A young, anxious introvert throws himself into acting, chasing the ego-hit and visibility of performance, only to discover he’s technically not a strong actor but gifted at something else: holding space. That realisation nudges him into directing and facilitation, where he can shape kinder, safer environments for others than the harsh, high-pressure auditions that once shredded his nerves. Theatre leads him to a deeper fascination with storytelling as a tool for connection, advocacy, and influencing the world — a skillset that ultimately proves more valuable to his mental health work than his formal sociology training. While studying a master’s in Text and Performance in London, he’s mugged at knifepoint in a park. The incident unleashes severe anxiety, voice-hearing, and an experience later framed as psychosis. Within weeks he’s cycled through several clinicians and given a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. With little information and no lived-experience stories to draw on, he chooses not to leave his studies but to make his unfolding mental health crisis the subject of his thesis and a touring theatre show. Returning to New Zealand, he enters early psychosis services, begins advocacy and poetry around mental health, and builds an identity around the schizophrenia label—only to be told years later that it was likely a misdiagnosis. The misdiagnosis shatters his sense of self and brings waves of guilt, anger, and confusion, but it also pushes him to re-examine power, diagnosis, and stigma—especially the way labels like schizophrenia, bipolar, and personality disorders get entangled with distress, gender, and “monstrous” media narratives. Over time, he shifts from seeing himself as broken or dangerous to using his experiences to design spaces where others who feel monstrous, anxious, or out of place can be held with honesty, agency, and dignity.