#802 Bipolar, Vices & Psych Wards - Emily LoMenzo Washcovick
#802 Bipolar, Vices & Psych Wards - Emily LoMenzo Washcovick

Mental Illness Happy Hour

Paul Gilmartin talks with Emily LoMenzo Washcovick about her bipolar diagnosis, manic hospitalisation, and the vices she uses to cope. Their conversation contrasts trauma and genetics, highlights privilege in getting care, and stresses how language, support and honesty can ease shame around mental illness.

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1:39:11•29 May 2026

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Bipolar, Vices and a Psych Ward Wake-Up Call with Emily LoMenzo Washcovick

Episode Overview

Bipolar disorder can hide for years behind high achievement, partying and “normal” young adult behaviour until a major crisis forces a diagnosis.
Access to a good inpatient facility, supportive family and insurance is a huge factor in how safe and effective psychiatric treatment can be.
Vices like weed, fast food, spending and sex may look harmless on the surface but can become unhealthy when driven by dopamine chasing and avoidance.
Hearing others describe their mental health in groups or podcasts gives people language for their own experience and helps reduce shame.
Medication, structure, and honest conversations with loved ones can make living with bipolar and ADHD manageable, even if the struggle never fully disappears.

“"You only have one time to do this the first time."”

Curious about how others manage bipolar disorder, risky habits, and the pressure to "hold it all together"? This conversation between host Paul Gilmartin and guest Emily LoMenzo Washcovick digs into exactly that, with a mix of dark humour, raw honesty, and Midwestern warmth. Emily shares how a perfect-on-paper childhood and high-achieving career masked undiagnosed bipolar disorder for years.

Hypomania hid behind “work ethic” and party culture, and spending sprees, constant busyness, and people-pleasing all felt normal – until a full-blown manic episode ended with her naked, terrified, and being strapped down and sedated in A&E. Her psychiatrist’s blunt line, “You only have one time to do this the first time,” becomes a turning point that convinces her to stay in hospital long enough to get proper treatment.

She talks frankly about vices: heavy weed use, fast food binges, and past sexual behaviour used for validation rather than connection. None of it is glamorised; she’s clear that these are ways to chase dopamine, escape discomfort, or avoid work, even when life looks successful from the outside. Paul adds his own struggles with compulsion, pornography, woodworking obsession and depression that feels like emotional “nothingness”, offering a striking contrast between trauma-based illness and her largely genetic, privilege-buffered journey.

The episode keeps circling back to shame, support, and language. Both stress how hard it is to ask for help when you feel like you should just “try harder”, and how powerful it is to sit in a group and hear your story come out of someone else’s mouth. Emily also shares how medication, therapy, and honest conversations with loved ones help keep her grounded, even as she builds a new life and podcast around success, setbacks, and mental health.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your coping mechanisms are quietly running the show, this one might have you asking some good questions of yourself too.

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