Kieran Cunningham

The Proper Mental Podcast

Welcome to episode 152 with Kieran Cunningham, who is an author, climber and mountaineer.

After being diagnosed with Bipolar 1 while at university, Kieran spent a decade travelling around the world trying to figure out what he wanted to do and how he was going to live with this diagnosis.

Along the way he found that climbing was the perfect way for him to find peace and manage his illness.

Eventually he landed in Italy where the mountains and local climbing community helped him to keep well but that changed when Covid hit and Italy became one of the first countries to lock down.

In Kieran’s book ‘Climbing the Walls’ he writes about what it was like to be trapped inside, away from the mountains, on his own and feeling his mental state drift towards mania while rapidly running out of medication.

In this episode I chat to Kieran about being diagnosed with a mental illness, at a young age and at a time when no one was talking about bipolar.

We chat about how bipolar has impacted him throughout his life, his love of climbing and how it helps his mental state and we chat about his time in Italy that led to him writing the book.

We chat about shame, stigma, nature, travel and all sorts of other stuff.

Climbing the Walls is available in all good book shops and you can follow Kieran on Instagram @kieranjamescunningham.

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Thanks for listening!