Ed Driggs
speaker
13,582 appearances
62 recordings
3 series
first heard Sep 2023
last heard 14 Sep
Ed Driggs’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 18 in all, peaking in Oct 2025 with 4.
Appearances
My mental health journey began in 1987 when I was first diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which is the worst parts of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
That diagnosis changed my life
but it did not end my life.
Over the years, I continued to fight for meaning, purpose, and stability.
In the early 2000s, I played saxophone in a band.
In 2006, I earned my PhD in chemical engineering.
Those parts of my life matter because people with serious mental illness are not just diagnoses,
We are students, musicians, workers, volunteers, family members, and your neighbors.
But my journey also included long periods of crisis.
During the pandemic, isolation, worsening symptoms, and an unfortunate combination of medications led to a suicide attempt in 2022.
I do not see that attempt as simply something I did.
I see it as something that happened to me during a severe medical and psychiatric crisis.
That distinction matters because it reminds us that people in crisis need care, dignity, and support, not judgment or stigma.
In 2024, I entered another major crisis and spent five months at Duke University Hospital in Durham.
That treatment helped me begin to recover.
Afterwards, I found Charlotte Clubhouse, and through that community, I began returning to functionality.
I started cooking, running support groups, and serving as a mentor for younger members of the clubhouse with severe and persistent mental illness.
I was also able to return to facilitating peer support groups through NAMI, Charlotte NAMI and NAMI Piedmont Tri-County.
Charlotte clubhouse gives people like me something essential structure, community purpose and a place to belong.
It helps turn survival into participation.
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