About the Author

Jason "Jay" Lutgen was born in 1983 in a small city in rural WNY. He is the oldest of six children. Growing up, his parents attended a number of EXTREMELY fundamentalist Baptist churches, and this was a source of conflict at times as he grew up.

After graduating high school, Jason moved out and lived the wook life for a while, and did the whole "be gay and do crimes" thing. After a few years of that nonsense, Jason reunited with his high school sweet heart, Nadia. After dating for a while, Jay and Nadia got married in 2004.

Over the decades, Jay and Nadia had four children - three girls and a boy. They are all little monsters and Jay loves them all with his entire being.

Jay has worked in disability services for most of his life. He currently works at an Early intervention/special education preschool as a teacher's aide.

Jay is diagnosed with a type of bipolar disorder (manic depression), OCD, ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, and severe recurrent psychotic depression. He takes a fistful of meds twice a day to manage a combination of the mental health issues and address the side effects of those meds (most serious psychiatric meds have pretty serious side effects - like elevated blood sugar, metabolic disorders, weight gain, extreme sedation, etc.). He is currently fairly stable and doing well.

Jay likes to write, read books, listen to podcasts, walk in the woods, hang out with family and friends, and all the other normal chubby bearded dad stuff. 

Jay and Nadia live in the same city that Jay was born in and where they attended high school together. They enjoy traveling, but it's always nice to come back to the familiar sights of home. 

Jay is open about his mental health struggles in his daily life, because he believes that mental illness shouldn't come with the stigma it currently has in our culture. Mental health is health.