My adult mental health diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder. This illness includes periods of mania, depression, grandiose thoughts and speech, an exaggerated sense of self-importance, feeling that one is on a "special mission," and symptoms similar to schizophrenia, such as auditory and visual hallucinations. Although I've never really heard voices or saw things that didn't exist, except when I had experimented with psychedlic drugs, I've definitely succumbed to grandiose thoughts. We all experience grandiose thoughts at one time or another. "I'm going to win the lottery." "The Pittsburgh Steelers are going to win the Super Bowl." Then, when our lucky numbers don't come in, or when the Steelers lost to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV, we get knocked down a few pegs and have to face reality. The grandiose thoughts I'm talking about associated with my mental illness are things like cancelling my life insurance policy because I thought I was immortal and would live forever, so there would be no need for life insurance. Or thinking that I could walk out in the middle of traffic and that the cars would pass through me, since I was a "man of steel." Or thinking that I was in communication with angels and extraterrestrials disguised as human beings, who have appointed me to be on a special mission ordained by God.

I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1966. I grew up in the East End of the city. I have an older sister, and my parents basically provided a supportive structure for the family to thrive. Sure, we had our family tensions and dysfunctions, but it wasn't like my Dad came home drunk and beat us up. Both of my parents worked, which enabled us to attend private schools. My sister and I received good educations and enjoyed good family memories, while growing up in an upper middle class setting.

My Dad was in the military during World War II, so he could be a "hard-ass," raising his voice and being overly critical. He did like his alcoholic beverages after coming home from work, but he never was physically abusive. He worked in a local department store, managing women's clothing. This job enabled him to travel to New York City and Europe in order to buy women's "ready to wear." We later found out that Dad was cheating on Mom. This eventually destroyed their marriage, when I was 18 and my sister was 21.

My Mom was very loving and compassionate. She had some physical ailments, namely rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Because of these autoimmune diseases, she was on very powerful medications her whole life. In fact, when she was pregnant with both my sister and me, she was taking the steroid Prednisone and painkillers. I often wonder if both my sister's and my behavioral problems can partly be attributed to the teratogenic effects of these drugs on a fetus' brain. At any rate, Mom coped with her illness the best she could. She worked full time and was a homemaker and did a pretty admirable job.

My sister is not an easy person to get along with. She has always been combative and seems to thrive on conflict. Growing up, she had the Big Mouth and was rebellious. By the time she was 15, she had a serious alcohol problem. She kept a stash of liquor in her closet and smoked cigarettes. Despite these "growing pains," she and I usually got along pretty well: cracking jokes and laughing a lot with a fatuous and irreverent wit.

Ever since I can remember, I have suffered from anxiety and depression. As early as nursery school, I would have panic attacks and be a trembling mass of flesh, who just wanted to be with his Mama. I definitely suffered from separation anxiety. When my parents would tuck me in bed at night, I always wanted reassurance that, "Nobody is going to take me away?" In first grade, I attended a parochial Catholic school. I grew up in a Greek Orthodox home. There are some subtle but distinct differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The nuns at our school did like to instill fear in the students. Sister Mary Francis warned us to be careful when walking to and from school because there was a baldheaded man who drove a sedan and would kidnap children, chop them up with an axe, and stash their body parts in garbage bags in his back seat. She also informed us that she was going to bring in a Viet Nam war veteran who had his face blown up and spends his time on one knee praying. This type of imagery just fueled my anxiety and made me a nervous wreck. There was talk at school about Limbo and Purgatory, which the Orthodox faith does not recognize. I would come home confused and asked my parents guilt-ridden questions about the destiny of unbaptized souls. My parents decided to pull me out of the Catholic school after just one year.

Growing up in the late 1960's and early 1970's, I observed the hippie generation. Obviously, I was much too young to be a hippie myself, but some of their wild hairstyles and clothing frightened me. I remember being terrified that I was going to be kidnapped by some Charles Manson Family followers. However, despite a lot of anxiety and phobias, I still enjoyed my childhood and have fond memories of family gatherings, vacations, and the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl Dynasty. Seeing Terry Bradshaw throw a 55-yard touchdown pass to Lynn Swann or watching L.C. Greenwood pummel Roger Staubach often restabilized my dopamine and serotonin levels.

I attended a private school in second grade and stayed at this school all the way until my Senior Year in high school. That first year at the Academy's Junior School was rough. More panic and just wanting to be at home. Since I was the new guy, I was the target of bullies. But coming back to third grade, I adapted well and excelled academically and socially. In fact, I was now friends with the bullies that picked on me the previous year. Now we terrorized others. Looking back on these days, I have to say that it was much better being the predator than the prey.

I tried my first beer when I was 10. My dad gave me a Lowenbrau Dark during summer vacation. I remember Elvis had died that summer of 1977.

In 1978, I was in fifth grade. I happened to catch on TV a ten-year anniversary broadcast of George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead." It was the most frightening movie I had ever seen. I thought that what I had seen in the film had actually happened. It disturbed me for months. As my mother said, it sent the message of "no hope." I was constantly looking out of the corner of my eye for zombies trying to devour me. Because this movie was shot in the Pittsburgh area, it made the threat of a Zombie Apocalypse that much more believable. The theme of this film would echo into my adulthood. Whenever I would become manic and delusional, I was convinced that the dead would come back to life and feed upon the flesh of the living. Interestingly, I was somewhat able to face my zombie demons seven years later in 1985, when I actually got to be a zombie extra in George Romero's "Day of the Dead."

When I was age 11 during a Memorial Day picnic, I tried my first cigarette. It was pretty uneventful. It was more like one puff of my great aunt's lipstick covered cigarette butt that she had discarded in the grass. It was still burning, and nobody was around to watch me salvage it out of my grandmother's back yard. My great aunt was a chain smoker. I remember her brand was Larks. She suffered from severe anxiety, depression, and mood swings. She had been hospitalized multiple times and received ECT-shock treatments. Her kitchen window-sill looked like a pharmacy – multiple bottles of prescription drugs. My great aunt had immigrated to this country from Greece at a young age. Her father (my great grandfather) was a priest who openly spoke out about the Turkish Empire. He was alerted that the Turks were coming for him to execute him. As a result, his family packed up and left the country overnight, instantly becoming refugees. Apparently, my great aunt was never the same after this life-threatening experience. I often wonder if that "fight or flight experience" can be passed down genetically to future generations. The Greeks always had to contend with invaders, whether it was the Persians 2500 years ago or more recently the Ottomans going back 200 years. I feel very strongly that my panic disorder has been inherited from countless generations whose lives were regularly in danger. This is called historical trauma.

One of the very first questions someone is asked upon admission to a psychiatric facility is, "Do you have any relatives that have mental illness?" I'm sure that every family has its share of a parent, sibling, cousin, or other close relative that suffers from mental illness and/or addiction.

Modern-day psychology and psychiatry are only about 150-years-old. Prior to that, when people suffered from behavioral or emotional problems, it was believed that they were afflicted with demons. There is the story in the book of Matthew in the Bible of the two men who were possessed by demons. Jesus drove the demons out of the men and into a herd of pigs that jumped over a precipice and drowned in the water below. We cannot discount that there may be malevolent forces or negative energies that attack us all. Some may be more susceptible than others. When someone has a gift of clairvoyance and can help the police find a missing person, they are called gifted. However, when someone hears voices to kill himself or others, they are called mentally ill. People who have schizophrenia may in fact be sensitive to other realms or dimensions of reality that most people do not perceive. I am not suggesting that all mental illness is a result of demon-possession, but negative universal forces do exist and may explain some mental illness. The true power of the Devil is that people do not believe he exists. I was recently at a mental health forum and met a talented artist who had a mental illness. He had a display of his drawings, which included graphic renditions of demons and dragons. I asked him what inspired these drawings. He told me that he sees these images. Who is to say that these demons and dragons don't exist in some realm that most of us cannot perceive?

Entering sixth grade was a major transition in my life. I was hitting puberty, and I was now attending the Academy's Middle School. There was a boarding prep school feel to the Middle School. I used to walk to the Junior School, since we lived close-by. The Middle School was located in an affluent suburb, which was an exclusive, wealthy neighborhood. This meant that I had to ride a school bus. The things that happened on the Middle School bus were something out of a Charles Dickens novel. There was bullying, smoking, drinking, fist-fights, wedgies, double wedgies. Our bus driver was a hippie who played in a rock band. He didn't enforce much authority. I remember things got so bad that our Headmaster boarded our bus one morning when we arrived at school. He was furious. He directed his attention to the back of the bus, where all the eighth graders thrived. His lungs were out of his mouth, he was yelling so loud.

We were required to wear suits and ties at the Middle School. There was also a disciplinary demerit system and never ending homework. I can recall my first signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder and anorexia nervosa during this time. Gone were the days of crab soccer and battleball in the gymnasium of the Junior School, the St. Valentine's Day bake sale, and arts and crafts fairs. The Middle School demanded academic and athletic perfection. I was one of the top students in my grade, but I was compelled to exercise rigid self-control, as most people with OCD do. Those with OCD usually come in two forms: cleaners and checkers. The cleaner must wash his hands, the floor, the walls, the dishes, etc. an excessive amount of times throughout the day. Once is never enough. The obsession is a persistent, invading negative thought that the individual did not do a thorough enough job at cleaning something. The compulsion is the act of performing the cleaning ritual in order to neutralize the obsession. Checkers must check doors over and over again to make sure that they are locked and secure. A checker might have to check a stove multiple times to make sure that it is turned off in order to neutralize the terrible phobia that the house will burn down. This ritualistic behavior may have to be performed a number of times in order to certify a secure feeling. Many times this behavior is a result of superstition or irrationalism. Because I was born in 1966, I had a fear of the number 6. This was the sign of the Devil or the Beast. I felt that I was somehow influenced by the Devil. I could never perform a ritual six times because I felt something terrible would happen. I would usually perform a ritual eleven times, because that was a number of perfection to me.

Then there was my eating disorder. I had a warped perception of myself and felt that I was too fat. I would starve myself all day long and then gorge myself at dinner. Although I would never induce vomiting like a bulimic, I was constantly trying to burn calories. This was when I began long-distance running. Sometimes those that are driven to perfection will accomplish things that are truly exceptional. I completed my first 26.2-mile marathon at the age of 14. There is no doubt that starting a running regimen at such an early age strengthened my body to overcome the drug abuse in my 20's and 30's. Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia are most often associated with young girls and women. However, both young and older men are susceptible to this disease. It all comes down to self -perception and feelings of insecurity. By rigidly controlling one's food intake, the individual feels a euphoric sense of accomplishment.

It was if I was having a middle-aged crisis at the age of 12. I became obsessed with losing weight, exercising more frequently, and excelling in my studies. I was crippled by my OCD rituals, when I would come home from school. I was picking up lint from the carpet and running up and down the steps over and over again. I felt absolute control over myself. Ironically, I was actually losing control of my sanity. That never occurred to me at that time. I felt that nobody could control me, not even the tyrants I had as teachers. While my fellow classmates were getting demerits and faltering in their studies, I was a model student. I was also increasing my cardiovascular fitness and getting leaner. However, enough was enough. I lost total perspective of what I was doing to myself. I had a pathological fear of obesity. I was terrified to eat because I thought that I might lose control and become grotesquely flabby.

My grandmother used to tell me that the ancient Greeks had a saying: "A strong mind and a strong body." I wanted to epitomize this historic slogan. Instead I suffered from a neurotic mind and an emaciated body. I had a severe emotional problem but was unaware of this at that time. The repetitive rituals I put myself through left my home a virtual prison. I could no longer perform even the simplest task because my rituals were so time consuming. My sister felt that I was behaving this way for attention. Looking back, I think that my behavior was a form of rebellion. Instead of sneaking cigarettes and liquor the way my sister did, I would overdo things. I was suffering from a mental exhaustion from sustained panic, which stressed my body and put me into a depression. The rodent of anxiety had gnawed away at my soul. My parents decided that I needed medical intervention through the assistance of a psychiatrist and hospitalization.

During the summer of 1979, I was admitted to St. Francis Hospital's children's unit. I felt apprehension as we pulled up to the East Wing of the Hospital. It was an old brick and stone building with Gothic overtones. The halls had an institutional smell. I was told to expect being institutionalized for 60 days. This was back in the day when private health insurance would pay for extended mental health hospitalizations. My peers ranged in age from 6 to 12, which was how old I was at the time. The adolescents had their own unit. They were between 13 and 20 years old. It was almost like going to summer camp. Being enmeshed with kids from different backgrounds put things into perspective for me. I realized how lucky I was to be provided for as well as I was by my parents. Some of my peers came from broken homes that were verbally and physically abusive.

Looking back at my several hospitalizations at St. Francis, I have to say that I received top-notch care there. It was an environment conducive to getting well. Sure, at the time I didn't want to be there against my will. However, the combination of doctors, social workers, nuns, staff, and patients really made a difference in my getting well.