Transcript

[0.00 – 5.98] Fantastic.
[5.98 – 6.98] Fantastic.
[6.98 – 8.58] Hi Christina, very nice to meet you.
[8.58 – 10.94] Hi, so nice to meet you.
[10.94 – 11.94] Nice to meet you.
[11.94 – 13.42] So, Marker and Erica.
[13.42 – 14.42] And Erica.
[14.42 – 15.42] Erica.
[15.42 – 18.22] So, where are you based?
[18.22 – 22.72] I’m based in Melbourne in Australia.
[22.72 – 24.26] Wow, Holborn.
[24.26 – 25.26] Okay.
[25.26 – 26.26] And?
[26.26 – 27.26] Melbourne.
[27.26 – 28.26] Melbourne.
[28.26 – 30.26] Melbourne in Victoria.
[30.26 – 31.26] So, Melbourne.
[31.26 – 32.26] Melbourne in Victoria.
[32.26 – 34.26] So, we’re on the bottom of Australia.
[34.26 – 35.26] Yes.
[35.26 – 36.26] So, just before it has been…
[36.26 – 37.26] Beautiful.
[37.26 – 38.26] Beautiful.
[38.26 – 39.26] Okay, nice.
[39.26 – 40.26] It’s gorgeous.
[40.26 – 41.26] Just a second.
[41.26 – 42.26] Let me do that.
[42.26 – 45.26] What do you…
[45.26 – 47.26] Once I could just…
[47.26 – 48.26] Make a set up.
[48.26 – 51.26] Yes, just a set up.
[51.26 – 53.26] Oh, so, just a set up.
[53.26 – 54.26] Oh.
[54.26 – 55.26] What is it?
[55.26 – 58.26] Oh, 16 up 19 minutes.
[58.26 – 60.26] It’s not a giveaway though.
[60.26 – 61.26] Just a second.
[61.26 – 63.26] Okay, that one’s…
[63.26 – 64.26] You can even…
[64.26 – 65.26] You can even…
[65.26 – 66.26] Yeah.
[66.26 – 67.26] Perfect.
[67.26 – 68.26] You can even…
[68.26 – 69.26] Yeah.
[69.26 – 70.26] Perfect.
[70.26 – 71.26] You can even…
[71.26 – 72.26] You can even…
[72.26 – 73.26] Yeah.
[73.26 – 74.26] Perfect.
[74.26 – 75.26] You can even…
[75.26 – 76.26] You can even…
[76.26 – 77.26] Yeah.
[77.26 – 78.26] Perfect.
[78.26 – 79.26] You can even…
[79.26 – 80.26] Perfect.
[80.26 – 81.26] You can even better.
[81.26 – 82.26] Yeah.
[82.26 – 83.26] Okay, fantastic.
[83.26 – 85.26] And I see you’re in Melbourne and…
[85.26 – 86.26] Kristina.
[86.26 – 87.26] You’re Kristina.
[87.26 – 88.26] Sorry, Kristina.
[88.26 – 89.26] So, Kristina.
[89.26 – 90.26] Okay.
[90.26 – 91.26] What kind of presenter am I?
[91.26 – 93.26] Sorry, it’s very early.
[93.26 – 94.26] It’s not even early morning.
[94.26 – 95.26] It’s like 11 here.
[95.26 – 96.26] We’re in London.
[96.26 – 97.26] Yeah.
[97.26 – 99.26] Have you ever been in London?
[99.26 – 101.26] Yes, I have.
[101.26 – 106.26] Approximately 25 years ago, I think it was.
[106.26 – 109.26] I came and did a contiki tour.
[109.26 – 115.26] I met my cousin in Scotland and did an overland tour down there.
[115.26 – 122.26] I spent a couple of months touring Europe and having a look in and staying in London as well.
[122.26 – 123.26] All by myself.
[123.26 – 126.26] Do you ever scotty Sherry Touch then?
[126.26 – 128.26] As you mentioned, a cousin in Oyster.
[128.26 – 130.26] No, she was just staying.
[130.26 – 138.26] She just moved over to Scotland and then she got a job and she lived there for a couple of years before we got to Australia.
[138.26 – 143.26] You said you were in trouble all by yourself, right?
[143.26 – 144.26] Back then.
[144.26 – 145.26] Yes.
[145.26 – 146.26] Why?
[146.26 – 147.26] Why were you just by yourself?
[147.26 – 148.26] Did you have someone?
[148.26 – 150.26] Another partner, you said, you know what?
[150.26 – 152.26] You’re not going to like this trip.
[152.26 – 158.26] Now, I had a partner over time and he wanted to meet me in Nepal.
[158.26 – 162.26] I was doing an overland trip from Walter to Bet with him.
[162.26 – 167.26] And I thought, well, if I’m going to go that far, why don’t I go and do the trip
[167.26 – 170.26] and see my girlfriend and I had a girlfriend in England?
[170.26 – 174.26] I might just pop over there first, so I did that trip.
[174.26 – 182.26] But when I got to England, I stayed at one of those hostels and they had a notice board.
[182.26 – 185.26] One day on the notice board, there’s a note for me, I might say, that’s a bit odd.
[185.26 – 187.26] There’s a note on there for my name on it.
[187.26 – 192.26] And it was my friend and she had left her notes saying, sorry, I can’t see you.
[192.26 – 195.26] And I travelled from Australia to visit her.
[195.26 – 200.26] Oh my gosh. She was unavailable and I went around.
[200.26 – 203.26] I need to be more of notice.
[203.26 – 206.26] Yeah, I need to be nice.
[206.26 – 209.26] And so what was the excuse?
[209.26 – 210.26] What did she say?
[210.26 – 212.26] What did she leave there?
[212.26 – 213.26] She was busy.
[213.26 – 215.26] Oh, just she was busy.
[215.26 – 219.26] She called the board there to give an explanation.
[219.26 – 224.26] But, you know, I’ve made lots of more friends since then and I haven’t seen her.
[224.26 – 227.26] Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.
[227.26 – 232.26] I mean, you know, sometimes you never know.
[232.26 – 235.26] Maybe something terrible might have happened.
[235.26 – 237.26] Yeah, it’s true.
[237.26 – 238.26] Yeah, it’s true.
[238.26 – 243.26] But, you know, we were talking about the reason why you’re here with us today, right?
[243.26 – 249.26] We were talking about how power into the has changed your life.
[249.26 – 256.26] Now, I would like to get into the specifics of how your life was before.
[256.26 – 260.26] And then you had one or more children.
[260.26 – 265.26] And then I would like to know, let’s get there.
[265.26 – 272.26] What happened and how did you feel and what was the experience of going through everything?
[272.26 – 274.26] You know, and yeah.
[274.26 – 279.26] So, were you originally from Australia?
[279.26 – 282.26] No, originally from New Zealand.
[282.26 – 285.26] So, I was a keywhee girl.
[285.26 – 287.26] So, from where?
[287.26 – 289.26] From New Zealand.
[289.26 – 290.26] New Zealand.
[290.26 – 291.26] Okay, yeah, yeah.
[291.26 – 292.26] Yeah, yeah.
[292.26 – 294.26] So, I was born in London.
[294.26 – 295.26] I mean, for us, it’s the same.
[295.26 – 298.26] We are really splitting hairs here.
[298.26 – 302.26] For Australians and Kiwis, it’s very far from London.
[302.26 – 303.26] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[303.26 – 304.26] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[304.26 – 305.26] Very different.
[305.26 – 309.26] But I immigrated to Australia in 1979.
[309.26 – 310.26] Okay.
[310.26 – 315.26] But I came over a few years earlier and went back and I had a transition backwards and forwards.
[315.26 – 323.26] So, becoming a parent for me was probably an unusual situation than most in that I was very young at the time.
[323.26 – 327.26] So, I got pregnant when I was 15.
[327.26 – 328.26] Okay.
[328.26 – 333.26] I was 16 and I was divorced by the age of 18.
[333.26 – 336.26] I was a little bit of an domestic violence.
[336.26 – 340.26] So, and in between all of that, I had a child.
[340.26 – 341.26] Oh my gosh.
[341.26 – 342.26] Oh my gosh.
[342.26 – 344.26] It’s sort of a Gilmour Gurs.
[344.26 – 347.26] I think it was your son, a girl or a man.
[347.26 – 348.26] It was a boy.
[348.26 – 349.26] It was a boy, yeah.
[349.26 – 351.26] His name was Ashley.
[351.26 – 353.26] Well, his name is still Ashley.
[353.26 – 354.26] That’s still here.
[354.26 – 358.26] So, he’s now 45 years of age.
[358.26 – 360.26] So, he’s a grown man.
[360.26 – 366.26] And I’m not a grown man, but my age roughly.
[366.26 – 367.26] I’m not a grown man.
[367.26 – 369.26] We get into that later, yeah.
[369.26 – 372.26] Maybe that’s, yeah, yeah.
[372.26 – 378.26] So, things were really different for us because I was a single mother.
[378.26 – 381.26] So, I basically brought my son up on my own.
[381.26 – 387.26] But what I didn’t know about is that when he became a teenager
[387.26 – 393.26] and as he was getting into puberty, he had an undiagnosed mental illness.
[393.26 – 399.26] And that has pivoted and changed our entire life from the word God.
[399.26 – 405.26] Because we spent many, many years not understanding what mental illness was.
[405.26 – 411.26] And then many years navigating through the Australian mental health system.
[411.26 – 418.26] And now coming out on the other side of that, I’ve actually written a book called to care.
[418.26 – 424.26] I’ve never wanted to know about mental illness and caring for someone who suffers.
[424.26 – 427.26] And it’s soon to be released.
[427.26 – 430.26] I’m just trying to raise the money to put it all together.
[430.26 – 434.26] Because when you’re an unpaid career, you live off a pension.
[434.26 – 435.26] Of course, yes, you do.
[435.26 – 437.26] You don’t have superannuation.
[437.26 – 442.26] You’re going from paycheck to paycheck and it’s very difficult, especially in the same age.
[442.26 – 445.26] So, what kind of mental illness did they have?
[445.26 – 447.26] What kind of disorder?
[447.26 – 450.26] So, in the end, it took a long time to get diagnosed.
[450.26 – 454.26] But his final diagnosis was treatment, resistant paranoysic schizophrenia.
[454.26 – 462.26] The dual diagnosis of alcohol addiction and drug addiction,
[462.26 – 468.26] which he used to cope with it, also had clinical depression and severe social anxiety.
[468.26 – 472.26] Over here, we call it the mother load of mental illnesses.
[472.26 – 474.26] That would do it.
[474.26 – 478.26] Alcoholism and that would generate something like that.
[478.26 – 480.26] How did you…
[480.26 – 484.26] I mean, this must have been caused by something.
[484.26 – 485.26] Maybe I don’t know.
[485.26 – 487.26] Maybe a situation that was in the house.
[487.26 – 490.26] Or maybe…
[490.26 – 492.26] Do you think that…
[492.26 – 495.26] Did you realize that this schizophrenia was…
[495.26 – 501.26] Came from just a mental disorder, like something genetic?
[501.26 – 505.26] Well, it could have been genetic.
[505.26 – 508.26] But we don’t forget that his father was very violent.
[508.26 – 514.26] So, I took my son away from that relationship with his father by the age of two.
[515.26 – 521.26] So, for two years of his birth from birth to two, he was in a violent situation
[521.26 – 523.26] where I would regularly get vision.
[523.26 – 527.26] So, that could have caused his mental illness.
[527.26 – 532.26] But the other thing about mental illness is quite often when they’re hearing voices
[532.26 – 536.26] and they’re not understanding what’s going on in their mind.
[536.26 – 539.26] Their mind is overreactive.
[539.26 – 545.26] They tend to take drugs in order to quieten the noise inside of their heads.
[545.26 – 548.26] So, this is where dual diagnosis comes in.
[548.26 – 554.26] So, they’re calling Ashley’s diagnosis came on because of taking drugs.
[554.26 – 557.26] And that’s their saying that’s what the cause was.
[557.26 – 559.26] I don’t believe that.
[559.26 – 562.26] I believe he had a mental illness before he was diagnosed.
[562.26 – 564.26] And that’s why he was taking the drugs.
[564.26 – 567.26] So, again, we’re splitting hairs with the doctors as to…
[567.26 – 569.26] Did the chicken come first or the egg?