Matthew grew up on a small hobby farm in Prince Edward County near Ameliasburgh. He briefly attended Kente Public School before being pulled out to be tutored at home; where he fostered interests in the environment and public policy. Upon becoming a teenager, Matthew attended Moira Secondary School where he participated in various extracurricular activities including: badminton, track and field and model UN. He went on to attend Queen’s University in the fall of 2009 majoring in Political Science. Upon completing first year, Matthew began to deteriorate at school struggling academically and living on the streets for a period; experiencing spiritual renewal he attempted to improve the culture at Queen’s by pushing it in a new direction. He also had ambitions to protest the Steven Harper government during the spring 2011 election — attempting to host a debate at Queen’s between Harper and select students. After experiencing a psychosis while attending a leadership conference in Montreal during the early summer of 2011 things began to rapidly come undone. Matthew ended up pulling out of university at the start of third year after experiencing a second psychosis and being hospitalized in Belleville and began to drift for a period, to get away from everything he travelled to New Brunswick and was hospitalized again in Campbellton in the spring of 2012. Enjoying the atmosphere out East he went on to Halifax and then returned to Prince Edward County experiencing another psychosis in Belleville over Christmas 2012. He then began steady antipsychotic therapy after realizing that some kind of change was necessary and was also enrolled into Ontario Works and then the Ontario Disability Support Program. He was treated by the ACTT team under the supervision of Dr. Alnaickly slowly putting on weight and achieving little for a period. Realizing that change was needed a weight loss program was initiated in July 2015 along with some mild exercise. Matthew founded a local think tank that winter focused on improving public policy internationally (playing a small role in the Syrian conflict and the U.S election). In the summer of 2016 he started a more robust exercise routine under the tutelage of a dear friend. He also started flax oil (omega 3’s) for brain health. With improving cognitive function from exercise Matthew made a series of step improvements in how he managed his schizophrenia, making constant notes of what worked and what didn’t. He published his first in a series of YouTube videos on the subject in the summer of 2018 along with his first blog entry “Strategies for Improving Schizophrenia Outcomes” which was published at the time as a Facebook post. In the spring of 2019 he began writing a book on public policy — the draft of which was finished in the spring of 2020 then edited and published in January 2021. Matthew went on to found a charity for the environment in the summer of 2021, followed closely in September 2021 by the opening of the Schizophrenia Help website which focuses on helping those with schizophrenia recover as best they can after being diagnosed with the disease.

Matthew enjoys going to the gym, researching, hanging out with a friend or two, walks/jogs, building (not with his hands though), attending conferences, biking and attempting to give back to the wider community (in a not too vain attempt at self-preservation).

Contacts:
matthew.schizophreniahelp@gmail.com
Threema ID: WV8Y35Z9