Advocate to discuss mental health, stigma at courthouse presentation

May 11--When it comes to bipolar disorder, Ryan Sheehy figures a lot of people are like the young man she met last week. He candidly admitted to Sheehy, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2009, that he had long assumed that anyone with a mental illness was totally crazy.

"That's really, truly, the perception," Sheehy said.

And it is that perception that Sheehy is aiming to shift in her speaking tour through Florida and Texas for Mental Health Awareness Month in May. At the invitation of Marion County Mental Health Court and the Marion County Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Sheehy will share her experiences with mental illness at the Marion County Judicial Center on Wednesday at noon. The event is free and open the public.

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If you go

What: Ryan Sheehy shares her experience with bipolar disorder as part of a broader discussion on mental illness

When: Noon, Wednesday, May 11

Where: Jury Assembly Room, Marion County Judicial Center, 110 NW First Avenue, Ocala

Cost: Free and open to the public

More: www.breakdowntobrilliance.com or Kickstarter page

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As she did in March in a presentation for SXSW Interactive, the event that kick-started her mental illness advocacy, Sheehy will draw on her own experiences of managing bipolar disorder while maintaining a professional career as a way to shift the narrative around mental illness. Sheehy learned her diagnosis while working as a University of Central Florida professor, during her 16-year career in public relations.

In advance of her Wednesday presentation at the courthouse, Sheehy talked about bipolar disorder, the stigma it carries and her efforts to shift the conversation.

Responses are edited for length and clarity.

Star-Banner: What is bipolar disorder, and what are some of the ways it affects you?

Sheehy: Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder. When the illness rears its ugly head, as I call it, there are times of extremes: high highs, which is known as mania, and your darkest days, which is known as severe depression.

Typically (for me) it's stress that triggers insomnia. Insomnia triggers mania or depression. And that ultimately can lead me into what's known as an episode. Episodes -- and this is when the illness is not managed and out of hand -- can lead to psychosis. Psychosis is a delusional state, hallucinations, just really not knowing if you're living in reality and not being in your normal state.

I've had enough time and years under my belt to have had multiple episodes, and to have been in the hospital multiple times, that I've realized there's a science to managing this illness well.

Star-Banner: You were diagnosed in 2009. How long have you been dealing with the symptoms?

Sheehy: Since getting that diagnosis and reflecting on my state and different patterns of action in my life, I can see the signs of the illness as early as my teens. In tomorrow's presentation, I'm going to take a look back at who I was in my teenage years, twenties and thirties ... The world saw a different Ryan than I was privately battling with.

Star-Banner: Have you experienced the stigma that you're now addressing?

Sheehy: When I was given the diagnosis in fall 2009, I was freaked out because the stigma is so dense. ... It scared me. All the information that was presented (when Sheehy researched bipolar online) just perpetuated more stigma that kept me in silence and, in my own way, suffering. Because I'm not the way media projects bipolar disorder, but that's what the world believes.

I'm anything from ... crazy. I am the most methodical, intentional, goal-oriented individual anyone would ever meet.

Star-Banner: On Wednesday you'll be hosted by the Marion County Mental Health Court and the Marion County Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. What do you think the criminal justice system can do to accommodate mentally ill defendants?

Sheehy: What I believe is the greatest difficulty in mental illness is wrapping your brain around the complexities of it. Even for someone who's lived with it for six years, I'm learning new things every single day.

So part of this is that we have to educate ourselves, and one way to do this is by having me come in and share a real, true story of an individual -- that yes, I have an accomplished career, I've never had a run-in with the law or anything like that, but, at the worst state of my illness, I could have very well had something happen to me that led me into a criminal activity.

In order to change the stigma, we have to educate people. But the education has to come from survivors of mental illness that have overcome it.

Star-Banner: You've only recently begun speaking about mental illness, after sharing your story for the first time at SXSW in March. Why now?

Sheehy: For me, I was really getting tired of this narrative that was taking place. ... When there's any discussion on gun control, I feel like so often individuals, politicians, even members of the media take the narrative: 'Well, they must have had a mental illness.' Quite frankly, that perpetuates even more stigma and, for me, it makes my stomach turn.

It's so easy for a video to go viral or for a story to be aired on the evening news, and people just assume that's the sweeping narrative. And it's not. It's really not. There are millions of people working very hard to manage their illness. And they live productive lives, and they have careers and families and they are contributing members of society as well.

Following two more stops in Austin during her current speaking tour, Sheehy said she plans to continue her advocacy through a book, "Breakdown to Brilliance," and other resources to help others "own their label without being defined by it."

Contact Nicki Gorny at 352-867-4065, nicki.gorny@ocala.com or @Nicki_Gorny.

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