Wrecked and in Jail

Alcohol came for me fast. In May 2006, two months after my 21st birthday, I wrecked my truck into a tree in a blackout in Blacksburg after a graduation party one night. Gin has always been my kryptonite. If the world was about to end, and I had to pick a final cocktail, it would be a double gin and tonic. Hopefully the drink would make it with me to the afterlife, as well.

There was a gin bucket at the graduation party I was at. I still have absolutely no idea what is in it exactly, but I do remember taking shots with a turkey baster. The memory is foggy - I got drunk fast.

I remember the smoke of the crash, but that is all. I’m actually not sure if there was smoke or if the gin had cast a haze in my eyes. Both are probable.

“Please do not call my father, he is a police chief,” was the first thing I slurred when the cop got out of his car.

Even for being so intoxicated, I have a remarkably clear memory of that night.

“I just looked at your license Mr. Jordan, you are a legal adult, it is not my job to call your parents,” the officer replied.

I don’t remember him being cruel or judgemental in any way. It almost seemed like he felt bad for me. After I stumbled over trying to walk a straight line, I was handcuffed and put in the back of his police car. Things got ugly for him then. I started to try and unlock the door, then to kick the door and then I tried to bust out the window with my feet.

“Sit still Mr. Jordan, don’t make this difficult.”

I blew a .30 that night. I am a pretty small guy, and was out of shape, drugged out, washed up, and generally unhealthy, so the fact that I was alive and mostly functional was a testament to my tolerance, one that lasts to this day. I rarely threw up from drinking, and never did in my final year or so.

After I was fingerprinted and put into a cell with two other guys, the gravity of the situation set in and I finally lost my mind.

“I want my phone call,” I screamed at the woman officer sitting across from me behind the intake desk.

“Be quiet,” she said curtly.

“I’m not going to be quiet, I want my phone call,” I screamed so gutterally that I lost my voice for a moment.

As tears flowed constantly down my face, I remember her looking at me and laughing. I was dying from the pain of 21 years and to her, I was a sideshow act.

It was Mother’s Day 2006 when I got released from jail.

“Jessica, it’s Chet, I got into a car accident last night and was arrested,” I shamefully said after I called Pier 1 for a ride home. I had no one else to call and no cell phone.

“I’ll come get you,” she replied with a bit of terror in her voice. I am sure she had no idea who the person was who was about to get into her car.

At around 11:00 a.m. I called my mom and dad at home from the back office at Pier 1.

“Happy Mother’s Day!” I exclaimed, trying to exude a happy and normal voice.

“Where have you been Chet?” my mom replied angrily.

“Why haven’t you answered our calls and why didn’t you call me this morning like you always do?”

“I got arrested last night. I think my car is dented up.”

A dark silence filled the air. My mom started to scream and cry. It was unintelligible as she threw the cordless phone to my dad.

“What in god’s name? Have you lost your mind Chet?” he yelled into the phone. I didn’t respond.

“We are coming to get you. Pack your stuff up, you are coming home. I should have never sent you to that place,” he demanded.

“I am not coming home,” I said.

“Oh yes you are, just wait. We are coming there now. Get ready for a whole different life with us watching you every second,” and then he hung up.

I slept on my couch next to my dog for a few hours. When I opened my eyes it seemed like a massive anvil had fallen from the sky and landed on my head and heart. It was all real. I burst into tears again when I saw my parents’ car from my window.

“Pack it up,” my dad said as he led my mom into my smoky apartment.

Neither of them asked if I was okay.

“It’s all ready,” I said through my sobs.

Piles of dirty clothes thrown in trash bags were piled into their trunk. My mom had still said nothing. She just cried and stared at me with disgust I had seen so many times from her before.

Her disappointment quickly evolved into anger. Once we were in the car she got on the phone with the insurance company before she turned to talk to me at all.

“My son got a DUI in Blacksburg, VA last night. What do we need to do to take him off of our insurance? He will not be driving anymore,” she said to the agent on the phone.

When she hung up, she looked over at my dad in the driver’s said,

“Holy crap. It doesn’t matter if we take him off, our premium will double,” she spewed.

“What? You are joking! Oh my god!” my dad fumed.

“I’m calling Tim. He is going to need a lawyer,” my mom said.

I was sitting quietly in the back, terrified. It seemed like my entire life had shifted to the front seat of that car. No one acknowledged me at all. They never talked to me about what I was feeling or going through. I don’t think they even knew I was there. But, then, my dad looked in the rear view mirror and started shouting orders.

“I’m in charge now. Here’s how things are going to go from now on, got it?”

“If you need to go somewhere, which you will not for a long time, you can ride a bicycle. You’re going to run the track with mom every morning, go to church with us on Sunday, and we will be finding you some help.”

My parents took complete control of me, my finances, and my decisions regarding school and work. Family members were notified about my arrest without my knowledge. So, by the time I saw friends and grandparents, they already knew. Some offered sympathy and told me it would be okay, that everyone makes mistakes, while others mirrored my parents, shocked that I would allow myself to get into the situation.

Others said nothing at all, as they attempted to reconcile the high-performing child they thought they knew with the sick young adult standing in front of them.

My parents hired a lawyer in Blacksburg who was unknown to us but came recommended. Her name was Stephanie Cox.

“Chet, this is Mrs. Cox, I will be handling your DUI case.” she opened.

“Okay thank you so much. I really appreciate it.”

I always default to being overly polite. It is bound to be a mix of engrained Southern hospitality and an intense fear of conflict. Charm had always been an effective tool for me to wiggle out of an uncomfortable situation.

“Well, let’s start by telling you the truth. Do you have a drinking problem I need to know about?” she asked.

“No ma’am. I do not.”

“Well, your parents seem to think differently and your BAC from the police report tells a different story. So, why are you lying to me?”

“I’m not.”

“Okay so this isn’t going to go very well for you then.”

“I’ll tell you what the process is but you will plead guilty and see what the judge has to offer. There is a likely possibility of jail time given how drunk you were and how much damage you caused, along with your behavior in custody. I honestly don’t have much of a case.”

Guilty

When my case was called I joined my lawyer in front of the bench. I was terrified and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. As is custom, the judge asked for my plea. Scared of doing the wrong thing, I responded with a guilty plea before anyone could say anything.

“Mr. Jordan I suggest you be silent and allow your lawyer to speak on your behalf,” The judge admonished me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my dad drop his face into his hand, sighing loudly enough to be heard.

There was a small recess before we went back in to receive my sentence. Outside of the courtroom were a few people waiting to be called in for the next case on the docket. One of the men seated in a wooden chair had a Blacksburg police uniform on. My dad realized he was the chief after inspecting the insignia on his uniform and his stereotypical persona kicked in. I remember him introducing himself and being embarrassed that we had to make a bigger public display of my case. They exchanged pleasantries and my dad came to sit back down with us.

One of the most comical episodes in this nightmare came just after he rejoined us.

“That’s Chief Fox sitting over there,” my dad whispered to my mom.

“We know all of the same guys from the FBI academy. He asked me why we were here. Told him the story and he gave me a look.”

“Like what?” my mom asked.

“He’s going to talk to the judge to take it easy on Chet.”

“That’s god’s work right there, son,” my mom said as she looked in my direction.

I rolled my eyes to myself. All of their hocus pocus annoyed the shit out of me.

The judge handed down a sentence he would have for anyone in my case. It was my first offense with no prior criminal record. I had to go to AA meetings, an outpatient recovery program, and had to stay off drugs and alcohol since I would be randomly drug tested. If I did not comply with the court’s orders I would be jailed for thirty days in Blacksburg.

You see, one of the biggest differences between me and my parents is that they see the law as some unbreakable religion, a cult of power that is imposed upon people without their permission. It was something not to be trifled with, was sacred, and was unbendable.

In the weeks I spent in Hampton that summer, my parents shuttled me between my childhood doctor and long-time dentist to “get me back in shape.”

The higher education landscape is rapidly changing. As birthrates continue to fall and the cost of a college education remains stubbornly high, many institutions are facing economic cliffs that, for some, will mean closure or merger. This does not have to happen.

Community colleges have long been the sector most prone to economic and political shifts. In Massachusetts, the Legislature under the current governor has invested significant capital in a free community college program for all residents — this after a successful similar program for returning adults. Although these and similar programs transfer state money to the colleges to cover tuition and fees for qualifying students, the bottom line remains unchanged. Even as the community colleges benefit from increased enrollment, the costs of campus operations remain a critical burden.

Personnel costs continue to rise — each community college in Massachusetts is responsible for its own budget, relying primarily on tuition revenue to support operational expenses. A brief study of a few commonwealth community college budgets illustrates how payroll and fringe benefits cannibalize gains from higher enrollments. One institution that reports an approximately $60 million budget spends well over half of its revenue on salaries and fringe benefits alone. Similarly, a Boston-area community college with a large enrollment base has also experienced revenue erosion as a result of growing operating costs. Over 40% of a vast $100 million budget is allocated to payroll — the consequences resulting in reduced investment in students and academic outcomes.

The current situation for the Massachusetts community colleges is untenable. Without significant financial overhaul, campuses will reach a financial dead end — mergers and closures assured.

There are two opportunities for lawmakers and college leaders to seize on now to prevent the loss of treasured institutions.

First, the community college system needs a centralized budget. Although the commonwealth does make contributions to the colleges, payroll costs are supported by campus revenues, tuition and fees. These deficits are often filled by layoffs, drawing from reserves, program closures, and other short-term patches that fail to address the long-term issues. A centralized financial system would reduce fiscal redundancies, including in the area of academic programming, that continue to create overwhelming operational costs on each campus. The Connecticut community colleges recently trudged through a lengthy process to merge the independent campuses into a single institution. The rationale: reduce overhead by eliminating redundancies in programming and personnel.

The second opportunity already exists — students. Across Massachusetts, there are far too many part-time community college students. In some cases, upwards of 75% of the tuition base carries fewer than the required number of credits to be full-time. There is plenty of scholarship to illustrate the many reasons community college students elect to attend part-time. And, there is even more to indicate that full-time students graduate at higher rates than do their peers. It is not enough to recognize the issue, but a permanent solution must be found soon before some of the smaller colleges teeter on the edge. Many years have now elapsed since the pandemic shifted education online and the higher education community has learned a lot about what makes community colleges successful. If a college increases the number of full-time students using new practices like compressed online programs and guided pathways, completion rates rise as do revenues. In most instances, colleges can recover financial losses by converting students they already have from part-time to full-time. More full-time students equals more credits and more revenue. It is like expecting to go 300 more miles on a quarter of a tank of gas. Unless you fill the tank, the car won’t make it.

The Legislature and college leaders, including faculty and staff, can decisively turn the situation around. A centralized budget will reduce financial waste and bring programs and operating costs into alignment. The colleges, in turn, must find new ways to educate, including reconstructing programs meant for a past generation. Students and their institutions benefit from full-time enrollment. Supports like advising, tutoring, writing centers, and small classes ensure that students can and will complete their degrees on time.

Most importantly, there are ways to cut costs without sacrificing faculty and staff who have committed themselves to their institutions for decades. A centralized budget and a sizable increase in the number of full-time students can hold off the financial cliff many institutions are now facing if the Legislature is ready to partner with campus presidents on these issues.

Chet Ragusett, Ph.D., is an author, academic, and former Greenfield Community College provost.

For most of my adult life, I have been a professor, researcher and college administrator. I was only 26 when I taught my first class at Brooklyn College. Teaching and university life was like putting on a jacket that fit perfectly. I loved long Socratic conversations with students, laughing in the office with other faculty and the freedom of time that one enjoys as a professor. My early career was electric. In just 10 years I helped open a new community college in New York City, finished my Ph.D., wrote three books, spoke at countless conferences and became a dean and provost.

Underneath the accomplishments was a growing, darkening disturbance in my mind. As an administrator, I drove three hours every day to Greenfield Community College in western Massachusetts to help my institution reopen after COVID, increase enrollment, build new programs and address problems in business and academic operations. All my successes looked great on paper, and my curriculum vitae grew. I was able to lead a strong executive team, rebuild enrollment levels and restructure academic affairs.

However, as time progressed, frustration on campus grew as my team led a series of rapid institutional changes that shocked and angered many faculty and staff. By this point, the severity of my disease became too strong to manage and exploded into a period of drinking, spending and impulsive behaviors. Mania had taken hold.

After nine months or so, the consequences of this manic episode crashed around me and my mood quickly spiraled into a deep depression. On Valentine’s Day a couple of years ago, I told my husband that I felt like something was desperately trying to kill me. My therapist and psychiatrist agreed that I had a severe course of bipolar disorder, a disease I knew little about at the time. I told them I felt like I was going to kill myself every day and had no ability to stop it.

My doctors quickly prescribed strong antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics and sleeping pills. Adjusting to the new medications took many months and depression held firm for a long time. By spring I was no longer able to work and took an extended medical leave. I felt horrible for abandoning my staff; my president, whom I cared so much for; and all the great work we had done over the past few years. Although I tried to return to work in a reduced capacity, I was unable to do so.

Talking about the intensity of suicidal ideation is scary. These thoughts are not just about checking out from the pain of the symptoms, but rather from the burden my illness places on those closest to me. In a matter of a year, my staff’s once-thriving dean and provost became unable to function and on the precipice of death. While I sat in meetings and talked about budgets and strategic plans, no one around me knew how much I wanted to die. My work and my relationships suffered and I became entirely withdrawn.

There is very little discussion about how senior administrators navigate severe psychiatric illness. As I discovered in my own job, those who were once close to me distanced themselves once they found out I had bipolar disorder. Talking openly about mental illness with peers and subordinates leads to misinterpretation, misunderstanding and isolation. It was incredibly difficult for me to request a medical leave without telling my staff what was wrong with me, and I eventually did tell my closest colleagues. Ultimately, I became a pariah in my institution; those staff who had once been friendly and caring became distant and afraid.

My illness has progressed in severity with age, and without medication, intensive medical care and my husband and dog, I would likely not be alive today. As time passed and my mood stabilized and my poor health improved, I realized that my life needed a significant rebalancing. Hours on the road every day and the stress of being an administrator had taken their toll on my body on top of that exacted by the disease. There is no balance in administrative work. The demands of the job have become absurd; provosts and presidents are glued to their phones day and night and families are pushed to the background.

Many of us who rise through the administrative ranks are goal-seekers with a strong vision for our colleges and universities. Higher education has legions of talented senior administrators, and I am very proud of my own accomplishments. But among us are those who suffer from grave mental illness, people like me who are trying to maintain our mental health and our families while attending to ever-growing and dynamic conflicts on campuses.

Leaders have competing priorities, tight budgets and unpleasant decisions to make. These challenges can aggravate already-serious symptoms of mental illness. As the course of my disease worsened, my ability to handle the endless conflicts on campus diminished. I only sought to protect myself as much as possible.

I have been reminded over the past year that my ability to speak candidly about my illness is limited. Colleagues have warned me away from openly discussing my experience as a bipolar academic. Although well intended, these remarks illustrate perfectly the stigma mental illness carries with each sufferer. Like many of my colleagues across the country, I have carried this disease with me through an otherwise successful career. But I have recently taken steps to protect my health: 1) building a home with my husband and dog, 2) waiting tables at a place that loves me, and 3) writing a new nonfiction book.

It was incredibly hard for me to rebalance my life after years of hard work, mental toughness and a lot of self-sacrifice. This reworking of priorities, though, is why I am alive today.

Link to Publication

I grew up in a car

With white stains

On the seats

And tobacco

Tickling my nose

Sometimes the door

Was sticky

Other times dusty

From smoke

His hand was

On my leg

Moving

I filled the car

And so did he

I don’t have the patience for

Prose and

Revision

Or

Symbols and

Emotions.

Nor do I have the patience for

Dialogue and

Intonation

Angles and

Lenses,

Openings and

Gargantuan

Unending

Epilogues.

I don’t have the patience for

Edits and

Dedications and

Intonation and

Tone and

Setting.

I have patience for

Poems with

Obvious

Endings and

Missing

Stories.

Maybe they taught us

What a rhombus was

So that when we see it

In the reflection of a cigarette lighter

We remember times gone by

One

Taken from a book

Is the problem of the day.

One

Is the joy of birth

And the loneliness of death.

One

Is a dimming candle

Searching for a candelabra.

One

Is a sweet victory

All eyes upon the winner.

One

Is a single tree

Soaking in the sun’s morning rain.

One

Is an eternal beginning

Where we start again

At One.

There is a reason

She is called

Mother Earth.

Life is meant

To be maternal

Though sometimes

Moms leave.

Others fade in

To take her place

Each forming

An edge

A color.

Greens, collards

She heated from

A can but love

Made them taste

Different,
Better,

Eternal.

Scarlet Letter Red

She smiled at me

From the blackboard

As if she knew what

Brewed inside my crimson heart.

Mothers leave as we age

Lost forever like the one

Who promised us life

But murdered us instead.

A murder of crows

Kill silence

But we know

It is just a song

We do not

Understand

Crack Crack

We hear again

And don’t run

Because it is

The sound of

Everyday.

Crack Crack

We don’t hear

But see the fount

Of blood shooting

Red from a troubled

Neck.

Crack Crack

We jump

And run

Away from

The blood

Dripping in our

Souls.

Dr. Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr., the nation’s beloved Nikki, gained fame during the 1960s Black Arts and Civil Rights movements. Her poetry weaves together stories of black women, fathers, mothers, Rosa Parks, and her disgust with Bill Cosby.

She greeted me with a down-to-earth tone - I loved that she introduced herself by her first name. Nikki seemed so close and personal. It was almost as if she just wanted to fit in with the group. Once everyone was seated she called the roll.

It didn’t take long before she got to last names that started with the letter C.

“Mr. Cho?” she said without looking up, expecting an instantaneous response. But there was nothing.

At first we just assumed the person was either late or somehow missed the first class. But then Nikki looked up and locked eyes with a young man sitting across the room in a dark hoodie with jet black sunglasses glued to his head.

“Mr. Cho?” she said again.

He slightly nodded his head.

“Mr. Cho please take your hood and sunglasses off in the classroom,” Nikki demanded.

He didn’t comply - he just sat there looking blankly at her as she stared at him, waiting for her command to be followed.

But instead of speaking she just glared at him. After what felt like days, he took his sunglasses off and dropped them on the desk.

He kept his hood on.

My nervousness of Cho grew to fear after reading his poetry - it was violent and angry. I noticed that many of my classmates were regularly absent. We all saw Cho using his cell phone to take pictures of us from under his desk. The women in my class disappeared.

Then one day Cho was gone. And, he was gone the next day, too. Nikki never told us why but she did say he wouldn’t be back. Over the course of the next few weeks my classmates returned and our shoulders all relaxed. We felt safe in class for the first time.

So it wasn’t surprising to me when the news came on that April morning to tell the world that Seung-hui Cho perpetrated the Virginia Tech Massacre that April morning..

“Of course it was Cho,” was my first thought. It sent a cold shiver through my body because I knew I was right.

After the gunfire stopped and Cho was dead we learned about the carnage. He was described by the media as a disturbed, lonely, homicidal young person that had slipped through the cracks of the mental health system. Nikki Giovanni told cameras that he was evil.

It has been almost two decades since Cho killed 32 people. They were teachers, students, husbands, wives, mentors, friends, and family. The massacre on campus changed all of us - it changed Virginia Tech. Blacksburg had always been a safe paradise - a campus safely surrounded by mountains. Cho shattered that peace for all of us. He was evil - he killed people he had never met before.

The massacre at Virginia Tech opened the door to another nineteen years of indiscriminate mass shootings in the United States. Mass murders at Sandy Hook, the Las Vegas Strip, Florida, eclipsed the deaths at Virginia Tech. In so many ways, we all have become immune to it. If it wasn’t as bad as the time before, we shrug it off, unable to process the horror of how explosive such events have become.

Years later I am now a professor. Cho fundamentally changed how I view my students and my time in the classroom. On the first day of school, I scan the room to see if anyone seems out of place - I keep one eye on the door while I teach. If the space allows, I tape paper in front of the glass window on the door to prevent anyone from seeing inside. I lock the door.

It has become a ritual. At this point in my career, I feel as though I am more responsible for safety than education. My time with Seung-hui Cho has forever changed who I am. After almost two decades, his shadow looms over me - each day when my class starts, I think of him.

Part One: Aftermath

The Emergency Room

I walked into the emergency room.

The place was packed with sneezes, moans, snores, and mutters of frustration. Before I could finish giving the triage desk my insurance information, a nurse in purple scrubs grabbed me by the shoulder and walked me briskly through “the big doors.” At first I didn’t know what was happening, but it quickly dawned on me.

“I want to kill myself,” is all I said to the clerk before they rushed me away.

Within a few minutes the nurse took my clothes, cell phone, wallet, and my keys. She handed me a trash bag for my stuff, locked it in a secure room and sat me on a gurney in the hallway of the emergency department.

The scrubs were two sizes too big. I stared at the socks on my feet - mental illness gray. Before they took my phone I was able to text my husband, Jared, so that he could meet me at the hospital. A psychiatrist and the charge nurse came quickly to my bedside. The first thing they told me was that I would be moved to the psych unit as soon as I was checked in.

Everything happened fast.

“I was just diagnosed with severe type one bipolar disorder,” I said to the doctors standing in front of my bed.

“They adjusted one of my meds this week. I think that is what is wrong,” I lied.

I was lying.

I was going to kill myself. And, if I had not gone to the hospital, I would be dead. But I didn’t want anyone to know that. I wanted to go home. They were suspicious - rightly so - I had to sign a release in order to leave.

I realized I needed someone’s help because I was thinking of options for a quick, painless suicide: carbon monoxide poisoning in my car, a slit of the knife on my wrists, overdosing on heroin, but never a gun.

Guns are too messy. I don’t like mess.

It was a long road that led me to the gurney.

Only a short time before I stood in my kitchen and told my husband Jared,

“I feel like something is trying to kill me and I can’t stop it.”

The color in his face dropped sharply. I was terrified - his expression told me how serious my condition was. We had only been together for five years when I got sick. The next day, I gave him an out.

“You didn’t sign up for this,” I said.

“If you want to go I will understand. I will be sad but I will understand,” I continued.

“This is what I signed up for,” he quickly replied, giving the topic no more thought. I realized then how much he loved me - and I still wanted to die.

My doctors quickly prescribed strong anti-depressants, anti-epilleptics, and anti-psychotics. As my mood balanced for the first time in my life, it was as if I woke up from a long, dark, prison sentence without light or air. I was finally able to breathe, but the many fantasies I had lived in to protect myself suddenly evaporated, leaving me utterly empty.

They were gone. I was no longer a caricature - a man who developed scores of personalities - I was dead - alive.

Thirty-eight years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse conspired with severe psychiatric illness and led me slowly into darkness.

I died that day on the gurney. My former life was completely annihilated. What I came to realize was that my life had been held hostage for over thirty years - I was no longer willing to be imprisoned.

I finally accepted that my parents had abused me for over three decades: emotionally, physically, and sexually.

They violently stole from me who I was and it would take decades to find what was so priceless - myself.

I never got to go on dates or take my boyfriend to the prom. When I could finally see rated R movies on my seventeenth birthday, a big milestone for teenagers, they ridiculed me for wanting to see something with sex in the title. I went, but the whole time I was thinking about the punishment awaiting me when I got home.

There were no 21st birthday celebrations or engagement parties.

Instead I was silently tortured by my parents for decades.

I tried to prove to them over and over that I was worth something: near-perfect grades, show choir awards, AP classes, children’s choir director, museum volunteer and star employee, kind grandson, enthusiastic church member, professor, doctor, scholar, dean, provost - endlessness.

For over thirty years I called my mom every day - morning and night. The secret hope I carried into every one of those thousands of calls was that one day, somehow, my parents would remedy what they had done to me - I waited for accountability - it never came.

Many of my calls were scripted perfectly. When we talked, my mom stepped into the fantasy I created for her. I knew exactly what part of me I wanted her to see - and what parts I wanted to keep hidden forever. Instead of talking about the time my dad forced me into the shower with him, I told stories about my successful career. Or, she wedged herself into my finances - car payments, mortgages, credit cards - all to avoid talking about the times she watched him hit me and stood by, doing nothing.

After a few months on medication reality slammed me in the face. Every call with my mom felt like I was choking on something sharp. I couldn’t make the words come out any longer because there was nothing to say. All the stories had dried up. The fantasy was over.

My obsession with talking to my mom reached a fever pitch. It was starting to affect my marriage in ways I couldn’t yet understand. Jared never said anything to me directly but was puzzled when I told him how much we talked - and I low-balled the number. Every time he asked a simple question about bills or our savings account I felt like I was under siege. My mom had used finances as a way to control me and my behavior for so long that I couldn’t separate what Jared was asking from how it made me feel.

I knew things had to change. Over the next few weeks the tenor of our daily phone calls changed - I became noticeably withdrawn and angrily direct.

One afternoon I didn’t feel like calling. I drove home from work silently. It felt ike the knots inside my head started to unwind and relax.

The phone rang. It was Jared. He rarely called me after work so I answered with a touch of intrigue in my voice.

“Your mom just texted me asking where you were,” he said, rather confused.

“She did what??” I screamed.

“I’ll deal with this right now. I’m done.”

I called her.

“Don’t you dare text my husband looking for me!” I screamed into the phone.

“I’m sorry son, I didn’t mean to” my mom said, trying to garner some immediate sympathy.

“No you’re not. I’m done with this!”

“What do you mean you’re done with this?” she asked, angrily.

“I’m done. With all of the lies, all of the cover-ups, all of the abuse. I’m not owning this anymore.”

There were no words to describe what I was feeling. The wall shattered.

“What did we do wrong?” She had been waiting for this moment for years, hoping it would never arrive.

“Isn’t it your job to confront your abuser?” She admitted it.

“No, that is not my goddamn job! You go do the work and figure that out.”

“I have been to therapy, Chet,” she sneered.

“It didn’t work.”

“How dare…”

“You don’t get it. Look back! Look back!! Look back!!!” I screamed.

Just before I hung up, I heard my dad speak for the last time.

“That medication is whacking him out.”

It has been three years since that afternoon but the story begins far earlier.

Dying Alive is a memoir about growing up a gay boy in the American south with severe adolescent bipolar disorder. The book begins on a gurney in a hospital. I was about to kill myself.

The day before I ran scissors down my arms to see how it felt to watch the blood rise toward the skin - scared what would happen if I cut too deep. Things other than blood were also rising to the surface.

Dying Alive begins in a hospital hallway. I was just diagnosed with type one bipolar disorder after a long episode of mania that led to heavy drinking, dangerous sex, the evaporation of my savings account, and maxed out credit cards. Once my newly prescribed regimen of psychiatric medication began to stabilize the mania, the memories of my life flooded in - I entered a dark, life-threatening depression.

After a life dominated by pain, anxiety, and aggression, I was able to witness some of the sources - physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of my parents, family members, and ex-boyfriends.

The weight of the flashbacks was unbearable - suicide felt like the only way out. I drove myself to the emergency room, called my husband, and told the nurse I was bipolar and wanted to kill myself. They stripped me of my clothes, took my phone, and, instantly, I was in mental-illness-gray sweats, perched on a gurney in the hospital hallway. My husband arrived shortly thereafter, horrified - he is the reason I put the scissors down.

I spent decades hiding myself from others - the gay boy who had to murder parts of himself to survive - carefully manicuring a life of stunning success as an acclaimed author and academic. Underneath it all lay a dark past, one that few in my life knew was happening - they just saw a successful young man with many talents and skills.

Dying Alive uncovers a life of searching for love in the dark where none was found at home - it is the story of sex in a museum, steamy gay bathhouses, raunchy orgies, and cruising for men at night on the streets of Manhattan. The book is also a treatise on mental illness, leadership, success, abuse, and the consequences of sharing my diagnosis with others. Dying Alive is at once devastating and beautiful. After my diagnosis, I began to see my talents as a writer, musician, waiter, and husband. It is a story of how complete destruction and devastation opened the door to who I have always been - the parts of me so many others rejected.

Dying Alive ends in the present - on a topic people fear most - absolute truth. There are few memoirs that reach deeply enough to expose the horrors of abuse and mental illness. This book is vulgarly honest - it is a story about childhood violence, adolescent shame, and adult suicidality - it protects no one, including me. I enter the market with full acceptance that this book will be controversial, especially as it documents episodes of physical and sexual abuse. Dying Alive is unbelievable, terrifying, and demonstrates how stating the truth is an act of courage and liberation.

Chet Jordan, Ph.D. is an American academic, author, educator, and senior executive. He is the author and co-author of three books, focused on racial equity in higher education. Dr. Jordan holds a bachelor of arts in English literature from Virginia Commonwealth University, a master of arts in English literature from Brooklyn College, and a Ph.D. in Urban Education from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Earlier in his career, Jordan helped open Stella and Charles Guttman Community College, the first new community college in New York in over forty years. His work there was a touchstone to a long and successful career as an academic researcher and administrator. Most recently, Dr. Jordan served as a dean, vice-president, and provost at Greenfield Community College.

Dr. Jordan also has severe type one bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. After publishing three academic texts, Jordan is now exploring through literary memoir his past abuse at the hands of his parents and other family members and his reemergence as an entirely different person, trying to live with a life-threatening disease. Dr. Jordan is married to his husband Jared. They live in Connecticut with their dog Kringle.