YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I haven't been able to listen to this podcast for the past several months due to my own anxiety issues but with the national dialogue happening about depression and suicide, it was oddly therapeutic.

This Jimmy Doyle podcast was fantastic, as was his guest appearance on Eddie Pepitone's podcast. The only thing I wish had been discussed in greater detail (Although to be fair, this is not a political podcast) were his thoughts on Israel because it sounds like we have diametrically opposed views on that subject.

This episode is terrific. I listened this afternoon and then asked my partner to listen with me tonight. Jimmy's story is very strong and his description of his therapy history is excellent. But their processing of the fallout of Robin Williams suicide was - just wow. And thank you.

Yeah agreed. I certainly wasn't that eloquent about it after I heard about Robin Williams.

By the way, I am really getting bummed out by people trying to look at Robin Williams' entire career and trying to diagnose him. Just because he preferred to perform in a manic style does not mean that he was always going through bipolar episodes. Just because he was always "on" (in public, friends!) doesn't mean he was trying to deflect away from dealing with himself. It's certainly possible but only he truly knows that. So the discussion of his suicide on this episode was unreasonably calm and level-headed compared to pretty much everyone else on the internet talking about it.

Good points. One problem we have is that we use mental health symptoms or terms as general adjectives, something that can come back to haunt us in this situation. If we could invest $1 for each time we use our home-school diagnostic skills into funding MH programs with actual trained professionals, how much better off we'd be.

I wasn't thrilled that Jimmy failed to use person-centered language in this episode, but more so because that indicates how his place of employment operates which makes me sad. I bet he's a great counselor, but I would personally not want to work with someone who referred to me as "A <insert diagnosis>" in any context. He spoke with such respect and dignity about people living with personality disorders so that language piece is a bit jarring. It feeds into the issue you brought up of defining people by their diagnosis (or a distortion of their diagnosis.)

That being said, the conversation in this show does help break down some of the junk conversations that's taking place in the general media.

WilloJak, I understood Jimmy's reference to clients as their diagnosis as an "off duty" conversation, and it occurs in the medical world also.

I used to work for a number of physicians in the past and all of them referred to the patients in that type of language, "the autistic kid", "that diskectomy I did last week", "the one with the brain tumor" - no names and I ended up doing it too because using the name of the person registered ZERO on their recognition meter. A neurosurgeon I worked for used to have me schedule all the people we'd collected who needed carpal tunnel surgery on one day - all the right sides, then all the left sides. Collectively, they were an assembly line of carpal tunnels to him, they were rolled in the operating room, rolled out and the next one rolled in.

The "person-centered" concept is for when you're in "clinician" mode and seeing patients or having meetings with your peers. Not for having a casual conversation. I know that response isn't satisfactory to you but it's what really happens.

I enjoyed the hell out of Jimmy's episode and being Italian, LOVED it when Paul asked if there was plastic on the furniture and Jimmy responded "we're not ITALIAN" = I woke the dog up I was laughing so loud.

I liked this episode. Haven't listened in a while because I couldn't relate to the guests and the surveys were too dark. But I'm back in the hole again and listening makes me feel less alone as Paul says. Also I like how Paul is leaving in the "mistakes" like moving the mic around and turning off his phone. Makes me feel like I'm in the room with them.

This episode really helped me with the widowhood thing.

Loved this episode, too. All episodes featuring an "Irish catholic" upbringing tends to really help me understand and resolve my own patterns and be able to laugh at things more. Especially when he mentioned his relative bringing up the sunglasses. Totally related to that. I also must say that "surrealistscone" is a phenomenal name.

I loved this episode. I don't think I've ever heard Paul laugh so hard. It really touched me, especially being from Chicago as well. (I love it when Paul interviews fellow Chicagoans.)