Jack - Interview 13

Age at interview: 71

Brief Outline: Jack had a breakdown at age 28 following a marital crisis. This prompted him to check himself in to a psychiatric hospital for assistance. After four months, he left to give his marriage another try, and when this failed, he travelled to the other side of Australia where he attempted suicide. Subsequently, he met his current wife, and has enjoyed a stable and happy family life, free of mental health problems.

Background: Jack is a married father of two children from his current marriage and two from his first marriage. He is retired, volunteers with the local Seniors Action Group as well as a depression focussed NGO, and practices lapidary. Ethnic background' Anglo-Australian.

More about me...

Jack has very happy memories of growing up in the suburbs with his older brother and parents, enjoying a level of freedom and independence he thinks is unknown to many children today. His mother was an integral part of their lives, as his father fought in World War II and worked in jobs that required extensive travel when he returned. He died when Jack was 24. Independent and strong-willed, his mother put all her energy into raising her two sons and supporting their sporting interests – football for his brother and swimming for Jack. Jack’s first marriage was the result of an unplanned pregnancy out of wedlock. Feeling that it was the right thing to do, he married the mother of his child. This led to a tense home life and Jack attempted to leave after three years of marriage. He also began drinking heavily at this time. Jack’s wife left, taking the children and did not tell Jack where they were going. He eventually tracked her down in another city where they reconciled, agreeing that she would return in six months. Then 28, Jack returned home alone. 

 

By this point his drinking was taking its toll on his physical health and his mental state was deteriorating. Needing help, Jack checked himself into a psychiatric hospital where he stayed for four months. He was given chlorpromazine which he was told was to help him sleep at night, and expected to participate in group therapy. Jack was uncomfortable talking about his feelings in such a setting, and after some time decided that there was little point in continuing. The psychiatrist agreed, and he left to await his wife and try to rescue his marriage. This was unsuccessful and his marriage ended in divorce.

 

Jack was devastated and decided that life was no longer worth living. He booked a ticket to the other side of the country, found a hotel room and attempted suicide. He was discovered by his landlady and after two weeks in hospital found himself in a strange town with no money and no job. Jack decided to contact his brother for money, and received just ten dollars. Stunned by this response, he nonetheless credits this moment as leading to his choice to create a new life independent of other people. He found a job the next day. Ten years later, at the age of 39 he met his second wife with whom he has two daughters. He has enjoyed a very happy marriage and settled life. Despite his best efforts, Jack has been unable to make peace with his first wife and has been cut off from his first two children, which is a deep regret. He accepts that there is little more he can do, and now looks back on this period of his life as a difficult time (which also cost him his first career as a police officer) but one which led to his current happiness and helped him become the person he is today. Now retired, Jack volunteers to assist pensioners and older people with mental health problems.

 

Avoiding people and drinking was part of Jack's depression experience.

Well I suppose, look, it’s a feeling of not wanting to face anybody, ah, it’s the feeling of locking yourself away, which I did. People could knock on the door; I wouldn’t even answer the door. And these are people I played footy and cricket with. I’d just drink. But the feeling was, well total, total insecurity, a total of not being, a total feeling of not belonging with, to, or anywhere. You just feel completely isolated. And at that stage I had no idea how to break out of it, except drink. Because when you drink you get yourself blotto and you don’t have to think. 

 

But really that’s a trap too because, when you start drinking, you just go round on a racetrack and you think about the same thing over and over and over and over again. But then, then you get this feeling where you, you just start to quiver inside, you, that’s how bad you get. Well I did, and you’d quiver. You’d absolutely - you’re insides – you’re not shaking outside, but you’re inside shaking. Horrible feeling, it really is, because you just don’t know how to deal with it. And probably that was my mistake, not seeking to talk to somebody else or anything, or anybody. But I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know any better.

 

Group therapy was mandatory at the psychiatric hospital Jack admitted himself into in the late...

I went and sought help and that can be, that was a hell of an experience because it was all group therapy, under the control of psychiatrists.

 

Professional people obviously, but it’s run mainly by nurses with that type of background. And I always remember the first special I had, it was just on me, I refused to talk and I got locked up in Ward One. And you don’t want to get locked up with Ward One because all the crazies are down there. And I can always remember they gave me a shot of Largactil (chlorpromazine) and it was like a clock spring unwinding like that. But you were sitting there, doped out of your brain and people are clawing, oh crawling, oh you’ve got no - I never had any idea of how bad it really was. 

 

But anyway, they took me back in and I suppose that really taught me, so I, I let out little pieces but I listened to what everybody else said. As a result, I knew more about them than they knew about me, so it, I become bad for the unit where I was because I could control what was going on. And I woke up to that too and I asked to leave so they let me leave.

 

Jack loved his job in the police force and found it very rewarding, but after being hospitalised,...

Oh went down, it went down the hole. They actually finished up, they asked me to leave and you can’t blame them. I do not blame them. And the funniest thing about it, that’s the only job I ever wanted to do [laughs]. Yeah, yeah. 

 

But it, it’s, I liked being in the police force. I found that I never had any trouble with drunks and drunks are the worst people to deal with. They really are, they can do anything can set them off. But I used to go and sit and talk to them. And they used to walk back with me to the watch house. Didn’t have to grab them, arrest them, nothing. You could lock them up for four hours and they’d sleep it off, go home. Cost them 10 bucks, you know, they. Nobody got hurt. 

 

But there was, to me it was a rewarding job that you could do things and you could talk to people and you could help them. It wasn’t just about grabbing them and putting them in the slammer, it was about. Half the thing was prevention. Not like today. Today’s nothing about prevention, it’s only about reaction. Back then you were a proper copper.

 

Jack talked about his experiences of stigma related to depression.

Going back to the sixties, can you remember what you knew about depression or mental illness at the time?

 

Not a thing, not a thing. Except there was a stigma. That’s what I was talking about before, shame with older people. Ah, back then if anybody said you had a breakdown, oh, you were a mental case. You, you should be locked up. 

 

But ah, it’s, the sixties, it was definitely - it was like getting pregnant, having a, a child, being a single mother. I can remember that my first wife had a friend who did this and she just braved right through it. And God, I admired her. And she brought up her child on her own, and any, without any help whatsoever. Oh, she one tough girl, really admired her. But the stigma of mental, mental disorder was worse than getting pregnant. I mean, my God, you’re, you’re, you’re mentally ill. And that stigma is like a big stain on your copybook, if you want to say.

 

Jack realised that no one could help him to get better and this was his own responsibility.

Recovery? Well this is to me, I don’t know that ah this would go for anybody else, but it means you get up off your bum and you move forward. It doesn’t matter which way you go, to the side, right, left or straight forward. But you get up and you move. If you don’t move, you die. I could honestly say I didn’t realise I had such a strength of character within myself at that stage. But obviously I must have because that’s how I did it. And I didn’t rely on anybody else, I did it all myself, as you’ve realised, I hadn’t gone and sought doctors, I hadn’t sought out specialists, or I haven’t picked out a friend to talk to, any of that sort of stuff.

 

I’ve just gone and done what my father and mother always told me, is do the right thing. Just go and do it. And that’s what I did.