Content note: This article discusses sexual violence and suicide.
What is it like to be autistic and bipolar? How can we better support neurodivergent people who require significant supports, like medication or inpatient mental health care, especially when they are also at university? We talked with Dr. Elliot Gavin Keenan, a postdoctoral fellow at the AJ Drexel Autism Institute about his new book, Luminous Mind, which discusses all these topics from Keenan’s personal perspective.
Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA): Luminous Mind is a riveting collection of essays on being autistic, trans, bipolar, and an academic. Thank you for sharing it with us.
You mention frequently that you’ve always been a writer, that it is one of the ways you experience the world, that “You didn’t have power over your life, but you had power over the page.” How did you choose which elements of your life to share with us, since you likely have so much material to choose from?
Elliot Gavin Keenan: Well, this is actually my second memoir. My first, titled On Being Insane (in sane places) moved fluidly throughout time and place, yet stayed anchored in my experience as an undergraduate student (particularly my two years as an upperclassman)—like a painter, I wanted to capture the experience of a specific moment, yet as a writer I had to simultaneously provide the context to understand it. I’d like to think I achieved that.
Luminous Mind is anchored in my experiences in graduate school, but by its nature, it spans a wider array of hopes, dreams, failures, successes, and everything else under the sun. The things I wrote about were things that were really on my mind. Fun fact: I’d say about half of the book was drafted while I was in inpatient treatment at UCLA-Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital. I wrote to exorcise my demons. The staff encouraged me. And since I was hospitalized somewhere between 15 and 20 times, I had a lot of time on my hands.
If you’ve read both books, you may notice there is some continuity between them, as well. The character of Dr. Pinball, for one. Not to mention Violet, although her name changed.
TPGA: Neurodiversity is most popularly associated with autism, so I’m glad you argue that “most mental illness can be understood in the context of neurodiversity.” Can you talk more about this, how we need to think of neurodivergence is more expansively?
Keenan: My understanding is that the original coining of the phrase “neurodiversity” was inclusive at the very least of all developmental disabilities. Then, years down the line, it became associated mostly with autism (and also ADHD sometimes). But I think it’s very important to be intentional with how we use neurodiversity, both as a phrase and as an underlying concept. Personally, I want to uplift all people with neurodevelopmental disabilities, and that’s going to include bipolar, schizophrenia, Tourette’s, OCD, and surely many others. All of these disorders start early in life, even if they don’t reach their archetypal zenith until later—in a person’s teens or twenties, usually.
But let’s talk a little about schizophrenia, because I think this is one of the most stigmatized labels in psychiatry. Years before positive symptoms emerge (that would be things like hallucinations and delusions) there are detectable differences in how young people who will go on to have schizophrenia respond to their world. The irony? These days, a lot of them are being misdiagnosed as children with autism!
Personally, I think we have to band together if we want to see change. Fight for autistic people. Fight for people with mental illness. We are on the same side, and we always have been. I don’t really believe in taking a hard line that autism is not a mental illness.
TPGA: As a child, you had an IEP (Individualized Education Plan), and yet also say that “I could go into an even harder class if they have one. But I need my accommodations. I just can’t write as fast as everyone else.” Do you see any progress in research and outreach in schools, so that students’ capabilities and disabilities are both supported?
Keenan: I think there may have been some progress. When I was young, “twice-exceptional” wasn’t really a thing yet. I might have qualified for that label. I was also discriminated against by some of my teachers who refused to use my name or pronouns and a couple who outright refused to teach me because they didn’t want to yield to my accommodations in an AP class.
TPGA: At university, you were housed in a gender-neutral dorm, where “Mental health problems seemed more the rule than the exception” since “one of the only things research really knows about transgender people is that we face psychiatric challenges at rates that far exceed the general population.” Due to studying clinical psychology and psychopharmacology, you became that dorm’s “resident psychiatrist.” It was wonderful that you could help your peers with your combination of expertise and experience. Do you think this informal role added to your professional capabilities?
Keenan: Absolutely. My role in the dorm helped me build confidence, and I was able to see how people with different diagnoses—pretty much anything you can imagine—were functioning (or not) in a rigorous college environment. I was able to help some people reach their goals. For others, I watched their dreams slip out of reach. Co-occurring substance use was a major factor that I observed in most of the people who dropped out. All of these observations definitely prepared me for the next stage of my own education.
TPGA: You have been hospitalized for mental health reasons, multiple times. Is your openness about this experience an effort to destigmatize the process for people like yourself who need substantial mental health supports? Or an example of our medical and psychiatric support system needing to better by people with multiple neurodivergences? Or possibly both?
Keenan: As I said, I’ve been hospitalized about 20 times in total. A few in New York, the majority in California. I definitely am here for destigmatizing inpatient treatment and I’ve written several articles relating to that on my blog, with plans for more.
I think more people would feel empowered to use psychiatric inpatient treatment if they knew what to expect—and that goes double for autistic people. So, I guess it’s a bit of both. My last hospitalization they confiscated my Pikachu (comfort item) for no real reason since you can squish through him and you would feel if there was anything stashed inside him. We’ve gotta spread awareness of things like this.
On the other hand, UCLA permits wireless headphones and basic MP3 players. I’ve seen this be very helpful to autistic patients.
TPGA: One of your book’s most harrowing episodes is your near-death from a lithium overdose, two days after your partner Violet had “hallucinations of my voice saying I raped her.” First of all, I’m so sorry this happened to you, and I’m glad you are still here. You write that afterwards, “It takes a few months for me to feel any particular way about what had happened. I am surprised to eventually find that I, too, am glad to be alive. It turns out that one does not embrace death with such conviction, without caring about something.” Can you explain more about that last sentence, about caring getting you through?
Keenan: I think a substantial motivator in my lithium overdose was my relationship with Violet. But Violet and I had a sort of exponential interaction that was difficult to control. I cared, and still do care, deeply about Violet. Yet in the 24 hours before the overdose I conducted myself in ways that I regret. That, in itself, became a motivator. Only later did I see that it was the wrong way to go about our problems.
Psychiatric medications can be a crucial aspect of maintaining one’s mental health, as you relate. You say that “there’s nuance—the turmoil of creative forces inside grow dimmer on the medications. A careful balance must be negotiated.” How difficult can it be to find that balance, in your personal and professional experiences?
I’ve seen it take years for some people. Some give up on the medication, and go back to their creativity; others give up on their creativity, and continue taking the medication. I think that most people have to find their own compromise. It helps to have a good psychiatrist who really listens. Don’t give up on yourself.
TPGA: Is there anything else about your book you’d like to discuss?
Keenan: If you read it, PLEASE leave a review on Amazon!!
Elliot Gavin Keenan is a postdoctoral fellow at the AJ Drexel Autism Institute, where he studies autism and mental illness from a lived experience perspective, scaffolding his insight with rigorous scientific methodology. He got his PhD in Human Development & Psychology from UCLA. Elliot is professionally diagnosed with autism, bipolar 1, ADHD, dyspraxia, catatonia, and maybe a handful of other things. He lives with his much-loved emotional support cat in a studio apartment in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He also writes books when he has the time.
The post Writing While Autistic and Bipolar: Luminous Mind Author Elliot Gavin Keenan appeared first on THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM.
