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Joanne McCallie's New Book Reveals Bipolar Disorder

 
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greatgator



Joined: 20 Dec 2012
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PostPosted: 01/08/21 8:10 am    ::: Joanne McCallie's New Book Reveals Bipolar Disorder Reply Reply with quote

Joanne McCallie’s new book takes a personal look at bipolar disorder
https://www.pressherald.com/2021/01/03/joanne-mccallies-new-book-takes-a-personal-look-at-bipolar-disorder/


purduefanatic



Joined: 10 Aug 2011
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PostPosted: 01/08/21 8:45 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

https://www.koehlerbooks.com/book/secret-warrior-a-coach-fighter-on-and-off-the-court/


FrozenLVFan



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PostPosted: 01/08/21 10:38 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

That explains a lot.


purduefanatic



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PostPosted: 01/08/21 12:42 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Quite a shame that she felt she couldn't really come forward with this while she was coaching.


readyAIMfire53



Joined: 20 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: 01/08/21 6:25 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

purduefanatic wrote:
Quite a shame that she felt she couldn't really come forward with this while she was coaching.


Especially since her behavior was textbook uncontrolled bipolar.

After a loss, JPM seized the microphone and proceeded to rake Elizabeth Williams over the coals, openly berating her. Everyone in the stadium could hear loud and clear. EWill's parents were sitting right in front of her. JPM could literally not stop herself because her bipolar disease was not in control.

JPM actually perpetuated the stigma of having bipolar or any other mental health challenge. JPM's uncontrolled bipolar behaviors caused a lot of damage to people associated with Duke Women's Basketball. The # of players who left the program and school, the # of players who left the program and stayed at Duke, the # of players who were treated and prescribed antidepressants.

I guess if the only thing you count as being a success is $$ income, yes she was successful in getting paid BIG bucks. But people newly diagnosed with bipolar can watch her behavior and know they don't ever want to act like that in public. And can choose not to put themselves in that position.

I am a BIG advocate for people with mental health disorders. JPM did the opposiite of reducing the stigma. She made it worse.



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Queenie



Joined: 18 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: 01/08/21 7:09 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I couldn't get into the article because it wanted me to take down my adblocker, and NOPE, but the headline was damning enough. She was diagnosed 25 years ago? And either wasn't handling it or was handling it with as much grace and skill as a bull doing ballet in a china shop?



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FrozenLVFan



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PostPosted: 01/08/21 7:31 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

The article deals with her initial diagnosis during a manic episode at Maine, then a subsequent depressive episode there when she went off her meds. Duke isn't mentioned in the article, or in the brief description on Amazon.

I'm wondering how this all plays into Duke's reluctance to fire her.


umbeta1455



Joined: 18 Apr 2005
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PostPosted: 01/08/21 8:07 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I was friends with a few of the players in her team in Maine ,back when they were getting at large bids. The horror stories I was told. Some of those players I felt really bad for. Her last season should have been better than the season before when they beat Stanford in the tournament. When she got pregnant, she went off of meds and things became a mess.


Howee



Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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PostPosted: 01/08/21 9:53 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

readyAIMfire53 wrote:
I am a BIG advocate for people with mental health disorders. JPM did the opposiite of reducing the stigma. She made it worse.


Truth. I cannot believe that Duke had no awareness of her status. And while compassion for an employee is important, when said employee's 'condition' is detrimental to the people under their supervision, then....intervention is in order. Duke dropped the ball on that one, big time.



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Stormeo



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PostPosted: 01/09/21 12:25 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Quote:
"I think the worst thing is that even though I was exonerated [from the allegations of mistreatment of players] and given a new contract, the people who pushed [the investigation into the allegations] didn't realize how much they hurt Duke and our recruiting. The kids who had verbally committed all ran. That was real significant."


The quote's from McCallie herself. "The people who pushed it didn't realize how much they hurt Duke and our recruiting." Neutral Kind of comes off as indirect victim-blaming. Did she ever consider that maybe if she had her condition under control, it wouldn't have led to incidents that one could believe to be mistreatment? She had known about it for many years prior, even if for the sake of argument no one else around her did.

There are people who understand that while their mental/neurological condition may at times heavily influence their behavior, they as individuals are ultimately responsible for their actions stemming from the behaviors and the ensuing consequences of those actions. These people know not to use their condition as an excuse to get away with things that neurotypical people wouldn't be able to. McCallie... doesn't strike me as one of those people. Confused


ucbart



Joined: 21 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: 01/09/21 10:41 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I can't even imagine what members of the media saw that they couldn't report on. I'm sure people that were around the Duke program when the cameras weren't on have a story to tell.


PickledGinger



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PostPosted: 01/09/21 2:32 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I've suffered with various degrees of depression and anxiety for most of my 36 years on this planet, so I fully feel for her as a person who struggles with their mental health.

I was also lived with a bipolar person for 5 of those years, and I can say with certainty that mentoring youth is absolutely not the place or the role from someone who suffers from this disorder. Walking on eggshells to prevent setting him off. His perception of reality during his manic phases were completely on a different planet. I honestly broke me and took me years to bounce back from.

I cannot imagine being a student in a situation where a teacher or coach displays that kind of behavior. Yes, I feel bad for JPM because I know her condition causes her a great deal of pain, however at the end of the day the athletic department did not have it's students' best interest at heart here, unfortunatley.


readyAIMfire53



Joined: 20 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: 01/09/21 3:05 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Howee wrote:
readyAIMfire53 wrote:
I am a BIG advocate for people with mental health disorders. JPM did the opposiite of reducing the stigma. She made it worse.


Truth. I cannot believe that Duke had no awareness of her status. And while compassion for an employee is important, when said employee's 'condition' is detrimental to the people under their supervision, then....intervention is in order. Duke dropped the ball on that one, big time.


Since I knew about her bipolar diagnosis, pretty sure people at Duke knew, at least eventually. They might not have known when they hired her, but they certainly knew when her contract was extended. They also had received a LOT of information from players and others in the program that her behavior showed her bipolar issues were not under control. Just like they finally did, they could have let her contract run out earlier when they learned of the damage she was causing the players because of her manic rages.

In answer to ucbart: journalists witnessed PLENTY and avoided her like the plague. Part of this story is that each player, coach, manager developed their own survival plan which did not include sharing their story publically. I probably had more inside dish as parents felt comfortable talking to a fan their age or older, who had a daughter the age of theirs. But I NEVER broke the agreement that they did not want their names to go public. Believe me, there are plenty of players and families sharing more about what happened at Duke under JPM. You will likely learn more soon. Like I know right now that the parents of an end of the bench player would like nothing more than see her head on a platter.



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FrozenLVFan



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PostPosted: 01/09/21 8:04 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

People with bipolar disorder frequently have very distorted views of the world around them, especially how their manic episodes can have negative consequences for themselves and other people. It's entirely possible that once her symptoms got out of control, JPM had no idea how the team and others were suffering. Stress is also a precipitant of both manic and depressive episodes, so more conflict and losses in the program made her worse, and things kept snowballing. I'd bet her book is going to show just how clueless she was/is about most everything.

Since mental health problems are covered under the ADA, I'd be interested to learn what, if anything, Duke did to accommodate her problems and improve this situation before they parted ways.


LitePal



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PostPosted: 01/09/21 8:58 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

We were discussing her mental problems on these boards for a while, even though some of it was tongue in cheek. Several seasons back, when it seemed she had mellowed quite a bit, I asked whether she had had her meds adjusted and I was serious.


readyAIMfire53



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PostPosted: 01/10/21 3:11 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

FrozenLVFan wrote:
People with bipolar disorder frequently have very distorted views of the world around them, especially how their manic episodes can have negative consequences for themselves and other people. It's entirely possible that once her symptoms got out of control, JPM had no idea how the team and others were suffering. Stress is also a precipitant of both manic and depressive episodes, so more conflict and losses in the program made her worse, and things kept snowballing. I'd bet her book is going to show just how clueless she was/is about most everything.

Since mental health problems are covered under the ADA, I'd be interested to learn what, if anything, Duke did to accommodate her problems and improve this situation before they parted ways.


The one thing Duke did early on to protect the players and others in the program was to hire "between jobs" Duke/Coach K alums. Their only job responsibility was to be present whenever JPM spoke with a player. After her second season, they already knew JPM could not control herself and was causing harm. This does not explain why Duke not only renewed her contract but gave her a whopping big raise - twice. The last renewal came after Duke failed to reach a Final Four after getting the top recruiting classes in the country.

Not surprised JPM blames the decline of the program on "the investigation." After a Duke player (EWill) finally went public with the whole mess, Duke did an in-house investigation that found no fire-able offenses, which is not the same - AT ALL - as a clean bill of health. She will take zero responsibility for the fact that players had been reporting her mistreatment of them since she arrived.

Note that JPM's treatment of EWill had already been public due to JPM's on mike post game excoriation of EWill heard by everybody still in the stadium. And EWill's parents were present for this manic rage. I feel pretty sure that this public rage played a part in EWill's decision to go public with her complaints. We all had witnessed it for ourselves so it was already in the public realm.



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