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Dr. Jay Lieberman joins Bill and Megan to discuss being diagnosed with bi-polar disorder later in life than most — at age 60. As one might expect, his professional and personal life took some major hits after some harrowing events that wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been suffering with an undiagnosed mental illness.
Hosted by Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. and Megan Hunter, MBA, It’s All Your Fault! High Conflict People explores the five types of people who can ruin your life—people with high conflict personalities and how they weave themselves into our lives in romance, at work, next door, at school, places of worship, and just about everywhere, causing chaos, exhaustion, and dread for everyone else.
They are the most difficult of difficult people — some would say they’re toxic. Without them, tv shows, movies, and the news would be boring, but who wants to live that way in your own life!
Have you ever wanted to know what drives them to act this way?
In the It’s All Your Fault podcast, we’ll take you behind the scenes to understand what’s happening in the brain and illuminates why we pick HCPs as life partners, why we hire them, and how we can handle interactions and relationships with them. We break down everything you ever wanted to know about people with the 5 high conflict personality types: narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, antisocial/sociopath, and paranoid.
And we’ll give you tips on how to spot them and how to deal with them.
Megan Hunter:
Welcome to It's All Your Fault on TruStory FM, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those that are with people with what we call high conflict personalities. I'm Megan Hunter, and I'm here with my co-host Bill Eddy.
Bill Eddy:
Hi, everybody.
Megan Hunter:
We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California. Now in today's episode, we talk with a very special guest, Dr. Jay Lieberman, on the topic of bipolar disorder and the similarities and differences with personality disorders. But first a few quick reminders, we'd love to hear from you about your high conflict situations. Have you dealt with someone with a high conflict personality, been a target of blame, experienced violence or abuse, or maybe you just dread seeing that person again, but probably have to tonight at home or tomorrow at work? Send us your questions and we just might discuss them on the show. You could submit them by clicking the submit a question button at our website, highconflictinstitute.com/podcast, emailing us at podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or dropping us a note on any of our socials.
Please know that we are not diagnosing anyone in our discussions, we're merely discussing patterns or behavior and how to improve interactions and manage relationships with high conflict people or any upset people. You can find all the show notes and links at highconflictinstitute.com/podcast as well. Please give us a rate or a review and tell your friends, colleagues, or family about us, especially if they're dealing with a high conflict situation. We're very grateful. And now let's get on with today's episode.
Often in our work we hear from clients and people who attend our trainings and others that we come in contact with that their loved one is bipolar. And for us, that puts up an immediate question like, why are they saying this? And this is because bipolar has become a one size fits all diagnosis, at least in the mind of the general public, especially when someone's behavior is outside the norm. It just seems to be the go-to. There is a lot of information about bipolar online and the mind gravitates to it, to explain a way extreme and irrational behaviors. However, like I said, for us it raises a red flag because some of the behaviors are extreme, just the behaviors of people with high conflict personalities, which may emanate from a personality disorder.
So today we'll talk about, what is the difference? Whether it's important to know the difference, and we'll hear directly from our special guest, Dr. Jay Lieberman, who has an actual bipolar diagnosis and quite a story to tell that will be very enlightening and I know it will be encouraging. So just a brief introduction, Dr. Lieberman is a New Yorker. He's a retired surgeon and medical journal contributor who has experienced bipolar disease firsthand. Diagnosed at age 60, Dr. Libra Lieberman brings to the table a close up look at the challenges of living with undiagnosed bipolar disease and the hope and strategies he utilized to achieve successful recovery. After all that's what it's all about. He is the author of the highly reviewed title, And Then I was Bipolar: Reflections On Living Life Through a Skewed Lens.
He has spoken extensively at mental health programs and is involved with NAMI and other recognized mental health advocate systems. He has written for numerous medical journals and online education programs and has appeared on NPR. His goal is to help others affected by any form of bipolar disease. Welcome Dr. Jay, if I may call you that.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
You may.
Megan Hunter:
Awesome. We really appreciate you being with us. And I want to start though with a mention here about your family's history in the Holocaust before we delve into anything else, because of what's currently happening in Ukraine. First of all, words can't express the horrors of what your family went through. And second, I imagine that the resulting trauma has continued to roll through your family history and maybe we'll get to hear a little bit about that. But before we get too deep into it, let's get right into your story. How did it all begin and take us through your journey?
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Well, one could say that I was initially diagnosed at the age of 40, however, experts are now looking back and they're saying that the mean age of diagnosis is really 25 years old, but some experts even going back further and saying, perhaps there were signs and symptoms of this disorder when children are very young. Impulsivity is one of them, risky behavior is another, and inflated views of one's own capabilities. I would be the child that would go ahead, take an examination, my parents would say to me, "So how'd you do?" I think I got a 95, later that day, I'd find out I had a 40 on the exam.
One of the things that I recall doing was while children were playing a little game called Ringolevio in front of the house, I would walk down to the nearby beach and walk on these slippery jetties, while the waves were crashing. I would blame everything I did on somebody else. There was problems I experienced with sleeplessness, but none of these things were considered to be a problem. And my parents were not the kind of people that were going to examine these things in great detail, bringing me to a psychologist or anything along those lines. I had anger issues, but my life was relatively normal, I guess, until the age of about 30. My sleep problems did start to get a little worse. I met with a psychologist, well, not a psychologist, but my primary care physician, and he said, "You know what? Two milligrams of Valium before you go to bed, that should solve your problem."
That's a bandaid. It really didn't do anything but kept me stable for many years. I did not do very well with alcohol, with marijuana. In those days, there were other drugs that I experimented with, nothing all that significant, but any of these things I just didn't do well with. If I took them, I couldn't study for days and I couldn't focus. But in reality, it wasn't until my 40th birthday that this all crystallized. Friends of mine would indicate to me that something's wrong. They witnessed what we would describe as a manic episode. I was going at a hundred miles an hour. My speech was pressing, I couldn't stop talking. I couldn't put my head down, I was going from one thing to a next. I had lists in front of me with 20 things to get done in one day, and I truly believed I could get it all done.
My wife convinced me at first, go see a psychologist. I did. I remember the intake form said on a scale of one to 10, how grandiose do you feel? How confident do you feel? The answer would've been 13, that's how much I felt. The psychologist immediately sent me to a psychiatrist, they put me on lithium. Now, lithium is a mood stabilizer that used specifically for people with bipolar illness and he also put me on one other anti antidepressant. I didn't do well with the lithium. First, I never achieved appropriate blood levels, which is important. It also has one side effect, it causes psoriasis to blossom. So wouldn't you know I have psoriasis, it blossomed. Shortly thereafter, I went through a very long period of depression. We tried to do things, but these antidepressant medications didn't do well with me. I was pacing and pacing and pacing, ultimately I toughed it out.
And in reality for next 20 years, I seem to be doing pretty well for somebody that was, I guess, you'd call it subclinical bipolar. I had a pretty successful practice. I owned a marketing company and for 13 years I ran a residency program in foot and ankle surgery. There were a lot of pressures that started, compensation and medicine started to decrease, reimbursement as a residency director decreased, my marriage was becoming stressful. And the next thing that I did do was I decided to close my office and I was invited to join an orthopedic group. Now, for a podiatrist that does foot and ankle surgery, this is probably the best honor that you can get to be invited to be amongst orthopedic surgeons. Well, 18 months into working with them, I started to notice that dexterity in my hand started to diminish, I couldn't do surgery and probably shouldn't have even been picking up a scalpel anymore.
And I realized that I'm going to have to retire. And I went into a depression, which was noticed by the orthopedic group. They came to me, they gave me six months and they terminated me. Immediately I sought to reestablish my practice, I couldn't. This depression got worse, doctors I went to, put me on medication, which went from first 20 milligrams to 30 milligrams to 60 milligrams to 90 milligrams. That was probably ill advised because if you put somebody who has a possible diagnosis of bipolar illness and you give them high doses of antidepressant, the pendulum is known to swing to the other side. I would say in fairness that the doctor, he warned my wife and I to be vigilant for it. But my God, before I blinked an eye, I had an ear input in my ear and I had walked into a BMW dealer and laid money down on a 4 Series automobile, without discuss this with family or friends or anybody.
Bill Eddy:
From after 40, you said you toughed it out. Did you continue on any particular medication or was that without any medication?
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
At some point I was without any medication whatsoever and I relied on aerobic exercise, eating well, drinking good water, and I falsely believed that this would control my symptoms. Sleep was still a very big part of the problem. If I went to bed, I should say at nine, I would wake up at two, there was no way I get back to sleep at night. And the next day, if I was dealing with a high maintenance patient, I had no tolerance for them. It was difficult, but some doctors gave me medication, which was an antidepressant, which helped sleep.
I recall it caused me to gain about 30 pounds. It was one medication was wonderful and then it got a black box warning, which means I had to go to another vacation. And then of course, in medicine you're constantly changing the players, the doctors, because your insurance says you got to go to this one and that one. And then this doctor says, "No, no, no, I prefer this medicine for that medicine." But as you said, for about 20 years, I was doing okay and really accomplishing quite a bit. There was something called a hypomanic episode, which is what you describe as somebody that goes from being manic to extreme manic. If there's such a term as hyper manic, that's where I was. It was impossible, as I said, I walked into a jewelry store. I'm a relatively conservative guy, but I decided that I needed with diamond stud earring in my ear.
Megan Hunter:
A little outside the norm for you.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Yeah. So I did and then directly across the street from the jewelry dealer was a BMW dealer. I'm not a good driver. I'm not a car enthusiastic, but I walked into this place and I remember I turned the radio on it. The car was preloaded with this wonderful music from the 60s and 70s. And for no other reason, I decided that this car's got to be mine. And I took it for a test drive and immediately I gave up my old car. I don't know where I got the money from till today, I don't know where money came from, and I drove out with this car. My wife looked and she's, "What did you do?" I did this. And we argued, we fought, I decided that I was going to get my own apartment. One day she came home and she realized that all the furniture from our spare bedroom was missing and I had moved it into a one bedroom apartment, which was two miles from our house.
From there I had a sudden urge to go to Austin, Texas, because I heard that there was a surgical seminar there. I didn't have any intention to sit in on any of the lectures, for sure. The reason I wanted to go to Austin, Texas is it's a bit of a Bohemian town. I'd been there before, I loved it. And people told me that now it had food carts and I love food carts, so I got myself on a plane to Austin, Texas. I didn't go to any of the seminar, I walked around town, I ate from, God knows how many food carts. I wanted to smoke a little marijuana, but I didn't have any. I found a homeless man, I gave him some money, I said, "You know what? Can you make the purchase for me?" He did. I rolled him a joint, I rolled myself a joint, and I got stoned with this homeless guy, and we talked for about an hour or two. I drank tequila, it was like a three day drunk when I was there.
Megan Hunter:
Did you solve the world's problems in that time?
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Yes. Yes. And the whole thing is really a blur. I do remember at one point I had walked pretty far and I took a cab back and they asked me what hotel I was at. I didn't even know what hotel I staying at, so I told this fellow, he took me about 30 miles outside of town. At that point, I was at risk of missing my flight home. Somehow some way I found my way back to the hotel, the people that were working at this hotel someone figured out where the conference was and waiting there was a friend of mine. He was actually the cab driver who had taken me from the airport to the hotel and he knew of the flights that I was going to take to go home.
And he was there, he in fact helped me pack up and get everything ready and he took me to the airport. Now he dropped me off, I know that I went to the gate, from there I have no memory of being on the plane, transferring to another city, getting in a cab. My wife found me in my son's bed. The next day I was out cold, I didn't even know where I was. She decided that she needed to Baker Act me.
Megan Hunter:
What is the Baker Act?
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
What a Baker Act means is that when it's a parent or family members, that someone like myself or others can do harm to themselves pretty much because they don't realize where they are. The family can take it upon themselves to place you in a facility for, I'm not sure it's either 48 to 72 hours for observation and they can monitor your medication and they could hold you there against you will. Which was what was done, and frankly, it was the right thing to do. While I was there, they put me on a wonderful medication for me, which was called Depakote. Now, I want to make it very clear, I am the doctor, but I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a psychologist, so what works for me may not work for other people. So I don't want your audience to say, "Oh, I got to get this Depakote, because this guy says it's the best thing since sliced bread."
But for me it was a miracle drug and I took it, but no sooner than I left the facility, I decided I'm not going to take it anymore. There's a concept that's called agnosia, and I want to describe what that is. It means that patients have a disorder, they're told you're bipolar, they understand they're bipolar, but they don't believe that their actions are normal. So no sooner than I left this facility and [inaudible 00:19:23], "Oh I don't need the Depakote, I'm fine." So what happened next? I went on a road trip. I have bad knees, so I decided I'm going to go Orlando, I'm going to present myself to an emergency room and somebody's going to replace my knees right then. Crazy. My wife and my family tried to keep track of me, they tried to get me to go home. Well, at one point I turned myself around. I drove home. I had suggested to my wife that I was heading towards New Orleans. And at that point she had cut out my access to all my credit cards. I was sleeping in parking lots. Finally, I made my way home.
And as I tell the story, when I go to some of the facilities and I speak up until this moment, they laugh at some of the outrageous things that I had done. But then this is what becomes sad. At this point, I was very angry at my wife for closing down my credit cards. And here I am swimming in a soup of hypermania. What I did was I parked my car outside of my community, I snuck in, I opened the garage door and as she was getting ready for work, I caught her and I committed domestic violence. And I demanded that she gave me back the wedding ring and I hit her and thank God, she's a pretty tough customer and she fought back and she escaped through a [Dokie 00:21:14] door, which we have in our bathroom. She went to some neighbor's house and she described what happened. The police came and I tried to leave, but I didn't. This whole thing was not very well planned out. And I got into the car, my little BMW and I tried to drive away, but I literally had no gas in the car.
So after about a mile and a half, the car stopped. The police were chasing after me, I hate to say this, but it was like a bunch of Keystone Cops. They passed me right by, even though I was sitting there in the car just as it was described, it was right there. They drove right by me. Then they turned around, they saw it was me and one fellow pointed a gun that was loaded, don't move, don't move and he put it right here.
Bill Eddy:
Right here is against your forehead.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Yes. Right against my forehead. And for what a reason, I had no fear whatsoever, that's the state of mind that I was in. I was brought to the lockup, I was immediately incarcerated. I can tell you a little bit more about the incarceration, but suffice is to say that I was there for eight months and my wife was a wonderful person. She is the director of an outpatient rehabilitation center. And she understood that my disorder was something that was not normal, that was not normal for me. She thought of it as a condition like hypertension and diabetes and she sought to get me help. And she worked with the judge to get me out of prison and into a psychiatric facility. She did that, I was inpatient for three months and then outpatient for three months. We worked with marriage counselors and can you imagine after a circumstance like this, she welcomed me back to our home.
Megan Hunter:
Wow.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
From there it's been quite a tale. It's like a cardiac rehab. We're on it about to almost six years since the episode and that's it.
Megan Hunter:
And here you are. And you've written a book and you're telling your story to help people who are in similar circumstances that might not understand what's going on in their loved one's brain or what's going on in their own brain, right?
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Right.
Bill Eddy:
So I'm wondering if you were to describe in a nutshell, what worked besides in a sense, hitting bottom with everything going wrong, what ended up working? Because I've always thought that it's mostly medication with bipolar, that it's a chemical imbalance and yet you're saying that the counseling really made a difference and I'm just wondering medication plus counseling, you really hit a bottom and then turned a corner there. What really worked would you say?
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
The first thing that worked and was most effective is incarceration.
Bill Eddy:
We should recommend that more often.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Oh, I will tell you. I'd like to blame the whole incident on a bad amount of medication, I was also taking medication for tremors. My father is a Holocaust survivor perhaps that had something to do with it or wiring in my brain, who knows. But when you are incarcerated you're scared straight and at that point you can start to do the things that you to do. In my case, I think the most effective thing was being put on a mood stabilizer, because each and every time I went on a mood stabilizer, my personality turns around.
Even today, if I get up in the morning and I will look in the kitchen and the dishes are dirty and the house is in a disarray, I want to lash out on somebody. I count to 10, I go take my medication, I wait a half hour and then I don't have a desire to lash out at anybody. So medication really helps. Behavioral therapy is extremely important. It's also important to get your family involved. For me, aerobic exercise is important. If I take a swim, it's as simple as 20 laps in a pool. And that's all the aerobic exercise that I do in a day. I sleep like a baby. Normally I'll go to bed at 9:30, I'll wake up at six. On days that I swim, I could lay in bed until nine and it's unusual for me. So that's to me what helps the most.
Bill Eddy:
The combination of all of that.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Yeah.
Bill Eddy:
Yeah.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Yeah. And of course, family support. You have to listen to what people are telling you, because you can fall into a sense of security when you think everything's okay, stop taking your medicine, stop exercising, eat poorly. But if you listen to people, which is something I never did in the past, it's going to be helpful.
Bill Eddy:
Another question I have is really about high conflict. Because we think of high conflict personalities as having personalities disorders or maybe just some traits. I think sometimes some bipolar people have high conflict behavior patterns of blaming others, all or nothing thinking unmanaged emotions, extreme behaviors, and it sounds like you had moments like that. And I guess the question for me is I like to say some people with bipolar are high conflict people, but others aren't. And so I don't know if that concept fits, doesn't fit or if that's an accurate way for me to describe it, that some do and some don't.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
As I said, I'm not a psychotherapist. I can speak for myself. I would've been the ideal client for the High Conflict Institute. Okay. I would've been the poster child for the High Conflict Institute. Here I am, I'm working in a hospital, I'm a physician, I am not sleeping that well. And I will tell you, there are nights that I got as little as two hours of sleep. I would go in the next day and some nice little lady couldn't afford her copay or her deductible. Because I was a podiatrist, you'd have a lot of older people in the situation. I was so intolerant to these people. What's $5 here, $10 here? It shouldn't have mattered, but it did to me because I was argumentative.
If someone would say something like, "Well, I'm thinking of going for a second opinion." They're right. It's a good thing to do. I was insulted, I didn't like the fact that they wanted to do it. As I say, I'd be argumentative with people. I recall going into a cell phone store and they had this very silly policy where whoever signed up for the phone was the only person that they could talk to. But I needed to exchange my phone, they wouldn't do it. Well, I handled it just like anybody else would I threw the phone at the wall.
Megan Hunter:
Oh dear.
Bill Eddy:
Oh, aye-aye-aye.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
These are not great things. And I'll tell you one final the story is that there was a point where, as I said before, my wife and I weren't getting along, but those who know my wife and I, we are truly in love. We love one another very much. She wouldn't have done what she did for me, if she didn't love me and it's the same. But there was a fellow at our hospital, he was the head of all the other doctors. Okay. Let's put it that way. And it was brought up that Dr. Lieberman is having some anger issues. So for whatever reason, he spoke to the group and said, "Oh, I know Dr. Lieberman, I'm familiar with the problem. He and his wife are going through a divorce. Apparently this happened, she did this, he did this." Where he got these little tales, I have no idea, they weren't true. And there were a lot of things you could say about me, but none of these tales he told true. So I approached him in the doctor's dining room, he was the chief of staff now, if I'm...
And I approached him in the doctor's dining room and I said, "Like any other couple we're struggling in here and there, but we're not getting a divorce. And I would appreciate that you not speak of this anymore." And he put his arm on my shoulder and he started to berate me, and he told me that in his position, as chief of staff, he'll do this to me and he'll do that to me and I'll be off staff at the hospital and I won't be able to do this and that. And as he's doing and he's poking his finger into my chest and squeezing my shoulder. Next thing I hold back and I caught him and clocked him so hard, and I'm not that good a fighter, I lost more fights in life than ever won. I clocked him so hard that he went over the dining room table and fell to the other side. And that was the end of my affiliation with the hospital.
Megan Hunter:
I bet it was.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Oh yes.
Megan Hunter:
So extreme behaviors and I guess this is what's interesting circling back to my original introduction about trying to determine or distinguish between bipolar and what we call this high conflict behavior, high conflict personality. And I guess Bill, I know you describe it to people as the differences, maybe being someone with the high conflict personality really it's like a relationship disorder, they really struggle in relationships. Whereas someone with bipolar can also struggle in relationships as we've heard Dr. Jay talk about, but there's a difference with these manic highs and the depressive lows, is that how you would describe it?
Bill Eddy:
Yeah. Well, see, I think of the high conflict personalities is generally being maybe about half of people with personality disorders. That they get into this interpersonal conflict and that really marks their relationships as relationship conflict. And it seems to me, bipolar is different in being more chemical, in a sense, and just driving a lot of manic behavior, like you said, spending, buying and the confrontation's part of it. So I'd say some people with bipolar disorder have a high conflict personality, but many people with bipolar disorder don't, that it's expressed other ways. But I guess really the thing it boils down to for me is that it's relationship oriented. And it seems like bipolar has relationship symptoms, but that it isn't necessarily focused on relationship conflict, although the story you just told sounds like a relationship conflict.
Megan Hunter:
Yeah.
Bill Eddy:
So I don't know if that answers your question, Megan, but I'm curious to see if it's primarily a relationship disorder or not.
Megan Hunter:
Yeah. Dr. Jay, you talked about domestic violence being involved in this and it's such a tragic thing for both of you and I'm sure for your whole family, and it's just a wonderful story of forgiveness and recovery, right? To be where you are today with your wife. She sounds like an amazing resilient human being. So kudos to her and kudos to you too. Bill, do you have questions around domestic violence with this?
Bill Eddy:
Not really, because it sounds like you didn't have a pattern of domestic violence that there was that one severe incident during a manic episode.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
I would say that I had a tendency to being verbally abusive. If I wasn't getting my point across, I would persist until I made her cry. And many people don't consider that abuse, it is.
Bill Eddy:
Yeah. Well, a coercive control abusive behavior. Yeah. It doesn't always include physical violence.
Megan Hunter:
Do you have more questions, Bill?
Bill Eddy:
Yeah, I guess probably the last one that I think of is, if somebody listening has a family member who's acting in these erratic ways, what's should they do? What do you recommend? That they see a doctor about medication, that they get counseling, probably not that they should be incarcerated for eight months, but sometimes that may happen, but what should they do if they're in a relationship, either a marriage or a family member that's acting in some of the manic and depressive ways you described?
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Most important thing is you don't want these things to get out of control. And God forbid they do, there is something called a suicide hotline. And in my book it's listed that's the first God forbid we want to make sure of. There is an organization called NAMI, N-A-M-I. It's a wonderful organization, you speak to them, they will guide you. Not everybody has health insurance. Even present yourself to an emergency room, they can help you. Typically, a person will go to their primary care physician, they may recommend something, but they may also recommend that you go to a psychiatrist and they will evaluate you, initial visitors usually about an hour and they can prescribe the appropriate medication. And that's all I can think of at the current time.
Megan Hunter:
Is it ever a good idea to tell your loved one that you think they are bipolar?
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
It's not the place of anyone. As I was saying, I have my suspicions many times, I've watched as people who are movie stars, athletes, and I see their erratic actions and I go-
Megan Hunter:
Bingo.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
They have to be bipolar. Often they're not. There are so many things that are borderline personality disorders, depression. There's a whole myriad of things and that it could be, and it's not for us to make those diagnoses, it's the professionals.
Bill Eddy:
So really getting people to a professional is the key or to NAMI who can help guide them and that there isn't necessarily one single solution like medication that family counseling, behavior therapy, exercise, all put together is what really worked for you.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
I wanted to add something also is my father is a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. In his life, he would walk down a street, even prior to the war, and there was always this incredible risk. He had a brother who they referred to him as slow, but who knows what his diagnosis was and his eyes looked upon a lady that whose he shouldn't have. He was shot, he was killed. He fell upon garbage. There was no justice that was ever served. And then of course there was the war and there was these horrors that occurred. My father lived in a world where he was constantly on high alert and he imparted this wisdom to me. He would always use the term respect and suspect.
So he always would make me feel as though if I met somebody and they were very nice, watch your back, chances are, they're going to do something bad to you. And this is not the way to live your life today, it was the proper way to live your life in the late 30s and early 40s, but not today. So very often the way that people were brought up is part of why the behavior is the way it is today and it's not always related to a psychiatric illness.
Megan Hunter:
Yeah. I like to say, we are all a recipe of our genetics and how we were raised and the influences in our lives and the role models in our lives. So I often will say to audiences that we all have a little junk in our trunk. Right. I think it's really wonderful that you have this book that you go and talk on podcasts and talk to people in treatment facilities, because I think it does destigmatize mental illness a bit. To me, it just seemed nonsensical that we are very happy to talk about our medical issues, right. And the older I get, the more I realize this is what you do as you get older, we talk about, oh, I've got this bad foot. I've got whatever.
But when it comes to mental illness, we are so unwilling to admit it, talk about it and just acknowledge it, and if we did that, it would be much easier. So we're very grateful to you for doing that, and I think it helps people get an understanding really of what's going on in your mind, what's going on in your life and why you did the things you did and maybe they will have some insight into their own behaviors or those of their family members. So thank from the bottom of our hearts for coming on to our show and sharing your very important story with our audience.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Thank very much. And I thank you for doing everything that you guys do.
Bill Eddy:
Well, thank you. And I think one of the big things I got out of what you told us is for people to help someone to get help as soon as possible, rather than waiting for things to go wrong. So thanks so much for showing us what some of the things can be and what can help.
Megan Hunter:
I imagine our listeners would like to know, again, the title of your book and where they can get it and how they could reach you.
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
The name of my book is, And Then I Was Bipolar: Perceptions of a Life Through a Skewed Lens, and it's available through Kindle and Smashwords.
Megan Hunter:
Great, great. And how might people reach you? Do you have a website?
Dr. Jay Lieberman:
Yes, I do. And through my website is how they can learn about me and my book, it's called GenieBee Publishing that's G-E-N-I-E-B-E-Epublishing.com. And Genie Bee is my wife and she gets all the royalties.
Megan Hunter:
Oh, I love that. That's very special and very romantic. Thank you for sharing that. That's awesome. So you'll find a link to Dr. Jay's book in our show notes, along with links to the suicide hotline he mentioned to NAMI and a few other resources. And we're really grateful again, Dr. Jay, that you shared all this and were so open and transparent with us.
In next week's episode, we're going to shift to dealing with high conflict people in the workplace. And we'll have a very special announcement about something new, we've just launched to deal with high conflict situations in the workplace. You won't want to miss it. It's for everyone, whether you own a business, work in one, work in HR, or know anyone who is any of the above. So send your questions about high conflict situations in the workplace to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to highconflictinstitute.com/podcast. And please tell all your friends about us, and we'd be grateful if you'd leave us a little review wherever you listen into your podcast. Until then, keep striving to find the missing peace, P-E-A-C-E.
It's All Your Fault is a production of TruStory FM. Engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins, and Ziv Moran. Find the show, show notes, and transcripts at truestory.fm or highconflictinstitute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.