Why the urgent need for Brain Stories?
Today, one in five Americans suffers from a mental health disorder. There is an enormous need for both better understanding and better care.
But the brain is in essence, a universe we still cannot see. There is no medical test to detect or even predict a mental illness. All we know is that mental illness produces erratic, unpredictable and sometimes frightening changes in behavior.
So what do we do with those we fear and have an illness we don’t understand?
Move them out of sight. We have a long history of locking people with a mental illness away. Today, the county jails in Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami are currently the three largest institutions for those with a mental illness in America.
Those who aren’t locked up are often isolated, ostracized and discriminated against in every facet of daily life. Almost no one wants to live near them, work with them, rent to them, hire them or be a friend with them. Mental illness is one of the final frontiers of discrimination. It is a “look-away” disease. This is what we do when we feel helpless.
That is the exact opposite of what we need to do.
To respond effectively, we must look and listen. We need to hear their stories, and the stories of those who care for them, in their words. We need to hear their description of their worlds – something that appears to be an alien landscape only at first.
There is a glaring absence of well-told stories about mental illness. There is no other documentary series of people living, working, loving, and laughing with these conditions. There is a failure of fundamental human portrayal.
Cue BRAIN STORIES.
This is the podcast series that will capture the odysseys of those with the most feared illnesses of our time: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, and severe depression. Unique and astonishing, the stories are nuanced, detailed, and empathic.
These portraits won't flinch at the chaos, pain and loneliness -- but they’ll include surprising upsides that are invariably left out because so few know of them: the order, logic, joys, and triumph.
Above all what will emerge in these episodes will be the human heart of those of live with a mental illness…and their universal needs: purpose, connection, and hope.
