Loading ...But there is more to Joey Pants than just the accent and the acting savvy. In fact, the guy shares a lot in common with more people than you realize. That’s why Joe Pantoliano is doing more than acting. Joe Pantoliano has becoming one of the most well known activists for those who have depression and other mental illnesses.
Last week, KeyVive had a chance to catch up with Joey Pants to find out about his work. We wanted to explore the link between depression and diabetes—and what Joe Pantoliano is doing about it.
Depression and Diabetes: The Personal Connection
Some may wonder why a well-known actor like Pantoliano would choose to invest his life in a major campaign to fight depression. So I asked Joey, “Why you?” Joey’s answer was immediate: “Because I live with clinical depression.”
Not only does Joe personally suffer from the ravaging affects of depression, but he grew up in an environment infested with it. Depression and diabetes go hand-in-hand, and Joe’s mother suffered from type 2 diabetes, which was a direct result of her depression, overeating, and subsequent obesity. “Mental illness is prevalent in our family,” he explained. It affects one of Pantoliano’s children, his sister, and his mother. “It wreaked havoc on my life. My life, my family, was falling apart.”
To find personal worth, Joe threw himself into an acting career. “I thought I was going to become a movie actor and not feel worthless again. I was going to show the world.” So he did. Joe was good at acting. Really good. He hoped that by becoming wildly successful, he could successfully conquer his depression and reach a plateau of satisfaction. It didn’t work. “The more successful I became, the worse I felt.” Embroiled in the morass of alcoholism, depression, and dysfunctional family problems, Joe repeatedly found himself at the end of his rope—even though on the outside he tried to maintain the party-guy, happy-go-lucky success story that everyone wanted him to be.
But it wasn’t just personal problems that catapulted Joe to pioneer his cause. It was the fact that mental illness affects millions of Americans. “I’m one in four Americans that lives with some form of mental disease,” he explained. And “four in five are directly affected by this disease.” That’s huge. And if anyone else was going through the same terror-filled lifestyle that Joe was going through, he knew he needed to do something about it.
Depression and Diabetes: Overcoming the Insurmountable
Those who suffer from depression and diabetes often think that there is no way out. They are trapped in a cycle from which they see no escape. Besides, there is the threat of the stigma attached to those who have mental illness.
Joe explained his journey to recovery. He realized that relief could not be found in a successful acting career. Instead, he realized that the first thing he needed to do was surrender to his feelings. Joe started talking to others about his disease. “You gotta talk about your feelings. You purge them. You feel better. At the very end of this journey of mine, I realized that the doctor said this wasn’t my fault. This was a mental disease that could be treated. I was elated. I was euphoric.” Those are strange words for someone suffering from clinical depression, but that is the experience that Pantoliano had following his diagnosis and medication.
Pantoliano’s battle was not over. He faced discrimination from insurance providers refusing to provide coverage for his mental illness. He faced the personal stigma of being diagnosed with mental disease. At the same time, he realized that the problem was widespread.
This gave rise to the “no kidding, me to!” effect when he talked to people about his condition. The growing realization of this pandemic disease coalesced into an understanding that, though millions of people suffer from it, few talk about it. Joe determined to change all that. “I want the discussion of mental disease to be cool and trendy.”
Refusal to talk about it is a tacit acceptance of it. Refusal to talk about it is a refusal to treat it. Depression contributes to a catalog of other harmful conditions. Depression and diabetes are inextricably linked. Mental illness contributes to acts of aggression, some of which could register on a wide scale.
Depression and Diabetes: Fighting Back
“No Kidding?! Me, too!” became the common response whenever Joe talked about his condition. That gave rise to Joe’s foundation, NKM2, a worldwide award-winning, attention-grabbing, fund-raising campaign to “stomp the stigma and discrimination of the all-American brain.” With the support of everyone from Harrison Ford to Bobby Kennedy, NKM2 is making a big difference.
Now, Pantoliano is fighting back in a big way. He has produced a documentary on the topic. He has traveled overseas and visited the armed forces to talk about the issues. As a well-known public figure, he has fought hard to erase the damaging stigma attached to mental illness. “I’ve got it. You’ve got it too. This is the norm; it’s not the exception,” Joe declares with passion. He has gone creative in his campaign, and with his friend Rich Pepe has developed a line of gourmet spaghetti sauces to raise funds for NKM2 and to increase public awareness.
Depression and Diabetes: The Killer Link
Pantoliano is not only fighting against depression. Depression and diabetes have a connection. Though few studies have been done, scientists are uncovering links type 1 and subsequent depression. Depression and diabetes are unmistakably linked in the occurrence of type 2 diabetes. Childhood diabetes and childhood depression have an integral relationship. Joey Pants is doing something to get at the root of what he perceives to be a catalyst to a wide variety of harmful conditions.
To learn more about depression visit No Kidding?! Me, too! (NKM2) and to find out if you might be at risk for type 2 visit KeyVive ~ Get Tested.
By: Daniel Threlfall
Joe Pantoliano
Photo Credit: http://nkm2.org/
