A note to our listeners, this episode contains mention of suicidality and child sexual abuse.

Grab some extra shoes, perhaps a fleece.

Let's pack a couple sandwiches for the road because you and I are going on a trip.

It's Depression Mode. I'm John Moe. I'm glad you're here. Okay, fine. It's not really a road trip.

It's a trip inside someone's mind.

And it's a long trip that goes a whole lot of places, places in the mind, in a mind that you probably haven't been

before. Now, major depressive disorder is a real thing. Generalized anxiety disorder is a real thing.

Those experiences are very, very common. If you think you don't know anyone with depression,

well, yes, you do. Today, we're going to some rarer places, places that are just, you didn't

know humans did that. We're going to talk about one person's, one very eloquent and descriptive

persons, life with psychosis, with schizoaffective disorder,

with cotard's delusion, her life in the most prestigious level of higher education,

and how shockingly bad her mental health was handled there.

And we'll talk about the complex post-traumatic stress disorder that she has recently identified as perhaps

being a really major contributor to all of it. And sure, you may have depression and not some of

these more extreme conditions. You probably do, but I think you'll find that you can relate,

because all of mental health is on a continuum.

It forms a spectrum.

We're all on it somewhere together.

And while it can be distressing, of course, it and we are pretty fascinating.

Esmee Wee-Jun Wang is a brilliant writer based in San Francisco.

She's the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir The Collected Schizophrenias.

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