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I am gay. I was born into a dysfunctional nuclear family in which my intelligent mother due to psychological problems of her own was mentally destructive to me but at times was funny. In secret, my father, although a good man, was basically a weak alcoholic. Between them I received little or no real love so grew up with depression and a crippled sense of self worth through which I at many times tried to hurt or kill myself.

Due to my problems and impulsiveness, I spent my whole life floundering in homelessness, therapy, mental wards and in jobs I could not hold down. I never finished college nor received formal vocational training, but I did what I felt was good, constructive work with the handicapped.

Eventually I sought out gay relationships for the protective, nurturing love I was deprived of. Through that I met Michael. He was a somewhat spiritual man I moved in with and on whom, because he gave me real love, I became dependant emotionally. I tried the best I could to work to help provide money for us. He encouraged me to do what I loved: playwriting.

While we were lovers, I wrote a children’s play that most audience members seemed to like. It was about a ridiculed hero whose handicap becomes an asset.

After I encountered a long bout of unemployment, Michael could no longer help me psychologically or didn’t know how to and in a helpless child-like manner “detached” himself from me. I consequently, after a lifetime of such rejection and suffering, tried in a serious and violent way to kill myself. I slashed myself in front of him with broken glass, naked in a crowded restaurant where one Saturday night he worked as a piano player.

I immediately wound up in a mental ward where I ended the relationship so I was again on my own with nowhere to live. During my homelessness, I was convinced by my sister to return to the ward. As an inpatient, I was medicated against my will on a drug for depression that acted like a chemical straightjacket that induced intense memory loss. I thought it was giving me Alzheimer’s disease. I was eventually taken off of it and transferred to a halfway house where my life was forcibly controlled by its program. I ran away and opted for homelessness, but decided to go back.

I was finally accepted with the help of a worker into a supportive apartment program. The problems I encountered were combative roommates, more scary side effects from various drugs before I found the right cocktail and ongoing depressions though I was generally happy because I had my own room.

After many years, the program moved me into something called “supported” housing where I somehow found the inner strength to live independently in my own studio apartment with financial help. I am now holding down a small part-time job as a secretary. Before I was doing peer advocacy to help people with mental illness. I’ve made close friends with other mentally ill folks over time. I still have deep inner struggles with depression, but with the help of God and whatever therapy I get, I’m trying as best as I can to make inroads.

Right now I still write creatively, have remained out of the hospital for years, go to a Christian church on occasion and pursue volunteer work to help the elderly. Perhaps someday I’ll pursue my dreams of becoming a state licensed social worker and a successful writer. I have hope.