3000 Australians committed suicide in 2015 – 8 People every day. 3/4 of them were men.
Suicide is the biggest cause of death ages 15 to 44.
If you are depressed (or a loved one), hold on to hope that life can get better!
Please like, subscribe and share the shit out of this message! It may save someone’s life…
Video Transcription:
Good morning guys, it is a bloody beautiful morning out here again this morning. I caught an awesome time lapse and its a bit tough getting out of bed first thing in the morning at 4 o’clock to catch the sunrise at 5, but yeh, I think its worth it.
Anyway, my name is Ian Schell and I’m glad to be alive!
Two years ago I went through some pretty major depression and I was having suicidal thoughts. Back in 2000, I tried to take my own life, and I obviously fucked that up because I’m still here… thankfully. Again in 2014, I hit rock bottom, I had been renovating our house and working full time at the same time. Things were pretty stressful and I really wasn’t enjoying life much at all.
One morning in October 2014, I woke up and I really did not want to go to work, I was severely depressed and felt like I was in the biggest hole the world had ever produced and it had swallowed me whole. Anyway, I dragged myself out of bed and went into work, I sat down at my desk and googled suicide help. I started to break down and cry, so I left and I went home and piled into bed and slept the rest of the day. There was some tough times and its a little bit hard thinking about those things in the past, but life is pretty good now.
So anyway, one of those searches that I googled when I was at work, one of the search results was Palladium Private or Fountainhead retreat as they were called at the time. It sounded pretty good, it was a holistic retreat, and they concentrated on the food, the exercise, the treatments – one on one and group treatments, massage, pools and it was a lovely looking setting. It also looked pretty expensive, I showed this to the missus and she agreed that A) something needed to be done and B) it looked pretty good. We did some more research into other alternatives like clinical psychology and psychiatry and their associated treatment facilities in Perth. Our gut feeling was that they were just going to put us back on medications which we had been down that route and it hadn’t worked for us.
We didn’t want to go that way, and our gut feeling was to go with Palladium. We thought we would go back to the GP and see if he anything else to add or and see if he had any other suggestions or comments.
The first thing we did when we got there, he put me on the scales. I was 141kg and it was the heaviest I had ever been. He basically called me a fat bastard and started to give me a lecture about needing to lose weight. He gave me a referral for gastric bypass surgery. So we went in there for depression and came out with a referral for surgery. Not quite what we were after.
We went home in disbelief and we rang my old man and told him the truth of what was going on about the depression, what we wanted to do, what it would cost and asked him for the money. Most graciously he gave us the money to do it. I went to Queensland for 3 weeks. I put in the hard work, if you’re going to spend that sort of money, I was going to give it my best shot, and I gave it everything I had. It was the best money I ever… we have ever spent. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, I wish I had of known about it earlier because life could have been very different for a long time.
I did the hard yards at Palladium and I was a little bit apprehensive about coming home to people’s reactions and how they’d treat me with my new way of living, my new tool set and what they might think of me, treating me like a leper, or I was broken or cracked or whatever. But you know what? Day by day, I got through it and life has never been better. I mean, look at this, is a beautiful morning, life is bloody magic and I am so thankful every day that I am still here, because I nearly wasn’t.
Yeh, it’s such a gift, life is such a gift. My message is to try and give people hope that life can be good once again. That’s really what I’m trying to get across is that if you can just hold on to hope. I know it’s tough, particularly when you’re down in the depths of the depression, you can’t see a way out, it feels like you’re trapped, it feels like there’s nothing left, no option but to end your life. But committing suicide just pushes your problems onto other people… well not your problems, but it pushes the sadness onto other people – 10, 20, 30 times more people and that was true for me, I didn’t want to push that onto my family.
Since my time back from Palladium, life has been fantastic, I still wasn’t enjoying work and I ended up quitting and starting up my own business – I’ve been loving that so far, it has been another great thing to do (for me). And now my mission in life is to help other people, to try impress on other people, that there is hope and try to share some of the information that I have learnt along the the way. Because life is awesome, being out here walking the dog, she’s over there somewhere, she’s hanging around. I get out here, go for a walk, get the blood pumping, get ready for the day ahead. Compared to two years ago this is chalk and cheese. Every day I’m very thankful that I am here!
Anyway guys, I hope you have a fantastic day, it’s been a good start to the morning so far, so I hope you guys can hold on to hope and power on through your day.
Hopefully I’ll talk to you again soon.
See you guys!
Love and Light.
Ian.
P.S. Have a Very Merry Xmas and a Great New Year!
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