Darcy: We acknowledge the lives lost to suicide and recognise those who have survived suicide attempts. And those who struggle today or in the past with thoughts of suicide, mental health issues and crisis situations. We acknowledge all those who have felt the deep impact of suicide, including those who love care and support people experiencing suicidality and those experiencing the pain and bereavement through suicide. We respect collaboration with people who have a lived or living experience of suicide and mental health issues and value their contribution to the work we do.
Grace: Strict my dad and he said, If you can't look after other people, if you're not looking after yourself, I feel selfish when I look after myself, but I went no, I'm not just looking after myself. I'm looking after other people by looking after myself.
Darcy: Welcome to holding on to hope, the series that shares the stories of everyday Australians that have experienced moments in crisis and found a path to support whilst all of the stories shared of hope and inspiration. At times, you may hear something you find triggering, if you or someone you know needs crisis support, please phone Lifeline on 13 11 14 Text 0477 1311 14 or visit lifeline.org.au for Lifeline chat service, which is 24/7.
Ruben: Welcome to holding on to hope. On today's episode we are joined by grace. Grace, his journey marked by the challenges of mental health began with suicidal thoughts that emerged in childhood. diagnosed with depression and anxiety during her teenage years. Grace's journey has been a testament to perseverance in the face of adversity. Beyond her own struggles. Grace navigates life as a queer woman living with polycystic ovarian syndrome, emphasising the importance of mental health intersectionality. Her advocacy extends to the critical understanding that mental health is multifaceted and interconnected with various aspects of one's life. currently pursuing a master of suicide ology her aim is clear to pioneer lived experience that research that revolutionises the quality of care individuals receive in the midst of a suicide crisis. Join us as we delve into Grace's remarkable journey, her advocacy and her unwavering commitment to creating a world where hope triumphs over despair. Her story is not just one of survival, but of resilience, empowerment, and the unwavering belief in a brighter tomorrow. Hi, Grace. Thanks so much for joining me today. I'd like to invite you to share whatever you're comfortable in doing so about your childhood.
Grace: Yeah, I had a pretty happy childhood most respects, it was tough at times, both my parents were in the army, which was a really interesting upbringing. My dad was posted overseas for most of my early childhood. So it was just me mom and my grandma. It was a rough experience at times, you know, having parents in the army. It's a very hard lifestyle. One of the reasons I became interested in mental health was because I saw how much my parents went through how stressful and difficult the lifestyle was, how hard it was having a partner overseas all the time, and everything to myself, I wish I could make mum and dad happy. I wish I could do something to you know, look after them. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to work in mental health. I wanted to be some sort of doctor but I had anything to do with blood. But I was a good listener. One of those really formative childhood memories for me. My parents split when I was six, which despite you know what most people say I actually was quite happy they split up. Didn't bother me at all. A lot of people go on unless we really had to wait. No, it was fine. I had two Christmases, it was great. I have a really wonderful family really wonderful stepfather, Dad Mom. So I was really quite privileged in a lot of buys went to a great school, I had trouble at school, I was developmentally delayed. So I had trouble with reading, writing, speaking had speech therapy for a number of years. I had peer tutoring a number of years to catch up, but my brain just could not click numeracy, literacy. Whenever I did. NAPLAN I was always in those lower spans just could not latch on to anything which really hit my self esteem because of those things I got bullied quite badly in primary school just didn't seem able to fit in. And I think those some of the things that later in life fed into my mental ill health.
Ruben: Before you reached out for help and support what was life like for you?
Grace: I live with suicidal thoughts for a number of years since I was eight years old. So a very pivotal moment. For me. I very vividly remember that first time, having that conscious thought. And for a long time. I didn't know I was allowed to reach out for help. It was coming from a rural military background, I felt that there must be something inherently wrong with me and therefore I should just power through it. And the years went on. And as my physical health declined, my mental health did and I realised I can't keep up going on this way. I went I'm only 14. I'm a baby only 14 and I already don't feel like I can get through the next year. And my parents keep telling me that the real world is even harder. So if that's the case, I've got to do something now I've got to change some thing. I think a really big factor for me was that my dad reached out for mental health support. He'd struggled silently for a number of years, and seeing him be open about being hospitalised about starting to, you know, get the support he deserved. Having some really open conversations with him about mental health because we experienced depression, anxiety very similarly, that was a big influencing factor for me, my mom being open about some of her dark times during her life about times when she'd reached out for help. Hearing the two strongest people I know, I admire my parents greatly. They've always been my heroes. As cheesy as that is hearing them say, we've reached out for help. We've reached out for support. I went, Well, maybe that's what I should do as well. You know, I went to the doctor under the guise of my chronic pain. And as we were talking about my pain, I said to my doctor, I really don't want to be here. I'm thinking about death. And that was really hard. It was actually not my regular GP, it was someone I'd never seen before. But I thought, What the hell? Why not give it a go? You know, I might never see this doctor again. Anyway. So if they don't respond in a great way, whatever. And that was the start of my journey. She listened to me, she took me seriously. She referred me to a psychologist. I've had times where I've had doctors infantile me and you know, say, Well, should we hospitalised you and stuff like that. But the best experience was just them saying, Well, what do you need? What do you want? That year was the start of my journey?
Ruben: What was the pivotal moment that motivated you to take that critical first step in advocating for mental health despite facing adversity.
Grace: It wasn't a conscious first step. It just kind of happened. My parents who I admire greatly, really instilled in me the importance of having integrity and the importance of doing the right thing, even when it's hard. I faced some real difficult times in high school, I experienced a lot of homophobia and ableism. I was told that because I lived with anxiety and depression, I wasn't allowed to be a school captain, I wasn't allowed to hold leadership positions to school believed I couldn't handle those sorts of things. Growing up with a father who lives with anxiety, depression and PTSD. He was quite high up in the army. And I knew that anyone could be a leader regardless of their mental health. And so that was sort of my first step in advocacy. I very publicly advocated against those decisions. And this is wrong. There were other students who were also told that they were not allowed to have leadership positions, because the school knew of them had mental health difficulties. And I want all that simply not correct. It's not correct that we prevented people from achieving their goals, from pushing their selves outside of their comfort zone to become who they want to be. It's not right that we are not supporting students who experience homophobia and ableism in this environment, and I got in quite a bit of trouble for that I got suspended. My first step into advocacy, quite an unusual step. But I remember thinking, Oh, my parents are going to kill me. I've never even had a detention at school, I had quite severe anxiety. So I was very much seen and not heard. I didn't want to get in trouble. But my parents came, and they both told me how proud of me they were. And I went, Oh, I've done the right thing. I've acted with integrity. When I went to uni, I was sorry, to my site. There's my first year of university and he said, Grace, you're doing really well. Would you like to join our reference group for the clinic to give us advice on what's happening and what we can do better to help organise community events. And that was my first step into a formal organised advocacy, which was just really special for me that I'd been at this psychological clinic since I was 14, I was 17. And my first year of my psychology degree, will be given the opportunity to actually have a say in how young people get support was really special. Those are the first formal informal steps into advocacy.
Ruben: When you were dealing with being faced in being put into a leadership position that you were finding there was the pushback from the school and off the basis of mental health. Was that happening at a primary school level, like up until the ages of 12 or 13, or was at a high school?
Grace: So this was in high school, I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression when I was 14, I'd experienced the symptoms from perhaps when I was probably seven or eight that I can remember. But yeah, when I was 14, I was really struggling. I've been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome the same year it was a lot for a 14 year old to be told you're going to live with chronic pain for the rest of your life. You might not be able to have children it was quite confronting for me at that age. To be told you might not get to achieve the things you want to achieve because you always live in pain really sought to be quite honest. It really it was really a lot to deal with. As I've struggled to manage my physical health my mental health became more difficult to manage as well and I just reached your breaking point reached out to get support I got diagnosed and I thought well, I will tell my school so I can get the academic support I need I did quite well in high school I got the academic support I needed to start achieving at the same level as my peers finally, but with my mental health declining my academic performance decline and when I know I can do well, I just need a bit of extra support. I need flexible assessment dates for when you know I'm really struggling I need to do my exams private laid out with my anxiety. So I told my high school incompetence, because I believed I would get the support I needed because I knew I could achieve equalling my peace if I had that support. And so it really hurt when that was then used against me, it was used in a very paternalistic and enticing way of, we're trying to take care of you. We don't believe you can do this, and when or why you have no evidence to say I can't because up until that point, I'd done all these other leadership positions in primary school and high school and I'd done volunteering, there was no evidence to say that I couldn't manage it. And I knew from looking at my parents and the other adults in my life who lived with mental health difficulties. They had managed those things while in these very important leadership positions in the army and in the business world and everything. So I went well, I don't believe that's true. Yeah, it was really quite disheartening at the time, but it led me to what I do now. So I'm grateful for it in a weird way.
Darcy: We hope you're enjoying this episode, lifelines new support toolkit makes it easier to care for family, friends and loved ones, and look after yourself along the way, visit us @ toolkit.lifeline.org.au. Now, back to the episode.
Ruben: How do you sustain your commitment to mental health advocacy and suicide prevention admits the challenges and complexities you face personally and academically.
Grace: It's hard, it's not easy, but nothing worth doing is easy. I think looking after yourself isn't easy. It is a constant challenge and a struggle. It's doing the hard things when I really don't want to do them. Living with anxiety and depression. I know things are getting bad when I start to withdraw. I'm a very social person, which people are quite surprised by I dislike the anxiety. I really love being around people. I love meeting people. But when I start to struggle with things, when I start to feel overwhelmed, I draw in on myself. And so I have to put my foot down and force myself to get out there and pull myself out of my comfort zone because I know it's good for me. Because I know, although I might feel uncomfortable. When I first get to an event when I first start hanging out with people, it will fill my cup, it will remind me of why I do what I do. I've got really amazing friends who have supported me through thick and thin. They've seen me at my best and my worst. And I love catching up with them as regularly as I can just to have events to have a chat about things to get an outside perspective. I'm really lucky in that respect. I hate going to the gym. I hate it. I'm not a sports person. I wish I was built that way. My mother is so athletic. And I wish I was built like that. Do not enjoy sport. But I know it's good for me. I know that when I'm feeling stressed. When I'm feeling angry when I'm feeling anxious. going for a run does help as much as I hate to admit it. I hate to tell my psychologist he's correct. But he is is doing those hard things that I know a good for me it's having consistency is having a schedule. If I don't have a schedule, I will sleep in bed all day, I won't get up. It's terrible. So I try to have a very, not a strict schedule. But I try to book at least one thing in every day, one reason to get out of bed, even if it's just Well, I'm having lunch today and I know it's gonna take an hour to get to the CD. So I've got to get up early in the morning. I'm gonna go to the gym. And then because I'm so hyped up on adrenaline from the gym, I can actually go out and get my groceries now. I'm feeling good. It's just having a schedule. It's having something booked in and a reason to get out of bed routine so important. It's the unsexy side of depression and anxiety that we don't talk about a lot that when you're in that really low space, you forget to shower, you forget to brush your teeth. days sometimes blow together and you go oh, crap. It's Monday, wasn't it? Just Tuesday last week, it's the uncomfortable part of depression that a lot of people don't realise. And so that's why for me it having something booked in where I need to go out is a motivator. Because no matter you know, if I'm at home, I have no reason to do those things. But I had strict military parents who raised me on the importance of you need to look nice and presentable when you go out. So even if I'm just going to the shops, I put on a little bit of makeup and it makes me feel good. And I have a shower and I brush my teeth, and I put on something nice and then I go I'm not feeling 100% But I'm feeling better than I was I feel like I can actually start tackling some of those bigger goals now.
Ruben: Gosh, we could talk about good routines for days couldn't be grace. Pursuing a master for Suicidology to revolutionise the quality of care for individuals facing suicide crises is commendable. How do you envision your lived experience led research in making a tangible difference in improving mental health care?
Grace: I have a lot of dreams and I'm hoping they'll become reality. For me as a student. It's really interesting reading research where there has been no lived experience representation in it's just purely academic was a no consideration for how things play out practically. There's been a lot of research where I've gone this really great, but there's a lot you're missing. If you talk to one person with lived experience, just one you would unlock so many other things to explore. I'm preparing to do my thesis this year. And I had a you know, I pick my topic looking at consent when were hospitalised and I realised there's no research on it. And that was really shocking for me as someone of my experience as someone who has, you know, been lucky to be part of the lived experience community and meet lots of different people and hear their stories, it was a really consistent story of your consent when it comes to asking people, can we contact your family and let them know who's cared you want to be released into after you're released from hospital? You know, what next steps do we take? You want us to contact the community facility, etc. Consent often isn't asked for and it's also can we give consent in those situations? Can you give consent when you're experiencing that trauma, I was really quite shocked that not only when it comes to suicide, but also other traumatic injuries, that there's a real lack of research on that. And for me, it's a personal lived experience that's really important that when I've had a traumatic event happen that a doctor understands, there are certain things we have to do right now for your well being. But there are certain things that aren't immediately necessary. And so let's put off on asking you about them until you're have the right mind to actually have a conversation about these things. I want people have lived experience to have a say in every part of their care as much as possible. And that's not going to happen until we have people with lived experience, not only Advising on Research, as I've had the privilege to do, but also actually conducting that research themselves. Because it's a completely different perspective. And also what we say a little bit Excuse me, but that's so broad was one of the things I love about being part of the suicide lived experience community is that everyone's experience is completely unique. I was quite young, when I started, I think I was 19 or 20. When I started my degree, and I had a very close minded Well, my experience is the only experience it has to look like this. And obviously that was wrong. Because I got to meet people, I went, Oh, I had a really great experience with using a particular service, and another person didn't. And that's okay, because we're individuals with different life experiences and different backgrounds and different triggers. And so it's natural that certain things are going to help me but not help someone else. I just Yeah, I want everything to be guided by lived experience, because that's the only way we're truly going to help people. It's doing those little things in the long term that allows me to support other people.
Ruben: Looking ahead, what the specific challenges or improvements do you hope to see in the landscape of mental health support? And how do you believe your advocacy will contribute to these changes?
Grace: We've had a lot of royal commissions in the past few years looking to people with disabilities, veteran suicides, and I think we are going to see really interesting change in the landscape over the next couple of years, a lot of challenges to the way we've traditionally done health care, that have traditionally looked after people. I think one of the big things is the internalisation of governments and NGOs, believing that we know what's best for you, and we're going to tell you what's best for you. We're starting to see more organisations that people lived experience on their boards, not just a lived experience advisory group that ticks the box, but a lived experience advisory group that truly has power within an organisation that truly challenges the status quo. For me coming from studying psychology into specialising in suicide prevention. Psychology, like a lot of medicine is based on a lot of hierarchies that the doctor knows best. And we're starting to see that challenge of let people with lived experience, have a say in their care, listen to them, educate them on their options, and allow them to choose. I think it's gonna be really interesting challenge for mental health industry as a whole. As well as you know, the broader health industry. As consumers, we are seeing consumers, you know, advice on more projects have a greater say on what's happening in the healthcare landscape. My advocacy at the moment, I just helped develop a new course, where I got to advise on a psychology course on how they talk about suicide on how they include lived experience, I got to record some videos for the course, rather than just a psychologist saying, This is what suicide looks like, we now have a personal lived experience saying, This is what my suicide looked like. But it looks different for everyone. And that's really special to me. So I think it's going to be challenging and confronting for a lot of people that we're starting to challenge that status quo of power hierarchies. But I think as we do that, we'll see greater improvements to mental health care. So fingers crossed, I really hope we will start having meaningful conversation about mental health. I feel like the past five to 10 years has been a focus on letting people know that mental health exists and that it's okay to talk about and that's really important. But I feel like we need to take the next step and say, here's how you have a conversation. Here's how not necessarily how you identify it. But here's some things to look out for that a mate might be having a rough time that it's okay to talk about. If they don't want to talk about it. Let them know that your shoulder that's there in the long term. People have a really, I think antiquated view of stigma. That's when someone says something nasty. They say a slur they say something cruel, but stigma can be little things being told we don't want to promote you. We don't want to put you in a leadership position. Because even though we know you can technically do it, we're worried about your well being. It's those little things that can be stigma. I think that's something we really need to start talking about your friends location and infantilizing people who experience mental It'll help. How do we make people feel safe in the workplace to disclose without worrying about their job security. One of my big hopes as well as someone who wanted for a long time to be a psychologist is changing stigma within the health industry. I've had the privilege to work with so many people who have a lived experience but a scared of disclose it because they're scared of losing their licence or being fired, or having their expertise questioned. And so for me, if we're going to create a society where people feel open to talk about their well being, we need to create a health industry, where practitioners feel safe to talk about their well being. Because for me, as someone who has worked on your hiring panels for psychics, I'm more likely to trust a psychic who is in touch with their feelings, and has acknowledged their own challenges and is able to put their hand up and say, I think I need to step back for a bit. I'm having some challenges on my own.
Ruben: As someone who doesn't do that, what message of hope or encouragement, would you share with individuals facing some of their darkest days.
Grace: It can be hard sometimes to believe and encouragement and you're feeling that way. But you are worth it. You are worthy and deserving of support. No matter what you feel, no matter what you've been through. You deserve love and support. There are people out there who genuinely care about you and want to listen, I think in those dark days, I used to remind myself things can only get better. In those lowest moments. Things can only get better from here. It can be hard sometimes to find the right person to talk to, to find the right doctor, the right psychologist, but it's always worth it. You're always capable of more than you realise.
Ruben: Thank you so much guys for sharing your story and being part of the holding on to hope podcast. I really appreciate it and look forward to seeing what's in store for you next.
Darcy: Thanks for listening to holding on to hope the podcast. Lifeline is grateful to all holding on to hope participants for choosing to share their personal lived experiences openly and courageously. In order to offer hope and inspiration to others. Your act of kindness makes for a better world. And remember, you don't have to struggle, visit toolkit.lifeline.org.au today.