Artaud

Age at interview: 43

Age at diagnosis: 20

Brief Outline:

Artaud has been diagnosed with a few different mental health conditions, including depression. When he was younger he was hospitalised. He attributes the impact of correct treatment and support he has from work and his partner to his ability to maintain his career as a social worker.

Background:

Artaud is a social worker and is divorced from his first wife. He is now engaged to be married to his fianc'. He has two children from his first marriage. Ethnic background' Anglo-Australian.

More about me...

Artaud moved numerous times during childhood because of his father’s job. He was bullied and teased which was a traumatic experience. His family life was reasonably genial but he did have a difficult relationship with his father who did not support him when Artaud experienced his mental health crisis. His brother and sister have always supported him through his experience.

 

Despite his mental health problems and his dyslexia, with a help of a scribe arranged by his parents, he excelled in his HSC. He saw a psychiatrist for the first time when he was 18 and was told he had a mood disorder. He completed one year of therapy and went to university and got married at 19 and for the first two years of marriage his mental health was relatively good. 

 

When he was 20-25 Artaud experienced a mental health crisis. He overdosed a few times and was hospitalised. He found hospitalisation degrading and was happier when he took out private health insurance and was able to access private mental health clinics. He and his wife experienced financial difficulty and were socially isolated. They were both studying and Artaud was unable to work because of his mental health. He was hospitalised several times and tried numerous medications. Artaud’s partner was supportive during this time. 

 

He has been active in mental health consumer issues, and at university struggled with people’s attitudes to others with mental health conditions. Artaud thinks the stigma associated with mental illness is pervasive. He has litigated on mental health discrimination and says this is not financially rewarding but important to protect his rights. 

 

Artaud is now taking a medication that has allowed him to work full time. Artaud also saw a Lacanian psychiatrist and had psychoanalysis for 15 years. He believes that this was helpful. He was able to work extra hours recently to take his children on an overseas holiday. Artaud is very happy in his current role and says his own experience means he is empathetic and understanding with clients.

 

Artaud does not believe in the recovery model of mental health. He thinks the ‘right medication is essential to living a normal life’. He also thinks that a good social network and a supportive work environment are essential to ‘coping with mental illness’. He is open about his mental health condition with his employer and in turn they support him if he is unwell. 

 

Artaud talked about different experiences of support he received from his brother and his friends in the course of his illness. Having friends without mental health problems was also important.

Poor, on Austudy, no money, partner - no money, very poor, living in a house, very isolated. As I became more and more unwell my friends, well a lot of my friends disappeared - which is pretty much a true experience of anybody with a mental illness, you know. My friends were great on Nicaragua or great on South Africa and apartheid but not terribly good on assisting their psychotic and depressed friend that they'd known for a while.

 

And my brother is a doctor and he's got seven kids and he's a good brother and looks after me and, you know, he you know. He's going well and - but we, my brother and I were always very close. We still are close. We were very close in, he was very good to me. He looked after me.

 

So we were, I was very lucky to get two very close friends and that made a difference, you know? Made a big difference having people who you could talk to and then I remember I - when I was about 30 – 28, 29 I went back to do social work. And again I met some, two close friends that I'm close to now and that made a difference having people. Having people in your life, you know, have been more than a diagnosis or a label, you know. 

 

Social support, just being there. Just talking to you, just going out for dinner. Just when you, when you know you're a bit alienated and lonely, being able to ring somebody up and not talk about being depressed because, you know, that's not very helpful. But just to be able to talk about other things, you know, talk about, talk about, you know, what the footy's like or you know, what movie you're going to go and see. So just normal everyday things.

 

Artaud did not feel supported at university. He described the unique difficulties that people with more severe mental health problems face.

I was able to go, go back to university and do social work and get an Honours degree in social work, which was really good and again, you know. 

 

I mean again I was a bit immature at that stage, you know, I'd be oh I was, I'd been involved in the mental health - you know the consumer rights movement for a long, long time and you know. And they were terribly bigoted at [name] University. They weren't, they weren't very good about dealing with people with mental issues. They were if you had sort of vanilla brand depression but with something…

 

What do you mean by that? That's very nice expression but can you explain to me?

 

Well I see vanilla brand depression as something a lot of the middle classes have. And it's serious and it's awful and you can't, you can't you know say it's not, you know the - but it's a bit like they, not they “just have depression” but they just have one diagnosis. They've normally got some sort of job and even though it's a struggle they can stay in it. 

 

Artaud's view was that mental health conditions should be disclosed at the workplace. However, this information should be treated respectfully.

Well, you know, mental illness you need, you know, I need to take days. Like there are times when I'm just not well enough to come to work. You need a work, you need to - I think you need to disclose. I think it's fair on the place. But they have the responsibility then to take that knowledge and treat that knowledge with respect. 

Artaud described his experiences of being stigmatised for his mental health condition during his school years

I was teased very badly, very badly to the point where when I got to 18 I actually tried to overdose. So the teasing was, it was really bad and I and I'm still, it's only since I just got into a new relationship with my new partner that I've been able to actually let that go. You know it was terrible. They used to call me the mongoloid that got escaped, escaped from the abortion bucket so it was pretty awful stuff. And looking back on it now like I'd go, ‘Well who gives a shit?’ But at the time it was, at the time it was really quite traumatic. 

 

I mean I, one of the great things I found out about university was if people didn't like you they just left you alone. So you know, at school people didn't like you they, they sort of suggested quite strongly that they didn't like you. 

 

But so at university they weren't very good on mental health but again I was a bit immature and I pushed them and really, you know. I actually took them to the internal Equal Opportunity because they weren't, you know, they were letting people in classes who were meant to be social workers talk about psychos. And they - I remember one woman saying I want to be honest, I'm scared of the mentally ill and you know. Even though, you know, looking back on it now I think, oh it doesn't matter, but at the time I was very upset by that kind of stigma. 

 

You know I was talking to my partner and she's got terribly bad wrists and she was talking about the stigma of disability. And I said, look [partner’s name] I know you've got disability because your wrists are all smashed but there's no stigma with that disability.