Sarah Martin is an author, nurse, mother, Sane peer ambassador and peer support worker. Her mission and passion are to break the stigma and silence of all mental health concerns by sharing her family's journey. She says their experience with psychosis, depression, anxiety and bipolar opens the doors to discussions and allows others to know that they are not alone.

A must-listen episode with Sarah, where we speak about

• Sarah's experience of being contacted by a stranger overseas to say her daughter Alice was unwell, which later unfolded into finding Alice in the middle of a psychotic break
• the kindness of strangers and how 'luck' played a part in Alice's story and recovery process
• how Sarah and her family went from sweeping mental health under the carpet to mental health being a permanent uninvited visitor in their home
• frustration about the lack of awareness of mental health and the misunderstanding that mental health is a full stop ... one that means life is 'over'
• Sarah and my list of mental health myths and misunderstandings we would remove if we had a "Mental Health Magic Wand"
• how the process of writing her book was a cathartic process for Sarah and how Alice is her hero

Find Sarah online and grab a copy of her book Dear Psychosis, A Story of Hope and Life through a Family's Journey of Mental Health here.

___

Hey there beautiful! I have something for you! ⤵️

GRAB OUR FREE GUIDE HERE

---

TRANSCRIPT - S4E16 The Myth of 'Scary Music' for Mental Health with Sarah Martin

Sarah Martin: [00:00:00] And, um, he points me to the queue, which is the customs queue and it actually goes back and forward snakes. Backwards and forwards upon itself, and it's at least a two hour. Um, and here we have is a psychotic girl

Welcome to Wild and finally fucking free, hosted by me, soul fueled storyteller Kylie Thatcher. We dive into the truth talking, unedited stories of metamorphosis, growth and evolution. I deeply believe that sharing our stories holds transformative magic. Join us to listen to future humans, change agents, extraordinary ordinary people, healers, and paradigm shifters as we honor the power of our messy magical stories.

Let's get wild and finally fucking free together.

Kylie Patchett: Hello, everybody. Welcome to another podcast. I have Sarah Martin with me today. Hello, Sarah. How are you? 

Sarah Martin: Good morning. I'm very well. Thank you. 

Kylie Patchett: I'm so excited for this conversation because we were connected by the beautiful Maggie, who I, uh, uh, her recipe, her recipe episode. Where did that come from? Um, came out about a month and a half ago.

And we were talking about her lived experience with DID dissociative identity disorder. That's a mouthful. Um, and she connected me to you. So welcome, welcome, because I'm really looking forward to having another guest talking about. mental health and the stigmas around it and to reset the narrative. So thank you for coming.

I love 

Sarah Martin: that. I love it. I love to reset the narrative. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes. Amen. Amen. Now, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, um, and how you have come to this work in the world through your own experience? 

Sarah Martin: So I'm a, I'm a mom of three. I've got, uh, uh, two cats and a dog [00:02:00] and, Um, I work as a perioperative nurse, so theatre nurse, and I'm also a carer, peer worker.

Um, just started that, which is great, and that means being an advocate in committee meetings and stuff for those with mental health. So that, um, if, I'm all for being an advocate and breaking the barriers and the silence and stigma of mental health, because In 2015, our daughter suffered a psychosis while traveling overseas alone.

Oh, sorry. I didn't realize she was alone. That brought, brought me to the circle of being a mental health advocate and breaking that bloody silence and stigma. Wow. As much as I can. Yeah. 

Kylie Patchett: I cannot as a, as a mom of two daughters. Automatically, when you say traveling alone overseas and going into psychosis, I put myself in your shoes and I'm just like, 

Sarah Martin: Oh, terrifying.

It really was. It was, um, certainly something that we never thought that would, would happen. And mental health. You, you sort of go, Oh, that's not in my family. We don't have anyone with mental health. And um, we, we never thought that it would be in ours, but you know what life throws you curve balls and you either go with it or you don't and we've gone with it.

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Absolutely. Whereabouts was your daughter Alice when she, so she's overseas, but how, like, how did you even find out she was in psychosis? Did she, was she identified? 

Sarah Martin: So we'd had some sort of a bit of strange messages from her from about a week or two before, but you know, that carpet, we lifted it up and we swept it under there and, and We, we kept on and we, we sort of made a few excuses of this.

Oh, she's 21. She's traveling. She's fine. But I was at a [00:04:00] conference, actually, a theater, a nursing conference, and it was called Wellness for Life. And I get a message from a stranger. I look at it. And of course, I delete. I go, scammer. I delete. And, you know, you move on and then about an hour later, I get another message and it's from the same guy, but it's on my messenger request.

And my heart starts beating and I just, you know, you know, and these dots in my head from the week before connected. And I thought, this guy knows Alice, I open the message and it says, I'm, um, I'm a friend of Alice's. I'm worried about her. And of course, I then with shaky hands, open this message. In this conference and um, then I realized after a couple of minutes of exchanging messages that I need to go outside so I whispered to my nurse colleague and off I go outside and he thinks that Alice is having some sort of mental health crisis.

And that's, that's, that's when the life, my life, our life as we, we, we know it. Um, Changed. So that's, but then do I still do, I do I believe this guy? 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. That's where my, yes, 

Sarah Martin: it's a scam. Like my husband's playing golf. I can't contact him. Of course, . So I'm like, I'm, I'm falling apart, having a stress, you know, just stressing.

And then I realized that, um. My son in Melbourne, who's doing his last year of medicine is at home. But of course, it's Saturday morning at 10 a. m. He's been out, you know, for a big night out. 

Kylie Patchett: He's not going to be awake for hours. 

Sarah Martin: That's it. He doesn't answer my phone. And then I think if I ring again, he'll answer 

Kylie Patchett: it.

Sarah Martin: And he does. So, um, we then are able to have a great conversation. And then, um, and then we, we have more conversations with, with this guy. He's cool to sign. [00:06:00] And, um, 24 hours later, he and I, we leave my husband with my younger son at home. He and I are on a plane bound for Istanbul and, um, to find our, our beautiful girl and, and see, see what the story is.

Kylie Patchett: So what's going through your head when you're on, I know these sound like these I'm asking questions like stupid reporters do on TV where you're like, of course there's stress, but like what, what internally is going on when you're on that plane? Are you still hoping that whatever's at the end is just magically not really.

Sarah Martin: So Jesse, um, we call him our hippie vegan doctor. He's come with a little backpack. I love him already. He's gorgeous. He's gorgeous. He comes with the tiniest of backpack with about three items in it. Yes. I've gone with a bag because I'm thinking that Well, okay, if she's not all right, I'm not going to come all this way and then go home in two days.

Kylie Patchett: No. 

Sarah Martin: Um, my mum and dad have graciously paid for our plane tickets 

Kylie Patchett: or 

Sarah Martin: else two of us would no way have been able to afford to do this. Um, so I've got this back bag. Packed thinking great, but we'll we'll spend a few extra days in Istanbul And then we might have to come home and I'm thinking the best thing is I arrive and she goes on I'm really glad that you're here.

I'm feeling okay now, but You know, and then something, you know, just goes home and I go home and you know, everything's hunky dory. No, we arrive at the airport, and she's surrounded in a group of these beautiful Syrian refugees that have clearly saved her life. They look exhausted. They've surrounded her, walking her to us, and we, we are and will be forever grateful to these people.

We work [00:08:00] out very quickly that we need to get home. And so we, within three days, so we get there on the Monday, on the Wednesday. We have her in a plane and get home and then we, we, we deal with the, um, the hospital system, getting her into the PEC unit, which is the Psychiatric Emergency Care Unit and, um, then home to my care on a concoction of drugs to keep her well and there's nothing for us as parents.

We don't know what to do. And I ask, I ask people, this is, um, nearly 10 years ago, so it, there were places around Black Dog Institute saying we're around then, but I, I was too busy keeping Alice afloat. I had to forget about myself. I had to forget about my husband. I had to forget about the other kids. Um, Jess has gone back to Melbourne, um, to continue his studies 

Kylie Patchett: and 

Sarah Martin: the 13 year old, who's amazing, he's just going to school and we've told, we, we decided very early on as a nurse, um, that we wouldn't have secrets in the house, that we would, to a certain extent, share what was going on.

So Harry knows that Alice is unwell, but. Not, not to the extent that you somewhere. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: So what had happened was that she'd had a drug induced psychosis in Istanbul. She'd taken a half a tablet of this drug called Kaptagon, which was the newest drug of choice for the Syrian and ISIS fighters to take.

And she was described as it being a, like a red bull drinker, an energy drink. That would make her feel, you know, a bit of caffeine. A bit of, yeah, and what we've done is, as a family, is that we've, we've [00:10:00] had to move on from that. Do we condone drugs? Absolutely not. But, you can't deal in should or would have couldas, You have to deal with hindsight, insight and foresight.

So that's what we do. We. We talked about it when Alice was well enough, which was months later. Um, and I said to her, I can't do this again. If this happens again. And she said, Mom, I have no interest in doing this ever again. And it wasn't until two years later when she had a second psychosis that she was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder, which then came back to being, um, The cause of the first psychosis, the, the drug was the, um, the catalyst, like the catalyst that term.

Um, and an interesting thing for all, all your listeners out there is that our psychiatrist described it really well. She said, if you've got a group of 20, whether it doesn't matter whether you're adults or, or, or young people, um, you've got a group of 20 and you take, you all take the same drug. Doesn't matter what it is, you all take the same drug.

19 of you will be fine. One will have an adverse reaction and whether that's, um, feeling a bit out of it, whether that's being out of it for a day or two, or whether it's a full blown psychotic episode like Alice had, is, is another thing. So, Our story is certainly a, um, uh, a positive message for some and a warning to others.

And we need to have open discussions to our children and with our children, and it needs to be early. We don't Yeah. You know, there's no pussy footing about mental health there. There're just not, there is not. Yeah. 

Kylie Patchett: I, um, oh, there's so many questions I wanna ask. I wanna take you back [00:12:00] to seeing Alice in the airport, and I'm just imagining, oh.

I'm just putting myself in your shoes, like I just can't imagine. 

Sarah Martin: We see her and um, she comes towards us and her, she's got a head wrapped in a scarf and then there's hair that is, there are tufts of hair coming out of the scarf and she has a dress on that's inside out and on top of the dress is a skirt.

And, um, the, like, that's our first, that's our first look. So I immediately, when these beautiful Syrians and Hussein, the man that's rung us, um, gets to us, I immediately embrace her. Um, and Jesse embraces the other, the other three that have got our girl to us. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes. 

Sarah Martin: Um, and Jesse's crying, I'm crying, the Syrians are crying and Alice, Alice is hearing voices.

She's not with us. She's, she's not just hearing one voice. She's hearing hundreds of voices. Yeah. And how she heard our voice. is an amazing thing. I, and I don't, I don't know why and or how, um, and I will probably talk about luck today. Um, and definitely we need to take the luck out of mental health, but we were certainly blessed, um, from the moment Hussein called us to the moment we got her home and to treatment.

We feel so blessed. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah, I, um, I imagine because of my question was about the airport, like, did you know even visually that you weren't going to have this magical happy [00:14:00] ending of like, Oh, it's nothing. She just had a, you know, funny night or whatever. Um, so you see her and you realize that she doesn't.

look or appear to be as you would expect her to be in her natural state. Um, what's it like to navigate the plane travel if she's so unwell, because I've having worked in mental health recovery and being around people in psychosis, I imagine that would have been tricky. 

Sarah Martin: So amazing, Jessie, when we got to the airport, So, he had the headphones on that he'd been listening to and he had some music on.

He immediately gave them to Alice and said, pop these on, listen to this. If you want to change the song, you tap the side of your headphone and it'll skip. It'll skip a beat. It'll skip a track. And if you don't like that, skip it again. And Alice then said, about a week later, that When he said this, when the voices became overwhelming, which they were all the time.

Kylie Patchett: Yes. 

Sarah Martin: That she would skip the track and it would sometimes flick her thoughts to a different thought or the voices would recede. Yes. And that, that was. One of the best things that we, and that happened like five minutes into our stay. So we have to get her through Istanbul airport, Ataturk airport, which is one of the busiest airports in the world.

Kylie Patchett: And 

Sarah Martin: there'd been a, um, there'd been a terrorist attack, or I think a couple of days before we arrived. So, The queues, the lines to everywhere are absolutely horrific 

Kylie Patchett: and 

Sarah Martin: we have to get her, um, we have to get her into, into the airport. This is why I'm asking because I just. This is a couple of hours wait.

And in, in the book, I [00:16:00] actually write about, um, I am oblivious to all of this. I'm, I'm standing with Alice, Alice and I have held hands the whole time. Um, we know that if we can't let her walk away because we'll, she'll just disappear. She, you know, she's not here. She's here, but she's not here. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: Um, so that was, that was one of the best things of having Jess was because I could go to the toilet by myself, he could go to the toilet by himself, we could, we could get food, we could do this because we had, um, but the queues are horrific and Jesse's seen this and I'm, I'm, I'm seriously oblivious and he looks at me and he goes, mum, we can't, we can't, um, we can't go in that queue and I go, what queue?

And, um, he points me to the queue, which is the customs queue and it actually goes back and forward snakes. Backwards and forwards upon itself, and it's at least a two hour. Um, and here we have is a psychotic girl that we're, we're not mental health trained. And I certainly, I did one lecture in my training, um, 35 years ago, and I have no idea what to do.

Um, Jesse had read. Um, a little bit about it on the plane, which is great. Um, he, and he'd done a mental health turn like a month before. So we, we were really blessed like with a lot of things and, um, anyhow. So we can't, we can't go in that queue. And he goes, we've got to go in that queue. And I look and it's the business class queue.

And I go, here's my hippie vegan doctor with his long hair, you know, his backpack on his back that he's got his worldly possessions in. And here am I, you know, with my hair back, Alice, I've, I've done her hair, um, she's got a headphones on, she's got, she's very [00:18:00] blank and I go, we can't do that. And he goes, mum, we cannot go in that line.

And I'm now, my heart is, I'm now, I'm not, I'm not outwardly. Upset but inwardly my heart is pounding and I'm like, if we can't get her through, we're going to cause an international incident because there's no way she will stay in the queue for two hours and it's. And it's also a claustrophobic queue because it's, you know, we all know what those hotel, airline lines are like.

And so he says, come on. And I go, okay. And we go across and, um, Jesse speaks to the, the lady at the, the, the business first class check in and not check in. It is the customs queue. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: And, um, uh, she looks at us and he says, um, This is my mom. That's my sister. She's unwell. Yeah. We cannot go through the other the other line.

She looks at us and she puts a finger up and she brings another lady and the other lady, Jesse says the same thing and I'm getting a little bit teary now. I didn't think I would. This happened a long time ago. Yeah. Um, the lady looks at us. And she looks at Jesse, she looks at Alice, and she waves us through.

If we hadn't got through that, we, we would not have. And it is the kindness of strangers. And I, like, I surprise myself when I get emotional. And because it did happen that long ago, but sometimes people's kindness, I wish I could find her. I wish I could say how amazing she was to get us through because I, that made all the 

Kylie Patchett: difference 

Sarah Martin: that, that meant the difference.

Um, and then another [00:20:00] thing, um, Jesse had suggested was that we buy into a lounge in, in Ataturk airport. And I did, I'd bought it the day before and we walked in past that. And there are just thousands of people there. And of course, Alice, I can't, I can't. You don't want somebody. So it was the best money spent that getting into that lounge.

So then we've got the, the, the. the plane ride where we sit, Alice sits in between us, um, and I'm the shortest at five foot eleven, Alice is six foot and Jessie's six foot two, so we're, we're all like, we've put the six foot one in between us, so, and she just sits there with the headphones when dinner arrives.

Um, she, I have to open the foil, hand her everything, um, because I think everything has meaning to her in her mind. Like she's psychotic. Um, she hadn't slept for days and by the time we got on the flight plane, she'd had a bit of more sleep than she'd had. So when we first arrived, she couldn't utter or say words that I understood or hear cause they were so quiet.

Um, but she could say a few words, but they'd be whispering. Yes, we'd have to listen very carefully. And so we'd walk around the plane, but I'd walk with her or Jesse had walked with her when she went to the bathroom. I'd walk with her and wait for her and, and things like that. But, um, yeah, so then we, we get home and we, we have a stop in Singapore.

I can't wait to get back on that plane and back up and I 

Kylie Patchett: just imagine being like coming onto the tarmac in Australia. Yeah. The enormous sense of relief you must have had. 

Sarah Martin: I'm so grateful, but now Alice can speak. She does. She's sort of not understanding why she's home and why she had to come home because [00:22:00] her brain tells her all she needs is yoga 

Kylie Patchett: and 

Sarah Martin: getting her to hospital is we just say it's, you have to go to hospital.

We have to we have to deal with this and it's it's she is one of the most amazing and I call her she is my hero and she will forever be my hero and she says no I'm not I'm not look what look what they you know put you through no no you are amazing and um you know at the end when you know we talk a bit more.

I'll, I'll let you know how amazing she is, but, um, I, I, getting her to the hospital was very hard. And, um, one of the things that was the hardest was, um, We had to tell our story within six hours we'd spoken to, oh no, less than that, sorry, three hours, we'd spoken to six different medical healthcare workers.

But, but, here's my but. Now, when, when I actually, wrote my book. I was very angry and one of our friends who was a doctor read it and he said, hey, you're really angry about this but can I can I give you a a better scenario and I said sure and he said you know that game that you used to play as kids and it was called telephone and it was one um you know you talk to one there are ten of you in a line and you talk um you say the cat sat on the mat and Did we

Yeah. By the time Chinese whisper whispers. Mm-Hmm. . It's, it's, um, Roger, Roger went for lunch with Bill . 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Roger the rat . Yeah. Sat down lunch. Yeah. Roger the rat. 

Sarah Martin: Yes. Yeah. So he explained that by, by me or Alice, or Jesse. Telling Alice's story from our mouth to their ear. Bypassed that. So he [00:24:00] said, I hear your pain and frustration and I get it because it is.

There's a lot of frustration in hospitals. But the best person to tell your story is Alice. or your illness is you. So no matter whether it's mental health, cancer, um, appendicitis, it is your words coming from your mouth. And that immediately changed. Would I like to change a whole lot of things? And again, we lucked on to our emergency department having no one in it on that Friday morning, we walked in.

Literally, we walked in. There's a little room that, When you sit for half an hour, they then take you in to the room to have your blood pressure and we walked straight in, sat down, went into that room. And then they took us into those magic doors into the emergency ward. And that's where we, we stayed. And, and, but But we had to tell the story to six different people.

Um, now that is frustrating. Are there steps that need to be? Yes, with mental health concerns, we should be telling our story once and then it should be straight into the mental health. Um, the psychiatrist or not that we ever saw the big man. We only ever saw the registrar, but, um, but yeah, 

Kylie Patchett: yeah, I think, um, having worked in mental health recovery, I hear your pain and I also, it's fine for, you know, that doctor's point of view of like, it's better to tell it from your mouth, et cetera, but it was all right for Alice.

Cause she had two people with her that could do that. Whereas a lot of people that are in a psychotic break, even if they can get themselves to a hospital, do not have the capacity or the bandwidth or the ability to advocate for themselves. So Kylie, 

Sarah Martin: if she, if Alice had had to speak for herself, she would have said, I'm fine.

Kylie Patchett: [00:26:00] Yeah. I'm not 

Sarah Martin: sure why I'm here because I, you know, I've been on a holiday and I'm a bit tired. 

Kylie Patchett: Um, yeah. 

Sarah Martin: And she would have omitted everything else. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes, exactly. Um, for people that are listening, when you say having a psychotic episode, can you give people, and I know from my experience different for every single person, but how would you describe to someone who's listening to this podcast episode and going, I actually don't.

I don't really know what that means, apart from the Hollywood versions of someone going completely batshit crazy, if I want a better way of saying it. Um, how would you describe a psychotic episode? 

Sarah Martin: Okay, so other than that very first day when we met Alice at the airport, people having psychosis often look like you and me.

They're not running around with a gun or a knife. Okay. Which is often how we see it portrayed by the media and for people that have had psychosis. That's a really sad narrative for them to say, because that is the extreme end of psychosis or mental health. So psychosis to me means having my loved one that we didn't watch a lot of television because the television was listening to us.

Um, we needed to surround ourselves with crystals when Alice first came home. She wanted to go to the crystal shop and I was like, Oh my God, really, really, but you know what? It was something that was going to, she felt could work for her. And the worst thing going to the crystal shop was that the overpowering scent of the, of the incense burning in the shop.

Other than that, I was like, this shop is. Awesome. 

. And we went to this shop while Alice was psychotic and she gave, she had a stone and she said, mom, this is for you. And it was a worry stone. And I thought, [00:28:00] how did she know that I was worrying so much, but she knew that was so it psychosis comes with a lot of strangeness and a lot of, um, things that are going in through, through her mind.

But we don't see it or hear it unless it's there. our loved ones verbalize it to us. Yes. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: So often mental health is unseen and unheard because there are no bandages. There's no band aids. There's nothing to see. So that when we would go to the shops, when I finally got Alice up out of the house and we'd go, it might only be that we could stay up there for five minutes.

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: Nobody would know that we we would hold hands and nobody would, would know. And I think we probably got a few look. Oh, yes, yes, we know, we know. But no, no, they don't know. And they know nothing. Alice couldn't read. Um, there were too many. She couldn't listen in the early stages of her psychosis, probably for the first month.

She couldn't read or write because her brain was too tired to do that. So she had nothing to do. And it wasn't until later that I thought, My God, her brain is too tired to listen. She could draw in an adult colouring in book for five minutes. That was it. Concentration was zero. And then I thought, why didn't I read to her?

I could have read, I could have read magazines or a bit of a book. But she did say later, she said, Mum, I, my mind, I don't think could have focused even on what you were reading me, but it's still a thing to ask. Then so that that's what I don't know whether I'll say describe psychosis from my [00:30:00] eyes very well, but that's That's what it, what it was to 

Kylie Patchett: it.

I think, um, something that in my time in mental health recovery, something that really, because you're right, you can't, you're not having the same experience. No one external, even when someone is voicing what is internally happening, you're not experiencing it. It's just like, it's like reading a book about it.

It's not like actually having the experience. Yeah. And nothing makes 

Sarah Martin: sense to us because. You know, there's there's microchip Alice had a microchip in her that was implanted and we're like, what, what mental we don't have mental health in our family what's going on. So we did have to lift up that. that carpet and we did have to confront it.

I often talk about mental health waltzing into our house, uninvited and unwelcome and sitting In, at the table, at the, at the TV, in our bedroom, in the bathroom, it sat, it sat there. What we've done is we've actually embraced it now and we've, we, we mightn't welcome it all the time, um, but you have to acknowledge it and, and the stigma and silence is, is what we're, we're trying to break now.

Kylie Patchett: Mm. Yeah. When Alice first came home, like you said before, she had another episode. So what was the, because having been a carer of someone in my family with significant mental health challenges, I know how heavy the responsibility weighs on the carers. And like you said before, like 

Sarah Martin: you 

Kylie Patchett: were so busy just getting her through a day.

It was hard to even notice anything else, which is totally understandable. What impact did the recovery for Alice have on your own [00:32:00] like health and well being and also relationships inside of the family? 

Sarah Martin: So when Alice, this first happened to Alice, we remained silent and we didn't just stay silent for a week, a month.

A year. It was probably two years. There would have been a handful of people in that first year that knew what, what had gone on and what had happened. And probably the second year, there were, there were more, there were probably, you know, 20 people that knew. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: And so the biggest impact as us on a family was that we were so silent and the silent, the silence was because of the stigma of mental health and the, the, the grief that you have, um, and the wanting to protect your loved one from other people's perceived actions.

When we arrived home, Alice had a few good friends and of those good friends. I'd say four stayed and the rest ran very fast and I was angry for a while and then I realized that they just don't understand that our, our, our knowledge of mental health and psychosis and bipolar is, is scary. And um, especially psychosis when somebody is having a psychotic episode, it is scary.

And I was so sad that these friends. Disappeared and it was the ones that stayed that I didn't think would. Yeah, it's funny. Oh yeah, they're not gonna. They haven't known her as long. 

Kylie Patchett: Mm hmm. 

Sarah Martin: You know, they've known known her for a couple of years or five years and they're amazing and they're still around and II love them dearly and.

Yeah. These are the people that um had no judgment. They just didn't. Um, but it was the silence. So. Uh, it wasn't until this year that I [00:34:00] actually spoke with a psychologist and it was, um, Alice saying last year, mum, why don't you go speak to someone? And my then 13 year old child in 2015, who's now a strapping 22 year old, six foot four boy.

Oh my goodness. You've freed him Joel. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you go speak to someone that I did? So breaking that silence, probably in about 2017, we realized then I had people messaging me and phoning me saying, has this happened to you? It's happened to us. And it was an acquaintance that would be, be doing that.

And I realized that, wow, we've broken the silence and we've, we're doing it. We're, we're, we're helping other people. So yeah, 

Kylie Patchett: I imagine that was. isolating at the time as well that you're, but I guess, I guess in a way, having a daughter, that's going through a psychotic break is isolating in itself anyway, because everything falls away apart from what's right in front of you.

Sarah Martin: Well, all you see is the perfect families out there. And we know that they're not perfect families. We know it, but my brain would say, even my, my beautiful sister, who knew right from the word go, what we were going through. 

Kylie Patchett: And I 

Sarah Martin: have two brothers that are doctors, married to doctors. So I kept the information limited to them because they, they like, they like all the info.

I don't, I didn't have the information. But, um, but my beautiful sister knew. Yeah. I've lost my track of where I was going. No, that's 

Kylie Patchett: okay. We're talking about like the isolation and the, you know, um, that I guess your, your view of the world gets narrowed to where I need to be, which is with Alice, helping Alice, protecting Alice, et cetera, rather than kind of, because where I was going was, was that very isolating.

But I guess by definition, when this happens, [00:36:00] You let everything else fall to the wayside because nothing else is more important than what's right in front of you. 

Sarah Martin: Yeah, that's so I know what it was. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah, 

Sarah Martin: the perfect families. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes, that's right. I 

Sarah Martin: look at my sister and I look, I go, she's got the most two beautiful daughters and two.

They're perfect. I can't say any Nick. There's no negative. And my friends, I would look at them and they'd perfect families. Now nobody knows what's going behind closed doors. I mean, people were probably looking at us going, well, what a perfect family you have. 

Kylie Patchett: Yep. 

Sarah Martin: That we were disintegrating and ducks on the outside and Yeah.

Paddling. Yeah. Madly on the, on the inside. So it, it's. It's, it's, we must treat everyone like that beautiful lady at Atatürk Airport with, with love and kindness and you never know what's going on in someone's life. And if we don't ask the questions, we don't get the answer. So if, if, um, people are worried about someone or worried about their, their child or their loved one, if you don't ask the right question, you're not going to get the answer.

No, exactly. And RUIK Day is great. But it's, but are you okay? We all go like when I was going through that silence. There is no way I was saying, you know, no, I'm not. Okay. There was no way. So we need to, we need to be really direct with our answers and with Alice. Um, I will ask. So I will find out her triggers.

So it triggers his lack of sleep, which led to the second psychosis in 2007. I was going 

Kylie Patchett: to ask that. And stress. 

Sarah Martin: So straight, those were the two things that were the catalyst for that, that psychosis. And that's when the, um, psychiatrist was able to, uh, diagnose bipolar, 

Kylie Patchett: bipolar. 

Sarah Martin: Yeah. So often mental health diagnosis doesn't come [00:38:00] for years 

Kylie Patchett: and very often not the first, yeah.

That's right. 

Sarah Martin: And in fact, they were saying that. If it was a drug induced psychosis, that would be the best case scenario if she only have ever had one, one, one drug induced. Once you have more, if you are, um, are a drug taker or whatever, then the more, then you're going to have more life. That's it. That's, that's the way that it is.

But if Alice, um, did not, then she would have, her life would, would virtually go back to what it was pre psychosis, but it wasn't to be. And that's why we don't deal with shoulda, woulda, couldas. 

Kylie Patchett: No, 

Sarah Martin: we, um, we deal with the moment and so if Alice is not feeling great or I can see, I'll say, well, Shane, she's not, I don't think she's well today, but it's not that she's not well.

It's, I ask her, so I ask, how are you? Have you, how's your sleep, you know, taking your meds 

Kylie Patchett: and, 

Sarah Martin: um, and only a mother can say that. Like. Yeah. Or a carer, um, but um, how are you feeling like, is there anything I should know? And I'm so I'm very specific with the questions that I ask. And she'll either say, I haven't had great sleep.

So we know, right, okay. And she's 30 now and we're still having these conversations and they're fine to have. They're fine. Like, who cares what age you are? Ask me. I'm 60. Well, exactly. Ask me how I am. I've had enough sleep. Yep. Oh, I've had a big weekend. 

Kylie Patchett: I always laugh because, um, when my kids were younger, um, I was doing more health and life coaching.

And I. Develop this system for kind of checking in on your self care sort of thing. And we had this, it used to be in the shape of a flower and each petal was a different thing. And, um, I [00:40:00] used to laugh because sometimes I'd be like snappy or something, and they'd be like, just come over here on the fridge.

Wait, what, what isn't really that full? And I'd be like, shut up, but I, um, Yeah, my daughters are 19 and 20 now and yeah, they, it's a, it's a funny family conversation because you know, as soon as they, I've got one daughter with a, in quite a serious chronic health condition. And yeah, even the other day I was like, you've got that gray look in your eyes that you get before you have like a, you know, like, and she's like, I don't want to hear it, but.

You know that she's internally got my voice going, what are the, you know, the sleeping and the stress relief and the playing and the connecting with friends and like, you know, all those, I don't know, I think knowing 

Sarah Martin: triggers is so important, like, does it, it doesn't matter what, for what. And I think with, um, mental health, we forget that it's chronic illness.

Yes. We need to treat it. Diabetes, um, heart disease. My dad's a 93 year old diabetic. He's, he's been an insulin dependent diabetic for 60 years now. Yes. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: And I don't ask, or now I'd have to say in the last five years we ask whether, you know, what's your BSF, your blood sugar level, what's your, um, what, you know, what's that, uh, do you, have you take, have you remembered to take your injection?

Now he's, he's not demented at all. And he now, he just goes, okay. That's what I have to, that's what you want. And he forgets. So we need to, but, and people would ask me, Oh, does she take a drugs? Does she do this? Sorry, I'm not asking you if your daughter takes her diabetic drugs or her kidney drugs or her heart drugs or whatever.

So don't ask that question. People, people do ask that. amazing questions like, does she have a job? Alice did teaching English as a second [00:42:00] language. She got a communications degree before she went overseas. And then she did English second language after in 2016. So after psychosis. And she worked till 2020 till COVID hit.

And of course, that then stopped the students. And she said, Mum, I think I would like to do psychology. And so she's, she then did that, then got a full time job working as an academic advisor and online finished her psychology degree and has just finished her honors degree. 

Kylie Patchett: My goodness. 

Sarah Martin: So it's a lot of mental health.

Does not, is not a full stop and, um, that on my book, it's dear psychosis, comma, and the reason why it's a comma is because mental health is not a full stop. And whether it be that your loved one smiles today, then that's, that's a positive. And we need to move forward and we need to. We need, we need to stop the scary music with mental health.

We need to change that narrative. And, you know, 

Kylie Patchett: If you had a magic wand, like if we, if we had a stigma removing magic wand, what is the shit that you would like just delete off the planet? Because I feel like without us calling out the specific, Judgment and stigma and Hollywood informed bullshit about mental health, um, disorders and imbalances, whatever.

Um, if we're not calling it out, the people that have it in the back of their head, it's kind of like that latent racism that people don't actually, they wouldn't identify as a racist, but they still have these thoughts. What would you delete from the world with a magic wand that could, 

Sarah Martin: you know, so saying, [00:44:00] um, have a stigma watch.

Ooh. I love it. And I would love if I had the magic wand. Mm. 

Kylie Patchett: And it 

Sarah Martin: is in the media that I would Mm-hmm. Wave it at. And it would be the use of words, Oh, they were crazy today or they lost the plot. I mean, maybe not lost, lost the plot, but they use words when they're talking about athletes that are having, have clearly had a mental health episode, but they will not use mental health or they won't use a specific word they'll use crazy or they're nuts.

They lost it. And, and I think, no, let's use the word. And so on this, this stigma watch, you can then. Um, let's say no. And they contact the journalist and say, Hey, listen. So it's changing the narrative. And I think we all need to change the narrative. Um, that would be, and, and my big wand would be for me, it would be exactly that.

There is no full stop after mental health. Can we please, can we please not think that someone's life is over because they've had a mental health episode? Um, it is distressing and it will always be distressing and I'd love, uh, we've clearly broken the silence in the biggest possible way, but, um, I, I'm so grateful for that because we've had so many people contact us in saying thank you that they either grew up with parents.

And they weren't allowed to talk about it because they'd go to school and clearly the nuns knew or the teachers knew and the parents had said, we don't talk about it, but Susie's mother's not well or her brother's not well, but we don't talk about it in the home. And that's they've never talked about it in 40 [00:46:00] years.

And yet they contact Alice and I and say, thank you. We've, we now the, and this is our story and we go, Oh, thank you so much. And sharing that with us. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: And it is so important to talk about it. And if you can't talk about it, maybe write it down, like just, just write it, then throw it in the fireplace or throw it in the bin or, or whatever.

Kylie Patchett: Exactly. Um, I want to add some things to your stigma list because these are the things that used to shit me in mental health library. Mental health. Imbalance, illness, like whatever, whatever language that we're using, A has no reflection on someone's intelligence, B has no reflection on someone's control.

Like it's avoidable if you just try harder. 

Sarah Martin: Oh, yeah. Go out and walk outside. 

Kylie Patchett: That one is a big 

Sarah Martin: one. 

Kylie Patchett: C does not mean it's a character flaw or something that someone decided to switch on or switch off in themselves. 

Sarah Martin: Oh, yes. 

Kylie Patchett: Um, D, um, I feel like there is a real lack of understanding that, um, and Maggie, who we're just talking about, the author of Split Perfect Example, often mental health, um, not, not always, but sometimes mental health disorders actually are created by a brain who is seeking protection from ongoing serious trauma.

And so it is actually an amazing adaptive ability. For your brain to lock away parts of you so that you cannot be destroyed by what's going 

Sarah Martin: absolutely. Absolutely. Um, 

Kylie Patchett: and I think that people don't understand that. Um, 

Sarah Martin: we certainly need more education. We so need more. Oh, and 

Kylie Patchett: that's the other thing. Like if we, okay, let's talk [00:48:00] about, How would you change the nursing slash medical slash mental health system?

If you had a magic one? Wow. These are big questions, Sarah. I'd love 

Sarah Martin: to tell you this story. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes, please do. 

Sarah Martin: So since 2015, I've, um, I've done a few courses and now that I'm a same peer investor, they often Um, lectures to go to, and now I'm a care, uh, peer care worker, I now go to a lot of webinars. So, I was speaking to someone who was, is, a mental health worker, and I said to them, I've been to this great, um, talk, and it's called TALK, so it's for suicide awareness.

Kylie Patchett: And it 

Sarah Martin: is saying the words and being honest and out loud and approaching people. Um, in saying, how are you today? You don't look great. And, you know, getting the conversation going. 

Kylie Patchett: And 

Sarah Martin: if you. And if they talked about suicide, which we say the words and we ask the words, and I was saying this to this person, and I said, I think we should get this talk here.

I think that all the managers should have the work and, and elsewhere and, and they looked at me and they said, If we do that, we have to do something about it. And I don't have the time. And I think that is, and sadly, I think that is the way of a lot of people. That work is busy, I've got a deadline, and I can't afford to ask you the proper question, and oh my gosh, you're not feeling well?

I don't have time for that. So that would be my, the narrative we need to change. And we need people like me, like you, to break that silence and go into [00:50:00] workplaces. Um, but you mentioned the word mental health and people don't want to, they don't want to hear it. They, they, they don't want to hear it. And that's why I'm so grateful, Kylie, for you having me on and to hear and to break that silence.

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: Because carers don't break the silence. That's where the stigma is. They're not going to out their loved one for having mental health. 

Kylie Patchett: And 

Sarah Martin: that's why mental health is so silent. 

Kylie Patchett: It stays in the shadows. And it's scary out there 

Sarah Martin: in the world. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Yeah. And worse for carers. I mean, caring for someone with any.

ongoing chronic illness can be an incredibly huge load. And then there's a whole other level with psychosocial and I'm, I'm using NDIS terminology now because under NDIS, which is the framework that I used to work in mental health disorders were called psychosocial disorders, which I think is a misnomer, but anyway, that's a whole other conversation.

Um, There is so much stigma and isolation and so that actually makes the, the reality for carers of people that have significant mental health, um, issues, particularly when they're in crisis, just debilitating. And so we break the carers, then we break the one tiny level of support that some people have.

Yeah. Because they won't, they will not or cannot access, you know, other, whatever, um, particularly where I used to work, it's regional area. So there's not as many services available. 

Sarah Martin: And taking time off work, people, people will say I'm sick. They won't say I'm. Uh, when Alice came, first came home, there was about three months where I didn't work and I was, I was so fortunate that I worked for, I was working at two hospitals at that time and I was able to take that time off and, and say, and the bosses of both knew, and in one, I worked for a particular doctor.

[00:52:00] So that team knew so that when I went back to work. I actually had the, I had an anesthetist, a, a, a doctor and an anesthetic nurse and another nurse 

Kylie Patchett: who 

Sarah Martin: all knew what was going on in my, my little world. 

Kylie Patchett: Yes. 

Sarah Martin: And I had my sister that knew. I was able to just go blur. And there were days when I'd go to work and I'd, and I'd get worried, and then I'd start, I'd, I'd text my husband, you know, like, 

Kylie Patchett: yes.

Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: And uh, I'd go, one of us needs to go home. Mm-Hmm. . And we would, 

Kylie Patchett: yeah. 

Sarah Martin: And I'd, I'd say to work, is there anyone to fill in for me? Or Shane would go work from home. Um, and, and that's, that's the thing it's silent. I was able to tell because I work as a nurse. Yeah, I felt like and and all this was done under the kind of silence.

Yeah, of course. And it would be I'd start every conversation with this is the kind of silence you cannot tell anybody. And that's the way I, I talked for two years to friends. My after that first year, it would be this is the kind of silence. You cannot share this with anyone. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah, 

Sarah Martin: I was so scared that it would, it would, Get out.

Kylie Patchett: Now that you, because we haven't even touched the fact that you've written a book and I know you've mentioned it a couple of times, so I want to get to the process of writing the book. But now that you have had the experience of not being silent and having people share their stories with you and everything.

And I know this is a stupid question because it's like hypothetical and who knows, but if you could go back and decide to be silent or not, would, do you think that you'd make the same? Choice. 

Sarah Martin: I probably think I would 

Kylie Patchett: would 

Sarah Martin: because Alice wasn't Alice. Alice had to say herself that she was ready to share.

Kylie Patchett: [00:54:00] Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: And until that moment and that she was ready to. And look, she was always pretty good with her friends. It was then. To a wider. Yes. To a wider community that we were then going. So that, that, that, that little ball became bigger. But then it was like, okay, are we doing this now? Are you happy for me to actually start talking and saying to my other work colleagues?

Are you happy for that? And she said yes. Happy. 

Kylie Patchett: So how long before you actually wrote the book and it was published that you, did you have the, did you always know you wanted to write a book? Like what was the, no, no, 

Sarah Martin: I'm a nurse, I'm a touchy feely. I give great hugs and I care for you so well when you're sick, but put me on a computer and oh my God, tap, tap, tap with one finger and writing a book was never, but what I realized was that.

I've written a lot of notes and it had become cathartic, not notes, I'd just written stuff. I've never been a diary writer, so I'd just written stuff. And I realized that what I had would make a great anonymous article. 

Kylie Patchett: Ah, 

Sarah Martin: but it was actually too much for an anonymous article. Yeah, 

Kylie Patchett: then it 

Sarah Martin: could be a book.

And I had asked Alice. in about 2016 

Kylie Patchett: to 

Sarah Martin: see if she could write. 

Kylie Patchett: If 

Sarah Martin: you can write what you've been through it might help you. So I'd asked her to do that and she'd been able to, which is amazing in itself. And then I asked Jesse if he could write About that week that he was with us in Istanbul, or those that week that he was with us in Istanbul and then back here in Australia, and he said, Yeah, sure.

Okay. And then I realized I had this book, and I [00:56:00] probably asked Alice 99 times. Are you okay? Are you sure you're sure? The moment I press send, it's out in the world and we can never come back from that. No, no. Once it's out, it's out. And the hundredth time I asked, she said, can you stop asking me, I, I'm happy to break the silence.

Yeah. Let's do it. Then that's when the book we, I, I'd already had 500 copies of the book sitting in my study ready. Oh, really? I was waiting. I just, I had to ask that one last time. Yeah, yeah. And then we pressed send on to, you know, on to social. Yes. The Amazon is on my website and stuff like that. And that was scary because then it was out.

Kylie Patchett: It is scary. Um, did you find, and it sounds like you, you already kind of alluded to this, the writing of the story was cathartic because, because I imagine, um, I have a dear friend of mine who's, who's writing a story. Um, that's her own journey and she's found the writing process cathartic because you realize what you've gone through and, and, and you have those moments of like, Oh my God, looking back with a different lens, because obviously you're, you know, X amount of years in the future.

And you can look back in hindsight, as you said before, um, how important was that? For you, because I know you just said like you started to had started to see a psychologist, but I imagine from a processing perspective, that was helpful as well for you. 

Sarah Martin: Was amazing and definitely cathartic. And needed. And when we went through this in 2015, and we asked the nursing staff, what, what is there out for the carers?

What's there for [00:58:00] us, our family. They had not, they had no solution for us. So I then went looking for a book. There has to be a book out there. There has to be something that somebody else, somebody else has written. And I was desperate. So I couldn't find one. I could find. Um, I could find, um, um, uh, celebrities, but their life was completely different to my mundane.

Totally 

Kylie Patchett: untouchable. 

Sarah Martin: I don't have thousands, millions of dollars. I don't have that. And is your story. And then I read it and it'd be like, Oh, they want me to, to buy this, um, um, um, by this other thing or they want me to do this or, or they're direct, you know, there was nothing out there. And I thought if we publish or when we publish this book, if one person reads it, then it'll be an amazing thing.

It, it, it, It will be, it will be awesome. And one person just didn't read it. So that was good. A lot did. 

Kylie Patchett: I know you said before we started recording that you've sold almost 2000 copies. And I would say a huge part of that is that like all the other people that have, you know, got in contact with you, you're actually shining a light on something that most people would go through and never ever speak up about, never ever share.

Sarah Martin: The sad thing is that when. Like we were told we'd only sell 250 copies and it's because I wasn't, you know, a celebrity or social media sensation and I wasn't famous. And that, that made me really sad and I had to get over that because I nearly then went, well I'm not going to publish this book I'm just gonna throw it in the, in the bottom of my, my drawer never to be read.

And then I got a little bit angry. And I thought, no, we are someone, we do, we deserve to be [01:00:00] heard. And I'm not the only one with this story. There are many others with a same, same, but different. And their story might be better, their story might be worse, but the story is the same, that we're all looking for something.

We're looking for one piece of, of information that we can grasp onto and perhaps That's our smile for the day. And that's what, that's what we need. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. I love, I want to read the whole, the whole title and subtitle, because I love the way that you've wrapped exactly what you just said. So the book is called Dear Psychosis, a story of hope and life through a family's journey of mental health.

And I think that just wraps it up so beautifully because the way. That you share your story, you know, you, you have shared the difficulty and also the hope and the, and the, you know, moving forward. Can you tell us, um, final question, come back to what you were going to say about, um, feeling as if Alice is your hero.

Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: So when, when the grief and the guilt is all consuming, um, the despair of the unknown, will she ever work again? 

Kylie Patchett: Will 

Sarah Martin: she have friends? Will she ever be out of home? 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: Will she have a relationship again? And mental health. or chronic illness. It's not one umbrella, umbrella or one size fits all. She's gone on to work full time.

She has, done, finished her psychology degree, finished her honors degree, and there's more things to come for her. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: He's had relationships. Have they worked out? No, but you know what? Gee, you've got to love the moment that you're in. And yeah, 

Kylie Patchett: exactly. 

Sarah Martin: So, [01:02:00] and she's lived out of home. She's moved back in because she's been doing her honors year.

Kylie Patchett: Yeah, 

Sarah Martin: yeah. Um, makes it a little bit easier and she is my hero to achieve all of this. If she, on the alternative though, if she'd been able to achieve a few things post psychosis and that's all she'd been able to do, she would still be my hero. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: Life would be a bit difficult and, and not. Not the same as we know it now.

Um, and life still isn't rosy. We all, we, we go through depression and anxiety in this house. Um, still. And it's knowing triggers. Asking the questions. And if you need time out as a carer or a loved one. Take it. Take it. Please take it. Take it. Yeah. So 

Kylie Patchett: important. So important. Um, because yeah, carers burnout is absolutely a thing.

Yeah. Um, and it's pretty much where most carers that I came across with psychosocial. Um, with people in their family with psychosocial, um, significant psychosocial like the schizophrenia and, um, bipolar and dissociative, um, it's, and it's normalized with carers. Yes. With, you know, mental health. And I think that we need to un normalize it.

Yeah. Even carers burnout should not be where the baseline is. That's right. Because it's continuing. 

Sarah Martin: Like it continues on every day. Like there's, there is no, there is no coming home from work. There is no, there is no leaving to go to work. Well, 

Kylie Patchett: often you go to work for. For the respite. The 

Sarah Martin: respite. Yep.

Without, and then I'd come home and then I'd be like this, you know, when someone puts a hand over their face and they go, smile, and then they bring it up and it's just grumpy. I would walk in the door and go, smile, 

Kylie Patchett: because 

Sarah Martin: you don't know what's waiting for you inside [01:04:00] your house or, or, or the hospital room when you go to visit.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Yeah. You have been a. Bye. Blessing. Thank you so much for sharing your story so beautifully. Um, yeah. And sharing, thank you to Alice for being okay with you sharing. 

Sarah Martin: Yeah. Thank you very much for having me. 

Kylie Patchett: No worries at all. What, what would, um, what do you think? Alice would say to someone, what would she want someone listening to this to take away about this conversation?

Sarah Martin: I think that she would like you to know that scary music does not accompany mental health. I did mention that earlier, but 

Kylie Patchett: that's 

Sarah Martin: her saying. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. 

Sarah Martin: You know, like, don't put scary music with mental health because It's the minority, like the minority of the minority that that is. Um, and I think what you said earlier that mental health is so much more if there is a person behind it that can hold down a full time job that can have a great discussion with you.

Um, but on the flip side, there's also people that can't do that. And that. If you can, if they can get out of bed that day, then that's amazing if they can, if an achievement is having a shower. So normalizing the extremes and the lows of mental health is I think what she would say. 

Kylie Patchett: Yeah. Oh, such a good, such a good way of.

Tying things together. Thank you so much, Sarah, for your time and your wisdom. And um, we'll put this in the show notes, but Sarah's um, website is Sarah Martin author. So Sarah has a h at the end, Martin as it sounds author.com. Um, and there is links to, um, how to get a copy of the book through Sarah as well.

So thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for being here. Aw, 

Sarah Martin: [01:06:00] one more. Big hugs to you.

Thanks for tuning in to Wild and Finally Fucking Free. I'm Kylie, your host, and Given that I know you would have enjoyed this episode, please do us a favor and subscribe, leave a review, and share it with fellow freedom seekers. Remember, being seen in all our mess and magic helps heal ourselves and the world.

Because the world needs more world and finally fucking free humans. Have a great day.