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Jul 22, 2023
Mental Illness Is an Asshole
And Other Observations
Summary
Today I talked to Gabe Howard about his book Mental Illness Is an Asshole: And Other Observations (DGC Press, 2018).
Howard has an interesting story to tell. He is an award-winning podcast host, author, and sought-after speaker, but he says he wouldn’t be any of these things today if he hadn’t found himself in a psychiatric hospital diagnosed with a bipolar disorder in 2003.
What is particularly rewarding is the fact that Howard is frank, open and honest about his problems and dislikes speakers who only discuss success. He shares very personal stories because he wants his listeners and readers to know that his recovery isn't a perfectly curated social media event but has ups and downs with symptoms and setbacks.
For years, Howard's entertaining articles and essays have been educating people about living with mental illness. His observations cover everything from practical advice to family relationships to the fears that people with mental illness experience.
In essays such as "Anxiety Says Everyone Hates Me," "I Have Bipolar and I'm a Hypocrite," and, yes, "Mental Illness Is an Asshole," Howard makes mental illness less scary and more understandable.
Karyne Messina is a psychologist and a psychoanalyst with the Baltimore Washington Center for Psychoanalysis. She is on the medical staff at Suburban Hospital of Johns Hopkins Hospital. She is author of Resurgence of Global Populism: A Psychoanalytic Study of Projective Identification, Blame Shifting and the Corruption of Democracy
Your Host
Karyne Messina
Karyne Messina is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and am on the medical staff of Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. She is the author of Resurgence of Populism: A Psychoanalytic Study of Projective Identification, Blame Shifting and the Corruption of Democracy (Routledge, 2022), "Barbie and the Great American Identity Crisis: The Unfortunate Reality of a Nation Plagued by Racism, Patriarchy, and Stark Hypocrisy (PI Press, April 2024) and the forthcoming "A Psychoanalytic Study of Political Leadership in the United States and Russia" (Routledge, May 2024).
