Welcome to Why Not Me, the World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mayator.

Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee.

Join us as our guests tell us their stories.

Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry.

Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world.

Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,

and a better understanding for autism around the world.

Hi, I'm Tony Mantor.

Welcome to Why Not Me the World, Humanity Over Handcuffs Special Event. Joining us today is Patrick Kennedy, a retired American politician and mental health advocate. He was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives who served from 1995 to 2011. As the youngest son of Senator Ted

Kennedy and nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former Senator Robert Kennedy,

he joins us to share his journey of becoming a mental health advocate. We are honored to have him

join us today. Thanks for coming on. Oh, thank you for having me.

It's my pleasure. You've written a lot of bills while you was in the house. What kind of strategies

went into formulating those bills to try and get them passed so the outcome is, of course,

helping the people that needed? It was more driven out of first this general interest to promote mental health and addiction.

I instinctively knew that this was a marginalized population.

And I definitely think that my having grown up in my family really sensitized me to that,

with my aunt starting Special Olympics and with my dad's work to try to build health care coverage.

And in addition to the Americans with Disability Act, we need something similar to advocate for

mental health and addiction. And of course, my own experience as a policymaker made me realize

that we had siloed the elements of an advocacy movement so that everybody was defined by their

diagnoses rather than defined by their diagnoses, rather than defined by their needs,

...