We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gabe Howard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gabe below.

Alright, Gabe thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

As a speaker and a podcaster, I’m fond of publicly sharing that when it came to helping me with bipolar disorder my parents did everything wrong.

In fact, I was 26 when I was diagnosed because my parents didn’t notice the symptoms at all. They believed that the symptoms of bipolar they were witnessing were behavioral issues. So, they did what most parents would do and punished me.

For those who don’t know, you can’t punish the symptoms of an illness away. :)

As you can imagine being severely mentally ill, I already believed I was unlovable. So, my parents constant punishments and anger validated those feelings and left me feeling alone, isolated, and depressed.

It’s at this point in the story that you should be wondering if I misread the question.

Here’s the thing about mistakes, you have to be present to make them. You have to be trying. My parents, without question, made a lot of mistakes but they never abandoned me. Sadly, this is not the experience of many people with mental illness. Many of us are left alone to fend for ourselves. This was not my experience, because my parents never even considered leaving me alone to fend for myself.

The biggest thing my parents did right was show up and try.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I spoke about living with mental illness before it was cool. :) It’s everywhere now-a-days — well, mental health is anyway. I’m fascinated by the number of advocates in other illness spaces who have added “mental health” advocacy to their titles. “Breast Cancer and Mental Health Advocate” or “Diabetes and Mental Health Advocate.” Back when I started, almost no one admitted to having mental health (which we all have), let alone mental illness.

I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years now, in one form or the other. That is a lot of experiences! I understand the mental illness population. I am trusted in the dark corners and rooms where people stop saying what they are “supposed to” and say what they actually feel.

I’ve spoken at The University of Oxford in England, worked for pharmaceutical companies, given key note speeches at national conversations, trained law enforcement, and everything in between.

While mental health is a popular topic, mental illness is still in shadows, perhaps more so. My skillset as someone who has interviewed hundreds of people on Healthline Media’s podcast, Inside Mental Health — people like Dr. Phil, Jennette McCurdy, and Wil Wheaton along with New York times best selling authors and Executive Directors of national mental health groups — allows me to truly understand many sides of this debate and conversation. I also host the Inside Bipolar podcast — which is for people living with bipolar disorder. And the cool thing is that it is hosted by me (a patient) and a doctor. So, listeners get a more well-rounded perspective.

Plus, I’m engaging and charismatic and have red hair. I’m not boring — and that’s important if you want people to listen and not play with their phones. :)

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Meeting people and realizing just how much I don’t know. To share a story:

When I first started the Inside Mental Health podcast 9 years ago, I received an email asking me when I was going to cover “women’s mental health issues.” My first reaction was “I do! Mental health is for everyone!” If I’m being honest, I was defensive and a tad bit insulted.

However, the email was polite and I wanted to be a professional and polite, so I replied “is there a topic you’d like me to cover?”

The list of topics floored me. I had missed so much. That taught me that all I really knew was what I could see — and if I wanted to learn more I needed to talk to people who weren’t like me. It’s been an incredible journey and I just love learning from some of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. I owe them so much.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Well, the obvious answer is that once I was fired from my job for being diagnosed with bipolar disorder I had to pivot pretty hard. I went from being a straight white male to a mental patient. I went from having all the privilege the world has to offer — to being discriminated against and feared. I had to learn how to survive under the weight of all that stigma. Then I had to figure out how to excel.

Contact Info:

• Website: gabehoward.com
• Instagram: gabehoward29
• Facebook: gabehowardspeaker
• Linkedin: gabehoward29
• Twitter: gabehoward29
• Youtube: gabehoward29
• Other: psychcentral.com/show psychcentral.com/ibp