Transforming heartbreak into hope

Please note, this story contains content about self-harm and suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, resources can be found at the end of this article.

Marian Haire (GDipEd ’86) has had one of those glorious, meandering careers. She graduated from University College Dublin in 1969, moving to Canada with her husband. Her early jobs were as a “check-out chick” and a telephone service representative, work which she says gave her amazing customer service training: “It’s hard yakka, but it teaches you what the basics are about. It’s important to learn the discipline of hard work.” 

Following a few years of raising children and volunteering, Marian retrained as a science teacher, completing her Diploma of Education (Secondary) at the University of Sydney. Marian first taught in western Sydney, before becoming a science consultant for the region, and was then asked to join a project related to the Olympics called Measurement in Sport. She spent two decades with the National Measurement Institute, and has even come out of retirement to consult for ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations).

“It’s a journey I would never have envisaged,” she says. “I thought I was going to get a Diploma of Education, and stay in Ireland and teach. That was the limit of my vision! But I always say to people, you just have to grab the opportunities as they come.”

Marian is also the co-author of several successful science textbooks. The offer to contribute to these came in the midst of a very traumatic period – her son Tim, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia a few years earlier, had taken his own life. For Marian, work provided a sense of purpose in her grief.

“I think if he hadn’t died, I would have been in a state of thinking I couldn’t do it. But I thought, ‘what else could happen?’”

Tim Haire was born in 1975, and died in 1995. Marian describes how when he was two, he said to her, “Mummy, I’ve got a really good brain!”

“And he did have a good brain,” she recalls. “He wasn’t a linear thinker. I remember he made a model of a Wimshurst machine, and was trying to make a mag-train. When he was about six or seven, he decided he didn’t want to do cursive and instead taught himself lovely script writing. He was a very high-achieving young man, and a very handsome fellow.”

Like many people with schizophrenia, Tim’s diagnosis took place in late adolescence, a year into his Bachelor of Pharmacy at the University of Sydney. He had several experiences which the family would later recognise as psychotic episodes, including an occasion where the police had to be called to the family home. 

“All I can say is it was hell,” says Marian. “The police removed Tim from our home and he was sectioned (placed in a hospital under the Mental Health Act). So that was our introduction to schizophrenia. It was pretty bloody raw.”

Schizophrenia affects approximately 1% of Australians. Symptoms can include delusions, inappropriate emotional responses, paranoia, and depersonalisation. However, schizophrenia is also widely misunderstood – for instance, people with schizophrenia are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence. The onset of symptoms and diagnosis can also be isolating for the families of people with schizophrenia, due to public perception of the illness and a lack of information and resources.

After her retirement in 2018, Marian was looking for ways to give back and get involved. Through the University of Sydney, she was introduced to Anthony Harris (MBBS ’85, PhD ’03), a Professor of Psychiatry at Westmead Clinical School, head of Psychiatry in the Sydney Medical School, and Clinical Director of Westmead’s Brain Dynamics Centre. 

Professor Harris’ research focuses on young people with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, aiming to understand how the brain causes some people to hear voices, relapse or lose their cognitive “thinking skills”. His work uses wearable devices to better predict when episodes may occur, and focuses on improving the day-to-day lives of people with a severe mental illness like schizophrenia. 

Meeting Professor Harris and seeing the work that he and his team are undertaking was a turning point for Marian: “It made a difference that it was to do with Tim’s illness. I think it’s already known that we’re not likely to solve schizophrenia, but it’s important to help people live with it.”

Helping people to live with schizophrenia is indeed critical: it is one of the mental disorders with the highest risk of mortality, associated with a 15–20-year average reduction in life expectancy. One in twenty people diagnosed with schizophrenia will die of suicide.  

After meeting the team at Westmead, Marian decided to create an endowment in Tim’s memory to support early-career researchers, enabling them to initiate innovative research projects by purchasing necessary consumables, attend conferences and take up other important opportunities to share knowledge and build professional networks. 

“These illnesses still seem to push people away,” explains Professor Harris. “It is only people who have been so severely affected, like Marian, that focus on these illnesses. Marian's gift is a great boost to young researchers coming into the field: it helps us foster people who might otherwise not stay in research.”

For Marian, the gift is also significant because of its longevity – it is designed to be awarded in perpetuity. 

“I liked the idea of the endowment, because it’ll still be here long after I’m gone. It’s very important to me that Tim’s name is remembered and mentioned in relation to this work. Tim didn’t have an opportunity to do anything with his life – and we all want to do something worthwhile. In my view, this research is what he’s doing with the life he didn’t have, this is his contribution.

“And it’s healing, in a way. It’s been 29 years since Tim died, and if there ever can be closure, this has helped to give me closure.”

If you or someone you know needs help:

• Lifeline on 13 11 14
• MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978
• Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
• Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36
• Headspace on 1800 650 890
• QLife on 1800 184 527
• ReachOut at au.reachout.com
• SANE Australia on 1800 18 72 63
• Mental Health Line 1800 011 511

Written by Chloe Pryce for the donor publication. Photography by Fiona Wolf.