I couldn’t wait to share with you this conversation about mental illness. My guest is Susan Johnson. She’s the author of, Some Dreams Are Worth Keeping: A Memoir of My Bipolar Journey.
I was impressed by her courage to have an open dialog about mental illness. With her personal diagnosis of Bipolar, I had a specific interest in this topic because as many of you may know my mother struggled with bipolar. At that time, back in the mid 80’s, my mom was diagnosed as manic depressive. That’s what they use to bipolar.
Not many people, my mother included are willing to talk about mental illness, and I get it. Because when I was growing up having to be on medicine because you were mental was considered shameful. And I’m not proud to admit it, but in a home with a mother who has brutal mood swings, I thought my mother was crazy. I said she was crazy.
So the stigma that surrounds a diagnosis of mental illness can be very unsettling and has the potential to make for a very complicated conversation because let’s be honest, how do you tread lightly with something so sensitive.
Susan is open and honest about her journey and she gives us some insight into what mental illness is and is not. Her willingness to be candid and transparent is creating a dialog that I believe removes a lot of the current day stigma by letting us see that it is manageable and life can be full and rewarding.
I’m confident that Susan’s courage will give hope to those who struggle with a mental illness. She’s a college graduate, gainfully employed, happily married and has a full life! Something else she was willing to reveal is why she and her husband decided not to have children.
Her story is very encouraging. I especially liked her TED talk on Youtube (see link below). As you listen in don’t miss her explanation of why memorizing a 15 minute TED talk is an amazing accomplishment in and of itself!
Live Loved and Thrive!
Connect with Susan – Order her book: https://www.sjohnsonauthor.com/mybook
Follow her on Facebook.com/sjohnsonbooks and instagram.com/sjohnsonbooks
Inspirational Speaker TM ACB
Best Bipolar Blogger Award for Healthline.com 2017
Stability Leader www.thestabilitynetwork.org
Website : www.sjohnsonauthor.com
TEDx talk “Having A Mental Illness Is Not A Death Sentence” hit the link here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgeURPOQ8Ig
BIO:
Susan graduated from Drake University with a B.A. in Sociology. Since her diagnosis of Bipolar 1 in 1995, Susan’s true passion in life is to help break the stigma of living with a mental illness and bring hope to those living with one. She has given a TEDx talk “Having A Mental Illness Is Not A Death Sentence.” Susan currently works with special education students as an Instructional Assistant for a school district in Nevada. Susan is a guest blogger for a mental health magazine. She received the award for Best Blogger for Healthline.com in 2017 and appeared in the 2018 “This Is Me” article in BP Hope Magazine. Susan is a Stability Leader for a nonprofit organization called “The Stability Network.” For fun she enjoys hiking, baking, traveling, yoga, spending time with her Goddaughter, and trips to the ocean. Susan is originally from Thousand Oaks, CA. She now makes her home in fabulous Las Vegas with her husband, Gary, and Siberian cat, Angel-Ann.
Transcript: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/3b8a4657e150401a8906739a323f1856/edit_v2
