figure out what I was going to do, what my purpose and mission would be.
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And that s been a continuous journey over seven years.
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And it was along that journey that I came up, my mission and purpose in life would be sharing my bipolar story to help stop the stigma, promote recovery and save lives.
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And it was with that mission that I got the inspiration to write the book.
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And then from the book, I ve published about 25 articles, given several dozen interviews, podcasts and so forth.
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And the feedback has been 100% extremely positive.
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And I ve gotten loads of emails and people get ahold of me and want to talk about mental health issues.
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The real success and the real turning point for me was with lithium.
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It was just the silver bullet, the wonder medication that turned me around.
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So one of the most important things I wanted to make sure we covered was the topic of suicide and veteran suicide in particular.
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I think I originally got introduced to you from our mutual friend, Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet.
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And Tim and I have been talking for a while now about the ways that we could use both of our platforms to create more awareness about veteran suicide.
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And I just wanted to go back to my interview that I had with my college classmate, Chuck Smith, who s a former Marine Corps officer.
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His executive officer ended up admitting suicide.
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And coming out of that, he started to do a ton of research, which culminated in a TED Talk, which now has over two and a half million views.
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But the thing that he discovered that was just so eye-opening to me is that when you think of the War on Terror combined, and we just went through the remembrance of 9-11, there was somewhere between
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7,000 to 8,000 fatalities during that period of time that were directly related to soldiers being killed in the battlefield.
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However, Chuck discovered that during this 22-year period that if you take into account veterans along with active duty members who committed suicide, it equated to over 150,000 lives.
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And this was fact-checked by the TED organization.
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because they wouldn t allow him to talk about it if they couldn t substantiate the results.
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It just seems so dumbfounding to me that it could have this severe an impact and yet not more is being done about it.
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I was hoping because you re one of the most senior leaders I ve had on this show from the U.S.
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Army that you might be able to give some historical precedence and maybe your thoughts on what might be changing.
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The numbers and the figures are just stunning and so tragic.
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I would say that from the time I entered the military back in the 1970s, for a couple of decades, I think the military did pretty well coming to grips with and understanding PTSD.
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really thank the Vietnam-era generation for giving us that knowledge.
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Then 9-11 hit, and we entered these very difficult, complicated, deadly guerrilla-type wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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The force was small, and we had to keep sending soldiers and sailors, airmen, Marines back into combat again and again, which was really pretty much unprecedented in our history.
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And so then we dealt pretty well with the PTSD that was in the force.
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In fact, fairly early on, there were high ranking command sergeants, senior NCOs, and even flag officers who went public and said, hey,
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I have PTSD, and here s what I m doing about it.
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And the military figured out how to deal with it, how to manage it, how to treat it, and how to keep people on active duty, which I think was really good.
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Then the next thing that came was waves of depression.
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And the military, I think, figured out how to deal with depression pretty well.
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And before you knew it, you had people with depression.
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who were being treated, were taking medication, and were allowed to continue to serve on active duty with a malady of depression, which is very serious, and there was a big correlation with suicide.
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And then more brain issues came along.
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Traumatic brain injury, survivor s guilt, moral injury,
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And then I believe bipolar disorder is probably quite a bit more widespread than people realize, and we can go into why I think that.
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But overall, I think the military has done a good job of taking all of this seriously.
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pushing resources down, educating and training service members on how to recognize symptoms, how to be a good battle buddy, which is built on trust, how to have conversations with other service members that, hey, here s what I m observing in you.
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maybe it s time to go see a therapist or a mental health professional, which again are now much more accessible than they were 20 years ago.
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The military is doing a lot to normalize the conversation about mental health.
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And in normalizing the conversation,
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they re helping to reduce the stigma.
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Although the stigma is still real, it s too big, and it is a major deterrent of people going in and getting help.
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So much more has to be done about eliminating the stigma.
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But there s all kinds of examples of bases and commands who have come up with smart, effective,
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methods to deal with mental health and total wellness.
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I was just on the phone with Fort Riley, Kansas, 1st Infantry Division yesterday.
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A friend of mine, General DA Sims, he commanded 1st ID and he had brain challenges during his many deployments.
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And he said, if I m ever a commander of a base, I m going to really do something to make a difference.
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It s called Victory Wellness.
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And you can read about it.
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It s on the Fort Riley website, because they ve kept it in place.
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And there was a really good article in Military Times two or three years ago about the program.
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But it s good.
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It works.
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The troops and the families buy into it.
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And it s effective.
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And they ve actually got data to show the effectiveness of it.
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So as more and more programs like that come alive, I think we re going to be in better and better shape.
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So I think the active force has definitely improved a lot, but I think we still have a long way to go.
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I do think that the senior officers and NCOs throughout the military have a much better awareness and understanding now than they did
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10, 20, 30 years ago.
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Now, as far as veterans, it s a little bit different of a situation.
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A lot of veterans leave the military and they do have brain issues.
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They do have mental challenges.
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Many of them get into the VA system
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and they get good care, they get good treatment, and they deal with their problem.
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They get diagnosed, they get medication, they manage this chronic illness, and they live a healthy, successful life.
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But many of them don t.
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A lot of people get frustrated with the VA, the bureaucracy, it s too slow.
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They may not have a good fit with their doctor or their therapist.
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And so a lot of veterans walk away from the VA and they say, I don t like it.
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I don t want to have anything to do with it.
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And they give up on the VA.
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And that s a huge mistake.
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I have lots of parents and veterans ask me, I hate the VA, what should I do?
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I said, go back in there, get a counselor and start working the system.
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Tell them you didn t connect with your doctor or your therapist and you want another one.
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You want to start fresh with somebody new.
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If you retire from the military, you get tried care for life.
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So if you don t like the VA, you can use your TRICARE and go to the civilian health care system and go get treatment.
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You can find your own psychiatrist, etc.
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In fact, my son, who s retired from the Army, he s got brain issues.
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He has worked with the VA.
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And then he s worked with civilians because he has TRICARE and he has the VA.
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But if people don t get back into the VA, a lot of our veterans, that s their only medical system that they have because they don t have TRICARE.
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So then if they don t use the VA, then what are they going to do?
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The only thing out there is to go to some of these really good nonprofit mental health places like the Cohen Network or Headstrong or some of these.
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They re good, but they only have the resources to see a patient for about one month.
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And you can t fix these brain issues in a month.
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It takes a lifetime of hard work in medical care.
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My charge to veterans is to get enrolled in the VA and stick with it.
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And if you re fortunate enough to have private health insurance or your retired military,
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And by all means, go try it in the civilian sector.
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There s lots of good doctors.
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The thing about the mental health is that if you don t deal with it and you don t treat it, it can easily lead to broken marriage, broken family, ended career, loss of finances, addiction, homelessness, incarceration, and death.
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that s a pretty typical path for somebody who is not dealing with their mental health.
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But on the other hand, if you do embrace it, and you go in and get a diagnosis, and get on a good treatment plan, and stick with it, the chances are very good that you ll live a healthy, happy, purposeful life.
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And I can talk a little about what what I see is the right steps to live a healthy life.
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Let me just comment before you do that.
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I want to tell you a little bit about my experience with the VA.
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I was lucky because early on, I met a psychiatrist who happened to be a DO and not an MD.
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And he told me that the whole key to navigating the VA system
4
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was to become the CEO of your own life.
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Because the VA, like many medical systems, is protocol-based.
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And in order to function across all these protocols, you have to take charge of your own journey.
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And even though the primary care physician is supposed to be the head of your team doing that, they often are seeing so many patients that they just don t have time.
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So you re in the cockpit, so to speak, guiding the plane in the direction that it s going to go.
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And I found that when I really implemented his advice and I took control and then I used primary care physician to get me the appointments that I needed, it really opened the doors for me having a more holistic treatment plan.
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But I can see why for so many people it is discouraging because sometimes not only does it take a while to get in the system, but then you find you are impacted by these protocols and you re treated as if you re just a component of a system, but with no one looking at the complete system, which is you.
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But I found that when you learn how to navigate the VA system, that they can be extremely effective with their help.
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In fact, I found that I ve been treated far better when I am in the VA than I ve ever been outside of the VA.
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And I m not sure if that resonates with you, Craig, but that s what I found from my own personal experience.
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I agree with you 100%.
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I think you are exactly on target.
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Someone who is their own advocate and is active and engaged and stands up for themselves and works with the people in the system, I think will make out pretty well.
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I m going to come back to the keys that you just mentioned about living a fulfilling life in just a second.
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But before I do, I wanted to make sure we came back to bipolar disorder, because at the beginning, you mentioned that it impacts, I think you said 5% of the population.
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I looked it up before I came on the show today, and it said that 7 million people in the United States alone were impacted by it.
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Can you provide some context to the prevalence of bipolar disorder, who it impacts, and why raising awareness for it is so important?
4
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So depending on which source you go to typically some sources on mental health say two to 3%.
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Others say three to 4%.
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And then I ve also read places that said 5%.
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discrepancy on how many people actually have it.
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But bipolar disorder can strike anybody of literally from childhood into pretty old age, up through the 60s.
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It hits rich people, poor people, enlisted, flag officers, smart people, educated, poorly educated, dumb people, rich, poor, et cetera.
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So it can hit anybody, male, female, gay, straight,
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It s an equal opportunity destroyer of lives.
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The typical onset happens between the ages of 18 and 25.
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That s when most people come down with bipolar disorder, if they re going to get it.
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But there are people earlier than that and people later than that.
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Like for me, my onset wasn t until I was 47.
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And they call that late onset bipolar disorder.
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So one of the reasons I think there is much more bipolar disorder in the military than anybody talks about is the ages of onset, typically 18 to 25.
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That s exactly the same years that we bring people into the military, between 18 and 25.
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The characteristics of low-level mania and mania are drive, enthusiasm, energy, etc.
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And those are exactly the same traits we look at in people that we want to sign up for the military.
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The way bipolar disorder is triggered is that you have a genetic predisposition, and then it s a stressful, traumatic event.
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that triggers it.
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From the moment people enter the military, their life is full of stress and trauma and the types of things that can and do trigger the genetic predisposition.
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So all of those things to me are almost like a perfect storm of overlaying the age, the type of people, the lifestyle that would
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promote and advance the amount of bipolar disorder.
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The other thing that s interesting is when you, a lot of the people who come into the military, they may have bipolar disorder like I did for 12 years, but they don t know they have it.
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So it s unknown, unrecognized, undiagnosed.
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There s probably a good number of people who come in who don t even know they have it.
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And then people who do know they have it, they ve been diagnosed, there s a good chance that they may not put it in their enlistment papers.
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So because a lot of recruiters will tell people trying to sign up for the military, hey, don t put down this or don t put down that, because if you do, it ll be a disqualifying condition.
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The person who s trying to enlist
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may say, okay, this is the recruiter.
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It s a NCO.
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I ll go ahead and do what they say.
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And they don t report it.
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They re serving in the military, knowing they have bipolar disorder and trying to keep it under wraps.
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Well, thank you for sharing all of that.
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And I did want to go back to your answer and a question that I know our audience is going to be super interested in, especially from a senior officer like yourself.
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And that is, what have you found are the keys to living a fulfilling life?
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So first off, I had to get on the right medication because without the right medication, the biochemistry of my brain would be out of whack.
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and I would continue to be depressed, possibly manic, but I had to get the right medication, the right biochemistry.
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That s number one.
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Number two, therapy is really important for people with mental conditions, mental challenges, and therapists are typically trained, educated psychologists who are experts in helping you understand what s going on in your life and how to deal with problems.
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So that s number two.
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Number three, you have to live a healthy lifestyle.
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And healthy lifestyle, it s all common sense things, healthy diet, plenty of sleep, plenty of water, low stress, and other things that will make you healthy.
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All of those are necessary, but they re not sufficient to be healthy.
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So in order to be healthy and continue to recover, you need to take those first three things.
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and anchor them on what I call the social platform of the five P s.
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And the five P s are number one, people, and that s surrounding yourself with a network in a group of people who are happy, fun, and energizing that you really like to be around.
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Number two, you have to find your purpose in life.
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You ve got to figure it out.
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As a military person, once I started recovering, then my first big question was, what s my mission?
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Because in the military, the first thing you do when you go somewhere is you say, what s the mission?
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And I realized I didn t have a mission.
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And that is where I got into this idea of sharing my bipolar story to help stop the stigma and save lives.
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So developing a purpose or a mission is absolutely critical to being healthy and recovering.
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Number three is place.
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It s really important that as much as you can possibly do it, you live in a place that enables you to do things that you want to do, enables you to be healthy, to be happy, and be in an environment that s conducive to good health.
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One of the things we did is we moved from New Hampshire, which is absolutely beautiful, but the long, dark, cold winters
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They were not good for me given that I have bipolar disorder because they make my depression much worse.
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And so I did some research and figured out that if I come to a sunny, bright, warm place like Florida, it will actually help the biochemistry of my brain.
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And it absolutely has.
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Fourth is perseverance.
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There s no substitute for persevering and you got to just keep going because relapse is always a possibility.
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Studies show that 70% of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder fall into a relapse.
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And so you re going to have bumps along the way.
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I ve had a couple pretty serious bumps.
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I haven t gone into relapse, but I came fairly close.
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And when you get knocked back, you just have to get up and keep going and stick to your program.
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You asked earlier, how did the military help me with this?
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I think one of the hallmarks of being a military person is perseverance.
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Keep going, keep trying, never quit, never give up.
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And then the fifth one is what I call presence.
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And presence is the ability to get outside of your own head.
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A lot of time we re prisoners of our own thinking.
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And they call this ability to think about your own thinking, the fancy word for it is called metacognition.
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An example, with my psychosis, I had really bad paranoid delusions.
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I thought people were out to get me.
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They wanted to hurt me.
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They wanted to get me put in jail.
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And
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The reality is nobody was thinking that stuff.
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Nobody s thinking it now.
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And in fact, they re probably not thinking about me at all.
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So if I start getting like these paranoid delusions that people are out to get me in this day and age, I do this kind of presence thing.
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Think about my thinking.
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And I basically, I quickly come to the conclusion that this is just faulty thinking.
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It s inside my own head.
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Stop it.
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Go away.
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And it s really a helpful technique.
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Greg, thank you for all of those.
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I m going to have to jot down your five P s myself so that I can put them on my desk when I m working, because I think that was a great list.
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Greg, I have one final question for you, and that is writing a memoir can be a very reflective experience.
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Looking back, what lessons have you learned from your journey that you wish you can impart on your younger self?
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My mother said it best from the time I was a young officer, even at West Point.
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She said, Greg, you don t get enough sleep, you drink too much alcohol, and you take your job in the Army way too seriously.
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She said, you need to slow down and relax more because you re going to drive yourself crazy if you continue this lifestyle.
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And she was absolutely right.
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Now, if I had taken that advice and done those things, would I still have had onset of bipolar?
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That s unknowable.
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I might have, but I might not have.
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I might have been in a healthier, calmer, better state, better place, and that onset may never have happened.
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But again, that s pure conjecture.
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Nobody knows, no one ever will know, other than God knows, I m sure, but it s unknowable.
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Greg, if a listener wanted to learn more about you and your story, where s a great place for them to do so?
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The best place is, I would say humbly, the book, because the book is got the deepest and the broadest amount of information.
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on my entire story.
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You can pre-order it on Amazon, and then it actually comes out.
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A hard copy will be on the street 15th of September.
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It s also available on Barnes & Noble and at the Naval Institute Press.
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But the other place is to go to my website, which is www.bipolar.org.
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general.com.
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And the website is just a treasure trove of information about my story.
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It s got other people s stories on their articles, podcasts, interviews.
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I would say that s a really good place to go.
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And if anybody wants to get ahold of me, my email is Greg, G-R-E-G, Martin, M-A-R-T-I-N,
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79 at gmail.com.
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And if you want to continue the discussion, send me an email, or you can also get ahold of me through my website.
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And the name of the book, John mentioned it earlier, but it s Bipolar General, My Forever War with Mental Illness.
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General Martin, thank you so much for joining us today.
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It was such an honor to have you, and thank you for what you re doing to try to help break the stigma when it comes to mental health.
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John, thank you.
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This has been an honor, a privilege.
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I ve really enjoyed it.
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You ask great questions and just thank you for what you re doing because you re making a huge positive difference through your podcast and the work you do.
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So thank you very much.
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Thank you very much, sir.
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Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals.
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Please consider supporting those who support the show.
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Videos are on YouTube at both John R. Miles and Passionstruck Clips.
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And I have some exciting news that you can now pre-order my book, Passionstruck, which is all about the science of intentional living.
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And I provide 12 principles that guide you on your most fulfilling life.
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Links will be in the show notes.
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As I mentioned at the beginning of the show, we are now on the Brushwood Media Network, where we have a syndicated radio show Monday and Friday from 5 to 6 p.m.
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Eastern Time.
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Catch it on TuneIn, Apple Music, or wherever you listen to your music.
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I am on John R. Miles on all the social platforms, or you can also catch me on LinkedIn, where I have a weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to, or you can subscribe through PassionStruck.com to our normal weekly newsletter.
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You re about to hear the preview of the PassionStruck podcast interview I did with Dr. Neha Sangwan, a CEO, physician, engineer, and communications specialist.
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She is the author of the upcoming book, Powered by Me, where she uncovers the profound effects of unhealed trauma on burnout and empowers individuals to discover what truly energizes them and provides greater purpose in life.
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The other thing that s really important to know about burnout is
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Burnout happens over time, and there s three phases.
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The first phase is the alarm phase, where it almost feels like you re jumping on a treadmill that s going a little too fast, and your heart skips a beat.
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You might start sweating.
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It s that adrenaline rush moment.
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If you just continue on with that faster pace on the treadmill, and you don t ever get off of it, you move into the second phase, which is called adaptation.
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where now your biology has to adapt to that higher pace without the rest.
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Suddenly you re going to find things like a weekend isn t enough time to recover.
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You re not able to catch up.
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And that s when that cynicism comes in.
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Oh, I feel like I m heavy as bricks.
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I can barely drag myself through the day.
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And then you re in this chronic adaptation phase where you re adapting to that faster and faster pace of life.
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And then one more thing happens.
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One more thing happens and you go sliding down the slippery slope of exhaustion.
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So the triad of burnout is physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism and ineffectiveness.
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Remember that we rise by lifting others, so share the show with those that you love.
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And if you found today s episode with Major General Greg Martin useful, then share it with people who need to hear his message.
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In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen.
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Now go out there and become PassionStruck.