Ride, don't hide: Winnipegger cycles to break stigma around mental health issues
Sean Miller says he lived with a bully in his life for years, telling him what to do and leaving him afraid.
Miller was living with schizophrenia.
On Sunday, he'll jump on his bike for Ride Don't Hide, a community bike ride and fundraising event for the Canadian Mental Health Association.
"It's really about the community coming together and supporting people that struggle with mental health and addictions issues, helping to stand in solidarity against stigma and discrimination," he said.
Miller's first experience with mental health issues began around 1996, when he started feeling panic and anxiety.
"I started to have a real struggle with making just basic decisions — a lack of peace, and physiologically it affected me as well," Miller said.
That very quickly progressed into hearing voices, Miller said.
"I think it's human nature to want, if we are feeling uneasy, we want to restore that peace — that peace of mind and just settledness, and I couldn't achieve that," he said.
"I started to hear voices and suggestions on how I could do that, and with corresponding threats of impending death if I didn't follow those instructions."
As Miller's life progressed he ended up getting married but at the same time he was being hospitalized and trying out different concoctions of medications. It was extremely difficult because at the time, nobody wanted to talk about mental illness, Miller added, leaving him lonely and frightened.
"I started to morph into somebody that [my wife] didn't recognize. I started to become a person that she didn't know when we got married," he said.
In 2006, Miller went to see a doctor in the United States and started to feel hope for his future. Finally finding the right treatment, Miller said he now lives without any symptoms.
It was being open about his mental illness and different treatment options that eventually helped Miller. Like Sunday's fundraiser, Miller said dealing with mental illness is "not a race, it's a ride."
The ride starts at Vimy Ridge Park in Winnipeg at 8:30 a.m. Sunday. For more information visit the website.
