St. Andrews, NB Man Becomes Advocate For Schizophrenia

St. Andrews resident Matthew Dickson has been living schizophrenia for well over half his life. 

He became aware something wasn't right at the age of 22 when he was in his final year of his engineering degree at the University of New Brunswick, and he began feeling symptoms as mild as discomfort and fatigue to as alarming as deep depression and jarring mental pains.

"I told some friends about how I was feeling, but it was the early '90s. I didn't know about mental illness. We were taught minimally about psychology growing up in school, but I didn't know about OCD, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar--I didn't know about any of that stuff. I had heard the words schizophrenia maybe
twice in a movie, but I it was inaccurately portrayed as split personality."

Eventually, things got so bad that Dickson sought professional help. 

"Near the end of my fifth year, I went to get help at the university health clinic because I was having suicidal thoughts. They took me to the psych ward in Fredericton in the hospital, and that was my introduction into the mental health system. Maybe two or three months went by. A doctor, a psychiatrist, came up to me after a while and said, 'We think you've got schizophrenia.' That was a real it was a real bombshell to drop on me when I was 22 in 1994. Just two years earlier, when I was 20, I bicycled across Canada. I loved that trip. It was such a high, and that diagnosis was such a real low." 

Although he never experienced hallucinations or delusions, he still had bouts of serious mental anguish. He describes the worst of times as feeling like walking through a rain shower of shattered glass or trying to grasp a connection with reality that just wouldn't fully allow him to feel present. He took his medication regularly, however, and now at the age of 50 believes that the worst is behind him and that his illness has become manageable. 

Matthew has team up with the Schizophrenia Society of New Brunswick to share his story and advocate for others.

"I never had a role model," says Dickson. "I didn't know anyone going through what I was going through. I want to be that for someone else."