23 February 2019. Full interview: NZ Herald Senior Writer Simon Wilson interviews Jordan Peterson. Video / NZ Herald
He's the psychology professor turned anti-PC poster boy with a huge cult following. But Jordan Peterson's life has been filled with tragedy.
When Jordan Peterson landed on Australian soil last February he was at the top of his game, with a hit book, a thriving YouTube channel and millions ofadoring fans to his name.
But within weeks, the self-proclaimed "Professor Against Political Correctness" and rock star psychologist's life would fall spectacularly apart.
Peterson, whose 2018 book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" has sold more than three million copies worldwide, had until that point made headlines with almost every move and comment.
But he has also emerged as one of the most divisive public figures in recent times.
While supporters fawn over his no-nonsense advice and refusal to cave into the demands of political correctness, sceptics accuse him of a raft of sins.
A staff member at his publisher, Penguin Random House Canada, recently told Vice he was "an icon of hate speech and transphobia" and "an icon of white supremacy".
Mikhaila and Jordan Peterson have opened up about their family's nightmare year. Photo / Instagram
He's made a name for himself by railing against everything from feminism to social justice warriors and preaching about the need to take responsibility for your own actions.
But while right-wing fans have flocked to his straight-talking ways, he's become an enemy of many on the left.
He's back in the spotlight after a lengthy absence after the announcement his next book, "Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life", to be released in March 2021 – led to a revolt among publishing staff.
Peterson's year from hell
Peterson's lengthy absence sparked a flurry of speculation.
The mystery was finally solved in a confronting YouTube update from him and daughter Mikhaila earlier this year.
He confirmed that his life began to unravel after his beloved wife Tammy, who he had known since childhood, was diagnosed in 2019 with an aggressive form of kidney cancer with "a near 100 per cent fatality rate".
As he struggled to cope with the tragic news, Peterson requested his doctor increase his dosage of benzodiazepine, a medication commonly taken to treat anxiety and insomnia which he had been taking since 2016 after he and his family fell ill after a meal.
Peterson, who has depression, claims he began to experience extreme symptoms including an inability to sleep, and took the drugs as prescribed without experiencing any "high".
But he also soon began to experience "a feeling of detachment from people around me", which especially affected his relationship with his son, Julian.
After his dosage was upped following his wife's diagnosis, Peterson had a rare reaction: the drug increased the anxiety it was supposed to treat.
That led him to ditch the benzodiazepine in favour of ketamine, before he quit both drugs at the same time.
It didn't go well, and Peterson then developed akathisia, a condition which can cause restlessness, mental distress and an inability to sit still.
"It was like being jabbed with something like a cattle prod, something electric, sharp, non-stop, for all the hours I was awake," he said in his YouTube update.
"I couldn't sit or lay down or stop moving. And even if I did get up and move, it wasn't like that made it better, I just couldn't stop … it was horrible, it's like being whipped.
"It sounds melodramatic, but I think if I had to pick whipping or akathisia … a cat-o'-nine-tails, that might be worse, but it was plenty bad. And things just fell apart more and more."
In November 2019, Peterson entered a rehab centre in New York but after that failed, he flew to Russia for emergency treatment, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia and spent eight days in a medically-induced coma.
The process was brutal, but Peterson began to recover, moving to a clinic in Florida and then Belgrade – before being struck down by coronavirus.
In short, it has been an almost unbelievable series of horrendous circumstances that totally derailed the Peterson family's lives – and from which they are still recovering.
So what next?
Peterson's recovery is still very much a work in progress, and whether or not he'll return to public life to the same extent as before is still up in the air.
And apart from the physical and emotional trauma, there's also the question of how Peterson's image will recover. He freely acknowledges his drug dependence as "ethically questionable".
"Because you think, well, the person obviously made some errors in choice that contributed to this," he said.
"Like, why would anyone take anything I say seriously?"
But Peterson has also been inundated with support from loyal followers after the frank admission.
And he is unlikely to sit on the sidelines for long, provided his health continues to improve.
In his own words: "I guess what I would say is if you're going to wait to learn from people who don't make mistakes, or don't have tragedy in their life …"
