Justin Heazlewood

And then I've just got an early memory of... I don't know.

Her schizophrenia had pretty wild symptoms.

She was quite discreet about it.

I mean, she wouldn't be doing these things at the dinner table or in the line at the bank or anything, but just in her bedroom, she'd be making some pretty strange sounds.

She was sort of talking to her voices.

They'd either be in a good mood and she'd be laughing along...

at something or things would turn and she could get quite angry and be sort of swearing to herself under her breath quite violently.

And then sometimes the dial turned and she would just be doing this sort of like howling performance, crying.

I've got this memory of being in bed.

I was in the room next to hers in my little bed

I had this Sesame Street hardcover book and a red texter and I was like doing these little spirals and I was monitoring the volume of mum's sounds next door and I'd like make the spirals bigger when it got louder and smaller when it got quieter.

So that's one of my earliest memories.

I was probably about six or seven of really beginning my lifelong relationship with hypervigilance.

and hyper-awareness of my mum and what my mum was doing at any given time.

The slightest change of an eyelash in my mum's eye after a while might be enough for me to go, I reckon mum's getting sick again.

I mean, my mum would be well about two and a half months of the time, and then...

become sick again and stay unwell for about two and a half months.

And I swear it was just this loop we were on essentially my entire childhood up until age 18.

From as young as I can remember, it was just this seesawing, slow-moving...

Jaws meets Groundhog Day of this low-lying dread that mum might be getting sick again and then this outrageous delight when mum returned, came out of the fog.