It is more important than ever to focus on sanity and balance. At the start of the New Year, the Dallas Arts Community lost one of its brightest son’s, Frankie Campagna Jr., to suicide at the age of 24. As a person who has dealt with and advocated for mental health issues for years (and a person who is 24) this particularly hit home with me. One of the many reasons why the nonprofit 29 Pieces is so wonderful is that it encourages balance, joy, and mental health in a creative and open way. If you are interested in these issues or would like to learn more, please make plans to attend our kick-off event January 29th, called “Who Are You? A Masquerade Ball Benefiting Karen Blessen’s 29 Pieces.”
I had the pleasure to chat with Miguel Bencourte, menswear designer, style consultant, and overall purveyor of cool on how a young mover and shaker stays sane in a sometimes crazy fashion world.
29 Pieces: So tell our readers a little bit about what makes you interesting?
Miguel Bencourte: I am a style consultant and owner of The Gentleman's Closet, an online retail store. I just recently launched my own necktie collection called the Bencourte Coleccion. I also have two more collections, one with a lower price point, One Gentleman, and another that has a nicer finish, the seven fold tie entitled, Miguel Bencourte Coleccion. I am completing my first book, Jellybeans. My business partner and I just launched Retail Therapy - Remedy For The Fashionably Insane - an event that showcases local artistic talent in music, art, and fashion. We provide the base that can get them noticed to a wider audience.
29: Are you originally from Dallas?
MB: Originally no. I am from a small town in west Texas, Smyer,Tx. POP. 455 I have been in Dallas for ten years now and I love it.
29: When did you know your path was going to be fashion?
MB: I always had a passion for it growing up, but I wanted to be in sports medicine. Being from a less fortunate family we had to learn to be creative. I was consulting with the Men’s Warehouse back in ‘02 and I helped wardrobe a gentleman for a CEO position. In helping him understand how to dress, the excitement of his new knowledge, I knew he would share with others and he gained a new confidence. A couple of weeks later he came in to thank me for helping him get the new CEO position. I couldn't shake the feeling I had at that moment. To better and empower others in every way!
29: What made you decide to start a business?
MB: My mother instilled that rule in us as children, "You must have your own businesses!" I wanted to take that same feeling I discussed earlier and make it my passion. I wanted to do it on my own terms, my way, with the integrity to help others accomplish their goals and dreams. That is what I want my neckties to symbolize, dreams and success.
29: What are the three moments that have helped shape your life?
MB: 9/11. When Obama was elected President. And the moment I lost my mother due to cancer. Sounds bad, but it was a life lesson I will never forget. It made me a man.
29: Was losing your mother to cancer the most painful moment in your life?
MB: The moment she passed away she was in my arms. That wasn't as painful as watching her slowly lose her power each day after being diagnosed. The moment she passed it seemed as if the torch was passed. I had two younger brothers to care for and now I had to make mature adult decisions at 20.
29: How did you get through it?
MB: I prayed. Sounds typical. But that’s what I did. I learned to truly pray for my mom, which gave me power and knowledge in me that I can do all things. I had to learn to release truly the stress, anger, confusion, and hurt and channel it somewhere. I grew spiritually. I kept myself busy and I accepted the challenges of life and obstacles that tried to break my vision. To get around these, I needed help. I learned to be creative. I make sure that each creative thought or idea is better than the last. It keeps me evolving.
29: How do you deal with negativity?
MB: I channel it. I keep myself open to it, but stay guarded as well. I listen what is being done or said, but if it doesn't help or better me, then it’s gone. I have no room for negativity.
29: Why is making time for ourselves important?
MB: It is important because you have to have a balance. No one knows you better than you! I make sure that I have that me time. I can go to dinner or a movie by myself and be good with it.
29: In your industry, you are around a lot of beautiful people, a lot of money, a lot of parties - is there ever a temptation to get caught up in "the life"?
MB: At first there was. I was younger. It’s exciting and energetic, and the American Dream that is instilled in us as children is all lights, camera, action. Temptations are always around, but it’s how you control it. I control me and my surroundings. In being in it doesn't mean I own it. I choose to own it.
29: So how do you stay sane?
MB: I make time for myself whether it be with family, friends, and keep an inner circle of people that will help and encourage me when I need it. I pray. I make sure that I give back to others that need it. The feeling of helping someone else refuels me and all the sleepless nights and extra hours of work are all worth it.
29: Who do you want to be when you leave your body?
MB: A miracle
29: What do you mean by that?
MB: If I could be anything, it would be cool to help someone in a way that it could only be a blessing from God, or gift from God.
29: What is the most painful thing that you have had to deal with in your life?
DS: I learned that it is ok to make mistakes and be human and I learned to accept myself for all that I am. DS: We need to be good at both giving and receiving. If one is imbalanced either way then one burns out. Taking time for oneself is about respecting and nurturing ourselves. It relates to our capacity to receive. When we take time for ourselves we regenerate our minds and refresh our bodies so that we can give again. DS: The human spirit has tremendous potential to bring joy into the world. Joy is friends, family, art, sharing and caring and all of that stuff Hallmark makes millions on. My joy comes a lot from my desire and passion. When I am learning something new I am passionate. 
Sometimes the cry for attention is an eighteen wheeler
jack knifing during rush hour.
Sometimes the steel cylinder bursts open leaking chemicals
that etch cries for help into the pavement.
Sometimes the pavement is a red leaf
blending into the earth as silent as a razor cuts skin.
Sometimes the razor has feelings and auburn hair,
and wonders why ripping flesh could be as simple
as breaking a pencil in half.
Sometimes the halves of pencils pretend to be broken birds.
Tumbling down three flights of stairs
praying to transform into body and bread.
Sometimes bread cries 6 times a day
and birds fly 85 miles per hour with tears in their eyes
thinking that a lightening storm would be safer than nesting
Sometimes lightening storms hiss dirges that echo
on the chilled tips of fading visitors
and keen them back to life.
Sometimes life rushes back crying
and screaming into the earth.
Sometimes the earth is warm with blood.
Sometimes it is nothing at all.
Two years ago I wrote this to a friend:
"Sometimes you get to the point where you are just starving for hope, for something to hold onto. You realize that you are losing things at a startling speed. Your sanity slips away. Your GPA follows. Your Bestfriend goes away. Your girlfriend leaves you. You lose what you were fighting for. Suddenly you don't know who you are anymore. You barely remember your past. If you remember you don't believe it. You are sad and depressed and hurt constantly. You have felt this way for so long it is normal. Your eyes betray a dark sadness, you are afraid to talk to someone because you don't want them to deal with the abyss of your soul. It has been 3 years and you still find it hard to cry. You will believe anything, do anything, to make this stop. All you want is to find something true and beautiful. You know that if you don't soon enough, one day you will look around, and you won't be able to find a reason why, and on that day the earth will swallow you up."
I wrote this in the midst of a depressive episode. Dealing with bipolar was still new for me.
The key word is dealing because I suspected that I had the disorder as early as my Junior year in high school. A friend of mine was (mistakenly) diagnosed as bipolar and when I read the description of the illness I felt like someone was describing me.
However, I ignored this discovery. I counted it off as merely hormones and too much of an imagination. I dismissed my cycles as "teenage growing pains". Unfortunately, this only served in delaying me getting professional help and isolating myself from potential support networks of family and friends.
I remember sincerely doubting that I would make it past my teenage years - between occasionally being suicidal and routinely taking risks that put my life in danger - I was setting myself up for an early death.
This became my first lesson in living with bipolar disorder: Pretending it doesn't exist only makes it worse.
When I started college I kept in the back of my mind that something was probably wrong with me. Yet, I was very afraid of actually finding out. I didn't want it to be real. I just wanted it to be in my head. I was known, I was popular, I didn't want to deal with any stigma.
I also felt like things were going pretty "normal" for me, I hadn't really wanted to kill myself in a while and I tended to downplay manic episodes as just "youthful adventures."
What I didn't know then was that I had been living with bipolar for three years without any sort of help or support and that I didn't even have a clue what normal was.
Finally at the start of my Sophomore year I went to the Counseling Center. Ironically, I went only to get some advice about time management. By the time I was finished telling my stories of the past three years, the psychologist had to excuse herself from the room. There were tears in her eyes.
My world shattered: my idea of normal was enough to make a psychologist cry.
After that first visit I started coming back every week. I was resistant to the idea at first - I thought it was a waste of time. However, soon after I began seeing her I had a major manic-episode.
For those who don't know all episodes aren't the same. Some episodes last longer than others, some are more intense, etc and no one knows why. While minor episodes are definitely painful, inconvenient, and traumatic - A major episode can kill you.
Needless to say it was a very difficult time in my life. I was seriously considering withdrawing from college. However, as bad as it was - I can't imagine what would have happened if I was not in regular counseling at the time. In all honesty I would probably be dead or in jail.
Thus my second lesson in living with Bipolar: Getting help can save your life.
A few months later I was going through a depressive episode. It was at that time I wrote the previously quoted passage to a friend.
What I was trying to share with them was the third lesson I have learned in living with Bipolar: You have to always have a reason for the question "Why live?" - so even when you are on the edge, even when you are suicidal, you have something or someone that will keep you clinging to life.
I pulled through that episode, just as I pulled through the ones that came before it, and the ones that have come after it.
From what I can tell many people consider my life up to this point to be "successful". I have been able to lead organizations, win awards, graduate from college, get job offers, make money, etc. However, as I have wrote about previously, I consider success to be the distance from where you started to where you are now. Even without everything else, for me, simply being alive and able to write this is "success".
Unfortunately there is no known cure for Bipolar disorder - there is no "getting better".
However, perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned from living with Bi-polar is this: No matter what obstacles come my way, I have the capacity to live my own life, to love, to be loved, and to embrace the present, one day at a time.
Thank you to all my friends, family, and loved ones. You ground me, you give me strength, you are my reason why.
For more information about Bipolar Disorder click here
Update 7/17/08 - great New York Times article out today on Living with Bipolar Disorder
