The Rotten Life of Joseph M. Tages II

Thank you for being the only woman I have ever loved who bothered to acknowledge my existence. Although we hardly exchanged a full conversation in all the years our families knew each other, I was destined to meet and love your father from a very early age, so you and I would have crossed paths sooner or later. I don't regret the early aughts or the changes I made in my life during that time, done exclusively as a result of my feelings for you. For the first time in decades, I felt like there was a purpose for my being here. It has all been downhill since 2011 up to now. But for a few brief years during my early thirties, you made each day both wonderful and melancholic in nature. I'll always be grateful to you for that, as I was to your father for being in my life over 20 years. Happy Birthday, Mandy.

It's been a few years since Chicago Lakeshore Hospital closed down. I want people to know what went down in there and why it was called a "Hospital of Horrors" for countless generations of children and teenagers who were abused and neglected by everyone from the staff, to medical practitioners, to their own families. My experience was no different, but the kindness and compassion of a select few, including a gentle and soft-spoken NFL linebacker, helped strengthen my resolve to find a way out of there. Darkness Falls                           A chronicle from 10 September to 31 October 1987 Welcome to Hell. Turn BACK and RUN while you still can. Abandon HOPE all ye enter here... although I didn't. There is nothing pretty to see here. It is a journey into the heart of darkness, not unlike Conrad's novel or Coppola's film. You might even call it my version of Dante's Inferno. The move from the city to the suburbs was chaotic...

My Autobiography, In a Blog Post  (Long Read) It's late in the night. And 35 years ago today, I was locked up in a psychiatric hospital ward for kids and teenagers because my father despised me and a twisted psychopath named Rafael Carreira wanted me dead at the tender age of fifteen. I survived at fifteen, but not so much at fifty. I may pack it in tonight or sometime soon.  Who was I? I was born Joseph Manuel Tages II on April 10th, 1972 in Manhattan, New York, the largest metropolitan area in the world. My parents are Gladys Ramona Edmidania Castro Roque (born October 31st, 1929 in Álava, Cuba) and José Manuel Emeterio Gregorio Tages García (born March 3rd, 1946 in Jacán, Cuba). Yes, Spaniards had a tendency to go overboard when naming their kids. My mother was 42. My father was 26. It was her second of two marriages and his first of two. I was raised in Cadiz, Spain, with biannual stays in Anaheim, California during the summer months. The very first place I ever lived in w...