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Fi Peel, Bathurst Storyteller/Producer

"As the cast drifted back out of the theatre and the stage lights went down, I stood in the empty space, amidst socially distanced statically set chairs and my eyes wandered all over the room. I was astounded at where we had all come from and the moment we were about to share with each other and the community." When Tim asked me to become the Producer for what would become This Is My Brave Australia’s sixth show, Bathurst was still in lockdown. I will not lie, I was disappointed. I had only just arrived in my new regional home and the start of the year and had made a deliberated decision to get out into the community as much as I could. I wanted to break the cycles that had held me captive f

Steve Semmens: Bathurst Storyteller

Although I was unaware that I had suffered depression for most of my early life I knew that there was something wrong as I felt constantly unhappy. My father was a controlling and angry alcoholic who was physically and psychologically abusive. As children we faced a constant barrage of insults and humiliation. Dad on the other hand was a full-grown man, stocky, fit, and aggressive. In those days he was what they called a “real” man. I think of my boys when they were young and I could not imagine taking my fists to them let alone anything else. I tried to spend as little time as possible at home, always trying to stay over at friend’s places on the weekend, playing rugby, athletics and anythi

Talk about 3318

There hasn’t been much talk about the release of the ABS Cause of Death statistics for intentional self-harm (suicide) 2019 released on 23/10/2020. Let’s talk figures for a second. 3318 deaths from self-harm 2019 Apart from Qld who had a decrease of -2, all states increased from 2018 Median age at death 44 Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) 115,221 Next highest YPLL, heart disease 78,052 (which has a median age at death of 84) Men are still firmly at 75% of the total. These figures tell us many things apart from how do we stop the loss of 115,000 years of life we and families and friends are losing annually. One thing I do know is if a community talks about its problems openly without fear