It was my desire to reduce the fear and sense of isolation associated with diagnosis, increase awareness and reduce stigma sur

Background
I am a 30 year old male. I am professionally employed and degree qualified. I have also been suffering from anorexia for the past 3 years. During this time it has taken a devastating toll on my physical and emotional health, and my professional and personal life. This is my story.

I had always had a problem with my self-image. Having been overweight (although far from obese) for most of my life, I always dreamed about being fit, toned, muscular, and attractive. In my late teens I made a conscious effort to lose weight, and simultaneously hit the gym, ate healthily and in moderation.

I was proud of my efforts to reach a healthy weight, but was increasingly concerned about putting weight back on. Some unorthodox eating habits crept into my lifestyle and eventually I started to make myself vomit after some meals if I felt that I had overdone it. This behaviour didn’t last long, fortunately, and any unhealthy eating habits that I had temporarily taken up were gone and forgotten for many years.
The lead up
By the age of 27, I was making a lot of progress in my career, had bought my own apartment, had a wide circle of friends, and was in a steady relationship. However, I was still not happy in my body. Like many males my age, I didn’t have a great deal of time or interest in preparing healthy food, and added to this I regularly enjoyed good food and plenty of drinks on the weekend. My weight had crept up gradually over the years. Standing at 1.78 metres, I was certainly above my most comfortable weight.
Around this time, several things happened which negatively impacted my life. My grandpa, with whom I was very close, died a slow, horrible death. My mum attempted suicide a few times, which affected me greatly. My relationship fell apart, as my girlfriend explicitly told me that she was no longer attracted to me due to my weight. My house got robbed. A drunk driver crashed into my parked car and wrote it off. I could have dealt with these incidents in isolation, however all these things happened over the space of a few months.
Falling into it
It seems strange to think about it now, but food actually became less of an issue for a while in the lead up to anorexia. I was far too busy dealing with the problems listed above, but found myself gradually eating less of the unhealthy foods, and less volume of food. Every couple of months I might weigh myself and found that I was losing a reasonable amount of weight. It was a bonus more than anything. When I had lost a number of kilograms I decided to take it a bit more seriously and started exercising.
I then bought some scales, and started weighing myself regularly. In hindsight, this was the beginning of the end.
From there, my life degenerated extremely rapidly. Food started dominating my thoughts and feelings. Losing weight became an obsession, a very dangerous one. I restricted my food intake, eating very little throughout the day. Within a few months, my life consisted of a severely restricted food intake, compulsive exercise after the few meals I actually had, and weighing myself many times per day.
Life had become a set routine. I never had to think about what my next activity was, it was all planned out for me. I knew what I was going to eat, when I was going to eat it, when I would exercise, and when I would weigh myself.
Nothing was left to chance. After several months my weight had dropped further. I was so focussed on my weight loss that I didn’t even realise how my life was falling apart. Being overweight was all that I had known, and having now lost a large number of kilograms, I would literally do anything to jealously protect the weight loss I had achieved.
The effects professionally
Eating now dominated every part of my life. Almost every waking moment bore some relationship to eating. I had to eat on my own, and couldn’t stand eating with people. Considering that I had breakfast and lunch at work, and that a lot of ‘working lunches’ were required as part of my job, this was highly stressful. Also, as I felt the need to compulsively exercise after mealtimes, I would never schedule meetings around the times that I ate. If someone else scheduled a meeting, I would be very restless.
Once or twice a day, I would leave the office and walk next door to the building which adjoined my workplace and run from the basement to the top. I would sometimes do this twice in one session.

Work trips away were par for the course, but I actively avoided them for several reasons. It was difficult to take my scales with me, I would have less control over what I was eating (as food was arranged at the conference/hotel), and my compulsive routine would be broken.

I was chronically fatigued due to my lack of energy, and whilst putting in as much as I could, it was severely hampering my efforts at work. Also, although it took around 18 months to take effect, my immune system finally gave up on me and I would get sick frequently and have to take days off work. My lack of energy meant that I was intolerant of other people’s issues and problems. It was a less than ideal situation.
The effects personally
My social life dissipated very quickly when anorexia took hold. My routine didn’t allow me to vary my food or drink consumption outside of my set plan, so I refused almost every social invitation that was extended to me. Even if I did attend a social outing or function, it would be to ‘make an appearance’ for an hour, and then to retreat back to my secure comfort zone which I knew so well. Friends, after making several attempts at getting in touch with me, understandably started to drift away. I would take the phone off the hook to avoid having to speak to people. I was unable to visit my dad on Father’s Day as it would have interrupted my routine. I was a slave to the routine.

My love life withered during this time. From a physiological perspective, I can look back now and understand why.

Meeting people, loving people, becoming aroused, and all other parts of relationships take energy and effort. When you starve your body, it retreats into survival mode. The very little energy that you actually introduce into your body is used just to keep your heart pumping and your major organs working, and there is none left for other parts of your life which you would usually require energy, such as your love life and social life. Basically, your body recognises how little energy

you are receiving and devotes all this energy into keeping you alive, meaning there is no energy or motivation for any other part of your life.

Then, anxiety hit me. I can honestly say that I had never known fear like this before. I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. One day, as usual, I had parked about 10 minutes away from work so that I could burn up some energy before driving home. Upon reaching my car, I was struggling for breath. I panicked, and started hyperventilating. I thought I was having a heart attack or stroke, and literally believed I was going to die. This was my first experience of a panic attack.
After that, although I learned to control them to some extent, the panic attacks have been a daily occurrence for the past two years. Fear is now a standard part of my day. You cannot imagine the impact that this has had on my quality of life.
Health
I almost died from anorexia. Some of the physical effects of anorexia include when your body has been starved for so long that your major organs such as your heart or liver basically give up on you as they become so weak. My heart became severely weakened by the years of starvation. I started seeing the doctor on a monthly basis as I was so scared by the consequences of what I was doing, but could not bring myself out of the habits, which perpetuated the health dangers.
Several times my blood pressure was dangerously low, which was indicative of how little energy I had and how weakened my body was.
I could hardly drag myself out of bed in the morning, yet exercised compulsively throughout each day. Life had become an absolute nightmare.
My mental health suffered immeasurably during this time. Apart from the constant fear and anxiety, I was lonely and depressed. On many occasions, I had to ask myself whether I was dead or alive due to the fact that I was numbed to any thoughts or feelings. I gained no joy out of life. Due to my health concerns, the prospect of losing more weight terrified me.
The prospect of putting on weight also terrified me. Maintaining my weight meant that nothing would change and that my life would continue in such an unhealthy state, being constantly ill, lonely, scared, depressed and anxious.
Recovery
As I felt powerless to do anything about my situation, such was my fear of putting on weight or interrupting my routine, I was unable to be proactive in making changes to my life. Instead, I would only make changes when I felt that I had no other option. Examples of this would be when my body would regularly ache and be in so much pain that all I could do was lie on my bed and cry. I would be so sick that I felt I had to change or I would die.
Health professionals have since told me that it was sheer luck that I didn’t succumb to the disease. Gradually, I learned to trust other people, particularly my doctor and my psychologist who were there to help me in my journey to recover. I could not trust my own thoughts and feelings, as instinctively my default reaction to any situation would be to avoid food, or to avoid the prospect of putting on weight.
Over time, my quality of life had deteriorated to the extent that I felt I had no choice but to recover. I increased my food intake, slowly at first, and then realised that putting on weight is actually hard to do. I have now put on a few kilograms and reached my first milestone in terms of weight gain, which is at the lower end of the healthy body mass index range.
My social life has improved considerably in conjunction with my weight gain. I have more energy than before, and more interest in going out and socialising. I am catching up with people I have literally not seen for years. My productivity at work is increasing. I am more flexible with my eating patterns. I am getting back into the dating scene. Life is improving, and I look better, feel better, and have hope for the future where previously there was none.
I still have a long way to go before I can consider myself recovered. Every day is still a huge struggle, filled with anxiety about my eating habits, putting on weight, and health concerns. In hindsight I wish I had been more proactive about making changes to my life. I only made changes when I felt that things were so bad that I had no choice but to amend the way I do things. If I had been brave enough to take more risks, I could have saved myself so much physical illness and mental anguish.
As I’ve mentioned, I would not wish this condition on my worst enemy. Anorexia is an extremely debilitating, distressing, and above all, life threatening illness. It will take away any quality of life that you have, and consume every waking moment of your life. If you recognise any of the symptoms that I have described, please arm yourself with a strong support network of health professionals, family and close friends. Without the assistance of these people, I am unsure if I would be writing this story today.

Courtney’s Story
As I was growing up I saw myself as different from every other kid. For some reason I just felt and thought I was different. The very first scary thought I had was at an early age of five, as my mum left me at preschool, I thought she would never come back and she was going to die in a car crash. I can remember that quite vividly because it was a horrible thought to have. I was frightened and scared and have had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ever since and probably even before that.
As I grew up, my mum always said I wasn’t an easy kid to deal with. From when I was very little I would not talk a lot to people and I was very shy, the person I trusted and was always with was my mother. I would have severe problems with getting dressed each morning, I would have to take my shoes and socks of up to 10 times before mum could finally put them on and they would stay on. I had to wear certain clothes otherwise I would not wear anything, and would have massive tantrums that no one could deal with. The weird thing I noticed once was when I was walking in a shopping centre and I would have to run back to each certain spot to tap the wall or item, just so I could feel safe inside, meanwhile getting into trouble because I wasn’t with the family. I was very scared my mum would leave me and die and then never come back.
I had a solution for this, I would stick by her where ever she was and then she would be fine. This started in about year 3, and I would go to school and then pretend I was sick to come home an hour later. This got so bad that I was pretending to twist my wrist and be very ill also pretending I had very bad eye sight. My school life was ruined from this point on, I would attend school in little bits sometimes not for weeks at a time.
When I was nine years old, we moved to another town. I was very excited and thought I would become a normal kid and have a new start. Once we got there it was worse than ever, all of a sudden everything went into a deep black hole. At the age of 10 years, I got these thoughts that were the most horrifying thoughts that I could ever have or even imagined. They were thoughts of myself hurting my family and hurting or killing my mother, there were feelings to go with these thoughts to like urges and guilt, it was like I felt I had to not speak so I wouldn’t do what the thoughts were. Another thought was that I was a lesbian and I really did love girls and was sexually attracted to girls and even girls in my family. This horrified me so I ended up not becoming friends with other girls at school because I was too afraid that I would become a lesbian for sure. I started to get so terrified and then the thoughts got worse, I started to think I was a murderer because I had these thoughts. I started to get ‘what if’ thoughts where you think the thought and think it could be true but then have doubt about the thoughts because you really know they aren’t real thoughts and it’s not reality. These thoughts were disabling. I would have a shower and think ‘what if’ the water is blood and not really water, I would scream to mum to check the water and then I would be okay for a bit. These thoughts would be going none stop every minute of the day and they truly traumatised me, it was like being in the worst horror movie you can think of. I would tell my mum and she would say they were just normal thoughts and there is nothing to worry about. She assumed they were just once off thoughts that everyone gets now and then and not in tense or horrible as they really were, seeing that I didn’t tell her in detail about the really bad ones.
I lost a lot of friends through this time and had made family members resent me for how I was, I got very frustrated and angry with myself and thought I was making all of this happen deliberately to just get attention. I started to feel severe amounts of guilt, which made me unable to move and not walk. The guilt made me think I had to tell everything to my mum of what happened in a day for me, like how many pens I used of hers to write with or if I spoke to someone or if I took my shoes off at school. Each time I would tell her I assumed I was going to be severely punished because I thought I had committed sins and disappointed my mum. So I started to write letters to her instead of just telling her because the guilt made me stop talking. I started to pray repeatedly each night to protect my family otherwise if they died or got hurt I would assume it was my fault because I was a murderer and an evil person.
Around the family there was a lot of talk about religion and demons. One time I was told that demons were after me by a friend of the family. I was terrified, I didn’t know what to do. Then another time I was told if you are awake at midnight you are in the satins minute and he could get you if you are not careful. And things such as ghosts and spirits could take over your body without you knowing, I began to wonder if all this was true. All of this I was told at the ripe age of 11, I didn’t know what to believe because actual adults were telling me this stuff. Like demons can disguise themselves as humans. I started to question myself with ‘what ifs’ what if someone I knew was really a demon and not human. I felt really alone and I didn’t know what to believe.
I began to wash myself as a relief of frustration from all these ‘what ifs’ in my mind. I would spend a lot of time cleaning myself and cleaning my room, I would have to wear socks everywhere because the germs could get me and make me bad. I would wear socks even in the swimming pool to swim and on wet days in the mud at friend’s places I still would have my socks on. I couldn’t touch animals or people I thought had germs on them. If I even got one dirty thing on me I would have to go have a shower and get clean clothes on. I didn’t like going outside anymore because there was too much dirt and the animals were out there. I then became consumed with the thought that I had to go to the toilet for bowel movements until everything was absolutely out and it was all cleaned out. This gave me medical problems with that area and it was very painful which at times I couldn’t cope with just how painful it all was. Then I went to extremes to make germs come off of my skin and I had 12% peroxide and put it on my skin till it burnt it off, at the time I was doing this I didn’t realise what damage I was doing to myself but once it happens you start to realise.
At times I thought the horrible mind games had gone but surely enough a day later they would all be back, a new one came along where I thought I was going to kill my cat or drown it in the pool and also that I was sexually attracted to animals. Every time I would close my eyes I would have images of myself killing the cat in a very horrific way. I couldn’t stand this anymore the thoughts and what ifs had gone on for too long. I started to punch myself in the head and make myself be in a lot of pain in a way of punishing myself. This worked for about 30 seconds and then I would have to hurt myself again.
I started to get suicidal at a very young age and wished every night that God would take me away, in other words kill me. Though really deep down I just wanted to be happy and normal and not die. I began to get amazingly distraught images in my head of very evil things, things you can’t imagine unless you were told. These images were there all the time when I was talking to family members or friends, I would get distracted by the images in my mind which made me not be able to watch any violent television shows otherwise I would use bad images of shows for the images in my head. No matter how hard I tried to get rid of these you could not. I didn’t sleep through the night because I thought if someone came into the house and hurt my family I would be responsible, so I would stay up all night and then go to sleep when it was 7 am till 4 pm every day. I began to really believe I was a very bad person.
All my life I would get obsessed with something or pretend I was a character out of a movie just to keep my mind off my real self, for about a month this would happen and then move onto the next thing, this helped me with trying not to focus on what was going on in my mind. At times my focus would be to get mum to buy me something from the shop, having tantrums till I would finally get it. Other times it would be a hobby, like acting or sport or ballet, or even a country kept my mind off things.
At age 13, someone told me these thoughts are like voices that aren’t real and everyone gets them, from this information I started to call these thoughts voices. It was easier to comprehend them because then it sounded like they weren’t really my thoughts they were just voices. At age 14, I told my teacher at school about the thoughts, and used the word voices. My mum found out and took me to a doctor, she asked me different questions and then referred me to a child and mental health youth centre. About 2-3 months later we were there in an interview.
The day of the appointment I had a plan I would pretend to do anything to make sure they (the doctors) knew how much pain I was in. I even thought I would make up stuff that wasn’t true because I was too embarrassed to tell the truth about these thoughts and what was happening to me. When I went in I said I had voices, they immediately assumed these voices were schizophrenia voices, I didn’t correct them and at that time I said to myself ‘what if they are?’ I was scared by the worried looks on everyone’s faces, I tried to tell them about how I have this voice about hurting people, and again they assumed that I had a real voice in my head telling me to kill people.
They started to ask me yes and no questions, things like do you see things that no one else can see? I didn’t understand what they meant so I just nodded because I was just agreeing with them all, and they kept asking very strange questions, my mum was sitting next to me and looking at me funny as if that’s not true. I just kept nodding to the questions, somehow I felt they were happy with me because I was nodding and I felt like I was needed in some way. Then they asked me a very frightening question, ‘Do I have a plan of how to kill my parents?” I started to get into a panic I couldn’t speak, and I was thinking to myself ‘I CANNOT ANSWER YES TO THIS ONE!’ So I said no I don’t, I thought this was a very inappropriate question to ask someone that was so scared of their parents dying. I felt ill after this question, thinking how could they even think I wanted to kill anyone I was scared even too hurt a fly.
They let mum and me have a break and then brought us back into the doctor’s room, they said I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, though it wasn’t a set diagnosis. I didn’t know what to do I couldn’t explain what really was going on, that there was no voices and that I couldn’t really see people, and all these crazy stories I made up were just from television shows. I had remembered a movie called the beautiful mind and used some of that story line to tell the doctors what was happening to me, and also used some stories from the TV series called charmed. Once I had started pretending and lying about what was really happening I couldn’t stop. People were so interested in what I had to say, I never had that before so I kept pretending.
With the questions it was because they asked me and I had to say yes, agreeing with people was one way I would get people to like me. They the doctors decided to give me medication to start on that was for schizophrenics. I didn’t realise it then that if you don’t have the illness you are getting treated for, the medication can do allot of damage to your body.
I took home a pamphlet and studied how people acted who had schizophrenia, and followed the basic symptoms. Over the next month or so, I got extremely anxious and zombie like. I kept pretending to be schizophrenic in every way I thought possible. It was easier for me to think I was schizophrenic then to know and accept I was the one actually having bad thoughts and crazy doubts and that I was a bad person. There was allot of guilt followed by pretending all of this but the tablet they put me on were extremely strong, and I had other worries at that time. Such as coping with the amount of anxiety I had.
I started to have this one particular thought that ‘what if’ life is really nothing that there is no use to life at all! This anxious thought was there every second of every minute. I couldn’t sleep I would cry none stop. I was so exhausted and tired that I couldn’t live properly. My mum had to take care of me physically and emotionally. One morning I had truly had enough of the anxiety, and I tried to kill myself to get rid of the horrible feeling inside me. I stood up on a chair and went straight flat onto the tiles on my face and my whole body. I broke my nose and I fractured my elbow, I was unconscious for a little bit while my mum came running to my aid. My family took me to the hospital and I was admitted to a mental hospital with adults.
As I was only fourteen, I had a nurse watching over me all the time. I hated it, and I was still extremely anxious and would only let mum be by my side or my sister who was there allot of the time with me too. Finally the doctors realised it was all a side effect of the tablets I was on. I was amazingly thankful that they took my off the drugs even though they still had not figured out I was pretending about the diagnosis that got me onto these tablets. I tried to let go subtle hints to one particular doctor that I was pretending and I needed to tell the truth about my real problems, though I was too scared to ever tell her and she never picked up on it.
I went home and I didn’t ever speak of the lie I was living about the diagnosis, I still kept pretending and they put me on other tablets that had the side effect of putting on extreme amounts of weight. I put on over 40kg in a year. And still I kept the most frightening secret to myself, until one day a year and a half later I wrote a note to tell my mum I was pretending all along. I was very scared of her response, though surprisingly she said she had a huge feeling I was pretending about the schizophrenic symptoms. Though she still knew I had problems I needed sorting out. She decided to take me to the new psychiatrist that was one my case.
I was deeply scared, I was never a talker and could never tell the truth about what I was feeling and thinking to anyone except a bit to my mum. I promised to myself before I went in to the appointment I would tell the truth for my own sake. I didn’t want a misdiagnosis again and have horrible side effects to what I had done again.
I went in and told the whole story, I admitted to pretending and I admitted to all the horrible thoughts in my head, and even admitted about the very embarrassing symptoms I had, such as thinking I was in love (sexually) with people I truly did not love in that way. He listened very carefully and made me feel at ease, I felt I had done nothing wrong for admitting everything that was going on inside of me and what I had done about lying.
He diagnosed me with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I didn’t believe I had it in the beginning but then again I didn’t understand what it actually was. He allowed me to go off the other tablets and put me onto tablets that were suitable for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I finally felt a lot of weight off my shoulders. I didn’t have to pretend anymore and I could finally tell the truth about the horror before the misdiagnosis.
I began to feel better after about 2 months, and I started to exercise and eat properly. Which allowed me to lose over 35kg to make me back to the weight I was. I was turning 17 years old and for the very first time in my life I could do a hobby of my own without my mum by my side. I played soccer 3 times a week for over 3 years and made the North Queensland team.
I still have many horrific and traumatising symptoms of OCD and have received new ones, and there is a whole other story for the life time between age 17 and 21. Though still all the time it will get worse at certain times of the year, at least now I can tell someone about it. Though I am 21 years old now, I have learnt allot through my childhood and teenage years. One very important lesson throughout all of this is that I tell the truth now and I am honest to myself about everything that is going on in my life. Another is that with people you can never truly know everything about them, you do not know what is going on for them or why they do certain things that may seem weird to you or why they are upset. I have also learnt that after all this I see that OCD is not that crazy and different once you really look at it and see what it is about.
I am now studying a bachelor of psychology, something I have always wanted to do was help little kids that felt different and now I finally have the opportunity too. I am also taking ballet classes and working toward exams for it, I have finally found that I can be the ballet dancer I have always wanted to be with a bit of passion and determination.

Christopher.J.Pescud’s Story

A World of thought and Psychosis
JUST ANOTHER DAY BEING SCHITZO!
It’s a rainy today , and I’m not feeling good at all , I’m so damn tired and I have a pain in my head ,I’m at work I just need to put one foot in front of the other It’s just not right , I have to drive home when I did, something felt like it hit in me in the head.
“oh I have to get home”,” I can’t see very well indeed” , I made it home , I walked in the door and just fell on the bed I slept and slept then I awoke, I couldn’t talk, I forgotten words how do I speak ,I’ll watch telly although nothing made sense I couldn’t understand what was said and the pictures are confusing , oh what’s wrong with me I cant focus, everything’s confusing no ones talking properly, where’s the thoughts coming from are they thinking at me, why don’t they leave me alone , are they feeding me drugs, There all trying to kill me, I won’t talk, I’ll just stay still and watch what they do, Their thinking at me again and I’m always being watched always all the time ,
I can’t think they’ll know what I’m thinking, what I have I done wrong , I ‘m trying to work out what I have done wrong, Damn head it wont come good , “what’s that” , I said to myself,” on the wall” ,” It’s there” the voice said , I thought I won’t look at it and it will go away and the thought said again” look at it”” it’s on the wall”
So I looked, is it a demon or is it not real what is it, it’s a face what’s it looking at me for, I wont look at it and it will go away, is it real or is it the drugs, what’s wrong with me man, I cant get my head right, I know I’ll think at them I’ll confuse their head, my father said” he needs to be committed” , oh, I need sleep and it will go away , and , they’ll kill me if I go to sleep , “who’ll kill you” the voice said , I said they will and the voice said “who will “and I said I don’t know they will who ever ,” they can’t be trusted” the voice said , I can’t work out who’s doing it “,what’s that , where” I said and the voice said” out there” , I said” I don’t know” and the voice said” go have a look” , so I peered out the blinds and there was nothing , I looked at myself why am I rocking, I stopped myself , the voice said” idiot ,stupid idiot” , I ran my hand over my forehead sweat heaps of sweat what’s wrong with me man , I feel sick , and the voice said “idiot” “your demented” I looked down I’m rocking again , so I stopped myself.
I need sleep and I’ll wake up better “,look up there” , the voice said I said” where” it said” up there” I looked” Its in the sky” , the voice said” look at it” , so I looked the clouds took formation ,” is that the devil” I said , I wont look I’m frightened , I thought they must be feeding me LSD or something I’m hallucinating , I yelled at them who’s feeding me drugs they looked , they were quite I got a stick and I slammed it on the bench , which one of you is feeding me drugs , they were quite , I turned and took off to my room.

I sat on the bed in the corner the voice said “ their lying “ I thought “shut up ,shut the hell up “ and the voice said “why” I thought I’ll stop the thoughts I won’t think, Is it me or is it someone else” who is it” I thought , forcing myself not to think , sweating and shaking “I thought there’s a spirit in here , it’s trying to make me do bad things ‘the voice said ”prove it” ,”what’s that” the voice said I looked it’s a shape I thought it’s a spirit , I won’t look

I’m frightened the telly was on what are they saying are they talking to me , there talking to me , I better shut up and not think , hang on is this my mind It’s falling apart at that stage fighting it oh ,I’m rocking again I need to compose myself I stopped , I need sleep ,I’ll just lie down ,so damn tired and I need sleep ,
And another day went by more visions more thoughts and more rocking , I thought when is this going to stop 3 months later after all the garbage I thought it would better I managed to get some work and work I did I did very well for 12 months and then It started again the thoughts got worse, mind you they were always there I just managed them better ,well I thought I did by this stage I had moved away from home and in a relationship with a woman and we managed 2 dogs and a cat , anyway as I was saying 12 months went by and the psychotic symptoms came back this time worse than ever before , I was in a car accident then I lost my job , it got to the stage where I just couldn’t think I was always in a daze , my girlfriends parents and relatives called me parasite and life was hell , I couldn’t fill the forms out for unemployment benefits ,I tried to tell everyone what was happening to me they all tried to tell me things that didn’t make sense ,when they spoke their words had no meaning and then I thought I was haunted by spirits , I told my girlfriend what I was seeing , she would reply you're f#@king crazy , she called me a reject boyfriend and I was trying to fight it , I started to believe that my girlfriend was drugging me and that once again they were thinking at me again, As I now know now paranoid schizophrenia although this time I didn’t go catatonic , I was in a real mess couldn’t remember to shower couldn’t remember to eat I couldn’t think what time it was and when I did I looked at the clock time meant nothing my girlfriend tried to help but in the end she just gave up trying so her father kicked me out eventually, this was 4 years after my initial breakdown , I was just this body that woke up and then went to bed , the thoughts and the visions were from hell I was petrified of what I saw and heard but I couldn’t tell anyone about them , actually I haven’t to this day story told anyone about what happened , I’m hoping that this will give some insight into what goes on inside a person’s mind while going through a psychosis , It was as if I had been permanently drugged and hallucinating you don’t know what’s happening or who’s doing it to you and the thoughts you don’t know if your being controlled by some other force from another dimension, To this day I still wonder if what I went through was from the other side although now I just believe it was my illness , anyway I got kicked out and my father housed me , I said to my mother who also has an illness , “ mum I’m unwell and I can’t think properly can you get me help she looked and I said “ I’m serious mum I need help “ she then rang the services up that she knew and they sent the CAT team out , They are trained in this sort of thing , my father however didn’t believe that psychiatric disorders existed he believed it was an attitude problem however thank god he was prepared to listen , the crisis team immediately, put me on tablets and organised some help through the mental health services , I remember the side effects I rocked in my sleep it was soothing to the mind it helped the pain in my head , although it wasn’t a pain like breaking a bone or cutting oneself it was different and I had a real bad time with anger I felt angry all the time really angry , I’m just thankful I didn’t act on what some of the voices said or I would have killed people , I refused to act , I fought the voices the internal demon inside I fought him all the way , I refused to act ,when I saw the head psychiatrist they had to release my anger slowly so I sat in group therapy , I remember some of the clients saying” listen to that guy he’s pshyco”
But eventually they managed to release my anger slowly without me doing harm to anyone or myself, nowadays though I have learnt to not take in other peoples problems nor take on their snide remarks as I think they have the problem and it’s not me like before I used to take it on board until anger built so much that it made my mind crazy.

As I look back I realize the hurt and the anguish that being bullied and mocked and just plain being misunderstood really hurt me inside , it seem to come from all directions at that stage , anyway I’ve had many psychotic episodes and I’ve been on various medications that work for a while and then don’t work after a period of time and this leads to more psychotic episodes , however I haven’t had an dramatic episode for nearly five years now only sometimes I will have symptoms , with each change in medication things are getting better , the last change in medication I have had I’ve been put on a new one and all the psychotic symptoms have gone away , I’m hoping this time things will be better it’s just a matter of wait and see

Well I’ve lived with this illness now for some 24 years and I’ve seen what people go through with it I have made friends within the psych system and I’ve also lost a lot of friends through their conditions, I’ve been in the situation where life doesn’t matter and death seems so peaceful that I would rather not be, I’ve gone to the stage where I’ve tried to take my life and I’ve been through the stage where I just didn’t wish to be.
The last 11 years of my life have been alright I have a young son and daughter now that I cherish and I wish to see them grow up so I hang around for them even though life seems so damn hard, and the dizzy head comes back every now and then
I had a turn about 2 months ago where I just felt so damn tired and so damn bored being alive I just wanted to go sleep and never wake up, now I just hang on and I watch my children grow
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never have a decent relationship again not with my condition anyway
I’ve taken on further studies which gives me something to look forward to
But to me life is just, well I exist and that’s it,
So to that the question. Is it, to be or not to be?
And my answer is I exist!
TO BE OR NOT TO BE
The story I told was a period in my life to today, now though After being put on medication for some 20 odd years and have been on various medications I have my good days and my bad , in and out of psychosis up and down around and around some medications make you rock some medications don’t seem to work at all it’s a trial and error thing and then you wonder if at all it is worth it , I get tired , I’m sick of being ill it makes me depressed but It’s just a matter of making the most of what we have and being thankful to god that we are who we are and learning to accept what we are, and that we go through this, it’s part of our make up , I think because I have this illness I need to take extra special care of myself and cherish everyone and everything around me , as I say to myself there are people who are in worse situations then I have been in, it has taught me not to be so selfish and to think about other people , I believe I am like this I have experienced things that not too many people would have experienced in life , not to mention my dyslexia as a child I found school work very hard I had to learn differently , each and every individual on this planet has some form of disability and some form of gift , it is said that dyslexia is a gift , it teaches us to excel in area’s where the norm can’t go , and the same applies to my illness , the voices have taught me certain things that the norm could not have experienced , I think I have experienced another form of realities , with each psychosis and I have had plenty, I learn different things about myself about the world and about other people , and when I’m able to I can apply that learning to my life situations.
I have managed to take on various studies some I have been well enough to finish others I haven’t finished and others have just been to overwhelming, but what I have learnt is that I must try, I must be the best person I can possibly be, and I will not make the illness an excuse to just sit back and do nothing,
At present I am coping well with the aid of new medication the new medications are far better than the old ones they have less side effects and they are easier to use as technological advancements happen they are getting better and better. What I have learnt though is that some people seem to think the Illness is just attitude after surfing the net and talking to the doctors and actually experiencing the different medications it is far more than attitude it is a serious problem with the mind here is a link www.brainexplorer.org for you to have a look at or www.schitzoprenia.com
There is a great deal of research and information online about the conditions I am also diagnosed with clinical depression and I am taking anti depressants, from the research I have done in the past one cannot self medicate nor can they, even if they wanted to deal with this themselves, It does have to do with chemicals in the mind and electrical and chemical impulses that can only be dealt with by the right treatment

There is no cure but there is a control and personally I’d rather be in control than to be hay wire.

DH’s Story

I AM …… I AM NOT MY ILLNESS
WHAT HAPPENS IN OUR BRAIN? I think I am not the only one who has spent more than half of her life thinking that mental health problems happen to “other people” I ignored the signs of genetics, heredity, predisposition,. My uncle was an alcoholic who killed himself. A cousin, a young man, killed himself when the love of his life left him. Both my grandfathers were alcoholics, and so was my mother, and she too spent some time in a mental hospital and was for ever taking some medication or other. And yet, absorbed with my own survival issues, I paid very little attention to all this. Looking back, I can see us all like puppets on the strings, playing our roles in life the best we can, with our brain being the director, the conductor. “How little we all know about what happens in our brain”.
I was born in 1949, in a small country in Europe to a young girl who was not ready for marriage or motherhood! She just got pregnant and in those years this meant she had to marry! My mum, who was always on some tablets, and suffered from alcohol addiction, left me and my father when I was only 6 years old. Later, she returned a few times, (with my younger sister,). In fact, she was always coming and leaving. Our family was very dysfunctional. I brought myself up alone; I knew very little about discipline, trust, respect. My father went to the factory every day, I went to school, and I have very few memories of this period. I remember that at one stage, my mum and sister came back “home”; mum found my personal diary in which I wrote all my intimate feelings, my love for a teacher, as well as my hatred for my mother. She showed my diary to my father. In rage and shame and despair, at 13, I attempted to kill myself for the first time. I guess I may have suffered from depression even then. However, I was saved at the local hospital and life went on. In order to leave the unhappy home, where my parents abused each other all the time, I accepted a scholarship at an agriculture college ( even though agriculture had no appeal for me), and I left home at 15, to go to a boarding college. Life became a bit nicer then! It was the beginning of a life full of travelling, studies, friendships, and reasonable success on professional as well as emotional level, and I knew at all times THAT I WAS ALONE, AND HAD ONLY TO RELY ON MYSELF. I kept in touch with my family and visited them often. They missed me, by then I also had a little brother. My sister and brother continued to live in a horribly abusive home, and I felt so sad for them.
In my life of 61 years, I have been a migrant in many different countries. I am sure that this factor has a lot of importance in everything that happened in my life, I believe that each time we “uproot” ourselves; we may add some stress to our life. Each time we start afresh, and have to find ways to assimilate, be accepted, and prosper , the emotional strain on our brain cells is great. Each time we feel lost because we can’t speak the language of our new country; each time we make furniture out of cardboard boxes in our new little room…I remember crying alone on Christmas day at a cemetery in Paris, I remember having terrible nightmares for a while: I was dreaming of travelling home to an address that did not exist and putting a key in the wrong door. Looking back, I know that I must have changed houses hundreds of times…

In my late twenties, in Paris, I married a beautifully warm, kind man. I was not aware, and I was not told by him or his family, that he was ill with schizophrenia and was on medication. Only later, when we migrated to Australia, and his illness got worse and he stopped taking his medication, he confined in me. He told me that his parents had placed him in mental hospitals in France, where he had been given repeated electric shock treatments when he was 14 years old. He was terrified of ECT and so in Sydney, I did not allow this kind of therapy. He also told me that he was a homosexual who was too terrified of his parents to ever live like one. He was in and out of hospital, as I often tried to help him while keeping him at home with me, however, at times, due to his hallucinations, I feared for my own life. I also feared that he did not cope well with being a migrant, especially as he had had to accept a job that was way below his qualifications and people had difficulty understanding him due to his strong French accent. Maybe all this added horrible stress to his life? We finally decided it was better for him to return to France, where his family could help him, while I would keep paying our mortgage and hope he would soon get better. SO DURING ALL THIS TIME, I WAS A CARER STRUGGLING TO COME TO TERMS WITH ALL THE LIES , HIS MENTAL ILLNESS, OUR DEAD MARRIAGE AND MY OWN MENTAL FRAGILITY. During this time, my father back home had a terrible car accident and so I went to stay with him; after 9 days of coma, he miraculously recovered. I had been diagnosed with cancer and had to have an operation. My brain , my dear poor brain, was falling apart under all this .

Not long after I took my husband back to France, I received the horrible news from his parents that he had committed suicide. He escaped from the hospital and threw himself under a train.