During Mental Health Week, Andrew Shaw speaks with a man who isn’t afraid to speak (about) his mind.

One day in 2002, Dr Eric Glare PhD (immunology and gene technology) was subjected to the virus that causes meningitis. The lining around his brain began to swell, and he experienced daily migraines. HIV positive since 1994, Glare had just returned from the OutGames in Sydney with his partner.

“Unfortunately, my recovery was protracted and I had a six-month fight for my health,” Glare told MCV on the eve of Mental Health Week. “My partner went cold, made walls in the bed, but wouldn't break off the relationship of more than 13 years. My condition reminded him every day that he too had HIV and he was a denialist at heart. It was all my fault.”

Addicted to painkillers Glare sought counselling to wean him off, a process he describes as “a rough and brutal road”. It worked, but he experienced a psychotic episode and doctors diagnosed him with bipolar two, distinct from bipolar one because of its relatively mild form of mania and absence of psychotic episodes. Glare has not worked full-time in research, his area of expertise, since 2002, but he has just made it through six months without symptoms.
When he does go job-hunting, he’s presented with difficult decisions.

“I’m having to address all these issues of disclosure; how to I disclose enough to get a job that is cut down and matched enough for me but avoid looking too unreliable to be unemployed.

“Which label do I use? Do I use all my labels, or will that totally kill my chances of getting a job.”

He says he has been scared in the past, scared that he may actually be bipolar type one, but he has not yet experienced another psychotic episode. He says being “fast” is a problem for him.

“I’m specifically talking about when I’m fast and my clock doesn’t match anyone else’s. All the feedback you get is totally wrong.”

He tells the story of when he went to fill up at a petrol station, but found himself behind a car that could obviously move up to the next bowser so he could access the pump.

“So I tooted, but nothing happens. I go toot, toot. But nothing happens. What’s going on here? It’s a car full of arseholes? Then I suddenly realised, hang on, I must be fast. If I’d been even more ill at the time it would have taken me longer to catch on that fast was the problem. It was probably only a millisecond between the horn and the guy moving. But I thought it was a couple of minutes. He probably wasn’t being rude at all. He was probably just starting the car and moving it forwards. But to me, a great sin had happened.”

You get the feeling speaking with Glare that he is a man determined to deal rationally with the hand he’s been dealt, however unhappy he may be with it. Unlike many people, he says, who are afraid to talk about their condition, including its associated miseries, Glare says he speaks out – and has been accused of being “negative”. Friends, he says, have told him to “think positive”.

“I had an HIV positive friend who did that to me, and he thought because I was telling him about my dilemmas and so on – that I was being way too negative. It took me a while, after dwelling on that, to realise that I was actually doing something positive. I had a complete medical system around me of good practitioners, who I trusted and could tell anything to, and that my ‘negative’ was in fact very positive and is what has got me where I am.

“But my friend, unfortunately, didn’t seek treatment, except crystals and crap. He’s forever telling himself to be positive, to talk positive. But there’s no point talking positive unless you’re going to do something positive.”

Glare is a member of the People Living With HIV/AIDS Speakers Bureau, a group of HIV positive people who outreach in the community, giving talks at schools and other organisations. He says public speaking is like an anchor for him.

“Just the ability to do something, and look at the big picture. When you’re ill you lose that big picture and to actually be able to talk about it and explain it to someone, you have to work it out. You get a sense of meaning through public speaking.”

Glare says there are two things he hopes people will consider during Mental Health Week.

“One is the understanding that leads to flexibility. For example, I’m the cook in the house and friends might be coming over and they say, ‘We know it’s your turn to cook, but if you’re not well we’ll just go out.’ Whereas with other friends, if you can’t keep up, it’s like, ‘Get back to me when you’re well.’ And people have said that to me.

“The other important thing is getting help. I’ve spoken to so many people because I’ve spoken up .They’ve come to me and said, ‘I’m a bit down...’ But when you really talk to them about it, it’s the whole kit and caboodle, full-on depression for months.”

The interview over, we walk down to the street where we take Glare’s photo for this article. He makes some good suggestions for the photo – he turns out to be a great model, smiling continuously.

“I still have cognitive slowing and fatigue that is labelled as post-meningitis syndrome all mixed up with the side-effects of HIV drugs, lithium and quetiapine. Apparently my old friend, the brain doesn't work quite as well now but we are still us.”

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