RICHARD B.

Published in Project Semicolon: Your story isn’t over by HarperCollins Publishing 2017

Standing in the darkened library of memories, moonlight shines through the window as my mind starts reflecting back on my journey through schizophrenia. I open a leather-bound book and watch as a projection of a memory floats out of the pages. I can see myself sitting in a cabin in Mount Gambier, South Australia. I was alone and homeless. Even now I start to hear the hallucinations I heard back then, voices of persecution yelling at me from outside the windows.

It was a time when nothing made sense. I did not know I had schizophrenia.

Snapping the book shut, I place it back on the shelf, take a deep breath, and steady myself after the intensity of the memory. I sit heavily on the couch underneath the window of the library, my eyes tired.

Soon after my arrival in Mount Gambier, I started on medication and came under the care of some doctors; I managed to secure a private rental and worked as a laborer in a vineyard in Coonawarra. I can see fresh dew droplets on the baby vine leaves heralding spring, smell the aroma of heavy fruits infused with independence and freedom.

I didn’t give up in my darkest moment, and ended up finding the light that infuses my life to this day. In the library of memories, I hear birdsong welcoming the dawn outside the window.