Tom Matte

Before I lost my mind, I was a successful marketing executive, business owner, husband and father in Atlanta, Georgia. I had it all, and I lost it all; I monumentally screwed up my whole life due to cocaine addiction. My addiction led to mental illness that eventually landed me in a psychiatric hospital and ultimately left me homeless. For two years I was “lost,” literally and figuratively. I believed insane things. Really believed them. For a while, I even thought I was Jesus. I’m not. Which is probably best for everybody.

I broke my brain with drugs. Most people who have lost their mind never find their way back to tell the story; I was lucky. Not only did I find my way back (with a lot of help); I found something more; more “mind” than I know what to do with. I no longer believe insane things, but the way my brain works has fundamentally changed, and for the better.

My first book, Jesus Goes to Hollywood: A Memoir of Madness provides cathartic detail of my journey through addiction, insanity and, redemption. It also covers my first encounter with the phenomena.

My illness, or perhaps the alien encounter that I’ve always downplayed, changed my vision, and opened new pathways in my mind; I now easily see connections and reimagine information and data in ways that would not have made sense to me before. I have insights into mathematics and physics that I previously had little interest in.

I now tell my story through speaking engagements, interviews, and the written word. I think different-because I see different.