After nearly fifteen years of writing about the news and fifteen years of listening to peoples personal stories, from their cries of despair to their sounds of joy, I am able to make sense of the world.

Journalism is a tough and often thankless job. It has been made even tougher through the pain and anguish of my mental illness and the social stigma attached to it.

Has anyone told you that you should prepare for the unexpected?
My life definitely has not turned out the way I planned it, not because I have failed to prepare, but for all the monkey wrenches thrown in my lifes path.
I am Greg Hitchcock. I am a writer, journalist, and filmmaker. But I consider myself first and foremost a storyteller.

I suppose I became interested in stories when I was a young child camping under the stars listening to other storytellers tell of the man with the golden arm and other spooky campfire tales.

Or it could have been when I was listening to my grandmother telling stories of our family such as the time when my great-great grandfather owned a shipping company in Norway, lost all his money through bad business dealings, and came to the United States as one of the countless numbers of immigrants starting life over again.

Anyway, my own particular story began when I was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 20 while serving in the U.S. Army. I will be turning 46 in December and while I still have schizophrenia, I have come to a much better understanding of my mental illness than I did many years ago.

This is a story of the challenges of someone with a disability and of someone who, after many years of self-doubt and self-denial brought on by stigma, overlooked his disability to turn his attention to his abilities.