Kitt O'Malley · 37 min
A trained psychotherapist who couldn't read a sentence after a manic episode finds that the very illness that derailed her career becomes the engine of her life's purpose.
Hear this story
At 18, Kitt O'Malley was a high-achieving biochemistry major at UCLA, severely depressed and suicidal. When she recognized she was about to act on her plans, she chose to call for help. That decision started a long path through therapy and recovery that would shape everything that followed. Through her 20s, Kitt managed chronic depression and became a trained psychotherapist herself. At 30, a tricyclic antidepressant triggered a full manic episode with psychotic thoughts. Her brain took months to recover. She couldn't read a sentence. She couldn't work. She moved back with her parents. Years later, at 39 and married with a toddler, she recognised the early signs of another episode and sought help before it escalated. This time she received a bipolar diagnosis. The label hit hard. Kitt feared for her son's safety and put him in daycare, convinced that a serious mental illness meant she could not be a good mother. But two weeks of voluntary hospitalisation and day treatment changed her view. When she stayed home to parent full-time, she discovered her son needed her there more than she knew. He had ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Her skills as a child therapist made a real difference in his life.
Kitt went to seminary to pursue what felt like a calling to mental health ministry. Now she works as a mental health advocate, educator, and public speaker, helping others understand that recovery is messy, human, and possible. The work of healing also meant unlearning that her worth came from achievement. She had to learn to value herself independent of work or productivity. Being open about her struggles, including the hard moments like losing her temper with her son, has been central to her own healing and to her ability to help others. Kitt is now 59, married for over 25 years, with an adult son living independently. She is at peace. Her message to anyone still in the dark: help works, your life has purpose even if you cannot see it yet, and you are loved.
“I was in so much darkness that I thought that the world would be a better place without me I thought my parents would be better off without me I felt like I was a burden”
“either you can think of it as me reframing and making use of my experience and my journey to help others or that I was given this disorder to purpose me to do this and to help others”
“now I can have understanding and passion that is deeper than it would be if I hadn't have gone through this”
The hero, today
People are more than their symptoms or their circumstances; a person's value exists separate from what they are going through or what label they carry. Having a strong support system, particularly one that sees you as a whole person rather than your diagnosis, is huge for anyone managing chronic health conditions. The work of mental health recovery includes learning to love yourself, which is hard when you have been taught that you are worthy of love only if you achieve certain things. Staying home to parent her son, which felt like a failure at the time, turned out to be what he needed most; looking back, Kitt can see the shape her life was taking even when she could not see it in the moment. Being open about her struggles, including the hard parts like losing her temper with her son, has been central both to her own healing and to her ability to help others understand that recovery is messy and human. Help works, though it requires trial and error and the willingness to keep trying; medication and treatment are not easy fixes, but they do help.
Yes. Kitt O'Malley is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
People are more than their symptoms or their circumstances; a person's value exists separate from what they are going through or what label they carry.
Having a strong support system, particularly one that sees you as a whole person rather than your diagnosis, is huge for anyone managing chronic health conditions.
The work of mental health recovery includes learning to love yourself, which is hard when you have been taught that you are worthy of love only if you achieve certain things.
Staying home to parent her son, which felt like a failure at the time, turned out to be what he needed most; looking back, Kitt can see the shape her life was taking even when she could not see it in the moment.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 00:07
Welcome to the Kintsugi Heroes podcast, where we share inspirational stories of everyday people going through different challenges and how they overcome them. Please be aware that the story you're about to hear may have moments of deeply felt emotions and personal experiences. If anything you hear has a triggering effect please reach out to someone who can help keep you safe. If you love this conversation, we'd love you to like and share it with your friends so we can continue to share more inspiration and hope to as many people as possible. Now listen up for our next hero story. This episode is with Kit O'Malley, A lovely lady who shared a very eloquent and detailed account of her challenges and struggle living with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and how that impacted her daily life, her ability to be a mum, her ability to function effectively with, with family, with life, with a career. She's a trained psychotherapist, and yet because of her bipolar disorder, she was not able to work. She talks about how she reframed it, and she's got a very unique take on bipolar disorder. And now she's a mental health advocate and does a lot of educating and public speaking and writing and support for those that have similar conditions and who've been through the kind of struggles that she once was experiencing. It's a really heartfelt, warm story, and I love what she's doing, just the joy that she's bringing to the world through giving back. It's really beautiful, and I hope you enjoy this conversation with Kit O'Malley. Hello, here we are. It's another episode, and I am so excited to be here with Kit O'Malley. Kit, welcome to the show, and thank you for coming to share your story.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 02:15
Well, thank you for having me. I love, I love what you guys are doing. I love the metaphor of Kintsugi. I just love everything about it.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:24
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This conversation includes a biochemistry major in crisis, the suicide note and the choice to call, a decade of therapy and a career as a psychotherapist, the medication that triggered mania, the man who saw past her circumstances and recognising the danger sign and getting real help.
Thank you. Thank you so much. And, you know, it takes sometimes an ounce of courage and 2 ounces of, you know, just bravery and, I don't know, a whole lot of diving into the unknown to brave it all, bear it all, and share your story. So I just want to honor you for doing that. And thank you in advance for coming on and, you know, sharing this so that you can provide inspiration and hope to others. It's really beautiful. That's very meaningful.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 02:53
Well, thank you.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:54
Well, this is about you, so how about I hand over to you and ask you to take us back to where your story begins?
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 03:03
Well, my story begins when I was an 18-year-old biochemistry major at UCLA. University of California at Los Angeles. It's a big school, like, you know, University of Melbourne would be a big school. So, um, anyway, I was a biochemistry major and, um, my whole life I wanted to be a doctor and was a very high achiever and worked very, very hard to get good grades to do what I was doing. And, um, and I— but I was depressed. I was severely depressed and suicidal. I was in so much— it was basically a living hell. I was in so much darkness that I thought that the world would be a better place without me. I thought my parents would be better off without me. I felt like I was a burden. I felt like— and, and those were just— and I've heard those sort of thoughts from a lot of other people who suffered from depression. It's just depression lies, and it's horrible. In the way in which it lies and the pain it puts people through. So I thankfully got help. I reached out to a friend, well, to my friends, but at this particular crisis point, I reached out to a friend I had. I was in a crisis where I actually had a suicide note and means to kill myself and I had plans and And I just all of a sudden, I sort of stepped aside, outside myself and observed what I was doing and went, oh no, this is not just thoughts anymore. You're actually going to carry this out. And I knew that my desire to live was stronger than that. And so I went and I called for my friend to stay with me until I got into a good psychiatrist or psychologist that day. I went to my resident assistant in the dormitory and said, please get me in to see someone. You know, the resident assistants help the students in the dorms. And so she got me into somebody who was very helpful, and that helped me a lot. You know, I didn't tell my parents because I was ashamed. I felt I was a failure because of this. I ended up quitting UCLA and later transferring up to UC, University of California, Berkeley, and continued my 20s, you know, from then 18 through my 20s, going to psychotherapy to cope with my, what was then a chronic depression, not as severe, but I lived with it. I even became a psychotherapist in my mid-20s. And then when I was 30, I had a severe depressive episode. And, um, at that time I couldn't even get out of bed. And I called up my parents at that point and I said, I can't even get out of bed. This is just so overwhelming. It's so heavy. You know, I felt it physically. And they said, why don't you go to your doctor and try medication? You know, because if, if therapy isn't helping you right now, maybe what you need is medication. And it was very— something very physical I was feeling. And so I, um, went to my doctor and I took, um, she prescribed me the first generation SSRI. That's a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. It was Prozac. And then I had side effects of that, so she prescribed another medication to counteract the side effects. And then my parents said, well, this is just my general physician, this wasn't a psychiatrist. He said, why don't you see a psychiatrist for a second opinion. And he took me off those medications and put me on what's called a tricyclic antidepressant, and I had a reaction to that, and I became manic. And I had a week-long full-blown manic episode where I was— wasn't able to sleep. I was just taking catnaps in the middle of the day. I, I was up all night. I was thinking my head streaming, speeding thoughts, uh, about in binary, which is zeros and ones. So I had zeros and ones going through my head, and I wasn't a computer, so I couldn't interpret them. That's how computers think. I had thoughts of Christian mystic saints, which I had some familiarity with and was fascinated by. And I had thoughts about chaos theory, which is mathematics and physics, which I wasn't an expert in or knowledgeable about really. And so I just was observing these thoughts thinking, wow, this is fascinating. I wish I could understand them. They're going so fast. And finally, after a week, a friend of mine called my parents and said, Kit needs your help. She's— and she told them what was going on. So my dad flew up and she called my priest in my church and she said, Kit needs your help now. And so before my dad got there, the priest brought a seminarian who had bipolar disorder and they came over, um, and sat with me and encouraged me to call my psychiatrist, which I did. And I described what was going on and he gave me, um, antipsychotics to stop the psychotic thought process, which it did. Um, but that was a huge changing point in my life. Um, I— my brain had to recover from that. Um, I wasn't— I tried to go back to just taking a temp job, a temporary job, and I wasn't— when I drove, I, uh, would fall asleep. When I tried to read the words, the letters in a sentence would go apart. The words— I mean, the letters in a word would go apart. The words in a sentence would go apart. I couldn't hold things together enough to even read. And here I was, somebody who had a master's degree. I was highly educated and I couldn't read. Um, and I realized I wasn't able to work. I needed to take time off to to have my brain heal, basically. I moved back in with my parents. I continued to get treatment where they lived in Southern California and actually got excellent treatment. It helped me a lot. But I wasn't— even though I'd had this manic episode, I wasn't at that point in time diagnosed bipolar. They thought it was just a reaction to the medication. And because I'd been functional before that and not had an episode like that before. They said, let's just treat you as if you have the chronic depression that you'd been treated for before and just be very careful with my medication. So I was carefully titrated up to a dose. Um, and then, um, so I lived with, on antidepressants and in psychotherapy throughout my 30s, um, until I was married and had a— in fact, I met my husband right after that breakdown. Here I was working as a temp, living with my parents, and one of our first dates, my husband says to me, you are the most independent woman I ever met. And I was just like, are you kidding? I'm living with my parents. I'm a former psychotherapist who's now working as a file clerk. And he's like, no, seriously, you are. So what is so important there, and I think it's an important first thing for people to understand about mental health conditions, about mental illness, is that people are more than their symptoms or their circumstances. And he could see that. He saw who I was as a person. He saw into my soul rather than into my circumstances of that I was in a crisis or that I had an illness. Um, or brain disorder, or whatever you want to consider, uh, what I was going through. So I, at 39— by then we were married, and where was I, 39? Yeah, I think I was 39. We were married and we had a, a toddler, and I, um, started to have euphoric feelings. And, um, we— I had feelings that God was calling me to one church for spiritual direction and to another church for, um, Bible study. And although my behavior was fine, there was nothing wrong with going for spiritual direction or going to Bible study. I wasn't— it wasn't like the mania that I had had before, but still I recognized that euphoria, like, uh-oh, danger sign. That reminds me of of that mania. And so I called the advice nurse on my insurance card on the back of it, and I had my husband get on the phone. I said, please listen, I want you to understand how serious this is. And I explained to her my symptoms and she said, go to an emergency room or see a psychiatrist today. So I wasn't able to get in to see a psychiatrist. It was a Friday, so I wasn't able to get in to see a psychiatrist. But, um, and I didn't want to go to an emergency room because I know that that meant that I'd be hospitalized, and I, I just wasn't ready to be hospitalized at that point. And so, um, I went to my doctor, my regular doctor. I scheduled an appointment on Monday to see a psychiatrist and saw my regular doctor that day, and had— she put me on some, uh, mood stabilizers to get me through the weekend. Um, now I was still nursing my son, my toddler son, at that time. And those medications, like the antidepressants I was taking, was safe to be in breast milk because it was a very low level in the serum level. But the mood stabilizer was a big no-no. So I had to figure out a way to abruptly wean my son. And I have another little wonderful story of my husband. Um, and why— and I will say, in terms of for anyone with chronic health conditions, especially for people with mental health conditions, having a supportive family and support system, you know, a strong support system, is huge. So my son didn't believe that Mommy wasn't going to come home that— because I— we, we decided— I would— with the doctor, we decided I would go to my parents for the weekend. Just to be— we did wean him, and that was our agreement. You know, we had to like make an agreement with the doctor that I wasn't going to breastfeed my son on this med. So he insisted— my son insisted on sitting at the driveway, you know, because— and wait for Mommy to come home. And then my husband started to drizzle rain, so my husband talked him into going underneath the eave. And then he talked him into going on the front door porch, and then, and then on the stairs, and then up the stairs, and then into bed, until finally he fell asleep looking at the open front door. So it was just sweet that he was— my husband was always very sensitive with him. So that began my journey with dealing with the fact that I had bipolar disorder. Um, and, um, and since then I've, um, at first, at first it was actually a very painful thing because I had been trained as a therapist. I had an internalized bias, an internalized stigma about the difference between living with depression and living with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I thought that I could be a good mom if I had depression. But here, all of a sudden, just my label and medications changed. I was the same person. I was the same mother, but I feared for my son. I thought, oh no, this is a serious mental illness. It's progressive. I, I could be violent, you know, I'm, I'm not going to be a good mom. And I put him in daycare and went back to work. Actually, because I was so afraid for his safety. Um, but that wasn't sustainable. I wasn't able to take care of myself, work, and then come home and be a mom. It just— it was too much. And I, I actually ended up, after a couple of years, um, being voluntarily hospitalized. Um, and, uh, and then after the 2 weeks of hospitalization, I did called partial hospitalization. You might also think of it as like day treatment. I would go to the hospital for an outpatient treatment all day, like a job. You go to groups all day and then go home at night. Um, and I did that for a few months. Um, and then I ended up staying home from then on. And as it turns out, my son needed me at home. He turned out to be struggling himself. He had ADHD and anxiety and depression. Um, and, um, he really needed me. And actually, as when I was a therapist, I was a therapist of children and adolescents. So actually I had a skill set that I was able to help him with these things. And of course got him into therapy. I got him into therapy when he was 4 and into psychiatry when he was 5 because his symptoms weren't helped by therapy. Um, and he's doing very well now. So early intervention for him helped. He struggled a lot growing up, but, um, he's now a college student, um, and living on his own. Um, and, uh, I mean, we pay for the bills, but he's living on his own. Basically, after this, after my hospitalization, One interesting thing is that after the hospitalization, my psychologist I was seeing at the time said, you keep on talking about call, like calling. So let's talk about that a little bit, because it was a theme of mine even when I was in my 20s and kept on going, but it never made sense to me because I wasn't a real churchy person. I wasn't churched growing up. And so I, I, I decided to go to seminary to answer the call. And when I was in seminary, it became clear that I had a call to mental health ministry. And so even though I do this as a, as a volunteer, as an individual, and also as a volunteer for the United States nonprofit called National Alliance on Mental Illness. From my local affiliate. I'm— so I don't do it through a church right now, but still I consider it like something, a God thing, a purpose thing, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like I either, either you can think of it as me reframing and making use of my experience and my journey to help others, or that I was given this disorder to purpose me to do this and to help others. Um, and so by sharing my story or by volunteering, um, so I, um, yeah, so it took, I mean, it took a while to come to that realization. It's sort of like, it's easy to look in retrospect as somebody who's now 59 and go Oh, everything makes sense in my life. It didn't make sense when I was going through it. When I was going through it, it was painful. It was horrible. It was awful. But not all, not my whole life, obviously. But now going back, so much that I went through makes sense. Now I can have understanding and compassion that is deeper than it would be if I hadn't have gone through this.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 19:40
Sorry for the interruption. This is Ian Westmoreland, the founder of Katsuki Heroes, and thank you for listening to this story from one of our amazing heroes. Our mission is for these stories to provide hope and inspiration to people experiencing life challenges and to also educate the broader community on how best to provide support. If you would like to help us to continue to produce more hero stories and cover more adversity themes, we would welcome all donations. These can be made via our website, kintsugiheroes.com.au. The donate function is at the bottom of the home page. We'd also welcome any feedback. You can email me direct using ian@kintsugiheroes.com.au. Now let's get back to the story.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 20:30
So I'm a very big believer that we all have— first of all, that we're all loved and that we all have purpose. And that's what I love about what you're doing in this podcast is that it's uncovering that hidden value. That everybody has and that their stories have in inspiring others to know that, yes, you too can overcome this. You too are more beautiful having been broken and put back together. I just love that metaphor. So I don't know what else to say at this point.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 21:10
Thank you, Kit.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 21:11
Do you have any questions?
Aveline Clark (Host) · 21:12
Yeah, I do. You mentioned Um, when you got the diagnosis of being bipolar and how that flipped, you know, just having that different label flipped your own perception of yourself, can you talk to me a little bit about, you know, how it made you feel? How did it change your relatability maybe to your husband or your friends or your son? Like, you know, what what did that feel like? Because I could imagine for someone who gets a new diagnosis, and especially with mental health, it can be life-altering. And I'd love to hear from you how you experienced that and then how you move forward.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 21:59
It was very— I mean, I had my, my internalized stigma was so deep, it took me a lot of work to overcome that. Like, the work of psychotherapy, the work of life, to, to realize that I had value, that I was a good enough mother, that, um, that I was— that I had value whether or not I was working in a, in a job. Because I had been so— as, as in my, my whole life, I had been so achievement oriented and everything was measured by achievement. And now all of a sudden that achievement was— I mean, I'm still an achiever, but you know, my measure of achievement changed completely. Um, and I had to value my own self-worth independent, or, you know, to value my own self-worth independent of achieving anything. And that's a hard thing to learn when you've been so conditioned in your culture, in your family, in your role in your family. Uh, you know, I was the firstborn of two firstborns, and there was just this expectation that I would achieve more than they had, and they were achievers. It was, it was a lot. I mean, once I had the breakdown at 30, my parents, totally, uh, just lovingly helped me. And there was no expectation after that that I would be a superachiever at all. There was just— not that they gave up on me, but they were just like, all they really cared about was that I was well. Um, and, and I'm thankful for that. Um, but I still had it so deep inside myself. That I felt like a failure. Um, and it's hard to feel, um, that you failed because you're no longer able to do what you used to be able to do. But looking back now that I'm 59 and have an adult son, I say, oh, I even reframed the, the, uh, because it was so hard for me to give up on having a professional identity. I even reframed it as, you know, God gave me this illness so I'd stay home for this Aineens child who really needed me at home with him. But it took a while to really do that, to be able to see that and to see long-term that yes, I was able to help him. And yes, he's a success. And that's fabulous. And, you know, and the way in which we had to parent him wasn't the way in which most people parent their kids because he wasn't like most kids, you know. So, but he's doing great. So, and I'm doing great too. So, I mean, I'm basically, I'm happy with my life. I'm satisfied and at peace. I have, I have a still same loving husband over 25 years, and I just feel blessed, you know. I mean, I think that, that having that love in my life has been what's been so key to that.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 25:31
It's such a beautiful story, Kit, and, and the way that you just talked about having to reframe everything and relearn your own value. And that's, that's again about love. This whole thing has been about love. Love from others, love of yourself, love from your husband, love of your son, and, and then love of, of others, which is demonstrated by the work you do through your calling, through your, your purposeful mission. So it's just been this journey of embracing, learning receiving and being in this space of love, really.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 26:10
Totally. And yes, it is. And that self-love is— yes, that's the big part of it. And that's what's missing so much in so many people's lives. And I'm not— it's hard to tell somebody who's in the depth of depression, oh, love yourself. No, you know, obviously you need to deal with the crisis. But part of the work of mental health recovery is loving yourself, without a doubt. And that's, I would say, is key to healing in general.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 26:46
For anybody, even those who don't have mental health disorders or diagnoses, to me, it's almost a disorder of our society, of our current world. That we have not been taught how to love ourselves. Would you agree with that? And then there's all these stigmas.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 27:06
I would agree. I would agree. Not only not how to love ourselves, but to measure like you're worthy of love if you do X, Y, and Z, which is wrong. It's just That's horrible. It's just a horrible thing. And it's, um, yeah, it's just, uh, it's—
Aveline Clark (Host) · 27:32
well, I agree, it's pretty profound actually. And I, I can only imagine what it feels like to have that diagnosis and be in that state of judgment of oneself because you can't live up to your own expectations or what you think others expect of you to be worthy of love. And so, like I said, you know, I, I've not been in that situation before. I've been in my own version of that, you know, but not with the, the mental health diagnosis. And, and I could only imagine how lonely and painful and horrible that would feel as a human.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 28:16
Yeah, I mean, I think that it was because my path has been so long. I mean, even when I felt that internalized stigma, there was still a big part of me who had been working in therapy since I was 18. So you're talking about a 39-year-old who'd been in— right now I'm a 59-year-old who's been in therapy since she's been 18. So I'd already been working a lot, you know. So it, it's— it wasn't that all of myself was in self-loathing. But there still was that, that, oh, I have this different diagnosis that is scary. You know, I'm now this scary monster sort of thing, which is horrible, you know, because it would be horrible to think of that of other people, but then to think of that of yourself. And that's not just the thing about self-love, but also there is so much stigma around mental mental health conditions. And so much— and I was somebody who was supposedly an expert. And for me to have thought that is just terrible. That means that there are psychotherapists out there who think that, and that's terrible. And yeah, so because I wasn't a bad therapist, I was actually a good therapist. So it's like, but to think, oh my gosh, how did I, how did That was just terrible.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 29:41
How important to you has it been to be able to trust the people around you in your supportive network and be completely open with them?
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 29:53
That's great. That's a great question. Um, I've always been by nature an open person, and I don't always— I overwhelmingly get positive feedback. But there's always people who, and often there's somebody close, you know, not, it wasn't my husband, but you know, there's somebody close who, who thinks that you're making a mistake by being open, you know, um, you know, that if you say how you're saying this and now, now what if you have your son taken away from you because you just shared this on, you know, social media or on your blog or in your book. And, and I was— I had that reaction once, and, and I've had other negative reactions, and, and I— but I, I, I welcome people to sort of say what they have to say, unless it's just hateful. But to that, you know, oh, your son's going to be taken away from you— I was always so, um, invested in being the best mother I could. And in having my son in therapy and me in therapy and us in therapy together, that I knew that that would never happen because I was like super motivated, you know what I mean? It's just like doing all the things they'd have you do anyway. Um, so I was just, and I wasn't terrible. It's just like there was instances where, you know, like my son called me a name and I, I don't know if this is G-rated, so it's he's like an effing B, and I slapped him when he was a kid. That's not okay. Um, and but I wrote about it because I think it's something that we need to deal about, deal with, you know. Child abuse and losing your temper with your child is something we need to talk about. And I did apologize to him. I took him to the doctor. We talked about therapy, like, you know, all that kind of stuff. So he wasn't hurt, but he— but still, I said please tell the doctor. This is not a secret, you know.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 31:53
It's—
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 31:53
you don't have to keep secrets. Um, and, um, so I, I think it's important that we deal with issues. And so I've always been very open with things. And I've— because I've been in the situation of being a reporter, a mandated reporter of child abuse, I knew that what I had done did not come to the— it was not where the government gets involved and takes your kid out of the house. Slapping your kid when he calls you your name is not considered child abuse. It's not—
Aveline Clark (Host) · 32:28
it's—
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 32:28
I'm not saying it's okay, but it's not considered child abuse.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 32:31
What a beautiful story. I love hearing your reflections, and, and it's nice to hear that your son is doing great and he's independent at college. He's happy. And you speak so lovingly of him and the whole journey. And I love the way that you've been able to draw out, I guess, the gift that you've been given through all this. And it doesn't always feel like a gift. It never feels like a gift when you go through it. Let's face it, you know, when we go through pain and challenge and suffering, it's, it's not a gift. And I don't think there's always something, a lesson to be gained from it. Sometimes it's something we just have to get through. Yet you've found purpose and meaning at the end of your challenging journey, and that's a really beautiful thing, really precious.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 33:23
Yeah, thank you. I agree, and that's why I appreciate that your project for showing those people who are— who have their whole— all so many different stories. That come to the same conclusion. Yes, which is wonderful.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 33:41
Yes. And I just want to acknowledge the work that you do because, you know, it takes someone very unique with a very unique set of, I guess, skills, attributes, and life experience to do what you're doing, to, to help others in the way that you are and be that support advocate, what was the role you called it, for mental health? A—
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 34:11
I'm a— we call it mental health advocate. Basically, the way I do is I do a lot of educating and public speaking and writing. And I also, if people reach out to me, I'll respond, not as a therapist, just as— because I'm not licensed anymore, but just as Kit.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 34:30
That's really nice to hear. Thank you. I've got a final question for you, Kev. So if, if there's someone listening to this who is— it can identify with any of the parts of your story that they might be going through or have been through any version of your story, what would you like to share with them or say to them?
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 34:53
Well, aside from get help, that help, it works. No, I'm not saying easily, you know, medication and treatment is all try— is there's a lot of trial and error and to keep on trying, you know. But in addition to reach out for help and that help helps and to keep on trying, it's that you are loved and that you— your life has purpose. Even if you might not see it now, all of our lives have purpose. You have value.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 35:30
Thank you for that. That's a very powerful statement, and I know that someone might sort of doubt that, but it is true. And you, of all people, given what you've been through, know that. So your, your journey and example is certainly one that I think others can learn from and be inspired by. So thank you, thank you so much for sharing your story, Kit. I really appreciate it. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Katsugi Heroes. Please like and share the show to your friends so we can get this out to even more people. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please reach out using the contact details below and join us next week for our next hero's story. Until then, keep being you, and remember that we are all heroes in our own unique way.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 36:28
Only when it's broken, only when it's broken, when it hits you in the middle of the night and The truth burns so bright. Only when it's broken. Only when it's broken.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 36:53
Take pride in those cries.
Kitt O’Malley (Guest) · 36:56
It's only for tonight. And then you rise. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
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