Family and friends

My mum still has a very strong role in my life right now. She makes food for me, comes over, sees me, visits me and she spends a great deal of time with me.

I feel that’s a good thing because if I’m left alone, I tend to feel alone a lot and I need some company just to get through certain things. Like if I’m hearing voices again, just like a couple of months ago – I’ll give you an example – I was hearing voices one night and the only way to disrupt me from hearing voices is talking to someone. Then the voices dim down.

So I really just rung up my mum and she came over. She started talking to me or whatever and then eventually the voices went away. So just little things like that, I can do. Like just with my mum, my family or whatever.

My other sibling is probably more in line with my parents in terms of not being comfortable talking about mental vulnerabilities. And that can be difficult because there’s certainly my perception is there’s a lack of empathy because of an unwillingness to talk about anything that might be challenging. And there certainly seems to be from my other sibling, a real lack of understanding of what mental illness is, that sort of, “Why can’t you just snap out of it” or, “Why can’t you just choose to be better”.

I mean I’ve had the same conversation with my parents, “Why can’t you just be better. Why can’t you go, you know, where’s the old David?” And that’s really disheartening. I did disengage quite a bit when I had that conversation because I felt like there was a real lack of understanding and lack of empathy but, you know, since then mum’s attended a couple of information nights at [mental health organisation] to try and talk to my carer, meet my support worker at [mental health organisation].

You know, she’s been cooking food for me. I know because I don’t have any kids or I’m not married, my parents are more involved with both of my sisters’ lives because with their grandkids. Both my sisters have children of their own. So sometimes I feel like I’m not as engaged with my parents because I don’t have any grandkids for them to spend time with.

Yeah it, I guess, has affected my perception of my parents and our relationship because we don’t really stay in contact much really. I mean birthdays, they’re only 20 minutes away from me but they’re at my sister’s place round the corner from me, twice a week, but I might only talk to them once every fortnight. So we’re not hugely engaged.

It’s not that I have any hard feelings, really, I just, yeah, only mum’s shown she’s interested in helping and she’s interested in being supportive. I know dad finds it confronting and prefers not to talk about it. But, at times I guess I could say that I wish they had a… I wish we had a closer relationship or I wish that that they had more involvement in my life. But it is what it is.

It’s very hard, because you don’t want to put them into that position where you don’t want them worrying sick about you. You want them to feel that you are okay. You don’t want them to be, it’s like, well it’s hard to put in words. You don’t want them to sort of experience – oh, it’s so hard to put into words.

You don’t want to be upsetting them. And you want them to think that you are the stronger person, because you’re the parent. And it’s like the reverse role, that they’re being the parent to you. And you as a mother and a parent feel very inadequate that you’re not acting that role properly as a mother. You know, it should be the other way around and you should be looking out for them all the time.

And, you know, its not pride. It’s just that you’re the mum. You should be okay. You shouldn’t be sick like this. They’re your children. You should be helping them, not them helping you. But at the same time in the back of your mind you say, well, if you really want me to get well, come and take me to the doctor’s then, you know. I would never… I’m not a person to be asking for help.

And you know, “You’ve got to go to the doctor’s”, but you can’t get yourself to the doctor. And then you have your children saying, you’ve got to go, and then in your mind saying, ‘Well, if you want me to go, come and take me to the doctor’s’, you know.

I’ve never said this to them, because I don’t want to be upsetting them, you know. They’ve got their own lives and they have their own problems. They’ve got their own children to raise up and, you know, you think to yourself, they’ve got enough on their plate, so that’s why you don’t present your problems to them.

People say I’ve got insight into it. I hope I do. But I think I do. I certainly have a lot more insight than those first years of ’93 and anxious years of school and that so, I definitely think that’s a burden or a blessing and yeah. I try to listen to people. If I am getting over the top or out of hand, I try and listen to family and friends, because they might know a bit more than me sometimes what…

Like one time I think my best friend’s sister, we were in their family home and she said, “Because I don’t think you should go to work, I think you’re unwell and that”. And so, yeah, but I wasn’t offended at all. I was very grateful, yeah.

Is there a particular way that you would like that communication to be delivered to help, so you aren’t offended? Or not necessarily?

No I just, I think I try and take it on board, but I hope I do. Yeah. But I have taken it on board in the past. I’m pretty confident that I would in the future, from family and friends and yeah.

Obviously the marriage wasn’t going well. The kids were all grown up and doing their own thing. And I’d sort of go in and out, in and out, you know. Sometimes, you know, the depression would last two months, then the next time it would last four months and I thought, this isn’t any good, I’ve got to go see a doctor. So I went to my GP and as I was going there bumped into my husband. And he stopped the car and he goes, “Where you going?” And I said, “To the doctor’s”. I said, “Where are you going?” He said, “To the doctor’s”. I said, “Oh, what’s wrong with you?” He goes, “You”. I said, “Oh, really?” I said, “Okay”.

So we both went into the clinic and I was called in by the doctor and [ex-husband] wanted to come in. I said, “No”. I said, “I will speak to him first”, and I said, “Then when I’m finished, then you may come in”.

So anyway, I went to the doctor. I said, “I need help”. I said, “I’m going up and down, up and down, all the time”. And I said, “I’m not getting any better. I need to get through this. You know, I do have a family”. So I said, “I need to see a psychiatrist”. I said, “I want you to recommend a good one for me”. He said, “Okay”, and he goes off.

And I said, “[Ex-husband] wants to see you as well”. And he goes, “What for?” I said, “Because of me”. And he goes, “Oh, okay”. He goes, “Do you mind if we call him in now?” I said, “No, go ahead”. So he came in and he goes, “Yes, [ex-husband]”? And he goes, “Well, I want Helen to see a psychiatrist”. And he goes, “Well, that’s why Helen is here”. And [ex-husband] sort of went, “Oh”, as if to say, ‘Oh, really?’

And [ex-husband] goes, “Well, I’ve got one that I’d like her to see”. And the doctor goes, “Well, it’s not up to you to decide which psychiatrist she sees. It’s up to her to make the decision”. He goes, “But I’ve got a good one”. He goes, as I said, “She makes the decision”. So the doctor said, “I can recommend Dr So-and-so for you, Helen”. He goes, “He’s very, very good, you know. He’s got great results. So it’s up to you to decide”.

So I said, “Well, obviously” I said, “I’ll go with your recommendation, thank you very much”. And my husband continued. He kept on stressing, he goes, “No, I want you to see this doctor”. And I said, “Well, I don’t want to see your doctor that you’ve found”. I said, “I’ll go with, you know, the doctor that [doctor] has recommended”. And he wasn’t happy with that at all.

And I found out later that [ex-husband] was hoping to have me committed into an asylum over there.

I guess I’ve, you know, I’ve had friends who have stood by, stuck with me along the way and, some who have never really understood the mental illness.

So I get a lot of, “You’ve just got to do something” or, you know, “You’ve just got to make yourself”, you know, “Just do it” and, you know, “Stop worrying about things”. And that’s been difficult, from people who you’ve known for a long time. You know, when you talk about all this stuff that’s gone on, and they can still have this, you know, not have that understanding. But that’s pretty uncommon. Most of my friends, you know, have been really good.

You know, there’s never been any issue about, “Oh, you know, you’re not working” or, you know, “You’re not doing anything”. It’s always been my own issues with that, you know. My friends work and are doing stuff, ‘why can’t I?’ But I think, you know, having people to talk to about stuff is really good too, that’s helped to be able to, “Oh fuck, you know, I’m not coping” or, you know, “I’ve fucked up again” and to, you know, like not to have, you know, some judgement or anything like that.

Yeah, I think that sort of makes it so much easier to be able to talk about it when, you know, there isn’t that feeling of judgement or, you know, that there seems to be that understanding of what you’re going through. And like I say, it’s because, you know, they know, I guess they can see that, you know, that there is struggle and that, you know, that I want to do better and, you know, seen me when I’m well, seen me when I’m not. And, I guess they know that this isn’t like a choice or that I want to be unwell. But yeah, I think it’s taken some time.

So I spend a lot of time alone and I don’t do well when I spend too much time on my own. I know a lot of people but I don’t really have many friends. I am friendly with the ones in the country but I’ve been gone a long time now so I don’t really go up and see them very often but I’ve got a new phone plan which I can talk to anyone for as long as I like. So I’ve rung one and had a good talk to her which is great.

Usually I write heaps of letters, and so I’ve taken up card making, and I write like a letter card to try to constrain it a bit but then I just add extra pieces of paper but I’m not an unhappy person. I’m quite happy with my life. You would say probably I am pretty well recovered, but it doesn’t take much for me to start to spiral down and I’m not – I do not have an even personality. So when I get a bit sad I get really quite deeply sad and sometimes when I’m looking forward to something I can either go crazy or I can just not really think it’s going to be that good.

So it’s sort of sad but I made a decision a few days ago not to spend any more days of my life wishing I was dead because one of my good friends, he’s got bowel cancer and they can’t do any more for him so his days are just numbered and I just thought, you know, all this time I waste just wishing I was dead, I’m not going to do it anymore. I don’t know how I’m going to change myself but I’m not going to do it anymore.

So my family came in, so actually when I say my family, it wasn’t all my family from memory. It was my mother, a good friend of mine and my sister. We were all in a room together at one point and I think it must have been around lunchtime… The conversation came up around food and the canteen in the hospital or whatever, and then I kind of remember asking my mum to go get me some food. I don’t know whether I was hungry or whether I didn’t want to eat what they gave me or whatever. And she did…

But by the time I was medicated, I can’t remember whether it was that night or the next night. I’m sure it would have been that night because my father wouldn’t have waited 24 hours to come see me. He came in. By then I was talking gibberish. So that’s how the medication affected me. I don’t think that was, I don’t think I would have ever ended up in a state of, so when I say gibberish I don’t even think I was coherent when he saw me. My father walked out of there in tears, freaking out at the state I was in by that night.

My mum is cool. My mum is actually the greatest person I have ever known. She has been the best person with my mental illness ever. Like I credit her with the fact that I never successfully killed myself and the fact that I never went completely off the rails. Because she never gave me reason to fight against her. She never once tried to take all sense of control away from me. Like I know that would be, like that’s probably a really hard… it would have been a really hard thing for her because it’s like “Oh my God, my baby is trying to die. What is she doing?” And as I got older, like I was into drugs, I was out.

I didn’t come home for five days at one point and she still never flipped out. She was concerned but it was always a case of I think she knew if she tried to pulled me in, I would pull away harder. And so she gave me freedom without letting it get to a really dangerous point. And I never felt the need to go like too far. Which is really, really great and I really appreciate that.