Content warning: This episode contains mentions of suicide attempts (they are not discussed in a detailed or graphic way, but they are mentioned briefly). Please take care while listening.

Author, educator, mental health advocate, and mom Leanne Toshiko Simpson joins host Emily Hessney Lynch for a thoughtful and funny conversation about her chaos whirlwind life. Leanne talks about living with bipolar disorder, how having a kid can help you hate mornings less, the ways we're conditioned to shrink ourselves and not be "too much," the power of mad friendship, writing funny in her novel Never Been Better, and how if you can't laugh about your struggles, they're probably crushing you.

In the second half of the show, Emily and Leanne discuss their experiences with motherhood, including the rigid gender expectations surrounding how much a mom should do in the first year of their child's life, how important it is to have a partner who doesn't suck at sharing childcare responsibilities, and why it's actually a good thing to have diverse interests aside from just your kid.

Links:

1. Leanne's book, Never Been Better
2. Follow Leanne on Instagram
3. Leanne's website
4. Follow Emily on Instagram
5. Emily's website
6. "The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of 'Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends'" by Jia Tolentino

We are a proud member of the Lunchador Podcast Network. Our logo is by Tenderchomps Art.

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Joe Bean Coffee - Coffee that Lifts Everyone

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Common Thread

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Getting Real with Bossy: For Women Who Own Business

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I was like, "I wrote a super universal rom com!" and then later on my publishers was like, "no, this is a pretty niche book. Like, it's a psych ward survivor love triangle."

Hello and welcome to It's A Lot, a podcast about things that are a lot. On this show, we have honest conversations about the highs and lows of social media, parenthood, and more.

When it comes to complex topics, online discourse can lack nuance and empathy. That's why we're leaning into deep conversations, making space for conflicting, messy feelings and keeping it real about how we feel.

We could all use a little more of that sometimes. I'm your host, Emily Hessney Lynch. And today I'm excited to be talking to Leanne Toshiko Simpson.

Leanne's a writer, educator, and mental health advocate from Toronto, and she writes joyful, messy, laugh out loud stories about living with mental illness and the moments of hope that help us get out of bed day after day. I absolutely loved her debut novel, Never Been Better. And she's also the parent of a small child with very similar interests to my son.

They are both into cars, trucks, and trains these days. I am so looking forward to talking to Leanne about all of these things. So if you enjoy our conversation, make sure to follow her on Instagram.

I'll link to that and her website and her book in the show notes. Welcome to the show, Leanne.

Thanks so much for having me, Emily.

Yeah, of course. I want to get started. Just your bio, of course, is so lovely with that, "moments of hope that get us out of bed every day." What's helping you get out of bed lately?

Yeah, so I guess through a lot of my 20s, I had a really hard time starting the day because when you first wake up, you're kind of hit with all of the ruminations. You. You're just lying there with your own thoughts. That was always really hard for me. And I would often move a lot slower than I wanted.

I would kind of torture myself a little bit. And now I hear my son singing the Wheels on the Bus.

And so I start my day not being able to kind of wallow in any of the bad thoughts I might be having. And I start my day saying hey to him, which is cool. So that's actually been a nice shift in my morning routine over the last couple of years.

And I don't hate mornings as much as I used to, which is. But nice.

That's really cool. Kids really do force us to get up and move and shift our perspective, too.

Sometimes it's better to just do than consider doing right?

For sure. I want to dive right into the mental health stuff too.

So if folks aren't familiar with bipolar disorder or only know kind of the stereotypes of it, how would you explain it to someone who's not that familiar?

So I would say that being in a relationship with someone with bipolar disorder, whether it's a friendship, a colleague or a marriage, as my husband has learned a lot about the illness being with me, it's kind of like there are different kinds of bipolar disorder. Not all bipolar disorders have both poles.

So the idea of mania and depression, that's actually partly why they don't call it manic depression anymore because it doesn't encapsulate actually most kinds of bipolar. So it's movement between kind of elevated and depressed moods over consistent periods of time.

So a lot of media representation connotations of bipolar is like someone has kind of show it like a split personality. Like one minute she was happy and the next she was yelling at me. And that's actually really not what it's like. It's not that fast most of the time.

It can be like weeks of depression that creeps up on you until you're like, oh no, I lost all my functioning and somehow didn't notice. And then I know in May my credit card build is wild every year because the sun is shining a lot.

Like when the sun comes out, I get more manic and I really have to watch my spending. And that's like a seasonal thing that happens pretty much every year.

And so the longer you live with bipolar disorder, the better you get at catching yourself before it gets out of hand. That's why medication can sometimes help kind of diminish the rate of swing between your highs and lows.

Having people recognize like familiar with your symptoms can help kind of keep on top of things. So you know when you take a break before you hit a breaking point.

So there's a lot of day to day lifestyle things that people don't think about when it comes to bipolar. They think of heavy medication.

And while sometimes medication does play a big part, and I know it does in my characters lives in the book as well, a lot of the time it's the lifestyle stuff that we that really shapes the day to day movements of our life to make sure that we're safe and we're secure and we're able to take care of ourselves and be present for the people around us.

That's so interesting.

Yeah.

I had wanted to ask you about what treatment options and things that help the most...and it sounds like lifestyle is a huge part of it?

Here's one of the things, like there is, and I'm sure this is also similar in the US There is a shortage of psychiatrists in Canada.

So when you get to see a psychiatrist, it's like you see them for 10, 15 minutes maybe if you're not in an acute kind of case, you see them every couple of months. You check in, they're like, do you need more or less medication? Do you want to try something different?

And that's not enough to manage bipolar disorder. Like, there's a lot of things that you have to be conscious about, like working hours and diet and alcohol consumption and all of that kind of stuff. Sleep.

And so it's more like you have to be really, really conscious of your levels at all times and try to adjust accordingly and also hope that the people around you will be your teammates in adjustment rather than your enemies. Accommodations. And asking for them is a whole. I teach disability studies, and this is a whole situation that I talk about a lot about.

Learning to be able to articulate what you need without being seen as unreliable is, I think, one of the hardest things for people living with mental illness, because sometimes when you're honest, people take away your credibility. Even though the honesty and the power to ask for what you need is such a hugely commendable thing and actually helps everyone function better.

But so many people go through life, feel like they can't ask for what they need, and so things just go off the rails and then you get a bad rap anyway.

And so one of the things I teach my disability study students is like, learning to advocate for yourself is like kind of the first thing you learn living with a disability.

It's so hard to advocate for yourself, too, whether or not you have a mental illness. It's a really tough skill.

We're often conditioned to. To be less. Like, to be. I like the name of this podcast because we're.

We're often conditioned to be less, to not be too much or to be a lot or anything like that. We're asked to shrink ourselves, to be packageable. And I think that may get away with that for a while, but eventually it kind of implodes.

And so being honest and setting boundaries from the start helps set everyone's expectations so that you're able to fulfill the work that you want to do. You're able to be in relation with other people without them feeling disappointed or confused by your behavior.

But it took me a really long time to learn that. First, I lied and did a bunch of bad stuff. So as is normal.

I love the Tilly character in your book and her relationship with Dee and just seeing, like, how the sisters interact.

And I feel like Tilly is very much a lot and kind of owns it, whereas Dee is, like, kind of shrinking and not advocating for her needs that much for a while. It's interesting.

I do love that contrast because, you know, on the surface, Dee's like, I have this mental illness. I was in the hospital. I have to, like, hide parts of who I am.

And Tilley, who, you know, is going through her own stuff but is, like, generally neurotypical, is just herself.

And her behavior for many parts of the books is more eye catching than Dee's, but she just kind of owns it and moves through life in a way that I think De idolizes a little bit, but is also very afraid of for herself. Tilley is based on my best friend, who is definitely a ride or die kind of person.

But I think also when we were younger, she, you know, was trying to take care of me so much that I was. Maybe she was enabling some of my worst behaviors over time. We both. We've talked about this. You know, we're.

We're 10 years into friendship, and she was like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't have let you, like, jump into that fountain or, like, not go to school ever, or any of those things. But I think that it's something that you both kind of have to learn at the same time.

If one person figures it out before the other, it is generally less of a good conversation.

I'm curious about your journey to getting your bipolar diagnosis. Like, did you have any inkling of what was going on or how did you get to that point where you got diagnosed?

When I was first diagnosed, I was in high school, and it was. I was the class president, which feels very silly now that that was, like, a huge part of who I was.

And I had been having trouble at school, which was unusual for me.

I had received early admission to the University of Toronto, which is actually where I teach now, and I had a scholarship, and everything was aligning for me to be kind of the person I was in high school, in university, but I had mysteriously stopped going to class or handing in any work or showing up for anything. And I went to the doctor, and he put me on Prozac, which is a, you know, a commonly prescribed antidepressant.

The thing is, if you have bipolar, if you are put on a straight ssri, it causes what is called a switch. And so you swing the other way into mania.

So a lot of people find out they have bipolar by tracking their moods over a period of like, six months to a year. This was a real specific thing to happen at prom cottage, and it was real noticeable, and I was diagnosed basically immediately.

Wow. Was there any family history or anything, or was it, like, a total shock in that regard?

Both. Yeah. There was family history that they chose not to tell me about for five years. And so it was a total shock to me and not to my family. It was a shock when I found out later, and I felt very betrayed because I thought I was alone.

I was the only one who had this weird history. And I later found out I was in the same psychiatric ward as my grandfather was.

Wow.

Yes, I was a little surprised by that. But I think that in many families, mental illness is something that is kind of pushed down and hidden because of a deep sense of shame.

But at the same time, having that information and knowing that I was actually in kind of a lineage would have been comforting to me. I unfortunately never got to speak to my grandfather about this because I didn't find out until after he had passed.

And I always wonder what those conversations would be like. Yeah, maybe it would be a little bit scary because he had a very difficult life, it turns out.

I always wondered why he disappeared for, like, months or years at a time, and now I know why. But I think it would have been nice to feel less alone at that time.

That's such a shame that you never got to talk to him about it.

Yeah, I know. But, you know, there are other people in my life that I've been able to connect with.

I think having mad community and mad friendship is such an important thing. And so I've been lucky to find that in other places.

What does that term mean if people haven't heard that before? Mad community, mad friendship.

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, there's a lot of history of marginalized communities reclaiming the language.

And so "mad" is something that has been used as an insult that has been kind of reclaimed as an alternate way of knowing. It's kind of like a crip wisdom.

And so it's thinking about all the things you learn when you have mental illness as being a kind of knowledge and power, even if it goes unrecognized by the other people around you. And so I really lean into that.

I was recently in a collection of scholarly essays about MAD methodologies, and that people with mental illness and neurodiversity divergence often have very unique, specific ways of doing Things that a lot of people can actually learn from, but they're not always appreciated or articulated in a way that is recognizable. And so it was cool to be in a whole collection of scholars who had their own ways of doing things, and then putting those all together.

That's super cool. What are some of your, like, mad superpowers or ways you see things differently?

Oh, yes. So one of the big things I being a mentor for young people at university, which I know you are as well, which I think is really cool, is there.

Okay, there is this quote about crip time by Ellen Samuels. If you've read six ways of looking at Crip time.

And the idea is that crip time is we are refusing to bend our bodies around a clock, and instead we kind of meld time to. To work with the needs of our brains and bodies.

And so a lot of the teaching that I do is asking, like, why does success have to look the same for everyone? What kind of employment allows us to take care of ourselves and still contribute in a way that is meaningful?

When I was growing up, after I was diagnosed, my parents really wanted me to get a 9 to 5 job because they were like, well, that will prove that you're successful and, well. And so I got a 9 to 5 job, and I was like, okay, this is it gonna. Gonna thrive now.

And I immediately, like, fell off the face of a cliff and on disability leave, like, immediately. And I applied to creative writing school.

And so a lot of what I do now is I'm like, what kind of alternate futures can we imagine outside of what is expected of us to be successful that will actually allow us, like, how do we create the capacity conditions for success, knowing who we are as individuals?

And so I think my superpower is weird Jobs doing things that are meaningful and contribute and are cool and fun and also sustainable in terms of disability.

I love that. Yeah.

I feel like you and I have kind of patched together similar lives of, like, I have my teaching, I have my consulting, the podcast, all these different things that keep me really busy and, like, work for my brain and my lifestyle. I worked a 9 to 5 in a job which was like, a total fishbowl office setting. And with my adhd, it was just so distracting.

And having people, like, popping up and talking and having all these side conversations is like, this is awful.

I can never get any amount of deep work done, and now I just have all these things that are catered to my interests, and I can really, like, focus and go deep on my own or not.

It's nice to have that choice and also to be able to take time for yourself when you're not feeling a hundred percent. Like, that was the hardest thing about working in person in corporate is that they expect me to show up the same every day. And that's having bipolar.

That's just not what happens. Some days I have what I call a bad brain, and I just need a little bit more time, a little bit more momentum. I have to move my body.

I have to take a little bit of extra care before I can be visible in that way. And so that's why lecturing has been great for me, because I'm only on campus two days a week, and the other days are very flexible.

And so I structure my whole life around being able to present during the times that I need it. But I'm very gentle with myself in other times when I can kind of retreat into my little cave.

That's great. That sounds like such a perfect structure for you right now.

That's good. And also, you get to work with people who love books. And that is really a cool thing about teaching creative writing.

Have you seen much AI use coming up lately? I know that was huge for me this semester. It has just blown up so much compared to the last couple years.

I didn't teach this semester. I took it. I doing kind of a different job where I'm running book events for the college, which has been really fun.

But, yes, I have heard from my colleagues that I think there was, if I'm remembering this correctly, there was, like, an update over the summer that made ChatGPT, like, way more intense to deal with. And so there has been a big influx. My best friend is actually the Tilly character is an AI. She's an AI researcher. And so.

And they're sending her AI and it's. It's like, she's gonna catch you. She's an expert.

I do find in creative writing, I know that colleagues that across many disciplines are getting a lot of AI paper. But I'm teaching a class that is not mandatory. Like, I'm teaching creative writing.

So if you're in a creative writing class, chances are you want to write. And so I don't get. I don't really get it as nearly as badly as a lot of my colleagues and even more like.

Like, critical analysis, English lit classes, like, they're getting way more than I am. But that is not to say that it. It's not happening.

And I try to explain in my syllabus that, you know, with the anthropic lawsuit that creative writing and authorship as a profession is being threatened by the use of these, like, AI generated works that are based on people's stolen work and then dilute the market. So it's so much harder for authors to. To sell books and especially diverse authors.

And so I try to outline that really clearly, because if you want to be a writer, like, you're part of that battle, if you're a reader, like your dollars and where you choose to put your money behind, that really matters.

And so I talk a lot about the ethics of publishing in the beginning of the course to really set the understanding of the books that we're reading and why it's so important that we read them now.

That's so important. Yeah. I'm glad you're doing that for your students.

We have a nanny who took a creative writing class in the spring, and she mentioned that, like, at her table she sat at, four of the other kids out of five were using AI for their creative writing. And it, like, broke my heart a little bit. I don't know why you would even be in that class if you're gonna AI your creative work.

That is so sad. And the. Just the joy and satisfaction you get out of, like, working really hard on a draft that takes a while. Like, it's pretty.

Yeah, it's pretty rewarding. I don't know why you'd want to cheat yourself out of that.

And it's a form of self expression too, instead of, like, letting a machine slop out something for you, you know, just. We'll see how things keep progressing there. I want to talk a little bit more about the book itself.

What kind of stereotypes of bipolar did you want to write against when you sat down to work on Never Been Better?

A lot of people don't want to read books about mental illness because they're like, oh, I don't want to be sad. And I'm like, yeah, I know. Like, I'm not. I'm not saying living with mental illness is a cakewalk. Like, I would be the first to be like, I experience some. Some tough things. But there's also so much mad joy and community that I found, like, being in mental health spaces, meeting other people with different diagnoses than me.

I wanted to kind of touch on that, that insider's club of living with mental illness and the joy you get when you meet someone who sees you for who you are and doesn't ask you to be different. Like, that's really the core of Never Been Better.

Will you give us a quick elevator pitch for any listeners who haven't heard of the book before?

of course. So Never Been Better is My Best Friend's Wedding if everybody had mental illness. And I said that to my publisher and they're like, yeah, we can put that somewhere on the book. And they did. It basically says that. And so it's an unconventional rom com in that it's a bit of a love triangle.

But in this case, love and recovery are so deeply entwined. Matt, Misa and Dee are all psych ward survivors, and Matt and Misa are getting married a year after their discharge and going to the wedding to ruin it.

De a lot of complicated feelings about what she where she should be at this point in time, how other people are moving on without her, and how insecure she is about the recovery that she's had in comparison.

And so it's a book that is a love triangle, but the love triangle highlights a lot of feelings about mental health recovery and the idea that there's this magical finish line that we cross and then it never catches us again, which is not really what it feels like. I think that mental health recovery is something that you're participating in every single day, and some days are better than others.

So it's a bit of a. Of a breakdown of some of the rom com tropes where the characters end up together and then everything is magical. They're like, well, we're going to a wedding and everything is not magical.

I love that. That was, like, such a fun read for me. And I loved the humor that you had throughout the book. Like, it's just so funny the entire time, pretty much.

How do you write funny? I know it's really not as easy as people might think to write a funny book.

It is, I would say, as a creative writing teacher, humor is like the hardest thing to teach because, I don't know, it's a lot of it is the way that it sounds on the page. Like, I read a lot of my lines over and over again out loud to get the jokes just right. I do the same thing.

You know, I make mental health greeting cards. I do the same process for the greeting cards because the way it rings through you really matters.

And that's something I always talk about with my students. Like, does the humor rings throughout through. Do you give it enough space to breathe?

But on the flip side, I'm also someone who thinks that if you can't laugh about mental illness, it's probably crushing you and you have to laugh a little bit to survive. You have to have your mental health friends who you can call and be like, I'm a blanket burrito help.

And that is a coping strategy and also a very time honored practice of finding the funny when you need something to hold on to. And so Never Been Better is not the first book I thought I would write. I was going to write a hard hitting literary memoir about mental illness.

And then every time I sat down to write it, I cried. And then I was going to fail school because I didn't finish the book.

And Mona Awad, who's the author of Bunny and many other bestselling books, was like, leah, are you having fun at all? Like, do you like writing anymore? And I was like, no. And she was like, what makes you happy? And I had this very silly rom com short story.

It was only about 3,000 words tucked away in my drawer and I decided to open it and I kept writing and I kept writing and it accordioned out into an 80,000 word novel.

Wow, that's awesome. I'm so glad she gave you that push to go in that direction.

I was very, very lucky. Of course, in an MFA there's not so many rom coms coming out of mfa, so I was lucky to be in a program that really embraced different genres.

Like in my year there's someone writing a mystery novel, someone writing a super volcano apocalypse, when writing a queer YA romance, like there was a lot of good spread, which you don't always hear about in lit programs. And so I was appreciative that there was a lot of opportunity to do things in a way that felt right and honest to you.

And I'm very glad that this is my first book because there is so much to talk about. It hits on all the things that I care about, like, you know, the mental health storyline, neocolonialism on a destination.

If you're in a destination wedding, you're not talking about the politics of the island. I think that's very weird. And also Japanese Canadian history and internment plays a role in Misa's story.

And so these are all things that maybe people wouldn't read a fun book about.

But as packaged as a beach read with a really fun narrative structure or recognizable thing, I think it makes people more willing to learn about some of the other issues that underline the idea of, well, being in this day and age.

That was one of my favorite parts of the book, the way you worked in things like gentrification and neocolonialism. And I was like getting really irritated reading Goodreads reviews yesterday with people Being like, I think she tried to do too much with this book.

There's all this stuff in there. And I'm like, that's like, the best part. Like, I just got so much out of it. I couldn't formulate a question to ask you about it.

But I don't know if you want to share any more thoughts about those topics.

I think that, you know, I'm a scholar who specializes in race and citizenship studies and the things that allow us or deny us acceptance.

And so I don't think you can talk about mental health and well being without thinking about some of the racial histories that underpin many diasporic communities in North America. I think that it's important to talk about access to mental health care, like, even more so in the US like, the access is so uneven and...but even in Canada, people who have more resources have more options. Like, they can go to a private mental health center instead of being on a wait list for a bed that will take a year to arrive.

And so I just think that even my personal experiences, like, they are political in a way, because I've learned about how the system works and doesn't work. And I just, I hope that it helps people, you know, think about the way that people with mental illness are asked to exist in some of these spaces.

Everything that Dee was saying throughout the book to different people on the island just really resonated with me and how uncomfortable she felt, like, not belonging and knowing, like, the history of the island and all of that. Like, I just really appreciated her sharing those observations and not pushing them down. So. Thought that was very well done.

Thank you. Yeah, we should tell all of the Goodreads. Yeah, that is one that comes up sometimes. I don't look very often.

Yeah, I was wondering, because I feel like it could be bad for one's mental health to read their Goodreads reviews.

Sometimes I don't really mind because the thing is, like, you know, when I was publishing this books, I was like, I read a super universal rom com. And then later on my publishers was like, no, this is a pretty niche book. Like, it's a psych ward survivor love triangle.

Like, what matters the most is when psych ward survivors read it. And then they write me letters. I get a lot of mail from psych ward survivors that are like, I've never seen a book like this before.

And then I remember, like, it's funny being in an industry. And I'm. I'm not like, I don't think I'm like, pure romance. I'M kind of like romance adjacent.

But it is a miracle that this book exists because it's so specific and I am really proud that I got to come into the world. And I get these. It's a book that people recommend when their loved ones are going through hard times or coming out of the psych ward.

It's actually, I wrote it to be safe, as safe as it could be for people who are like in recovery.

And I think that it achieved those goals and regardless of what other goals it didn't achieve, in terms of like being a super universal read, I think that's okay because it's a book that I really feel like I could have used when I was in the hospital 15 years ago or 13 years ago, whatever it was. And I'm. I'm so glad that I got to grow alongside it and bring it out at a time that it was needed.

I was curious about your own experiences in the hospital too. Was it very similar to what Matt and Misa and Dee went through or was it radically different? How did it look?

So I have a lot of psych ward experience not being a patient as well because after I was kicked out of the psych ward, like D, I asked too many questions. This is a common aspect of my personality.

I hate, I hate incompetence and subpar treatment.

And so when I, after the, the correct amount of time had passed for me being a psych ward patient, I went back to hospitals in Toronto and I started teaching in psych ward there. And so I would say, like D, Matt and Issa all have very different experiences within the ward.

And so I tried to kind of use a wide range of understandings of psych wards, even though it's situated in just one, to get at the different barriers that people face within them. And so men's mental health was a really huge one. I'm glad I had Matt's character to, to talk about that quite a bit.

The idea of medication being used to as kind of like a compartmental tool to kind of restrain people as opposed to like improve their well being, that is definitely something that I've seen a lot of. But also teaching in these spaces, they're like, they're incredibly underfunded for the most part.

So as much as maybe some of the staff in Never Been Better aren't acting in the best way, they also are at the same time, I feel for them because they are trying to do their best with so little. And so all of those complexities kind of play out on the page. But getting to teach in those wards, that's the one thing.

Like going in and spending time with people who have, you know, not a lot of freedom, not a lot to occupy their time. Although I hear now you're allowed more technology than you used to be.

It's really special to be in that space and just give your time and, like, build a community within that. So I'm really grateful that, you know, even now I still get to do that. I still get to return to those spaces and make them better for other people.

What a cool experience to get to go back and do that.

I do not do it in the actual hospital I was in, but they did ask me to be in a PR campaign.

Interesting.

And then I was like, do you guys know what my book is about? And then they asked me to not be in the PR campaign.

Wow, that's funny. Before we take a quick break, I do want to ask one more thing about the book itself.

Did you ever have a version where Dee and Matt actually ended up together?

Oh, you know, when I was writing it, I didn't decide who was gonna end up with anyone. I just wrote it, which is, you know, not how you're supposed to write romance. I have learned that since.

But because I was coming out of an mfa, there was, like, no background in romance. And I just. I like romance. I had. I'd read some, and I was like, you know what I think to make it the most interesting for me as a writer?

I'm not gonna know what happens, and I'm gonna write it through. Write through the characters, and I'm gonna see what the best ending is. And that'.

And that's why I actually think it's a tough ending to predict, because I didn't know either. And the characters kind of just grew on the page. Next time, I will not do it that way because it is terrible for editing. Like, the worst. My.

Yeah, I imagine that's a lot.

My editorial team, especially. Especially my Canadian one who had it before my American team. I owe them the world. They were like, where are you taking what is happening?

And they made it such a stronger product because by the end, it has to be like, everything was meant to happen like this all along. And so writing a book, just pantsing is a little bit of a chaotic choice, I would say, in terms of the genre I was writing in.

That's so interesting to hear about all of this. Speaking of chaos, we'll get into raising a toddler, but let's take a quick little break and we'll get into parenthood after that.

All right, just one more mental health question I wanted to ask. I'm curious.

Early on in your mental health journey, the first days of knowing about your bipolar diagnosis, what did you think life would look like at this point when you're in your 30s now?

I mean, I used to worry I wouldn't make it to my 30s. Like, I had a suicide attempt in my teens and another one in my early 20s.

And I think when you're like, really in the throes of mental illness, it's very hard to see past tomorrow. Like, it's very hard to imagine your future because you're just kind of carrying, carrying all of this pain and it feels impossible to think.

And your brain also tricks you into saying, like, it's never going to get better. This is just what it's like. It's better to not be here.

And I think the thing that I tell folks living with mental illness is like, you have to kind of outweigh that. Like there, there is so much more coming. But mental illness tries to take away your time for you to actually see that happen for you.

And so you're always trying to give yourself more time, outweigh those bad feelings so that you're able to see more clearly and see what's coming for you. And so I was on 21 different medications. And when I finally found one that worked, I mean, that was how many years I wouldn't have problem in.

Seven years, about three medications a year. And there were times where I just gave up, went off on medications, and I was like, worse than ever before.

And it was hard because you're just waiting to feel better. You're doing other things to grow yourself and get better coping skills, strategies. But it is a hard game to play.

And so I couldn't always picture this time in my life because that time in my life was so bad. But I'm really, really glad that I, I kept. You got to throw everything at the wall when it comes to mental health stuff and find what sticks for you.

It's not the same as what sticks for other people. Cold plunging is actually one that works for me very well.

I haven't really tried it. I usually I'll do like a brief little splash of cold in the shower that my therapist always recommends. And I'm like, no, no.

Oh, I love the 2 minute ice tub plunge. I started doing it to try and fight, to practice for anxiety attacks. I used to have really, really bad anxiety attacks.

But then I learned that if my brain was kind of like a little too hot. Like I was running Clistomania, I could kind of like cool it down.

And if I was in depression, it kind of like shocked me out of depression for a little bit. And so it's something I still use to use in my practice. But yeah, I never. Here's the one thing.

I always thought I was like, I can barely take care of myself. Like, I'll never be able to take care of anyone else. I wrote like a bunch of essays about how I would never be a mom.

And I like handed them into my undergraduate professor who's now my neighbor. And so he like knows me as an adult now.

And it's like, oh my God, you remember all these essays you wrote about your terrible ex boyfriends and you're never having kids. Like, look at you and you're looking your house into a pirate ship for Halloween. And it is like, it is a bit of a 180, gotta say.

Yeah. That's amazing to see how far you've come.

I think that I. I probably could have pictured it, but I just didn't believe that I was worthy of good things or that I was capable of working towards them. I think mental illness kind of feels like this weird suspension in time where you're never going to escape that time either in a good or bad way.

You're just kind of step there.

And so once I was able to more clearly recognize the progress I actually was making, even though it wasn't the same as everybody else's progress, I mean, I worked at a mini pet course for like a really long time because it was the only job that I could do without getting fired because I would like scare customers because I cried so much. I think you just have to know that that progress is at your own pace and not compare yourself to other people.

And then one day you can look back and be like, oh, I actually did like a lot of stuff that was good for me and that's really cool.

My husband has struggled with depression for a long time and I feel like I always have to remind him of how much progress he's made. Because when you look back, it's very evident.

but you miss the insight. Like that's when it's bipolar too. Like that's one of the first things to go. So you can't.

It's hard to make decisions or plan because you can't really see like fully what is happening around you. So.

So getting into like toddler mom life, how old is your son and what are some of his interests lately?

Niko is two and a quarter and he's super into Thomas the Train, which is cool. I have recently learned there are. There are multiple iterations of Thomas the Train.

Like, there's like the old school Thomas the Train and then there's like the new guys that are in the more modern stuff, which I think the visuals are a little less terrifying. Sometimes with Thomas episodes, I'm like, this is actually creepy.

I don't know if I like this, but some of the newer, sleeker looking trains are also in the mix. And so.

So, like, most modern one is pretty creepy, I thought the CGI kind of Thomas and Friends, one that went.

It moves too fast for me. I like when the treats are. There's too much. But he likes the names of those ones better. He loves, like, Canna and Nia and he, like.

He likes that they're all. He seems to know them better. I don't know. We.

Sometimes we can watch the old ones on YouTube and he gets really scared because it is, like, kind of shadowy, like. And the funny thing about it, I'm always.

I have one of the old Thomas books and it's kind of like, well, Thomas, I hope you've learned that you can keep busy by yourself and be a very useful engine. And I'm like, what kind of capitalists?

Oh, yeah.

Like, we're like, your whole life should be work. And even if you're not appreciated for, I'm like, I'm a little suspicious of old Thomas. Gotta be real.

It's very like, capitalist hustle. Culture. Productivity bro.

There's an episode where it's like, Thomas had his first day off ever. And then the other story, it's like, he just did this 10,000th delivery. I was like, what do you mean this train's never had a day off? Everybody needs a day off!

There's actually a great Jia Tolentino article, I don't know if you've read it, about the fascism of the Thomas world and how, like, the fat conductor is a fascist and it's like a totalitarian state and all this stuff. It's really funny.

I gotta read it because I noticed in the new version they tried to make Sir Tophamm Hat cooler. And I was like, sir Tophamm Hat will never be cool.

In the really old ones, he's called the fat conductor too. So they switched him to Sir Tophamm Hat, which is interesting.

I have to read this article. I am.

Yeah, yeah.

He just got a bunch of Thomas stuff for, for Christmas, so I'm gonna have to swallow all of these down.

But, yeah, my stepmom gave our son a Thomas set, from, a hand me down one. So he's got the old magnetic ones, which is fun.

Oh, yeah. So cute.

I guess we could talk about Thomas for the whole rest of the interview, but we should probably move on. You mentioned you've written in the past about, like, never going to be a parent. What made you feel ready to make the leap eventually and go for it?

Yeah, I mean, it took me a really long time. Even my husband and I were getting married. Like, I. I said, I was like, I don't know if I'm going to have kids or not. And he was like, that's okay.

And we got married. And I definitely, you know, after you get married, sometimes people are like, oh, are you going to have kids? And I was like, I don't know.

Like, well, we'll see. But I did. I think my medication evened out a lot towards, like, around the time I met my husband. And I was.

I stopped working in corporate and I was kind of teaching more, and I was feeling like I could take on more. Like, the things that used to be really big challenges for me were like, they were so insurmountable. I saw they were so insurmountable at the time.

But as I got perspective, it's like, oh, this is actually, like, a little bum. I don't have to let it kind of destroy the entire rest of my week.

And so I got, I think, better and better at handling crises and also, like, cutting myself off before I headed into a crisis. And I. I gained the confidence over time, and I asked my doctor to go off of medication. So it took me two years.

So I had two years to emotionally repair because I couldn't have a kid on the medication I was on. One of them, I had. One of them was okay, and one of them wasn't.

And so I spent two years going off this medication before I could even think about it. And then I always thought I would. I didn't know how I'd, like, consciously choose. Like, how will I know when I'm ready?

And so when it sold in the U.S. belatedly, it pushed my pub date by a year. And I had been originally being like, oh, well, once my book comes out, I can, like, think about having a child and figure that out.

And so I was like, I think we should see what happens. I was doing math, but, like, math doesn't matter. You never know what's happening with the math.

But I was like, I. I think I would like to find out what's happening. And so I was like, let's. Let's try. Maybe. I. You can't plan your life like that. Like, you.

You always want to be like, oh, I want to do this career thing first. And then when I had this perfect window where nothing is happening, I will have a child and do. And that's. That window doesn't exist.

And I. I, in my heart knew that. And so I was like, this is the chaos thing that we're doing right now. And so I had. Nico came six months before my book came out.

So I was in labor doing my US cover reveal.

Oh, my gosh.

On the day to the hospital, I was like, it's like, go do this. I'm disappearing from the internet for, like, several months.

Wow.

It's a very, it was a very Leanne schedule. And then I was touring with Niko, like, six months later. He came with me to a lot of my, my stops because I was breastfeeding, so he had to come with me. And he's a very good flyer, thanks to the timing of all of this. And we just did it. Like, I have a very supportive husband.

He is a remote, like a mostly work from home job, very flexible, very family oriented company. So I was lucky. Like, my husband kind of, he was like, this is your year to do stuff.

And he did so much to make sure that I was able to be well so that I could be there for Nico and be there for my book. Because, you know, with bipolar disorder, the chances of postpartum psychosis are really high.

And so the risk was like, for that whole first year, like, would I go into psychosis and blow up everything? And I was very lucky. I did not. I did get postpartum depression twice right at the beginning.

And then also when I stopped breastfeeding, I didn't know that was the second danger window. I found that out very hard. But luckily I was in London for. And so I was like, I am wildly depressed and crying every day.

I'm like, but I'm in my favorite city in the world. So it was. Yeah, it was a very challenging first year and. But I'm so glad that it happened.

I think it happened the way it was supposed to happen, even though it was a chaos whirlwind.

I was gonna ask about the postpartum period for you because I know it can be so hard even without a condition like bipolar. So it, I'm sure it was rough that first year.

I had to do a lot of. So I was in a high risk pregnancy program because of my, my condition.

And so actually after I gave birth, I had to live in the hospital for about a week while they kept an eye on me. Because the, the window is like the biggest immediately. And so they actually like the nurses take your baby at night and feed him.

Like feed them formula so that you can sleep. Because if you don't sleep through the night, that's when you get sick. And that first window is really, really hard.

And so I know that from some of my other mom plans that there's. Some people would not be able to do that. Like they would be very uncomfortable with that.

But I, in my brain, I was kind of like, this is what I have to do to make sure that I'm there in the long run for my baby. I was like, I have to make this sacrifice now so that I'm able to stay stable because that's the most important thing.

And so I make trade offs like that. Like my husband was probably more involved than other than a lot of people that I have talked to.

Actually I went to some mom groups and I was like, oh, I have a very different situation. But I have to because of my disability. Like he did so much of.

He actually got depression before I did because he burned himself out trying to make sure that I was protected. But over time we have found a really good rhythm. But it was like pretty hard the first six months especially.

I'm so glad you had your husband for all that support though. It is pretty shocking to hear some stories of other women and like very unhelpful husbands with a baby.

I went to a mom group I don't think I made for. I was like, I don't know what it is. I'm so friendly. I love meeting people. I did not have a good time at mom groups. I don't know what it is about me.

I was. But I remember we went to mom group once and there was. Yeah, there was like they were talking about this podcast. I don't know. I'm not.

I actually don't know that many podcasts. I'm not very cool. But it was a podcast about why I hate my husband. I don't know if this Rings a bell.

I've heard of it, maybe? it sounds vaguely familiar.

And they were all like, yeah, it was. It was just a very. I realized how lucky I was because I. My husband had done so much to help me, so I didn't get sick.

But I think, like, so much, like, gender expectation is enforced that a lot of women do it all, and that's just normalized. And so I really saw that come out, and I knew that was never an option for me because I would immediately get sick.

But I felt like I. I don't know, I felt a little bit funny. Like, I knew I was doing parenting a bit different than most people already because of. Because of my illness.

But I think when I went there and I heard, yeah, I was like, oh, I've been. This is a very different experience. And that. And that's okay.

I've always had to do stuff a little bit differently, just generally, but I couldn't really, I would think I get talk shop with moms the same way because, like, I had to give up a lot of responsibility at the beginning so that I didn't get sick.

There are so many parenting styles, too, that, like, don't resonate with me in different ways.

Or I hear a lot of people talking about ways of doing it online or, like, I go to a library, and all the moms are, like, acting a certain kind of way, and I'm like, oh, that's. This is not really how I want to do this. I don't know if you could relate to that at all, or.

Yeah.

And everyone does stuff differently, and I don't want, like, I mean, I do think it is, like, I do think what I saw in that mom's group, I was like, oh, this is like a wider. This is a definitely, like, a giant problem that I don't know that, like, a lot of my friends haven't had kids. Like, a lot of my friends are artists.

The timeline of artist life is always a little bit. We never know what we're doing. I have somehow become one of the more square people that I know, which is alarming because I, I'm not very square.

But, you know, there's a lot of different ways of, of doing things. And even I went to the mom group, and they. I, I remember I had a. I was doing a really big book event, and they were, like, horrified. I had to.

I was going away, and I was pumping for, like, three days.

I, I, I was going away for, like, two or three days, and they were so, like, shocked that I was going I spent like six years working on this book, and I got invited to do this thing, and I'm. I'm gonna go. And they were like, what do you mean you're going on a work trip? I was like, I gotta. I gotta do it.

And you wanted to do it, I assume, like, it. It's okay to want to do things other than your. Your kids, childcare.

I think that one of the things I like about having a weird life is there's many things that make me happy and I love. I feel lucky that I get to move my attention between all of these things that I love.

And I feel like I love being a mom, but there's also things that I love at the same time as being a mom. Being a writer is a really big one. Being a teacher, I would miss any of that if it was gone.

And I don't feel like you have to give up all the other things you love or you shouldn't have to do that. But sometimes it felt like if I wasn't sacrificing myself at all times to be a mom, was I a good mom? I think that I'm actually like a.

A good mom because I get to renew my energy with all of these cool things that I care about. And I hope that when my son grows up, I hope that he also learns to care about a lot of things and curate a. A wide variety of.

Of interests and know a lot of different people, because that's the way you get to know the world best, I think, if you have diverse perspectives. But it felt like it was a bit of a sin to have diverse interests in some of those early years. But I would sneak away. Like, my.

My parents would come and watch Nico sometimes when. When he was napping, so I could. I would literally just go two minutes down the street to the coffee shop and I would maybe.

He napped usually for an hour and a half. When he was young, I was lucky. He was a good sleeper. And I would just get an hour and a half of writing.

For me, it's for my book coming out, so it was still work. But that hour and a half gave me so much more energy for the rest of the day that I wouldn't have sacrificed it.

It'll be so cool for him to be able to look back and see photos of him at events with you. And he was teeny tiny. Like, I'm sure he'll be so proud.

Yeah. And the color of the book helps. He really does like blue.

Have you thought at all about, like, as he Gets older how you'll start to teach him about mental health stuff just for himself to like take care of his own mental health and to like learn about your journey as he gets older.

So he's, he's definitely my son. He's very aware of emotions. Like when kids are crying. Park he, he'll stop what he's doing. He's like, mama, like that boy is crying.

And sometimes he'll show me stuff. To him I'll be. But like, like he's sad, like he needs a hug. Like he's very good at articulating emotions.

I think he knows that like he's, he's seen me sad. Like I try not to let him see so much, but like he, he can tell when I'm not feeling well. And so he's very empathetic.

And we have some, some books that are helpful. Like the, I think one of them is called the Hotel of Grand Feelings, which is like, which talks about all the different kind of feelings.

And you visit those rooms and then you go to a different room and there's movement between all the rooms. So nothing is forever in this state, even if it is a hard state or a state of exhilaration.

We move through all of these rooms together is kind of the feeling of the book. So that's been really helpful. We also have one of those inside out octopuses, the happy sad octopus.

And weirdly I remember my sister giving me that and being like, it's you. And like I think my son feels the same. He's like, it's the happy sad octopus. He loves that octopus.

But mostly we want to normalize, I guess mood disorders for him. Like we've never been like this is Bible or anything like that.

But we talk about like that emotions move and that it's not forever and we got to take a deep breath and things will look better later. And that's kind of. And also we, we do this thing like when he falls down. Like all kids when they fall down, they, they get very upset.

And so my husband always asks him when he falls down, he's like, why do we fall down? And he says to get back up. Aw, it's really cute. So they have that mantra to say. Also makes him less upset about falling.

Like he's like, oh yes, this has happened before. And we say we kind of, it is fleeting.

And so I, I kind of like those verbal cues for, for him and those routines to help him know that like the way we feel in a given moment isn't how we feel forever. And there, there is some comfort in that, in that change.

That's really cool. I'm excited for this generation of kids. I feel like they'll have so much more awareness of emotions and be able to navigate it better because parents are like trying so hard to teach it. Well.

I'm always interested in, in hearing people's like techniques for that. Like how do you navigate emotions?

So I know motherhood can be a lot and so many different ways. What are some of the things about being a mom that like take up a lot of spoons or mental energy for you?

I can be sensory overstimulated pretty easily. Like the quickest way to make me unwell is to put me in a mall. Like I'm very bad at being in a mall.

And so toddler meltdowns are really hard to process sometimes. Cause I like my brain is like, oh, I want to shut down. But you can't shut down. You have to be present.

And so coming up with coping strategies that work not just for him but also for me when it gets really, really loud has been important. That is a really hard one. Lack of sleep was. Yeah, it was definitely an ongoing challenge, but I think we're pretty good now. He's a good sleeper. Although he always wants to take his trains to bed and oh, the fans don't need some sleep over here.

We're only reading train books before bedtime lately.

Yes, I would like, I would like to read more diversified non-vehicular books but. Well, we'll get there, we'll get there. but. so that is hard.

Also I've always done a lot of different things and like contact switched but context switching from work to playing. Like I'm a very intense player with Niko, like that's really hard.

I, I like, I want to be super present with him and so I have to really be clear about my working and non working hours so that I'm able to, to like not feel guilt about working or not working when I'm doing those things. Like that has been a big one to be like they know this is what my life is like and we're going to operate around these clear boundaries.

I struggle with that. Like if I'm watching him in the morning, I might just check my work email real quick. And then before I know it, I've checked it five times in the past hour and I feel so guilty and can be really tough sometimes. The boundaries help though.

I broke my phone. It was great.

Perfect fix.

It was a work email I haven't logged into in a month and. Wow, that is okay. I'm giving myself that space.

Yeah. Well, one last question before we wrap up. I'd love to hear about parts of parenthood that are bringing you the most joy lately.

I think the coolest thing about having a kid is, like, you get to be with them as they're experiencing things you take for granted for the first time. And so just walking down the street is so much more fun. Like, I'm looking for things.

I'm noticing colors, I'm noticing something sounds in a way that, like, I think we have a tendency where I'm going to put my headphones and just get to where I need to be. And like, the walks, like the journeys there are such a huge part of the adventure now. And I, I love that I'm in no rush to get anywhere.

And also I'm very slow because we walk very slow.

We have a library within walking distance from us and it is like a five minute walk, but now it takes much longer. But if we see like a dump truck on the way to the library, it's the best day ever.

It's nice to find the joy in those little things and then also not take some of the other things in your life so seriously. Because at the end of the day, it's those, those small joys that really, that's what you remember.

Like, you're not going to remember the word email you didn't respond to in an hour or whatever. It is like the dump truck matters more.

Totally. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, Leanne. It was really fun talking to you.

Thank you so much for having me. This was so great.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchador Podcast network.

Remember, listeners, dump trucks always matter.