A great new life

About 2 to 3 years ago, I was living in community housing (otherwise known as the ghetto), in South Australia, Adelaide. I had just gotten over a series of mental health episodes ( lots of relapses of them). I was against taking the medication which treats my schizophrenia and did not trust the doctors or workers whom were only trying to stop me from relapsing.

The main reasons why I didn't trust the Mental Health Commission was because of the wrong medications in which they had put me on, in the beginning. One made me gain 40 kilos in less than a month and the one before that made me a complete zombie.

So I pleaded with them to change the medication on to one that actually suited me but they didn't listen which ended up in multiple attempts of suicide from myself. Then listened to me after and dosed me on a newer medication, well then that one were the specific horse tablets in which I had to take 4 big tablets of every morning and night, which made me gain so much weight in such a short time frame.

So I threatened them, even after they put me on the right medication that I would skip states and become homeless in order for them to stop forcing me to take the zombifying medications. Because after all of that I still didn't trust the system and was paranoid that they were poisoning my system. They stopped giving me a much money and began giving me cheques for food and cigarettes so that I wouldn't skip states.

After getting kicked out of the accommodation I had been staying in for camping on the floor, it didn't stop me at all to make those threats come to reality as I used to think as a child, after people would ask me what I wanted to do when I would grow up... I thought that I wanted to escape to a deserted island so my hair would grow long and that I could become skinny, and then dramatically be found and then I'd go home and at least look pretty. But in all honesty and I know you are all thinking that this is such an ungraceful way of thinking because I know it is too. I feel like that thought was the meaning of psychotic and that I was born schizophrenia.

I used to hate waking up early when I was around the age of 9 and 10. Primary school was a drag and during those cold winter mornings, who would even want to get out of bed anyway? My Mum would put the gas heather on and it made a slow but fast 'sparking' kind of noise and I'd shut me eyes and hear it talking to me, I didn't know what it wa saying but it was saying something. I also saw a black and broken plastic bag flying around in the wind and I was convinced it was a dead kitten on the ground, had just been hit by a car and struggling for life. I never told anyone, except my partner whom I am with now.

So, it was winter and I hitch hiked from Adelaide to Melbourne with some stranger with no money, and only my iPhone and earphones. I was insane and paranoid to do this, but I ran away or 'absconded' if that's what you'd like to call it (they do).

So after being locked up and medicated a few times in a Melbourne psych ward, I still didn't understand that I had to be treated. I went to Sydney via bus after crashing at some strangers house in Ballarat and realising that they cancelled the food and smoke cheques and started putting more money into my account.

I cried when I saw the sun rising from the Eastside. I had never really travelled before this. I was psychotic and messy, I can assure you. I was living on the streets and starving whilst being paranoid and my cigarette even got spiked with lotus leaves from the sex shop by some people previously in Melbourne city.

It all went crazy and to make a long story short, a lot of things happened after that. In Sydney I was that unwell that they had to knock me unconscious with a needle and put me out for (I am assuming) a day and a night. I escaped the highest security locked ward in Sydney and absconded to Brisbane and stayed there one night and then begged my Poppie to pay for a flight back to Adelaide.

I went back to Adelaide and stayed with my mother, the next day mental health came along and told me that I'd be moving to a place called 'Avalon'. Which is the community housing for the mentally ill and students. I wasn't happy about this and still didn't trust them but I had to comply, after 7 months in psych ward, 6 months a mental health rehab and then another 8 months in a day to day living rehab. Then they gave me the keys to the unit at Avalon.

The walls were paper thin and everyone was always drinking and causing trouble. My window got smashed in, the homeless would come by and stay in other peoples flats and one even raided my flat one time. The worst thing that this place brought out of me was 'crack' and 'gambling' Yes, whilst living there I had gotten addicted to the glass pipe and was chasing the dragon as much as I could at the time and trying to win money via gambling to win money for drugs.

I met my partner whom I am with now and he managed to save my life whilst I almost overdosed. I left that place and moved into his housing commission place with him which was still bad but not as rowdy. We did a lot of drugs and had big parties, always played loud music, stole from shops and I got in trouble eventually for driving on a suspended license. They made a court date for me and I never went.

Instead I told him that we have to leave Adelaide, that it wasn't good for us and that we weren't flourishing there. So I booked us a one way flight from Adelaide to Melbourne and from Melbourne to Sydney. Mind you, we didn't have much money.

So we were okay in Melbourne but when we got to Sydney we booked an air B'N'B for a few nights and couldn't afford much more. We refused to go back though and ended up homeless.

So another long story short, we went to Brisbane. We deteriorated mentally, we left each other and I got in trouble with the law. I was seeing spirits in tree's and tried to save the trees from the woodchipper, so I stole the woodchipper and drove off and thought I could save the world.

I ended up doing 4 months in prison. This is when everything changed for me after this. It was a terrible experience but I think it was exactly what I needed at the time for a wake up call. They let me out on bail which was also horrible as I didn't know anyone in Brisbane and had no proper place to go to and the ex-inmates at the time charged at me and I ran out of the door and slid down the stairs in my own shit. I bolted and then had to jump a few fences in a paddock and ended up in someone's back yard and pleaded them to call an ambulance. They called the Police and the Paramedics. They almost came at the same time and I had shit all over my dress and I told them I had to go to hospital after they told me I had breached my bail (which was the curfew I was 10 minutes late from arriving). They let me go with the Paramedics which was good for me at the time.

I then don't really remember what happened after then, there is too much to say but, I ended up doing a lot of things and the charges eventually got dropped. A lot of good and bad things happened after that but I ended up getting a place in Sydney, a whole ensuite in a private apartment on the 6th floor. I take my meds now and comply with everything from the doctors and workers. The court charges got dropped and I am living with my partner in my favourite place in the whole world. I love it here and I wouldn't change a thing in my life.

Thanks for reading.

Dawn Withers