Cohen Miles-Rath: How One Man Transformed Crisis into a Call for Change

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Humanity over Handcuffs The Silent Critis Special Events Day is
Colin Miles Wrath a powerful voice in mental health advocacy.
Cohen's journey is one of resilience. After battling untreated schis
efective disorder, he survives a life altering psychotic episode that
nearly ended in tragedy and led to his incarceration. Today,
he's an author, speaker, and educator sharing his story to
break the stigma around mental illness. With a focus on
community policy and political action, Colin facilitates mental health training
and influences change, inspiring others with his message of recovery
and hope. He's a beacon for those that are navigating
their own struggles. It's a pleasure to have him here today.
Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, I appreciate you having me.
It's my pleasure. Would you give us a little background
on what you do.
I have been in the mental health advocacy field for
more than a half a decade now. I worked at
the Mental Health Association in New York State for five years.
If you're familiar with the MHA network Mentalth America, they're
an affiliate of THEIRS, and it was workarounds policy advocacy,
implementing training throughout New York States mental health related training.
We offered a bunch of different trainings and so forth.
In the past year, I moved on to the New
York State Office Mental Health, which I worked for the
Suicide Prevention Center, in which I do similar work but
geared towards suicide prevention. That's my professional space now. I
also have my own story with mental illness in which
I've written a memoir about, and I am.
Publishing that memoir this year.
I've spent a howth six years trying to get this
thing published, and on top of that, I've been out
speaking engagements telling my story, sharing the peer perspective about
going through systems such as incarceration and hospitalizations and so forward.
I think that's great. You've written a book. Anything you
put out there just helps others. Can you give us
a little bit of background on what led you to
believe you had some mental health issues?
Yeah, so that's a great question, because I did not
have any inclination to accept the difficulties that I was
facing with my mental health, which did increase to a
severe mental health crisis, until after the worst of my
mental health crisis had happened, and that was the day
that I came back from psychosis in jail, where I
had come back to like reality and realizing what had happened.
From that moment on, I did a complete one eighty
embracing mental health treatments, accepting my mental illness, and eventually
giving to where I'm at today.
Once you got out, what was your focus to get
you back on track a steady path from what you
were to what you became today.
Due to the incidents that had happened between my father
and I that I was arrested for, I my first
week in jail, I was in like a severe.
State of psychosis.
I was in solitary confinements, and I'd experienced just this
horrific situation in which when I did get come back
and realized what had happened, I wasn't sure I was
ever going to get out. I had two felonies, potential felonies,
and fortunately, due to a lot of certain circumstances, the
core recognized what had happened was clearly a result of
a severe mens of illness, and I'd been hospitalized twice
before this too, so that there was a little bit
of history and past to that in which I was
able to get out of jail after thirty days. I
had mandatory treatments. I was on probation for a year.
It was a conditional discharge, so it wasn't just I'm
getting out that's it. There were certain things that I
had to do to maintain my freedom or everything could
come back. And one felony was dropped, the other felony
was reduced onto a misdemeanor.
I did get that on my record.
So during that process it took you about a year
to get fully on track. Were there any down days?
Did you ever have moments where you thought what am
I doing? Or is this even working? What was your
mindset like as you progressed from point A to point
B to where you are now.
How I like to frame that part of my experience
is really through what to known is the four dimensions
of recovery, which a lot of mental health organizations talk about.
The four dimensions of recovery, which our purpose on health
and community. So like when I got out of jail,
my mom opened up her home. My parents were separated.
They had been separated from all my life, and due
to the incident with my dad, he wasn't willing to
let me live with him for valid reasons. It took
a lot of us to build our chest together, but
my mom opened the doors. She gave me a place
of home or place of comfort, a place where I
could really just focus on managing my treatment.
So like I lived with.
My mom, I picked up a job at Burger King,
so I gained some independent Fortunately, I was in a
spot where I could walk to work. I didn't have
a car. I was able to walk to my treatment.
I was seeing a psychiatrist or nurse practitioner. I was
seeing goop therapy, I was seeing substance misuse therapy, and
I was seeing a mental health counselor like four things
every week, right, that's how dedicated my rehabilitation was to
the health dimension. A lot of that I had to
do was part of my conditional discharge. In that space,
I was very vulnerable and I was very active in
wanting to know how to manage my mental health and
my diagnosis a lot better than I was before.
So health home was.
Taken care of the community aspect. I still had a
lot of friends. I was in a community of support too,
that really I think supported me in getting through that process.
And then lastly purpose. Before I went to jail, I
was going to college a four year degree at Sueni Genico,
which is a small university in upstate New York. I
was expelled after what happened when I got arrested. I
was able to get back in after I got into jail,
and there I was able to finish out my degree.
I had a couple classes left. I was able to
get my degree and a plan for the future, which
was to pursue my master's degree in social work. So
I had a purpose to my life that really helped
me go from jail to grad school within a year
or so something like that.
That's impressive. You should really be proud of your accomplishments.
You got through and managed to accomplish what you started
out to do. Now, after navigating all of that, what
inspired you to pursue social work and dedicate yourself to
helping others.
It was a very tough time in my life. There
were days because I'd have to walk a mile to
burger king tour. I was also taking medication, and some
of the side effects in the medication included feeling draggy
and slow and like my creative thinking was gone.
It's really tough.
It was a really tough time because there were a
lot of times I doubted myself and even when trying
to get pursue a master's degree in social work, I
had a huge stigma over my experience that I went through.
I attacked my dad with a knife, and that was
in the local news, like when the incident happened, and
that created barriers for me worrying about getting accepted in
the grad school. Every grad school asked have you ever
been expelled from college? I had to say yes, and
then I had to share my story in a way
that would get them to understand. And there did a
lot of doubt, and I like to think that was
really privileged to have all those four dimensions and really
strengthen those four dimensions really helped me just keep that
forward and momentum going. I will also add that prior
to all of this, I was also a big.
Athlete all my life.
I was a very dedicated distance runner, and a lot
of those characteristics that I've learned in that sport I
think helped me to do the same in this process
where you have to do a lot of hard work
to get where you want and to be your idea
of success with whatever it is.
Yeah, that's true.
Success is basically what you are happy doing and continue
to do. So what led you to shift your career
focus from the becoming a substance use counselor or therapist
in social work and transitioning to advocacy. How did your
graduate school experience influence this decision?
Yes, so I initially wanted to get my master's in
social work to become a substance use counselor or a therapist.
That was what I initially had thought of. But then
in grad school, as I continued to learn about mental
health from that clinical point of view, and with social work,
they don't just focus on direct service. That degree, they
do branch out to advocacy and the more macro work.
And I realized in my studies there that I that's
just how my mind went, how my mind thinks. So
that's when I really wanted to be more involved with
the advocacy piece. And then it was all about just
finding a position after grad sto school that could align
with that. And I know that with my story, with
my experience, I always knew that I wanted to bring
that into the picture because what I learned is that
stories can really make an impact. When people hear these
types of experiences, it allows them to relate and understand
another person's point of view with say, and I think
that helps to fuel more effective advocacy and more effective
ideas and how there are certain things that we can
change in our systems or culture to better serve people
who might go through those type of experiences as well.
Looking back on your journey now that you're an advocate,
you've experienced all the ups and downs that come with it.
Was there a single moment that stood out, a turning
point that lit the way forward, something that reassured you
that things were falling into place, confirmed you were on
the right path. And then fueled your ambition or ability
to create even more.
The first time that I wrote about my experience, the
first time that I was vulnerable in that public space,
was actually in my second year.
Of grad school.
When I had done that, I wrote a blond post
for NAMI, a National Alliance of Mental Illness, and that really,
I think based on people's responses and how people would
come up to me afterwards and be vulnerable about themselves.
To me, that was like, Okay, there is something to that.
There's something to me being vulnerable in a public space
that could help others, And that was a spark. Once
I got in my professional position, I got my eight
dimensions of wellness all structured my financial wellness, I'm living comfortably.
I could now open up my experience in a much
more versatile way. And that's when I started writing my
memoir and putting my heart and soul into that so
I could really leap forward with it.
That's really good. I'm glad that you've been able to
do that. Can you give us the name of your book?
Yes, Amending Reality and advocates existential journey with mental health.
When you wrote your book, I have some friends of
mine that are writers. They've said that once they start
putting those old fashioned words to paper, it often takes
over and seems to write itself. So my first question
is did that happen to you? Did you start writing
and suddenly find it just flowing out? And when it
did start flowing did you begin looking at it and
tweaking it? Then? What emotions came up as you read
what you put down realizing this is me, this is
my life, this is what it's been. How did that
affect you? What type of emotions went through your mind
at that point?
Yes, I will say that when as soon as I
started putting pen to paper and it flowed. Part of
that writing experience was coping for me experience with psychosis,
being in jail, thinking that I was a prophet, thinking
that I discovered the truth of the universe.
There was a grandiose nature to it too. It's such a.
Challenging experience, and even the incident with my dad tacking
him like that haunted my dreams for many years after
the incident. So going through that writing process, I really
served my own therapeutic process of just putting it out
there and reading it, and it helped to cope with it.
And in many cases it was triggering, but again, being
vulnerable with myself I think helped me really understand myself
even better, my mental health, my diagnosis. And there was
a lot of challenges since I've written it, but it
was definitely very helpful I think overall in just my
own mental health. I mean, I spent five years on
this thing, this book, and I didn't know if it
was going to get published or not for a long time,
and that was a whole different set of challenges that
I've somehow found a way to overcome and get to
the position where it's actually going to be released. And
I will say that I'm not terrified. A lot of
people have read this book, but not the general public,
so it does get a lot of reads. I'm not
worried or stressed about how people might react to it,
because the way that I've written it, I really think
can impact people significantly and make them understand that type
of experience a lot further.
You do a lot of public speaking, and you just
mentioned that you feel comfortable sharing your experiences with others.
What's it like to tell your story to a captive audience.
What goes through your mind as you speak and then afterwards,
when people come up to you eager to learn more
because your words have touched them in a way that
could help them move forward in their own lives. How
does that make you feel?
That's the most meaningful part of doing my work with
this last year, about a year ago, stood before two
hundred plus mental health advocates at an advocacy day up
in Albany. I had ten minutes to share my or
in a way that captivated them and inspired them to
advocate right there. The way I structure my speaking, I
try to make it gripping and pull you. In the
first sentence, I say, when I was twenty two years old,
facing a mental health crisis, I tried to come my dad.
And I remember when I say that the audience, you
see those gasps, you see those eyes widen, and then
it's a hook that pulls them in. Then I take
it apart and I'm like, what could have prevented this?
And they're seeing me at the stage, They're seeing someone
who's done that in front of them, and I think
that in itself is Wow. There's a lot more to
this story. There's so much more to the story. I
did have many students come up to me after that talk,
just thank me for being vulnerable and appreciating me doing that,
because the Advocacy Day is really meant to provide a
space for that. And when eventually during the day they
go out and they allow students to grab the mic
and share their own story, and I could hear them
sharing their difficulties and their challenges, and I do like
to think that by me doing that created a space
for them to do that themselves, and I think that
just helps to fuel this momentum around changing how we
approach mental health in circumstances that are very difficult, Do you.
Still engage with or advocate for changes in the legal system?
If you do, how do you approach it? What personal
experiences or perspectives drive your stance so this can be
a better system for everyone involved.
At this point in my career, I'm geared more towards
trying to improve our trainings and our education around mental health.
As far as like specific incarceration systems. I do keep
up to date with what is happening, and I will
support other people's work with that. When I share that
part of my story about going through the incarceration system
and my experience with that I think it opens up
that discussion. Clearly, jail was not the right place for
me if you hear more about what it was like
to be in solitary confinement with psychosis. But what would
be the place for me in that type of state?
I thought I was in hell? I was trying to
give birth to Satan's child. I literally physically try to
do that in the middle of a cell. There are
so many like dark, difficult things. But what place would
be best for me to recover in a state of
like that?
I don't know.
There's a discussion there, there's a discussion there, there's a
way to approach that better. And it's a complex system
and there's no one easy answer. So I'm always trying
to be open to hearing the multiple perspectives and striving
for the best solution, which I'm not sure what is,
but I think we can get there.
So, in the next three to five years, what do
you envision on the horizon for the future, whether it's
personal goals, society changes, or broader possibilities.
My goal is over the three to five years is first,
I really just want to get my story out there,
which it's already been out there, but I'm excited for
my book publication and I'm really hoping that continue the
momentum with that get more speaking engagements because of it.
This summer, I'm actually going going to a confidence out
in Texas. It's called EmPATH Consulting, and they've created an
alternative to emergency crisis for mental health crises.
So I'm really interested in learning.
More about that model that they've started to implement in
a couple of states and share my perspective there to
help them fine tune that type of model, and if
it works, I would like to just continue getting in
front of those type of mental professionals, people in the field,
people doing this work, so that a way they could
find ways to better find tune what they're doing and
advocate for those changes that they need in their own communities.
Because every community is different, every state is different. This
is just basically to continue that momentum and hopefully just
get more opportunities to do this. When I love to
write another book, yes, that will hopefully come down the line.
Right now, it's just get my book out there and
start speaking as much as I can.
When you stand in front of people, do you try
to express yourself in a way that lets them see
what you've been through, how you've responded to it, and
who you are now. That way, hopefully you can shorten
their journey by showing them that no matter what they're experiencing,
there's always hope that things can change for them in
their future.
Yeah, when I share my experience, I go back to
childhood because I go step by step. I'm not diving
into everything in my life, but I'm touching on these
key points from childhood to college to when I first
started facing mental illness, when my scientist symptoms got worse,
when I got intervention in hospital, and then when I
faced the crisis and the whole recovery portion. And I've
done that because in the supreme work of mental health
field and how we can better approach mental health, it
is just so complex. So when I talk about my childhood,
I talk about some adverse childhood experiences ACES, something that
has a lot of research behind it that shows that
it's a risk factor for future mental health.
Challenges and so forth.
I'm using these my expertise that I've lear in mental
advocacy in my story throughout the time, so that a
way it's not just oh, this was just my experience,
but there is research and knowledge behind all of this
that I use to show how there were so many
opportunities prior to that incident in which I could have
gotten the help or my help could have been more effective,
to where the incident could have been prevented and it
did not have to get to that crisis point for
me to finally accept my mental illness. And I hope
that when people hear that, they're like they're thinking, like, Oh,
I could do something now. If I'm struggling, I could
help someone else who I know is struggling, so that
the way helping them could get more effective so they're
never at that potential crisis point or even like getting
to a point where they're just really struggling and no
one is willing to help.
Yeah, I think that's a great message to put out
there for everyone.
I think you've got it right there.
I've spoken with several people who've faced challenges lasting anywhere
with from a year to ten years. While the duration
varies for everyone, a common thread stands out this hope
on the other side of that journey, you can address
your struggles, refine your approach, create a plan to improve things.
Each person I talk to, Even when they were at
their lowest, when others looked at them and thought they
were finished, incapable of bouncing back, they refuse to give up.
They pushed through, survived, and now they're thriving. So the
real question is how do we overcome the stigma. How
do we help people see that, yes, mental health carries
a certain stigma, but it doesn't have to be purely negative.
How do we highlight the positive that once people navigate
their challenges, they can emerge stronger and show the world
what they've overcome.
I always say that recovery is not just possible, but
probable in the right circumstances. We as families, as friends,
as co workers, as parents, as just people in the community,
we have that opportunity and space to help create those
circumstances in which people are more likely to get the
help they need. And that, to me, speaks to that
good side of this conversation and that hopeful aspect to it,
because yes, we can dive into specific policies that might
change certain aspects in the systems that would help improve
But that's one piece of this.
There's so much more to just how.
Our network, our social network, and our communities and our
interpersonal relationships and even ourselves can do to start making
that change within and being better positions where if we're
ever in a position facing a mental health challenge or
even experiencing mental illness, we're better positioned to manage it
and to change it and to support it. So, like,
I know a big component for me, I'm interested in
people you've also talked to, Like, there's a big responsibility
on my own ever since I'd gotten my diagnosism un
through that experience, Like I have a responsibility to manage
that I do. But if I ever struggle with it,
I go to my family, I go to my dad,
I go to my girlfriend. I talk to people because
I know that I can rely on them or have
them be there to support me through if I'm struggling
to manage it myself. Getting to that point of acceptance
for the individual is a very challenging thing, and I
wouldn't want anyone to go through such a severe crisis
to finally have that awareness of it, but rather creating
completely different circumstances long before that ever happened, so that
a way they're more likely to accept it initially.
Okay, that's a good point. We've covered a lot of
good things here. What would you like the listeners to
know that you think is very important about mental health
and the challenges that they face.
I think one of the most important things to tell
people about this is there's so much but I think
think conversations around mental health have increased significantly, especially since
COVID had happened, and there's been so many positives with that,
and I think the conversations have just been amazing, and
I think this is an important piece. There needs to
be a recognition of mental illness is a bit different
than a mental health challenge when you start to face
certain signs of symptoms with mental illness, and it does
take a different approach than having a fight with someone
going through a job loss or something like that. There
are certain aspects of mental illness that not everyone faces,
but a lot of people do just based on certain
predispositions or other factors. So I think there still is
a lot of stigma with certain mental illness, particularly with schizophrenicia,
psychosis and so forth. So as the greater public is
having a conversation about mental health, I just want to
make sure that we're also talking about these types of
diagnoses and these types of signs and symptoms that look
different for every person, but also that we need to
talk about that as well, and we need to be
open about that too, because anyone can face a mental illness.
One in five people do, so we just kind to
make sure we're taking care of those who are most
vulnerable and struggle potentially the most.
I think that's a great statement. This just highlights the
need for more understanding since everyone has different issues and
deals with them in their own way. Just because one
person handles a crisis a certain way doesn't mean everyone
else will be the same in the way they handle
their crisis.
Yeah, And.
I'm very forward with the incident that I went to
or went through due to my like attacking my dad
with a knife, believing the devil was inside him, because
at face value, people lead that and they're like, oh
my god, it's so hard to fathom and it's so stigmatized.
I face significant shame ever since that happened, gone through processes.
Of managing that, and my work has reduced that.
But still to bring something like that to the table,
I think helps to be like, okay, like making people
have empathy for me, right with that situation I think
helps other people that have empathy for anyone who goes
through something such as that, and encourages us.
To do more to that away. Again, people don't get
to that crisis point.
You just mentioned something that I think is important to
talk about. Some people don't have the touch of empathy,
and since they haven't walked your path, they don't fully
get it. Without meaning to, they say things that sting,
not seeing the weight of their words.
You've been through it, you've lived.
It, and now you're moving forward. You've changed, evolved, You're
not the same person you were. How do you deal
with those who, in their ignorance, can't see the depth
of what you've faced.
Initially, the first time that I had felt significant shame
due to my situation was after I'd gotten out of
jail and I went on the Facebook and I looked
at the comments on the news articles about me, my
mug shop plastered everywhere, words saying something bites his father's
year off. The comments they were making jokes, they were
making jokes about Mike Tyson. They were just brutal. I
remember reading those and I remember I felt a shame,
but also at the same time, I was like Okay,
these people. I don't know these people, they're strangers to me,
they don't know anything about what had happened, and I
just knew that, and I was like I So I
wasn't like significantly bothered because I was like, I'm still
here and I'm going to prove them wrong. And that
probably helped feel my whole path too in some aspect
is that I wanted to show them and I wanted
to tell them like, Okay, there's so much more to this.
And it wasn't just the public who had also shamed me.
I heard rumors from people in college, my friends. So
there's always been a level of uncertainty with people's comfortableness
with me and willingness to do that. But ever since
I've gotten to the point where I am and I'm
to be more active on social media and everything that
I've done so far, like I can see the cognitive
shift in people that I've interacted with throughout the years
that I could tell that they've built empathy for me,
and that level of empathy has increased because I've been
able to show my perspective, reveal it, and I've been
very active with it, which not everyone does, and that's okay.
But hopefully if they can have empathy for my incident,
maybe when they see something in the news about another
incident or something else that happens and they don't know
enough about it, maybe they'll have more empathy for that too.
That's a great point. Well, this has been really good,
great information, great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the
time to come on.
Yeah, thank you for having me, Tony. I really appreciate
this conversation.
It's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the
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