Steve Rothwell · 76 min
A man who went undiagnosed through prison, suicidal depression, and decades of struggle discovers that his lived experience, not clinical training, holds the key to unlocking trauma for others.
Hear this story
Steve Rothwell spent decades undiagnosed with OCD and autism, cycling through jobs he couldn't hold, perfectionism that paralysed him, and a fatalistic despair that led to a robbery he barely planned. Thirteen months in prison followed. What he didn't know then was that diagnosis could have changed everything. Instead, he emerged without answers, without support, and without understanding why his mind worked the way it did.
After release, Steve found temporary refuge in freedom itself. He worked as a loco driver, paraglided over Indonesian coastlines, and lived a life most people only dream about. But when he moved back to suburbia to be near family, the darkness came home. Depression and suicidal despair overwhelmed him. The realisation that prison could have been prevented hit harder than the imprisonment itself.
It took a university travel writing course to show Steve his own value. Recognition, purpose, and eventually a wife gave him reasons to stay. But the real breakthrough came in a hospital in 2023, when a conversation with another trauma patient revealed something his psychiatrists could not: a map of trauma that made sense. By naming the stuck points in her timeline, Steve helped her speak about experiences she'd kept silent for ten years. That moment showed him what his lived experience could actually do.
Now Steve works with people stuck in their own trauma, helping them see that what happened to them is not the entirety of who they are. His mission is to bring lived experience, not clinical training alone, into the places where people most need to be understood: prisons, hospitals, and the quiet despair of people who've given up looking for help.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide & self-harm prevention, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
“The necessity to record and to write these insights has been very much part of my journey to survival and thriving.”
“I was reminded that not only did I go to prison, but it was all totally unnecessary because I was undiagnosed.”
“There's an urgency when it comes to being suicidal, when it comes to being extremely depressed or whatever, there's an urgency there and a necessity for you to do something.”
The hero, today
Steve learned that being undiagnosed with OCD and autism didn't stop the suffering, but getting a diagnosis later meant he could finally understand why prison had been inevitable rather than a personal failure. Steve discovered that when he wrote about his hardest experiences, it gave him a reason to keep going and eventually led to recognition and purpose that medication alone could never provide. Steve realized that helping another person work through their trauma, by asking them specific questions about their own timeline, can break through a stuck point that years of therapy could not touch. Steve saw that the intensity and focus that caused him such problems as a young man became the exact strength he needed to live an extraordinary life and help others find meaning in theirs. Steve found that even in the darkest depression and suicidal despair, half an hour of genuine human connection and someone spending time with him could be transformative.
Yes. Steve Rothwell is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Steve learned that being undiagnosed with OCD and autism didn't stop the suffering, but getting a diagnosis later meant he could finally understand why prison had been inevitable rather than a personal failure.
Steve discovered that when he wrote about his hardest experiences, it gave him a reason to keep going and eventually led to recognition and purpose that medication alone could never provide.
Steve realized that helping another person work through their trauma, by asking them specific questions about their own timeline, can break through a stuck point that years of therapy could not touch.
John Milham (Host) · 00:05
Welcome back to Kintsugi Heroes, helping people tell the stories they need to share so you can find the stories that you need to hear. In this episode, John Millum is joined by Steve Rothwell, a skilled storyteller and course facilitator whose life has been shaped by neurodiversity, perfectionism, and a relentless search for meaning. Steve faced undiagnosed OCD and autism, leading to difficulties in work and eventually a period of incarceration. Through writing, self-reflection, and a commitment to helping others, Steve rebuilt his sense of self-worth and found purpose by sharing his lived experiences. His journey is one of resilience, growth, and using hard-won insights to support those facing similar challenges.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 00:55
Enjoy this conversation with Steve Rothwell. Hey, uh, ladies and gentlemen, listeners to Kintsugi Heroes, it's an absolute joy today to talk to a man, a man who has got like an outrageous, like a bookshelf full of lived experience. And, um, and not only that, just the insight that comes from that, that he's going to share as part of his story. And hopefully, um, you know, I get to ask and, and be curious about some of his hard-won wisdom is Steve Rothwell. Steve, welcome to Suge Heroes: Stories That Matter.
John Milham (Host) · 01:34
It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 01:38
Now, Steve, you're a bit of a communicator these days, mate. Now, you're not unfamiliar with having a microphone in front of you, so I, you know, I'm very pleased to be able to offer you another platform. But, you know, we could go in, you're a, you know, a course maker and, you know, a workshop facilitator and bits and pieces. But more importantly, you know, tell me who you see as Steve Rothwell. Who is Steve Rothwell? Give me the elevator pitch.
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Steve saw that the intensity and focus that caused him such problems as a young man became the exact strength he needed to live an extraordinary life and help others find meaning in theirs.
This conversation includes steve rothwell's story, the interpreter of lived experience, a different kind of kid, perfectionism becomes a cage, the robbery and the prison sentence and the brutality inside.
John Milham (Host) · 02:16
Well, I think Interpreter, not in a language sense, but in, I suppose, through lived experience, through sometimes the bitterness of lived experience, the kind of experiences you wouldn't want to go through, but have ended up circling back to be very, very valuable. So I see myself first of all as, I suppose, through my writing and storytelling, which goes way back to me being a little kid. Nowadays, I suppose, being a little bit older— I turned 60 this year— I find that I'm a bit more in the interpretation business, and that's what led me to the path I'm on now, is being a little bit more interpretive about things and having a few epiphanies along the way. And sometimes having these epiphanies, I feel unworthy of them. I feel, hang on a minute, I haven't been to study epiphanies at university. What right have I got?
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 03:27
So, um, so, you know, this is the great, um, imposter syndrome question, right? But it is like, it, like, it's It's very humble of you to feel like you're an imposter in your own lived experience, right? Surely, you can claim expertise in that, right?
John Milham (Host) · 03:49
Well, nobody's, I guess, got more expertise than yourself. But I think that what happens is that there's a limited degree to which you can zone back in on that and extract utility from it and extract the right lessons from it. Because, uh, in much the same way as we, we talked about needing to get into the zone for things like shooting or rowing or anything like that, you need to get into a zone mentally and psychologically to be able to go and draw on things from the past, and then it's a different game again to draw on lessons of the present, because you've got to be in the habit— you've got to be in the habit of having your antennae tuned for things that may be significant, or things that may seem insignificant but that you can find some significance in them. Yeah, I love that. I like—
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 05:00
I'm hearing almost like a couple of skills, like the tracker who follows the path of his, you know, the little pearls that are being dropped mentally and emotionally, that, you know, and you follow, track that down. That then the observer who is watching and understanding and open to the nuance that they find, right? Like being reflecting on ourselves and our identity. And then of course, like, you know, it takes a bit of courage to walk into some of these places because, like, life is, you know, both challenging and rewarding, right? Some of those challenges have been very painful.
John Milham (Host) · 05:45
I, I think definitely walking into the fire, not necessarily deliberately, um, which is not something that many of us are prone to do. I mean, we're not masochists by nature, but sometimes those moments of quiet repose and those moments of depression and those moments where, in my case, what I do is I probably write more, or certainly, yeah, I think I would probably write more if I'm feeling depressed or if I'm feeling something particularly, um, particularly strong. And so from that comes more insights. I think that when you're feeling great and you're firing on all cylinders and what have you, you almost feel that you haven't got time, or certainly not inclination to— lots of all the bad things are stuffed down. But then What that blinds you to is that there is a mirror to— there's the bad things, the things that you try to expunge from your memory, but there's a good— as indeed you were saying, the kryptonite to these bad things. There's always a counterweight to it, but it's just the degree to which you're willing to look at the bad things for long enough to consider and to reinterpret.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 07:23
It's interesting, like, if we're to look at these and reinterpret, and you, you mentioned age, right? You're like, do you feel like it's, um, wisdom acquired over time? Like, or, but you also mentioned epiphanies, so something like something you bring to that inquiry being curious or being open or courageous allows that information, that wisdom to sort of percolate. Is that— what do you reckon it is?
John Milham (Host) · 07:54
I think that we have epiphanies at very young ages, but we don't believe that we're sufficiently experienced or not necessarily the right word to use, qualified to actually even speak them out loud. I think that we probably feel that we haven't got the necessary life experience. I think probably what comes with age though is more opportunity to gather more little pithy statements and more insights and things like that. I think in my case though, what's been happening is that The necessity to record and to write these insights has been very much part of my journey to survival and thriving. So it made the difference, me writing things down and interpreting and reinterpreting things, for me to be able to see some hope at the end of the tunnel. So I think in my case there was very, very great utility. Now, would that— at age 40, would I have done the same thing? I'm not quite sure, but I think that there's an urgency when it comes to being suicidal, when it comes to being extremely depressed, whatever. There's an urgency there and a necessity for you to do something. And the something that I did was to look more deeply into it and to interpret.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 09:40
Which I guess we should, for the listeners, give some context, right? Because I find that fascinating that, you know, what I'm hearing is that you had strengths, a propensity to be able to capture these stories and express them in a certain way, in particularly the written word. And that was how you solved some of the challenges, right? So, but the challenges, right, were there, right? You mentioned you, you know, you had, you know, you would always have, you know, a leaning towards storytelling as a kid. What was that about? So, you know, you are neurodiverse.
John Milham (Host) · 10:22
What—
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 10:22
tell us about being a kid with, you know, a challenge? None of us even knew what that was at the time, right?
John Milham (Host) · 10:30
Well, a couple of things. Number one, I couldn't understand why my friends weren't as enthusiastic about things that I was. And number two, I couldn't understand why they didn't follow their interests to their absolute maximum degree that I did. And there's many people in many industries who My cousin is one of them. He keeps winning every year top videographer, and in a sense, there's no contest if you've got somebody who's so absolutely focused. So now what that led to, I suppose, is point number 3, which is that I became aware of, or it just so happened that I've got this bent for communication. And so then I'm able to tie in both of those first two. And it's in essence combining them as well, because I'm unhappy with anything that doesn't fully express, that doesn't really, really, really do the job.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 11:46
So, you know, now, you know, with benefit of hindsight and treatment and, you know, diagnosis and so on, as you explain that, I can hear, you know, the elements that came to be known as like OCD, um, impulsivity, you know, autism. Did you like— how did that, you know, like before you knew any of those words How did you see yourself in those spaces?
John Milham (Host) · 12:17
How did I see myself? I mean, I suppose I did even back then see myself as a bit of a storyteller. I wouldn't have said that because I would have felt that that's a little bit conceited, but it is just something that I noticed, that what would happen— something would happen and I'd be with friends and I'd say— and they'd say, oh, oh, I just love the way— I love the way you describe things. They would say things like that. And so back then I got a sense of, yeah, okay, I can communicate things. But I had a very, very low self-esteem, and so I just thought, okay, yeah, maybe compared to the next 5 or 10 people, maybe I'm a little bit more demonstrative and I use a little bit more vocabulary or whatever. But I really didn't think very much of it.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 13:16
Did you feel different?
John Milham (Host) · 13:19
Very much so, um, very much so I did. Um, I, I felt, I felt that all my friends when I was a school kid and everything were rather too casual about this enterprise called life. They're just very trying desperately to be cool. Well, I'm wanting to say, don't you see how extraordinary everything is?
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 13:46
So taking a deep dive, which, you know, later became a sort of recognition of a level of compulsion in life, that, that clearly gave you a sense of being of having some skill or strength or talent, but it also presented problems. What were the problems you were dealing with?
John Milham (Host) · 14:08
I was, I was aware that, that I was perfectionist in many, many domains. It presented enormous challenges because between having to check things, between having to count things. Um, but it would only be much later after diagnosis I realized that the biggest impediment is thinking, is going and having to ruminate about things and what have you. So pre-diagnosis, I got significant impediments. And even, I mean, in the social arena, I might be out with friends And then I wouldn't catch something that somebody said, and then I'd feel that I've gone off the boil, and then I'd feel that I've lost my mood and that I'll never be socially adroit ever again. And so it was— I was fenced in on all sides by the deleterious effects of this, but not knowing what it is and just thinking maybe everybody goes through this. But I think having a sense though that maybe not, maybe I alone have these problems.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 15:39
Which goes to worth in some ways, right? When you believe that you're, you know, so different as to everyone else, right? That hits your self-worth. What did that lead to, right? When you're like, you're sitting there, you're questioning your worth and trying to find a way, you're a young bloke getting through school and then, you know, deciding what your path in life is. What were the challenges there?
John Milham (Host) · 16:09
Well, I would be just too perfectionist in everything that I tried to do, but there isn't the time for things to be perfect. So I would end up getting fired after job after job after job because they're not looking for perfect. And that's something that later on in my writing career, initially I had to be reined in. That perfection might be a 2,000 or 5,000-word essay, and I had to rein all that in. But no, I was never able to hold down a job, and so that necessarily puts you right on, right on the out, and you wonder why other people can't. Um, and so that's when I was very, I suppose, susceptible to listening to radio, um, reports of people doing robberies and things like that. And then the obsession, the OCD obsession, then became a compulsion, which then ended up with me doing a robbery and and getting sent down for 13 months.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 17:26
It's an extra— like, for most people, that's an extraordinary leap, saying, I've got a problem to solve, right? I can see other people solving it this way. I think I'll give that a try. Like, as opposed— using that lot, you know, decision tree, as opposed to the decision tree that says, oh, most people think this is wrong, I probably should, you know, consider the consequences, right? So you've got a compulsion You end up trying, trying—
John Milham (Host) · 17:55
how would—
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 17:56
like, you're a smart guy. How, how was the planning and process of the robbery?
John Milham (Host) · 18:01
Almost none. Um, well, almost none. And because I also had another OCD subroutine going around in my head that I've probably got AIDS anyway and I'm gonna die, and I had no, no reason to believe that that's the case. And so there was this fatalistic— so I think what was happening is my mind was trying to establish a case doing this to override the natural. I mean, never at any stage was that something that I wanted to do.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 18:35
Um, you weren't a shoplifter, or, you know, you didn't have an uncle who was like shifty, or, you know, like—
John Milham (Host) · 18:41
no, no, no, no. It's, um, I had a grandfather who was always a trader in all matters, and then what ended up he had a business partner who was a little bit shady, and the local Bobby said, you better get out of town because he's going to shop you. So he was a bit of a, bit of a wily campaigner, but I think he was always this side of the law. But I think that really, I suppose there were, there were 3 ways that I could have gone at that time. But they would have either been suicide or mental hospital or prison, and that much was absolutely certain.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 19:33
So we know now, and as you, you have worked with, um, uh, men who have been imprisoned and so on, so, um, we know now that a lot of men are, you know, who are incarcerated have some form of, say, neurodiversity or some diagnosable challenge or head injury. So acquired brain injuries are prevalent. What do you think? Why do you think that ends up being so counter to sort of taking options that are more socially acceptable.
John Milham (Host) · 20:18
I could just say that your mic's gone a little bit quiet there again. Um, I'm not quite sure if it's movable or, or anything like that, but I think the, the question was why do I think that they—
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 20:34
I, I think it's, yeah, men, men end up in prison who have, you know, often have some form of, of challenge, psycho-emotional challenge, or, you know, injury, um, you know, trauma or abuse or, you know, neglect, as well as other things. Why do you think that happens? You know, like, why does society tend to funnel men into trouble that way instead of intervening in a positive way?
John Milham (Host) · 21:05
Well, I think that the range of allowable behavior in terms of the vocational ladder and things like that is so prescribed. Um, you've got to turn up every day. Um, and so what happens is like knocking over dominoes. You start off with a full set of dominoes, which is assumed at birth, whatever, and then different dominoes are knocked over with— you've got particular proclivities or you've got particular impediments. And so we can knock over the domino of being able to turn up to work every day on time if you've got mental illnesses which go up and down in a sine wave. So first and foremost, those guys— nobody's told them this, but the best thing they can do is to have something like an eBay shop or to do something that's independent, and by so doing they can be employed and, and have a sense of self-worth, and it allows for the ups and downs. So first of all, you're not allowed to have any ups and downs, so anybody with any degree of mental impairment, um, is, is going to have a problem there. And then secondly, people who are neurodiverse or people who have got tremendous sensitivities, just something like the, the glare of lighting in typical workplaces, the amount of noise, the amount of chaos, they can't cope with that. And so there goes another domino drop down. And so what it is, I think, is that people measure themselves against the challenge of holding down a full-time job or even a part-time job. And then what happens is they fall at the hurdles that I've just, uh, mentioned, and of which there are many, many, many more. And so in answer to your question, what can be done better to help these people? Well, I think that something along the lines of encouraging them to do something which isn't trying to squeeze them into a 40-hour week or whatever. Because unfortunately, even with the best medication and what have you, which a lot of these guys are never going to get anyway, they're not going to be able to fit into that mold. And, and that's a tremendously isolating and, um, But it's a, it's a, it's a terrible, terrible feeling that you can't even hold down a sort of low-level job. Yeah. And so I think a lot of people, they never set out to be criminals, but they're just looking for a way out.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 24:16
That's, um, so much insight in there. And of course, you know, it's not just, you know, the environment that creates barriers. Of course, you know, you mentioned, you know, school can be problematic, you know, and that level of positive reinforcement, you know, you're, you know, people are already sensitive to being different. And yet, you know, like I was reading some research recently that by the age of 10, a neurodiverse child has heard 10,000 more negative comments about their behavior or their capacity, right, than a neurotypical child. That must, you know, having, you know, neurodiversity myself, I recall those with, you know, still some sensitivity, right? And then so it's amazing that more of us don't end up in challenging places, right?
John Milham (Host) · 25:12
Of course.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 25:13
But I cannot imagine how hard— were you frightened as a young man being given a 3-year sentence and going into jail? Was that a frightening experience?
John Milham (Host) · 25:25
Yeah, it's absolutely terrifying. And yet I did have a sense while I was there that this was in some way preordained. I went through the process of it and it was almost as if I— this was always going to happen. And so to begin with, at least, that's what it is. But the actual pain of being inside, it reaches such an intensity that what happens is your mind switches off. At a certain point and you're in a state of suspended animation. And I can remember going for periods of months where you would never see another human being smile. And all that does is, if we look at, if we go down, back down to the basic, the basics, what led these guys to go and get in trouble in the first place? They'd had no kindness showed towards them, and then they go inside and then they've had brutality showed towards them. And so that at least explains high rates of recidivism, because they go back into society which is at best indifferent to their existence, uh, certainly not encouraging, and just, I don't know, a few words of encouragement or kindness from probation officers, from anybody. I've seen it myself. Somebody, they, who is seen as being a bit of a hard case and nobody can reach him or whatever. Well, you know, almost every, everybody can be reached given the right stimulus, given the right encouragement or whatever. But I think that predominantly there's just no kindness, there's just cruelty. Your mind switches off. You can't absorb the enormity of it because otherwise it's like a bomb going off inside your head all day.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 27:52
My goodness, and that feels so bleak and Like when you think about school and workplaces being so hostile to somebody who's struggling, and then of course the environment is hostile. And then some of those choices that are sort of almost destined as a result of all of that sort of confusion and hostility exacerbates the hostility. It's amazing. No wonder it's very, very difficult. To, um, for people to break through some cycles, you know, like that.
John Milham (Host) · 28:30
Even if you're self-aware enough, I mean, the thing is, John, I mean, I was so gifted at English that I remember one story I wrote and they gave me so many house points for it that some of the other kids beat me up, um, because that was just, you're a tall poppy, that's, that's not good enough, um, you're making the rest of us look bad. Um, but a few words of encouragement there. So I was always destined to be a writer, and it was clear there, but there was never any guidance. Steve, this is something. And so then what you've done is thrown into this industrial, um, thresher of a machine, which is, oh, you've got to find a job doing anything anyhow, it doesn't matter about the meaning of it. And there is another problem as well, which is that many people I've spoken to with autism, it's not a question of a choice, it is a question that they must— whatever they're doing, it must have meaning for them. That's already been decided for them. So in a world that doesn't really fall over itself to give you opportunities that are of meaning to you, then you've got to have the presence of mind to pursue something that's of meaning to you. And then what are the gateways that you've got to try and get through in order to do that?, and when you're already feeling a lack of confidence, etc., etc., etc. So there's immense skills. I remember— this is a story, it's just, it's a short story. I was working in my mate's motorbike engineering shop on my own bike, and there was a kid there It was my mate's son and his friend, and he looked leery. He'd got tattoos everywhere and he'd got facial piercings everywhere, and I thought, now this guy's probably got an attitude. And he went on to inhabit so many different characters with so many different voices, and then he would take off people from just the most extraordinary skill. This young man was just— I've never been in the presence of somebody with so much talent. So as I'm working away on my bike there, I just thought, wow, I'm just amazed at this kid. And I said to him, mate, have you ever thought about doing some radio voiceover work or getting it? And he just sort of went quiet in his hands, looked at his feet. And, and of course, all he'd ever known was growing up in a single-parent household. Um, his dad used to beat him because he was an alcoholic. He just wants to get out of the house. He's happy he's there with his mate. He's got no horizons. Now, what— obviously some sort of depression or whatever. And 6 weeks out of that, after that, he took his own life. And what disturbs me about that is that here's this young man who's got undoubted capabilities. There's just absolutely no— there's almost nobody could, could put a candle to him. And yet he's living there, remote far north Queensland, where there's no obvious path for him to follow. He doesn't know what to do with it or anything like that. And so his bleakness is just absolute. That's, that's the sense of bleakness that's before him. So I wish I could say that you can say a few words of encouragement and that it will always result in people heading along a different path. But I don't regret having said that to him. I don't, and I don't think that made him any more or less susceptible to, to taking his own life. But mate, there are people with the most extraordinary abilities that go unrecognized because that's not going to get them a job working in Bunnings, that's not going to get them a job, um, beyond the counter somewhere. And so in a sense They're towering, towering giants of ability, but the real world doesn't give them the feedback or encouragement.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 33:54
Doesn't fit into a slot. No. Amazing, amazing. When I, when I saw your story, the question I came up, how did you navigate being inside, right? You know, like, you, you, in your story, you mentioned that you behaved yourself. How do you do that? You know, like, you know, you're, you're in this incredibly— like, you talked about being in a robotic almost, right, and being turned off. But I, I would have imagined the thing that, thing that, you know, I was thinking was that threat was on. And you're like, it's, you know, so, you know, you're kind of in a state of threat, fight and flight. And, you know, how do you, how do you get through that? It's so much so that you had, you know, more than half your sentence reduced for good behavior.
John Milham (Host) · 34:48
Two things: I slept, which is when you're in lockdown 23 hours a day, what you're trying to do is to just sleep away the pain. As much as possible. And then the other thing I suppose was I was a very strange prisoner in that when we were in the talking in the exercise yard, I would talk in such a way that we weren't in prison. And some of the guys used to say, I love talking to you because most people, all we're doing is we're talking about the parole board, we're talking about prison things. And yet I'm there chasing butterflies and talking about going bird nesting at 7 years old. And again, I couldn't see why other people wouldn't do that, because you've got a choice. You can just talk about drab prison life, or you can talk about things that are interesting and stimulating. So again, even in prison, I was a man apart.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 36:01
Wow. I've never heard it expressed that way, but it makes a lot of sense. Of course, once you were released, there's a whole new set of problems that have been just loaded onto your back, into your backpack. So, you know, social stigma, the challenge of, you know, you still need to find a job. You still have that. So how did you go about gearing up, facing those kind of problems, particularly given that you weren't diagnosed, so you didn't have any sort of—
John Milham (Host) · 36:36
No.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 36:37
You didn't have any better understanding of why you ended up there in the first place, right?
John Milham (Host) · 36:42
I think just gratefulness, John. So just gratefulness of each day. But what I ended up doing though, I became, uh, some people are free speech absolutists, obviously became a freedom absolutist. Having had my freedom taken away, then almost anything was, was a better option. And so whatever jobs I did get or didn't get, um, I had a different— see, I mean, obviously One of the things you get from being in prison is you become a lot more patient, obviously, because of what you've been through. And so I brought that along, and I think that because I've been through so much and so much pain, what that does is desensitize everything, including your OCD responses. And so you attenuate it in every way. And so I had less trouble, I guess, holding jobs after that.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 37:51
Right.
John Milham (Host) · 37:52
Wow.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 37:52
So, you know, a bit of growth occurring in the, you know, in a sort of, you know, hydroponic sense, right? You were hot, hot-housed, right? Fascinating to me that you then, like, got far away because this was in the UK. So then you said, oh, well, you know, I'm going to— what's a good place for, you know, a UK convict but Australia? So you're over here, right? So what on earth induced you to change countries?
John Milham (Host) · 38:25
Well, it's— we've got a— my family's got a long relationship with Australia. The first came out as £10 poms in 1970. We went back in '86. I came back with them in '86. And then it was about a year and a bit later I went over to the UK because again there was this OCD subroutine that surely things will be better over there. Um, no thinking going on there whatsoever.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 38:55
And so essentially I went back to be back with my family and How did you start to get an awareness of some of these things you were dealing with? Like, um, you know, you've been through an awful lot of life already. You're still a young bloke, but, you know, no, there'd be no support or understanding, right? You've just been dealing, bumping your head against the obstacles that came up as a result of who you are. How did who you are change for How did who I am change?
John Milham (Host) · 39:36
Well, I became just a lot more closed and a lot more guarded, which is, which is not me really. I guess it's not really me. I just— everything was attenuated, but I could feel that I was getting more interested in things. And I think that, well, I got a job as a trainee, uh, loco driver, which was great because I got to travel all around the state, and it was actually quite ideal. But again, I would look out the window, out of the loco window, and yearning for freedom once more. And so what I would do is during the downtimes of the year, I'd take leave off without pay and I'd go paragliding around Indonesia. And it's just— there's the, um, autism coming out years and years before. It's just the most natural thing in the world for me to do. That's what you do, you go paragliding off Virgin Peaks in Indonesia because that's what you want to do. And I used to get static from the And then I had a little mobile phone hire business on the side. It's back in 1990, um, at the first mobile phone hire business in, in Perth. Um, so without even trying, I'm odd. I'm doing odd things. And I remember a conversation very vividly I had with a fellow when I was working on the locos, and he said, you're that bloke, you're that bloke who takes leave without pay and you go off and do all this Larry's stuff, like flying in Indonesia. And he said, he said, haven't you had the memo? I said, what, what memo? He said that work is meant to be horrible, it's meant to be soul-crushing, but that's— it's your strength of character is holding on to that, and then you just provide for your family, and that's what it's all about. Don't you get that? And then I said to him, well, okay, if that's the case What is the purpose of dreams? What's the purpose of university? What's the purpose of any business launching? What's the purpose of the human spirit? And of course, I never got another word out of him.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 42:06
Out of him? No. Well, he's probably still thinking about it. So, you know, like as we all are sometimes. So paragliding, of course, exploring the coastline in a leaky old ship that you put together yourself. Right. So there's plenty of adventures. Right. So in some ways, right, you're living an extraordinarily big life. But of course, inside, there's some challenges, isn't there?
John Milham (Host) · 42:41
Well, at the time I didn't really see them because like anybody with a similar flavor of autism to me, you're so intensely focused on things. And this is not often talked about, but there's a flip side to autism. We tend to talk about it negatively in terms of the sensitivity to stimuli, to noise, to sounds, or whatever. Um, but there's also another side to it, is that along with the intensity, um, what you've got is an intensity of absorption and enjoyment. So with all my baggage and with all my OCD and with all my depression and all the rest of it, there was nobody in the world enjoying exploring that marine environment. There's only me and I'm just absolutely absorbed in it. There were times though where I'd be just— sun just come up and I'd stand on top of the boat and then what would happen is there'd be a whole family of dugongs come gliding under the boat, and I'm just melding into the mast and not moving. And I used to think to myself, John, I used to think to myself, hang on a minute, am I the only person in the world who wants to be here right now? And the obvious conclusion is yes, because there's plenty of people with a lot more resources than me a lot more capability than me, who could be there and experiencing these things. And so there was a few crumbs of clues to me of, okay, I'm leading this very unusual life, but I didn't know what that could portend, what that could lead to down the track in, in the positive realm. All I was doing at that time was enjoying freedom, which is only satisfying for a while. But that was okay because I was still in the loop of sort of enjoying it. But I didn't understand or realize that this enjoyment that I've got and this laser focus had utility outside of doing that, what I was doing then.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 45:26
You talk about it can't last forever. Is that about not being able to run away from the demons, from the things that, you know, the challenge, the hurt, the trauma?
John Milham (Host) · 45:42
Yes and no. Um, I think that if you're in a groove doing that and living that life and enjoying it. And mind you, when you're on a yacht, there's an instant community of other people around you. So it is something where my demons, I could probably have dealt with them for another years, but I hadn't seen my parents for a couple of years. And this is a few years after my brother had passed away in a car accident, so I felt the dutiful need to go back and spend some time with our parents. And that's when the wheels really fell off, because I'm living in suburbia then. I'm Inhabitant Zed, who— whose life doesn't make sense anymore.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 46:36
Yeah, so the freedom was protective freedom in some ways, right? So the sunsets on the— and the dugongs and the, you know, the sails and storms and calm kept you away a bit from what was eventually going to require processing.
John Milham (Host) · 47:01
Indeed, it was another world, and I think that in otherworldly realms like that That otherworldly realm still made more sense to me than, if you like, the real world. There I was, in charge of my own destiny, repairing my own boat, doing my own things. And so it was an entirely appropriate thing for me in that sense. But of course, when the wheels fell off and I did go back to suburbia and became suicidal, I had no idea what to do from there. No idea whatsoever.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 47:45
I, I really, I really find so much value in what you're sharing as an illustration of why, you know, people can cope for a period of time and then hit a wall, right? You know, like, we use what we have available to, to keep things ticking over. And then, you know, because life continues to change our circumstances and we find it, you know, we don't have those resources then. And then you've got to, you know, deal with the rawness. You mentioned depression earlier and suicidal. Is it okay if we chat a little bit about—
John Milham (Host) · 48:23
Sure, sure.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 48:24
Um, how did depression manifest in you? What was it like being depressed?
John Milham (Host) · 48:33
Well, again, everything becomes magnified. So the despair that you imagine would happen with depression, I believe that people are on the spectrum, just as I probably suffered more than a lot of people did imprisoned, um, there's an element of depression which is really, really turbocharged, where you can't see any hope whatsoever. You, you only see blackness. And it's independent of condition. I mean, for instance, okay, so yeah, I was probably depressed because I didn't have a job and I got no prospect of having a job and whatever. But really, the main, the main crushing weight was loneliness. And again, lack of kindness or anything like that. And so there's just an immense heaviness, just a extraordinary degree of effort required to do anything, required to, to think, to see anything in the future whatsoever. Um, so for me, the darkness was far darker than anything that I experienced in prison. Far, far, far darker. And I think that probably the main driver for me was, again, I was reminded that not only did I go to prison, but it was all totally unnecessary because I was undiagnosed. Now, that's the fact, the final coffin nail, that I found unsurvivable.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 50:48
That once you started to get some support for these things that were very difficult to deal with in suburbia, you suddenly realized that that could have been mitigation for your situation previously.
John Milham (Host) · 51:03
That's, that's why I was so just filled with despair.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 51:09
Suicidal, suicidal ideation. You know, it's a very difficult thing that people don't talk about it very often. It's a very difficult thing to explain to somebody who hasn't been there.
John Milham (Host) · 51:23
How—
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 51:24
like, you, you've so articulately described that heaviness. You know, I, in my personal, uh, journey, I've sometimes mentioned it, that the air becomes thick with depress— you know, in depression. Periods, right? It's like you could— you're moving like everyone else, but it's just that much harder to do it.
John Milham (Host) · 51:45
Yes.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 51:46
Yeah. And I, I was wondering, you know, with the suicidality, how did you— yeah, what, what was, what was the reason it was considered? Why would— why did you put though that idea, you know, in what way was like ending your life going to be a solution?
John Milham (Host) · 52:07
Well, I think that I'd already experienced a lot of feeling that I was on the out, and then what I was dealing with was feeling uniquely damned by the fact of being sent to jail undiagnosed, the injustice of it all. And so That was what was really powering me, and so the experience of it was subjectively those very, very harsh facts. And then also the everything, everything around me looked horrible and dirty, but I think that what prison does to you as well, it makes you feel contaminated and dirty. And that's what was really coming to kick me up the ass at that point in time.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 53:16
So you mentioned loneliness, you've mentioned, um, uh, you know, uh, a sense of worth And now you've mentioned shame. Are they— are those three things something that is really, um, a challenge for men in particular, or do you think this is a men's issue?
John Milham (Host) · 53:38
I think that men don't deal well with loneliness because we're meant to be self-reliant, and it's not something that we should and we're meant to be the engines of all social advancement, and we're meant to be the ones who go and make a room light up, etc., etc., etc. And then if you lack the opportunities to do that, and then after a while you become too depressed to do that as well, It's, it's a really awful thing. But what's extraordinary is though, even when you're in the depths of depression, somebody comes around and spends half an hour with you can be transformative.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 54:40
It's That's such an interesting point you make, the idea that healing is also in us at any point in time, as well as the issue is also cohabitating with the solutions almost, right? We have the capacity to be both broken and whole.
John Milham (Host) · 55:05
Indeed. I mean, in the most bizarre circumstances.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 55:09
Is it like points points to the anchor that we can use, which is that connection, that communication, just being human and connecting to humans.
John Milham (Host) · 55:22
Yeah. Wow.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 55:24
Such an insight. So how did you climb out of this? Because this sounds really bleak and dark and it must have been— when you look back at it, you must shiver with you know, memory. But your story, you know, involves, you know, um, you know, climbing out and finding pathways and solutions and using what you've gone through. And of course, you know, all of us have up and downs, but, you know, generally trending to what we talked about at the beginning, that wisdom of where you are, right?
John Milham (Host) · 56:02
Well, it was through my natural inclinations and my ability in writing and communication, I saw that at UWA, University of Western Australia Summer School, there was— had been advertised a travel writing course. And I thought, yeah. And I remember thinking, I either succeed at this or that's it. And I went, and it was just like I was in a class of one, um, and I was the only student there who went on to get published. And so I was in my element, and all of a sudden I was a train driver with a reason to be on a train, right? It's like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it, you know. Uh, it did— I think that just having that level of validation, um, that somebody's actually interested in what I've got to say. I remember the fellow Athol Thomas who was facilitating the course at UWA. He said, what you've got to do is you've got to be an interesting travel companion. And so that stuck with me, and I thought, right, yeah, that, that's what I've got to do. And so that really took off and then resulted in me meeting my wife, and that was the real vital change. But that wasn't to say that I never suffered from depression anymore. But what happened is, is it pushed it down so that it occurred to a lesser degree. That's like—
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 57:43
it's— was that about gaining resource and management of your situation, or was it about the depression wearing out, you know, not being as powerful as it was?
John Milham (Host) · 57:54
No, I think it was just being involved in something which I found of value, that, that I enjoyed. But I think above all, it was the fact that there was a recognition that I actually had some talent. Because you've got to remember that every job I'd ever had, I got the sack from. Yeah, yeah. And so for me to, you know, a lad from Northeast England where no dreams are ever even talked about, because all you did is you went to work at the pit Yeah, yeah. For me, that was just extraordinary. It was the most amazing validation. And all of a sudden I'm living in this rarefied world, and nearly every trip I went on, I would end up going to talk to the pilots because I'm a bit of aviation buff. And then we'd get into a quarrel and the pilot would say to me, oh, you got the best job in the world. And I'd say, nonsense, you've got the best job in the world. And it was things like that. So it was a lovely life. Got involved in publishing in Malaysia and was doing all these amazing trips and what have you. And I mean, it was still a salve. It was a plaster over a wound, but it was a bloody good one.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 59:16
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yep, fair enough. Um, Amazing stuff. What did you like? Because you then, you know, parlayed that personal, um, you know, almost, you know, whether you were recovering or, you know, healing or treating yourself, you then found service, right? And you realize that part of your journey could inform or support others, right? So what's— what, what was that about? What, what, what made that change and what do you want to do with it?
John Milham (Host) · 59:53
Well, um, what, what happened was I got into a big, big slump of, uh, depression from— I had 3 businesses on the go, but by 2015 I wound them all up due to numerous problems, too numerous to go into here, most of which was the impracticality of trying to run a Cairns business up here on the Tablelands. We've moved up on the Tablelands. I couldn't run my motorbike tour business up here. I couldn't do this, I couldn't do that. And then of course I had no raison d'être. I had no reason for being. So from about 2016 I kept falling into these appalling depressions. I was hospitalized in 2023 and then hospitalized for the first time in a private hospital in Brisbane. And that was the turning point because I had an excellent psychiatrist there and two things happened. Most extraordinary things happened. I had this epiphany. I had this marvelous psychiatrist who was sorting me out with the best medication, etc. And I talked to him about my imprisonment, and this is a monkey on my back, and I can't get past it. It's a stuck point. It's a stuck point. I don't— I go to the shower, and I'm terrified of the shower because all of a sudden I can be hit with a rumination bomb. Why did you have to do that? Why did you have to do that? Um, why couldn't they have picked up on your illness? Things like that. And then I'd just be on the floor for days. And in talking to any psychiatrist or psychologist about this, the best thing they can come up with is, but that was more than 30 years ago, Steve. Don't you think you ought to give yourself an easier time?, and this psychiatrist, as magnificent as I believe him to be, said pretty much the same thing. And it was remarkable. It's like a shaft of light came and penetrated my skull, and then the next words I spoke were just on automatic. What I did is I said to this psychiatrist, and I raised up my right hand as high as I could lift it. And I said, what you're doing is you're dealing with a bloke here who's been through trauma right up here. And then I brought my hand down to about chest height, and I said, what you could possibly ever have been trained for or to empathize with is maybe around about here. And I said, I don't mean to impugn you or your profession or your experience or whatever, but what I'm saying to you now is And this is, this is verbatim. What I'm saying to you now is that you, had you been through what I've been through, the chances are you'd be dead. And you certainly wouldn't be sitting in that chair there because you wouldn't have been able to do the study, etc., etc., etc. That moment of realization, John, was my moment of realizing that I have to find my own solutions to the trauma. And about 3 nights after, I found it. I found it, and it was in a conversation with another patient. And she'd got significant trauma, and she was 23 and had this trauma 10 years ago, and she'd never— sorry, she'd never been able to talk to her psychiatrist about it. And I spent the evening talking with her, and I asked her a series of questions. I said, do you feel that the you before the trauma has gone and you'll never be able to reconnect with her? And she said, yes. I said, do you feel that the time between that trauma and now are lost years? She said, yes. And so it went on. Exactly mirroring my experience. Now, I had previously got a very, very low-resolution image, I suppose, of my trauma, which was that the greatest problem that I'm trying to deal with is the rumination. So that's based on the moment of, of the trauma, right there in that car park, making that decision to go and do that robbery having convinced myself I've got AIDS and therefore I've got nothing to live for, etc. What this encounter with this young fellow patient showed me was that there's a map common to people who experience trauma going back to before the traumatic event the traumatic event itself, the sense of lost time, the complete apathy and feeling that their life is going nowhere, and a bleak view of the future. And so I talked to several other patients in there, and then what happened is I drew up this timeline, a timeline map of trauma. Starting with past view, then with the trauma, then the lost time between the trauma and today, and today and the future view. And I filled it in with my, my statements, if you like. And each one of those was a stuck point which I came to talk about as exemptions, because what's happened is you've put a ring around those things and you believe that they're exempt from editing because the trauma is so great it forms a shell. You don't believe that you can penetrate that shell. You don't believe you can do anything about it. Now, going back to that young girl She'd spent 10 years in therapy and was never able to talk about what the trauma was. And the following morning, after talking to me, she told her psychiatrist. It just makes me so happy. It makes me so happy. It was the happiest day of my life, John. I'm crying, but tears of joy, um, absolute joy. And I think there's— there comes through that empathy, which is not unique to people on the spectrum, but certainly it's there. So that was a breakthrough point for me wherein I could say, my God, okay, so I'm on quite effective medication now, but that's not— was never going to stop me ruminating, was never going to stop me But once I realized that the process of going and re-traumatizing yourself is a voluntary one, once I realized that you can actually go, you can go back and you can revisit that, but that you actually do have an option to view it differently. You have an option to say, what, okay, yeah, no, that really sucked, I made a really bad decision, I didn't get justice, etc. But you then feel that you've got the option of saying, okay, well, that led to something. And so that led to me helping that young girl.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 1:09:42
That may be one of the most powerful descriptions of the power of lived experience that I've ever heard, mate. So much in that. I think there's a second podcast out there, right? But just to Extraordinary. So thank you for sharing and thank you for really highlighting, um, yeah, what just so much that you've just highlighted, including, you know, the well-meaning but ultimately less than effective medical model, the, you know, the, the pathological treatment of trauma and the subsequent life distress that occurs from it. Right. The psychologists, when I think of the amount of money I put into psychologists and at the same time there are things I have still never told a psychologist.
John Milham (Host) · 1:10:42
Right.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 1:10:42
That's in here. Why am I paying for the privilege of lying about what I'm wanting to talk to? Yeah. Why?
John Milham (Host) · 1:10:51
I want to know that. Yeah.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 1:10:55
And I think you've just tapped into something that I think is revelatory for the future involvement of community in helping people walk that process that you described, the stuck points, right? Getting through that. So wonderful stuff, mate. The power of lived experience. And of course, plenty of work for you to do. You know, like, what, what is your ex— what are you excited about coming up?
John Milham (Host) · 1:11:27
Well, I'm really excited about this work that is coming along. It hasn't started happening yet, but, um, it looks like it will happen. This work in prisons, um, and how that started was, I mean, for years and years and years and years, I've actually been looking for myself for anything that can help ex-prisoners and how to move on after having been in prison, because it's a massive, massive, massive, massive, massive trauma just going in prison. And what really hurt me was times when I would go and see psychiatrists and psychologists and they'd say, oh, did you go through any trauma when you're in jail? I mean, were you raped or whatever? And I say, no, mate, the trauma was Trump, don't you get it? I mean, yeah, like, how much more trauma do you need, right? Quite honestly, I mean, uh, yeah, it's just absolutely absurd.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 1:12:35
So that, that's coming, you know, that, that's an exciting prospect. What do you want to, um, you know, you're, you know, uh, you must be a young man because I'm the same age, so like, you know, I'll, I'll claim that. So what do you want to make the next period of your life about?
John Milham (Host) · 1:12:55
Well, I definitely have a sense of mission about helping others and indeed helping myself to help others because I'm no good to help anybody else if I'm on the floor. So obviously, you know, I've got to look after myself. And I mean, one of the things that I had already started to do is join a lot more clubs and get a lot more involved in things. But then what then emerges is the greater need to do things of meaning. And so what you've got is a perfect situation I've got wherein I'm on the spectrum, and so I probably never got to choose that I am only going to get really stimulated by doing things that have meaning. And then what's going on is I've had these really, really unpleasant experiences, but because they're extremely unpleasant and because of the circumstances under which they happened, I've got an opportunity and insights to help people, not just who were in prison, but people who were stuck. And it just appalls me the degree to which there are so many people who have trauma and who are absolutely stuck, and that there's nothing available for them. And if there's any message I want to send out, it is that yes, there are good therapists that can help you with trauma, but I think that overall one of the barriers to the therapists in being good therapists in this regard is lived experience. So we make much of it, um, And we should make more of the idea of lived experience, but lived experience with insight is an awful lot.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 1:15:15
I think, and that's the, you know, the exciting and challenging bit about where we take supporting people in the community with stories like yourself, mate. I am enormously grateful for your story today, for you sharing so bravely and so openly. And I feel, you know, inspired and lifted by your story. So thank you, brother. Thank you, Steve. And thank you on behalf of Kintsugi Heroes for being one of our very impressive storytellers. So thank you, brother.
John Milham (Host) · 1:15:54
Thank you very kindly, John. Thank you very much.
Steve Rothwell (Guest) · 1:15:58
Talk soon.
John Milham (Host) · 1:16:00
Okay. Thank you for listening to this episode of Kintsugi Heroes. Thank you to Colin Lilly for permission to use Broken as our theme music for this series. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the podcast with a friend and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.
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