Why I work for ARAFMI NSW

In the early 1990s, I was a volunteer rescue operator with the NSW State Emergency Service, attached to the Hawkesbury unit which covered a huge area spanning from St. Albans across to the botanical gardens on the Bells Line of road. The crew was regularly called upon to travel an hour or more to attend incidents.

In 1994, a series of bushfires went through several areas in own patch, the biggest in the Grose Valley South of Mount Bowen. We were called to evacuate residents up there due to the size and speed of the fire, and the fact that there was one road in and out. Some people were insistent upon staying to defend their houses. Some cried. Some panicked. Others took their fears and frustrations out on us.

We were preparing for what we thought was the inevitable arrival of the fire, a raging thing with a front a kilometer long. Even from a couple of kilometers away, the heat was like sitting in front of an electric radiator. While we were going through the truck and checking equipment in an attempt to quell our own fear, something happened. There were two or three bushfire service trucks with us up at Bowen. Suddenly, there was a squawk from their radios followed by a flurry of activity. They left at speed. We found out shortly after that a backburn had got out of control and had closed the only road out. We were trapped.

For two hours, we believed that we would die up there. It has remained one of my proudest memories how we stood together, eight people from diverse walks of life, in our fluoro orange overalls and waited for what seemed to be a final stand. However, the firies did their job and we were able, a number of hours later, to leave Mount Bowen.

The next day, reinforcements arrived from South Australia. I remember sitting in the dirt beside the road near the Kurrajong Heights Hotel watching a convoy of white trucks- 40 or so – roll past, with fresh crews. I sat in the dust and cried. It was the first time I experienced being a part of something big – something important.

I feel the same way about working for ARAFMI. I started with the organization as a volunteer, researching and collaborating on grant and funding applications, then moving through a variety of paid roles in administration, consultation and now caretaking the information service pending the appointment of a permanent replacement for our previous coordinator, Vesi Petruseva.

When our daughter experienced onset of bipolar disorder and bulimia nervosa in 2004, we were at a loss what to do. We tried doctors, psychologists, pediatricians. Because of the stigma attached to mental illness, our daughter was resistant to seeking treatment, so we managed her at home. As primary care-givers, my wife and I bore the brunt of this, but it affected everyone in the house. Her brothers and sister asked why she got all the attention, why we always talked about her and her illness, why there was never any money around.

Our daughter married and moved to the US in mid 2007. Later that year was the first time that anyone said the words “Family and carers Mental Health Program” to us. There were supports that we, as individuals and as a family, should have had, but we were completely unaware of them. Like many carers, we managed our “family secret” ourselves, at great emotional and financial cost.

My motivation for my work with ARAFMI is simple. I believe that my family and I were failed by the service providers around us. At the time both my wife and I were university lecturers, so it was not that we lacked intelligence or the ability to communicate. The problem was we were thrust without warning into a world we were, at that stage, completely unfamiliar with, a world where services were fragmented, poorly resourced, and shrouded in mystery.

The harsh reality is that, in many ways, we were lucky. We had paid work, transport, and education. Many carers – thousands of them – face far more difficult situations than we did. My motivation is to do anything and everything I can to lighten the load for Mental Health carers who are, as we were, lost in an alien and frightening world without a guide. When I am tired, I think of parents, partners and friends who have spent all night waiting in Emergency at the local hospital or at home on suicide or self-harm watch. When I am hungry, I think of those who are trying to survive on meager CentreLink benefits or on whatever part-time or casual work they might be able to find and keep in spite of their care responsibilities. I want people to know about and able to access the supports that we could and should have had.

With ARAFMI, I feel a part of something vitally important – something that can withdraw the wedge of stigma and bring people together and connect them to services that they desperately need, when they need them. Not since the fires of 1994 have I felt the same fraternity, the same sense of purpose. In the community sector, salaries, even for managers, are not that high. The hours are long. The work never stops. Despite all this, I have never been happier in a position, and it has been a great privilege and pleasure to work with ARAFMI.

When I was young and worked for the AMP Society, our motto was “Amicus certus in re incerta” – “A sound friend in uncertain times”.  This is my own vision for ARAFMI into the future – a continuously improving support for ordinary people facing challenges and obstacles that those who have not shared the experience of being carers cannot understand.