Category: Gregg’s Corner

Bipolar General: My Forever War with Mental Illness

Bipolar General: My Forever War with Mental Illness

Bipolar General: My Forever War with Mental Illness is now available! “Following decades of achievement, I rocketed into full-blown mania. My boss, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave me a choice, “…resign or be fired…and get a psychiatric...

Heroic Cause

Heroic Cause

Author: Gregg F. Martin Ph.D. Each of us will know someone with a mental condition – family, friend, neighbor, colleague, or self, as more than 60 million of us are afflicted, or one in five Americans. Encourage them to get medical help and treatment. Untreated,...

A Three-Headed Monster: Mental Illness, Stigma, and Suicide

A Three-Headed Monster: Mental Illness, Stigma, and Suicide

By: Gregg F. Martin Ph.D. Suicide is one of the most misunderstood and stigmatized of human experiences. We need a call to arms, not in the sense of weapons, but rather with people working together. Most suicides result from a combination of two things: a mental...

Afghanistan war vets are still enraged and hurting – reach out and listen

Afghanistan war vets are still enraged and hurting – reach out and listen

As the last American soldier stepped aboard a C-17 cargo plane in Kabul in September 2021 and became the last soldier to leave Afghanistan, my inbox was filling up with messages of despair from Afghan war veterans. They were witnessing a disastrous end to the war for...

Why Seeking Help for Bipolar Disorder Can Be a Sign of Strength

Why Seeking Help for Bipolar Disorder Can Be a Sign of Strength

Bipolar disorder can strike anyone, regardless of gender, race, education, or class, from pre-teens into our sixties. It is an equal opportunity disorder and can, at its worst, destroy lives and health, marriages and families, careers, friendships, finances, and more....

My Bipolar Life: Recovery

My Bipolar Life: Recovery

Actors, Institutions, and Networks My recovery could not happen without myriad actors, institutions, and networks among those actors and institutions. When I wasn’t enough, my family saved me. When family wasn’t enough, friends helped out. When friends did all they...

My Bipolar Life: Depression and Psychosis

My Bipolar Life: Depression and Psychosis

Screen print art is used with permission of Conor Martin   Part III of V: dealing with depression and psychosis After resigning from command of NDU, I spiraled then crashed into a depression that was increasingly characterized by diminished energy, hopelessness,...

How Bipolar Disorder Helped Me (Until It Didn’t)

How Bipolar Disorder Helped Me (Until It Didn’t)

Formerly known as “manic depressive illness,” bipolar disorder is a term that, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), comprises a cluster of related disorders that are characterized by distinctive and extreme shifts, or...

My Bipolar Life: service and success, crisis, recovery, and new life

My Bipolar Life: service and success, crisis, recovery, and new life

Part I: “You’ve done an amazing job…Resign or you’re fired…You need to go get a mental health exam.” It was mid-July 2014. I was 58 years old and after more than three decades in the Army, I was a two-star general and President of the National Defense University...

How Bipolar Disorder Derailed My Life, and How I Fought Back

How Bipolar Disorder Derailed My Life, and How I Fought Back

Author: Gregg F. Martin, PhD, Major General, US Army (Retired) I am a 65-year-old husband, father, grandfather, combat veteran, and a proud, thankful bipolar survivor, thriver, and warrior. A qualified Airborne-Ranger-Engineer and strategist, I commanded soldiers in...

Earn This!

Earn This!

Author: Gregg F. Martin, PhD, Major General, US Army (Retired) Written in honor of the service and sacrifice of the US Military for Memorial Day, 2022   In the epic World War Two film “Saving Private Ryan”, Army Captain and Ranger John Miller (Tom Hanks) lies...

The Three-Headed Monster We Must Now Defeat: Mental Illness, Stigma, and Suicide

The Three-Headed Monster We Must Now Defeat: Mental Illness, Stigma, and Suicide

Authors: Major General Gregg Martin, PhD, US Army Retired, and David Bartley May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a month in which we shine a light on mental health. I have chosen to focus on one of the most misunderstood and stigmatized of human experiences –...

World Bipolar Day: Here’s Some of What I’ve Learned…

World Bipolar Day: Here’s Some of What I’ve Learned…

Author: Gregg F. Martin, PhD, Major General, US Army (Retired)   World Bipolar Day is on 30 March. This is a day to focus on a serious mental/brain illness that afflicts 60 million people worldwide; and even more because statistics for children are not counted...

Changing Mental Illness From a Disabling Condition to a Heroic Cause

Changing Mental Illness From a Disabling Condition to a Heroic Cause

Author: Major General Gregg F. Martin, PhD, US Army Retired   As World Bipolar Day approaches on March 30th, let’s build on our momentum and progress and keep it going…for years to come!   By no more than one percent of separation, we all know...

Hyperthymia and Bipolar: Mental Conditions that Helped Me — Until They Didn’t

Hyperthymia and Bipolar: Mental Conditions that Helped Me — Until They Didn’t

Author: General Gregg F. Martin, Phd, General Major, US Army Retired   From my teenage years on, I benefitted from what was a positive personality: high levels of energy, enthusiasm, drive, extroversion, positivity, happiness, and optimism.   This was the...

Bipolar: the Impact on Me and Others

Bipolar: the Impact on Me and Others

Author: Major General Gregg F. Martin, US Army Retired My brain burst into full-blown mania in 2014, at age 58.  This “late onset bipolar disorder” is rare, with only about five percent of diagnosed cases occurring this late in life.  I may have had undiagnosed...

Being a General Officer with Bipolar Disorder

Being a General Officer with Bipolar Disorder

Author: Major General Gregg F. Martin, US Army Retired The Army I joined the US Army in 1975, at age 18.  My motivation for entering the US Military Academy at West Point was first and foremost, to obtain a top-notch education on a full scholarship. Once there, I...

Stop the stigma – save lives!

Stop the stigma – save lives!

Author: Major General Gregg Martin, US Army Retired In recent months, I’ve welcomed you to enter the mind of a person whose brain was damaged in combat, and literally went to war against him, driving him into bipolar madness for several years.   This is a story I...

It’s Okay to Admit You’re Not Okay

It’s Okay to Admit You’re Not Okay

Author: Gregg F. Martin, PhD, Major General, US Army (Retired) Bipolar disorder can strike virtually anyone, regardless of gender, race, education or class, from pre-teens into our sixties. It is an equal opportunity destroyer of lives and health, marriages and...

Recovery from Mental Hell – Through Connection, Hope, and Medicine

Recovery from Mental Hell – Through Connection, Hope, and Medicine

Author: Gregg F. Martin, PhD, US Army (Retired)   My oldest son Phillip insists that a major difference between my own case of bipolar disorder and many millions of others’ cases is that I was fortunate enough to recover. Indeed, I was alive and recovered with my...

Dealing with Major Depression and Psychosis

Dealing with Major Depression and Psychosis

Author: Major General Gregg F. Martin, PhD, US Army Retired I gradually spiraled then crashed into depression after my resignation from the National Defense University (NDU.) My depression was increasingly characterized by diminished energy, hopelessness, anxiety and...

Service and Success

Service and Success

My Hyperthymia and Bipolar Disorder Helped me Until They Didn’t…. Author: Gregg F. Martin, PhD, Major General, US Army (Retired) My first four decades of life were healthy, happy and successful, from childhood through West Point and throughout most of my...

Bipolar Disorder in a Nutshell

Bipolar Disorder in a Nutshell

Author: Major General Gregg Martin, US Army Retired Formerly known as ‘manic depressive illness’, bipolar disorder is a general term that, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), comprises a cluster of related disorders that are...

Resign or You’re Fired…

Resign or You’re Fired…

“Resign or you’re fired… You’ve done an amazing job, but you need to go get a mental health exam.” Author: Gregg F. Martin, PhD, Major General, US Army (Retired) It was mid-July 2014. I was 58 years old and after more than three decades in the Army, I was...

How Bipolar Disorder Helped Me (Until It Didn’t)

Meet Your Bipolar General

Author: Gregg F. Martin, PhD, Major General, US Army (Retired)   I am a 65-year old husband, father, grandfather, combat veteran, and a proud, thankful bipolar survivor. A qualified Airborne-Ranger-Engineer and strategist, I served globally, from my West Point...

Veterans are Outraged and Hurting – So Let’s Reach Out and Listen

Veterans are Outraged and Hurting – So Let’s Reach Out and Listen

Author: Gregg F. Martin, PhD, Major General, US Army (Retired)   November 11th is Veterans Day. It’s a national tragedy that more than 22 veterans a day commit suicide and that nearly two serving military service members per day die by their own hands. These are...

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