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Today’s guest is Annette Young. Annette is the cousin of a good friend of mine, and she is also a writer, which is wonderful. She’s written 2 absolutely beautiful – now, I’ve put ‘historical fiction’. Is that how you advertise your gorgeous books?

Yes, I seem to fall into that category.

– which are called ‘A Distant Prospect’ and ‘By Violence Unavenged’, and I will put links to them in the show notes, obviously. They’re very good. Annette also home schools her 4 boys – I’ve got that right, haven’t I?

You have.

Yes. And we’ll have a chat about that as well. She lives on the mainland, and if you’re not a Tasmanian, that means the big island of Australia. And we met in person for the first time when she came down to launch ‘By Violence Unavenged’, and that was really good and we chatted for ages and ages, so I’m really excited to be able to introduce Annette to everybody who’s listening, and to be able to talk with her again! So you’re very welcome, Annette.

Thank you.

So, first question I always ask everybody is: how did you become a Christian?

Right. That is quite a long story. Well, one thing is I was brought up as a Christian, even if nominally sometimes. And I had experimented through school. There was always the sense that God wanted me for something. There’s always been that thing. Even though I’ve gone through my agnostic phases and atheistic phases, there’s been – contradictory to my sometimes atheism – that, no, there is a God, and I’m here for something. The first big – I went to some Billy Graham things when I was in my early teens at high school, and that was quite inspiring but not very long-lasting. The really big one was actually at Cradle Mountain, when I was 17. I did the big walk across Cradle Mountain in Tasmania. And it was being out in nature, without any of the trappings of city life, and seeing that sun come up and sun go down, beautiful mountain sunsets… it rained most of the time, and after that we went to Wineglass Bay where we were camping. And that is when I had my God moment, that God existed. I can remember walking across that beautiful bay and thinking ‘Yes. God exists.’ And I had the words from Corinthians come, ‘but if I have [not] love, I have nothing.’ And that was it. God existed, therefore I had to do something about it. And it was as clear as that. And from that moment on it was ‘Yes. I’ve got to find out more. I’ve got to do more. I’ve got to work this out.’

So that was – the 1 Corinthians 13 ‘If I do all this but don’t have love I am nothing.’

Yep, that’s it.

When you say you experimented in school, I thought that was an interesting term. What did you experiment with?

(laughs) I think I was just questioning lots of things. So I’d go off to my friends’ fellowships and stuff like that, I would ask lots of questions. I was the kid who’d sit at the back of the classroom, leaning back on the chair, listening to everything, not necessarily contributing but then asking the really sticky question. I’d dip into the Bible now and then. I’ve always been a big history buff, so history lessons were quite fascinating. And I can remember studying the Reformation and being horrified by Calvin and Zwingli for destroying all the things that I loved, which is art and music and dancing and that sort of thing. And then being really taken by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and this ‘do all things for the glory of God.’ So it’s been up and down, up and down. Going to Billy Graham things, various things that would happen at school… so it was that sort of quiet experimentation, and lots and lots and lots of questions, as one asks when one does experiments. One asks questions.

And then you get to that point, and you say ‘Right, line in the sand here,’ and that happened in our beautiful nature here in Tasmania, so that’s pretty cool!

Yes!

See, everybody, you need to come to Tasmania. It’s good for you. Actually I think that there really is something about nature being good for the soul, isn’t it? It just gets you back in touch with what’s really real.

Yes.

So when did you decide to start writing?

Um, that was very late. That was while I was doing – I was in my mid-thirties, and it was while I was doing my PhD, or beginning work on my PhD. And I was doing some work on Charlotte Bronte’s early manuscripts, things that she wrote when she was a kid. I had the opportunity to live another person’s life, another person’s imaginative world, in writing out and preparing these works for publication. And I realised that she and I did the same thing: we had imaginary friends, and we lived out their exploits. And I thought at that point ‘Well, if she can do it, so can I.’ And I’ve always had this way of processing much of my life experiences through my imagination, and so I thought ‘Right. I’m going to harness what I’m doing and write a book myself.’ And it happened to be that I was doing a PhD in literature, and there’s no better way of understanding how a novel works than to actually sit down and attempt one yourself.

Yeah, that’s true.

And that is what happened. I never thought I’d ever be a writer. That is one of the last things I ever expected myself to be. So I really did fall into it, and it was in doing it that I really discovered something I could do. I’ve been able to do many things, but that was something that really was mine. It was the thing that I was meant to do.

Yeah, I totally understand that. I feel very similarly about it. That you just get ‘Oh, this fills that hole inside that I didn’t even realise was there and it makes me very happy to do this.’

Yes, yes yes yes. And to be able to connect with others through it, that was the most shocking experience.

Shocking?

A shocking experience. Because you’ve had that imaginative world, it’s been your very private world, you’ve really lived most of the time with your own thoughts and never really shared those things with others to a deep degree, and then to write a book where it all comes out and to have people connect over that, yes, it was very confronting. It was shocking.

Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

I continue to be surprised at people’s eagerness to respond. (laughs)

Yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it? I know that a lot of us are quite introverted, you spend a lot of time sitting by yourself at your desk doing your writing and talking to yourself, in a way, and then to have other people read it and then respond to you with ‘Oh… okay!’

‘Are you serious?’ (laughs)

So faith is very important to you and writing is very important to you – how do those two things intersect in your life?

Oh boy. Well, they intersect very much. Writing is very much a manifestation of faith. And also that struggle in relation to faith. There’s a lot of that in it. Oh, how do I explain this? Many times in my life I’ve often felt silenced, in not being able to speak out as I wished, not being able to say the things I’d like to say, and writing gives me that chance to have my voice, to be able to say what needs to be said. Sometimes people don’t want to hear what you have to say. Writing gave me that chance to say the things that I want to say that sometimes… you know when you’re talking to somebody and you think ‘I wish I’d said that,’ or they don’t want to hear it, but they’re prepared to hear it in their own private nest when they’re reading a book. There’s something about that very private fact of reading where certain things can be said that don’t even have a place sometimes in the most intimate conversations. It’s a real moment for the soul, many times. And then with writing, very much in some ways – although I don’t write autobiographically – there is a spiritual autobiography going on, and some of the struggles of characters are things that I myself have struggled with, and had to come to terms with, and thought through or not thought through. Some things there are still questions. But yes, writing is very – that intimate part. Sometimes one is writing one’s prayer life out.

Yeah, I love that. That’s gorgeous. So you are home schooling 4 boys – how on earth do you find time to write as well as home school?

(laughs) Everybody asks me that question. It’s a juggling act. A lot of the things you do help them to learn for themselves, and also home schooling is wonderful because of its flexibility, that you teach each child according to their needs. It takes a lot less time than normal school would. Everybody thinks I school for 6 hours a day and then I sit down and write. Well, I don’t, I school for about 2 hours a day, and then the afternoons are free for everybody. So the afternoons are my writing time. So I’ll get down and do something of an afternoon, usually between about 2 and 5. Though I’ve had a sabbatical this year, I haven’t written anything at all! And decided to get back into it this month. Quite frankly I can’t bear not writing anymore! (both laugh)

I totally understand that. But your books – do you start with doing a whole lot of research, or do you start with writing things out and then see what research needs to be done afterwards? How does that work?

It’s a mixture. Depends on the topic. Look, you know the funny trails you can go down, and you end up checking as a writer, and especially with historical fiction you go down some really bizarre little trails. I start off with a story in mind, and then the research is done to flesh out the story, definitely. One thing that’s been really hard, that’s actually stopped me from writing this second volume is that the research is incomplete. But then I reminded myself that the research was very much incomplete with ‘By Violence Unavenged’ when I began it too, and I simply had to start with the story and then work in the details as I found out the details themselves, so there’ll be a lot of reworking. One goes hand in hand with the other.

It’s the story that’s important, isn’t it? Everything has to support the story.

That’s right. You’ve got to tell the story, and then the details have to support the story. With writers of historical fiction, it’s very easy to get bogged down into the historical detail and the historical circumstances, and they can start drowning the story. And getting that balance between character and emotion, fiction and then the circumstances in which that takes place is a very tricky one to handle. Especially when you’ve got readers with various degrees of knowledge. You’ve got the trainspotters, you’ve got the professors, who love that you treat their pet period or any period with the respect it deserves, and then you’ve got the persons who are completely ignorant of any of it, and they’re dipping into your book and all of sudden there’s this train load of German history coming at you at full throttle! (laughs)
So, in many ways, you’ve just got to leave the reader to deal with what they can manage or not manage, and just hope for the best!

Absolutely. To say that the first book that I mentioned, ‘A Distant Prospect’, is set in Sydney, but ‘By Violence Unavenged’ is largely in Vienna, and around the time of the beginning of the Second World War, yes?

Yes, just before.

Just before. So there’s probably quite a few people who have that as their favourite period, I would have thought.

Oh, it’s a fascinating period, but nobody – especially in the English language – nobody’s really done Austria. And Austria is fascinating. And it really… look, it was writing ‘A Distant Prospect’ and having to consider World War 1 from the non-Anglo perspective that really got me very interested in European affairs between wars. And my whole idea of history just changed so much with looking at things from that other angle. So, away we went, with Austria. And I think it helps, because we can become so comfortable in our own viewpoint, especially because we won the war. We ‘won the war’ in inverted commas – nobody wins wars. But that notion of ‘Well, therefore because we won we must be right,’ when that is absolutely not necessarily the case. And considering things from these different angles makes for a very interesting engagement, which can be – I think hopefully – quite life-changing. Certainly thought-provoking.

Yeah, absolutely. Let’s turn to home schooling: so why did you decide to home school?

Lots and lots of different reasons. First of all was my own school experience, which was less than desirable. Secondly because to be able to teach our kids in a way that they could learn a variety of things and not get stuck into a system. Thirdly was faith and morals, definitely, because of certain things being taught in schools, and I can imagine myself rocking up and going ‘You are teaching… what?’ There are so many things that happen in a school that are just so beyond what we can actually do that can be so harmful. And to have a certain degree  – well, ‘control’… ‘influence’ I should say is probably a better word – over those things was very important to be able to give our kids a really broad, rich education, particularly with literature and history as well as the sciences, the arts as much as we could, to be able to give them a chance to develop their own interests, their own qualities, were all very important.

Are you part of a group of home schoolers around where you live that you get together? I know there’s groups like that here in Hobart.

Oh, there are a lot of groups everywhere. And constantly morphing groups. Yes, we’re very much… well, I sort of dabble around in a whole lot of things, but at the root of it I do like the Charlotte Mason approach. Charlotte Mason was a 19^th-century educator, and the most critical to her was the education as a means to develop a life of virtue in a child, through the appreciation, deep appreciation, of the gospels, and history, of art, music, all the good things in the world. Nature, maths, art, sciences. But seen as a very whole and sound, rich, deep dynamic thing, but all contributes to the flowering of the human person. And that was ‘Yes!’. I don’t know whether I’m actually achieving that! (laughs) All these things are always a work in progress.

That’s absolutely right. School teachers are human beings just as much as mothers are human beings, so we’ve got to –

And children are themselves!

And children are, that’s exactly right. Each one of us is fallible, but each one has something to bring to the equation as well.

That’s right. But the integrity of the human person is just something that’s just so important, and that’s something that I do try and express in my writing as well as in life, that this is just so vital, our relationships, our person, who we are and what we are here for, is one of the most fundamental questions.

Yeah, absolutely. And a continual growth questions over life. I know that I’m asking that question and changing the answer about every 5 years or so! (both laugh)

That just reminds me of the Facebook post I put up this morning about the philosophers. ‘Who are we?’ ‘Philosophers!’ ‘What do we want?’ ‘Uhh…’

‘What do we want?’

‘Why are we here?’ (laughing)

Definitely. And you have the time! I guess that’s the thing, that in your home school – well, I guess in your daily routine, you have the time to ask those deep questions and think it through.

Yes, yes, yes. At least I do have the time to ask them, I don’t know whether my children ask them! They have to do maths. ‘Do you really want me to do that , or can I do something? And when are we going to make gingerbread men?’

And they’re the really big questions.

Yes!

Cool. So when do you feel close to God?

When do I feel close to God? I go through my phases. When do I feel close to God? You know, possibly more when things go wrong than when things go right? You know, you’re going through those hard times and you just throw yourself at God’s feet. And those hard times happen actually quite a lot. So that happens often. It would be those times, yes, in prayer. There are times also, the funny things, things like the washing up, the kitchen sink, the clothesline. It’s those vacant times, those times when your mind is often free- doing the ironing – that you can actually go down and pray. Then I’ve developed a really renewed interest in reading the Bible. The Bible’s really come alive for me lately. At the moment I’m actually reading Mark’s gospel with my kids. And it’s been a really fascinating insight into Jesus’ public life and how we deal with other people. And seeing these messages come through, and these insights in to human nature, and some of the scurrilous characters. And it’s a human freedom. And Jesus’ respect with that has just been an amazing thing. You know, the leper that Jesus  cures, and then he says ‘Show yourself to the priest,’ ‘as per Jewish custom, ‘but don’t tell anyone.’ And the fact that Christ commanded ‘Don’t tell anyone’ and he did, is so illustrative of our freedom. And God knew he was going to do that anyway. (lauhgs)

But to illustrate that he didn’t talk about our Lord because he was commanded to, but because he wanted to. And these sorts of insights have just been great. Today we read about Salome, and the dance before Herod, and John the Baptist’s martyrdom, and the head of John the Baptist is on the platter, and Max my 13-year-old just said ‘Oh… yuck!’ But the wickedness, you know, the wickedness, the conspiracy of the mother and daughter, and the king who was just so keen to please and to show himself off as being able to fulfil whatever he oathed, and not really caring what he did, it was such a boast, and it’s just so awful! That sort of love for the world compared to what Christ instructs the disciples before, of going out and preaching from every village and if they reject you, just shake the dust off your feet and continue on, and don’t worry about it. So it was just a fascinating juxtaposition, and coming into the Bible like that and especially doing it with kids has just been wonderful. So lots of food for thought there.

Absolutely. I was listening to a podcast where the guy was saying that good literature can stand being read over and over again, and I think if there’s any book that can handle that it’s the Bible. You read it, and you read it again next week something new is going to pop out at you, next year something completely different, so it’s amazing. It’s an amazing gift to us.

Mind you, I never would have admitted to that at the age of 13 or 14. Sceptical nonsense! Crap book! Sorry. (laughs) So in my maturity I am coming to develop more of a respect for it.

Too real, too real. (both laugh)
Okay, what’s one thing about God or Christianity that you wish everyone knew?

How good it is. Look, the fact that it’s so simple, really. It is so simple. That there only are 10 commandments and if we actually followed them life is pretty good. That when we trust in our Lord, that the graces that come from that trust are immense and wonderful. That there is a wonderful… that relationship we can have with God, and that God wishes to have with us. How special is that?

Yeah. It’s amazing.

And the goodness of life that comes, and such a positive, vibrant force. I think that’s what’s so shocking about Christianity, is the fact that it is so positive. And that this rooting on love, with faith, hope, and love together, is just so astounding. Because it is so natural to us to love. And the fact that that can be realised in all its fullness, finally in heaven of course, is just the most amazing thing.

Yes, I think we forget – I agree – just how good Christianity is. How good God is. Even the word ‘good’ gets taken and given a twist to stop it meaning what it actually means, but it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing to be a Christian.

Yes. It’s funny – my thirteen-year-old, the one who objected to the martyrdom of John the Baptist, we had a chat earlier about the Garden of Eden and the first sin. The ‘do not eat from the tree of Good and Evil,’ and why not? Really, because we couldn’t handle the consequences of it. The knowledge of evil for man was just more than he could bear, and God knew that in His goodness, but we did it. And it’s that corruption of our innocence, that shock… you know when children suddenly see something that is not very nice, and that scarring that happens upon them, and that’s what happened to us. We find evil just unbearable. And when we can’t decide between good and evil, because our understanding has been blurred, the difficulty we have, the tragedy that’s there… and it’s hear-rending, in a sense. But we write good books about it so it’s alright.

Everything is grist for the mill for the book. Well, thank you so much for chatting with us today Annette, it’s been wonderful.

Thank you Ruth. Good to see you again.

Good to see you again! Even if not in person. And I will make sure – because I’m sure there’s so many people listening who want to read your books now – I’ll make sure that’s all in the show notes so people can find them and read them, because they’re excellent.

Thank you, thank you.

Today’s guest is Amber. Amber and I met at a panel at the Pilgrim Arts Festival down at Huonville, and she talked about her writing and how that helped her process her mental health issues that she might have. I thought what she said was really good, so I asked if she’d come on the podcast, and she’s being very brave.

(laughs) I don’t feel brave.

You’ve done well. So, very welcome Amber.

Thank you.

We’re going to start where we always start- and she’s prepared, so this is wonderful – how did you become a Christian?

So when I was 15 – I’ve always had asthma – I had a very severe asthma attack, and started to die, and then I went down the white tunnel. And I heard a voice, and it said ‘It’s not your time to die, you must go back. There’s something you must do.’ Now, I wasn’t from a Christian family, so all I knew was that there was a God and that He’d reached out to  me for some reason.

I started going to various churches, and what usually happened what that at first they’d be really loving, and forgiving and beautiful people, and then they’d start presenting me with a lot of rules. Rules were stuff like who to date, what books to read, what to wear, and I just didn’t – it felt too restrictive for me, and I didn’t think it was for me, so I left.

So then fast forward to the year 2000, I ran into an old friend and she’d changed dramatically. She’d been really quiet, and sort of in on herself and depressed, and now she was all bubbly and enthusiastic, and I’m like ‘Well, what’s this about?’ and she’d grown in her Christian walk. So I agreed to come to church with her and she said her testimony, and I was very moved, and I refused to become a Christian. And then I went back to the church another time and they said ‘Christianity’s not really about rules, it’s about a relationship with Jesus.’ So I’m like ‘Okay God, alright I give in, I’ll become a Christian.’ So that was in 2001.

We’ve talked about the fact that you have some mental health struggles. What sort of mental health struggles do you have?

I’m going to sort of describe it first. So from a really young age I had anxiety and depression. Really young, like probably primary school. I was able to live a relatively normal life until 2002. In 2002 I went psychotic and my depression went extremely severe, and I was no longer able to function or work. So my main symptoms are a combination of depression and psychosis. So many different diagnoses, I don’t think I’ll go into them.

So what usually happens in the depression comes first, and I start feeling so bad that my thinking becomes bad, and then the psychosis and the voices can start. They’re very negative voices, telling me I’m evil, telling me that I should harm myself. After each episode I feel guilty and scared; guilty for burdening so many other people and lashing out at people, and scared that I might actually hurt myself at well. So I was in hospital pretty much all the time from 2003 to 2009, but I stabilised from 2010 until 2017, and I was able to work and do some mental health advocacy, and I also did some qualifications in mental health at TAFE, to help other people. But then, after a very short marriage, everything went bad for the last 2 years. So I’ve been extremely unwell since 2017. I’m hopeful that I’ll stabilise again. I’m getting some NDIS support: an extra psychologist, extra psychiatrist, so hopefully – it just takes so long for those supports to be there, but I’m hoping that with that extra support I’ll start to improve again.

We’re getting better at mental health, I think – we’re getting better at understanding it, and we’re getting a bit better at dealing with it –

No.

– but I know you’ve suffered a bit with a bit of stigma and stuff…

Yeah. I think we’re getting better at some illnesses, but the severe end… no.

Yeah, that’s a good point.

Yeah, people get scared of psychosis, but look at the stigma. When I have depression that’s not psychotic, people are more understanding. But when they realise that it’s not just depression and that I’ve actually got psychosis, then… yeah.

I think all of us suffer a bit – we have down days and whatever, so we can probably relate a bit better to that, but when you get to psychosis, we just don’t understand it.

Yeah. The other thing is that there’s been a lot of awareness around depression, there hasn’t really been a lot of awareness around psychosis.

No, you don’t hear about that much at all. So what sort of stereotypes and stigmas have we had?

So one time I went to the Royal [Hobart Hospital]. It was with a friend, and she was having heart palpitations. We were both on a strong anti-psychotic, which can cause heart palpitations. So I said to the nurse ‘We’re both on this medication,’ and then I said to the nurse ‘Do you know my sister? She’s a doctor at this hospital.’ And the nurse looked at me, so shocked, and said ‘Your sister’s a doctor? You’ve got schizophrenia – are you the black sheep of the family?’ And that was from a mental health nurse.

Wow.

And the flip side of that is, well, you’re obviously intelligent and articulate, therefore you don’t need any help. You’re obviously able to manage.

I guess because it’s a brain – we expect your brain to either completely work or completely not work, and that’s not the way it works at all, is it?

No.

So that would be quite hard to deal with, I’m sure.

Yeah. I’m writing my memoir, and part of that is so people can understand, and so they can know what to do, and so they’re less frightened. There are times to be frightened – I think if someone’s self-harming I think it’s fine [to be frightened], but not generally.

I guess like with your asthma, as a general thing you’re good and you keep it under control, but if you’re having a severe asthma attack then that’s time to step in and do the emergency care, and it’s very similar to that.

That’s right, it’s the same. Except that I went to a hospital a couple months ago with an asthma attack. I was treated like royalty, they were so respectful and compassionate. Go in there when you’re feeling suicidal, and they’re horrible. They often send you home saying you’re not suicidal enough, or they tell you that they’re manipulating them, or misbehaving, or that it’s a choice that you’re making rationally.

So we’ve got a long way to go. So if we have friends who are dealing with a mental illness of some sort, how do you think we can best help them?

I’ve got some stuff written down… where’s my mouse gone? There we go. As I said, like when people are suffering from an asthma attack, respect and compassion are the things that are needed, and also look at people as individuals. Just because someone has a certain diagnosis doesn’t mean anything much about their personality. Someone might be really sporty and they’ve got psychotic illness, someone might be more into writing like me. Someone might like gardening, someone will be intelligent while another person is creative, you know.

So it’s a case of ‘Let’s look at you as a whole individual and say “Right, what are your hobbies and interests?” Let’s meet on that level.

What are your strengths as well? What are your character strengths as well? Is someone a good listener? We’re all people. Except if it’s life-threatening, just approach the people as people. The other thing is that when there is a crisis, like if someone’s about to self-harm or whatever, I would then get them to hospital. Call the ambulance. Don’t let yourself try and do that yourself. Some people like trying to take the knife themselves, or confiscate… no. That’s not what to do. Also don’t tell people that voices are not real, because they’re real to me. They’re part of my experience. You can be just as traumatised by voices as you can by real events.

Because it’s your brain that’s processing this, in the same way that it processes the real events.

The other thing I would like to add, is when someone’s well – and if they have a support worker or a psychologist they can do it with them – get them to write down what helps, so then when they are in crisis, or even just a little bit unwell, you know what to do. Different things work for different people.

So what you’re saying there I think is have the conversation as well. Don’t be scared to say ‘Okay, I know you’re suffering with this mental illness, how’s the best way to help you out through this?’

Yeah, exactly. But also do that when they’re well.

When they’re well, yeah. Because I think when people are well, we try to avoid it. We try to say ‘Okay, well let’s pretend this thing doesn’t exist.’ When maybe it’s better to say ‘We know this exists, we know you’re well at the moment, how do we deal with it when you’re not?’

It’s the same as having an asthma plan. It’s more complicated, but it’s the same process. I don’t expect people to be a psychologist, you know. Stuff people have done is cooked a meal, that’s nice. Pray with you, because often I can’t pray. Read the bible. Sometimes little gifts. Just loving me. Saying ‘I love you, and so does God, and so does the cat’ or you know, whoever. But it does depend on the person, and people with a psychotic illness are not all the same, at all. Just as different as, I don’t know, people who are Christians.

Exactly. Can’t just put you all in a bucket. I remember I had a friend who was having a psychotic breakdown, and I didn’t recognise it. And she kept telling me she was going to be fine, and we sort of didn’t know where to go from there. Afterwards, looking back on it I thought ‘Oh, we probably should have brought her to our house’, or brought her to the hospital as you say, called an ambulance, but I guess that’s just a case of we need more education in that sort of thing.

Yeah, and you need to establish a relationship and a rapport with someone, and then say ‘What sort of things help you?’ It’s harder when they’re in denial, it’s much harder. It’s the same process, it’s just much harder. I’ve never…. Well. I guess I’ve been in denial, yeah. But I don’t think I am at the moment. I might be wrong.

It’s just like any other chronic illness, I guess. It’s a daily walk, and you just take it day by day.

Yeah, it is.

So you’ve used creative writing to help you with your illness – want to tell us how that’s helped?

When I’m really unwell, like when I’m at crisis point, it doesn’t help to write. I can’t write, I cant even think. So I don’t do that. I am writing about my illness in a memoir, and I’m studying creative writing through Tabor Adelaide, which is a Christian uni in Adelaide. It’s a subject I’m writing about to help people know what to do, to help people feel less alone if they’re going through it, and I’ve also done a lot of political advocacy and stuff so those in powerful positions know what to do too.

But on a personal level, writing makes me happy.

Writing makes me happy too. That’s why I do it – it’s a better day when you write.

Oh, it’s more than that. I feel at one with God, and with the Universe, and that this is what I’m meant to be doing. I don’t know why it took so long for me to realise that. I think maybe that near death experience, there’s something I must do – I think it might be writing. Because I can’t think of anything else that gives me such pleasure, and also it’s my greatest talent as well, you know? Reading and writing is probably my talent and has been since I was 3 or 4.

That was going to be my next question – have you always been writing, all through?

Yeah. So when I was in preschool, in kindergarten, I couldn’t write so I sat with the teacher aide and dictated stories to her and illustrated them. I refused to play, I wanted to be a writer.

So do you write other things? I know you’re writing a memoir at the moment – have you written other fiction or non-fiction?

Yeah – poetry and journalism mainly, yeah. And non-fiction. I have written fiction, but the main thing is I want to take fictional techniques and use them to tell a real story. What I find is a love reading memoir, but some of them aren’t very well-written. They’re great stories, but… so that’s why I’m doing the study and taking such a long time on my work, so that it will be well-written as well as a good story.

Absolutely. So can you share some of your writing with us?

I’m going to share, but it is… just for those who might be triggered, it is about a suicide attempt and it does go into detail, so if you’re going to be triggered by that, just shut off now.

Turn off now.

I’ll just read this out.

It was the 15^th September 2004.  I was half sitting, half lying on a cold, hard bed in the Emergency Department of the Alice Springs hospital.  The fluorescent lights bored into my already dilated eyes.  I was struggling to breathe and the nurses had to keep increasing the oxygen.  The charcoal they gave me to drink tasted like chalk and stained my fingers and my face.  The drip in my arm felt like being attached to a tap that won’t turn off.   But the worst thing was the heart monitor.  It kept beeping uncontrollably.

I tried to convince myself that heart monitors always beeped like that but I knew deep down that wasn’t true.  And people kept staring at me, staff mainly.  They would walk up to me, stare for a while and then walk back.  I tried to calm myself by humming the tune to ‘The Wheels on the Bus went ‘round and ‘round.’  It didn’t really help much but it was something to distract me.

‘Am I going to be okay?’ I asked the nurse.  ‘We’ll do our very best for you,’ she answered.  That wasn’t the answer I was longing to hear.  I wanted to know that everything was fine.  But it clearly wasn’t.

The truth is I had planned my death – the day, the hour, the method – cold bloodedly like a stalker preparing to snare his victim.  I had told my doctor that I needed to be on a higher dose of my anti-depressants so that I had access to more tablets in which to do the damage.  I wrote a detailed note to my family and included the phone numbers of the friends I wished to be informed of my death. I even bought my family a book called ‘Surviving Suicide’, which I hid under my bed.  People often say that suicide is a selfish act.  But even as I planned my demise I still thought of loved ones.

 

 

 

So what, then, was I thinking?  According to the ‘Black Dog’ website there are many complex factors that contribute to suicide.  They include things like trauma and mental illness.  But that wasn’t why I wanted to destroy myself.  I attempted suicide because I felt guilty.  In fact I felt so guilty that I thought my death would be a kind of freedom for my family. They had tried so hard to help me in so many ways.  But despite this I just kept getting worse.

I became severely depressed and psychotic in 2002 while teaching at a local high school.  Not only was I unable to work I was even unable to cook or clean up after myself.  To make matters worse I had become romantically entangled with a very unstable young man.  My dad, who is a psychologist, thought he could help me.  I moved from Hobart to Alice Springs to live with him.  My stepmother and my 10 year old sister also lived there.

They made sure I ate healthily and exercised.  I was referred to a psychologist and a psychiatrist.  I also tried hard at first.  I took my medication and tried various strategies and techniques.  But nothing worked.  Eventually my father told me that he could no longer cope with me.  That triggered a huge red raw bundle of emotions, including guilt.

Before I took the medication that almost killed me I drank some beer.  For some reason having a beer helps me concentrate and relax.  After that I got out the three packets of anti-depressants that I had chosen to take.  Each packet had 30 tablets in it.  So I took 90 tablets.  It’s hard to swallow that many tablets.  By the time I had finished swallowing them I felt so nauseas that it would have been impossible to take more.  Then I made a phone call to my father telling him to cancel his visit because I wasn’t feeling up to it.

My father, my stepmother and my 10 year old sister came around about half an hour later anyway.  I guess they were worried about me.  My sister excitedly ran up the stairs to my room.  She was calling out my name.  When she got to me I could barely walk. I saw her face turn from excitement to shock.  And my father was really angry with me for exposing my sister to my attempt at self-murder. ‘You have traumatised your sister,’ he said in a voice so quiet it was almost strangled.  I had been so consumed by my own problems that I had forgotten how I would affect this young girl, this sister, who I loved.

As my stepmother drove me to the hospital my sense of guilt became so strong I couldn’t think of anything else.  I wanted some tangible way to show that I was sorry.  Especially to my sister.  It suddenly occurred to me that maybe my family didn’t want me dead as I had supposed.  In my psychotic mind I had done it for them.  I was all muddled up in the head.  When my dad said he couldn’t cope my mind interpreted it as both colossal rejection and a lack of love.  Then there were the voices.  Always saying I was evil.  They never stopped.

 

 

 

I’m lucky that I didn’t attempt suicide in the Middle Ages.  At that time suicide was not only a sin it was an unforgivable sin.  The bodies of people who had completed suicide were dragged through the streets and none of them got a proper burial.  This sort of attitude would have been so hard for the loved ones of that person.

I’m also happy that my illness engulfed me in 2002.  Because just prior to that people, in Australia, people with severe mental illnesses were institutionalised, sometimes for years.  Some of these asylums allowed for very little freedom.  I have heard it said that clients weren’t even allowed to brush their teeth for themselves.

Nowadays there is the opposite problem.  Often people who attempt suicide are sent home a few days later with a psychiatrist referral and no other support.  Because of this ten percent of us are readmitted less than a month later.  This creates what is called ‘the revolving door’ where we just move from crisis to crisis.  And many of us succeed in killing ourselves.  Ten percent of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, for example, complete suicide.  Less than one percent of people without such a diagnosis complete suicide.

The night I tried to end my life was a long night.  Probably the longest night I had ever had.  At one stage I started feeling dizzy and the world was turning grey.  The doctor said, “Keep her conscious,” and increased the oxygen.

After many terrifying hours, the doctors from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) arrived. ICU is a ward where there are more doctors and nurses than on other wards.  I was relieved to be moved in some ways as so many of the doctors and nurses had been staring at me in shock.  I asked them again if I would be alright.  ‘You will require careful monitoring,’ they said.  This, again, was not the answer I wanted to hear.

On the way up to the ICU the nurse turned away from me for a few seconds.  “Why is the patient on a monitor?” the doctor yelled at her.

The view in ICU wasn’t particularly comforting either.  All the other patients were hooked up to the same medical gadgetry that I was.  Some had tubes down their throats and one man was obviously dead. I remember thinking to myself: ‘This is a place where people die.’

This seemed to shock me out of the funk I’d been in for the last 2 years.  I realised that I didn’t want to die.  Not this way.  Not alone in a ward with sick people.  Not by my own hand.  I wanted life to be better but I didn’t want to die. “I’m going to fight,’ I thought to myself.

Morning brought a team of doctors who announced. ‘She’s stabilized,’ as if I wasn’t there.  But I didn’t care much because, oh the relief, they removed the catheter, the oxygen, the heart monitor, the drip, the blood pressure monitor and the pulse monitor.  I felt an overwhelming sense of relief.  I couldn’t see properly and my heart was pounding but I was out of danger.

The afternoon brought an admission to the psychiatric ward and a visit from my family.  I apologised and said that I wouldn’t do it again.  They were angry.  ‘You could have had a stroke and ended up in a wheelchair,’ my stepmother said. ‘We’re all angry with you,’ Dad echoed. ‘You nearly died by your own hand.’ My sister distracted herself by running around .  I would have cried but I felt too numb.

According to Psychology today ‘…suicide is seldom the product of rational deliberation…but mostly an act of uncontrollable anguish and despair.’  In my case this was partly true.  I certainly felt uncontrollable emotions but I had also deliberated.  Maybe not in an entirely rational way but I had still planned carefully.

This attempt on my life made me rethink everything.  It was a complete shock.  I realised there might be a way out of this but I didn’t know what that way was.  There are no easy answers to this conundrum.  I needed medication and psychological support – and lots of it!  But I also needed hope.  And meaning.  And part of that meaning involves writing this story.  I hope that sharing what I went through will shed some light on what its like for people in dark places.

We need, as a society, to love those of us who are suicidal.  Even if we don’t love ourselves.  Mentally ill people have the same needs as anyone else.  We need love, hope and meaning.  I want people to understand what it’s like for those of us who aren’t coping and, in that understanding, be willing to reach out.  Don’t be afraid of us.  Fear doesn’t help.  Love does.

That’s the end.

That’s beautiful. Thank you very much.

I thought it might be traumatic.

It’s deep. Yes, traumatic as well, but…

It’s traumatic for me. I felt like I was gonna cry, with my little sister. That’s the thing that makes me want to cry.

I guess you were so turned in on yourself you didn’t realise what was going to happen to those around.

No. No, I didn’t. I was so consumed by my own problems and my own thinking. Like, I would never have deliberately tried to hurt her.

No, that’s right.

I still feel dreadful that I did. Even though she’s fine now.

Absolutely. Tell us, when do you feel close to God?

I feel close to God when I write, even if I’m not writing specifically Christian things. Sometimes weirdly I also feel close to God after I come out of a psychotic episode. I’m not sure exactly why, but I think it’s God comforting me, and me having the realisation that although I might be misunderstood by people, I won’t be misunderstood by Jesus. That He understands, and He’ll be with me. So last year I was in hospital for 3 months, and I read all 4 of the Gospels. And that was really comforting, and striking as well with Jesus. It was like I was getting to know a close friend all over again, who continues to surprise me and continues to love me. Because I feel very unlovable, but I’ve got to keep reminding myself that God loves me. And I think my Christian friends also help me feel close to God at various times. They’ve always been generous, supportive, comforting. They’ll pray with me when I can’t pray. They’ll look for comforting things in the bible, they’ll step in in terms of my spiritual health when I’m too unwell to do it myself.

Awesome. That’s what the Body of Christ is for, isn’t it?

Yeah, and as I said also they do non-spiritual things as well, which is helpful.

I think there’s something very spiritual about bringing somebody a meal when they need one. What do they call it? Jesus with skin on.

So what’s one thing about God or Christianity that you wish everyone knew?

Because we’re talking about mental health, this is something that really frustrates me: God can do whatever He wants, right? And if He wants to heal people, He’ll heal them. But He doesn’t always. Apostle Paul was not healed. I have not been healed. And not being healed is not necessarily because I’m demon-possessed or I don’t have any faith. In fact I would say that it takes more faith to continue as a Christian when you’ve got severe mental health problems going on than it does to be healed. I mean, I’d love it if I was healed! But that’s not my story. It’s not me that makes that decision. I think if people want to pray for my healing, great!

‘Thank you!’

Thank you! Do it. But don’t criticise me for not being healed. So what I find particularly comforting in Christianity is not the fact that it guarantees you an easy life, because my life is not easy. But the fact again that Jesus walks alongside me in my suffering, and promises me a time in the afterlife when there’ll be no suffering. So that’s something comforting to look forward to too: that this suffering, even if it goes for all my earthly life, won’t go on into eternity.

Amen. Thank you so much for sharing with us so deeply, I really appreciate it.

Today’s guest is my mother! My mother, otherwise known as Roslyn Langlois, has three children. I have an older brother and a younger sister, so I’m the middle child, and she has two grown-up grandchildren: a favourite granddaughter and a favourite grandson. Very handy.

(laughs) Absolutely.

Mum’s worked in many different positions and done many different things. She’s a concert pianist, so if you’re watching the video you can see the grand piano behind us, and she’s a choir conductor, and she gives wisdom to many. I wrote that, but I mean it. And she’s been the vice-president of a radio station –

True!

– so she’s led worship in all sorts of different situations, and she composes music as well, and there’s more. There’s so much more. So welcome Mum, it’s good to have you with us.

It’s lovely to be here.

A different kind of interview, I think, but it’s fun.
How did you become a Christian?

Well. I think it started pretty early, because my parents, your grandparents, were both Christians when I was born. My father had been studying theology, and Mum, I think, had told me about when she became a Christian, so I was born into that atmosphere. But I was in Sunday School, and in choirs, and I loved the Lord, all the way along. There was every reason to love him and no reason not to. But of course, as I got older, there were situations that were sort of crises, where my decision was to go with following the Lord. I’m just trying to think what some of the major ones would be.

I think that there was a point when Billy Graham came to Australia. He went all around the nation, and dad decided to go, and to take me, and we wanted to be in on it – or I wanted to be in on it.

How old were you then?

By this time I was fourteen, so I’d definitely been a Christian for quite a long time then. It was an amazing meeting, because I’d never seen so many people stack a football ground in North Hobart for that purpose. It was just lovely to hear the gospel preached, and Dad and I both went forward, which was, I suppose, affirming the fact that I wanted to follow the Lord.

Because Poppy was an Anglican minister, wasn’t he?

Yes, so he was a Christian Anglican minister.

When you went to university in Melbourne – mum attended the Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne – was that a challenge to your faith?

No, I don’t think it was a challenge in the sense that I felt there was any attack on it. I think that I’d learned over those years – because I had to be away from home even in high school years to go to school – and I guess I’d had the opportunity to make either decisions that were following Christ or not. I was not [perfect] I don’t think any of us are. I certainly had things that weren’t right, and that I had to repent of in that stage. The whole thing of going to Melbourne was itself a gift, and it was amazing, because at the beginning of that last year of school, which was year 12, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was given the privilege of being the Head Girl of the school, so I was pretty engaged with what was going on there. Lovely things were happening in the school in terms of other girls coming to the Lord, and that sort of thing. But when I was approached by the Education Department and asked if I’d like to have this scholarship and go and study music in Melbourne … I can’t remember mum and dad and I having a conversation about it, but it must have been a mind-blower for them as well.

But it was very exciting, and I knew that was the Lord. And also, the music teacher that I had at Melbourne had been my examiner for the associate piano exam, and I sensed that he believed in the Lord, and sure enough that was the truth. So I had a very good piano teacher and felt the support from him, and I think I linked up pretty quickly with the Christian groups at the uni, because the Con was part of the rest of the uni. I really could be who I was.

I had a lovely red coat, that was (laughs) it was sort of the mark of who I was. I was short, and I had my little red coat, and I came from Tasmania down there, and opportunities came along very quickly for the development [of my faith]. I always was able to express, in one way or another, that what I was doing was enabled by the Lord – which it really was. And there were plenty of situations in which I needed the Lord’s help. I did have relatives in Melbourne, but I couldn’t see them very often – they were in a completely different part – so I was very much on my own. So there were things that had to work out through prayer, which included financial things, and where I was going to stay, because things weren’t always easy that way. So there were lots of opportunities, and my faith was just being built in one thing after another.

I remember there was a situation in which I was acutely conscious of not having enough money, because my shoes were wearing out. I did a lot of walking, and I didn’t have the money to get them fixed up. I remember saying something to my teacher, I think, my piano teacher, about pennies from heaven – just joking around – and within a couple of days I’d received, from people who were close to mum and dad in Tassie, the first of a number of cheques which came regularly to help me get through. So the pennies came from heaven!

Unfortunately we can’t go through mum’s whole life story – we don’t have time! So I was going to ask what made you and dad decide to become missionaries, but it sounds like it’s a very natural outworking. You’re already sharing the gospel with people all the time, you already have faith provision and that kind of thing, so it sounds like it was a very natural next step for you guys.

Yes, I guess it was. That is a big leap, from where I just was! So my brain has to go on fast forward.

Sorry.

Well, I think it’s John’s story as well as mine, of course, but I think that John had heard from his uncle and aunty such fantastic stories of how God had provided for them in all sorts of situations, so John having – what’s that saying – hammered his flag to the mast, as “Lord, whatever you want”. He was very open on that level, and so was I. It was a wonderful time actually, that time of our life in the church as a whole, in Australia, and in our state. People were rediscovering just how near God really was, and how He did call very personally, how He did provide, so we were both very open to that. We didn’t know what that was going to mean, and it meant quite a number of different things really.

Yes, because when I was very little you started in a sort of rehabilitation centre, living by faith there, and then you moved to a children’s home, and then you joined Youth With A Mission –

Which again, is very much living by faith.

Yes, we haven’t had a lot of money, ever. Plenty of experiences, but not a lot of money.

(laughs) That’s right.

So, classical music is obviously a very huge part of your life, and sharing God is obviously a huge part of your life. How have you been able to share God using classical music?

Yes, that’s been lovely really. I’ve found that people in all sorts of situations are very open to hearing you play the piano – in my case, that’s been what I could do – so in a way I just had to be prepared to open my mouth. I didn’t always feel as if I was as overt as I might be. I was wanting to do that, and I would pray about that, whoever I was with, because I worked with some excellent musicians, and just playing to people … but after a while I got the message, you know? God knew exactly what he was doing.

There were situations where I could be very overt, and there were others where … people are not dumb, you know? They hear where you’re coming from, and it was a really fine musician – I probably shouldn’t name names – but someone who I worked with quite a bit who’s a brilliant Australian musician, a string player. We were in the middle of a practice, and somehow just talking about who we were came up into our conversation, and he said something to the effect of “It’s very evident where you’re coming from.” Not in a reactive way, it was just in the conversation we were having, which was very reassuring, because I’m not the only Christian who’s sometimes thought “How overt should I be?” Because sometimes you feel as if what you could say would be utterly not part of that particular conversation, but there is a way of just following through in a conversation, which is just very natural, and not forced, and doesn’t make the person feel “Uh-oh, here I am, I’m going to hear it.”

So not bible-bashing, but just as it naturally comes out.

Yes, exactly.

So after YWAM, you and dad joined Christian Performing Artists’ Fellowship. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Yes, I think one of the really exciting things about that was how God got our attention. We were at a radio conference – because that was when we were in Christian radio in Hobart – and I didn’t find those conferences terribly interesting.

They’re not exactly mum’s kind of music.

It wasn’t even just the music – there were technical things … but I was at them, so I was there, and there was this particular session – I think we were in Melbourne. Just before it – I don’t even know who this person was – someone came up to me and said “You’re a musician, aren’t you? You might enjoy this!” and handed me a book that was called Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers by Patrick Kavanaugh. I thanked the person, because I had something interesting to do now through the meeting, and I sat down in the meeting and flicked through [the book]. There were things on this composer and that composer from over the centuries, and then I got to the end and it had a mission statement of The Christian Performing Artists’ Fellowship. And as I read that mission statement, it was just like an electric shock went through me, and I thought “This is so exciting – this is just what we’re on about.” Because at that stage in Youth With A Mission we’d been – when I say “we”, there was another lovely staff member who was a musician – we’d had music camps, and reached out to young musicians in Hobart and so on. So this absolutely fitted in that, you know? When I went home from Melbourne, this other staff member and I talked together about what we’d seen, and I wrote a letter to Patrick Kavanaugh. A few weeks later, when I wasn’t in any way thinking about it – in fact I think he woke us up from sleep at about seven o’clock in the morning (we probably needed to be woken up) – it was Patrick Kavanaugh, and he said he was really interested in coming out to assist us with a music camp, and that started off this whole wonderful relationship with Patrick and his wife, who are both wonderful musicians, but also with lots of other great musicians in the US, and students who came from the US, some came from Australia, some came from Russia, and Latvia, and it was just wonderful.

CPAF has a big summer camp, doesn’t it? Where Christian up-and-coming musicians from all around the place, as you say, get together and learn music and also learn about God.

That’s right, yes. Bible studies were a very important part of it, and John and I were both available on the counselling staff. It was a very wholistic sort of thing, but it was really saying “God is the giver of all these.” Whether it’s operatic singing, or acting, or playing the piano – God’s the giver of the gifts, and you can revel in those, and share that He’s the giver of the gifts. That’s your witness.

I think there’s this thing in performing arts with Christians, where you’re concerned about whether you’re giving enough of a witness, and you’ve had that same question.

Exactly.

As a writer, the encouragement is then to write something really overtly Christian which often – or sometimes – goes badly wrong. It becomes cheesy. Or in Christian music, or in Christian movies, or whatever. In classical music, unless you only play Bach, I guess you’re a bit stuck. So that message, as you say, that God is the giver of all these gifts and just by using our gifts to His glory, we can be a witness.

That is exactly right. That was such a major thing in that whole ministry, and I’m sure it still is. So that was how things unfolded there.

So you packed up from Tassie and moved over to the US.

Yes, I’m sure you remember it!

I do, because I had little babies.

And that was a challenge. I think all Christians will have to meet that challenge at some point, where you do actually have to make a choice, if that’s what God’s saying. And it is very challenging, and it is very difficult, and sometimes I’ve found as I’ve looked back – not on that particular instance, but some other things in our life – I’ve thought now “Did we really get it right, Lord? Was that really You? We thought it was, I hope we were right.” And you can really only just hand it over to the Lord. So it was very difficult to leave family, to leave our immediate family, yourself and Catherine and Anthony, and particularly this new generation coming up, because you know you’re going to miss out on all sorts of things, but we couldn’t get away from the fact that the Lord had called. With every bit of understanding that we had, that’s what it was.

God has been faithful, in terms of your relationship with my children.

Yes, hasn’t He? So faithful. And also in terms of our relationship with your generation, as well. It’s not that there haven’t been things we’ve had to work through, as all families have, but we’re just so blessed by the relationship with our own children – who are not children anymore!

So speaking of challenges, can you talk a little bit about the challenge of Parkinson’s?

Yes, I can! (laughs)

Yes, it is a challenge. It’s an interesting thing to be told that you’ve got a disease like that. This is what sort of came to me in the initial years, was that I could pray for healing for me, and believe for healing for me, but it very quickly came to me that there are thousands of people just in Australia alone with Parkinson’s. It really is a disease that a lot of people have, let alone other parts of the world. Especially the western world, I’m not sure about other parts. Anyway, having this thought, that there were so many people with Parkinson’s, the thing to do would be to pray for research, and that answers would be found, because there are very few answers when it comes to Parkinson’s. But the interesting thing is in the years that I’ve had it now, that there really has been quite a discovery of potential reasons – it’s still not absolutely secure – but even without reasons, things that you can do. So I’m involved now in the LED light sort of – I’m trying to think of the actual term –

The infrared light study that you’re participating in.

Yes, it’s just using ordinary people to be part of that.

Well, you have to have Parkinson’s.

(laughs) Yes, that’s the only thing.

I’ll put a link to that in the show notes, so people can read more about that study.

For us personally, for John and myself – John is my husband, and he’s very very much a part of this whole experience, because with having something like Parkinson’s, you do need a lot of support. So John has embraced being not only my husband, but my carer, which is very challenging to think that you need to have a carer. If I’ve got to have a carer, he’s a very good carer to have, let alone the rest of the family.

So another wonderful thing with this prayer about the research, and the Lord giving a way forward – which we can see that various things are coming to light now – but we’ve met some fantastic people. It’s like when I went to the conservatorium, the Lord has opened the door on relationships. There’s this young professor – well, I think he’s young, he’s probably mid-forties or something – he’s at a university in Sydney, and he’s getting some light on the subject – but he was just so happy to be supportive to us, so we’ve gotten to know him and his wife. And another lovely doctor, who’s supposedly retired – she’s also a musician – in the north of Tassie, and she’s very much following and supporting me and us. It’s just fantastic who God leads you to.

So there are some very difficult things about the actual condition – I don’t recommend that anyone want it to happen! But it’ll be alright.

Good things can come out of it.

Yes! Good things can.

So when do you feel close to God?

That’s a really lovely question. That’s always a filler, that line. (laughs) It really is. While I love worshipping God – I love playing, and singing, and being with people who love Him – whether it’s by myself, but often it’s with others, I love that situation of having the freedom to sing, to speak our prayers, but I think that there’s been so many situations when I’ve been in need and I don’t necessarily feel anything in particular, except that I know I can call out to God, and I do, and it’s amazing. I’m sure John could tell stories – I don’t know if he’d tell them, but they’re great stories – like “Where is my phone? I can’t find it.” Or wallet, you know, and I say “Lord, will you just help us find it? Because we need to get out of here pretty quickly and John needs his wallet.” And he finds it really quickly. I love those things.

But there’s far more to relationship with the Lord than that sort of thing. He’s just so kind and humble I think, in letting us ask Him about anything, run of the mill, but also big things where you’re just crying out. And we’ve had some real cry-out situations, and we do right up to the minute, and it’s wonderful to be able to just let the Lord hear. It’s so amazing how in the Scriptures we’re really encouraged as to how real we can be with the Lord. It’s silly to pretend with him. Those wonderful stories with women, of Jesus – both before and after the resurrection – they are so marvellous. And when you think of the fact that women were not held in very great esteem at all, at that time. But Jesus, I remember hearing years and years ago on an ABC broadcast this young woman saying that Jesus was the first… what’s the term?

Feminist?

Yes, the first feminist. I thought “Oh, that’s a good one!” In the sense of honouring women. He just honoured women, and protected them. “Leave her alone, this thing that she’s done is going to be told all over the world,” and sure enough it is. We’re in the place to be able to say “That’s true.” That’s exactly right. Right up to date.

I never thought that I was brought up as a feminist, and then I realised that you were actually a career mum. It never occurred to me growing up that you were actually a career mum.

That’s true.

And as a woman I’ve been encouraged by you to follow my dreams and to do whatever was there in front of me, which I really appreciate.

What’s one thing about God or Christianity that you wish everyone knew?

(chuckles) This is very much off the top of my head – again, it’s a fantastic question – one thing I wish everybody knew is that God is utterly approachable. Awesome, and amazing beyond anything we can imagine in terms of character and understanding and knowledge – I mean it’s God we’re talking about, so you sort of run out [of words]. But it’s the nearness and the personalness of God. I’m really glad that in our hymns and in some of the awesome music that has been composed for the glory of God – little allusion to Bach there – I think the thing is that He understands us. Right from the beginning of the Old Testament on, you see God who is approachable as well as the awesome God. Somehow all of that comes together. It’s super.

Thank you so much! That’s all my questions.

It’s lovely to talk to you. Always lovely to talk to my beloved daughter. And the other daughter, and the son.

This has been awesome. And don’t worry, I’m having an interview with Dad later. Thanks so much, Mum.

My great pleasure.

Today it’s my privilege, my great privilege to introduce to you Sandessa, who is my good friend.

Hi.

So Sandessa, or Dess, we usually call her Dess. It’s a nice name Sandessa, a combination of …

Sandra and Vanessa, thanks Dad, you are awesome.

Well you could get a good website. I’m sure there aren’t …

One day.

Anyway, off topic already. This is what happens. So Dess is a good friend of mine. We’ve been friends ever since we did a science degree together. And Dess has worked as a scientist, and as an administrator, and she’s also (I’ve written here, but I totally agree) a damn fine singer and songwriter.

Thanks.

It’s great to have you with us. Welcome.

Thank you.

So let’s start, as we always start, with how did you become a Christian?

Yeah, so I was brought up in a Christian family, I’m the youngest of four siblings. And my parents would take us to church every Sunday. A little bit sadly though, I’m the only Christian out of my siblings.

So I’ve always known God and though I walked away for a little bit for a couple of years there I’d already been baptised into the faith and God was always in the background in my mind saying, ‘Hey Dess, you need to come back to me. I’ve still got you. You might not be walking in my path but I’ve still got you.’

So was there a particular thing that brought you back after your walking away?

I had moved down to Hobart to go to uni, which was where I met you. And I had a period of time where I had a boyfriend living with me. And we both called ourselves Christians and we didn’t really go to church. I’d kind of been looking for a church to go to earlier in the year but hadn’t found anywhere that I’d liked – even though you kept saying, ‘Come to St Clements, come to St Clements’ and I’m like, ‘No, no, no, I’m going to find my own church’.

Anyway, the relationship broke down and I kind of ended up with depression and was feeling really low and felt like a hypocrite and finally took your advice and came to St Clements. And that was really the start for me. I walked into St Clements, and our church has this amazing stain glass wooden thing up the back and a circular step up the front that had material on it. And I walked into church and I went, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the church I’ve been looking for.’ The actual building itself was the building I’d been looking for.

Because I’d actually been there when I was younger. And had been going on my search for churches around the place thinking, ‘I wonder where that church was.’ And I walked in and I’m like, ‘This is it. Right. OK.’

So I started coming back to church and recommitted myself to God.

And how does your faith work itself out in your life now? Are you a one-hour in the morning devotion type?

Oh no. So as you know I’m not a morning person at all.

My faith, I’m still a bit hit and miss with my prayer life and my reading of the word. I’m really good on my days when I go to work. I work part-time and on those mornings I travel by bus. And unless I’m having a really good conversation with somebody I’ll be sitting there reading my Bible on my phone. And as I reach the top of Tolman’s Hill that’s when I put my phone away and I pray down into work, into Hobart.

That’s really nice, so that’s integrated into the bus trip. It’s a good use of bus time. That’s fantastic.

Absolutely. So on my days off, yeah, it doesn’t happen as much. I still pray in every situation and all the time but it’s not as rigorous and I’m less likely to pull out the Bible. To read the word in those times.

Yeah, it’s the importance of habits I guess. Nice

So, work. What do you do for a job.

I work for the Department of State Growth as a senior administration officer. In the State Roads Division. So my job is as it says, administration. I don’t really know what else to say about that. It’s just doing things that we need to do. We update intranet notices on our intranet page, we do basic correspondence – a lot of editing of other people’s work.

I want to ask, how many times has the name of the department you work for changed since you started working there?

[Laughter]

It’s actually only changed once for me. It’s pretty good. But one of my colleagues who has been there for forty years now, it’s changed five times I think since she’s been there. So I’m expecting another change in the next couple of years.

Do you enjoy it?

Mostly I do. And I’ve just received a promotion this year so I’m much happier with my job.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

But it has its moments. It’s not something that I aspired to do or to be, but God has blessed me with the gift of administration and this is the job that I’ve been blessed with.

How does your faith show itself where you work?

I was thinking about this and I thought, ‘Oh, how does it work out?’ I think … So it’s a secular world that I work in, and it’s very difficult to share your faith with people within the bounds of allowability. So I have to be very careful of what I say to people. Even things like finishing off my email. I would normally email my friends with ‘Blessings’ or ‘God bless’ at the end of it. And I have to change the way I do that with work so it’s ‘Cheers’ or ‘Kind regards’ or something like that. And I’m like, ‘it’s so not what I’m meaning’.

So most of the time I’m pretty sure most people know that I’m a Christian at work. And I think the most time that I would talk about God would really be when people ask me, ‘what did you do on the weekend?’ or ‘what have you got planned for the weekend?’ And I’ll say, ‘well I’ve got something on Saturday and church on Sunday’ or ‘I’m leading worship on Sunday’. Those sort of things.

Every now and again somebody might ask me about my faith, or people might tell me that something tough is going on in their lives. And that’s when I will ask them, ‘would you mind if I pray about that for you?’ Not then and there over them. But in my own time to put them on my prayer list basically and pray for that person. Pray for the circumstance.

I haven’t had anybody knock me back yet. But I have to be very discerning about who I offer that to as well.

Absolutely. If someone’s very anti- it’s not going to lead them closer is it?

Exactly. And if they are very anti- and there’s something going on in their lives, I just pray about it anyway.

[Laughter]

That’s right. That’s always a good thing.

I have written ‘what has God shown you in your work?’ Because I think we were having a conversation about coming to terms with working in this area when you wanted to work elsewhere. Would you like to talk about that?

What has God shown me in my work? Yeah, so, he’s shown me that I need to trust him. And it is really tough. My chosen vocation would be in science. Somehow. But unfortunately I got sick and have chronic RSI in my neck and can’t, basically, do all the microscope work that I would need to do in science.

Hunching over and looking down and all that affects the neck, yeah.

Yep. So that path of options for me, and something that I’m really interested in, I can’t do anymore.

So I kind of fell into administration after about four years of not being able to work. And initially it was, ‘I just need to find work. I just need to find something that I can have an income and support myself and that I can do physically and sustain it in the long run.’ So I had a couple of years with the police and then I moved to what was then the Department of Infrastructure, Energy, and Resources (now, State Growth). And it’s been in the last two years that I’ve managed to increase my time to four days a week. I used to be three days a week. So it’s a sign that there’s healing going on still for me which is awesome.

But in terms of my actual having peace about my job that’s really difficult still for me. And it’s an every day … I just have to be trusting God in that.

We get deep quick here in this podcast.

[Laughter]

But it’s hard. I mean it’s a dream … it’s giving up on a dream.

Absolutely. Yeah.

So are you going to make me cry?

[Laughter]

I’m thinking. Do I go there?

But God has shown you that you’re using your admin gifting in that place?

Yeah, I’ve been very begrudging about that. But yes, he has. It’s certainly not something that I thought I would ever have the skills for. It never even crossed my mind.

And I think initially when I started doing administration type things I was actually a volunteer at the church. Going to the office and helping the Petes (Pete Adlem, and Pete Greenwood) to organise and run the evening service that we had at church back in the day. And it was from there that we took (I say ‘we’ because I went through the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Services) so we took those skills of administration and went, ‘OK, so we can’t work in the science thing.’ We did several job trials in different places and that just caused more pain for me. So it was an, ‘OK can’t be in the lab, can’t be looking down, so you need something where your head is up, and working.’

So God’s shown me, he’s still teaching me that I need to rely on him. I need to trust him. And that if he wants me to do something, he’ll still open up that door. But it’s still really tough. Like even yesterday I was looking on the government jobs website and there were a couple of jobs advertised for the Royal’s pathology lab (the Royal Hobart Hospital). And I was like, ‘I could do that.’ I know I have the knowledge to do that. But my body, I don’t think would stand it.

So it’s still a love of mine to try and do that science but … I just have to surrender that.

We’re halfway through the journey. And I guess you wonder if you’re going to get answers before eternity or not but this is not an end of the story interview.

But I think it’s encouraging for people to hear people holding on to God when you’re still in the middle. When you haven’t come through to the other side yet.

Dess is making me cry too.

Let’s turn to music. How do you use your musical gifting for God? When did you start playing and singing?

Start playing and singing for God? Or start playing and singing?

From the start.

From the start. So my parents were both teachers and music teachers. And so I grew up in a family where my parents would always grab the guitars and we’d be singing around the campfire. Or if there was a party at home it would always end up with whoever would bring an instrument and we’d just all in play and sing. And just awesome fun times like that, which I love.

So I started singing when I was really young. And because I’m the youngest of four, everyone had their own parts, so I had to learn how to harmonise, so my brain automatically goes to a harmony on any song, pretty much. So that was the start for me.

I play guitar, a little bit of piano, and sax, tenor sax. I picked up piano first, when I was really young. I had a teacher and learned some of that. I didn’t really get along with the teacher though so at the end of grade six I gave that one up in exchange for playing sax in high school. I was in the band when I was younger with Youth Music Tasmania for several years which really helped me learn anything and everything really.

When I moved out of home when I was fifteen I got into a house where I didn’t have a piano to play but there was a guitar there and I wanted to be able to accompany myself and sing so I asked my Mum, ‘Can you teach me some chords?’ So she taught me the four basic chords, and away I went. I taught myself from there.

I keep asking knowledgeable people at church, ‘how do I do this? How do I do that?’ I pick their brains and learn from them.

So when did you start using that for God?

I think when I was in high school I would play my sax at the church I was going to in Scottsdale back then. There were always so many singers, so it was always, ‘there are too many singers, I don’t want to take anyone’s place.’ So I would play another instrument and that was fine.

And then when I came down to Hobart and started coming to St Clements, I think it was about six months in, I finally got up the courage to go and talk to Andrew Legg and I think I cried on him. Because I tend to do that when I’m approaching someone whom I admire and whom I’m a little bit scared of. And he was so gracious and he was like, ‘OK bring your sax along and let’s play’ and he was so good because I was playing by ear and so it probably took a couple of years before they were confident enough in what I was doing to mic me up and have me playing that way. And then again I was so scared that everyone was hearing me and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’

But yeah I started playing the sax and then with the evening church when that got started I started to play guitar and sing there and that’s where I started leading worship was at that. And then when I came back to morning church I joined back in with Andrew’s band. And then it became a, ‘I can’t do this one, can somebody else fill in?’ So I’m like, ‘OK sure, I’ll do that.’ So I started leading at the big church, and that’s where I’m at now.

Which is lovely. She does a beautiful job of leading worship I have to say.

Thanks Ruth.

Would you say that voice is your primary instrument now?

Yeah. That’s my passion. And I really do have a passion for helping God’s people to praise him and sing their hearts to him together at church. I really do. I absolutely love it when I can stop singing and just hear the church and they go for it and it makes my heart soar.

There’s nothing like it.

It’s amazing, it’s amazing. It’s so good and it’s just the best thing ever to hear people worship God all together. One heart, one voice, one mind. All together. It’s just beautiful.

So this year, just this year? You’ve been back at the conservatorium?

Halfway through last year.

Halfway through last year, to get extra training. So why did you go back to the conservatorium? Almost why did you go back to that university? What drew you there?

Part of it is because the Bible calls us, if you’re a musician, to be a skilled musician. And so because I’m self-taught, mostly, I didn’t necessarily feel like I had confidence in what I’m able to do. Or the understanding to be able to communicate with others what I want or that I understood what they were telling me when they were telling me what they want when I’m playing with them. So that was part of the reason, to be a skilful musician.

The other side of it is that I’ve been asking God for ages, ‘what is your plan for me?’ Given all my work stuff that’s gone on, and what I thought the plan was, was not the plan. So ‘God, what is the plan?’

New plan!

Yeah. And it was actually at the start of last year, about Easter last year I was up at a young adults conference in Brisbane. And at the end of that they were asking people who felt like God was calling them to be an evangelist to stand up and they would pray for them. And I was sitting there, knowing that The Great Commission is to go and make disciples. But also knowing that I really don’t feel confident in being an evangelist, or a teacher, or a minister. That’s not where my gifts lie. But also know that he’s called us to do The Great Commission so therefore it’s got to be in there somewhere.

So I was sitting there and I was asking God, ‘I really wish that I could stand up, but I know that’s not what you’re calling me to. That’s not where my gifts are.’ And he said to me, ‘What are your gifts Dess?’ I said, ‘Well music is a gift that you’ve given me.’ And he said to me, ‘This is what I want you to do.’ So I wrote down in my journal that I had at the time: To travel Tasmania, to visit the small churches to help them find the heartbeat of God. And to use music to do that.

It wasn’t exactly those words but that was the gist of it. So I came away going, ‘oh my gosh, wow’. Totally overwhelmed and unprepared.

I came back and talked to Pete about it and shared it with the rest of the music ministry team and everybody was like, ‘Yeah, that’s really good.’ It lined up with what Pete had been planning with our church, as one of the visions of our church to go and support other churches around the place. And one of the key things he had put there was with music. And he was just like, ‘I think that Dess, that’s you.’ And I don’t know how it’s going to work out yet, I’m still praying about that.

So I’m trying to think about how I can do that. I don’t know when it’s going to happen but part of me going to uni is not only to become a skilled musician but also to receive training so I can go out and train other people who don’t have the opportunity to go to uni and receive that sort of training.

And the other side of it is that I’m majoring in songwriting. And one of the key things that I’ve struggled with, with the music ministry in our church is finding the right songs for church. And as Ruth knows, I’ve written some songs for church. And I really like the idea of being able to write songs that I can just give to people and say, ‘Here’s a song that’s Biblically based, that’s easy to play, that’s easy to sing, that can be fun. Here you go, if you want to use it please do. Here’s a track of it, here’s some music of it, make it your own. And may the glory go to God.’

So that’s kind of the thoughts at this stage.

That’s fantastic. So you’re really quite busy then, if you’re working four days a week and part-time at uni?

Yes. It’s going to take me a while to finish uni, if I finish the degree. Because that’s the other thing too. I’ve got a Bachelor of Science with Honours, and I did three years of a PhD, but didn’t quite finish it. So I’m going to uni, and sure it would be great to get the piece of paper at the end, but that’s not the goal. The goal is to be trained and skilled to be able to go and do what God’s called me to do.

So if that means that I get part way through the course and God says, ‘OK, you’ve got enough, now we’re going to go down this road’ then I’ve just got to trust him and go with it. Which also frees you up when you’re studying at uni. You know, because we went through together, I was a pretty high achiever.

Yes.

And only got the highest marks in chemistry because of Ruth. She taught me as we studied together.

[Laughter]

Whereas now I’m free to not have to get the high marks. If I get them, that’s really awesome, but at the same time, if I just need to get something in for the sake of getting something in, as long as I pass then that’s fine.

Because you’re there for the learning, not for the piece of paper?

Exactly.

It’s taken the pressure off to realise that, and go for that. I just need to keep reminding myself of that.

I had my first exam for the course only about a month ago now. And I think I probably studied for about maybe three hours for the exam. Whereas with science it would have been a good solid two days worth of studying, 14 hours each day.

Absolutely.

So it was very different walking into that exam. And I’m confident that I passed.

I was talking to Josh (in episode 7) and he was saying the same thing. That his self-worth is not tied up in his marks anymore.

Absolutely.

Your self-worth gets wrapped into God, and then the learning is for the learning.

Yeah.

Would you like to say anything else about music?

Music is when I feel closest to God. And if I’m having a really bad day, week or whatever, if I feel really far from God, it’s most likely because I haven’t been praising him and worshipping him in my own life.

At the moment at church I’m on most weeks, not every week but most weeks I’m on in some way, shape, or form. And being part of that really does ground me because I have to make sure before I get up there and be one of the people who is leading the church, I have to make sure that I’m right with God. So it leads me to that confession and that repentance and getting my heart and my mind right with God again before I can stand up there and authentically lead people to worship him, and to praise him.

So that really helps to ground me and to draw me closer to him.

Do you put worship CDs on in the background at home and things like that?

I did this morning.

[Laughter]

Not as often as I should. When I go for a walk or whatever it’s normally worship music that I’m playing. And even my workout set for the gym finishes with this praise lot of music, cool music, and it’s very difficult not to sing with headphones in. At the gym.

So if you’re in a gym that just bursts into spontaneous worship or on a bus trip down to town that suddenly bursts into singing, you know that it’s Dess that’s done it.

Exactly.

But when I’m at home I don’t usually have music playing unless I need to learn something.

So it’s in the act of playing and singing that you feel closest to God?

Yes.

So to finish off, what’s one thing about God or Christianity that you wish everybody knew?

I wish everybody knew that God loves them. Unconditionally. There’s nothing you can do that will separate you from the love of God. And no matter what you’ve done, even the worst thing that you could possibly think of, God can forgive that .If you turn to him and ask him for forgiveness he will forgive that.

I wish people knew that because so often we just condemn ourselves and think, ‘I’m the worst person, how could anybody ever love me? Let alone God.’ But he does. He loves you.

That is wonderful. Thank you very, very much.

My pleasure.

Sorry I made you cry.

That’s alright, you didn’t get the real bawling.

Not the ugly crying.

Not the ugly crying, I’m a good ugly crier.

That’s great, thank you.

My pleasure.