NYT-Bestselling Author Terri Cheney On Modern Madness and Mental Health
Show Snapshot:
How are you? No, really. How are you? Today’s show features a woman who answers that question with unflinching honesty and has ideas for helping you do the same.
Entertainment lawyer Terri Cheney ripped the covers off her secret battle with bipolar disorder in her New York Times bestselling memoir, Manic. Now she is back with a new book, Modern Madness: An Owner’s Manual.
We dive into the struggle, stigma, and treatments for mental illness and her practical advice for managing (and thriving) with mental disorders. Bonus, we explore how the pandemic is taxing everyone’s mental health and why a COVID-silver-lining might be increased empathy.
In This Episode We Cover:
1. Why Terri decided to go public with her bipolar disorder.
2. How the people in her life responded to her diagnosis and the stories in Manic.
3. The one story that was hardest for Terri to share.
4. Why sharing and owning your stories – the good and bad – is necessary for healing.
5. The pandemic is a mental health disaster – but one positive is emerging.
6. Suicide rates are at a record-high. What to watch for and how to help.
7. A simple question to ask people in mental distress, so they feel seen and not judged.
8. Good and bad coping methods for managing mental disorders.
9. The role of aging in mental health and happiness.
Quotable:
When you step out of those shadows into the light, and you stop being so secretive about your life, great things happen. I think you build that courage with the years. It takes some living to be able to realize, I’m okay and I’m fie just the way I am.
Writing the stories became so healing for me because they didn’t own me anymore, I owned them. I think it’s really important to own everything about yourself, whether it’s bipolar disorder, an eating disorder, anxiety, all your good, and your bad before you can really heal.
Word of Mouth. Terri recommends:
The National Alliance for Mental Illness, is an extraordinary organization for people who are trying to find out more about mental health or if they have a loved one, or they’re mentally ill themselves, there are free online support groups. It’s just terrific.
More Resources:
Terri’s Books
Modern Madness: An Owner’s Manual
The Dark Side of Innocence: Growing Up Bipolar
Terri’s Blog on Psychology Today
Follow Terri
Transcript
Katie Fogarty (00:04):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women on life after 50 who are unafraid to age out loud. I’m your host, Katie Fogarty. All March long, A Certain Age has been talking to guests about navigating life’s speed bumps and profound challenges because no one makes it to 50 without encountering turbulence.
Today I’m joined by author and mental health advocate, Terri Cheney, who brings sunlight and candor to a broad national conversation on mental illness and more specifically, to her own bipolar disorder. Terri is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Manic: A Memoir. You may have watched Anne Hathaway bring Terri’s New York Times essay about bipolar dating to life for the TV series, Modern Love. She is active on numerous mental health boards and foundations and her blog about mental health for Psychology Today has over a million downloads. Now she is back with a new book, Modern Madness: An Owners Manual. Welcome, Terri.
Terri Cheney (01:00):
Thank you for having me, good morning
Katie (01:03):
Terri, we’re going to be diving into your new book during this show, but I would love to start with your first, Manic. One reviewer said that it ripped the covers off your secret battle with bipolar disorder. What made you decide to tell this secret? What made you decide to write that book?
Terri (01:20):
Well, it began when I was hospitalized for severe depression at UCLA and just nobody seemed to be getting better. None of the patients were improving. And I realized it’s because they just don’t have a way to talk about what’s going on with them, they don’t have a vocabulary for their illness, and neither did I. So, I just started researching like crazy and just started writing about my own experience with bipolar disorder and how it feels in my own body, and seven years later I emerged with a book, to my surprise.
Katie (02:00):
So, you at the time, were not a writer, you were not an author. Can you tell our listeners what you were doing for your job and share with us a little bit why it might have been a challenge to let your work community know about what was going on with you behind the scenes?
Terri (02:19):
Well, I always considered I was a writer, because that’s what I wanted to be ever since I was a little girl and I never let go of that dream. But I was an entertainment lawyer of all things, representing clients like Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones and all the major motion picture studios. So, I had told no one about being bipolar, not my friends, my family, my coworkers, nobody knew. So, being hospitalized was a big deal to begin with, but coming out as bipolar so publicly was really terrifying and I remember the night before Manic came out, I almost called my agent and my editor and said, “I made a mistake, can we just stop the presses?” But I didn’t, and I’m so glad I didn’t.
Katie (03:16):
Not only have you received wonderful press and accolades and the book was such a best seller, but it’s touched so many lives and like I said at the open, sort of brought sunshine to a conversation that not a lot of people are willing or able to have. What was the response from the people in your life once you shared your book?
Terri (03:37):
It was truly amazing. I knew that there was a certain universality to the message because I had gone over it with my writing group that I’ve been in for about 20 years. So, I knew that people could relate to my story, but I had no idea it would have the effect that it did and I got messages from all over the world, people wanting to tell me their own stories. The people that I knew were obviously quite surprised by my truth but on the whole, I would say that the reaction was really positive and very supportive. There were maybe one or two nasty comments along the way, but it just was overwhelmingly a wonderful experience.
Katie (04:33):
That’s so beautiful that you were able to have that kind of positive response because it’s so hard to be vulnerable in that way. What was the hardest part of sharing that story? Was there one particular moment, story, or vulnerability that was really difficult to share?
Terri (04:53):
Yes, I think the fact that I was arrested for driving under the influence of prescription medication and I was taken to the Van Nuys jail and I actually suffered a beating there, I was beaten by a police officer. And telling that story, you know, especially when you’re a lawyer, that was really difficult, but I think it ended up being one of the best stories in the book. So, I was very relieved to get it out of me. It became less traumatic after I wrote it.
Katie (05:29):
That’s such a powerful, devastating experience. But I think that so many people have the experience of having something in their life that feels impossible to share and that maybe if you share it you’ll be rejected, and when you finally do, it loses some of its power. Was that part of your experience in writing this book? Because you talk a lot about in both that book and your current book, Modern Madness, about the shame that goes around experiencing what happens when you’re having these episodes. Did sharing them help minimize that shame? Do you feel better now?
Terri (06:09):
I think the most important thing initially was writing them down. That became so healing for me because they didn’t own me anymore, I owned them, I owned those experiences. And in fact, that inspired me to call my latest book Modern Madness: An Owners Manual, because I think it’s really important to own everything about yourself, whether it’s bipolar disorder, an eating disorder, anxiety, all your good and your bad, before you can really heal.
Katie (06:48):
That makes so much sense to me. So, why 12 years later was it time to write Modern Madness. What happened in those intervening 12 years? You sort of moved away from law and became very active in the mental health community. You’re an advocate, you’re making a difference on all these different boards and foundations. But why 12 years later was it time for modern madness?
Terri (07:14):
Well, I wrote a book in the interim called The Dark Side of Innocence: Growing Up Bipolar and that was about my childhood. That came out in 2012. I had kept writing, I don’t think I’ll ever stop writing now that I am no longer a lawyer, because it really, as I said, is what I love doing and it gives me great purpose in my life. So, I just kept writing and again, as with Manic, I realized after a certain interval of time that I had all these stories and that it probably was another book. So, I think the world was changing in that it was becoming somewhat more receptive to stories about mental illness and to talking about mental illness. So, I didn’t see COVID on the horizon when I wrote the book, but coming out, having the book published when COVID was rampant was really, you know, good for the book and good for me and the audience, I think.
Katie (08:27):
Yeah, absolutely. That’s been such a big part of our national conversation in the last 12 months about COVID, is just the mental health challenges that this epically horrendous period of time that we’ve been living through is sort of casting over such a wide swath of our population. I know that you’re active with advocacy groups, has that been part of your conversation? What are you seeing and what is your perspective on some of the mental health challenges that are coming out of this particular moment in time?
Terri (09:03):
Well, I know one statistic that really shocked me was that calls to suicide hotlines went up 1000 percent in the first few months of COVID. You just have to turn on the TV right now and you will see coverage of mental health issues during COVID. For someone who never heard mental health talked about when I was going through the worst of it, it’s really been an amazing thing to see everyday stories on mental health and how people are surviving and coping. I think it bodes well for the future, I’m hoping that because of what people have experienced during COVID, the anxiety, and for some people the depression, that there will be a lot more empathy around mental illness once we come out of these dark times.
Katie (10:04):
I think that you’ve put your finger on it, the quality of empathy that we’re all forced to experience, particularly at the beginning, these waves of absolute fear, lack of control, the sense that everything was upside down basically. In reading your book, sometimes the words you use to describe what you’re experiencing. One of your chapters, you actually open Modern Madness by talking about a meeting with Michael Jackson, you talk about how you’ve dressed for the occasion to look professional but to also choose an outfit that’s hiding the marks on your wrists from a suicide attempt. In your book you call suicide, “A lie masquerading as a promise.” Can you tell us more about what you mean by that?
Terri (11:04):
I forgot that I said that [laughs], that’s an interesting phrase.
Katie (11:07):
I thought it was so powerful, it really jumped off the page to me. To me, it sounds like there’s this temptation to do something that ultimately is such a deceptive lie. Your brain is tricking you in some ways. Was that your experience?
Terri (11:29):
That’s a good way of putting it. Your brain really is tricking you into thinking this is the only possible solution to your problems. I think what a lot of people don’t realize about suicide. You know, it’s called a selfish act often, and you’re not thinking at that point, where you’re contemplating suicide, about anything or anyone else other than the pain. The pain is so devastating and omnipresent and feels like it will never go away so there’s just no comprehension of what your act might do to others. I don’t consider that selfish, I consider that realistic. But suicide very often doesn’t work, I don’t know if that’s the right way to put it, but you more often end up harming yourself badly than ultimately getting any kind of relief. People become very angry with you if you’ve attempted suicide, it’s a very deceptive promise.
Katie (12:49):
And so if we have people in our lives that we’re concerned about if we’re concerned about ourselves, what are some recommendations, other than reading your book? What has been helpful for you in not having that be something that is part of your life today?
Terri (13:07):
I think the most important thing I’ve learned and it’s become sort of a mission for me now are five little words: tell me where it hurts. If you sit down with someone who is suffering, I mean we’re all quarantined right now, maybe with somebody who is not doing so well or we know someone who is struggling. Rather than give advice, which is our basic human instinct is to try to fix it, particularly for men, no offense men there, but that is the truth. The important thing really is to sit down with the person and just say, “Tell me where it hurts” and let them open up about the darkness inside them. And it amazingly helps it to dissipate. It really has been an extraordinary thing to watch the magic of those five words and the act of listening and not trying to make it all go away. Because it doesn’t, it takes its time. And that again, we come back to empathy. It really can be a very difficult thing to listen to people who are depressed or anxious but it’s an act of love and it’s the most powerful weapon we have, I think.
Katie (14:29):
That is so beautiful. “Tell me where it hurts” is something that I feel like I need to incorporate that language in talking to my children when they’re experiencing things. When you were sharing about how important it is to be a good listener, I found my inner voice scolding myself for all the times I’ve been giving people advice when really what they wanted was an ear instead of an opinion. I think that’s challenging. But thank you for sharing how necessary it is. I’m sure every single person that’s listening right now, the next time they’re presented with an opportunity to give advice might choose instead to be the listener and have that make the difference.
Terri (15:15):
Well, you know, it’s a fun experiment. I came across those wonderful words when I was facilitating a mental health support group at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. I did that for about 15 years. And I watched when people were trying to open up and they were given advice, they just shut down. Because you feel like you’re being judged or you can’t do what the person is suggesting. I mean you get all sorts of bizarre suggestions when you’re mentally ill. The one I hate the most is: exercise more. Even though I know exercise is good, [Katie laughs] it is the last thing in the world I feel like doing when I’m depressed. Or eat more blueberries [Katie laughs], clear your chakras, I’ve heard it all. People just shut down around advice. But it’s fun to watch them open up when you really start to listen and you make that time and space to just sit down and listen.
Katie (16:22):
The blueberry thing seems definitely [both laugh] I dunno, that’s definitely a little bit out there.
Terri (16:29):
Well, I do eat a lot of blueberries. I’ve heard it so much.
Katie (16:33):
[laughs] You’re like, “Alright, maybe I’ll give that one a try, I’ll take that piece of advice.”
Terri (16:38):
I’ll try anything, I’ll try it all.
Katie (16:41):
You know, Terri, your writing is so vivid and dynamic and funny at times.
Terri (16:46):
Thank you.
Katie (16:48):
The thread of humor that runs through some things that are just completely not humorous makes it so easy to read this book. It’s so vivid. You have one chapter titled “The World’s Worst Party Guest” which of course I was like, I love parties, I need to read this one. I read it and it’s short, it’s a list, and it’s astonishingly funny, but it’s obviously rooted in something so painful. Why did you choose, why do you mine so much of the humor in something that’s so challenging and upsetting and hard?
Terri (17:28):
Thank you, that is my favorite compliment about my writing. People always apologize first, they say, “I’m really sorry to say this but I laughed out loud” and I just can’t tell you as an author there’s nothing better. Mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder, can be so extreme that it becomes absurd and I think there is a lot of humor in suffering once you’ve had a certain amount of perspective. What is that great quote, “Humor is tragedy plus time.” I love that. I think that was Mark Twain who said that. So, I really do try to see the absurd in a situation. It helps me in life and it helps me in writing. That particular story that you mentioned about being the world’s worst overnight guest, was one of my favorites in the book so I’m really glad you enjoyed that.
Katie (18:32):
I absolutely loved it. I had a guest on earlier this month and we’ve been exploring losses and challenges. It was a woman by the name of Leslie Gray Streeter who wrote a book called Black Widow about unexpectedly losing her young husband to an aneurism and having to muddle through with their then two-year-old. The book is so heartbreaking and so hilarious. She, with five years distance, was able to open the book with coffin shopping and it was side-splittingly funny, but rooted in the worst moment of her life. I think that that’s also the 360 way that we live our lives. There are highs and lows and joys and sadness and it’s all kind of mixed up and muddled up together.
You talk also in Modern Madness about good and bad coping skills and you have several chapters on each. For people who are listening right now, who maybe don’t have bipolar disorder but probably, you know, anxiety and depression are extremely common. If people are not experiencing it themselves they have loved ones, friends, family, coworkers who are experiencing it. Can you share a little bit about what you think are good coping skills and maybe bad coping skills and help us frame how we help ourselves and others.
Terri (20:02):
Well, I think bad coping skills are easiest for people to recognize because we all do it regardless of what we’re going through in our lives. Ironically, the number one bad coping skill I think is isolation. We’ve been in this enforced isolation for a year now so, it really is not the healthiest way to live your life. Also lying is another bad coping skill that I used to use a lot. When I say lying I mean making up excuses for not being able to show up because I was depressed. Saying I was physically sick or my car was broken or whatever. That just becomes a nightmare in itself.
So, I think some of the good coping skills, well on the flip side of isolation is reaching out. There’s just nothing more healing than reaching out to someone and getting an empathetic response back, as we’ve been talking about. Also, just trying the truth. I’ve been amazed at what a relief that is, not to have to keep track of the lies in your head and just tell the truth about what’s going on with you. And people are surprisingly kind and I think they respect the fact that you’ve told them the truth, that you’ve honored them with the truth. So, those are a few of the good and bad coping skills that I talk about.
Katie (21:50):
I think the one about the truth is so resonant. We all have things in our lives that once you acknowledge and share with people then you realize other people are going through this too. I think about some of the things I was reluctant to talk about in my own life. One of my sons was struggling to adjust to school and it felt like everyone else’s kids were hopping off the bus. When you finally tell people it’s not going well, you start to hear from other people that you’re not alone. That sense of feeling connected to people that have a shared experience makes you feel less lonely and it helps you get through that.
One of your other chapters is called “Never Be Fooled By A Smile.” You’re talking very specifically in that chapter about a good friend who you lost to suicide who was captured smiling a few days earlier in a photo. But I thought it was such a great metaphor for sort of these societal veneers that we put on. Everyone seems to be doing okay on Instagram. Everyone’s lives look so shiny but that’s not true. Have you now that you have written three books at this point, you’re very active, you blog regularly for Psychology Today, are you a magnet now? Do people always confide and confess to you? Is that good? Do you feel knit to a community or do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by that?
Terri (23:19):
I would say it’s been a mixed blessing. Everybody does have their mental health story that they want to tell me and I was initially just overwhelmed by it. I think I went through a little bit of compassion fatigue if that’s the right term. I had to develop a certain amount of distance from readers. Not in a cruel way, but just realizing that I couldn’t solve every problem and you know, it was important for people to express what was going on with them, but it wasn’t necessarily my responsibility to fix it, as we talked about earlier. So yeah, it’s been both and positive and negative, but I think something that is really interesting that’s going on right now during COVID, is people aren’t just saying, “How are you?” anymore. They’re saying, “How are you really?”
Katie (24:25):
Yes.
Terri (24:26):
It’s been an extraordinary thing to watch. I’m sure that’s happened to you as well. People really seem to want to know how I’m doing. I don’t know if they’re just concerned about me because of my mental health, but I notice I’m doing that to others as well. How are you really doing? How are you coping? What’s going on? Again, I’m hoping that’s something that outlasts COVID because that would be great, just to know that we can really not just say, “Fine” and walk away. What a joyous outcome that would be.
Katie (25:04):
I think that that is not going away. I completely agree. There is this sort of collective humanity that people are experiencing. I was just on a work call yesterday, there were five of us on the call. The woman kind of running the show said, “Let’s all start with a quick opener. How are you feeling really and what was something that you bought recently?" One kind of a deeper question, one silly. One of the women on the call said, “I’m feeling stress-avated, and I had to make that word up to capture how I’m feeling which is, I’m deeply stressed out, but I’m activated and wanting to manage it.” It was so hilarious. I was like, “Oh my god, I’m stress-avated also.” We all went around and somebody was feeling very sunshiney because the weather was good and another person was overwhelmed but everyone said their thing and then everyone quickly shared what they bought and we moved on. I just felt more deeply connected to the women on this call than I did five minutes earlier when we were all like “Hello, hello, hello.” So, I don’t think that’s going anywhere.
Terri (26:12):
I hope not.
Katie (26:13):
People want to share what they’re up to and how they’re feeling, and that’s going to be maybe one of the silver linings from this pandemic is just that empathy and more honesty.
Terri (26:24):
Curiosity too, about how really are people coping. Because you learn a lot from other’s stories.
Katie (26:31):
I so agree, I so agree.
I’m curious actually Terri, because you’ve been writing these books for 12 years, and I’m wondering if over that period of time— because this show is really about talking about becoming older, living vibrant lives, what women 50 plus are up to in ways that are maybe not reflected in the larger culture. And I’m just curious about if aging has impacted your mental health management or has it had no role on it?
Terri (27:05):
I think it’s impacted it a lot. I was just turning 50 after Manic came out so it was a very good time in my life but I was very worried about aging. I live in southern California, it’s something you take seriously here. I had a friend who was turning 50 around the same time and she threw herself a party and I decided that was the smartest thing I had ever seen. So, I threw myself this enormous party, invited everybody that I knew, and it just was sort of like launching my middle age in the most wonderful way. I found that I had been told by a doctor that mental illness gets easier as you get older. I should have asked him exactly when.
Katie (28:04):
[laughs] You’re like, “Tell me what age.”
Terri (28:11):
But it turns out to be true, at least for me. I’ve been much more stable, I don’t have the extreme mood swings that I used to. I haven’t been suicidal in quite a long time. So. I think part of it is not being as ashamed as I was when I was younger and not caring quite as much what people think, that always was something I heard from older people, that you just don’t care anymore. And I couldn’t imagine that being true for me, because I’ve always cared a great deal about what people think. But when you step out of those shadows into the light, and you stop being so secretive about your life, great things happen, and I think you build that courage with the years. It takes some living to be able to realize, I’m okay and I’m just fine the way I am. So, really it doesn’t matter that much what people do think.
Katie (29:23):
I love that. Oh my gosh. We are going to wrap up on that note because that’s just the perfect way to end this show. I think it’s so beautiful and so true. I’ve experienced that in my own life and I’ve been hearing that from my guests. That there’s this confidence people have in themselves and this sense of, as you said, you’re no longer secretive, you’re able to be more yourself, and I find that to be so true of all of my guests. They talk about midlife as this sort of accelerant this sense of belonging. Leslie Gray Streeter who I mentioned before, when I asked for her take on aging, she said, “I feel more myself.” I thought that was such a wonderful way of capturing how I feel. I feel more myself. I feel in different phases of my life I’d have to be professional work Katie, and I’d have to be mom Katie, and I had different groups of friends. And now I just feel like Katie. I just bring myself wherever I go.
Terri (30:26):
I think it comes back to that ownership issue. You really do start to own yourself after you’ve been around yourself for a long time.
Katie (30:35):
Amazing, amazing. Terri, is there anything you can recommend to our listeners before we wrap up? A resource, a tool, or a book if they want to learn more about mental health, or if they want to ask themselves questions themselves or their family or their friends?
Terri (30:51):
I actually think that in Modern Madness, I opened up to families and friends of loved ones with mental illness and that was something new in that book so, I highly recommend the book. I think there’s a lot of good information in there. But there’s also the National Alliance for Mental Illness, nami.org, which is an extraordinary organization for people who are trying to find out more about mental health or if they have a loved one, or they’re mentally ill themselves, there are free online support groups. It’s just terrific. So, that’s nami.org.
Katie (31:31):
Fantastic, I’m going to put that into the show notes. Finally, how can our listeners keep following you and your work and your writing and learn about your books?
Terri (31:39):
Well, my website is under construction at the moment but when it’s up and running it’s my name Terri Cheney, terricheney.com. You can also follow me on Facebook, I’m at Terri Cheney Author. Or I have a fabulous blog that I’m so proud of for Psychology Today, it has over a million readers and it’s just a joy to write. They can also go to Amazon to buy my books, that’s always a good place to go or your independent bookseller and ask them to order a copy.
Katie (32:20):
I love it. All of those are going into the show notes. Terri, thank you so much for being with me today, I have so enjoyed our conversation.
Terri (32:27):
Thank you, Katie, I have too, it’s really been fun.
Katie (32:31):
Join me next week when we kick off April. All month long we are talking out loud about topics that don’t get enough airtime. We’ll cover bladder health and why you’re afraid to sneeze, midlife hair and going grey, and a host of other, only in midlife moments. If you enjoyed this week’s show please head to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to review the show. Reviews help us grow. So, if you do take a minute to write us a quick review, I have some fun A Certain Age swag I want to send you. Write a review, let me know, and I’ll send you two A Certain Age laptop stickers with our taglines: Age Boldly Beauties and Age Out Loud. Yes, you heard that correctly, you’ll get actual physical mail, how fun is that? Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed our theme music. See you next time, and until then: age boldly beauties.