Now Mark helps others with life

Updated November 2 2012 - 11:39am, first published May 6 2009 - 12:19pm
BACK IN CONTROL: Through GROW, Mark Lacey is helping others get more enjoyment out of their lives.
BACK IN CONTROL: Through GROW, Mark Lacey is helping others get more enjoyment out of their lives.

IN 1984, Mark Lacey was dux of St Patrick's College and headed for a glittering career in medicine.By 1987, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and trying desperately to piece his life back together in an era where mental illness was a taboo subject.Looking back, Mark said he can now see how the early stages of the disease was affecting his life."It was quite terrifying at times, knowing somehow my life had drifted out of control," he said.Mark now works in psychiatric services as a consumer advocate, lives independently and is a big support to his widowed mother, which he partly attributes to the mutual self-help group GROW.Catholic priest Con Keogh developed GROW after his own recovery from a breakdown."It's a lay person's cognitive behavioural program," Mark said."It helps you deal with feelings of anger, betrayal and despair and how you relate to people."Before his diagnosis, Mark's schizophrenia had become so bad he was seeing religious apparitions, had travelled to the Nullarbor Desert in the belief he could become initiated as an Aboriginal elder and had attempted suicide.While his schizophrenia - which is caused by a dopamine imbalance in the brain - was controlled by medication, Mark still faced problems with shyness, an inability to get out of bed and difficulties with family relations. After his father contacted Fr Keogh, Mark drifted in and out of four different GROW groups but kept finding excuses not to attend meetings."I just couldn't see the relevance of GROW."After returning to university, Mark got a rural social welfare degree and joined Ballarat Psychiatric Services in 1997."I'd largely rebuilt my life by 2000 but then I met three people who said GROW had helped them get to this really happy point in their life."He joined the Ballarat night GROW group and never looked back."I wouldn't want to get up or I'd go back to bed. I put the GROW program quote `When the time to keep a resolution has come, don't examine the pros and cons any more. Just do it' on my bedroom cupboard door so I'd get up and stay up."He also learnt to overcome his shyness by being challenged to initiate conversations within his group."In friendship groups, I'd always played the sidekick role, but that was not helpful to my mental health because I didn't have a belief in myself."GROW also believes in horizontal spirituality. My view of the world was that it was a bleak place, a bad place. I've now found my faith in human nature."Mark has taken on a leadership role within the GROW group and is also the regional organiser."It's less now about my own needs. It's about helping others get better enjoyment out of their lives."

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