Nic Newling fears his son will inherit the genes that have seriously impacted his own life
At 19 weeks baby Finn is all smiles. But his dad Nic Newling will always be alert to signs his little boy has inherited the mental darkness that claimed his brother’s Christopher’s life him and led Nic to the brink of suicide at age 16.
NSW
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My son is only 19 weeks old but already I fear he may suffer the same fate as me.
He’s too young for signs but I watch anyway, stare into his big, blue eyes.
My wife and I discussed not having children because of this dread but we have a deep love for each other and a window of hope that he would genetically escape our mental curses.
Finn is not an unhappy boy — far from it.
Jaime and I watch intently as he lies in our laps with his eyes sweeping the room, taking in every movement — the swish of the curtain in the breeze — and every sound, the sudden and piercing screech of a hatched cicada.
His mouth is agape as he examines in wonder our entirely mundane, black Ikea furniture. His trance is broken only when his eyes meet ours.
He smiles at Jaime, then me and rewards us with an explosion of unconfined laughter.
Our firstborn is pure joy. How can this makes us nervous?
The concern we have for Finn’s future is born of statistics, not observation.
Jaime and I have both suffered the intense and unforgiving depths of misery of mental illnesses at crucial stages of our lives.
I was a bundle of Finn-level joy for the first 12 years of my life before I plummeted into suicidal ideation, hospitalisation and electro-convulsive therapy.
While Jaime has also struggled with severe depression, her mental health affliction has primarily been an intense anxiety with an unending inability to switch off her mind.
Without complaint, she continues to bravely battle insomnia, chronic fatigue and chronic pain. When asked to describe fibromyalgia, she finds it easiest to say she has had the same headache for nine years.
This is the mildest symptom.
She says “Fibro” feels like she has concrete pouring through her veins and an invisible deep bruising that can’t be seen, only felt.
She is granted three, pain-free seconds each day when her eyes first open in the morning before the excruciating agony kicks in. It doesn’t go away. We both know about hidden illnesses which are poorly understood and require wearing masks for our communities.
WILL FINN GROW UP TO RESENT US?
JAIME and I met five years ago in New York when I was delivering my first international talk at a suicide prevention conference.
She, a professional make-up artist, couldn’t have come from a more different world — me, an Aussie guy who’d never used moisturiser, wore daggy shorts and mismatched socks.
As our relationship grew, it didn’t take long for us to discuss marriage and kids. We’d both never lived with a partner nor come close to considering marriage, far less having a family.
It’s amazing how quickly things change when you find your soulmate.
We knew we wanted to have a child with each other but the lingering fear of what might happen to him couldn’t be ignored — we knew our future child was at an elevated risk of inheriting our mental illnesses.
Life seemed unliveable for us then. Could we morally justify bringing a life into this world knowing he may have to suffer what we did?
At age 16 I didn’t want to live and until we found an effective treatment I blamed my relentlessly supportive parents for forcing me to continue.
Will Finn one day resent us for holding on so tightly too?
We are by no means worry-wort, helicopter parents. We fervently believe that cottonwool wrapping is the enemy of healthy, resilience-building; but I can’t help sometimes feeling panicked that we could find ourselves in the same position my parents did.
What if Finn Christopher Newling took after his namesake, my older brother Christopher, who took his own life at 17?
That tragedy broke us as a family.
I still can’t understand how my parents had the strength to carry on, stay together, and build a new life while still supporting me through my worst years. Somehow they did.
I’m immensely proud of them and, while I feared I would never have their strength, I hold my son and understand that strength comes from love.
Perhaps the lesson for Jaime and me as new parents is one I learned through grief — we can’t live our lives through “What Ifs”.
The post-traumatic growth I experienced through the grieving of my brother and my own recovery from mental illness has taught me that our instincts aren’t always right.
For years I sought to “fix” what I saw as the broken parts of myself and find distractions from what was too painful to ponder.
In time I came to realise I needed an acknowledgment of these harsh realities and a journey into finding purpose somewhere, somehow, no matter how long that took.
I can’t change the fact that my brother died but I can contribute to how he lives on in vital ways.
CAN WE TALK?
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I wear his portrait as a tattoo on my arm, I tell his story to educate people about suicide prevention, and now my own son carries the name of the uncle he will never get to meet.
I was nervous when Jaime and I called my parents to tell them that Finn would be named Finn Christopher Newling.
What if they didn’t like the idea but felt they couldn’t object to it? A brief, silent pause as they processed our request.
Mum said she stopped breathing, then she smiled at my dad, Phil, and then they both cried before saying thank you.
LEGACY OF COMPASSION AND SUPPORT
MENTAL illness can sometimes be hereditary but so too can the qualities of examination and discovery that allow it to be seen not simply as a disease, but also a human experience that can foster a deeper understanding of our world and ourselves.
I’m reminded of an Edgar Allen Poe quote my mum put above my bedhead when I was in the thick of my cognitively impaired psychosis:
“Those who dream by day are cognisant of many things which escape those who dream only by night”.
With Finn I don’t believe there is much to change from how my parents raised me. Like them, we will keep a close eye on his mental development.
We valued emotional connection, discussing our feelings, and intervening early when situations arose which required professional support.
My optimism of a more favourable outcome is based on a changing world.
I’ve devoted my life to delivering education about suicide prevention and mental wellbeing, and my work is just one part of a larger system which is beginning to take these issues more seriously.
We’ve come so far but we have a long way to go and in truth our work will never end.
If our little guy ever experiences mental illness himself, then he’ll be in an environment that is understanding, is open to listening without judgment, talking when appropriate, and willing to work out ways to improve our situation together.
Compassion, love, empathy, and support can be all be inherited too.
Nic Newling and his mother Jayne Newling have been advocates for mental health and suicide prevention since the death of his brother Christopher at age 17. Nic is also the founder of The Champions and a longtime supporter of The Sunday Telegraph’s Can We Talk? campaign
If you need help call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636