Fountain House

I am a trained actor. As such, you may trust nothing I say or write. That aside, everything I tell you will be the truth, at least part of the truth, well let’s be real: it’s my truth, so help me if you can. 

Some time last fall, a voice began whispering to me: “Get on a bicycle and go back to Los Angeles.”

I was living in New York City at the time after deciding to spend some months of QT with my fam,  especially my father and Nana, who are 87 and 91, respectively. 

I had already cris-crossed the country by Prius a few times in the two years prior when I gave rideshare rides in about 30 different cities across America. However, one does not simply show up and give rides in NYC,  as I had in so many other places. I was able to give rides in the the Greater Boston area while staying with my Nana but at my folks’ place in NYC, I began working for a handful of bicycle delivery companies all at once. I found myself riding 20-30 miles a day on clunkers (always on Citibikes- bikeshare bikes I could lock up pretty much anywhere) while schlepping food from countless restaurants all over town. This is when the voice started. 

And let me be clear: when I say I started hearing a voice inside my head, I mean that metaphysically. I was not “hearing voices” that I thought were coming from outside my body. In fact, despite having a diagnosis of my own and having experienced many of the symptoms of manic episodes, I can say with certainty I have never heard voices inside my head that I thought were being made by external forces. 

I, as I think most humans do, have always had a relationship with my own inner voice, or my “daemon,” to quote the philosopher Socrates or the author Philip Pullman. For me, this relationship and the distinction between that inner monologue and the idea of having full-on conversations with someone or something that isn’t there has always been very clear. 

For others, it is not so clear. For others, there is no distinction at all. There are many forms of mental illness and they manifest in many ways to many different degrees. And that is why I would like my cross country ride to stand for mental health awareness. 

The Fountain House is a worldwide organization that strives to help reintegrate people into society after dealing with the pitfalls of mental illness. Their vision is for people with mental illness everywhere to achieve their potential and be respected as workers, neighbors and friends.

The main reason I have chosen Fountain House over any other mental health related charity or institution is that the work they do is more concrete. Rather than trying to “fix” the problem through research and test trials, they are striving to help people cope with their problems on a day to day basis and to assist them in getting jobs, housing, and maintaining relationships. 

And so, when someone asks me why I have decided to ride a bicycle across the country, it doesn’t matter if I say...
“why not?” Because I’m a smartmouth,
“Fitness” because I’d like to lose this second chin,
“Just to see if I can,” because I am a hardy fool, or
“Time management” because that’s what I am really, truly learning, finally, as a 32 year old man child...

It doesn’t matter if I say any of those things even if they are all true. The truest truth in this case is that I’m doing it for all of us, to raise all of our awareness both of what’s possible, and of something that 1 in 4 people are dealing with across the world, whether they admit it to themselves or not. There is no shame in having to deal with physical ailments, why should there be with mental ones?

I thank you for your time and attention, and I thank you for any contribution you would be willing to make for this worthy cause.