S1E9: My New Life (Nov 17/23)

“My New Life” tells my story of a new start in life for me beginning soon after successfully recovering from schizophrenia, bicycling across Canada, and then continuing my mental health advocacy work in developing countries at www.MindAid.ca.

Last year some people in my county in New Brunswick, Canada, wrote and performed a play telling the mental health stories of me and 13 other people, and the play got rave reviews!

Little did I know at the time, but one of the actors, Erica Ingersoll, was inspired by hearing and performing our stories that she wrote a song about it. I had never heard the song until tonight at a mental health art exhibit in my hometown. She and her band performed it.

After hearing the song, I told them when I was in my worst years, living in a group home, some nursing students came and worked with us briefly. Some of them had done some coloured drawings for us on pieces of paper, and gave them to us to keep.

They might not have thought much of it at the time, but I treasured that drawing that I got from them.

I was feeling so unloved and unnecessary at the time (which wasn’t true, but that’s how we feel with mental illness sometimes), and for some reason the fact that someone took time out of their day and drew something for me was mind-boggling.

It even amazed me at the time how much it had an impact on me. When it felt like no one cared about me, I couldn’t believe that someone would go out of their way to do…