According
to the Department of Health Victoria, from “2009–10, 54,024 courses of
treatment (COT) were delivered to 28,508 clients in Victorian specialist
alcohol and drug service”
(Department of Health Victoria, 22
May, 2012)
As a person who works
in adult and youth drug detoxification and rehabilitation centres, there is a
concurrent theme which runs throughout the lives of the individuals who utilise
our services. These similarities are particularly evident when observing the
youth who enter our doors. I have personally witnessed but one individual who did
not conform to these consistent similarities, with individuals suffering from
one, two or even the trifecta of issues, which are; mental health concerns, trauma,
grief or loss. The one individual of many who did not conform was 15 and may
have been suffering from one of these, yet failed to notify the service, but (in
my humble opinion) he appeared to be at high extremes of intelligence,
apparently using substances to quieten down his brain from the madness of over
activity. But then again many of the geniuses of our time have been considered
mentally ill at some point in their life (think John Forbes Nash Junior, centre
of the acclaimed film ‘A Beautiful Mind’).
When youth come
through these services, with little digging, it becomes apparent that they are
aware what their issues are. This can be viewed as a positive thing, if the
individual is ready to deal with these issues (which they rarely are), or
negative if the individual is not emotionally or physically prepared, and are
subsequently re-traumatised over and over via dreams or hallucinations. In
regards to particular forms of mental illness, well, obviously that is a work
in progress, and is most times still related to a capability to deal with such issues
that arise from trauma or grief and loss. The best way that I can explain these
scenarios is with the notion of a graph, with numbers ranging from 1-10. Each
individual’s levels of tolerance are difference. One person may experience the
death of a grandparent as a ‘3’ in the category of ‘grief or loss’, but then
another may experience the same death as a ‘9’, and not have the appropriate
emotional skills necessary to deal with such a traumatic event, resulting in such
behaviour as substance use, cutting or burning themselves, or the inability to adequately
function on an everyday level.
Now when you observe
the adults in the detoxification centres, their issues at first seem to be drug
related. They are suffering from the loss of a child to Department of Human
Services, dealing with pending legals and ramifications of other sentences from
incarcerations of years prior, and the loss of loved ones through overdoses, or
loss of contact due to their substance use issues, or loved ones inability to
be continually hurt and disappointed by the substance effected individual. But, if we remove all of this chaos,
and all of this distraction, and all of these substance subsequent sagas, what
is going on for this individual? Who were they prior to all of ‘this’, prior to
all of this ‘stuff’? Who were they when they were the youth, haunted daily by
their original demons?
When working at the
adult rehabilitation centre, these original demons progressively come to light.
They say that when an individual commences substance use, they stop growing
emotionally. And when they cease usage they begin growing again. So these
centres hold 35 year olds, who are really 12, 13 or 15 years of age emotionally.
When in these facilities, we as workers watch their walls slowly retract, the
walls they have spent the last 20 years of their life building, so that they
can no longer be hurt.
To some, working in
these centres sound miserable, listening to sadness and misery on a regular
basis. But I don’t see the sadness, I see hope. I don’t see a problem that
needs “fixing”. I see people who request an open ear for them to expel their
thoughts, and requests for tools to deal with these demons. But if this individual takes these tools on
board is their prerogative, not mine. They are not my body, my soul, to “fix”.
It is their choice when, where and how they reroute their life.
When watching these
walls slowly crumble, I feel lucky that I am of the privileged few able to
watch such a phenomenon. Because working in these centres is the greatest prize
a person can obtain. To see a person week by week retract their walls, retract
what they hide behind, and truly look at themselves, and question what is going
on for them, to look their demons in the face and be no longer afraid. And
thus, the demon retreats, just like the walls their owner previously hid
behind. And like a pearl in an oyster, so shines an amazing person, strong, yet
vulnerable; an open novel about to commence their Act III.
