How does a community reduce suicide?

Lost opportunities. What are those last precursors that train through the mind of someone suicidal? Their last thoughts and actions. 

Whatever led to that final moment? That wasn’t it.  

It wasn’t the final straw. That moment.   

In the funnel of the mind, thoughts are churning, like a blender, all the reasons, why? At the same time sucking you down, like the first moments of a yanked bath tub plug. Slurping and shrinking, it’s your life on pause. When you feel like your thoughts won't ever change, or lift or ever feel like you can smile again.  It is exhausting. It is this state, the more prolonged state in the lead up to an attempt that drains a persons’ life force.

There were so many days in this futile headspace that was spent with a lot of time understanding it. The hopelessness, the loneliness and the lost opportunities. 

As much as a long time ago,  I was an educator, consumer rep, and an advocate for ‘seek help from services before it’s too late.’ I had to eventually realise that those services you have to turn to: the phone lines, the groups and the GP, would always fall short. They can only ever be a safety net. They aren’t going to be able to prop you up long term. 

It is removing the lost opportunities that in the long run, are the best medicine.

A person’s village is no longer geographical, it is a network of connections, of interactions, regular faces and moments. Some people have become so extremely isolated. Their village is tiny. Every time ‘process’ interferes with an opportunity to share a moment of humanity, it is another opportunity lost.

I have found many lost opportunities for connections again recently after needing services for my own mental health. Opportunities where a moment of genuine connection are avoided. This cold, ‘I’ll keep my professional distance.’ I’ll just pretend for the sake of confidentiality that I didn’t see that you needed services. We will just pretend that you’re just the office side of you. Not the person needing conversation, or acknowledgement or a willingness to hear and understand this perspective. 

I think about the few people I could count on one hand that I could seek in that metaphorical circle in my village of connections. As a young person, there were only a couple of supportive people. As an adult, with the number of people that supposedly work with people with these illnesses professionally, I am astounded how the ‘professional over personal' veil of interactions, have hindered, not helped in moving forward. I have begun to realise that it has created multiple cases of lost opportunities for connections. 

To have had the cynical pleasure of suicide quicksand grab me for years again. I can see that those simple connections were the life savers in that dark time. Where someone gives you a nod in passing, or remembers your name when saying hello.  So what benefit does avoiding a connection actually have?

The skinny cobwebs that held the fabric of life together then was through people willing to reveal just a little of their story. In the telling of the rising up since then, showed that someone always had their own pit to climb out of.

To create a village, a network of connections we need to strengthen the thin threads that bind us. Threads don’t strengthen just by bland objectivity. Threads strengthen with honesty, being real and being authentic.

I think how through a recent horrendous tragedy in a mosque in New Zealand so many people have come together, to hold space together, to spend time together and acknowledge each other.  The veils and shrouds of their religion, nationality and culture removed through unity, solidarity, kindness and empathy. Aren’t we all at the end of the day, just people?

If we want to reduce the loneliness, the hopelessness and the emptiness that people on the verge of suicide feel… then we have to begin to strengthen the threads that bind us. We have to take off the hats that we wear, the roles that we play and the jobs that we do because suicide hides, it cuts behind all of that. We have to remember at the end of the day we are people who need connection, unity and kindness from another. It doesn’t matter how you know someone, they are a fellow human on their journey, in this moment.

Always remember that you don’t know what is going on behind the eyes of someone you meet – anywhere. Many many people can be on the long lonely road seeking a way out.  But if we show a smile, make an acknowledgement, a genuine ‘how are you?’ you never know how much you may make some persons’ day better by your action. 

These moments, they add up. When a person is seen, gets heard and feels acknowledged, witnessed and taken seriously, these are all life rafts to a suicidal person’s survival.  This is what we as a community need to do. We need to strengthen the connections in our village.

Let’s remove the lost opportunities, let’s find connections. Let’s be a part of this village of humans.

The Spring after a three year Winter

Life tends to go in cycles.  Sometimes things are all falling into place. All your ducks are lined up and everything just effortlessly falls into place.   

Other times in life, you can be knocked out for the count, you're running on empty and just feel like a bear hibernating in your little cave all winter. 

I feel like I'm finally coming out of a three year winter. 

It's been a long time coming.  I've seen glimpses of my old self at times but nothing like the shift and permanancy I'm feeling now.  I think what's been happening over these past three years has been a long process of: pessimism, plateauing and then perseverance.  I think maybe I had to fall apart completely to be able to put myself together from the ground up, with better foundations this time. 

Everyone has their own foundations, grounding or towers of strength they can lean on.  We are the sum of these parts.  Have a think... what has formed your foundations in life? What do you do to help ground and support you?  And who are the people that have got your back or that you can turn to for help?

I had to rebuild and reassess a lot of what I thought I knew, and I also had to remember a lot of tools and practices that I had forgotten. 

My foundation is now firmly dug into the earth with the knowledge and awareness that I can create my own state of positive health and mood. I have to actively participate and take responsibility for the contribution I can make to enhance, or deter my mood.   My foundation also relies on the friends and supports that have stuck with me during this winter and who I now know will always be there for me.   And my habits, my grounding comes from my intention to work everyday, doing small actions that become daily practises.  I've reduced so much processed food, drinking, smoking ciggies, inactivity and cocooning habits from my life these days.  I take walks out in nature at least 4-5 times a week if not more.  I find I need this reprieve and quiet solitude to reset all the chatter and noise in the background. That moment in stillness where the insects, birds or frogs are all crescendoing in chorus, is a magnificent reset for me.  

So I think it's worth noting and reflecting that yeah it's been a pretty hectic and horrible time these past three years.  But it is only when we can see where we've come from, that we can appreciate how far we've come. 

Moon Moods

I think part of the process towards integration is recognising triggers. It’s been a noticeable while since there has been a full moon that has interrupted my mood.

It honestly took a while to recognise that it can been heightened time. I could have been going along in a pretty good space only to seemingly out of the blue have a few flat days that knocked the wind out of me. It would only be afterwards that I would track back and realise that it had been on during that time. After a few separate times of this happening I started to follow and track the phases of the moon. So that when the full moon was approaching I could be mindful of it.

This year seems to have also had in conjunction a number of special moons: super moons, blood moons and eclipses that have had people flocking in droves when the observatory telescopes have been available overnight. So the publicity around these also helped to highlight when the full moon was approaching.

It is well known that our public services like hospitals and police will attest that ‘more’ things and incidents occur during the full moon. For me and I guess many people with sensitivity it has become a time to recognise that I need to enhance my self care around the 3-5 days around the full moon. I recognise that I need to avoid dense heavy or heated situations in this time. I can find it harder to have a full nights sleep. It’s not a great time for major things to be happening at work or at home. It’s not a good time for big conversations or confrontations. It is also a time when I need to be outside in nature more, particularly for an evening walk to soak up the light from the full moon.

I find that anticipating and then going out into the rays of the full moon allow me to take stock of the rhythm and cycles of nature. By doing so, I work with the moon, rather than let the moon sway my mood. And if I do become more sensitive during this time that’s also ok.  It’s a sign that I’m more connected with nature and that is ok with me.

No sad days

It dawned on me that it has been a while. Quite a while of no sad days. I can remember the last one quite clearly. It’s been nearly 3 months since I had a really horribly down day. It had been about a week of a really dark space, which started on the weekend where no one saw it. The mood hadn’t left on the Monday. Called in sick. Tuesday I had to go back to work. The mood hadn’t left but I had to go in.


I had quit smoking cigarettes the week prior too. So I was attempting to process difficult moods without a habitual nicotine hit. The start of that first week not smoking I would do a quick stair run exercise substitute for smoking, but when the flat mood hit, it became a silent people break in the privacy of the unused stairs, hiding really. I wasn’t in a good head space that day… 


I managed to make it through the day without needing a cigarette but it meant I had a mood that needed to be redirected somewhere. It needed to be let out somehow and I’m guessing I looked a bit of a wreck that day.

The next day I overheard a couple of staff talking about ‘yesterday’ and I knew it was about me. I pondered, started to feel self conscious and instead of worrying I did something about it this time. I sent an email to my team who’d had to witness my behaviour the day before. I had insight within a day to realise that I had appeared pretty stressed yet I couldn’t explain why at the time. The email was titled Mental Health in the Work Place.

 

I guess it is how I am finding my voice, how I can walk my talk of being a more open honest person. This has to date been something I've struggled with because a big part of me would rather keep this vulnerable side of me private.


I explained that it had occurred after three really flat days, one of which I’d stayed home for.  That its dealing with a topical stressful project. That I’d quit smoking a week ago and was relearning again to regulate my mood without them. I explained that now that I’m back I have to learn how my face presents when I’m down. I had spent a year with no one seeing so I’d forgotten. It was just going to need a bit of practice.


I said 'no reply necessary.' I still got some feedback and it was really helpful. I felt acknowledged and not made out to feel 'you're weird.' What was more helpful though, was that this action was “real.” It was in real life, not behind a closed door counselling discussion or private. It was about integrating my hidden silent part of me with depression, with the actual reality of how that transpires in real life and where I spend a lot of time, at work. 

 
It gave me strength. I wasn’t going to let pressure and stress take over when I was back at work. I just maybe had to explain the behaviour that might result when things get hectic. I explained that in times like I looked yesterday, I would benefit from a quick walk, or a chat on the oval or something, to break the intensity. I invited them to ask me ‘next time’ because I may not be able to see that I needed it. This wasn't just about self care.It was also about being more supportive as a team.

I realise now that the day I sent that email, was the first day in the last three months of 'no sad days.' It was one of the first days of true integration of past and present. It’s important to remind myself to remember this. In the long monotonous days, weeks and months on end of flat moods, you forget that life was ever any better. You can’t see out of that space. Depression may never quite leave, but the time between heavy intense dark days starts to spread out. That occasional light day in a week starts to multiply. And all of a sudden 11 weeks have passed since that last sad day.

 

Note to self: acknowledge progress.

What's this about then?

“What is normal?”

It’s been a conversational comeback for many things over the years. Especially when openly discussing that you’ve been deemed, ‘not normal.’ In these open conversations we accepted that some of us have had interesting life experiences. These filter our adult perspectives and perhaps narrow views. There have been a number of people that I have met that have allowed for ‘not normal’ thoughts to grace their minds however people only reveal experiences where they have been labelled ‘ill’ when realising that they were in a safe space to share. 

"What is normal," has been one of my favourites phrases for years. For years I’ve known that I’ve haven’t been normal, I haven’t grown up in a normal Australian household and then I had to get treatment for the way my mind thought because, it also wasn’t normal.

Juxtaposing this disparity was also the association of what having a mental illness means admitting. It means admitting that there is something less than desirable about the way that you think. How your brain processes thoughts and how you cope? It can be life sentence, or it can be an opportunity for self discovery and personal growth. There is an assumption that people who need treatment for mental illnesses are severely unwell, ‘crazy’ or many other labels that I choose not to use.

I was confronted with many of these realisations when I was 17 and I first had to experience the stigma of going to hospital for my mind, because it was not normal. I went through a period of time where I advocated for better awareness and education about it, until I realised that I also didn’t want to associate with the illness for life. I was able to detach from identifying with the illness because I no longer needed treatment for it.

I didn’t realise what I powerful experience I had learnt, until I needed to do it again 15 years after the first episode ended. I had hoped I was one of those people that would only have mental illness affect them once in their life. Unfortunately not.
 

I wrote about my experience of the acute end of mental health treatment and the current state of community follow up. My experience the second time round was framed by my knowledge of what I know and expect of services, of how we respect and treat people experiencing similar journeys.  Yet, I didn't get that level of care and I could wear two hats in the experience I was having, of being a client and how I would be if I was the worker. 

This is story that I feel I now really need to tell: It is my story of ‘the road less travelled in depression recovery.’ 

I feel we really need to consider the long term treatment of depression because it is an illness that is growing and one that I feel then becomes too quickly reliant on antidepressants for a long time. The available psychotherapy is limited to ten sessions a year. So medication is the long term option. More and more are on medications for years. And many years later, if you are someone undiscerningly listening to your doctor, you are probably still taking them 4 or 14 or many years later.

I know what I’m saying is controversial. I know and acknowledge that medication is needed at times of crisis. I see how needed it is. I remember how needed it was for me in 1997 when I was 17 and again when I was 37.

I'm not saying don't take them, I'm saying we shouldn't be taking them for life. I don't think we are encouraged to get to a point of being told, "ok the medications were for a reprieve in dealing with those feelings at that time, why don't you try and now understand what there is to learn from that experience?" Instead when one tablet stops working we are told to try another one, expected to live on a merry go round of up and down side effects. We are told there is no cure, suppressing these symptoms is the best we can hope for. I don’t believe this is true.

I happened to bump into a lot of people that were in and out of hospitals and on medication for the whole 15 years I had between major episodes. In those 15 years I chose instead to go and process why I was depressed, instead of just hoping a tablet would fix those feelings for me. I did a lot of self work. I got to a point of no longer identifying with being depressed. I stopped talking about it because - why continue? It's not like admitting you've had a mental illness brings any advantage in any situation. I moved on.

What if I, years ago like so many other people I met in the adolescent wards of a psychiatric hospital, always listened to what I was told? Would I have been as medicated still all this time? That was the prognosis I was given, that I would be on medication for life. Would I have been able to do the work I have done, created community projects or impact the people I have met?  Would I have ever been able to learn from it, if I still thought it was a just a chemical imbalance they were fixing?

I had wanted to write about this when I was younger. I was supported and encouraged through the advocacy work I did. I couldn't find the words then. 

Maybe I needed this passage of time to see that the treatment hadn't changed, but I had without it. I had now twice, overcome the illness by moving through it instead of suppressing it.  Now I have to acknowledge this is my personal lived experience. Since coming back to work it is a story that has been enveloped in shame and stigma for me. In the face of all this talk about mental illness, I still find it easier to write about it.

I met people in hospital that had been medicated on depression meds for years. I'm talking specifically about depression. Do you know how this changes a person over the years? The weight gain, uncertainty and loss of self empowerment? The level of self responsibility it takes away? The morphing of drowsiness, personality and confidence it sapps from you?

Our Western system does not acknowledge that these states used to be revered in tribal communities. What if the way our health system works, is simply a matter of where we are born? Imagine the difference if we were told that the lessons we are experiencing would reveal themselves with an answer later. There is trauma, pain and hurt that so many of us have buried pill under pill under pill.

Sometimes there’s a reason buried trauma resurfaces in life. It forces us to re-evaluate ourselves. It does this in times of crisis, of nothing left to lose. It forces us to face up to what was a part of us left behind. Buried silent shame. My experience of being in a psych hospital is my silent shame. Because it labels me different. Of needing something to correct, a fixed range of acceptable feelings. Because talking about it means you're weird, strange and so many other labels. Because people still make comments about stereotypes that are wrong. The shame of it prevented me from talking about it for years.

My depression is deep. It is skewed, spiritual and philosophical. But I would rather understand and experience and integrate that part of me and my thinking, into how I see the world. It doesn’t serve me to not face up to these feelings. Or I can suppress them for years on a merry go round of different psych innovations always gracing the chemist shelves...  

The story I want to tell is how I managed to go through the episodes and years of depression comparing the years on medication, with the years off it. This is what I’ve learnt. This is what I want to share.  

Change the World Perth

I did something different today. I had a whole day where I was truthful in all conversations and present in all interactions. It was with a handful of people that were also, as truthful in a power charged room of energy. It was delightful. I was my true self. It was the #changetheworldevent in Perth by @HancockCreative. What an amazing day that echoed something I’ve hesitated and paused over, now for a year. The importance of telling the stories of why we do what we do. In telling the right story.

I am at the#changetheworldevent and @nickbowditch has challenged me by asking “what would I do if I wasn’t afraid?  So I’m tagging @Rebecca Dettman and @Jane Donovan  because I really respect them and want them to know about my cause, whatisnormal9.blogspot.com/ and the work that I do. Well Jane, right now you got me thinking about the traights you’ve taught so many, about the #highlysensitiveperson but also the gifts that come with being one.  And dear Bec, you first gave me a voice on Soul Doctor. 

Alicia please realise that though I left early, it was because I had already experienced as much as I could and I acknowledged I was now needing to withdraw. Withdraw from the sheer number of people and the volume to be in quiet and process it all. Today I felt inspired, honoured, empowered and motivated. This event did more for me, individually as a person, behind the hat I wear at work. I’ve not really been able to fully own the experiences I’ve been through lately. I haven't known how and so I leave a lot unsaid at times. I do have a cause and a powerful journey of lived experience. Of self realisation, discovery and meaning. This came through after two lengthy episodes of depression, 15 years apart. I did a lot in those 15 years.

Why have I been afraid about sharing this?  A lot of it comes down to, what will people think?   I've started to realise, that my audience is not my family,  it is not my colleagues. Its the people who are trying to understand, live with or support someone living with depression. It is people who are curious in finding another way and it is for people that believe they can possibly be the captain of their own future. There are a lot of people that want to hope, that want to believe change is possible. I believe it is.  

#pinkelephant

Mental Health Week 2018

I have begun to find it increasingly difficult to keep my personal views about mental health, private.

Boundaries exist ethically to ensure that we as workers can remain fully present and attentive to the needs of the client in front of us. I still see this as important and I maintain.

However as individuals in a workplace we do not present 100% of the time objectively with our clients, we have our own time in the office too. We also have to be ourselves with our colleagues. If we can't be honest and open with our colleagues when things may be challenging, then this stoic independence can also then affect our effectiveness in the workplace, and with our clients if we are not fully in our best frame of mind for work.

I have not blurred the boundaries when working with clients. It is with colleagues internal and external that I have found the harder aspect to integrate. Part of mental illness is the hidden shame and stigma that prevents us from speaking out about it. Often this can then be perceived as a sudden quite dramatic change in behaviour or attitude that is simply the build up of trying to manage alone for so long.

I have, and have seen others reach a point of heightened intensity that then results in a short time off to sometimes longer. It is the most effective solution some would say. To be able to remove ourselves from the situation amplifying our stress. Why is it we need to move so our expressive emotions don't have to be witnessed by others.

Yet, this presents because we've reached a point where we can not deny or fake our 'feel good happy mood' that we wear as a mask and a face about the office. When we can't fake it anymore,  thats when externally, people would say 'a person is ill, or that person is depressed or not coping'. It is not that we are ill then, it would've started much earlier. It is just that our bodies will not hold the emotions at bay that we can ignore them anymore and there goes the ability to fake a mask.

All of these things over the past three years I have come to terms with. There were times that I couldn't keep a lid on my mood, or tears or voice anymore. On those days it would be hard to get out of bed,  to change, get to my car and then get out of the car. Still had the opportunity to stall or hesitate before getting to the work door and then my office. Each of those steps in the morning became harder to do and huge to accomplish. They don't affect me so much now.

What is hard to come to terms with is that before, I used to try and pretend that I didn't have any dramas going on. I was fine... I'm just not smiling today. I reached a point that faking my mood for the office was no longer an option. And then there is just the real you under that mask. In my case I got to a point that I couldn't force myself to pretend I cared, or that I wanted to be there. I was so hopelessly despondent, burnt out and needing to stop. I got all of that. I stopped. I took a break. I went close to utterly broke and then from that space I had to slowly work my way back to being a functioning adult in the workplace again.

Coming back to work after a year off for depression has had it challenges. I'm grateful that my work supported me with time to address my health. The interesting thing is though, when most people take 12 months off in their 30's they are usually on maternity leave. I came back and realised that most people thought I'd gone and had a kid.  It doesn't always flow into conversation, to say you needed time off for dealing with issues, though I would manage to say 'I've just been on leave.' However it is still that shame and stigma that made it hard for me to be honest..

In the first year (October 2015 - 2016) I tried to hide my illness from people both professionally and privately. Then in the second year, I removed myself through this time off and still couldn't always talk about what I was going through. In this third year towards re-integration, I now find myself back at work, where people don't know why I've been away, and it is something that I have wished I could have shared at the time and maybe have been able to get support from people.

Because I've come to realise that the only way to heal and accept having a mental illness is that you have to normalise it. Make it common. Open up a little and put away that stoic face.


Sure, maintain boundaries and objectivity with clients. But allow room for colleagues to become open. Colleagues should not treat their colleagues as clients. Attempting to maintain objectivity here fragments the individual, into the work they do, from the person they are. We all know that people are more effective and happy when they can embrace all of who they are. We can't hide our past, who we are, particularly when our illness or our quirks  can't always stay hidden. There will be off days.  

This is most important realisation I've had, I now need to integrate this new me, the me that is no longer hiding from having had depression, into my current everyday workplace. I've started to do this. I find it hard though when colleagues don't acknowledge this change in me. That it is ignored when shared. Or simply skirted around. I'd rather name that pink elephant in the room and get it out in the open. I'm done hiding.

In this industry, I think we could do a lot more to support our fellow colleagues.  You can't be authentic if you are responsive to clients and not responsive to colleagues. That shows lack of integrity. It is two faced. It is damaging to professional relationships. An opportunity to show empathy towards a persons vulnerability is lost and it further reinforces stigma.

If someone shares a personal mental health story or journey with you, whatever the circumstance of where you are, in the community, with friends, or your workplace, take the opportunity to thank them for sharing.  Attempt to learn from them how it's been, what's helped and accept that part of them. They are still a person that you've know for a while and you will probably cross paths again. It's not like they've morphed into a #pinkelephant that you can't talk to anymore.