INABILITY TO REFLECT.

CW: Suicide.

Many a time when a person dies of a drug overdose or suicide by some other means, people around them say, "Oh, but s/he seemed so happy when I last saw her/him last time." "When was "last time"?" Answers vary from yesterday to last week. People who know the warning signs of suicide, such as noticing a person was struggling but they suddenly seemed happy (along with this, they may notice a valued possession is missing) know that this is the time to worry because at this point the person has already made the decision to commit suicide. But what about where it might not have been so obvious? A famous former footballer, fourteen years ago, died as a result of an accidental drug overdose, and one of his mates said that he seemed as though he wanted to talk about something but he had brushed him off and felt a sense of guilt.

Those who have read my story, "When Family Just Doesn't Understand," will have seen that for just over six months I wasn't in contact with my family (this was eleven years ago) but what upsets me the most about it is that my mother has no real capacity for insight, unlike my father, who now concedes that I had plenty of incidences of pain in my life and he wished he had have done more.

At the age of 30, I began the step of addressing my mental health concerns, many of which stemmed from schoolyard abuse. My father let my mother know that I had troubles driving past my old high school because of memories of abuse, and he, at first thought I was doing it to myself. Okay, the fact that the school has physically changed its appearance since I was last there (the buildings were painted an off-green but they're now painted blue (some may have been to cover over old graffiti) and there are now some electronic signs out the front of the school, signifying "Gate One, Gate Two," and what have you, as well as some new buildings, has made it a bit easier, but my mother has not even tried to look back and think, "Maybe I should have supported him better when he was having these issues. Maybe, just like an episode of Australian Story he watched, talking to a few people he went to school with (no, not the bullies) might help him put some of it into perspective."

I remember an episode of Australian Story where the son of a Vietnam Veteran talked about how his mother came and got him one night because she woke up to find his father sitting up in bed, tearing the bedsheets with his teeth, because he was having a nightmare about an incident from the war. The family were able to locate the men who featured in his nightmare, and when the veteran knew that his mates were okay, he was less traumatised. It's easy to say, I mean, if I had met up with the guy who had wanted to be a vet but changed his mind after work experience, I might have been able to face it earlier. If I had then adopted an abused animal and helped restore its trust in human beings, I might have been able to face it earlier. If I had known that some of the guys I went to school with hadn't had lives that were all about toughness, it might have been easier. I have reconnected with a girl I went to school with, and she has two adult sons, one of whom had a brain tumour when he was nine and has had ongoing health issues. Now, I would not wish a brain tumour on my worst enemy, but I do find that some people who may have been readers of Dolly Magazine at school or members of the football team have become deeper and more sensitive people as a result of these experiences with their children. I was gobsmacked when I saw a guy who I went to school with who posted on Facebook to tell your kids regularly that you love them and I thought, that's fine, but did he ever sit down and think, "Should I also tell my kids what a pig I was to have driven a kid in my year to have suicide ideation? And should I also tell them that I would hate for them to follow in my footsteps in that regard?"

My mother is someone who lacks the capacity for self-reflection and who has never thought, "Well, could I have done it better?" The only thing that she has shown any capacity with this is, when I was a small baby, a thunderstorm was brewing and she had a clothesline full of my nappies, so she hurried out to retrieve them, and the next door neighbour had a toddler and she also had a clothesline full of nappies (bearing in mind, this was the 1970s, and in Australia, it was a bit like Ramsay Street in real life) and she hurried around to bring hers in, too and left them in a basket under the back awning, and while she was taking them down, claps of thunder began and I had been asleep but the thunder woke me up so I was screaming by the time she got back home!

My mother was able to provide my physical needs, like food, clothing and shelter, but regarding my emotional needs, she was hopeless.

A meme I saw the other day describes PTSD perfectly. It's not that the person won't leave the incident, it's that the incident won't leave the person. If you don't (or don't want to) understand this, then you will never understand PTSD.