Eighteen years in the past, Prof Ahmed Hankir was homeless and within the grip of a psychological well being disaster.

Today he’s an award-winning psychiatrist working in Ontario, Canada.

His prestigious roles within the UK embrace honorary visiting professor at Cardiff Medical School.

By sharing his private expertise of residing with a psychological well being situation {and professional} viewpoint, he now has 1000’s of social media followers.

“There’s a solace in shared experience,” he stated.

“If you share, you can make other people feel less alone and less disconnected and less ashamed.”

This article comprises references to suicide.

Prof Hankir was born in Belfast, raised in Dublin and England, and moved to Lebanon on the age of 12.

“It was during the aftermath of the brutal and bloody civil war… the walls of the buildings would have bullet holes on them,” he stated.

He was in Lebanon throughout the 1996 siege of Qana the place greater than 100 have been killed and one other 100 injured – one traumatic incident he skilled at the moment would by no means go away him.

He recalled seeing a father returning house to see the constructing lowered to rubble and all his household killed.

“He was holding the dead body of his child in his arms,” recalled Prof Hankir.

“I remember him crying inconsolably which kind of penetrated my soul. These memories continue to haunt me.”

When he was 17, he and his twin brother left their dad and mom and returned to the UK.

Prof Hankir’s desires of going to medical faculty have been dashed when he realised his {qualifications} gained in Lebanon wouldn’t get him right into a UK college.

He additionally discovered he was thought-about a world pupil, so the price of college tuition charges was prohibitive.

He started working in a kebab van the place he skilled one other traumatic occasion – a gaggle of males beat a younger man to dying.

“They were about 20m away from the van… it was harrowing,” he stated.

“Nobody intervened, nobody did anything, everybody just watched it happen until we could hear the sirens.”

At this level, the life he had hoped to create for himself felt utterly out of attain.

“It was my dream to become a doctor and here I am serving kebabs on minimum wage, witnessing a homicide and people are asking me ‘can you speak English?’,” he stated.

Next he labored as a janitor within the morning and stacked cabinets at night time, working as much as 70 hours every week on minimal wage.

The following yr he enrolled in sixth type school however continued to work full time.

On telling a member of school employees he needed to develop into a health care provider, he stated she laughed in his face.

“She made me feel like I was this dirty little immigrant with delusions of grandeur,” he stated.

“She literally laughed and she said, to quote her verbatim, ‘you can’t get into medical school, it’s too competitive, choose another course’.”

He made it to medical faculty in Manchester however was badly lacking his dad and mom and struggling to stability working round his research.

At this level, he started experiencing flashbacks and finally reached breaking level.

“It was a major depressive disorder,” he stated.

“Pervasively low mood, thoughts and feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness and guilt, the ruminations, the inability to concentrate, having no energy, you can’t even get out of bed, you’ve got no motivation and yeah, you feel suicidal.

“I used to be in a extremely unhealthy state however I used to be simply afraid of being sectioned and I used to be afraid of being admitted right into a psychiatric ward.”

He felt unable to get help.

“My perceptions of psychological well being and psychological sickness have been influenced by my cultural background – we do not speak about psychological well being within the Middle East and North Africa, it is a taboo, closely stigmatised,” he added.

In 2006, he quit medical school.

“I used to be impoverished, I had nowhere to remain, I’m sleeping tough,” he stated.

He was sometimes able to sleep on a friend’s sofa and for a short time stayed in a squat where one day he found a flatmate dead from a drug overdose.

“It was like one trauma after the opposite,” he stated.

He eventually sought help, was under a psychiatrist and gradually became strong enough to return to university.

“It was horrific and it was a gradual, gradual and painful course of to restoration,” he said.

These days he considers himself someone who lives with a mental health condition but who has learnt resilience.

The same year he was awarded the Caroline Flack Mental Health Hero Award in The Sun’s Who Cares Wins Awards for sharing his own struggles with mental health.

“I’m conscious that if I do not take the mandatory measures to guard my psychological well being and to stop relapse it could possibly occur,” he stated.

He said exercise, his Muslim faith and working on creative projects aimed at combating mental health stigma all helped him stay well.

In April his book, Breakthrough: A Story of Hope, Resilience and Mental Health Recovery, will be published.

He believes the only way to end mental health stigma is to speak up.

“Just saying this with conviction: ‘I dwell with a psychological well being situation, and I’m not ashamed’, that is how we may stop suicide,” he stated.

He hopes to encourage other psychiatrists to share their personal experiences with mental health.

“Psychiatrists residing with a psychological well being situation shouldn’t really feel ashamed, they need to really feel empowered to speak to be trustworthy, open, and clear about their psychological well being experiences… I do know it is a generalisation however perhaps the British they are typically extra reserved and I respect that, however there’s lots of people who do wish to share,” he stated.

“By revealing, by sharing, it lets different folks know that they don’t seem to be alone.”

If you’ve gotten been affected by any points raised on this article, assist and help might be discovered on the BBC Action Line.