Tom Roberts is a mental health speaker and writer living in Huntington Beach, CA. He is 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.  He and his wife, Noha, have four children and seven grandchildren.