‘…In September 2002 I admitted myself into the Nelson Mental Health Unit. I was rapidly losing grip on who I was. On my release the psychiatrist at the hospital set up an appointment for me at Marama House in Blenheim.
Marama House was a day hospital for recently discharged patients, a place for us to spend our days, a respite from the demons we harboured in our homes. It was set up to look like a regular house. Lounge chairs and sofas furnished the main room. There was a TV, a DVD player, and stereo system and against the wall was a shelf full of books. In the small kitchen were tea and coffee making facilities, and at lunch time someone brought sandwiches, and fruit for us. It all seemed redundant. I was no longer interested in TV, music, books and there was no way they were going to make me eat their food. Most of us looked like we would rather be sleeping.
This was a house for the bewildered. The day-dwellers were shell-shocked, many still unable to take care of the basics like eating, drinking, showering. The ugly side of the medications reminded us why we were here - the trembling hands, the bouncing knees,the vague dormant stare. I was amazed at the potency of my two new medications, Olanzapine and Epilim, how immediately they manipulated the different parts of my brain into working in ways foreign to me. I didn’t want to talk to the others. There didn’t seem to be much point. I had no intentions of hanging around for too long and I’d never remember their names anyway. My memory was shot.
My appointment was with Doctor Quick, my new psychiatrist, and Janet, who supervised the patients during the day at Marama House. I couldn’t look them in the eyes as they asked me questions I was quickly becoming familiar with. Are you eating? Are you drinking? How’s your sleep? How are you spending your day? Are you talking to friends/family? And of course the inevitable: Have you had any thoughts of hurting yourself or others?
‘If you’re asking me if I still wish I were dead, then the answer is yes. But if you’re worried that I’m going to kill myself, I’m not. Not yet, anyway,’ I answered.
I understood that it was his role to query what strategies I had in place, what supports that would advance my recovery. What structures did I have in my life? But I wasn’t moved. I had no intentions of living like this forever.
‘I know what my family and friends are thinking. They’ve been disappointed with me for years,’ I told him. ‘I’m a loser, I’m gay, a drug addict, an alcoholic – that’s what they think. Now, I’m mental as well. They’re as sick of the drama as I am.’
But no-one knew how life had been for me. I had already decided before I left the hospital that I would not be judged without telling my story first.
For the first time during the interview I looked Dr Quick in the eye. ‘I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had my say, I promise you. And I don’t care who it exposes, or who it hurts. I want everyone to know the truth. I’ve had to live with it for years.’
I had begun writing my story at home, already. The Olanzopine ensured that I could barely stay awake beyond 7pm at night, and I was often still in bed in the early afternoon, but for the hours between, I wrote furiously. Angry, venomous words of blame and shame began to fill the pages of a school exercise book. This was the story of my life. It was the first time I had looked at my life so closely. I had spent the last decade avoiding my past and the people associated with it.
Ten years earlier I had been a patient on Rotoroa Island, a Salvation Army-run rehab centre for alcoholics and drug addicts. It should have been the perfect opportunity to explore the truth. One of the many slogans I heard in rehab was ‘the truth will set you free’.
There’s another oft-used phrase that would have been just as appropriate – the truth hurts. The longer I was in rehab, the more I began to ask myself – what is the truth anyway?...’
