Factual Storytelling Assignment

For this factual storytelling assignment we were required to engage in a mode of storytelling to present a factual story about a person or group of people we know or would like to know. I have chosen to tell the story of my Aunty, who has lived with mental illness for most of her life, because I think her story contains an important message, in that it demonstrates society's lack of understanding and awareness regarding mental illness. I have chosen to use a first-person mode of storytelling, as I believe this best conveys her perspective, emotions and beliefs.

Factual Storytelling Assignment

Mental illness will affect one in five Australians at some stage in their life... I am that one in five, but living with mental illness is about far more than just being part of a statistic.

Some people with mental illness say that the moment they were diagnosed was a defining moment in their life. They can remember with acute precision their anticipation as they sat in a chair in their doctor's office, waiting to hear the words that would finally give them some answers. Instead, I was diagnosed sitting in a chair at the hairdressers by an article in a two year old magazine.

Mental illness wasn't discussed in the seventies. It wasn't accepted nor was it even understood. I knew that I was different to most people, but I didn't know why, or even how to articulate what the distinction was. I felt isolated, confused and very, very frightened. I would later find out from that article that I was suffering clinical depression, which later became schizoaffective disorder, but as a seventeen year old year girl, no diagnosis meant no understanding, and consequently no effective means of coping.

One thing I did have in common with other teenage girls was the meticulously considered, and endearingly idealistic, plan of the way my life was going to turn out. I vividly remember walking to school one day when I was fifteen and contemplating the endless, momentous and ubiquitous thing that was 'The Future'. I would finish school and go on to study at university, upon completion of which I would travel overseas, and then at 25 I would be married with two kids by 27.

I was so angry when I realised that I had been denied the chance to achieve that perfect life. Because that's what it was, an achievement that you either won or lost... But in my case, I hadn't lost fair and square, I felt as though some unidentifiable contender had cheated me out of it. I was being forced to live another life that I hadn't asked for, and that I didn't deserve.

It took a long time to get to that point of resigned acceptance. For years, I would doggedly wait for my cloud of depression to clear, hoping for even just a ray of sun. Sometimes it would get better, but then it would come back, and with it bring me a devastation that seemed to increase each time. My diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder at 23 put a definitive end to that game of cat and mouse. Schizoaffective disorder was a lifetime sentence.

As a means of coping with my illness I was drinking heavily, using drugs frequently and would self-mutilate regularly. I committed one suicide attempt and later lost three friends who also suffered undiagnosed depression to suicide. My experiences have shown me that correct, prompt diagnosis and effective treatment are crucial to living with mental illness, as its consequences should not be trivialised and can affect you for the rest of your life.

Later in life I would periodically spend time at a private clinic where I could receive treatment and cope with my issues without the burdens of the outside world. At the clinic I met many people who, like me, had lived much of their life without answers, but also many younger patients who, as consequence of an increased social awareness of mental illness, had been able to put a name to the issues with which they were dealing. Sometimes I would feel deeply resentful of the help and support that was readily available to them. The fact that I was never afforded the same succour only deepened the chip on my shoulder.

Having a mental illness has changed my entire life. It is all at once my past, present and future, both private and public. In everyday interactions, as routine as shaking hands or handing across money, people can see the scars on my forearms, and can recognise them as the physical manifestations of my internal struggle. I cannot help but wonder whether, had mental illness been more recognised and understood, I could have achieved the life I wished for as I walked to school that one day. I believe it is society's responsibility to prevent future generations of people suffering mental illness from asking that same question. Whilst social awareness of mental illness has come far, there is still much farther to go.