If you missed my show today, you missed what was a unique experience in my time as a DJ, and I'd like to take a minute to tell you about it.

Today is May 1st, and in the United States May is National Mental Health Awareness Month. This is a very personal thing for me, as I myself suffer from mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. While most people with mental illness do not die by suicide, it is estimated that 90% of people who die by suicide have a diagnosable and treatable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death. Every 14.2 minutes someone in the United States dies by suicide, and nearly a million people make a suicide attempt every year.

Today's show focused on my five inpatient hospitalizations for mental illness, in 1995, 1994, 1998, 2005, and 2007. I played a five-song set for each of them telling a little bit of my story with mental illness and what I experience on a day-to-day basis. The show was so intense and personal for me that I took the unprecedented step of scripting my talk breaks to be sure that I didn't lose my composure. Well, I failed at that, three times, but I got through the show.

I will be posting my playlist in this thread in a few days and, as soon as I can figure out how to get it uploaded, my podcast of the show. (Ignore the placeholder until then.) If you weren't able to listen to the show, I would invite you to take a listen to the podcast for yourself.

The outpouring of appreciation and support that I received for doing this show was incredible. i was blown away by the stories that we were sharing in the global channel. It was a feeling of frank openness that I have never seen so broadly overtake the channel before, and it was a beautiful thing. I want to thank each and every one of you for that. This was an incredibly hard show to put together, one I literally lost a night of sleep doing, and the broadcast is one of the hardest things that I have ever done as a mental health patient.

In the United States, there's a stigma against having mental illness, despite the fact that in a given year over one-quarter of the U.S. population is diagnosable for one or more specific mental illnesses. And a lot of times, people are scared to get treatment because they think that it means that they'll have to carry that stigma with them for the rest of their lives, or they're worried about what it will cost, so they don't go get a proper diagnosis and treatment for something that can make their quality of life so much better when properly managed. This show was about breaking that stigma.. I have bipolar disorder. I have mental illness. And I'm not afraid to let people know about it. Because if I talk about it, then maybe someone else might hear ME talk about it like it's no big deal, and decide that THEY'LL go get the treatment that they need. If cost is an issue, there are programs in your area that can provide services for free or on a sliding scale based on income, I can almost promise you. Get on the internet and find them. Google is your friend. And if you're desperate and need to talk to someone NOW, there are numbers to call. 1-800-SUICIDE is available 24 hours a day. Call them. Talk to them. Let them help you.

The rest of this thread, I leave open for you to discuss your experiences with mental illness, if you so desire, so that people can see that they are not alone in the fight, and that we can stick together during the rough times. Be as open or as reserved as you wish. It's up to you.

Let's start the discussion, so that people out there worrying about the stigma know ... there are others like them that struggle day to day with the pain. And that YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE.

_________________


Del "DJ Nexus" Sawyer
Champions Online: @gyronnygeek | The Secret World: DJ-Nexus (game) gyronnygeek (forums)
Gtalk/Email: gyronnygeek@gmail.com | YIM/AIM/Skype: gyronnygeek | Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr: gyronnygeek

May 1, 2012
Convergence: 85 - 94 - 98 - 05 - 07

Click here for podcast

1 Station ID - Super ID 2011
2 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Manic Depression
3 Pink Floyd - Terminal Frost
4 Tears for Fears - Mad World
5 James Taylor - Fire and Rain
6 Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
7 The Cars - Drive
8 Van Halen - Panama
9 Pink Floyd - Terminal Frost
10 Blind Melon - No Rain
11 The Smiths - How Soon Is Now?
12 Nirvana - Lithium
13 Cape PSA - Templar's Special Warning
14 Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
15 Napoleon XIV - They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!
16 Pink Floyd - Terminal Frost
17 Stabbing Westward - Darkest Days
18 Cape PSA - Templar's Special Warning
19 Korn - Seed
20 Belle and Sebastian - Sleep The Clock Around
21 Ben Folds Five - Evaporated
22 Third Eye Blind - Jumper
23 Pink Floyd - Terminal Frost
24 Warren Zevon - I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
25 Garbage - I Think I'm Paranoid
26 The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction
27 Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb (Live)
28 Pink Floyd - The Trial
29 Pink Floyd - Terminal Frost
30 Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train
31 Cypress Hill - Insane In The Brain
32 Linkin Park - Nobody's Listening
33 The Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated
34 Metallica - Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
35 Pink Floyd - Terminal Frost
36 Queen - Don't Try Suicide
37 R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts
38 Peter Gabriel (ft. Kate Bush) - Don't Give Up
39 Elton John - Someone Saved My Life Tonight
40 The Fray - How To Save a Life
41 Pink Floyd - Terminal Frost
42 The Who - Behind Blue Eyes
43 The Rolling Stones - 19th Nervous Breakdown
44 The Beatles - Nowhere Man
45 Alice Cooper - Welcome To My Nightmare
46 Blue öyster Cult - (Don't Fear) the Reaper (Live)
47 Pink Floyd - Terminal Frost
48 The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist
49 Pink Floyd - Terminal Frost
50 Phil Collins - Take Me Home (Live)

_________________


Del "DJ Nexus" Sawyer
Champions Online: @gyronnygeek | The Secret World: DJ-Nexus (game) gyronnygeek (forums)
Gtalk/Email: gyronnygeek@gmail.com | YIM/AIM/Skype: gyronnygeek | Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr: gyronnygeek