What Happens When You Stop Fighting Your Diagnosis? Bipolar Disorder, Mental Health Recovery & Acceptance with Reza Ghaemi

Notes from the Edge

Host Lisa Lacy sits down with Reza Ghaemi to discuss his journey through Bipolar I Disorder, moving from a state of denial and hospitalizati

Key takeaways

Reza Gemma experienced a significant manic episode in 2018 characterized by grandiosity and unusual behaviors like picking up trash.
The process of moving from denial to full acceptance of his diagnosis took Reza approximately five years.

Main topics

Bipolar I Disorder management
The transition from denial to acceptance

Notable quotes

Bipolar is my superpower... It is what the resilience I built afterwards.

Conclusion

The episode serves as an empowering guide for those navigating late-li

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:04) Welcome to Notes from the Edge, where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. We talk about the things that we're not talking about. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author of the upcoming memoir, Notes from a Certified Madwoman. Welcome to the Edge. Speaker 3 (0:34) Hey, hey, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of Notes from the Edge. I am your host, Lisa Lacey, and this is the place we have the conversations we should have been having all along. Guess what? You ain't talking about it. So today we're gonna with my special guest, Reza Gayimi. Now today we're going to be talking about what happens when we stop performing in order to survive. What happens when acceptance stops feeling like surrender and becomes the beginning of recovery? So my guest today is the author of Bipolar Is My Superpower, How Acceptance Changed My Life, and he is the host of his own podcast, The Rez Podcast. After being diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder just in 2018, he began moving through denial, major manic episodes, hospitalization, stigma, substance use, and the consequences of resisting treatment before discovering a different relationship with his diagnosis. Today, he speaks openly about all of those, medication, faith, family support, personal responsibility, creativity. and the self-awareness that helped him actually rebuild his life. Welcome to the edge, my friend. I'm so excited we finally made it here. How are you today? Speaker 1 (1:56) Thank you so much, Lisa, for that intro. It was such a pleasure to be on your show. And yes, we did finally make it. We had some technical difficulties. Speaker 2 (2:04) There's always some involved, isn't there? My poor husband. Guys, we had some internet issues that required a few little curse words. I'm glad the camera wasn't on. But anyway, all right, residents, nose from the edge. We're going to just jump right in. Speaker 3 (2:19) You said acceptance was the turning point for you. Speaker 3 (2:25) What did you have to stop fighting before your life could actually change once you got this latent life diagnosis just in 2019 when the world was about to go crazy for a little while? Speaker 1 (2:38) Yeah. So in 2018, the Persian New Year is in March 21st, the first day of spring. I was with my family. We were having dinner or lunch rather. And I was irritable that day. I had been. Speaker 1 (2:55) expressing the very textbook symptoms of hypomania. And I was doing stuff like that. I felt grandiose. I felt like I was being watched. I felt like I was famous. I felt I was picking up trash. And at the same time, I was very religiously spiritual. I was picking up trash from the ground, putting it in the garbage can. I don't usually talk about what I do in my episodes, but this just came to my mind. I was kind of doing like... We like Speaker 2 (3:22) rabbit holes. You're already down one. Roll with it. Speaker 1 (3:25) I was doing like to me in that moment, I felt I was in such a high state that I wanted to give back. And one of the ways I was doing that is by literally picking up the trash, the garbage from the ground and putting it in the garbage can. I remember vividly... driving in a car wash, being in a car wash line, lineup, and I saw trash and I got out with a suit. I was working at a major tech company at the time, fancy suit, step outside my fancy car. And people were like, probably thinking, what the hell is wrong with this guy? But I was picking up the trash from the ground. So those are the kinds of things that I was doing in my hypomania, spending a lot of money, not sleeping much. And when you were... First, eventually what's going to happen, Lisa, is you're either going to end up in the hospital or for some folks that have such high self-awareness and such compliance with their family members and their doctors, they're going to comply to the medication right off the bat, which saves them hospital time. This typically happens with type 2 bipolar people. I'm type 1. And with type 1, the episode is so severe that you do not have the self-awareness to know that you need help. So once you're in that state, you think it's real, you think it's real. And so I ended up in the hospital that day. And initially, when you end up in the hospital, they put you on very heavy, heavy medication. We're talking things like olanzapine. This is known to be a horse tranquilizer, Lisa. So imagine just how much it sedates you. And that... feeling that you were at during your episode now all of a sudden you're sedated to the point where you're just sleeping in the hospital and then on top of that they're telling you now that you have this thing called bipolar disorder you don't want to hear that who wants it who wants to hear that quote-unquote they're crazy because that's what we hear in the media and in pop culture bipolar disorder is for crazy people and that's how they show very nasty depictions and movies and stuff. Anyways, so the stigma is there. The fear of the diagnosis is there. The medications have these side effects. You don't want to accept it. So you go through denial. The denial is a very common thing I observed among the folks I was in the hospital with. And to this day, Lisa, this is why I wrote the book. And if I can show the book cover. Speaker 2 (6:01) It's your show. Yes, show the book. Amazing. Speaker 1 (6:04) So Speaker 2 (6:04) I'm very excited. So Speaker 1 (6:06) Bipolar is my superpower. How acceptance changed my life. And a quick disclaimer, the title does not glorify mania or psychosis. It is what you, the resilience I built afterwards. But just to kind of finish with the story, I was explaining that I had a few friends of mine that reached out to me over the past while. And they would say things like, Reza. I don't want to take my medication. I just, do you think that's cool? Like I'm going to stop my medication. And I'm like, in my head, I'm like, dude, how many times do you have to, I don't know if I can swear on your show. Probably not. I won't do it. Yeah. Speaker 2 (6:44) We were trying to get, I've been swearing and have been told that we need to get the explicit ratings off. Okay. It Speaker 1 (6:51) was just coming out. So I wanted to. I was actually going Speaker 2 (6:55) through the explicit rating. Apparently that was not the way to go. So Speaker 1 (6:59) I said to myself, how many times, man, do you have to have an episode? You've been in this, you've been bipolar for years and you're asking me if you should go on your, off your meds. Are you crazy? Excuse the pun. Are you crazy? And so that led me to writing the book, which is ultimately took me five years, Lisa, to accept that I need. to be on my medication to stay well. And I need to. That's the first thing. And then the second thing is by working on myself, by building the recovery skills you learn in support groups from your doctor, you learn that you need to get your sleep, always be monitoring your sleep, always be doing other things. And again, my important thing is the medication. And so I decided to write the book because I noticed this was such an important thing that... that people with bipolar disorder face is that they're trying constantly to fight it, to manipulate the doctor, to say, no, it was drug induced. I don't have this. I don't need the medication, this, that, and the other. And my message to the, to the community of bipolar disorder people is please, please, please take your medication and give it a chance. Speaker 3 (8:20) Yeah. Well, I think. I think what happens for those of us who have had a history of psychosis and a ton of labels throw at us is if we are taking said medication and we start to feel better, right? Then do you feel like maybe some of it is that we want to be so normal? Well, I'm normal now. Everything's fine. I feel great now without piecing together that it's probably the medication that's helping us feel better, right? So it's these games of denial that we play with our. Well, Speaker 1 (8:53) but Lisa, when you say feel better, you see with bipolar disorder, when you say that, like, are you saying that people want to feel like in the manic state that they were in? Or because again, when I was in my manic state, I didn't know I was unwell. It was the realization after recovery. That's when I'm like, oh, now I know I wasn't well, picking up trash, you know, like that. Right. But at the time I didn't know I was unwell. Does that make sense? Speaker 2 (9:22) Yeah, that makes sense. But I see your point. Speaker 1 (9:24) Yeah, I definitely see. Yeah. For those with type two that are more self-aware, they're like, oh, now I'm well, you know, and I don't need well. Yes. Well, yes. Speaker 3 (9:35) And then they Speaker 1 (9:35) relapse. So, yeah. Speaker 3 (9:37) Yes. Yes. Yes.