Saturday 22 June 2019

Back to the bassoon.

A year ago, I came across another incredible student. A baroque bassoon student. He inspired me to play again. I needed belief that this project was possible, to find an instrument for sale and $8000 to buy it. This is how it happened.

A very supportive colleague in Italy encouraged me with passion and fed me every step of this journey. I asked all my European colleagues to keep an eye on the market and inform me should an instrument become available, which it soon did. The next step was to raise some capital. So I set up a crowd fund page and I published it. Here is the text which accompanied it. 

I love playing the baroque bassoon. Ever since I was a young girl I dreamt of being a professional musician. I was so driven that I worked hard with all my heart. By the age of 30 I had succeeded and was working as a freelance musician in Australia and Europe. 

When I was still very new in my career as a baroque and classical bassoonist in Amsterdam, it became very apparent to me that the psychological struggles I had experienced all my life were getting worse not better. After much scrutiny from a team of mental health workers in The Netherlands I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). This condition causes emotional disregulation, depression, anxiety, difficulty with personal relationships and a tendency to self harm or sabotage. The doctors informed me that this condition could not be treated. 

I was completely overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do. On impulse I returned to Australia, sold my instruments and began working as a bus driver. This was because at the time I was angry with myself, I felt it was the punishment I deserved. This was self sabotage typical of those suffering BPD. Without my primary love, which is music, my condition became much worse. My bus driving career ended after a road traffic accident and I retrained as an English Language Teacher. Things were hard and in the absence of support or treatment, I found an escape in alcohol. 

Thinking an altruistic job would feed me some self-esteem, I started work teaching asylum seekers in immigration detention on Christmas Island. This was short lived as I was sent off the Island suffering with Post Traumatic Stress. The company I worked for took good care of me financially due to the workplace injury, however in another act of self sabotage, I quit my job believing I didn’t deserve to be paid if I were not working. 

Things still needed to get much worse for me before I arrived at my life epiphany. I was taken to Royal Perth Hospital by the police in an ambulance after making yet another attempt on my life. The months in the psychiatric hospital were exactly what I needed, yet a very dark time in my life. I will never forget the day during this hospitalisation, when I heard my self think, ‘suiciding isn’t working for me, from now on, I have no choice but to embrace life’. I recall a conversation I had with my 'higher self'. I asked why was suicide not working for me. What I 'heard' was, you can't go yet, you have a purpose here. You cannot decide when to leave, that will be decided for you. Your task is to share your story, be brave, be generous. Sharing your story will break stigma about mental illness and addiction, it will provide validation, love and support to those still suffering, it will reduce their suffering. I’d worked hard in my life, but my greatest achievement has been to learn to love life and to love, accept and forgive myself.

Eighteen years since diagnosis, my condition is much improved. I have many years of continued sobriety thanks to a twelve-step program and I have recently completed three years of intensive Dialectic Behaviour Therapy. This therapy is based on mindfulness and has rewired my brain thanks to the phenomenon of neuroplasticity. 

 I have been teaching and performing baroque bassoon at the University of Western Australia since the beginning of this year. And I am grateful to have my bassoon career again after many years of illness. My crowd fund campaign, if successful will enable me to purchase an instrument of my own. Baroque bassoons rarely come on the market and I have recently been offered and instrument through a dealer in Amsterdam. I will be forever grateful to those who can support or share my campaign. I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the doctors and friends who assisted in my recovery, it’s been a long bumpy and spiritually enlightening road. I also wish to be there to support anyone recovering from alcoholism or any mental health struggles not just Borderline Personality Disorder. I am available in person in Perth, Australia, by email or Skype for anyone wanting information or support for anyone interested in or affected by my story.

In twelve days the funds required had been raised and friends were travelling around The Netherlands from Switzerland in order to assure the instrument was sound and in good working order. On the fourth of July 2018, the postman delivered it to my front door. It was absolutely beautiful.

This was quite a confronting journey of acceptance. Acceptance of love and worth. The funds had been donated by sixty-five people in Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. People who believed in me, people who loved me: Loved me and believed in me more than I did myself. It was a battle to accept, and much was learnt from doing so. I found that reading all those lovely comments was so strengthening and heart warming. I felt committed to all those people to play the most beautiful music and to volunteer generously in the music community. I’ve made a pact with myself to never let my ego or insecurities get in the way of the music. Music is love, music is recovery, music is a power greater than myself.