What It's Like to Be a Spokesperson for Mad Pride
![Times1[1].jpg](http://trouble.philadelphiaweekly.com/archives/Times1%5B1%5D.jpg)
This is my latest column from the print edition of Philadelphia Weekly. It can also be found online here. It's about what life is like after appearing in The New York Times. One-word answer: freaky!
I seem to have become a spokesperson.Last week I was just me, Liz Spikol, the person who talked a little too freely to the cashier at the convenience store. Or Liz Spikol, the person who fell asleep on the trolley and dropped her umbrella so someone almost tripped over it. Or Liz Spikol, the columnist/blogger who people read (or didn’t read) between doing other things that were probably more important.
But that was before I was me: Liz Spikol.
Now that I’m famous and a spokesperson, those two words look different. It reminds me of what Shania Twain, whose real name is Eilleen, said once about seeing her name in print. She said it’s okay when articles about “Shania” make her seem like a stranger because she doesn’t really know her either. She’s just Eilleen.
I wish I’d remembered that before I spoke with a reporter from The New York Times a couple weeks ago. I might have considered a name change.
There’s something about seeing one’s name in The New York Times—as I did two Sundays ago—that makes you really see it for the first time.What kind of name is “Liz”? It’s one letter longer than an exhalation. And while “Spikol” may have its roots in nobility—or it may not—it’s an uncomfortable jumble of letters whose only merit is that, after the S, they’re all in a line on a keyboard. It’s QWERTY-friendly—that’s the very best thing you can say of my last name.
It would also have been good to change my name to dilute, just a bit, the surprise of family and friends when they said, “You look so gorgeous in that photo!” as though photographer Shea Roggio had dumped a bagabigabyte of Photoshop onto my face to make it look so pretty.
I’ll have you know Roggio doesn’t even use Photoshop or a digital camera. He lives on a mountaintop in a yurt with just a film camera and some modest indoor plumbing.
But my name is the same, and so it is that “Liz Spikol” now means something that it didn’t mean 14 days ago.
The piece “‘Mad Pride’ Fights a Stigma,” by Gabrielle Glaser, was about people with mental illnesses being more open about their experiences. She equated the “mad pride” movement to gay pride, and quoted the Icarus Project’s Sascha Altman “Scatter” DuBrul talking about his “dangerous gifts.”
Were I not featured in the article, and photographed for it, and were it not on the front page, above the fold, of the Sunday Styles section, perhaps I’d be able to tell you more about the content of the piece. But by the time I ran to the Wawa with my parents on Sunday morning to see the paper itself, I had no such brainpower. I could think only one thing: I’m in The New York Times!
My parents and I did a little dance in the Wawa. I made my mother swear she wouldn’t tell anyone I was in the paper, even though it was Mother’s Day and I was being very nice.
But my father—who counts himself as quite reserved—found himself saying to the cashier, “A member of my family is in the paper today,” perhaps to explain the skyscraper of tree we were purchasing.
By the time I got featured on the Huffington Post—as “the mad pride movement’s most hilarious, if unofficial, spokesperson”—my email inbox had started to fill up with queries from literary agents and acquisitions editors at publishing houses. I was even contacted by a couple documentary filmmakers.
Why? Because now I was Liz Spikol. Not the Liz Spikol of Sat., May 10. But the Liz Spikol of Sun., May 11. Hurrah.
Most of the agents were quite flattering, as agents are wont to be. But one of them told me she didn’t think I’d be getting much interest without the mad pride angle. Sure, Liz Spikol was all well and good, if you wanted to ride a trolley forever. But spokesperson Liz Spikol was the marketable Liz Spikol.
I started to worry about being a spokesperson for mad pride specifically. I’m very open about having bipolar disorder. Everyone knows that. But am I proud to have it? Why should I be? Did I do something special to get it?
Pride is something I associate with accomplishment. I can type really fast. I’m bilingual. Am I proud to have asthma? No. Am I proud that I get migraine headaches? It’s not like I’ve been practicing to perfect the act of lying on my bed in the dark.
The pride we feel should be in recovering from our mental illnesses and living fulfilling lives, and then having the courage to speak out. I’m proud to live honestly. I’m proud to struggle each day with an illness and win every battle against it. I’m proud to serve as a role model for others who haven’t come as far on the journey. I’m proud that I’ve survived.
I hope that message will be marketable enough so that Liz Spikol will still be Liz Spikol for a while longer, because it’s been kind of fun being a different person. But if not, that’s okay too. Shania is really a stupid name.
[Note: I had no idea that Shania Twain was in such a personal muddle when I wrote this, so I apologize for saying a mean thing about her name. The news that she and her husband Mutt are divorcing is actually quite sad for Eileen, I'm sure
Comments
OK, Liz, how about you let ME be the spokesperson for Mad Pride? (This must be a proper noun by now, having been in the Times and all.)
I have experience. Just ask me.
Kitty
Posted by: kitty barber | May 22, 2008 05:23 PM
Dear Liz: I don't know if your still having spam problems, or just editing out comment post you don't like or agree with on some level. I have decided I will no longer try to comment on your site do to my post/comments not showing up for some reason or another.I wish you great joy and success in the future.
Yours truly
Stan
[Stan, I am having many spam problems. If your posts don't show up, it's likely a result of that. -- Liz]
Posted by: stan | May 22, 2008 07:59 PM
Dear Liz,
Unfortunately, wanting to be heard might actually get you heard. The consequences you already know. You've gone this far.... the rest will be easier. Just fight on good days.
Posted by: Tom Jones | May 22, 2008 08:07 PM
"The pride we feel should be in recovering from our mental illnesses and living fulfilling lives, and then having the courage to speak out. I’m proud to live honestly. I’m proud to struggle each day with an illness and win every battle against it. I’m proud to serve as a role model for others who haven’t come as far on the journey. I’m proud that I’ve survived." --- Liz Spikol
For me personally, I think the best article that you will write one day about your serious mood disorder will be your recovery and long-term remission. Until then I truly feel for you knowing the nature of your daily struggles only from a different perspective.
I too am proud of you and others that fight the battle and continue to do so on a daily basis and have survived another day. I too am proud of you for having "the courage to speak out" through your education, ability and writing skills to instill hope and encouragement to others.
Warmly,
Herb
VNSdepression.com
Posted by: herb | May 22, 2008 09:18 PM
The first time I read 'Mad Pride' I had to think twice - I thought it referred to the comic book. I actually imagined you and Alfred E. Newman marching side by side in a parade for a second, before reigning in my thoughts!
Now that I'm finally on the same page as the rest of the world, congratulations on all the attention you're getting and may you remain the Liz Spikol of May 11 for as long as you wish, and not forget that a lot of people were also tuning in to the Liz Spikol of May 10.
Posted by: Fallingleaf | May 23, 2008 05:19 AM
For what it's worth, I think Liz Spikol is a fine name--it sounds like Liz's Pickel to me.
Posted by: Lucy | May 23, 2008 01:02 PM
oops, I meant pickle
Posted by: Lucy | May 23, 2008 01:03 PM
I came to this site because of the NY Times but I am sick of hearing about how you are dealing with it. You are going to push people away.
This week if it wasn't about you, it was about a woman and her child. You kept giving her advice.
One problem, one answer - time to move on.
I don't even know if your new idea to help people is a good idea - it's kind of boring actually.
Get on with it please - when I was first named in the NY Times, it was exciting but I didn't go on about it. It's just a story it's become your life..........not a good thing.
Posted by: Angela | May 23, 2008 08:32 PM
Liz
Does this help you sort through your mid-life crisis or does it add to it?
The Dark sickness and mental Illness is about the only thing we have in common I'm afraid.
You have your career, some cred as our spokeswoman and your name in the New York Times.
Think back to where you came from, what had happened in your life and what you went through, and how far you have come since then and I think you would begin to realize just how far you have come from those dark days of hitting bottom. To help hammer this home I'm tempted to create a stark contrast by sharing my own story.
Lets just say I had never amounted to much in the past, my case is going nowhere and I don't expect things to change anytime in the future. I'm basically a dead end. If I shared these things with you in greater detail they would serve you as a stark contrast and would help you better understand how far you had come since you had hit bottom.
You're a fine example to follow in comparison to me as well as a better qualified representative and spokes person for the mentally ill then I ever will be.
BTW If kitten is the person I suspect she is she was told time and time again that she would never get out of the state hospital, that she would never hold a job, go to school, get married, bear children or have grand children.
If she is the person I think she is it took her a lot of hard work and effort on her part to get as far as she did but she showed them in the process of doing the things they said she would never do.
Mitch
Posted by: Mitchell Gobrick | May 24, 2008 01:46 AM
Liz -
If you haven't done so already, please get going and do something on the PBS special. I thought it was well-intentioned, though it wasn't as gritty as Stephen Fry's bipolar adventure. Well, I guess it wouldn't be.
I was particularly incensed by the use of Andrew Solomon, a gay man and obviously very wealthy New Yorker and published author, as one of the characters the documentary followed. Loving family, overprotective mother, lots of money, etc...and plenty of medications. Worse, not only did he have a boyfriend who lay on the bed next to him behind a magazine during one segment, but he had a *hosted dinner party* ... with a PBS camera crew there. OMG, what arrogance.
I'm a librarian, and my bf and a friend asked me what else he had written, and I really had to struggle to remember a title. Remember, librarians don't necessarily deal in plots, just in genres and the exchanges of books to please the taxpayer.
This show had enough marginalized people with depressive disorder in it to disaffect every element of the non-coastal parts of the country.
Please post this without my e-mail address, although I welcome any correspondence from you.
Regards,
John
Posted by: anon | May 24, 2008 04:54 PM
The New York Times was slow to catch on to you! You've been doing outstanding work blogging and YouTubing for mental health for years.
Thank you.
Posted by: Moira | May 24, 2008 06:29 PM
All the publicity from the Times and HuffPo articles might provide you with the opportunity to bring national attention to some of the abuses that occur often in the mental health system. If you speak out forcefully about how people suffer because of mistreatment by the system, in addition to speaking out about how they suffer from their own inner demons, you will likely be taken relatively seriously and not dismissed out of hand as most people with a psychiatric history would be. You might be able to significantly lessen the amount of abusive treatment that is endemic to this country's mental health system.
If you talk about how people are brutalized in psychiatric institutions as well as in prisons, you will be believed and not dismissed as probably exaggerating or confused - like most witnesses to such events would be. If you describe specific instances of how people have died from brutal treatment in both kinds of institutions, most people will probably believe that those events really happened and might even think that they should do something to try to stop them from happening.
These are just some random speculations - suggestions, sort of. I don't mean to burden you with excessive seriousness, and I hope your depressive feelings from earlier this season have abated. I'm just throwing out ideas - "submitted for your consideration", as Rod Serling would say (I think he used to say something like that). Anyway, I wish you continued courage and happiness.
Posted by: Kent | May 25, 2008 09:48 PM