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all right good morning Matthew welcome to True Hope cast I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today how

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are you what is going well good thanks thanks for having me on your show uh what is going well uh I my

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health I feel great these days it's uh I've had a long a long bout of

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schizophrenia for pushing three decades but I've recovered in the recent year or

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two or so and uh it's wonderful so that's what's going well well that's

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something certainly to celebrate congratulations for that because that's uh you know that's something here at true hope Canada that's a condition that

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we work with quite frequently so and we obviously and we know how serious it is and how significant it can

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be for some people and not everybody has a success story that you you clearly have

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yeah yeah it's uh it's a tough slog for sure but uh I yeah

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it's I I sort of got two audiences for one group who've never gone through mental illness I try to tell them like

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look it's it's a lot worse than you think but for the people who are going through it they already know that and I

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try to tell them it's easier than you think it feels so tough but you can get through it you can just keep going

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you've got so much more inside of you than you think to fight this stuff so yeah Wonderful World we'll probably come in

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and out of talking about that and mind uh mind Aid as we um learn a little bit

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more about what you do and what on what they do and obviously you have a connection with with mental health and I'm sure it's that that there's a

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personal reason why you've gone into the line of work that you have so why don't you just for a little introduction let

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us know kind of who you are and what is that you do sure so my main thing is helping people

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with mental illness in developing countries I've got a website mind a DOT C A

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m-i-n-d-a-i-d.ca and I I

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had my worst in 1994 when the disease my disease first hit me um a lady said uh that I looked like I

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was walking through a world of flying glass I literally felt like I was living in a

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war zone here in a relatively sleepy part of Canada and years went by I

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recovered slowly week by week for many many years but it wasn't until 2017 2016 2017 and I first I saw my

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first bit of content online about mental health and developing countries through my whole recovery my heart went

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out to people in war-torn countries people in extreme poverty who have the

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horrors of mental illness to go through as well and when I saw this Ted Talk around 2017 or so by Vikram Patel he

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talked about helping people with mental illness in developing countries and it's uh relatively new he he made models of

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basic Mental Health Care starting in the 90s and there are groups using these

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models now with great success and they've they've been helping thousands and thousands of people get

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back up on their feet get back being productive being able to feed their family again and reclaiming their lives

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and I'm trying to build their capacity so I found eight groups non-profits that you can donate to I'm

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I'm relatively new to this field plus I've had to work on my own recovery in the last so many years as well so I

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haven't been able to be as productive or go tackle bigger

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bigger things like I really want to I'm sort of taking small step by step I got

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on one social media channel after another just slowly adding them watching my own recovery at the same time

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but there's eight groups you can so I'm kind of keeping myself out of the the financial Loop of it people can donate

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directly to me on my patreon page to help me with my own finances but as far as donating to help people with mental

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health and developing countries I steer people towards their websites those eight non-profits I found I steer people

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to their websites you can donate directly to them and take me out of the equation down the road if I have the strength or

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confidence mental health to run my own non-profit or social business that is something I would definitely like to do

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at some point when I've when I've got that capacity in my in my own health in the meantime if anybody wants to start a

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non-profit or social business on their own and and help these people that would be amazing

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the uh if anyone wants to start a non-profit or social business and have me as part of it at least doing what I

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can do be more of a spokesperson I love getting up in front of the camera stage and Screen talking about this stuff so

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I'm I'm willing to help it where I can but yeah very cool tell us about like what do you

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what are we actually seeing or what do you actually I suppose you're not going to see anything unless you're looking for it in regards to looking at these

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developing countries and and how mental illness and tragedy and Trauma is affecting them but like which countries

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are you looking at and which countries are you working with and what is it that where what is it that you're actually

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seeing so I I've never left North America I'm 50 years old I've never left I

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it was uh a struggle for me to go to Vancouver Toronto earlier in my recovery but I did

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it I was able to do those things to go to other countries I still haven't gotten over that mental leap of could I

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do that even like to Europe or something um there's a lot of so the groups that I steer people towards those eight

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non-profits you can see on their websites the countries they work in a lot of them are in Africa some Central

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America Asia primarily those but one interesting note on that is

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one of the group's basic needs U.S they're they're based in Massachusetts and they work in developing countries

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they did a pilot project with this this model of basic mental health care in a

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rural poor uh a poor rural uh indigenous play I think it was New Mexico and they

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also worked in uh or poor Urban environment I think it was Detroit and they got great results from that so

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these can be not just I mean there's a man uh Shakara saxena in

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recent years he's from Harvard and he said at the U.N that every country when it comes to Mental Health Care is a

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developing country every country every single country has I mean yes I'd rather

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be in Canada for mental health care rather than some countries in Africa but still our Mental Health Care system in

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Canada is is what he's saying is classified as a developing countries Mental Health Care System it's we need

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that much more work so I I don't have boots on the ground I I do know that uh the the websites those

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they they can steer they can tell you more about what's going on I do have on the resources section on my website more

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groups other than those eight but they you can't donate or fundraise to them as far as I know they're just more sort of

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awareness or advocacy work that they're doing in developing countries and yeah why why do you think

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um I totally agree with the statement that all countries even Western countries are very underdeveloped when

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it comes to Mental Health Care completely agree with that statement why do you think we're why do you think we're in that state

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it's uh so much fear around the brain I mean they said that people in decades ago

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people were afraid to talk about cancer if you had cancer you just did not talk about it why

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why was cancer not talked about uh the brain is a bit more easier to think about because it's a it's a sort of this

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mysterious thing who knows what goes on and you can see is that hundreds of years ago as people being afraid to talk

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about are just not understanding was cancer something like that was it a mysterious thing that just sort of

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showed up in people's lives was that why they didn't want to talk about it I I don't know it's uh I am glad though

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that a silver lining of the pandemic is people talking so much more about Mental Health so one thing I'm excited about is

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that I mean I've been I've made my website mindaid.ca in 2018 before the

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pandemic we'd been talking about uh mental health a lot more in the last 10

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12 years already and the pandemic sort of was the blue and wide open and so I'm

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really excited that maybe now is the time that mental health and developing countries could get more of a push because it is vastly under-resourced

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some some countries have only one psychiatrist per million people there are over 270 million people in

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developing countries with no mental health care that's like almost the entire us mentally ill and poor and all

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the other problems and I'm hoping that I mean I think but I'm 50 I remember in the 70s and 80s as

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kids we would take little UNICEF donation boxes around with us on Halloween trick-or-treating so donating

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to developing countries is not a New Concept to us we've been buying goats

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we've been drilling Wells we've been building schools for decades in other countries developing countries and

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mental health why is that not being if you go to UNICEF or World Vision there

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are catalogs online of gifts you can buy there's all sorts of things you can do to help somebody there but mental health

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really isn't on the list and I did find an article recently online of why

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they're not doing that and they laid out some reasons but I'm hoping that that can uh

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change it needs to change strong Minds one of the eight non-profits that steer people towards strongminds.org they help

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women with depression in Africa they don't use medications they use group based talk therapy they get women in

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groups of eight or ten they meet for so many months once a week or so and they get really good results getting rid of

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depression in them strong ones wants to scale their operation drastically they're trying to

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work with the larger organizations like Oxfam and whatnot saying look can you can you use our simple model and try to

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scale it out to more people because it works these models of basic mental health care and there are different

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variations of them they're low cost they're proven effective and they're scalable the world health organizations

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trying to figure out the best way to roll them out to the masses in the meantime these eight groups that I found

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they are doing the work and rolling it out and I just want to build their capacity so much more so

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yeah I find I I think the last question I just asked you is such a huge one right it's like why don't we have why

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are we so underdeveloped in most countries when it comes to mental health care I think your connection with cancer

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is very interesting because it just makes me think the fact that we don't do very well with things that

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we can't see and things that we can't touch hear smell so you know with our

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very limited senses when it comes to somebody who does have cancer or somebody who does have mental health

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problems it's not so easy to connect with that thing because we can't visually see it but then we have

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something like the pandemic over the last couple of years where the fear and um

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and uh the fear and the scarcity around those events and you know we've

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obviously been um in the media and it's on social media it's literally just absolutely everywhere so it's kind of palpable you

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can see and feel the fear in communities and around the world so it is in a sense

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it's become a little bit more rather than that just like mysterious mental health thing that we can't see we're

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starting to feel it with our senses like energetically that's what I I kind of feel you know I feel like you know if you go into if you go into a particular

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room with a with a really strong energetic Vibe you know you can feel that you know it changes your energy within you and I think that the the last

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couple of years two and a half years of what's happened has has given a little bit more of um we can connect it connect

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to what people are going through and what we're also going through ourselves with uh with our senses and I think that

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gives it a little bit a little bit more of a reality and it gives a little people boosts people without the ability to step back and say

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okay this is actually like real this is you know this I'm not the only person going through it and I think when people

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understand that they then going out and speaking and being with other individuals and and talking about it

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being a little bit more open and vulnerable to the idea of talking about their mental health where you know and

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it's okay not to be okay all of the time um I certainly see some positives that

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have come out of of um out of covid where you know people are open to talking about these things a bit more

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yeah yeah it's uh yeah there is a there's a group

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in New Zealand uh Voices of Hope and they said that they're a mental health

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group and they said that yes kovid brought a lot of mental health white out

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in the uh we're talking about a lot more there are still some mental illnesses that aren't talked about as much uh

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schizophrenia which is what I've got is one of them uh there are some others too that still aren't getting as enough

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attention or are talked about as openly it's uh it was yeah

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yeah it's as you say like I think that also within the

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the highest medical community possible the brain is still massively

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misunderstood and not understood like we might know one percent of it but I don't think we know about as much about how

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the brain works as we'd like to think um so I think a lot of um what people go through with depression

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and anxiety and PTSD OCD schizophrenia bipolar all these types of

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things we know some stuff about them with you know with our experience and

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you know clinical data and clinical studies and you know looking at these things but there's still the

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understanding of the brain and how it works because it's obviously unbelievably complex in regards to its

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capabilities and its connectivity and how we're also wildly different in regards to how our brains you know fire

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and wire through you know Decades of learning different things in different environments it's quite unbelievable and

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beautiful and unique in in that aspect but yeah it's It's tricky to be able to say okay this

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one thing is going to you know cure and heal all of the depression you know we've actually kind of tried that with

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medications and it's not really worked so it's um it's a very complex and

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fascinating issue and I wonder how you're talking about these organizations and they're all charitable non-profit

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organizations and do do other countries in regards to mental illness like

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support each other I take the example of like Ukraine at the moment in the last you know six months

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how many countries the U.S Canada the UK have sent no loads of money over there

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um that's that's you know that's great to be able to do that but it's like how how do other countries support you know

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these underdeveloped or developing countries with something like mental illness you know do we you know is it is

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it the is it about giving them money is it about giving them resources about giving them you know it's difficult like

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what what do you believe in your experience of working with these organizations working with these countries working with mental health

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what is it that we can do to support these countries and these individuals

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who you know don't live in you know Western Nations yeah

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um just to be clear I some of the stuff I don't know I I'm not in a ton of

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conversations with people who are more one good group for that is United for United for Global mental health uh

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there's the term Global mental health which means mental health in every country uh developed and developing

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United for Global mental health they seem to be doing a lot more of the more

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upper level things uh with people who have a lot more power than me I've I've

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got a website and I'm on social media I'm as far as I know I'm the only website of my if it's I've got the only

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website of its kind in the world if you want to go looking for all the groups working on mental health

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and developing countries they're scattered across the web I've got them as many as I can find all on one site

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and I keep finding them solely as time as the years go on I keep finding more I am though not in sort of conversations

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with more of the upper level people doing more of the work on the ground doing work and uh with governments

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talking to other governments and I'd like to get involved uh more in more of

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that as the years go on right now I sort of feel like I'm still getting my feet wet learning who the players are and uh

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trying to talk with them and whatnot so uh but yeah I I wish I could answer that question better okay yeah no problem now

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it's a it's a big question and um you know even if you were to kind of route through all of those websites that

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you mentioned I think it'd be quite tricky to find an answer to that I think that it's um

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yeah with so many things like this in regards to Collective support especially

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for like a nation or a community it's it comes down to a lot of people like in

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the public donating donating money and resources and time towards these things

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um many in many instances the government no it doesn't step in to to do this but I

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don't think they even know how to do it to be honest so it's great that we've got people like you in these in these

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organizations coming together to you know really really kind of take charge and you know you're seeing a problem actually doing something about it rather

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than you know expecting it to be done for us by the powers that be I think that's a very unrealistic expectation

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but it's awesome that you guys are out there doing it so my day your website

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got these what type of resources available on there in regards to um you know how people can get kind of

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involved right away so I've got a Facebook group there the

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Mind Aid Facebook group and people are welcome to join that and meet other people who are interested in helping out

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helping brainstorm ways to fundraise uh spread awareness of mental health in

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developing countries there's about 70 80 people in there so far there's not a ton

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of discussion yet going on regularly I'm posting in there I'm hoping that'll change as time goes on that's one thing

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people can do if people want to meet others uh you're free to join that there

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are I've got some merchandise some sweat uh sweatshirts t-shirts people can buy

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donations go to one of the group's strong Minds um there are the group I list the aid

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groups there people can donate to them directly on their websites they can fundraise for them strong Minds again

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has their own uh personal uh you can make your own personal fundraiser right on the strong Minds uh website platform

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their software I've started one to be honest I I took a big leap this year and

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I said I want to I'm trying to raise 1.8 million dollars U.S to help 10 000 women with depression

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through the through strong Minds by the end of this year December 31st 2022 and

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I may fall flat on my face with that I may be able to make some Headway in that someone said Matthew

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if you've got uh two sports teams I'm in Canada I'm thinking the Toronto Maple

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Leafs the Montreal Canadiens hockey teams they've had a long rivalry for decades if I got their online fan groups

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to sort of duke it out between each other saying who could raise the most money for this cause that might be a way

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to do that and I'm still working on it I haven't approached the two groups of the

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online fan groups they've got about 30 000 or more in each group they've got a

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number of groups for each team and that's an idea how someone mentioned that to me I thought that's a good idea so I may be running without here to see

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an approaching them saying what do you think of this would this work but people are welcome to donate start

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their own fundraisers on their own or underneath my own mining mind Aid fundraiser for strong lines the link is

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on my website join 2022 challenge it's the Mind day 2022 challenge

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uh I will say fine mind they are relatively new they're one of the eight groups and they uh they've been around

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for a few years now uh they I want to get them more traction more visibility

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and get more uh get them more up on their feet better uh get them more up on their feet the actor Forest Whitaker

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most recently in Star Wars he his foundation is working with fine mind which is huge that's uh a lot of

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celebrity uh shout out material there yeah and so find mine they work in Northern

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Uganda and they've been helping people get mental health uh get Mental Health Care uh Pavel repo he's the founder he's

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in Colorado and he's uh yeah they uh yeah another fundraiser I want to

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mention too if people want to donate I there's a new group I found they're they're the eighth one I added them to

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the list just recently they they are doing things a bit differently they use trauma recovery yoga it's a

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type of yoga to help people recover from trauma they're working in Iraq with the uh the genocide that happened there

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refugees it's uh it's really helping people there they

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also want to move into Ukraine they've got a fundraiser there for eight thousand dollars and they want to move

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into Ukraine and help people there with trauma recovery yoga uh next year so if

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people want to donate to that that's on my website under the non-profits

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um yeah that's awesome you mentioned a TED Talk beforehand I can't remember the individual that you mentioned but if you

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can mention that again but you talking about models for basic Mental Health Care can

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you can for the people who have not seen that video can you run us through a little bit about that and explain that I

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think that's very very interesting in regards to you know how do we start um developing all nations in regards to

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their abilities to support people within their country within mental health care and if we can yeah we can we need

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structures we need like fundamentals we need like an idea that's going to you know evolve and drop and change depending on the nation so what are

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these um basic models so Vikram Patel the Ted Talk it's uh

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it's on my website mindaid.ca if you Google Vikram Patel mental health it'll

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show up as a TED Talk he said in the 90s well he was a

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psychiatrist and he noticed that for decades they'd had manuals for

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where there's no doctor what happens if you get a broken leg or get pneumonia or get any kind of physical health injury

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or disease how do you treat that where there's no doctor around no hospital for hundreds and hundreds of miles how do

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you treat that they've had those documents for decades he thought in the 90s why don't we do the same thing for

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mental health so he did they've got a document and different variations of it the who the World Health Organization

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they've got a document if you look up who m-h-g-a-pmh Gap mental health Gap Action

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Program on their website they have you can find documents for for the these

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models they're like it's like a hundred page document it'll walk you through a lot with pictures and images so that you

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don't have to it's not for a specific language you read through this and find

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out how to treat somebody who's presented in front of you in a developing country where there's no

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hospital for hundreds of miles how do you how do you assess someone for what they've got and how do you treat it and

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these that's uh that's a good example of what uh what they can do these they've

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worked this out they're low cost they're proven effective they've already these

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these models have gone through studies and they're scalable and it's so one of the things they do is they go into a

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community and they hand pick certain people who may have some basic leadership skills some basic basic

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health skills anything to those degrees and they teach them how to deliver this

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basic Mental Health Care these models and that's uh it's called task sharing

24:40

or task shifting they take someone who's doing like maybe some maternal Health

24:45

Care delivering babies in the community they've they've got some leadership skills and they teach them these other

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skills they shift the tasks to basic mental health care yeah that's really cool I mean that's

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wonderful that their their organizations out there and individuals out there who are you know taking taking the reins and

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creating this very very smart system I think the fact that you you're looking for certain individuals who can support

25:09

and Inspire within groups and communities rather than you know kind of strangers coming in or people coming in

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from other countries like actually using individuals in the community who understand the environment understand the community that's really really smart

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I really think that's a really wonderful inspiring way to to do that kind of like from within that group rather than like

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external people coming in you'd have to build that trust that Rapport but yeah that's a really wonderful way of doing

25:36

it um when you were talking about individuals in like War stricken

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countries and natural disasters it's making me think of of the re of some of the amazing research we have for our

25:49

Flagship product here at true hope can which is Empower plus and we've used micronutrients well not us especially in

25:56

New Zealand we've had lots of lots of researchers have used our product within individual groups that have suffered

26:03

earthquakes and how they've recovered very very differently and quicker in

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regards to the stress of that type of environment with the use of micronutrient supplementation you know

26:15

with with that recovery I think that's very just a very interesting contrast in regards to how can we start supporting

26:20

people in different ways who you know might be a group of group depressed a group

26:26

anxious or like a group that is like collectively stressed because of this event that's happened within that

26:32

country or that that City or whatever it might be I think getting kind of unique with the

26:39

approach and how you might support those individuals would be it's very important to be able to do that whether it's

26:44

that's you know therapy or using Therapeutics or using something like supplementation you're talking about this yoga as well all these are

26:51

incredible ways to um give people different options not everyone might not want to do yoga not

26:57

everyone might not want to take a supplement but some people might want to sit and talk through what they're going

27:02

through so having different options that are accessible is unbelievably powerful

27:08

and I'm just if you don't mind talking about it you know schizophrenia is also one of

27:13

the um one of the conditions that our products has been researched for and how

27:19

what what's your journey been like with schizophrenia you say you've recovered I think that's amazing like can you tell

27:24

us about like from diagnosis to recovery yeah so I was uh my youth was pretty

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average I grew up in a small town in Eastern Canada and went off to University but throughout University I

27:40

sort of felt One symptom coming on but once a year but these were mild these

27:45

this was late 80s to early 90s and I didn't know anything about mental illness I'd been taught mental health

27:51

and gym class in the 80s and health class about you know if you do too much exercise as a way to escape things it's

27:57

not good so I had a little bit of an idea of psychology but we weren't taught about depression or anxiety or bipolars

28:04

schizophrenia I'd seen in movies you know someone had a split personality and they were called schizophrenic which

28:10

isn't correct uh people with schizophrenia they there is such a thing as split or

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multiple personality and from my limited knowledge as far as I know that's caused

28:23

by extreme abuse schizophrenia is not split Personnel split or multiple personality

28:30

but I so I I muddled through University I bicycled across Canada when I was 20 I was on the

28:38

University rowing team I did the triathlon I was taking engineering I was getting mostly A's in engineering I was

28:45

doing well I was living on my own but I could feel these symptoms that'll once a year creep up on me but I could still do

28:51

all this stuff they weren't limiting me that much and but when the disease hit it hit hard

28:58

I went in a matter of weeks to just flat on my back thrown up in a ball shaking not knowing whether I was going to live

29:04

or die from one moment to the next it was terrifying I described my story to people they say Matthew what you're

29:10

describing to me is Terror and like yeah it's it's scary but

29:16

I wish I'd known in those years the early especially the first year or so was that the pain can

29:23

lessen the pain can lessen and that will allow you to keep fighting for longer it's hard when you're in that pain to think

29:31

of anything other than that pain that that pain can go down in time there's no it's so the unknown is so so hard to

29:41

deal with I mean I was diagnosed with schizophrenia at 22. they say here try a

29:47

drug if it works stay on it and good luck get some counseling and next okay it's uh they don't say you

29:55

fall into this class or greater type of schizophrenia which means you will get better in X number of months or years

30:01

they say we don't know what's going to happen to you unknown we don't know we don't know if you will ever get better

30:07

we don't know anything but I want to tell people that it's possible Navy Seals are taught in their

30:15

training look up Mark Devine he's the author uh he's an author he teaches people how to think like an ABC on his

30:22

books he says Navy Seals are taught in their training you're capable of 20

30:27

times more than you think you are 20 times they take him to the brink of physical and mental exhaustion they're

30:34

sleep deprived they're lying they're saying I can't move another muscle they say oh you think you're done no you've

30:40

got not just twice 20 times more than you think you'd have and they teach them to get up and keep going keep going keep

30:46

going that's the way I know Navy SEAL but that's what I felt like I had to do for years was just keep going keep going

30:54

so I got on the medication it worked glacially slowly but I noticed an

31:00

improvement in my health every single week for years from 94 till about 2012

31:06

once a week from 2012 onward I noticed an improvement

31:11

sometimes once a day sometimes twice a day and February 11th of 2021 during the

31:17

pandemic my symptoms just stopped and since then the last year and a half

31:23

or so I've been in this sort of state of just shock um sort of like uh just uh wow did I

31:31

just go through that did I just go through that for those who can't see me I'm doing error quotes here did I just

31:36

go through that just over 27 years it literally felt like I was blindsided hit

31:43

pummeled hit from behind for 27 years and then I just had the last year and a half this time to think I've had full

31:50

complete thoughts instead of thoughts that go round and round in circles and don't get anywhere I get to think I get

31:57

to reflect I get to just exist in my body and not feel pain what a treat that

32:02

is I'm still in my medication I'm not going off at any time soon that you'll

32:07

have a hard time getting me off it but uh and I know medication is you know a controversial topic for some people and

32:16

I I don't want to get into that I'm I yeah it's uh yeah I yeah well

32:22

congratulations Matthew it's uh my mental health is just such a wild

32:28

ride anyway and everybody goes through their own individual version of it and

32:34

yeah when you're talking about the pain there and the the unknown and the isolation and you know it's a very dark

32:40

the very dark time for a lot of people and they can certainly seem like that's

32:47

your only that's your reality and that's the only reality that will ever exist so coming out of that congratulations

32:54

yeah it's a really amazing thing medication for so many people is incredibly necessary like you know I

33:01

think I feel everything has got its place I think you know I've spoken to so many people

33:07

um in my personal and professional life that have used medications very

33:12

successfully and people have come off it and yeah it's you know it's certain everything certainly has its place and

33:18

whatever you whatever an individual needs to kind of get them out of that

33:25

cyclical place of just that pain or just that Terror or just the isolation to give them the ability to do the other

33:31

things that we know are super beneficial for your mental health then some sometimes these things are

33:37

incredibly necessary I was going to ask you so apart from the medication that you take now do you take were there any

33:42

other things within your routine that you know that you kind of like need to do to you know stay symptom-free

33:49

well I've throughout my life I've always sort of lived a relatively healthy

33:54

lifestyle anyway I mean I'm no Olympic Athlete by any means but uh I I mean I

34:01

never was much of a partier or stayed up late I've always tried to eat fairly healthy you know I'm not perfect but uh

34:08

I I will say um kind of talk about supplements for a sec

34:13

there is a place absolutely so there's a book memory Rescue by Dr

34:20

Daniel Amen he's a leading brain scientist in the states and he's got a

34:25

ton of books out and he's got uh well he's got a brain Warriors music Pro

34:31

program on CD or Amazon I think you can get it on Apple too maybe it uses brain

34:37

waves to help recalibrate your overall brain health and Alpha Theta delta waves

34:43

and he recommends in his book memory rescue well he said some of the

34:49

healthiest brain scans he's seen he's scanned thousands of people's brains some of the healthiest he's seen and I

34:55

believe he's speaking about just general overall brain health are people who've taken ginkgo biloba through their life

35:01

so that's that's one thing I've added maybe a year or two ago I started taking that so but uh yeah

35:10

can I just say something for a sec with schizophrenia because I know a lot of people are mystified by it they don't

35:15

really know much absolutely Matthew please okay so people so hallucinations in any of the

35:23

five senses audio visual touch taste smell people can have hallucinations with schizophrenia I never did I'm in

35:30

the 25 of people schizophrenia who don't hallucinate but I had other common symptoms like

35:36

disorganized thinking um there's other things too but a lot of schizophrenia a depression and anxiety a

35:43

lot of it wasn't sort of that different from other kinds of like depression or anxiety it was uh for me it wasn't as

35:51

different as people people sort of can't understand it people can people can kind of understand

35:56

depression or anxiety because they've had a little bit of depression or a little bit of anxiety just a normal healthy emotions for for anybody but uh

36:06

I just want to mention that the other thing is that a lot of us uh

36:13

people with schizophrenia are no more prone to violence than the rest of the general population if

36:19

one definition of violence says two percent of the general population is violent the same for schizophrenia two

36:26

percent of people is schizophrenia are violent we're more likely to be victims of violence because we're we're sick

36:32

we're vulnerable we don't uh we don't fight back um it's uh that's another thing that I

36:38

wish more people would know I was never violent I've never wanted to hit anybody in my entire life whether I was sick or

36:44

healthy I just I never wanted to take a swing at anybody and just because

36:50

someone may be talking to themselves on the side of the on the side of the street with schizophrenia doesn't mean they're

36:56

necessarily going to be violent it's uh I just want to help dispel the myth that people's schizophrenia are violent it's

37:04

uh it's a real it's tough it's tough to go through life thinking

37:09

you know what are people thinking of me do they think I'm a serial killer or something standing right beside them I really did not have to like to go

37:16

through that yeah to help people with schizophrenia

37:21

yeah sorry Carry On Let's just I was just going to mention that I really appreciate you sharing that perspective

37:26

because you had people don't usually rationally break down things they don't

37:33

understand especially something is like something like schizophrenia which is you know it probably doesn't get the

37:38

best um press in in movies and theater and within media it's

37:44

probably not um depicted as no as it really is so

37:50

yeah I think a lot of people have a lot of misunderstandings about those things so I really appreciate you sharing that with me so yep sorry to cut you off

37:55

there carrier thanks yeah the uh like I said earlier with the

38:00

voices of Hope saying that some mental illnesses need to be talked about more schizophrenia I do feel more comfortable

38:06

talking about mental health in public like if I'm in if I'm on the sidewalk or in a coffee shop and there are strangers

38:11

around me who I have no idea who they are I can talk about mental health and depression and not worry about that

38:17

schizophrenia I'm like huh don't know who's around on what they're thinking but I mean it's literally ridiculous

38:24

I mean yes I mean when you go out in public you don't know what's going to happen an asteroid could hit you there's

38:29

always a fear of something something could happen to you when you for simply being alive but it's basically like saying well if

38:37

you're left-handed don't tell anybody don't let anybody know you're left-handed use your right hand for

38:43

everything and you know in the old days that's actually kind of what they did with I mean my dad he's left-handed he

38:48

was taught to look right with his right hand in school when he was a kid but it's like it's like it's like people

38:54

with left hand who are left-handed there are no more prone to violence than the rest of the general population the same as schizophrenia it's the same it's the

39:03

same and it's ridiculous it's like if you're left-handed can you imagine saying just Whispering that you're

39:09

left-handed in public like listen no one could hear you that's what I've been doing for years as schizophrenia in

39:14

public just whisper the word schizophrenia don't say it out loud and I know I I was never through the

39:21

Holocaust in the world war one and two never went through that but I have some

39:27

sort of analogies the best I can come up with of you know it felt like you know it was just one

39:34

more thing to add to my plate with all the confusion and mental health had to go through I had to think you know don't let anybody know you're a quote unquote

39:41

you know this they may think you're a serial killer or something I hated that I hated that just one more thing I had

39:46

to go through but I want to say what I was going through before was uh on my website

39:51

mindaid.ca there's a free tips button there and I've got a list there of my

39:57

top books and everything I recommend resources uh for just general mental health but I've also got on that same

40:04

list a list of some schizophrenia resources Lauren Kennedy she's got a

40:09

YouTube channel she's in Alberta called Living Well schizophrenia I really enjoy

40:14

her YouTube videos she really informs people what it's like and great

40:20

resources Cecilia mcgow mcg-o-u-g-h she's got a TED Talk called

40:25

I am not a monster schizophrenia she's got a non-profit students with psychosis

40:31

she's in New York City she has student Advocates with schizophrenia and psychosis all over the world they're

40:37

doing great work for younger people with the disease and psychosis

40:42

the other thing is that there's a new therapy for people who do have hallucinations it's called Avatar

40:47

therapy the links on my free free tips button there too and Avatar therapy there's a place in

40:53

Montreal Canada you can go to get this it gets rid of your hallucinations in a

40:59

matter of weeks wow it it works for some people it works partially for some people and it doesn't

41:05

work for some people but I talked to someone in a month or two ago I mentioned this to him he said

41:13

you know thanks so much for telling me this because I stood up to my hallucinations one day said I was tired

41:18

of them running me and I stood up to them it was intense his mom said I heard him in the Next Room and sort of worried

41:24

about him but once I found out what he was doing I was okay with it and he said

41:29

I stood up to them and it diminished his hallucinations his hallucinations to a certain degree that's what Avatar

41:35

therapy does you get to talk back to this Avatar and a computer screen that

41:40

represents your hallucinations there's a therapist in another room you can't see him him or her talking to you through

41:46

this Avatar and you get to stand up to to your hallucinations thing and you it's a very

41:52

I don't know how it works but they say it works in a matter of weeks instead of going through years or a lifetime of

41:58

hallucinations which I think is incredible that's remarkable yeah I'm just on the website now looking at it and yeah it's

42:04

like it's a you know a 3D virtual reality Technology based therapy where

42:09

yeah you say you are you have like the the VR mask on you probably got some headsets on as well and yeah you're

42:16

you're tuned in and you can visually see this this object this individual this Avatar looks very very interesting I

42:23

will make sure that that's Linked In because it looks very fascinating thanks yeah yeah someone I know with

42:29

schizoaffective disorder which is a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar he's just on a tangent here not all

42:37

hallucinations are horrible uh some are actually quite beautiful and enjoyable but for the most part I from my

42:43

understanding hallucinations are tormenting someone screaming at you all

42:49

day long for all day long for years insulting you degrading you

42:55

you never get away from it brushing your teeth it's always there they say it's tormenting to have that gone in a matter

43:02

of weeks oh my gosh I'd love to Haze I'd love to hear

43:07

somebody talk us through that that type of recovery using an incredible technology like that

43:13

yeah there's one more link there I want to mention anesignosia it's a it's a

43:19

symptom disorder whatever you want to call it where you don't believe you're sick it was discovered by a doctor whose

43:26

patient decades ago didn't realize his left arm was paralyzed he just did not

43:32

believe it even though it was so with anesignosia they say

43:37

um look up Dr yavier with an XX it's like Xavier he says Dr yavier Amador

43:44

a-m-a-d-o-r that link is on my free tips button too and he works with uh people

43:51

who don't believe their sex a certain percentage of people with schizophrenia bipolar other mental illnesses don't

43:57

believe they're sick when they do need treatment and his method helps them get

44:02

treatment Dr yavier his brother had schizophrenia and didn't believe he was

44:07

sick the method that he uses and it sounds too good to be true but he he's helped

44:14

many people with it his uh he says you get to talk to your so often when

44:20

someone doesn't want to take treatment and their family says yes you do need treatment it causes Rifts it causes

44:25

conflicts sometimes the police are involved trying to get them into a hospital and it just pushes the person farther

44:32

away he says you stop doing that you start talking to your family member

44:37

through a non-confrontational kind of uh conversation technique and that he

44:43

teaches in his on his website and you rebuild your relationship with your

44:48

family member his brother he did this with his brother he rebuilt his relationship with his with his

44:54

brother his brother started taking treatment and kept taking treatment why this is the part that sounds too good to

45:01

be true but he says his brother took it not because he didn't think he was sick he still thought he was sick

45:08

but he took the medication got treatment for his family wow he loved his family

45:14

he built they built up the relationship with him I'm doing it for you guys and I I'm not an expert I may be getting

45:21

something in that wrong I haven't gone through all Dr alvier's videos on his website but I'm just like that could be

45:28

huge for so many people trying to get someone to take good treatment wonderful that's very very cool now I

45:35

will make sure that all of those links I think you'll have that that tips page I've just gone through that myself it

45:40

looks very very cool very in-depth and yeah all those links are certainly worthwhile checking out not necessarily

45:46

if you have schizophrenia but you know family members and just I think general knowledge is just important to learn

45:51

about these things to have a little bit more empathy and understanding about what the reality is rather than

45:58

what we've depicted through whatever means that may be and I just wanted to

46:03

mention as you as you you talked about ginkgo biloba in these in these brain studies from

46:11

um so who was the who was the individual Dr Daniel a band like Daniel Amen that's

46:16

right yeah Danny Ayman that's right yeah so yeah and one of 36 ingredients in Empower plus are Flagship products here

46:23

at true hope is is ginkgo biloba and I believe it's put in there for that particular reason because of the the

46:29

wild amount of research that is available now that this is an incredible supportive brain phytochemical so yeah I

46:37

just wanted to mention that that's that's just a really cool image of that as well um that's really cool so mindaid.ca is

46:43

there anywhere else that people can connect with you that's the kind of the best way to do that so my the contact Section of mindaid.ca

46:52

there's my email there info mindday.ca people can reach out to me on social media I'm on YouTube Tick Tock Instagram

47:00

Twitter LinkedIn Facebook uh yeah

47:05

that's great well Matthew thank you so much for joining me today I really appreciate your time and I think that um

47:12

I'm gonna personally be diving into some of your resources because it's great when somebody with the experience and

47:19

the passion behind you know something like schizophrenia but also like you know supporting mental health around

47:25

around the world and especially developing countries I think that's really really admirable and wonderful and I love to be able to get all that

47:31

information in one place that's that's really awesome so but thank you so much for your time today oh you're welcome thanks so much for

47:37

having me really appreciate it awesome wonderful well for any information I'll

47:43

put all the links in the show notes so you guys can get access to that don't forget to subscribe if you haven't yet

47:48

but this is true hope Canada the official podcast of true hope I will uh see you next week thanks guys

47:56

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