David Ring has schizophrenia and has long battled the associated stigma. But mental illness does not define David.
David shares his experience with mental health and how being honest about what he was going through empowered him to find the help he needed.
David is now a social worker and advocates for others who are struggling to seek help as soon as they need it.
If you or someone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 224 636. In an emergency, call 000.
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If you or someone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 224 636. In an emergency, call 000.
I don’t often talk about the voices. I thought everybody heard voices. I didn’t know that was abnormal because I’d grown up with voices all of my life.
For a long time I’ve identified as having a significant and serious mental health issue. Schizophrenia is an illness that is a psychotic illness, so people loose touch with reality on some occasions. You start to hear things that don’t exist. But there are other types of delusions that I’ve experienced. Sometimes see things that aren’t there. Taste things that aren’t there.
The first time I heard voices was when I was about three. Things became difficult for me when I went to high school. You know I’d come home after a torrid day of bullying, and I had the voices there to talk to me and tell me it was going to be alright and, you know, it’s only a short part of my life.
As I got older, the voices became in some ways more destructive and more negative but at the same time they were who I had, I had no friends, I was isolated. They were telling me I was useless, I was scum of the earth and I’d be better off dead.
I was 20 and I took a very serious overdose and had to be resuscitated. And then the voices came back to me and they were telling me why I was a loser. You see the voices to some extent had lead me to the suicide attempt and then, left me high and dry after.
The stigma is huge. The inappropriate comments are huge. The stigma is huge. You tend to forget this is a biochemical reaction in my brain making me do odd things. Because its not me, it’s not who I am, I’m not that kind of person. I work full time, I’m in a relationship. I’ve studying masters of social work by research.
I’ve been blessed with a couple of things in my life. I’ve had two doctors in the past 30 years, so I’m very lucky because that constant care is good. The other really important thing is my meds. The doctor I was seeing at the time every other anti-psychotic has failed. I was in hospital about 15 years ago last time I was admitted. And within about three days I wasn’t hearing voices for the first time. And in probably a week my depressive illness had lifted. And probably a little bit of time after that my anxiety was under control.
Without the medication, my life would have been significantly different. I do believe that I would be highly disabled, I’d be probably quite isolated. I wouldn’t be working. You know, going back to university, doing social work, working now non-stop for the past 15 years.
So the important thing is to go to your health professional, the starting point is your GP, and tell them honestly what’s happening for you, because if they don’t know what’s happening for you then its very hard for them to help you.
In some ways I’ve been lucky to have mental illness because I think it’s not made me a better person but it’s made me a person that is a lot more understanding of a range of people with a range of issues.
I think it’s important to note that having an illness like schizophrenia isn’t a terminal diagnosis. There’s lots of opportunities and there is actually a lot of great support.
When I work with people at my workplace they’ll often say I’m a schizophrenic. And I feel like saying to them, that’s not a reason to hold you back.