Marjorie

“My name is Marjorie. I was born in Burma, but my parents left when I was just 15 months old to move to England. When I was 10, my father passed away, and my mother decided to move us down to Cornwall to be near a friend. I had a bit of a difficult upbringing—my adopted brother was abused.

When I was 25, I gave birth to my daughter, Dominique. After she was born, I developed severe postnatal depression that simply wouldn’t go away. The doctors eventually diagnosed me with bipolar disorder and prescribed me Lithium, which I have been taking since I was 26. Two years later, I had my son; he was such a lovely, lively little boy.

Living with my mental health was hard on my young family. When my daughter was three, I took a lithium overdose. She had to go live with my mother in Cornwall, and my son was sent to live with my husband’s mother until I recovered. I took another overdose when Dominique was seven, which had a lasting emotional impact on her that I don’t think she ever fully recovered from.

I met my husband at 17, and we married when I was 19. Eventually, he was made redundant, and he decided to move the family to New Zealand. We lived in New Zealand for five years before moving to Australia for three years.

While living in Australia, my husband and I took an English teaching course and moved to China to teach. But after three months, our marriage fell apart due to his infidelity with younger women. I left him and returned to New Zealand to stay near my daughter. Unfortunately, she couldn’t host me, so I found my own place before heading back to Australia after six months.

Back in Australia, I moved into my own unit and soon met a real estate agent who invited me to share her two-bedroom place. That arrangement quickly turned sour when I invited a friend over for dinner; my housemate told me she didn’t want anyone else in her house, so I had to pack up and find another unit.

Shortly after, I was admitted to the hospital due to my mental health. While there, I met a man who suggested I move into a caravan at a park in Nerang on the Gold Coast. I lived there for about a year until a misunderstanding forced me out: a man at a friend’s gathering falsely accused me of attacking him with a knife, and the park manager evicted me.

Looking for a fresh start, I contacted an acquaintance who had moved to a house on Russell Island and moved in with him. Before long, he told me a “wild man” was coming to stay with us. That man was Shane.

Shane became my partner for the next 18 years, though it was a turbulent and horribly abusive relationship. I can’t even describe what he did to me. We initially stayed at his caravan on someone’s property, then moved to a rented cabin for a couple of years. During that time, I tried to leave him three separate times, but he brought me back each time, and I went along with it. The final time I left him, I stayed in a women’s refuge until they secured me a unit in Wynnum. Shane eventually moved in with me anyway. We lived there together for about 16 years.

Over time, Shane developed terrible asthma and was repeatedly hospitalized. He routinely signed himself out against medical advice, thinking he was fine. He had always been controlling and told me what to do, so the first time he was hospitalized on a ventilator, I was completely overwhelmed. Driven home in a taxi and feeling like I couldn’t cope on my own, I took an overdose of Lithium and Risperdal. I ended up in the hospital on a ventilator and a kidney dialysis machine.

After I recovered and was released, Shane demanded I come pick him up from the hospital. He was so weak he couldn’t manage the 12 steps up to our unit. He sat on the stairs for over an hour and insisted I buy him beers. After drinking three of them, he managed to crawl across the floor on his stomach to reach a chair.

This cycle repeated several times until his final hospital admission. I stayed with him for two nights, but when doctors wanted to put him back on a ventilator, he refused, telling me I didn’t hold power of attorney over him. I returned home and called his daughter, who reached out to him. By the time he was finally placed on the ventilator, it was too late. The doctors informed us that if he survived, he would be bedridden and unable to speak again. Together with his daughter, we made the painful decision to turn off the ventilator. She had him cremated without a memorial service, leaving me with no sense of closure.

Devastated, I was visited by my daughter Dominique, who flew over from New Zealand. But when she had to return home to her son, the grief overtook me, and I took another overdose of lithium. I spent three weeks in the hospital. Dominique flew back, pulled me out of the hospital, and took me to New Zealand to live with her.

I stayed with my daughter for a few months, but deep depression over losing Shane set in, resulting in another three-week hospital stay. The medical team was unsure of how to support me and considered a halfway house, but instead, they transferred me directly to the Regency rest home. Moving abruptly into aged care was a shock to my system. Seeing residents shuffling on walkers, confined to beds in the hospital wing, or living in the dementia unit made me spiral further.

I was readmitted to the hospital for another three weeks. This time, however, the doctors adjusted my treatment, placing me on a mood stabilizer alongside antidepressants. The new combination finally worked. Today, I am still on therapy and taking my medication, feeling much better, happy, and well.

Though my life has settled, some losses remain painful. My daughter bonded more with her father growing up, but she has been there for me through so much. Meanwhile, I haven’t seen my son since he was 18 years old. He is now 45 and lives in England with no plans to visit. I still miss the lovely, lively boy he used to be, but I am grateful to finally have stability and peace in my life.”