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Thursday, 9 September, 2021
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Puppies and kittens in demand By Danielle Kutchel It’s been another month of record adoptions at The Lost Dogs’ Home. Victorians in lockdown appear to be looking for comfort and are finding it in the soft eyes of a fur-friend, with hundreds of animals adopted from the Home’s Cranbourne and North Melbourne shelters over the month of August. For more, turn to page 12
Sally Laity shares the love with Cola at the Lost Dogs Home Cranbourne. 249723 Picture: STEWART CHAMBERS
Life saving words It’s a simple question: R U OK? But those three little words can have a massive impact on a person’s life, as R U OK? Day ambassador Bruce Allen knows too well. The former Narre Warren South resident has struggled with depression for much of his adult life. Growing up in Wodonga, he didn’t know much about depression when he started university at the tender age of 17. On a visit back home he dropped into the local GP and was prescribed anti-depressants,
but didn’t think much of it; he took the medication, finished the script and didn’t renew it. A year later, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. Bruce was close to his mum and dropped out of uni as he travelled regularly back home to visit her. She passed away not long after his 21st birthday. This sparked his second episode of depression. Bruce threw himself into work, abandoning his studies completely. “I didn’t have the mental capacity to grieve
and study at the same time,” he recalled. “I was back on medication by then … but I still didn’t do a lot of self-care.” He still saw his GP, but didn’t see any other medical practitioners. “I thought I’d medicate my way out of it, that it was a passing phase, I was grieving.” By his mid-20s, mental health was a recurring issue for Bruce. He saw a psychiatrist for the first time but his treatment was still heavily focused on medication. By the time he reached his 30s, Bruce was married with two young children.
The next 10 years passed in a blur of new jobs, family moves and continued medication. “I had resigned myself to the fact I was going to be like this forever - I was on medication and that was the way I was going to deal with it,” he said. He saw different psychiatrists but didn’t make a connection with any of them. But in 2018, life came to a head. He separated from his wife, was being bullied at work and began having severe suicidal thoughts. Continued page 5
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