Send us a text Eric Smith shares his remarkable journey from child piano prodigy to mental health advocate after battling psychosis and addiction. His story reveals how finding the right medication after a decade of failed treatments transformed his life from hospitalization and FBI involvement to becoming a Texas Judicial Commissioner on Mental Health. • Displayed extraordinary musical talent from age three, studying under world-renowned pianists and performing with Grammy winners • Experienced early warning signs when grades declined in middle school, with a psychologist predicting future psychosis • Developed full-blown psychosis after getting sober, believing he had decoded assassination plots involving world leaders • Contacted the FBI about his delusions, leading to multiple meetings before his parents sought help from his former psychiatrist • Required three hospitalizations over several years before finding success with Clozapine after more than 10 years of failed medications • Experienced a profound moment of clarity two weeks after starting Clozapine when the "noise" in his mind quieted • Returned to education, maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA through graduate school • Now serves as a commissioner with the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health and runs his own consulting business • Advocates for better access to effective treatments like Clozapine, which international guidelines recommend after two failed antipsychotics Visit www.ericwtsmith.com to learn more about Eric's consulting work or to contact him directly. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
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Welcome to Why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mayator. 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.
Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantour. Welcome to Why Not Me? The World, Humanity Over Handcuffs, The Silent Crisis special event. Joining us today is Eric Smith, a nationally recognized mental health advocate, public speaker, and consultant.
He is a commissioner with the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health and is the founder of Eric W.T. Smith Consulting, LLC, where he provides invaluable support to families and individuals affected by serious mental illness. With his wealth of knowledge and experience, we're grateful to have him here today. Thanks for coming on. Hey, Tony, how's it going? Going great, thanks.
Can you give us a little background on how your journey with mental health started?
So right around age three, a little kid living at home with my mom and dad, they had an old school upright piano, small home, small piano. I have memories of this, and there's photos of it somewhere here. Music was such a driving force in my life. I remember getting ready for a bath one night.
I had this melody in my head from The Sound of Music, and it was, you know, it's the famous Doe A Deer Female Deer song, if anyone's familiar with that. And I had this in my head, and I remember the bath is being drawn, and I just run, run, run out to the piano. And I'm there not playing some expert version of it, but I'm sitting there. Key is C, no flats, no sharps for the musicians listening.
So it's one of the easier keys to play. And I sit down and it's like the notes. Do, a dear, a female. And I'm doing it. My parents are like, you got to be kidding me. Like he's transferring melody to the piano at such a young age. And the picture to which I'm referring that still exists is me sitting with a, I've still got my sweater on, but I've got like no bottoms on.
So I'm just sitting there at the piano, just kind of like going all out, trying to play. as a musician. And I think at that point, it became very apparent to my parents that nurturing my creative music side was a good idea because it was something I was gravitating to in the first place. So let's fast forward to like third, fourth grade type stuff. I am in what were advanced classes for the time.
I was in advanced math, advanced English. I had a lot of friends, which will be relevant to a later part of the story where I did not have a lot of friends. But for this time, I had a lot of friends and I was studying music. It was a huge part of my life.
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