May 13, 2025 • 36 mins
Patrick Kennedy has spent a lifetime at the intersection of public service and personal struggle – growing up in America’s most iconic political family while privately navigating bipolar disorder and addiction.
In this powerful episode of the My Legacy podcast, hosted by Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King, Marc Kielburger, and Craig Kielburger, Patrick and his wife, Amy Kennedy open up about the deep personal cost of silence—and the extraordinary change that can happen when we finally speak out.
From their candid love story to the ongoing fight for mental health parity, Patrick and Amy share what it really takes to build a legacy rooted not in perfection, but in truth.
Unforgettable lessons from this episode include:
- Why mental health is still sidelined in medicine—and what we can do about it
- The surprising power of “force multipliers” for well-being
- What it means to support a partner through recovery
- How stigma divides—and how organizing can unify a movement
- The one mindset shift that helped Patrick turn scandal into service
If you’ve ever struggled to ask for help, support someone you love, or make peace with your past, this conversation will stay with you long after it ends.
Creator and Executive Producer: Suzanne Hayward
Co-Executive Producer: Lisa Lisle
Editor: Sujit Agrawal
Post-production Pro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
In my family. Even though we're a big in social
justice like everyone else, we felt really imprisoned by the
shame and stigma of mental health and addiction issues. We
wouldn't talk about them, even though we'reas I said, we're
very progressive in all the rest because the power of
shame and stigma are so strong. I did not become
(00:24):
a leader as some profile encouraged. I reacted to a
situation where the fellow that I had been in drug
rehab with had sold his story of being in rehab
with the Kennedy to the National Inquirer, and so I
had to see my own face on the cover of
the National Choir with the headlines Patrick Kennedy drug addict
(00:46):
and this is going into my second term in public office.
Of course, I thought my political career was over.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
There.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
That was Patrick Kennedy, some of the late Senator Ted
Kennedy and former US Congressman sharing the personal story behind
the very public spotlight. I'm Andrea Waters King and this
is my legacy, hosted by me, my husband Martin Luther
King the Third, and our good friends Mark Kilberger and
Craig Kilberg. Patrick and his wife Amy Kennedy, an educator
(01:12):
and mental health leader in her own right, open up
about breaking generational silence and the hope they found in
telling the truth out loud. It's a rare, honest look
at what it means to carry both pain and purpose
and keep showing up for the people you love. Today,
we're bringing you a conversation straight from the Lake Nna
Impact Form at the KPMG's Learning an Innovation Center's Lake
(01:33):
House in Orlando's Lake Nona Community, a place where the
brightest minds come together to shape the future of health,
wellness and medical innovation.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Let's go. Welcome to my legacy. We're honored to have
with us today, Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who of course, comes
from one of America's most iconic political families. His father,
Senator Ted Kennedy, was known as the Lion of the Senate.
Senator Kennedy dedicated nearly five decades to fighting for civil rights,
health care, and social justice. Of course, Patrick is forging
(02:04):
his own legacy. He served as a US Congressman for
sixteen years. He was the driving force behind the Mental
Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act that required health insurance
companies to provide coverage for mental illness and addiction treatment,
just as they would for other illnesses. Together with his
wife Amy, they founded the Kennedy Forum to ensure that
(02:26):
mental health is an essential part of our healthcare system
and to continue to break the stigma around mental health.
As our listeners know, what makes my legacy unique is
we don't just hear from extraordinary individuals. We hear from
the people who know them best, those who have been
with them on their life journey, Patrick, would you please
do us the honor of introducing to us your wife Amy?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Thank you. Well. My wife Amy and I met. I
was speaking to a coalition that was really focused on
developmental disabilities and her father was a special ed teacher,
but he got sick and so he sent Amy in
his place. And I was honoring my aunt, Unis Shriver
(03:08):
for having started Special Olympics, And of course afterwards, I
was asked to, you know, sign some things, and all
I could do is wait because Amy was in the
line for me to sign her program, and I was disheartened.
When she came up, she says, I just need to
do this for my father because he loves your family.
(03:29):
And I thought, oh my god, it's guy who thought
I was going to be in good shape. But Amy,
a public school teacher, ran for Congress a couple of
years ago and tracked the attention of our Governor Murphy
and New Jersey such that he put her in charge
of the National Governor's Association effort to define the solutions
(03:50):
to helping address children's mental health. She's co founder of
the Kennedy Forum. And of course, if you're talking about
mental health prevention, prevention, prevention, so she's led that effort.
We wouldn't have such a big crisis in this country
if we did a better job at earlier intervention. And
as a public school teacher, she's been on the front
lines of seeing these challenges.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
What an extraordinary dedication both of you to mental health
into working on such a critical issue. And as I
sit here with an extraordinary couple who have come together
an iconic family, a school teacher dedicated towards mental health,
I look at both of you, co creating and co
leading this institution, and I can't help but think of
another iconic family where an individual came from her own
activism roots and married in and the two of them
(04:34):
co leading and co creating their own passion on civil rights.
We know Martin's name, we know Patrick's name. But I
love in both your interactions that you called out all
that you do and the extraordinary work that you do
is with your life partners. I love the tributes because
Martin you have said that Andrea is the driving force
behind a lot of your action, and Patrick, I love
that you just said Amy is the driving force behind
a lot of your action. It was just lovely to
(04:55):
hear it.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Obviously is no secret that our families have worked together
for decades now. In fact, at your aunt's funeral just
a few months ago, Martin talked about the fact that
he had worked with mar Kennedy's then he can count
and more projects.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
But you are Could you tell me a little bit
about these two families and how you guys have worked
together over the years.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I think that Martin said it well in his speech
that history knit us together, but love has kept us together.
Our families both have dedicated so much to public service
and to really creating I think a country and a
world that works for all of us. And when you
have those connections from the work that your father did
(05:43):
with his uncle to uncles actually coming to the house
after the assassination and One of the things I think
a lot of people also don't realize is that after
RFK was assassinated, if I'm correct, your mother rode home
on a plane with it was Jackie Kennedy, elf the
Kennedy together, this generation, I mean Martin, he paged for
(06:07):
your father, campaigned for you, Amy, and we just you know,
we raise our children together. We both have sixteen year olds.
We you know, we see each other. You know, ever
we hug each other, and so it's like family.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, like your dad said, we're all caught in an
inescapable web of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
What affects one directly affects alt indirectly. But in our
families that's been more true than any two families, given
all of the similarities and the deaths and tragic deaths,
(06:42):
but in the common cause of social justice. And I
can tell you one of the greatest sources of pride
in my families having worked with your family.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
As are we thanks and we'll just so through that
it continues, it continues generation the generation. But Patrick, your
family obviously name is one of the most well known
in American history, a family which we've said has deeply
rooted in public service. So for you, who would you
say would be the biggest influences in your childhood and
(07:16):
what are some of the lessons that shaped you the most.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Well. I was really blessed because, as you know, my
dad was larger than life, and he included me in
his life. So even though I was just a little kid,
he had me sit in with him when he was
getting briefings on the issues of the day. He had
me travel with him when he was doing health care
hearings across the country, and he introduced me to all
(07:44):
the people that were coming through our house or part
of the civic life of our countries, so that I
kind of felt like got a front row seat. It
reduced the kind of fear and the hesitancy to be
active because we had such great morale models to show
us what activism meant.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Amy, I like to say it that I think that
one of my superpowers is that I was raised in
a normal family, bringing the levelness of normalcy. Do you
find that as well, having you know, a very strong woman,
very accomplished woman, and you know, bringing up children in
this legacy, if you will, that could be larger than
(08:24):
life definitely.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I think it's been very grounding, not just for my kids,
but for Patrick as well. You know, it was when
Patrick left Congress and that had been his life. He
also that was the year that his dad had just passed,
and I think he was a little bit kind of
(08:47):
looking for roots, and even though he has this really
big family, to be able to kind of scale it
down to something that was in its simplest forms, being
able to come be part of my family, which has
just been really centered in South Jersey for you know, generations,
(09:07):
and we're tight knit, small school teacher family. One Christmas
he came and then he never left, and it was, yeah,
it was, you know, wonderful for our family, but also
I think really helped him kind of reset for a
life after DC that was going to be centered around
(09:32):
his own family. And for our kids, you know, there's
really cool things that they get to do. But then
there's also a little bit of my mom that you know,
comes into play where I'm saying, don't throw that out,
we need to you can eat that, you know, whatever
it is. That tailor's it back down to a different level.
(09:53):
And he always says, I swear your parents are still
living in the Great Depression. Why I use your mom
saving that tenfoil? You know, I was like, well, you'll say,
we're teaching the kids something.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Absolutely coming up on my legacy, why silence never protected anyone,
and what it really takes to change the story for
the next generation, Like follow and share this with someone
who needs to hear this right now. Now back to
(10:29):
my legacy.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
As my co hosts know, I've been especially excited for
this conversation because I want, through our listeners and viewers,
to talk more about mental health. It's personal and families
across America. It's personal in my family and Candor have
lost my sister for mental health issues after a long battle.
It changed my wife's life in the most profound way.
She went back to school, she got her doctorate, she
became a psychologist. She works in promotion prevention, the very
(10:53):
work that you do through the Kennedy Forum. And so
as I sit here with the two of you, I
love the fact that you have busted through stigma in
such a powerful way and through politics. But since we're
talking about, you know, all my legacy origin stories, I
got to go all the way back to the origin
because when I look at the courage. It took at
a very young age, Patrick, to be open, you know,
(11:15):
to battle addiction, bipolar disorder, rehabit eighteen. Yeah, can you
take us back to how that moment in your life
and frankly, how formative it was for you sitting here today.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, of course, in my family, even though we're big
in social justice like everyone else, we felt really imprisoned
by the shame and stigma of mental health and addiction issues.
We wouldn't talk about them, even though whereas I said,
we're very progressive in all the rest because the power
of shame and stigma are so strong. I did not
(11:50):
become a leader as some profile and courage that my uncle,
you know, wrote about profiles and courage. I reacted to
a situation where the fellow I had been in drug
rehab with had sold his story of being in rehab
with the Kennedy to the National Inquirer, And so I
had to see my own face on the cover of
(12:10):
the National Choir with the headlines Patrick Kennedy drug addict
and this is my going into my second term in
public office. Of course, I thought my political career was over.
This was back in nineteen ninety one when these were
really big issues. Of course, today nothing knocks you out
of the box because everything's fair game, but my constituency
(12:31):
was really something. They really didn't like what had happened
to me, and so they I was reelected. When I
got to Washington, I could sponsor all this mental health legislation,
including the one that I kind of became known for,
which is the Mental Health Parody and Addiction Equedact. And
I was the first name on that bill. I was
(12:53):
the youngest member of Congress from the smallest state in
the country, and yet I got to put my name
number one on a bill that simply said that we
had to treat the brain like any other organ of
the body and have insurance coverage cover all the illnesses.
Nobody wanted to be champion of the And if you
had a bill with the title though had the words
(13:15):
mental in it and addiction, I mean what politician wants
to be the primary sponsor that? Because, of course the
next question is, well, do you have a mental health
issue or addiction issue? And no one wants to answer that,
because of course we all do, and so they don't
want to go down that rabbit hole. But for me,
since this guy kind of rated on me. I was
thrown out there and it ended up being one of
(13:37):
the greatest things that ever happened in my life. So
God works in mysterious ways, you.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Know, Patrick, we have a lot in cooming, but certainly
the significant and incredible family history. But also with that
comes great expectations and challenges that are larger than life.
I think about, and I'm grateful that my mom liberated
me as a young person by saying, you don't have
(14:05):
to be a minister, you don't have to be a
human and civil rights leader, you don't have to go
to Morehouse college. Just be your best self, and whatever
that is we will support. Now we know your uncle
Bobby and Jack fought for civil rights, and your whole family,
and of course, as you mentioned, your aunt starting special Olympics.
And your dad holds a special place in my heart
(14:27):
because one of the reasons I ran for office was
because of my serving as his page and seeing how
laws were made. So I was inspired by his leadership
throughout his life, as so many were as he became
the lion of the Senate.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Well, you know a lot of politicians when they leave
office say they're getting out of politics to spend more
time with their family. My case, I went into politics
to closer to my family. When I got elected. My
cousin Joe was congressman, my dad was obviously senator, my
(15:08):
cousin Kathleen Lieutenanco or my cousin Mark in the state
House in Maryland. But I got to be with my
dad as a colleague, and then I got to have
meals with him throughout the week. We'd always do lunch together,
and so I had a chance to actually have a
(15:28):
really different relationship beside kind of father son. It was
kind of colleague, and I'm just so glad I had that,
because you know, if you're a son with such an
enormous figure as a father, it can be pretty intimidating.
And it not that it wasn't, but I felt enormously
blessed to have had the chance to actually be successful
(15:50):
in his domain of political life. As you know, these
people that were so impacted by our father's lives, you know,
I got a front row seat to hearing how their
lives were transformed by that service. So in a sense,
my uncles never got to hear about how much they
(16:11):
inspired and made a difference in people's lives. So I
had lots of positive reinforcement. You know, these days when
you think about politicians is just so negative and you know, depressing.
It's wondering anybody runs for office. But when I was
growing up, it was joyful, it was fun, it was interesting,
and so that's why I feel so blessed to have
(16:33):
been part of it.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Coming up on my legacy, Patrick Share is what it
felt like to break the silence his family had carried
for generations. And the greatest lesson he learned, like follow
and think about sending this to someone trying to do
it differently than their parents. Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Patrick, talk special Olympics with your family and civil rights
with your family, And I think that was very modest
of you because you didn't talk about the fact that,
in your own right, the two of you have carved
out mental health as the issue and we list all
the family accomplishments, and so again I just want to
go to this incredible work that you've done. And Patrick,
you've always been open on mental health issues. You've talked
about it, but the diagnosis of bipolar came later and
(17:21):
a lot of people struggle without understanding diagnosis. So can
you help us understand a little bit of what was
your own personal journey, to understand what you were experiencing
with the lens that that might help some of the
listeners who are searching on their own journey.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well, you know, bipolar used to be known as manic depression.
So I experienced a lot of mania, and part of
the reason I was elected at twenty one to the
state legislature and then elected to Congress at twenty seven.
You'd tell you, well, what is anyone thinking doing that?
But I, of course I had this fueled by the
(17:56):
fact that my family did big things, So of course
part of me thought, well, I can do big things.
But you know, it was definitely over my skis, and
so there was that. And then self medicating with alcohol
and drugs was a way I used to manage those symptoms. Ironically,
I had the best psychiatrists in the world, but they
(18:16):
didn't often get the training and addiction. So I had
great psychiatrists, but you know, most clinician physical doctors oncology,
heart disease, diabetes, none of them get any training on
mental health and addiction, which if you're going to treat
your patients and you're an oncologist, being just diagnosing your
patient with cancer and you don't know how to treat
(18:37):
anxiety and depression, you're not doing your job. You're a
heart doctrin and you don't know that if underlying depressions
can increase your patient's chance for fatal heart type by
four times, if you're treating a diabetic and we know
how big that issue, and you're not addressing alcoholism. So
these are relevant issues because we think of them again
(18:59):
as isolation, but we have to think of the whole person.
So what I want in the future is when people
go to these other doctors as part of the health
for those illnesses. Mental health is part of it as
opposed to seeing, as I said again separate from the system,
which it gets pushed to the margins because it's not
paid for rankly. And the parity law that I've been
(19:22):
working on, I've been trying to get the insurance companies
to comply with it, and I will say it's really
important for them to have transparency so we know what
the access is to diabetic care as opposed to depression,
anxiety or addiction care. There is enormous disparity, which means
people have to pay more for those health care services
(19:45):
because they're not accessible, they're out of network. Insurance companies
have kind of ghost networks. What we're doing here at
Lake Nona, and we have KPMG as one of our
big partners, is showing the cost to the whole life
of the person, not just their other medical costs, but
the impact on their work world, how they're less engaged,
(20:09):
what they call presenteeism where they're there but they're not
really there, or absenteeism. You know, we've never fully managed
to understand the full impact of mental health and addiction.
I have just celebrated my fourteenth year of continuous sobriety.
I didn't get sober until I was forty two. I
(20:33):
was in and out of hospitals throughout my time in Congress,
and most of them were obviously all anonymous. I made
a big point, even though I'm the champion of anti stigma,
to not say that I'm going in there, because I
still felt the stigma. It's still very alive and well.
(20:54):
So I went to the Mayo Clinic rather than Hazelton
for my drug treatment because I thought if I went
to the Mayo Clinic, people might think I had a
real illness, you know, and that's when the height of
my you know, work on parody. So this is very still,
very stigmatized, and you know the best way to change
(21:18):
that is to normalize mental health as part of overall health.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
So, in light of the fact that this is visible
to our society, I think, in general, what is the pushback?
Why are we not there yet?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well, we're not organized. So when Amy ran for Congresses,
you know, we could get five thousand teachers show up
all over our district. I couldn't get fifty mental health
people because they're not organized. We don't have a list serve.
It's as basic as that Martin where if you are running,
you get the afl CIO, you get the iron workers,
(21:53):
the she metal workers, the carpenters, the labors. In our place,
we have the opioid, we have the I'll call you. So,
we have the people who have families of overdose, who
families of suicide, schizophrenia. We're all siloed and yet all
of our issues benefit from ninety eight percent of the
same things. But as a community, we don't look at
(22:16):
each other as part of the greater whole, and so
we exacerbate our own advocacy efforts. Being so anemic and
we don't put the lights on the board. In terms
of our voter power, I mean, if you think about it,
you know the old Godfather movie, we're bigger than us
steel Like, we are the biggest special interest group in
(22:37):
the country that has no power, and so we need
to be organized. If you ask me what's one of
the biggest things we could do for our movement, it's
just to organize the advocacy community, to get the vote out,
to have an agenda where when people got elected they
know what they were voting for. Now we have politicians
(22:58):
telling us, oh, I have lived experience or I did this,
but we need to know what their positions are on
the big issues so we can hold them accountable and
if they're not doing what needs to be done, we
vote for someone who will. And if they know that
we're as big and as widespread as we are, they're
going to pay attention to us. So it's the old
(23:20):
you know, political power is really going to determine what
kind of system we have. And the reason we haven't
made the pushback is stigma's still live. As person in recovery,
I can say I'm in twelve step recovery that doesn't
violate what's known as the eleventh tradition in twelve step
recovery to be anonymous, because I haven't told you what
program I'm in, But a lot of people in twelve
(23:42):
step recovery think that they're not supposed to be public.
We have twenty eight million Americans in long term recovery.
No one knows who they are because they're living in
church basements and they're anonymous. When I came back from
rehab in Congress, I was amazed to how many of
my colleagues had lived experience. Of course, none of them
(24:03):
knew each other. They all knew me because I was
all over the headlines, and so they all told me
who they were, but none of them knew who each
other were. And you know, you're not going to get
this political power unless you organize, and that's something we
really need to do.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
One thing, though, you mentioned disparity, and the thing that's
very concerning is and you also mentioned early intervention. Well,
you know, right now, with so many cuts being made
to you know, Department of Education, and where this is
where some people, some families are getting their only intervention,
(24:43):
and there is a disparity even for access to services
that will help mental health.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, when we talk about access and look at network
adequacy and what's possible, we want to make sure that
there's no wrong door. That's why schools can serve a
really important role in access and being able to make
sure that everybody has an available space that providers can
(25:13):
come in, that they can bill insurance from there. Because
we know that schools are not going to have the funding,
they're not capable of doing the billing. It's an administrative burden.
And yet this is where students need to be able
to get the care to have the not only the
academic success that's going to change their trajectory on their
(25:37):
emotional wellbeing. But if we don't do these interventions and
we have to wait for a diagnosis, they'll wait ten
years for a diagnosis and during that time it metastasizes.
So we have to be able to get in early.
We need to make schools where they're spending the majority
of their day a place where they can access these services,
(25:58):
and that's not going to be through the school guidance counselor.
School guidance counselor is an essential part of the ecosystem
for providing care and helping to identify students that need help.
But you have to have licensed clinicians that are coming
in and providing the service or be able to refer
out to a community partner. And once they've set up
(26:23):
that full continuum of care that can begin with school
or can begin in the pediatrician's office with screening, Let's
make sure that that can follow them throughout their life
course and they can move in and out of that
regardless of whether or not there's a diagnosis. We need
to treat the symptoms that are impacting their daily life.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Interesting and now, Amy, I know as you've experienced that
mental health struggles don't just affect the person living with them,
they also deeply impact the people who love them. For
someone who has a family member diagnosed with bipolar disorder
but feels unsure of how to help, what's the one
thing that you would want them to know?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
It absolutely impacts the whole family. There's a lot of
research around this. Some of the providers that are doing
this work have shown that just by providing treatment to
the individual that the famili's anxiety and depression are significantly reduced,
(27:21):
so by forty percent. So it's really a twofer by
supporting the person that you love, your own wellbeing is
going to be improved. You know, you find that you're
bringing the focus back to to how you're doing it.
It can be very hard, you know, you want to
share tasks equally, and so if Patrick is going to
(27:46):
a meeting at noon instead of you know, helping me
with something that I need, that's because that's his health
and he has to do that. And I wouldn't begrudge
him going for radiation or going to do some other thing.
(28:08):
But if his workout really is an essential part of
his well being, you know, he goes on that treadmill
because it helps his brain and it's boosting his endorphins,
and he's going to a twelve step meeting because that's
important to him, then we have to prioritize that and
(28:28):
make sure that there's a workaround. But he's also very flexible.
You know, he's doing this, he's we're in line at something.
He's got his twelve step meeting on his phone and
he's listening to it as we stand in line. So
he's trying to balance many things too. But I would
just say, especially in the first year, there's a lot
(28:51):
that has to be really prioritized around that person and
their wellness. So I am also I've been sober for
more than fourteen years because I'm supporting Patrick, and how
much easier is that journey for him if he has
a partner who is with him in that. We're going
(29:11):
to events all the time, and you know, we're going
home together. So let's let's both be in the same page,
and we might at the same time go, Okay, I
think we better roll because they're getting they're getting a
little more fired up than than we are. So let's
go together. And so having that kind of understanding of
(29:32):
where we are comfortable and bedtime, all those things. We
never underestimate how important sleep is in this whole process.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
But also we want to train up clinicians. To my point,
earlier cardiologists don't know about mental health. On coologists don't know,
and we need to upscale the rest of the medical
profession in addition to train up a whole new cohort
of providers. In the theoretical, but ultimately we have to do practically,
(30:04):
meaning really see what kind of therapy works. Cognitive behavioral
therapy works. In my view, it's the evidence form of treatment,
which means you've got to do homework. Whoever knew that
therapy was just talking to someone you know every other
week for forty minutes. No, No, that's just the check in.
(30:25):
The Real work is what happens between therapy visits. And
here are the homework assignments where you can measure how
you're changing your thinking based upon how you're actually changing
your actions. So long story short, we have a deficit
(30:45):
of literacy in this whole space. We have to educate
everybody about what it really represents so that it's not
this mysterious thing.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
There's so many amazing clips from this conversation that I
hope our listeners and viewers share with family and loved ones.
But I just want to shout out to you just
talked about CBT is what a great treatment option, cognitive
behavioral therapy. I love that you just talked about that,
and Amy, I love that you talked so openly about
the support that family gives and how you supported Patrick
on this journey and how it was good for your
(31:15):
own mental health. And the reason I want to shout
out to that also is because Patrick, you've talked about
how it really wasn't easy to share your story when
you spoke out, even family members you said were pushed
back candidly at the time, And can you help us
understand why do you think that was and also why
(31:35):
was it so important for you to push beyond that
yourself to be so open.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Well, everything that I thought was a secret in my
family was not a secret. Their whole rows of bookshelves
and libraries that tell all the stories that I thought
no one should know because it was a family, you
know ethos that we got to keep these things to ourselves.
(32:03):
So in a sense, I never said anything that wasn't
widely known anyway. But for family, it felt like a betrayal,
Like it felt like we were I was telling the secrets,
and that's indicative of everybody, because everyone else it is
a reveal. For my story, it was not a reveal,
(32:26):
but my family still thought it felt like a reveal.
Because growing up in a political family, people would attack
my family based upon experiences with alcoholism and addiction and
so forth, and so it became a very sensitive subject.
And of course these attacks were predicated on the idea
that there was some sign of moral failing. Right, no
(32:48):
one could if you wanted to look up post traumatic
stress in the dictionary. You know, one of the examples
would be my dad, you know, lost to his brothers
to assassination. Many Trump events. We're just starting to learn
about all of this stuff. This is no one, as
Amy says with about her students, gets up and acts out.
(33:11):
They just don't have the tools to know how to
manage their emotions their feelings. In my journey as an advocate,
I got a chance to rededicate the John F. Kennedy's
Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where they
train all the Green Berets. And they told me there
because they saw that I was a mental health guy.
(33:32):
They said, mister Kennedy, we have more mental health for
our Green Berets than any other branch of the Service.
And I said to myself, these Green Berets don't need
mental health. They're so strong. They jump out of airplanes,
they swim under the water for five miles without breathing,
you know, they hit the beach, they speak six languages,
they take out their target, they're reading to their kids
(33:54):
by dinner time. I mean, these these people don't And
he said, no, no, we look at mental health as
a four multiplier. And I love that because what it
basically says, if the Green Berets, who are the sharpest, strongest,
they all invest in their own mental health. Why because
if they're on a mission, they have to. They can't
(34:16):
have any intrusive thoughts. So one of the things that
characterizes illnesses is you kind of have the inability to
have insight. For one, that's the common characteristic. You don't
know how bad you really are, but you also have
these intrusive thoughts, and the Green Berets just they train
(34:37):
on how to mitigate that, because if you have an
intrusive thought when you're supposed to have eyes on your six,
you know, your teammates and a mission, it could be
the difference between life or death. But I love the
idea that we all could maximize our own mental health
because that way we make it something that everybody can
(34:59):
do better by.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Amy Patrick, thank you for being so vulnerable with us,
for sharing your story to make sure people don't suffer
in silence, to break through stigma, to invite others to share,
to create the conversation you have today, and then your
incredible advocacy on mental health that you have done for
both of your lifetimes. You know, Patrick and Amy were
grateful for you joining us today from the Lake Nona
Impact Forum at the KPMG Lake House in Orlando's Lake
(35:24):
Nona community. We're so grateful for you living your legacy
every single day and for showing us what change is
possible when we come together.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Thank you, Thank you for joining us. If you enjoy
today's conversation, subscribe, share, and follow us at my Legacy
Movement on social media. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with
bonus content every Thursday. At its core, this podcast honors
doctor King's vision of the beloved community and the power
of connection. A Legacy Plus Studio production distribute it by
(35:56):
iHeartMedia creator and executive producers is Heyward co executive producer
Lisa Lyle. Listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
get your podcasts. Until next time, may you find inspiration
to live your legacy.
In my family. Even though we're a big in social
justice like everyone else, we felt really imprisoned by the
shame and stigma of mental health and addiction issues. We
wouldn't talk about them, even though we'reas I said, we're
very progressive in all the rest because the power of
shame and stigma are so strong. I did not become
(00:24):
a leader as some profile encouraged. I reacted to a
situation where the fellow that I had been in drug
rehab with had sold his story of being in rehab
with the Kennedy to the National Inquirer, and so I
had to see my own face on the cover of
the National Choir with the headlines Patrick Kennedy drug addict
(00:46):
and this is going into my second term in public office.
Of course, I thought my political career was over.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
There.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
That was Patrick Kennedy, some of the late Senator Ted
Kennedy and former US Congressman sharing the personal story behind
the very public spotlight. I'm Andrea Waters King and this
is my legacy, hosted by me, my husband Martin Luther
King the Third, and our good friends Mark Kilberger and
Craig Kilberg. Patrick and his wife Amy Kennedy, an educator
(01:12):
and mental health leader in her own right, open up
about breaking generational silence and the hope they found in
telling the truth out loud. It's a rare, honest look
at what it means to carry both pain and purpose
and keep showing up for the people you love. Today,
we're bringing you a conversation straight from the Lake Nna
Impact Form at the KPMG's Learning an Innovation Center's Lake
(01:33):
House in Orlando's Lake Nona Community, a place where the
brightest minds come together to shape the future of health,
wellness and medical innovation.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Let's go. Welcome to my legacy. We're honored to have
with us today, Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who of course, comes
from one of America's most iconic political families. His father,
Senator Ted Kennedy, was known as the Lion of the Senate.
Senator Kennedy dedicated nearly five decades to fighting for civil rights,
health care, and social justice. Of course, Patrick is forging
(02:04):
his own legacy. He served as a US Congressman for
sixteen years. He was the driving force behind the Mental
Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act that required health insurance
companies to provide coverage for mental illness and addiction treatment,
just as they would for other illnesses. Together with his
wife Amy, they founded the Kennedy Forum to ensure that
(02:26):
mental health is an essential part of our healthcare system
and to continue to break the stigma around mental health.
As our listeners know, what makes my legacy unique is
we don't just hear from extraordinary individuals. We hear from
the people who know them best, those who have been
with them on their life journey, Patrick, would you please
do us the honor of introducing to us your wife Amy?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Thank you. Well. My wife Amy and I met. I
was speaking to a coalition that was really focused on
developmental disabilities and her father was a special ed teacher,
but he got sick and so he sent Amy in
his place. And I was honoring my aunt, Unis Shriver
(03:08):
for having started Special Olympics, And of course afterwards, I
was asked to, you know, sign some things, and all
I could do is wait because Amy was in the
line for me to sign her program, and I was disheartened.
When she came up, she says, I just need to
do this for my father because he loves your family.
(03:29):
And I thought, oh my god, it's guy who thought
I was going to be in good shape. But Amy,
a public school teacher, ran for Congress a couple of
years ago and tracked the attention of our Governor Murphy
and New Jersey such that he put her in charge
of the National Governor's Association effort to define the solutions
(03:50):
to helping address children's mental health. She's co founder of
the Kennedy Forum. And of course, if you're talking about
mental health prevention, prevention, prevention, so she's led that effort.
We wouldn't have such a big crisis in this country
if we did a better job at earlier intervention. And
as a public school teacher, she's been on the front
lines of seeing these challenges.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
What an extraordinary dedication both of you to mental health
into working on such a critical issue. And as I
sit here with an extraordinary couple who have come together
an iconic family, a school teacher dedicated towards mental health,
I look at both of you, co creating and co
leading this institution, and I can't help but think of
another iconic family where an individual came from her own
activism roots and married in and the two of them
(04:34):
co leading and co creating their own passion on civil rights.
We know Martin's name, we know Patrick's name. But I
love in both your interactions that you called out all
that you do and the extraordinary work that you do
is with your life partners. I love the tributes because
Martin you have said that Andrea is the driving force
behind a lot of your action, and Patrick, I love
that you just said Amy is the driving force behind
a lot of your action. It was just lovely to
(04:55):
hear it.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Obviously is no secret that our families have worked together
for decades now. In fact, at your aunt's funeral just
a few months ago, Martin talked about the fact that
he had worked with mar Kennedy's then he can count
and more projects.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
But you are Could you tell me a little bit
about these two families and how you guys have worked
together over the years.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I think that Martin said it well in his speech
that history knit us together, but love has kept us together.
Our families both have dedicated so much to public service
and to really creating I think a country and a
world that works for all of us. And when you
have those connections from the work that your father did
(05:43):
with his uncle to uncles actually coming to the house
after the assassination and One of the things I think
a lot of people also don't realize is that after
RFK was assassinated, if I'm correct, your mother rode home
on a plane with it was Jackie Kennedy, elf the
Kennedy together, this generation, I mean Martin, he paged for
(06:07):
your father, campaigned for you, Amy, and we just you know,
we raise our children together. We both have sixteen year olds.
We you know, we see each other. You know, ever
we hug each other, and so it's like family.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, like your dad said, we're all caught in an
inescapable web of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
What affects one directly affects alt indirectly. But in our
families that's been more true than any two families, given
all of the similarities and the deaths and tragic deaths,
(06:42):
but in the common cause of social justice. And I
can tell you one of the greatest sources of pride
in my families having worked with your family.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
As are we thanks and we'll just so through that
it continues, it continues generation the generation. But Patrick, your
family obviously name is one of the most well known
in American history, a family which we've said has deeply
rooted in public service. So for you, who would you
say would be the biggest influences in your childhood and
(07:16):
what are some of the lessons that shaped you the most.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Well. I was really blessed because, as you know, my
dad was larger than life, and he included me in
his life. So even though I was just a little kid,
he had me sit in with him when he was
getting briefings on the issues of the day. He had
me travel with him when he was doing health care
hearings across the country, and he introduced me to all
(07:44):
the people that were coming through our house or part
of the civic life of our countries, so that I
kind of felt like got a front row seat. It
reduced the kind of fear and the hesitancy to be
active because we had such great morale models to show
us what activism meant.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Amy, I like to say it that I think that
one of my superpowers is that I was raised in
a normal family, bringing the levelness of normalcy. Do you
find that as well, having you know, a very strong woman,
very accomplished woman, and you know, bringing up children in
this legacy, if you will, that could be larger than
(08:24):
life definitely.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I think it's been very grounding, not just for my kids,
but for Patrick as well. You know, it was when
Patrick left Congress and that had been his life. He
also that was the year that his dad had just passed,
and I think he was a little bit kind of
(08:47):
looking for roots, and even though he has this really
big family, to be able to kind of scale it
down to something that was in its simplest forms, being
able to come be part of my family, which has
just been really centered in South Jersey for you know, generations,
(09:07):
and we're tight knit, small school teacher family. One Christmas
he came and then he never left, and it was, yeah,
it was, you know, wonderful for our family, but also
I think really helped him kind of reset for a
life after DC that was going to be centered around
(09:32):
his own family. And for our kids, you know, there's
really cool things that they get to do. But then
there's also a little bit of my mom that you know,
comes into play where I'm saying, don't throw that out,
we need to you can eat that, you know, whatever
it is. That tailor's it back down to a different level.
(09:53):
And he always says, I swear your parents are still
living in the Great Depression. Why I use your mom
saving that tenfoil? You know, I was like, well, you'll say,
we're teaching the kids something.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Absolutely coming up on my legacy, why silence never protected anyone,
and what it really takes to change the story for
the next generation, Like follow and share this with someone
who needs to hear this right now. Now back to
(10:29):
my legacy.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
As my co hosts know, I've been especially excited for
this conversation because I want, through our listeners and viewers,
to talk more about mental health. It's personal and families
across America. It's personal in my family and Candor have
lost my sister for mental health issues after a long battle.
It changed my wife's life in the most profound way.
She went back to school, she got her doctorate, she
became a psychologist. She works in promotion prevention, the very
(10:53):
work that you do through the Kennedy Forum. And so
as I sit here with the two of you, I
love the fact that you have busted through stigma in
such a powerful way and through politics. But since we're
talking about, you know, all my legacy origin stories, I
got to go all the way back to the origin
because when I look at the courage. It took at
a very young age, Patrick, to be open, you know,
(11:15):
to battle addiction, bipolar disorder, rehabit eighteen. Yeah, can you
take us back to how that moment in your life
and frankly, how formative it was for you sitting here today.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, of course, in my family, even though we're big
in social justice like everyone else, we felt really imprisoned
by the shame and stigma of mental health and addiction issues.
We wouldn't talk about them, even though whereas I said,
we're very progressive in all the rest because the power
of shame and stigma are so strong. I did not
(11:50):
become a leader as some profile and courage that my uncle,
you know, wrote about profiles and courage. I reacted to
a situation where the fellow I had been in drug
rehab with had sold his story of being in rehab
with the Kennedy to the National Inquirer, And so I
had to see my own face on the cover of
(12:10):
the National Choir with the headlines Patrick Kennedy drug addict
and this is my going into my second term in
public office. Of course, I thought my political career was over.
This was back in nineteen ninety one when these were
really big issues. Of course, today nothing knocks you out
of the box because everything's fair game, but my constituency
(12:31):
was really something. They really didn't like what had happened
to me, and so they I was reelected. When I
got to Washington, I could sponsor all this mental health legislation,
including the one that I kind of became known for,
which is the Mental Health Parody and Addiction Equedact. And
I was the first name on that bill. I was
(12:53):
the youngest member of Congress from the smallest state in
the country, and yet I got to put my name
number one on a bill that simply said that we
had to treat the brain like any other organ of
the body and have insurance coverage cover all the illnesses.
Nobody wanted to be champion of the And if you
had a bill with the title though had the words
(13:15):
mental in it and addiction, I mean what politician wants
to be the primary sponsor that? Because, of course the
next question is, well, do you have a mental health
issue or addiction issue? And no one wants to answer that,
because of course we all do, and so they don't
want to go down that rabbit hole. But for me,
since this guy kind of rated on me. I was
thrown out there and it ended up being one of
(13:37):
the greatest things that ever happened in my life. So
God works in mysterious ways, you.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Know, Patrick, we have a lot in cooming, but certainly
the significant and incredible family history. But also with that
comes great expectations and challenges that are larger than life.
I think about, and I'm grateful that my mom liberated
me as a young person by saying, you don't have
(14:05):
to be a minister, you don't have to be a
human and civil rights leader, you don't have to go
to Morehouse college. Just be your best self, and whatever
that is we will support. Now we know your uncle
Bobby and Jack fought for civil rights, and your whole family,
and of course, as you mentioned, your aunt starting special Olympics.
And your dad holds a special place in my heart
(14:27):
because one of the reasons I ran for office was
because of my serving as his page and seeing how
laws were made. So I was inspired by his leadership
throughout his life, as so many were as he became
the lion of the Senate.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Well, you know a lot of politicians when they leave
office say they're getting out of politics to spend more
time with their family. My case, I went into politics
to closer to my family. When I got elected. My
cousin Joe was congressman, my dad was obviously senator, my
(15:08):
cousin Kathleen Lieutenanco or my cousin Mark in the state
House in Maryland. But I got to be with my
dad as a colleague, and then I got to have
meals with him throughout the week. We'd always do lunch together,
and so I had a chance to actually have a
(15:28):
really different relationship beside kind of father son. It was
kind of colleague, and I'm just so glad I had that,
because you know, if you're a son with such an
enormous figure as a father, it can be pretty intimidating.
And it not that it wasn't, but I felt enormously
blessed to have had the chance to actually be successful
(15:50):
in his domain of political life. As you know, these
people that were so impacted by our father's lives, you know,
I got a front row seat to hearing how their
lives were transformed by that service. So in a sense,
my uncles never got to hear about how much they
(16:11):
inspired and made a difference in people's lives. So I
had lots of positive reinforcement. You know, these days when
you think about politicians is just so negative and you know, depressing.
It's wondering anybody runs for office. But when I was
growing up, it was joyful, it was fun, it was interesting,
and so that's why I feel so blessed to have
(16:33):
been part of it.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Coming up on my legacy, Patrick Share is what it
felt like to break the silence his family had carried
for generations. And the greatest lesson he learned, like follow
and think about sending this to someone trying to do
it differently than their parents. Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Patrick, talk special Olympics with your family and civil rights
with your family, And I think that was very modest
of you because you didn't talk about the fact that,
in your own right, the two of you have carved
out mental health as the issue and we list all
the family accomplishments, and so again I just want to
go to this incredible work that you've done. And Patrick,
you've always been open on mental health issues. You've talked
about it, but the diagnosis of bipolar came later and
(17:21):
a lot of people struggle without understanding diagnosis. So can
you help us understand a little bit of what was
your own personal journey, to understand what you were experiencing
with the lens that that might help some of the
listeners who are searching on their own journey.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well, you know, bipolar used to be known as manic depression.
So I experienced a lot of mania, and part of
the reason I was elected at twenty one to the
state legislature and then elected to Congress at twenty seven.
You'd tell you, well, what is anyone thinking doing that?
But I, of course I had this fueled by the
(17:56):
fact that my family did big things, So of course
part of me thought, well, I can do big things.
But you know, it was definitely over my skis, and
so there was that. And then self medicating with alcohol
and drugs was a way I used to manage those symptoms. Ironically,
I had the best psychiatrists in the world, but they
(18:16):
didn't often get the training and addiction. So I had
great psychiatrists, but you know, most clinician physical doctors oncology,
heart disease, diabetes, none of them get any training on
mental health and addiction, which if you're going to treat
your patients and you're an oncologist, being just diagnosing your
patient with cancer and you don't know how to treat
(18:37):
anxiety and depression, you're not doing your job. You're a
heart doctrin and you don't know that if underlying depressions
can increase your patient's chance for fatal heart type by
four times, if you're treating a diabetic and we know
how big that issue, and you're not addressing alcoholism. So
these are relevant issues because we think of them again
(18:59):
as isolation, but we have to think of the whole person.
So what I want in the future is when people
go to these other doctors as part of the health
for those illnesses. Mental health is part of it as
opposed to seeing, as I said again separate from the system,
which it gets pushed to the margins because it's not
paid for rankly. And the parity law that I've been
(19:22):
working on, I've been trying to get the insurance companies
to comply with it, and I will say it's really
important for them to have transparency so we know what
the access is to diabetic care as opposed to depression,
anxiety or addiction care. There is enormous disparity, which means
people have to pay more for those health care services
(19:45):
because they're not accessible, they're out of network. Insurance companies
have kind of ghost networks. What we're doing here at
Lake Nona, and we have KPMG as one of our
big partners, is showing the cost to the whole life
of the person, not just their other medical costs, but
the impact on their work world, how they're less engaged,
(20:09):
what they call presenteeism where they're there but they're not
really there, or absenteeism. You know, we've never fully managed
to understand the full impact of mental health and addiction.
I have just celebrated my fourteenth year of continuous sobriety.
I didn't get sober until I was forty two. I
(20:33):
was in and out of hospitals throughout my time in Congress,
and most of them were obviously all anonymous. I made
a big point, even though I'm the champion of anti stigma,
to not say that I'm going in there, because I
still felt the stigma. It's still very alive and well.
(20:54):
So I went to the Mayo Clinic rather than Hazelton
for my drug treatment because I thought if I went
to the Mayo Clinic, people might think I had a
real illness, you know, and that's when the height of
my you know, work on parody. So this is very still,
very stigmatized, and you know the best way to change
(21:18):
that is to normalize mental health as part of overall health.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
So, in light of the fact that this is visible
to our society, I think, in general, what is the pushback?
Why are we not there yet?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well, we're not organized. So when Amy ran for Congresses,
you know, we could get five thousand teachers show up
all over our district. I couldn't get fifty mental health
people because they're not organized. We don't have a list serve.
It's as basic as that Martin where if you are running,
you get the afl CIO, you get the iron workers,
(21:53):
the she metal workers, the carpenters, the labors. In our place,
we have the opioid, we have the I'll call you. So,
we have the people who have families of overdose, who
families of suicide, schizophrenia. We're all siloed and yet all
of our issues benefit from ninety eight percent of the
same things. But as a community, we don't look at
(22:16):
each other as part of the greater whole, and so
we exacerbate our own advocacy efforts. Being so anemic and
we don't put the lights on the board. In terms
of our voter power, I mean, if you think about it,
you know the old Godfather movie, we're bigger than us
steel Like, we are the biggest special interest group in
(22:37):
the country that has no power, and so we need
to be organized. If you ask me what's one of
the biggest things we could do for our movement, it's
just to organize the advocacy community, to get the vote out,
to have an agenda where when people got elected they
know what they were voting for. Now we have politicians
(22:58):
telling us, oh, I have lived experience or I did this,
but we need to know what their positions are on
the big issues so we can hold them accountable and
if they're not doing what needs to be done, we
vote for someone who will. And if they know that
we're as big and as widespread as we are, they're
going to pay attention to us. So it's the old
(23:20):
you know, political power is really going to determine what
kind of system we have. And the reason we haven't
made the pushback is stigma's still live. As person in recovery,
I can say I'm in twelve step recovery that doesn't
violate what's known as the eleventh tradition in twelve step
recovery to be anonymous, because I haven't told you what
program I'm in, But a lot of people in twelve
(23:42):
step recovery think that they're not supposed to be public.
We have twenty eight million Americans in long term recovery.
No one knows who they are because they're living in
church basements and they're anonymous. When I came back from
rehab in Congress, I was amazed to how many of
my colleagues had lived experience. Of course, none of them
(24:03):
knew each other. They all knew me because I was
all over the headlines, and so they all told me
who they were, but none of them knew who each
other were. And you know, you're not going to get
this political power unless you organize, and that's something we
really need to do.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
One thing, though, you mentioned disparity, and the thing that's
very concerning is and you also mentioned early intervention. Well,
you know, right now, with so many cuts being made
to you know, Department of Education, and where this is
where some people, some families are getting their only intervention,
(24:43):
and there is a disparity even for access to services
that will help mental health.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, when we talk about access and look at network
adequacy and what's possible, we want to make sure that
there's no wrong door. That's why schools can serve a
really important role in access and being able to make
sure that everybody has an available space that providers can
(25:13):
come in, that they can bill insurance from there. Because
we know that schools are not going to have the funding,
they're not capable of doing the billing. It's an administrative burden.
And yet this is where students need to be able
to get the care to have the not only the
academic success that's going to change their trajectory on their
(25:37):
emotional wellbeing. But if we don't do these interventions and
we have to wait for a diagnosis, they'll wait ten
years for a diagnosis and during that time it metastasizes.
So we have to be able to get in early.
We need to make schools where they're spending the majority
of their day a place where they can access these services,
(25:58):
and that's not going to be through the school guidance counselor.
School guidance counselor is an essential part of the ecosystem
for providing care and helping to identify students that need help.
But you have to have licensed clinicians that are coming
in and providing the service or be able to refer
out to a community partner. And once they've set up
(26:23):
that full continuum of care that can begin with school
or can begin in the pediatrician's office with screening, Let's
make sure that that can follow them throughout their life
course and they can move in and out of that
regardless of whether or not there's a diagnosis. We need
to treat the symptoms that are impacting their daily life.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Interesting and now, Amy, I know as you've experienced that
mental health struggles don't just affect the person living with them,
they also deeply impact the people who love them. For
someone who has a family member diagnosed with bipolar disorder
but feels unsure of how to help, what's the one
thing that you would want them to know?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
It absolutely impacts the whole family. There's a lot of
research around this. Some of the providers that are doing
this work have shown that just by providing treatment to
the individual that the famili's anxiety and depression are significantly reduced,
(27:21):
so by forty percent. So it's really a twofer by
supporting the person that you love, your own wellbeing is
going to be improved. You know, you find that you're
bringing the focus back to to how you're doing it.
It can be very hard, you know, you want to
share tasks equally, and so if Patrick is going to
(27:46):
a meeting at noon instead of you know, helping me
with something that I need, that's because that's his health
and he has to do that. And I wouldn't begrudge
him going for radiation or going to do some other thing.
(28:08):
But if his workout really is an essential part of
his well being, you know, he goes on that treadmill
because it helps his brain and it's boosting his endorphins,
and he's going to a twelve step meeting because that's
important to him, then we have to prioritize that and
(28:28):
make sure that there's a workaround. But he's also very flexible.
You know, he's doing this, he's we're in line at something.
He's got his twelve step meeting on his phone and
he's listening to it as we stand in line. So
he's trying to balance many things too. But I would
just say, especially in the first year, there's a lot
(28:51):
that has to be really prioritized around that person and
their wellness. So I am also I've been sober for
more than fourteen years because I'm supporting Patrick, and how
much easier is that journey for him if he has
a partner who is with him in that. We're going
(29:11):
to events all the time, and you know, we're going
home together. So let's let's both be in the same page,
and we might at the same time go, Okay, I
think we better roll because they're getting they're getting a
little more fired up than than we are. So let's
go together. And so having that kind of understanding of
(29:32):
where we are comfortable and bedtime, all those things. We
never underestimate how important sleep is in this whole process.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
But also we want to train up clinicians. To my point,
earlier cardiologists don't know about mental health. On coologists don't know,
and we need to upscale the rest of the medical
profession in addition to train up a whole new cohort
of providers. In the theoretical, but ultimately we have to do practically,
(30:04):
meaning really see what kind of therapy works. Cognitive behavioral
therapy works. In my view, it's the evidence form of treatment,
which means you've got to do homework. Whoever knew that
therapy was just talking to someone you know every other
week for forty minutes. No, No, that's just the check in.
(30:25):
The Real work is what happens between therapy visits. And
here are the homework assignments where you can measure how
you're changing your thinking based upon how you're actually changing
your actions. So long story short, we have a deficit
(30:45):
of literacy in this whole space. We have to educate
everybody about what it really represents so that it's not
this mysterious thing.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
There's so many amazing clips from this conversation that I
hope our listeners and viewers share with family and loved ones.
But I just want to shout out to you just
talked about CBT is what a great treatment option, cognitive
behavioral therapy. I love that you just talked about that,
and Amy, I love that you talked so openly about
the support that family gives and how you supported Patrick
on this journey and how it was good for your
(31:15):
own mental health. And the reason I want to shout
out to that also is because Patrick, you've talked about
how it really wasn't easy to share your story when
you spoke out, even family members you said were pushed
back candidly at the time, And can you help us
understand why do you think that was and also why
(31:35):
was it so important for you to push beyond that
yourself to be so open.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Well, everything that I thought was a secret in my
family was not a secret. Their whole rows of bookshelves
and libraries that tell all the stories that I thought
no one should know because it was a family, you
know ethos that we got to keep these things to ourselves.
(32:03):
So in a sense, I never said anything that wasn't
widely known anyway. But for family, it felt like a betrayal,
Like it felt like we were I was telling the secrets,
and that's indicative of everybody, because everyone else it is
a reveal. For my story, it was not a reveal,
(32:26):
but my family still thought it felt like a reveal.
Because growing up in a political family, people would attack
my family based upon experiences with alcoholism and addiction and
so forth, and so it became a very sensitive subject.
And of course these attacks were predicated on the idea
that there was some sign of moral failing. Right, no
(32:48):
one could if you wanted to look up post traumatic
stress in the dictionary. You know, one of the examples
would be my dad, you know, lost to his brothers
to assassination. Many Trump events. We're just starting to learn
about all of this stuff. This is no one, as
Amy says with about her students, gets up and acts out.
(33:11):
They just don't have the tools to know how to
manage their emotions their feelings. In my journey as an advocate,
I got a chance to rededicate the John F. Kennedy's
Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where they
train all the Green Berets. And they told me there
because they saw that I was a mental health guy.
(33:32):
They said, mister Kennedy, we have more mental health for
our Green Berets than any other branch of the Service.
And I said to myself, these Green Berets don't need
mental health. They're so strong. They jump out of airplanes,
they swim under the water for five miles without breathing,
you know, they hit the beach, they speak six languages,
they take out their target, they're reading to their kids
(33:54):
by dinner time. I mean, these these people don't And
he said, no, no, we look at mental health as
a four multiplier. And I love that because what it
basically says, if the Green Berets, who are the sharpest, strongest,
they all invest in their own mental health. Why because
if they're on a mission, they have to. They can't
(34:16):
have any intrusive thoughts. So one of the things that
characterizes illnesses is you kind of have the inability to
have insight. For one, that's the common characteristic. You don't
know how bad you really are, but you also have
these intrusive thoughts, and the Green Berets just they train
(34:37):
on how to mitigate that, because if you have an
intrusive thought when you're supposed to have eyes on your six,
you know, your teammates and a mission, it could be
the difference between life or death. But I love the
idea that we all could maximize our own mental health
because that way we make it something that everybody can
(34:59):
do better by.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
Amy Patrick, thank you for being so vulnerable with us,
for sharing your story to make sure people don't suffer
in silence, to break through stigma, to invite others to share,
to create the conversation you have today, and then your
incredible advocacy on mental health that you have done for
both of your lifetimes. You know, Patrick and Amy were
grateful for you joining us today from the Lake Nona
Impact Forum at the KPMG Lake House in Orlando's Lake
(35:24):
Nona community. We're so grateful for you living your legacy
every single day and for showing us what change is
possible when we come together.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Thank you, Thank you for joining us. If you enjoy
today's conversation, subscribe, share, and follow us at my Legacy
Movement on social media. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with
bonus content every Thursday. At its core, this podcast honors
doctor King's vision of the beloved community and the power
of connection. A Legacy Plus Studio production distribute it by
(35:56):
iHeartMedia creator and executive producers is Heyward co executive producer
Lisa Lyle. Listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
get your podcasts. Until next time, may you find inspiration
to live your legacy.
Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com