I Am Someone You Know

A strange room. White walls, white bed sheets, and a white wrist bracelet. The last thing he recalls is a knife. Then... darkness. In his early twenties, bipolar disorder spread through David Shamszad's mind like wildfire. The pendulum swung back and forth between mania and depression, which he kept secret and untreated. After watching how alcohol tormented his father, David tried to avoid it. But in distress, he turned to that familiar lifeline to ease the pain. As the years roared by, alcoholism and bipolar disorder tore David's bright and promising life to pieces. Nothing could stop his spiral-not weeks in a psychiatric hospital, nights in jail, or waking up covered in blood. Not even losing the person he loved the most. He was ready to surrender and drown in the sea of alcohol and solitude, but she refused to let him sink. With help from the people who cared for him, and his own relentless determination, David set out to conquer the despair that almost broke him. A new man emerged from the wreckage of his former life. Today, David is a husband, father, and successful entrepreneur. His harrowing memoir descends deep into the abscesses of spiritual emptiness-sometimes moment by moment, in gripping, visceral streams of consciousness. I Am Someone You Know shows us that, even in the face of our greatest challenges, we can always find hope, courage, and love.