Bryn here; I just wanted to preface the next guest blog post in the According to Bryn series accredited to James Gordon Yeo, Canadian indie writer.
Mental illness, also called mental health disorders, refers to a wide range of mental health conditions. These disorders affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Some examples of these include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors.
Mental health encompasses our emotional, psychological and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel and act and also influences how we handle stress, relating to others, and making choices. Mental health is distinct from mental illness however many interchange them.
By the age of 40, about half of the population will have experienced a mental illness in one way or the other. Globally, around 450 million people are currently living with mental illness, according to the World Health Organization.
I suffer from schizophrenia and there are about 24 million people around the world that have this illness, the stat is 1 in 300 people suffer from it, making it one of the rarer mental illnesses. The most common mental illness is depression which ranges from seasonal depression to bipolar disorder. The stats for depression around the world are that 1 in 6 will experience it during their lifetime.
The suicide rate for those who suffer from mental illness is 46%, making it the leading cause of death in all cases of mental illness.
Through my own struggles that I have with my own illness, I have seen the inside of the hospital three times. The first time in Halifax, NS, Canada, where I was diagnosed in January of 2005. The second time was in 2007 when I had gone off of my meds because there was a chance that I did not need them. The third time was because I was having suicidal thoughts in February of 2010.
The first five years of my recovery were not the best as I was running from facing the fact that I have schizophrenia. I was in a dark place as I was drinking to avoid the acceptance of my illness. It would be in December 2009 when I did put the bottle down, it was the beginning of coming to realization that I have schizophrenia.
My last stay in hospital was because of the suicidal thoughts which were brought on with the ending of the dependance of the alcohol is what my doctor said. There were other factors, one of them was that I was tired of fighting with my illness, and another was that I felt that my life had no direction.
What I did not know was that the rural nurse who had my case at the time gave me a wakeup call. She took me to the main mental hospital in North Battleford, SK, Canada, and showed me what my life was going to look like if I did not change my course that I was on. At the time I had no reason to live. It took her only minutes to get the message across to me, the hard part was I needed to find something to live for.
After I was taken back to the hospital where I had admitted myself, my nurse gave me a little push and said that I should find something to live for. It was that night in my sleep when I was given a reason. The reason that I was given was to tell my story by writing about it. That is when the An Individual’s Innocence series was born. I found my reason to live once again.
In the five years before I felt I had no future and as with mental illness, it is usually how society writes you off. I was looking at the negative and to be honest I gave up. That reality shock that my nurse showed me scared me because it showed me where I could end up or worse.
Since March 2010, I wrote in my spare time to get the first book of the series done, An Individual’s Innocence: The Silent Screams. I released it in October of 2016, after five years of writing and editing. There were a few times when I wanted to delete it and each time someone said, “Let me read it.” They then would give me a push to finish what I had started.
In September of 2020, my schizophrenia reared its ugly head and would take me out of the work world at the age of 41. To go back to when I was in the hospital the first time, my diagnosing doctor said I would most likely never return to work and be in and out of hospital for the rest of my life. I returned to work in July 2005, three months after I was released from the hospital in Halifax. I also was able to manage only having to admit myself to hospital twice in the first five years. Since the stay in 2010, I have not been back to the hospital because of my schizophrenia.
The doctor I got after moving back to mom and dad’s said that where I could easily get disability that I should go down that route. I chose to try to return to work and I managed to spend 15 years of employment, with the odd few months when my illness would show itself making me take medical leave.
Since I had to take leave from the work world in 2020, I fell into a depression for the first few months as I did not know what to do with my time. It was my mom who sat me down and pointed out some facts for me. One was that I always wanted the time to write, and I now had it, as well was the fact that I was on disability, so my bills were covered. So, I picked up the pen and started once again to write. I released book two of the An Individual’s Innocence series in 2022 and the final book in 2024.
I now am working on getting into public speaking to spread the word that people who suffer from mental illness can achieve their dreams and goals and be a productive member of society. I have had ups and downs through the years since I was diagnosed and I almost ended my life, however it is the path that I am on that has shown me who I really am and what I can accomplish when I put my mind on something.
My website is www.jamesgyeo.ca, feel free to visit and the An Individual’s Innocence series is available with all major bookstores and on Amazon. My other two books, Voices of Reason and Echoes of Yesterday, are only available on Amazon.
BP
13th August 2025