Resilience in the Face of Bipolar: Cari Eskridge's Journey from Med Mismanagement to Mental Health Advocate

Welcome, listeners, to another profound journey of courage and triumph on Advancing with Amy,   today we bring you an episode filled with raw emotion, candid revelations, and inspiring strength that promises to stir your soul. Join us as we sit down with the remarkable Carrie Eskridge, a warrior who turned her battles with bipolar disorder into a beacon of hope for many.

Carrie's early struggles with misdiagnosis and medication, her resilient path through parenting challenges, and her ascent to becoming a successful entrepreneur while actively managing her mental health, all unveil a narrative of perseverance that will leave you spellbound.  From sharing the life altering impact of specialized treatment to discussing the power of understanding mental illness, Cary's insights are a treasure trove for anyone seeking light in the darkness of mental health battles.

Discover how embracing vulnerabilities can lead to a journey of self discovery and empowerment.  Tune in to unlock the secrets of balancing life's demands with mental well being. And let Carrie's voice guide you through the complexities of living, loving, and thriving amid the waves of mental health challenges. 

This episode isn't just a conversation, it's a lifeline for anyone who's ever felt alone in their fight. It's a story of transformation. Don't miss out on this riveting episode of Advancing with Amy  

terry, why don't you go ahead and tell me about yourself?  Yeah, so hi, Amy. Thank you for having me on. I am so excited to be here today. I am well, first of all, I just turned 40, which is the best thing in the entire world. I swear I feel younger today than I ever have. My husband and I have raised five children.

Four of them are my stepchildren, but you know, their mom wasn't around. So they've always been mine. Adults now. I own a wedding planning and event business. I've been doing that for about 13 years and I'm extremely active in my local community and my chamber of commerce. I'm actually the chair of the local chamber ambassadors and I volunteer for organizations.

I'm a very busy person, but I really like it that way. But what, what is interesting about all of that and what it ties together today is that I actually have bipolar disorder. general anxiety disorder, ADHD, and PTSD. So, yeah, it's really interesting to look at everything that I have going on knowing that I do it with these mental illnesses.

Right. Yeah. We actually talked a little bit before today and we both have bipolar disorder, anxiety and ADHD. I'm working on it really well with my therapist. I do feel like I'm much better than I was a decade ago. I was in a pretty rough spot, but there's still a couple of challenges there. I get triggered once in a while and I have to work through it. 

I'm doing really  well. Good. You mentioned that you have four kids. How old are they? I have five children. Four of them. Five, I'm sorry. Yeah, four of them are my stepchildren. So our oldest is, oh gosh, 26. Holy moly, just turned 26. And then we have bug is 23, sorry, it changes every couple of months. Uh, bug is 23  and then my middle boy is  22 and then my youngest daughter is 21 and our youngest son is turning 20. 

That's a lot. I think I got that right. I don't know. It, it changes constantly and it takes me a minute to think about it, but yeah. Yeah, that's a lot, but it could be really fun at Christmas and holidays. And, oh, it is, I go overboard on holidays. I love working my kid and just, you know, it's not about the presence about slowing down and remembering, like we are together, right? 

How, how has it been raising all those kids with the mental health issues?  So it's, it's really interesting. First of all, my husband and I have known each other since we were young, grew up in a small town. I knew his ex wife, the whole shebang, but I had my son and then 10 months later I started dating him and we got pretty serious pretty quickly cause we'd been friends.

So I actually went from zero kids with five kids in about 14 months. Oh my gosh. And. With the older ones. Yeah. Yeah. And with the older ones being stepchildren, you know, it's, it's hard  stepping into a mother role for children when, you know, you're not their mom. So there, it was, it was very difficult. There were, there were really good times.

There were some not so good times, but yeah, stepping into the role for children whose mother was unable to be a mom was very difficult, very difficult. That's hard. Blended families are hard enough as it is, but then you throw that in and that's rough. Yeah, I really, I mean, I was young. I was, I was 21 when I started dating my husband.

So I went from zero kids to five kids. I mean, literally, I was, It was 21. And I look back and I'm like, what the hell?  It's good to do it while you're young though. I had one of mine. There was a lot of pros and cons. Yeah. I had one of mine at 40. I'm 53 now. She's 13. And I got to tell you, I don't have the energy that I had when I had my son, when I was in my twenties.

You know, I, I look at that and I, I love that I'm a grandson being born this year.  Thank you. I love that I have this youthful energy that I get to play with my grandson, but I look back at my 20s when I was raising my children in their formative years, and I was such a mental disaster through mismanagement from my med manager that Knowing what I know now, of course, we all feel this way, right?

Like all the mistakes I made, I'd be such a better mom. But at the same time, I have friends my age having kids and I'm like, how the hell, what are you going to ha what I like to sleep? What are you going to do?  Exactly.  So talk a little bit about the med management. How was it mismanaged and how are you doing with that now?

Yeah, so I was actually diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 14, which is extremely early to get a diagnosis. It usually manifests around 19, 2021. They, it wasn't as well understood then. It was mid nineties. It. I, I was young, they didn't really, didn't really have a handle on things. And so they just kind of threw some pills at me to see what would stick.

And some of them were okay. Some of them were really, really bad. Like the side effects were awful. I don't know how sensitive your subject matter is, but I'm going to say it. I became more suicidal, had stronger suicidal ideations. I would sleep. I wouldn't sleep. I'd sweat. I'd cry. And it was, we were always trying different ones.

And when I got pregnant, I didn't take anything, but then I had postpartum depression along with the bipolar disorder and we tried another one and it worked okay for a while, but then it stopped. It was just an antidepressant. It wasn't even a mood stabilizer. They were not.  I think the problem was I wasn't being treated for the appropriate mental illness.

I was giving antidepressants, not mood stabilizers. So they gave you the right diagnosis, but weren't giving you the right medication? Right. I look back and I'm like, why wasn't I on lithium? Lithium's like the blanket mood stabilizer for bipolar disorder. Right. But I wasn't given that. I was just given antidepressants.

So I wasn't ever stabilized. And so through my 20s, raising my children, there was  There was so much of the time I was literally in survival mode and I wasn't being a good mom,  yelling a lot of crying, a lot of outbursts,  just not like I have a great relationship with my four younger Children now and when I got well, when I started the being well, I sat down with my daughter, my youngest daughter and I pointed out a specific time and I said, you remember that And she said, I don't think so.

And I'm like, well, I just want you to know that like what you did was not like okay behavior, but it was completely age appropriate behavior and it was me that mishandled the situation. There was nothing wrong with you. It should have been a much different conversation. It should have been, Hey, that behavior is not okay.

I don't want to see it again. This will be the consequence if I see it again. Instead, I freaked out. So, it's been a lot of apologizing  to my children for the way I behaved. Because there was a lot. I mean, like, I spent, I spent 10 years just Yelling all the time and there were great times too, right? Like they were just the most delightful, loving, amazing.

I was a good mom so much, but when you have bad mom, sometimes  that guilt is hard. Oh, man. You know,  it's kids tend to absorb the bad before they absorb the good. So, you know, I've talked to my kids about the trauma. They still hold around my behavior and the way I'm I'm mom, you know, trying to help them through their healing process and give them space and stand in that and really.

Allow them to be comfortable enough to tell me like, Hey, when this happened and I'm like, yeah, you're right. I'm not defending anything. I was mentally ill, which is the reason, but it's not an excuse. But yeah,  yeah, how wonderful that you can talk with them about that now and give them that space. I know I had a similar situation when my son was probably around eight.

They had me labeled as major depression recurrent. And gave me Prozac, which made me mean and I, my temper just got out of control. And I remember going to my psychiatrist and saying, I'm, I'm screaming at my son, you know, and I feel horrible about it. Do something, help me. And they finally realized it was bipolar and got me on the right meds and it made a world of differences.

I still was depressed and had some problems, but I was a better parent. Yeah. And that's the thing about medication is it does it. It's not like an on and off switch. It's not a miracle. But for me, I went to a clinic and I was, I saw an incredible psychiatrist and a follow up mode manager. And when I finally got on the right mood stabilizer and the right antidepressant that works together and ADHD medicine, because  Holy moly.

I have that. And these three meds that I've been on for a long time now are so harmonious that what it did was it gave me pause  and space to learn how to grow and heal myself. Right. I don't think meds are just a, an answer, right? Oh, gosh, no. And you can't think your way out of bipolar. But when you use them together to get healthy, the possibility is there.

Yeah, I found that with some medication, I then have the ability To work on my thought process and my behaviors and that kind of thing. So it kind of is like a stepping stool. Yeah. Yeah. It gives you a step up, but it doesn't take care of everything. Right. Right. And it's so, it's so insane to me that  I don't want to say insane.

It's unfortunate to me that the way.  Our medical system operates is that people don't get the education along with the medication. So a lot of people in our situation are taking medications, but they're not better or they're, you know, a lot of people are trying so hard to heal themselves holistically, which I believe is possible for some people, but they don't have the medication and they have an episode and an episode can cause them to lose their life.

So, so when I, when I went. Just real quick, my father died after having early onset Alzheimer's and I was his primary caregiver with my mother and after he died, everything was a mess and I had kind of a psychotic break. I can't really call it anything else. And my family had an intervention and I agreed to go to the Amen Clinic, which is an incredible clinic.

Dr. Daniel Amen has, he's an incredible brain doctor, but it was the first time ever that my mental illness had been. Looked at in the organ where it exists. So they actually do a scan in your brain. They look at the different places of your brain, like, Hey, your amygdala over firing your basal ganglia, not working.

And so they made it instead of like, Oh, your feelings into, okay, your brain. And when we addressed the different issues and really talked about the medication and my goals and my feelings and everything that was put together, we found the most amazing medicine regimen. And it really just took finding the right place and it was expensive and it was hard to get to, it's not close to where I live, but it, I don't know, when you, when you talk about mental illness, like what people don't understand is that this clinic saved my life, the medication I take on a monthly basis that costs way too much money, it is literally life saving.

Oh, I agree. You know, if I had cancer, if you had cancer, right, you would travel 12 hours to go see the specialist and you would take the medication. Yeah, right. And I'm 53 and I've never heard of having the tests that you're talking about now. This is new to me. I highly recommend anybody facing any kind of mental illness or any kind of struggles at all with their brain injury, anything, to look up the Amen Clinic.

They're all over the country, not where I live. But it really, in any of his works, any of his books, you  It talks about nutrition and mental illness, talks about the organ, talks about medication and how you can use all these things together if you want to take the holistic route instead of the medical route.

I went medical because I felt like I needed something very drastic and radical, but they really, really, they do so much and I'm so thankful to them and I know that there are other med managers and psychiatrists that maybe I would have eventually gotten to, but this is where I landed. And. I've been on these meds for 10 years this year, and I, I'm truly well, that's incredible.

And it must have been such a relief to have them say to you, it's your amygdala, it's your brain, it's this, it's a physical. Issue. It really is because I don't know about you, but I've talked to a lot of other people, but with the mental illness, there's always been that shame part. Like, why can't I just get my feelings on point?

Why can't I just get my emotions in check? Like I'm weak.  But you break your leg and you're not like, gosh, dang it, why don't you just walk on it? Just be tough. You don't want to cast. You do physical therapy. You do the things you need to do to get better. So instead of that shame, that curtain of shame just fell away.

That's incredible. I love that. Yeah, and I, that's so important. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about you and your husband. You've been together so long. How has that lasted over all the highs and the lows? That man is the most patient, most forgiving, and most caring person I've ever met. There are times when he probably should have made me leave.

He loves you. He does love me and we had support from family members and he talked to the doctors and he did the research and he knew like, I need to, I, we can, we can end this relationship or I can love her through it until she's the person she's supposed to be because he saw me who I am. I was there. I was just also sick.

I'm crying. That's beautiful. I'm absolutely beautiful. He loved me through the darkest parts of my life when he didn't have to. That's amazing. I'm so glad you had that. Oh,  he was, he was really a rock for our family and, you know, trying to take care of the kids when I wasn't. And he was really, he's just an amazing man.

I'm sure he has a lot of wonderful things to say about you as well.  Oh, gosh. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about your business.  Yeah, so I own a very successful wedding and event planning business. I've been in the wedding industry for about 13 years. I started off pretty slow, just kind of helping out friends and family, doing some officiating, and then it kind of, like, expanded into friends of friends.

And then friends of friends of friends were asking how much I would charge. And suddenly I'm like, I can, I can charge for this.  And so this kind of grew and I became more comfortable and more confident and better at what I did. And so I actually made it my full time career during a rough patch. I had a job for a couple of years, but I was still an event planner just for someone else.

I've been, I've been in weddings and events for, for 13 years, almost exclusively. I absolutely love it. I mean, my, my job is to be around like with weddings. My job is to be around two people who are in love  and then celebrating a day with all their loved ones that love them. How cool is that? You know? And so I love it.

I love wedding planning. I love the day of all the hard work, all the rolling the tables, the 16, 18 hour days that are so hard. I come home so pumped up. It lights me up. It brings me support. That's great. Yeah. And then when I do other corporate events, I may not be interested in the subject matter. Like.

Law or real estate or whatever. But what I do love is that I am creating a space that people who are, people are passionate about a subject to come together. So even when I don't care about the subject, I care about the people and the space we're creating. That's great. I was looking at your website and it's gorgeous.

And I saw you had that wonderful freebie for everybody where they can print out a list of everything they need to do to get ready for the wedding.  Yeah. So I use that with my couples, my, I do guide for you to keep us on track and keep us moving forward.  More importantly than that, sometimes I'm just not in the budget, right?

Like they, they want a coordinator. They want a planner, but it's just not in the stars. And I would love to help everybody, but I also have to pay my mortgage. So I do offer that I do guide for you for anybody who just wants to be kept on a forward motion. So they don't get caught up on anything. They don't forget anything.

And then if they do have a family member helping them with their day, they have a guide. To help them through it because essentially my wish is just for every wedding today to be so much better than the way mine went. Aww.  Have you thought about redoing yours? My husband has asked me to do one for our 20th, and I told him no.

I love weddings, but I don't want one for myself again, but we are going to go somewhere tropical and we're going to just exchange private vows on a beach at sunset. Oh, I love that. That's that's nice. That to me.  Yeah, that's my vow right now. Also, yeah, I love weddings. I just, I don't want, my problem is how do I not plan it?

Like I could even hire a planner and I'm afraid I would still step in and try to do the work.  Getting married this year and I'm helping her with the planning, but I hired a coordinator for the day of, I'm not lifting a chair. Yeah, I'm not putting a single candle on the table. I'm not doing it. I am going to be my daughter.

Good for you. Good for you. So tell me a little bit about working those long days like that and and having like, especially the bipolar disorder. I know that if I do not get enough sleep,  I start to get a little manic. Yep.  So how does that work? So I have to be Extremely guarded and very careful. There was one year where I did, I had 24 weddings on the books in about seven months time, it was too much and I hurt myself.

It was not okay. So I realized from that, that I need to scale back and be at a healthy number, a healthy commitment. I can't do two or three weddings in a week. And so when I know that these weddings are coming up, I'll do things. If it's going to be a particular.  Really long wedding. I'll go get IV hydration.

I, of course, make sure I'm eating. I'm getting enough protein. I'm eating carbs for the energy. I'm not eating junk. And the day of, I usually am up early and it's a long day. And then I come home and I'm still jazzed. So I don't sleep. Like I'm up for about 22  hours, but I make sure to organize everything to where I can sleep in.

Even if I have to be at the venue the next morning, I'm like, Hey, I can't be there till 10 AM. Or I'll have the crew go down and they'll start the cleanup and then I'll get there for what I need to get there for. But it's just being aware, like, okay, I'm going to be up late. What can I do to make sure I can get my minimum of six hours?

Minimum.  I shoot for seven and a half to nine, and then I just make sure that they're not too back to back, right? Well, thank God you're, you're the owner, so you can do that and adjust your schedule as needed. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. And well, and I have people that work with me that also have some mental health struggles, which, you know, almost everybody does.

Right. I just honor where they're at too. You know, and I, I have a young man that works with me. That's diabetic. I look at him and I'm like, Hey, go sit down. Here's a granola bar and an orange sit down. Right. So if I'm taking care of him with his diabetes, why would I not take care of my other gal that just has really bad anxiety and it's too much?

Hey, go take a break. Sit in the car on your phone. Don't talk to anybody for 15 minutes. Yeah, they must love working for you. Someone who understands. I really want to take care of the people that work with me because I want them to keep working with me, right? They're amazing. And I don't want them to go anywhere unless it's somewhere cooler than I'm.

I've been very lucky because I've worked for the same company for 11 years. And that's not something a lot of people with bipolar disorder can say of a corporate employer,  but it's been because they have worked with me. So I've been very lucky. Yeah, it's with having bipolar disorder or another protected mental health disability.

What I find is that it can be very difficult to navigate a corporate world. I did work for a state institution for a while, like a college and checking that box. Yes, I have a disability. Right. It's kind of hard because it's hard to say, you know, I have a disability. It's mental illness. I'm my manage But yes, I have a disability.

Well, and you don't want to be ruled out of the interview process or Right, but at the same time do I want to work with somebody who's going to rule me out because I have a disability Right good point. So having those conversations. I mean right away there was one day I called in depressed  Can you get a doctor's note?

Nope. Taking the pto.  Are you are you sick? You can't even ask me that I literally just called in depressed. I cannot today. I will not be in.  It's for you for being strong enough to do that. Yeah. It doesn't matter if I have a fever or I can't get out of bed because I am so depressed. Like I, you call out when you call out, but I've always, I always had a very open conversation about that at my job with my boss knew.

I don't think they quite knew how to handle it. They were trying to make sure they didn't break the law by asking them questions around it. Yeah.  But at the same time, I made sure that they knew that I wasn't going to use it as an excuse to not show up fully whenever I was there. Exactly. Yeah. That makes sense.

Cause it doesn't get you out of your responsibility. It just means that sometimes you need to take care of yourself. Yeah. Just like when you get the flu or a cold or COVID, right? You got to stay home a couple of days.  And you don't always know when it's going to happen.  It sucks, but it's real life. Yeah, it is what it is.

So that's amazing that they work with. Yeah, it is amazing. I, and I love my manager and the whole company is amazing. So I was wondering if you were talking to someone today. Who was in your shoes like you were, you know, 10 years ago, what would you say to them? So this is hard because I'm fully aware that people have income and monetary restraints.

But my biggest piece of advice is don't go to a primary care physician for your psychedelic medications, your psychiatric  medications. You really need to see a psychiatrist. Once you get established, if you can't afford to continue going in to see the psychiatrist, take that med plan to your preferred care provision provider to your physician.

But physicians are not trained in matters of the brain, not saying they're bad doctors. I'm saying it's not where they're trained, right? You know, so I'm a firm believer that, I mean, it's hard. It's so hard for people without insurance or on state insurance. You got to fight. You got to advocate. You got to ask for help. 

You should see a psychiatric med manager who is equipped to handle psychiatric medication to get you in a stable position. And then if you need to hand it over to a preferred care provider, then do that. But  the answer for me is God seeks a psychiatrist, if at all in your power. Yeah, I agree with you.

And I'm really happy to hear you say that. Cause I feel the same way. And I work for a managed care organization, a health insurance company. And I have a lot of members who, even though we're a Medicaid company, and so we're paying. For them to go see the doctor, they are comfortable with their PCP and I'm just like, Oh, but you have these diagnoses and you need to see someone who really understands that it's just like you were saying earlier about cancer.

It's like you wouldn't, if you had cancer, you would go to an oncologist.  You wouldn't want your PCP to take care of that.  So, yeah, I agree with you. It's so hard. And with the way the world is, it's so unfortunate. Getting mental health counseling is really hard.  Not affordable either. You're on Medicaid and there's a six month waiting list or you're on insurance, but you haven't met your deductible and you can't afford the out of pocket or you don't have insurance and it's 180 for an hour.

It's so, so difficult. What I love, what I love, love, love is the programs now that are telehealth that are far more affordable. Yeah, my, my counselor is actually telehealth, which I was resistant to at first, but because of the financial burden, it was like, this is my only option right now. I actually had struggled with going to see a psychiatrist and a therapist even.

The psychiatrist would push the therapist, but I would say I have a decent job, but I'm a single mom and therapy with insurance. The copay is 40 every time you go. And if they want you to go, you know, a therapist, what if they want you to go once a week? That's a lot of money. And actually, now that I'm in a much better place, I've switched over to life coaching and I'm only paying like 40 a month instead of a visit.

And I've found it very helpful, but that's because I'm in a place where I can do that now. Yeah, and it is really sad that a lot of people aren't in that place. I support and work with a lot of local organizations that provide free mental health and crisis care. Oh, right.  And can I share my big fat hairy audacious goal?

Yes. So I have a podcast called sick moms and I talked to other moms that are facing any kind of struggle in the mental health realm. Literally doesn't have to be a diagnosed mental illness. Just any struggles that we face as moms and my. My dream, my wish, my, my goal is that that will be successful enough that I will be able to have sponsor partners and ad partners, and I'm going to start a nonprofit organization and through donations, merchandise, and.

Add dollars. I'm going to be able to provide immediate mental health care help for people across the country through telehealth services where it will pay like you. You need to see a counselor until your deductibles met. Here's the 300 you need for the next six sessions and help set them up with the provider and get those bills paid.

Oh my gosh, I love that. You're just pulling at my heartstrings today.  That's my goal. Where I live, Eni, is uh, it's a beautiful area. It's called the Magic Valley in southern Idaho. And we have a 486 foot canyon half a mile from my house. You have to cross over it to leave town. It's beautiful. The Snake River Canyon.

It's where Evel Knievel jumped. Oh, okay.  But that bridge and that canyon as beautiful as it is, it's also a beacon for people who are trying to end their lives and the number of people, children, women, men, the number of people we lose off that bridge every year is absolutely devastating. And being a person with mental illness when I was younger, I stood on that bridge thinking it.

Right? I had suicidal ideations. I didn't attempt, but I stood there thinking about it. And so, I've been in a position, and I live in a place where it's so rampant. And crisis care is so hard to get. You're in crisis, and there's the crisis hotline, the National Crisis Hotline, but they also have limits.  So my goal is to have this nonprofit foundation up and running as soon as I possibly can  and provide actual money for actual mental health appointments to help people out of crisis and get stabilized and into a position where they can continue their mental health journey on their own.

That's beautiful. And it's so needed. And I think that. One of the things is that we need more places like that because it's not just money, it's time, like people will really be in crises, like you said, and they call into the local, like county health department to try to get an appointment with a psychiatrist, and it takes some months. 

Yeah, whereas we have telehealth now, and if somebody is available the next day. It can't even be an insurance thing because it doesn't cross state lines most of the time. So it just has to be available. If these providers would buy into the system and do it at a reduced rate and keep so many appointments a week open for me, that's, I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to do it. 

I totally believe you are. That's incredible. And if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. I will lean on you when it comes time, because the biggest thing is making sure people know about it and people who are willing and able to put dollars into the coffers for people who need it. Yes.

Yes. Well, thank you for being such an advocate. It's a wonderful thing. I believe in it. With every fiber of my being that this is so necessary. I, I can't, can't express how just sad I am when I hear about someone who's lost their life to a mental illness. It just breaks my heart. Have you ever lost a friend or family member?

I have lost several friends and  I have children with attempts under their belt. And what's really hard. And I try to talk to especially moms about is when your child has a suicide attempt. It's not really an attempt your child made the decision to take their life and it didn't work. So they're a survivor.

They're a suicide survivor. And when you look at your baby and, you know, look up at your baby because they're taller than you and you see that they have just come out of something where they had decided that their life was not worth living. Right. It is. Crushing.  I can't fathom. I know, I know several moms in my community who have lost their Children to suicide and my heart doesn't know, does not know that pain.

I do not know that pain. I know that I, yeah, I know the pain I experienced with just the survivor of a suicide attempt. And I ask so much. Yeah, I actually haven't told very many people this, but when I was 17, I took a bottle of pills and a bottle of vodka and I thought that would do it. Um, it just made me incredibly sick for 24 hours.

And now I'm very thankful that that's all it did, but at the time, nobody knew. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is, I know what it's like to be in that place and not everybody does. And so when somebody talks to me about that kind of situation that I come from a place of truly understanding. And I don't, I don't want people to get that far and there's plenty of preventive measures we as a society can take, we're not going to cure mental illness, but we can come together and make it a whole lot easier to get through it and prevent those actions.

Yeah. And what's beautiful is that there are stories like yours where you have come through that, that journey, and you're at a place where you're doing incredible things to make beautiful days for people that are in love. And I just think what a blessing that is. I truly feel so blessed. I recently was, I had a memory pop up on my Facebook feed about when I was in Seattle to see.

The Amen clinic and I reached out to my sister in law who actually went with me because she comes, she has a mental health background and she actually took me, she went with me and held my hand the whole time and I reached out to her just a text because I didn't think I could voice it out loud. But I said, I don't think you understand that you literally saved my life. 

Your actions kept me from dying.  Yeah. And so the love and help that I've been given, I want to give to others. That's just incredible. I love that. Well, is there anything before I let you go that you want to just leave everybody with? Yes. So this is what I say all the time. You need to be a student of your own mental illness.

I am sure that my bipolar disorder and your bipolar disorder look similar, but very different. Yes. And you need to do a lot of research. You need to do a lot of reading. You need to do a lot of self reflection, write stuff down, track things. You need to become an absolute  student of your mental health, your mental illness. 

And that's the only way you're going to learn how to get through to the other side. Medication is great. Psychiatrist is great. Counseling is great. But you have to learn about you so you know how to keep yourself safe, how to make yourself better, and how to get to the next day. Yeah, what great advice.

Yeah. I like that.  I'm a big journal or myself. So I and I love to read and I like to read about those kind of issues. So that that is yeah, right on. All right. Well, I really enjoyed. I'll share it with you. Oh, are you really? What is it called? Yeah. Yeah. It's about it's it's I haven't got a title for it yet, but it's about parenting with bipolar disorder.

Okay.  Yeah, I will definitely be first in line to get that.  So I hope you stay in touch with me.  Yeah, we absolutely need to stay in touch. This has been amazing. I can't wait to listen to more and more of your episodes. I think what you're doing is absolutely phenomenal and I appreciate you so much. Oh, thank you.

And I reciprocate that. I totally feel the same way about you. Have a good night. You too. Bye bye. 

 📍 As we wrap up this profoundly impactful episode of Advancing with Amy, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to Carrie Eskridge for sharing her journey as a mental health warrior and Neuro Spicy Mama herself.  From navigating the complexities of an early bipolar diagnosis to becoming a successful business owner and a champion for mental health awareness, Carrie's story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

Her dedication to education, proper medical intervention, and advocacy shines as a beacon of hope for anyone facing mental health challenges. Remember, you are not alone, and seeking specialized care is a courageous and life affirming step. If you're inspired by Carrie's mission and would like to learn more about her and her event business, visit her website at IDoIdahoEvents. com, and don't forget to check out her podcast, Sick Moms, on all major platforms. And for those of you who have been moved by our conversation, we encourage you to follow, share, and continue to support our podcast, Advancing with Amy. Together, we create a community that values understanding.

and open dialogue about women, mental health, and neurodiversity. Thank you for listening, and don't forget to take care of yourself. Keep advancing, Warriors!   

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