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Tom Roberts        

Mental Health Advocate & Author of "Escape from Myself: A Manic Depressive's Journey to Nowhere"

Tom Roberts is a mental health speaker and writer, and the author of Escape from Myself: A Manic-Depressive’s Journey to Nowhere.

Tom tells his audiences about his experience living with a devastating mental illness. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1993—too late to save his marriage and college faculty position. Tom speaks out, too, against mental illness stigma because fear of stigma keeps many people in desperate need of treatment from getting professional help. Two of them were his brother and sister, both of whom committed suicide.

Tom earned his Master’s degree in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Kansas. He worked for several years as a broadcast journalist for local stations and freelanced for National Public Radio’s popular news program “All Things Considered,” the Voice of America and ABC Radio News.

He was Assistant Professor of Broadcasting at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas and later taught Technical Communication for the University of California – Berkeley School of Engineering Extension.

Tom has been a professional actor on stage, screen and television and currently does voice-over work in the Los Angeles area.

Tom was diagnosed in 2015 with Multiple Sclerosis, which left him partially blind.

Speech Topics


"17 Minutes"

There is a suicide in the U.S. every 17 minutes. Many of the deaths could have been prevented if the victims were not too afraid of stigma to get mental health care. Such was the case of my brother and sister who their lives.

The Speech I Wish I Had Heard When I Was an Undergraduate

I knew nothing about mental illness when I was a college student, but I suffered from major depressions I was told I could get relief I prayed more. Had I heard this speech, it would have saved me years of shame, pain and loss. I wasn't diagnosed with bipolar disorder until I was 43--too late to save my marriage and my college teaching career.

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