Mosaic Magazine: Matt Bodett Profile

From an early age, Loyola professor Matt Bodett knew he would be an artist, even skipping high school classes just to draw all day.

Art was his escape then. It later would become his salvation when a mental disorder led to a breakdown that turned his world inside out and had him questioning his very existence.

As a side effect of a five-year medication trial, Bodett said he “would gnaw on my own tongue and it was just miserable. Or [I would] be a vegetable, just checked out, and there was a lot of joylessness.”

Eventually, thanks to persistence and a strong support system, he was able to climb out of the abyss. But for every Matt Bodett in the world, there are thousands of others who never detach themselves from the grip of a mental disorder, as a result of either a lack of access to resources or because they never find the light that will lead them out of the darkness.