Professor Emily Sendin of Miami Dade College (left) presents Michael Vargas Arango (right) with the NPR Podcast Challenge winner’s certificate.
Eva Marie Uzcategui for NPR
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Professor Emily Sendin of Miami Dade College (left) presents Michael Vargas Arango (right) with the NPR Podcast Challenge winner’s certificate.
Eva Marie Uzcategui for NPR
It’s rare to have a first-person perspective on life with a condition called schizoaffective disorder. But Michael Vargas Arango, who was diagnosed as a teenager, wanted the world to know there’s nothing to be afraid of.
“I’m not dangerous. I’m not crazy. And I’m not delusional,” he says in his podcast, The monsters we create. “I’m just another guy with a mental health issue living with it.”
Her moving and deeply personal work was chosen by our judges, from 10 finalists. As the overall winner of this year’s NPR College Podcast Challenge, he will receive a $5,000 scholarship.
The idea for his podcast came after Vargas Arango spoke to his girlfriend, Elizabeth Pella, about her schizoaffective disorder.
“Of course, I had to tell him what was happening to me: I hear voices. I feel presences,” says this 22-year-old international student at Miami Dade College in Florida. “This is who I am. I can’t lie. I can’t lie.”
It was very important for him to tell her. He was living in a foreign city, speaking his second language, far from his family back in Colombia, and Pella would be the first person outside his family he would tell about it.
The conversation went well and Pella was understanding, curious and loving. But she had one request: Don’t tell my friends.
She said she feared they would judge him and even judge her. “‘Like, why are you dating this guy?’ I was scared,” she said, “and I also wanted to protect him.”
“I’ll show you what it’s like.”
Vargas Arango, 22, is a sophomore at Miami Dade College, where he studies business and psychology.
Eva Marie Uzcategui for NPR
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Eva Marie Uzcategui for NPR
Vargas Arango, 22, is a sophomore at Miami Dade College, where he studies business and psychology.
Eva Marie Uzcategui for NPR
Pella’s request did not please Vargas Arango. “You do not want to know ?” he remembers thinking, “I’ll show you what it’s like.”
Now he didn’t just want to tell his girlfriend and friends. He wanted to show everyone what it was like to live inside your head.
Using his own voice, interviews and layers of sound design, he created the podcast that won NPR’s competition.
Vargas Arango’s podcast begins with an exchange between him and the voice in his head: “Why would you tell them I exist? They won’t understand.”
He replies: “You’re giving me a headache. Can you be quiet for a second?”
Then Vargas Arango addresses the listener: “This is how I have lived my whole life. But you are probably wondering: what is this guy talking about? Who is he talking to? Well, let – let me explain.”
It explores what it means to live with schizoaffective disorder, a chronic mental health condition in which a person experiences symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations or delusions, and mood disorders like depression. It’s rare – Vargas Arango is one of 3 in 1,000 people who experiences it.
“I hear voices but in another language that I just don’t understand,” he explains. “I sometimes hear my name called multiple times.”
Challenging Misconceptions About Schizoaffective Disorder
Vargas Arango plays with sound effects and echoes in his podcast.
It’s not always to illustrate his experience, he says. In some cases this is a metaphor, where he uses recordings of distorted voices as “a way to make fun of people’s prejudices. Because they think you’re hearing these voices to try to hurt someone “, he said.
“That’s not what I hear,” he adds. “That’s not how it works.”
This opening is quite radical for Vargas Arango. His family in Colombia didn’t really talk about mental health, and when he was a child, his schizoaffective disorder presented itself as “imaginary friends.”
Vargas Arango shows off his home recording setup in his Miami apartment.
Eva Marie Uzcategui for NPR
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Eva Marie Uzcategui for NPR
Vargas Arango shows off his home recording setup in his Miami apartment.
Eva Marie Uzcategui for NPR
“You can probably imagine what my religious Colombian mother’s reaction was,” he says in the podcast. “She thought I could see a ghost or something. But no, I can’t see ghosts. Unfortunately.”
The diagnosis came when he was a teenager, following visits to psychiatrists and psychologists. This was followed by dark periods, marked by depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, as he struggled with his own preconceptions regarding schizoaffective disorder and mental illness.
“I was one of those people who thought ‘these people are crazy, these people are dangerous, these people are delusional, we need to get away from them,'” he recalls.
Speaking openly about his condition and his treatment — which includes medications and therapies — and then winning the NPR competition also helped his family, he says.
After NPR broke the news to Vargas Arango, he called his parents to tell them. In tears, his mother, Olga Arango, told him in Spanish that she was crying with joy, with happiness.
“She says she admires me,” Vargas Arango translates.
Her mother says that hearing about her podcast and its success changed her view of mental illness: “I know that God gave me a very beautiful person, and every day I tell him not to change.”
According to Michael, not changing is the biggest lesson he learned from telling his story. He says he’s no longer afraid to tell people who he really is.
“You have to be honest. You have to accept who you are and what you live with. Everyone has their own struggles.”
Listen to Michael’s podcast here.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, contact 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifebuoy by dialing 9-8-8 or Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
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