I Found The Write Way To Beat Mental Illness

SCHIZOPHRENIA is a serious mental illness that affects one person in every 100. I first began to suffer from symptoms when I was about 12. Of course no-one knew that’s what it was then . . . it was just put down to the start of teenage hormones. But I began to have bouts of low mood and I was anxious around crowds. I started to bunk off school, I really hated it and just could not adjust to the 9-5 routine. It was the mornings that killed me, as I just could never get enough sleep.

The school, Craigroyston High, complained to my mother about my behaviour and after a while I was sent to several children’s hearings. They sent me to a child psychologist, who, after one session declared me of sound mind and bad behaviour and I was duly punished.

The more pressure they put on me to attend, the more I skived off. Eventually I was just going in at breaks and lunchtime to see my mates then I’d take off again for the rest of the day.

When I officially left school – without any qualifications – I started to experiment with drugs. It’s the normal thing to do where I come from. I got into tripping on hallucinogens. I eventually took a bad trip and fried my head with psychedelic fungi. I thought I’d really done it that time. My brain felt like it was melting in my skull and I thought I was going to die.

From that day on I was never the same. I’d opened a Pandora’s box that was to last the next 20 years. I began to suffer from panic attacks and severe anxiety. I was sent for many “talking” therapies by my GP, but none of them fixed me up for very long. I no sooner sorted out one problem when another one would crop up.

I tried my best to hold back the flood but for the next ten years I was ill almost daily. Panic attacks, depression, constant anxiety, sleep disorders . . . it was all happening. Even agoraphobia. Some days I couldn’t leave the house. I certainly never left Edinburgh for eight years. And of course I couldn’t work.

Then in 1997 my brother and I woke up one morning and found our mother dead. She’d taken her own life after a long battle with the family demon. Knowing what I do now I realise she too was suffering a mental health problem, but then we had no idea.

We were devastated. The council was sending us eviction letters and we had to fend off sheriff officers and debt collectors. We finally sorted most of it out but they know how to kick you when you’re down.

Later that year the rest of my family moved out and I was left alone in the house. I started to go downhill fast. I turned to drink, I think I was trying to drink away my problems. I grew worse and I was losing touch with reality. It all ended in my own suicide attempt in 2001.

It was a real attempt. I was 31, living on my own, there was no-one there who could save me. I took a whole month’s worth of prescription anti-depressant and anti-psychotic drugs. I had nothing left to give. It didn’t work. I woke up after 24 hours to a neighbour banging at the door. Unsurprisingly I was violently sick.

By then I was suffering from delusions and terrible fear and paranoia. I was also hearing voices. I followed the wind that had been sent to guide me all over the streets of Edinburgh on a mission for Scotland. Eventually the wind guided me into Drylaw police station where I told them that in the interests of national security I should be put away until after the general election. They took me to the Royal Edinburgh hospital where I was sectioned [committed] by a court. I was in hospital for three-and-a-half months while they bombarded me with various drugs to see what worked. You see I was hiding my symptoms – the voices were still telling me things would happen to my family if I told the doctors anything.

Eventually I was let out, but was only home for three weeks when I told my sister everything and she called them. I jumped out the window and took off across the estate in my bare feet. It took seven of them to catch me.

They told me I was suffering from schizophrenia. My reaction was total disbelief, but the first tablet took away most of my symptoms. It was amazing.

When I got out of hospital they wanted me to do some daft gardening scheme. I had other ideas.

I told everybody I was going to be a writer. Everybody laughed but I started to type with two fingers and eventually had my first book published less than 18 months after my release from hospital.

It’s called The One and it’s all about my experiences of schizophrenia while sitting in the Andrew Duncan Clinic.

This is schizophrenia from inside the mind of the sufferer.

In the last few years I’ve done lots of things I would never have dreamed of as a psychotic, anxious, agoraphobic, angry, depressed, schizophrenic, hypochondriac.

I attended the Edinburgh international book festival and I’ve done hundreds of public readings. I even did a piece for STV’s “Talking Scotland” as well as lots of work for the national health and well being programme, mainly the Scottish recovery network.

I’ve devised a self-healing programme for myself based on things I learned as a teenager when I practised martial arts and there’s a new book on the horizon in the near future.

Of course, I’m still taking the tablets but I’m no longer a danger to myself (I never was one to anyone else).

I’m 36 and quite proud of the fact that despite everything I haven’t ended up with a criminal record.

It all goes to show that your life isn’t over when you’re diagnosed with a mental illness. It can be the beginning of a new one. There is always hope and you can recover. I’m living proof.

• Paul Reed was brought up in Muirhouse. His book The One is published by Mercat, priced £9.99. His new book, a self-help guide, Elemental: The Universal Art of Mental Health, will be published by Mercat in October.