James' story

You’re nineteen years old and a successful officer cadet at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. You’ve spent two years preparing for this at an Army sixth-form college, having passed 4 A levels.

Without warning your life suddenly takes a turn for the worse. You begin to ‘lose the plot’. The next thing you know you’re locked in the guardroom awaiting your family who are coming to take you home. Eight hours later, they arrive. Your mother is appalled. In her words you’re ‘more animal than human’.

The journey home is a complete nightmare. Your mind is hallucinating, the car is wired, the radio is inside your head, forwards becomes reverse, passing cars contain colleagues, officers, family and friends.

Forty eight hours later and now you’re in big trouble. Unable to cope, your mother has handed you over to the authorities and home becomes a psychiatric ward. You’re fit and strong so to help you ‘rest’ the dosages of medication are upped to maximum levels.

Now the side effects kick in. You’re constantly dribbling, your eyes involuntarily roll back in their sockets, you react to sunlight, your hands shake uncontrollably, your speech is slurred. Some friends visit and leave in tears.

In your disturbed mind you believe the army has selected you for a special mission. You’re testing the effectiveness of a new neurological weapon that’s top secret. How wrong you are. The army has dumped you. You’ve failed.

Once allowed home you try to build a future if only you could manage to get up off the sofa. The medication’s being reduced, the side-effects are just about bearable and you work for a couple of seasons as a hotel porter.

Next you’re offered a better job, confidence grows and then you decide to apply to the Fire Service. Five medicals over eighteen months and a letter to the Home Office and you’re accepted. You spend eight years as a fireman and even are awarded a Chief Fire Officer’s commendation.

Eventually, you put your experiences to use and talk to others about life with a mental illness. After a while, even the painful times can be talked about without tears; times you believed you were the Messiah, the next King of England.

Well, this all happened to me. For the last twenty years I’ve lived with schizophrenia and it’s been a rocky, yet in many ways, inspiring path. Along the way I’ve met some incredibly brave people, lost a few good friends and yet somehow, I’ve survived.

Using the experience I’ve gained and the talents I’ve acquired I hope to take forward a message that is real and relevant to today’s society. A message that is honest, inspirational and not short of humour.