It turns out I had slept for more than an hour before I woke up and called Jamila, which meant it was too late to pump my stomach. So, I was just attached to a drip and told to wait. It was going to be at least sixteen hours. The nausea was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Worse than being pregnant with Kate Middleton’s vomiting disease. Imagine the most sick you’ve ever made yourself from drinking, but it lasts for three days. That’s what my next three days were like. And because of the damn caffeine in the damn tablets, I couldn’t just sleep through the worst of it. I just looked at Nikes and sang that damn Subway Tush song again and again and again and again.
But mentally, I was already feeling better. When the alcohol started to wear off and my brain could process regular human thoughts again, I could finally, for the first time in two months, look at what had been happening to me since Tony died. It was like I’d hit a reset button in my mind. I just felt so . . . relieved. The first thing I was sure of is that I didn’t want to die, and I was so glad the bright green toxic waste I’d hurled into my toilet snapped me out of myself enough to call someone. I had certainly wanted something to stop, but it wasn’t my life. I think it was the pain, the grief, the fear, the exhaustion. Tony’s death had triggered my PTSD in a way that it had not been triggered in a long time. Tony had been my family, my protector, my person. Tony was my person. And while I had been sure that the worst of my mental-health problems were behind me, I hadn’t been tested by anything as traumatic as my childhood. Tony’s death had tested me, and I had clearly not done so well.
But to stumble with your mental health is not a bad thing. I think I had become cocky about my mental health, and that needed to change. Mental illness will always be with me, and I can’t pretend like things might not get that bad again. I needed to fall down to know that I could survive the fall. I almost didn’t, but also, I did. Hopefully, if there’s a next time, I’ll be more prepared for it.
While I was in and out of lucidity, singing the wrong words to the Subway Tush song repeatedly, my friends wrapped around me in a circle of support. Mia paid for my younger sister Tayla to fly from Sydney to Melbourne to be with me. Dimity went and cleaned my apartment, which, let me tell you, can’t have been easy. Jamila put her life on hold (husband and son included) to stay by my side. Jacob stopped working for a week to make sure I wouldn’t be alone. Jenn flew my cat up to Sydney and had someone take care of him. Phill organised movers to take my stuff home, because Tayla agreed to let me move back into the apartment I had shared with Tony in Sydney.
There were so many brilliant people holding my hand.
The clearest memory I have after calling Jamila from my apartment is witnessing the enema poo blast, and Jacob’s horrified face in the aftermath. He sat with me all day, leaving only when Jamila came to take over. Mia arrived from Sydney later that afternoon, and I had just been given an anti-nausea shot, so I had a bizarre conversation with her where I laughed and cracked jokes and acted like we were just hanging out in a coffee shop. Unfortunately, the cruelty of the anti-nausea shot is that it only lasts twenty minutes, so you get a brief glimpse of how good you could be feeling, before going back to needing to hurl repeatedly. I started leaning over the side of the bed towards the end of Mia’s visit. She knew that was her cue to leave.
Before she left, though, she said to me, ‘Rosie, next time this happens, you have to tell us what’s going on. You need to reach out to someone on the way down. You need to tell us you’re not okay.’
She had fear in her face. So did Jacob. Just as Jamila had the night before. And I’ll never let go of the guilt I feel for making the people I love feel that fear. But I didn’t know how to respond to Mia when she said that. How do you reach out on the way down when you don’t even realising you’re falling? Nobody wants to feel this bad. Nobody wants to get to the point I’d reached. If I thought I could stop it, or even that there was something to stop, I would have. Wouldn’t I? I’d been suicidal before, during the worst periods of my PTSD, and I never imagined for a second that I’d end up there again. I, more than anyone, knew the signs. I knew when things were getting away from me. I knew when it felt like I was floating out into space with nothing to tether me down. When I said I was okay, I really didn’t think I was lying. Because I really believed, or maybe just hoped, that I would be.
Until I wasn’t.
‘I know,’ I said to Mia. ‘I know. If it happens again, I’ll say something.’
I didn’t know how else to answer.
A psychologist was sent to see me, and I chatted to her for about ten minutes. I’d been in the public mental-health system before, and I knew it wasn’t the place for me. She also knew they barely had space for the patients they already had, so she seemed relieved when I told her I was okay. ‘I’m okay,’ I said, and actually meant it for the first time in months. ‘I’m really okay.’ She said it was fine for me to go home. And I knew that it was.
I can’t be sure how much time had passed by the time I left, but it got to the point where they were pretty desperate for me to free up the bed, and I was pretty desperate to get away from the curtain covered in shit. Jacob discharged me, I took one last look at that curtain, and we left.
‘Jacob,’ I said, in the Uber on the way to his house. ‘I really want to buy a pair of Nikes tomorrow.’
Tayla and I stayed at Jacob’s for a week, before we flew back to Sydney together. In treatment over the next month, I learned that I’d had a complete nervous breakdown, culminating in the night I tried to take my own life. After months of intense emotion bubbling under the surface, apparently the gastro, dehydration and lack of sleep had just tipped my brain over the edge. I was briefly hallucinating, but I wasn’t schizophrenic. I wasn’t turning into my dad. I wasn’t the ‘crazy lady’ I had always feared. My body and mind just momentarily gave out, while under extreme pressure. My mental health had humbled me. I’m okay, but I also know now that I can’t guarantee I always will be. But that’s the best I can do. For now, I’m okay. Really.
Living back in Sydney, in my old apartment, with traces of Tony everywhere, I was finally able to process his loss, to allow myself to indulge in the memories I have of him, without fear of the pain being too unbearable.
I thought about the last time we ever spoke. I was sitting in the back of an Uber, having just gone to an audition for a major new Aussie TV show. Tony had been video-calling from Austin all week, practising my lines with me and convincing me I could do it. The night before, I was going to cancel because of nerves (and just, you know, my general chronic low self-esteem), but Tony wouldn’t let me. Even from Austin, he was holding my hand. He was on the phone with me during the whole car ride to the audition, then, when I could no longer talk in the quiet waiting room, I started sending him sneaky photos of the other girls waiting to go in, lamenting about how beautiful they all were and how I was clearly the ‘let’s see if a chubby, funny girl could maybe work’ random person on the audition list. He immediately drew farts coming out of all of their bums and sent the photos back to me. It wasn’t a sophisticated method of support, but it definitely helped. It was the first professional acting audition I’d done since leaving drama school. I’d moved into writing and loved it and had just kind of accepted that the acting part had been left behind. I was petrified, but I got through it, only forgetting my lines out of sheer terror a couple of times.
I called Tony as soon as I was in the Uber coming home.
‘Tonz, it was fucking awful!’ I said. ‘I was so bad! And all those other girls were so beautiful! And I forgot my lines! And I had to hold a tea-towel and I didn’t know what the fuck to do with the tea-towel! Holy fucking Oprah, Tony. I was terrible.’
We laughed and laughed and laughed as I took him through every painful detail of how I screwed the whole thing up.
Then we talked about other stuff. Just random, normal stuff. His brother’s wedding was coming up, and he was flying over so we could go to it together in Griffith. He had a bunch o
f job interviews that week in some bars and restaurants. He’d been swimming a lot in the pool at his apartment complex, and joked that he was turning into a fitness queen. I teased him about the drunk messages he’d sent me a few nights earlier. He teased me about my latest disastrous Tinder hook-up. Then, as the car pulled up to my apartment building, we started to say our goodbyes.
‘Okay, love you boo,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you soon about the deets for Joseph’s wedding!’
‘Okay boo, love you too. Miss you so much!’
‘Miss you too!’
I was about to hang up.
‘Wait, Ro!’
‘What?’ I asked, only half concentrating, trying to get out of the Uber.
‘I really have a feeling about this show,’ he said. I laughed. ‘No seriously! I think you’re going to get it, Ro. I just . . . I know you’re going to be on this show. You got this, Rosie. You got this.’
‘Lol, I don’t think so, but thanks boo,’ I replied.
Then we hung up.
Not long after Tony died, I was offered a part on the show. I was also asked to be on the writing team, so basically my dream career from the time I was five years old.
Obviously, every day I went to work, I was petrified, because that’s just my usual state of being. But I just kept telling myself what Tony had told me:
You got this, Rosie. You got this.
I’m not sure how I’m going to get through life without him holding my hand. But I know that I will. I may not do it perfectly. I may stumble again. (In fact, I will almost definitely stumble again.) But I will get through it. Tony’s hand may not be there when I reach out for it anymore, but, in his infinite generosity and love, he left me with the exact words I need to get through each day without him.
You got this, Rosie. You got this.
When I think about Tony saying that, when I think how much he believed it, I feel okay.
And that’s the truth.
(Oh and by the way. . . The day after I left hospital, I bought a pair of Nikes. I still don’t know the words to that Will & Grace song. The outcome of the shit curtain remains unknown.)
Acknowledgements
Catherine Catherine Catherine. Catherine Milne, you wondrous goddess. I am so lucky to have you and your slightly panicked but always very supportive and loving emails. I could not have asked for a more kind and generous person to help through what ended up being a very different book to what I thought I would write. Thank you. Now let’s start making some stuff up!
Kimberley Allsopp, you are the best publicist/drinking buddy a girl could ask for (especially when the drinks are on HarperCollins). Tony would be so glad that you are taking his place as my social safety blanket. You were his favourite.
Everyone else at HarperCollins, thank you so much for letting me work in the office so I could occasionally leave my bedroom and pretend to have a real job where I gossip around a water cooler. You guys feel like a family.
The Vic On The Park in Enmore, I wrote half of this book sitting at the corner table of the beer garden, so thank you. (And thank you to Piers for not minding when I got moved off that table and we ended up in a very awkward situation.) Also I love the pie with the mushy peas and gravy, so please always leave that on the menu.
Jennifer Naughton, I can’t remember what my life was like before you were in it. From the day Tony dropped me off at your office I’ve felt so unconditionally supported. You believe in me and my career as much as he did. And as Tony would say: thank you so much for jumping on the Rosie Train! I don’t know what I would do without you.
Jamila Rizvi and Jacob Stanley, you both grabbed my hands when Tony couldn’t anymore. Thank you for being in my life and for laughing with me and cleaning my burned bum and buying me pyjamas.
Mama, Rhiannon, Tayla, Isabella, Allira and Mohammed (and now Aya!). The little family unit we’ve created is hilarious and perfect. Let’s keep tagging each other in memes that Mum doesn’t understand.
And to my second, brilliant family:
Pat and Mary, Franky, Sarina and Bruno, Joseph and Melissa, and Francesca, Joseph, Marissa and Patty. And the nonnas! And Assunta! And the cousins and the aunts and the uncles! All of you.
It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be accepted into your fold. You have made me feel like I will always have a home to go to in Griffith, and I’ll never be able to adequately convey how grateful I am for that.
Although this has been a story about my grief at losing the brilliant man you all played a part in creating, I also, as best as I could, tried to make it a story about the man. And what a man he was. Antonio Paul Sergi was incomparable, magical, incredible. And that’s because of all of you.
Always look up.
Resources
If you’re going through tough times and feel like you need some help, there are places and people who can support you. It’s always a good idea to talk to someone you trust – you don’t have to go through this alone. Contact a helpline, your GP, a counsellor, psychologist or psychiatrist, a hospital emergency department, minister, teacher or anyone you trust to keep you safe. Below are some places to go to for information and support:
•Lifeline: 13 11 14 (available 24/7) or Online Crisis Support Chat (available nightly at www.lifeline.org.au)
•SANE Australia (www.sane.org) 1800 18 7263
•headspace (www.eheadspace.org.au) 1800 650 890
•Kids Helpline (kidshelpline.com.au) 1800 551 800
•Reach Out (www.au.reachout.com) online youth mental health and wellbeing service
•Beyondblue Support Service (www.beyondblue.org.au) 1300 22 4636
•MindSpot Clinic (mindspot.org.au) 1800 61 44 34
•Qlife (qlife.org.au), a counselling and referral service for people who are LGBTI: 1800 184 527
•Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 65 94 67
•If your life is in danger – call emergency services 000
About the Author
ROSIE WATERLAND is an author, comedian and screenwriter. Her first book, The Anti Cool Girl (HarperCollins, 2015), was a critically acclaimed national bestseller, shortlisted for an Indie Book Award and two ABIA Awards in 2016, and also shortlisted for the 2017 Russell Award for Humour Writing.
Rosie is currently developing her own television series and is a contributing writer for various other Australian TV shows. Rosie debuted her first live one-woman show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in March 2016, called My Life On The Couch (With Vodka), and then took the show on a sold-out national tour in October of the same year. Her second one-woman show, Crazy Lady, will be touring Australia in September 2017.
@RosieWaterland
Rosie Waterland
Praise for The Anti-Cool Girl:
‘Hilarious, wise, gutsy, clear-eyed, devastating and uplifting.
It’s a marvel.’
Richard Glover
‘Waterland’s writing is . . . individual, wounded,
brilliant and hilarious’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘If Augusten Burroughs and Lena Dunham abandoned their child in an Australian housing estate, she’d write this heartbreaking, hilarious book.’
Dominic Knight, The Chaser
Copyright
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2017
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Rosie Waterland 2017
The right of Rosie Waterland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Ha
rperCollinsPublishers
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ISBN 978 1 4607 5065 0 (pbk)
ISBN 978 1 4607 0523 0 (e-book)
Cover design by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image of Rosie Waterland © Patrick Boland
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