"Deep down I am really grateful"

I’ve been at Wathwood for 17 months. I was pretty ill at the time. After a few months I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t realise I had any illness but once I had accepted the illness and come to terms with reality and my offences, I wanted to get appropriate care and support to prevent relapse and become stable.

Gaining insight into the illness and medication I put a picture together of how to cope with the illness and the situation:

Be open and honest and you will do yourself a favour.

Try to gain better insight into your illness. Work with everyone to achieve this and to keep on top of your relapse prevention.

Deep down I am really grateful.

I’m here for treatment not punishment.

I work with the Wathwood Team to equip myself to deal with the illness and they help me to do this.

I’ve got a fantastic doctor, words can’t describe how good he is.