I Survive

Trigger Warning: This article contains personal stories of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.

My story of ongoing survivorship of mental health issues is not unique. There is no triumphant victory at the end of this article. My personal history which I have chosen to share has no miraculous breakthroughs, no Hollywood ending of a woman having a road to Damascus moment, there is no phoenix rising from the ashes in this intimate account.

Hindsight amplified by education is indeed 20/20 for me. I now know my first suicide attempt as a teenager was in fact a cry for help and the first manifestation of what is and has been for the last 20 odd years of my life; manic depression. Before the last stitch closed the gaping wound in my wrist the shame and embarrassment had set in and I was already pushing my feelings as deep into myself as I possibly could.

I refused to talk about it, shrugged it off, insisted it was a moment of stupidity and for the next few years started to self-medicate. Marijuana. Alcohol. These were my substitute anti-depressants. Substitute anti-depressants that kept my errant racing thoughts at bay and my escape from the soberness that demanded self-introspection.

Pregnancy and the birth of my first child brought with it joy. A respite from drugs and alcohol and my mind focused solely on the life inside of me drove all of the negative thinking away. I was genuinely happy, looking forward to the future instead of hiding from it, positively buoyed with contentment.

For the next 3 years I wore a mask of absolute normalcy. Beneath the mask the depression lay, still shoved under a veneer of confidence and stoicism. My next pregnancy did not bring with it the incredible joy of my first. It brought worry, fear and a sense of deep shame of feeling worried and fearful.

7 months after the birth of my second child an overdose earned me a 48-hour psych hold. But by this time I had been living with and hiding my depression for so long it was easy to look a harried psychiatrist in the eye and lie about a momentary lapse in judgement, a lack of sleep, the disintegration of my relationship. I was home within a week, although this time armed with a prescription for anti-depressants. Anti-depressants I did not take because I desperately still wanted to breastfeed, I had read all the books, I desperately wanted to bond with my child.

If I had been honest with the psychiatrist I would undoubtedly have been diagnosed with post-natal depression. To this very day I carry a deep seated shame that I did not bond as well with my second child as I did with my first in the first year of his life. 7 years later I found myself back at square one. Drinking to slow my rapidly cycling thoughts and overusing sleeping pills to quieten my mind so I could sleep. I can barely remember a time when I did not have insomnia. I finally visited a GP and asked for anti-depressants. After a year I felt well enough to discontinue taking them.

Work and purpose now filled my life. I felt good. My children were thriving and so was I. Then disaster, I lost my job and despite doing everything within my power to secure another I could not find work. I felt myself spiralling so I again visited a GP and was prescribed anti-depressants. For some reason this time they did not seem to help, in fact, they made me feel worse.

Instead of re-visiting a GP I kept taking them in the vain hope that they would begin to do what they were supposed to. They didn’t, and the resulting suicide attempt landed me in hospital, minutes from death. An appointment with a psychiatrist 3 months later, this time with no subterfuge, just the plain and simple truth bought a diagnosis of manic depression. Now that I knew what was wrong I finally put myself on a path to healing. I see the psychiatrist once a month with visits to counsellors sometimes in between. This works for me, but in saying that, I know it is not a magic bullet that will work for everyone.

My medications major side effect is severe weight gain amongst other lesser things. A small price to pay for what I now have, peace of mind. I have dropped all pretences and am now brutally honest with my immediate family about what I am going through. And even though they are supportive I still feel a horrible gut wrenching shame that I am not ‘normal’. I believe this shame is borne from the pressure I put on myself to be a ‘strong black woman’, and creates the major depressive lows I feel when I do not live up to my own expectations.

I will more than likely be on medication for the rest of my life. Manic depression is not something that just all of a sudden goes away. Like I said at the start of this story, there is no fairy tale ending here. Only honesty. If you get anything from my story then please let it be that it’s ok to forgive yourself and most importantly, be gentle to yourself. Self-care is not selfish, it is vital.

I share my story because recently I attended the Inaugural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Conference, held fittingly in Alice Springs, the centre of Australia. What better place to hold a conference for the discussion of a subject that has increasingly become the centre of Aboriginal mental health? I also share my story, even though I have shared it before, in lieu of someone else’s story that I have no right to tell.
One of the strongest topics of the conference was one of youth suicide. The statistics are devastating, catastrophic. It is easy to look at numbers and decry the injustice, another thing entirely to listen to the people who have lost loved ones, the people who are left asking why, the people whose grief is writ so raw upon their faces it is almost impossible to witness without answering tears.

I limited the conference sessions I attended to those who are at the coalface, those who are active within their communities around suicide prevention. Among these sessions was a very common thread, strength through culture. I heard Natasha Abbott and Jody Kopp speak eloquently and passionately about a program they are involved in. It involves a three-day workshop developed in part by Northern Territory Aboriginal Elders and delivered by trained facilitators. What struck me the most about this particular program is that it empowers individual communities in culturally appropriate ways, and in doing so has strengthened individuals within communities and has opened a clear way for people who are having thoughts of suicide an avenue to speak to someone from within their community.

As Jody said during her presentation, the wheel does not need to be reinvented around suicide prevention, the answers clearly do exist. The money does not. Another speaker I found particularly enlightening was Kanat Wano, who has developed programs targeted at young children. Programs of self-esteem and empowerment. Kanat is an incredibly engaging speaker and his enthusiasm is contagious. Again I see answers to pre-teen feelings of desolation, and ways to tackle these unique situations through tools that imbue individual strength.

Without a doubt one of the most powerful sessions was presented by Dameyon Bonson on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans*, Queer and Intersex issues surrounding suicide. The fact that no data exists surrounding this minority is astonishing. As Dameyon points out quite rightly, this is an incredibly high risk group and targeted services in Australia are almost non-existent. The fact that Dameyon and other researchers have to look outside of Australia at other First Nations data from the United States and Canada to somehow gauge even the most basic of data is something that needs to change, and it needs to change immediately.

My takeaway from the conference is one of hope. I honestly feel if there was a person in my community I could see when I was a teenager when my manic depression first appeared, my life would have been vastly different. Lifeline did exist, but my access to a phone was non-existent. The stigma around mental health issues was huge, and even though it has not disappeared, I do believe it is currently not as strong. If I was empowered with tools to find strength within my own community and through my own culture, I would have sought help much much sooner and would not have hidden and lived with the shame and fear I lived with for so long. But as I have said before, hindsight is indeed 20/20.

The reasons for and the importance of the conference cannot be disputed. A national framework for suicide prevention in Aboriginal communities is long overdue. After attending many differing sessions at the conference and hearing a lot of the different ways Aboriginal community organisations are addressing this issue, it has become clear that answers are within reach.

Some of the recommendations (but by no means all) that stem from the conference are:

• Cultural training for all who work in mental health, particularly around suicide risk.
• National and large NGO’s to do their homework before entering Aboriginal communities to work with people who are at risk of self-harm
• More opportunities to train community members to identify at risk behaviours and intervene or access services
• A greater focus on grief counselling for those who have lost loved ones through suicide
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to provide mental health and suicide training to non Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander practitioners in communities, including inter-generational trauma that stems from colonisation and loss of culture
• The creation of targeted mental health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans*, Queer and Intersex individuals.

Although these recommendations are not a full and comprehensive outline of all of the issues that will no doubt be included in the final report, they are an excellent indication of what needs to take place in the conversations surrounding reducing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self-harm.

If you or anyone you know needs help, contact Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14, or speak to your local Aboriginal Medical Service.