F*ck, RU OK day?

So today is R U OK Day; a day in which we all tweak tweet and facebook our identities towards tolerance and understanding of people who are thinking about topping themselves and patronisingly tell them that there is plenty of help out there. We all say dumb shit like ‘it’s totally ok to talk to people’ or ‘you’re never alone’ without really realising that if someone is actually alone and/or has no one to talk to while having nasty thoughts of that kind, that would be a truly f*cked up thing to say to them.  That is the joys of social media: the ability to talk to someone without actually talking to them or being with them. We all cut and paste a link to lifeline or one of the many, many other organisations that are supposedly there to help those people. The problem that I have with this is, I doubt anyone who is promoting this nonsense  has ever come in contact with these organisations, because my thinking is that if they had, there is no way they would advertise it as a potential course of action.  

In my experience, and, having chased the matter up with a number of people since then, these organisations are beyond totally useless. In my case they made the situation considerably worse by simple incompetence. 

From talking to others, this seems to be more the norm than the exception. These organisations are useless. For a number of reasons too: the staff are poorly trained; there is no specialisation/identification with the caller and there is no ability of a telephone counsellor to treat a caller as a person rather than just a case study that they pretended to read in a psych textbook they pretend to have. 

So, as you’ve probably guessed, this is a nasty post. Not like ‘hey Michael, I don’t think Arlo Guthrie was any good’ type nasty, but, nasty none the less.

My experience is of being in a truly nasty place and talking about it with a flirty and giggly girl from lifeline and then a surly old battle axe and misogynist from Mensline, both of whom gave me appallingly bad advice. The flirty little thing from lifeline takes the cake though.  After listening to issues that I had at the time, giggling and complementing me in very personal way, she then proceeded to ask me if I was having any thoughts of killing myself. In hindsight, this is probably the stupidest thing someone could say in this situation, because my thoughts were, “well, no, I haven’t thought about that, but maybe I should.” So thanks for planting that thought in my mind dipshit (not that I did think of it that much at all – memories of teenage experiences with that stopped any serious thoughts there, it just in hindsight strikes me as a ridiculous and negligent thing to say).  

You see dear reader, a while ago, I had a breakdown, a total and complete failure to be able to deal with things.

Strange thing really if you have ever been through that sort of thing. Like one minute you’re fine and the next, your brain is offline. Like some sort of computer error message coming through

“Oops, we’re sorry, the features you’re trying to access: Rational thought; the ability to deal with heights and enclosed spaces are currently unavailable...please try again later.”

You see, I used to be one of those peeps who believed that stress was just some bullshit disease made up by vested interest industry and cured by horrid music and weird smelling bath salts. My family was falling apart, I was taking on way too much work, study and everything else, as I always have and never giving myself some slack to just take a breath and realise what was around me. The LoML was going through nasty things and her mother was adding fuel to the fire by hurling abuse at her left, right and centre. She told the LoML that she never wanted to have children. She was pregnant before she realised she was gay and owed it to her husband to give him another child. She was excited to find out she was having a daughter, but that excitement never resulted in pride in her daughter and now she is sorry she ever had one.

Pretty messed up hey? There were tonnes of messages like that one, albeit that was probably the pick of them. That was also the point where I stepped in and stopped the LoML from talking to her mother and visa versa. It wasn’t the right thing for me to do I know, but it was the lesser of two wrong things I could have done. So I took control of it all and waddled through, trying to get things back on track and as soon as they were, bang, that is when my mind decided to completely and utterly konk out.

This is not the first time I have had issues of this nature. It is the first time I have not been able to control it though. This post is probably the first time I have ever said anything of this type. If you count yourself amongst that crowd, you get treated abysmally. In fact, you get treated abysmally if you were a dog, let alone a person. Everything is your fault; you are the one that is faulty, broken; there is this thing inside you that is corrupt, broken, rotten and has to be cut out and destroyed before you as a person can be treated like a person again. Until that time (which will never come) you will be ignored and passed over by everyone who knows of this. Like you have the plague. If you’re unlucky enough to experience this as a teenager, you get to have your life destroyed by this and by medication: mind-altering, mind-numbing pills so that you barely remember watching your family and friends leave you to die.

As a result, I have always been sceptical of people who wear their mental illness as though it is a badge of honour. Depression is normal, but only during ad-breaks and only when it’s excusing horrendous behaviour, never when it is just there, never when it’s actually real. Bipolar is the new black, certainly the new excuse for doing or being the most abhorrent person you can be. At the same time, I am all for people being able to deal with these things without any shame, but get real about the whole public over-share thing. I believe that there is crazy amounts of character found in memories of holding a broken bone china vase over your wrist and praying to God for the strength to push down, but it in no way excuses behaviour toward other people.

So I think being ok is a great concept, but am not so sure on the focus on talking things through if you may not be. From someone that's been to hell and back enough times to bitch about how bad the road there is nowadays, I think ' ok' is a very good term to think about. Life too easily turns to shit without any rhyme or reason. You'll do your head in if you try and find any meaning in that, but it will swing back round again. Being ok for me means that there is something central to me that keeps me smiling. Doesn't have to be the same thing, or only one thing and it doesn't have to be explainable to others - but it's always there, the trick is to take the time to find it.
But I am not so sure about seriously talking out things - I have never been able to - things that destroyed my life have been too unbelievable and ridiculous when said out loud, so I have never been able to do that - speaking about them for me gives them more importance than they deserve and make me lay so much blame and anger on the people that are responsible for them, places someone (usually me) in a situation of being a judge over others and ties the whole thing up further in emotional distress where quazi-lethal amounts of alcohol and other substances present the only way out of a cycle of rage - and that's a very bad place to be. So , I would be very skeptical about this 'let's talk things out ' sort of thing - if it works for you - then great, but be careful. - I have always found that it's the catch cry of psychologists, wankers, priests and rich kids and focuses way too much on rationality and obvious, stateable concepts and nothing on your own understanding of the unstateable.

As Jung says 'we should not pretend to understand the world by reason alone, we know it just as much by feeling and reason should, if it be honest, come to an understanding of its own inadequacies'

So today, rather than asking someone if they’re ok, what we should do is just walk into a bar near you and say ‘you can get anything you want at Alices Restaurant’ and walk out.

And before you grammar Nazis out there go on about the ownership apostrophes again – you don’t use them ever in proper nouns ok?

This post’s lame joke:

how many Queensland public servants does it take to change a light bulb?

A lot less than it used to.

This post’s inappropriate over-share: I have been using this calorie counting thingy on my iPhone to shed some winter weight. The problem with it though is that it doesn’t have any category in the exercise area for sex, which I think is a bit weird so I have been putting in fifteen minutes of yoga and five minutes of push ups and sit ups. So now I have this thing that maybe I am cheating at this...have been trying to be a little more stretchy and flexy, but it still feels that I am cheating myself.

This post’s Michael’s pet hate: People that bitch about poor grammar skills when they themselves have a bad understanding of the Queens English. Don’t get me wrong on this, if you’re not up with grammar and speak in text talk or the like, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the people that go out of their way to write to bloggers to criticise them on their grammar when they themselves don’t know what they are talking about – like when to use an ownership apostrophe or the difference between was and were in the subjunctive.

Here’s lookin at you kid...

I have this issue with the way I look, well, many issues really: that I look way too serious, and that I am starting to look way too much like my father; but the one issue that really plagues me is: am I a good looking person?

I know, I know, “vanity writing much?” I hear you moan, but that’s not my point. I really don’t know. I take a really, really terrible photo. There are hardly any photos of me in existence that don’t make me look like a dumb bogan or an airhead stoner type. As a kid, I was always a mongy looking boy: fell off a water tank when I was crazy young, so most photos of me as a child have this pained look from my front teeth. I was way too lanky and generally badly dressed and had crooked eyes, but that all started to change when I was about 14-15 years old. But I don’t know how or to what. I started to get instant aesthetic cred, which I still get, but I have no idea what that means.

I have never been a very visual person, having bad eyesight would probably be the cause of that, But cruising around the place, I do get a high level of cred in most situations (you know what I mean) and always have. I know that there is some sort of visual thing going on with me, but I don’t know what that is. I generally get by a lot on looks and charm than on real substance (which I have plenty of too...ba da chaa), but this may well just be the way of the world and nothing to do with me intrinsically. Then there are many other occasions where things have been obvious in a way, but I really don’t know why or exactly what that means. One thought that comes to mind is my academic credibility was once doubted by a minxy old law professor on the reasoning that “god doesn’t give with both hands”. Maybe she was just weird. But I still look in the mirror and see this mongy looking little boy with sore teeth.

I am always amazed by the difference between when I duck into Woolies or somewhere on a weekend, with a couple of kids in tow, compared to when I duck into pick up something on the way home from work, all dolled up in city clothes with no kids. I am not sure the difference between the two situations in the eyes of strangers, I am the same person, just that the appearance that I give produces such a different result. But the huge difference that I have noticed recently is due to me having a black eye.

I have been a sick little boy lately; have had a lung infection that has led to serious coughing fits that for a few days led me to vomit due to gag reflexes being engaged. One night, while rushing for the toilet, I took that last corner at speed and too soon and bang, right in the eye I tells ya... The result was a severely badass looking black eye. I don’t think I have ever had a black eye before. Not that I remember anyway, but the result of walking around with one is just phenomenal. People who are usually a little flirty and over-the-top treated me like I had  the plague. It was amazing. I never realised what a visual and fickle world we live in. I was really concerned for a while that people would remember this (I live in a smaller town) and as a result this would be permanent, but no, as the black eye faded, the giggly flirtiness returned in full form. I must admit I am rather taken by the whole thing. It’s not that I’m up my own butt about this type of thing, just nice to be appreciated aesthetically. But it still doesn’t adequately answer my question.

By the way, sorry I haven’t been here in a while. I have been very sick and my uncle died...been a bad week really.

This post’s Lame Joke: A fireman came home from work one day and told his wife that he wanted his sex life to run like his work life: all ordered exactly and working on command.

“At work, everything is ordered according to bells, everyone knows their place and does their job. Bell one, he said, means you have thirty seconds to get into the bedroom. Bell two means you should be completely naked and then finally bell three means it’s time to fxxx like rabbits.”

The wife duly agrees, seeing nothing wrong with this new arrangement.

Later on that night, the fireman decided that it was time to try out his new routine.

He yelled out “Bell One.”

Instantly his wife was eagerly awaiting him in the boudoir.

She was completely naked and looking saucily at him as he yelled “Bell Two”

As he yelled “Bell Three,” his wife jumped on top of him and pounded him into the bed time and time again.

After about a minute, the fireman’s wife yelled out “Bell Four, Bell Four!!!”

“Bell Four? There is no Bell Four. What does that mean?” asked the fireman.

“Hose isn’t long enough, too far away from the fire!” replied his wife.

This Post’s ‘Michael’s dumb pet hate’: People that say “oh, I didn’t mean to...” I mean, what is up with that? Someone’s just been a total jerk behind your back for years and they say “oh, I didn’t mean to...” what has that to do with anything?

This post’s inappropriate over share:  I don’t actually know the name of the gal who was the first person to you know what me.. I know, this is terrible. I knew her as a nickname, which I didn’t realise wasn’t her name until later on, then I couldn’t find her, nor have the courage to explain why I wanted to...