It's a man's world

It's a man's world? Given the history of the last 2000+ years where men have brutally repressed everyone that doesn't suit their world view and support their death grip on power, I suppose you could say that yes, it is indeed a man's world.

In March 2012, 29.2% of the Australian federal parliament was female. 

The recent US election made history because it resulted in a record breaking number of women in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House now has 80 women, out of 435 seats, equalling 18% of the house. In the Senate 20% of the seats are now women. 

That these numbers are record breaking gives credence to the statement that it's a man's world, given that women the world over (including me) screamed with joy over how well we did, but we still hold such a tiny portion of representation in significant government positions. 

Surely that representation would be higher in the private sector, with female representation on boards and in executive positions. Sadly not. The results of the 2012 survey into female board representation in ASX2000 companies showed another record breaking number of women had joined boards in 2012 giving the highest level of representation to date. What could that record breaking number be? 13.5%. Yes, seriously, 13.5%. 

That also supports the statement it's a man's world. 

And those statistics, bad as they are, are in two of the worlds leading nations and don't take into consideration the parts of the world where women can't drive, can't leave the house without an escort, have their genitals mutilated, are stoned to death when they're raped, or shot just for having the audacity to want an education. 

So yes, all evidence points to this being a man's world. A place where men lead and women trail behind and must push harder and be stronger, and do more in order to achieve the level of success that seems to just be conferred to men based on their genitals, their money, their privilege, education, or whatever got the to where they are. 

However, I reject the idea that this is a man's world. I flat out reject it and simply won't tolerate the statement as anything even close to correct. 

This is my world. 

This is your world too. 

This world, this giant blue ball floating in space doesn't belong to anyone, it belongs to everyone and you define what your world is like on this ball. 

I define my world as belonging to everyone, no matter how small, and I will fight every day for their right to own their world. 

I will fight for women in my workplace. I will teach them that how they dress, what size they are, is irrelevant to their worth in their job, and they should not tolerate anyone that implies or flat out says differently. 

I will fight for women in developing nations that want an education as best I can by giving time and money to organisations like Collective Shout. 

I will fight by making my voice heard, so that the combined voices of women all around the world are too loud to be ignored and we finally get the equal representation that we deserve. 

I will NOT, NOT EVER, treat men in my work place any differently than I treat women in the workplace. I will not, not ever, learn to work with men in particular, like they deserve some kind of special treatment. I will not, not ever, show more respect to men than women. I will not, not ever, define the way someone is acting in the workplace by their gender. I will not, not ever, blame the victim, by expecting women to learn to work with men, when in fact, it's quite the opposite that should be occurring. 

Men hold the balance of power in this world. There is no arguing that. Their responsibility, as the holders of the balance, is to recognise that there should be real balance and strive to develop a workplace culture that doesn't focus on gender but on skill, achievements and vision. They should work to find the most suitable candidate for a job, without being forced to by quotas. In a world that's 53% women, surely in an executive team of 6 people there's no real argument that there were no qualified women for the position and therefore the executive team had to be all men? 

Men have a responsibility to break down the barriers they built, women don't have the responsibility to hold their hands while they do it. 

So, it's a man's world? No, I don't accept that. I don't believe that's ever been true, despite evidence to the contrary. 

This world is defined by how you define it, and I refuse to define it is being dominated by one gender, one race, one economic group, because at the point I allow those words to be true, I have nothing left to fight for. 

The times, they really are changing.

This election showed clearly that people are ready for change. We want equality for everyone. Women should have choice in their bodies, decisions, future, the right to earn as much as men. We want people to marry who they love, gay or straight. We want people to be able to afford to go to the doctor without taking out a loan. We want a good economy and a fair chance at the future we dream about as children. 


And we want a government that can deliver that for us. 

Be proud, America, you're showing us the way forward.



And it's not just America that is moving forward. 

Locally we have a government that is moving forward with intentions to bring marriage equality to Canberra. We also have a greater representation of women in elected positions in the Legislative Assembly than we've seen before. We have a Chief Minister committed to making equality a reality. Which makes me incredibly proud to be a Canberran. 

We have a Prime Minister who is standing up and identifying misogynistic behavior from the Opposition and saying "enough", but is disappointingly not progressing marriage equality at a national level (I'm going to live in hope about that one). 

In Australian, and in the US, we are seeing a trend to reject entrenched hate and values that limit the rights of people based on their race, gender, sexual preference, education or economic position. 

This move forward gives me a long denied hope that we are getting better as humans. We are starting to see that love, passion, belief and community can beat out the lies, and negativity offered to us by the conservative agenda. 

I can finally believe that the children I'm yet to have will grow up in a world where it won't matter if they're boys or girls, gay or straight, they'll have the same opportunities regardless. I won't need to worry that when my daughter becomes prime minister, or president, that she'll be identified as "female" in articles about her, because her gender will be irrelevant, it will be on her performance and policy that she will be judged. 


When my daughters* are old enough, I will talk with them about how important it is to vote, because this time in 2012 women had to fight every single day just to keep the right to make their own medical decisions. I hope, so hard, that they'll look at me like I'm crazy, because in their future that concept is totally ridiculous, because we are truly all equal. 


*please note, I reject the possibility of having sons, not because it wouldn't be cool to have a boy, but because I'm pretty confident my punishment for giving my mum hell is ending up with a daughter just like me. 

100 days of being awesome

So, Amanda Rose (yes, I have a chick crush) has a plan. It's a 100 day plan. You can read about it on her blog (including my favourite post where she fell off the sugar free wagon).

I was so inspired by her commitment to the The Plan, and her never ending enthusiasm about the plan, that I thought "fuck it" and decided I'd give it a shot.

This, unsurprisingly, came after three months of indulging in Americo Time, which is where I just enjoy the time we have together while skipping the gym, spending weekends on the couch (not to mention many weekdays when I was sick), and experimenting with many wonderful new recipes that may or may not include deep frying.

I adore Americo time. It's my favourite time, but often involves me getting to the end of the three months feeling sluggish, and with a renewed commitment to fighting my anxiety by cleaning up my life with healthier eating, hitting the gym, sorting out my cupboards, and donating my excess stuff to charity.

With all that in mind, I thought I'd join Amanda in committing to the plan. And commit I have.

In the two weeks since I started the plan I've done a fair few things that are making me feel better. So much better that my (legendary) PMS totally skipped me this month, a miracle that I'm sure my man is delighted about.

In the last two weeks I've:

• Reduced my coffee intake SIGNIFICANTLY. I was having up to 8 or 9 shots (considering one large coffee is two shots) every day. I wish I was joking. I had (have) a massive addiction for, and love for coffee, but it was no doubt contributing to my anxiety, and my lack of sleep, and my general unwellness. I didn't go cold turkey, I'm not that strong, but I'm down to 3 shots (one at home, single shot, and one at work, double) and I'm feeling a lot less anxious, which fucking ROCKS. Yes, I am the last person to figure out coffee is adding to my anxiety, thank you for asking.
• I've actively reduced my sugar. Not entirely removed it, but reduced it. When I get a craving for Starburst, or Jolly Ranchers, I eat fruit, or reach for a yoghurt. And, I don't get the afternoon dizzy's anymore. Are these things linked? Surely not, what a ridiculous idea. I can't even consider it. But that leads me to...
• Eating two fruit and five veg every day. I'm not there yet, vegetables are stupid, but I'm close. Vegetables every day with dinner, fruit every night for dessert (with sugar free reduced fat ice cream, it's better than you think) and even vegetables with lunch. This is so unlike me my head may explode. This has been the hardest, because I'm simply too lazy for vegetables. But I do feel better. A lot better. My whole body feels joyous. It's freaking me out.
• And I'm going to the gym again. AND I smashed my first goal. I wanted to reach 4km in 45 minutes by the end of November. SMASHED IT before the end of October. I can't run, my knee's are messed up with arthritis, but I am determined that by Christmas I'm going to do 5km in 45 minutes. I haven't managed to get to the gym the five times a week I wanted over the last two weeks, but I'm doing pretty well.
• I'm saving money. It's not a spectacular amount, but it's going up. Every fortnight. I'm paying my bills in advance, I can afford to eat well and go out with the fabulous Brooke when I want and I might maybe even manage to post off all the oversea care packages hiding in my closet for the last year. I'm determined next year my man and I will get married, and this is how to make it happen. Money, root of all evil, is the key to my happiness so I will learn. 

And I have more to come. Next pay day I'm treating myself to some new clothes, because my next goal is to dress like a real grown-up and commit more to the future job I want, starting with dressing for it, to make it easier to get it. It will delay the getting the man slightly, but if I get a new job, it might mean better pay, so it all evens out. 

After that, I don't know. I've done enough, and have a few more goals to reach by Christmas, and then I'll plan for the new year. In which I will kick ass. 

Because I have a plan, and I'm going to achieve it, because I fucking rock. 

(don't worry, those plans don't involve blogging more, so you're safe, my readers, from more of my comma problem)

happiness

I was happy today.

It was the elated kind of happy where I loved the entire world, all the people in it, and the stunning universe that holds this amazing earth in the palm of it's giant hand, and I wasn't even drunk!

It was such an odd feeling, in a world blurred by anxiety, to just feel good.

From the moment I woke up, all throughout the day, I just felt spectacular.

All the things that bug me normally, idiot drivers, busy markets, impossible car parking at the mall, it was all just fine.

It occurred to me that this is what other people feel, in their normal lives, and it doesn't seem so odd and mildly insane to feel this good.

I'm so envious of people for who this is the norm. This miraculous peace with your place in the universe is such a spectacular feeling. I've experienced only a few times in my life, usually with the aid of valium. I wish the chemical makeup of my brain allowed it to happen more often, every day, once a week, even once a year I'd love to feel this more often than I do.

For those of you that have this, I hope you treasure it for the amazing gift it is.

This is what a feminist looks like

A chick I dig on twitter, Amanda Rose, wrote this article.

It's a good article, and I get the point she's trying to make. Are men confused? No doubt. Living in 2012 in a world where women can become Prime Ministers (psst they've been doing that in New Zealand since last century), the Secretary of State, CEO's (though not very many) and even work in IT has got to be confronting to the men who have previously held all these jobs while women stayed home, had babies, made biscuits, and went to the nursing mothers group once a week.

The suffrage movement, and the feminists of the 70's and 80's changed the way that women were treated in the world. From having no voice at all, other than influencing the husband in bed, or maybe having a small control over the household budget, we had the ability to vote, to go to work, to be lawyers, and doctors, serve in parliament, be builders, plumbers, programmers. We can do any job that a man can do. And should have equal opportunities to win those jobs, and should be treated equally and paid equally once we win the job.

Is that actually the case? My experience is no.

Now, lets talk misogyny.

Dictionary.com defines misogyny as the hatred of women. It's a pretty simply definition. Macquarie Dictionary has recently changed their definition to include "entrenched prejudice against women". This change was so shocking it was a big deal in the media, because isn't that basically sexism?

The definition of sexism is "discrimination based on gender, particularly against women". I find the last half of that statement pretty silly, to be honest, because I've seen sexist behaviour towards men too, so saying it's particularly relevant to women makes the definition of sexism, to my mind, sexist.

So, I like that the definition of misogyny being changed, because I think saying things are sexist is too light weight for a systematic and determined campaign against women. For example, I think US "War on Women" is not simply sexism, its just too wide spread, and comes from such a deep dark place in which women are not equal to men and never will be. It's a religious based war, with Christians deciding that it's against their religion for women to have control of their bodies. Saying that's sexist is too simple. It's not sexism, it's misogyny. It's a calculated, and in some cases legislated, hated of women. Of a woman's right to think for herself and make her own health care decisions. That is absolutely an entrenched prejudice against women.

As is Tony Abbott's, and the main stream media's, behavior towards Julia Gillard. You only need to read a few articles, or listen to question time for 45 minutes, or do a google search of Mr Abbott to find that he really doesn't like women. He thinks that should be at home doing the ironing. He thinks that women don't have the same capacity for leadership as a man. Is saying that behavior is sexist enough? No, I don't think it is. I think it's misogyny and I absolutely think that Julia Gillard was spot on in this video when she called Mr Abbott out for his behavior and when she referred to it as misogyny, because it is.

If you really want to see some entrenched prejudice against women google Julia Gillard and check out some of the articles about her. I just did and found quite a number that referred to her as Julia. A google search of Tony Abbott found that in a good number of articles he was referred to as Mr Abbott, or Tony Abbott, not just by his first name. Is this sexist behavior from the media? oh hell yes. Is it misogynistic? I think so, yes.

So, back to Amanda's article....

Do women use misogynist every day to describe men they don't like? I haven't seen it, but maybe. Is the word misogynist confused by people? probably yes. Does that mean it shouldn't be used? No. To my mind it's better to hear this word on peoples lips every day, than not at all. While by strict definition I suppose the PM should have used sexist, rather than misogynist when talking about Mr Abbott, but there is now a national discussion about feminism and misogyny and that's only to the benefit of Australia, and the world. The PM's take down of ol' Tony has 1.2 million views. My twitter feeds blew up within minutes of the completion of the speech with every women I know RTing in delight and talking about how proud they were. US site Jezebel, the Mary Sue, and even the New Yorker talked about what a powerful video it was. Because it was. It made women feel strong and empowered and like they could do anything, because there was a female PM speaking out against the way she'd been treated, which was very clearly in a sexist way, by the opposition leader.

Now, here comes the point where we go back to the mainstream media, and what idiots they are...the mainstream media, in every article I read, dismissed the PM's speech as petulant, or contrived. They didn't think it had any impact because it was manipulative. They dismissed at as using the 'gender card' against Tony, as women are wont to do.

That commentary is, in itself, disgustingly sexist. Dismissive. Rude. It was just plain shit to read that after such a powerful and passionate speech. They claimed it wasn't politically relevent, wouldn't help her ratings. Two weeks later and she's 3 points up in polls. Imagine that, women were moved by that speech and voiced their approval.

Women started to proudly proclaim they were feminist. In fact, even Mr Abbott came out as a feminist. That, btw, lie that it was, was success in itself because it made feminism ok again.

When I was a teen in the 90's feminism was a dirty word. It was "over" (apparently it's still over). I didn't want to be seen like those bra burning chicks from the 70's, I could get any job I wanted, why did I need feminism? I was young, and to be honest, I was stupid. I had a bad experience where a feminist on the bus told me off for wanting to give up work and have kids, I should be able to do both.

I'm old enough now to know that feminism is choice, and that woman was wrong.

Feminism is the ability and right to choose for yourself, and to have the options available to you to choose from.

If I want a job in IT I should be able to get a job in IT. My resume shouldn't be thrown in the bin just because I'm a woman, and yet it happens. If you're a woman looking for an IT job and you manage to get past the resume chuck out phase, you should have the right to be paid equally to a man. Chances are you won't be. if you're a woman working in IT you should be treated equally at work, not oggled, or dismissed as having less knowledge. If you read everydaysexism.com you'll quickly find that's not the case.

If I want to quit work and stay home, have babies, raise them, be around, I should have that choice too. I shouldn't be forced to work because there's no paid parental leave. And I shouldn't be forced to stay home because there's not enough child care. And I shouldn't be judged by anyone for my choice to stay home, or not.

Neither should my partner. If he wants to stay home and raise the kids he should be able to, with the right to leave, and the right to make his choice without societal judgement coming his way.

In my experience (and I know A LOT of feminists) that's what feminists want.

They want the opportunity, the choice, the rights, the ability to choose without judgment, and the same pay for the same job.

They don't hate men. They just want to be equal in a world that's still paying them less and treating them as less.

In my experience I am treated as less at work. I have been spoken over and dismissed in meetings where I was the only woman. In the same meetings, when I could get a word in, I proposed a solution and was told it was "useless" and then watched as a man suggested the exact same thing and was a genius. I've been referred to as "sweetie" "love" "darling" and "princess" while men were given the respect of having a real name. I've been referred to as a lesbian for ditching my last name and adopting my middle name as my last name. I've had eyes rolled whenever I've raised that the sign in the kitchen "your mother doesn't work here, clean up after yourself" is sexist and outdated, it's not the 70's folks, lets try and move in the new century.

It's because of these behaviors that the word misogyny is used casually, because we need a stronger word to say "this shit is FUCKED" when sexist just doesn't get the point across.

Are there feminists that hate men? Sure, no doubt. Do men often claim that feminists hate men in order to dismiss a relevant argument presented to them by a feminist? oh my yes. Do some folks like to jump up and claim misandry (the opposite of misogyny) when they want to silence a strong outspoken women? oh yeah, my twitter feed is a treat.


So, are men confused about how to treat women? Should they open they door? Can they say they like your outfit? Should they hold the chair out? Tell you that you look sexy?

It's all about context, baby.

Should you open the door? Yes. But don't mind if a woman opens the door for you.

Can you say you like my outfit? To be sure, but think about how you frame the compliment. If it's at work, using the words "sexy" and "school girl" are probably terms to avoid. be professional and smart about how you say it. I love a compliment, but if you make it skeevy, it's just skeevy.

Should you hold the chair out? Sure, why not? But I'm really short and inevitably I get a chair in the knees and that really hurts, so I don't know, if you want.

Can you tell me I look sexy? Only if you're my fella. If you're not my fella, I'd really prefer you didn't. That's just me tho.

All these thoughts are just me.

I don't speak for any feminist but me.

I don't speak for any woman but me.

I won't speak for you, because you might like the chair thing.

The thing that really gets to me about feminism, all the different definitions, the disclaimers "oh I'm not a feminist" the denouncing of feminism as evil, the spouting of opinions presented by feminists as the opinion of all feminists, is that it's fucking bullshit, much like any assumption that one group thinks the same all the time.

Not all white people think the same. Not all Asians think the same. Not all men think the same. Not all women thing the same. Not all feminists think the same.

But at the end of the day, feminism isn't as hard as people make it and we'd all be better served by remembering that feminism is equality and choice, and misogyny is the hatred of women, and put some effort into making it clear to the media that they're making the issue harder for all of us by putting a spin on these terms.


I'm proud to proclaim that I'm a feminist. Not just in words, but in actions and intent. If you met me and talked with me for 5 minutes you'd know I'm a feminist because I think it's important that we speak out loud about these things, and I'm not afraid to be the one that does it.

I think all woman should be proud to say they're feminist, I think men should lean to be proud to be feminist too. I think we should all be proud to say we want equality for women, because it's 2012 and we don't have it yet.

And really, isn't it time we did?

I had a plan...

I was going to be good today. I had a plan. It involved being calm and listening to podcasts, and getting through the day just fine. I wasn't going to dwell on Americo going home, I was going to focus on the fact we're finally getting our shit together and next year we'll make the visa thing happen.

I was going to put together a checklist of things I had to do to start pulling together all the visa paper work (again), hook up the printer, and start doing instead of sitting around sobbing.

I wasn't going to dive into a bucket of donuts and a giant bowl of pasta.

I wasn't going to throw up all over myself.

Obviously, this plan was pretty unrealistic.

Airport, totally fine. Got moved to a direct flight, kept his economy plus seat even though he changed flights, we did the quick goodbye to avoid the inelegant airport hysterics, I paid my $20 for 30 minutes of parking (I wish I was joking) and got on the road.

Aisha Tyler's podcast is a delight. Nathan Fillian and Wayne Brady charming and delightful guests. I had a fabulous cheesecake in Goulburn and all was well. A tiny tear in the airport, a catch in the throat when he called before boarding, no problems. I'm a calm, put together, type a control freak, I can just keep moving and get home.

And then, what I can do is go to the supermarket, burst into tears while trying to pick a leek, and then get home and vomit all over myself because I cried til I couldn't breathe, which for me leads to hurling.

So, plan fail. Spectacular fail. Chocolate mousse cheesecake vomit fail.

Btw, chocolate mousse cheesecake is not something you want to vomit all over yourself. It doesn't taste good coming up. It's sticky. And no grown up should ever have to clean vomit out of their hair unless they're absolutely wasted after too many mojitos.

I don't really know what to do next. Go have a shower and wash the vomit out of my hair, I suppose. Make pasta, eat donuts, get my shit together and start planning. Even the shower seems pretty impossible right now. Food total idiocy. Getting my shit together is probably the most hysterical concept of all.

I don't remember how to plan days that don't involve coming home to him. I don't want to remember.

I just wish this shit wasn't so fucking hard. Love shouldn't have to involve leaving someone you love at an airport. It just shouldn't.

Leaving on a jet plane

It is not at all surprising that I'm not feeling great this week. Or last week. My man leaves this week to go back to San Francisco, after 9 weeks with me. It's sad, and I know I have the 'right' to be sad, because this is one of those times where sad is 'normal'.

My problem though, is not the normal level of sad that other people feel when their partner goes back overseas for an indeterminate amount of time, it's the potential for sad so bad it knocks me on my ass for 3 weeks and prevents me functioning like a human.

The last two times we did this, after I left San Francisco, and the last time he left here a year ago, it came after two weeks of solid depression to the point I was nearly unable to function. The two weeks before I left San Francisco I was almost totally incapable of getting out of bed.

I'm terrified of that happening again. Terrified of being unable to get out of bed, unable to eat, unable to work, unable to think of anything other than how wrong it feels to not be in the same country as my guy.

I think about all the things I'll get back to doing when he's gone, to try and make myself feel better. I'll start working out again, not because he prevents me doing that, but because I'd rather be with him for the time he's here, than spend 75 minutes o a treadmill. I'll start eating better again, not because he stops me eating well (the exact opposite in fact) but because I like to not think about portion size and skipping dessert when he's here. I like trying new food with him, and I don't care that it's making my cholesterol sky rocket. I'll be able to save money faster just because I'm only feeding one, which obviously halves the grocery budget.

These are ridiculous thoughts, because of course they don't even come close to making it ok that I sleep better when he's here. And I'm less afraid of life, because I don't have to face it alone when he's here.

I am terrified this time, more than the other times, of having to go back to living on my own again.

All the other times he's left, or I've left, I've come home to someone. I had a housemate to distract me from the terrifying aloneness that I feel when he's on the other side of the ocean, and this time I don't have that.

Thursday is getting closer by the day, and him leaving is awful and heartbreaking, and not the worst of what I'm feeling as the time gets closer. The thing that really has me in a tizzy is coming home to my empty apartment, my empty bed, empty fridge, empty closet, and no distractions to get me through the 15 hour flight until he's on Skype.

I fear what that 15 hours is going to do to my sanity and the shreds of emotional control I've built up over the last year.

Have I built up my sense of self and internal control enough to survive Thursday's heartbreak?

Guess we'll find out.

World Suicide Prevention day....TODAY

It would be silly, as someone who blogs about anxiety, depression, and her struggles candidly to not acknowledge World Suicide Prevention Day. Which is today.

I have, in my lifetime, been suicidal. In my teens, like many unhappy teens, attempted suicide in the various ways. I slashed my wrists. If you look carefully you can see the very fine threads of scars. I took too many pills. I stood on the side of the road and looked for the big trucks and wondered if I had the guts to take that step. And for a very sad time in my life I was mixing codeine and booze like it wasn't a stunningly stupid thing to do.

These things were, without a doubt, very strong cries for help. Sadly, in most of the cases cries that were ignored, because nobody knew what I was doing.

I am, by nature, secretive. In a family with a very strongly symptomatic mentally ill member, if you are not that person, you are not as much on the radar of your parents, and it's natural, or was for me, that you hide the stuff going on with you. You can't compete with someone who acts out because they have a borderline personality disorder, and so, you don't try. You hide your pain in your diary until you realise that your sister, or brother will inevitably read it, and then you just learn to internalise. I am very good at internalising. I am exceptional at denial. My denial skills are the thing of legend.

And so, because of my unwillingness to ask for help, and because I've never been good at making friends, my suicide attempts were particularly stupid, because they were never going to get me the help I needed, because nobody knew that I was doing it, or that I needed the help.

In addition to my (thankfully) spectacularly failed attempts at suicide, I was a cutter for a long time, and was, for a time, anorexic and bulimic. These illnesses were not attempts to get noticed, they were attempts to control my body, because I couldn't control my emotions and anxiety. I didn't even truly realise how bad the goings on in my head were until the last five years ago, so I couldn't really explain why I was doing what I was doing, just that I felt better when my body hurt, because it meant my heart hurt less.

When I realised how dangerous the eating disorders and cutting were, I moved to tattoos and piercings. A socially acceptable (to an extent) means of hurting myself to manage my emotional pain. All the ink on my body represents a major emotional instance in my life. A moment of extreme high, extreme low, or just a path that I couldn't find. I needed the pain to find my way through it.

These are my biggest scars. Not in literal size, but in emotional size

The butterfly was when I was struggling with my relationship and my anxiety, but I couldn't mentally explain my anxiety, or the depression that came with it. My relationship at the time was studded with locking myself in the bathroom for hours with a knife in my hand hysterical and unable to find the place in myself to make the pain stop. It scared my ex husband no end. He had no idea what to do when it happened. I couldn't explain to him how to make it stop because I didn't know. If I could I would apologise to him for the ongoing pain I know this caused him. It wasn't his fault, or mine, that I didn't know quite how broken I was. 

The dragonfly is my divorce. An explainable emotional pain. Having to share a house with someone for a year after separation is something pretty rough. This was the lowest point I've ever been in my life. This is when I had my love affair with pain killers and white wine. The pain was legit, mixing it with wine was a dice roll with death. A gamble I enjoyed a little too much. It took a very smart, emotionally strong man to find a way into my head to help me realise what an idiot I was being. At the time he was a stranger, but one that was smart enough to ask "can I help?". That simple question probably saved my life. As, no doubt, it does for many other desperate people. 

My fleur de lis is the one part of my pain art that is not from pain. It is my compass. It points me to my true north and helps me navigate my way through emotional waters. The fleur de lis is often found as the marker for true north on a compass rose, particularly old, ornate maps and plans. 

My fleur de lis is my emotional true north. When I'm putting my hair up in the mirror I see it, and it reminds me that I'm ok now. It's taken some time, the right medication, and love and support from wonderful people, but I'm ok. This reminder of my true north is my emotional connection to my centre. Which sounds really fucking wanky, but when you're me, you need it. 

I wonder, occasionally, what life would be like for those that love me if I had been successful in my rather lackluster suicide attempts. My family would not have been better off without me in it. My baby brother would have lost a friend, advocate, and supplier of tech goods and painfully expensive taste in clothes. My mother would have lost a friend, ally, someone to talk to about my sisters illness with, and a crafty buddy with very expensive taste in fabric. My father...well...I don't really know that he'd have noticed. My niece wouldn't have her favourite (only) auntie to spoil her with silly things. 

And what if I'd been older. What if I'd left Americo, my dear Amanda, 'brother' Arran, or friend Brooke, other people I know virtually and in person. Would their lives have been better without me? No. I am friend, mentor, lover. I am support, guidance, creator of job applications and resumes. I am cake, and movies, and very rarely I'm spare dollars, though not very often because I'm perpetually broke. And I don't think that's all I am to these wonderful people that have been all that to me and more. 

There is no life around me, in the circle of incredible people that have shaped and defined who I am that would have benefitted from my suicide. 

And I, well, I'd be dead so I couldn't have regretted it, but I would have missed out on so much life. So much wonderful life. Weddings, and parties, and even painfully sad funerals that helped me see the good I have in my life. I would have missed seeing the world, loving people, getting fat and happy, learning to bake cherry pie. I would have missed Fringe and the Avengers and that really stupid fourth Bourne movie. I would never have discovered that I'm good at policy, and had an assistant that thinks I'm the best boss he's ever had (delusional, clearly). I wouldn't have contributed to change in the small ways I've contributed, which lead to larger changes in the big bad world we live in. I wouldn't have been one of millions of voices raised around the world saying "we can be better". 

And so, I'm fucking glad I stuck around. Because depression is no match for the incredible, amazing, stunning privilege that is living life. Discovering the miracle that is loving the right people, and sharing your life with amazing friends. 

Please, I beg, if you are having a moment where you are truly considering suicide, take a moment, call a friend, scream out in desperation on twitter, on a blog, a website, find some way to reach out to someone who can help you. Call lifeline if you're in australia, look up a local help line close to you if you're in another country. Tattoo your pain across every inch of your body. Whatever way you find to get through to the next day, make it happen because it's so worth it. Life is worth it. Love is worth it. 

Ask for help, because you're worth it. 

www.wspd.org.au

www.beyondblue.org.au

www.lifeline.org.au

Not for you

When compared with my sisters mental illness, my anxiety, depression and OCD are almost non-existent.

Her illness falls in the schizophrenia range of disorders. She doesn't hear voices, but the spectrum she's in results in her not having any kind of understanding of long term consequences. She doesn't have any kind of comprehension of a life outside her own sphere of understanding. She doesn't comprehend that people aren't ready to talk to her at 7am on a Sunday. She doesn't think that calling me, or our mother, 12 times a day is unreasonable. It doesn't occur to her that I can't drop everything and drive an hour each way to deliver her cigarettes because she doesn't get paid for 3 days. Or pick her up foundation, or perfume, or whatever she needs right now but can't afford and won't be able to pay back.

There is a complete empty space in the consequences and consideration part of her mind that doesn't allow her to realise that she can't call someone every 5 minutes when she's well aware they're on another call.

The lack of understanding is no fault of hers, but it has such a huge impact on those around her. She expects that everything will be dropped for her the moment she needs something. No matter the time of day or the request, it must be done on her time and nobody else's.

And it's hard to say to her that this moment, this call, this request is too much. This time is not for her, this is mine, it belongs to me and I cannot devote it to you. She can't find the part of her that understands the need for me to say no to her for my own peace of mind, because she doesn't want to see that I have my own mental health issues that impact my ability to be a good sister, aunt, daughter, partner and friend. And her demands on me make it harder to be the things I need to be to those that are part of my circle.

I, middle child that I am, have a compulsive need to please others. My parents, friends, family, I have to be the one that's "good", easy to get along with. I don't ask for money, I don't generally ask for support, I don't need anyone to solve my problems for me, and clearly I am a tad in the control freak spectrum in my life, and my illness.

But a time comes where you need to say "this is not for you" and hang up the phone. And ignore the guilt that you know the next call is going to make life even harder for your mother.

Drifting

I've tried to post a few times about how I'm feeling and where my brain is. Every post I've decided to carefully navigate away from the publish button and store my issues safely away in my drafts folder.

I'm not sure why.

I guess, of late, it feels like I'm just drifting and the minor frustrations that are hitting me feel like major disasters one minute and nothing the next.

I've been drifting from angry, to frustrated, to sad, depressed, happy, content, and positive all in the first half hour of my day. Although they usually go in the reverse order.

As the day progresses I yo-yo through all the emotions going from task to task at work. The dominant emotions in the last two weeks have been negative. During work hours anyway. I struggle through depression, frustration and anxiety from 7 until 3.30 and then, thankfully, come home to food, clean house, and a bright smile that puts the day behind me in a content blanket snuggling hibernation.

But still, in the back of my head is this constant niggling depression that terrifies me.

I don't know how to get past it. How to move forward. It feels like a constant soft blanket over the happy centers of my brain.

And, if I'm being honest with myself I feel like a failure for being in this depression.

I should be happy. I haven't been with Americo like this for over a year. I have him here. We're sharing our days, a bed, a shower, the house stuff, he's home when I finish work and the last thing I remember before bed is him brushing my hair out of my face.

If there is any time in this difficult year that I should be feeling happy and content this is it, and not being able to fully feel this happiness past the fog in my head makes me feel like I'm not really giving this wonderful time together all that it deserves.

Of course, that leads me to feel tense and anxious, simply because I'm not feeling happy enough.

The human brain is fucking weird.

As I work through this I wonder if it's simply that I haven't got the right balance with my pills yet. Or whether I should be going to therapy to help me deal with my family issues. Or if I need to take up yoga, or meditation, or Pilates to help me balance my brain.

I don't know.

This is a tough journey from good day to bad day and so many just meh days with no direction as to how to get where I want to be.

Still taking it day by day, and I guess that's just all that I can do.

Blessings

Ive struggled lately with my faith in something greater then us. God, Gaia, the universe, a giant ball of connected strings, whatever it might or might not be, i've struggled to see a greater purpose to the stupidity, selfishness, confusion of humanity.

The awful hate, discrimination, destruction, and pain we all cause each other seems to indicate a lack of connection between us, humanity, and a greater purpose, a driving force or direction that is divine in nature.

With my faith shaken its hard to believe that it's possible to have pre-determined connections between people, places, things, ideas, and yet, in the midst of six months of gut wrenching anxiety, pain, depression, a day of clarity makes me see my faith more clearly than I have in a long time.

I don't know that I believe that the universe, Gaia, great creator, destined Americo and I to be together from the beginning of time, but I think whoever guides the strings through the loom to form the fabric of the universe set my feet on a path that put me in this place, in this time, and it is supremely right that the things I've been through in my life, all the pain, sadness, hurt, lead me to this day of rightness.

I don't believe in soul mates, I don't believe in only one great love per lifetime, but I do believe that I haven't, and couldn't, love anyone as strongly and with such passion as I love Americo, and I am grateful to the great string puller for giving me this chance to share a bed with this wonderful man again.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Nervous? Who me?

yes, alright, I am.

It's been a year since I've seen my man.

A year is a long ass time in the world of relationships. It's a longer time in the world of a relationship that turns five in two weeks and is still frustratingly intercontinental.

It's ever so slightly ridiculous that I'm still nervous after this much time committed to this relationship. The first trip, totally logical. The second trip even, logical. Trip number, five, however, should be a breeze. Should be normal, familiar, just routine.

But this time has a new twist that is making me flippy in my tummy. It's the first time we've been alone in the house together. Plus, the first time I've been fully medicated for my anxiety. And to add to that my medication seems to push my mild OCD into a different place that is slightly unfamiliar and difficult for me to manage.

I have routines. Routines that I need to survive the nutty in my brain. Any change, even the arrival of my sweetie, will change those routines and I'm scared of what that will do to my brain chemistry.

Plus, there's so no room in my closet for another person. I have a lot of clothes. And shoes. SO MANY SHOES.

But, but, but, but, but, I miss him. I miss him like I'm not fully together and so maybe I'll find a way to make the routines work. Maybe I'll figure out to fit my shoes AND his shoes in the closet?

You never know.

Still, nervous. What if I'm too crazy this time around?

Control, I haz it

I feel good today. It's a kind of weird feeling to feel good, I've been feeling off for so long.

It's been almost exactly a month, so I guess it's just possible that the magic red pills are working. Or it could be that I've taken various steps to take control of my life.

I'm down to one job. I loved my second job, it was passion, and idealism, and all the things I want government service to be, so unlike my day job, but when you feel like you're under a blanket of anxiety and you can't breathe, something had to give.  I guess it made a lot of sense to have more time in the afternoons to learn to be the confident, self assured me again.

The extra time has allowed me to focus on my family. There are issues. Ones I can't even begin to write down because I don't even want to take my brain to that place right now. It's tough being a good sister, aunt, daughter, in a family plagued by mental illness. Two highly unstable personalities in one family, rough. Two highly unstable personalities disagreeing with each other...rough isn't enough of a world. Atomic? Explosive? Not enough. But, the family thing comes with this...

Being auntie to my sweet little monkey makes the bags under my eyes worth it. 

She's part of the reason I'm taking care of me. I want to be around for her, do things for her, be the awesome cool auntie for a long time. I want to spoil her with the best birthday presents, and that means learning to manage my time, my stress and my money. 

So, I got a loan and paid out my visa. And closed the account. I'm performing without a net. Like a lot of folks my age I have a minor debt problem. Not a huge one, it's one card, no loans, no store cards, no mortgage, just the one visa, but it stresses me out and I know I can't manage to pay it off if I keep using it. So it's gone. Which also stresses me out, because I have to learn to use a budget, not native to my personality, but let's see how we go. 

I've never allowed myself to be in a position where I don't have enough to eat, or can't pay my bills, and when I've needed to I've managed to be very good with money. This is one of those times. Planning meals, doing proper grocery shopping, eating healthy and smart, all these things are things that people learn to do at some point in their life, and I guess now is when I learn. 

I have a goal to pay off the loan in a year. I think I can do it. It's a 3 year loan, I pay it off in 18 months I save $1200. I pay it off in a year I save over $1600. If I manage to pay it off in a year, while still saving money, I'm rewarding myself with 8 weeks holiday to San Francisco for Christmas 2013. And a new visa, but with a way lower limit. And hopefully by that point I'll have learned to manage money well enough to not end up in this place again. And all things going to plan I'll pay for the tickets and everything with real cashy money and not credit. 

oh and I kicked ass at the gym today. I hit 5.5 speed on the treadmill, I got it up to level 8, I did 30 minutes, then 15 on the cycle, then another 15 on the treadmill just because I felt like I could. 

I'm proud of me. If feels good to push my body. To let go of my mind and just push myself up that incline. I like feeling like I can do things. Like I'm achieving things. Control and stuff. Things adults do. 

oh and I've finished 97% of Lego Batman 2 and squeeeeed like a small child when I got presents in the mail, so you know, not totally an adult. 

Progress, I likes it. 

Strength v Weakness

I've been spending s lot of time this week thinking about these pills.

Tiny tiny little pills that have caused a big big argument in my brain.


I started taking a 25mg dose of these pills just over a year ago to help me cope with mild anxiety and pretty chronic insomnia. Two months and no extra sleep later I was up to a 50mg dose of the magic Christmas pills, and I was finally getting some sleep, and some calm, which was kind of pretty awesome. I was still getting down days, and angry days, but mostly I was doing ok-ish. Not ok, but ok-ish.

And now, here we are, the new pills. 75mg dose. The point of no return. The "it's not just helping you sleep anymore" pills. The "you're one pill away from totally loony" pills.

And the thing in my head is, is taking these me being weak, because I'm not coping, or is this me being strong because I know me well enough to know I'm not coping and I need help.

I'm kinda really mad at myself that I'm even considering this a sign of weakness. I've lived with mental illness all my life. My sister has it, my father has it, I have it. I know that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, I know that, I really really do. But the thing is, I'm the good one. I'm the strong one. I'm the one that had a career, and a nice house, and all the good toys. I'm the one that does the right thing, and spends all day in hospital if you've had an accident, I'm reliable.

And in my head, because my sister is none of things, because of her illness, taking these pills makes me unreliable. Like her.

I know, I know, I'm not her, I'm nothing like her, but no matter how hard I try to convince myself of that, I can't make it stick.

But still, I followed the white rabbit, I took the red pill, let's see what's on the other side of the Matrix...

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A perfect moment

I turned 34 today. It was pretty awesome all round, though the dread and depression has been building for weeks, as it does.

Got my hair done, had awesome cupcakes, went on crafty adventures around town, had a fuss made over me, and got a few perfect presents from wonderful friends who helped me (without even knowing) through the birthday blues. 

And to end the day a perfect moment...

Sometimes Americo, when he's really tired, falls asleep when we're on Skype. And it's perfect. I can hear him breathe and it's like he's here with me, even though there's such a huge distance between us. 

This is the first birthday I've been without him in three years. It's been tough, but that perfect moment of hearing him sleep, it made it better. 

I love you smoosh, this year I get to have you here for your birthday, and that's going to be just about the most perfect birthday present you can give me. 

Fried 'FireFlan' Flan

So, there's this guy on the internet, Jose Molina. He's famous for writing stuff and being funny on twitter. He was chatting with my man and somehow fried flan became a thing. A funny thing. And ongoing for a really long time. And I finally made a kind of sort of recipe. Instructions. What have you. It's mostly theory, but I did it once and it works.

However, I will not be held responsible if you are the kind of cook that burns rice.

Step one: Get some of this stuff

In Australia you can get it at any supermarket, in America you probably need to go to somewhere that sells English stuff. Fancy pancy supermarkets and whatnot.

Step 2: Make custard according to packet directions. Tips: DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM THE CUSTARD NO MATTER WHAT. Srsly. You will slowly whisk the custard until it thickens and looks like bright yellow goo. You want it slightly thicker than gravy for this recipe.

Step 3: Get one of these things

You can probably get one of those crazy special ones that makes the balls in one hit, but I don't think it would work.

Step 4: Put the custard into each of these half balls. Don't fill all the way to the top, it'll expand when it freezes.

Step 5: FREEZE. At least over night.

Step 6: get the custard half balls out of the freezer and melt the top slightly with a lighter or blow torch. Fuze the two halves together and put on a tray (or leave one half in the mould and smoosh the other half on top). You're going to want to work fast or things will go wrong in this step. Get it back into the freezer as fast as you can.


Step 7: Leave in the freezer for at least 4 hours.

Step 8: Melt chocolate. Carefully. Using bowl over saucepan thing.

Step 9: Let the chocolate cool but not harden. Dip the balls in the chocolate and put on a tray carefully. WORK FAST. You need to get this shit back in the freezer asap.

Step 10: FREEZE. for ages. 4 hours, overnight, whatever.

Step 10A: I'd maybe do this twice. Double the chocolate double the fun. Do two kinds if you want.

Step 11: smash the shit out of some biscuits (cookies) I like ginger snaps. You want it to be like bread crumb consistency.

Step 12: Make an egg wash. If you don't know how to do this you probably didn't make it past step 1.

Step 13: Dip the frozen choc coated balls in the egg wash, then in the biscuit mix, then back on the tray for the freezer. This is another one of those times where you need to work fast. It's easier cos the chocolate protects melting to some extent, but still, don't be all week.

Step 14: Back in the freezer (predictable).

Step 15: Do step 13 and 14 again. you want a double coat. It's important.

Step 16: This is the bit that things are potentially going to fuck up. The scary bit. This is the deep frying bit. You need a deep fryer or a really deep pan. You need a high heat low flavour oil like vegetable oil or canola oil. You need it REALLY HOT. Like fuck up your skin hot. Be careful.

Step 17: DON'T FREAK OUT. You need to work fast here. Use a basket or one of those things you use for fishing spring rolls out of a deep fryer. Drop the ball in the oil. Leave it for maybe 30 seconds. Maybe max a minute. Probably 30 seconds. Fish it out and put on paper towel to drain.

Step 18: Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Step 19: Eat. Be careful it's hot.

Step 20: Leave a comment if you make it this far and it works.

Am I alright?

It seems that some of you know me too well and have asked if I'm ok.

More disturbingly at least one person that doesn't really know me very well at all, but follows me on twitter, has asked if I'm ok. This was a disturbing "Houston we have a problem" moment for my belief that I was hiding my lack of ok-ness moderately well.

No, it seems, I am not ok.

Why am I not ok? Honestly, I don't know. I feel a sense of being incomplete, but I don't know why. I don't know what's missing. I don't know how to put it back. This is perhaps the thing that disturbs me the most. If I could pinpoint what was wrong I might have some hope of getting myself back to being me.

Let's try and break down my mental health:

1: My ideology is becoming a problem. 

No really, a huge problem. I'm a feminist. I'm pro-smart government, I really truly believe that government can do good. I'm for healthy bodies, regardless of size, and don't believe in conforming to a dangerous body image dictated to us by media conglomerates.

Imagine how joyful living with that ideology is day-to-day. Truly believing the world can be better at treating equally, while watching the Republican war on women. Truly believing the government can do better, then watching Julia Gillard firmly state that she believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, and gay civil unions are enough because they give the same rights. Like being separate is being equal. Thinking that it's possible for the media to change when it comes to portraying a healthy body image, as demonstrated by Vogue's commitment to stop using models under 16 and stop using bodies that are incredibly unrealistic, is overshadowed by the incessant and disgusting media focus on how much weight Jessica Simpson gained while she was pregnant.

It is so constant, and depressing, and dangerous, and how did we end up in this awful mess? How do we continue to tolerate this hatefulness and hopelessness? Why do we allow the media to dictate to us what is attractive and what isn't, which they're doing for the sole purpose of convincing us to spend billions on their beauty products, weight loss products, and clothes.

How are there people that support discrimination and hated in 2012 and vote for idiots like Romney who want to legislate based on the 10 commandments, despite the fact his country is supposed to be for religious freedom.

It's wearing me down a lot.

I'm starting to do things to feel less helpless. I joined the YWCA, I'm going to some of their events. I've signed up for the gender institute newsletter from the ANU. I'm hoping that doing things will reduce my dejection caused by the world being completely totally fucknuts crazy.

2: What the fuck April?

April, April, April. You really were a cunt, weren't you?

Jeremy's death hit me surprisingly hard, considering I didn't know the kid that well. I spent a lot of time after the funeral thinking about what it would have been like if it were Owen. It was a horrible thing that I couldn't get out of my head. The thought of my amazing baby brother not being part of my life was rough. I still struggle to get the idea out of my head that something could happen to him. He does crazy shit, climbs mountains, does obstacle courses designed by the SAS, runs in those stupid shoes that look like feet, things could happen to him. It scares the fuck out of me.

And then there's my mother. Crazy, stupid, wench. She went and fell while walking out the back of beyond. She was mourning Jeremy, probably like me, scared about the idea of it happening to Owen, and she tripped on something and went down. She put her arm out to break her fall, and shattered her arm. Badly. It broke from wrist to nearly elbow, pushing her wrist joint an inch down her arm. Seriously. And then the crazy bitch walked out, because what other choice did she have? No phone signal, no GPS, not even the dumbass dog, so she walked out. And I get a call at 10pm that she's in hospital. I've never been so scared. To see my mother, for the next 3 days, tiny, weak, dehydrated, starving, in pain, waiting for surgery. Dealing with my sister, my family, being the grown-up, talking to the nurses, the doctor, helping her manage her pain meds, then having her live with me for two weeks not even able to open jars? It was confronting.

One day my mother is going to die. Not for awhile, because she's tough, but it's going to happen. And it's a reality I really am not prepared to confront.

3: Wagon, what wagon?

I fell off it hard. I promised myself I'd be healthier this year. Not to try and lose weight or change my body, or anything, but because I won the best of the genetics from both my parents and have had a variety of health issues in my life including:

• High cholesterol
• High blood sugar
• High blood pressure
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Arthritis
• Tension Headaches

And, as an added bonus, my dad's family seems to have some level of addictive personality and I have family that have gone through codeine and valium addiction, which I don't want to go through, so the last two of those things are a real problem for me to manage. Oh, and, yeah, I'm allergic to anti-inflammatories, which is a bigger problem. Managing pain while being incredibly cautious about taking opiates is a blast for reals. I live with a fairly constant level of pain which blows. 

Part of managing the pain, and the rest of it, is exercise. If your joints and muscles are working properly you get less arthritic pain. And exercise releases endorphins, so that helps with the depression and anxiety. It's time out of mind for me, where I focus on a physical burn, instead of a mental pain. It's amazing at helping me cope. So not going since February is kind of a thing for me. I've got excuses, I took on a second job which has been reletively good for my mental health, but bad for my physical health. I've had tonsillitis twice, followed by a bad chest and sinus infection. I've been tired, and depressed, plus my mum was here, and then I was out of town. Good excuses all, but it's a cumulative effect. Don't exercise, feel more tired, feel more depressed, feel too tired to exercise, feel too depressed to go to the gym, and so on. 

In order to be a more complete me I need to commit to moving. Focussing my energy into building a better body to sustain me for longer. I need to manage my emotional wellbeing in more ways than the little christmas coloured happy pills. Not going has contributed, massively I think, to the current state of my emotional wellbeing. Or, you know, major lack of well being. 

The sugar ain't helping either. I know sugar gives me highs and lows. In a massive way. I get low, I have sugar, I get high, 2 hours later we play the same game over again. Depression leaves me with no self-control to speak of, so I don't say no to myself when it comes to sugar. Stupid stupid stupid. That goes for a ridiculous volume of carbs, as well, of course. 

4: May. Birthday blues. 

I love my birthday. I hate my birthday. Yea, I do dearly love being the centre of attention. I'm an attention whore, I admit it. But also, I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. I don't know why, I always have. I dread it and suffer the most painful depression in the most of May. It starts early and nothing helps. Yeah, I know, fucked. AND stupid. 

Last, but not least, there is time, distance, and the incredible stupidity of time zones. My darling friend Amanda is in Scotland, which perhaps could be the worst time zone for Australia to stay in touch with. My wonderful fiancé is in San Francisco and stays up to ridiculous hours of the night to stay in touch with me. It is difficult to have those you love so much in other countries. It is lonely, and awful, and empty. And it's not their fault, and it's not my fault, it's nobodies fault, but it sure is fucked. 

So the reality of life is, that no, I'm not ok, but fixing it is a whole world of hard. 

There are things that will help, the Christmas pills are great. I went back to the gym today, that'll help if I can stick to it. Managing my good intake a bit better, with a focus on less sugar will mean less highs and lows. Managing my money and not emotionally shopping will give me a peace of mind in the long term. And Americo will be here for two and half months in August, and that will be a huge help. It'll be the first time we'll have a house to ourselves in our combined total of a year living together. And as a first, he'll spend his birthday with me. And I'll get to wake up and kiss him as he turns 36, something we're both incredibly grateful for. 

It's just getting my brain to realise that there are things that help me, and things that hinder me, and I need to force myself to know what's the right thing, and what's the wrong thing, and help myself to get better. 

and that's that. 

For those of you that are concerned, I value you so much. Your concern touches me more than you know. Your love, your friendship, they are my salvation on the bad days. That sounds overdramatic, it really does, but it's true. 

That goes for the total strangers that have expressed concern too. Twitter is such an amazing tool for good, when it's not being an amazing tool for stupid. I've seen people who are down and depressed lifted up on the 140 character well wishes of strangers, which is enough to make my own mind lift of the bad place. The simple "I'm thinking about you" to someone on the edge is such a great thing to do for someone, and there are people that have done that for me, and it is such a blessing. 

So, thank you, my friends, y'all are wonderful bitches, all of you. And I promise you that I'll be fine, once I figure out where my head is at.

That was the really long answer, obviously. The short answer? Not right now, but I will be, because it does get better. And I will get better. 

Love and Luck

My wonderful, talented, smart, exceptional, incredible fiancé is heading to LA in a couple of days. While in LA he will be attending the Beverly Hills International Film Festival, where he is a finalist for his screenplay Tempus Fugit. 

I've not read a lot of screen plays. In fact, I've read a total of two, but I've seen a lot of movies. I love movies from the silly to the astounding, I love the experience of watching a movie in a cinema, watching a movie at home on my sofa, watching a movie in bed on my iPad, however I watch it I passionately love movies.

And more than any movie I've seen, or heard about, I know that Tempus Fugit will be the greatest movie I'll ever see in my lifetime...if it gets made.

I may have a slight bias, but that aside, this is a touching, wonderful, beautifully written tale of friendship and heartbreak, that will leave you wanting more.

And my guy wrote it. And I couldn't be more proud of him.

I wish you so much luck in LA, my love. No matter the outcome we'll find a way to make this movie, because it'd simply be a crime if other people didn't get to see the movie that plays in the head every time I read this script.

You, my smoosh, are my favourite writer, and I'm so very lucky that you write wonderful things, like Tempus Fugit, just for me.

That last bit might not be true, but it's a little bit true in my head.

The enemy within

Depression and anxiety are a terrible disease. Mental illness in whatever form is a terrible thing to experience. You can't see it, you can't pinpoint symptoms to a concrete disease, and diagnosis and treatments are, at best, good guess work by you and your doctor.

Medication for mental illness is dicey. Sometimes it will turn you into an emotionless robot, incapable of feeling, tasting, thinking, living. Sometimes it will make you so physically sick that the mental pain becomes secondary to the physical problems. Sometimes it will result in increased depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide. It's a mixed bag that almost always comes with bad more than good.

I take a drug called dothep for my anxiety. It's a Tricyclic antidepressant, which basically means it blocks the reuptake of serotonin in the brain, resulting in an increase in its levels. Serotonin being one of the things in your brain that results in happy, it helps you cope with stress by helping you relax. Serotonin is the stuff that makes you feel good after a block of chocolate, or post orgasm, so more is better.

I'm on a really low dose. Like really low. It's basically enough to help me sleep at night, because I'm one f those people that doesn't do that much. I stress a lot. I spend all night tossing and turning and everything is a thousand times worse the next day because I didn't sleep.

The dothep works. Its great, I guess, in that I sleep most nights. I don't hear my phone chime that I have email ever, so I'm clearly totally dead to the world, but I wake up every morning exhausted, regardless of the apparent good nights rest.

I also struggle to function a lot of days. I'm angry at work, I'm sad at home, I feel like everywhere I go out of the house I'm wearing the angry face, because I am angry. All the time. And I hate it. This irrational anger is what drove me to cave on taking something for my anxiety in the first place. And then drove me to a slightly increased dose. And here we are, 9 months later, and wondering if it's time again to increase the dose.

Is this just a period of stress? Or do I need more help? Should that help involve therapy? Am I feeling so off kilter that I need more help than I get from my family? I really don't know lately.

The questions in my head make it hard for me to settle to sleep lately. Even with the pills the ability to actually drift off to sleep is harder than it was.

And I write blog posts in my head to try and stop the swirling questions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have to type them out to find a quiet place in my brain.

Mental illness is still so misunderstood. Confessing you have it is hard. Finding the right medication is hard. Finding the right therapist is hard. And sleeping, apparently is pretty hard too.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Oh Captain, My Captain

The nature of admiration and hero worship are an interesting thing. When we first come to admire someone, with me anyway, the hero worship is such that it prevents you from seeing the flaws in the person you admire. You place them on a pedestal, and you think every move they make, every decision they come to, is genius. You'd support them unquestioning no matter what and damn to hell anyone that doesn't agree with you, or your idol.

And then a time comes that you grow up. Or circumstances change. Your morals or values change. Your directions change. Your passions change. And the person you so admired no longer gels with the direction you're going in.

They've stayed the same, while you've changed. Or you've stayed the same, while they've changed. It doesn't really matter how it came about, but the person on the pedestal is suddenly real and fallible, and it's kind of a shock.

And it's kind of sad.

Or is it?

Is it just normal that as you grow up, learn, start to define who you are, that the idols you had in your youth no longer make sense. You find out that the Easter bunny isn't real, Elmo has a human hand up his ass, and sometimes even the best of people make mistakes.

You don't think Hillary should have forgiven Bill, but you still love Hillary for her strength of purpose, and courage, and ability to stand strong in a room full of men and you know she's kicking ass and holding her own.

You don't agree with Michelle's fat shaming of kids that are already getting bullied for their weight, but she's a strong, intelligent, passionate woman who doesn't shy away from saying what she thinks and so you continue to admire what she does for women.

With others though, perhaps the departure of values is so extensive, that it feels impossible to find that spark that caught your eye when you were young and impressional. You wonder about what you were thinking, were you just young and stupid, or have you changed so much?

It's like that moment when you realise that there's no fixing the precious teddy that has lived on your bed since the day you were born and you finally have to be a big kid and learn to sleep alone.

A hero falling from grace (in your own mind), much like your teddy ending up in the bin, is a moment of self-realisation where you take stock of yourself. Your changes. Your strengths and weaknesses.

And you hopefully come to realisation that admiring someone is wonderful, but hero worship is a thing of youth, and you no longer need to place someone on a pedestal from which they will inevitably fall.

Life

Life is an incredible gift, one I fear that not enough of us appreciate. I certainly don't think I do.

 We wake up, blindly struggle through the morning routine of shower, coffee, news, drive to work, and then slave away at at a job we hate before coming home to friends, family, pet, or the aloneness that we've created for ourselves. We make dinner and zone out in front of TV or the Internet, or a game, and don't really think about the world around us, or the stunning gift of our own bodies that allow us to follow this mindless routine day after day.

 Without you even thinking about it your body sustains your existence. It takes in air, oxygen, just by itself, it takes the nutrients out of food and turns them into the energy you need to function. it helps you learn that touching hot things is bad, and the freezing salt water is not fun to play in. It is capable of so much, and so many of us do nothing with it.

We don't test it, or train it, or help sustain it by treating it with kindness and respect.

 We feed it salt laden, sugar laden, fat laden, chemical laden, genetically modified foods that really couldn't be considered food by any sane person. I'm so guilty of this. Every meal I ate, for a whole week two weeks ago, was in some way processed. Refined white flour, processed fat reduced salami, cured prosciutto which is heavy with tasty tasty salt, processed cheese, meat from cows that were most certainly not raised ethically.

 And I guess the worst bit is that while we do it, poison our bodies, we don't really think about it. We enjoy food, as we should, because it's wonderful and sustains us, but we maybe shouldn't consume so much, and so many things that our poor bodies aren't designed to deal with.

I very much doubt that I'll stop eating pizza, or cake, and you'll have to pry my flat white from my cold dead hands, but I am going to try to be more aware of what I'm putting into my body.

I'm going to buy more regional fresh produce grown by people that don't cover things in chemicals. I'm going to buy free range meats so at least my steak had a good life before it became steak. I'm going to try eating fruits a d vegetables. And eating at a table concentrating on this wonderful fuel that is going to sustain me from day to day.

 We, society, have become sinfully indulgent in our constant search for happiness and gratification, and I'm terrible ashamed of how much I contribute to that description.

 Time to be more better at this thing called life.

 Onwards and upwards my friends, let us embrace being better people to prove humanity is not a lost cause.

 Ps. Just read this over, sorry about the typos and pretentious twaddle, it's been a very tiring confronting week.

May the road rise up to meet you

This amazing kid I know died today.

I didn't know him that well, didn't know what he liked for breakfast, or how he had his coffee, but he was my little brothers best friend since the age of, maybe 13, and so this kid was a presence in my life for the last 10 years.

And he was an amazing kid. He was smart, passionate, dedicated and kind. He was the kind of kid where, when you met him, you just knew he was destined to change the world. He was just that kind of amazing. He would laugh, and the world just seemed brighter, because he was so bright.

As they say, those that burn the brightest, burn the fastest, and so it was for Jerome.

The story of his final months is a sad one. You see, he just got married 3 weeks ago. He's been living with his girl for years, and they're incredibly committed to each other, but they only just got married 3 weeks ago. And the wedding was beautiful, his bride was stunning, he was happy, though he looked incredibly gaunt and had no energy and needed to sit down a lot.

Today, and yesterday, before he passed away, the cancer had effected his memory and he didn't remember his marriage. He remembered things from years ago, but not his marriage or his bride.

I can't even imagine her heartbreak. Not just losing her husband and partner mere weeks after their wedding, but losing his emotionally due to his memory before losing him to death. The emotional toll of that moment where he didn't remember her must have been so shattering. To lose someone so bright and vibrant in itself, without everything else surrounding it, would be hard but to lose him like this...it breaks my heart to think of her hurt, and my brothers hurt, and his families hurt, and all his friends who loved him like family.

We all deserve a chance to live a beautiful life full of love, and Jerome fit more love in his short life that many would in 80 or 90 years.

Hug someone you love today. Tell them you love them. Live life in a way that not just makes sure that people remember you, but they remember you with love, and talk about your passion and kindness, and how you changed their life.

May you shine as brightly in whatever comes next as you did in life, Jerome, you lit up every room you walked into.

Because fuck you, that's why.

Dear society,

I'm mad at you. I was mad at you when I wrote the last post, I'm more mad at you now.

Email went out today about my name change. It was pretty straight forward, it made it VERY clear that Ruth was my first name, Fiona was my last name. You'd think it would be a pretty easy concept to understand when it's spelled out for you.

Still, of course, I got emails "congratulations Fiona". I can ignore that, it's what you get for having basically two first names.

What I also got though was many, and I mean many, "Congratulations! When did you get married?!" emails.

Now, my first thing is that surely etiquette says you don't ask the question unless you know for sure that there's been a marriage.

My second thing is fuck your assumptions.

When advised that there was no marriage, the next question was "so why did you change your name".

Because fuck you, that's why.

It's none of your fucking business.

I get that I work with you day in and out, spend more time with you than my family, but it's still none of your damn business.

I made the mistake of letting ONE person know why, to the instant "so you're a lesbian now" joke.

Is this really where we're at?

In 2012 we're still here? That a name change must be about a father or a husband and not personal choice? That if you change your name for your own choice you're a lesbian? This is how far we've come in the battle for equality?

Fuck you, society. You're supposed to be better than this. I deserve better than this. All our daughters deserve better than this.

Shape up.

You suck,

Ruth.

Choice

I changed my name today.

I did it because I wanted to. There were other reasons, but essentially it came down to that, because I want to.

I didn't make a mind blowing change. I didn't change it to "Ninja" or "Astro Boy" or "World Peace", I just made my middle name my last name. Because why not? It's my name.

For reasons beyond my comprehension there are people that seem to find this offensive.

The man at the counter when I lodged my application couldn't get his tiny mind past the idea that there are reasons for changing your name other than getting married or divorced. He asked three times when my marriage was/where my marriage was. Despite the fact I said, VERY CLEARLY, that my name was not related to a marriage or divorce.

The man was so offended that he even asked his supervisor if my reason was valid. Bless her heart she said "she can change her name for whatever reason she wants as long as it's not to someone illegal". That sorted, the gentleman was rude to me for the rest of the transaction.

Boggled as I was I didn't get involved with his nonsense, paid my money, got an agreement I could come back in the morning to get my certificate and went on about my day comforted by the fact that my wonderful friends were supportive and very kind about the change.

And I got to work and for the most part people were supportive, but a couple of women in the office, women I like, thought that my reason for changing my name was a direct attack on them. This also boggled me.

I change my name because I thought it was time for me to no longer identify myself with a name that came from a man. That was my decision and impacts me alone. I changed my name when I got married because I didn't identify with my fathers name, so I took my husbands. And I joked pretty constantly after my divorce that I kept my ex's name because I had a better relationship with him than with my father, so I kept my married name (also because it is time consuming and EXPENSIVE to change your name).

But a time came when I was confident in myself, my strength, my place in the world, my relationship with my fiancé, my relationship with my family, and my career and I decided I was ready to be just me. And that's what suits me.

When I decided to change my name to reflect, in part, that I feel very strongly about women being slapped with a mans name, that view didn't come with the idea that it should impact beyond just me.

I don't want all the women in the world to change their names because I feel strongly about this. I don't judge women that keep their maiden name. I don't judge women that take their husbands names. That choice is the right choice for them, and I respect it because they're making a choice. And that choice is what feminism boils down to. What equality means.

Being equal means that you have choice. I have the choice to change my name without society having an apoplexy.

I have the right for that name change to cost the same as a name change for someone who is getting married or divorced, be it free, or at a cost, because a name change should have equal status across the board. There shouldn't be a built in bias for women getting married to change their name to their husbands name because they can do it for free from their license, to their passport, to the cost of the name change itself. A name change is a name change, the reason shouldn't matter. Because the choice to change your name is personal, and the government shouldn't have a bias, even a cost bias when something is a personal choice.

Choices are not things that go beyond yourself. Choice is entirely something you do on your own.

A name change, a marriage, divorce, abortion, birth control, adoption, these are things that a single person of their own sane mind should be able to choose.

Where you go, who you go with, what you wear, who you leave with, these are your own free choices and should not come with risks like sexual assault, abuse, and rape.

I don't judge women or men for keeping or changing their name, or for making choices that wouldn't suit me personally because I don't want them to judge me when I make those choices.

And because I respect their right to make those choices on their own without society pushing them to go a certain way. Or politicians forcing them to go a  certain way because that politician is pushing a religious agenda.

As people in this world we are born with nothing but what other people give us. Our opinions and thoughts as we grow and develop are those that are imprinted on us by parents, teachers and friends.

It takes a long time to come to a point where you can stand up and know that you are saying something or doing something that comes truly from inside yourself because of your own strength and conviction. And those decisions and actions should be celebrated because choice should be celebrated.

I am whoever I say I am, and right now I say that I'm Ruth Fiona and if you don't like it, well, honestly it's none of your fucking business.