I AM A BREAKBEAT DJ

I have been afflicted by Schizoaffective Disorder my whole life, but had just been diagnosed when I was 21. I want people to know about this and process it in a rational way. Those who are affected by mental illness battle with a stigma about being viewed as crazy or insane by society. I am here to show you that you can be stable and live a rewarding life. Read more of this story here

DJing is my way of interacting with the world. I am an introvert so playing on radio stations live as well as producing tracks suits me best. This allows me to not only to have complete creative control over my musical selection, but allows me to play all the time. I am constantly evolving with every show.

I have been stable for over 12 years. You can find that stability too.

It took me a long time to get here. I have been admitted into the hospital several times and waded through many therapists, doctors and treatment centers. I have been on a ton of medications with changes and tweaks to those.

There are 2 books that really helped me get past the trauma of my diagnosis. Both are by Kay Redfield Jamison. “An Unquiet Mind” which spoke of a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital’s growth with her illness and the things she encountered while discovering her mental illness. It provided a perspective I could relate to.

The second book is called “Touched With Fire” in which basically links the arts and creativity to mental illness through the examination of all the great artists, poets and musicians from the past and provides proof that did in fact correlate to the link of creativity and mental illness. The book has a great appendix full of information about individual artists.

My message here is that there you can turn a corner once you start taking action about your mental health in a positive way. You can be stable, you can be sane, you can live without fear, you can love and be loved, and can live a happy life despite what chemicals you have in your brain that are fucking shit up.

Remember, mental illness is a physical one and is not to be shoved aside as anything other than that. There is a stigma about mental illness that permeates through society and causes shame and deters many people from getting help or even accepting they have a problem.

Alcohol and drugs will not cure you. These things may seem to take the power away from your mind for short periods of time, but is empowering your illness. It is not only OK to accept that you have a physical misappropriation of chemicals in your brain, it is encouraged that you seek help. You do not have to become a statistic or live a painful life. It isn’t going away unless you decide to get well.

I hope you do.