Natalie's Story

When I was 18, my mind left this world and took me on a long, difficult journey into a different realm.

For a few days, in the heat of summer, I literally lost my mind and began to live a very different, strange life. At first, I believed that my real parents were Martians - my earth mother had adopted me for 18 years. Now it was time to return to Mars. I was taking medication at the time. These pink tablets now told me the time. There were 12 tablets left so that meant 12 days before my Martian parents came to collect me from Earth to return to Mars. For some reason, during the course of those few days, I had developed a ritual of throwing my glasses off my head onto the floor, picking them up, putting them on my face again, only to throw them on the floor once more. I also believed that I had developed special psychic skills, that I had been especially chosen to attend a school to develop my psychic gifts.

I don't remember eating, sleeping or communicating with many people during this time - my life and my mind had entered a very different world.

I do remember going to the local hospital to be examined and checked. At this stage I was fascinated by the medical equipment in the examination cubicle - of course I thought this was part of the special entrance test to enter my psychic school.

I spent the next 3 weeks in a psychiatric hospital. I was put on anti psychotic medication after my diagnosis of schizophrenia. This was the lowest point of my life - a very cruel fate. My two younger sisters and mother were scared out of their wits - my sisters barely visited me and later abandoned me in my time of need.

For the next 10 years I tried to grapple with this awful growing confusion that ruled my life. I couldn't hold down a job, my psychotic episodes took me to very strange places. I remember early on believing that I was an international gymnast from Russia who had to practise constantly - the hospital corridors became my training area. I would spend my time on the "balance beam" carefully trying not to fall off, leaping in the air, practising for my next competition. Another time I was a fire engine. I bought myself a shower cap covered in red dots and wore this constantly. I would run around the hospital ward screeching at the top of my voice imitating the sound of a fire engine. To this day I feel a strange sensation whenever I see a fire engine.

As a young adult I strongly resented this horrid illness - it wasn't happening to me, it would soon go away, it was a stage I was going through. While I was in hospital I was forced to take all sorts of different medication but once I left hospital I decided that medication wasn't necessary and of course always started getting sick again.

After 3 years of this trauma, my illness developed from schizophrenia to manic depression - (not uncommon from what I'm told). I remember quite vividly spending 9 months closed off from society living the life of a recluse. I was constantly tired. I would get out of bed at 1 pm - in time for "Days of our Lives", have a loaf of raisin bread, a bottle of coke and a packet of chocolate biscuits then return to bed at about 7 pm. I spent three quarters of my time asleep - I couldn't motivate myself to do anything. All I wanted to do was live my life in darkness. Death was a thought I entertained regularly. During this time I alienated my friends and my sisters. They saw a young woman crumble into someone who they no longer recognised. I was living the life of someone I didn't know. I had been exposed to a very different life - I had lost complete control. In hospital I saw people who had lost control in every way imaginable. I was very scared and frightened by all of this - no one could stop this from happening.

Once I turned 27 I started to come to terms with my illness and finally became more accepting after a huge, 10 year long battle. More importantly I started taking my medication on a daily basis. For many years I felt a lot of resentment, anger, bitterness and hostility towards my illness and, to a lesser degree, myself and my family. My life has more or less returned to normal now. I am 36 years old, I have a full-time job and I run a part-time business working as a massage therapist.

I usually have a hospital admission once every one to two years but luckily, it's never for very long and I seem to recover quite quickly. I have a very supportive network of friends who are really understanding. In fact, I met two of my closest friends while in hospital.

My illness has taught me much compassion and tolerance after realising that the human psyche can be so very fragile and vulnerable. A day doesn't pass when I don't think about my illness. I think it will always haunt me. It will always be an integral part of who I am.

Mum's eyes

I thought I was a cool, single mother. After a childhood with an authoritarian father, my three daughters were able at last to explore their potential. They did youth theatre, photography, music, skipped school, went night clubbing, had friends around, and experimented with drinking and boys. Life was exciting and interesting.

Then challenges intervened. The divorce process started. My youngest daughter needed spinal surgery out of the blue. My eldest daughter was completing Year 12, looking for a job and going to end of school celebrations. It was nearly Christmas. Our normal chaos was becoming more so.

After Jo's operation, I invested in a video recorder to keep her occupied while bed-ridden. The three of them, and sometimes friends, stayed up late, endlessly watching Sci-Fi movies. After one session Natalie started telling me she was from Mars and laughing bewilderingly. At first I went along with this story, encouraging her to tell me about the detail of life, suggesting appropriate dress, mapping out the experience.

After a time I became increasingly irritated, especially by the laugh and asked her to stop. She wouldn't. Her sisters went along for a while and then started to become angry that she wouldn't shut up. When she kept it up all night I decided I should do something, but I was confused. On one hand I admired the creativity involved in the description of life on Mars, on the other I couldn't understand why she wouldn't stop. I thought it was a practical joke and yet something made me think she was not OK.

The charade continued all day and I decided I needed help - but where from? It was Christmas and therefore difficult to access community help. Friends called a doctor.

Natalie loved the doctor. She admired her bag, taking out her stuff and asking her strange questions. It became clear that somehow these questions were connected to her life on Mars. She started becoming obsessive about time and eating. The doctor corrected Natalie's delusions and acted as if she thought we had all behaved inappropriately by going along with her. I became very conscious of the messy house, some of us still in dressing gowns at 3 pm and visitors coming and going. The doctor decided Nat should be admitted to hospital.

Nurse John took a detailed history but seemed most interested she had become exposed recently to drugs and that I was a single mother. I kept asking what was going on and was fobbed off. By now Nat was making little sense, was feeling pictures as if they could be understood three dimensionally and was becoming VERY angry because the doctor brought her here and didn't take her home to Mars. I was getting VERY worried. I made many attempts to engage the staff to talk about Nat but was ignored and I inevitably started to feel judged and that whatever was wrong, it was my fault.

Finally, I saw the psychiatrist. After listening to my story, cutting me off as much as she could, she told me Nat was psychotic, what would happen next depended on medication and could last days or years. I went home bewildered and looked up psychotic in the dictionary. It said MAD.

The next 10 years was a challenge for all of us. Her sisters left Canberra only returning for brief holidays. They have learned to support each other.

Natalie grappled with hospitalisation, medication, angry sisters, family not coping, friends who didn't understand or couldn't cope, overspending, shame, humiliation, not being included, losing and regaining jobs.

I lived through the previous fad of blaming schizophrenia on over-protective or laissez-faire parents and enthusiastically embraced the current bio-chemical model, which supports a physiological theory of neurotransmitter imbalance.

I hate hospitals, doctors and THE SYSTEM and struggle to be objective about their limitations. I learned no one knows all the answers.

The manic episodes have been fun. Speeding down the Clyde Mountain scared out of my wits on an impromptu trip to the coast. Convincing a policeman that our neighbours were ASIO spies. Trying to get into the American Embassy for reasons I've forgotten. Joy-riding on Corin Dam. Playing the public and private clown to cover up for Nat's peculiar behaviour. The near fatal depressions were devastating.

I've developed a damn black sense of humour, I know how to politic for the cause, and became a researcher and educator in mental health issues.

After eleven years this journey became easier for me. Nat decided to go overseas and I bought out of the carer role. I'd rescued her from interstate too often. I made it clear I couldn't bring her back from Europe if she had a bad episode.

She learned to be responsible for her medication and care and we have a respectful, close relationship. I stay away when she has her episodes. I can't cope.

Nat got herself back together. I consider her a strong, courageous woman. I don't know how she lives with the uncertainty of her life and admire her ability to do this. She still has episodes but manages her stress and catches them early, so they are less disruptive.

The best moment in this journey for me was watching Natalie graduate as a massage therapist from TAFE. She tried often to complete a course of study but her illness stopped her. Her two sisters become academics and this was hard for her to endure. As she proudly strode across the stage to receive her diploma, I stood and clapped loudly, filled with joy. Natalie precociously asked if I was manic!

Babette's Story

Excerpt from her personal diary aged 16

I can't believe how much I have written in here! Over this year quite a few things have happened. I got really drunk for the first (& last?!?) time; Jackpa died, I had my tonsils out, Jo has had an operation on her back and only a couple of days ago Natalie was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Calvary Hospital because she was acting like a schizophrenic.

At first she was laughing all the time, then she got serious, apologising and everything. So we asked her why she was being so silly, and she said it was because she had travelled in time and all this stuff.

She keeps looking at her watch and every-time the minute changes while she's watching it she has to do something. It's really quite funny and some of the things she thinks up are really intelligent.

The doctors don't really know what caused it but they think the high temperature combined with the stress she has been suffering from. We aren't allowed to visit her but I did yesterday and she was just like a zombie not talking to me or anything...

She said to my mum later that she knew I'd been there but 'Natalie' wasn't there.

Also she's very intent on escaping. She asked my mum to measure the height from her window to the ground and she's been counting the number of steps she'll need to take to get out.

Another funny thing she did was walk out holding on to mum's arm and then she said to the nurses "I'm just taking Merrilyn [mum] home".

Also, at the doctor's earlier she was calling all the doctors 'idiots' to their faces.

I hope she gets better I know it'll take a while.

As you've probably guessed my holidays have been unreal!!!

Lee's Story

Lee’s Dad has bipolar disorder and is also an alcoholic. Lee talks about what it like to live with someone with a mental illness and and substance use disorder.

Every year, we celebrate the anniversary of my Dad giving up the grog with a party that’s bigger than his birthday. The only thing that stopped him was Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and even though he is always quoting the Serenity Prayer and 12 Steps to us, it is better than it was before. Mainly he is not in as much trouble as he used to be. The number of times my uncle had to go and bail him out at the police station – we lost count.

But he still has the other battle. It was only after he gave up drinking that it became clear he had another big problem. He never managed to hold down jobs for long, and we all thought it was his temper, or his drinking, or both. But then we really noticed the mood swings.

When Dad is up, he is high. He spends money on things we don’t need, like a state-of-the art stereo, or expensive pets we have no way of looking after. He shouts at people and pisses off all his long-suffering friends. He gets up at 4:00 and starts ‘working around the house’, tipping out Mum’s pot plants because they ‘look messy’ and chopping down trees.

He shouts at us over the stupidest things, and talks rubbish about big ideas he has. He always threatens to start drinking again – but he never has, which is the one thing he has stuck at.

I don’t know how my mum has coped with all this. Eventually it all gets too much and she calls in the Mental Health Assessment Team. But then Dad can act normal, when he really has to. The team asks him lots of questions and he gives reasonable answers. As soon as they leaves, he blows his stack at mum, and storms off for a day or two.

Eventually, the high ‘breaks’ and he collapses, exhausted, and goes into the most enormous depression. It’s terrible to say, but we prefer the depressions. At least we knew where he is, and we aren’t chasing him everywhere.

But still the depressions are pretty bad. He stays in his room listening to the radio and doesn’t eat. He doesn’t talk much either.

Dad has been on lithium for a long time, and it doesn’t seem to work as well any more. So they’ve been trying him on lots of things lately. It’s not helped by the fact he’s now developed diabetes. He deliberately eats sugar to get a quick high sometimes.

I’m not at home much these days, probably because of him. But it would be great if Mum could have a break from all this. The stable periods are getting more and more rare. But the hospital always says he’s not sick enough for admission. They should try living with him, day in, day out.

When we lived in NSW, he stayed in some cottages on hospital grounds while coming down from a manic phase. He didn’t get so depressed after ‘crashing’ and for once we weren’t worried about where he was and what he was doing. I wish there was some place now where he could go for a break, and mum too.

In the back of my mind I wonder if my brother or I have inherited the ‘mad’ gene. They say it can run in families. But so far, so good.

Samantha's Story

Samantha has had anorexia for a few years. These are some truths she’s found out.

Can I tell you a secret?
Or even a few secrets?

It is okay to be you…
You don’t actually have to be perfect….
In fact: I like you just the way you are, not prettier, not thinner, not smarter, not funnier…if anything – I’d like you to be more like you. And I think that most people that you know would probably say the same.

Another secret…
Your self-worth is not actually determined by the number on the scales.
You can almost measure someone by their size…but it’s not the size of their thighs you’re measuring, it’s the size of their heart.

Another…
Mirrors lie…you are probably not actually the hideous monster that you see.
And the woman that said ‘you can never be too rich or too thin’…she lied too.
And to tell the truth, being the thinnest little girl on the planet doesn’t really result in happiness…

Can I tell you another secret?
You can achieve anything you want. You can dance, you can study, you can write – you can do anything!

But even if you don’t reach the ‘perfect’ goal, you haven’t failed – as long as you tried.

But more importantly, there is a goal you CAN achieve, and really it’s the most important goal of all… HAPPINESS!

Samantha's Story 2

To the media…
Thank you for education me to how glamorous it is to have an eating disorder…

Oh, and fun too isn’t it?

I love that my main hobbies are throwing my guts out, passing out and taking laxatives after binging on a carrot… oh, and that my major relationships are with a set of scales and a mirror, both of which daily remind me of how hideously horrible and fat I am… despite the fact that I’m too weak to…oh…even walk.

One question…is it still stylish when you’re strapped to a hospital bed with a tube down your nose and a drip in your arm? Just curious.

Susan's Story

In her own words, Susan describes the pivotal moment in her journey out of her twenty-year ordeal with bulimia.

‘Stop!’ said Lisa. ‘Can I just ask you one question? Why haven’t you killed yourself?’

My answer came swiftly and confidently. ‘Because God would be angry with me for giving up on myself and because somewhere way down deep within myself I truly believe that one day I will overcome all of this and live a full and productive life.’

'Well, I am in awe of you. In your strength of courage, and in your ability to go on under such adverse circumstances. I wouldn’t blame you if you had taken your own life. You certainly have had a terrible time. But you know what? I believe you are a beautiful person underneath all of this mess and that you will be healed completely,’ said Lisa.

Well, that was the last straw. I suddenly burst into uncontrollable tears. My husband who was sitting next to me looked at me with a mixture of sadness and frustration. I had seen this look several times before in other therapy sessions lead by a plethora of therapists. He really was soooooooooooo over this.

Lisa was our last hope as our marriage was all but over. Twenty years of living with a woman who was both anorexic and bulimic had finally taken its toll. All the other counsellors and psychiatrists had said it was my fault that our marriage was so troubled. If only I would eat and keep the food down, Andrew would feel better about staying with me. But as long as I continued to be ‘selfish’ and ‘a naughty girl’ who either starved herself to within an inch of her life, or binged and purged on a daily basis, Andrew had every right to leave me, or worse still, to insist that I leave our family home and our two children. Emily, 12 and Michael, 9.

After all, my self-destructive behaviour not only affected me in adverse ways both physically and emotionally, it also played havoc with everyone else who came into contact with me for any length of time. This obviously included my children.

So why do you think you developed an eating disorder?’, Lisa continued. I was unable to reply. I felt numb. Dead. There were so many thoughts racing around in my head. Where to begin? Instead of saying anything I just sat there in stony silence looking at my hands while clutching a soggy screwed up tissue, desperately wishing that either Lisa or Andrew would say something. Anything would be better than all three of us just sitting here in this awful silence.

Lisa continued. ‘People don’t just go around starving themselves for no good reason especially when they are a twelve year old girl. So what else was going on in your life before you stopped eating at the age of twelve?'

Once again I just sat there for several seconds without saying anything. Then, all of a sudden, a torrent of thoughts came flooding into my mind. Thoughts about my parents, who had always been busy with each other, apparently having very little time for me. Thoughts about the years of sexual abuse carried out by males and females. Some I knew. Others were total strangers.

At some point Lisa stopped me mid-sentence and said, ‘You speak about the sexual abuse with such detachment and calmness as though it didn’t happen to you. As though you witnessed it from afar. I find this very interesting yet disturbing. You will definitely need to unpack these issues at some stage during your journey to recovery. No one can enter these kinds of experiences and come out the other side totally unscathed. Whether you know it or not you have been deeply scared by these experiences and they in turn have helped shape the way you see yourself as an individual as well as how you see yourself in relationships- particularly sexual relationships.’

When Lisa had finished speaking, I continued unravelling my past with break neck speed like an aeroplane careering out of control towards the ground at one hundred miles an hour with no way of putting on the brakes. Once I began talking I found it almost impossible to stop.

Lisa wrote down everything I said, pausing every now and again to say, ‘No wonder you have led the life you have. No wonder you have been so desperately unhappy. You are not a naughty little girl who is deliberately choosing to annoy and harm others by not eating. You are a very sad, confused, wounded person who wants to be loved as a person not because she gets good grades at school and not because she looks good in a swimsuit.

‘Your endless pursuit of the perfect body and the perfect grades has been about your need for approval and love. Something all human beings crave. Many of us are lucky enough to receive these things while we are growing up. You didn’t. Instead you were emotionally abandoned by your parents and sexually abused by others who saw your vulnerability and used it to their own advantage.

‘Has anyone ever told you this, Susan?’ asked Lisa.

‘No’, I replied.

‘I suppose you are used to people telling you to “grow up and get over it… after all you are forty now and this has gone on long enough…surely you are sick and tired of living like this so why don’t you just wake up to yourself and get over it?”’ Lisa added.

‘Yes.’ I answered. ‘People have been telling me for a very long time-years in fact- that this is all my fault. That I choose to do this to myself and to others. Whereas, I believe I can’t help it. I truly want to be NORMAL if there is such a thing…but I just don’t know how to do that anymore. I have been sick for so long I don’t even know who I am anymore. All I see- in fact all anyone sees when they look at me- is an eating disorder. So where is Susan in all of this?’

‘You know what, Susan?’ said Lisa. ‘You will get over this and you will learn to LIKE – no, wait a minute- LOVE yourself. What you are experiencing is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You weren’t born with it. It is something you have developed as a result of the things that have happened to you.’

‘Contrary to what you have been told by friends, family and medical professionals you are not ‘mad’. You are simply a wounded person who needs to learn to love yourself whilst acknowledging your inadequacies as well as your unique gifts and talents.

‘Nothing you think, say or do is wrong as such. However some of the choices you make are unhealthy for you and for those who know you. I will help you learn to make better choices so that you lead a healthier more productive life that does not see you always resorting to starvation or binging and purging as a way of coping with stressful and uncomfortable situations.’

This realisation was a pivotal moment in my life. I was not ‘mad’ or ‘naughty’ and ‘wilful’ as I had believed for so many years. I was incredibly unhappy because people had hurt me a lot when I was younger and were still hurting me because I let them. I couldn’t really stop them when I was a child because I didn’t know how and they were always in a more powerful position either physically or mentally than me.

Now with Lisa’s help I have begun making better choices that are helping me see myself in a more positive light. For the first time I can ‘see’ myself getting better even though I still find most days a real struggle.

I am learning to appreciate the little steps I make instead of expecting huge changes overnight. I know my therapist’s role in our relationship is to provide me with the tools to unlock the real me. What I do with these tools is up to me.

I need to take her advice at put it into practice so that I am able to take care of myself without her support. And you know what….I am really looking forward to that day!

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