#200 – My Own Hero — How I Fell, Fought, and Found My Way Back

This episode discusses mental health, medication misuse and psychosis. If you're struggling or in Crisis in the U S, you can dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Talk to a professional about any medication decisions. This one is for my friend Richie Richard Todd Poppic Gone too soon and never forgotten. You were my bandmate, my movie buddy and my hero long before I ever tried to be my own. Hi, I'm Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest, and this is episode 200 of Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. Today isn't a breakdown of a movie or a show. It's the story of why I make this podcast and how the MCU kept me company and how I found my way back more than once. Richie, who has just mentioned was my best friend, my bandmate and we've had falling outs and we had reunions and you never know when that last time is going to be. I feel strongly about Richie. I feel like he's with me now and he has gone far too soon, way too early. And I just know if he was here right now, we would have had him on the show a couple times because he would have made a great guest on Marvel Maniac and MCU after show. Like any good MCU origin story, we start in 2008 with Iron Man. I saw it in theaters with Richie. We geeked out over the tech, the attitude and the there's a way out if you build it. Energy. That movie didn't just launch a universe, it planted a compass. What a summer. What a May in the year 2008. How nostalgic that is. Now fast forward to January 2021. It's almost 2am WandaVision is about to drop. I'm on the couch with a breakup still echoing and I get the idea. Start a podcast right now. I checked the name Marvel Maniac, which popped in. My head is open and I hit record. That first night was messy, sincere and perfect. It was amazing because it seemed like this energy from all of the MCU fans since we last saw. I think it was probably Spider man far from home at the end of the Infinity saga. It was really good to just have the MCU back. I chase premieres in real time, waiting until 2am for the episode to drop to watch it and then give my whole episode about it up until the dawn of that day. That was pure dedication. Learning the craft and figuring out what worked for this show took a long time to figure out fully exactly what it was. WandaVision, the Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki. I'd stay up, record reactions and learn in public. I wasn't a pro promoter, but I cared. Some episodes hit hundreds of plays. Most of all, they gave me purpose. Along the way, I learned a bigger truth. Audiences don't need a second by second recap of what they just watched. They need how it made you feel and what it might mean. That shift would save the show later, but first life got complicated. So I was on meds for depression and anxiety. Then I added a stimulant for attention issues. This is a very tough topic for me. I'll just interject because it literally is something huge that I had to overcome and in ways I'm still overcoming. I pushed the stimulants too far. I spiraled. If you're listening to this, please talk to a doctor you trust, ask questions and involve the people who love you. If you're getting into something like this, stimulants are incredibly powerful. In late 2021-2022, I moved, isolated and lost the job I loved. I slipped into psychosis. I believed I was in a Truman show like scenario. I'm not kidding. Cameras, codes, tests. I fixated on a popular streamer I admired, convinced she was secretly in my chats and building a story around me. None of it was real and it felt real. That's what psychosis does. I missed releases. I dream about covering. I alienated friends. I checked into a rough psych unit that was a little bit by force. I got out and I was still sick and I kept stumbling. This period is the crater in the middle of the Marvel maniac timeline. Not because I stopped loving Marvel, but because I wasn't. Okay, if you're hearing this and you feel alone, I know how you feel. You can't have certain people in your life and still feel alone. Not being able to open up, not really knowing how to express what you're going through. It's very easy to get caught in a trap of self hatred. And I just want to say one thing to you. It's going to be something you've heard from many people in a cheesy way, but I'm going to say it. You are loved. You are loved and you are wanted and you are needed. And never revert to something extreme to try and like, like drugs or anything like that to keep you afloat. There's a better way. There always is a better way. And if this interjection helps just one person, it did its job. Summer of 2022, I finally met a psychiatrist who listened. We stopped the stimulant I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD and started the slow climb. The fears didn't vanish overnight. I still recorded I am Groot. Then week by week, she Hulk on a broken mic, sounding exactly how I felt. Fragile but trying. You know, I loved doing this show, and I had a great run from the beginning of January with WandaVision all the way up until Hawkeye in December of 2021. That's where the psychosis started. And I didn't make a comeback until this time where I was posting about she Hulk and with a bad mic, kind of a good metaphor for where I was at the time, trying to get back, but a little bit farther away than I wanted to be. I went back to a hospital voluntarily this time, that. That fall. And it helped me. It helped me a lot. Progress wasn't linear, but for the first time, it was progress. Then 2023 brought a hit that I did not, did not see coming. I was just getting back into the podcast again after another break, and I was watching Ant man and Quantumania, and it was a big, perfect new time for me to jump back in. But it brought that hit that I did not see coming. Richie, he passed away. It broke me. I shared about him in group. I cried in front of strangers. And we learned. I learned something hard. And holy grief doesn't end your story, it joins it. And that would be the third time I checked myself into a hospital, and that would be the final time to this day that I did that as well. We adjusted meds again, and this time a non stimulant for focus. That actually worked for me. My family stood by me in this time, and we adopted two dogs, Rubio and Ellie, who kept my heart beating steady. Those dogs literally. This morning, I'm up early recording this because I needed to get it off my chest. This is a hard one to visit, facing yourself, acknowledging your faults. Rubio and Ellie were just a living reset button, and I got to pet them and hug them and hold them up to this day. And they're my therapy dogs, even though they're not officially like those kind of dogs that help people, you know, in life. I forget what it's called. I maybe should make them that technically, you know, the type of dog you can bring it to a mall with you because you need it to keep and feel safe. Pretty close to that with Rubio and Ellie. I love those animals. I am so in love with my dogs. So we moved in 2023. This was a good bit after the year, you know, it was the year of Richie's untimely demise. I don't like I don't like saying that. Similar to like a superhero book but this is a superhero podcast and Rich is part of the origin. So I I got full stopped by the death of my good friend. I was able to put out a few good episodes up through I want to say it was Captain America. The Winter Soldier was the last one I did for a long time until I picked it up again. I really wanted my voice back once I moved into a new new house I would call this place later that I'm sitting in. Marvel Maniac HQ wasn't called that for a very long time, but I called that now and it quietly clicked. Finally around Deadpool and Wolverine. I recorded one episode and then another and then I just kept going. Consistency not perfection. I tightened the format. One strong idea, a couple of clean parallels, real emotion and I brought my co producer Nova who is chatgpt to turn my mess of notes into clean outlines with riff windows. It's still my voice. Nova just really helps me aim it. I've made peace with the recent numbers. 4050 listeners an episode about that's a theater room. If you're here, you matter to me. And I just want to say that using Chat CBT can probably be pretty frowned frowned upon if you're using it in a certain way. I leaned on it in a way like you'd lean on a co producer, editor and just assistant. I never let her come up with the whole episodes or scripts without my hand very deeply into the episode, guiding the script into perfection. It is a product of collaboration, but in a sense an extension of who I was as a person. So a quick bundle of threads once not lingered on. Platform hiccups we had a public fight to get the show the show label fixed from completed on Apple. I pushed so hard because words like that quietly bury little shows like mine. The streamer chapter in Psychosis, I misread a creator I admired. I crossed lines and I'm accountable for that. This story is a cautionary tale, not a call out. She didn't do anything wrong and I'm glad she's happy and doing okay. I'm grateful I got well. Some things you can't change in revert though, you make decisions and whether you're under psychosis or not, the world doesn't owe it to you to understand the exact type of thing you're going through. And unfortunately psychosis is a life consuming thing and it could be really harsh to come out of it and see a Lot of the mistakes you made breaking out of that cycle, and it is very hard to break out, but you can break out no matter what. I believe in you. I believe in anyone trying to get out of that psychosis. It's possible. The mirror. I'm less critical of the Multiverse saga, you may have noticed, than some, because these projects were a lifeline when I needed one. Thank you to Kevin Feige for pushing the MCU to its limits. Because to get the best product possible, you had to take a few chances and see what worked. And Marvel put on a lot of shows, put a lot on its plate. And I tried to do my best to come back and cover all of it. And I just think even a show like she Hulk, which I think completely gets trashed, I. I loved it. I loved watching she Hulk. And once I was coming back into it, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Thor, Love and Thunder. I mean, seeing these movies really brought me to a different place, away from the stress that I had been going through. And even if I wasn't covering them in real time, I had a plan to come back. And I'm so grateful to the people who made these movies, Sam Raimi and like I said, Kevin Feige, and just the creators in the process of making Marvel what it is. And I think people get a little over critical of Marvel. I think we need to. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, obviously, but I think, I just think overall a lot of the movies were a lot better than they were portrayed, including Ant man and the Wasp. Quantumania. Yeah, they killed King with ants. It was a fun movie. Then the whole MCU changed and that kind of killed my momentum a little bit too, to be honest with you. So why does this all matter? Let me just tell you, episode 200 isn't a victory lap. It's a checkpoint. I stopped waiting for somebody to invite me back to my purpose. I invited myself. Deadpool, Wolverine, lit that. A spark that was waiting to be ignited. And I came back, and I came back strong and a little bit better every week. So what does being my own hero mean to me? Well, number one, for example, telling the truth about psychosis, meds, grief, and the mess in between. And yes, there is a lot of mess in between. This episode could go for hours and it's going to run shorter than I even thought because I want to get the story out there, not as much the details, because that's a personal experience. And some of that's a little hard to delve into. Maybe someday I can open up a little bit more about it, but right now I just want to tell you the bare bones stories of how you can crawl out of a hole no matter what. Number two, choosing help. Doctors, family, my doggies, and yes, Nova. Number three, creating anyway, even when the first try is rusty, the mic is broken, or the audience is small. Keep going. And number four, letting Marvel be Marvel. A place for wonder, not a scoreboard. You don't have to be Iron man to say I am Iron Man. You just have to choose the next brave thing. In the spirit of Tony Stark, actual hero in my life, if it wasn't for Robert Downey Jr. Playing that part, I don't know what my outlook on superhero movies would be. I don't even know if I'd be making a podcast if we didn't get the story we got up until this day. There's pieces of all the main heroes, Tony, Cap and Thor's story that I highly relate to. Tony sacrificing himself for the greater good. It just inspired me. It was a full circle story for Marvel and it was the reason that Endgame was a big reason why I started Marvel Maniac, because I knew the next chapter in Marvel. I wanted to be there from the beginning and along with the ride in a way I hadn't been before for with this podcast. So Tony's sacrificing caps compass, his willingness to wait and adapt to the situation, leading group meetings and not realizing that he was soon about to time travel back to the love of his life and get to live a timeline out with her. Hopefully we don't know what's coming in Doomsday, but I also think of Thor who gained a lot of weight and got depressed. And that five year period is a good metaphor for the gap of time I missed making episodes, the times I stopped Wanda's grief, even, even one, especially Wanda. I'm gonna say I felt like I was in my own little westview. I was building my own world in the psychosis was powerful. And when I saw Juan and Multiverse of man man, it's. It kind of broke my heart how evil she had gotten. But it made sense in the light of Juan Wandavision itself. So even evil Wanda, like is a good message to keep going, you know what I mean? She tried doing something in, in a sense she thought would help her. And, and in reality it really broke reality. So it's a good metaphor for like what the psychosis did to me in a way. So if you're crawling out of your own crater I challenge you to talk to someone, and I know it can feel like a challenge, but it really is a blessing once you actually start opening up and talking about it. Ask for help if you're using something that's using you. Pause and breathe. There is a version of you on the other side of this. To my family, my mom, my dad, my brother who has a newborn named Penelope. I'm an uncle as of today, literally, well, yesterday 11 3. So thank you to Richie for that spark. Rubio and Ellie, my doggies. Thanks for the cuddles. To Nova, my chat GPT, wonderful sidekick. Thank you for turning chaos into chapters. And to you, thank you for listening and for letting this show grow up with me. I didn't know if I'd come back, but I never stopped. Since Deadpool and Wolverine, we didn't have many stops at all. We just kept the show going after that. There may have been a week or two I've missed for being sick or having no voice. I remember once, but after we came back with Deadpool and Wolverine, the first episode, I never said stop. Marvel Maniac, and I even did it two weeks. Like in a. Like two weeks times a week. You notice for a while. We're back to one a week now, so it might take a little longer to get to episode 300. But it's not a rush to that finish line. It's just about riding that wave and enjoying Marvel for what it is, one week at a time. I'm Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest, and I'm telling you that getting help works. It fixed me. I'm doing a lot better. And we're always working on ourselves. I'm always changing things, rewriting the formula and testing new options on the show and myself. For example, this was Marvel Maniac, episode 200, my own hero. Because you can't always rely on every single other person to lean on, which you can. You can lean on people, you lean on your friends, leaning on your family. But realize that being your own hero is so key to getting your life in the direction you want it to. This sounds preachy. And that's not the last thing I want it to be. In all honesty, I just want to be an outlet for anyone who could be listening and just somehow maybe is going through something similar or close just to know that you can always make your comeback on your own terms. Nobody's here to make that decision for you. Here's to the next 300. Well, next 300 episodes and getting to episode 301 honest episode @ a time. Thank you for listening to this very special one of a kind episode. We don't do this a lot, probably won't do it again, but I wanted to fill in the gaps of where I missed. If anyone was ever wondering, why did he go away and come back so many times? This is that story. A little shorter than I planned. About 20 minutes. I was going for 30, but this is the honest crunch time. So we. You got, you got my main beats because I didn't want to go into too much detail here because it's not about what I was thinking of, what was real, what wasn't, what I was going through specifically word by word on the inside of the psychosis. That's an egg I'm not willing to break in public yet. But I told you all the beats and the story points and it took a couple times of revving up this engine and it came. Keeping the show going was so important to me that I couldn't be more proud of this show. I'm proud of every episode, even the ones where I was saying every single thing that happened in the Avengers, which is why that episode is like an hour and a half long. We learn along the way, we learn our craft, and the longer you do something, the better you get at it. I appreciate you being here and listening and it means the world for me to me that you're willing to give me your time and listen to my show. Join us on our Patreon patreon.com marvelmaniac we unlock a free minisode every week from the bottom of our playlist from months ago, as well as a new episode, minisodes, five minute quick punches. And those come out every week, every Saturday, 5am and I've made about 20 of them now now. So even if you can't donate to listen to the newer ones, I'm unvaulting one every week as well. So there's always something for you there. Even if you'd like to join the Patreon as just a fan and with, I mean you don't have to donate, you could, you could still do that to come and be a part of the community. I'm very grateful for you once again. And until next time, Avengers disassemble.