My Recovery from Psychosis: People ask how I tirelessly campaign for Tharnicaa, Kopika and #Justice4Australia. People also thank me for being transparent about my lived experience of Psychosis. I have some beautiful insights I would like to share to explain how and why. 1/50

Firstly, there is no tireless effort on my part. It is my passion to share the truth for justice. Secondly, I am transparent about my experience of Psychosis because individuals can not only recover; Psychology now has a phenomenon known as Post-Traumatic Growth. 2/50

This week Christine Holgate powerfully shared her truth for justice; she was also transparent that she found the past six months deeply traumatising. Tony Wright, from The Sydney Morning Herald reported: “Ms Holgate’s evidence that she had become suicidal in the 3/50

days after the Prime Minister called for her to go as Australia Post boss from the floor of Parliament will surely resonate across Australia’s currently fractured political landscape.” Christine Holgate asserted that she was illegally bullied out of her job. 4/50

Tony Wright wrote: “Mr Nutt, Ms Holgate said, had told her she had no choice but to stand down because Scott Morrison was demanding it. “I was told, Christine, you need to understand it was the Prime Minister,” she recalled Mr Nutt telling her. 5/50

Those who brought her down over the watches who thought she would go easily, would have no doubt about their mistake when she attended a Senate hearing on Tuesday. “This is the day,” she said in the first minutes of her long and damning testimony, 6/50

“when the chairman of Australia Post and all the other men involved in what happened to me will be held to account.” My insight was that this week I witnessed my own Post-Traumatic Growth. It hit me just how terrifying Christine Holgate’s experience might have been; 7/50

to climb a hierarchical power structure, become the CEO of Australia Post, only to fall down, publicly humiliated worldwide by the Prime Minister of Australia. My fall was nowhere near that grand scale. However, everything is relative and all stories share the same trauma: 8/50

the negative operation of power. I climbed a much smaller staircase: I taught Psychology at James Cook University, in Tropical North Queensland Cairns. My staircase came crashing down: Psychosis, suicidal ideation, hospitalisation and three years to recover. 9/50

I eventually went back, finished my PhD and also taught at the university again. I avoided politics and the news for years; too much, too soon, made me unwell. Instead I immersed myself into Martial Arts, Yoga and nature. My life became simple and I found wellbeing again. 10/50

I went onto work at Corrective Services. A young colleague there noticed I gave much more time than most to “offenders” (humans). I told him read the books: “Chasing the Scream” (on the war on drugs causing more harm than drugs) and “The Body Keeps the Score” ( on trauma). 11/50

This young man read both books and then convinced me to become a Psychologist. I never wanted to be a Psychologist because I was terrified of Professionals. I even told my own Psychologist we have focused too heavily on our intellect and not enough on compassion. 12/50

My Psychologist said: “that is exactly why you must become a Psychologist!” So I began my two year internship. It was the most rewarding two years of my life; I used evidence based tools and shared my own lived experience to help many people recover. 13/50

I helped children and adults establish stability, clarity, the ability to regulate their emotions and find a sense of connection and belonging to life. I knew exactly what it felt like to breakdown, be hospitalised, lose touch with reality, be suicidal, anxious, depressed, 14/50

have panic attacks, feel disconnected, lose trust, climb your staircase and crash down; to have and then to lose absolutely everything. I also knew the way out of insanity; to come out the other side. I noticed I used a different approach to the Psychologists I worked with. 15/50

I had taught Psychology at university; Psychopathology, but more importantly, the history of Psychology and Sensation and Perception (i.e. truth and clarity). My approach was more focused on sharing the truth for justice, even to children as young as ten, than on diagnosis. 16/50

I believed both my recoveries from Psychosis succeeded because my first Psychiatrist refused to diagnose me. She said “You have studied Psychology. You’ve probably already diagnosed yourself enough! Let’s just call this whole experience an existential crisis.” 17/50

Looking back it is exactly what is was. My second Psychosis was almost identical. Towards the end of my internship, I got “vicarious trauma” from listening to trauma stories for two years straight. The dark cloud of the system’s negative operations of power had returned. 18/50

It started with panic attacks after work. I checked in with my Supervisor who said she did not notice anything unusual about me. She advised I was doing a wonderful job as always. I then felt even more paranoid. I was losing touch with reality; once again unrecognised. 19/50

Eventually it kicked in full flight. I was with a client at the time. I could hear them talking but I no longer comprehended anything they said. I stopped work immediately and flew to be with my partner in the Philippines. There we realised it was much more than burn out. 20/50

Every trauma story felt like it had happened to me; a million traumas exploding at once. I could not stop crying. My head was burning again and felt like it was on fire; the worst symptom of my first Psychosis. My partner was amazing but no one individual could fix this. 21/50

I went back to hospital. The Psychiatrist who assessed me was extremely dry. He wrote down Schizophrenia on my medication chart and a prognosis of months to years to recover on my income protection claim. I was completely shattered. I told him I recovered from Psychosis, 22/50

completed my PhD, even won international Martial Arts championships. He said I would go either way and had to wait and see. My symptoms in hospital were fascinating: I felt like every person I came in contact with. I met a guy with Schizophrenia. I felt I had what he had. 23/50

I saw absolute terror in a man’s eyes who had PTSD. I walked away crying convinced I had that. I listened to a lady’s story with Major Depression. I also felt I had that. I laughed so much with a lady who had Borderline Personality Disorders. I even felt that I had that. 24/50

I saw a broken shell of a women straight from Navy. I felt we had both just seen the same world. I met people absolutely crippled with anxiety. I felt the same fear. However, I also talked with the nurses and doctors. I felt I had their normality even if it was momentary. 25/50