Member-only story
About Me — Matthew Maniaci
Ten pounds of weird in a five-pound bag.
Hi, my name is Matthew Maniaci, I’m 34, and I’m a huge nerd. I enjoy playing board games with friends, going to sci-fi conventions, and playing with my four cats. Also, apparently I can’t write a short article to save my life.
The Story of my Life (Abridged)
I was always an awkward kid in grade school. I would often spend my recesses walking around the blacktop and just…thinking. The teachers were a bit worried about me. In sixth grade, with all the changes and hormones, I started getting depressed. I got so depressed, in fact, that toward the end of the year, at age 12, I began feeling suicidal. This culminated in an incident during a school rally where I snuck away from my class and began beating my head against a brick wall. My parents took me to a psychiatrist, and I was diagnosed with Depression.
As I went through puberty, my symptoms increased and changed, and I started experiencing mood swings. I would bounce around between horrible depression and huge bouts of energy that affected my interactions at school. We tried a variety of medications, but nothing seemed to help. At age 14, I was re-diagnosed as Bipolar. As this was the 90s and treatments were not as advanced as they are now, my psychiatrist was concerned that I would…
