Dave’s Story

How a dog and a positive attitude helped Dave through some challenging times.

A throw-away line from a psychiatrist and some puppy-love combined to change the course of lived experience advocate Dave Peters’ life and gave him a second chance.

It was the accidental nature of advice about improving his physical health which has made such a difference to his quality of life, that prompted Dave to take on a career as a consumer advocate. He has committed the past 10 years working to raise awareness of physical; health needs in the hope others living with mental health challenges do not have to go through what he did to get the health support they need.

Dave is the co-chair of Equally Well Australia.

Dave Peters Share my Shory image 2

This is Dave’s story.

I’m a 49 year old man who has Bi-Polar Disorder, PTSD and ADHD, but I don’t let that define my life. It’s taken me years of support to get away from a mindset where a diagnosis becomes your identity, but now that I’ve re-framed my sense of self, I’m trying to live my life in a way that makes me feel good about myself and to spend my time living in a way that compliments my values.

In 2011 my Psychiatrist mentioned a service to me in a sort of throwaway manner, telling me that I ‘might’ find it useful. I went along to this service and was introduced to a whole new way of thinking regarding how I thought about myself and my illness. I’d been so fixated on this idea that when you’re sick, you go see a Doctor or a Specialist, you do the proscribed treatment, whether that be surgery, medication or whatever, then you can expect to get better, symptom free.

The service I went to, Neami National, introduced me to something called the ‘Recovery’ Model where, basically, you don’t necessarily need to be symptom free in order to get better and live a happy life. That absolutely blew my mind.

I was in a really bad space and it took me years of working with supports to start to work out what I wanted in my life and to explore new ways of living.

One of the many programs and strategies offered by Neami was a ‘Health Prompt’, which was a simple checklist of YES/NO questions relating to my whole health, not just mental health. A very simple list of questions which can help start a conversation with your GP the next time you go in. As part of this simple checklist, it identified a pretty significant number of areas that I had largely ignored for years, which started off a long discussion on my physical health and some education on some serious side effects the medication I was taking can have on physical health.

I remember being absolutely shocked and appalled that the medication I’d been taking for years could have a detrimental effect on my life expectancy as well as many other effects I was unaware of.

Something that was never talked about is the long term effects of taking these types of medications. A shortened life expectancy, early death due to preventable physical causes, increased risk of Cardio-Vascular Disease, Stroke and severe metabolic changes are just some of the risks associated with having a chronic mental illness.

I was always a physical person who enjoyed participating in musical theatre and other activities but a back injury 20 years ago has left me in pain, adding to the weight gain from various medications and making it difficult to find physical activity that could support my desire to focus on health.

Although I was in constant pain, I deliberately adopted a medium/large dog in late 2017 in an effort to force me to get out of the house and be more active. She was a huge comfort for me emotionally and honestly has made such a difference to my life.

While sadly she passed away last year, I’ve restarted my Doggy based exercise program in 2026 and I have welcomed a new puppy Nala into my life and I am so excited now to be getting to know her and sharing new experiences and make new friends together.

Although I’m still overweight and managing my diet is not easy but I have actually lost about 10kg and I’m no longer suffering from Vitamin D deficiency. An added benefit is meeting and becoming friends with a whole group of people I’d never have encountered otherwise.

Managing my weight and diet along with needing to take medications to ensure I stay mentally well, is a constant challenge. But what I can say is that the information I have learned over the last decade has ensured I now have the knowledge and new support to be able to live a much longer and healthier life than I would have thought possible before.