Alumnus Profile: Peter Symons
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Degree: (BVet (1979))
Current position: Co-founder of the Positive Workplace Foundation
THREE brain haemorrhages and a nightmarish battle with suicidal depression helped Dr Peter Symons rise to where he is today.
The University of Melbourne Vet Science alumnus (BVSc (1979)) was recently named “Western Australia’s Most Inspiring Man”, for drawing upon his traumatic past to help others.
As co-founder of the Positive Workplace Foundation, Dr Symons visits Western Australian workplaces to share the powerful story of his fight against depression, how he overcame it, and the new theory he helped develop to explain it.
“A lot of people find it hard to talk about depression,” he said. “When I get up and talk from the heart about how it’s logical to consider killing yourself, and they see that I’ve been as bad as you can be and got over it, that gives them hope.”
In 2005, Dr Symons and GP Dr Clyde Jumeaux launched their new theory on depression called ‘Brain Fuel Depletion’. According to the Brain Fuel Depletion model, the excessive stress of modern lifestyles can deplete a person’s neurotransmitters (or ‘Brain Fuels’), which explains the psychological symptoms of depression. Adrenaline (the body’s natural ‘fight or flight’ hormone) kicks in, causing a range of distressing symptoms including anxiety and insomnia.
Anxiety and insomnia are conditions that Dr Symons knows all too well. After undergoing major brain surgery for the second time in 2001, he suddenly found he couldn’t sleep at night. He also started suffering major anxiety and panic attacks, and withdrew from his friends and family.
“For my family , it was like living with a corpse,” Dr Symons said. “I would never laugh or tell a joke. I was extremely remote.”
Although Dr Symons knew something was seriously wrong, he never sought help or medical advice.
“I was suicidal, but I didn’t feel depressed – I just didn’t want to go on living because I was so physically and emotionally exhausted, from the anxiety and insomnia,” he said. “I was embarrassed to have a mental health problem and could not make any sense of what was actually wrong with me.” It wasn’t until he asked a doctor to examine a stress-related rash, and then reluctantly revealed his other symptoms, that he learned his symptoms were those of depression. Dr Symons was prescribed anti-depressants and soon after his insomnia and anxiety disappeared. However, his interest in his illness did not.
Continuing to search for a rational explanation for his symptoms, Dr Symons contacted Australind GP Dr Clyde Jumeaux, who was renowned for spending many years developing theories to explain depression.
“He was interested in my symptoms and could logically explain them all,” Dr Symons said.
“My brain fuels were already been depleted as a result of my busy life-style. My brain injury, surgery and the intensive care period then accentuated this depletion to dangerous levels.”
Dr Symons recognised the Brain Fuel Depletion model as a simple, understandable explanation of his illness and one that gave him, and others, hope. He started working closely with Dr Jumeaux to publish and promote it. He was able to draw upon his background as a vet to understand the theory.
“As a vet, I often go back to the first principles of disease,” he said.
“I think about the history of diseases and utilise scientific principles to understand them. For instance, why do horses get gastric ulcers?”
“It’s because we feed them twice a day, when historically they evolved to graze all day long.”
Similarly, people become depressed when living stressful modern lifestyles which deplete Brain Fuels.
“Then they don’t sleep enough at night, meaning we inadequately replete them,” Dr Symons said.
“The result is Brain Fuel Depletion with its myriad range of psychological and physical symptoms.”
Since his recovery, Dr Symons has worked hard to share the Brain Fuel Depletion model , and his own story, with others. “I want to make sure nobody spends five minutes like I spent six horrendous months,” he said.
He has also developed a new life perspective, which drove him to achieve his goals of a duo swim of the English Channel and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.
“I did these things as a celebration of life,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of setbacks in my life, but I now regard my time on Earth it as a privilege and an opportunity.”
Dr Symons will be guest speaker at the University of Melbourne's Conversation at Masani event on 15 October 2009. For further information about this event, please visit the Conversation at Masani page.
By Fiona Willan
Dr Peter Symons celebrated life by swimming the English Channel, after surviving three brain haemorrhages and winning his fight against suicidal depression. |
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