Falling into the abyss - and climbing back out | HerCanberra

Everything you need to know about canberra. ONE DESTINATION.

Falling into the abyss – and climbing back out

Posted on

Warning – this story deals with complex mental health disorders and may trigger strong emotional responses in some readers.

For crisis support contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, Kidshelpline on 1800 55 1800 or beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.

Some mornings, Jemma Mrdak simply didn’t make it to school.

Wracked with anxiety, and suffering an undiagnosed case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Jemma would wander down the street to the bus stop, reaching out to touch each car door a certain number of times, counting methodically in a way most people would struggle to understand, but which made the 16-year-old feel strangely soothed.

If she missed a door, or mucked up the numbers, she would need to retrace her steps. Ensuring this ritual was followed would, in Jemma’s mind, subvert bad things from happening—her friends would still like her, and no harm would come to those she loved—so the most important thing was to follow through with her strange internal tally. If the bus sailed past her then so be it. She’d miss another day of school.

To this day, Jemma, a successful and well-known blogger and social media company director, cannot trace this period of her life to any specific trigger—other than having suffered anxiety since as long as she could remember.

Jemma Mrdak. Image supplied.

“I had such a happy, joyful childhood, such a normal upbringing. There was no specific reason behind it, but from the youngest age I realise now that I was anxious about everything, from going to sleep at night, to desperately needing to carry out a series of daily rituals I largely kept hidden.”

Terri McDonald’s obsessive compulsions have a more easily identifiable root. The 21-year-old University of Canberra Psychology student remembers her outgoing personality changed in early childhood when the Canberra bushfires razed the back of her Chapman home, and then a murder on the street robbed her of her sense of security.

“I recall that both things made an impact on me at a young age. I started to check that the doors were locked—turning them three times left then three times right, pulling 10 times to make sure. I would do that three times on every door. It was very important to me.”

In Terri’s case, these early childhood compulsions would be exacerbated in later years by intense bullying at high school, and a close friendship with another student who was self-harming would culminate to see her develop an eating disorder and to eventually self-harm.

Terri McDonald. Image supplied.

Now out the other side after seeing a psychologist, undergoing a period of medication, and learning how to decipher and manage her own fragilities, Terri is speaking out because she wants less stigma around mental health issues and more conversation about how prevalent they are.

“My message—my strong message—to teenage girls going through hard times, is that it will get better.”

Terri and Jemma are part of what Clinical Psychologist and University of Canberra Assistant Professor in Psychology Dr Vivienne Lewis candidly describes as a mental health epidemic among young women.

“Two out of five people will have some sort of mental health condition among the population, which is a high proportion. And anxiety is one of the most common childhood disorders.”

Vivienne specialises in the treatment of eating disorders but often finds that anxiety, OCD, depression and self-harm tend to “cluster” with eating disorders which are also, disturbingly, on the rise.

Young women tend to present with these conditions at a higher rate than men—with nine in 10 eating disorders occurring in females, and self-harm more prevalent among young women than men.

Twenty-six-year-old Molly Saunders knows the official statistic is that just one per cent of the population suffers from an eating disorder, but she believes that diagnosis would be far higher in Canberra due to its particular socio-economic mix and predominance of high achievers.

“We don’t have local statistics and we don’t have specialist facilities in Canberra, which I think is terrible. But when I went to speak to a school about my experiences, one of the students knew of five other girls in her year group alone who had eating disorders.”

Now a law graduate working in a private firm, Molly has been shaped, but not defeated, by anorexia nervosa.

Volunteering in Malawi as a teacher at the age of 18, the bright and slightly introverted teenager used food as a focus to distract her from the distress of the impoverished children she was caring for. A year earlier Molly had changed her food habits—turning to ‘clean eating’ as a way to channel her discomfort at developing curves.

“I’d been a really skinny child, and praised for that, and when my body started to change, I really felt internal anguish. When I went overseas, I disconnected from my social life and my thoughts were able to be manifest in behaviours.”

These included obsessively counting calories and an extremely restricted food intake, which somehow distracted her from the stark conditions of her work.

Things came to a head when she returned home and simply could not eat the lunch her mum had prepared for her.

“I had assumed things would return to normal when I got home, but by then it was bigger than me.

“My mum knew immediately I had a problem and we went to see our GP. I was admitted to hospital that day, and then discharged straight into the Eating Disorders Program at Woden.”

Tragically for Molly and for her loving family, her life from age 18 to 23 would be marked by a stoic battle against the insidious disease.

The grip in which it held Molly included admissions to hospital in every year except one, numerous occasions of nasogastric tube feeding, and voluntary admissions to the psychiatric ward at Calvary Hospital.

Molly credits the turning point in her battle with an admission to a specialist eating disorder unit in Sydney’s Northside Hospital where she spent more than six months in 2014—an option for sufferers she dearly wishes was available in Canberra.

“It offered more intensive treatment and at that time I was able to see what it was costing me. I saw women in their sixties who had been battling an eating disorder since they were in their teens. I had friends who were all getting on with their lives. I didn’t want my eating disorder to stop me from living my life anymore.”

However, it would take several years for Molly to rewire her neural pathways and “shut down those internal monologues and ingrained patterns of thinking and behaviour. I had lost control and I was trying to fight, but it was so hard.”

Molly Saunders. Image supplied.

Considering herself now a different version of herself in recovery, Molly believes the biggest change she has been able to orchestrate is how she talks to herself.

“I try really hard to treat myself as my best friend. A huge part of my therapy has been to learn to differentiate between a health voice versus a punitive and demanding voice in my head. It makes a world of difference. I trust that I am capable of getting through hard stuff rather than letting my anxiety spiral. I am kinder to me.”

According to Vivienne, it is never too early to teach children the value of calming themselves, of compassionate self-appraisal and of regulating their emotions. Her patients range in age from seven to 60.

“The incidence of anxiety and associated issues has absolutely increased over the last 10 years in Canberra. It is probably a lot to do with our increased awareness around mental health and our ability to diagnose.”

But being able to stop anxious thoughts from manifesting into behaviours such as OCD and spiralling into depression, self-harm or an eating disorder is key.

The initial anxiety is far easier to treat than the other conditions, according to Vivienne. She has written a basic guide for parents and carers No Body’s Perfect which looks at how to inculcate a healthy body image from a young age and what to do if perceptions become skewed.

“With young kids, it is back to basics in terms of getting them to talk about their worries and helping them problem-solve without shielding them from real life. It is about ensuring they are connected to friends and supporters, and that they are getting fresh air and exercise, good food and quality sleep.”

With older kids, it’s about keeping the lines of communication open. Vivienne says it is important for parents to go into their children’s adolescent years with a positive attitude. “It can be a time to build a really great relationship with your child, so don’t go into it expecting the worst!”

That being said, parents can often be the first to notice serious changes in their child’s behaviour and it is important to seek professional guidance early on—and not to turn to other parents for advice.

Vivienne also offers a stark warning against allowing children access to social media at too young an age.

Having witnessed a surge of 12-year-olds being diagnosed with eating disorders in the last year, Vivienne believes the instant comparisons made so easy on platforms such as Instagram are a risk factor.

She also says the way parents talk about their own body images and struggles with weight can filter down the line.

“About 60 per cent of women are dissatisfied with their bodies, so we need to be careful about how we voice our own ideas around self-worth in front of our kids.”

Often, despite the best intentions of parents or carers, serious mental health issues can consume a young life.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies reported in 2017 that 10 per cent of 14-15-year-olds have attempted self-harm and that it is more predominant amongst girls than boys.

The causes are complex and varied, but Vivienne noted she had witnessed an element of copycat harming. “A few years back there was a spike in presentations in Canberra where it appeared some were doing it after seeing others.”

This was the case for Terri, who engaged in self-harm only after spending months counselling her friend who was doing the same.

She eventually reached out to a helpline and recalls that the potentially life-saving advice she received was to talk to her mum—with the phone counsellor offering to stay on the line throughout the conversation for support.

As difficult as it was for her loving family to deal with it, and to talk about it even now, Terri firmly believes she has a responsibility to speak out—and she too sounds a stark warning about the impact of social media. “It made my life absolute living hell,” she says.

Dealing with her own complex emotions in a world of airbrushed highlight reels is one thing, but social media also brought the bullies into Terri’s bedroom.

“It was horrendous being a target for these girls to say the most despicable things.”

Terri now credits a new level of self-awareness with helping her keeping her anxious thoughts in perspective. She describes herself as happy and healthy.

“I know now that my anxiety is nothing I cannot control. It won’t actually kill me, and if I have a panic attack it is unpleasant, but I can come back from that. Even just knowing that can make it better.”

Jemma’s story is also one of resilience and triumph. She underwent a period of cognitive behaviour and exposure therapy, where she was forced to confront her very darkest fears and retrain her thought processes away from compulsive actions and into calmer acceptance.

“It was hard work. I had to face all the things I had been running from. The irony is I look back to those days and think I really had nothing concrete to worry about and yet it was all I did. Now I run a business and have legitimate worries!”

Jemma has some non-negotiable self-care priorities now. She exercises first thing every morning, and is adept at regulating her breathing. And if she feels particularly highly strung, she takes the time to acknowledge that and to recalibrate herself.

“I assess what’s different about my life and what I can do to make myself feel better. Am I too busy at work? Have I seen my friends enough? Did I miss exercising?”

Like Molly and Terri, Jemma understands that she is not alone and life doesn’t have to be so threatening. And she also understands the best support she can lean on is the friend she is to herself.

This article originally appeared in Magazine: FALL for Autumn/Winter 2019, available for free while stocks last. Find out more about Magazine here.

Love Magazine?

You can support its production by becoming a patron, which gives you access to exclusive rewards. Find out more on our Patreon page

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

© 2024 HerCanberra. All rights reserved. Legal.
Site by Coordinate.