health+&amp;+well+being+links

The Student Support Advisors are available to assist you if you are in crisis or simply need assistance. This may include distress about personal or study issues. Challenger TAFE has access to off campus Counsellors /Psychologist; the students can only be referred to the psychologist by the Student Support Advisors. All discussions with the student in regards to a crisis issue will be confidential and not liaised back to the lecturer unless it directly impacts their participation in the classroom and the student gives permission to disclose.


 * Contact:**

Tel: 9239 8378 Mob: 0423 820 406. liz.sullivan@challengertafe.wa.edu.au Liz covers the following Challenger Tafe campuses; Beaconsfield- 15 Grosvenor Street Beaconsfield WA 6162 Murdoch- Murdoch Drive Murdoch WA 6156 - Thursdays only Ph 92298419 For E-Tech, Maritime and Heathcote campuses interviews will be arranged by appointment as required. Tel: 08 9599 8691 Mob: 0418 900 943 rhonda.crocker@challengertafe.wa.edu.au Rhonda covers the following Challenger Tafe campuses Rockingham - Simpson Avenue Rockingham WA Peel- Education Drive Mandurah WA 6210 - Wednesdays only Ph 95867410 Kwinana-lot 22 Hutchins Cove Kwinana WA 6167 - Tuesday and Thursday mornings For Kwinana Automotive, ACEPT and Henderson campuses interviews will be arranged by appointment as required.
 * LIZ SULLIVAN**
 * RHONDA CROCKER**

 scroll down to see contact details, fact sheets, podcasts & interviews

** Community Emergency Response Team ** provides a 24 hr psychiatric emergency assessment and advisory service to assist mental health clients and their carers to resolve psychiatric emergencies. Helpline: 1300 555 788 Or Telephone counselling services contact:

Lifeline Australia [|www.lifeline.org.au/] Provides a 24 hour crisis counselling line for individuals, couples and families. Crisis Line 13 11 14 Admin 9261 4444 Crisis care Provides a 24 hour crisis service to the people of WA. Services include practical support, free advice and counselling on issues such as child protection and domestic violence. Crisis line 92231111 Admin 9223 1125 The Samaritans [|www.thesamaritans.org.au]  Emergency Line 9381 5555 Toll Free Country Line 1800 198 313 Youth Line 9388 2500

WA Mental Health Department central resource []

**Fremantle area []**

Fremantle headspace
Fremantle WA 6160 SMS: 0405 533 262 Email: info@fremantleheadspace.com.au headspace national []
 * Address: 2**35 High Street,
 * Opening Hours:** Monday - Friday 9am - 4pm
 * Contact Details:** Phone: 9335 6333

fact sheets All of the fact sheets provided by **headspace** are clinically developed and regularly updated by health professionals. This means you can be assured that each piece of information is trustworthy, reliable and accurate. [|Click here] for the Fremantle **headspace** fact sheet. Find out who we are, what we do and where we are located.
 * [|Alcohol and Binge Drinking]
 * [|Amphetamines]
 * [|Anxiety]
 * [|Cannabis]
 * [|Cocaine]
 * [|Depression]
 * [|Eating Disorders]
 * [|Ecstacy]
 * [|Inhalants]
 * [|Psychosis]
 * [|Self Harm]

[|www.beyondblue.org.au] [|www.moodgym.anu.edu.au] [|www.reachout.com.au] [|www.rethink.org] [|www.nimh.nih.gov]

[]

Hearing voices: podcast []


 * [|Hearing Voices Network Australia (Richmond Fellowship WA) info on workshops and contacts]**

Call for Papers, Poems, prose for an edited collection info from Lyn Mahboub @ RFWA
 * [|World Hearing Voices Day: 14th September. - Perth event]**


 * [|Hearing Voices Network]**
 * [|Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria]**
 * [|Ron Coleman Voices - website includes details of Ron Coleman's publications]**
 * [|and an online personal account from a voice hearer]**

[|**Fremantle Adult Mental Health Services**] || (08) 9431 3555 (triage) || (08) 9431 3479 || Alma Street Centre, Alma Street, Fremantle WA 6160 (Fremantle Hospital) ||
 * ** Service Category ** || ** Organisation ** || ** Telephone ** || ** Fax ** || ** Location ** ||
 * Community Mental Health Clinics and Consultancy Services ||
 * In-Patient and Other Mental Health Services ||  ||   ||

[|**Fremantle Living Skills Program**] Answering Machine: (08) 9431 2890 || (08) 9431 2454 || 27 Alma Street, Fremantle WA 6160 || Child & Adolescent Services || [|**Fremantle Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service**] || (08) 9336 3099 || (08) 9335 3228 || Stirling St Centre 1 Stirling St Fremantle 6160 || 19 Pether Rd Manning 6152 || South Metro || (08) 9335 7575 || (08) 9319 8788 || Suit 8/16 Philamore St Fremantle 6160 || Fremantle 6160 || Fremantle 6160 || Fremantle Hospital Alma St Fremantle 6160 || Mobile: 0418 943 655 || (08) 9339 4155 || 35 Oldham Cres Hilton 6163 || Fremantle 6061 || Fremantle 6160 ||
 * (08) 9431 2578
 * Community Support Services || The Rainbow Project || (08) 9450 3905 || (08) 9450 3905 || Manning Uniting Church
 * Community Support Services || ARAFMI (WA) Inc
 * Community Support Services || Eating Disorders Centre || (08) 9335 1440 || (08) 9335 1425 || 25 Ellen St
 * Community Support Services || Women’s Health & Information Centre || (08) 9430 4545 || (08) 9430 7862 || 114 South St
 * Psychogeriatric Services || Fremantle Mental Health Service Programme for the Elderly || (08) 9432 3472 || (08) 9432 3556 || 6th Floor, The Alma St Centre
 * Accommodation Services || Hilton Accommodation || (08) 9319 3679
 * Rehabilitation Services || June O’Connor Centre Inc || (08) 9336 3677 || (08) 9430 6472 || 31 Alma St
 * Rehabilitation Services || Workright (WA) Inc || (08)9336 3389 || (08)9336 3051 || Suite 39 Fremantle Malls

**Subiaco Centre**

[|Harrow House Living Skills] || 9381 4977 || || 59 Hammersley Road, Subiaco 6008 ||
 * ** Service Category ** || ** Organisation ** || ** Telephone ** || ** Fax ** || ** Location ** ||
 * In-Patient and other Mental Health Services ||
 * Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services || ||
 * Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services || ||


 * [|**Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services**] || 9340 8373 || ||

Roberts Road, Subiaco 6008 || [|**Avro Mental Health Clinic**]
 * Community Mental Health Clinics and Consultancy Services ||

|| 9381 9055 || || 2 Nicholson Rd Subiaco 6008 ||

**Rockingham, Henderson and Kwinana area**  || [|**Peel and Rockingham/Kwinana Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services**] || (08) 9528 0555 || || Unit 5-6 Cnr Clifton & Ameer Streets, Rockingham WA 6168 || Rockingham 6168 || Rockingham 6168 || Rockingham 6168 || Cooloongup 6168 || Rockingham City 6168 || Calista 6167 || Rockingham 6168 || Rockingham || (08) 9592 3155 || (08) 9592 9741 || 2/85 Leghorn St Rockingham 6168 ||
 * ** Service Category ** || ** Organisation ** || ** Telephone ** || ** Fax ** || ** Location ** ||
 * Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
 * Community Health Services || Rockingham Kwinana Mental Health Service -Adults || (08) 9528 0600 || (08) 9529 1266 || Cnr Clifton St & Ameer St
 * In-Patient and Other Mental Health Services || [|**Peel and Rockingham/Kwinana Mental Health Services for Older People**] || (08) 9527 9000 || || 7/5 Goddard Street, Rockingham WA 6168 ||
 * Community Support Services || ARAFMI (WA) Inc || (08) 95280600 Freecall: 1800 811 747 || (08) 9531 8070 || Cnr Clifton St & Ameer St
 * Community Support Services || Support In Site Inc. || (08) 9592 3753 || (08) 9592 4980 || U11/3 Goddard St
 * Community Support Services || Westerly Family Clinic || (08) 9592 3650 || (08) 9591 1306 || 27 Westerly Way
 * Community Support Services || Women’s Health & Information Centre || (08) 9527 8221 || (08) 9527 8662 || PO Box 709
 * In-Patient and Other Mental Health Services || [|Kwinana Living Skills Centre] || (08) 9439 1622 || (08) 9439 3226 || 5 Calista Ave
 * Rehabilitation Services || Ray Street Adult Day Centre || (08) 9592 2610 || (08) 9592 2794 || 20 Ray St
 * Rehabilitation Services || Workright (WA) Inc
 * Peel area**
 * Peel area**

|| [|**Peel Mental Health Services**] || (08) 9531 8080 || (08) 9531 8070 || Peel Health Campus Site, Lakes Road (cnr Murdoch Road), Mandurah WA 6210 || || [|**Peel and Rockingham/Kwinana Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services**] || (08) 9528 0555 || || Cnr Clifton & Ameer Streets, Rockingham WA 6168 || [|Mandurah Living Skills Centre] || (08) 9535 9915 || || 2 Elizabeth Street, Mandurah WA 6210 || Freecall: 1800 811 747 || (08) 9531 8070 || 110 Lakes Rd Mandurah 6210 || 7 Anzac Pd Mandurah 6210 || Mandurah 6210 ||
 * ** Service Category ** || ** Organisation ** || ** Telephone ** || ** Fax ** || ** Location ** ||
 * Community Mental Health Clinics and Consultancy Services
 * Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
 * In-Patient and Other Mental Health Services ||
 * In-Patient and Other Mental Health Services || [|**Peel and Rockingham/Kwinana Mental Health Services for Older People**] || (08) 9527 9000 || || 7/5 Goddard Street, Rockingham WA 6168 ||
 * Community Support Services || ARAFMI (WA) Inc || (08) 9531 8080
 * Community Support Services || CLAN WA Inc || (08) 9581 5595 || (08) 9586 1115 || Lotteries House
 * Accommodation Services || Milligan Foundation Housing Association || (08) 9581 3435 || (08) 9586 1505 || 19 Sholl St

** Other Contacts **

Information || The Mental Health section of the Department of Health and Aged Care || 1800 066 247 || 1800 634 400 || [|www.mentalhealth.gov.au] || || ** Salvo Care Line **  || Counsellor 9442 5700 || || [|www.salvationarmy.org] || Mobile: 0404 030 642 || (08) 9347 6888 || Aboriginal Psychiatric Service Graylands Hospital Brockway Rd Claremont 6010 || Freecall: 1800 198 021 || (08) 9442 5020 || PO Box 126 Mt Lawley 6929 Residential address not for publication || 11 Aberdare Rd Nedlands 6009 || 80 Barrack St Perth 6000 || East Perth 6004 || Perth 6000 || 1186 Hay St Perth 6005 ||
 * ** Service Category ** || ** Organisation ** || ** Telephone ** || ** Fax ** || ** Location ** ||
 * Mental Health & Wellbeing
 * A 24 hour telephone counselling line providing a listening ear for people in a crisis situation.
 * Community Support Services || Aboriginal Psychiatric Service || (08) 9347 6868
 * Community Support Services || Alcohol and Drug Information Service || (08) 9442 5000
 * Community Support Services || Anxiety Self Help Association || (08) 9346 7262 || (08) 9386 7848 || Centre for Neurological Support – The Niche, Suite B
 * Community Support Services || Association for Services to Torture & Trauma Survivors || (08) 9325 6272 || (08) 9221 5092 || 3rd floor, Bon Marche Arcade
 * Community Support Services || Central Drug Unit || (08) 9219 1919 || (08) 9221 3089 || 32 Moore St
 * Community Support Services || Holyoake – The Australian Institute on Alcohol & Addictions || (08) 9328 9733 || (08) 9227 5019 || 65 Newcastle St
 * Community Support Services || National Association for Loss & Grief || (08) 9321 3553 || || c/o Meerilinga

Making decisions
Do you find it difficult to make decisions, evaluate and look at all options? Click here for some deciding tools.

decision making tools and strategies []

Stress managment []

[]
 * Somazone ([|www.somazone.com.au]) is an Australian website developed by young people for young people. Somazone provides fast, free, anonymous access to quality-assured health information. ||

self esteem
http://www.selfesteemgames.mcgill.ca/index.htm

sexuality
podcast http://www.cyh.com/library/same-sex_attract.mp3 [|www.comingoutstories.com] [|www.outproud.org] [|www.mogenic.com]**es and to discover how other young people have got through difficult times.** [|www.goaskalice.columbia.edu] [|www.shinesa.org.au]
 * http://www.insideout.cyh.com/home.htm**

depression
http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx

[|www.reachout.com.au]

[|http://hearingvoicesnetwork.com] simple on- line registration

click here for a list of coping strategies taken from the site, please email me if you can add some more helpful tips

depression & anxiety []

[|www.kidshelp.com.au] A 24 hours telephone and online counselling service for children and young people in Australia [|www.cyh.com] [|www.cyh.com/cyh/youth/index.stm]
 * KIDS Help Line**
 * Child and Youth Health (Youth Health Site) Website**

law [|www.lawstuff.org.au]

hearing voices further reading

Publications
Title: //Accepting Voices// Author: Marius Romme & Sandra Escher Publisher: Mind Publications 1993 Title: //Hearing Voices - A Common Human Experience// Author: John Watkins Publisher: Hill of Content Publishing Company 1998 Title: //Command hallucinations and violence: Implications for detention and treatment// Author: Shawyer F, Mackinnon A, Farhall J, Trauer T, Copolov DL Publisher: Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 10, 97-107, 2003 Title: //Patients' strategies for coping with auditory hallucinations// Author: Carter DM, Mackinnon A, Copolov DL. Publisher: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders. 184,159-64. 1996 Title: //Auditory hallucinations: Insights and questions from neuroimaging// Author: Woodruff PW Publisher: Cognit Neuropsychiatry: 9 (1-2): 73-91, 2004 Title: //Central auditory processing in patients with auditory hallucinations// Author: McKay CM, Headlam DM, Copolov DL Publisher: Am J Psychiatry. 157(5):759-66, 2000 Title: //Cortical activation associated with the experience of auditory hallucinations and perception of human speech in schizophrenia: a PET correlation study// Author: Copolov DL, Seal ML, Maruff P, Ulusoy R, Wong MT, Tochon-Danguy HJ,Egan GF Publisher: Psychiatry Research;122:139-52 2003 Title: //The cognitive neuropsychiatry of auditory verbal hallucinations: an overview// Author: David AS Publisher: Cognitive Neuropsychiatry.:107-23, 2004 Title: //The auditory hallucination: a phenomenological survey// Author: Nayani TH and David AS Publisher: Psychological Medicine 26, 177-89, 1996 Title: //Cognitive Therapy for Auditory Hallucinations: A Theory-Based Approach// Author: Morrison AP, Renton JC Publisher: Cognitive and Behavioral Practice 8, 147-160, 2001

read below the transcript of Andrew Dentons interview 'Angels and Demons' ABC TV To watch the extended interviews from the Angels and Demons documentary, visit the [|Angels and Demons] website.

ANDREW DENTON: They're like ghosts in our midst. We rarely see them, we often fear them. They're the mentally ill. Some call themselves mad.

SANDY JEFFS: I couldn't trust my mind. I couldn't trust this thing that was so profoundly a part of me. It was just this awful, awful mysterious chasm that made me do such strange and horrible things.

HEIDI EVERETT: I looked like a banshee. I was just going "aahh…" down the road and people were just frightened. They didn't know what was happening to me and I didn't know what was happening to me.

ANDREW DENTON: (Voices) I want to know what it feels like to "lose" your mind…(Voices)… And I wanted to discover if, and how, you can find it again.

[Footage plays]

ANDREW DENTON: It may look a conventional setting, but I'm walking into an utterly remarkable world. Around half the people at this conference have a mental illness. Before you turn off, you might be surprised to learn, these are people you know very well.

MAN 1: If you have ever lost your sanity, even for just 30 seconds, you'll always appreciate every day you have it back. It's probably one of the most fundamental things that you could lose.

MAN 2: People look upon us as mentally retarded rather than mentally ill.

WOMAN 1: I'd become so unwell that I'd lost custody of my three beautiful children.

WOMAN 2: I also started hearing voices that were telling me, one, to jump off a cliff and kill myself.

MAN 3: They say it can happen to the best of them. Believe me, if it can happen to me, it really can.

ANDREW DENTON: This is the first time television cameras have been allowed into the conference. Many people wanted to talk. Perhaps because they so rarely heard.

MAN 4: We'll I got a few things. I get schizophrenia, manic depression, OCD, I tend to hoard things.

WOMAN 3: I tipped over from post-natal depression into a psychosis into bipolar disorder.

WOMAN 4: Well I'd recently been hospitalized. I thought I was going to marry Prince William.

ANDREW DENTON: There were so many people, and so many issues. Most people wanting to share their stories had severe mental illnesses.

WOMAN 5: I have a condition called dissociative identity disorder which used to be called multiple personality disorder.

ANDREW DENTON: And what is that?

WOMAN 5: You basically are a different person. They've got different identities, different names, different you know behaviors ah usually when that happens, I lose time.

[Andrew walks to meet Sandy Jeffs]

ANDREW DENTON: One person famous for telling her story is author and poet Sandy Jeffs. Now I've been told to ask for your business card.

SANDY JEFFS: Oh, okay, a business card, yes, yes, I have a business card.

ANDREW DENTON: Sandy Jeffs; poet, lunatic and sanity consultant

SANDY JEFFS: Yes, that's right.

ANDREW DENTON: Just the person I need to see.

SANDY JEFFS: If you need an insane conversation just talk to me Andrew.

[Footage plays]

SANDY JEFFS: (on stage): Being as I am, mad that is, I must be: bananas, crackers, a camel short of a caravan, a ball short of an over, a pad short of a kit, not in my right mind, bereft of reason, a sandwich short of a picnic, out of my tree, off my face, off my block, over the edge, off my saucer, a shilling short of a pound, as silly as a wheel, off my trolley, as mad as a two-bob watch, a shingle short and I have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock. (Audience clap and cheer). I am many things, in many places. Fool that I may be, mad that I may be. I am, in all my precarious guises, the creation of a cruel mind.

[Audience clap and cheer]

ANDREW DENTON: Driving in here today you had ah some voices chattering away at you, is that right?

SANDY JEFFS: Yeah, bit of a conversation, yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: What were they saying?

SANDY JEFFS: Oh just that you know you silly bitch, you're just, just a, just a wanker and you're Satan's whore and you're a slut and no one wants to hear what you have to say, you know, you're just going to be a going to be a blight on people's lives and a carbuncle and people hate you, basically.

ANDREW DENTON: They're always abusive to you?

SANDY JEFFS: Mine are always abusive, yeah. Yeah. And um they're so abusive that I sort of get involved with them and they make me, they make me interact with them in a way that I don't want to but they talk about me, about me as being the most evil person in the world, a very biblical evil, you know really profound biblical evil.

ANDREW DENTON: Do you respond to them? Do you verbally respond to them?

SANDY JEFFS: Oh I have a bit of a chat on the way in, yeah; we're sort of chatting away. I think people in...

ANDREW DENTON: What do you say?

SANDY JEFFS: Oh it depends what they're saying, you know. Um I might tell them to stuff off or go away or leave me alone, but you know it's really odd, cos people look at me in the car probably from another car think what who's she talking to? What's going on in that car? I see them as abusive parents who chastise their child. Um I see them as parasites; the voices are parasites because without my mind, they couldn't exist.

ANDREW DENTON: Does that suggest that the sorts of things they're saying are things that part of you actually thinks?

SANDY JEFFS: More that um, they will see a vulnerability that I have and they know they'll exploit it, and also I'm sure they, I'm sure a lot of their content is from a past lived experiences of mine too. It's as though they, they want to abuse me over, over and over again and just reinforce the abuse I experienced at that, at a certain a time.

ANDREW DENTON: You've heard them for years and years and years. Do you have an image to go with the voices?

SANDY JEFFS: No but I have visual hallucinations of a witch in the mirror, so I look in the mirror and there's this witch and she has um tangled illuminated wire as her hair. Her eyes are blood red; her nose is angular and her, and her chin is angular and her teeth have her teeth are um are all decayed. And she mocks me, but what I think about her is that I ask myself ‘is she the embodiment of the evil person my voice is telling me I am?' You know I look at this woman and I think well, is that me?

ANDREW DENTON: Do you have any angels?

SANDY JEFFS: Um, my, the angels I have are my friends. I've known them for 30 years and lived with them eh over 30 years and over that time I've been mad, I've been crazy, I've been all over the place and they're still there. They've been so supportive of me. Honestly I couldn't be doing this today and all the other all the talking I do without their support.

[Sandy Jeffs – poem reading]

SANDY JEFFS: Thank you for accessing our Schizophrenia Line. Press 1 to continue. Press 2 to quit. If you are hearing voices Press 1. If you are having visions of the Virgin Mary Press 2. If you think you are Joan of Arc Press 3. If you think we can help you, you are obviously delusional.

[Laughter]

SANDY JEFFS: I had terrible fears when I first became nutty that I'd end up a bag lady on the street, begging for a bed at night from the Salvos and going through rubbish bins to find scraps of flyblown food. Cos you know in 1976 when I was diagnosed, schizophrenia was like the cancer of psychiatry then and it was seen as a relentless journey into unreachable and you would never, ever recover from it. The prognosis was really scary in those days I have to say and I thought god, you know what's going to happen to me? I'm have schizophrenia, I'm, my life's fallen apart, you know the whole thing's just gone to cactus, and um what's going to happen to me? I had no idea. It was scary, scary stuff.

ANDREW DENTON: What are you like now? How are you?

SANDY JEFFS: Um well I hadn't had an episode for ah from '91 to 2005. I hadn't had an episode at all. In 2005, I found myself going down the western freeway thinking I was Thelma and Louise and that all the cars on the road were chasing me, and oh it was so bizarre Andrew, look what I did and what I...oh god. You know the golden arches of the um McDonalds places, I thought that that's look for Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary and I had to stop at the McDonalds and medicate, med, meditate on the golden M, consume a cheeseburger, go to the next go to the next McDonalds, meditate on the golden M, consume a cheese, consume a cheeseburger. I tell you. I don't know how many, I don't know many, how many McDonalds there were between Daylesford and, and Lonsdale Street but I tell you I stopped at every one of them and I tell you I felt so sick with all these cheeseburgers inside me. Since 2005, um it's been a relentless journey really. I've, I just haven't recovered the way I would like to, and I'm on a medication which really sedates me and makes me feel really horrible. Um it's just been a, been a mind hell, for two and a half years it's been a mind hell.

ANDREW DENTON: When you get up in the morning, what are you thinking?

SANDY JEFFS: When I wake up in the morning I lie in bed thinking get out of bed, have brekkie, top myself, have brekkie, top myself, I'll have brekkie today. You know and it's just...then one day it mightn't happen. One day I mightn't have brekkie, I don't know. You know its scare, scary stuff.

[Live Music, Arana performs on guitar]

ANDREW DENTON: I can't imagine what life would be like with those voices in your head, day in, day out. Year in, year out. But I wanted to find out.

[Footage plays - Arana Performs on stage]

ARANA PEARSON: Some of you may know I deliver training in mental health recovery. Um, some of you may know I was diagnosed with major mental illness many years ago in New Zealand. And what many of you won't know, and I've just found out, is that the Australian mental health service confirmed the diagnoses two years ago. I was distressed, at the time. They said I had schizophrenia. But there was a line in there that was really interesting, it said "he believes he teaches mental health professionals, exclamation mark, exclamation mark".

[Hearing Voices Workshop]

ARANA PEARSON: Take out your MP3 player and what I'm going to do is talk you through how we go to this part of the workshop. These machines are recorded by people who hear voices. This is not some kind of Pink Floyd experience. But if you want to get most out of this workshop, suspend your disbelief. Think to yourself well if I was hearing voices what would this be like? Alright so what we're going to do first is turn it on. Now you want it quite loud like my voice is loud now. So while you're hearing voices we want you to participate in a number of workshop stations that ah simulate what it might be like to be in a mental health service. You all set? That's loud enough? OK. What we say now is, people, welcome to our world and ah we wish you the best.

MAN 1: What seems to be the problem today?

ANDREW DENTON: I'm hearing a lot of voices. It's disconcerting. Sometimes hard to hear communication.

WOMAN 1: Can you tell me what day it is?

ANDREW DENTON: Yes, it's Thursday, ah Friday.

WOMAN 1: Name the last four Prime Ministers of Australia.

ANDREW DENTON: John Howard, Paul Keating, Bob Hawke, Malcolm Fraser.

WOMAN 1: Starting with the number one hundred, I want you to count backwards by seven.

ANDREW DENTON: 93, 86, 79, 71, 66.

ARANA PEARSON: What we do here is a range of tasks to keep you occupied through the day. We want to see you following instructions, the instructions are here. Now, and also achievement. It's very important that you learn to achieve, a person with your condition, now that you're a patient.

ANDREW DENTON: Remove five matches, leave three squares.

[Voices get loud. Aggressive as Andrew performs task]

ARANA PEARSON: OK, we need now to refer some people for the next task which is the daytrip, daytrip; would you go to the daytrip now?

ANDREW DENTON: Yes.

ARANA PEARSON: The doctor over here will give you instructions where to go.

ANDREW DENTON: Thank you.

WOMAN: Alright, Mr. Denton.

ANDREW DENTON: Hello yes.

WOMAN: Yes, look, we have a task for you to do to see how you react in the community with your disability.

ANDREW DENTON: OK.

[Voices up]

ANDREW DENTON: This was far more confronting than I had imagined...To have such abuse inside your head was surreal, unfathomable really.

[Andrew at hotel reception desk]

ANDREW DENTON: I just wanted to know how I go about reserving a room here for next week.

ARANA PEARSON: OK, so back to the day, day program. It goes all day.

ANDREW DENTON: Oh no.

ARANA PEARSON: It goes all day every day.

ANDREW DENTON: I still haven't got the first one yet.

ARANA PEARSON: It'll be on again tomorrow. So go and take a seat in the day program and ah, yep…

ANDREW DENTON: I feel better.

ARANA PEARSON: : That's delusional behavior.

ANDREW DENTON: I have oppositional behavior to this I can tell you.

ARANA PEARSON: OK, how we going here? Oh I see you're up to this one. Have you achieved the ones back here?

ANDREW DENTON: Well this was the one that was here when I got here.

ARANA PEARSON: Oh so you didn't do the achievements of the ones before? You're not following instructions.

ANDREW DENTON: Well I was, I came…

ARANA PEARSON: You're not very compliant.

MAN: Doesn't tell us it had to be in order.

ARANA PEARSON: Oh yes it has to be in order. You're not very compliant. You're not very well today are you?

ANDREW DENTON: I feel OK. I feel better for the triangles.

ARANA PEARSON: Would you pay attention please? Are you paying attention? You seem a little dis, disorganized today in your thinking. Have you seen the doctor today?

ANDREW DENTON: I have.

ARANA PEARSON: Oh well you certainly needed to see one didn't you? Now um would you take the earplugs out? Leave the MP3 players on the table? What we need to do now is ah debrief and discussion. But ah you've had now, had an experience of what it might be like to hear voices. What was that like?

ANDREW DENTON: You felt submerged at times.

ARANA PEARSON: the experience?

ANDREW DENTON: In the experience and somewhat underwater when talking to other people.

ARANA PEARSON: Some people laugh; some people get kind of angry or tense and they want to try and rebel in some way. And other people kind of withdraw and try and be compliant, you know do your best.

WOMAN: I was trying to do my best. I would be very compliant. I was trying despite my very bad score, I was trying.

ARANA PEARSON: Yeah, and so what we notice is that these are natural human responses. They're not good or bad and they're not evidence of mental illness at all. Um I think it's extraordinary today that um those of us who have been diagnosed with mental illness eh that we get to be the leaders in facilitating training and this is ah what's been happening in mental health over the last few years is that increasingly those of us with the lived experience are taking leadership roles.

[Andrew walks through conference venue]

ANDREW DENTON: Already this conference was giving me a sense of a very different world. And the voices were just the beginning.

MAN 1: The hardest part of my life. The hardest part of my life is actually accepting the level that I can live at.

WOMAN 1: Combinations of medications over the years have caused me to put on a lot of weight and it just affects your ability to find companionship.

MAN 2: The hardest part of being like this is watching the suffering of my family.

WOMAN 2: Had lost a home, family, relationships, friends, um, a whole pile of stuff. So, yeah my mental illness has really cost me a huge amount as far as personal relationships are concerned.

MAN 3: I certainly had at least 10 hospitalizations, sometimes in places which were pretty insalubrious.

WOMAN 3: I also found myself being prescribed shock treatments, or professionally called ECT, electro convulsive treatments. Most of these treatments were given to me against my will.

WOMAN 4: I've had ECT, I've had um…been held down and given injections, been locked up in the seclusion room. So it's been pretty traumatic.

MAN 4: That's one of the hardest things is to retain your dignity as a human being in the mental health service.

ANDREW DENTON: Someone told me that 20 years ago many of the people at this conference would have been in a mental institution. But today they largely live amongst us. And with us. I wondered, what's life like for those people who, every day, take care of those with mental illness?

SAMANTHA CULLEN: I care for my dad.

ANDREW DENTON: Yes.

SAMANTHA CULLEN: He's got depression.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.

SAMANTHA CULLEN: He has for a few years now.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.

SAMANTHA CULLEN: Um I kind of had to, I felt like I had to take on the responsibility of cooking and cleaning cause my mum was working full time and my dad was working as well and my brothers you know brothers.

JACOB BATES: Our mother's a single parent.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.

JACOB BATES: So she's trying to rear three kids on her own.

ANDREW DENTON: Wow.

JACOB BATES: And um she's actually got bipolar as well.

ALICIA BATES: Yes and our younger brother has ADHD so we've…

JACOB BATES: Yeah.

ALICIA BATES: Got that as well to.

JACOB BATES: So yeah I think my role as a young carer, a lot of the time, is trying to occupy my little brother.

ANDREW DENTON: Yes.

JACOB BATES: Stop him from kind of tearing the house apart.

SIMONE JONES: My dad has post-traumatic stress disorder.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah

SIMONE JONES: And I was really young when he first got diagnosed with it but um he's also got depression.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.

SIMONE JONES: Like major depression and he has been suicidal.

ANDREW DENTON: You might live with it but you never get used to it.

SIMONE JONES: No.

ANDREW DENTON: That must be very scary.

SIMONE JONES: Very scary cause every time he goes a bit angry you always, cause he always goes down the shed and you're always thinking what's he going to do? Like is he going to, is he going to lock himself in the shed? He's going to get a friggin chisel or something like that…

ANDREW DENTON: And so what do you do in those situations?

SIMONE JONES: Go in my room usually and I usually speak to mum a lot about it too like cause mum goes down there and tries to talk to him but he ends up throwing stuff and it's not exactly a pretty sight so.

ANDREW DENTON: So you'd be scared for your mum.

SIMONE JONES: Yeah most, yep.

JAYKE DOREY: Dad suffers from depression.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.

JAYKE DOREY: Ah pretty severe depression. He's been suicidal a couple of times.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.

JAYKE DOREY: Um he's been in psych ward a couple of times which yeah was real hard cause I'd go to school and people would ask me questions like where's your dad and all that. And mum's like about to go into surgery with her bad shoulder so she can't look after my sister, like my two sisters and my brother.

ANDREW DENTON: So while your mum's in hospital, you're, you're going to be running the place?

JAYKE DOREY: Yeah cause dad's also going blind as well with um diabetes so he can't sort of see us or anything.

ANDREW DENTON: That's ah that's a lot of pressure on a fourteen year old.

JAYKE DOREY: Yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: Do you feel pressured?

JAYKE DOREY: Yeah it gets hard.

ANDREW DENTON: So tell me hands up, who's in truth glad to have a day away from the family?

[Laughs]

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah that was, that was a particularly big ahhh there.

ALICIA BATES: : Yeah.

LISA THORPE: My partner ah my daughter's dad um ah took his own life a few years ago...

ANDREW DENTON: Hmmm.

LISA THORPE: And yeah that was, that was very hard to deal with.

ANDREW DENTON: Were, were there signs...

LISA THORPE: Um still ...

ANDREW DENTON: Leading up to that?

LISA THORPE: Yes, there were. Whether I recognized them or not is a different story.

ANDREW DENTON: I assume you've replayed a lot of those conversations in your head many times.

LISA THORPE: Every day.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah every day.

LISA THORPE: Yeah every day.

ANDREW DENTON: Do you feel guilty?

LISA THORPE: No.

ANDREW DENTON: Good.

LISA THORPE: I never did. I looked at it a hundred different ways. Um there was, there were so many things going on in my head at that time. One was um why would you leave your daughter? That was, that was the biggest thing. It's happened nearly three years ago, it's only fresh. And um yeah it's, it was, to realise the amount of pain that he was in is, is still hard to deal with.

WOMAN 1: I was quite suicidal, I self harmed frequently. I really lost control of pretty much everything that I had considered my life until then.

MAN 1: I do get suicidal at times with my depression.

WOMAN 2: My cutting and overdosing and stuff, wasn't always so much about suicide, as letting people know how I felt on the inside on the outside.

MAN 2: And I so easily could have committed suicide many times and got very close to doing so on a number of occasions.

WOMAN 3: I was repeatedly making suicide attempts, I began self-harming quite severely and I did that to try and relieve, I guess the symptoms of anxiety, guilt.

WOMAN 2: And I went home and I poured kerosene over myself and set myself on fire.

ANDREW DENTON: The stakes for those living with mental illness are devastatingly high. Sometimes, literally, a matter of life and death. This is the case for Heidi Everett. A young woman, who, every day, has to struggle to simply keep herself in the world.

ANDREW DENTON: Heidi.

HEIDI EVERETT: Hi, I'm trying to be eating cake.

ANDREW DENTON: That's an awful lot of cake for one person to be eating.

HEIDI EVERETT: Yes well I'm not all that hungry so…

ANDREW DENTON: Would you like me to hold on to the cake.

HEIDI EVERETT: Yes, have some cake.

ANDREW DENTON: Well I'll eat all this cake while we're talking, how's that? And you're going to play this afternoon.

HEIDI EVERETT: Yes.

ANDREW DENTON: Are you feeling nervous?

HEIDI EVERETT: I'm feeling nervous and I feel like Tommy Tomato now.

ANDREW DENTON: Why is that?

HEIDI EVERETT: Just embarrassed.

ANDREW DENTON: Why embarrassed?

HEIDI EVERETT: Um just all this attention.

ANDREW DENTON: And so after you've finished performing today, what do you do? Are you going to hang around and talk to people or …?

HEIDI EVERETT: Um…I hate talking to people actually.

ANDREW DENTON: Do you?

HEIDI EVERETT: I don't' enjoy talking to people at all.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah?

HEIDI EVERETT: Um…yeah. It's pretty hard.

ANDREW DENTON: Is it OK talking to me now?

HEIDI EVERETT: No.

ANDREW DENTON: No. Would you rather I stopped talking to you?

HEIDI EVERETT: Um…

ANDREW DENTON: You can say that?

HEIDI EVERETT: Uh no, I I'm getting over it. I'm getting used to it slowly.

ANDREW DENTON: Well look I'll leave you to get ready for this afternoon and I'll see you in a couple of days time.

HEIDI EVERETT: OK, yep, all right. Thank you.

ANDREW DENTON: OK thanks Heidi.

HEIDI EVERETT: That was not fun, but…

ANDREW DENTON: Not fun, but not so bad.

HEIDI EVERETT: Not so bad.

ANDREW DENTON: OK, all right.

HEIDI EVERETT: OK.

[Heidi on stage, performs Angel Song]

ANDREW DENTON: How was the gig for you the other day at the conference?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah, fun. Really fun, yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: You were so buzzed afterwards. It's fantastic.

HEIDI EVERETT: I was. Yeah, I am cos I get so um worked up about it before I get on stage.

ANDREW DENTON: The Angel song ah as you said it was about suicide but and you that particular audience you're playing to at the convention, I expect the, they're taking that in a lot more than many other audiences.

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah yep. Yep. It's one of those songs where it's got like a common meaning about um sort of un-requited love, but then it's got that deeper meaning about suicide and you know the surrender, OK, I've had enough; I'm out of here.

ANDREW DENTON: Have you had days like that?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah. Yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: I'll talk about your music a bit more cos I was really struck by it. Where does the music come from?

HEIDI EVERETT: Um I actually hear a lot of it and I write um, yeah, sometimes, sometimes it's scary cos I used to hear an opera singer. I used to hear opera singers going ...[singing]... and it was like oh no, please, stop. Other times I'd hear a full on orchestra, like just everything: the violins, cello, the boom-boom-boom-pom-pom ... Not pom- poms. What are they called?

ANDREW DENTON: Timpani.

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah, the boom-boom, deep ones and it and it was beautiful and I was like um how on earth do I get this out of and I wanted to plug eh a wire into my head to and then like computerise it but they haven't invented that just yet.

ANDREW DENTON: Can you get the tunes out sometimes though?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yes, so I, I taught myself guitar and I taught myself how to write music and everything and then that's how I got it out and I still can't write orchestra pieces yet. That's something I would love to do one day is write an orchestra piece. And I write a lot of songs for Tigger, love songs.

ANDREW DENTON: And you do eh illustrations as well. Can you tell me about those?

HEIDI EVERETT: I kind of enjoy being an illustrator because I can draw photos that I see that a camera can't take a photo of cos I see some things that a normal camera can't capture and….

ANDREW DENTON: What sort of stuff do you see?

HEIDI EVERETT: Oh I see like um little people in shadows and things so people call them fairies and elves and stuff, but I, I think they're actually offended by that term. Um I see angels, demons, um yeah, UFOs, aliens.

ANDREW DENTON: Wow. What do the angels and demons look like?

HEIDI EVERETT: The angels look like normal people. Um they're not all blond hair and oh, oh ... they're nothing like that. They actually look like normal people.

ANDREW DENTON: And what do the demons look like?

HEIDI EVERETT: They look like demons. I've drawn some. I can show you. Um they're horrible.

[Heidi pulls out illustration]

HEIDI EVERETT: This, this is what they mostly look like, this person here, and um yeah, very horrible and they just come and attack you and get into your space and suck the life out of you and…

ANDREW DENTON: Do you have a sense of them often?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah, yep.

ANDREW DENTON: Must be a horrible feeling.

HEIDI EVERETT: Sometimes I feel like I'm this person.

ANDREW DENTON: Do you see that person in the mirror?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah, yeah I do.

ANDREW DENTON: God that must be an awful feeling.

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: Why don't we turn the page so we can't even look?

ANDREW DENTON: What is that?

HEIDI EVERETT: Oh Tim my case worker at um the clinic where I go tried to get me to explain what anxiety and depression looks like and that that's.

ANDREW DENTON: That's amazing. Can you explain it?

HEIDI EVERETT: Um well it's kind of like it's own planet and it's got its own orbit and everything and these things are always just there to like knock you on the head and it's got its own power, just all this all sharp object things and...

ANDREW DENTON: There's not a single nice thing there is there.

HEIDI EVERETT: There's nothing nice about it and (breathes deeply) yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: Let's find a happy picture.

HEIDI EVERETT: A happy picture.

ANDREW DENTON: Have you been able to or have you drawn or painted ah what happiness looks like?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yes.

ANDREW DENTON: Oh Tigger. Tigger surfing.

HEIDI EVERETT: Yes.

ANDREW DENTON: Oh that's beautiful.

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah, that's my happy picture. Tigger, Tigger is my happiness.

ANDREW DENTON: Are you in any of your happy pictures?

HEIDI EVERETT: No.

ANDREW DENTON: Why's that?

HEIDI EVERETT: Because I'm not happy. I'm a sad sack as they say.

ANDREW DENTON: It feels to you as though you live between worlds, is that right?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah, yeah. My feet are on this world but my head's in the next world. And I think that's why I was made so tall.

ANDREW DENTON: What's the difference between the two worlds?

HEIDI EVERETT: Um one smells funny; one sounds funny; and like everything's weird about one but the other one's really cool and right, makes sense. Everything's logical to me and yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: So the one where you feet is, feet are sorry, is the one that smells funny and doesn't make sense?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yep. Yeah, takes a lot of working out all the time. You can't just get up and go oh today I do this and da-da-da. It's just like just so much effort that goes into sorting things out just to get up out of bed, yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: You were in ah England until you were about nine is that right?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah, yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: Where you in two worlds then, too?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah. Yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: Did it feel sad for you then, like it does now?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah, yeah, I got um I, I do remember when I used to go to this primary school and the whole school ended up teasing me and calling me a name and no one would hang around Heidi Everett because she was just she was dirty and she had these weird habits and

ANDREW DENTON: When were you diagnosed and what were you diagnosed with?

HEIDI EVERETT: Um that's an anomaly. I, you know it's always been a mystery to me. Um because I was formally diagnosed when I went into hospital the first time. Um he said oh Heidi you've got schizophrenia and I was like yeah, and I'm trying to be cool, oh OK, yeah, whatever, but

ANDREW DENTON: What was hospital like for you?

HEIDI EVERETT: Kind of horrible.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah.

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: What were the things that you hated?

HEIDI EVERETT: Hated that I was put in a room with only a small window and a mattress and no carpet, nothing, for the night, the first night I was ever in a psyche ward I was in that room and um I pissed my pants out of fear and the nurse wouldn't let me get changed or go ring a friend and get them to bring in some clean clothes, so I had to wear like, that for a while. And then you get jabbed in the arse with injections if you act up, which I think every person that gets dragged off to the psyche ward would act up. Any sane person, would act up. I hate the fact that um we weren't allowed outside for weeks. Um the only fresh air you got was in the smoking room at the time. I do now know that it's changed though and there's a lot more liberties for people but in those times you know that's what I hated about it and I hated the fact that – I could go on and on and on.

ANDREW DENTON: What about the meds? I assume that they've ah given you all sorts of stuff over the years?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah, I've been I've been pretty much on everything, and the one I'm on now um like a lot of people is the last resort. It was the last chance for them to work cos I was very sensitive to them and I used to get some severe side effects.

ANDREW DENTON: What sort of stuff?

HEIDI EVERETT: Um well, my eyes rolled back to the back of my head and I'd be walking down the street like that and it hurt cos they just kept going back and back and back and back, and back a bit more and then back a bit more and it was torture and you never stop.

ANDREW DENTON: What did that feel like to be in amongst all of that?

HEIDI EVERETT: lt was embarrassing. Um I knew that people were consciously avoiding me…

ANDREW DENTON: That's interesting, so you know there's a part of you knows entirely what's going on and feels...

HEIDI EVERETT: Yeah. Well, there was this time right, there was an ant and it was just walking around and I totally went into its world, and I was walking around with the ant in the pavement. And then um this person walked past and she said something to me and that's when I realised I was in the ant's world and I wasn't in the person's world. And I couldn't get back into my body so I watched my body get up um and it started screaming and just going completely primeval. It was just, just screaming and rrraaaahh...down the road and I ran into the traffic and people were going get her out of the traffic and everything, and I'm like aahh ... and I was over here watching it all happen from outside, and eh it was a terrifying, terrifying moment and um I eventually came back into my body and I was able to control it and bring it back under control and they just left me on the side of the road um in the gutter and I just sat in the gutter trying to compose myself and um started crying and everything cos I'd never been like that experience before and nobody helped me; everyone just left..

ANDREW DENTON: Why do you reckon no one helped you? That's amazing.

HEIDI EVERETT: People were terrified. They were terrified; cos I was I looked like a banshee. I was just going aahh...down the road and people were just frightened. They didn't know what was happening to me and I didn't know what was happening to me.

ANDREW DENTON: What would you have liked someone to have done?

HEIDI EVERETT: I would have liked somebody to come up to me and say right, Heidi, just relax. Just relax. It's OK. It's OK, you know. That would have been good if somebody just said it's OK, you're all right.

ANDREW DENTON: Is it hard for you sometimes to know what's real?

HEIDI EVERETT: Yes. Yeah, all the time. All the time.

[Heidi sings Angel song in park]

ANDREW DENTON: To not be able to trust your mind - I can't imagine anything worse. I needed to know if – and how – you can get that trust back. Today I've traveled a few kilometers from the conference to a specialist youth service, committed to getting in early - and fast.

ANDREW DENTON: Hello.

[Group says Hello]

ANDREW DENTON: Well who are you all? I'm Andrew. You'd be Victoria

VICTORIA TONIN: Yes.

ANDREW DENTON: Chris. I'm intuitive like this. I'm just picking up names. Izzie….

ISABELLA RIIS-JOHNSON: Isabelle. I mean you can call me Izzie.

ANDREW DENTON: Each of these guys has been very ill, with a range of mental health issues. But, for the most part, they're getting better.

SARAH NADJIDAI: I've had panic, anxiety attacks. I've had major depression since I was very little and um, finally it comes down to post-traumatic stress disorder.

ANDREW DENTON: What did it mean to actually have a proper label put on it?

SARAH NADJIDAI: It was such a relief to know that there was something, that there was actually something wrong. There is a name for it, and that you know, you can be treated once you know what's wrong.

JUSTIN TUMILAAR: I was at um a big dance party. And then I saw, well maybe it was happening maybe it wasn't um every single person there trying to kill me, like trying to fight with me. Like thousands and thousands of people yeah. That continued like for the next week, like even when I was off the drugs. I didn't even talk to a counselor until two years ago, and it first happened in 2001.

ANDREW DENTON: And did that make a difference?

JUSTIN TUMILAAR: It did, yeah to get on medication and um yeah talking to a case manager and I guess that whole thing of having a diagnosis then you know that it's a condition that can be treated and it's only going to be there for a little while.

K. M.: Um yeah when I was unwell I believed that I was the devil so I thought that everything bad that was happening in the world I was responsible

ANDREW DENTON: Does this have a name?

K. M.: Well it's just been called first episode psychosis at this stage.

NICOLE DONKER: I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression and that was about oh three to five years of just gradually sliding downhill, down hill to suicidal thoughts.

ANDREW DENTON: What did you think was happening up till that point?

NICOLE DONKER: I just thought this is normal and this is shit. And then the medication worked for a while and then things started to get worse again and then that's when my second D day came because one day I woke up and the sun was shining and the birds were singing and things were brilliant and we finally found somewhere that um took in all my history and said well we think you're you know a bit manic yeah so I've got, I'm bipolar and I know it's in the media a lot nowadays, it seems to be the mental illness of the time.

ANDREW DENTON: What's this place done for you?

CARLA FROST: This place has restored hope. Um I think that's the main thing about being treated in a youth service that there's still the hope. As young people we do have so much ahead of us and as opposed to sort of medication and one on one therapy the idea that Orygen has a group program here there's just a heap of young people and a couple of staff members. They're relaxed and they're mainly social groups so um we're around people in not such a threatening environment. It's like a community group.

K. M.: They encourage us to have goals for ourselves um and sort of to carve out a way to meet those goals.

CHRIS MARTIN: It helped me to achieve getting my life back together.

ANDREW DENTON: Is ultimately the most useful medicine hope?

CARLA FROST: Um not just hope but also understanding what is wrong with you I think. They're pretty equal in that sense, so without an understanding you can't hope to get better cos you don't know what's wrong with you so I think they're they pretty much go together.

VICTORIA TONIN: We're starting to move on from like in history those days where people used to go to psyche wards for entertainment um to watch people who were who did have a mental illness, to now I think through really well known people speaking up, slowly we're working towards a society where we can accept mental illness more, and it is becoming integral to the workplace and to schools but we've got a long way to go.

ISABELLA RIIS-JOHNSON: I want a life. Other people go out there and live their daily lives and yeah, and it's not going to be easy but we can do it, yeah

VICTORIA TONIN: We deserve to win the next Nobel Prize and discover the next cure, just like anyone else, and just because we come out of the closet and admit it doesn't mean we're worth any less as such.

ISABELLA RIIS-JOHNSON: I'd like to get into, into medicine. I know that's very, very hard, but ...

ANDREW DENTON: Why can't you do that?

ISABELLA RIIS-JOHNSON: Well, because of a lot of society. They don't you know because of um you know what I've been through, mental health and stuff, a lot of people think oh could you cope with that? You know that's a lot of pressure.

ANDREW DENTON: What about you Nicole?

NICOLE DONKER: Um I've just signed up for another three years of uni….

ANDREW DENTON: Studying what?

NICOLE DONKER: Um, I'm doing a doctorate in molecular virology.

ANDREW DENTON: K.?

K. M.: Um I've taken leave of absence this year. I was doing a doctorate in psychology, which is kind of ironic I suppose. Um but yeah, I I'm hoping to go back next year, but I'm not too sure if I'll be able to just because I'm still having a few um like cognitive problems, so I have a lot of trouble reading. I can't really read and understand what I'm reading. Um I did the course for two years um and I've pretty much forgotten everything I learnt in the course um cos I actually had um ECT, electro-convulsive therapy, which can have an impact on memory and as well the psychosis as well can have an impact on memory. So it's impossible to say really whether it's going to stay the same or whether it's going to improve or…

ANDREW DENTON: Is that scary?

K. M.: Yeah, yeah it's very scary. It's very scary to think that I might not be able to go back and finish what I wanted to do.

ANDREW DENTON: Sarah what are you studying or what are you planning to do

SARAH NADJIDAI: I finished year 12 last year and I'm doing a bachelor of nursing and major in mental health, so ...

ANDREW DENTON: Why do you want to put back into the system?

SARAH NADJIDAI: I think when you're in hospital and you see the way it it's going about you think god, this should be done another way. They're doing it all wrong, the nurses, they're all wrong. No, I'm just kidding.

ANDREW DENTON: No, no, that's good, I'm going to pick, no, I want to get down; I'm going to pick you up on this. What is the thing you see about the way you're treated that you would change tomorrow if you could?

SARAH NADJIDAI: They don't know what it's like to, to be down or…

ANDREW DENTON: Is it possible for someone else to really know that?

SARAH NADJIDAI: Not eh not particularly um ….

ISABELLA RIIS-JOHNSON: No, unless they've been through it, so….

NICOLE DONKER: Maybe they just don't understand how scary it is for young people like us to consider well hey something is actually really, really wrong and we're facing the prospect of medication for the rest of our lives. Um at that time we probably don't understand the full extent of mental illness so we've got all the stigma in our own minds about it, and that's affecting us and I don't think they just understand how scared we are.

ANDREW DENTON: Yeah. Izzy, is there life after mental illness?

ISABELLA RIIS-JOHNSON: Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. And we yeah as we've all said we want to give back and yeah, we want to hold people's hands and say come on, you can do it.

MAN 1: Until you take the bull by the horns and say, I'm not going to let this illness control me any longer, I'm going to control my illness, well that's when real change is going to happen. Sunil: The only way to bring yourself out of the hole is to believe there's hope, find yourself some good role models and get on with it.

MAN 2: If I can break down even to a few of these sort of thick headed people and think, oh this could happen to me. Maybe it's just not some little sort of maniac kid.

WOMAN 1: I still have good days and bad days. I've learnt to manage my illness. I've learnt to recognise the early warning signs, I know how to get help when I need it.

WOMAN 2: Recovery definitely is the most amazing thing. And when you get people working to work towards looking at a person as a whole person and what they could possibly achieve, rather than looking at the illness that they have, I think anything is possible.

MARY O'HAGAN (speaks at conference): Madness is a legitimate experience. Most people want to move on from it like they want to move on from profound grief. There are pathways through it to a better life. Now they're not necessarily linear pathways, they might be spirally or circular but they're pathways and only the person can walk the pathways. Other people can't do it for them and all others can do is clear the obstacles and maybe provide some maps.

ANDREW DENTON: Let's talk about some of the things that you do and that have sustained you. First of all, you're 54, you're playing ah…comp hockey, you've scored eight goals this season, ah that's pretty damn impressive.

SANDY JEFFS: I must say scoring a goal at hockey is really good for your mental health. In fact better than taking drugs I reckon because oh getting a goal at hockey you feel fantastic and your teams all over you like a rash giving you high fives and cuddles and I love it.

ANDREW DENTON: Have the voices ever said a good thing about your hockey?

SANDY JEFFS: No.

ANDREW DENTON: Never.

SANDY JEFFS: Never. Cos you could easily give up you know. I could easily say I can't do it um you know I I'll stop playing but one of the reasons I keep playing is because my team are so nice to me I have to say. I'm the president of the club and they call me the Queen, oh I just love my team, they're fantastic.

ANDREW DENTON: You were told that you wouldn't work, that effectively your life was going to be stuck in that position

ARANA PEARSON: Yeah. That's right, yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: How did you move from a hopeless diagnosis to being hopeful?

ARANA PEARSON: Oh well, eh partly getting angry helped me. I mean I just, people talked about that today. I mean anger's not a bad thing. It's what you do with the energy. The more of us who have the conditions eh and experience that can front up um and talk through what our experiences are and talk about our recovery um publicly I think that goes a long way to helping.

ANDREW DENTON: I think a lot of people would find it hard to be as strong as you.

HEIDI EVERETT: Well, what's the alternative? That, that's the only thing. You know the alternative is not to be alive and do it, so um yeah.

ANDREW DENTON: I came to this conference wanting to learn. Wanting to know what it's like to "lose your mind". I discovered it's tough. It's tough being sick. And it's made even tougher living with stigma and fear. I think one of the main things I've learnt, is that when you have a mental illness, particularly a severe one, it doesn't mean you cease to have potential. Far from it. But you need support…An opportunity to contribute…And above all I guess, a chance to belong.