1 00:00:00,059 --> 00:00:03,983 One in four people suffer from some sort of mental illness, 2 00:00:03,983 --> 00:00:08,277 so if it was one, two, three, four, it's you, sir. 3 00:00:08,277 --> 00:00:09,836 You. Yeah. (Laughter) 4 00:00:09,836 --> 00:00:13,184 With the weird teeth. And you next to him. (Laughter) 5 00:00:13,184 --> 00:00:14,239 You know who you are. 6 00:00:14,239 --> 00:00:16,636 Actually, that whole row isn't right. (Laughter) 7 00:00:16,636 --> 00:00:21,810 That's not good. Hi. Yeah. Real bad. Don't even look at me. (Laughter) 8 00:00:21,810 --> 00:00:26,923 I am one of the one in four. Thank you. 9 00:00:26,923 --> 00:00:29,933 I think I inherit it from my mother, who, 10 00:00:29,933 --> 00:00:32,747 used to crawl around the house on all fours. 11 00:00:32,747 --> 00:00:35,794 She had two sponges in her hand, and then she had two 12 00:00:35,794 --> 00:00:40,376 tied to her knees. My mother was completely absorbent. (Laughter) 13 00:00:40,376 --> 00:00:42,684 And she would crawl around behind me going, 14 00:00:42,684 --> 00:00:46,249 "Who brings footprints into a building?!" 15 00:00:46,249 --> 00:00:48,599 So that was kind of a clue that things weren't right. 16 00:00:48,599 --> 00:00:53,791 So before I start, I would like to thank 17 00:00:53,791 --> 00:00:58,477 the makers of Lamotrigine, Sertraline, and Reboxetine, 18 00:00:58,477 --> 00:01:03,400 because without those few simple chemicals, I would not be vertical today. 19 00:01:03,400 --> 00:01:08,237 So how did it start? 20 00:01:08,237 --> 00:01:12,356 My mental illness -- well, I'm not even going to talk about my mental illness. 21 00:01:12,356 --> 00:01:14,669 What am I going to talk about? Okay. 22 00:01:14,669 --> 00:01:19,071 I always dreamt that, when I had my final breakdown, 23 00:01:19,071 --> 00:01:21,610 it would be because I had a deep Kafkaesque 24 00:01:21,610 --> 00:01:24,023 existentialist revelation, 25 00:01:24,023 --> 00:01:28,368 or that maybe Cate Blanchett would play me and she would win an Oscar for it. (Laughter) 26 00:01:28,368 --> 00:01:31,475 But that's not what happened. I had my breakdown 27 00:01:31,475 --> 00:01:33,465 during my daughter's sports day. 28 00:01:33,465 --> 00:01:37,190 There were all the parents sitting in a parking lot 29 00:01:37,190 --> 00:01:41,197 eating food out of the back of their car -- only the English -- 30 00:01:41,197 --> 00:01:47,424 eating their sausages. They loved their sausages. (Laughter) 31 00:01:47,424 --> 00:01:52,056 Lord and Lady Rigor Mortis were nibbling on the tarmac, 32 00:01:52,056 --> 00:01:54,519 and then the gun went off and all the girlies started running, 33 00:01:54,519 --> 00:01:59,730 and all the mummies went, "Run! Run Chlamydia! Run!" (Laughter) 34 00:01:59,730 --> 00:02:03,598 "Run like the wind, Veruca! Run!" 35 00:02:03,598 --> 00:02:06,065 And all the girlies, girlies running, running, running, 36 00:02:06,065 --> 00:02:09,010 everybody except for my daughter, who was just standing 37 00:02:09,010 --> 00:02:11,777 at the starting line, just waving, 38 00:02:11,777 --> 00:02:14,108 because she didn't know she was supposed to run. 39 00:02:14,108 --> 00:02:18,457 So I took to my bed for about a month, and when I woke up 40 00:02:18,457 --> 00:02:23,050 I found I was institutionalized, and when I saw the other inmates, 41 00:02:23,050 --> 00:02:27,442 I realized that I had found my people, my tribe. (Laughter) 42 00:02:27,442 --> 00:02:30,930 Because they became my only friends, they became my friends, 43 00:02:30,930 --> 00:02:33,928 because very few people that I knew -- Well, I wasn't 44 00:02:33,928 --> 00:02:37,298 sent a lot of cards or flowers. I mean, if I had had a broken leg 45 00:02:37,298 --> 00:02:39,462 or I was with child I would have been inundated, 46 00:02:39,462 --> 00:02:43,138 but all I got was a couple phone calls telling me to perk up. 47 00:02:43,138 --> 00:02:44,838 Perk up. 48 00:02:44,838 --> 00:02:49,545 Because I didn't think of that. (Laughter) 49 00:02:49,545 --> 00:02:52,845 (Laughter) (Applause) 50 00:02:52,845 --> 00:02:57,122 Because, you know, the one thing, one thing that you get with this disease, 51 00:02:57,122 --> 00:03:01,088 this one comes with a package, is you get a real sense of shame, 52 00:03:01,088 --> 00:03:03,400 because your friends go, "Oh come on, show me the lump, 53 00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:05,811 show me the x-rays," and of course you've got nothing to show, 54 00:03:05,811 --> 00:03:08,905 so you're, like, really disgusted with yourself because you're thinking, 55 00:03:08,905 --> 00:03:11,721 "I'm not being carpet-bombed. I don't live in a township." 56 00:03:11,721 --> 00:03:15,169 So you start to hear these abusive voices, but you don't hear one abusive voice, 57 00:03:15,169 --> 00:03:18,028 you hear about a thousand -- 100,000 abusive voices, 58 00:03:18,028 --> 00:03:22,037 like if the Devil had Tourette's, that's what it would sound like. 59 00:03:22,037 --> 00:03:24,665 But we all know in here, you know, there is no Devil, 60 00:03:24,665 --> 00:03:26,544 there are no voices in your head. 61 00:03:26,544 --> 00:03:28,218 You know that when you have those abusive voices, 62 00:03:28,218 --> 00:03:31,119 all those little neurons get together and in that little gap 63 00:03:31,119 --> 00:03:34,777 you get a real toxic "I want to kill myself" kind of chemical, 64 00:03:34,777 --> 00:03:37,523 and if you have that over and over again on a loop tape, 65 00:03:37,523 --> 00:03:39,419 you might have yourself depression. 66 00:03:39,419 --> 00:03:42,102 Oh, and that's not even the tip of the iceberg. 67 00:03:42,102 --> 00:03:45,704 If you get a little baby, and you abuse it verbally, 68 00:03:45,704 --> 00:03:49,161 its little brain sends out chemicals that are so destructive 69 00:03:49,161 --> 00:03:53,153 that the little part of its brain that can tell good from bad just doesn't grow, 70 00:03:53,153 --> 00:03:56,608 so you might have yourself a homegrown psychotic. 71 00:03:56,608 --> 00:04:00,085 If a soldier sees his friend blown up, his brain goes into 72 00:04:00,085 --> 00:04:03,599 such high alarm that he can't actually put the experience into words, 73 00:04:03,599 --> 00:04:06,373 so he just feels the horror over and over again. 74 00:04:06,373 --> 00:04:08,746 So here's my question. My question is, how come 75 00:04:08,746 --> 00:04:12,791 when people have mental damage, it's always an active imagination? 76 00:04:12,791 --> 00:04:16,010 How come every other organ in your body can get sick 77 00:04:16,010 --> 00:04:18,714 and you get sympathy, except the brain? 78 00:04:18,714 --> 00:04:21,113 I'd like to talk a little bit more about the brain, 79 00:04:21,113 --> 00:04:23,144 because I know you like that here at TED, 80 00:04:23,144 --> 00:04:26,597 so if you just give me a minute here, okay. 81 00:04:26,597 --> 00:04:28,603 Okay, let me just say, there's some good news. 82 00:04:28,603 --> 00:04:31,885 There is some good news. First of all, let me say, 83 00:04:31,885 --> 00:04:34,212 we've come a long, long way. 84 00:04:34,212 --> 00:04:38,253 We started off as a teeny, teeny little one-celled amoeba, 85 00:04:38,253 --> 00:04:42,850 tiny, just sticking onto a rock, and now, voila, the brain. 86 00:04:42,850 --> 00:04:44,750 Here we go. (Laughter) 87 00:04:44,750 --> 00:04:47,115 This little baby has a lot of horsepower. 88 00:04:47,115 --> 00:04:51,538 It comes completely conscious. It's got state-of-the-art lobes. 89 00:04:51,538 --> 00:04:55,131 We've got the occipital lobe so we can actually see the world. 90 00:04:55,131 --> 00:04:57,777 We got the temporal lobe so we can actually hear the world. 91 00:04:57,777 --> 00:04:59,396 Here we've got a little bit of long-term memory, 92 00:04:59,396 --> 00:05:04,633 so, you know that night you want to forget, when you got really drunk? Bye-bye! Gone. (Laughter) 93 00:05:04,633 --> 00:05:07,953 So actually, it's filled with 100 billion neurons 94 00:05:07,953 --> 00:05:11,256 just zizzing away, electrically transmitting information, 95 00:05:11,256 --> 00:05:13,976 zizzing, zizzing. I'm going to give you a little side view here. 96 00:05:13,976 --> 00:05:17,568 I don't know if you can get that here. (Laughter) 97 00:05:17,568 --> 00:05:21,568 So, zizzing away, and so — (Laughter) — 98 00:05:21,568 --> 00:05:25,257 And for every one — I know, I drew this myself. Thank you. 99 00:05:25,257 --> 00:05:28,929 For every one single neuron, you can actually have 100 00:05:28,929 --> 00:05:32,655 from 10,000 to 100,000 different connections 101 00:05:32,655 --> 00:05:35,917 or dendrites or whatever you want to call it, and every time 102 00:05:35,917 --> 00:05:38,437 you learn something, or you have an experience, 103 00:05:38,437 --> 00:05:40,710 that bush grows, you know, that bush of information. 104 00:05:40,710 --> 00:05:43,664 Can you imagine, every human being is carrying 105 00:05:43,664 --> 00:05:48,587 that equipment, even Paris Hilton? (Laughter) 106 00:05:48,587 --> 00:05:50,281 Go figure. 107 00:05:50,281 --> 00:05:53,765 But I got a little bad news for you folks. I got some bad news. 108 00:05:53,765 --> 00:05:56,885 This isn't for the one in four. This is for the four in four. 109 00:05:56,885 --> 00:06:01,065 We are not equipped for the 21st century. 110 00:06:01,065 --> 00:06:04,814 Evolution did not prepare us for this. We just don't have the bandwidth, 111 00:06:04,814 --> 00:06:07,397 and for people who say, oh, they're having a nice day, 112 00:06:07,397 --> 00:06:10,957 they're perfectly fine, they're more insane than the rest of us. 113 00:06:10,957 --> 00:06:13,481 Because I'll show you where there might be a few glitches 114 00:06:13,481 --> 00:06:15,925 in evolution. Okay, let me just explain this to you. 115 00:06:15,925 --> 00:06:19,486 When we were ancient man — (Laughter) — 116 00:06:19,486 --> 00:06:23,247 millions of years ago, and we suddenly felt threatened 117 00:06:23,247 --> 00:06:26,949 by a predator, okay? — (Laughter) — 118 00:06:26,949 --> 00:06:29,897 we would — Thank you. I drew these myself. (Laughter) 119 00:06:29,897 --> 00:06:33,720 Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause) 120 00:06:33,720 --> 00:06:37,794 Thank you. Anyway, we would fill up with our own adrenaline 121 00:06:37,794 --> 00:06:40,412 and our own cortisol, and then we'd kill or be killed, 122 00:06:40,412 --> 00:06:43,682 we'd eat or we'd be eaten, and then suddenly we'd de-fuel, 123 00:06:43,682 --> 00:06:45,615 and we'd go back to normal. Okay. 124 00:06:45,615 --> 00:06:50,897 So the problem is, nowadays, with modern man— (Laughter) — 125 00:06:50,897 --> 00:06:54,664 when we feel in danger, we still fill up with our own chemical 126 00:06:54,664 --> 00:06:59,299 but because we can't kill traffic wardens — (Laughter) — 127 00:06:59,299 --> 00:07:04,096 or eat estate agents, the fuel just stays in our body 128 00:07:04,096 --> 00:07:06,584 over and over, so we're in a constant state of alarm, 129 00:07:06,584 --> 00:07:08,317 a constant state. And here's another thing that happened. 130 00:07:08,317 --> 00:07:11,422 About 150,000 years ago, when language came online, 131 00:07:11,422 --> 00:07:13,847 we started to put words to this constant emergency, 132 00:07:13,847 --> 00:07:16,503 so it wasn't just, "Oh my God, there's a saber-toothed tiger," 133 00:07:16,503 --> 00:07:20,544 which could be, it was suddenly, "Oh my God, I didn't send the email. Oh my God, my thighs are too fat. 134 00:07:20,544 --> 00:07:24,549 Oh my God, everybody can see I'm stupid. I didn't get invited to the Christmas party!" 135 00:07:24,549 --> 00:07:27,035 So you've got this nagging loop tape that goes 136 00:07:27,035 --> 00:07:29,571 over and over again that drives you insane, so, 137 00:07:29,571 --> 00:07:32,548 you see what the problem is? What once made you safe 138 00:07:32,548 --> 00:07:34,354 now drives you insane. 139 00:07:34,354 --> 00:07:37,508 I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but somebody has to be. 140 00:07:37,508 --> 00:07:43,372 Your pets are happier than you are. (Laughter) 141 00:07:43,372 --> 00:07:46,268 (Applause) 142 00:07:46,268 --> 00:07:51,423 So kitty cat, meow, happy happy happy, human beings, screwed. (Laughter) 143 00:07:51,423 --> 00:07:53,698 Completely and utterly -- so, screwed. 144 00:07:53,698 --> 00:07:56,157 But my point is, if we don't talk about this stuff, 145 00:07:56,157 --> 00:07:58,495 and we don't learn how to deal with our lives, it's not going 146 00:07:58,495 --> 00:08:00,969 to be one in four. It's going to be four in four 147 00:08:00,969 --> 00:08:04,232 who are really, really going to get ill in the upstairs department. 148 00:08:04,232 --> 00:08:06,759 And while we're at it, can we please stop the stigma? 149 00:08:06,759 --> 00:08:13,436 Thank you. (Applause) 150 00:08:13,436 --> 00:08:24,181 (Applause) Thank you.