Don't Tell Me What Other People Have Told You, Tell Me About YOU

"I'm Sorry -- I Know it Looks Like 

I'm Running Away."

Don't Tell Me What Things Look Like,

Tell Me What They Are.

-- Master Leia,

Princess of Alderaan.

 

To all appearances, Eleanor Longden was just like every other student, heading to college full of promise and without a care in the world. 

That was until the voices in her head started talking. 

Initially innocuous, these internal narrators became increasingly antagonistic and dictatorial, 

turning her life into a living nightmare. 

Diagnosed with schizophrenia, hospitalized, drugged, 

Longden was discarded by a system that didn't know how to help her.

Longden tells the moving tale of her years-long journey back to mental health, 

and makes the case that it was through 

learning to listen to her voices 

that she was able to o. 

Eleanor Longden started hearing voices when she was 18. She was drugged and hospitalised, then TOLD she was Schizophrenic.

At 17, Eleanor Longden had a promising future ahead of her; then she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. After a lifelong battle with the voices in her head, today she has a Masters in psychology and a second chance. [Note: We want you to see these talks exactly as they happened! The archive footage might be a little rougher than the usual TED.com talk.]