Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World

Cohen Miles-Rath: How One Man Transformed Crisis into a Call for Change

• Tony Mantor

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Cohen Miles-Rath shares his powerful journey from psychosis and incarceration to becoming a mental health advocate and author. 

His story reveals how proper support systems and personal determination transformed a life-altering crisis into a mission of education and advocacy that's changing how we approach mental health treatment.

• Surviving untreated schizoaffective disorder that led to a psychotic episode and incarceration
• Using the four dimensions of recovery—purpose, home, health, and community—to rebuild life
• Transitioning from jail to graduate school within a year through structured support
• Working with Mental Health Association in New York State and the Suicide Prevention Center
• Writing memoir "Mending Reality" to share experiences and reduce stigma around psychosis
• Speaking publicly to create understanding and empathy for serious mental illness
• Advocating for better interventions before people reach crisis points
• Emphasizing the distinction between general mental health challenges and mental illness
• Building communities where recovery becomes not just possible but probable
• Using personal vulnerability to help others develop empathy for those experiencing mental illness

If you know anyone who would like to tell their story, send them to TonyMantor.com and they may become a guest on Why Not Me? The World.


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intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild
Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)

Speaker 1:

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. 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 Mantor.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to why Not Me? The World Humanity Over Hand Cuffs 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.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I appreciate you having me.

Speaker 1:

It's my pleasure. Would you give us a little background on what you do?

Speaker 2:

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. 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.

Speaker 1:

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?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So that's a great question, because I did not have any inclination to accept 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.

Speaker 1:

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.

Speaker 2:

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 realize 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.

Speaker 1:

So during that process it took you about a year to get fully on track Were there any down days? Did you ever have moments where you thought what am I doing, or is this even working? What was your mindset like as you progressed from point A to point B, to where you are now?

Speaker 2:

How I like to frame that part of my experience is really through what's known as the four dimensions of recovery, which a lot of mental health organizations talk about. The four dimensions of recovery, which are purpose, home, health and community. So, like when I got out of jail, my mom opened up her home. My parents were separated. They had been separated all my life and, due to the incident with my dad, he wasn't willing to let me live with him for valid reasons. It took a lot of us to build our trust together, but my mom opened the doors. She gave me a place of home, a place of comfort, a place where I could really just focus on managing my treatment. So I lived with my mom. I picked up a job at Burger King, so I gained some independence. Fortunately, I was in a spot where I could walk to work. I didn't have a car. I was able to walk to my treatment. I was seeing a psychiatrist or a nurse practitioner, I was seeing group therapy, I was seeing substance misuse therapy and I was seeing a mental health counselor like four things every week. Right, and that's how dedicated my rehabilitation was to the health dimension. A lot of that I had to do as part of my conditional discharge. In that space I was very vulnerable and I was very active in wanting to know how to manage my mental health and my diagnosis a lot better than I was before. So health, home was taken care of. The community aspect I still had a lot of friends. I was in a community of support too. That really, I think, supported me in getting through that process. And then, lastly, purpose Before I went to jail, I was going to college, a four-year degree at SUNY Geneseo, which is a small university in upstate New York.

Speaker 2:

I was expelled after what happened when I got arrested. I was able to get back in after I got out of jail and there I was able to finish out my degree. I had a couple of classes left. I was able to get my degree and a plan for the future, which was to pursue my master's degree in social work. So I had a purpose to my life that really helped me go from jail to grad school within a year or so, something like that.

Speaker 1:

That's impressive. You should really be proud of your accomplishments. You got through and managed to accomplish what you started out to do. Now, after navigating all of that, what inspired you to pursue social work and dedicate yourself to helping others?

Speaker 2:

It was a very tough time in my life. There were days because I'd have to walk a mile to Burger King to work. I was also taking medication and some of the side effects of the medication included feeling draggy and slow and like my creative thinking was gone. It was really tough. It was a really tough time because there were a lot of times I doubted myself and even when trying to get pursue a master's degree in social work, I had a huge stigma over my experience that I went through. I'd attacked my dad with a knife and that was in the local news when the incident happened and that created barriers for me, worrying about getting accepted in the grad school.

Speaker 2:

Every grad school asked have you ever been expelled from college? I had to say yes and then I had to share my story in a way that would get them to understand. There was a lot of doubt and I like to think that I was really privileged to have all those four dimensions, and really strengthen those four dimensions really helped me just keep that forward momentum going. I will also add that prior to all of this, I was also a big athlete. All my life I was a very dedicated distance runner and a lot of those characteristics that I've learned in that sport, I think, helped me to do the same in this process, where you have to do a lot of hard work to get where you want to get and to be your idea of success with whatever it is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's true. Success is basically what you are happy doing and continue to do. So what led you to shift your career focus from becoming a substance use counselor or therapist in social work and transitioning to advocacy? How did your graduate school experience influence this decision?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I initially wanted to get my master's in social work to become a substance use counselor or therapist.

Speaker 2:

That was what I initially had thought of.

Speaker 2:

Substance use counselor or a therapist, that was what I initially had thought of.

Speaker 2:

But then in grad school, as I continued to learn about mental health from that clinical point of view and with social work they don't just focus on direct service, that degree, they do branch out to advocacy and the more macro work. And I realized in my studies there that that's just how my mind went, how my mind thinks. So that's when I really wanted to be more involved with the advocacy piece and then it was all about just finding a position after grad school that could align with that. And I know that with my story, with my experience, I always knew that I wanted to bring that into the picture, because what I learned is that stories can really make an impact. When people hear these types of experiences, it allows them to relate and understand another person's point of view with it and I think that helps to fuel more effective advocacy and more effective ideas and how there are certain things that we can change in our systems, our culture, to better serve people who might go through those type of experiences as well.

Speaker 1:

Looking back on your journey, now that you're an advocate, you've experienced all the ups and downs that come with it. Was there a single moment that stood out, a turning point that lit the way forward, something that reassured you that things were falling into place, confirmed you were on the right path, and then fueled your ambition or ability to create even more?

Speaker 2:

The first time that I wrote about my experience, the first time that I was vulnerable in that public space, was actually in my second year of grad school. When I had done that, I wrote a blog post for NAMI National Alliance of Mental Illness and that really, I think, based on people's responses and how people would come up to me afterwards and be vulnerable about themselves to me that was like, okay, there's something to that, there's something to me being vulnerable in a public space that could help others, and that was a spark. Once I got in my professional position, I got my eight dimensions of wellness all structured my financial wellness. I'm living comfortably. I can now open up my experience in a much more versatile way, and that's when I started writing my memoir and putting my heart and soul into that so I could really leap forward with it.

Speaker 1:

That's really good. I'm glad that you've been able to do that. Can you give us the name of your book?

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's Mending Reality. An Advocate's Existential Journey with Mental Health.

Speaker 1:

When you wrote your book. I have some friends of mine that are writers. They've said that once they start putting those old-fashioned words to paper, it often takes over and seems to write itself. So my first question is did that happen to you? Did you start writing and suddenly find it just flowing out? And when it did start flowing, did you begin looking at it and tweaking it? Then what emotions came up as you read what you had put down, realizing this is me, this is my life, this is what it's been. How did that affect you? What type of emotions went through your mind at that point?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I will say that as soon as I started putting pen to paper, I mean, and it flowed Part of that writing experience was coping for me, the experience with psychosis, being in jail, thinking that I was a prophet, thinking that I discovered the truth of the universe. There was a grandiose nature to it too. It's such a challenging experience and even the incident with my dad attacking him like that haunted my dreams for many years after the incident. So, going through that writing process, it really served my own therapeutic process of just putting it out there and reading it and it helped to cope with it. And in many cases it was triggering. But again, being vulnerable with myself, I think, helped me really understand myself even better, my mental health, my diagnosis, and there was a lot of challenges since I've written it, but it was definitely very helpful, I think, overall in just my own mental health.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I spent five years on this thing, this book, and I didn't know if it was going to get published or not for a long time, and that was a whole different set of challenges that I've somehow found a way to overcome and get to the position where it's actually going to be released, and I will say that I'm not terrified. A lot of people have read this book, but not the general public, so it does get a lot of reads. I'm not worried or stressed about how people might react to it, because the way that I've written it I really think can impact people significantly and make them understand that type of experience a lot further.

Speaker 1:

You do a lot of public speaking and you just mentioned that you feel comfortable sharing your experiences with others. What's it like to tell your story to a captive audience? What goes through your mind as you speak and then afterwards, when people come up to you eager to learn more because your words have touched them in a way that could help them move forward in their own lives? How does that make you feel?

Speaker 2:

That's the most meaningful part of doing my work with this. Last year, about a year ago, stood before 200 plus mental health advocates at an advocacy day up in Albany. I had 10 minutes to share my story in a way that captivated them and inspired them to advocate right there. The way I structure my speaking I try to make it gripping and pull you in. The first sentence I say is when I was 22 years old, facing a mental health crisis, I tried to kill my dad and I remember when I say that, the audience you see those gasps, you see those eyes widen, and then it's a hook that pulls them in.

Speaker 2:

Then I take it apart, right, and I'm like what could have prevented this? And they're seeing me at the stage, they're seeing someone who's done that in front of them and I think that in itself is wow. There's a lot more to this story. There's so much more to the story. I did have many students come up to me after that talk just thank me for being vulnerable and appreciating me doing that, because the advocacy day is really meant to provide a space for that. And when eventually, during the day, they go out and they allow students to grab the mic and share their own story. I could hear them sharing their difficulties and their challenges and I do like to think that by me doing that created a space for them to do that themselves, and I think that just helps to fuel this momentum around changing how we approach mental health in circumstances that are very difficult.

Speaker 1:

Do you still engage with or advocate for changes in the legal system? If you do, how do you approach it? What personal experiences or perspectives drive your stance so this can be a better system for everyone involved?

Speaker 2:

At this point in my career I'm geared more towards trying to improve our trainings and our education around mental health. As far as specific incarceration systems, I do keep up to date with what is happening and I will support other people's work with that. When I share that part of my story about going through the incarceration system and my experience with that, I think it opens up that discussion. Clearly, jail was not the right place for me. If you hear more about what it was like to be in solitary confinement with psychosis, but what would be the place for me in that type of state? I thought I was in hell.

Speaker 2:

I was trying to give birth to Satan's child. I literally physically tried to do that in the middle of a cell. There are so many dark, difficult things. But what place would be best for me to recover in a state of like that? I don't know. There's a discussion there. There's a discussion there. There's a way to approach that better, and it's a complex system and there's no one easy answer. So I'm always trying to be open to hearing the multiple perspectives and striving for the best solution, which I'm not sure what is, but I think we can get there.

Speaker 1:

So, in the next three to five years, what do you envision on the horizon for the future, whether it's personal goals, society changes or broader possibilities?

Speaker 2:

My goals over the three to five years is first, I really just want to get my story out there which it's already been out there, but I'm excited for my book publication and I'm really hoping that continue the momentum with that. Get more speaking engagements because of it. This summer I'm actually going to a conference out in Texas. It's called Empath Consulting and they've created an alternative to emergency crises, for mental health crises. So I'm really interested in learning more about that model that they've started to implement in a couple states and share my perspective there to help them fine-tune that type of model.

Speaker 2:

And if it works, I would like to just continue getting in front of those type of mental professionals, people in the field, people doing this work so that a way they could find ways to better fine-tune what they're doing and advocate for those changes that they need in their own communities, Because every community is different, Every state is different. It's just basically to continue that momentum and hopefully just get more opportunities to do this. Would I love to write another book? Yes, that will hopefully come down the line.

Speaker 1:

Right now it's just get my book out there and start speaking as much as I can. When you stand in front of people, do you try to express yourself in a way that lets them see what you've been through, how you've responded to it and who you are now. That way, hopefully, you can shorten their journey by showing them that, no matter what they're experiencing, there's always hope that things can change for them in their future.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when I share my experience, I go back to childhood, because I go step by step. I'm not diving into everything in my life, but I'm touching on these key points, from childhood to college, to when I first started facing mental illness, when my signs and symptoms got worse, when I got intervention in hospital and then when I faced a crisis and the whole recovery portion. And I've done that because in this framework of mental health field and how we can better approach mental health, it is just so complex. So when I talk about my childhood, I talk about some adverse childhood experiences, aces something that has a lot of research behind it that shows that it's a risk factor for future mental health challenges and so forth.

Speaker 2:

So I'm using my expertise that I've learned in mental health advocacy in my story throughout the time, so that way it's not just oh, this was just my experience, but there is research and knowledge behind all of this that I use to show how there were so many opportunities prior to that incident in which I could have gotten the help, or my help could have been more effective to where the incident could have been prevented, and it did not have to get to that crisis point for me to finally accept my mental illness and I hope that when people hear that they're like, they're thinking like oh, I could do something, now if I'm struggling, I could help someone else who I know is struggling, so that way helping them could get more effective. So they're never at that potential crisis point or even like getting to a point where they're just really struggling and no one is willing to help.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's a great message to put out there for everyone. I've spoken with several people who've faced challenges lasting anywhere from a year to 10 years. While the duration varies for everyone, a common thread stands out there's hope On the other side of that journey. You can address your struggles, refine your approach, create a plan to improve things, to improve things. Each person I talked to, even when they were at their lowest, when others looked at them and thought they were finished, incapable of bouncing back, they refused to give up. They pushed through, survived and now they're thriving. So the real question is how do we overcome the stigma? How do we help people see that, yes, mental health carries a certain stigma, but it doesn't have to be purely negative? How do we highlight the positive, that once people navigate their challenges, they can emerge stronger and show the world what they've overcome?

Speaker 2:

I always say that recovery is not just possible but probable in the right circumstances.

Speaker 2:

We as family, as friends, as coworkers, as parents, as just people in the community, we have that opportunity and space to help create those circumstances in which people are more likely to get the help they need.

Speaker 2:

And that, to me, speaks to that good side of this conversation and this hopeful aspect to it, because, yes, we can dive into specific policies that might change certain aspects in the systems that would help improve, but that's one piece of this in our communities and our interpersonal relationships and even ourselves can do to start making that change within and be in better positions where, if we're ever in a position facing a mental health challenge or even experiencing mental illness, we're better positioned to manage it and to change it and to support it.

Speaker 2:

So, like I know a big component for me and I'm interested in people you've also talked to like there's a big responsibility on my own Ever since I'd gotten my diagnosis and went through that experience like I have a responsibility to manage that I do and if I ever struggle with it, I go to my family, I go to my dad, I go to my girlfriend, I talk to people because I know that I can rely on them or have them be there to support me through it if I'm struggling to manage it myself. Getting to that point of acceptance for the individual is a very challenging thing, and I wouldn't want anyone to go through such a severe crisis to finally have that awareness of it, but rather creating completely different circumstances long before that ever happened, so that a way, they're more likely to accept it initially.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's a good point. We've covered a lot of good things here. What would you like the listeners to know that you think is very important about mental health and the challenges that they?

Speaker 2:

face. I think one of the most important things to tell people about this is there's so much, but I think conversations around mental health have increased significantly, especially since COVID had happened, and there's been so many positives with that, and I think the conversations have just been amazing and I think this is an important piece. There needs to be recognition of mental illness is a bit different than a mental health challenge when you start to. There needs to be recognition of mental illness is a bit different than a mental health challenge when you start to face certain signs and symptoms of mental illness, and it does take a different approach than having a fight with someone or through a job loss or something like that.

Speaker 2:

There are certain aspects of mental illness that not everyone faces, but a lot of people do, just based on certain predispositions or other factors. So I think there still is a lot of stigma with certain mental illness, particularly with schizophrenia, psychosis and so forth. So, as the greater public is having a conversation about mental health, I just want to make sure that we're also talking about these types of diagnoses and these types of signs and symptoms that look different for every person, but also that we need to talk about that as well, and we need to be open about that too, because anyone can face a mental illness. One in five people do. So we just kind of make sure we're taking care of those who are most vulnerable and struggle potentially the most.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a great statement. This just highlights the need for more understanding, since everyone has different issues and deals with them in their own way. Just because one person handles a crisis a certain way doesn't mean everyone else will be the same in the way they handle their crisis.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'm very forward with the incident that I went to or went through to minimize like attacking my dad with a knife, believing the devil was inside him, because at face value, people read that and they're like, oh my God, it's so hard to fathom and it's so stigmatized. I faced significant shame ever since that happened, gone through processes of managing that and my work has reduced that. But still to bring something like that to the table I think helps to be like okay, like making people have empathy for me right With that situation. I think helps other people to have empathy for anyone who goes through something such as that and encourages us to do more so that, away again, people don't get to that crisis point.

Speaker 1:

You just mentioned something that I think is important to talk about. Some people don't get to that crisis point. You just mentioned something that I think is important to talk about. Some people don't have the touch of empathy and, since they haven't walked your path, they don't fully get it. Without meaning to, they say things that sting, not seeing the weight of their words. You've been through it, you've lived it and now you're moving forward. You've changed, evolved. You're not the same person you were. How do you deal with those who, in their ignorance, can't see the depth of what you?

Speaker 2:

faced Initially. The first time that I felt significant shame due to my situation was after I'd gotten out of jail and I went on the Facebook and I looked at the comments on the news articles about me my mugshot plastered everywhere words saying son bites his father's ear off. The comments they were making jokes. They were making jokes about Mike Tyson. They were just brutal. I remember reading those and I remember I felt the shame but also at the same time I was like, okay, these people, I don't know these people, they're strangers to me, they don't know anything about what had happened and I just knew that and I was like I so I wasn't like significantly bothered because I was like I'm still here and I'm gonna prove them wrong. And that probably helped fuel my whole path to in some aspect is that I wanted to show them and I'm going to prove them wrong. And that probably helped fuel my whole path to in some aspect is that I wanted to show them and I wanted to tell them like, okay, there's so much more to this and it wasn't just the public who had also shamed me.

Speaker 2:

I heard rumors from people in college, my friends. So there's always been a level of uncertainty with people's comfortableness with me and willingness to do that. But ever since I've gotten to the point where I am and I'm trying to be more active on social media and everything that I've done so far, like I can see the cognitive shift in people that I've interacted with throughout the years that I could tell that they've built empathy for me and that level of empathy has increased because I've been able to show my perspective, reveal it and I've been very active with it, which not everyone does, and that's okay. But hopefully, if they can have empathy for my incident, maybe when they see something in the news about another incident or something else that happens and they don't know enough about it, maybe they'll have more empathy for that too.

Speaker 1:

That's a great point. Well, this has been really good great information, great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having me, tony. I really appreciate this conversation. It's been my pleasure. Thanks again, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to TonyMantorcom Contact then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask tell everyone everywhere about why Not Me, the world, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.