Serving in the U.S. military is a challenge for anyone – but it can be especially tough when you’re dealing with mental health conditions. Public speaker and mental health advocate Rudy Caseres, who was serving in the Army during his first experience with catatonic schizophrenia, understands this firsthand.

In today’s episode, I sat down with Rudy to discuss his experience with mental health in the military, being discharged from the Army, and what he learned from his time in psych wards.

Rudy also talks about the difficulties of being formally diagnosed, and the conflicting feelings his diagnoses brought. “When you're going through this stuff, you have no fucking idea what's going on with you. And then you're just entrusting your life to these strangers that you never met. It takes a lot to take that leap of faith to be like, okay. And when I heard my diagnosis though, I was like, you know what, thank God. Because that at least gives me some kind of explanation of why this is happening to me. But my thing was ‘All right, diagnosis. That's great. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?’” – Rudy

Rudy also shares how his difficult journey eventually led to his “aha moment,” which helped him find his niche as a public speaker.

“It kinda wakes me up to like, realize like, ‘Hey, you don't have to let the universe, like, just have its way with you. Like, you don't have to completely just be sucked into the depression and let the depression win. … You can actually turn a negative into a positive and make the most of it. You're not a freak. You're not a mutant. You're just built differently. And we need people like you and you can still contribute a lot to this world. Not just in spite of it, because of it.” – Rudy