Article content

They popped up out of nowhere, telling Richard Breton how he was nothing, nothing but a bad father, a nasty husband, and had no friends because he was disgusting.

For 30 years the debilitating voices and hallucinations came 15 times a day. His head reverberated with voices shouting the worst scenarios: “The car driving down the road is going to swerve on the sidewalk and smash into you. A bomb will explode, or someone armed with a gun is going to shoot everyone,” he recalled.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or People with schizophrenia learn to fight their demons with virtual reality Back to video

Breton, 53, said he’d have done anything to make the demon voices leave him alone. Anything, that is, except increase the anti-psychotic medication prescribed for schizophrenia because the side effects were insufferable. He couldn’t work. It robbed him of energy, motivation and libido. He could barely manage to eat and wash himself, and he trembled, spending the better part of each day in a zombie-like, drug-induced daze.