Timothy’s mental struggles proved too great to bear
Timothy Paul Johnston loved art.
Sensitive, creative, and talented, his HSC works were chosen for a travelling exhibition on display in Japan.
But a 10-year battle with bipolar disorder saw him take his own life a few week’s ago at his father’s west Orange home.
Now facing having to move in the middle of his grief, his pensioner father, Kevin’s wish is to spare his son, what he sees as the last indignity of a pauper’s funeral.
“He was a handsome boy, he wasn’t introverted or withdrawn… he loved cooking, he was not a gloomy, hide-in-the-corner sort of person. Quite often he’d be happy, he was a soft kid, quiet but sensitive,” Kevin said of his 28-year-old son.
He said that it was Timothy’s HSC year, often a time of worry, promise, stress, and hope for so many young people, that he first noticed the demons that increasingly-haunted his son.
“He went to school in Tumbarumba (southern NSW), then we moved to Batemans Bay (on the south coast) before coming here four year’s ago.”
“It was probably the last year of school… in his HSC. It was a great school in many ways with his art sent-over to Japan for a display. But he began to first show the signs of bi-polar disorder, he suffered from bullies I had to go the head principal, to go into bat for him. I was at the point of taking legal action at one stage,” Kevin said.
Like many lonely, sensitive children, Timothy increasingly-turned to the internet for the interactions that he couldn’t make in normal life.
“He suffered terribly from social anxiety, he tried working at IGA, he tried Macca’s and, although highly-intelligent, he simply couldn’t handle even that.
“He’d come home from school’ he’d do what he had to do, and then he’d spend the rest of his time in his room playing computer games,” Kevin explained. “What do they say? ‘Their room is their fortress’.”
Bringing his son to the Central Tablelands— with its natural beauty and range of health services — was, Kevin said, an effort to help Timothy break-free.
“What brought us to Orange was, it was such a pretty, nice place, with its autumn leaves and change of seasons.
“I also knew it was a great place for mental health services with groups such as LikeMind, Headspace, the Curran Centre, he had some really good doctors,” Kevin said.
However, the complex cluster of conditions that Timothy suffered from, Kevin explained, made treatment and help a difficult task.
“When someone’s got bi-polar and ADHD (Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), it takes a long-time to get diagnosed. Timothy would have to concentrate so hard to do simple things — to do his teeth, have a shower, make his bed — would take huge amounts of concentration,” Kevin said.
“He was also spending way too much time on ‘Dr Google’ (online self-diagnosis), four times we went to emergency where he was sure he was having a heart attack, but of course, it was just his anxiety.”
Kevin said that problems with both the heating and shower and the likely-sale of their rental property, he believes, only exacerbated his son’s already-fragile state.
“Winter, the lockdown, we were told to pack-up and get-out because the place is being sold, people coming through to inspect the house… now I’m trying to pack boxes while I’m grieving… it took me days to walk into his room,” he said.
“The police have been wonderful, they’ve come around a couple of times to make sure that I’m okay, which I really appreciate,” Kevin said.
The father said that his aim now, is simply to be able to afford a decent burial for his son in a nice plot at Orange Cemetery.
“We don’t want him to have a pauper’s grave and we don’t want to cremate him, we only want a place where we can mourn and we can visit him; where his mother and I can place flowers,” Kevin concluded.
Please contact OCLife on 6361 3575 or Norman J Penhall Funeral Directors 6361 7777, if you would like to make a donation to help ease the financial burden.
If you or you know of anybody experiencing mental health issues, please contact
Lifeline Australia 13 11 14.