WayAhead

Mental Health - Education, Support and Prevention

Meet Alice Cheok: The Grateful Refugee

It is stories like Alice Cheok’s that remind us that while migrants have a past, they also have a future here and have so much to offer to the Australian community.

It is stories like Alice Cheok’s that remind us that while migrants have a past, they also have a future here and have so much to offer to the Australian community.

Alice (left) with Cindee (writer)

When I first spoke to Alice, I felt immediately at ease, like a patient confiding in their trusted counsellor. She had a soft voice – the kind where if you were having a bad day, she would be there to listen and guide you.

Alice was a refugee. Her journey began when she was just a child, getting ready to go on an exciting trip – or so she thought. Her whole family was there: her mum and dad, two brothers and her sister. She remembered it was dark and very quiet, with the sea huge and daunting. Alice was only 12 years old when her family had to leave their home in Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam, for a new life in Australia.

Alice and her family were one of the many Chinese-Vietnamese refugees resettled in Australia in the late 1970s.

She has come a long way since leaving Vietnam in search for freedom. When her family first reached Australia, they were immediately put into Pennington Hostel for refugees in South Australia where they stayed for two months.

At the time, there were lots of Chinese migrants working in restaurants as kitchen-hands or waiters and waitresses. It was a huge change for her family, especially for her father who was a businessman back in Vietnam. He had to work as a cook in a Chinese restaurant and eventually injured himself through years of straining his arms.

Like most migrant families, Alice’s mother also had to work in order to provide for their family. Alice’s father went from being the sole breadwinner to becoming very depressed because he felt like he was not doing enough.

He never addressed this, though.

“I think some sort of social support or even counselling would help a great deal especially for people like us. People tend to think everyone else is fine because no one talks about it. But when you have these issues, you should go to talk to someone, like going to talk to a friend or a professional,” Alice said.

“They see it as a weakness.”

Alice’s thoughts ring true for many Asian migrants coping in a new country. When Alice and her family were initially settled into the community, they received some help with finding a place to live, finding work and enrolling into school. But none of the social services at the time dealt with their mental health.

“My parents had a huge lack of understanding of what mental health is. They picture someone in a strait jacket or someone having severe schizophrenia and we feel like it is embarrassing or shameful to seek help but we should try to normalise this especially for people like my dad.”

Alice not only had to deal with family problems at home, she was also bullied at school for not knowing how to speak English. She attended a high school where she was only one of two Chinese students and the only one with a refugee background. Even though she had school and was working at the Chinese restaurant with her parents at night, Alice practiced her English every day until she could speak the language right.

It took Alice a long time to figure out which career path she wanted. With her soft voice and understanding nature, it is hard for me to imagine Alice as anything but a counsellor for young adults, but she told me of her struggles to the right path for her.

Armed with her hospitality experience and interest in science, Alice completed her first degree: a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Organic Chemistry and Microbiology. She did some sales training at an insurance company, but the only person she managed to sell insurance to was her own mother. For her, this was a stepping stone to get into pharmaceuticals but she also faced challenges there.

“I cried every Sunday because of the week ahead, I was so miserable with that job. I respected doctors too much to think I knew enough to sell them anything and getting past the receptionist was very hard because they were very mean to sales people.”

Alice wanted to change her career path so her friends told her to look into the marketing side for pharmaceuticals instead. Eventually she landed a marketing job where she worked for 20 years but one day it hit her that she did not want to be doing this for another 20 years.

“I realised what I liked doing was listening to other people’s stories and I thought about it – what job is that? I went to a career expo with a friend and there were many organisations advertising for mentoring and counselling banners. I thought, well that’s interesting and I found out I could do a Diploma of Counselling online.”

It took Alice seven years to complete her Diploma but during this time, she had discovered that she truly enjoyed working with young people after some volunteer experience at Raise, the Youth Mentoring Foundation.

“There is a big difference in wages but I had support from my husband so I committed to that area and then I had to build up my credentials and experience. Through Raise, I was able to volunteer at KYDS [Kids Youth Development Service] and I’ve been volunteering here for a year and a half, and now I have a job here.”

Alice hopes to work for a mental health organisation with a focus on adolescents and family mental health. She has realised that her different cultural background, as well as the training and communication skills from her sales job, have definitely helped her gain perspective on her clients.

“Because of my background, I definitely see kids experiencing the same challenges that I did. I had the Chinese side of me that really wanted to please my parents and I had my Aussie side with my friends. For young people, the majority of their friends have different values to their families but they cannot please everyone. They feel like they are letting their parents down,” she recalled.

Many Asian parents have a narrow view of success which essentially is getting good grades and then getting a good job that makes money. From many parents’ point of view this is because they may have lived a life of struggles where they were not given opportunities to gain an education or pursue jobs that looked after you. From their point of view, this success equates with happiness.

“They don’t understand that here in Australia, there are different types of success… If you don’t go to uni now, you can do it later. Aussies can do anything at any time of their lives.”

Alice didn’t know this but when she was talking about her experiences, I felt like she was mentoring me. I am a final year uni student without a clue about where I will end up after graduation. But speaking to Alice made me feel like it’s okay that I don’t have my life figured out yet and wherever I end up will be a stepping stone for me.

Alice said she was grateful to be given opportunities here in Australia and she plans to complete her Master of Social Work and Counselling. I wish her all the best in her studies and I have no doubt that she has so much to contribute to the Australian community.

Cindee Duong

The Big Black Hole: Functional Neurological Disorder [FND] / Conversion Disorder [CD]

Falling through the gaps in the system between neurology and psychiatry – The disconnect between Mind and Body

Like many people with functional [also known as conversion or psychogenic] symptoms it has been a difficult road to travel. My symptoms began suddenly. At the time I was very active, regularly going to the gym and enjoying competitive dancing. I remember lying down one afternoon while not feeling well, and when I went to get up, a short time later, I realised I could not move my left side, I could not ‘remember’ how to walk, and I could not even lift my left foot off the ground. It was a frightening and bizarre experience. I was rushed to Emergency and subsequently spent several weeks in a neurology ward. Initially the neurologists diagnosed me with a stroke. Sometime later the neurologists determined it was not a stroke, but because it was ‘presenting as a stroke they would treat it as a stroke’. It took several years before I found out the correct diagnosis, of FND.

Like people paralysed with a stroke, learning to walk again was challenging. I can remember watching my baby nephews learning to walk, and they seemed to be doing better than me. I was determined I would walk again. For a while I was in a wheelchair, and eventually on mobility aids. I told the physio I wanted to walk independently and she reminded me that I needed to ‘set a realistic goal’. I was placed in a ward where the average age of people on the unit was 89 years. I was in my 30’s. I didn’t want to be treated like the older people. I wanted to push forward, to take risks, so I could walk normally, and return to my active lifestyle and get back to work.

It did take a long time to be able to walk independently again. I left the hospital on crutches, and I struggled to find appropriate support services to help my walking. When it was eventually determined that I hadn’t had a stroke everyone seemed to be at a loss with what to do with me. I had severely disabling symptoms, I was totally unable to walk and stand independently, yet despite extensive testing there appeared to be no cause for the symptoms. I began to wonder if I had some dreadful, perhaps life threatening disease that the medical profession had not yet identified. It was a scary place to be in. After all the testing showed there was no organic disease or illness, I was placed in the too hard baskets, and there was no way to progress forward.

When the health profession seemed to give up on me, I took on the challenge of learning to walk by myself. I started using the stair railing at home to support my walking, and eventually I put down all the mobility aids and let my two dogs assist me with walking. The dogs helped to carry my weight and pull me forward, helping me to get the walking patterning happening. Slowly I got there, I had many falls, but I got back up and kept going, and about 18 months later I was walking reasonably normally.

Over time symptoms would re-emerge. When they first re-appeared I was scared at what was happening to my body and I would be rushed back to neurology, and again there would be nothing wrong and I would have to go through the challenges of learning to walk again. But each time, my walking came back much quicker. I started to see a pattern for when the symptoms would flare up. Knowing I could teach myself to walk again, I decided not to go back to the hospital or doctors when the symptoms came on; it was quicker, easier and less frustrating for me to manage on my own. The doctors still didn’t seem to know what was going on with me, but I seemed to be able to work out how to manage it and recover my walking on my own.

Many years later I was collecting a copy of my medical records from my GP, and found that on one occasion the hospital had noted the cause of my symptoms as ‘functional neurological disorder’, although it had not been discussed with me at the time. My GP did not know what this was, and couldn’t tell me anything about it. I began to research the disorder. I saw that it was also known as conversion disorder [CD], historically thought to be associated with trauma. The current understanding of FND/CD is that a combination of physical, psychological and social factors may contribute towards a person’s vulnerability to developing FND. I learned that functional disorders often present similarly to neurological diseases such as a stroke, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s and Epilepsy, and can be just as debilitating and distressing, yet they are not caused by structural disease of the nervous system, but a problem with the “functioning” of the nervous system1 . fMRI studies showed that the brain fails to send and receive messages correctly, impacting on how the body responds to different tasks such as, movement control, and that emotional triggers can impact on the motor pathways in the brain.

I started to trace the pattern of symptoms, when they occurred and how I seemed to manage to keep the symptoms at bay. It all began to fit into place. At the time no one had explained the diagnosis to me, what it was, what it meant, and how to manage it. Once I knew what I was dealing with, I was able to get a good grasp on how to manage the symptoms, to prevent reoccurrence.

I found dealing with the health system frustrating. After I got a good understanding of the diagnosis, I found none of the doctors or other health practitioners seemed to have an understanding of the illness. I was educating all the practitioners I was seeing. Following BAHA cochlear implant surgery, I had a relapse of my condition and this time I was worried I would be back in a wheelchair for life. But, a few months later I was back on my feet, walking dogs, doing aerobics and ready to get back into life.

There is an urgent need to increase awareness of the disorder across health and across community. Had I known what I was dealing with earlier on, I think my journey to recovery would have been easier. I was able to learn about the illness, and work out ways to self-manage the illness, as I could research and understand academic papers. Other people may not have access to those resources.

There is a huge amount of stigma and discrimination with this illness in health and society. Because the illness has a mental health association, the physical health sector doesn’t want to deal with it, and because of the significant disabling physical symptoms, mental health can’t deal with the problems. There needs to be a multi-disciplinary approach that addresses both the physical and mental health aspects of the illness. At the moment people are falling in the black hole between neurology and psychiatry.

In society I think people are scared of what they don’t understand. When people experience significant physical flare-ups of the illness, whether it is paralysis, seizures or movement disorders, it can look frightening and serious to others. Observers don’t understand what is happening and become worried and perhaps over-react or misinterpret what is going on. When this happens, those  who suffer from the illness then get excluded from society, they lose employment and other opportunities to engage and participate in the community. When symptoms flare up, I need to stay calm and grounded to help regulate the nervous symptom, but if others are panicking and overreacting, it exacerbates the problem.

I regard myself as lucky. While it has been hard work, I know I could have spent the rest of my life in a wheelchair. It is only through hard work, determination and fight, that I am able to walk, and because I had the resources to be able to research and understand the disorder, so I could understand how to help myself. I see others with FND/CD suffering severe physical symptoms, completely unable to engage in life, and desperately trying and failing to get answers from the medical profession.

I am currently working with FNDHope International fndhope.org to set up an Australian arm. I hope in the future to be able to offer peer support, information and advocacy to help others with this condition. I am looking to do a consumer-led research project on this disorder, to help the system understand the urgent need to address the problem, and also to capture stories of recovery, resilience and hope. Currently there are no treatment programs for the disorder in NSW, no organisations or support groups addressing this problem and little research happening in Australia. Hopefully FNDHope Australia can help to increase understanding and awareness of the illness, improve pathways to care, and outcomes for consumers to participate fully in life.

Dr. Katherine H. Gill
Australian Representative
FNDHope International
fndhope.org

Reference to Websites for Further Information

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/conversion-disorder/basics/definition/con-20029533

http://www.fndaction.org.uk/

 

Personal story – Stephanie

Stephanie’s beautiful eyes and easy smile speak of a carefree young woman making strong strides in the world. But, it wasn’t always this way.

What those same eyes mask is a past challenged by mental illness: she was diagnosed with bulimia at 18, had her first suicide attempt just shy of her 23rd birthday and was later diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

stephanie-3

“While the symptoms of borderline personality disorder can be quite diverse, for me it was an irrational and impulsive response to different situations. I was very black and white.

“One minute I could be totally fine then something would trigger me into a complete suicidal episode and a 24-hour downward spiral. BPD generally also is a co-morbid self-harm type illness. In my case it was an eating disorder – a sort of combination of anorexia and bulimia.”

She shares her experience with mental illness with others as an ambassador for SANE Australia’s Thriving Communities campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the benefits online support and social connection can have on Australians whose lives are affected by complex mental illness. Stephanie’s story of personal strength, grit and love is one of eight inspiring stories of Australians affected by mental illness, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, anorexia, major depression and suicide.

The term ‘borderline personality disorder’ was not something Stephanie had come across before her diagnosis but when it came, it provided a structure for from where to focus her treatment as opposed to the aimlessness she had felt beforehand. From here, she moved from Canberra to Brisbane and found a good psychiatrist who recommended she join a Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) group at her local hospital as an outpatient. The experience would prove to be one of the first forward- moving steps on her journey.

Together with her treatment, Stephanie acknowledges the significant role her family and friends have had on her management of the mental illness. She says her patient parents, her close friends and her partner, who “knows me better than I know myself”, have all meant the difference in her journey.

“My parents will both always say that I am, and always have been, a very determined person, and I will always get the most out of everything I put my heart into. So this mentality followed through into my recovery. If I was going to do it, I had to do it right and wholeheartedly if it was going to work for me.”

 

It is this spirit and commitment to herself, which has helped Stephanie navigate the choppy waters she has experienced, especially around the stigma of mental illness in her work and personal spheres.

While her current workplace is supportive, previous companies she has worked for have not been as caring. “I understand that having unproductive staff isn’t great for business… but I can also value an environment in which management support staff through their illnesses and hardships.

“There was more than one occasion where I would be teetering on the edge of suicide the evening before work, having an almighty episode, and I would have to wake up and perform at work the next day all the while dissociating so much that I couldn’t even engage in the simplest activity. How the hell do you explain that to your employer?”

There are many workplaces showing increasing support and assistance for employees who are diagnosed with mental illness, however, there are many others that continue to feed on the stigma surrounding mental illness in Australia. It wasn’t just in workplaces where Stephanie has felt and experienced negativity towards those with lived experiences of mental illness. It was also difficult for her peers to accept and, in her early twenties, this resulted in social exclusion.

“Reflecting back on this time, and still seeing it to an extent now, I feel this is a result of lack of education about mental health.

“Movies and mass media tend to either idealise or catastrophise the illnesses that fall into this category, and this is the main knowledge source that is educating young adults.

“According to the news, people who suffer severe mental illness are the ones gunning down groups of people or, on the other end of the spectrum, it’s someone who suffers minor depression and anxiety who overcame their demons with yoga and healthy eating; there’s rarely that in-between, talking about complex mental illness, that so many of us experience.”

It is because of this lack of education and awareness around complex mental illness that has inspired Stephanie, in large part, to share her story. “I see so much misunderstanding around mental health. If I can encourage more people to talk about their experiences with mental illness, then I hope it becomes less of a taboo. I don’t want people to feel ashamed of an illness they carry.

“People always say, ‘You’re so brave for opening up like this,’ but I don’t want it to be a brave act. I want it to be as normal to talk about mental illness as having any other illness.

“Only then, will people begin to understand and comprehend the enormity of mental illness surrounding them. People should never have to feel ashamed for having a mental illness.”

Written by Danielle Hanrahan

Meet Jo – Carer, Sister, Aunt, Mother

Jo is a resilient woman.
As a carer to her sister and nephew, both of whom lived with schizophrenia, and then to her son, who developed clinical depression and bipolar disorder, she has experienced a road full of personal heartache and despair, and while there have been moments on her journey where her resolve has wavered, it has never diminished.

As an ambassador of SANE Australia’s Thriving Communities campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the benefits online support and social connection can have on Australians whose lives are affected by complex mental illness, Jo’s voice is one that demands to be heard. She represents a group of individuals whose efforts to support family and other individuals living with mental illness is severely underestimated.

“Burnout goes hand-in-hand with the job of caring because unlike other means of employment, there are no holidays, no weekends off and the carers’ pension is not great.

“The build-up of sleep deprivation and physical and mental exhaustion spawns feelings of defeat, failure and a loss of self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth, creating a gradual loss of identity.”

For Jo, the pressure to care for her loved ones, together with the lack of support at the time for services to assist carers, led her to relieve the stress and anxiety of her role by turning to alcohol and later, Valium. The effects of each would only be temporary and the weight on her shoulders would return come the rise of the sun in the morning.

Eventually, she would develop healthier methods of dealing with stress, such as journaling, which she would utilise in the aftermath of her nephew’s suicide at the age of 19 and her sister’s death eight weeks later.

“Writing my feelings and thoughts down on paper – my guilt, grief, depression and anger – definitely helped me to cope.”

One example of an entry in her journal highlights the loneliness and pain Jo experienced during this turbulent time. The following is an excerpt of an entry she wrote on the night of her nephew’s funeral.

“Dear Joel,

Maybe in time I would have been able to communicate with you successfully. Maybe someone would have come up with a cure for schizophrenia. As a child, you slept in my bed with me and I felt so much love for you I thought my heart would burst. You were such an angry little boy at times. No Dad and a Mum who was always sick. It wasn’t fair, was it Joel?

I remember your gentleness with every living creature – rescuing grasshoppers from cats and carefully affixing cobwebs to one side of the garden path each morning so that the spider could retrieve its nightly catch of mosquitoes.

Although I couldn’t cope with your adult rebellion, my heart ached for the frightened little boy hiding in the corners of your living nightmare.

I’ve been given your wallet as a memento, Joel. It contains 15 cents and your health benefits card. These were your worldly possessions.

I don’t know what to do with your wallet. I can’t bear to look at it, yet I can’t dispose of it either. I’ll keep it in the glove box of my car for the time being. Does that seem a strange place to keep it Joel? It is as strange as the place where I keep my feelings hidden. But I don’t know what to do with them either.”

She was put to the test again when her son developed clinical depression and bipolar disorder, and she would became his full-time carer.

While there were no support groups and online forums during Jo’s lowest moments in the 1970s and 1980s, these days she acknowledges there are a number of services and charities carers can access to help them cope with the stress and exhaustion of their roles.

jo

 

“Carers need to be able to be in contact with professionals who are understanding and compassionate, who can advise and help. But they also need to be in contact with other carers so they can realise they are not alone.

“Its extremely important carers seek support from professionals, carers’ support groups and, if it’s impossible to leave the house, join the wonderful online forums that now exist. SANE Australia has a carers’ forum where you can talk to fellow carers from all over Australia at any time of the day and night, and it is anonymous.”

Passionate about advocating for the support services carers need, Jo also runs workshops across Australia. During these one-day or weekend workshops, she facilitates a safe and supportive space where carers can connect with others who share the same feelings, thoughts and experiences as them. Together with fostering connection, Jo teaches meditation and relaxation exercises, creative writing and journaling – the activities she cultivated to help in her darkest hours.

For Jo, it’s all about balance and making sure that as a carer you look after yourself too.

“It is important to take care of yourself so strive to get enough sleep, if possible, and certainly eat healthily. You need to remind yourself that if you got sick, who would look after your loved one?”

Written by Danielle Hanrahan

 

Support Groups

Australians from CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) backgrounds are less likely to seek help for mental health issues due to a range of factors, such as language barriers, not being familiar with Australia’s health system, or simply just not knowing what warning signs to look out for.

Nikhil*, who attends an anxiety support group in Sydney, struggled with panic attacks and social phobia for months before being diagnosed with anything, hiding the problem from his family and friends until he reached breaking point.

Nikhil had his first panic attack in 2011. The year had started off a happy one- he and his wife had a young daughter as well as another baby on the way. But when he started feeling dizzy at work, he began to worry- especially when it got so bad he had to leave early one day.

nkhil“I started driving back home but my mind was so fragile. I was thinking, ‘What if I faint while driving?’ I stopped at a red light but couldn’t pull over. My heart was pounding and all I could see was the red light. The only things I could do to try and cope were breathing and drinking water – I thought I was having a heart attack. I forced myself to drive further as the light went green until I found a place to pull over. I thought about calling an ambulance but decided not to. I just kept breathing, drinking water and praying to every god I knew. Somehow I managed to get home-it was my longest and hardest drive ever.”

He didn’t say too much to his wife- she was 8 months pregnant and he didn’t want her to worry.

But then the same thing happened again at work the next day. Nikhil went to his GP, who gave him some pills to reduce his heart rate and didn’t think it was anything too serious. But nothing seemed to make any difference.

“I became scared of collapsing anywhere I went, thinking I was going to have a heart attack. I started thinking about my daughter and pregnant wife. What would they do if something happened to me? What killed me was that instead of me taking care of my wife who was due in just a few weeks, she was the one taking care of me. None of the doctors found anything wrong with me,but I knew something wasn’t right. I was constantly asking myself “Why is this happening to me now, when my family needs me more than ever?” I became very weak mentally, but I tried my best to hide it from my wife.”

Finally, Nikhil went to see his GP again and described what had been happening the past few months. This time, his GP gave him a DVD about mental illness and when he watched it, he realised he was suffering from a combination of social phobia and panic disorder. It didn’t make him feel any better though – all he could think about was what would happen to his family, his newborn son in particular. He finally told his wife what had been going on, and she encouraged him to see a psychologist who diagnosed him with depression.

“My wife inspired me, as always, to recover from the hell I was going through. I looked at her, then at my daughter and crawling son. I wept on the inside thinking about their future, and decided that I  would fight hard no matter what to come out from that hell. Days and months passed by and gradually I started getting back to normal. I went to social gatherings and on holidays, exercised whenever I could and meditated on and off. Eventually I felt the sunshine coming back to my life.”

Nikhil thought that was the end of it, until one night when he was watching a particularly violent war documentary- his favourite kind.

“ Out of the blue, I felt an uneasiness in my chest. I ignored it at first and kept watching, but it kept getting worse. My heartbeat got faster and heavier, until I finally switched off what I was watching and changed to my meditation music. I told myself I could control  it- deep breathing, drinking water and walking around my lounge room. It was an awful night,  I hardly slept. Then I went into work the next day thinking I was going to die.”

But then he heard about WayAhead’s Anxiety Disorder Support Groups through a couple he was introduced to by a relative who also suffered from anxiety. He found the Sydney group online and decided to go to the next meeting.

“ I was very anxious and shaky, even though everyone was really friendly. Soon everyone started sharing their stories,  one after another. I started feeling a lot better knowing I wasn’t the only one suffering the way I was, but my heart was still pounding heavily as my turn came to talk. I was resisting the urge to run out of the room. Finally, Toby asked me to introduce myself and share my story. It was my first time expressing my suffering in front of so many people. I spoke to people who were on medication and weren’t, everyone had different views. I found out many of them had been to doctors and psychologists on and off like me. I felt so happy when I left the room and couldn’t wait for next month.”

Nikhil made the decision to go on medication, but he also kept going to the group meetings. He ends his story on a positive note:

“Now it’s been more than a year that I’ve been part of this group. Things are looking better. I can feel sunshine in my life again and even though I still feel anxious sometimes, I can handle it. I know these feelings will always be part of my life, but  I have to be strong.  I want to say thank you  to this organisation and everybody whom I’ve mentioned in my story. Special thanks to Rachel and Toby for committing their valuable time to this organisation and bringing together people like us.

Live in your present not with your past or future…

Om Mani Padme Hum……(Buddhist mantra)

*Name changed for privacy reasons

If you or anyone you know is living with anxiety, you can find out more about WayAhead’s Anxiety Support groups on our website, by calling our Anxiety Disorders Information line on 1300 794 992, or by emailing  supportgroups@wayahead.org.au

by Anita Senaratna

Jenny Smith

One woman’s journey for change in mental health awareness

Jenny Smith is a consumer advisor for her local health district and a mental health educator, who shares her experience with others. She goes to regular workshops and carer support groups and generally lives a happy, healthy and fulfilling life. But that was not always the case.

Jenny has also been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and spent much of her life helping to care for her father and sister who live with mental illness.

Growing up, Jenny had a fairly happy childhood – “playing outside, going to the park and spending my pocket money on a bag of lollies.” She spent time with her friends and played with her sister, but there was a cloud on the horizon. Everything started when her mother went to hospital for a routine operation.

“[It] was supposed to be a simple procedure but it did go wrong and as a result she nearly died…this event seem to affect Dad a lot…”

Soon her father’s behaviour began to change; he began pacing, shouting, playing loud, obnoxious music, and having random bursts of anti-social behaviour. It gradually got worse. “He had some psychotic episodes: he thought mum was using drugs, poisoning his food, then in one instance he poured the coffee out of the jar for my sister and I to check for drugs.”

During one particular episode, her father disappeared in the afternoon and after her mother noticed his medicare card was missing, they discovered his doctor had sent him to the local psychiatric hospital, where he stayed overnight and then discharged himself.

“The local mental health team came to visit him the next day, he wasn’t interested in their help but was referred by our GP to see a local psychiatrist. He only ever saw him a couple of times and started taking an anti-psychotic drug, which he did not take all the time, therefore his moods were unstable.”

Concerned for her safety, Jenny’s mum left her father for a while.

Around this time, Jenny started developing symptoms of her own: shaking hands, rapid heartbeat insomnia and an upset stomach, which she initially attributed to stress. However, as they progressed throughout the years, it became apparent there was something bigger at play and she was eventually diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

Jenny graduated in 1991 – almost twenty years before the introduction of the Mental Health Act 2007. There was little to no recognition of mental health issues at schools.

No one recognised the issues Jenny was having might be due to deteriorating mental health. Yet Jenny recalls how her mental health affected all aspects of her school life.

“…My results were below average and I was having difficulties keeping up with homework and assignments.”

At the end of year 10, Jenny was required to complete an application to continue at her current school for her HSC – her application was rejected and she was forced to move schools.

“I had to leave at the end of the year, I left behind friends I had grown up with and familiar surroundings… I was the new kid. I found it hard to make friends, adapt to a new timetable/new rules and new surroundings that I wasn’t use to.”

All this time, at home, her father’s mental health was getting worse.

As well as dealing with her and her father’s mental health issues, it was becoming apparent that Jenny’s sister was struggling as well. She had been diagnosed with learning difficulties in primary school but these were never followed up and, as a result, she never managed to complete her HSC.

“My sister was also having her own problems with suicidal thoughts, panic attacks and self-harm. She did get some help from a local adolescent health unit but the psychiatrist she saw refused to put on her medication…She wasn’t coping at home with my dad’s behaviour; she started going out all day, every day to avoid him. One day, unexpectedly, she walked out and moved into a crisis refuge, which then lead to a placement in supported housing.

During her time in supported housing, Jenny’s sister became increasingly depressed and attempted an overdose. The health professionals were having difficulty with her medications and the constant change was making her unwell.

After leaving school, Jenny worked for some years as a preschool assistant before deciding to pursue a life-time dream and train as a primary school teacher. But it did not turn out as she’d hoped.

The combination of her own battle with mental health and having to deal with the deteriorating mental health of her father and sister made it difficult to complete assessments on time. In an attempt to make up for these failed assessments Jenny placed additional pressure on herself, which only increased her stress, with her grades continuing to suffer. This culminated in her first year of prac teaching.

“I got a Year 6 class, I had been working with them during the semester so I knew the kids well. We were very limited in what subjects we could teach in first year; it was only maths and english. I didn’t last three weeks; after the first two weeks, it was decided by the senior supervisor that my teaching skills were not up to standard and I was given a fail grade… The decision had been made and I was asked to leave the school.”

Jenny was devastated.

Her depression and anxiety spiralled and she failed the second semester and dropped out of university.

Deciding that she needed further help Jenny went to see her family GP who was aware of the family history of mental illness and prescribed her a combination of anti-depressants and counselling which helped her learn coping strategies for everyday problems.

In 2004, Jenny’s father was diagnosed with a rare form cancer. At the time, Jenny was working as a HSC exam supervisor but had to quit the job when it became clear her father’s condition was deteriorating.

“Dad had cancer for nearly two years – it was a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma, and, unfortunately, he lost that battle in 2005 and died the night of my birthday.”

With help from her GP and the support of her family, Jenny made it through.

“I always remember mum and dad telling me to take one day at a time. Before dad died he told me to be happy and get on with the rest of my life.”

And that is exactly what she is doing. With the support of her family, who understand her mental health struggle, Jenny is getting back on her feet.

“I have been stable on medication for many years. Over the years, I have learnt a lot about myself. I think to survive a mental illness, you need courage, resilience and perseverance as well as a good support network. Today, I am generally well and I am a survivor of mental illness. I think the most important thing is to take baby steps with whatever challenges life throws at you.”

As an educator, Jenny is passionate about increasing the awareness around mental illness and decreasing the stigma attached to it. And, she believes in starting from the bottom up.

School is one of the most important learning opportunities in a person’s life and she would like to see mental health awareness for teachers and students included in the learning environment.

“[In my day] we did not have counsellors or much in the way of special education/needs teachers available at the time, neither did we have any peer support programs at school – it would have helped if we did. These days, there are more support services available in schools. I would like to see that continue so each child, no matter what their abilities, can reach their full potential.”

 

Written By Jean Roxon

From Cambodia to Australia – Leakhena Sous

One woman’s remarkable story of survival.

Jean Roxon talks immigration; looking at one woman’s extraordinary story of escaping Cambodia in the 1970s, the impacts it had on her and her family’s mental health, and what it means to be Australian.

RealAustralians

Walking through Sydney recently, it has been hard to miss the ‘Real Australians Say Welcome’ posters (the brain child of artist Peter Drew). Plastered to the sides of buildings and occasionally around lamp posts, they send a beautiful message: all are welcome, regardless of race, gender or religion, but importantly, they highlight a longstanding issue that has come to the forefront of the Australian political scene in the last decade – immigration.

Sitting where it does, both geographically and politically, Australia has a long, and fairly inglorious history with immigrants. From the first white settlers – who claimed Australia “Terra Nullius” as their own, disregarding the centuries of indigenous settlement and culture, and the “White Australia” policy of the 1900s (finally being dismantled in 1973) – to the current debate surrounding offshore detention and the re-categorisation of asylum seekers to illegal immigrants and “boat people”. It seems a lot of Australians do not say welcome.

That is not to say Australia is mono-cultural. Go into the average office, classroom or pub anywhere in the main cities across the country and you will see Australians from every background, ethnic group and religion.

Why this fear of immigration? Why did the parliament vote to pass the amendment to the citizenship act that allows for dual citizens to have their citizenship stripped?

It has been labelled many things and it shines a light on the gap in popular knowledge – the gap between what a small number of groups perpetrate as the truth – that immigrants are bad for this country. And, the overwhelming evidence that we see every day – Australia was built by immigrants, we are almost all immigrants, and that we are ALL Australian.

I come from a family of immigrants. My maternal grandfather and his family escaped from Europe in 1937, running from the holocaust. My father’s grandparents moved from Scotland in the 1900s looking for a new start, a new job, a new life. I myself am a mash-up of so many different cultures and backgrounds that it would take pages to fully explain them. But first and foremost, I am Australian.

I am an Australian. I studied at an Australian school and I now study at an Australian university (UTS). I volunteer for an Australian mental health charity (WayAhead) and I speak with an Australian accent. And I love my country, I really do. But sometimes it makes me so angry.

When the former prime minister, Tony Abbott, gave a speech in London last year saying that “denying entry at the border for people with no legal right to come here…is the only way to prevent a tide of humanity surging through Europe and quite possibly changing it forever.” I was not impressed. Not because I did not agree with him (although I don’t) but because he was speaking on behalf of Australia. On behalf of me and my family, my family of mash-ups, with cultural heritage from all corners of the globe, on behalf of Australians.

A little while ago my work gave me the chance to speak to another Australian: a first-generation immigrant who escaped Cambodia in 1983, leaving behind the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. Her story is unique, yet it is one of thousands like it. Stories of struggle, of bravery, of fear and heartbreak, but also, of what it means to be Australian. And, of love, for this country that we all live in and share together.

 … 

LeakhenaLeakhena Sous arrived in Sydney at 6am on June 7, 1983 – in a plane that had brought her from Thailand UNHCR refugee camp. She was a refugee.

Looking out of her window at the city below, she almost cried.

Spread out from mountains to sea, the country below her was a stark contrast to the refugee camp in Thailand where she had spent the last months, she a bird, finally realised from its cage. – “I looked through the window – oh my God I felt that I was in heaven. So beautiful – all this light.”

Leakhena and her family were running from the Khmer Rouge, a regime that, under the leadership of Pol Pot, had decimated Cambodia.

Arriving in Australia with her family was an experience like no other. There were seven of them – her sister with a daughter, her sister-in-law and two young children, her younger brother, and herself. She had no English and knew no-one apart from her brother who was working up the coast in Newcastle and would not be able to visit until the weekend.

And it was freezing.

But everyone around her was kind. The people in the hostel they were sent to told her how to get to the St Vincent de Paul shop in Parramatta for warm clothes and the people in the shop told her to take anything she needed. Despite the terror of a new country, not knowing the language and navigating the ever-unpredictable Sydney transport system, for the first time in a long time she felt safe.

…

The Khmer Rouge – an extremist Cambodian branch of the communist party – came to power on April 17, 1975. In the four years they held power it is believed that over 1.7 million people, 21 per cent of the population died.

Renaming Cambodia, ‘Democratic Kampuchea’, the Khmer Rouge wished to revert the country back to an agriculture-based economy, with no money, no class, no private property and no family units. The day after it took power about two million citizens were marched from the major cities into the countryside to work the land – producing huge quantities of food (three tons of rice per hectare) during 12-hour days of physical labour.

Family units were broken apart and individuals were placed in age-allocated camps. Houses and land were confiscated and thousands of “impure” individuals from ethnic minorities, as well as intellectuals and much of the middle-class where arrested and executed. Many were held in prisons, the most famous of which “S-21” held up to 14,000 prisoners – of whom about 12 survived.

Although only in power for four years the Khmer Rouge regime continues to impact Cambodia today. Tens of thousands were made widows and orphans and hundreds of thousands fled their home to become refugees. One of these refugees was Leakhena.

…

Forced from their home near Siem Reap, Leakhena’s family were divided. Her older brother was living with his aunt and throughout the course of the war they did not see him. She and her eldest brother were sent to live in a youth camp, working every day to produce food and build for the Khmer Rouge. Her mother, nephews, sister and four-month-old baby were left at home.

Her father, uncle and brother were killed.

“They killed all the educated people, and in my town not just the educated – everyone.”

In the camp, Leahkena and her brother had worked to grow rice and build dams. The work was back-breaking and continuous. There was almost no food and many died from illness and starvation or were executed.

Leahkena got sick.

She was barely strong enough to walk, let alone carry the baskets of food or building material that was expected of them. But she, like many others was afraid to admit how ill she was, those who were no longer useful workers had a habit of disappearing.

She was so thin and weak she could barely walk, even her menstrual cycle had stopped, but she continued to work – “I was so scared.”

Her brother helped her, carrying a double load to make up the difference in her weakness, helping her back up when she fell over. They were a team.

But the Khmer Rouge is not synonymous with happy endings.

“After they took my father and my brother-in-law to kill my brother asked permission to go and look after my mother and my sister because my mum was already sick with diabetes and had no medication. And my sister just had her baby born four months ago and she had post-natal depression when they took her husband to kill.”

During the period when her brother was at home the Khmer rouge ordered another “cleanse”. They rounded up all the young men in the youth camp, and, noticing her brother wasn’t there, asked that he be sent for. Leakhena believes he knew they were taking him to be executed because his final request was to be able to say goodbye to her.

“I was in the rice field, just after lunch, I didn’t know why they were walking towards me, they were far away. And then I wondered why there were soldiers, two soldiers with the guns behind him. They just keep approaching closer and closer…and then I just threw the hoe away and raced to him and keeping crying in front of him asking “what’s happening” and then he just said “don’t cry, you need to promise me that you must look after everyone in the family without me.” I couldn’t answer him – I was crying too hard…crying, sobbing, nothing could be done and then they dragged him away, never to return. I was a woman and there were no adult males in the family alive.”

Every night thereafter, for the three months she remained in the camp, Leakhena cried herself to sleep. Quietly, so nobody could hear, mourning her brother.

Even now, decades later, the trauma is still raw.

“I don’t know why he had to die,” she says, “he was so kind…”

When the Khmer Rouge lost power, Leakhena went back to live with her remaining family and support them. But the war and lack of care and medication had made her mother seriously ill and she passed away not long after. Determined to start afresh Leakhena and her family applied for refugee visas to Australia where her brother was now working and living.

But the shadow of the war still hung over them and indeed over all of Cambodia.

“That’s why my people, they’re not like some other nations, they’re really, really passive. Because this war was actually really traumatising the people of the whole nation.”

…

Once they were granted Australian visas Leakhena and her family moved into a two-bedroom apartment. There were seven people sleeping, living together, sometimes eight when her brother came down from work to visit, but they didn’t mind.

“The main thing was we had freedom, I was so happy about that – we have freedom and we can do what we can.”

The first priority of many refugees to Australia is to learn English. It is next to impossible to get a job or even shop without at least some basic level of understanding and Leakhena spent a year attending every class she could find.

She registered for classes anywhere and everywhere, so that soon she was studying a combination of TAFE and night school – six days a week.

A year after arriving in Australia Leakhena met with a friend from the Thai refugee camp who happened to mention that he was volunteering at Concord Hospital and Leakhena wanted to help. It would offer her the opportunity to work constructively as well as an opportunity to practice English.

She volunteered two days a week – “I made up packages with dressings, forceps, and then gauze and cotton buds in a silver aluminium tray – and it practiced my English.”

Work in the sterilisation unit eventually led to a cleaning job for the hospital – work but not quite what she had dreamed.

At first the very fact that she had a job made her “so happy” but the reality of the task was challenging – “I was sad with myself because I came to this country and then just because I don’t have the language I am have to do this kind of work – and I told myself that after I learn the English I will find a different job…it’s ok this won’t be forever.”

There are so many things we take for granted – luxuries not afforded to many people in this world. When Leahkena first applied for a job they required some form of identification from her – a passport, a drivers licence – but she had neither, “all I have is a piece of paper with my photo stuck to that piece of paper – that’s called a visa.”

…

From cleaner to hospital worker, from hospital worker to temp, from temp to administration assistant. Gradually Leakhena worked her way up through the ranks until she found herself working in Child Support Services. It was a good job but it was hard, especially for someone whose family life had been difficult.

Many of her clients were very aggressive and no matter how she tried to work with them they were never satisfied. “Every day is only hearing yelling and screaming and swearing and they’re never satisfied no matter how hard you work. This work is so depressing.”

Work was stressful and on top of that Leakhena and her sister had decided to build a house. The combination of her job and the stress of overseeing the building became too much and one day she collapsed.

“I was so stressed and by the time we finished [building] I was depressed – and I collapsed. I was at the child support agency one day I felt this chest pain and I couldn’t breath and I called out “help, help – I can’t breathe” they thought I’d had a heart attack…they took me to the medical centre next to work where they told me I’d had a panic attack.”

…

It seemed the medication prescribed by various doctors was not helping, however, her sister had some advice.

After her panic attack at work she told her sister and her sister told her about a potential solution.

“She said why don’t you try this – I hear it’s healed hundreds of types of disease and it’s called meditation.”

Straight away Leakhena booked herself into a 10-day meditation retreat, but the day before she was supposed to leave disaster struck. Somehow she had sprained her ankle and the doctor felt it required crutches.

Luckily she managed to attend and by the end of the 10 days the swelling was gone. It felt miraculous. The effect it has had on her life is ongoing, every year since, she has attended week-long retreats, taking time to meditate on the trauma of her past, removed from the hectic activities of everyday life.

Meditation has helped Leakhena so much that in 2006 she and her sister started an annual Cambodian meditation retreat with a group of friends. The retreat is run in both English and Cambodian, and she is hoping that it helps other’s find peace and closure in the same way it has helped her.

…

Before he died Leakhena’s older brother had told her – “you need to promise me that you must look after everyone in the family without me…”

It was a huge ask, the kind of impossible question that is only asked in the face of certain death. But Leakhena swore she would do as he asked – “I promised my brother before they executed him, I promised him that I would take care of everyone.”

And she has.

After the war, in the refugee camp and indeed when she first arrived in Australia, everything was about survival; about getting through to the next day and hoping for a future. But even then it was clear there was something wrong with Leakhena’s youngest brother.

“After coming back from that war he came with a completely changed personality. He used to be very assertive and he knew what he wanted. He was smart, he studied, he was quick. But after the war he just stopped talking, ask him one question he’d answer with one word.”

After the family had settled into Australia, Leakhena and her sister went about getting her brother enrolled in school. He was academic but the language barrier in Australia made catching up with school-work difficult, and he became isolated from his peers.

Then he got sick.

“He [had] a little bit of fever and then they took some blood tests and they said he had Hepatitis B. And the doctor explained to him that this illness can never be totally cured you can only take medication to help it and he got upset with them…he locked himself in the room.”

The combination of stress from his illness, a new country, a new school, and the trauma he had experienced during the Khmer Rouge period was too much. He started speaking strange words and phrases that made no sense. He simply stopped going to school, eventually quitting altogether. And one day Leakhena came home to find her brother standing in the middle of the kitchen, saturated.

“When I came home he had hosed the house all over the house, inside, everywhere, the carpet, the kitchen. He said that he disinfected all the microbes in the house. He said, “this house is very dirty”.”

Concerned for his mental health Leakhena and her sister took him to hospital but he refused medication, saying there was nothing wrong with him.

He was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The psychotic episodes continued, becoming more and more severe and he continued refusing medication. As his speech and movement deteriorated along with his mental health Leakhena felt she had no option but to have him placed in a psychiatric hospital.

“…we took him to hospital and they admitted him, and I was so upset, I cried a lot and I thought – that’s it. That’s the end of his future. He should have a bright future, but this mental illness is not good.”

Now more than 30 years since arriving in Australia mental health professionals are considering putting her brother into a nursing home because he is no longer able to look after himself. Instead of celebrating his achievements as she wished she could Leakhena spends much of her time looking after him, taking him out, walking with him and keeping him company.

But the promise she had made to her older brother still sits heavily on her.

“The promise I made to my brother… I couldn’t help, I did all I could but this is beyond what I can do. I feel like I lost a potential person.”

…

Now Leakhena volunteers for Arafmi – a charity that works with families and others who care for people with a mental illness. She has been diagnosed with various mental health issues and had to quit her job with the Child Support Agency after taking extended sick leave. And she is worried – she keeps forgetting things.

She is telling me her story sitting on a small office chair next to a window that looks out over St Mary’s Cathedral. She is minding the phone during her lunch break and as we sit down she smiles warmly. By the end of our talk, the smile is gone.

She talks quietly, so quietly that I have to lean forward in my chair to hear, and occasionally she has to pause and wait for the tears to stop before she can continue. But her story never falters. It is like children when they memorise lines to their favourite film – playing the scenes out over and over again always there, yet unable to change anything.

After everything she has told me I don’t quite know what to say. How to make her understand the magnitude of feeling her story has elicited in me – sadness, anger, admiration for her bravery and an overwhelming sense of gratitude that she was willing to share this with me.

So I hug her and offer her a cup of tea and sit for a bit longer and talk about the weather. I feel useless. I thank her for sharing her story, for reliving all that pain for me, and she thanks me for listening and I want to cry all over again realising that someone who has been through so much can still be so kind.

Then as I’m leaving I turn to thank her one last time and ask if she is ok, and she smiles at me with tears still sitting in her eyes and says –

“I’m ok. I survived.”

…

Last month the ABC ran an interview with author Richard Flanagan. It looked at the Syrian refugee crisis in the wake of the rise of Islamic State. It was a thoughtful, quiet peace about one of the greatest issues facing the world today and one of Flanagan’s statements has stuck with me.

He said, “If there is one answer the world must make to the evil of ISIS, it is to help these people.”

I think, as Australians, it is our duty: to help immigrants, to help refugees; to open up and introduce them to this great country of ours; to show them truly that we care about them, about their stories and their struggles; and, to reappropriate an old cliché – we may not be able to fix the world, but we can help continue their lives, by letting them into our world.

Australia is a nation of immigrants, of whom Leakhena is just one. But I wanted to tell you her story because I think it is important, because it shows us the real-world consequences behind political actions, because it humanises an issue which can seem so very, very large and alien, and because I think it is only right that in the spirit of the values upon which we have built our national image – ALL Australians say welcome.

Photos courtesy of Peter Drew – http://www.peterdrewarts.com/

 

By Jean Roxon

Stephen O’Brien

You may have met Stephen.

He’s the man who kept smiling at you on the bus, the stranger who approached you in the street and made a joke, the one who stood in the line at the shopping centre and smirked as he muttered under his breath.

You may have met Stephen, but do you know his story?

[Read more…]

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