Depresh Mode with John Moe

Hollywood doesn’t exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to portraying mental illness in a sensitive, honest, and appropriately complex way (think Psycho or the notorious caffeine pill episode of Saved by the Bell). But the top show on Netflix right now, Ginny & Georgia went to great lengths to show mental health conditions honestly. The series tells the story of Georgia, a mother with a traumatic background, Ginny, her ...

"Beneath the Lilypad" is singer-songwriter Alexandra Savior's third album, but her first in five years. Several years ago, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, type 1. That’s a condition marked with manic highs that can last for weeks or months as well as crushing lows of depression, she’s had both, you’ll hear about that. She’s also dealt with psychosis, and has spent time in an in-patient facility. That mental health journey ...

As temperatures and sea levels rise, the effects of climate change are being felt in weather patterns, natural disasters, and in both public and personal mental health. We talk with Dr. Caroline Carney, President of Behavioral Health and Chief Medical Officer at Magellan Health in Phoenix about the connection between your mind and the dire conditions Earth is facing. She says the damage is being done by the traumatic effects of fir...

Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.) is one of four chairs of the bipartisan Mental Health Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, a 93-member group of Republicans and Democrats pledging to fight stigma, improve accessibility, and generally make the country’s mental health better. But as the Trump administration floats huge cuts to Medicaid and other social services and as the tone of politics in America gets more divided and vitrioli...

Ethan Sacks is a veteran comics writer, having created stories for Marvel, DC, and numerous Star Wars comics. In the comic A Haunted Girl, Ethan enlisted his daughter Naomi as co-writer to tell a story much more personal than anything involving Star Wars or the Avengers. A Haunted Girl tells the story of Cleo, a character inspired by Naomi’s real life experiences in her teens dealing with depression, anxiety, and suicidality. She s...

It would take an entire section of show notes here to list all the things Felicia Day has accomplished in her career. Here’s an attempt at making that brief: acted in a bunch of TV shows you know, created and starred in web series, made just so very many online videos, and is now the author and star of an audiobook called Third Eye about someone who is supposed to save the world but fails. In our interview, Felicia talks about doin...

Aperture is the sixth studio album by the indie-folk band The Head And The Heart and it’s kind of a return to the more grounded, collaborative sound of their earliest work. It’s less polished, less highly produced, not as poppy. That’s not an accident. The band has been putting in the work to be more of a cohesive unit by sharing songwriting and singing duties, going to therapy together, and trying to closely protect the health of ...

There have been ten million contacts, via phone calls, texts, and chats, with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline since it first launched in July of 2022. As its third anniversary approaches, we check in to see how the system is holding up, what the funding and capacity issues are, and what the future might look like with our guest, Hannah Wesolowski, Chief Advocacy Officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). We also ...

Would you open your heart to a bot? Tell it all your problems? Look to a piece of code, a computer program, for high-quality mental healthcare? Some people have said yes and the results are hard to ignore. Dartmouth University test subjects who sought help from Therabot, a generative AI chatbot, showed a 51% reduction in depression symptoms, 31% for anxiety, 19% for eating disorders. Dr. Nicholas Jacobson, who led the study, says p...

If you were brought up in a family or a culture that never recognized, discussed, or processed things like depression and trauma, you may have learned to simply hide those difficult feelings away and simply act as if everything’s great. You can be a high achiever, striving perfection, all to keep away demons that you’ve never really faced. Your act can be so good that it even fools you. For a while, anyway. Until it doesn’t. And th...

Cameron Esposito has many titles: hugely successful standup comedian, actor in television and film, writer, podcast host. After a recent rehab stay led to a mental health diagnosis, she has realized that she’s also a person with bipolar disorder, type II. Cameron has a new special, Four Pills, that’s part stand-up comedy and part reflection on the circumstances that led to this discovery as well as thoughts on what life as a treate...

Statistics say that 23% of Americans are currently living with some form of mental illness. For most people, that calls for reaching out for help and receiving treatment and advice on management. But if you’re an FAA-approved airline pilot, disclosing that you have something like a depressive disorder or an anxiety problem can mean a temporary pause or permanent end to your entire career. Of course, having a mental illness, not dis...

Hanif Abdurraqib is a MacArthur Fellow, accomplished poet, and critically lauded author of numerous books, including There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, which is now out in paperback. He’s also a person who deals with major depressive disorder and numerous anxiety disorders. In a revealing, positive, and practical interview, Hanif talks about the numerous ways he cares for his mental health issues by both taking ...

Things are scary in this country these days for a lot of people. There is turmoil in the government, shakiness in the economy, and a deep divide over what America even means anymore. In times of upheaval, it’s a good idea to reach out to friends, see how they’re holding up, help carry their burdens and sorrows, and see what wise advice they can share about perseverance. We do this on our show from time to time. In this mini-episode...

We’ve been seeing an influx of new listeners recently. It’s very exciting. Thank you for that and we’re delighted that you’ve joined us. So we thought we’d take a moment and explain what the show is all about and who it’s for. Spoiler alert: it’s for everyone, including you, regardless of your mental health history.

It's the final week of the 2025 Max Fun Drive! Check out the fun thank you gifts and become a member of Max Fun!

Check ...

“I’m very kind to Jim, I’m trying to take good care of Jim, I’m trying to love Jim,” says musician Jim James of the band My Morning Jacket. The kindness he’s showing Jim, himself, is a relatively new thing, he says, after a long time spent kind of beating up on the guy. As My Morning Jacket releases its new album, is, Jim reflects back on issues such as a need for validation through achievement, alcoholism, and depression. And he s...

In this bonus content edition of Depresh Mode, We’re joined by some Maximum Fun all-stars for some very light-hearted and delightfully competitive games that are as informative as they are silly.
 

Our competitors:

• Justin McElroy of My Brother, My Brother, and Me, Adventure Zone, and Sawbones
• Hal Lublin of Tights & Fights and We Got This
• Laura Swisher, senior producer overseeing about a million Max Fun podcasts

Who will win the ...

It’s not MaxFunDrive without a wild kickoff spectacular! Former real-life VJ and host of MTV's Spring Break 1999, Dave Holmes, takes your favorite MaxFun hosts through some wacky ‘90s- and Spring Break-themed mini games!!

Featuring: Dave Holmes, Jeremy Bent, Oscar Montoya, Dimitry Pompée, Tom Lum, Ellen Weatherford, Alex Schmidt, Brenda Snell, Drea Clark, Alonso Duralde, Dan McCoy, Jordan Morris, Manolo Moreno, Ella Hubber, Caroline...

The alcohol, says J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, came about in young adulthood, when it solved persistent social anxiety and made him the life of the party. As Kenji found tremendous success in food writing and restaurateuring, he found that he couldn’t really make it through the day without downing between two and five drinks. This wasn’t hard to pull off in the food business, surrounded by booze and a culture that heartily encouraged its co...