October 12, 2023
Colloquium Topic: BIPOLAR GENERAL: My Forever War with Mental Illness
My talk is about a talented and driven young man who unknowingly was living on the low end of the bipolar spectrum from his teenage years into his early 40s. His hyperthymic personality elevated his energy, drive, creativity, enthusiasm, and natural talents for decades, helping to make him a highly successful Army officer. Unknown to him and the Army, his hyperthymia crept slowly upwards towards mania and bipolar disorder for decades, until the intense stress and thrill of combat in Iraq triggered his genetic predisposition for bipolar disorder (BD) in 2003 as a 47-year-old colonel. The condition went unknown, undetected, and undiagnosed for the next 11 years, generating higher levels of mania and lower levels of depression, until he rocketed into full-blown mania in 2014 at age 58. Erratic, out of control, and over the top, he was forced to resign from his position as president of the National Defense University and ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and retire. Within months he crashed into hopeless depression, terrifying psychosis, and bipolar hell. For two years he fought for his life, was hospitalized, and was prescribed a multitude of medications and ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) yet had no relief. His condition finally lifted, and he began his life-long journey to wellness when he began taking lithium, which relieved most of his symptoms and began bringing him back to the person he had been before his BD. Since September 2016, he has had fewer than a dozen episodes (defined as having psychosis, depression, agitated hypomania, mania, a panic or PTSD attack, and/or significant anger), and has lived a mostly happy, healthy life of meaning and purpose in warm, sunny Florida. He has become an ardent mental health advocate, writing, speaking, and conferring on BD and other mental health issues. His story offers hope, inspiration, and knowledge to the millions of Americans and billions of people around the world who are afflicted and/or affected by BD and other mental illnesses.
Colloquium Speaker: Maj. Gen. Gregg F. Martin, Ph.D.
Maj. Gen. Gregg F. Martin, Ph.D., USA (Ret.), served on active duty for thirty-six years and commanded an engineer company, battalion, and the 130th Engineer Brigade in combat during the first year of the Iraq War. General Martin served multiple overseas tours, commanded the Corps of Engineers Northwest Division, was Commandant of the Army Engineer School, commanded Fort Leonard Wood, was Deputy Commanding General of Third U.S. Army/Army Central in the Middle East, Commandant of the Army War College, President of the National Defense University, and Special Assistant to the Chief of Engineers. Martin holds a Ph.D. and two master's degrees from MIT, master's degrees in national security strategy from both the Army and Naval war colleges and a bachelor's degree from West Point (class of 1979).