Stories

James Pritchard Leslie – As told by his wife, Lauren Leslie

I’d like to tell you about my husband, James. I don’t know where or how to start so I guess I will start from his very beginning…

James Pritchard Leslie was born at Brisbane’s Mater Hospital on 16th May 1981, the first-born son of Ann Louise and Anthony Leslie. His dad said he came out ‘all nose and no chin’. He was given the middle name Pritchard in honour of his mother’s maiden name and his grandfather, affectionately known as ‘Pritch’. Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to meet Ann and Pritch, but I knew that they were very precious people in James’ life. It is a great comfort to me, his family and friends to know that he now rests with them at Dunwich Cemetery on Stradbroke Island.

I met James in August 2007 on a Sunday afternoon at the Pig ‘n Whistle. I rarely went to the Pig ‘n Whistle, and I never went out with freshly washed, and therefore, frizzy hair. But that day I did. And there he was. It was his beautiful blonde hair that caught my eye, and his unmatched skill of conversation that charmed me. He took my number, he called, we started dating, and we fell in love. He was the most gentle, kind and loving person I have ever met, and the day he asked me to be his wife I thought my life was made.

James was witty and clever. He was inquisitive and interested. He loved to watch documentaries and learn more about the world and everything that was going on in it. And he loved to read. It was like he couldn’t read enough. He’d read several books at once and happily switch between them. He was a terrible dancer with absolutely no sense of rhythm, but that never stopped him getting up off the lounge and asking me to dance in an ad break. He’d speak of his friends and family, especially his brothers, as if they were celebrities. His love and admiration of them shone through his words and actions. He hated saying ‘no’ to anyone, especially me. So he wouldn’t. That’s how we came to get our first dog together. He was generous, he was warm, but I think his father described him best when he said at the funeral, “James was love”.

It’s hard to talk about James’ illness. It’s certainly not what defined him, but it is a part of his story and it’s what took him from me. I also believe that James would want me to share this part of his life, as James wanted to use his life to help other people. When he died, James was undertaking his third and final year of a Public Health degree. He wanted to play a role in improving health services and health education to ensure people could live healthy and fulfilling lives. He particularly wanted to play a role in improving services and awareness of mental health. He’d speak of trying to get people to view mental health care as just as important as physical health care. He hoped that one-day getting a ‘mental health check-up’ would be just a routine as a physical or dental check-up.

It wasn’t until I started living with James that I came to learn of his depression. It was something that he worked so hard at trying to hide. And he did a very good job. It was such an integral part of James’ nature to make other people feel safe and secure in his presence. He didn’t want people to ever worry about him, and if they did he’d take it as a failure. When I met James he told me he was due to finish a science degree that year. When the end of the year quickly came around I was told it would be another six-months. And when six months was up I started asking more questions. His reaction to those questions was the first time I ever saw James behaving in a way that was troubling – the trembling, the pacing. It was from that point onwards that James began to share with me his struggle with depression. He shared with me the pain he sometimes felt inside, the feelings of failure and worthlessness, and the shame and guilt he felt for letting it ‘hold him back’, and not simply ‘getting over it’. Whilst he couldn’t exactly pin point precisely when he started feeling this way, he could remember being aware of these feelings when his mother passed away in January 2003.

James would often have trouble articulating what he was feeling. That’s one of things that really hits home for me just how much this disease can stifle a person. James was an exceptional communicator. He loved to talk and had the profound ability to disarm even the most guarded person and have them happily chatting away with him within minutes. When James would talk to you it became clear how sharp his intellect was, and he’d describe things in such complete and perfect ways. But when it came to his depression and the feelings he kept hidden inside, he’d struggle to get beyond “I’m just so tired”.

From that point on, James, with the support of his family, friends and colleagues, started to try and confront his depression. He was seeing two mental health workers, was taking medication and our lives became very centred around supporting James’ mental health. Please don’t read his story as a deterrent from getting professional psychological help. James wouldn’t want that. We both knew it was the right thing to do, and it did, in many ways, help us through tough times. His story demonstrates the enormous power of mental illness.

I won’t lie. Living with James’ depression was hard. At times it was so frustrating to see him fall into episodes of such despair, especially when he would be so hard on him himself and speak of himself in such a way that made it clear that he couldn’t see all the good and all the beauty that everyone else could see. And that is not an exaggeration – everyone that came to know James came to love him. No one disliked James because he made it impossible to. This horrible disease is so cruel to take such an exceptional and beautiful human being and convince them to end their life.

I want people to know that I am not ashamed of my husband’s suicide, and I’m not ashamed that he suffered with depression. I am proud to be his wife, and I’m proud of who he was, or, as I believe, of who he is. I consider myself so lucky to have known him. Yes, there were hard times, but there were many more good times, and that is what I hold onto, that was James. I view this disease as just as real and serious as any other physical disease, and I want others to come to understand that too. Depression is physical. One’s mind, after all, comes from the brain, and the brain controls everything. But most of all I want people to know that this disease doesn’t have to be terminal, as it was in my husband’s case. If you think you might be depressed, or just can’t seem to shake off a bad feeling please let someone know and talk about it. Even if you can’t say much more than “I’m not ok right now”, the people you love will take it from there. Don’t be ashamed of how you feel, and don’t be ashamed to ask for help. Screw shame! Your life is precious! There are people out there able and willing to help if you let them in.