Kintsugi Heroes
Peter Donnell · 67 min
After workplace bullying, a traumatic birth, and a breakdown that brought him to the edge of self-harm, Peter Donnell rebuilt himself from the inside out — and learned to read his mental health like the weather.
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In 2000, Peter Donnell's world looked solid. He had a new job in Sydney's city centre, his wife was pregnant with their first child, and the Olympics were about to transform the city. Then his office closed, his son's birth turned into an emergency caesarean with complications, and when he asked his manager for adjusted hours to help his wife recover, he was called a non-team player. Over the next few years, workplace bullying followed him through three jobs. A manager withheld his study reimbursement while using the skills he'd learned. Another told him not to help a struggling colleague, then gave him a warning letter when that colleague needed one. The day that warning arrived, Peter felt the world open up and swallow him whole.
Walking home through a suffocating fog, Peter experienced an out-of-body state and urges toward self-harm. A mental image of his young son pulling him into a headlock and saying 'Dad, I love you' kept him anchored that night. His first psychiatrist ate Mentos and yawned through their session; it was his mother, a mental health professional herself, who talked him back into his body. During six weeks in psychiatric hospital, Peter looked in the mirror and saw himself as a boat in dry dock, needing internal rebuilding. That shift changed everything.
Peter learned to see life not as a tunnel toward distant light, but as changeable weather. He named his depression Mongrel and his anxiety Henry, learning to recognise them as separate things he could manage and box up. He walked ten kilometres to the next town after being sacked, letting anger and confusion pour out with every step. He rode a bike up steep hills to test his internal strength against something outside himself. Over nearly two decades, with support from his mother, a good psychiatrist, and a psychologist who understood him, Peter rebuilt. Today he works as a driver, measures his resilience against a scoring app, and knows that storms and sun are both temporary. Nothing lasts forever.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au • 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au
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