How I Rescued My Brain (11 page)

At Dad's funeral service, a cousin had presented me with an extensive family tree he had drawn; there was a line of builders going way back. Our earliest Australian male ancestor, originally a convict, had made good, building churches and hotels, and eventually becoming the mayor of Waverley, in Sydney. He even had a street named after him in Bondi. Dad had been handy at making things too.

I'd always enjoyed looking at buildings, identifying their architectural periods and features. It was a passion that Anna and I shared. I'd renovated my first house on my own, before my marriage. Dad had shown me how to do the electrics and lent me his prized tools. So my cousin's revelation of our architectural line had a neat symmetry about it.

In 1993, one of Anna's relatives had told me how he'd built his wealth through property investment, and how we could do this too. ‘You do your psychology thing, which is what you really want to do, and let your assets build up on the side. You'll hardly have to think about them,' he had said.

Anna liked the idea of investing too. With her relative's guidance, we nervously made our first property investment, and then bought our home. By 2002, with three young children, and conscious of the uncertainties of self-employment, I wanted to expand our portfolio. By now, I was more enthusiastic about devoting time to this than Anna; she was developing her business interests, post-babies.

By 2007, with the escalating property market, we had become, on paper, wealthy. During the unfolding of this ridiculously easy path to success, I had happily mentioned to friends and family — trying not to be evangelical — that they could do it too. A few took up the challenge; most did not, and I felt sorry for them: tied to nine-to-five jobs with no other options.

As our wealth grew, we seemed to want, or even need, things that we had never needed before. I was keen on building a beach home. I wanted a retirement apartment by the sea for Anna's mother and stepfather; overseas trips for us and the children, to have new cultural experiences; and the children's future education expenses (no matter what or where they wished to study) to be met. I imagined stopping work altogether one day in the not-too-distant future, devoting my time to music, writing, or ‘good causes'.

We had a multi-million-dollar property portfolio with lots of equity, but it was not self-supporting. The rental returns did not cover the outgoings — the largest being interest repayments. We had aimed for capital growth with the idea of selling down at some point to make it self-supporting and put cash in the bank. But after 2006, when I could no longer work, my income stopped. At first we were fine, relying on savings and drawing on the equity in our properties. Yet the reserve bank raised interest rates throughout 2007, and lenders raised their rates faster than the reserve bank, bleeding our funds for loan repayments. It kept going until early 2008, bringing the property market to a standstill. As fear gripped the nation with the onset of the GFC, and the market slid in value, people stopped buying in the face of the unknown, and credit dried up.

With the economic recession now a reality, we had little other income. Forces outside of our control had us in a bind: we couldn't sell, we couldn't refinance, and we couldn't meet our repayments. A prominent economist interviewed on television said that property values would fall by 40 per cent before the crisis was over. Such a fall would wipe out any equity we had left and leave us with loans we couldn't repay. We could not see a way out.

I decided that I would have to return to work. After all, I had gotten much better. But the more I contemplated a return, the more I got that old sense of dread.

By December 2008, our funds had gone. We asked family members for loans so that we could put food on the table while we waited for our first property sale — in a dead market — to happen.

The benefits of the therapy, swimming, music, the teaching with the Dalai Lama, and meditation seemed to vapourise. My jumpiness and nightmares returned. I was close to shutting down: so worn out by dealing with the calamity that was unfolding and with my deteriorating mental health. I wanted to walk away from it all, even though I knew that this would help no one.

One afternoon, I was driving back from a new construction — started before the GFC had taken effect — after meeting with the architect and the builder. We'd argued over one of the contractors, who I felt had overcharged. Out of nowhere, I was hit by the strongest desire to drive off the highway at one hundred kilometres an hour, down a steep embankment — hopefully to a quick death. It was a vicious, uncaring world, and I couldn't meet it head-on anymore. The past me, the strong me, the one that blinked after a setback and then got on with things, was gone.

‘Stop! Stop!' I shouted, to that part of me that was now being very scary. I needed it to stop carrying on like this, with this craziness.

But the steering wheel coaxed me to the left, off the side of the road, the deep embankment promising deliverance.

I tried reassurance:
You'll get through this. This feeling will pass
.

I tried alarm:
Imagine how distraught Anna and the kids will be
. I saw their shocked, unbelieving faces upon learning of my death. I saw my friends' horror.

I tried compassion:
I would be letting everyone down; it would cause immense heartache.

I tried a warped logic:
What if it doesn't work and you end up crippled, and can't make a second attempt?

I tried the radio: I had to get my brain out of this groove.

With the radio jangling my thoughts, I managed to hold it together until I arrived home, trembling, and collapsed onto the bed. I was afraid of myself — what was my brain doing? When would the next suicidal urge swoop down upon me?

I knew from my work that when people are overwhelmed by sustained physical or emotional pain, they can lose hope that the pain will ever go away, seeing no point in sharing their thoughts with others.
The world would be better off without me
, they think.

I was sliding down this path.

I summoned my courage and told Anna about the experience on the road, explaining how worn down I had become and how I couldn't deal with the financial stresses anymore. She was taken aback, almost speechless. ‘I'm sorry you're feeling this way,' she said.

I caught up with Lily. She reminded me of all the people who cared about me. She asked me to contact her at any time, even if it was only to go for a walk when I was grumpy.

I wanted to have a proper talk with Ian: not one of our standing-at-the-car updates after a swimming-squad session. I wanted to know, specifically, if he thought I should take antidepressants. I had taken St John's wort for short periods over the last two years when feeling low, and this had helped.

St John's wort was a herbal medication that many trials had shown was effective in the treatment of mild to moderate depression; in fact, it was as effective as the commonly prescribed selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in these cases. It didn't have the side effects of the SSRIs, although it could have a few of its own — thankfully, none of which I had experienced.

It took two weeks before Ian and I could catch up for lunch; I hadn't told him what I wanted to talk about. He'd been preoccupied with family and work, he said when he arrived at the cafe. ‘I need to give friends greater priority,' he said with a rueful smile.

We sat at an outside table, where we could smell the nearby ocean. The sandaled foot of his leg, which was crossed over the other, poked around in the air like the snout of a sniffing dog.

I described my experience the other day, driving home. I said those thoughts had hung around for a few days afterwards; now they were gone, but they didn't seem far away. He asked how readily I was able to get out of a low mood. I said that a swim or a music session was usually enough to do it. St John's wort made a difference.

‘It sounds more like you're reacting to circumstances around you,' he said. ‘If the St John's wort is helping, keep this up, but be consistent with it.'

After opening up to Anna, Lily, and Ian, my suicidal thinking seemed ridiculous, embarrassing; I might have been exaggerating it, I tried to tell myself. But underneath I knew that this wasn't the case, and I was still apprehensive — not at all confident that the urges wouldn't come back. Anna checked in with me every now and then, asking how I was faring.

The suicidal episode was constructive in one way: if the thought of going back to work was bringing on such extreme notions, I shouldn't be contemplating a return at all.

My other option was to make a claim on my income-protection policy, the one I'd been paying into for all these years. I'd never thought the policy was necessary (if we did have to draw on it, it would only be because of an unexpected physical injury or illness), but our financial planner had encouraged it strongly. I thanked him for it now.

I had considered this option over the previous months as our money ran low, but I'd wanted to cope using our own resources. And I hadn't wanted to put myself through the insurance wringer. Many of my past clients had been made worse by the sometimes brutal insurance-claim process and in dealing with young, naive insurance case managers. But recent events had forced my hand.

Three weeks later, I visited my regular GP, Doctor Sunbury, and told him that I was not coping. This felt awkward; I'd only talked to him about my physical ailments before. I showed him the results of a psychological questionnaire I'd completed, which measured compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary trauma. I was in the average range on the first two scales, but high on the secondary-trauma scale. He helped me to complete the insurance claim, and I sent it off.

The insurer organised an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist, over an hour's drive away. The company was also good enough to start payments immediately, while I went through the claims process, so our family could survive for the time being.

On the day of my appointment with the psychiatrist, I walked into a corporate-style waiting room, in an office suite where specialists rent rooms for the day. I was on time, and sat down to wait. I saw a middle-aged man with dyed-blonde hair walk out of a room. He strolled straight past me without a glance and disappeared into the lift. Half an hour later, he returned holding a cup of coffee, and some time after this, he called me in.

He made no comment about his lateness.

Doctor Waverly sat down on the other side of a large desk. There were two seating options for me: a low chair and a high chair. The high one, he said, was for elderly people who had difficulty getting out of chairs. I opted for the low chair, which meant I was looking up at him.

He started up a friendly chat about professional matters, and about an upcoming annual mental-health conference — would I be attending? After ten minutes, as if only just realising why I was there, he shifted into a professional tone and said, ‘We'd better get on with it.'

His questions were extensive, and he recorded my answers in his handwriting, on a form with spaced headings. I was nervous: my family's financial wellbeing was riding on the outcome of this, whereas for Doctor Waverly, it was just another report. I emphasised my exposure to vicarious trauma, seeing this as the primary cause of my deterioration.

Yet after the interview was over, I thought of things I
should
have said. But it had been impossible to keep everything in mind with his questions rattling me along, spurring on my nervousness. Afterwards, however, more memories of direct exposure to trauma surfaced, as though Doctor Waverly's questions had stirred a mental pot: the heavier ingredients swirled to the top.

I remembered the Children's Court assessment I had conducted in a woman's home. She'd had her two young children removed from her recently. I was to provide a report detailing her side of events, giving an opinion on her psychological health and outlining what I thought needed to happen if she were to have responsibility for the children again. She was a single parent. I had settled down in her lounge room, where she had invited me to sit, seeming ready to talk things through, when she grabbed a kitchen knife and made to lunge at me. Then, apparently thinking better of it, she put it down. Instead she began to rage at me, vitriol pouring from her mouth.

I stood up, extending my hand in the stop position — like cops do — and said, ‘Stop. Stop.' Trying to cut through her stream of venom, I said that I would terminate the interview if she didn't allow me to speak. But it was like trying to put out a fire with a flammable liquid; her face reddened and contorted even more. So I backed out the front door to the sound of her screams, which travelled all the way down her garden path. She continued ranting, following me and walking out onto the road, as I drove off.

Now I felt shocked that I could have thought at the time that this was an incident I should take in my stride, just another event in a normal workday.

If only I could re-do the interview with Doctor Waverly. But the insurance-claims system was a one-shot game.

WHILE WAITING FOR
my claim to be determined, I attended a course given by a Tibetan Buddhist instructor that a research scientist at the Dalai Lama's teaching had recommended to me. It was inexpensive and practical. He taught calm-abiding meditation.