Support For Guy As He Takes Back His Life

To explain why I’ve started this campaign, I willstart with Guy's own words explaining his current situation. 

My friends -

I depart Traverse City early Friday morning for the mountains of northeastern Georgia - very near, in fact, to my beloved Paris Mountain above Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. I am entering a treatment center that specializes in therapy for patients with unresolved Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health issues combined with treatment for patients who have struggled with addiction: these are both battles I've been fighting a long time. And I'm grateful that "dual-diagnosis" treatment is becoming available for people like myself.

The past few days have been a grisly education in the pathetic inadequacies of mental health care in our nation. Need a bed in a psychiatric ward for an acute mental-health crisis? We'd have to call around, might have a place for you in a week or so, probably a hundred or more miles away. Need a psychiatrist for same acute crisis? We have two in this hospital; you can see one of them in late July or early August. (I could've put these in quotes, because they're things that were said to me, verbatim.)

If you find a psychiatric hospital for your Severe Depressive Disorder and PTSD it will likely have no one with more than rudimentary training and experience dealing with addiction. Lots of "rehab" centers for detox and treatments for substance abuse; almost none of which will have any clinical psychiatric care available.

Of the few places I've found that can help me, one wants $64,820.00 upfront. (As Matt said, "why not just round up to 65 thousand and call it a day? Who goes there, Jennifer Aniston?") A few others take many kinds of insurance not including my (very generous) Blue Cross/Blue Shield "gold"-level coverage.

My anxiety about it was (as anxiety often is) a waste of energy; deciding where I was going turned out to be ridiculously easy: one place meets all the above criteria. One. Can help with my needs, accepts my insurance.

Friends and family: if you're learning of this via Facebook and feel you merited a call, please understand that my time is very tight and the list of tasks to complete before I go is long and daunting.

Until I return in late July or early August, my friends: no cellphone, no internet, no Facebook, no e-mail. I'll de-activate this Facebook account before I leave Friday morning; folks should know by then. Wheels-up at 6am, fearless and thorough!

The page'll come back on in, as I said, late July or early-to-mid August. If you think I won't miss you like crazy, you're dead-wrong.

Second-most important thing: please do not be sad for me or worry about me. I KNOW ABSOLUTELY that this is the right path for me at this moment, that this is the best thing I've done in a long time, even if it will be very hard. "Hard" can also be "good."

The most important thing: I am blessed with more loving friends and family than any man or woman could ever deserve. I know that I am supported and loved by so very, very many, and I will carry the knowledge of your love in my heart on this journey. (I know too that some of you have been through this same fire, and I hold your empathy and camaraderie in a special room of that heart. It will keep me strong when I'm in the flames.)

Happy Opening to everyone at Utah Shakes or P45 or anywhere else my fellow theatre artists are fortunate enough to be telling stories this summer. I'm there in spirit, cheering you on. I'll be the small, soft touch that you think just brushed your shoulder when you take that Opening Night bow, the whisper of a breeze in your ear that sounds just like "Bravo, my friend!" And happy birthday, if you were born between June 25th and the end of July.

I love you all with the heat of a thousand suns.

"Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel" -

Well, I have many, many steel bands that bind you to my heart and to my soul.

Guy, GWM, Mo-ski

Although Guy is fortunate to have insurance, there will be significant costs that he will have to cover out of pocket. Additionally, he will be away from home (and not working) for four to six weeks. This campaign has been started in order to eliminate the financial component of all of this and to provide support for both him and Matt while he is away.