The Battlefield in the Mind: an invisible enemy
Trigger warning — this entry contains suicidal themes. Please read with caution and sensitivity considering the confronting nature of subject matter.
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Like the strings of a violin, we vibrate delicately through the procession of life. The beautiful cry of the strings reacting and responding to the kinetic stimuli evokes a haunting sound that bears both a fragility and resilience.
I have been wanting to write this blog post for a while now. But was never quite sure when was the best time. There is a famous Jewish proverb housed in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”. Echoing the ballad of the last section, and influenced by timing that feels particularly relevant given October is mental health month- so this too this piece of writing today joins the collection of other stories in the cloud and in collective consciousness.
It was a foggy day in the late spring arc of Copenhagen, 2016. A total whiteout. I was on an exchange placement studying aboard at Copenhagen Business School. My head was in a different world to the happenings of the reality of my home sphere in Sydney. I woke up, strangely and unusually early, and saw too many missed calls on my phone to justify a mere time change accumulation — from family members, from the university, from my Rabbi, from my friends. I called my sister instantly and she said to me — “Ryan, dad has hung himself”. It was both the heaviest and lightest sentence I have ever heard. Heavy for the obvious. Light for the surrealness. The sky was misty and white, through the looking glass of my dormitory window (pictured below). The courtyard was quiet, filled with only the many bikes parked whilst their occupants were sleeping and dreaming. I woke to a reality that shattered any conception of certainty and safety I may have previously held.
A few hours later, in a fog that breathed both paralysis, numbness and a thick vicious feeling of dread and anxiety, I boarded a plane. Flying home, although still in shock I remember thinking that my father and I were both moving through the clouds — he vertically on his ascent to heaven, and me horizontally from Spring in Copenhagen to Autumn in Sydney. Yet whilst we were on concurrent journeys, we were travelling to different destinations. When I was in the air and above the clouds, I was looking for his soul.
At that time I couldn’t appreciate the finality of what it meant to bury my father, or his passing. Sometimes I still can’t. I remember smaller details that buffer and distort the pain — such as the variation in the times the sun set — from my new norm of 10pm in Copenhagen in Spring, to a old-new 5:30pm in Sydney in Autumn. My mind attaches itself to details of the light in the sky, the shapes of clouds and the nature of the earth because at the rawest period, this became an instinctive way of being and moving through the motions of such an emotionally overpowering time. I remember the morning of the funeral going to the Mona Vale beach and swimming, returning my body to the ocean. I didn’t notice the temperature, my head was in a faraway place of all the memories we shared together, frequenting that beach when I was younger. The light played on the waves rolling in. Ebb and flow. Rise and fall.
Sadly my dad’s story is part of a larger and all too common anthem. According to Lifeline deaths by suicide in Australia occur among males at a rate three times greater than that for females. If you see me sporting a moustache in November — it’s to raise awareness and funds for men’s mental health.
Why am I writing this? To unveil the stigma of mental health. The World Health Organization states that 800,000 die by suicide a year, and this number is tragically climbing. In Australia, there are 8 deaths by suicide a day, and for every death it is estimated there are as many as 30 attempts. Every statistic represents not only a life, but an entire community who has suffered and mourned their loss. Holding this tenderly and with a measured maturity, we need to bring these stories into a more common dialogue. With approximately 65,300 attempts in Australia each year, it’s a heart wrenching manifestation of a larger mental health epidemic we experience in this contemporary moment. Suicide is in many ways the most terminal outcome of deterioration by mental health.
I am not angry at my father for what he did, and for this I feel immense relief. What I feel in relation to how my dad passed is immense, immense sadness and grief. Pain about his pain and the worth (or lack their of) he attributed to his life. Thankfully I can separate the condition from him. A mental health condition is much like any other that attacks the body or the mind. The person becomes the host to a disease and like a cancer, it spreads its poison. Yet in cases of mental health, the battlefield and bearer of damage is the mind of the person. It wields the person into its cloak of darkness and blocks out the light until it’s cover is so dense and palpable it is experienced as a reality.
My father is not the first person close to me I have seen fallen to mental health. Mental health affects 1/3 Australians and touches us all, directly or indirectly. We all have our demons. It is merely because he passed in such a public capacity than I feel it is not a betrayal to relay his story. Many others still feel compelled to hide this experience and pull on a face to meet the world every day. It shouldn’t come to this. The conversations should start earlier, and the fear of judgement (whether real or imagined) dissolved sooner.
What I would like this blog post to inspire is the strongest assertion of the worth of life. Every life is sacred. In Judaism we believe that our bodies and souls are sacred and bestowed for this life from G-d. Whilst life is challenging and hard, it is also inspiring and sublime. It is textured like the landscapes of our earth — containing both soft pasturous fields and jarring mountain ranges.
Depression doesn’t discriminate. It has taken too many victims from this world and I would like to take this opportunity to insist how important it is that people fighting this invisible enemy get help. If they are unable to do so themselves, to call upon others who can facilitate access to the right help. My dad was quiet and didn’t make a loud noise about things. I wish he had.
Whilst RUOK is a beautiful sentiment, I hope its chorus resounds in every day. We need to check in with each other and support each other. We need to hold one another’s hand in this thing called life and reassure one another we are not alone. No human is an island. We also need to know our own limits and when to solicit the help of professionals more experienced in the subject matter than us.
The last time I saw my dad was the 13th of January, 2016 at Sydney Airport. The departure terminal, as is the boarding gate, are Cloud Gates in their own right. So to is the passage into heaven, a Cloud Gate. Our journeys through life exist beneath and between these gates.
My dad passed away in St Ives show ground. Initially, for me it was a piece of earth tainted with the darkness of his engineered departure and I would sink every time we drove past it. Yet in a poetic and romantic sense, this too is perhaps another Cloud Gate. In April 2017, St Ives showground was the site of Sydney Colour Festival (pictured below). My sisters and I thought we could perhaps go there together and use the event as an opportunity to create new memories and meanings of our relationship with, and feelings of this place. In throwing pockets of coloured powder into the sky a few metres adjacent to my where my dad took his last breath on this planet, we literally, metaphorically and emotionally layered bright colours upon the dark tones that had stained the canvas of this site.
We can take the worst things that have ever happened to us and find something in them that gives more meaning and depth to our own experience of life. I don’t want to postulate overused clichés about finding a silver thread in every cloud, because when you are mired in the midst of something it is sometimes impossible to consider anything beyond.
With everything, I look at the natural world and regard seasons, cycles and waves as metaphors for the rise and fall, and the ebb and flow that we experience in our own emotional movement through life.
In reflection, I reflect that everything that happens to us bestows texture to our tales, and because of darkness we appreciate the light. It is only in the black of night that the stars have a space to shine. In the glory of the sun, they are hidden. This is in science, this is in nature, and this is in us.
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If you or someone you know are experiencing a personal crisis, please reach out. You are never alone, you are always worthy to experience another day and witness a new sunrise.
Support services:
For Life threatening emergencies (Ambulance / Police): 000
Lifeline: 13 11 14. https://www.lifeline.org.au
Beyond blue: 1300 22 4636. https://www.beyondblue.org.au
