Ross Marks, Executive Director of the Las Cruces International Film Festival and NMSU Professor, discusses his mental health experiences from a generational and industry-specific perspective. Here is a transcript of their conversation:
Liz Liano:
What kind of challenges do you face? Like what are all of the different things that you're juggling that probably your peers are juggling as well?
Ross Marks:
You know, I think the biggest battle that I've struggled with my life in my lifetime has really been defining myself by things other than money, really, because I'm my generation. So your self-worth, I had to learn your self-worth is not your net worth. You know, I was fortunate enough that at a probably 40-ish. I had an implosion, explosion, and things went really, really bad for me. And I lost everything financially. I lost my freedom personally. Fortunate my wife stood by me and with me, but then I learned at that point, what was I doing with my life? Why was I so focused? Even when I started as a filmmaker in my 20s, I was looking at it as a financial thing. How much money are my movies making? How big is the budget of the movie? As opposed to telling a story for the sake of telling a story that was important to me, which is what I've come to no was a filmmaker.
Liz Liano:
How do you feel like your generation or your peers have their mental health impacted by where they're typically at in their life right now.
Ross Marks:
Well, for starters, it was mental health was not something you talked about ingrowing up in my generation. It was still a stigma. And if you did seek help, you were very quiet and private about it. I remember being in high school and I was acting a little a little odd, a little off. I was doing some things. My parents were concerned, my parents were very, very concerned with their children as a reflection of them. I mean, the child should be successful, the child should be ambitious, the child would get straight A's, go to great college. So I think they were more concerned, my parents, and this is not to diminish them or knock them, but they were more concerned about my bad behavior as a reflection of them, not my bad behavior as a reflection of something I may have been going through. So, I'd say, early 2000s, it started to shift a little bit for my generation, but I would say it's still the stigma for mental health in my generation is still very much there. The only reason that I've started to view mental health as a critical component of our identity and preservation and happiness is because my kids have kind of brought me into it. I have a daughter who's very aware, very available emotionally. My generation also, I will say, was very closed off. We were very shut off emotionally. We weren't accepting of different people. Where I grew up, homosexuality was not accepted. There was just, there was again, a real stigma even on race, right? Even on race still come, the 80s into the 90s. Still very much a racist country in certain areas. So it's, you know, it's only recently, I think, that my generation has been exposed because of the younger generation.
Liz Liano:
So, okay, you touched on this a little bit, like barriers to your mental health and your peers being like the stigma and silence that you grew up with. What do you feel is like maybe the number one barrier to like your mental health even now?
Ross Marks:
So for me, accepting that I have a mental health condition that needs treatment and I take medication, I don't know that there's any barrier anymore for me. I really don't think so. There was there for many, many years where I hid from it. I wouldn't admit it, certainly publicly like I am now on your radio show. Certainly not to my friends, certainly not to those closest to me. But I think today for me, I do balance some of the 80s stuff about ambition and achievement. I still wrestle with that if I'm out on the golf course for myself, relaxing, playing golf, saying, well, I should be writing a screenplay. I should be pitching a movie. I should be making a movie. And just having that downtime, which is so critical for people who struggle with mental health, you've got to take care of yourself. You've got to be kind to yourself. You've got to accept that you may be going through something, and that's okay. So if just lay in bed fora whole day because that's what you need, then that's okay and that's what you needed. And not put that added pressure on yourself. You can't lay in bed because you got to be doing something, you got to be achieving something. You've got to be, you know, so that's been a big change for me. I mean, I'll, like I said, I'll do things for me. And it may just be the fact that I'm almost 60 years old and I have done a lot of things, good and bad in my life. So it's like, well, you've done some stuff. You get kind of chill a little bit now. But I still have that voice in my head that was my father and my father's father told him, and it's, you're not good enough, you better do more. You're not good enough, you better do more.
Liz Liano:
And what do you feel like is like, has been the biggest source of support, which you may have mentioned a bit so far?
Ross Marks:
Well, for me, I mean, without a doubt, and you and I got to spend some time at the Las Cruces International Film Festival a few weeks ago, and Shane Black was there. And Shane, I've always been a big fan of Shane's when I was at UCLA. I knew he had gone to UCLA. He wrote the Lethal Weapon movies, and directed Iron Man 3, and he's just a wonderful screenwriter and director. And somebody asked him, what advice do you have for a young filmmaker? And he said, get a good support system, get a good support team. And as you said that, I thought, well, what is my support system? And then, you know, instantly, I knew it was my wife. And as a bipolar filmmaker, you can imagine the ride she's been on, right? I mean, she's been on quite the ride. And, you know, she at no point has she asked to get off the roller coaster. She's okay, we're going up, up, up, up, up. And I know where the up is going to lead. We're going to go down, down, down, down, down on the roller coaster. But I'm going to sit here next to you and be, you know, and be there for you and be there for you. So for me, it's, you know, my wife is really, she saved me. and continues to elevate me. She's my toughest critic. She's also my most compassionate soulmate.
Ross Marks:
So, you know, I think if I had one piece of advice for anybody in this world, and I've been through a lot and gone through a lot, it is the greatest blessing is to love and be loved.
Liz Liano:
Yeah, you're kind of answering my next questions. What would you say to someone, not even necessarily like specifically in your generation, but just someone right now who's listening, who is hesitant for reaching out for support?
Ross Marks:
It goes back to that support thing. You know, I was, let's see, I'm sorry, maybe 20years ago, 2007, I think it was. So, you know, it's when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And again, going to my wife and saying, hey, I was just diagnosed with this. And her response, okay, great. I don't know a lot about bipolar disorder, but I'm gonna read about it. I'm gonna learn it. I'm gonna help you get the best treatment you can. I'm gonna be for you. As you struggle to get the right cocktail medications, which as you know, we talked about is so difficult and challenging. And so it's having that person, a person, oftentimes it's not our parents. Oftentimes it's not our siblings. Oftentimes it's not those who are closest to us. It may just be a friend. It could be a stranger. I mean, but to have somebody that you can look in the eye and say, I think I need help. Is that okay? And that person says, yeah, it's okay that you need help. And then the next question is, how do I get help? And that person may not know how to get you help, but they say, you know what? Let me try and help you get help. And then finding the person that can give you help. I mean, the other challenge I had with my mental health struggle is getting, when you have a therapist, I've been in therapy fora lot of years now, when you have a therapist, you have to trust them. You really have to, because you're being so vulnerable, which has been great practice for me as a filmmaker, as a storyteller, because I've been so vulnerable with my therapists that it's, I understand the acting process because an actor has to be utterly vulnerable and naked to speak truth and let an audience pierce their souls. I mean, for me, it took me three, 4 therapists until I found somebody that I clicked with and felt comfortable with. And again, I give my wife the credit. She's like, you got to keep doing this. It's what you need to be a healthy human being right now, emotionally and psychologically and physically. I mean, because it's all tied together.
Liz Liano:
So, take a risk, reach out, and find a way to love and be loved.
Ross Marks:
There you go. That's the message of the day.
Liz Liano:
Thank you for sharing all that with us, Ross.
Ross Marks:
You're welcome. I hope, you know, I hope it helps. a couple of people, and if not, it was therapeutic for me to talk to you.
Liz Liano:
Wonderful. All right, that's a wrap.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, you can call 988 or the New Mexico Peer-to-Peer Warmline at 1-855-466-7100.
