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I had a very normal upbringing,
very loving parents,
but I always felt
there was something missing.
I didn’t feel whole.
I didn’t feel happy.
When I was young,
I loved music in particular.
I started singing in the choir,
doing a lot of competitions.
When I sang, I felt special.
I, somehow, got in my mind,
you know, if I don’t
become famous as a singer,
I’m not going to be complete.
Later on in my life,
it was just that I felt this gloom.
I went to the psychiatrist,
and he diagnosed me with clinical depression.
So, really, music became
almost an obsession for me.
I was still having singing lessons,
and my singing teacher at the time
encouraged me to go
to the Victorian College of the Arts.
And I got to perform
some operas at little theaters,
and that was a lot of fun.
That got me my Graduate Diploma in Opera.
And even when I got that, I—I—
Just something was missing.
I think it was just fixated
in my mind that, you know,
if I become famous, things would be better.
During that time, I also auditioned
for Opera Australia, and I got in there.
Opera Australia—it’s the real thing.
I got to see a lot of things around the world
—places such as Switzerland,
Greece, Hong Kong.
During that time, OCD crept in.
OCD is obsessive compulsive disorder.
My mind wasn’t really clear.
I loved singing, but at the same time,
it was like I was trying
to find something else
but I didn’t know what it was.
I got to a point where I just couldn’t cope.
I left the opera.
I left it all.
So I just lived my life
—drank, ate, just to keep alive.
But I had no purpose, no self-esteem.
I was just
reluctant to do anything for about ten years.
Jehovah’s Witnesses would drop off
magazines for us over the years,
and I would look into them.
Actually, that started
to sort of do something for me.
When I was very young,
my dad had his first Bible study.
When I learned that we can live forever
and that Jehovah is a God that loves us,
it was like,
it was something that I needed to know
that I wasn’t even aware
that I needed to know.
And then one day, it just hit me.
I was in the reading chair in the room,
and I actually said to myself,
‘Dom, you have to get to a meeting.’
I knew where the Kingdom Hall was,
but still I found it hard
to get to a meeting.
I wasn’t brave enough to go.
So that’s when I prayed to Jehovah,
“Don’t let my mental illness
stop me from progressing spiritually.”
And then not long after, I got determined.
I just did it.
And in that instance,
I felt: ‘Where have I been?
Why was I hesitant?’
I just feel so comfortable here,
and then it just got better and better.
I got baptized in 2020.
That was the best day of my life.
I certainly knew that something was missing.
I know now what it was; it was the truth;
it was Jehovah.
My OCD now is under control,
even if I have a bad day
and I’m feeling a bit anxious.
But then as soon as I think,
‘I’ve got a lot of brothers and sisters
that love me in the congregation
and I’ve got Jehovah above everything else,’
it just helps me to snap out of it quicker.
Since doing more in the preaching work,
I start to think
much less about myself
—in my case, about my problems.
While medication and counseling help
(the medication will help me to relax a bit),
that’s as much as it will do, you know.
It won’t fill the other things
like, you know, feeling hope.
Medication doesn’t
give you that sense of hope.
Even now, I can say that I never thought
I would get to this point where I am now,
and only Jehovah can do that.
I know because if I could have done that,
I would have done it in the past.
Now I’m enjoying singing for the first time.

Domenic Alessia: Finding Hope Despite Mental Illness