Fact: about 1 in 100 people will suffer an episode of  schizophrenia in their lifetime. This is my story… 

My journey with schizophrenia began at quite an early age  during my third year at school. This is when I began to hear  voices, this is when my mind became distorted. My  distressing thoughts began centring around the television  the more I thought, the stranger my thoughts became. 

My distressing thoughts got progressively worse, so at the  age of 16, I was sectioned under the mental health act. I  then began my long journey with mental health struggles  and schizophrenia, in and out of hospital did little for me. I  was pushed into a corner of a psychiatric ward where I was  ignored apart from when I needed medication.  

Eventually, things got better and in 1990 I was finally put on  a drug that would help. A more modern approach than my  60 style medication. I still was in and out of psychiatric  wards. My road to recovery really began in 2012, my last  admission to the hospital 25 years after my first.

I made good progress but everyday living with my illness  but every day there was a chance I’d do something wrong or  unnecessary. Schizophrenia is a lonely and forgotten illness  that is still misunderstood by the public. 

I feel that throughout my years I have met many people who  were supposedly educated but refused to believe that  schizophrenia was any more than an act, simply put on for  everybody that I was just seeking attention. 

Society today is still full of people who believe that people  with this condition are perceived to be violent and  aggressive in nature when actually people who are suffering  are often very passive. Just remember that behind every  illness there is a person.