Positive Life NSW

Douglas Barry on his experience returning to the workforce

When I was diagnosed in 1986, I had a successful practice as a lawyer in Sydney. For a while, I managed to live and work with that ‘death sentence’ hanging over me. But by the early 1990s, I wasn’t coping. People all around me were dying - when would I be next?

My law practice was suffering, so I gave it up in 1993. I disappeared into a sort of ‘black hole’. But then effective treatments arrived and, in 1996, I was told that I had the life expectancy of anyone else my age. Heh! I’d been given a second chance at life. And I’d be a real mug, I thought, if I blew it again.

What was I to do with this gift? I was living in a granny flat on the DSP. A return to the law wasn’t a reality. For a start, my self confidence was at rock bottom. Stigma and discrimination were a daunting reality.

I started with a simple daily routine so I could have regular exercise, plenty of rest and a good diet. They’d all gone out the window during the chaos of the ‘black hole’. Then, once the basic structures were in place, I thought that I should learn about how others lived with HIV.

So I joined PLWH/A (NSW) – now Positive Life. It was the best thing I ever did. I had to learn new skills and I became a ‘committee junkie’, sitting on countless committees and working groups. I discovered the rewards of volunteering and my self-belief grew.

An important event was taking part in a ‘return to work’ group conducted in the HIV community. There we were encouraged to plan short and medium term goals. My goals became to write, study and perhaps return to work in some capacity. But we were also urged to have a dream – something we really thought we could never achieve. For me, this was my return to the law.

The goals were achieved: I wrote a novel and it was rejected often enough to convince me my future path didn’t lie that way. I did full time postgraduate study in health care ethics and that equipped me for a return to a different sort of work. This was as a policy adviser in a government agency.

In case anyone thinks this sounds all too easy – it wasn’t, believe me. There was no social life; I saved enough from the DSP to pay, with help from family, Uni fees and expenses. I just kept asking myself ‘how badly do I want this?’

Returning to paid employment in 2001 after eight years was a revelation. I acquired new knowledge, new skills;I was in a safe environment where disclosure was not an issue. I rediscovered the joys of workplace socialisation and formed enduring friendships. With a fortnightly pay packet, there was relief from what I called ‘material benefits deprivation syndrome’. I even had my first overseas trip in almost twenty years.

Above all, this was a critical time to think about who I was and where my life might go. I hadn’t let go of my dream. So when I had health issues in 2004, I promised myself that, if I got on top of them, I would return to the law. Luck and new, effective treatments were on my side.

I still wasn’t sure, though, whether I was up for the demands of a law practice. So I started a part-time postgraduate law degree. If the challenges of working full-time and studying were met, then I thought I could handle professional life again. It was September 2006 that saw me at my desk in the city – ready for business and with enough self-belief to pull it off.

It has been a slow, solitary haul. Long hours of work and study meant little social life. But the question was always: ‘how badly did I want my dream?’

Just recently, I found an article that I wrote for Talkabout in 1997. It explored many ideas and feelings I had then about returning to work. I wrote about having ‘the courage to dream’.

More importantly, I finished the article with the words of Annie Lennox’s song:

‘I’m takin’ it step by step,
Bit by bit, mile by mile’.

For me, that still says it all. And now that I’m back in my old profession with my postgraduate study completed, I feel I have regained some of my self-confidence and self-respect. I have no small sense of satisfaction at what I have achieved. Moreover, I feel that I have repaid, in some part, the love and trust that family and friends have given me over my long years of dreaming.