This week’s topic:
Hello everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our very special guest today, Patrick Kennedy, who is a New York Times bestselling author and former member of the US House of Representatives and the nation’s leading political voice on mental illness, addiction and other brain diseases. During his 16 year career representing Rhode Island in Congress, he fought a national battle to end medical and societal discrimination against these illnesses, highlighted by his lead sponsorship of the Mental Health Parity and Addictions Equity Act of 2008. He has a new book out, which is incredible, called Profiles in Mental Health Courage. It goes on and on, but I’ll pause there first to welcome you onto the show, Patrick. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
About Patrick J. Kennedy
During his time in Congress, Patrick J. Kennedy co-authored the landmark Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Federal Parity Law), which requires insurers to cover treatment for mental health and substance use disorders no more restrictively than treatment for illnesses of the body, such as diabetes and cancer. In 2013, he founded The Kennedy Forum, a nonprofit that unites advocates, business leaders, and government agencies to advance evidence-based practices, policies, and programming in mental health and addiction. In 2015, Kennedy co-authored the New York Times Bestseller, “A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction,” which details a bold plan for the future of mental health care in America. In 2023, The Kennedy Forum launched the Alignment for Progress, a movement to align leaders from across industry and across the aisle to achieve 90/90/90 by 2033: 90% of all individuals will be screened for mental health and substance use disorders; 90% of those screened will be able to receive evidence-based treatment; 90% of those receiving treatment will be able to manage their symptoms in recovery. Kennedy’s second co-authored book “Profiles in Mental Health Courage” , available now, delves into the compelling stories of a diverse group of Americans who have struggled with their mental health – many of whom are sharing their stories for the first time.
Kennedy is also the founder of DontDenyMe.org, an educational campaign that empowers consumers and providers to understand parity rights and connects them to essential appeals guidance and resources; co-founder of One Mind, an organization that pushes for greater global investment in brain research; co-founder of Psych Hub, the most comprehensive online learning platform on mental health, substance use, and suicide prevention topics in the world; co-chair of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention’s Mental Health & Suicide Prevention National Response to COVID-19 (National Response); and co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Behavioral Health Integration Task Force.
Guest Resources
Patrick J. Keen Books:
Profile in Mental Health Courage
A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction
Episode Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Mental Health Advocacy
06:02 Understanding Mental Health vs. Mental Illness
12:02 The Importance of Early Intervention
17:50 The Need for a Unified Mental Health Agenda
24:03 Innovations in Mental Health Education
30:54 The Power of Personal Stories
36:45 The Role of Community in Recovery
43:45 Advocacy and Policy Change for Mental Health
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Transcript:
Kimberly Snyder (00:01.063)
Hello everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our very special guest today, Patrick Kennedy, who is a New York Times bestselling author and former member of the US House of Representatives and the nation’s leading political voice on mental illness, addiction and other brain diseases. During his 16 year career representing Rhode Island in Congress, he fought a national battle.
to end medical and societal discrimination against these illnesses, highlighted by his lead sponsorship of the Mental Health Parity and Addictions Equity Act of 2008. He has a new book out, which is incredible, called Profiles in Mental Health Courage. It goes on and on, but I’ll pause there first to welcome you onto the show, Patrick. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
Patrick Kennedy (00:54.318)
Hello, Kimberly. It’s great to be on and thank you for doing all you do to help spread the word. It means a lot.
Kimberly Snyder (01:02.331)
Sometimes, you know, in the past, sometimes when we talk about health, wellness, people would really focus on how fit their bodies were, how much they weighed. There was all these different definitions. And thankfully, thanks to leaders such as yourself, there’s so much expansion of that definition of health and wellness, really taking the mental aspect into consideration. I mean, I think even five years ago, would you agree, Patrick, 10 years ago, certainly this was something that was
hidden underneath, one of the things you talk about in the book, the courage, people speaking out because there was so much shame or confusion, people not even really understanding about these illnesses in the first place.
Patrick Kennedy (01:44.184)
Yeah, no question. And I think we had it for some time with our young people suffering. And of course, that seems to be the new big focus in our space. But COVID definitely brought it home to everybody. that was this is no longer someone else’s challenge or rather it wasn’t just the purview of those psychiatrists and the mental health world that everybody could use better mental health and needs to.
protect their own mental health and to seek better mental health themselves. it’s always been glass, you know, half empty, you know, negative connotation. And now we’re starting to see the whole reframing of mental health to be something that everybody has to fight for, whether you’re a really top successful
entrepreneur, athlete, or even green beret. For example, the green berets have more mental health than any other branch of the service. And you’d say, why the hell the green berets need help? They are the strongest fighters in the world. Well, frankly, it’s the mental health that allows them to be special operators because of their ability to manage their own thinking, counterproductive thought patterns, and…
Kimberly Snyder (02:47.623)
Mmm.
Patrick Kennedy (03:08.31)
you know, intrusive thoughts, you know, the same stuff that bedevils people like me are in recovery from addiction or trying to always keep from acting on any self-destructive impulse. For the Green Berets, it’s they have to have focus on their mission. And when they’re dropped in behind enemy lines, they can’t be thinking about what’s going back on back at home. They can’t.
have anything on their mind but exactly their mission or else it could compromise the whole operation. the point being that mental health is no longer just mental illness, right? Because that’s how we thought of mental health was through mental illness. You don’t have to be mentally ill to be mentally unwell and so and vice versa.
Kimberly Snyder (03:32.805)
Right.
Kimberly Snyder (03:51.047)
right.
Kimberly Snyder (04:00.099)
Patrick, can you explain a little bit about the difference between mental health and let’s say, stressed, being stressed out or, some of the things, like it’s sometimes we don’t necessarily understand when help is warranted or when there’s something out of the actual norm parameters.
Patrick Kennedy (04:16.866)
Well, I’m working a lot on trying to free frame the fact that we only look at health in terms of mortality, right? We’re thinking people are dying at this rate or, you know, cancer and so forth, heart disease. And what we miss is the lost days of life. there, my mother’s a recovering alcoholic, suffered from depression, alcoholism her whole life.
Kimberly Snyder (04:25.605)
Bye.
Kimberly Snyder (04:37.415)
Mmm.
Patrick Kennedy (04:46.398)
And she really wasn’t able to fulfill her best dreams and aspirations because of the disease. Now, she’s 87. And whenever she passes, people will say, that’s a full life. She lived to 87. But, you know, I’m here to say that, no, you know, she was not able to live a full life because she was held hostage by those illnesses. And so I think it’s disability.
So we all have anxiety, depression, know, various forms of addiction, process in both chemical process addictions. But how much are they intruding and interfering with our lives? That’s the thing. Like we all have stress, we all get panicked, we all have, but how much is that really affecting our ability to live free lives, you know, with our
Kimberly Snyder (05:32.027)
Right.
Patrick Kennedy (05:45.922)
with full agency, with our ability to not have however we’re feeling dictate how we live our lives. So when it starts to impinge on our abilities, that’s when it gets into the illness, know, whatever you want to call it, it’s disabling. It’s disabling. So that’s when we need help.
Kimberly Snyder (06:02.822)
Right?
Mm. So Patrick, can you share a little bit before we get into this new book about your your last book, Common Struggle, where you talked a little bit about some of your own story. You know, there’s so much around the you know, the the wounded healer or the wounded hero, we could say I know that’s why I got into wellness because I had a lot of issues in my body recovering from eating disorders. So sometimes we’re drawn to
healing and then sharing about, you know, challenges we’ve had personally. It’s a really beautiful cycle. And you’ve been really open about, you mentioned about your mother. Can you tell us a little bit about your own journey?
Patrick Kennedy (06:45.614)
Well, you know, I was also the sponsor of the major eating disorders legislation in Congress because that diagnosis is discriminated against more than any other by insurance companies. Yes, yes. And really, like with all other illnesses, we wait till it becomes a stage four illness before we treat it. That’s the difference between mental illnesses and addictions versus the rest of physical health care.
Kimberly Snyder (06:51.706)
no.
Kimberly Snyder (06:58.276)
Is that true?
Patrick Kennedy (07:14.156)
The rest of physical healthcare, you try to risk someone, like do they have it in their family and so forth? And what’s people’s predisposition? We try to, here are some potential red flags and so forth. But in mental health and addiction, we wait until you’re really ill for the most part before we try to get you help. And then of course, it costs a lot of people’s.
time, energy, suffering, and of course, dollars. And so everything seems both expensive and it also seems like it doesn’t work. But if you started cancer treatment when at stage four, guess what? Same thing. You wouldn’t have people do as well and it would cost a lot and it wouldn’t get quite the results you want. We have to treat mental illness and addiction early on. So part of the reason with eating disorders, you know, I
grew up, I know addiction well. my own daughter, when my own daughter started suffering from eating disorders, I could spot it early. And, and because I’m a mental health advocate, I’ve got a great Rolodex of people I can call. yeah, but also because I had done this legislation, like I knew all the the experts and, and actually, because it was during COVID, we got
Kimberly Snyder (08:12.519)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (08:26.747)
Lucky her.
Patrick Kennedy (08:39.596)
virtual care for her, which was terrific because they had a family model of care, which, as you know, in our space, we don’t really include the family in the treatment. And especially with an eating disorder like you need as her parents, my wife and I need to be supportive of our daughter, which means we can’t just wait till she sees some therapist a week from Thursday.
That’s not going to be what helps her. She needs real time help throughout the day. And she needs, frankly, that virtual care where she can get that help and where you don’t have to, as I said, try to schedule something that doesn’t fit with her. You can do a lot more on the virtual side. we have virtual nutritionists, you know, and we have peer, which, you know, so we have family peers helping her parents, me and my wife.
We have her have peers. Anyway, I say that. So I grew up with both my parents suffering from addiction.
Kimberly Snyder (09:48.36)
Patrick, sorry to interject, but just to really acknowledge how incredible it is that you’re showing up for your daughter in that way and how important, that’s such an important thing if we could pause there for a moment because so many women and people in the community are suffering from eating disorders. And I say from my heart, not with blame, but just back to your book and sharing stories because over 20 years ago when I had my eating disorders, this wasn’t as talked about.
And I was bulimic and there was so much blood coming up from my ulcer, an ulcer that my co-track captain saw it, brought it to my teacher, brought it to my mother who at the time was, know, immigrating from the Philippines. She came from the Philippines, more survival mode. And her first instinct was we can’t afford this care. So you’re just going to have to get over this on your own. there was, you you’re explaining like, parents need to be involved, telehealth. There was none of that. So I was really on my
Patrick Kennedy (10:43.352)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (10:46.611)
own, Patrick. And I think about, you talked about how much it impinged life for those years going into my senior year of high school, how much just trying to get through this on my own and how much I can say from personal experience, the suffering. So, you know, I…
Patrick Kennedy (11:03.054)
It’s great. You know, it’s such a difference because I looked up there’s this company called Equip. I mentioned it because a lot of people have eating disorders. It’s much more prevalent than anyone knows. Equip. So I knew the founder because I was we were both fighting against insurance discrimination against. That’s how we got to know it. And then she didn’t like the fact you had to fly across the country in her own case to get help. She wanted to be getting help where she lived.
Kimberly Snyder (11:14.266)
Right.
Kimberly Snyder (11:21.113)
Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (11:32.8)
she was doing. So she founded this ironically before COVID. Then when COVID hit, obviously it took off. So I called my local, obviously I got gold health insurance here in New Jersey. I called the CEO. said, I need you to put this company in your list of referrals because I could do that. But I’m saying to myself, we all pay big premiums for our healthcare for those of us who are fortunate enough to have healthcare.
Kimberly Snyder (12:02.213)
Yeah.
Patrick Kennedy (12:03.148)
We don’t get what we pay for. Insurance companies don’t put enough treatment providers in their network to allow their subscribers to get mental health care like and as easily as they get diabetes care or some other type of physical health care. anyway, I love, thank you for the shout out. Yeah, I mean, I also was, you know, did.
know, gay marriage and LGBTQ early on, I was honored by the human rights campaign. Of course, I’ve got this picture of me and the shepherds, you know, who lost their son. And Lady Gaga was at the event, and so I got my picture, and I got the rainbow flag. Well, anyway, when you know my…
Kimberly Snyder (12:51.121)
We have, I love it. I love it. Just back and back to anyone who’s watching this, by the way, on YouTube, we have people that listen in Patrick and anyone who’s watching it. The more I become attuned to the heart, we talk about the heart field, we talk about people have a certain vibration. You can just feel so much compassion in your eyes. And sometimes these struggles, the things that come into our lives, we wouldn’t be doing the work we’re doing today unless we had gone through.
these challenges. I don’t think I’d be working with all the women I worked with today had I not had such an intense war with myself, with my self-esteem, with my body. So back to your hero’s journey, Patrick, can you tell us again, before I interrupted about your childhood, your addictions?
Patrick Kennedy (13:36.972)
No, no. So I was just saying, you know, my daughter’s also, you know, like a lot of kids thinking about her sexual identity and all this stuff. And of course, she stumbled across my stuff with, you know, both mental health. So she’s now interested, you know, what do you have mental health like, because kids are going to suffer, right. But if you can turn your own suffering into something positive for others, like you’re saying, and then of course,
Kimberly Snyder (14:02.757)
Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (14:06.154)
I never planned, you know, I never planned like, so to do anything, you know, that would affect me personally on eating or affect me on gay rights. And then of course it comes home, which only tells you that, you know, we have to kind of do things because they’re the right thing, because you never know. And it all comes back around. So anyway, I grew up,
Kimberly Snyder (14:07.843)
Wait.
Kimberly Snyder (14:21.819)
Hmm.
Patrick Kennedy (14:33.24)
My mom suffered terribly from alcoholism. My dad as well. My dad very high functioning, very successful. I had the disease. My grandmother died of it. It wasn’t found for over a week. When you’re alcoholic, you’re active in addiction, you so isolate. And she isolated. It’s the reason no one even bothered to call or to visit her or anything else.
Kimberly Snyder (14:49.429)
Ugh.
Patrick Kennedy (15:00.022)
my boat and my mother’s sister, it ran in my family deep. And then the trauma my father suffered from seeing his brothers murdered and multiple other tragedies. My brother and sister all got the disease. it’s, you know, and who knows proportion of it is genetic. It’s we know this from the National Institutes of Health. There’s a lot of genetic predisposition to mental illness and addiction.
Kimberly Snyder (15:09.973)
yeah.
Patrick Kennedy (15:29.518)
And then of course the environment, like if you were anywhere else in healthcare, you had a predisposition for cancer and you’re working in an asbestos factory, know, it’s a double whammy. So, so, so I had both the environmental and the physical and, you know, so I, I was in recovery by, or in rehab, should say at 17 for cocaine addiction and,
Kimberly Snyder (15:41.69)
Right.
Patrick Kennedy (15:58.016)
And when I got out, thought, well, I’m not going to do that again. And I didn’t, I didn’t, but then I didn’t realize that addiction is addiction is addiction. So I got, I had surgery not long after I got out of rehab, like a year and a half after, and they put me on OxyContin. I mean, I had 14 hours surgery. I mean, it was serious. And so I had every excuse to get a lot of opioids. So I got, and this was when OxyContin,
Kimberly Snyder (16:07.312)
Right?
Patrick Kennedy (16:26.702)
was just coming on the scene. And I could get so many prescriptions for it. And I did. so I became addicted to OxyContin. And then I went into rehab for that. And then of course I came back, I’m feeling anxious and can’t sleep. And so I started taking benzodiazepines and Xanax. Well, guess what? I got addicted to that. I always drank, you know,
excessively or binge drank, but since I didn’t drink all the time, I didn’t think I was an alcoholic. That’s great. Strange because I’m a total addict. So and then, of course, I did end up becoming full blown alcoholic after I had become and then, of course, I started taking Adderall to help me focus more because I was so, you know, confused with my alcoholism. And so the point I’m making is that
It’s addiction, addiction, addiction. And now we know there’s process addictions. There’s gambling addiction, internet addiction, pornography addiction, eating addiction, shopping addiction. So we really haven’t gotten the literacy around understanding this. I remember Matt Lauer.
Kimberly Snyder (17:32.519)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (17:37.529)
Even shopping?
Patrick Kennedy (17:50.926)
was on NBC when they were interviewing me after I had a DWI. Well, did you have, you know, these drinks, they were trying to do a postmortem on the night before I got a DWI. Did you stop at this bar? Did you stop at this bar? And of course, I had had total blackout because I was taking Ambien. And I was taking Ambien because I was already detoxed from
Oxycontin, but now I couldn’t sleep because I was so used to massive quantities of the oxycontin and the cycle. And so to help me get to sleep, I thought to myself, well, Amiens not so bad. It’s just. And then, of course, I drive into the U.S. Capitol at three in the morning thinking I have a vote. and so, you know, we all these stories. But the good news for me is that all of this
Kimberly Snyder (18:25.359)
it’s a whole cycle.
Kimberly Snyder (18:34.34)
my gosh.
Patrick Kennedy (18:49.582)
chronic disease of addiction forced me out of Congress. And when I left, I felt like my life was over. I didn’t have a big job. I didn’t have a big title. I didn’t have any staff. didn’t know what to do with myself. But all I did was go to 12-step recovery. And I did that nonstop. And early in my life, started coming back. And all the time, yeah, just came from a meeting.
Kimberly Snyder (19:11.111)
Mmm.
Do you still do it? Do you still go to the meetings?
Patrick Kennedy (19:19.354)
And I want people to know who are in recovery. It’s not a violation of the 11th tradition to say we’re in recovery when we go to 12-step meetings. What’s a violation is to say what type of 12-step group you’re in. so the way, and I think it’s important for your listeners, because I’m sure a lot of them are also in recovery.
Kimberly Snyder (19:19.459)
Amazing.
Kimberly Snyder (19:27.015)
Right.
Patrick Kennedy (19:44.354)
that we have to have a political movement in this country to get the changes in our public policy that we need. And when I was running for Congress, I never had any ideas which family suffered from depression, anxiety, who lost loved ones to suicide or overdose, who is the depression bipolar. I didn’t even have lists of professions. I didn’t have the psychiatrist list. It’s like, just so I would know who might vote for me. Because at the time I was…
fighting to pass this mental health parody and addiction act. And, you know, I just, couldn’t reach out. Like I’m also pro-environment, I’m pro-labor, all the rest, pro-gay rights, but I know all those lists. I have, if I’m running for office, I know who I need to make happy with me to get their votes. But in mental health and addiction, we don’t have the listserv, so to speak.
Kimberly Snyder (20:14.789)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (20:27.951)
Right.
Patrick Kennedy (20:41.579)
which gives anyone running for office a real sense of how many people in their prospective constituency care about this issue. So that’s what I’m really about. And as you mentioned with my book, at the end of my book, I have a QR code for people to log on to, get, you know, a sense of our alignment for progress. Cause the other thing we don’t have, Kimberly, is we don’t have an agenda.
So 98 to 99 % of all of us share the same needs, public policy-wise, in terms of reimbursement for any mental health or addiction. But when you look at mental health addiction, they’re both silent. You have addiction over here and mental health over there, which really doesn’t make any sense. But that’s how the whole world is organized. And they’re organized about whether it’s psychiatry or psychology or if it’s inpatient.
Kimberly Snyder (21:39.719)
Right.
Patrick Kennedy (21:41.026)
We just don’t have a unified agenda that everybody needs. so that’s these 12 people whose stories they tell their stories in my latest book. They wanna make a difference in policy and that’s why they were so transparent. And thankfully for me, they read my book so they knew what kind of writing was gonna describe their.
Kimberly Snyder (22:06.992)
Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (22:08.948)
stories and frankly, I’m not the writer. I have a co-writer, Stephen Fried, who’s a professor of journalism at Columbia University. I this guy’s a really, really good writer and I want someone who can tell these stories in the way they need to be told. I can talk to people and get them to tell their stories, but I need someone who weaves these narratives together and Stephen Fried, who’s my co-author, is brilliant.
Kimberly Snyder (22:26.128)
Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (22:38.732)
and does such a great job.
Kimberly Snyder (22:41.147)
The stories are so compelling. And one of the things that came across to me is when you tell stories, it’s not these linear numbers and statistics. It’s easy to judge when we’re like, I would never take medication or if, know, when I’m a mother, I pull myself together. But then when you, it’s so nuanced, right? There’s a story in here, I believe Gabrielle, where she said, I didn’t think it was safe for me to be.
with my kids and she was trying all these holistic therapies and then she ended up doing some medications and different types of therapies to become safe. So the power of storytelling, I think is that it really shows the human experience. And again, back to compassion from our hearts, not judging from the mind, which is the only way that we can heal and bring people in for this compassionate care that’s really needed with mental health.
Patrick Kennedy (23:38.87)
Yes. Well, service to others, that’s the key to our ability to get outside of ourselves. So we need medic, some of us need more medication than not. I’ve been on medication for depression and have anti-convulsive and an antidepressant. I see a psychiatrist.
Kimberly Snyder (23:48.216)
Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (24:03.414)
but it’s mostly for medication management. And I go to 12 step meetings, which is like the cognitive behavioral therapy. So one of the other things I’ve done, Kimberly on the private sector side is I co-founded a company called Psych Hub. And Psych Hub is, is a library of videos, basically to learn about all these diagnoses. and we’re YouTube’s partner. So.
Kimberly Snyder (24:12.166)
Right.
Patrick Kennedy (24:30.638)
It’s really exciting how many hits we get. But the bottom line is people just need to know about these things. we don’t really have a lot of understanding. Frankly, a lot of mental health professionals don’t have a lot of understanding because they get theoretical degrees. someone who treats eating disorders in the morning and grief in the afternoon and anxiety or addiction and depression, I mean, there’s different types.
Kimberly Snyder (24:32.763)
Wow.
Patrick Kennedy (24:59.072)
of expertise within the mental health and addiction space. And if you want to get better, you need to have the evidence-based intervention, which means don’t just go to the psychiatrist you heard about, they’re great. I went to a lot of great psychiatrists and I didn’t get better because all I did was repeat all the things that I thought were wrong with the world and with the way people treated me.
as opposed to thinking, how am gonna work to get outside this thinking process that keeps getting me into trouble? And what I found in 12-Step Recovery is that it’s really cognitive behavioral therapy, which means you act your way to a new way of thinking, not think your way to a new way of acting. And one of the things, if you’re asking what you could do for other people, you’re breaking your own
Kimberly Snyder (25:42.221)
Mmm. Mmm. Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (25:54.326)
negative thought pattern because you’re thinking about someone else. And so it’s not being selfless for me to be helping another. It’s actually being very selfish because by helping them, I get freed from the bondage of self in my own negative thinking. So I believe in national service. think we need to be connected to one another and
I think we just need to find ways to do that and serving others is a really good way to do that.
Kimberly Snyder (26:23.175)
You
Kimberly Snyder (26:28.615)
You know, I’m chuckling a little bit, Patrick, because without meaning to, you’re sounding like a very wise yogi. Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought yoga to the West, has a quote where he says, life should chiefly be service. And it’s this idea, you’re saying this connection, this oneness, when we’re less focused on the self, the little me, we expand into this, you know, the field, can talk about Lynn McTaggart, all the quantum physics, all the things that show how connected we truly are, the heart field.
that shows that we are interconnected ultimately. And it’s the ego that brings this smallness. if you could go into, when you were telling your story, just keep coming back to this thought, Patrick, the potential shame that maybe you felt or you put on yourself when your colleagues maybe found out what was going on or you left your job, Congress. What was that like? Did that heal in the 12 step process or?
Patrick Kennedy (26:55.341)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (27:21.143)
what was going on for you personally when this was coming to light? Because it sounds like a lot of these addictions were happening and you were still functioning. You were getting up and going to work and doing things after work and all hours of the night. It was kind of secrecy for a while.
Patrick Kennedy (27:33.986)
Yeah. So yeah, well, these are all illnesses of secrecy and silence as the AIDS movement had, know, silence equals death. Like we don’t talk about these illnesses. Now in the book, I interview a lot of people about different things, but I talked to my cousin, Mark, who lost his 23 year old to suicide and I went to the funeral.
Kimberly Snyder (28:00.795)
Mmm.
Patrick Kennedy (28:03.062)
And he said to me, I know, Patrick, you do all this mental health stuff, but I never thought it was that bad. And so I talked to he talked the first time he’d ever talked about his son’s death, which also tells you a little bit about how much we’re still hostage to not talking and shame. So seven years since his son had taken his life and he really hadn’t talked to him. Then he told me, talk to my other son and then.
Kimberly Snyder (28:10.47)
Ugh.
Patrick Kennedy (28:29.782)
He said, talk to Harry’s roommate, Harry’s who’s the one who took his life. And when I talked to all of them, I found out different stories. And when I share at the before going to print with the book, what each of them had said, guess what? They all didn’t know what the other one had experienced because it wasn’t all right to talk out of school about someone’s mental health because that might be violating their privacy.
Kimberly Snyder (28:58.513)
No.
Patrick Kennedy (28:59.538)
And so Mark didn’t know what his son Belton, Belton didn’t know what Mark had seen about Harry. Neither Mark or Belton knew what Harry’s roommate was seeing. But if you had all gotten them in the room and ever gotten them to talk to each other, there probably would have been a greater sense of urgency to know how, you know, in tough shape Harry was. And anyway, that’s…
emblematic of the whole space. We don’t talk. We still don’t. So you asked about what it was like. left. You know, no, I was I felt like a nobody. So but I started going to meetings and others. A few years after I left, I got a call from Nancy Pelosi. And I’m like, what’s the speaker calling me for? didn’t know what to think.
Kimberly Snyder (29:32.135)
Right.
Patrick Kennedy (29:55.712)
And she said, Patrick, I’ve heard you’ve been doing well. hear you’re, you on the road to recovery. said, thank you, Madam Speaker. She was always very supportive. And she said, I need you to come back to Washington to help one of your colleagues. And that’s when it occurred to me that there’s a purpose, right? All of us say in recovery, we shall not regret the past.
nor wish to shut the door on it because it could be our story that helps someone else get into recovery. And so what I found out is my colleague staff could not talk to them because they worked for my colleague who had the disease of alcoholism. They didn’t feel comfortable talking to their other colleagues because they felt like, someone will tell on me, right?
Kimberly Snyder (30:28.44)
Hmm
Kimberly Snyder (30:40.827)
Mm-hmm.
Patrick Kennedy (30:54.61)
And so there was nothing anyone could do to reach this person. So I went because I’m like a mental health guy and I’m a former member and they agreed to see me. And then I didn’t say anything about their struggles. I just told them about my struggles. Being a member of Congress, trying to make it through the day, popping pills, drinking at night, trying to get up in the day, trying to show up without looking.
Kimberly Snyder (31:13.196)
Mmm.
Patrick Kennedy (31:24.826)
you know, under the influence, just all of the challenges of trying to live a very public life while also being very active in addiction. And all of a sudden, you know, they, I’m not telling them anything that they need to do. I’m just telling them what happened to me. And then I said, and I left and I, I had the DWI and
felt my world was coming to an end. I didn’t think anybody, and you know what? My life today has never been better. And you know, they’re like, what? Because I’m not drinking and drugging. I have a relationship with someone that’s monogamous. I’ve got kids. I’ve got a purpose in life. And you know what? I think it helped. Like, I can’t tell, but I know, and I’ve…
Kimberly Snyder (32:13.051)
You’re helping other people.
Patrick Kennedy (32:21.248)
I’ve done this with several others who are quote unquote high profile because I can. And all I’m saying is that whoever’s out there who might be suffering and thinking to themselves like no one’s got it like I’ve got it. You know what? There is someone out there. If you are able to get help, you’re going to be able to help others. And that’s the big gift in recovery. We think we’re worthless. And yet we find out no.
There is power in our own experience to help someone else not feel as alone. And so I love a big book of 12 Step Recovery because it tells stories. And once I read these stories, I say, I’m not so alone. I feel that way. Now, so that’s the thing with this book. I want people to read their stories. And this book, frankly, it’s not alcoholism. It’s all the diseases. And I said, all of them are not
Kimberly Snyder (33:05.285)
Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (33:21.132)
you know, uniquely addiction. There’s mental illness like in real life, mental illness and addiction. And so I wanted to give a real life story to people. And frankly, I include their families in this story, which in most of these narratives, you know, they’re all like my story. No, no, it’s not just my story. It’s my family’s story.
Kimberly Snyder (33:40.9)
yeah.
Patrick Kennedy (33:46.942)
And the amazing thing everyone did when they told me their stories, they allowed me to speak to their family and their friends and their coworkers. So that’s another piece to this that people don’t often get, because the family doesn’t often get their story told. And I can tell you, we do a lot to try to include how these diseases affect the whole family.
Kimberly Snyder (34:09.799)
Sometimes Patrick, when people are told about mental health, it’s very heady. Here’s the statistics, here’s, you know, different types of medications. And a lot of people don’t connect to it because it’s very linear. Even thinking about some of the stories in here brings tears to my eyes. So the difference with this book is you’re not just connecting to this heady place, you’re connecting to people’s hearts. And from people’s hearts, there’s like,
an aha moment for themselves or also, like you said, that story where people didn’t know what was going on with different people’s experiences, like, wow, well, maybe I could, you know, show up for my neighbor or my friend or something’s going on here in a compassionate, non-judgmental way. When you read these stories, I mean, some of them are like, wow, you know, just to really, we have these needs, like you said, but we have such different experiences. So the power of this book,
which again, just thinking about it me wanna cry, is you’re going in and you’re opening up this channel, which I think is how we heal this compassion, love, connection, instead of shame, harshness, let’s keep this in secrecy. And it brings up thinking about my own disorders, my own eating disorders, how much sadness there was feeling aloneness. When I started talking about my issue,
Patrick, was like, my gosh, so many women, like so many people are feeling so alone and it doesn’t need to be that way. So I love the way you structured this book and about, you know, the courage that comes through. And I keep saying this word compassion because self-compassion is so needed to bring this up and to actually reach out for help and also to see how others could really benefit.
Patrick Kennedy (35:54.7)
Yeah, so when I did my, well, first of all, when I got a DWI and was all over the newspapers, I realized quickly that I was the only member of Congress that anyone knew was like a drug addict, alcoholic. So all of, there were a bunch of other of my colleagues in Congress who were struggling not surprising because they’re representative of the public. And some of them who are actually doing quite well in recovery, they never knew each other. I was the only one that knew because of the, I quote, anonymity of this whole thing. So what I ended up happening to me after the DWI is I got diluged from outreach from my colleagues, many of whom I’d never really talked to.
Kimberly Snyder (36:27.712)
Mmm, it was all in secrecy.
Patrick Kennedy (36:45.706)
said hi in the hall or on the floor of the Congress. And it was like unbelievable. The last few years of my time in Congress, I had an intimacy connection with more of my colleagues who had told me about their own stories, only by dental fact that I had ended up in the place that I had. But one story I have is that I wrote my book and I had
Kimberly Snyder (37:02.673)
Wow.
Patrick Kennedy (37:15.85)
In my parish, where I go to church, there’s a woman who’s very active in the pro-life movement. I don’t think she’s too big on the LGBTQ. There’s very, very conservative. So I’m not somebody that she necessarily feels comfortable talking to, right? I am like the other side.
Kimberly Snyder (37:37.4)
Yeah
Patrick Kennedy (37:41.194)
Anyway, she came to me one day, because she knew I was doing this work, and she said, Patrick, my son is on the streets. He’s really in terrible shape. I think he’s ready to get help, but I can’t wait. I said, you’re right. We gotta move quickly. So I helped set him up, her son, with help right away, and forgot about it. Like four years later, I’m baptizing my youngest child.
Kimberly Snyder (37:55.271)
Patrick Kennedy (38:11.426)
And he is standing next to me with his baptizing his child. And behind him is this lady who asked for my help, who, as I said, has nothing in common with me politically. She was weeping. She said to me afterwards, said, Patrick, anything I can ever do for you, consider it done.
Kimberly Snyder (38:34.502)
Hmm.
Patrick Kennedy (38:38.144)
and I could feel the sincerity. Now, I’m not gonna ask her to put a Kamala Harris sign on her, unless she probably have tough time, but she would do it if I asked her, honestly. That’s the level of commitment she has, because at the end of the day, this affects Republicans and Democrats. It affects everybody in the most personal way. Whenever I go on Fox News, because I’m often asked to speak, because I’m actually against,
commercialization of marijuana. So they like to have their token Democrat go on and talk about how bad this whole addiction for profit industry is, which I am a big believer in how dangerous sports betting marijuana all of this stuff is. Anyway, my phone always lights up because I’ve got all my fellows in recovery. Great job, Patrick.
Kimberly Snyder (39:21.477)
Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (39:31.714)
But then I realized they’re saying great job because they watch Fox News. so, and you know what? It’s great because I walk into meetings, I don’t know who is, know, votes for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. It doesn’t matter, right? Cause we’re all in it together, irrespective of the divisiveness and the political vitriol and hostility in this world.
Kimberly Snyder (39:43.909)
How funny.
Kimberly Snyder (39:57.254)
Yeah.
Patrick Kennedy (40:01.908)
in this struggle, there’s nothing more personal because you’re saving people’s, very, who they are, right? Because our, who we are is gets squashed by this disease. You know, we lose our agency, we lose our God given potential. And so it’s so powerful if we can help people recover that. And it means more than anything else in the world. Cause you’re not only
saving people’s physical health. You’re saving their spirit, their identity, their personality, everything that makes them who they are. You’re helping to save that from this disease of addiction that wants to take them hostage and really destroy their lives. And if you can break free of that, you can help anyone do that. You’re gifting people a whole new life.
Kimberly Snyder (41:00.581)
Well, let’s say, Patrick, someone’s listening to this and they say, it’s just so hard. Like, I don’t know how I could get out of this cycle. Right. And there’s just so much darkness. Part of this 12 step program, I believe there is a spiritual component where we say, well, I need support here. And we are connecting to whatever higher power, higher source is. So you start to feel a renewed support and energy versus the, you know, the ego, the mind that says, I’m so weak, I’m isolated.
Patrick Kennedy (41:29.868)
Yeah, I mean, as I said, I just went to meetings multiple times a day, you know, when I first was trying to get, it’s hard, but when you’re in it with others who are also going through it, it’s not as hard and community and you realize you’re not the only one who’s having it so hard. And once you tell people about what you’re going through, others will be able to say, listen, this is what I did.
Kimberly Snyder (41:34.8)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (41:42.917)
Yeah, community.
Patrick Kennedy (41:56.354)
here was my life. And you’ll also hear enough other people you say, wow, that person sounds like they’re going through or have been through what I’m going through. Maybe I should go talk to them because they might be able to share with me what they did in order to get on the other side of this. That’s how this works. And God works through other people, right? And we can become of service to others right away.
by, because there’s someone else who’s suffering like we are. And when we share our own stories, we’re helping someone else who’s also just coming in. So a lot of people feel worthless. They don’t have anything to give or they’re so miserable. But if they share that there’s someone else that might be able to be helped. And all of a sudden that gives them some sense of worth because they’re not alone. So many people are out there struggling.
Kimberly Snyder (42:53.041)
Well, and back to why the book is so powerful. Once again, everyone is called Profiles in Mental Health Courage. Whether you feel that you have this challenge or I think this book is for everyone, I’m so happy I read it just to recognize, to be more compassionate, to be aware. The stories are so incredible. And you and I were chatting a little bit before the podcast and I said, wow, this book is so, it’s a great book just to have and read.
Like you said with your co-author, it flows, it’s exciting. It’s better than reading a novel because it’s this, it is incredible courage and strength with real humans. So besides your wonderful book, Patrick, how else can people help your initiatives? And you mentioned the QR code in the back. How can the everyday person support mental health initiatives? How can we be of service?
Patrick Kennedy (43:45.282)
Yeah, so there’s some terrific organizations out there. I work with NAMI, with Mental Health America, with Faces and Voices of Recovery, with a whole lot of active minds. Jed Foundation does a lot of good work. There’s so many good organizations, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. So what I do is really curate policy. So I am very narrow.
My lane is how do I lobby and get my colleagues to change the way we reimburse for mental health so that we also pay for supportive sober housing, for example. I’m a big believer in sober housing. I think it takes a long time for people to clear from their addiction. And I don’t think the rehab model alone, I think it has its place.
Kimberly Snyder (44:31.143)
Mmm.
Patrick Kennedy (44:38.286)
So I want to get insurance companies to pay for sober housing. I’m also a big believer in the clubhouse model for people with bipolar and schizophrenia, particularly socialization, psychosocial supports, connection to human services, housing and supports. I want that paid for. That’s not paid for by insurance companies. So I wrote this parody law that holds them accountable.
and we’re always trying to fight to get it enforced, that says you can’t treat mental illness addiction any differently than you do cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes. And so we’ve got that, but we’ve got a great new rule thanks to the Biden administration that really puts greater enforcement authority, but we have to exercise that. My goal is
Work with insurance companies who are now feeling the pressure to say, OK, here are things that you can do that will make the mental health and addiction community happier with you. Let’s talk about those things. So anyway, the way of answering you is to say, if there’s anyone in your audience that’s focused directly on policy, who knows? We need philanthropy.
be like everything. And I’m starting to make real inroads. I’ve got some great support out there from a number of big philanthropists. But it’s hard to think about policy as sexy, right? It’s easy to think I’m going to fund this particular program. So I think that’s great. Philanthropy, please keep doing that. But if we don’t change the way the federal government, they reimburse. If we don’t change the regulations,
Kimberly Snyder (46:27.312)
Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (46:33.314)
we’re going to still be stuck in this fragmented system. So that’s what I’m doing is working in this policy space. And as I said in the back of the book, I have the alignment for progress. anyway, thank you.
Kimberly Snyder (46:48.154)
Amazing.
Kimberly Snyder (46:52.943)
And so we, yes, I mean, think this is amazing. And I think there’s so much which starts in just reading the book and getting on board with understanding more about this very powerful conversation and all the nuanced aspects of it. So we will link to this in our show notes as well as some of the organizations that you’re involved with and some of the other initiatives at mysaluna.com.
Is there a website or where we can go to find out more about your work and where we can get this amazing book?
Patrick Kennedy (47:27.074)
Well, the Kennedy Forum, that’s not hard for people, started on the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy signing the original Community Mental Health Act. So it’s the Kennedy Forum. Amazon carries the book. in any event, yeah, we’re trying to just get organized, as I said, like an AFL-CIO would organize labor or
Kimberly Snyder (47:38.651)
Wow.
Patrick Kennedy (47:56.224)
League of Conservation Voters would organize environmentalists. Like, we need to get organized. Our country is suffering too much and we’re not very sophisticated or organized in this space. So that’s my goal. I haven’t figured out what I can ask you to do yet specifically. I know I go to some, you know, specific philanthropists and ask them to help fund this. I know who I need to help me figure out solutions.
Kimberly Snyder (47:59.335)
Yeah.
Patrick Kennedy (48:24.398)
pretty good at collecting those people to help me fill the page in terms of recommendations. But I definitely know everybody needs to be somehow involved. So if you’re a business person, you can learn how to help your colleagues work, right? Awareness, you can also make sure that your company has a good, what they call third party administrator, managing the health benefits of your company, right? Because a lot of insurance companies just do what they want to do.
Kimberly Snyder (48:38.735)
Yes, awareness.
Kimberly Snyder (48:49.543)
Mmm.
Patrick Kennedy (48:53.708)
and they don’t take the word from the people they’re working for, which is you, the business, as to what you want. So their fiduciary is just on the health spend. But if you do good mental health, you not only benefit your health spend, but you also benefit your productivity, you benefit your retention of workers and a whole host of other things that aren’t measured by insurance companies. what I’m trying to say is everybody can play a role.
both interpersonally with their own family and, you know, in a bigger sense. and so, and I, and as I said, I made a pitch for Psych Hub. So Psych Hub, people could go check that out. I’ll give you the link for that and learn about how to be an ally for others, just because it’s like, you know, you know, first responders have, you know, mental health first aid.
Kimberly Snyder (49:24.902)
Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (49:49.07)
You need to know something about all of these diagnoses. It’s just good for everybody to know, whether you have a particular family member, a colleague suffering or not, all of us are gonna run into people with various diagnoses and we’re better to them if we know something about what they’re going through.
Kimberly Snyder (50:05.477)
Yes. And I would even say in the mom community, Patrick, to know signs in our own children and our children’s friends of all ages, right? It’s just working together as a community because sometimes our friend’s parents can be, you your child’s parents, you know I’m saying? Like you could be closer to your child’s parents. Sure, Yes.
Patrick Kennedy (50:23.982)
please. I know who my friends are. And we push towards some friends and away from other friends. And yeah, we have to be all over our kids. Yeah, we have to be all
Kimberly Snyder (50:33.351)
Yeah, it’s a community, sure. Well, thank you again so much, Patrick, for your wonderful book, Profiles in Mental Health Courage, for sharing your wisdom with us today, and most of all, your big, courageous heart. Just so authentic, just pouring out of you all the love and the genuine wanting to be of service. And so I think your work is amazing and I love the book. So thank you again so much.
Patrick Kennedy (51:00.878)
Thank you, Kimberly, and keep up the great work spreading the word. I love it.
Kimberly Snyder (51:04.711)
Thank you everyone so much for tuning in. Once again, the show notes and the direct links to Patrick’s work and the book are at mysaluna.com. We’ll be back here Thursday as always for our next Q &A show. Till then, take great care and sending you all so much love.
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