A new tattoo stretches from a scar on the back of Melissa McMahon’s head, down her back to other parts of her body.
The ink joins memories of things that have gone wrong. Things that have damaged her physically and mentally.
Rough, like a crinkled piece of paper, the tattooed lines represent something far more beautiful, an ancient Japanese artform which repairs and restores artefacts with gold.
Instead of disguising breaks in pottery and other objects, a blend of precious metal is used to highlight the breaks and imperfections.
It is about resilience, something the state parliamentary member for Macalister knows all too well.
It’s been a tough five months for Ms McMahon.
It’s been a tough five years.
Next year, Ms McMahon turns 50. Personally for her, it’s been five decades of a life she chose to air publicly in “that” speech in 2021.
During that speech, she told parliament about sexual abuse as a young child, post-traumatic stress, mental illness and her sexuality.
“Rock bottom for me, looks like walking out of the PA Hospital barefoot with what is left of my prescription medication. It’s giving the answers I knew I had to give to avoid being admitted to a mental health unit,” she said that day.
“My children had found me unresponsive. Paramedics and police were called to my home. I was resuscitated, I was transported.”
There was so much more to that speech. It was harrowing for those listening. It was distressing for Ms McMahon to be reliving a life which had seen her “look pure evil in the face”.
“I will recover loudly so others don’t die quietly,” she now famously said.
Three years on, and you’d think she’d have paid her dues. Earned a rest, perhaps. Been allowed to get on with the things important to her – work and family, “doing the simple parenting thing”.
But in March, surgeons removed a cube of skull, like an Arctic fisher removing ice for their line.
With fine precision, they removed a tumour which was discovered late last year and confirmed with a scan in January.
They then replaced the bone and are now monitoring results.
The tumour itself – known in medical terms as a meningioma – is usually benign and not uncommon.
It develops amid the membranes that protect the brain and spinal cord, and if allowed to grow will likely impact the memory and other cognitive functions.
Importantly, it’s a distraction, what Ms McMahon labels “just another ball in the air”.
“Everyone’s juggling things,” she says, recalling that during her time of recent recovery from surgery, she couldn’t stand unassisted, and couldn’t stay awake longer than two hours.
She’d lost weight pre-surgery, and did the best she could to be in good shape.
Cyclone Alfred didn’t help. There were no physio staff at the hospital, prolonging her time in hospital and consequent recovery.
The hardest thing, she says, was going “hands-free”. What she means is she wasn’t able to monitor social media. She had to ditch the phone in lieu of surgery.
For constituents, it was three months without a member, adding to the mental health time out she had in 2022.
“Like others, I’m trying to do lots of things, and I’m trying to do them well.”
That includes being a mum to two children, a partner, a friend, an employer.
“I choose to wear my scars publicly,” she says.
“I now have a really big head scar.”
As she puts it, the mark on her head covers titanium screws designed not to set off the alarm bells at airports.
Embracing the scars hasn’t been easy. Years of therapy have helped her manage the mental imperfections which come from a childhood of abuse.
She says she’s mostly fine, and now wants to get on with making Beenleigh “The Parramatta of Brisbane”.
And there’s no doubt she cares about those she represents. She shops with them, lives among them in a rented Beenleigh townhouse, and does every-day things many in public life choose not to.
When told of her tumour, the doctor said: “I know you like things straight. We’ve found something.”
“Of course you have,” she replied. Just another of life’s curve balls.
It could be argued that the “imperfections” in Ms McMahon’s life make her relatable.
She says she is privileged to understand what others are going through – a remarkably positive outlook from someone who’d be forgiven for trying to forget.
Since giving her now-famous speech, she has received hundreds of phone calls and emails from others who have experienced similar.
A self-confessed introvert, Ms McMahon has a game face – one she wore so bravely that day in 2022.
“I asked for my speech to be the last thing before the adjournment,” she said.
“Nobody knew what was going to happen. The giveaway in parliament that someone is going to give a speech that’s not scheduled is that there’s a lectern in front of you.”
She said to the MP next to her: ‘When I’m done here, don’t get in my way. Don’t touch me. Don’t shake my hand. Just let me go.”
She did. She went to the parliamentary lounge where there was a quiet corner. She had no office in George St.
She did however, have the support of staff who took her to a hotel, poured a stiff drink, and prepared her for a getaway to tropical North Queensland.
“The thing that drove me to do that was that I didn’t want to hide who I was,” she says.
A single mum with two children, the “polished look” isn’t what she wants.
Like the lines tattooed onto her neck and back, she’s now happy to display and embrace the imperfections of her life – past, present and future.
