THREE years ago, Sean Norton was suffering crippling post-traumatic stress and depression after losing a mate in a car crash on the Mitchell Highway between Bathurst and Orange.
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On Monday, he started work at printWest at TAFE Orange, having completed his printing apprenticeship at Bathurst through Skillset and Spatial Services on Friday. And he was also nominated for a coveted NSW trade award recently.
The reason for his transformation? His decision to “reach out and get help”.
Mr Norton hopes his story will serve as an example for those fighting mental illness.
“It’s been a struggle over the years. It didn’t get any easier and I just kept doing what I was doing and wanted to finish what I started,” he said.
Mr Norton was a passenger in a vehicle that crashed on the Mitchell Highway on November 10, 2015. The crash killed the driver, his friend and colleague, 21-year-old Brad Eather, who is also from Orange.
“He was an apprentice. We started our apprenticeship together at the same place,” Mr Norton said.
“We were in an old Rodeo with no airbags and he fell asleep behind the wheel and went to the other side of the road and had a head-on collision with a big truck. He was instantly killed.”
Mr Norton said he took a week off work after the crash and was offered counselling when he returned, but said it took a while to hit him.
“I didn’t get diagnosed with PTSD until six or seven months after it,” he said.
Last week, the 26-year-old completed his apprenticeship in Bathurst a year earlier than scheduled despite having to drive past the Mitchell Highway crash site each day on his way to or from work.
“When I was going to work I was getting the flashbacks and experiencing the emotion of it all,” he said.
His relationships were also affected following the crash, and he tended to isolate himself socially.
He said while having a goal had helped him, his main advice to people suffering from mental illness was to see a doctor for help.
“You have to reach out and get help,” he said. “Not that many people will be there for you; you have to find professional help.”
In May, he was one of four people in the running for the Lithographic Institute of Australia NSW graduate of the year.
Mr Norton paid tribute to those who trained him for not only helping him complete his apprenticeship, but to win the sought-after nomination.
“If I didn’t have the support I had through Skillset and Spatial Services, there’s no way I could have completed that trade,” he said.
“I set out a goal after Brad passed that I would go on and continue to do my job and not just finish my trade, but excel at it at the same time.”
It was one of the people he met while doing similar work, when he was 16, who helped him get the job at TAFE, where he prints TAFE material and resources.
“I’m loving it,” he said.