Hi there. My name is Steven.

I am a 45 year old married white male living in Austin, and I suffer from a series of mental illnesses. As a result, I’ve lived the majority of these 45 years with virtually no self-esteem, no sense of fearlessness, and no idea who I really am or what I want to be when I grow up.

I do, however, know a lot about who I am not. I am not the whipping boy the voices in my head tell me I am on a daily basis. I am not that little boy at all, despite my head trying desperately to keep me locked helplessly in my childhood from hell. I am a grown man with a grown daughter and an amazing soulmate who I’ve been married to for 12 years now.

This blog will take a look back at how I came to be the person I am now, and what I hope the future holds for me. I’m not holding anything back except for names. I figure if you wanted to tell our story together, you’d write your own blog. (Maybe you already have. Ohmygod, am I in your blog? Is it bad? I’m a monster, aren’t I?) And in that parenthetical dialogue, welcome to the hell that I know.

I’m a funny guy, or at least I think I am, so the very insightful posts that will be here will be joined with a healthy dose of very irreverent humor (or attempts at same). I’ll put a NSFW tag on the ones that need it, and I’ll tag others with Triggers in case my story might remind you of some of your own hell. But hopefully what I’ll be doing for you, the reader, is providing a first-hand account of what life is like for those who are mentally ill. I want to help those who are fortunate enough to experience mental well-being to understand what this invisible disease is capable of, and those who suffer with me to know that they aren’t alone.