Making manic depression my strength | Sigursteinn Robert Masson | TEDxReykjavik
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cAnOH5CZqE Video ID: 8cAnOH5CZqE ============================================================ I was terrified running from one house to another in the western part of Reykjavik had probably never been so scared in my life I didn't know exactly what was going on but there was something bad I felt being followed it chased us on their own I have been at that time working on a documentary film about those criminal cases the government didn't get finners of the cases for almost a year and I had realized that those cases but a serious miscarriage of justice now I felt that I had become like a person in this case workers cases and it was a very strange feeling my fear grew to a paranoia and the paranoia in few days went totally out of control I can control anything else didn't I was able to sleep my nutrition was out of the window I didn't eat and I was involuntarily hospitalized the athletic mascot hospital in Reykjavik a psychiatric ward those cases of religious and Cajun if they had influenced the whole society for a long time Iceland six people were convicted for homicide double homicide that they never committed my entire nose at the mental hospital was manic depression I had never heard about this I didn't know that was boss just being told that I was mentally ill and I had this illness that would follow me for the rest of my life that was bad enough I pictured mentally ill people as some sort of zombies or people who would be very dangerous criminals even my presentation about mental illness was preventing me to look in the mirror for three years I was hospitalized as many times three times and the third time 1999 three things happened that changed my life first of all I got a visit to the hospital from a man young man who said he was studying medicine he looked good he seemed to be clever and intelligent he gave me a book written by dr. Kevin contain a song and I'm quiet mind and totally revealed see is a professor in psychiatry which is also with manic depression living with manic depression so by meeting him and by reading this book it gave me a hope it gave me an insight of the possibility to live with this and not totally against it secondly that same year in 1999 I went to the Islamic Mental Health Alliance as soon as I left the hospital I became within a year the chairman of that organ the first 10 men as a use of the natural system and they an island both that I mean part of that organization and working there I was helping myself by holding us an important way of finding the self-help but I also decided to use my experience over the three years before to fight stigma and to try to give mental illnesses faces names persons so desperately needed the third thing was that I came out I came out in a newspaper interview frog Bates as a gay person as a mentally ill person I blasted it out even before I had told many of my relatives and friends and that was really a liberating feeling stressful but very liberating so facing it fronting it and seeing it I believe is the key to a recovery process after that I of course had to deal with my life stuff because nothing was the same this will change my life so I have to make sure that I will sleep well that are 12 and I will exercise physical exercises I developed my own mental self defense system which is denying the dualism of separating mind and body because I do believe that what we do to our body we do to our mind and vice versa and I stopped working with stress in a different way than I have before not only resisting it and trying to avoid stress but also to turn it around because most stress has also positive side and we need certain stress in order to move but there are a lot of things that happen also after that that I started enough in a positive way that is that my manic depression was not no longer a hindrance in my life I had to change my profession I lost my job as a TV journalist that I have been for seven years but I found new Row new purpose and that is so important both through there to the mental health alliance but also to other things that came out I started working with animal dancers and indeed crazy things 2003 I started actively campaigning against rain acting in Iceland but everybody in this country is prorating everybody he will call me eco-terrorist so I did crazy things but those crazy things they gave me a meaning and a new road approaches so important and I am thankful for my many of the person every day I wake up now I remind myself how lucky I am to have experienced this and be able to use it as a strength of course I would not wish anybody to go through the same things that I did with the involuntarily hospitalizations some of the things that happened that and the depression the severe depression and the high me crazy paranoia I don't want anybody to experience it but if if you do it is so important not to be a victim of it not to think that this is something that never should have happened to you it did happen to you you cannot reverse it so let's face it that's prompted and Sheriff I want to think about my journey my life journey as a saleable and I asked all of you to picture this a book now on the scene and you have the waves or you have still whether you're on a sailboat and the Sun and no movement of the sea nor wind is not the perfect situation is it because we need to go forward yeah it can be nice for a lodge but then you want the wind and with the win it comes the waves and it's absolutely necessary to go through those waves they can be high and they can be long but if you are actually then on your boat taking the responsibility of your journey and if you are taking responsibility of your crew and yourself of course then this journey can be very interesting giving an exciting no matter how much weight that is but of core you have positively organize your trip if to organize your traveling you have to make sure that everybody have a good role that they are comfortable with in your crew you have to think of where to go to avoid the dangers and planned it in a safe way the aim of this journey is to come safely to the next house this is your path this is the part that you are sailing in this part of your life I decided 1999 to become a captain of my city board and that is how I changed my manic-depression from big madness to become nice thank you [Applause]