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FROM THE BRINK

Beloved teacher, coach battles back from mental illness with book, movie

By Mary Buckley - Staff Writer

NORTH SHORE - Most likely to succeed, Brown Deer High School, Class of 1987, Matthew Nichols finds a certain irony when he looks back at his high school yearbook and finds that title attached to him. In that year, Nichols set off for college at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh determined to become a professional baseball player. Success would be playing in the pros. Years later, Nichols, 37, is an elementary school teacher, father and soon-to-be movie actor and co-producer of a semiautobiographical film called "Bipolar". He has struggled mightily to get where he is today, subduing the terrors of mental illness so he can do the ordinary - and the extraordinary. It's not that the illness is gone.

EVERYDAY STRUGGLES - "I would be lying to you if I said I don't struggle with it everyday," he said. But with medication and counseling, he has learned to cope. He wrote a book - "15 Minutes At A Time" - based on the ups and downs of his bipolar disorder, diagnosed in his freshman year of college. The book, however, is not enough. Nichols has started to speak to groups about living with mental illness and has written a script based on his experiences. He is working with Whitefish Bay's Dan Kattman and Drew Maxwell of Lightning Rod Studios to bring the script, called "Bipolar", to the screen. The script focuses on the early stages of a marriage, the realization of the main character's bipolar disorder and its effect on his relationships. "It leads into the epiphany of how to manage it and heal those relationships," Nichols said. "I want people to understand and see what people with bipolar disorder go through."

PUSHED TO THE EDGE - The youngest of five boys, he left for Oshkosh to pursue his dream of playing college baseball and becoming a professional baseball player. "I wasn't prepared for the changes at college," he said. "I didn't know how to handle it." He sat one night in the shower with a razor next to his writst, but found the strength to beat back his demons, pack his bags and go home to talk to his parents and find some help. Bipolar Disorder, also known as manic-depression, is believed to be both genetic and environmental. There is no cure, but with medication and counseling, patients can live normal lives. "I want people to know you can be a good father, a good parent, a good teacher (with mental illness)," Nichols said.

HIGH HIGHS, LOW LOWS - Bipolar disorder is all about emotional ups and downs, highs that are way too high and lows that scrape the bottom. "Unmanaged, mania leads to all kinds of bad things," Nichols said. "You think you can take on the world. It can lead to free spending or being up hours on end." The down is completely down. "You just shut down," he said. Nichols went back to college, but not to Oshkosh, instead to UW-Whitewater. "I needed a change of atmosphere," he said. "At Whitewater, I volunteered at a Children's Center and learned I wanted to teach."

TAUGHT IN BROWN DEER - Graduating in 1994, he landed a job teaching and coaching in Brown Deer, where he stayed for six years. Along the way he got married and had a son, Seth, who is now 7. Although the marriage has ended, partially from stress caused by his illness, Nichols and his ex-wife remain friends, sharing custody of their son. "He is the reason I am here," Nichols said. "He was my saving grace." Nichols left teaching in 2000 to pursue a family business called GlowRange, based in New Mexico and Arizona. He returned home after nine months when his parents became ill. "I realized after I got back I needed to be in teaching," he said. "Teaching is one place I can go and forget about myself." He started to substitute teach, returning to full-time teaching at Hadfield Elementary School in Waukesha in 2005.

WRITING ABOUT HIS LIFE - While working his way back into full-time teaching, Nichols decided to share some of his insights about mental illness. "People have such a stigma about this, especially when I started teaching," he said. "It's not well received." Being bipolar is like living in a transparent box where you can be seen, but it's a place you cannot leave, he said. Nichols learned to live 15 minutes at a time. "That was the length of time I could manage," he said. "I would sometimes need to stop, step back and figure out how to get out of mania or depression." He also wrote the screenplay for "Bipolar", took acting lessons and started fundraising for the film. He plans to play himself in the film. "I know the role very well," he said wryly.

PRODUCERS FROM BAY - He researched independent filmmaking, finding Kattman and Maxwell in the process. Kattman, an entertainment attorney with Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren SC, formed Lightning Rod Studios with Maxwell about three years ago, but they have worked together for a number of years. They enjoy science fiction movies because they like creating special effects, but they do other types of films as well. "We specialize in getting projects off the ground," Kattman said. They have been successful, he said, because they are business-oriented and have a distribution plan in place before production begins. "Matt's is a great project," he said. "We're really excited about it and hope to get it off the ground within the next year." Kattman said they hope to convince some drug manufacturers to invest in the film. "It's a positive film," he said. "There are not too many out there where pharmaceutical companies are represented in a positive way." Nichols hopes the movie will educate people about bipolar disorder, making them understand that it is a lifelong struggle, but it can be managed. "It took six medications and 17 counselors until we found the combinations that fit," he said. "People sometimes give up too quick." Fortunately he did not. Now he realizes that success comes in many packages, one of them being good parent, teacher and advocate for those with mental illness.