by Barry Heard
The doctor removed his glasses and looked at me cautiously.
‘You should have been prepared, ya fuck’n idiot!’ I screamed, out of control.
Well, that did it. I had his attention now. He went pale, stood up, and started to speak.
‘And what a place to leave those fuck’n swords! Are you a complete dickhead?’
The psychiatrist frowned, and quietly ushered me outside to my wife. I’d been in the room all of five minutes. Briefly, he took my wife to one side. I didn’t think they were talking about the weather.
Back in the safety of our car, I took a powerful pink pill and slept all the way home. The report the psychiatrist wrote detailing my problems looked like a shopping list for a family of six. More importantly, the report said that I couldn’t work. This was another major turning-point in my life. I understood, but coming to terms with it was shattering, demeaning, and very hard to accept.
Depressed, I started numerous projects at home, most of which I abandoned unfinished. I would have ten ‘jobs’ going at once. For someone who claimed to have organisational skills, I had half-started tasks everywhere around our house. I would write a list and plan a diary, then occupy myself avoiding the list and trying to find the diary. Then I’d create yet another list.
I started to drive a car again. It was scary, particularly for my passengers. I restricted my driving to around home and the local area, and continued to see my local psychiatrist. He gently led me across difficult day-to-day problems. I hadn’t even really started to address the major Vietnam problems.
One night, about two years after my breakdown, I was asleep in bed in the early morning when a pain shot up my left arm. My left hand throbbed.
‘What was that?’ asked my wife, switching on the light.
‘I just hit the bedside table,’ I answered, confused.
‘You OK?’
‘Yep.’
She went back to sleep. I gingerly felt my left hand. The index finger was at a peculiar angle. I knew it was dislocated — I had done it before, playing sport. Carefully, I pulled the finger. It clunked into a better angle, but the pain was still unbearable. I tapped Lyn’s shoulder.
‘I think I’ve broken my hand.’
‘What? Show me?’
My knuckle was split, and the finger already puffed up. The next morning revealed a split knuckle joint, and the finger I’d assumed I had dislocated was as big as a spring roll, and black.
I tried to remember what had happened.
It was another bad dream. A loud-mouthed fool of a man tried to push me into a crowded room packed with people … at a meeting or something … I just couldn’t do it … I warned him, but he kept pushing. I’d smacked him with a decent left hook to the chin. Well, I’d whacked the corner of the solid bedside table, to be honest.
My psychiatrist was interested, maybe even pleased, when I told him about this. He thought it might indicate a change. He was right. He was a fine physician, that man, and very perceptive. He realised it was the first sign of my darkness and of the rage in my soul screaming for help, trying to stop fools from hurting me any further. It had had enough.
‘Mess with this sad mind and body and I will fight to protect it,’ my soul was saying. I’d never shared my feelings of suppressed rage with my psychiatrist, so he hadn’t been able to analyse them and help me. My soul would have healed a lot quicker, I believe, if I had opened up earlier.
With encouragement, I went up to the family farm, immersing myself in familiar walks, driving the ute and motorbike. Lyn would drive me up, drop me off, and return home — a three-hour trip for her. After several months, I drove my old ute to the farm myself. It wasn’t an easy trip. But it was a quiet, familiar road, winding into mountains I loved. I would drive for half an hour and rest for half an hour.
My first big step into the real world was joining the local golf club, the magnificent Tambo Valley nine-hole course near the farm. I knew most of the golfers — they were blokes I had grown up with. Several had copped my verbal abuse at my welcome home all those years ago. They knew I had been very ill, and they asked me no questions. I was grateful. I wouldn’t have known how to answer them, anyway. They were friendly and caring, which no doubt was a help to my recovery.
The next phase of getting better was more difficult. I had a battery of pills. There were pills I took in times of immediate anxiety, which were strong and calmed me almost immediately; I took them regularly every day and at night to help me sleep. They helped me cope, but this came at a price. Part of the real me was in a perpetual fog, and I had to be very careful not to drive straight after I took them. There were times when I felt like a zombie, not sure what day it was or what I had done the day before. The psychiatrist and my wife both felt it was time to reduce the intake.
Being a reasonably determined person, on the first morning I just refused to take my usual little pink pill. Bad move. By lunchtime, I was wound up and agitated. The next day, instead of taking the tablet when I first got up, I took my anti-depressants instead, and then waited for half an hour to take the pink one. This was my wife’s idea. It was very smart of her, and she kept me on this routine. Each day I added fifteen or thirty minutes to the day before. I loved those pink pills. I craved them. After two weeks, I had gone from three of them a day to two. By the end of the month I was down to one a day. In two months, I was off them. I carried a few in my pocket for emergencies, for episodes of what Lyn called tunnel vision. However, in 2002 I only used five for the entire year.
My anxiety was settling, becoming less erratic and more controllable. So, occasionally, I would loftily decide that I was almost back to semi normal, and would stop taking my anti-depressants. Only on a mild dose, I knew best. Within days, Lyn would be suspicious. I would assure her I was still taking the pills, confident that I would prove to her that I could function without them and that she wouldn’t even notice the difference. Within a week, her gentle enquiries would turn to blunt demands for answers.
‘How long have you been off your pills, Baz?’
The bitch, I would think furiously, how did she know? Maybe it was my mood swings, or the way I yawned all the time, maniacally flying into a new project and then suddenly running out of both interest and energy. Poor Lyn!
Yet, slowly, even if I was frustrating those around me, I was improving.
HEIDELBERG
MY PSYCHIATRIST THOUGHT it was time to consider a program at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne. The course required the veteran to be admitted to the hospital, which had two wards set aside for vets with post-traumatic stress disorder. One ward was for vets with my condition, and the other for vets with added problems such as alcoholism, life-risking behaviour, and so on. You were allowed to return home at weekends, but couldn’t consume alcohol.
The course was based around confronting the emotional stresses that dominated your life and then learning ways to relax, remain calm, and plan your way through difficult situations. A few vets who’d been there told me it had been scary. The hospitalisation part took a month, and then fortnightly counselling sessions were set for the next twelve months. The demands on Lyn would be enormous. She would have to attend a session one day a week with the other wives while we were in hospital, and then drive to Melbourne once a week to follow-up counselling sessions — an eight-hour round trip.
When the course was due to start, I decided, stupidly and stubbornly, that I was perfectly capable of driving to Melbourne by myself in my ute. It was Wednesday. Lyn wasn’t happy, but I confidently set off early. After two hours spent driving and resting, my belly and bowels were at bursting point. I stopped, rushed for a men’s toilet, and locked myself in. I sat there stressing out, feeling all my confidence evaporate. Maybe I could just turn around and head for home. But something propelled me on. Fortunately, I know my way around Melbourne, and locating the hospital was no trouble. I parked the ute as close to ward 17 as possible, in the old part of the hospital. At reception, I was told I had
to go to the main hospital foyer to get admitted. I was handed a map and started walking to another, much more modern section of this large complex. I was starting to hesitate again, and had to give myself a stern talking to before venturing on. The large reception area was daunting, and I suddenly wanted Lyn there to hold my hand. Down the front were a desk and a flashing sign like a supermarket deli, telling me to take a number. That desk looked about three miles away to me. Gingerly, I started to slide along the wall. I stopped beside a large pillar, noticing another bloke standing with his back jammed in the corner. Finally, I made it to the desk.
‘Where’s the toilet?’ I blurted.
The woman pointed, and I ran. It was a close call, but I just made it. I edged my way back to the big room and the woman at the desk.
‘I’m sorry, I am not able to take a number,’ I muttered helplessly. ‘Can you please help? I just want to get to Ward 17.’
This was yet another anonymous person I want to thank. Fifteen minutes later, I was back at ward 17. Yes, I queue jumped. It was an emergency. I was shown a bed and, within five minutes, I was asleep. An hour later, there was a knock on the door, and the bloke I’d noticed jammed against the wall in reception stood there. His name was Big P.
‘There’s a meeting in the dining room, mate,’ he told me.
The hospital at Heidelberg has a nice feel about it. The beds and rooms were set out like very old Second World War-vintage army barracks found at the old 7RAR lines at Puckapunyal. I’d been given a room on my own. Good. I carefully laid out on the bed the quilt that Lyn had made me. The quilt became my security blanket. Then I went to meet the eight other Vietnam veterans in my group. They were suffering from varying stages of PTSD.
We were all nervous and apprehensive. The idea was that we’d spend the first few days and the weekend together, attempt to get to know one another, and then on the Monday start the PTSD program. By Friday night, though, I had already decided that the course wasn’t for me. My only friend appeared to be my quilt. The others were quiet loners, particularly one I’ll call Brigadier T.
Lyn was coming down on Monday to meet the staff, members of the group, and their families. I decided that I would then go home with her. I didn’t know what to do with the ute; I just knew I couldn’t drive it home. By Saturday, the group started to interact, just a little. We weren’t the only people in this part of the hospital. Adjoining our ward were patients with similar problems to ours, but much more severe and complicated. They were young men — too young — suffering deep emotional problems from recent conflicts in which they had simply witnessed the ravages of war while being in peacemaking forces. Now, people shudder when viewing the mess that was Rwanda or Somalia. All over the world, those experiences have shattered the young lives of soldiers.
It was a wake-up call for me. Seeing their sadness and distress made me feel that I needed to put my chin up and show these men some support, some respect, some mateship.
Our group started to talk and socialise a little with the others. I was stunned by one of the young soldiers I met. He had a wife and a new baby, who lived quite a distance from the hospital. Yet in his recent experiences in the army he had seen dozens of young babies slaughtered. He was a mess, a sad old young man petrified of the world out there, ashamed at his passive role in witnessing appalling carnage. His guilt was familiar. He was in his mid twenties. He welcomed the interaction with others like us — blokes who understood.
At meal times, the two wards combined, and there was a lot of mud slinging about the army, navy, and air force. It lightened things up. Brigadier T. copped a lot of the jesting. Why? Because he was a bloody officer … Is there a better reason?
By Monday, I was coming to terms with being a patient in a mental hospital. Our wives and loved ones arrived, and the staff were introduced. We were given a brief outline of what to expect over the coming weeks:
• We would be allowed home on weekends, and transport would be provided for us.
• Every Monday we would have blood taken to ensure we had adhered to the no-alcohol rule.
Then our families left, and we started a course that would change my life forever. Our day started with a session in the gym or a long walk. Over the period of the course, we got fitter and some lost weight. I felt the best I had in years. After gym and breakfast, we started on the day’s activities. We had lectures on PTSD, alcohol, and health, and about sleep and nightmares, and flashbacks and panic attacks. It was drummed into us that we weren’t in the army now —we had to negotiate real, everyday life. After a lecture, we would have individual sessions with a psychologist. We also had group therapy, where we were encouraged to reveal our inner turmoil and fears. A psychiatrist and other professional staff conducted these; in fact, we were almost outnumbered.
We practised Yoga, relaxation to music, meditation, and art, and we simply sat around and talked. After meals, before meals, after showers, we sat and talked. We had so much to say. Quickly, we became friends. Trust, which had been missing in my life for so long, started to filter into my being.
Group therapy was bloody scary. Talk about what it felt like? And about where you see your life at present? You’ve got to be kidding. Get me out of here!
In the first of these sessions, we all gazed at the floor. They called us FCSs, which stood, unflatteringly, for Fuck’n Carpet Starers. Then, on Day Two, the dam burst for one of our group. After all those years, out it came in an overwhelming gush of deep emotions that left the rest of us stunned. There were tears, shouting, anger, fear, and more tears, appalling stories, shaking, tears, tears, more talking … silence. Amazed, we sat in that silence. It had to be that way. The bloke just sat quietly, looking ten years younger. Suddenly, an hour had passed. We got up and, without any prompting, hugged each other. I could relate to that fella, but could I be as honest?
On the third day, we were taken by bus to a 10-pin bowling alley, despite objections. On the bus, not a lot was said, and our heads stayed down. Thankfully, the bowling alley was empty except for the managers. We’d all tried 10-pin bowling in the past. When my turn came, I picked up the ball and swung my arm back. I forgot to let go, though, and skidded down the lane attached to the ball. It gave the blokes a giggle, although it wasn’t so funny for me. I rushed to the toilet, and didn’t make it. After a while, Dermy knocked.
‘You OK, Baz?’
‘Yep,’ I muttered. ‘I’m an expert at this.’
I was. Even though it happened all the time, it never fazed Lyn. Over time, her attitude had me accepting that this was part of PTSD, and I’d take precautions and be prepared for an accident almost anywhere. The bowling day out was a fair result: I gave myself a four out of 10, but then it wasn’t a very threatening place.
Sometimes, after an emotionally draining day, we’d just have a quiet relax. But, slowly, this time in the evening started to turn to fun and mischief. The Pom in our group was a real character.
As far as he was concerned, a woman’s place was in the home. Everything had to be in its place with military precision. Tea had to be served at 6.00pm on the dot … and so on.
He was lovable, despite this, and benefited a lot from the course. His cranky intolerance left him wide open to pranks, of course. He was constantly criticising the hospital food. On the first day he’d ordered chicken for lunch, and when it turned up it was a single piece of chicken on the plate. He was furious. Even a moron could work out the menu, he spluttered. Surely it wasn’t necessary to tick the boxes requesting vegies, salad, bread, soup, sweets, etc as well? He’d just ticked chicken, and bitched about it all day.
‘Bloody useless cooks,’ he said bitterly, ‘All the same. Never get it right.’
Next morning, I offered to collect the menus, which had to be placed in a box by a certain time everyday. I altered Pom’s. Now it read: ‘Chicken — a very small portion, thank you.’
One small chicken wing arrived. Poor, poor Pom. He almost had a coronary. He was going to go over and fix those flam’
n cooks, he threatened. He definitely hadn’t shaken the army. When we first arrived at the hospital, Pom had commented that my room was untidy — bed not made, clothes tossed on the bed, and so on. Mind you, he said this to the others as well. By contrast, of course, Pom’s room was the most immaculate I had seen since recruit training: nothing was out of place; his shoes were lined up; the bed was perfect; and inside his wardrobe cupboard, the toothpaste, brush, razor, etc were laid out according to size. Some blokes, particularly Regulars, kept this habit after leaving the army. Pom had put in twenty years.
On the fourth day, I excused myself from the afternoon yoga class to go to the toilet. I sprinted to Pom’s room, turned the place upside down, and sprinted back. Yoga was the last class of the day. We left, and slowly walked down the corridor to the smoking area, where we would have a cuppa and talk to the other patients. Blokes started to drift off. Pom left. Then suddenly he was back, fuming. He gathered the group together.
‘OK, you arseholes. My room, now!’
Looking bewildered, we were marched to Pom’s room.
Everyone burst out laughing, except me.
‘Bloody hell, Pom,’ I said, turning to him. ‘What rotten low-life would do something like that?’
Pom nodded grimly.
‘Right, Baz, you can go, and you, too, Brigadier T. You other pricks line up. I’m getting to the frig’n bottom of this.’
I hid around the corner as Pom gave the blokes a good dressing-down. They just kept giggling. Then afterwards they all gathered in my room, agreeing that Pom had lost the plot and had probably forgotten to tidy his room, or else hadn’t taken his pills. I warily broke the news to the blokes that I was the culprit. They cracked up. Poor old Pom. They told him, and the next day he stripped my bed, threw things around the room, and took my pyjamas. I failed to notice for two days, until an exasperated Pom finally asked me if I was missing anything, like pyjamas.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘My wife packed my bag. I never wear the frig’n things.’
