Loving someone through mental illness when you’re also mentally ill.

Well we know where we're going
But we don't know where we've been
And we know what we're knowing
But we can't say what we've seen
And we're not little children
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out

-Talking Heads

I have been mentally ill most of my life. My journey all started when I was diagnosed with ADHD and put on a bunch of different medications throughout my adolescence. Nobody likes to talk about the side effects of ADHD medication, but every time I would take it my personality would be sucked out of me and I felt like a machine of focus. It was great for school but my mental health always suffered from taking it and I also was a funny looking kid that stuck out like a sore thumb in all of my classes, sports, and other activities. 

I was difficult to deal with. A hyperactive chubby redhead and not a lot of people could handle me. I couldn’t handle me. I have so many memories of me having terrible temper tantrums, fighting with friends that would get me in trouble in school because I was the loud one, so much sadness. I was different my whole life because of my red hair and crazy brain. 

Being the only loud red headed girl in my school when I was a kid was weird. I remember every time I would meet another redhead I would think we were about to be friends, but instead most young redheads don’t want to be associated with other redheads. It was baffling and I ended up depressed and anxious. 

I used to say I wanted to die so much that it was like my daily monologue to my parents. I just kept thinking I never fit in and I hated my body, my hair, and my brain.

I disliked almost every facet about myself.  "Who needs it?” I thought. I never thought anyone would truly love me. I had a couple boyfriends that were weird little bursts of lust but soon after that I just went into a long single period throughout my twenties where I just kept convincing myself I was going to be this hardworking entrepreneur that didn’t need no love! 

I may have not needed love, but I wanted sex. I had sex a lot with strangers and guys that didn’t even deserve this WAP! It was alot of meaningless, empty sex that was completely devoid of any love or tenderness because I thought I wasn't worthy of those things. I always callously said, “A relationship just isn’t in the card for me, guys.” Which always pissed my friends off. I never pursued anyone aside from a fun night of sex, because even the guys I would end up dating usually were a bunch of egotistical fucks. That is until I met Brad. 

Brad Galli to be exact. I should mention I did try to date a couple of other Brads before the current one. It wasn’t on purpose. Brad number one was a sweet dude I met while working my last summer job in Dallas before I moved to Denver and I was just too young. I shouldn’t have told him I even loved him because I was just a dumb eighteen year old and didn’t know what love was. He was a little older and ready to make some solid moves and I was on my way to college.  When I got to school in Boulder I realized my life was just starting and I should focus on school so I broke up with him in a text which is dumb but again, I was eighteen. 

The second Brad was a guy I met at a nightclub and he seemed so cool.  He was in the army and was only in Colorado because he was stationed there and we hit it off great initially. However, when words actually happened he ended up telling me “just some of the stuff you find funny, I thought was crude and not funny.” Which is hilarious that I ended up becoming a comic and so jokes on him except I actually told him, “Oh my God you are so wise.” Wow. Shoot me. 

Brad number three, the current Brad is quite the charm. I remember I had been doing stand up comedy for three years and was waiting to go up at a mic at one of our favorite old dive bars in Denver, El Charrito. My friend Steve was guest hosting and brought him up saying he is excited to see *this guy* performing again and he welcomed, Bradley Galli to the stage. 

Brad got up there and told a joke that went along the lines of “I think I fall in love with every woman I see but then I realized it was always at their place of work l, and you should ask yourself if there is a cash register between you and a gal because if there is, chances are it’s her job to be nice to you (This was now a little over three years ago so before that stupid article that came out with that same premise but anyway.)” Everyone in the room burst into laughter and I low key had an orgasm (kidding). I went up and told my jokes that also went well (duh) and then got off stage and bashfully ran up to him and said, “I think you are funny.” And he said I was funny too and that is how we met.

From that point forward I was out to trap him. I was also still pursuing other men in town though because why should I ever get heart broken? And the last dick I talked to before I dated Brad told me he didn’t want to date or hook up with me because he thought I would get attached and be sad if I saw him leave the bar the next day with another woman. That’s a bold statement especially when 70% of most women don’t even cum during sex. But good call, bro, I would probably get attached way too easy…..

The next day I told myself I am done going for assholes and I was going to ask Brad number three out. I put on a red dress before the mic and went right up to him and bought him a beer and just like that we hit it off. We got married, had a baby puppy, kidding again. We did end up in a relationship though.

When we ended up dating I noticed Brad had some tendencies to beat himself up over the smallest shit but it was never directed at me. We had a bumpy start to our sex life because I’m a morning person and he’s a evening person when it comes to banging. When I would wake up I would be ready to go and he was not ready to perform so he would beat himself up and then I would take it out on myself and we almost broke up but then we just talked about it and figured it out. 

I never noticed how much I beat myself up until I saw him beat himself up. Brad would talk to himself sometimes too about so many things and I remember one day he yelled, “You stupid fucking bitch!” And I thought he was saying that to me so I yelled back, “Um, excuse me?!” And he humbly said, "Oh my God! I am watching sports on my phone! It was towards a player not you!” We laughed it off and moved on.

We would have these moments of insecurity and vulnerability where it just felt like we could help each other. Then we went through an extremely difficult living situation where an old roommate was filming us without our knowledge, amongst other issues we had with him. We weren’t sure if we would get out of that living situation and when we did I had spent all my savings and money on just getting out of there and my rent technically went up 200-300 bucks. I was burnt out and exhausted.

During that time I slowly changed into an agitated little troll. I was snapping at Brad, and I was screaming about how I wanted to kill my self. It got bad. I just kept thinking I was such a huge piece of shit that couldn’t afford anything. I kept losing weight and thinking that was the answer to happiness and ended up giving myself an autoimmune disorder on top of the one I already had. I also was doing a lot of gigs that happened to have conservative crowds that hated all my material about Planned Parenthood, and just my material in general. All of it together made me a bit of a ticking time bomb. I was suicidal but the only person that knew it was Brad. Brad never shamed me, and he always said it was going to be okay and I’m not whatever awful names I was calling myself. There was a time I started just hitting my own arms while crying and Brad was broken down crying for me to stop. I was feeling too much pain and I just couldn’t turn the anxiety and depression off.

Then there was one particular night where I went up at a mic and bombed after watching some tool get away with a black-face joke. It shook me to my core that I didn’t land my jokes but that horse shit did (also he stole it from another racist comic) and I just bolted out of the room once I got off stage.  Brad immediately came after me screaming, “Katie! What the Fuck!” 

“Why am I even trying? I fucking suck! I gotta end it. I gotta end it right fucking now. You should just go back to the mic.” 

Brad held my hand and said he didn’t even want to get on stage that night and he ended up walking home from downtown with me panicking the entire time. Just to be clear we walked from downtown Denver to North Denver. It's a 90 minute walk and late at night after a long day.  By the time we got to our neighborhood we walked by a bar near our house and Brad gently asks, “Can I buy you a beer? I need one." We walked in and peacefully drank those ice cold beers and I then took a big deep breath and said, “I am sorry. I am going to schedule a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.” 

“It’s okay, babe!” Brad said with a smile. I ended up going and getting on medication which led to me getting into hot yoga and the rest of that year I felt so much more sane than I have in a long time. Then Covid hit. 

I remember the week Covid started getting real, I had plans with my friends to do mushrooms and watch a movie and we were saying shit like “Is this really going to happen? Are we really going to shut down?” And we were laughing and giggling our way through the day and then Brad came home in a huff. 

I went into the kitchen and asked him what was wrong, holding him and listening and he just said, “I am sorry! It’s just work was really bad. This is so real and it is going to be so bad.” I could tell he was so scared I just hugged him and kissed him and said we will get through whatever happens.

The next day everything was shut down and we were in a full on pandemic. I was working through this entire shit storm and Brad couldn’t work, couldn’t do stand up and he couldn’t watch sports. I kept myself busy through painting a cartoon every day and working so I initially couldn’t relate to his sudden depression. Not that I didn’t empathize but I couldn’t believe how fast he was crumbling and for that I will always feel sorry. As someone that has always been depressed and anxious I forgot how much conditioning and therapy I have had my whole life to prepare me for the sudden apocalypse we are now in. I also say this and still have minor breakdowns, who isn’t?

I always kept the bar low for what can happen and accepted I would always be trucking through my mental illness or some sort of hurtle. I never thought I would be the one helping someone else through their mental health problems. 

Brad did okay actually for the first few months of quarantine. I would text him lists of stuff to do around the house and he would do that while caring for our pup and I would just go to work and come home and try to find tasks and shows to give him worth. Brad would model for me and listen to me bounce joke ideas off him for my paintings and it was as good as it could have been.

Life was manageable for us up until sometime after I finished all the covid themed paintings. When businesses reopened and Brad went to back to work is when shit got rough. He hadn’t been working through this pandemic like me and it was eye-opening how impactful that was. 

As much as I complained about burnout and being on the frontlines of exposure while making shit for money, I was lucky enough to see people almost every day. I was the one that would also shop for us and would perform all the big exposing activities so I felt some connection to the world still. 

Brad was home alone for the entire time. 

By the time he was sent back to work he was already overcoming some intense agoraphobia and it did not help that his restaurant owner couldn’t care less about his employees. I understand this is a tough time for business owners but Brad's put dollars over the health of his employees and put so many people in a precarious situation.  The restaurant had five employees show up to work and then test positive for Covid and his boss wasn’t planning on shutting down at all. He also never told his staff or customers about the exposure. The staff had to let each other know.  After that experience I told Brad that’s his queue to quit.

Brad quit and that was the cherry on top of all of this crap. Brad was back at home without much to look forward to. I started to notice changes in behavior. Brad was easily stirred and just not excited about anything, not even when sports came back. 

I told Brad he should go to therapy and that I also needed it and it was helping but I think therapy was also surfacing all the pain he had been burying in the last five months. 

One day, Brad sat me down and just said, “Babe, I think I know what is wrong with me.  Sometimes I just can’t tell what reality is and then it goes away but right now I can’t get it to go away.” I said, “Okay, I’m so sorry I am going to go for a walk with the dog.” When I got outside of the house I started balling immediately.

I texted a close friend, Lucy and she called me. She said, “Man! I got a tightness in my chest for you.” I was still balling and laughing and just agreed. I don’t remember everything we even said but it came to me just saying, “It’s okay, Brad was there for me when I was suicidal last year and he’s just done so much that I have to be there for him.” I went back inside and tried to talk it out with Brad but he just started crying. Like the pandemic I just didn’t except it was my new reality yet. I still also will always feel bad about that.

Brad hugged me like he never has hugged me before. He was like a helpless shelter dog cuddling up with a stranger. His eyes just screaming, “Get me out of here.” It scared the shit out of me and my thoughts were “I don’t know how to do this, I can’t fix this.” But my words were, “It’s going to be okay.” 

I wish I could say that after saying he was going to be okay, that I was really helpful and awesome but the truth is I became scared and sometimes resentful. I had to go back to work that week and I would get off work and he would just say, “I am hanging in there.” Hanging in there wasn’t good or bad news. It was just purgatory. 

At one point I just yelled at him and said, “This is too much and we wouldn’t be here if you had just gone to therapy like I told you years ago! You aren’t making sense!” I texted him the next day that I think it is best that he reach out to his family and stay with them because I didn’t trust him to be alone and I didn’t see any progress in finding help either. It was impossible trying to find a psychiatrist for him and he was having a hard time doing basic tasks from the mania he was in. He said he would be gone the next day though and then I came home and had a therapy session with my therapist.

I don’t remember what I said other than scream-crying that everything was a mess and I don’t know if we were going to make it. My therapist reassured me that this was the beginning of Brad’s meltdown and these problems are temporary and usually people can get better. She also recommended that I find him a psychiatrist and yeah! So hard. 

The next day I went to work and came home to an empty apartment and I just started crying again. Brad was texting me all day because he was manic he couldn’t drive at the  time so his dad came and picked him up from Pueblo. “I am so sorry, thank you for being my rock,” he texted.

The word "rock" stayed with me. I never considered myself a rock. I always have thought without my friends, family and Brad that I couldn’t do anything. But here I was directing Brad to go stay with his parents and get help and he is doing it. It was still scaring me because I just felt like there needed to be all hands on deck for Brad but I myself was also alone now and struggling to be this rock he said I was.

I thanked Brad’s family over and over for taking him because I just felt guilty that I couldn’t help him break out of this state myself. Lorie and Dave, Brad’s parents were so kind. “I can’t believe you were dealing with this alone!” Lorie said and followed with a text from Dave, "He is going to get through this because you helped him.” I didn’t even feel like I did anything but it was nice to hear.

The rest of the week I was texting with Brad and his whole family. Every day was a challenge. Brad did not have any progress and he seemed to be getting worse and finally after almost three weeks we found a psychiatrist who said that Brad seems to be struggling with bipolar disorder but it wasn’t for certain. I thought this was a possible ray of hope. Lots of people have bipolar and now we can start to figure out how to treat it but Brad kept saying he still thought something else was wrong.

The possible BD diagnosis caused Brad to spiral into a suicidal state where his sister thankfully found him making a plan to end his life. I thought he was going into an inpatient facility willingly without reason. He texted me, ““I am going to an inpatient program. This isn’t bipolar and I am so sorry. I love you and thank you for always being my rock. There is a monster in my brain setting up shop and I can’t get him out but I am trying.”

 I texted back “That is good babe! I have been saying you needed psychological monitoring and evaluation from the start.” I slept good that night and texted his sister saying thank you for helping convince him to go. Brittney replied, “Well did he tell you why?” followed by a full story of what really happened. I won’t go into the details but Brad’s sister said that the clinic still said he didn’t seem like he needed to be admitted EVEN THOUGH he marked "yes" to all the suicidal tendency questions after attempting suicide (YUP, mental health in this country sucks). I was defeated. I put the phone down and started balling. I couldn’t imagine Brad in a state of wanting to end his life but here we were. 

So many times I have gotten close but stopped myself and went to a doctor. I just could not stop thinking about what if it happens again and what if I ever followed through with my past desires to end it. It hurt so much because that was not the Brad I ever knew. Brad wasn’t allowed to have a cell phone so I had to wait until he could call me back to talk. After a day of more crying I got the call. 

Brad was on the line, “I am so sorry babe.”

I took a deep breathe and said, “Brittney told me she found you trying to kill yourself. Why would you want that? How did you get there?”

Brad said, “I am so sorry, it just had been days without sleep and I just couldn’t turn off my brain and was backed in a corner.”

Crying again I blurt, “Well, I hope you know a lot of people would miss you and Baba and I would be alone. Do you think you want to do that again?”

“No. I want to get better, I do. You know what? I just keep thinking about how much I love you and baba and I want to get better for you and to see you again…  Are you crying?”

Me, “UM YEAH. God. Please never again.” I was laughing and crying at that point.

Brad said, “I love you so much and I am going to keep trying, they are making me get off the phone but if you want, call me tomorrow, I love you!”

“Love you.”

I felt fragile but better. “At least he is safe,” I thought. I met up with my friend and had drinks and comfort food at my friend’s bar, Wide Right. My friend, Meghan was bartending at her own business like a champ with another pal, Olivia and all I could say was “I just knew I shouldn’t be alone and this would be the one place I could ugly cry while stuffing my face.” My friend Anne showed up and we sat on the patio cursing the night away.

I am so very lucky to be surrounded by such a vast community of people and family that were able to spend the next two weeks with me in person or on the phone. From the friends that went to Chatfield to swim, my yoga classes to my work friends and boss letting me take some mental health days of my own. Thank you. 

Brad and I talked on the phone at least once a day. He would say he feels a little better each day but he then would always find a moment to say, “Well, I still feel crazy. I wish I could get back to where I was before this.” To which I would constantly say, “Babe, you aren’t crazy you are learning more about yourself and who you are and how to handle your feelings for the first time.” After a week of inpatient Brad was released with a diagnosis of depression and anxiety. Of course it was that.  American society does nothing for mental health. Female-bodied people are constantly turned away or told their pain isn't severe pain and the male-bodied people are told to bury their feelings and they are babies if they have them. 

The last week Brad and I were separated from each other was weird. He didn’t feel himself still and I was scared. The last time I saw him he was dissociating and now the next time I would see him would be at his sister’s wedding. How cute, but I was seriously looking forward to it. We also had a minor blow up because he sent me another text saying he was still off. I felt defeated and had my own panic attack at work and could not stop texting back and forth with doubt all day. Luckily, I had therapy that evening and my therapist gave me the recommendation to keep the bar low again and understand that healing takes time.

I still felt bad because Brad thought I wasn’t going to show up to the wedding which is insane, what kind of monster would do that?” I love Brad and I love his family. I went to yoga the next morning and my friend that was teaching the class asked how it was going. I opened up about Brad saying he still feels crazy and that I don’t know how to tell him to keep moving forward and I am scared it is going to be bad. She told me about the time she hit rock bottom depression and how she felt stumbly at the beginning of her healing because she was so scared to return to such a low state of depression it became its own kind of fear. 

I never thought about depression like that. I have always been one to scare myself so bad I would want to get away from the scary thoughts and keep moving forward. I never thought about it like that, she said it is like those videos of animals or people stuck in a slippery hole and they keep trying to get out but then they slip back in. Depression really can be that sometimes. I decided to listen to my therapist and set low expectations and head on down to the wedding. 

After a three hour drive I made it to the cabin, it was beautiful driving in. There was a rain storm with the sun shining through the clouds. It looked like a wild cartoon bar fight cloud just running through the mountains of Cuchara. When I got there a huge wave of anxiety came over me and before I could even get to a level of panic Brad’s face appeared in my car window.

 “Hey Babe," he said and he grabbed my bags and helped carry them down into the room we were staying in. Brad jumped on the bed and laid down like a french gal I’d like to paint. “Come here you," he said, which is what he always says when he wants to kiss. He just started kissing me a bunch and saying how much he missed me. It was adorable to say the least and then all the anxiety washed away in that moment. We were together again without many words but all the feels. 

The wedding was perfect and almost felt like Brad and I were on our first night out as a couple again and what better way to embrace each other than a wedding. We ate, we laughed and we danced. It felt like a dream. When we left he didn’t have much to say in the car and neither did I. We were probably both wondering if we were truly out of the woods. We got home and the first couple of weeks were bumpy. I kept trying to say that mental health is like a hike. There are parts that are straight up and then longer parts that feel stagnate. Finally one night I was on a show and I asked the host if Brad could do a spot. They said yes and I got to watch him back on stage with me just doing his thing and making people laugh.

 I will admit while he was in inpatient care I kept telling his family that whenever this was over he was going to write some funny-ass shit because like me Brad always writes jokes from life. It made me realize it is one of the only things we really have in common. He is into sports and I am the artsy one but we both find laughs in the darkest places of our lives and that is just how we bond. Covid might have changed comedy for a long time but at least we are lucky enough to have shows and jokes to write together about each other and so much more. 

When I saw him up on stage I saw the same Brad I have always known. Unsure of what he thinks of himself or the world around him but just a tad more able to express that and that is the most relatable shit in the world.. I know that if I ever feel like I am in a hole he is going to be at the top throwing me a ladder or sitting right next to me but at least he will be with me. We may not know where our future will go but in the end at least we have each other. 

<3 Bowman