How a victim of horrific child abuse turned his life around and finally found peace on an epic paddle-board trip
- Repeatedly raped and beaten as a child, Damien Rider turned to drugs, had a heart attack at 22, and attempted suicide four times
- To break the cycle he took up endurance athletics, and one dangerous solo paddle trip transformed his life
The list of endurance feats Damien Rider has accomplished in the past decade is jaw-dropping. He has prone paddled solo and unsupported in the ocean for 17 days, charting an 800-kilometre course along Australia’s eastern coastline from the Gold Coast to Sydney’s Bondi Beach. He has skateboarded 4,000km over 56 days along Route 66 through the Mojave Desert in the United States, enduring temperatures of 55 degrees Celsius.
He has pushed a three-tonne pickup truck for 28km along the Gold Coast Highway, and ran the Gold Coast Marathon carrying a 16-kilogram (35lb) mattress on his back.
What makes 45-year-old Rider’s accomplishments remarkable is that he became an endurance athlete only in his mid-30s, after struggling through years of drug and alcohol abuse. He survived not only a heart attack at the age of 22 but as many as four attempts at taking his own life before the age of 36.
Substance abuse had been Rider’s means to try to erase the unimaginable nightmare that was his childhood. An abusive adult in his family had routinely raped and beaten him from a young age. “It was physical, emotional and sexual abuse. There was no one to turn to,” says Rider, who suffered the ordeal for years.
“As an adult I spiralled out of control trying to deal with my childhood trauma. My past impacted my entire life, my relationships, my work and my self-esteem,” he says, adding he experienced post-traumatic stress disorder early in life.
