Being Brave: From trauma to joy

By Alana M Mitchell

In this personal memoir, I guide you through my darkest hours involving five involuntary mental health hospitalisations, and how I rose beyond those circumstances to create a joyful life.

This book is for you if -

·      You love inspirational real-life stories.

·   &nbsp

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publicious Book Publishing
• Release date: Jun 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9780648877219

Alana M Mitchell

Alana Mai Mitchell is a multidimensional woman, whose lived mental health experiences inspire others to see their challenges as gifts. She is a highly influential leader in her chosen field of Digital Financial Services, with over 10 years experience in major Australian banks (Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac). Along with her corporate role, she coaches select private clients in the early mornings a few times a week. Alana shares her experiences with others in an open way that sees them welcome in a shift in perspective in how they see themselves. She lives in Sydney with her boyfriend, David, and just bought her first home.

Book preview

Preface

One of the things I do in this book is take you through the depths of my experiences of what is medically labelled psychotic depression.

I share the events as I experienced them with you through my own eyes. You will read the highs and lows as I evolved to the point where I discovered that I did not need to live a rollercoaster life defined by successes and failures.

My intention is that, as a result of reading this book, you will see your own challenges as gifts. As you read the saga of my five hospitalisations in various Mental Health Wards, I would love for you to see how your life too can be viewed as a multidimensional experience - one where you know yourself as a human being capable of things that are incomprehensible to the mind.

Chapter One

The First Admission

November 2014

By most measures, I was a normal kid who grew up on the Central Coast of New South Wales in Australia. I achieved quite a lot when I was young.

The thing is that I was a great student because I always pushed myself to achieve more thanks to a deep-seated belief that I was not good enough. I excelled at school and graduated from University with distinction, after which I landed a graduate opportunity in the Financial Services industry with the Commonwealth Bank, which is one of the four big banks in Australia.

Essentially I used the same strategies that enabled me to excel in school, to get ahead at the bank. I always raised the bar very high for myself because I sought to please others with exemplary performance. This paid off when I won a CEO Award in 2011. This convinced everyone (including myself) that I was on the fast-track to greater success.

In fact, I might still be climbing the ladder to further career success today if it wasn’t for what I can only interpret as ‘an inspired calling’ that led me to take a career break in 2012. I look back on that as a fulfilling time because of the experiences I had as an Outward Bound instructor. This involved leading students on remote wilderness expeditions to hike, climb and paddle beyond their fears.

I brought everything that I learned when I ran those expeditions back to the Financial Services industry when I opted to return to banking. I came back with a determination to teach people in the corporate environment the leadership insights that I had picked up during my time with Outward Bound. In one sense I was in a great space, but there was a problematic pattern that I fell back into, one that saw me constantly overachieve and try to please others all the time. While I held down a high pressure role within the Financial Services industry, I studied a Master’s degree in Anthropology, Development Studies and Cultural Change, and at the same time helped set up a not for profit organisation called The Umbrella Foundation Australia that cared for young Nepali children affected by child trafficking.

Not surprisingly, things started to go awry with my mental health when I started to distrust the team of people I worked with at the bank. This lead me into a number of situations, including power-play with a colleague, challenging the hierarchy and playing the role of a victim. The victim mentality involved my believing that I was being