Kane - That Light Ignited in Me

Early on in life Kane found substances that would soothe his troubled mind and soul. But the drugs led to living on the streets of Melbourne and crime that led to stints in jail. For years nothing else mattered except the drugs which hid the self-loathing and Kane’s ultimate desire to be part of a loving family. 

But it felt like God still had a plan for Kane, and when he ended up in hospital in Bendigo it was a doctor there who helped him to see what God saw; someone who was worthy. Someone who was still loved. This was the spark that ignited a flame in Kane, and in the years that followed he would come to have faith that he was loved by God and could find an expression of that love in the church. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

G'day there and welcome to The Spirit, where we share stories of faith from the heart of the country. You got time to stay for an egg sandwich, don't you? Perfect. Pull up a chair, settle in, and join us for a chat. I'm Darcy and I'm here on the lands of the Jajawarung, who I acknowledge and offer my respect. I'm in a little place called Kangaroo Flat, and I'm speaking to Kane. G'day Kane, how are you doing? How are you? Thanks. Yeah, yeah. Uh thanks so much for meeting me here and having a chat.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

That's my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Well, uh, Kane, I wonder, did you start life in Kangaroo Flat or did you begin somewhere else?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

No, well, in 2019 I I was released from prison.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

And I caught the train. I didn't want to do Melbourne anymore. Melbourne was too much for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah. Did you start life in Melbourne or were you? Did you grow up Melbourne? I grew up in Melbourne. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

I was born in Perth, but it we came over when I was four. Yeah. Since a teenager I was using, you know, I was playing around with drugs and alcohol, and it just swept me away, you know. It's like I had a bit of a trouble growing up. Um, you know, I was wayward, I was, you know, m headstrong and proud and full of ego, and just, you know, I it was like it was a blanket, it would soothe me for, you know, X amount of time. But it just and then it would wear off, and all that trouble that was troubling me in my mind and in my soul was just, yeah, it was tearing me apart. And I just didn't know what to do. Or yeah, it just the drugs got to the point where I couldn't pay rent and stuff like that. So, you know, and I just started living on the in Melbourne, I started living on the streets, and it was really bad, the violence and you know, just it was really tough. And uh yeah, I just it was basically the drugs that had taken over my life, you know, and um being in prison, I was imprisoned in 2008 for four years. Um, you know, got got out and just got back on the drugs again straight away. Then I was incarcerated again in 2015 for another four years, and yeah, got released uh mid-year 2019, and just the cycle was still remaining. It just you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

What's it like when you're in that cycle? I mean, it sounds like you were in it for a long time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Well, you're numb, you're numb, you know, to to what's actually happening around you. You know, your your m my number one focus was to be on drugs, you know, and that was before food, before shelter, before safety and security. It was just the number one, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And uh I didn't realise it was like eating me like a cancer, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Yeah. When um people are in Melbourne these days, I know they, you know, often comment they're more aware of people sleeping rough. What would you say to people who you know have really no reference for what that's like or for you know how how they should be thinking about you know when they see these people and what what that's like, or I don't know what insights can you give people?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Um basically, like these people, you know, need help. They don't know how to ask for it. They think that they're like trash. Yeah. You feel like, you know, people look at you a certain way, and uh honestly, you know, there's like I said, a lot of mental health issues that come with it, and and drugs inflame it. So, you know, and it happens so quickly, right? You know, it's like you don't even realize how fast the fall is. Yeah, you know, you might have a family breakdown or a separation, you're in a marriage, uh, you have children, the the mother takes the children away, you're left on your own. You once were the provider, and the and and now you're just on your own, and and that's where you know you start having a drink to settle your nerves, or you know, you might smoke some marijuana or or like smoke some ice, you know, something like that, and then it just it puts its hooks in you, you know what I mean? It's evil as and and the fall you don't even realise, and then all of a sudden you've got a you've got a sleeping bag on a pit of cardboard behind a building. Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

And when you were sleeping rough, did you meet all kinds of people? You know, you kind of because you know, you go, Oh my gosh, you know, what are you doing here?

SPEAKER_00 5:08

You know, and and you sort of band together, yeah, and you sort of help in a sort of weird sort of way, you help each other, you know what I mean? You like keep each other safe by staying in a community, it's almost goes back to a point before civilization, you know, it's becomes almost caveman, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

And then the whole prison part of that part of your life, yeah, Kane.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

I mean, for for people that's probably even more hard to kind of imagine that was you know probably the hardest part out of the lot, more than homelessness, the the fear and and like the violence that's in there, and you just cram together and there's not there's nothing, there's no services, you know what I mean? Maybe a chaplain, you know, uh if you're lucky, but it's just it's horrific, and these and there are predators in there, they're you know, they're I understand now why prisons are built because there are people in there that need to be in there, yeah. Yeah, and it's uh frightening.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it seems like an experience in prison all it does is is compound the issues, you know, you the likelihood of you coming out in a better condition than you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

You change to to something that's not yourself. Yeah. You know, you've had to have your guard up 24-7 for years, you know, and it changes you when you come back into society. You become like rotten inside, you know, there's nothing there. And it's just you just you've got to keep numbing that straight away as soon as I was released straight into drugs. Yeah. Because of the the trauma that I'd suffered in jail, you know. It's just ridiculous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's um it's crazy how little support there is for people trying to get back into society out of prison. Like you're just on your own.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah, basically. Yeah. Once they cut the lead, yeah. Like if maybe you get parole or you're on a some kind of condition where you've got to check in once a week or something like that, that runs out. You know, that's not that's not forever. You know, they don't support you, they don't put you in. I was homeless pretty much a week after I got out. Where do you go? You've got no roof over your head, yeah. Yeah, no supports, usually estranged from family. Friends have gone, they disappear when you go to jail. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

So were there ever moments where you did come in contact with a chaplain or where that where you had a I don't know, an experience of Christianity or of faith that you know was just a little moment or a seed in that time?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Well, you know, I have early recollection of the Bible, usually Old Testament stuff, um, you know, fire and brimstone and stuff like that, and like, you know, you've got to walk this line or you'll burn in hell, you know, but God loves you, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

The old uh double-edged sword.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah, yeah, you know, going to a it was Catholic, yeah, but still the same sort of message. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But I've always believed that there is something, you know what I mean? But uh but I always I used to I used to mock God, you know what I mean? Like in a manner like so like you know, you save all these people, you know, w where am I in this picture? You know, why why can't you free me from this disease that I have, you know, of self-hatred, self-loathing, you know? Uh and I used to, you know, be angry. Yeah, I was very angry, you know, and I had to be angry at someone because I wouldn't look inside, and I wouldn't look at myself because that was where my problem was, you know, it's my choice. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't realize I'm 53 now, and I uh for 30 plus years, I was always angry, on outward angry, you know, yeah, but so much lo self-loathing inside, yeah. But uh, you know, I've always wanted to be a part of a family, yeah. Like, and this is like I wanted to be a better person, and I strived so very hard through all that hardness, yeah. Trying to break through that like this crazy wall that I built up, you know. Yeah, and it was working, he was knocking on my heart, you know. I could tell yeah when I look back, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

That's really interesting that you say like all through that time you were you know, you never stop trying.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

No, I always have. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

And I think sometimes we assume people once they're, you know, really in addiction, especially, it's like, oh, you know, they've just given in on themselves. Yeah. But you know, there's always that part of you that wants to keep wants things to be better and gets up in the morning and thinks today the might be different.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

That's for everyone, I think.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

And starting out every day trying, like I I didn't want I didn't want to take drugs, but I had to, you know, because I was sick, yeah. And that sickness eats away at you, you know, and it doesn't, and it's not doesn't come in slowly either. And it just, you know, it disguised all the good that was out there.

unknown 11:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So take us, Kane, how did you get from you're in Melbourne, you're in that cycle, yep, you get on the train, you head up here, you end up in Bendigo. Yeah, kind of talk us through that kind of transition, or how do you get from there?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

All right, well, like I said, Melbourne was really intense, and it was it felt like it was eating me alive. So I needed to escape. I I felt unsafe. So I got myself on the train, like I said, you know, I got to bendigo. Don't ask me why I got off at Bendigo, I don't understand why, but he was working in me there, you know, he guided me. Something said to me inside, you know, this is your place, this is where you will grow. Yeah, you know. Um so I hopped off the train. Like I said, I slept on the station that first night. Yeah, you know, I was very frightened. You know, I was full of fear.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

So you don't get used to that feeling of like being vulnerable and being outside, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

It's it it haunts you constantly. Wow. Yeah. And that's where the drugs come in. Right. It does that, it numbs that it it severs the senses. So you can just have that.