Book

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 Russell 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 the 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 him—not weeks in a psychiatric hospital, nights in jail, or waking up covered in blood and bruises. 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 wouldn’t let him sink to the bottom.

With help from her and the people who cared for him—and his own relentless determination—he set out to conquer the despair that almost broke him. Someone new emerged from the wreckage of his former life. He’s now a husband, father, and successful entrepreneur. And he is here to remind anyone afflicted that what lives in the darkness dies in the light of truth.

This harrowing memoir descends deep into the abscesses of spiritual emptiness—sometimes moment by moment in a visceral stream of consciousness—of a mind battling mental illness and addiction. I Am Someone You Know shows us that, even in the face of despair, we can always find hope, courage, and love.