Mental illness should never prevent you from reaching your fullest potentials. This is what I keep telling myself every day. Sure, there are times when working while dealing with anxieties is more difficult than usual. I’m bipolar, so mood swings can affect work just as severely. These are mere challenges. I can honestly say that [...]
Gabe Howard is a professional speaker, writer, and activist as well a person living with severe bipolar and anxiety disorders. Diagnosed in 2003, he has made it his mission to put a human face on mental illness, confronting the fear, discrimination, and stigmatization people with mental illness face. Society often sees people living with mental illness [...]
Hypochondria: (noun) abnormal anxiety about one’s health, especially with an unwarranted fear that one has a serious disease. Or in laymen terms: OMG I AM DYING! In my 30 short years on this planet, I have had: Over 100 heart attacks, 20 strokes, five brain aneurysms, 2 brain tumors, and countless other diseases that no [...]
One of the coolest parts of my job is meeting some pretty incredible people. Whenever possible, I love to post articles written by people other than myself. This week I am very proud to post a blog written by Sarah Fader. Several months ago I wrote a piece for her blog, Stigma Fighters. Sarah Fader [...]
A few months back, I was asked to fill out a questionnaire about living with depression. It took me a while to get to it and by the time I did, I was too late to submit it. I figured since I took the time to fill it out, I might as well publish it [...]
Mental illness advocates are used to debating. This is not surprising as all advocacy involves a lot of debate. We live in a society that has yet to agree on whether the toilet paper goes over or under, so it isn’t surprising that something as complex as being a mental illness advocate often brings out [...]
If you are reading this blog to figure out if a person with bipolar disorder celebrates a birthday differently from the rest of the population, you can stop reading after this paragraph. I assure you the customs of my people are driven by culture, upbringing, and cake – just like everyone else’s. What is different [...]
At least once a week, I stand up in front of a group of people, most often strangers, and say, “My name is Gabe Howard and I have a mental illness.” Sometimes I mix it up, to prevent my own boredom, and say I have bipolar and anxiety disorders, but the single message is always [...]
Being a mental illness advocate, blogger, and speaker is a fascinating career. For the most part, I enjoy it and I am quite good at it. I like challenging people’s perceptions of what it means to live with bipolar and anxiety disorder, I like providing education and insight, and I like the change I see [...]
I thought I would dedicate an entry to my dad On the surface, my dad, Gary Howard, is an uninteresting man. Before retiring, he was a semi-truck driver and now spends his days doing what can best be described as pissing off my mother. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee, and enjoys playing on his computer [...]
