Transforming Pain into Purpose: Ioannis Skiotes' Mission to Inspire Mental Health Awareness

Talk about the, uh, biggest misconceptions that you see, uh, that people have w- when it comes to manic depression and bipolar-related illnesses.

Well, they look at you as you sh- like you're strange, you know, as, um, you know, you got some kind of a heinous disease, and you don't, you know? But because it's the mind, it's not physical.

And I'm not putting anybody down here when I say this but, you know, people that survive cancer, and God bless them, and I hope...

You know, I never get it.

I wish upon nobody.

My brother's a prostate cancer survivor.

And so my other brother, older- oldest brother, he died of, of lung cancer.

So it's a, it's a vicious disease.

It's a physical disease.

A mental illness is just that.

It's not tangible.

You can't see it.

You know, people don't relate to it because it, it, it doesn't come out like physical illnesses do.

And so therefore, there's this unknown essence to it, and that scares people.

"Oh, he's mentally ill." The term is negative.

The term conjures negativity.

As soon as you hear, "I'm mentally ill," so what do you think about? You think about serial killers, rapists, you know, all these crazy people.

But really, mental illness is not centric for all.

You know, try to tell me Mike Tyson's not manic depressive.

You know, good luck on that one.

But, you know, Mike's not a bad person.

Yeah, he has anger issues at times.

So what? And you know, and he had to deal with it.

I mean, who, who, who goes out and blows 30 million when they're supposed to get out of prison? You know, that, that's manic depression.

Who wraps a car around a tree? You know, that's manic depression.