Joe Williams:
My name's Joe Williams. I'm a First Nations Wiradjuri man from Australia, and I've lived as a professional sports person for the past 15 years but involved in sport my entire life, and lived with mental illness my entire life. I guess I only really knew it was mental illness in 2009 when I was diagnosed, but I'd lived with an inner dialogue in my head my entire life. I knew that it was going to end poorly, so I decided to give away alcohol and drugs and anything that came with it. It's almost 11 years that I've been completely clean and sober now, but by taking out the substances that I was putting to quieten down the noise, up turns the volume on the noise. So I had to, I guess, learn about what I was going through and learning about what I was going through, started to learn about myself, but also educate me about the mental illness I was diagnosed with, and that was bipolar disorder.
I had a marriage break down and a separation from my kids and another relationship separation as well, and the negative talk that I've gone through my entire life, the "You're not good enough and you don't deserve to be here" type talk that I've gone through my entire life, I started to believe it. I started to believe that my kids would be better off without me. I started to believe that my parents didn't love me, that I was worthless. 10 years prior to that, I was a professional sports person playing on national television, getting asked for autographs every day of the week. Yet, I was convinced within my own mind and my own self that I was worthless, and I had a suicide attempt. Once I realized the doctor said to me that, "You're very lucky to be alive," and he said to me, "You should do something with your life now." And I realized that it could have a profound effect just by talking about it and by letting people know that you're a support and you can help them.
So I started my own charity and I called it The Enemy Within, because as a sports person for 15 years, no matter being on the Rugby league field or as a boxer, no opponent I've ever come across compares to the enemy that I fight within myself every single day. I've always known I've been a First Nations man. In Australia, I've got dark skin. I play the didgeridoo, yiḏaki, but I only knew what it was like to be that on the outside. I didn't know what it was like to be that on the inside. When I started connecting back to my culture and listening to my uncles and our old people and our ancestors, it's something I can't describe. It's something that is just truly beautiful and truly special that I wish everyone on the planet had. That has been, without a doubt, my biggest positive with my recovery. Once I was a young boy that was lost inside his own head and was too scared and afraid to talk about what I do. Now I'm a powerful, resilient, strong man that isn't afraid to look in the face of demons, conquer them, and help others while I'm doing it.