The dark place

I thought it was time I shared with you where I have been for the last few months.  Very serious trigger warnings for violence, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. I am being graphic about what was happening in my head because I think I need to be.

I know my psychological issues are nothing compared with many of my tweeps and those who read this blog, but to me, I kinda hit a crisis point.

It really goes back several years when, every time I crossed a bridge – over a river, railway lines, motorway – I had an overwhelming urge to jump off.  I didn’t want to, but I felt compelled to do it. It progressed to where the urge was to take others with me. And eventually I really was no longer sure about reality. Was I simply feeling these feelings? Was I actually doing it? Because the sensation was so strong I felt that I was climbing over the edge. I often had to shake my head as if to shake away those thoughts or make sure I was awake.

I just figured it was “one of those things” and all I had to do was ride it out. And it did go away. Sort of.

More recently, those urges returned. A compulsion to drive into an oncoming truck, off the edge of a cliff, at the top floor of a parking building to set up a ramp to drive off into the next building or just crash to the ground below. For quite some time, this compulsion to drive full-speed into something has remained. Like I said, I don’t want to die, or hurt anyone else, but the compulsion was always there.

And that is about the point when things started to get worse.

There were compulsions of stabbing and cutting. To kill and hurt those I loved. Strangers. Anyone. Everyone.

When I came in the front door, I would often feel a strong impulse to pick up a Stanley knife and just cut my throat. At other times, it would be an impulse to fake my death and move somewhere noone could ever find me.

I stopped thinking I could just “ride it out” when they were almost constant. That was around the time when I started feeling terrified. Not of anything as such (although you can pretty much guess what I was afraid of), just afraid.

Finally, I decided to see my GP and get an EAP referral to a clinical psychologist. I’ve had my GP appointment, and my psychologist appointment is soon. As my GP said, this wasn’t “nothing”. By the time his patients come through his door about psychological issues, it is serious. And that was good to hear. I knew I was in trouble.

I have been on low dose of anti-depressants for years – just 20mg fluoxetine. Probably for over 20 years with a few short periods of trying to come off them. I figured that they were no longer working.  My GP did exactly as I expected – doubled the fluoxetine and prescribed some lorazepam with a review in 2-3 weeks.

Typing this, I feel scared again, but only because I am looking back at what was going on. The quiet in my mind is simply blissful. There was just so much noise before. I guess I had become used to it to a certain extent.

I think I have a long way to go. I have been very grateful first and foremost to my wonderful, beautiful wife. We haven’t talked much about this, and I don’t know if she knew what was going on, or if something was wrong – people are very good at hiding what goes on inside. But she has been there. And in her arms, there are no thoughts, there is no world, there is just a universe of light and love.

I want to thank all my friends – particularly my Twitter friends. Your support has been wonderful. And I thank you so much.

One other thing that kept me tethered to reality was an unshakable belief that I am a good person. I know I am capable of doing all these things – we all are. I have known the deepest darkest nature of my inner beast since I was 15 years old when I first faced it down. But I also have an unshakable knowledge that all these things are just thoughts. They are just fucked up brain chemicals.

There are many things that could have happened in my life. But without any one of them, I would have been a different person. And I firmly believe that without them, this blog post wouldn’t exist. Instead you would be reading about this in the papers.

I think I know the trigger point of this collapse. And it was about 4 years ago. But I guess that is another story for another time.

For now, I just want to say thank you. And I love you all. And how amazingly great it is to feel better.  Not entirely well, but definitely better.

The Dark Beast

I never know if it shows.  In my mind it does.  Those times when the dark beast within stirs and clasps its cold hand around your heart and soul, and sucks the life out of you.

I am sure we have all been there at some stage or another, when depression starts to win [video], the whole world turns black. Some of us are incredibly lucky to have loving, understanding people around us to help us through these times. Others, sadly, not so and they lose the battle to survive.

For me, even after all these years, after all the strength I have gained, after all the love I am so incredibly blessed to be surrounded by, it still isn’t enough.  I never really know what brings them on.  Admittedly I am only on very mild anti-depressants (20mg fluoxetine) but for the most part they do the job.

I am just now coming out of one of the dark patches. Where I just feel full of hate and anger. Where there seems to be such emptiness in my life, where all of the good things seem just superficial. It can be scary. More and more the thoughts of doing great harm (not just to myself) seem overwhelming.

Often, when we would hear stories of some great tragedy where a person has embarked on a killing spree, you’d hear the interviews with neighbours: “He was a quiet man” [video], “Always seemed so nice”, “Such a shock”. Well, from a young age I could see such things being said about me. There was never anything specific, just a lot of blood and destruction. I don’t know where I learned it, but it didn’t take me long to understand that these were just thought, feelings, the product of a bizarre combination of brain chemicals. That all I had to do was let the thoughts go, and they would pass in time. To remember that they have no power over me [video].

Sure, it still worries me that there may come a time when the Beast no longer just stirs in its sleep but roars into life, flashing its teeth and claws and heads out on the hunt. But I trust that it won’t ever happen.

I remember the day when I first came face to face with the Beast. It was 6th Form (year 12 to you young ‘uns). English class. We were studying …. what was it now?  MacBeth or Othello? We were discussing the dark beast that lurks within us all, the one that listens to the whisperings of others. Something happened. I could almost feel myself step outside of my body, take a few steps forward, and turn to look back into my soul. And it was dark, tempestuous. There was something almost unimaginable in there and it terrified me. But it was the moment that I faced down my inner demon. I told my teacher about this afterwards and he was pleased. Pleased that I was the only one to truly have learned the lesson that was being taught.

While my wife is an absolute saviour to me, I also thank my amazing on-line friends so very much. Without the bond we have formed, it terrifies me to think where I would be now (no pressure, of course).

Anyway, you know the John Kirwan ad where he talks about how “coming out the other side” is a feeling far better than any win he has ever achieved on or off the field?  I know that feeling so well.  Still not completely out the other side, but I know the sunlight is now shining on my face, and this round is over.

I will just be glad when I can start writing properly again.  I have so missed it. Thank you all so much for your patience.

Viral campaigns – Good, Bad and Ugly

We have all seen them – those viral campaigns exhorting us to re-tweet, copy something or other to our Facebook profile. Hell, even the old “forward this email to everyone you know to save a little child with leukaemia”.

I want to focus on two.  Both Twitter memes.  #StopKony vs #Ididnotreport.

#StopKony was an amazingly successful campaign.  I only say that because it seems the aim was to have as many people as possible re-tweet it.  Not actual awareness, not anything constructive, just proliferation of one person’s view.  Compare this to  #ididnotreport and #ididreport how they started as a response to #webelieveyou and became something devastating in its honesty, empowering in its shared strength and pain, and has the potential to truly blow people’s minds.

OK – you got me – I am biased to fuck, but these two threads – they are just worlds apart.

For those who don’t know, #StopKony was a campaign where a 30 minute movie was being spread to raise awareness of a very bad man from Uganda who was kidnapping children and forcing them to fight his own private war. He is guilty of many things and one of the “most wanted” international war criminals. Sounds worthy doesn’t it? I was taken in at first.

But then things start to sink in. Where were the Ugandans?  Why was there a nice white baby reaching out to grab a picture of the big bad black man? Who are Invisible Children and why are they doing this now? What are they really raising money for?  What use is it in simply blindly re-tweeting?

But Ugandans were able to make themselves heard above the din of seemingly well-meaning Western folk clamouring for “justice”.  But it is bloody hard to find because the online world continues to be taken over by western folk like me.

#ididnotreport and #ididreport were more organic and stemmed from a campaign started by London Feminist - it was an adjunct to the #webelieveyou campaign to give support to abuse survivors,  Unlike Kony, this was something where the tweeters has a direct personal interest – they were sharing their stories, their pain and horror.

And while Kony has kinda done its dash, #webelieveyou, #ididreport and #ididnotreport are still going strong. It spurred some wonderful people to providing an anonymous forum – people who felt they could not share their stories using their twitter account were invited to anonymously share their story for it to be posted by proxy.

I wrote an #ididnotreport tweet and then I deleted it. Says it all really.

What this tells me (as if I didn’t already know it) is that there is a whole world of invisible people. People for whom abuse is a reality, a daily fact of life, one in which they are made to feel as if they are to blame, one in which they go on trial as much (if not more than) the offender. One in which society questions their motives.

I had no idea how powerful that would be.  I had imagined that it was predominantly low-level street harassment which was not reported, but it wasn’t just this sort of abuse, that came up on that hashtag.  Far more serious attacks go unreported.

Society, language, mainstream reporting – it all works against the people who are abused. One of the classic examples was my fight on the Stuff article on the “dangerous alleyway“, compared to the article on the man who was attacked in Lower Hutt, and then the Times of India article about women not being allowed to work after 8:00pm because they might be raped.

Some MSM stories on this (my Google search returned the vile SMH as the first result) where people criticise the hashtag and those who did not report it – and wonder why they didn’t.

And people still try to argue there is no culture of victim-blaming.

World War 3

Sorry I have been away so long. My mind and spirit really just haven’t been up to writing lately.  So it is time to get back into it.

I started writing this months ago, and it has been sitting languishing while I try and get my mind in working order.

I am increasingly of the belief we are on the verge of World War 3.  Just not the nuclear armageddon everybody thought it would be. This is a class war. It’s a world war because it isn’t between nations, but is one that will cover all nations.

The war has been brewing for years.  Increasing hostilities.  Each side gathering its forces, settling their positions.  The war seems to have been started in reaction to all the gains by marginalised people.  Finally getting some semblance of respect and being treated as human.  And the realisation by the privileged that they are about to lose their privilege, they struck back.

We hear of repeated attempts to reverse human rights legislation in many countries:

• Re-defining rape as only rape if it involves force (in order to deny abortion services to rape victims).
• Increasing requirements for trans-vaginal ultrasounds before any abortion can be provided.
• Restrictions on (and outright refusal of) contraception.
• Re-criminalisation of homosexuality

So, we have those of us fighting for recognition, for equality, parity, recognition or even visibility. Fighting for a fair slice of the pie.  On the other side we have the rich, powerful and ignorant.  The abusers and rape-apologists. The neo-conservatives who believe so much in what they think is “right”.

The “Arab Spring” should be a lesson to all.  It might have taken a few decades, but people – the real people – get tired of being abused, of being pushed and told they cannot be who they are. They get tired of tyranny and oppression. And with the world of social media, you cannot stop people gathering their forces.

Facebook  (TW for this link) has a part to play in this war, for both sides.  Some of the most vile, hateful and harmful pages are being created under their loving gaze.  They proudly support people who (wittingly or otherwise) spread a culture of rape, violence and hate.  They support people who think it is perfectly normal to joke about torture, rape and murder.  They refuse to listen to anyone who speaks out against them.  They treat pictures of breast-feeding babies as something so harmful, so heinous and destructive to the moral fabric of society that they must be forcibly removed. But at the same time, groups use Facebook to fight against them.

One side does what it can to speak out, to drag the oppression and hate into the light for all to see.  In doing so, the other skulks in the shadows and further targets people with hate and threats, never realising that their attempts will just be brought to public gaze.  Events like Slutwalk and Take Back the Night.

We have, in the US, various states trying to pass laws that prohibit or restrict contraception, removing funding and availability of abortion services, re-defining rape so that it only occurs if it is “forcible”. But this too is being countered, with the amazing news of the failure of Mississippi’s “personhood amendment – proposition 26 being voted down 58 to 42.

We have nations around the world, like our very own, who regard matters like marriage-equality not important enough to be on the agenda leading up to a national election.  We have nations fighting back against those places that have already passed laws providing for marriage equality.  We have nations who seem quite happy to introduce further restrictions on matters of sexuality and sexual identity.

Nations are passing laws that prohibit people demonstrating their religious beliefs. (Trying hard not to look at you, France)

And then we have the freedom fighters, the warriors, the people who are willing to put themselves in the line of fire for a greater ideal.  The not-so-recent Occupy protests (it was recent when I started writing this). The amazingly good people in these forums.  The various groups calling for people, groups and corporations having accountability. Some of the attacks on Occupiers puts me in mind of the scene from Sir Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. It was the Dharasana Salt Works scene (more TW for this scene).

It is immensely powerful.

We have these amazing feminist bloggers whose response to the vile abuse and threats thrown at them is to simply make them public.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  The 1960s have returned for their golden jubilee.  We are coming into another era of protest, of enlightenment, of rage against oppression. I love it.  I love the idea that I might just be part of something that will make a real difference to the world.  I’m incredibly proud to be part of it. Maybe only in a small way, but hey – if my teaspoon can add to the ocean of love and respect, then that is enough for me.

Get back in the kitchen, huh?

Ah New Zealand Herald.  Continuing your usual work I see.

An article about how young women eat a lot of takeaways.  Now this could have been a fairly balanced article. It could have made sense. And it could have been worth reading. Instead it was in the NZ Herald.  Intentional or not, the article portrays women as being the ones who are supposed to be at home cooking the meals, but are instead just thinking of themselves and eating takeaways.

Not only that, some of them claim to be good cooks!  The impertinence of it all!!

Well, fuck you NZH.  I, a male, am the one who cooks pretty much all the meals in our household. And yes, we also eat takeaways at least once a week – usually only once.  Mostly because we like it, and sometimes because I just can’t be fucked cooking. Also because it is a treat for us as we eat (mostly) healthy food the rest of the time.

And you know maybe, just maybe, these women eat takeaways at least once a week because they are so fucking tired from spending so much energy

• trying to earn the same amount as a man by doing extra work
• having to fight all the bullshit media outlets like you throw at them
• the utterly draining and mind-fuckingly incessant message that they Just. Aren’t. Good. Enough.

to really give a shit about cooking the meals they know they can.

And for an added bonus, there is the underlying shaming in the article for all us fatties, all of us who don’t eat right, who aren’t what someone else expects us to be.  Shock horror – she’s eating takeaways, Well holy fucking shit, it is going to bring about the downfall of society.

Prof Collins challenged young women to open the pantry and fridge door instead of a takeaway menu.

Here’s another idea. Challenge young women (those who have a partner) to get their partner to cook them a fucking meal.

After that rant, I’ll give some ground.  I feel it could be that the study is about women’s health – which is of course a good thing.  But the delivery of the results, the comments and the reporting turn this whole thing into a fucking “get back into the kitchen where you belong, bitches”.

And I will give NZH some credit.  This is what was said over at http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-bars/young-women-eating-takeaways-once-a-week/story-fn93ypt9-1226254032046

To mark Australia’s Healthy Weight Week from January 22-29, Prof Collins challenged young women to open the pantry and fridge door instead of a takeaway menu.

“It can be fast and easy to cook healthy versions of takeaway dishes at home with a bit of planning ahead and some basic cooking skills,” she said.

Healthy Weight Week aims to motivate 18 to 25-year-old women to commit to looking and feeling their best.

Here’s an idea:  how about aiming to encourage women to feel valued for who they are by not having any of this fucking shit!  How about committing to health-consciousness instead of this fucking fat-shaming bullshit.

As for the survey itself, it was of 200 women.  In other words, with a sample size like that, the entire fucking thing is worthless.  Despite this, what the media didn’t report was that the study also (primarily) found was that 65% of respondents made new year resolutions to eat healthier.

So folks – if you want women to “look and feel their best”, here is a tip. Stop shaming. Stop expecting people to fit into your narrow fucking idea of what looks good.  Stop presuming that being fat is bad – or even unhealthy. And stop fucking expecting women to get back into the fucking kitchen.

*Spits on the ground and walks away*

Oh – and aren’t you glad I didn’t even get started on those stock photos?

Victim blaming and taxi cabs

TW for victim-blaming, some horrific “don’t get raped” ads and images.

This post is too good for me not to share.  As angry-making as it was for me.

Victim blaming and taxi cabs.

via Victim blaming and taxi cabs.

Apologies apologies

Ahhh – one of my pet subjects.

Unsurprising to many, I’d been involved in the debate over the Libra #transphobictampons advertisement. And then Libra “apologised”. 

Now apologies – here is one of my pet subjects.  Especially when it comes to the really shitty nature of apologies – both in the way the apology is delivered and how it is reported.

Some call it a fauxpology but I like “the arsehole’s apology”.  You know the one.  At best it is “we are sorry if we caused any offence” or like the Libra one “Libra regrets any offense taken to our recent tampon advertisement”.  Notwithstanding the unbeleivably offensive nature of the ad, regardless of the terrible harm it has caused and the prolific transphobic behaviour and comments it has actually created, this sort of shitty apology always fucks me off.  As pissed off as I am about the ad and just how much harm it has actually caused, I will leave that debate to others far better placed at arguing this than I am.

I’m going to talk about apology.  The arsehole’s apology routinely says “We are sorry you got upset about something”.  The blame, of course, rests with you for getting all upset about it.  There is no fucking acknowledgement of wrongdoing.  There is no recognition of actual harm.

A variant of the arsehole’s apology is the one we often see from sports stars or celebs.  You know the wossname Veitch piece of shit.  Sorry to fans, sorry to family, sorry to everyone but the person you fucking put in hospital.  And they all seem to do it. Apologise to people who are, in effect, an extension of you.

But this Libra one.  Maybe their PR people are all on holiday.  But just in case they happen to be watching, here is how you apologise.  Ahem…

I apologise for my actions in thinking that such an advertisement could ever be acceptable, and in allowing it to proceed. I realise this resulted in [recognise the actual harm caused].  I have no excuse that can justify this action.  I should have known better, and recognise that this ignorance does not mitigate the harm I caused. I hope I have learned from this, and will make every endeavour to improve my behaviour, and prevent any recurrence.  I will not insult you by promising that it will never happen again, as we all know that I cannot make that promise.  All I can do is demonstrate to you that I have learned, and will use this opportunity to educate others so that they might avoid making this mistake.

In short,

• take ownership for your actions
• be specific and understand what has happened
• make it personal to those who have been harmed
• demonstrate that you understand what harm was caused and why it was caused
• demonstrate you will try to learn and improve and educate others
• above all – MEAN IT.

This never undoes the harm, but it at least shows to people that you understand it now. And at the very least, you actually stop further harm.  You remove the offensive ad from wherever it may be (and that includes YouTube). You don’t pretend like it never happened, but you stop it from continuing to do harm.

There is one further thing you need to do.  In so many cases, the horrible comments and attitudes that are triggered by the offensive act – the hideous and vicious attacks it engenders, you have to deal with that as well.  Today, you have no excuse whatsoever to not realise that the comments are often as bad as (or worse) than the original act. And you are responsible for those too.  And you have to fix that.

Especially when you end up with all manner of nastiness on your Facebook page, you moderate properly. If you’ve put something on YouTube, you moderate that.  If you intend to release an “edgy” commercial just before a holiday period, you have someone watching your social media accounts closely so that your apology, your attempts at redressing the harm, can happen quickly.

Libra – you have one fucking massive lesson to learn here.  About issues trans* people face, about sexism, about interpretation, and about the nature of social media.  Until you realise this, and until you actually apologise properly, fuck you!! 

 

Ed note – sorry if this doesn’t hang together well – it was written in one take.