The Power Of Suffering

David Roland

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781760850135
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Persönlichkeitsentwicklung

The Power of Suffering is psychologist David Roland's personal investigation into the nature of human suffering. When our world is turned upside down, what does it do to us, how do we survive it, and, most importantly, how can we grow as a result? David takes the lived experience of eleven incredible people and follows them along each step of their journey from crisis through to acceptance and triumph. Within each story, David draws on his own experience of life-altering trauma and clinical research to offer insights we all can gain from. Each life story examined is a moving testimony of the human spirit's ability to rise and rise again – an executive tragically loses his family in a car crash and finds healing in the rehabilitation of wildlife, a teenage victim of domestic violence becomes a fierce advocate for abused women and brain-injured youth, a football superstar overcomes bigotry and dyslexia to forge a career in acting, a mother experiences the aching depth of love lost after her teenage child's life is tragically cut short. These are but a few of the intimately told stories, all pointing to a path through the storm and beyond. The Power of Suffering is a revelatory account of how the darkest night can lead to the most profound dawn. 'Poignant and powerful.' The Library Within 'A beautiful book... exquisite storytelling, and abook that could only be written by someone with the unique causes and conditions of David Roland – a personal journey through suffering, a psychologist's eye and the capacity to weave his own story and observations with the stories of others.' Aussie Reviews

Chapter 1

Ashley, my nineteen-year-old daughter, telephoned me one day. This wasn’t unusual. She often called for a chat.

It was good to hear her voice. As a first-year university student living away from home for the first time, and interstate, she was learning to be independent. But Ashley wasn’t just calling for a chat. She needed my help.

‘Dad, I’ve got this 1500-word essay and I can’t do it.’

I often helped Ashley with essays during her high school years. This is going to be an editing job, I thought.

‘What part of it are you having trouble with?’ I asked.

‘All of it,’ she said. ‘It’s not making sense, and it’s due next week.’

I heard a thread of panic in her voice, which was very unlike her. Normally, Ashley was an unflustered kid, and stoic. This is not going to be the usual conversation, I thought. My concentration homed in, and the lovely spring day I’d been enjoying receded into the background. I eased myself onto the sofa in the lounge room and made ready to hear whatever would come.

What emerged was the deepest, most revealing conversation we’d ever had. Ashley was in crisis, not only with the essay but also with life. Her voice trembled and, at times, stalled as her story unfolded, then I heard soft sobbing down the line. My eyes watered. I wanted to reach out and hold her.

Ashley was facing education and health challenges. She was overwhelmed, with no idea of what services she needed or how to access them. I told her she’d done well to get this far and acknowledged this to myself, too, perhaps for the first time. Although we were more than 1000 kilometres apart, it felt like we were very close.

I was a psychologist, had worked as a university counsellor at one time, and although the university and the city were unfamiliar to me, I knew where to begin. I told Ashley I’d make calls and get back to her by the day’s end.

I secured her a next-day appointment with a university counsellor; he would organise an extension on her essay once she’d explained her difficulties. The university medical centre had a drop-in time for students in the mornings, and the study skills centre offered a 1:1 tutorial session for her the following week.

My discussion with Ashley had revealed a developmental issue thwarting her capacity to study. This hadn’t been picked up during her high school years, but now, under the pressure of university study, and without her usual supports, it was a major roadblock. Assessments and reports by qualified professionals were needed. More calls over several days secured appointments with various practitioners: four major consultations in all, to be conducted over a week, in one month’s time. I resolved, without hesitation, to fly down and be with her during that week, making myself totally available. I’d go earlier, if she needed me.

Once all these things were in place, I reflected upon my actions. Something within me felt different, but what? I was doing what any parent would do, right? Well, maybe not. Before, when I’d been a work-focused psychologist running a private practice, something like this would have been an extreme inconvenience. I’m not sure I would have listened to my daughter so openly and intently without jumping in, trying to quickly problem-solve. I’d have shifted the responsibility to her mother, now my ex-wife, to see if she could go. But now, there was no question: I wanted to be there for her.

It was as though my internal compass was pointing in a new direction, away from my own needs and towards… love.

I’d noticed other changes in recent times, too. I was less interested in elaborate, expensive, pleasure-seeking activities, and more content with simple pleasures, like a walk or swim at the beach, coffee with a friend, family dinners, playing music, connecting more deeply with others. I was sensitive to the suffering in the world in a way that was raw, and more tangible than before. I’d become less judgemental of people’s differences, seeing the whole person, recognising that everyone has a story of how they came to be the way they are and accepting that I must be less than perfect, too. I was less of a know-it-all, which was a relief to friends and family, I’m sure.

What had wrought this change?

Well, life hadn’t been easy in recent years, and I suspected that suffering had done its work on me.

---

If I were to place a pin at the epicentre of my suffering, I would locate it at the hospital room – more particularly, 16 July 2009, my first night there. The bed was hard, the sheets too crisp and the antiseptic hospital smell smothering. The fluorescent glow from the outside corridor spilled into the room like a rough-necked intruder, and the ruffling sounds of my roommate in the bed next to mine were unfamiliar. Nothing felt homely and the prospect of sleep, so tantalising, was way off.

My mind freewheeled, screening show reels taken from life events. They revealed nothing but failure: failure as a decision-maker, as a father, as a husband, as a provider, as a psychologist. I could see nothing that was good. And the finale: I’m a burden to everyone; the world would be better off without me.

But I must have slept, because morning light from the long window by my bed nudged me awake and my new reality seeped in. How on earth had I ended up in a psychiatric hospital?

The question hung over me like a thought bubble as I ventured through the day. It was a question I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t be sure if what I was experiencing was real or if I was in a dream. Maybe this is psychosis, I thought? When people spoke, I wondered: Is that person really speaking to me or am I imagining them? Not being sure, I acted as if everything around me was real; the alternative was too frightening to contemplate.

There was something else, too. My mind was in a fog, as if I was drugged. Thoughts crawled through an invisible sludge, images of people and places had no labels, and I couldn’t name them. I’d lost words. Time was passing but I couldn’t say how much, or even be sure of what I’d done moments before. Noises seemed amplified and stabbed into my brain like needles.

I tried to capture these bizarre experiences. I took out my journal, sat on the bed and began writing. My hand seemed drunk as it scraped across the page, and my attention kept drifting off into some netherworld: ‘I never thought this would happen to me. Very strange first night. What am I doing here? Feel some sense of shame. Finding this hard to write.’

I felt very alone.

Then the bits fell into place. I’ve had a complete mental breakdown; I’ve lost the plot; my mind isn’t working anymore. And with that realisation came another horrifying thought: I might not ever get it back.

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Three days before my hospital admission, I’d woken early, got up and dressed as if for work, but I hadn’t worked in two years. I wandered the house, entering the children’s bedrooms, stopping and silently staring at them, they later told me. Once my wife was up, I asked, ‘What am I supposed to be doing?’

‘It’s the school holidays,’ she said. I was to take two of the children to camp. But I kept asking the same question again and again, not retaining her repeated answer. Frightened, she dashed me off to the general hospital.

Two days of tests and observation resulted in a diagnosis: ‘psychogenic amnesia’, brought on by extreme psychological stress. Off to the psychiatric hospital I went.

You see, prior to this I’d worked for over twenty years as a clinical and forensic psychologist, hearing clients’ trauma stories. I’d worked in the prison system and come face to face with murderers, rapists and paedophiles. On a few occasions, during my work, my life was threatened. The memories caught up with me. I was visited by horrific nightmares, jumpy and irritable during the day and drinking too much. Life was joyless. I sought the counsel of a senior clinical psychologist who diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. I closed my private practice, believing I needed time away to get well. Six months would do it, I thought.

During this period suicidal urges swooped on me so fiercely that I would grip onto the furniture, as though a demon were trying to whisk me away. As a clinician, I knew that if someone has a plan for how to do themselves in, they are a real suicide risk. I had a plan.

But there was an unexpected twist. Three weeks after my hospital admission a brain MRI revealed that I’d experienced a stroke: a brain injury. I’d been completely misdiagnosed. My mind was not lost, just temporarily hijacked. I felt immense relief; this was something I could work with.

I was a ‘walk and talk’ stroke, more common than most people realise. I didn’t have a droopy face or lose mobility, although I felt as weak as an old man. I could talk ‘normally’, but my wife said it wasn’t my usual way of speaking. A quarter of my visual field was gone due to damage in the vision area of my brain; I forgot the names of people, things and facts and had amnesia for new events. I experienced geographical disorientation – losing my way – and circumlocution – difficulty finding the right word for what I wanted to say. And I suffered extraordinary mental fatigue, like nothing I’d ever known. After any mental exertion I needed to sleep. My sensitivity to noise was due to my brain’s impaired capacity to modulate incoming auditory sensory input; something our brains usually do automatically.

Prior to the stroke, my wife and I had been facing financial calamity. We’d built up property investments over time, seeking financial security. I’d been conscious that I might reach a use-by-date, worn out by helping distressed people, so I’d made it a mission to create income independent of my occupation.

But with me the main breadwinner, after two years of unemployment our personal savings were exhausted, just as the global financial crisis of 2008 hit. Property prices were depressed and the payouts after a sale did not always cover the mortgage and the associated fees. With three school-aged children to support, our situation was grim. We were on our knees, and we turned to our families for help.

One particular financial institution was hammering us relentlessly. I sent them medical reports and financial statements demonstrating our genuine hardship but they refused all attempts to negotiate. We couldn’t meet their demands for payment of the outstanding debt; we’d already sold the family home and were renting it back from the new owner.

Why, when we were down like this, did they kick us in the guts? How did it help anyone? Their threats were impacting on my wife and me and, as a result, harming our children.

Finally, the financier obtained a court order against me (a writ for the levy of property), thinking I was the moneybags and hiding something, I suppose. The next step would be bankruptcy. We waited. Weeks went by with no further communication until a letter came to our home; we had two weeks to pay the full debt. It said, in part, ‘This order authorises Officers from the Sheriff’s Office to attend your address to obtain payment or to seize and sell your property to satisfy the outstanding amounts.’ It was absurd; the value of our household contents, if sold, would be a mere dent in what we owed. It was madness. Sustained torture.

The letter said, ‘Please do not ignore this letter, as failure to respond will mean that by law this Office has no option but to proceed to enforce the Order.’ I was too paralysed with fear to respond.

One morning, weeks later, I was inside the house when I heard a car pull up outside, then voices. I looked out the front window and saw two men in blue uniforms: a large, older man and a younger one of average build. It had to be the sheriff. A bolt of fear ran through me. I scampered downstairs to my study, as far away as I could get from them; it was too late to exit without being seen.

Once in the study I crumpled to the ground, my forehead resting on the floor. My body shook. Surely this is a dream? This only happens in movies, doesn’t it, not in real life?

My thinking catapulted ahead: they would take away our possessions; the family would return to an empty house – the children were at school, my wife out. I pictured myself talking to the girls, their faces perplexed as I explained the harshness of the world and how I could no longer protect them.

There was knocking at the front door; it was a timber house and sounds carried easily. I froze. Muttered voices, a pause, then footsteps, boots clomping down the drive and passing by the study window to the rear of the house. They knocked at the back door. Silence. ‘No one home,’ I heard. ‘We’ll need to force entry.’ Then something about getting tools from the car.

The absurdity of being found like a frightened child on the floor and the ignominy of our home being broken into was too much. I pushed myself up, walked the short distance to the back door and saw two shadowy figures through the tinted windows. I opened the door and, speaking as coolly as I could, said, ‘Hello. Sorry. I didn’t hear you knock. I was sleeping.’

I probably looked more alarmed than sleepy, but they appeared relieved. The older man, a sergeant judging by the three stripes on his epaulettes, spoke with polite formality and asked if I was David Roland. I assented. I expected them to enter and begin the search of the house but they stayed put. The sergeant turned to his offsider and said, ‘Take notes.’ Saying nothing, the younger one took a notepad and pen from his shirt pocket and made ready to write.

The sergeant recited the instructions of the writ and asked, ‘Do you own a Ferrari or a boat, or anything like that?’ Hardly waiting for my reply, he turned to survey the open garage to his right, which contained only my old Subaru, then twisted to the left, where there was only garden. ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ he said. I nodded. The young man scribbled.

‘We’ll be advising the court that we found nothing of value,’ he said. He turned to the young man. ‘Have you got that?’ Then he faced me again. ‘Thank you, Mr Roland.’ They left.

Once they were out of sight, I cried with relief.

---

In the ensuing ten years since the stroke, I’ve gained substantial recovery in every way. Symptoms of mental fatigue and memory loss still occur, although they’re greatly reduced. My physical health is excellent, better than before the stroke; I either ocean swim, walk, dance or garden every day and eat a healthy diet, which has given me back the waistline I had in my twenties.

But there was, as they say in wartime, collateral damage. We barely got through financially; I was unable to return to psychology work; my relationship with my three daughters was temporarily disrupted; and my marriage did not survive.

The breakdown of our family unit was the worst, like the death of a loved one. It unleashed a river of grief. I struggled with disbelief, having never imagined such a thing happening; marital breakdown happened to other people. My wife and I broke the news to the children together and made plans for a separation. I thought of our separation as temporary, something that would give us space, emotional respite, time to settle, allowing for family get-togethers and maybe, after a time, rapprochement.

But my wife took up with a new partner within months; she’d emotionally exited the marriage. I felt a searing hurt that turned into anger, rage, but over time this has mellowed into acceptance. She and I remain friends. Our three children have prospered, fortunate to have two devoted and cooperative parents.

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Ashley’s appointments went well, clarifying what was happening for her and what needed to be done. She saw the study skills tutor and completed her essay. She learned how to access the university medical services, saw the university counsellor and got some glasses to help with reading. The professionals’ reports went to the university and her teachers were informed. Allowances would be made. I saw her student living conditions, met some of her friends, and felt reassured.

Bumping along on public transport to and from appointments, browsing vintage clothing stores and eating out, we had the incidental conversations one has when engaged in common activities. Ashley had other needs, too; ones she hadn’t mentioned, like a shortage of kitchen utensils. We found what she needed and bought food supplies so she could prepare healthy meals. We were hanging out together like adults for...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright