Mississippi Author Andre Johnson Uses Personal Battle with Mental Illness to Encourage Others

Though some stray away from sharing their personal struggles, Mississippi's own Andre Johnson is opening up the door of conversation on mental illness and what it is important to understand how it affects all of us. 

In his book MAN WITH THREE FACES (Yearning For Control) Johnson,45, chronicles not just his own battle with mental illness and getting proper treatment, but how recognizing his spiritual needs helps to strengthen him for the journey ahead. 

Johnson was properly diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder in April 1995. "It helped me put a name to all the emotions," he says. "Getting the proper medication and care helped me to deal with the ups and downs that came with the illness." 

The book shares Johnson's experience as an impoverished mixed raced man, growing up in a single, Black household that finds himself thrust into fatherhood. In working to support his family, he finds himself caught up in the crossfire of cultures typically present in the Deep South. As the pressures of his world increase, mentally, he moves to a darker side of abuse and derangement, exhibiting aspects that in another age would have been considered as 'possession'. At a crisis point his wife had him institutionalize where he is successfully treated. His life goes on with him coming to peace with himself, his family, his GOD and his various heritages. 

MAN WITH THREE FACES is available at Createspace by going to http://www.createspace.com/4720045 or Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Man-Three-Faces-Yearning-Control-ebook/dp/B00JCSU11Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1396868351&sr=1-3. 

Johnson can be reached at imforjah@bellsouth.net. His website is http://www.manwiththreefaces.com/.