I managed to drag my ass out of the house for the 2011 Whyalla footy grand final. North Whyalla, my club, won the flag, and a massive party ensued back at the clubrooms. A mate and I went to a local pub to kick on halfway through the festivities. But the pub had a 1 a.m. lock-out. We arrived at 1.02 a.m. The bouncer abruptly and rudely refused us entry, despite the fact that we’d sprinted the last kilometre to the pub. My mate caught a cab home, but I wasn’t done yet.
Two minutes late. No brownie points for effort or hardship, and you feel the need to be a power-abusing bag of douchness?
Game on, fuckface.
The ember of character grew hotter.
I sneaked around the back of the three-storey hotel. There was, maybe, a tough climbing route up the side of the pub. I got amongst it. Once on the first storey, I looked for the next pitch. It was a two-storey epic adventure to reach the false roof from there. I jammed my back against the brick wall and feet against the kitchen smoke-stack in an unprotected chimney climb to the roof. I just managed to cling to the gutter, and it sagged to hold my weight as I pulled myself onto the tiled roof. I was almost there. I carefully walked across the roof tiles and observed the outdoor beer garden. There didn’t seem to be a lot of activity, aside from a few punters having a smoke. I called out to one chick, asking her to keep watch if the bouncers came outside.
But she ratted me out.
In an instant, bouncers and police flooded the beer garden and shone their torches at me. ‘Get down from there, right now!’ they yelled.
‘I’m stuck,’ I replied, faking helplessness.
They scrambled around like ants before a thunderstorm, trying to figure out how to get me down from the three-storey roof.
Meanwhile, I slunk towards the back of the roof like a burglar and jumped down the different pitches of the climb, commando rolling as I hit the ground. I stood up and looked around, dusting the dirt out of my hair. They had no clue how I’d got on the roof. I was free and clear!
That was pretty fucking ninja!
I casually strolled down the back streets towards my house, knowing that these adult authority figures had no chance of catching me. But then, I had a brainwave.
The footy club will still be rocking!
I changed direction and walked past the pub en route to the Northies footy club, but one of the bouncers pinged me. Before I knew it, I was handcuffed and thrown in the back of a paddy-wagon. The cops seemed genuinely surprised when my drug test returned a negative result. Nevertheless, we all laughed at my stupidity for walking back past the pub. They agreed that I’d initially got away scot-free, and they let me off with a warning for the sheer ballsiness of the escapade. I only served two weeks of the six-month ban from the pub because my friend put in a good word for me. You’ve got to love how life imitates art – apparently, Spider-Man (whose alter ego Peter Parker mysteriously never gets questioned by the police about why he is the only fucker who can ever get a photo of the vigilante) really is immune to legal consequences!
The pub-climbing incident had been a bit of a wake-up call, so I put in a renewed effort towards recovery over the next few months. I was functional-ish, but still in a very dark place. I dragged my ass out of the house again for the 31 December 2011 New Year’s Eve celebrations with my boys at one of our infamous backyard barbecue shindigs. I had a few beers with the lads, and we mercilessly hung shit on each other, which was normal in our dynamic. But then, one of the lads’ girlfriends said something that changed my life.
‘Leave Terry alone. He’s been through enough,’ she said.
The boys relented and turned their taunts towards someone else.
I was extremely pissed.
That comment had isolated me from the group, just when I’d started to feel normal again. But there was something else about it that bugged me, which I couldn’t put my finger on. The rest of the night continued as normal: fireworks, Happy New Year wishes, checking social media – which was awash with fitness vows and online peacocking about how dreary each Real World zombie’s life had been over the preceding year.
Later that night, we went out to the pub. I couldn’t really get into the groove of the celebration, so I had a quiet night, by my own lofty New Year’s drunken stupor standards.
The next day, my mind kept wandering, obsessing about my mate’s girlfriend’s comment.
That fucking comment. What was it – exactly – that pissed me off?
Then, it dawned on me.
Since when have I become the guy who needs someone to stick up for him? Uuggh.
I was so disgusted with myself. That shoe just didn’t fit.
I’m the guy who helps people, not the guy who needs help.
In that moment, anger cascaded through my veins. It wasn’t a fleeting annoyance but a prolonged dose of fire and brimstone.
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
The concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy was introduced by a prominent sociologist in the mid-1900s. The theory suggests that simply thinking in a certain way, regardless of how inaccurate or delusional the thought might be, incites the behavioural patterns that will ultimately result in that thought becoming a reality.
However, scholars are only now realising the true potential of this theory. A recent study has found that believing stress is harmful has a ninety per cent chance of leading to stress-related death, whereas believing that stress is good for you only has a ten per cent chance.
Simply thinking that something is bad for you makes it bad for you. Your perspective on an issue can literally kill you!
So, in contrast to my previous convictions about PTSD, it is not a harrowing and insurmountable affliction. PTSD is nothing. It’s a piece of piss. PTSD can suck on my wrinkly, unmanscaped left nut, two times.
The ember lit the fuck up.
On a whim, I launched into a punishing gym session that lasted three hours. Afterwards, I was still amped, so I went to the supermarket and bought a trolley-load of nutritious food. I was still angered when I got home, so I went on a brutal twenty-five-kilometre run. I felt that I’d turned a corner after the jog. My mind was temporarily clear, so I sat down and devised a cunning plan, with a new sense of perspective.
My brain just won’t play the game, so I’ll attack it from a different angle. Healthy body, healthy mind. Reverse physiology.
I had chronic insomnia, malnutrition and the occasional hangover – so my mind was in no state to make considered decisions. I knew I needed sleep, nutrition and an alcohol-free head to beat this thing, so I resolved to wear myself down, physically, until my brain fell into line. I’d once read that it took two weeks to form a habit, so that became my goal.
Two weeks of torture and I’ll have formed a fitness habit. Four hours of intense training per day for two weeks.
Seemed legit.
The gym sessions were a struggle. I ground through the torture, minute by minute, moment by moment. I kept myself motivated by musing that my muscles had become weaker than Muppet arms. The daily twenty-five-kilometre runs were worse. It was a constant battle to subdue that inner voice that told me I’d done enough, halfway through the run.
Fuck that. I said I was going to do twenty-five kilometres, not a metre more or less. So suck it up, Tezz, you whiny little bitch.
I walked the tightrope line between mercilessly taunting myself (risking another crushing episode of depression) and overly congratulating myself (risking giving myself too much slack, becoming stagnant and succumbing to the anxiety). One small slip and I was proper fucked.
Getting to the gym or getting ready for a run was the hardest part. If I sat on the couch for even one minute, it was over; that path led straight to the bottom of a bottle. So I took my gym shoes out into the backyard and sat on the painful gravel while I tied the laces, just so I couldn’t get comfortable.
Eating dinner while suffering from anxiety was a ball-breaker. Imagine you’re stepping onto the street, on your way to make a public speech, but you’ve forgotten to wear pa
nts, and all of a sudden a car screeches to a halt in front of you, millimetres from ending your life. Feel hungry?
No, neither did I.
The relentless waves of anxiety decimated my appetite. I had to guess how much food I should eat, based upon the amount of training I was doing. I had to reheat one meal four times in two hours, just so I could stomach it. But I kept picking away and dropping it down my neck. Not because I wanted to, but because I knew I should.
When supplies ran low, I braved the supermarkets, which were a major source of anxiety for me. After plucking my wares from the aisles, there still remained the grisly task of waiting in the checkout line. My forehead became sweaty and my hands trembled with adrenaline. The subconscious lessons from Afghan were null and void in Australia, but my brain couldn’t tell the difference; it picked out non-existent threats left, right and centre.
By my own definition, anxiety was a fear response. But what was I scared about? Was the sweet old granny going to fuck me up with nunchucks? Could the little boy holding his mother’s hand gaze into my soul and judge me for all the wrongs I’d ever done?
I deliberately stood in the longest queues, to teach myself that there was nothing to be scared about. The checkout chick from the express lane would sometimes call me over, but I always refused (looking like a fully-fledged weirdo in the process). I’d stand in these lines literally trembling with fear. But after I fought through it a few times, the fear disappeared.
This whole PTSD thing was ridiculous, so irrational. I always had a little chuckle to myself in these moments, which seemed to take the sting out of the situation.
The bittersweet irony of PTSD wasn’t lost on me. I’d gone out into the big bad world intending to do so much good, to do the best I could and have some fun and adventure along the way. But I ended up fucking hating myself for my sheer inability to deliver on my intentions. My sense of humour was buckled and twisted but, even so, I couldn’t help but appreciate the lighter side of how my best-laid plans had turned against me.
After eight days of all-out assault on the Big Bad PTSD, my mind was finally beaten into submission. I lay on the couch, eyes gently closing on a nondescript night-time TV show. My muscles and bones ached with a pain I’d never felt before. I hadn’t slept properly in an age, so my thoughts were scatterbrained and my body wasn’t repairing itself. Forced nutrition helped, but not much. I enjoyed a few micro-sleeps on the couch before I realised I was tired.
The vague, delirious concoction of feelings tumbling through my mind resembled a Road Runner versus Wile E. Coyote cartoon, mixed with a Freddy Krueger nightmare, spliced with the NeverEnding Story movie and topped off with a Current Affair hatchet job, where I was unfairly singled out as the bad guy.
Okay, I jus nee t ge o bed, an sh swee.
I got up from the couch, in a state of insomnia-induced delirium. My face crashed into the bedroom doorframe. But the pain and dripping blood didn’t register. I flopped into bed and enjoyed the most magical five hours of sleep.
I woke up in the early hours of the next morning, feeling more sane. My face was stuck to the pillow from my bleeding eyebrow. I ripped the pillow away like a Band-Aid, tearing off the scab and sending blood trickling into my eyes. These few hours of kip had worked wonders for my psyche, but I still had hours to kill before sunlight.
Oh, well. I guess I’ll go for my run in the dark.
The next six days were easy. I was back in the game. My appetite returned with a vengeance, and sleep was more abundant than a noxious weed. The two-week habit-forming spiel I’d told myself was probably a load of bullshit, but I believed it, so it became true for me.
Now that the symptoms had subsided, my mind-state was much more balanced and I could start addressing the underlying cause of my issues.
Guilt was my poison.
I struggled with being unable to save so many people.
What if I’d just had equipment A to save person B? They’d still be alive.
What if I’d prioritised patient C over patient D? They’d both still be alive.
Playing the ‘what if’ game was literally killing me. I needed to accept that I didn’t live in a perfect world, and that I’d made the best possible decisions with the information I had at the time. I’d done my best, but my best just wasn’t good enough. Innocent people died on my watch.
Ouch. Accepting that truth bit me, hard.
But I managed to wrap my head around it, and just accept my shortcomings.
Wallowing in my own self-pity isn’t doing anyone any good. I just need to keep on keeping on.
I refashioned my thinking into something more palatable. Fuck right or wrong, fuck good or bad. My decisions were what they were. I am what I am. Delete unhelpful perspective. Insert helpful perspective. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat, until it sticks. It was as simple as that.
For example, my negative thoughts would look something like this: I’m such a shit cunt because I couldn’t save all those people who depended on me.
That thought changed to: I did what I could, but not everyone can be saved – that’s war.
After a few months of repetition, the guilt disappeared – easy!
What was all my pissing and moaning about?
Every now and then, I’d suddenly wake up with night sweats and a vague memory of my dreams – it was always some weird, abstract representation of my guilt. But as the weeks and months rolled on, and I continued reframing my perspective, the anxiety, depression, guilt and nightmares eventually receded into nothingness.
I popped in for a few follow-up sessions with the psych, but he thought I was back on track and didn’t need therapy anymore. He downgraded my initial diagnosis of PTSD to PTS. I still had post-traumatic stress symptoms, but they were no longer impairing my lifestyle, so there was no disorder. Although I’d come to enjoy the therapeutic value of venting my problems to a perfect stranger, I had to agree that I was ready to face the world on my own. I was big enough and ugly enough to tackle life’s challenges by myself, once again.
The counsellors and psychs and others of their ilk are the real unsung heroes in the War on Mental Illness. They tend to get a bum rap in the media because their hands are tied by the organisational strictures. But they deal with an endless procession of pessimistic, glass-half-empty people, day in, day out, which has got to take a personal toll. Yet they never fail to deliver optimistic, stoic advice that saves more lives than the stats could ever show. I owe the VVCS a debt of thanks that words alone could never express.
By some stroke of luck, I’d dodged the proverbial bullet and was on my way to making a complete recovery. For many of my mates, this condition was something that they had to manage on a daily basis for the rest of their lives. But my problems completely disappeared over time. Somehow, I’d managed to escape the dreaded PTSD like a mongrel mangy mutt adopted from a rescue shelter, coming out of the experience in better shape than I’d gone in.
I’d just had my mid-life crisis in my twenties, decades ahead of the bell curve.
17
THE BOREDOM RETURNS
I went from strength to strength over the next few months of 2012. I decided to test my new-found resilience by buying my first house, which is supposedly the most stressful thing a person can do.
Too easy.
So, I tested the limitations of my new stress threshold. I took an intensive job to set up the safety systems for a new mine, which involved fifteen-hour days and an immense amount of stress. But I was one of those sick puppies who feel less stressed under more pressure. In a matter of months, I’d gone from being unable to handle the anxiety of answering an email to dealing with an insurmountable amount of work and responsibility, with no hassles whatsoever.
I was fit as a fiddle, and even managed to secure a regular spot in the North Whyalla footy A-grade side. Over the next few months, my level of emotion and stimulation returned to what I can only guess resembled the everyday ups and downs of regular folk. I’d even discovered a brand of emotion
that I hadn’t encountered in an age: I was proud of myself again. PTSD certainly wasn’t easy, but, as sick as this might sound, I enjoyed the challenge. I hadn’t encountered any adversity in the Real World since my army days, so recovering from PTSD was a very empowering feeling.
The company I worked for had just acquired a new mine from another player, so my job was to work with the transition team to open the new mine for business. The brief that I was given for this assignment was simple.
‘Set up the new safety systems. Choose your own roster. I don’t care how you do it, or how much it costs – just get it done. Let me know if you need more resources.’
The perfect job.
I was given one word of warning. Apparently, the new mine manager was a tad eccentric and didn’t give a shit about safety, or anything else for that matter. I approached him with a closed-minded level of trepidation. But, after a few weeks, I ate my words. The new mine manager, who always signed his emails as ‘A’, was a fucking weapon. He’d graduated university nine times. He was a one-man mine. He could do everything from digging, to engineering, to accounting – and he still had time left over for legalities. He had millions of dollars’ worth of personal assets, so he didn’t need to be there – he just wanted the challenge.
‘A’ never preached, but he was one of the most inspirational people you could hope to meet. He was the first person I’d ever met who was happy in an alternative lifestyle – he didn’t buy into the bullshit of the Real World. The reason that people thought he was a bit off-colour was that he was a genius. All of ‘A’s’ management principles were based upon pure, unfiltered logic and reason – most people were too emotionally biased to accept his brazen brand of thinking. He didn’t give a fuck about the corporate political games that outsiders expected him to play. When the politics became too ridiculous, ‘A’ jumped in his car and drove for over twenty-four hours straight, surviving on a diet of Coke Zero and jazz music, to demand an audience with the new CEO, unannounced. He was given an audience – immediately – and the political bullshit stopped.
Bad Medicine Page 18