After this stay I returned to Palmerston North and took refuge for several months before obtaining work in Wellington with the Labour Department’s Arbitration Court in 1982 then for New Zealand Immigration Service from 1987.
Over these years I had pitfalls, the most serious ones in 1984 and 1990, when I suffered flashbacks. Both these times I was admitted to in-patient care for about two weeks, each time for anxiety attacks and suicidal feelings.
After a stay in Porirua Hospital in 1990 I was finally medically retired in early 1991.
During my school years I suffered childhood depression and had an underlying death wish. Today this childhood feeling triggers flashbacks and any stress may cause me to become suicidal. The sick discipline methods caused me to feel I was worthless. Today, I still experience flashbacks when I remember the terrible humiliation, as if I was back in the toxic classroom.