Dannii found she had a future after all

This story is part of Open Conversations, an audio series where veterans and veteran families of the ADF share their story seeking mental health support.

Download the transcript for Dannii's story. You can also listen to Dannii's story on Podbean.

Sadly, trauma isn’t reserved for veterans alone. It can be inter-generational. Dannii is the daughter of a Vietnam veteran.

Please note that the following contains references to suicide.

As a child, it was really, really difficult for me and my brother, in that, we were always in this hyper-vigilant state. My poor father had chronic PTSD from Vietnam.

We didn't know when we came home from school what state Dad would be in. It was really scary. Would he be so drunk that he couldn't speak or move? He was never violent, but he did self-medicate with alcohol, and also the continued flashbacks that would happen.

Sometimes he would see us as the enemy instead of his own children or he'd be reliving those traumatic events of Vietnam [triggered by] a helicopter overhead or a car backfiring … My father lost his life to PTSD when he was 58.

For my brother and I, we both [became] adults with our own mental health issues.

Open Arms supports children of veterans

And that's when I accessed Open Arms because they are specialists in helping children of veterans to understand what the veteran is going through. I know my Dad deep down loved me but he just was absent. He couldn't be there because he was dealing with his own demons and that was taking up all his time and all his energy. He just didn't have the energy to be that parent he probably wanted to be.

So I developed a severe and enduring eating disorder partly because of the trauma that I had as a child.

After my third suicide attempt, I was in Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital in intensive care. I'd been in intensive care three times over the period of two years around age 30. And it was that third and final attempt that I had the opportunity through Alfred Health and their psychiatric services to access Open Arms because there wasn't a lot of other support options.

I had used all my money to try and recover through the private sector and it just wasn't working. So Alfred Health asked me the question (which I think is really important for professionals to know to ask): Are you a child of a veteran? That's when Open Arms can be a referral pathway, because it’s really difficult to get support through public sector mental health.

I thank Open Arms for changing my life. I had been receiving psychiatric support for my eating disorder, depression and anxiety and trauma for many years. And it wasn't until I accessed Open Arms and I spoke to a great psychologist, his name is Matt. If you’re out there, Matt, you changed my life. He allowed me the space to grieve for all those lost years and everything that happened and he also gave me hope.

How hope and trust can give you the strength to recover

I think that is the biggest positive thing that any clinician can do is to give somebody hope that you can recover, that you can overcome this.

It was really that significant professional relationship that I could trust and I knew that I could place my fears with him, work through them, understand why Dad was the way that he was and why these things are happening to me now.

We spoke about quality of life. He said to me, Dannii, you will get through this. We will work through this. You will get a job and have your own place again (because I'd lost my apartment). You'll have friends again, you'll be able to live a good life. And I'd never heard these words from a clinician in a decade. So it was that positivity and acknowledgement of the difficulties that I had since I was a small child that was really comforting to me and soothing to go, oh my God, somebody's listening, somebody really gets me.

And it was about rediscovering that sense of identity that can be lost to veterans, families, to children of vets through all this trauma, you lose your sense of self sometimes because you’re stuck, so wrapped up in the trauma. As we developed that, my traumas, my behaviours, my emotions, even my eating disorder lessened and lessened. It gave those things less strength as my healthy sense of self was rebuilt. And I thank Open Arms and Matt every day for that.

I call myself fully recovered. I work as a mental health practitioner now in Victoria, because I thought if Matt can do that for me, I want to be able to do that for somebody else.

But in 2020, Victoria went down into hard lockdowns. It was a very difficult time for a period of about two or three months because I was having some struggles around working in mental health. It was also a really stressful time for the mental health sector. I was having some really depressive episodes so I myself needed some support and I was really thankful that I could access Open Arms again.

Open Arms is easy to access

Another really amazing positive point about Open Arms is that while a lot of the mental health system is really difficult to navigate, Open Arms has always been for me quite excellent in that you can get almost immediate support. So you would call them, they would do an intake assessment nearly right away and I find that is so helpful to anyone who might be needing that immediate support.

So it couldn't be any easier. You don't need to go to a GP and get a referral. You don't need to do anything. All you need to do is call the number.

I still live with complex PTS and anxiety, but I have tools, I have strategies, I have positive, healthy ways to cope.

It takes work. You can't expect your therapist or clinician to wave a magic wand and go, you're gonna be okay now. They don't have that power. The power comes from within. And it just needs some support to bring that out, to be able to talk.

So I did a lot of work with my Open Arms clinician Matt with what's called CBT or cognitive behaviour therapy. So that is challenging those irrational thoughts that you might have, and challenging the negative narrative that we have. We have what's called a monkey mind that sort of goes all the time. Mindfulness helps us slow down. And particularly with trauma, we hold a lot of stress within the body. And so mindfulness and the breathing helps to release some of that stress from the body, which is really important.

My brother loves to go camping and I think it's a way for us children of veterans and people who have gone through various traumas to get out and into nature and really connect with nature because they feel themselves de-stressing right away.

I think that there's a lot of stigma still around when it comes to mental health and when it comes to support but know that when you reach out, these people are really going to be there for you. They really, really want to help you.

Your carer, your family member, your friend can make that call for you and start that process.

After I accessed Open Arms, my whole life changed. And I lead a great life now. I've got friends, I'm back to playing my tennis. I have a great job. I love working in mental health and helping to support other people. So from not wanting to be here to actually living a life that I now love.

No matter what sort of trauma, no matter what sort of past, if you're willing to do the work and you're willing to reach out and put trust in somebody, like Open Arms, your whole life can change.

Thanks to Dannii for sharing her story for us. If this episode raises questions for you, or if you would like to speak to someone about how it impacts you, you can contact Open Arms in Australia on 1800 011 046.