Dear Hollywood, You Drove Me Crazy. Also, I Love You.

As a screenwriter who toiled away for years honing and perfecting my craft, I often found myself wondering if the next script would be it, or if the next general meeting would put me in the presence of the gatekeeper assigned to me by the Gods of entertainment. Nothing I had hoped to happen for me in LA happened in LA. Instead, I left with a cocktail of mental health issues that would over the years begin manifesting themselves like unwanted relatives who have long overstayed their welcome. Instead of my big break, I got my big breakdown. Navigating the industry undiagnosed and uneducated about my own mental health nearly cost me everything.

While living in LA, I had no life, I isolated, which was nothing more than masked depression, I worked as if my life depended on it mainly because an unhealthy dose of Generalized Anxiety Disorder kept me in a constant state of fear. All I did was write. Writing was my coping mechanism. When this world got too thick to navigate, I simply created a new one and immersed myself in it. I didn’t necessarily have to be the hero, but I needed to create worlds where characters were as true to life as I could get them so I could work through my own minutia. But sadly, no windfall. Script after script. Query after query, I felt in my spirit that if I zoned in on the writing, everything else would fall into place. I was slightly correct in that regard. Things fell, in fact everything fell, apart.

My own personal golden rule was to never be bitter. My shortcomings were not Hollywood’s fault. It wasn’t the uneven playing field. It wasn’t the lack of opportunities for writers of color. It was simply not in the cards for me to find success in Hollywood. At least I told myself that enough to make it my reality. Like any wise artist would do, I went out and looked for a survival job and boy did I land one! I found a job working for Warner Bros. Studios in digital media. There I was, access to the lot, a badge that proudly displayed the WB logo, and enough perks and spoils to find yourself intoxicated by the studio system.

Holiday parties on the set of The Big Bang Theory, walking to get breakfast and exchanging a head nod with Christopher Nolan. I had arrived, and damn it was I elated. I realized I had done a great job masking my mental health challenges and I was quite skilled at it. The consequence however was that some of the significant mental health challenges that were brewing as I began to press harder and lean in further to my dream of screenwriting were undiagnosed and ran amuck in my life. In looking back, after being laid off from Warner Bros in 2010, the writing on the wall began to bear truth, that I may not be cut out for Cali life.

Fresh on the heels of an ADHD diagnosis, I was devastated and convinced that ADHD was the cause of my downfall. Little did I know I was preparing for a journey of the mind that would take me to dark, perilous places that some venture into never to return from. Like my team mates from high school who took their lives, we’ll never know the battles they fought so I must fight for those still here.

I was jobless, lonely, celibate not by choice, and void of opportunities. My possessions were a Chevy Impala, a road bike, and a nice brown pin-striped Ralph Lauren suit. Armed with a Masters Degree from Emerson College, I hit the interview circuit hard and found few opportunities until I landed at Fremantle Media North America where I interviewed to be Dan Goldberg’s assistant.

One of the things I loved and still love about interviewing is the types of questions you get asked as well as the efficiency in which you answer the questions. I was born to interview, put me on the spot and I’d shine, almost all of the time. There I was, firing back at every question he threw my way, my heart was pumping, my confidence was soaring, I was on cloud 9 until he calmly stopped me mid sentence only to inform me that he would not be hiring me as an assistant. I thought to myself ADHD! You damned devil! I was on fire inside and was willing to beg for work. After all, I needed a steady income to stay afloat. Dan told me I was far too energetic, creative, and talented to waste away answering phones and getting him coffee. Instead of a job, he offered mentorship, and that’s when I landed my first mentor Dan Goldberg. He was as cool as they came and took no crap from no one.

He smoked American Spirit cigarettes and would take every chance he could to school me on the ways of the industry. One day while checking in, I mentioned to him the litany of odd jobs I had prior to coming to LA, one being a railroad track laborer. He thought it was an interesting idea and at the time docuseries were the thing to sell in Hollywood.

So he introduced me to some development heads, I pitched them and about a month later signed an “If-come” deal essentially. An “If-Come” deal is the type of deal that says you get paid “if” the sale of the series/concept “comes.” I thought I hit my stride, I was through the roof with excitement. The day they called to offer me a deal I threw on my running shoes and walked from Studio City to the outskirts of Sherman Oaks and back, beaming. I didn’t sleep, I spent money I didn’t have in the name of celebration and to make things even sweeter, I landed a couple other deals as well. In the midst of all of that celebration I began planning where I would live, a nice condo in Studio City, I’d picked out my car years earlier, a Navy Blue Bentley with vanity plates. I’d also have a significant other that was my biggest cheerleader. My mind was giving into the irrational magnetic pull of the highs and lows of the emotional spectrum. In retrospect, I had begun to display symptoms of Bipolar Disorder. What I thought were creative surges were manic episodes, and my periods of depression were to me, nothing more than the trauma that I experienced.

I was wrong. Dead wrong. The deals all failed, the jobs dried up, and one day while urinating after waking up I told myself it was time to go. Something was wrong with me and I was scared and profoundly anxious about facing my family and friends back home. After all, my social media was plastered with photos of myself with random celebrities and picturesque landscapes along the Pacific Coast Highway and Mullholland Drive.

I returned to Philly afraid of everything and everyone and the sad reality was that I had to fake it like I made it. I eventually landed a job at 6 ABC where things would once again come to a crashing halt. After a colossal mistake at work, I decided to disclose my disability in thinking I’d be shown sympathy. Instead, I was sent home for a week and instructed to provide documentation supporting my claim in order to be reinstated at work. And that’s when it happened, that’s when I was diagnosed officially with Bipolar II. In addition to that, I had PTSD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, ADHD, and severe insomnia. I was getting by on fumes.

And then something happened that would cement my love for who I am and the challenges I faced. I was sitting in a meeting when I got an email from a producer who happened to read a drama script that I wrote. It was the first drama I had ever written and he wanted to develop it with me. So we did, for almost a year we focused on that script until it led us to the hallowed halls of HBO and Showtime Networks. Despite the fact that they passed on the script, I realized I had tapped into something far greater than anything I could imagine and I had Hollywood to thank for it.

I found my voice, my identity, and my strength. I was a skilled writer of drama. That dramatic script I wrote, went on to win Grand Prize in Creative Screenwriting Magazine screenwriting competition and later led to a shopping deal. Since leaving L.A I found more success as a writer than all the years I spent trying to get established. I’ve placed high in multiple contests, earned a writing fellowship, and got back into writing drama. And while you still won’t recognize my name, I’ve done an uncredited punch up of a Romcom that ran on Netflix. I’ve written scripts for members of Kevin Hart’s Plastic Cup Boyz, but perhaps the most rewarding takeaway from all of this is the film I am about to direct. f31.9 which is the diagnostic code for Bipolar Disorder Unspecified.

After a sobering and tough phone call with a literary manager, I made the decision to pay Hollywood back by writing and directing a movie that is inspired by the decline of my mental health and how shifting the focus to self care has given me fresh wind beneath my wings.

I shifted my focus from Hollywood to self-care after meeting and marrying my wife. By giving my life real structure, I found that I wrote better and despite the impact of COVID, I began to network better as well. Additionally, the birth of my son sealed the deal that I must be a model of emotional intelligence and I must also show him how to manage and manifest his dreams. Family took priority over everything in my life and nowadays, my writing regimen begins at 4am and ends at 8am when it’s time to go to the job that pays handsomely. In 2024 I became one of the Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch according to the ISA (International Screenwriter’s Association.) I’m certain after I get this film under my belt I can find a nice institution of higher learning where I can teach the craft of screenwriting with a bit of a twist. I’d teach the young and impressionables how to survive screenwriting, not just how to write.

I never imagined I’d be the cautionary tale of Hollywood. The what not to do to make it. After all, I had a dream and I went after it. What I realized is a dream enacted is a contract with the universe that will live or die on your effort and willingness to stretch and be accountable. I’ve worked with some talented people, had mentors who still support me to this day and I continue to heed the call every time an agent or manager discovers something I wrote.

However, after Hollywood’s recent strike, the tides have shifted and the time to pivot has come, hence why I am taking on a project to direct but not just any project. A project designed to show what mental health care means to a community that often ignores it. I’ve created a project that I hope to use as a tool to inspire Black men to not only pursue their dreams but to honor their minds by taking care of their mental and physical health. I may not walk the stage with an Academy Award in my hand, I may never own that Bentley with the license plate that reads NVRGVUP. But come May 2025, myself and the team at Unofficial Entertainment will be embarking on a journey to destigmatize mental health In the African-American community by tackling one of the most misunderstood mental illnesses, Bipolar Disorder. f31.9 will serve as my twisted love song to Hollywood. She broke my heart but she made me the man I am and for that, I can truly say, “Mama, I Made it.”