Episode Transcript
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Nicole Tuxbury (00:02):
Hello there and
welcome back to the latest
episode of Overcome Yourself,the podcast.
As you know, my name is Nicoleand I'm so excited to be here
today with Dale.
Now, dale has one incrediblestory.
I am not, I'm not going to try.
I want you to take it away,dale, and tell us all about your
story and how you've come to dowhat you do today your story
(00:25):
and how you've come to do whatyou do today.
Dale Walsh (00:26):
Sure, well, thank
you very much.
First off, I'd just like tothank you for having me on,
nicole.
It's a great pleasure and it'san honor.
And so basically what I usuallydo is I just have a poem that I
(00:55):
recite that basically tells astory and it goes like this.
It's called Dale Review,reviewing what actually happened
.
It goes like this hi, I'm godwas a joke I made after killer
dartmanteau of some primo ivyleague spoke, which apparently
caused me to choke, because inhospital I awoke with roommate
(01:17):
gabriel, the main bloke, who didmy delusions, angelically
stroked, even while claytondoctor Clay and my brain broke
the moment divine gag.
I spoke testifying.
I was only a bit quack, withclinician-signosis psychotic
attack preventing me fromgetting sanity back, until I
came to TNEC Hackensack topursue resident therapy program
(01:39):
track and deal with my evidentlack of reason among psychiatric
patient facts who never gave meany slack Under interrogation.
The story didn't crack.
So that's basically whathappened.
I had a it was the summer aftermy freshman year.
My freshman year I had a verysuccessful academic year, but I
(02:02):
was also doing drugs, marijuanaevery day and a lot of drugs and
everything, and finally caughtup with me in the summer after
my freshman year.
So what happened was I was inmy friend's room and the campus
cops came in and said are youDale?
And I said sure, because Ifigured out I was God.
(02:24):
Are you Dale?
And I said sure, because Ifigured out I was God.
So, but I really meant this asa joke, nicole, because the
punchline being how could God befive foot eight?
You know, I thought this waslike the best joke I'd ever come
up with.
So, you know, the campus copscame in and said are you Dale?
And I said yes, and they saidwould you come with us?
So I said sure, I figured theywere going to take me to see, to
(02:46):
meet the president of theuniversity, uh, but instead they
took me on a three-minute rideto the infirmary where, for the
next four hours, I wasinterrogated by three sets of
ivy league psychiatrists.
They put me in a room, shot me,gave me a shot of something uh,
probably an antipsychotic anduh, you know, three days later I
(03:07):
was in a mental hospital in newyork city with a roommate named
gabriel and uh, so this, uhbegan my.
This obviously hadtransformative effect on my life
and I came, uh, after gettingout of the hospital I came to a
private psychiatric residence inHackensack, new Jersey, under
(03:30):
the direction of one doctorwhere I was given intensive
therapy three individualsessions a week and two group
sessions a week and after that Iso I was in there for five
years and I graduated from there, got out, got my own apartment,
went back to college atFairleigh Dickinson University,
(03:54):
graduated magna cum laude inEnglish five years later, and
then I started anentrepreneurial journey as a
private tutor and that's andbasically I've been going since
then.
But so that's the basic outlineof the story.
Nicole Tuxbury (04:17):
That is
incredible.
And so what are you doing now?
You said you're a coach, right?
Dale Walsh (04:22):
I am.
I'm using my life experiencewith the illness to mentor the
family caregivers of those withschizophrenia.
Because one thing I had acouple of revelations about this
when I came up with this idea.
One was that I realized howmuch how I put my own family
through my illness.
(04:42):
But, more importantly, Irealized that family members,
family caregivers, are oftenwhat I call the forgotten
victims of mental illness andthat if someone is diagnosed and
they usually have at least adoctor or a psychiatrist or
psychologist or some sort ofteam to administer to them, but
(05:06):
the caregivers are often liketotally lost.
I mean, they have likeabsolutely no idea about what
schizophrenia is.
You know, and then you know,and they're they're dealing with
the loved one 24 hours a day,seven days a week, 365,.
You know, even when he's, evenwhen he or she is going
(05:26):
psychotic and everything.
So my goal with my business,which is called Do Live Love my
initials D-E-W Live Love, whichis a method that basically God
downloaded to me, it's an 8 stepprogram.
Live Love is an anagram forlearn, integrate, validate,
(05:50):
explore and then listen, observe, value and express.
So those are the eight steps Itake people through.
And another thing that I cameto realize is that, you know,
not only do family caregiversneed help, like coping with the
very symptomology and justunderstanding the illness, but
(06:12):
also because of the intensity ofthe care they have to give,
they often become codependent,and so I helped them break
codependency and get back andreclaim their own integrity of
self, which ultimately helpsthem become a better caregiver.
Nicole Tuxbury (06:34):
That is amazing.
Talk about using a weakness andturning it into your superpower
.
Like you are a superhero,you're helping families who
might not know what else to doand I commend you for that deal.
I think that is so.
It's breathtaking and it is.
It's amazing, like I'm just I'mhonored.
Dale Walsh (06:54):
Well, I appreciate
that.
You know, you know this is.
I said I might go off script.
You know I do it, I'll go offscript.
But you know, my basic delusion, or my basic belief, was you
know, hi, I'm God, and you knowI really meant it as a joke.
(07:15):
But as time went on, you knowI'm in the hospital.
My roommate's name was Gabrielthis is like a little shtick I
have.
My roommate's name was Gabriel,who was very deferential
towards my mother, mary Alma,whose second husband's name was
Joseph and who ultimatelymarried the judge.
So you know, I know there'sthis thing called confirmation
(07:36):
bias, that the bind will findevidence for beliefs and do
everything to build up thosebeliefs.
But you know, as time went on,the beliefs that I was God
became less and less of adelusion.
Well, it might not have beenless of a delusion, but became
(07:57):
more and more of a belief.
Not been less of a delusion,but became more and more of a
belief.
And uh, this is uh, therethere's something in a serious
mental illness, uh, calledagnosognosia.
Have you ever heard of that?
I have not.
Okay, agnosognosia is a termtaken from neurology for stroke
victims who can't comprehendthat there's something wrong
with their brain.
So it's been uh, transferred to, uh, you know, to psychiatric
(08:23):
conditions.
And uh, there's actually a bookby this doctor, dr javier
amador, called I'm not sick and,uh, I don't need help, and so
the story of his inner reactionswith his uh, schizophrenicic
brother as a psychiatric doctor.
So, but basically, agnosognosiameans that it's said to affect
(08:50):
up to 60%, be a symptom in up to60% of serious mental illness
cases.
So, uh, basically, it means theperson cannot conceive that
there's anything wrong with them.
It's, it's much deeper thanjust denial, it's just like.
Then, you know, it's like, it'slike telling, uh I, the analogy
(09:14):
I I I heard was uh, you know,if you hold up a piece of paper
to a blind person and say, readthis, then obviously he's not
going to be able to do it.
And Agnes Sinotius, where thesame thing was mental illness.
So, you know, so, basically, forthe first 10 years of my
(09:36):
therapy, I was also veryfortunate and basically I was
forced into therapy, you know.
So, even though I hadagnosynalgia, I still had to go
through therapy and everything.
And actually, when I was in theprogram, I experienced what I
(10:15):
called the death of Dale, whichwas that God, like basically
knocked, dale knocked the wholepersonality structure of Dale,
killed it, but he left the body,for which I'm very grateful.
So I'm still here and you knowI've evolved from there.
But you know, this is also mademe think about to what degree
(10:40):
was Dale actually Satan?
Because the son of Satan is tocall yourself God.
So I've had 50 years to ponderthese things and basically I
just feel that after Dale died Ibecame Dewey for 30, my alter
(11:01):
ego, dewey.
If Dale thought he was God,then Dewey thought he was an
android and last April, at thesolar eclipse, I became.
I reached my third stage.
I have five personalities Dale,dewey, dewey, duck and Genius.
So basically I reached my thirdpersonality, which is Dewe, is
due, which is sort of like thefather, the grandfather of my
(11:23):
personalities, and I'm much moresecure, much more secure in my
humanity and also much lessdelusional, and every day I get
less delusional and I feel that.
But I couldn't really start myuh, life of service before I got
over my delusion Because onething that sort of like was
(11:45):
triggered by Anjali, I think hername was, was, you know,
talking about enlightenment andeverything.
And what happened with me is Ireally feel that enlightenment
without self-awareness ispsychosis, and that's why I've
been hospitalized 15 times,because I was always enlightened
(12:07):
but my self-awareness had tocatch up and you know you ask
about overcoming yourself.
The fact is that, beinghospitalized 15 times, I had to
overcome myself seriously,because if I didn't overcome
myself, I would have been putaway 30 years ago.
Nicole Tuxbury (12:32):
That is.
Dale Walsh (12:33):
That's so powerful,
so so powerful Now let me ask
you this Do you do you feel likegratitude has played a part in
your journey to getting to thispoint where you are able to help
others?
With what you went through?
Gratitude played a big part.
And also, you know humility.
I think humility is just asimportant as gratitude because,
(12:55):
you know, even even at Dartmouth, when I was walking around
campus saying everybody hi,everybody, hi, I'm God, you know
, I really had like a differentconception of God.
I didn't want to be worshipped.
You know, it was involved withmy ego, but my ego was saying
God needs a vacation.
(13:15):
You know, I'm going to give Goda vacation.
He's been working for 13billion years.
So I'm going to give god avacation.
He's been working for 13billion years.
So I'm going to, like, putmyself in god's place and uh,
you know what the the primary uhrevelation that I had was god
just wants to be one of the guys, you know and uh, so, even
(13:36):
though my whole life has beensort of like isolated in
Hackensack I have been inHackensack for 49 years, but
basically I've been in isolatedin Hackensack but from that
viewpoint and from thatperspective, I've been able to
really become one of the guysand that's allowed me to get
(13:58):
over my delusion, become one ofthe guys, and that's allowed me
to get over my delusion.
And another thing not only did Iwant to give God a vacation,
but I also wanted to put to restthis whole debate about whether
God exists because, uh, myfreshman year at Dartmouth, I my
, my most important course, uh,for me, was a course on
Nietzsche, you know, andNietzsche's famous for saying
(14:19):
God is dead.
So you know, basically, Iwanted to like put to rest the
does God exist argument bysaying well, you know, you can
argue till you're blue in theface whether God exists, but
here I am.
Here I am on earth, and mypresence is that of God.
Nicole Tuxbury (14:40):
Wow, yeah, wow,
wow, wow.
Now tell me what are one tothree tips that you have for our
audience.
What are the most powerful tipsthat help you, help your, your
clients, your clients and theirfamilies?
Dale Walsh (14:59):
Well, first off, be
you know, if you do, is do some
research in diagnostic nausea,because that's, like, probably
the primary obstacle to peopleactually accepting help for
their mental illness.
Because if you don't thinkthere's anything wrong, why
(15:21):
should you put yourself throughtaking medication or seeing
doctors that don't make you feelwell?
So you know and I wouldrecommend Dr Amador's book I'm
Not Sick and I Don't Need Helpbecause he gives like a whole,
you know, strategy forcommunicating through
agnosygnosia.
(15:41):
So that's one thing.
Secondly is realize this isn'ta two-week cold.
You know, when someone gets aserious mental illness it's
going to be a lifetime journey.
I've had 50 years to like growout of this or grow into this,
(16:08):
but you know a lot of peoplewith schizophrenia and even
bipolar.
You know, if they make it to 50years, you know in actual age,
not just 50 years of recoveryyou know they're very lucky
because you know, I think 10% ofschizophrenics commit suicide.
(16:29):
So you know.
So the next part is you know,realize that you're going to
have to be in for the long run.
And the third thing is I saythere are four things that are
essential to being a successfulcaregiver.
One is hope, faith, love andpatience.
(16:52):
Those four things areabsolutely necessary.
The street with a seriousmental illness, just because
they, their family, you know,they, whatever, uh roof over
their head, they couldn't, theycouldn't like handle it, you
(17:12):
know.
And uh, one thing, uh, one, onething that I was thinking of
just before we was, we werecoming on, was, uh, insanity is
imposed by society and you know,I, I think, one think, one of
the things I meant barringviolence if you aren't violent,
you know, I've never beenviolent for people who are
(17:42):
diagnosed, but also for thecaregivers is you have to be
aware of yourself and sure, andat least like, have a belief
that you know you're right, nomatter how many people are
telling you you're wrong.
I, I think about that movieheaven can wait, with warren,
beattie and julie christie, andat the beginning beattie is
(18:04):
supposed to be dead, you know,but he's like a quarterback for
the LA Rams and he was ridinghis bike through a tunnel and he
got hit.
But he wasn't dead.
So you know he's art.
As they're loading everybody upfor the plane to heaven, he's
arguing.
So they have like thesupervisor come and supervisor
(18:25):
says, uh, the more people tellyou you're wrong, the more
likely you are, you're right.
And that really affected me inmy whole journey because you
know, when I was in my firsthospital I'd say to my doctor,
why am I here?
There's nothing wrong with me,which is classic agnosynosia and
everything.
But he would say well, dale, ifyou broke your leg, you come to
(18:50):
the hospital, right?
I said yes, and he said, well,you broke your brain.
And you know this was not onlythe cruelest thing anybody could
say, but this is back in the70s, when psychiatry was
basically in the dark ages andyou know people, once you got a
serious mental illness, peoplefigured you know, just write
(19:14):
your life off and there'snothing you're ever going to be
able to do.
But you know, but not only didthat affect me negatively in the
degree that I always I felt forlike 30 years a certain
hopelessness of dealing with theillness, but also it gave me a
determination and a fight withinto say you know, screw you, doc
(19:39):
, I, you know you might think mybrain's broken, but I'm going
to overcome it anyway.
Nicole Tuxbury (19:46):
Wow, wow, wow,
wow.
You have such an amazing story,dale.
I'm just humbled andoverwhelmed.
I'm just proud of you.
I'm proud of you because thatis amazing.
All right, so I want you totell the audience how can they
(20:06):
get in touch with you, how canthey follow you, how can they
access your books?
Talk to me.
Dale Walsh (20:12):
Someone else tried
it too, and they said it was
working.
So it's wwwdewlivenet.
(20:38):
That's my website, and if peoplewant to get in touch with me, I
would suggest that you go toCally uh, because I I I've had
it set up that you can have afree 45 minutes uh consultation
or discussion with me.
So that's at uh.
Wwwcalendly c-a-l-e-n-d-l-y dotcom.
(21:03):
Slash dalecoach55.
And then my Instagram isdalywalsh.14 or cmdr__dw, so
(21:25):
it's Commander Do.
I have two accounts there.
I also have a Facebook accountwhich is Dale Walsh and then, in
parentheses, dewey Do, and Ialso have we didn't go into this
, nicole, but I also have anarchive of 5,000 poems that I
(21:45):
have done since I graduated fromcollege, and that includes five
collections on Amazon which youcan find through going to
Amazon and putting in the searchbar poetry collections by DE
Walsh, and you'll probably haveto scroll, but they all have
(22:06):
distinctive covers, so I thinkyou should be able to find them,
and that's about it, and all ofthose links are going to be
available in the show notes downbelow, so make sure that you
check out down below to getaccess to all of Dale's amazing
things.
Nicole Tuxbury (22:23):
Thank you so
much, dale, for being here with
us.
Do you have any words to sendus off?
Dale Walsh (22:29):
here.
The motto of Do Live Love isthat recovery is always an
option and I, you know, I stillstand by that.
But the fact is the operativeword in that is option, because
if you get a mental illness it'snot going to just go away if
you're sitting on your buttdoing nothing and feeling sorry
(22:52):
for yourself for letting it getworse, because ultimately it's a
lot of work.
It's sort of like you're in apit and you don't have a ladder
and you have to find the ladderto be able to get out of the pit
.
But you know it's a lot of work.
But I just feel I like to thinkof myself as a model of what
(23:17):
the potential is for someone whohas been schizophrenia and I
didn't let it get him down.
Nicole Tuxbury (23:27):
I love it.
That is amazing.
Thank you so much for joiningus and make sure that you check
out all of Dale's amazing offers.
He even has, like you said, afree 45-minute call for you guys
, and be sure to check out hispoems.
Dale Walsh (23:41):
Oh sorry, go ahead.
Let me say one last thing.
Yes, please.
So one thing this isn't aformal book, but I wrote a
memoir about what happened inDartmouth.
It's about a 50-page book andit's called Escape from the Ivy
League, or how Becoming GodChanged my Life.
(24:04):
And so actually I don't haveany real lead magnet or anything
.
But if you write me at DaleD-A-L-E Coach C-O-A-C-H 55 at
Outlookcom and request it, I cansend you a copy of the book.
Nicole Tuxbury (24:26):
Awesome.
I'll make sure that that'sincluded in the show notes as
well.
Thank you so much.
You've given so much, like youhave so many gifts that you've
offered um with all those links,so I really appreciate it, dale
, thank you and we all see youguys.
Oh sorry go ahead.
Dale Walsh (24:41):
I'm just going to
say thank you very much for
having me on.
Nicole Tuxbury (24:43):
It's been a
pleasure likewise and we'll see
you guys next time here onovercome yourself.
The podcast.
Bye.