 Why not? It's the crash that comes afterwards that got me. It was night and day. It was night and day. I was Superman one day and I was a completely dysfunctional guy, useless, completely useless, the next. And bipolar, depression, anxiety, I've had it. It's not a way to live, but it is an important part of your life. So don't dismiss it. Hi, welcome to another episode of Mental Wealth TV, delivered by the Webplace Mental Health Institute. I'm Emmy Golding, the Director of Psychology, and I'm here with Peter Diaz, CEO. And today we're doing something a little bit different. Today, you know, Peter gets asked a lot of questions about his background in mental health, both personally and professionally. So today we're going to dive deep into your personal story. And I think for anyone who's ever experienced a mental health problem or knows someone who has, I think you're going to find some very interesting insights from this conversation. So we're getting close and personal? Yeah, that's right. Welcome. I've tried to avoid getting close and personal for many years. I know. That's something I wanted to say. You have not spoken a lot about your story over the years, even though you're often asked about it. So why is that? Why have you held back from sharing? Well, number one thing, obviously, sometimes if you tell people that you've had a mental illness, everything else that comes out of your mouth gets has got the potential to be belittled. And that's a problem because I've got an important message to give to the world regarding mental health and well-being and getting people choices. And I didn't want the message to lose strength because of that. The only reason why I agree now is because so many people have asked, look, I've got bipolar and I want to know what you did to see if there's anything that you did that could be beneficial. And actual fact, while I was thinking about this video, a lady just sent an email asking that very same question and I say, well, funny, you say that, just give it a few days and we'll release a video on that. That's why I'm here today, really. And the other thing is I didn't want my illness to become my identifier for myself, not for other people. So there's two types of stigma. One is stigma that other people put on you and the other one is the stigma that you put on yourself. So I'm not a bipolar person. So that was the diagnosis, though. Bipolar was beneficial. Yeah, it was bipolar. Well, we started over the few other ones and that's the one that we finally stayed on or settled on. Yeah, bipolar. Sorry, you were saying about the label, the self. Yeah, I mean, right now my life is great. Like I travel the world. I help people with the Institute with you guys with a team. I have a beautiful team, really smart team. My life is pretty good. You know, you have an amazing family. Of course, they are very amazing. So my life is pretty good. But it wasn't always like that. There was a time in my life when it was really, really dark. And it was a period where I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I only saw the tunnel. I only saw the darkness, you know, and I had to go and explore that. Look, before we dive into all of that, no, I want to know more about that. But there's another question that you often get asked that I have to put out there up front, which is, where are you from? Oh, the world. Well, my parents were Spanish. My dad was born in 35 Spain and my mum in Madrid. But I was born already in Germany. So even though I grew up with Spanish at home, outside it was all German. I went to school in Germany until I was 10. So you spoke German then? Yeah, I spoke German fluently. Do you speak German now? No, never used it again. Once we left, never used it again. It would be nice if I did, but I didn't. What it has stuck with me, though, is that drive for efficiency and that is very German and punctuality and keeping your appointments. So I have that. I'm not sure if that's a blessing or if that's a curse. But that idea of, I call it perfectionism, which it's interesting because perfectionism is a big element in mental health problems and mental illness. You know, when you see people that have got mental health issues to fixate on certain things, about one thing, very perfectionistic. Maybe the whole other parts of their lives falling apart like mine was, but that particular thing that I was fixated on was perfect. So maybe that's the German part. What part were you fixated on? My relationship with God at the time. I was fixated with that and I tried to do it perfectly, probably too much. Let's come back to that. And there was not a lot of room for humanity to have. But that was my issue. There wasn't room for literature. So you were born in Germany, raised in Germany until you were 10? Then we moved back to Spain for a few years and then off to Australia where I've stayed the rest of my life until now, which has caught us out here as COVID refugees, in sunny Marbella. If you're wondering where we are, this is the Costa del Sol. It's a good place to be stuck. Yeah, absolutely. So do you consider yourself more Spanish, more German, more Australian? How do you identify? Probably more Australian in a sense. I do consider myself Australian. But you know, at the end of the day, I consider myself me. It's not like I belong to a country in particular. It's me as a person and I look at people from that perspective as well. Yes, Germans, maybe more efficient people in this area of Spain may not be as good as keeping appointments, but they are generalizations. They're not true for everybody. So I try to stay away from that. So back to bipolar, because most people, when they hear, they know you, as you said, as a CEO of the Workplace Mental Health Institute, speaking to thousands of people on stages, running a team, successful family traveling, etc. So when you say, oh yeah, I used to have bipolar, I think that's quite a surprise to people. Number one, that for you, and number two, because a lot of people don't realize you can actually come through that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and that's an important lesson to take away. So tell me about how did it happen? How did, I mean, you're born as a child and you're raised and at what point, how do you get to the point where you, I imagine sitting in a doctor's office somewhere and they say, we can get to bipolar? Yeah, absolutely. That's a bit hard. Well, not sure. The doctor said that had always an underlying depression, you know, almost in the background all through what I was growing up. And I tend to agree with that. I was, I always had, I was a very skinny kid, couldn't eat a lot of things, a lot of things didn't sit in well with me. Physically. Physically, physically. So I think that my gut issues had something to do with that. And then I was also feeling that I didn't belong. Because you moved around somewhere? No wonder. Well, I was born in Germany, but at the time there was a lot of racism in Germany. So even though I was born in Germany, spoke German fluently and perfectly like they did, they still consider me the Spanish kid. Right. It's interesting because in Germany, they thought of me as a Spanish kid. In Spain, they think of me as the Aussie guy. In Australia, they think of me again as a Spanish kid. So they kept shifting my identity. And the point is, I didn't quite belong. And as a kid, that wasn't, right now, it doesn't really matter. But as a kid, it's a big thing. You want to belong. You want to be like everybody else. So those are aspects that I always say to people, you know, if you are suffering from what is being diagnosed as bipolar disorders, don't just focus on the physical aspects, although they are important, the physical things need to take care of that. But also look at your social environment and also your inner psychological environment. So what did you see in the lead-up to the point where you ended up at a doctor's office where they're saying, we think you've had this underlying depression for a long time. I mean, what was your experience? You're going along happily in life or perhaps not. You're going along a little bit. Yeah. But then what happened that it got worse? Mania. Mania happened. You know, I mean, I was depressed, but I was battling through. I was pushing through. And then I started getting furious in which I had this burst of energy for about two or three days to the point where I didn't even have to sleep. I would just keep going and I would make all these plans and create the world. I know, right? Like this creative aspect. That sounds great. I want more energy. Except though, in our world, you're supposed to be functional for more than three days or two days. And I would crash. Right. And I would crash badly for about three or four weeks after that. Sometimes to the point where I couldn't get up. I couldn't get up. But what did you do in those three, you didn't sleep for two or three days at a time? What else would you do in these many periods? Anything and everything. I remember once having decided to install a chimney in the house and I installed the chimney and we are three o'clock in the morning and the top of the roof installing this chimney. So it's crazy stuff that you do. But at the time, it was it was logical. It seemed logical. I had the energy. So why not? Why not? It's the crash that comes afterwards that that got me. And that's where I needed I went and looked for help because it was night and day. It was night and day. I was superman one day and I was a completely dysfunctional guy useless, completely useless the next. And that started to be very confusing. How can you go from this high to that low? And then what happens is when you start feeling well, you start panicking. You panic. There's a dread that takes over you because you don't trust yourself because whenever something feels good, there's always the possibility of that crash. And I'm talking about a real crash. I'm not talking just not being energetic. I'm talking about questioning everything and thinking of suicide as well. So it's serious. In the moment, it is serious. And it's not something to be discounted lightly. And what about that? I mean, that must have been perfect to go through those. It was. It was the point where you're thinking that it's not worth continuing life. So I went to doctor and immediately or did you? Well, I did but never necessarily for years I went to the doctors and I spoke about something else. I didn't talk about the mental health issue or psychological problems or even social problem. I spoke about that pain or headaches or lack of energy or that kind of stuff. Avoiding probably the issue. And I think most people do that. Did you do that deliberately or just? I was too embarrassed. I felt like failure. So I was ashamed of that. It's not something that I was proud of. I knew there was something amiss. But I didn't know exactly where it was or I didn't have the strength to look into it. All right. Who knows what you're going to uncover. That's right. You just start delving into it. There's a part of me that knew what was going to be and I didn't like that. So really? Well, you start avoiding, don't you? Yeah. In psychology, we call it deluding yourself. You delude yourself. So you give an explanation. So what was the impact on those around you at that time? If you're going through these ups and downs? Look, that's a good question. Because one of the things that we forget often in this mental health space or some sort of mental illness space is how the family goes through that. We acknowledge the spouse that it's very, very difficult for the spouse. But we forget about the kids. It's a complete mind-fuck for the kids. How old are you? Excuse my double. That's here. But it is a total mind-fuck for kids. It is very confusing. It's confusing for me, let alone for the wife and let alone for the kids. And yeah, I look back on the kids and I say, I didn't mean to do damage, but having a parent that is not reliable, you can't rely on. It's very confusing. It can be quite damaging for kids. So as a parent, we do well. When we have a problem, go and get some therapy, go and work it out. Were they little? Yeah, absolutely. Kids. And they're all right now, just in case anyone's wondering. We're all okay now. We're a different kind of crazy, but we're okay. You're really going to watch this. No, they're beautiful. They've grown up into really balanced adults, but it wasn't an easy journey for anyone. So you spoke to a doctor about this. They said, we think you've had this underlying depression for a lot of years, but the mania, that's kind of evidence that there could be this bipolar thing going on. What was it like for you to get that label? Was that something that was a relief for you or something that's scary or take us to that moment? In the moment, it was useful personally because it gave me the tick of approval to do something about it. So in that sense, it was useful. In the short term, in the long term, it wasn't useful because a label tends to fixate you in a place and time. And then you have to put in a double effort. But in the short term, it was useful. I went and looked. So I'm ambivalent when it comes to diagnosis. I prefer to work with people or I encourage people to work without a diagnosis. Don't worry about diagnosis. Diagnoses are a dime a dozen. They come and they go, we've seen that. I think it was Freud, not Freud, Carl Jung that said, show me a person and I will diagnose them for you. So like everybody can all find something. If you go through the DSM and you look at the hundreds of labels, you can all find caffeine addiction, we are with our coffee. So anything you can find. And it can be quite dangerous because you can be used as an excuse not to do what you need to. Yeah, yeah. Well, especially people think, well, that's it. There's no recovery from this. So this is mine. Yeah. And I'll just live a small life going forward. Was that your initial response or were you looking for a solution and what to do about this? Look, I wasn't looking for solutions. I was looking for a making the symptoms better. Relief. Relief. Yeah. That's what I was looking for. And that's what got me thinking about suicide. Really? I was looking for, you know, searching for relief. It wasn't like I wanted to die. I wanted to die because living was so hard. So not because. I mean, if life had been great, I wouldn't have wanted to die. So. And that's what people say. It's not that I wanted to end it. I just didn't want to keep going in the current situation. Couldn't see. And a lot of people talk about that fog, you know, I can't see outside. Absolutely. Others can see all the options. But when you're in it, in the fog, you can't see the other options that are available. And when I started taking medication, it was interesting that you talk about fog, because I started experiencing a great artist association. So it's almost like I was, I was a witness, an observer in my own life. This life wasn't real. I was looking outside of myself. Strange. That must be a weird. Very, very strange. I mean, one of the questions that we had someone ask was, did you lose touch with reality at any point in that? Absolutely. And that's part of the mind fact that I was talking about before is that you start not, you start not trusting your own judgment. Right. Because it changed. Like I could defend the point of view to the death one minute and the next minute it seemed completely unimportant. And even all the opposite. It was very strange. It was, it was very confused to that part of it. So recovery is, is not easy. So, but it is possible and it's quite probable with the research showing people up to 80% of people recover. This is not one or two people, up to 80% of people. And I want people to take that away with them because, you know, recovery is not just important and not only can just happen, but it can happen for you. It's not going to be easy. Let's not fool us. But is it worth it? Absolutely. Of course. Bipolar is crap. You know, bipolar, depression, anxiety, I've had it. It's all crap. It's not a way to live, but it is an important part of your life. So don't dismiss it. And you can say that now from a place of hindsight. I'm sure at the time it wasn't that easy to see any use to it. So in summary, looking back on it now, what would you say was the cause of your major health problem? In your case? Look, there's not, there's no one single cause. It's, it's, you know, if you're looking for one cause, I think it's a wrong way to go around about it. You know, there was certain physical things like I said before. My stomach didn't work as it should have been. And I didn't understand that. It didn't process foods. I was not allergic necessarily to certain foods, but I wasn't tolerant of them. And that was causing problems. And there's a lot more research now about the impact of gut biology. And also how you tolerate certain things. You have certain allergies that you don't know about. That's going to impact that. And also I grew up in an environment in which it kind of fomented a little bit of actually a narcissistic, a autistic attitude. I was always thinking about how I was being seen by other people. Right. I was putting myself a lot of pressure socially and then psychologically as well. So that comes in with the perfectionism as well. As well. And then I was living a life that wasn't my life. It was a good life, but it wasn't my life. I had accidentally fallen into that life. You know, I had grown up in a Christian environment, a religion. And while I was very good at being religious, it's not really who I am. Some people is perfect. Their journey is the opposite of what I have to do or I have to do. And they haven't got religion and they blossom. They thrive when they find religion. Right. But I was the other way around. I'm not a rule guy. I don't like rules. Right. I like as little rules as possible so just we can get along, you know. And so that didn't fit me very well. I heard you say now that you're more spiritual than religious. Yeah, I am. I have a huge respect for the aspect of spirituality that religion can bring to be that touch. And I really believe that people that have mental health problems, you know, a lot of us become spiritual if not religious because you can't go through something like that and come out the other side and not have a different touch relationship with spirituality. Yeah. So yeah, it is a complex issue. Everybody will be different. Some people will have more of a physical or moral aspect to things. And but I always recommend the therapy and also identity how you see yourself in the world. I had a very poor identity of myself. I didn't think I was always trying to be humble that you can overdo that. Yeah. You know, sometimes you can be too humble to your own detriment. I was always trying to put other people first. And that's not always a good idea. Because not everybody's nice, you know. And the research is three to four percent of us are psychopaths. So you don't want to give psychopaths the upper hand always, you know. So it makes you a sucker. So I was a bit of a sucker in that sense. So I had to learn a new way of being in the world, a new identity, create a new identity, which was pretty hard. It took a few years to create a new identity for myself. And then try that one on. Yeah. So physical elements, social elements, identity and existential elements. Yeah, hormonal, physical. It all comes in there. Yeah. So talking about recovery, was there a moment that changed things for you or was it a slow process over time? Yeah. I remember one day going and being in touch with the counsellor. Right. And I'm sitting across and I'm talking about my problems. And she's being really empathetic. She's doing all the right things. And I think to myself, you know what? This person goes home and has a nice life with their family. Yeah. And they don't even remember me while they're away. So what am I doing? Why am I so attached to my problems? Why don't I just let them go? And it's almost like an internal fire happened at that moment. And I said, this is unacceptable. I have a brain. I have skills. I deserve to have a better life. And I think that was the changing moment when I decided that I was good enough to have a better life. And I think that's what I've seen. I mean, I had hit rock bottom. Right. That's an advantage. So I couldn't go anywhere further down. And I couldn't kill myself because of my kids. That wouldn't have been right. So I decided to go up. I decided to crawl myself out of that space. Then and there in that moment. Yeah. I didn't know how I was going to do it. But yeah, that's what I decided on. Yeah. So there was both then a moment of decision and then actions. Obviously that didn't solve everything in that moment. What worked for you? How did you crawl out of that? Yeah. Well, well, first of all, you know, some simple things. I remember one of the goals that I put is I knew I was really bad at finishing things. So I decided one year, you know what? I'm going to finish 100 books. I'm going to read 100 books from beginning to end. It doesn't matter what they're about. As long as I finish them, because I had so many books that I had started. Right. Yeah. I started projects and I never finished anything. And it was more symbolic about starting something and finishing them. And I thought, and if I can learn something in the process, great, I would try that as well. So I started looking and I did that. Eventually I read or I've read over 100 books now. And I learned a lot of things. And in that process, I also something interesting happened. I also started finding out things that I liked. Okay. Right. So I started to look at life in a little bit in a different way. Instead of focusing on the things that I didn't like, or what was wrong, and what should be changed, I started also finding out things that I actually really enjoyed doing and and building on that. For example, one of the things that I started investigating was about around how people's brains work. Okay. You know, how come some people are really good at tennis and some people are really good at singing? And how do people memorize stuff? How do people communicate? How come some people communicate so beautifully about the most difficult subjects? And that was fascinating to me. And I started investigating into that. But that was where my spirit went. You know, that was where my direction went. And I think I remember you saying at one point that philosophy was something that was of interest to you as well. It kind of became a surrogate for religion in that sense. Yeah. I needed one of the big things that I knew I had to do and I had been avoiding for years was to live to stop the religion. And that was a huge thing, because in the religion that I was in, that meant I had the potential of losing all my friends, all my social networks, and even potentially my family. And they wouldn't talk to me. And that's what happened. They couldn't talk to me and I had to live and it felt very lonely. So I had to make those big steps to get out. Now that's my journey. Not everybody needs to do that. That's what I needed to do. But you know, there might be something for people holding them back. What's holding you back in life? Find out. Go on. Go on. Find out what's holding you back in life. What kind of identity you have now that is not serving you? And what would be the identity that serves you? So for me, the identity that served me once a preacher, always a preacher. Wait, you were a preacher? Yeah, yeah. So that's something that you haven't mentioned yet? Yeah, yeah. Not just in a religion, but you were actually... I was a preacher. So I was really good at it. And that's something that I needed to change. But you know, that idea of helping people, it's so important to me. So I borrowed that and I took it forward. So this is my way of giving back to the world. It's not just, to me, life is not about money. To me, life is about influence. How can I make your day a better day? How can I get out of myself? So I become more fascinated by you rather than obsessed with me. And that's the shift that I needed to do in my recovery. I needed to stop being obsessed with me and obsessed with you. And being truly empathetic and compassionate about the problems of other people. How is that impacting them? How is that going to be working out for them? And that's the stuff that propelled me forward. At a physical level though, because there was a physical aspect, I also became a researcher of my own body. I didn't live it up to chance. I went to the doctor. I had all allergy tests made. I checked the hormones. I checked for anything that could be wrong. And once that was given the okay, then I kept researching because I knew it wasn't okay. I knew that my stomach didn't work properly. And eventually I discovered something as simple as probiotics and prebiotics, which I'll tell you to the truth. I have an idea of how they work. I don't know exactly how they work, but it works. For me, it worked. And I encourage people to also do that. Don't go crazy with probiotics because that's not the idea. But what if your gut is not working properly? What if you need a cleanse? What if you should be doing a bit of fasting? I don't know what it is, but we all have different bodies and the bodies need different things. I needed to do more movement, more exercise, not less. Which is hard when you're feeling depressed. Absolutely. I needed to be disciplined at getting up one hour in the morning and do that religiously. Because once you get up, life is easier. You've done the first step. You're out of the... So we haven't spoken about this, but you weren't working while you're unwell, I imagine. No, no, no. I wasn't a disability pension. It got very bad, yeah. And how did you get back into work again? Because it sounds like through this process of exploration, you then start to get interested in things that could be the beginning steps of something meaningful going forward. It was scary. It was very scary. Because I didn't have the confidence that I could actually put in a whole week of work. I didn't have that confidence. So what I did is with my best friend, he was working in a mental health facility in a residential and he said, well, do you want to do some hours as a support worker? And I was terrified about the thing, but I pretended that I was confident about it and I said, yes, absolutely. I can do that. And I started working a few hours and then... So you're mentally vulnerable, unwell, and now you're working as a support worker in mental health services to help other people who are also unwell? Yeah, I didn't tell them that, but I was working. So you were able to do that? I was able to do that for a few hours. I wasn't working a lot of hours. And then since I could manage that. If you can't look after yourself, how can you support anyone else? Well, by that time I had started taking some steps. I could function for a few hours and then go and rest and recover. And I knew that I needed to do more. I needed to take action. There's no recovery without action. There's no recovery without movement. There's no life without growth. And that's fairly obvious. It's not an idea. It's a fact of life. You need some tension. You need some stress. You need some pressure. And that's exactly what I have been avoiding all my life, that tension, that pressure. It's exactly the opposite of what I needed for recovery. So I thought, well, I'll try it out. And I did well. It wasn't that difficult. It wasn't that demanding. I just had to watch myself that I didn't feel too much with the clients that it brought me back into a whole. So it's not something I recommend for everybody. Well, this is now having peer support workers or people with a lived experience has become something that's recommended for mental health services. And I think it's brilliant. But not everybody that is a peer support worker should be a peer support worker. Because it's too close to the bone. It's too close. So that's a personal decision. But that's my story. That's how it went. And Vinny, study. Yeah. And since I could handle that, one of my doctors, which was a beautiful human being, he was very understanding and pathetic. He said, well, Peter, he looked at me one day and Peter, what are you doing with your life? And I thought to myself, oh, here we go. What's he going to say now? I said, well, this is it. Well, this doesn't get you anything. Yeah, it doesn't. I said, well, why don't you become a social worker? I said, what, why, what do social workers do? He says, I don't know. But there's an orientation week next week. Go and have a look. And I said, okay. And then I had to do it because I had said, okay. And I went to the Australian Catholic University and I went through orientation work and the rest is history. I joined them. I started off slowly and I finished my degree. And after I finished my degree, I went to Sydney and I didn't tell anybody I had a mental health issue and I pretended to be completely normal. In my case, it's a difficult ask. I pretended to be completely normal. And yeah, for my first job, I went in for an interview for a case manager role. And after I did the interview, they offered me a rehabilitation specialist role. And I thought, wow, I've nailed it. I've nailed it. Yes. I went for a lower role and they gave me a higher role. So that was a big win for me. You didn't tell anyone about your experience? I did not tell anyone for years now. I left the behind. I put in place also some coping strategies, not always a good one. Smoking. I did take up smoking for a couple of years until my lungs said no more. But that was a little bit of a coping strategy. I did get out of the medication because that was impacting me. It was helping, but it wasn't curing me. It was not fixing it. So I weaned myself off with the help of my doctor. So I didn't tell anybody, you know, not just because of the stigma that they had, but also it was a way of not giving myself permission to slack off. I didn't want to use it as a crutch. I didn't want to use it as a crutch. I didn't want to have an escape pod in the workplace where I could go back and say, oh, I'm not performing because I'm mentally ill. No, I didn't want that. So I wanted to really put myself on the firing line. I wanted to put myself on the pressure and I wanted to learn. Oh, absolutely. I literally psychologically crawled myself out of the hole. There's no other way to put it. Recovery is about taking action, but it's not all now. I'm telling you this in five minutes. This took years. One step at a time. And even if it's a small step, it's a step forward. And that's an important thing for people to do. And the other thing... Sorry, you mentioned that you got off the medication as well, because it hadn't, it worked to a point, but then it wasn't... Yeah. In my research, what I found is while external things can help us, can help us, they can become a crutch. And we need to, as human being, we are better off. We fly better. We thrive more when we learn to rely and use what God has given us, God in that term. What nature has given us. And we have a brain that works wonderfully. If we understand how the brain works and we use it that way, that has got a healing effect all through the body. So while the medication was useful for those crisis moments, what I saw is that after the crisis was over, it didn't take away the depression. It didn't make life wonderful. It didn't take away the anxiety. It was always there in the background. And I didn't want necessarily to live a life while still calling myself clinically depressed 20 years later. I wanted to have a life where I thrived. Did you stop it overnight? No, that's very dangerous to do. What I did with the help of the doctor was to reduce it. He said we'll take two quarters and so on. We reduced it. And he says it'll take about three months, but it didn't. It took at most six weeks. But as I say, I had other things. With the help of someone to monitor it and just do that gradual. I got serious about talking therapies. I got serious about that. I started opening up. It was really scary. It was really scary. It felt like I was making myself naked in front of another human being. But it was very useful. Not to mention there's a financial investment in that as well. Oh yes. That's also expensive. But as I started working, I started getting more money. I developed this attitude of money that is spent on my growth is a good investment. So I early on took on that idea. If I work for somebody and they don't pay for a training that I want, I'll pay for it. I'm not going to wait for my employer to do it. It's my life. I will do that. If I need to get a coach or get a therapist, I'll get the best one that I can. If my employer pays for it, great. But if they don't, it's my life. It's my result. It's my choices. Exactly. Nobody cares about me or should care about me more than I care about me. I should be my number one fan. And if I'm not willing to be my number one fan, why should anybody else? So those are some of the things that helped. I've never been, another question that people ask all the time is around chemical imbalance. Is a mental illness a chemical imbalance? Is it a chemical that is missing in the brain that needs to be put there? There is no proof of that. There has never been any proof. It has not been obtained. It's a popular myth. It's a clinical myth, I call it. It's a clinical myth in which something is wrong. It's lacking in your brain. You have to put that. There's absolutely no proof of that. So it's only a theory that got drummed up probably by pharmaceutical companies because they have an interest in that. But there's absolutely no proof. The fact that a chemical makes you feel good is not proof that you were missing that chemical to begin with. Because otherwise cocaine would be really good for us. If that was the proof, cocaine would be. So that's an absolute myth. It's not true. Now are there hormones and chemicals all over the body that can impact how you feel? Absolutely. We know that that's a truism. That can happen. But we also know that by introducing happy chemicals into our body we feel good. So you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that if you exercise within reason, by exercise I don't mean lifting weights. I mean, just go for a walk. Don't go crazy. Bipolar people don't need heavy exercise because it can make bipolar worse. So just gentle movement to begin with. Fantastic. If you're depressed, it doesn't matter how much you exercise. That's not a problem. It's only if you're bipolar that impacts. If you're anxious, go for a run. Stand under cold shower. Anything to jolt your system. And that's what I was willing to do. Anything to jolt the system out of that. And so just like you said, it seems that a number of factors caused ill health. It sounds like there were a number of different things you needed to do in different areas of life. Absolutely. For that journey of recovery. I guess what you'd call a holistic approach. And look, I say these things. This is not a treatment guide. Yeah. Okay. Because I'm very aware that everybody's different. Yeah. My journey is not everybody's journey. Yeah. My body is not everybody's body. Yeah. But you know, you've got to find out what works for you. One of the things that I saw early on in my anxiety is that in my body reacts to caffeine. It's very sensitive to caffeine. I didn't know that for years. I didn't know that. And if I have three or four cups of coffee a day over a sustained period, then I develop a whole anxiety disorder. Symptoms of anxiety. Yeah. Symptoms of anxiety. If you look at it, it's an anxiety disorder. But is it really a disorder? Well, I refuse to call it a disorder since it's a coffee based thing. So what I did is I watched how much coffee I drink now. And if I see that I'm starting to get a little bit off, cut back even more. So what did you say then to come back to the idea of recovery? I mean, you consider yourself completely recovered, right? I don't have bipolar anymore. Whereas I'm a different kind of crazy though. I'm crazy, but a different kind of crazy. Because what you're describing is, I mean, caffeine affects all of us. Yeah. Sugar affects all of us. Nutrition affects all of us. These are things that all of us, mental illness or not, can be paying attention to, you know, to stay well and healthy. Absolutely. So are you managing your bipolar and it's still there under the surface hidden or it doesn't exist anymore? Look, I think, you know, who is not bipolar, even the earth is bipolar. It has got a south pole and a north pole. You know, the sea goes up and down. So we all go up and down. We wouldn't be human. We wouldn't be physical if there was no yin and yang up and down. You know, there has to be a thrust, a tension. But that doesn't mean that it is a disorder. It doesn't have to make you dysfunctional. You can use it to your advantage. So you obviously, all of these pieces of the puzzle, you know, bit by bit, you've got this sort of positive, positive spiral, I guess, that's impacting the more, the better you're feeling physically, the more mentally better, the career improves, then you've got more finances, then so bit by bit, you life improves. Absolutely. And then I want to make it clear that I still work on myself. Yeah. If I have, if I need therapy, I'll go and look for a therapist. If I need a coach, I'll go and look for a coach. If I need to learn something, I'll go and do it. You know, if I exercise, why? Because I want to have a healthy brain. I want to have a healthy life. I want to thrive in life. I want to live life, not survive it. Yeah. Surviving is okay. Living is where the fun is. So I invite everybody, come and join me in the fun. This is where it's at. So what's your mission now, going forward? My mission is to take the message to the world. I think there's a, especially now after the COVID, there's a lot of collective pain in the world that needs healing. And I'm hoping, I'm hoping that we can, we can survive this in, in an atmosphere of love and in choices. I like for the world to see that there are choices. Choices are very important for our mental health. You know, many people that are mentally ill believe that have very few choices. People that thrive, you know, that have got mental wealth, abundance of mental health, mental wealth are people with lots of choices. So through, through with my team, you guys, and through the Institute, I would like to be helping people to, to be wealthy in choices. So they can be kind and nice to each other too. We can all thrive together. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. You're welcome. And I'm sure there'll be people who have questions coming out of this as well. So send them through if you've got questions for Peter about his journey, about lessons, anything that keeps your interest and feel free to send them through and we'll make sure to answer them. Yes, please. Thanks for watching. See ya. Hi, I'm Amy Golding, Director of Psychology for the Workplace Mental Health Institute. We hope you liked the video. If you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up. We have more and more videos being released each week. So when you subscribe, you'll get a notification letting you know when a new one is just being published. So make sure to hit that subscribe button and don't miss out on this vital information for yourself, your colleagues and your loved ones.