Cohen Miles-Rath: How One Man Transformed Crisis into a Call for Change
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What is the purpose of the Why Not Me? The World Podcast?
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.
Who is Cohen Miles-Rath and what is his journey?
Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Meet the World? Humanity Over Handcuffs, the Silent Crisis special event. Joining us today is Cohen Miles-Rath, a powerful voice in mental health advocacy. Cohen's journey is one of resilience. After battling untreated schizoaffective disorder, he survives a life-altering psychotic episode that nearly ended in tragedy and led to his incarceration. Today, he's an author, speaker, and educator, sharing his story to break the stigma around mental illness. With a focus on community, policy, and political action, Cohen facilitates mental health training and influences change, inspiring others with his message of recovery and hope. He's a beacon for those that are navigating their own struggles. It's a pleasure to have him here today. Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, I appreciate you having me.
It's my pleasure. Would you give us a little background on what you do?
I have been in the mental health advocacy field for more than a half a decade now. I worked at the Mental Health Association in New York State for five years. If you're familiar with the MHA Network on Mental Health America, they're an affiliate of theirs. And it was work around policy advocacy, implementing training throughout New York State, mental health-related training. We offered a bunch of different trainings and so forth. In the past year, I moved on to the New York State Office of Mental Health, which I work for the Suicide Prevention Center, in which I do similar work, but geared towards suicide prevention. That's my professional space.
What was the turning point in Cohen's mental health journey?
Now, I also have my own story with mental illness in which I've written a memoir about and I am publishing that memoir this year. I've spent about six years trying to get this thing published. And on top of that, I've been out doing speaking engagements, telling my story, sharing the peer perspective about going through systems such as incarceration and hospitalizations and so forth.
I think that's great you've written a book. Anything you put out there just helps others. Can you give us a little bit of background on what led you to believe that you had some mental health issues?
Yeah, so that's a great question because I did not have any inclination to accept anything the difficulties that I was facing with my mental health, which did increase to a severe mental health crisis until after the worst of my mental health crisis had happened. And that was the day that I came back from psychosis in jail, where I had come back to reality and realizing what had happened. From that moment on, I did a complete 180, embracing mental health treatments, accepting my mental illness, and eventually getting to where I'm at today.
Once you got out, what was your focus to get you back on track, a steady path from what you were to what you became today?
Due to the incidents that had happened between my father and I that I was arrested for, my first week in jail, I was in like a severe state of psychosis. I was in solitary confinement. And I'd experienced just this horrific situation in which When I did come back and realized what had happened, I wasn't sure I was ever going to get out. I had two felonies, potential felonies. And fortunately, due to a lot of certain circumstances, the court recognized what had happened was clearly a result of a severe mental illness. And I'd been hospitalized twice before this too, so there was a little bit of history and past to that, in which I was able to get out of jail after 30 days. I had mandatory treatments. I was on probation for a year. It was a conditional discharge.
So it wasn't just I'm getting out. That's it. There were certain things that I had to do to maintain my freedom or everything could come back. And one felony was dropped. The other felony was reduced down to a misdemeanor. I did get that on my record.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the purpose of the Why Not Me? The World Podcast?
0:05–0:34
2
Who is Cohen Miles-Rath and what is his journey?
0:34–2:28
3
What was the turning point in Cohen's mental health journey?
2:28–6:24
4
How did Cohen rebuild his life after incarceration?
6:24–9:46
5
What are the four dimensions of recovery?
9:46–13:56
6
What inspired Cohen to pursue social work and advocacy?
13:56–19:57
7
How did writing his memoir affect Cohen's healing process?
19:57–26:16
8
What does it feel like for Cohen to share his story publicly?
26:16–29:40
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Grandparenting on the Spectrum: Jennifer Kaufman on Autism, Family, Acceptance, and First Responder Training
Weanne Estrada:Mental Health Without Borders: How Compassion, Culture, and Community Transform Lives Worldwide
Dr. Adi Jaffe: The Truth About Addiction, Trauma, Shame, and Breaking Free
Meg LeDuc: Journey Through Serious Mental Illness:Living Beyond the Diagnosis
Dr Aaron Meyer and Ann Marie Council part 2: Breaking the Cycle: Why Serious Mental Illness Deserves Better Than Jail or the Streets
Lois Brady: Publishing Autism Digest and Exploring Real Stories and Experiences