Chasing Awareness

BASC featured Haywood in their latest episode of BASC-ing in the Spotlight to highlight her advocacy for the early diagnosis of mental illness in adolescents and teens and to break the stigma of mental illness. This episode focuses on teenagers and early warning signs and advice based on Haywood's personal experience.

Typically I have a guest on the show to speak about how mental health has affected their life in some way. However, life has been a bit chaotic the past couple of months between a job change and a mental health conference so I’ve had to postpone some conversations with several upcoming guests. That said, today I plan to give you access to the inside of my brain in this mini episode. Scary I know. I’m just winging this so get ready for episode 6: Lady with a Microphone.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of talking to Dr. Jonathan Abdullah, who is an innovative educator, counselor, mindfulness facilitator and emerging psychotherapist. We discussed how incorporating mindfulness in the workplace can be advantageous to the employee as well as the employer. We also dove into equity (or the lack thereof) in mental healthcare, which is an incredibly relevant and important subject. We talked about systemic racism, unconscious bias, discrimination and more. So prepare yourself for some serious enlightenment with Dr. Abdullah.

Music by Mark Rinaldi

I am so humbled and grateful to have my extremely gifted, sassy and compassionate therapist, Claire D’Andrea on the show. Claire is a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in trauma, anxiety and addiction.

We’re going to be talking about some misconceptions of mental illness, cutting edge treatment and what it’s like from her perspective to see her clients doing well and seeing them fall on their asses. So get ready to learn how it is on the other side of mental healthcare.

Music by Mark Rinaldi

Visit www.clairedandrea.com for more information on my guest, therapist Claire D'Andrea!

This is the second part of my conversation with my mother and we discuss how my undiagnosed mental illnesses affected my adult life, what that looked like from a mother’s perspective and how we got to where we are today.

*Trigger Warning: Suicide*

A conversation with my mother: Part 1. She’ll explain what she would have done differently in hindsight and provide advice for parents who are currently struggling with a child or adult child suffering from mental illness. We discuss my childhood, riddled with learning disabilities, up to my first suicide attempt. Part 2 coming soon!

*Trigger Warning: Suicidal thoughts*

In this episode, Haywood reveals her tips and tricks to handling her worst symptoms of mental illness.

Music by Mark Rinaldi

My name is Haywood and I suffer from mental illness…I even wrote a book about it called Chasing Pleasure With Pain. I’ll be talking about my experiences, giving advice both to people like me and their loved ones.

In a nutshell, I began suffering from bipolar as a teenager. Instead of medical help, my parents not knowing much about mental illness sent me to a program that traumatized me and worsened my mental health condition. I was finally diagnosed in my thirties so there was plenty of time to hit rock bottom many times before then. Like I said, I’ll be talking about my experiences, interviewing parents of mentally ill children, people who suffer from mental illness, medical professionals and so on.

Follow me on my journey to normalize mental illness. Help me in my cause and subscribe to my new podcast, CHASING AWARENESS.

Music by Mark Rinaldi