Tom Roberts is a mental health speaker and writer living in Huntington
Beach, California. He is the author of “Escape from Myself: A Manic-Depressive’s
Journey to Nowhere.”

Tom tells his audiences about his experience living with a devastating
mental illness. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1993—too late to
save his marriage and college faculty position. Tom speaks out, too,
against mental illness stigma because fear of stigma keeps many people in
desperate need of treatment from getting professional help. Two of them
were his brother and sister, both of whom committed suicide.

Tom earned his Master’s degree in Radio-Television-Film from the
University of Kansas. He worked for several years as a broadcast
journalist for local stations and freelanced for National Public Radio’s
popular news program “All Things Considered,” the Voice of America and ABC
Radio News.

He was Assistant Professor of Broadcasting at John Brown University in
Siloam Springs, Arkansas and later taught Technical Communication for the
University of California – Berkeley School of Engineering Extension.

Tom has been a professional actor on stage, screen and television and
currently does voice-overs in the Los Angeles area.

Tom was diagnosed in 2015 with Multiple Sclerosis, which left him legally
blind. He and his wife, Noha, have four children and seven grandchildren.

words & video by Tom Roberts