Male Sexual Assault Awareness And Being Your #1 Health Advocate

Today, I sit down with Steve Wilson, a 76-year-old author and mental health advocate who shares a powerful and heartbreaking account of trauma, bipolar disorder, and navigating misdiagnosis. Mr. Wilson’s story begins with childhood sexual assault — something he didn’t speak about for 30 years. That trauma sent him into a lifelong battle with depression, suicidal ideation, and later, the misunderstood cycles of bipolar disorder — which went undiagnosed for six years. 

In this episode, Mr. Wilson and I talk about what it’s like to live with untreated mental illness, and the long-term impact of being misdiagnosed — something that affects far too many people today. We talk about how the wrong medications, untrained professionals, and a lack of awareness from both doctors and patients can delay healing for years. Mr. Wilson also opens up about the shocking silence he faced when trying to discuss his assault with trained therapists — and how that emotional neglect stalled his recovery. 

We also get into the systems that are failing people every day: insurance companies, overwhelmed state-run facilities, and a government setup that punishes people who can't live off disability alone but lose it if they work to avoid being homeless. Mr. Wilson shares what led him to write his book, Teetering on a Tightrope, and why he’s made it his mission to speak out about male sexual assault, stigma, and the mental health system’s blind spots. We also gives practical advice for anyone struggling with medication, and why it’s critical to advocate for yourself — or bring someone with you who can. 

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Mr. Wilson's Email: swwilson.wilson@gmail.com

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*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today's guest is courtesy of Pete. If you have not seen me on Pete versus Anxiety he was supposed to be on my episode a couple weeks ago, so no one knows who he is Actually. I have a guest named Pete coming on my show in the future now after Reschedule League, and I was on his show, Pete Versus Anxiety, and today's guest was introduced to me by Pete.

So go give some love to Pete versus Anxiety. Great guy, great show. But today's guest is courtesy of him, Mr. Steve Wilson. We are gonna be talking about his life story, which is not very common. But I think there are some things in it that are issues that are present in a lot of people's lives and we may not know it or realize it and we need to address it.

This episode is gonna be pretty, pretty serious and there's gonna be a lot of trauma discussed. So, just make sure you read a description for this podcast and make sure it's stuff you're comfortable talking with. But Mr. Wilson, before I go on any longer, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, I'm 76 years old. I spent my working life in custom clothing and I now live out here in Scottsdale, Arizona with my wife of 52 years. Wow. Actually my life is based around my bipolar disorder. I was let's start from the real beginning. When I was nine years old, up until then, I was a perfectly normal kid, but when I was nine years old, I was sexually assaulted in a restroom, in a movie theater.

And thrown up against the wall and choked. So as you can realize, that brought on a lot of trauma. What happened after that started quickly? When I, I was in fourth grade at the time, I think. And. Almost immediately I went into a deep depression and I had been a very good student, an A student, but when I went into this depression, I couldn't study, I couldn't sleep.

I, I just couldn't do anything. I couldn't play. All I did was watch tv and this got worse and worse through high school, the same thing, except I added cheating because it was the only way I could get through school. Mm-hmm. Went on to college. Got a lot. No, not a lot better but better because I was in a whole different environment.

Yeah. And when I came home from college, I fell into an even deeper depression and started having suicidal ideations, although I never tried. And one night. We had a barbecue at my folks' house and my father, who I had, had a tough relationship with, came over to me and said something bad to me. I was at a grill, cooking hamburgers, and there was a knife right there and I picked up the knife.

I was gonna as in my words, gut him. And before I did, all of a sudden I got, I stopped and I knew I had to go into the mental hospital that was run by my psychiatrist at the time. So I spent three weeks in the mental hospital got my. First drugs that really, that's what curb the suicidal ideations. But actually that's just about the only thing I got out of the hospital stay.

And I never had to go back to any institution. And that, that time they diagnosed me as clinically depressed. Well, that was wrong. And six years later they said, oops, we made a mistake. You have bipolar disorder. Hell, I'd never even heard of it. And so they gave me lithium, which everybody in, in my, with my condition on nose and lithium really helped.

And I was able to go on to a normal life, although I had still a whole hell of a lot of problems, but I was able to function. Let's just go on to something else here, because I've got other things to say. Okay. Go ahead. For sure. And. What I, what I want to ask about, first of all, I want to thank you for sharing about the sexual assault that happened to you because that is something historically that men do not talk about.

There's a lot of shame around it and a lot of demasculinization that happens that is very wrong. So. I want to thank you personally for speaking about it, and I, I do have to probe a little bit and ask was this a family member or was this a stranger? Because those obviously it's still a terrible situation either way.

But it does play a different role in how that trauma shapes you. It was my father. Hmm. And. Let's just say he, I had a brother and a sister and he kinda wasn't, there, never hid us or anything like that, right? But he just didn't care about us much. So that, oh, other than that, I had a, a pretty damn good.

Childhood, I thought. And that was early on. And then later just before the time I was gonna kill him things got even worse. So that's it on that. But it went on with him. I had a rough life. And we'll talk about more of that later on. Yeah, I mean actually since we're on the topic, after you went to the mental health facility, after the incident at the the barbecue, did you ever speak to your father again?

Oh, sure, sure. In fact, I worked for him for a while. I hated it. No, didn't hate it. I never wanted to go into his business, but because of my bipolar. I couldn't keep a job. Right. Had all kind of problems. So as it turned out, I couldn't, I had to go to him because I had no other choice. And I'll tell you, I had been offered a one tremendous job that I always wanted to do, couldn't do it.

Mm. So that's, that's a pretty normal. Thing that happens with bipolar disorder. I facilitate three mental health support groups here in Phoenix. I've seen over a thousand people in the last 10 years, and a lot of 'em have the same problems. Right? You can't keep a job. They're, they're just out there.

You know, just kind of like hanging on a, on a lifeline, put it that way. Did your parents believe the diagnosis when you were finally diagnosed with the bipolar disorder, or did they kind of say that was nonsense? I mean, how did people in your family react to it? No, they, they were very. Helpful. But you know, I had never heard of the diagnosis, so I didn't know what it was.

I don't know if they knew what it was, but my mother is the one who'd got, who helped me see the psychiatrist in the first place. So she was helpful. My dad never even got involved in it, right? So my mother. Understood what I was going through. One reason is because she had gone through similar problems.

Okay. Now something I wanna focus on that is kind of boggling my mind is you still were in contact with your father. Part of it was because you had to for work, but did you forgive him for what had happened between you two? Or was, was, did it, did you ever confront him on it or how did, did you kind of just bury that?

No. And I'll, I'll tell you, when I was raped, I was, I didn't understand what had just happened. I didn't even know that was possible, and I decided then hell, it might have been my fault. So I began to blame myself. Hmm. Remember I'm only nine years old, so I decided never to tell anyone what had happened and I didn't for 30 years.

And then one day. Let's see how many, I decided to tell my psychiatrist, who I'd been seeing for quite a few years, and I told him that I was raped. This was in about the eighties, I guess, and he looked at me, never said a word, and started on a new subject. A few years later, I would, I. Think he was dead by then.

I was going to, another therapist brought up the same subjects and she wouldn't talk about it. So that hurt my recovery. Right, for sure. So, you know, I was not being helped in the ways I needed to be. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's why I thanked you for talking about it, because I think like people were like, oh, you're a man.

We're just gonna brush past it. And that's not good at I'm, I'm actually shocked that professionals who are supposed to help people would do so. And I mean, you talked about a misdiagnosis, which is something I wanna talk about because that is something that happens a lot to people. Yes, definitely. I've seen it happen in the military, in the civilian world.

I've seen it happen in Canada, in in America. I mean, that affected so much of your life. So what would you say about misdiagnosis and, and in fact I just kind of wanna get in general, why are you podcasting now? What is the mission? Well, I wrote a book it was called in 2022. It, it's called Teetering on a Tightrope, my Bipolar Journey.

That's when the podcasting started, and I've been on about 50 of 'em because of the, oh, you know, mental health has a tremendous stigma to it. And a lot of people, when they think of someone who's mentally ill, think of them as lazy, stupid they tell. A lot of sufferers. Oh, just go take a walk.

You'll be fine. Or go to the gym. You, you can get over this. But getting back to misdiagnosis, I want to tell you along with what you're saying, I, when I do these groups and I've, I've done it for a long time. One of the things that has always come up. Is misdiagnosis and then the psychiatrist will start them on whatever regimen they want to put 'em on.

And because they're doing the wrong thing, it doesn't help. And then that goes on for a long time or since it doesn't help the victim quits. The regimen isn't helping him. So, and then they quit going to the psychiatrist. And what we talk about a lot is that if you don't think that your medication is correct for you, say something, and to the psychiatrist and.

Make him remember he's working for you. I always tell him and make him discuss it, and you do what you want to do. However, the problem is many, many people with mental illness can't confront anybody. They can't stand up to 'em, right? So. If the medication that this guy is prescribed, they think, oh, there's nothing else he know.

He knows everything. Mm-hmm. And so they quit. And I want to tell you one other thing else that's important here. 50% of the people who are given medication, the medication doesn't work for them. 50%. So two outcomes doesn't work. People never get better. They don't look for other ways to help themselves and that's bad for them.

The other alternative is there are. Not medications, but you would say systems that you can go to, such as dialectical therapy and eye movement therapy and so on. There's a bunch of 'em. Most people don't even know they're there. Many people never get told by their therapist or their psychiatrist, so they're left hanging with nothing else to do.

They don't, they don't know anything about these other programs. So that's that really hinders them getting better for sure. And I know that's my goal as a podcaster and many of the people I've worked with, is to spread these resources to have as many. You know, platforms available where people can find these resources one way or another.

And what I wanna say too is the idea that even if the medication is working, that's not gonna fix everything in your life. That's one step. That's the, the rest of it is on you to now, now that you've gotten this medication and it's improved one part of your life, you now have the ability and the responsibility to.

Pick up the rest of the pieces that fell apart because of whatever the medication is taken care of. You know, it's not like a miracle pill. It is something to help with whatever the root cause is or some of the symptoms so that you can then focus on everything else. And I a hundred percent agree. A lot of people are like, he's a doctor, therefore he knows everything.

Well, that's not true, right? I mean, doctors are people too. Some of them are corrupt, unfortunately, and some of them just, not everything is for everyone. Every human being is unique. Right? And so you really need individualized care. And I, I do wish that people would speak up and I know I'm one of those people 'cause I really don't like medical places.

I ask a lot of questions. Mm-hmm. I mean, you're not, you're not getting away with anything. Like, I ask every question because listen, and we've said this before in the show, I really like this phrase. You are your number one health advocate, all right? At the end of the day. Doctor, your parents, the government, whoever it is, doesn't matter.

You are your number one health advocate that no one cares about your health more than you. Yeah. You know, and we used to say, 'cause in the military we would say, no one cares about your separation more than you do. You know out. No one cares more than you do. Same with your health. It's so important. And so I think it's important, like you said, to.

Make these mental health resource groups to spread awareness to guests on podcasts, and then your book as well. So, TD Ring on a Tight Rope. I can already see kind of where, where you got that title from, but I'd love for you to explain a little bit about, you know, kind of the tight rope you've been walking on your life and how that played a role into making the book.

Well, it's exactly right. The our lives are like being on a roller coaster. One day or for three or four months or six months, however long, I feel pretty damn good. Not perfect 'cause there is no cure. And then I'll be feeling good, and then I'll crash and that'll last for a while and then I get better.

Right? That may last however long, but that's, that's how our lives are up and down, up and down. And, but before we talk about that, you said the government and then I heard that I gotta talk about the government for sure. The government is actually not much help now. They are help. In a way for the underprivileged, the people who qualify for disability are their SMI, which means severely mentally.

Ill, so what they've done, and this was set up who knows when? Long time ago. And so what they've set up. Are facilities. Now, these facilities, they don't, the patient doesn't live in but they are set up to allow you free psychiatrists and therapists free medication. That's great. To a point. They're so overwhelmed and there are so few.

Therapists that, let's just be blunt. They many times don't offer a lot of help. Plus, I'll say one other thing. I, one guy in my group was really suffering and he had an appointment at the center and he asked me to go, and we went in there. It was a nice place. And went in to see the psychiatrist. He sat down and said what it was, what he was suffering from, and she said to him, you know, you've brought this on yourself because you won't take the medication and do the things I tell you, so it's on you.

I'm sitting there going, holy smoke. You're supposed to help people. Yeah. So in many instances, the psychiatrist and therapists don't do their jobs the way they're supposed to. And then he asked about, oh, I heard of a new medication that might help me, and gave the name. And she says, oh, we aren't allowed to prescribe those things.

We can only prescribe what we've always prescribed. Mm-hmm. So it's all about money. That was unbelievable to me. So I had another, I had two of them. People in my group who were on disability now, if you wanna understand disability, it you can earn up to about $20,000 a year. That figure was set quite a while ago, and everybody knows $20,000 today doesn't provide much help.

Now I had these two people in my group. They decided to get part-time jobs to help 'em. Those part-time jobs, put them over that $20,000

disability, took away their money. So these two people went from 20,000 and I think one of them wanted, his part-time job made 15. So what he ha got was $5,000 less than he was getting from disability. So in my es, my belief is the government. Isn't much help. They don't seem to focus on mental illness, and that's one of the reasons I do these podcasts, to hope that the world will understand what the government's do doing.

And another culprit is the insurance companies. Mm-hmm. A hundred percent. They have forced. The medications to be higher in hell along with pharma, and they have cut the money that they give to the professionals, psychiatrists, psychologists. So that has forced, those two things have forced the price you pay for a therapist or psychologist to go sky high.

My therapist. I've never been on disability. It's $200 a session. Wow. And yeah, she's a trauma therapist and that's the reason she's so high. But you still can't get a therapist for under a hundred bucks. And if you find one, good luck. So what does that do? Cuss all these people out of getting therapy. So it's a huge problem in the US and my podcasts have taken me all over the world and most of the countries I connect with have universal health insurance for their whole country, and they don't have these problems.

Yeah. Or you could have it where the government just provides free therapy to anyone who, who wants it. All these countries say, oh, my taxes go to cover this. And it's, and it's pretty high, but no one cares about that. I shouldn't say no one, but the majority of people don't care about that. Right. And, but taxes are already so high in America.

You know, it's not a matter of the taxes, it's a matter of where the money's going to, which we know historically that there's a lot of money in America that gets wasted. Or, you know, I hate to say the word wasted, but sometimes it really is. And other times it's just redirected to the wrong places or not looked at, you know, in the right way.

And so that's definitely the case. And then tell us a little more about who should read your book and you know, what, what they can kind of get out of it. Well, lemme tell you a little bit about my book. I take. The reader through my entire life in chronological order, starting with my sexual assault.

I tell everything I went through, and the reason I do that is to get. The mentally ill to realize that, oh, I've gone through stuff like that and maybe I'm not alone. And it will help 'em, it also help family members, friends and so on. So I describe my life. Some places it gets, well, especially with the rape, it gets pretty gruesome.

But I had sexual problems ca that came about because of my sexual assault. I had a lot of women in my life in my early years, teenage years and early twenties. When it came to getting ready to have sex, I couldn't do it. I was afraid. And so that's kind of stuff that's come up and it's all throughout my book.

The whole reason for the book, because I get into describe my journey and I'm pretty damn good right now and have been for the last 15 years. Its main goal is to show people that no matter how hard it is, if they keep working at it, they can have an enjoyable and successful life. That's beautiful and we're gonna have that book and description below for everyone to check out.

And I, again, I just wanna thank you for coming on the show today. Not just for coming on the show, but for sharing some of these traumatic parts of your lives for other people to be aware of, that these things do happen and are happening and to be on the lookout for this kind of stuff, especially the misdiagnosis.

And, you know, if you feel like your medication's not working. Talk to your doctor about it. And one thing I do wanna say that you kind of mentioned is bring someone with you. You know, if you can, I always bring someone with you. I ask, I do this, especially for a lot of my neighbors who are older, and I'm worried about them getting taken advantage of.

I go to the doctors with them, you know, I ask all the questions. I get all the information. I, I do think that's part of the responsibility of the youth. Is to, to make sure that we're taking care of the elderly and that includes going with them to the doctors and not letting them get taken advantage of and speaking up on their behalf and not just, you know, the older folks, but if.

You've got friends and family or neighbors or coworkers who are, are dealing with a mental illness or maybe they were in an abusive relationship and they're scared to speak up go there and, and, and fight on their behalf. Because at the end of the day, these doctors, most of them are, are friends, you know, our friends are, are family and our loved ones who are gonna be there.

So make sure you're speaking up, because at the end of the day it's your health, it's your life, you know? No one can force medication onto you. At the end of the day, if you don't want to take it, don't take it. I'm not advising you to ignore medical advice or go against your doctor's orders, but if you feel like it's not working or making your life worse, speak up about that.

That's a good way to put it. And you know, I like having some. Other person go with the sufferer. It doesn't happen very often. Yeah. In my estimation. Yeah. And also, just real quick before we end here, you talked about running some mental health groups. I just want some information for anyone who wanted to join those that is in the Arizona region, correct?

Yes. Okay. And what's the best way for them to find out about that or to contact you about that? Well, it's my email. It is s ww LSO n.Wilson@gmail.com. Perfect. And we'll have that in a description below too for people to reach out to you. But thank you again Mr. Wilson. Thank you for coming on the show today and, and thank you for sharing your story.

I really appreciate it. Well, I appreciate you too, Mr. Whiskey.