Rebecca gave up full-time work as a teacher to care for her daughter.

Rebecca never thought she would end up being her daughter’s carer.

The young woman was at the peak of her health, a well educated happy professional in the finance industry, with a great job and a good social circle.

How it all unraveled is something of a mystery to Rebecca.

“Janet was never what you would call a problem child. Growing up she was sometimes moody and could at times be melancholic, but mostly she was quite normal. She lived in a bit of a dream world and had trouble mixing at school, but she was often at the top of her class and extremely bright,” Rebecca said.

“She did really well academically and went on to study her Bachelor of Business which led to a great job in finance. She seemed stable and seemed to have a circle of friends and acquaintances.”

One day Janet’s flatmate rang her mother to say she was concerned about her friend. Janet had refused to get out of bed for an entire week, was crying a lot and not eating.

There had been several earlier episodes of mania that her flatmate had put down to drug use (they both took recreational drugs) and there had been two suicide attempts.

Rebecca was in state of shock when she got off the phone from her daughter’s flatmate.

“She was describing someone I didn’t know. It was scary. I thought she must have gotten it all seriously wrong,” Rebecca said. “I could not believe my daughter would have attempted suicide once let alone twice. And I could not believe she would not have confided in me. I knew nothing at all about any of these things supposedly going on in her life, and that made me suspicious they were not true.

“I made the five-hour trip to her home in a state of dread yet disbelief. But nothing prepared me for seeing my daughter curled up in a helpless ball on the floor of her room, soaked with the tears of her grief and fear.”

What followed were days and weeks of mental health intervention and support that eventually developed into months and years.

Rebecca initially took carer leave from her job as a teacher. Then she took sick leave. Then she took annual leave. Then she took unpaid leave. Each time she returned to work, a new crisis would unfold for her daughter.

“My employer was fantastic. I had a lot of support from my supervisor, but it was clear that I could not continue doing the job I had previously been doing,” Rebecca said.

“I switched to a different job which was a job share arrangement where I worked three days a week, but this also proved too much and I moved to yet another position which was just two days a week.

“Janet came home to live with me and required constant care and supervision. The money I made from teaching was spent on care for Janet on the two days I couldn’t be at home.

“This placed me under a big financial burden. I had to restructure my mortgage with a line of credit and I lived on that line of credit for three years.

“It took a long, long time to find a team of mental health professionals we could trust and work with.

“Over time, Janet’s health improved and stabilized somewhat. She spent a lot of time in and out of mental health clinics, under psychiatric care and was placed under many different drug regimes until we finally found a drug that agreed with her and improved her mental stability.

“At the same time we pursued numerous alternative therapies which also played their part in her healing.

“I have not been able to return to full-time teaching and probably never will, but I do have a new job that offers four days a week.

“I now have a much larger debt that I have ever had in my life and am not sure how I will ever repay it, other than perhaps selling my home one day and downsizing to an apartment.

“As a single mother, I am glad I had the resources to help my daughter and can’t help wonder how other people manage when critical incidents like this arise out of the blue.”