BONUS EPISODE: Justin Peck: Racing to Resilience – Transforming Bipolar Challenges into Mental Health Advocacy and Community Support

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?
Today marks a special episode our monthly bonus, and I'll
be engaging in conversation within the mental health sector that's
outside of the autistic community. This will provide valuable insights
which will enhance our understanding. This discussion aims to shed
light on how we can collectively create a more inclusive
environment for everyone. Justin Peck joins us today to discuss
his daily approach to maintaining mental wellness and resilience. Thanks
for joining.
Us, absolutely absolutely.
I see you're an advocate for special needs autism and
mental health. What led you to be an advocate for
all these people that ultimately need this help?
Oh?
Boy, think we're going on twenty eight years now. I
was diagnosed with class one Bi Poler. So I went
through suicide attempts, went through a lot of just crazy emotions,
crazy feelings. But I was a professional race card driver.
You can't say that you're crazy when you're doing a
crazy sport. If that makes any sense.
That makes total sense.
So it took me quite a few years brother, like
probably fifteen years before I kind of just grasp the
concept of this is what I'm living with, this is
what God has blessed me with. And so I ended
up forming the National Mental Health Alliance. I mean, that's
ultimately how I got into it, is being a patient,
being someone that experiences what mental illness is. Like my
family struggles with it, my daughters and my sons, so
it's personal to me.
Yeah, I think we all can relate to that in
some form.
The irony behind everything is I think that's mostly how
people get into the certain trades that they're in. They'll
come up with a trauma or a family experience and
they're so passionate about that experience. That's the course correction
and that's where they end up going in life.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So at what age, I
guess did you start feeling like he was Maybe different
than the rest or things weren't falling in line like others.
So I was probably nine is my earliest recollection. But
where I felt that I was different is I was
highly sensitive my emotions. I still to this day and
you'll probably see that as we discuss further on. But
I wear my emotions very, very very close on my shoulders.
I don't hold any of it back. At nine, I
was an emotional sensitive kid kind of went through that process,
and so I kind of started pulling away from there.
And then when I turned thirteen, that was my very
first manic episode, and I remember it very vividly. Actually
when that happened, not only did my friends see me different,
but my family saw me different because I was different.
Yeah, that's a tough thing to go through as a kid.
It was a struggle.
But if you think about it, I mean, that was
forty something years ago, right, and times have changed.
Mental health.
The word bipolar wasn't even a word back there wasn't.
It wasn't even a vernacular word that people would even discuss.
How people have the ability to talk about it, which
is amazing.
Yeah, I get that. I mean my podcast that you're
on now is mainly folksocused on autism. It covers, just
like you're saying, the varied ways that people deal with
it and find out. And I think the most important
thing that we're getting out of this is that mental
health is very important, no matter what it happens to be.
Just like you were saying earlier, mental health issues, no
matter what it is, have not been talked about and
have not been brought to the forefront. So with that said,
you brought up your friends and family. How did that
affect them? How did that affect you? Did you have
bullying or do you have issues in school because of it?
How did you work your way through that?
Oh?
Yeah, brother?
Like all through my high school, junior high, elementary, it
was it was severe cases. I mean it would be
things now that people would probably get arrested for, because
back then bullying was just bullying right there. You always
had someone bigger than you. My family structure was very solid.
They didn't understand by no means, you know, going up
with you know, a dad that was a truck driver
and it's you know, lean and mean type things. Growing
up with a grandpa that went through the Great Depression,
and you know, the nineteen eighteen type stuff. Then all
the dilemmas and all the things that they went through,
and then they look at us as a new generation
coming through and they like suck it up. You know,
it's that whole mentality. And so I had great support,
but they didn't understand. I mean I didn't understand. And
it wasn't until I actually dove into it and was
willing to talk about it that my family actually grasped
onto the concept of what I was going through. My
mother still feels bad that she wasn't able to recognize it,
but again, I mean, it was forty years ago, and
how do you do that?
So when you had your first episode, everybody was kind
of shocked and didn't know what to do. How did
they handle it if they're not used to it, they
don't know what it's about, the confused. What was their
dynamic in the way that they approached to make it
better for you?
Well, so in school, nothing, honestly nothing.
Teachers, educators, the people that I would typically look for
or look to for support in the in a school atmosphere.
There was none. There was zero back then.
But again, my family it was more trying to think
out even explain this it wasn't that they didn't know
what to do. So okay, I guess I'll back up
a little bit on the Manning phase. I went from
being a kid that was pretty quiet and it didn't
really say much, kind of kept to myself, felt like
it was more of a depressive state, more of a
metal state.
But then overnight I turned into the mania.
Phase and I got into a lot of trouble, skip
school all the time, I was a hooligan, and you know,
my I think my parents kind of probably took that
as just teenage yeers and you know, going through purity
and all those things, which it's ironic that it actually
happened that in that period of time because I still
have a firm belief that the mental components has a
lot to do with hormone balances and the changing of
body and how and how hormones actually affect our brain.
Oh yeah, yeah. In the autistic world, when a kid
hits their teens, it's a huge change with all the
hormones going on. So if you stop and think about it,
it's tough for the neurotypical world. So just imagine adding autism, bipolar,
or any other special need situation for the scenario.
It was an interesting experience and I think I remember
most of it. There's trauma, right, and I think everybody
has drama through childhood and growing up, just in different circumstances.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I feel like I was blessed and to be
able to have this.
It's been hard.
It's a hard road to tackle, but at the end
of the day, rather like it's made me the man
that I am today, and it's given me the platform
to be able to talk about it.
Yeah. So when you were going through your changes during
your teen years, did it affect your ability to relate
to the other kids, and did it affect your interaction
with females, you know, if you wanted to go on
a date or any like that.
Man, I was so shy. I was so shy.
I had two friends through my high school years that
were close and that could probably put up with me.
I didn't really have very many friends after that. I
was fortunate to have a girlfriend in I think my
senior year. Even after I graduated high school. The social
side of the disorder is pretty overwhelming at times because
with the depression or even the mania, when you realize
that you're different in that way, you start to overcompensate
for things when you don't actually need to.
People just look at you as who you are.
But deep down it's just like they say, we're always
our worst critic, right, yeah, right, And so growing up
I was my worst critic, and so I would always
look at the situations or the things that my mind
was going through and thinking to myself, how could these
people even come close to understanding what I'm thinking? And
so through those interactions and through those things, it was
a not only a healing process, but I think it
was a really really good learning experience for me and
those people to walk beside me on that as well.
Yeah, I mean that makes total sense. Now. What I
find really interesting is that you had all these things
going on in your life, and later in your teens
you got into racing. So with everything that you had
going personally, emotionally, and to get into racing, which has
a huge adrenaline rush, So how did all those scenarios
and dynamics mix so racing?
Ah, you know, I actually get this question quite a bit.
I answered different ways every single time. But racing, for me,
I realized that at a young age that was my medication.
I was able to not perfect my craft by no means.
I felt like I was fast and I was good
at what I was able to do. I realized that
in that group of people, there was no judgment, there
was no bullying, there was none of that in that atmosphere.
I mean, these are, of course just personal beliefs. But
when you take artists, when you take like I see
the records in behind you, When you have artists, when
you have people that are thrill seekers, that have that
ability to do things that more, it's actually kind of crazy.
It's it's the special ability, right.
So I've always I've always looked at autism as people
with special abilities, meaning like super powers. They do things
way better than I can do on certain things. Racing,
for me, I realized that the camaraderie that I had
with my fellow racers gave me a place to belong.
When you have that sense of belonging, then the self
doubt starts to go away. When self doubt starts to
go away, now confidence builds. And it's just that slow
progression of climbing that ladder. And with the type of
racing that I do, I mean, it's it's pretty extreme.
I mean, when you're doing one hundred and twenty to
one hundred and sixty miles an hour on the dirt,
over bumps and jumps, and I mean death is close
the thing that you feel alive when you're closest to death.
That's kind of how it worked for me.
Okay, So now there's a point in time, and you'll
have to clarify this for me, because I don't know
the timeline. But evidently you had a time that you
was feeling you lowest and you drove to this mountaintop
with the whole idea of ending your life and then
all of a sudden it didn't happen, right, Okay, So
first what led you to that? And then second when
it didn't happen, what led you to put the gun
down and say, you know, now it's the time I
have to make a difference.
I haven't had that question posed to me like that
in a very very long time, So thank you for
that's that's an amazing question.
So I woke up one morning.
I was married, so I was twenty six years old,
so I had I think two babies at that time,
maybe three, and I had been I'd been fighting the
depressive side of a pretty hard my wife at the
time didn't really understand.
I didn't talk about it very often.
I remember waking up one morning and just had the
feeling of despair and grab my dog. I was a
construction guy, so grab my dog and through the back
of the truck and went to go cheat on my
job sites and I found myself at the top of
the canyon. So isolation is a pretty powerful thing. It
could be very negative, it could be positive as well.
I isolated myself from a lot of people during that moment,
and it wasn't even a planned thing. It was I
was sitting at the top of the canyon and watching
my dog run around with all the joy in the world,
looking at the beautiful the scenery, the trees, the valley.
And it's always kind of intrigued to me because I
don't necessarily have the answer of why that moment happened.
But the moment was as simple like I give up,
reached into the center console of my tread, grab the PI,
loaded it, put it to my head, and pulled the trigger.
What that did for me, It did a few things.
But I remember that depressive feeling before I pulled the trigger.
And then when you pulled the trigger, that adrenaline, the
massive amount of adrenaline that hit me. The very first
emotion that I had is I was mad. I was
generally angry at myself, but how could I screw this
one up?
Too?
Right?
Like there's a bullet in there? I knew it. So
when I unchambered the bullet and it.
Flew in front of my face and landed in my lap,
I picked it up and I looked at it, and
I saw where the firing pinned head had hit the primer,
and there's no reason it shouldn't have went off. The
two things that it did for me is it helped
me understand that there's higher powers that be. There are
certain special things in our life that we get to
experience that are unexplainable. The second thing that it did
for me was the adrenaline that hit me. It instantly,
and I'm telling you, brother, like I'm talking instantly, took
me out of that depressive state enough to be able
to gather my composure, load my dog, and drive down
the canyon. And I guess the third thing it did
was when I got cell phone service at the bottom
of the canyon.
The very first person I called was my doctor.
That led me to again where I'm at today without
even being diagnosed. So I wasn't diagnosed un until that incident.
I lived to the age of twenty six with just
not knowing. This gave me the avenue to actually understand
what was going on, and I think that was really
a huge pivotal moment in my life of actually having
a name or a face to the name, then you
can research it and slowly progress as we go.
Wow, that's truly an amazing story. I'm glad it worked
out the way that it did. So how long after
that was it that you got into racing.
So I've always been an entrepreneur. I've been a business
guy since I was eighteen. I was very fortunate to
start my own company at nineteen and have it worked
for another soul sense other than myself.
Wow, that's awesome.
So construction was always something that I knew, and then
I got good at it, and then I was able
to speak the language, speak the vernacular quite well and
became a fairly large builder in my state. Knowing that
that was a good source of income for me. When
two thousand and eight came and wiped basically everything off
the planet financially for most people.
Right, Yeah, that was a tough few years.
I kind of turned my focus more into helping people
get paid in the construction industry. So I still stick
in the construction industry, but racing is probably my priority.
I guess maybe my priorities are a little best up,
but I love the race car. I really transformed in
to the full time racer probably fifteen sixteen years ago.
It just slowly evolved into where I'm at.
That's great. So of course with racing, everybody thinks what MASCAR,
So what kind of racing is it that you are into?
So for the people that are listening can look it
up and hopefully follow you on what you're doing.
The best way for me to describe it is, so
I drive trophy trucks and rally cars. So it's the
Baja one thousand, it's the Vegas Toreno, it's the it's
the long distance endurance racing in trucks that have huge horsepower.
So like, for example, the Baha one thousand last year
was a thirteen hundred and sixty nine mile race took
us thirty eight hours, right, So you're in the race
car a long time, and I was a dirt by
a guy for a long time, had some good sponsorship
with like KTM and those guys. But after so many
broken bones, you have to get into a cage.
I'm glad that you brought that up, because actually that
was my next question. It says that you have like
eighty four broken bones in your body.
Yeah, more than that now.
Yeah, So how did that affect your mental capacity? I mean,
you're dealing with pain, You're dealing just so much discomfort,
You're dealing with so many things that will actually throw
you out of your normal routine. So how did that
affect you?
So there's a saying that I've that I've kept along
for most of my life, and I don't I don't
know where I heard this, But have you ever heard
the saying embrace the suck?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, right.
So I for some reason, I just I don't know
if it was just beat into me as a young
kid or what, but I I have to take the
hard way. I have to do things in the way
that is the most difficult. That makes it seem like
that's the only way I can learn, right, because I'm not.
I'm not an educated man. I barely graduated high school,
but I learned very well through experience. And so it's
just it's the experiences that that I've gained over over
that time that has led me to the path that
I'm in on right now.
I don't think I answered your question. What was your
question again?
You?
Oh that?
Well, yeah, because when you're hurting, it can be depressing.
So how did you react to that depressive state because
of the pain that you was going through?
So this may not make sense, but maybe it does.
When your brain hurts, mentally, your whole body hurts, it's
a miserable process. I found that when I was hurt,
when I was broken, I could focus more on the
of the external pain than the internal pain. The broken
bone would actually help me and it would keep me
motivated to be better, knowing that, all right, if I'm
going to raise, I can't crash. I need to be
a little more safe, right, But yes, the pain did
affect a lot, but it kept me motivated in a
weird sort of way.
Okay, so you've created this body of work. It can
be your construction. It also can be you're racing the
broken bones. Everything that you've done is your body of work,
and unfortunately it can be the depression as well that
led you to be an ambassador for Mental Health of America. Correct, yes, sir,
So what do you do to put that out there
to help others and coordinate everything all in the package
that you do With.
Mental Health America, They've kind of shifted a little bit
of how their structure worked.
I realized a few years ago that I didn't quite
fit the mold for their path.
And while I'm still an ambassador for those guys, I
understood that I needed to be more of a more
niche in who I was reaching for me. I work
a lot with veterans, I work a lot with young men,
a lot of people with substance abuse, those type of
things that all correlate to the mental health problems that
are plaguing the country right now. I apologize, man, it's
one too many concussions, I lose my train and thought
every once in a lot.
Well that's no problem at all. So that ultimately led
you to starting your own charity.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, So two years ago I kind
of pulled away from Mental Health America and started the
National Mental Health Alliance.
And so what we.
Try to do there is we try to educate the
business in the industry, that I've kind of evolved into
is more of a toxicology and medication management phase. We've
started a few companies that helps with like drug testing
and those type of things in the sense of not
necessarily drug testing for illicit substances, but for like mental
health medications and those type of things.
That's great. So is this a charity that just focuses
on your local area or are you trying to branch
out and create it to go nationwide.
So we're definitely trying to reach every corner of the
planet that we can. And again, like I said, we're
basing everything off off of educating being able to educate
a spouse if the wife is going through postpartum depression,
they don't know where to turn to. If they don't,
if they don't have the right information, then then what
do you. I mean, at the end of the day,
you only know what you know. So we try to
provide that type of information for people with the With
the Alliance as well, we're able to help with domestic violence,
were able to help with substance abuse, all the different components.
I mean, even.
Having the nonprofit was a huge blessing over the last
few weeks with me being in North Carolina.
You look at the situation that those people.
Are going through right now, and while everybody can see
the outside and the physical broken bones and the physical damage,
we can't see.
What's going on up here.
It was pretty amazing to be out there and to
be able to talk to those people in a way
that I felt like they need. One experience that we
had out there was there was a line of cars
they were trying to get up a road that was
washed out, and they have the power company up there,
and we were waiting to get through to do some
search and rescue. There was a lady that was parked
behind our caravan and our team, and she got out
of the car and she was yelling at us and
having a breakdown.
As I would too, as probably anybody would.
I remember hearing someone kind of make a comment of
saying mans Karen's everywhere, and I kind.
Of sat back right and I sat.
There and it just it hit me a little different,
and so I got out of my truck and I
walked over and I just looked at her and I
asked her what her name was, and she told me
her name, and I just opened.
Up my arms.
Brother, and that woman grabbed a hold of me, and
she she allowed me to take her pain to despair
that that woman had and that's all she needed was
a hut and someone to tell her that it's okay.
Yeah, that's a great story, and it's just awesome that
you was able to get there to help those people.
When I was young, I tried to join the military,
and when I explained to them a little bit about
what my brain was doing, it was an immediate note,
not going to allow you to be in the military.
And that was always kind of a big thing for
me because I felt like that was a way for
me to jump into a brotherhood.
To be denied that was it was kind of devastating.
But I realized something about ten years ago, when I
had a few of my veterans and friends take your
Own Life, I realized that while I was not able
to serve my country downrange, I'm able to now serve
my country and serve those men that have went across
by being support for them and be able to talk
and fit in with that same group.
If that makes sense, Sure, that makes sense. So how
do people get in contact with you?
So Instagram, I'm justin pet forty nine I'm on Facebook
as well.
I'm LinkedIn, and I'm fairly easy to find.
But if anybody ever has any questions, reach out via
Instagram and I will talk to anybody, anybody at any time.
My day when I first wake up is to be
able to open up my messages and see there may
be fifty one day, there may be twenty the next,
and there may be five hundred the next day. To
just let people know that strangers are still there. I mean,
I think the human experience is hard enough. To know
that you have people that are willing to walk beside
you through the valley.
Well, it's a huge thing.
I never had that growing up, and so it's one
of those things that I felt like I felt very
compelled to do.
Yeah, that's great. Let's talk about your book a little bit.
Can you give us a little information on how that
came to happen?
When I wrote my book, It was kind of a
weird process of how even wrote the book.
My grandmother. I was at my youngest brother's funeral.
He had passed away from an overdose at the age
of twenty, and my grandmother made mention as we're sitting there,
She's like, listen, your children need to know how you
were as a man, how you were as a child,
what was it like for me when I grew up,
so I could pass that along. She challenged me to
keep a journal to be able to write things down,
and so the process of the book went down that way.
When in twenty sixteen, I realized that I had two
hundred and seventy pages written down and handed it off
to an editor and I asked her to kind of
clean it up for me.
Well, that time, I was quite fortunate to get a
couple of phone calls from some publishers saying that we
love the content your message, We're willing to off you this.
So I had a couple of book deals put on
my lap. I turned every single one of them down,
every single one. Main reason why is because they wanted
to take over creative right. They wanted to take my
story and tweak it, which now makes it a fiction book.
Where it's not my story anymore.
And so while the big fat check would have been nice,
at the end of the day, I still needed to
stay true to myself and true to my message.
You're right there one hundred percent. So what's the name
of the book.
The name is called bulletproof ironically.
Right, Yeah, that's a great title. So how do they
find it?
So if you go to my site, it's justinpeck dot com.
You can buy it there. I'm on Amazon. I don't
think I renewed with Barnes and Nobles. I don't think
it's on there anymore. But either my website or Amazon.
Well, that's great. I really appreciate you coming on. This
has just been a fascinating conversation and I'm hoping that
everybody that listens to it is going to get as
much out of it as I did.
Thanks again, No, and I just I just enjoy the conversation.
I think at the end of the day, I've I've
listened to a few a few of your podcasts to
kind of touch up on who you are and if
it means anything to your brother, Like, I'm really proud
of you man, Like you job, you educate, You put
thoughts and potential actions in people's minds that actually make
a difference. So the end of the day, I don't
know where your mind space is at, but at the
end of the day, if you ever doubt what you're doing, man,
I'm telling you you reach a lot of people, and
you should be proud of.
What you do.
Yeah, I am, and I really appreciate you saying that.
I can tell that that your personality and where your
heart is at. The likes and the views are awesome,
but at the end of the day, you're not doing
it for the likes and the views.
You're going to get to actually help the populace.
Absolutely, and I think that's what we have in common,
is that you're trying to do the same thing as well.
So again, I really appreciate you coming on.
It's been great, perfect all right, my friend. I appreciate
the time.
It's been my pleasure. Thanks for taking the time out
of your busy schedule to listen to our show today.
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we
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