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BIPOLAR DISORDER RECOVERY

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Marcia’s story is one of resilience, perseverance, and ultimately, hope. Marcia, who runs a thriving private psychotherapy practice in San Rafael, California, recently authored the book “The Bipolar Therapist: A Journey from Madness to Love and Meaning.”

In this powerful memoir, she opens up about her diagnosis with bipolar disorder and the challenges she faced both personally and professionally.

She described the intense stigma she faced, even from colleagues in the mental health field, and how this only fueled her determination to advocate for greater compassion and understanding for those with mental illness.

Despite the common belief that bipolar disorder is a lifelong condition, Marcia has been symptom-free and off medication for over 30 years. Her story challenges the stigma and misconceptions surrounding mental illness and offers hope to those who may be struggling in silence.

Her firsthand understanding of mental illness has given her a deep sense of empathy and compassion for her patients, particularly those dealing with severe psychiatric conditions. She emphasized the importance of treating mental illness with the same compassion and respect as any physical illness.

Her mission to reduce the stigma around mental illness and to promote understanding and respect is one that resonates deeply.

Marcia’s journey from madness to love and meaning is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the power of hope.

And don’t forget to check out Marcia’s book, “The Bipolar Therapist,” available on Amazon and other major book retailers.

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READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE

Marcia Naomi Berger discusses her journey with bipolar disorder on Midlife Makeover

Wendy Valentine: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Midlife Makeover show. Today we have an incredible guest who’s here to share her deeply personal story of resilience and perseverance. Marcia. Naomi Berger is a licensed clinical social worker with a thriving private psychotherapy practice in San Rafael. I know I didn’t say that.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Right.

Wendy Valentine: California. She’s also the author of a powerful new book, the Bipolar Therapy Therapist, a journey from madness to love and meaning, where she opens up about her journey with mental illness, being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and the challenges she faced in her personal and professional life. In her book, Marsha takes us through her experiences of manic episodes and the conflict of navigating her relationships. Her story is one of tremendous courage, drive, and the support of the people who stood by her through it all. I’m so excited for this conversation and for you to hear more about her inspiring journey, let’s give a warm welcome to Marcia Naomi Berger.

Wendy: Marcia, welcome to Talk Dirty Talk

Marcia Naomi Berger: Woohoo.

Wendy Valentine: Welcome, Marcia.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Thank you, Wendy. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. You know, I mean, just reading the intro, I’m inspired just because, I mean, first of all, I love a good comeback story, and I love that you’re sharing your story. I mean, I can imagine that there’s so many people that would go through which I know we’re going to learn more about what you went through and would never share that. And I think I find what’s fascinating, and sharing our stories is that we learn from each other, and it gives us hope.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Definitely.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

I think it’s important for us to share our stories about mental illness

So, first question for you. I think your subtitle is from madness to love and meaning. Take us, back to. What was the journey to the madness? Okay, that’s a loaded question.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Well, I’m getting used to telling it since I wrote the book and I talked to people about it. So it’s not as loaded as it used to be, but it does still come back to me sometimes when I tell the story and, when I write about my experiences. And I totally agree with you that it is so important for us to share our stories because there’s so much stigma around mental illness, and mental illness is so common, and people are very lonely when they have to feel like they have to hide it. and my dream is for people to treat mental illness the same way that, that they would treat people who have a physical illness with compassion, understanding, and respect, and no stigma whatsoever.

Wendy Valentine: Yes, exactly.

Marcia Naomi Berger: And I’m hoping to do my little part in moving the world towards my vision.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Yes.

Bipolar disorder started when I was working as a psychiatric social worker

So, my journey started. I could pick a lot of places where it started, because there’s a long continuum here. But I think the place it started, which I show in the bipolar therapist in vivid detail, is when I was living in San Francisco, I was a respected psychiatric social worker in an alcoholism treatment center. I was training other staff to do couple and family therapy and other kinds of therapy, and also learning a lot myself there. Then I decided to go to my sister’s wedding. She got married on very short notice. It was a small little ceremony, and, my sister was in New York. So I’m flying from San Francisco to New York. the plane stops in Chicago and there’s time to walk around the airport. And I hadn’t slept in a couple of nights for whatever reason. probably a lot of excitement about something that was coming up and also something that happened a little before, which is also detailed in the book. So, one of the signposts of, mania. Mania or bipolar illness, when it’s the high part, is the lack of sleep. But I wasn’t thinking I had anything because I never had anything like that before. So I’m in Chicago while the plane is stopping there for a while, I’m walking around and I realize that I have these tremendous powers to heal people. So I’m watching people as our paths cross, and I’m doing my best to beam my healing energy towards them, because I really believed I had these special, special powers, which is called a delusion in the psychiatric world. and I was full into it. And somehow I made my way back on the plane in time, went to New York, stayed at my mother’s house, in Rockaway, Queens. It’s the house I grew up in. And there I continued to not sleep. And my mind was racing and I was becoming very high and also at some point, irritable and especially towards my mother, who’s no longer alive, so, say a blessed memory. And I ended up screaming at her. Just when it was time to go to the ceremony for my sister’s wedding, I ran into the street and I was screaming. And, the police were called and I was taken to a horrible, horrible hospital. it’s called Elmhurst. It was the epitome of a snake put. Snake pit. Snake pit. everybody there practically, who were the patients were zonked out on a drug called thorazine, which I don’t think is used so much anymore, but it turned us into like, walking zombies. and they kept making us drink this orange juice that was lacedae with thorazine. And I was there for eight days. It was just horrible. and it wasn’t like they were being mean to us. They were just keeping us very, very sedated, manageable.

Wendy Valentine: Sedate. Yes, yes.

Marcia Naomi Berger: and fortunately, I got out of there, after eight days with help from my father and uncle, both of blessed memory, and they got me into a very good rehab place. And I was there for a couple of weeks, and they took me off the awful medicine, and I went back to California, back to my job. and then there was. I don’t know how much you want me to keep talking.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, yeah, please tell.

Marcia Naomi Berger: I’m like, anyway, I thought I was fine. I thought it was a big mistake. a year later, I was hospitalized again, in San Francisco. I was blaming my mother for my first hospitalization. I stayed estranged from her, for a year. I wanted nothing to do with her. I held her responsible for me being in that snake pit, horrible hospital. I was back at work. I was doing my job fine. People looked at me a little funny, but it got much worse after my second hospitalization a year later at Langley Porter, and then another hospitalization six months later. The reason I was hospitalized three times was that I wasn’t yet on any useful medication. the third time I got on the medication, by then I was a pariah at work. I was stigmatized. my coworkers were therapists and some paraprofessionals, and there’s an expectation that therapists are going to be very understanding, compassionate. and I did have some very good friends at work, fortunately, that were that way. A couple of women that I had lunch with just about every day, and they held me together, and I had friends outside also that were really, really important. But at work, bad things were happening. I was harassed sexually. I was stigmatized. I was,

Wendy Valentine: Ah, you really learn who your friends are, right, when you go through something like that.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Well, you also learn about people’s own mental issues, because I m figured later, much later, that why weren’t these people compassionate to me, who we would hope are compassionate to the patients that they and I, that we treated in the alcoholism treatment center? And I think it was that in this time, it was very, very common, especially in California and, the area where I live, the San Francisco Bay area, it’s very normal to be in therapy for your everyday neurotic kinds of issues. But, I became psychotic. I crossed a line. And my theory is that that made people very nervous, because if it could happen to somebody like me, what did that say about what might happen to them. So the way some of them dealt with it was to distance or demean me or whatever it was, to keep that mental illness separate from themselves.

At what point were you diagnosed with bipolar disorder

Wendy Valentine: At what point were you diagnosed with bipolar disorder? Was that before the eight days? Yeah.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Yeah. The first hospitalization, I left with no diagnosis and some medicine that didn’t agree with me, which, I got off after a very short time. But bipolar illness, which back then was called manic depression, is, it’s a kind of condition, where there are very long periods where you’re just fine. For some people, it’s quick, but for me, like, it was a year, and then I did again, and then it was six months. At what point was I diagnosed? Was in my second hospitalization at Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric institute in San Francisco. And, a psychologist there gave me an MMPI test. Minnesota multiple personality inventory. I think that’s what it stands for. And he told me it was very clear that I was back then. Remember, they call it manic depression, but it’s now bipolar illness.

Wendy Valentine: Interesting.

Marcia Naomi Berger: I should start taking a drug called lithium right away or my career would be ruined. I still thought this was a fluke and that it was a big mistake and that I was just fine. I had been under some stress about a relationship with a man who I. That’s another story. anyway, so I said, no, I’m not going to take it, because I didn’t believe him and I didn’t like him. He didn’t seem, like, warm and friendly. He seemed very clinical. so I left Ama, that means against medical advice. And then I went back to my work. And, I mean, I was really doing fine at work. I published a paper that was. I presented at a national conference about alcoholism, family systems, and how you work with families, with the, person with the drinking issue. And, I was supervising people. And then I had my next manic episode, which landed me in. This was six months after Langley border, and I was in a different hospital in San Francisco. It was called St. Mary’s. And, there I had a lot of support. I had a psychiatrist there I liked, I trusted him, and he encouraged me to go on lithium. And three dear women friends and the man who was my boyfriend at the time, all talked to the psychiatrist. and he explained about lithium, and they all begged me to go on lithium. Hm. And I went on lithium.

Wendy Valentine: And how did that change everything for you?

Marcia Naomi Berger: Everything was fine on lithium. I continued in my career. I got recruited. Are you ready for this? I got recruited to work as a senior psychiatric social worker on a psychiatric ward at San Francisco General Hospital.

Wendy Valentine: So I’m so curious, how did this change how you practice?

Marcia Naomi Berger: It was wonderful for how my practice, for, how I practiced. Yeah. Because it gave me a lot of compassion for the patients, especially the patients on the psych board. And I knew by then how important it was for me to stay on lithium on m. The psych ward, we called it. and I didn’t tell by. This is another aspect of my story, is that I didn’t know whether anybody at San Francisco general, whether any of my colleagues knew that I had a diagnosis and that I was taking medication, because I thought maybe the word got out. But I didn’t tell anybody. And, I was treated really, really well there. I was highly respected. I was based on my work, training psychiatric residents. Psychiatry residents. Hm. I was given a clinical faculty appointment, University of California medical school in San Francisco. So my career was just going along very nicely. and how did this affect my work was in the hospital. Patients would come. Many of the patients, they get on medication, they go out, and then they get off medication, and then they come back. M. We call this a revolving door. this was a reminder to me to stay on medication.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Marcia Naomi Berger: My lithium. And, the way it affected my work in terms of how I worked with the patients was because I never wanted to be in a hospital very long. I always wanted to get back to my life.

Wendy Valentine: Yes.

Marcia Naomi Berger: I was the very quick therapist for getting people diagnosed, treated and out back to their life.

Wendy Valentine: Isn’t that fascinating, though, because of your own experience? You’re like, oh, my gosh, I don’t want you to stay over there. I want you to get back into life and enjoy life.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Right?

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. Wow.

It took me a long time to write the book. Um, but I did finally make it

So, gosh, that’s a lot to unpack there. And how about now? Where are you at today with all of it?

Marcia Naomi Berger: Well, it took a lot to write the book. And sometimes when I, I’m working on another kind of, I don’t know if it’s going to be a book or a long essay. So when I write about it, it does come back to a certain extent. but I’m mostly fine with it. I mean, I feel like I have an important mission, and that counteracts the reliving the kind of shame that I went through a long time ago.

Wendy Valentine: I know for me, just, just, I just got done. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Marcia Naomi Berger: I was. When I was. It took me a long time to write the book. Okay. That was. I tried writing it, like, about 18 years ago. And I would start, and I’d write about almost everything except the mental illness, because I just wasn’t ready. and I wrote these other two books about relationships in the meantime, marriage meetings for lasting love and marriage minded. The second one is for people that want to get married and want to date constructively, or have, I have to say now, a lot of people say, I don’t want to get married. I want to be in a committed relationship, which I’m not quite sure what it means, but I think my book will help them. Help them, too. yeah. A lot of disillusionment with marriage because so much divorce. So many people like myself, grow up in homes where our parents were divorced, or people have been divorced themselves. So I totally understand if people are reluctant to make that big commitment. but I did finally make it, and I’m very, very glad. So, I know that it can work out really well if you get the knowledge, and you are motivated enough to make it succeed.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. And how did going through all of that change you in your relationships?

Marcia Naomi Berger: In my relationship? You mean with my husband? M. Well, he accepted me. I didn’t. In my book, for single women that are interested in marriage, I say I write, about secrets. When do you reveal a secret to somebody that is on the verge, or you think is on the verge of committing to you? And when I knew that was happening with a man I married, I took my advice and I didn’t tell him until I knew that he was just about ready to propose. And I told him, I want to tell you something, so you can think it over if you want to do that. and it turned out that he was fine, but he had known me for I was living a very seemingly healthy life.

Wendy Valentine: So, that’s unconditional love right there.

Marcia Naomi Berger: It might not have been if he had seen.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Marcia Naomi Berger: So, like, the boyfriend that I had, who came and visited me and was very supportive when I was at McAuley Neuropsychiatric Institute and. Eric, Mitch Hake, lithium. when I talked with him about, you know, where’s our relationship going? He said, well, let’s see how the lithium works.

Marcia Naomi Berger: That hurt my feelings. But when I mentioned that to my husband, he said he might have had the same thought if he had known me back then. So it’s understandable.

Bipolar disorder is not curable, but people do recovery

Wendy Valentine: Bipolar disorder, is it curable?

Marcia Naomi Berger: Oh, that’s another really good question. Because in the professional world and also in regular people world, there is an, a belief that it is not curable. That nobody recovers from it. That’s not true. People do recovery. My story is, I don’t like to spoil it for the readers, so, pretend I haven’t said it now, but it is a story of recovery. I have no symptoms and no, medication over 30 years.

Wendy Valentine: That’s amazing.

Marsha says the worst part of mental illness is the shame

so at what point did you know that it was safe for you to go off the lithium?

Marcia Naomi Berger: Oh, I didn’t know it was safe. I was petrified to go off it, but I was, By then I was married and we were trying to get pregnant. And my psychiatrist. My psychiatrist said that lithium can harm the fetuse. So as an experiment, at least, I should go off it for two weeks. And my husband come in, he was supposed to watch me and look for signs of.

Wendy Valentine: He’s like, yeah.

Marcia Naomi Berger: But I was, I was really petrified because, you know, I’d worked in the hospital, I’d seen what happened to other patients. I’d seen what happened to me when I wasn’t on medication. but I did the two week experiment, and I was just like always was, you know, with lithium, or without it before I needed it. so. So, I never took it again.

Wendy Valentine: What do you think triggered it to begin with? Is it something. I mean, is it a trigger? Is it something. Is it something you’re born with? Well, I guess it can be something you’re born with, right? If it’s something that can be.

Marcia Naomi Berger: There are different theories.

Wendy Valentine: Okay.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Yeah. I’m a social worker. As a social worker, I tend to give a lot of credence to what’s in somebody’s environment. M probably in the medical world. There’s more of a mentality of, This is genetic and it’s a brain thing, and something’s off in the brain. So we, we give medication to fix what’s off in the brain. I mean, something definitely was off in my brain because I needed the medication for a long time. However, I think, in my case, it could be that the brain just changed. It grew up somehow, but it also could be that my life, circumstances changed in a way that changed my brain.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, that makes sense, too. Like, you were even saying how, like you hadn’t slept and you had gone through something before that, which is in the book. and so who knows, right? Like, what can trigger and what can happen? But did you. I’m curious, did you have compassion and understanding to yourself during that whole time? Or, were you hard on yourself? Like, come on, Marsha, get it together.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Or were you, like, while I was having an episode? Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: While you were going through, like, in and out of the hospitals, like, did you, were you kind to yourself? Were you understanding to yourself? Or were you. Were you frustrated with it? Were you mad at yourself? How did you feel just with your own personal relationship?

Marcia Naomi Berger: Part of it was the shame than from other people. And I, think that is the worst part of mental illness.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Marcia Naomi Berger: And so that’s why I so much want to change that attitude or to do my little part in helping to change it so that there’s no stigma, so that there’s compassion, understanding and respect. Just like there would be if somebody had a physical illness.

Wendy Valentine: Right. Just like if they had diabetes or issue. Yes, exactly.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Yeah. I’ll unplug.

Wendy Valentine: Good.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Okay. So I say that the worst part, the worst part is the shame. And that’s why I want to do my part to get that stopped.

Wendy Valentine: What do you. So if someone out there is listening and they’re struggling with a mental illness, but maybe they haven’t told anyone and they do feel the shame, what do you recommend?

Marcia Naomi Berger: I recommend that they know that they do not deserve shame and that if somebody’s shaming them, that is the problem of the shamer. It should not be their problem.

Wendy Valentine: Yes.

Marcia Naomi Berger: People are uncomfortable. Many people are uncomfortable with mental illness, and, they deal with it by the shaming or by distancing themselves, or worse, harassment. And it shouldn’t happen. And it should not be the problem of the person who has the mental illness. It should be looked at as there’s something off with these people who are doing that. Yeah. And then people define you. That’s my. Exactly. Do not let other people define you. And you keep moving forward in your life because you, like everybody else, have multifaceted aspects to yourself. We’re all complex people. We all have strengths. We can contribute to the world gifts, and we all have our areas where that might be considered weaker or less strong. so we want to play up our strengths. Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: And I think even just removing those labels that we will place on someone like, you know, whether it’s, bipolar disorder or depression, anxiety, panic attacks, whatever, that’s not the person. And. Yeah, I mean, for me, like, my, my brother passed away of addiction a few years ago and. Yeah. And I can remember the first time he went into a coma from his addiction. And I’ll never forget this moment. and I remember walking across the threshold of his hospital room and seeing him in the bed. In the hospital bed.

After your book was published, what impact does it have on your practice

He’s like six foot five. You know, all the machines were going, and. And that was the first time that I. I mean, I always had compassion for him and empathy for what he went through for majority of his life. But it was that moment where I, like, really removed those labels of addiction and the alcoholism and the drugs, all of that. I saw him, finally, as a soul with a body, not a body with a soul, not a, yeah. And it totally shifted my thinking with how I felt about him. And I felt so. I just felt so bad for him, for what he struggled with pretty much his whole life. And so just like you were saying, it’s like we should be looking at these people. No matter who they are, with whatever labels that have been placed upon them, they are still a beautiful soul underneath that body.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Right?

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Yeah. I really love that expression that we are souls with bodies.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. Yeah. I kind of think of it like a candy and a candy wrapper, but we’re just like a sweet little center, you know? But. And the thing is, too, like, you never know what someone has dealt with in their life.

Marcia Naomi Berger: That’s true. Right.

Wendy Valentine: I mean, I’m sure you, have plenty of experience with that, with a lot of your patients. It’s like what they dealt with as children or teenagers or as adults. And there’s a lot, you know? So it’s like, if someone’s struggling with something, there could be a really good reason as to why they’re struggling.

Marcia Naomi Berger: I think there’s always a reason.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, exactly. Well, I love your comeback story.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Thank you.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. And you know what, too? I was just thinking, I think we talked a little bit about this before we hit record. It’s like, I think there’s, like, also there’s this impression is that, like, a therapist can’t be going through anything in their life. Like, they’re supposed to be perfect. And, no, we’re all works in progress. Right. And because you went through all of that, it makes you an even better therapist because you have that empathy and that understanding.

Marcia Naomi Berger: I hope so.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Marcia Naomi Berger: I do believe it. I have my moments.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, I know. Me too. Right?

Marcia Naomi Berger: I know. Overall, no, I do think it’s tremendous help. I was wondering, after I had my book published, about my situation and my diagnosis and all, what impact that would have on my practice as a therapist. and, I don’t think it’s. Well, I mean, the people that I see, nobody has said, oh, I’m so happy to know your story. They’re still seeing me, or they started seeing me. There was a very nice article before my book launch, nice article in our local newspaper, about the book and my history. And, one of the women that I had seen years before saw the article, and so she remembered me, and she, decided to come start seeing me again with her husband.

Wendy Valentine: Well, she’d be like, well, she must know something because look at you now, right? Like, even after going through all of that, you must know something.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Yeah. And she was impressed that when I saw her the first time, way back, I didn’t remember telling her this. I didn’t even remember her, but. Because we see a lot of people. but she remembered me, and she remembered that I told her that she did not need therapy, she should talk to her friends, and I don’t tell many people that, but I told her. But, now she was in a situation where she and her husband are using therapy very well. Wow. And I have another client who somehow he found out. Oh, I know, I know. he got my book, marriage meetings for lasting love. And I was seeing him with his wife, and he said, oh, this was before I got the book. He said, oh, you wrote a book? And I said, I wrote three books. And he said, oh, what were they? And I thought, huh? Oh, no, now I have to tell him. So I told him. But, you know, I don’t think it made a bit of difference. If anything, maybe it helped, because here’s a guy who’s been in, recovering, alcohol, like, got his 25 year chip, ah. Or whatever, you know, they give them something, sober. So. So I had my thing, and he had his thing.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, we all have our thing, right?

Marcia Naomi Berger: So. So I I. You know, there’s no way to know who’s not calling me for therapy because of that. But everything seems to be okay, as far as I know. And. And maybe because it happened such a long time ago, when I tell people about my book stuff, they. Nobody seems to, hold it against me. And I had been afraid that I was going to get restigmatized, and maybe I am and they’re not telling me, but I’m really, really strive to have it not be my problem if that’s what they want to do.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. Yeah. I’m glad you told your story. That’s got to feel so good, though. I can’t imagine, like, when you’re holding, that book for the first time. That’s. It’s got to be pretty rewarding.

Marcia Burger: Support your local bookstores by buying it on Amazon

Well, tell us how we can find you.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Oh, okay. You, can find me on my website, which is the easy way to remember it is marriage meetings with an SDHe. Also marcianaomiburger.com. but marriagemeetings.com works. And you can get.

Wendy Valentine: And all of your books, are they on Amazon?

Marcia Naomi Berger: They’re all on the usual.

Wendy Valentine: All those places.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Support, your local bookstores by buying it on bookshop.org. or you can ask for your local bookstore.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, nice. Thank you so much, Marcia.

Marcia Naomi Berger: Thank you so much. Thank you.

Wendy Valentine: Everyone. Have a great day.

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