Hello world! I am an aspiring writer, educator, father and husband, and I am writing to get my story out. First, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in my mid twenties after a tumultuous year of running wild and free across the country, answering to people and voices that did not exist, and chasing shadows that had me venturing away from my stable, home life and into the dangerous streets of Las Vegas and later Juarez, Mexico. This journey ended with a stay in a New Mexico prison cell and later a psych ward back in Chicago where I finally started receiving the help I so desperately needed. But this site isn’t dedicated to all of my outlandish experiences; it’s dedicated to living with a bipolar diagnosis today and trying to gain needed comfort with sharing my story with the people in my life. Up until now, everyone has been in the dark, save for my wife, my brother, my mother-in-law, and my therapist with whom I work weekly. I have a very close extended family who watched my go “off the deep end” in 2003, and very supportive parents who obviously know about my diagnosis and treatment, but whose old-school nature doesn’t allow them to openly and comfortably discuss all that I’ve been through. So this is my first step; I’m glad you’re on this journey with me, and I value all of your feedback and insights. I hope to develop a platform with my writing, where I’m chronicling my year of mania and delusion, and with my voice as a public figure in the community. I currently teach 8th grade English and coach two high school sports in an affluent suburb of Chicago, the same suburb I grew up in, the same setting where I once went mad. Even with this first step, I wonder if the community, my family, and my friends are ready to hear my story, to hear about a part of me that has been tucked away and hidden for quite some time. I am fearful, hopeful, and torn about this process, and I really have no way of knowing how it will all work out. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to checking in regularly.

“Art imitates life”

— Oscar Wilde.

Writing has always been therapeutic for me, so I am getting this blog up and running to try to build a writing platform and get my projects off the ground. I embarked on this journey today, my second day as a blogger, and I happened across some disturbing information. I have been scouring the internet for literary works that align with my first manuscript, Delusions of Grandeur, which chronicles protagonist, Walter Davis’ struggle with mania and madness. Although the work is based on my own past, there are fictional elements embedded in the prose, mostly because I have a hard time recounting everything as it actually occurred due to the years since the experiences and my distorted Bipolar reality at the time.

Anyway, through my research, I found a book published in 2006 that directly aligned with my subject matter and content. It’s called It’s Kind of a Funny Story and it’s written by a young author named Ned Vizzini. Although the book was made into a movie a few years back, I had never heard of it or the writer. As I dug deeper into the author, looking to make some connections and get some insights into my project, I found that like my work, his was a fictional account of his struggles with Bipolar Disorder during his teenage years, and like me, he continued to struggle with his illness into his early twenties. As I read on, I found out that he took his own life a few years after publishing numerous other very well received books.

This was a sobering realization to say the least. I like to hear uplifting stories about individuals who struggled with their mental illnesses only to see the light and fall back on a strong support system, drug therapy, and a renewed will to attack life and persevere through the obstacles they face. This bit of information took me in exactly the opposite direction, and for a brief moment, had me wondering if I was resigned to the same fate if I too made my writing my life’s work.

Luckily, I countered that rumination with the fact that I’ve been relatively stable for close to six years, (I can talk about my relapse another time), and I rely on a support system that has never failed me including weekly meetings with my therapist, a strict drug regimen, and a very understanding and empathic family dynamic (even if it is just a few close family members).

So my main struggles remain: how do I get my story out there if I am uncomfortable sharing my illness with anyone other than a very close circle of friends and family, and with whom out there do I identify if I cannot connect with Mr. Vizzini, my original model and mentor?

The search will continue, and I will continue to write because, at least for now, it is definitely helping me navigate this new and unpredictable path.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” –Marcus Aurelius

Getting this blog up and running has allowed me to put my lifelong goals and dreams into perspective. This site is helping me work towards one of them: becoming a published author. While that goal/dream is coming into focus, I’ve found myself recently reflecting on some of the other things I set out to accomplish once I reached stability back in the early 2000s.

After I met my wife in 2008, a few goals became important. One was to start a healthy and thriving family, and after we married in 2009 and had twins in 2013, that goal has come to fruition, even though raising a family and fulfilling my role as a loving husband and father is a work in progress as well as a joy each and every day. Also at the time I met my wife, another goal presented itself since I would have had a hard time getting married and having a family on the salary of a part-time, freelance, newspaper writer. So I went back to school to get a teaching degree.

But while teaching has truly been a labor of love, I set out to teach high school English from the start. Following a year of teaching sophomore composition in the city, however, a position opened up at my former junior high, and staring down a job that would effectively double my salary and allow us to move to the suburbs where we grew up, I couldn’t pass it up.

So here I am, almost a decade later, and still teaching at the same middle school. Don’t get me wrong, middle school students are tons of fun in their own right, and there are many extremely rewarding aspects of teaching young adolescents during a very exciting and tumultuous time in their lives. But I still hold up my time at the middle school with my one year of high school teaching, and they don’t really compare.

My final objective of being a high school English teacher has gone mostly unfulfilled. I’m still looking into getting my foot in the door at a high school in the area, but it is very competitive, and after numerous interviews the last two years, I have nothing to show for my efforts.

On the bright side, I am currently coaching two high school sports, so I do get the satisfaction of working with the older kids while maintaining my place in my middle school classroom. So overall, family: check; published author: pretty close; coaching at the high school level: check; teaching high school: remains to be seen…

If I live out my days having accomplished most of the above goals, I can’t complain. Like I’ve learned after struggling with depression and my own personal demons: better to live your life content about your accomplishments than lamenting over the things that have yet to be fulfilled.

I’m going to stay motivated and driven to teach at the high school level, at least for the next year or so, and if it doesn’t come to pass as I price myself out of high school teaching jobs because of my years of experience (it’s the only profession I know where experience can work against you), I’ll be okay with that. Both of my late grandmothers had a way of always looking on the brighter side of things, even through their battles with cancer and dementia, and at this time, I am channeling their eternal optimistic spirits and outlooks on life.