I never expected it. He was an optimist, just like me, so when I found my son that afternoon, down in the garage, I screamed and screamed, “Marcus, what have you done! What have you done!" John, his father, was behind me, both of us trembling uncontrollably, thinking "there has to be life!" A neighbour ran over and started mouth to mouth. John was crying, willing him to live. But I could see the colour had gone from his beautiful face – I knew he had left us. The ambulance came and paramedics took over, trying to revive him. It was a scorching, humid Lismore day. It was 1.30pm, 29 November 2011.
When I stopped trembling, a strange calm came over me. I kissed his face softly and embraced his still warm body, one last time. Quietly I got up, walked outside and sat under a tree. All hope fell away from my body. His pain, I knew, had been too much. He couldn’t do it any longer and I understood.
Marcus was an artist and musician, a writer and thinker. He spread kindness and love everywhere and to everyone he came in contact with. But for someone who lived with such grace, his was the hardest of lives. People with schizophrenia live a brutal war of the mind; they are among the bravest, most courageous of us all.
He was a gorgeous, gentle child, full of mischief and love; big grey blue eyes, long lashes, blonde wavy hair, perfect face and body. How could I have imagined the fate that would befall this precious boy?
Marcus’ first psychotic episode happened in Sydney, on New Year’s Eve 1997, he was 20. From then on my family was thrown into a chaotic and confusing world which we, like most others, had no way of navigating. His diagnosis, at first, was bipolar I disorder. He was never addicted to drugs but dabbled in it. As we found out, he was in the five percent of people “allergic” to illegal drugs. They have a genetic predisposition to a mental illness, and taking drugs or suffering a big life trauma will almost certainly precipitate it. Marcus stopped taking illicit drugs in 1999 and for years after trolled the internet looking for new medication trials, some of which he participated in. I became a mental health activist.
In 2000 Marcus came back home to live, as he wasn’t well. We made a pact to find the best psychiatrist, the right medications and a good naturopath. But in the autumn of 2001, some “guru” in a health food shop in Sydney advised him to go on an extreme diet to “cure” his illness. Marcus, desperate for relief, committed to it. Two weeks later he went into full blown paranoid schizophrenia: hearing voices, staying awake all day and night, playing loud techno music with no insight into his actions at all.
John came to Sydney and together we had him committed. It was the worst night of my life; six policeman in three cars, flashing lights, a paddy wagon and two doctors came to take my gentle, sensitive son. Marcus was never violent – only 5% of people with schizophrenia ever are.
Over the next year, Marcus escaped four times from different hospitals, eventually ending up living on the streets in Sydney and Melbourne. The next time I saw my boy he was but bones on the hospital floor: feet bloodied from walking hundreds of miles, filthy, in ragged clothes. He’d gone to the edge to escape the numbing, smothering effects of antipsychotic medication.
After months of hospitalisation Marcus’ mind slowly came back. He became compliant with medication, decided Sydney was too much, and went to Lismore to live near the caring eye of his dad. For five years he was relatively happy and content, made great friends and rented a house he loved in Little Keen Street. But in 2007 it seemed the illness was getting worse. He became more isolated, was only comfortable around me, John, Milly, his sister and Steve, a close friend. He couldn’t go to a movie, too loud; wouldn’t eat anything spicy, not even salad dressing; in the street, if he thought he could smell marijuana, he’d walk blocks to avoid it.
In 2011, he moved in with his dad. In June, we committed him to Lismore Hospital and discovered that for four years he’d been over-prescribed his medication, which had triggered an obsessive compulsive disorder. Then one day, just before Christmas, our brave, beautiful son said no more.
For years, Marcus and I dreamed of a cure for schizophrenia and a world where stigma was gone. For this reason, Milly, myself and many others will take part in the inaugural Sydney Wellness Walk across the bridge this Saturday, 16 November. Let this be the birth of a new compassion and understanding of mental illness. I urge you to join us.
