I spoke to a psychic medium the other day. I love me some woo-woo and having regular conversations with the dead. The medium told me I needed to get back to who I really am. Putting aside any scepticism for the psychic medium trade you may have, think about it. It makes sense, for me. See I am a mother, a single mother for that matter. I have spent the past fourteen plus years putting everyone first, my husband (now ex) my kids – still do, even my animals. Before I had kids, I was a carer for my mum and dad, so it has been a LONG bloody journey of being fourth or fifth in the pecking order. Somewhere along the way I forgot who the fuck I was, or rather I got lost in the shuffle, relegated to the back of the queue. Man, I used to be cool (in my own mind anyway) I used to love being up on stage, singing my heart out, I used to love travelling, I used to love flirting and dating and having a grand old time. I also used to love the way I looked, the way I lived, the way I partied, the way I connected. I was having so much fun. Then I had kids and got married. Now, don’t get me wrong, I bloody love my kids, (marriage not so much) I would fight Lucifer in a battle to protect them, I would climb Mt Everest to get them the food they love, I would turn into Mrs Doubtfire by the age of fifty to make sure their needs come first, this last one I actually did. Now I look in the mirror at this tired, overweight, achy slow version of me and wonder what the hell happened? And how do I move forward into my best life if I don’t stop and reclaim some of me back, move myself up the pecking order, maybe even to the number one spot for a while, just so I can find me again and sort my shit out. It sounds like such a privileged problem doesn’t it, losing oneself? And I guess it is. I have a roof over my head, my children are fed, clothed, supported and loved. Things could be worse. But when I was growing up, I didn’t envision a life like this. I didn’t envision being so tired all the time and struggling so much. I knew my brain was a bag of mixed nuts, but I know how to deal with that, mostly. But as for my life, I’m hoping it is not too late to change it, I do believe it is never too late to change things. Right? Tell me it isn’t. I wonder how many women fall down under the weight of solo parenting, two parent parenting, being a carer, a wife, a woman? Because let’s face it, even when you have a partner, it doesn’t mean they contribute. It doesn’t mean they cook dinners, make lunches, pick the kids up, drop the kids off, clean the house, do the washing, feed the animals, help with homework, read the kids stories, stay up all night when the kids are sick, do the grocery shopping, pay the bills and so on and so on…why do you think divorce rates are so high? Women have had enough. I had had enough. But I still have to parent, I still have do all, and be all for my kiddos. So how do I reclaim some of me back? I guess I have to be a little selfish, as mums we need to be ‘selfish’ but you know, it isn’t being selfish to care for oneself, to take little moments here and there to remember, to reconnect, to recalibrate. Because if we don’t, we won’t be able to do all the shit we have to do each day, or at the very least, not do it well. I am giving myself permission, and giving you permission (not that you need my approval) to take those moments, to put the movie on, to give them a screen, to send them to the neighbours, to get him to step up - so you have time to breathe, time to remember how fucking awesome you are. Because you are. Peace.
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I have bipolar disorder and it is my superpower. I didn’t know for sure I had Bipolar until I was in my 20’s, but when I got my diagnosis, everything made sense. I mean I grew up in the 80’s, no one paid any attention to mental health issues then, we just got on with it, so it was a relief for me to get some answers. Bipolar can make life tricky, exhausting and honestly horrid at times but it can also make life exciting, productive, thrilling and turbo charged. The trick is to find the balance, and by taking my meds, maintaining a healthy(ish) and keeping away from shit people and stressful situations I manage this. I don’t manage all the time, in fact right now my life is a bit of a cluster fuck but it is nothing I can’t resolve because I am a survivor and have been through worse and that is why having bipolar is my superpower. It has made me a warrior, it takes a lot to bring me down, if at all. So, I am ‘finding the balance’ once again. I’m pulling out the weeds. I have found in life that some people like to pick on the lowest hanging fruit. This is what I mean by shit people. I find as a person who suffers from a mood disorder and other mental illnesses, some people who have come into my life choose to blame me for their bad behaviour because I have bipolar. In their minds they acted the way they did because of me. Geez, now who needs therapy? It is an easy out, a gaslight, a low vibe, low energy, lazy thing to do. Let me give you a little context, I wanted to leave a relationship once, the person I was in the relationship with said that the only reason I wanted to leave was because of my bipolar. Wait what? It was because I liked change and so I shouldn’t leave, it was the wrong choice, didn’t I know this? It wasn’t because they were a gaslighting, manipulative, abusive rusty tool from the collective ‘tool’ shed. I admit, it threw me at first, because I am always hyper aware of the impact of my ‘behaviours’ but after I got over the self-doubt, confusion and guilt, all this narrative did was solidify my choice to leave the relationship because if you are prepared to manipulate like that, you will do anything. Another ex-partner chose to blame me for all the issues we had, despite the fact I was the only one deep in therapy and committed to working on myself. It was another way for them to justify continuing with their poor behaviour. They could sit on their high horse and say, ‘Look at her, she is crazy, that’s why everything went wrong.’ All my therapists and psychiatrists would and do disagree with you sir. Perhaps I am just drawn to low life’s who will sink to the mucky bottom of emotional manipulation? Perhaps it is because I carry the guilt of being unwell and knowing that anyone who gets involved with me, at some point or another will encounter me having an episode? Perhaps they think I am too stupid to know what they are doing? It makes me enjoy my own company greatly. It makes me stronger. But all of this leads to the next dilemma, when I do decide to venture out into the dating world again, if ever, when do I disclose my delightful laundry list of illnesses? Morally, it would be right from the beginning, wouldn’t it? But if that is one of the first things they know about me, will they be open enough to see that having bipolar is just one thing about me, I am also intelligent, fun, creative, compassionate, caring, loving, motivated, productive and so on, will everything I offer be continually seen through the lens of bipolar? Will I be once again be underestimated? Will the next person weaponize my Bipolar against me? It is exhausting just thinking about it. There are many reasons I don’t currently date, being a single mother with 100% care and being a wise old crone who can spot a red flag four miles away (my other superpower), but if I chose too, it would only take two seconds to Google me and see I have bipolar, so my work is done, my dilemma solved. I have found, men tend to not like being called out on their behaviour, (okay-not all men) and I just can’t help it sometimes – all the time. Not because I am perfect, or a judge or the ruler of the world but because I have tolerated SO much rubbish in my half a decade of life that I am bloody done, like a dog’s dinner. So dating… if someone decides they don’t want to get to know you because of your mental illness, then yes that is their prerogative, but what a shame it would be. There are so many amazing people in the world, contributing, thriving and just being awesome who also happen to have bipolar or any other of the mental illnesses and mood disorders in the world. I happily wear my bipolar superhero cape and because I don’t hide in shame, I will meet the right people at the right time, and the weeds will die away. I wish that for you too. Today has me thinking hard about grief. We have lost two beautiful people from the world over the past week, one at the beginning of his life and the other with many years behind her, both great losses. Of-course you know last week we lost the formidable, extraordinary warrior woman Sinead O’Connor, and today, the young and talented Angus Cloud from Euphoria. Both seem, if we believe what the media reports, to be weighed down heavy by a grief which eventually took them away.
Sinead losing her son eighteen months prior to her own life ending, he struggling with his own battles didn’t make it past seventeen. I can only imagine the intolerable pain losing a child would bring, I don’t know if I could survive that, Sinead did for eighteen months. But I imagine those months intolerable. Angus lost his father just weeks ago, the funeral just one week before he lost his own life. A few weeks living in the world without his best friend and father to decide that life without him was too much for him to bear. We don’t know exactly what happened yet, this is only speculation, but regardless the loss is immense. I get it. Grief can be a beast; it can be all consuming and overpowering. I have my own experience with loss and grief having lost both my parents by the time I was thirty-seven. Each death was excruciating, each time I didn’t know how to move forward. Even now at fifty-one, I wonder how to navigate this world alone, with no parent to call on for advice, for help, for money to fill the car, to watch the kids so I can work, to tell me I am doing a good job, to tell me to pull my head out of my arse when I am being self-indulgent. Just to be my parents, so I am not the grownup. I miss them. But for whatever reason, I made it through the grief, the loss and the pain. It wasn’t because I had a great support system around me, I didn’t. It wasn’t because I was a superhero, super strong or resilient. I was and am just ordinary. The thing is, in our lives, we will all experience grief, it is unavoidable, and as humans it is even worse because we know this. We know we will lose our parents, our children know they will lose us. Hopefully it works in that order, many times it doesn’t. The world was so cruel to Sinead, she struggled to exist in it because she didn’t fit into any of the boxes people kept trying to stuff her into. She tore up the picture of the Pope and was crucified yet she was right and now in death the world sends her accolades. What hypocrisy. What a pity the accolades weren’t sent while she was alive, living deep in grief. It wouldn’t have made the grief easier but maybe, just maybe she would have felt a little less alone. Angus was a star on the rise, an undoubtable talent, his performance in Euphoria was absolutely mesmerising. What a damn shame we will never see him grow, just like those before him like River Phoenix, Heath Ledger and even James Dean. We can’t look away, they steal our hearts and then they are gone. I hope they have found peace now, I hope their pain has ended but I bloody wish they were still here. I am selfish like that and I want more of them. The world needed more of them. But to anyone struggling under the weight of grief know that there are people who want more of you, we all want more of you. So stick around. Maybe that’s why I made it through grief, I wanted a little bit more of me too. I used to love constant change, I found it thrilling and exciting. I sought it out. Who wants to be boring I’d think, not me! I’d blame it on my star sigh, I’m a Gemini, we are a feisty lot, creative and needing lots of stimulation, we have two sides, which one will I be today? Partners would blame my love of change on my bipolar, ‘You only want to break up because you’re bipolar,’ or ‘Everything is your fault because of your brain.’ Steady on mate, I don’t see your degree, nor your hours and hours spent in therapy picking apart said brain. I break up with you because you are not good for me, I make decisions and mistakes because I am human, just like you, but at least I am making them. It's easy to sit on that high horse and throw little stones, you can’t even be bothered to pick up the rocks, too much effort, you’re lazy like that. There is no one more critical of me than me. As I said I used to love and crave change, I can be hard to keep up with if you’re the wrong type. In many ways I still do, but I have learnt to find value in the consistency that comes with certain phases of life. When you are a single parent, or perhaps just a parent in general? there isn’t a huge amount of wiggle room with the daily ins and outs. You have to clean the house, you have to feed the kids, you have to make some money, you have to get kids to school and to appointments, to bed, you have to pay all the bills, do all the shopping, be everything because you are on your own… there is a lot of ‘same.’ I am in the ‘same’ phase now. My kids need consistency, they need to feel safe and steady, so this ship I am steering, I am diverting away from the icebergs because we don’t need to go down like the ill-fated Titanic. RIP. I’m pushing for routines, early bedtimes, better meals, quiet time, rest, conversations, I’m listening hard because they deserve to be heard. This is my Mother phase, I am motherless, so I am navigating this without a map. My Maiden phase is now long behind me, it was fun for a time. Some days I feel more like I am in my Crone phase, age wise I am getting close, or perhaps I just wish I was because I am weary. I wish to sleep with the moon and rise with the sun, to drink tea in my garden without care, to have completely, once and for all let go of all those who trouble me, knowing I have done my time and owe no one. To sit in the sun with my eyes closed, to let my stomach out, that stomach bloated from childbirth and age. To turn grey gracefully, although they are yet to appear, to move slower because I have the time. To cackle delightfully because I am considered the mad village witch, that would please me. To write my spooky stories and sing my spooky songs, because it’s what I love to do. To be at peace knowing my kids are happy and healthy human beings because of the work I put in. To know that every sacrifice I made was bloody worth it, because they are worth it. I look forward to the Crone. But I am Mother right now and always will be of course, although my role will reduce. So, I settle in, being present in this moment because before long it will pass. I know change will come, when it is time, but not yet. I pull on the reins and ask my horses to wait a little longer. I don’t want to miss a minute. That itching under my skin to change is still there, it always is. But we have a deal. Change needs to take a time out for a while so I can parent the way I want to parent. It is mostly okay with that because it understands. We as humans, move through phases in life and some are harder than others, some feel like you won’t make it through but we do, mostly. As we age the phases become a little scarier, because as a species we are too aware of our mortality. But we can look at that awareness as a gift, we can savour the moments, the phases, embrace them all before our time runs out. Hopefully we have a good few years before it does. So for now, the Mother continues on, the Crone lies in wait and I smile my crooked smile because I know I am blessed. Perhaps you’ll see me years from now, I’ll be the one riding the night sky on my broom, cackling away, sprinkling magic dust over you all. Peace. I’ve been a single parent for a big chunk of time now. I have chosen to make certain 'sacrifices' or 'decisions' because I wanted to put my kids first. In some ways, this was my only option having a neuro-diverse kiddo but one I do not regret regardless. Single parent life has many ups and downs, financially it is tough, but all single parents know this right? I don’t really have much of a life outside kids, but I do grab moments here and there to do things I love like music and writing which completely float my boat, and I am so fucking happy that my kids and I are super close, that is my reward for it all. Being the primary (only) carer means I make all the calls, all the decisions, sometimes I get it super fucking right and sometimes super fucking ‘not so’ right, but at least I am there doing my best to not fuck these kids up too much, because let’s face it, all parents fuck their kids up to some extent, some more than others. At least we are there, doing it all, being bloody superheroes. I carry the weight of the good and the bad, the happy and the sad and I wouldn’t trade it for the world BECAUSE when I am old and pooping my pants, these kids will feel indebted to pay me back for all the years. No, I’m kidding, sort of, I wouldn’t trade it because they are fucking awesome and I adore them and life is about connecting, learning and growing. Life with them is the joy of a family bond I never had, it is healing in so many ways, too many to count. They have taught me that it isn’t ‘all about me,’ that I am not the centre of the universe, they don’t owe me shit, my ego has rightfully copped a walloping. I chose to have them, to love them, to nurture them, to help them grow into reasonably well functioning adults and will help them bounce back after they fuck up, as they will and do regularly. I’ve been playing with tarot cards of late, another one of my loves, and there is one card that kept jumping out at me over and over one day, it was the Strength card. How apt. I’ve got it, you’ve got it. We can do the hard things. So I raise my glass to all those who stayed, who put in the work, who love and cherish, who keep picking themselves up off the floor after another takedown, who keep going regardless of it all. I fucking salute you. Peace. Being an adult was hard this week, toffee hard, crack your teeth and pull out your crowns hard. But as always, I chew on, whacking a bit of super glue in to hold it all together. Firstly, we had Mother’s Day and I’m not a fan of Mother’s Day. I’m a single mumma, so there isn’t much fan-fare, I did get the book I asked for from my youngest which was sweet, but the actual day was the same as every other. It’s a bit like New Year’s Eve for me, I feel the pressure to ‘have a good day’ to be indulged, taken care of, spoilt even. But that is not what happens for most single mums. We still have to do all the things, no one else is going to cook, clean, manage the pets, manage the stupid fucking laundry or deal with any other ‘chore’ that needs doing and half the time we buy our own presents from the school Mother’s Day stall. The other reason I dislike Mother’s Day is that my mother died on Mother’s Day 23 years ago. She had the Big C, I say it was big because it was all consuming, it consumed her body, her happiness and in the end her life. Cancer is a motherfucker, let’s be clear. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, or maybe… well no not even then, because I believe in karma and I hope I am a good person. I also have healthy dose of medical anxiety, that means basically I think everything is going to kill me. As I get older the chances of this happening increases, in my opinion anyway. I’m needing tests for things I had never thought about when I was younger, back when we were all invincible. I didn’t think about colonoscopies and mammograms, skin checks, eye tests, hearing tests and pap smears. I was blessed with good health, not good mental health, let’s be honest, that’s dodgy as shit, but my body worked okay. These day’s my body breaking down, falling apart, needing more servicing than ever, but I am still here, I am lucky. Speaking of needing a service, my car overheated this week, my radiator had died, so I got that fixed. Then once I got my car back and went on my merry way, my car started shaking like it had been possessed by a wicked car demon and smelt like it was burning the souls of car now passed. I got home safely and had the NRMA tow it back to the mechanics and of course they found nothing wrong with it, so said demon had moved on - hopefully to a Tesla. I have decided one day I would like to replace my car with a Peugeot. My Dad drove a Peugeot when I was a kid, back when our butts stuck to the plastic seat covers and we didn't have seat belts. I loved that car and was crushed when he sold it cheaply to a neighbourhood kid and replaced it with an old BMW. Having a Peugeot of my own will allow me to indulge myself in some nostalgia from my youth, minus the sticky seats and with more safety options, hopefully it won’t be open to possessions either. (PS Peugeot – hit me up) As I said being an adult was hard this week, besides Mother’s Day kind of sucking, missing my own mum and car demons, I have had several appointments with psychologists and psychiatrists, and not even for me, but as the parent of the child requiring these professionals and I was given homework. I don’t do well with homework. I get the logic behind the assignment I was given to work on with my child, but it just piled another layer of stress on me and when I asked for clarity on the homework I was told to, ‘Just do what I said.’ Righto, fucking brilliant that is. Our homework will be checked tomorrow at our next appointment, I hope I got at least 60%... but honestly, don’t give tired, overwhelmed single mum’s homework. I am also trying to sort my health out and have a zoom call in an hour with a potential coach that might be able to help me get on track, but that probably means more homework right? I would really like to tame the medical anxiety beast by at the very least looking after myself a bit better. You see, I don’t look after myself. I haven’t put myself first in decades, I still can’t really, but I can do better than I am. Physically I’m twice the woman I used to be but inside I feel like half… I have to fix this, sort this mess out. I can talk about getting healthy until the cows come home but they never come home. So I am ringing the cow bell and calling them in. I hope your week has been kinder, I hope Mother's Day was nice to you or if it sucked like mine, you have support. Let see what next week brings? Peace I’m scared of needles, I loathe them, I can’t even look at them but will happily go and get tattoos. I’ll even go voluntarily, I pay good money for them, tattoos I love. But needles for any other purpose, forget it. I went to see a new acupuncturist this week, I haven’t seen one in over 13 years, because needles… My newly acquired acupuncturist asked why I was so terrified of getting acupuncture but will happily get tattoos, apparently this is not uncommon. I had no answer. I’m crazy? She only managed to put two needles in before resorting to Moxi. Moxibustion is something I love, its warm and smells divine. But only two needles? What a wimp. Two weeks ago, I sat for over two hours having my cats angry face inked onto my arm and am planning to go back for touch ups and another tattoo? And it hurts way more than acupuncture. There is no logic here, I must be mad… Perhaps it’s the fact you have to lay there with the needles sticking out of you for a period of time. You have to lay there and ‘relax’ as if! When I am getting a tattoo, I happily growl or swear in the painful bits and laugh too, but lay there serenely with needles poking out? My brain says, ‘Nope, not okay.’ And my anxiety, the sinister little fucker, whom I call Maude, laughs her head off. I have a deep fear that I will bump one of the tiny little needles, sending it plummeting into my skin and piercing a vital organ, leading to death and catastrophic injury. I explained this (irrational?) fear to my acupuncturist and she explained it was impossible and then showed me a needle. By this stage Maude was cheering, ‘Yeah show her, that’ll fuck her up!’ She, my acupuncturist, not Maude, wanted me to see how it had a handle and how pretty the handle was (huh?), but more to the point that the handle prevented it going further in… To me the non-handle bit still looked long enough to stab me to death. I’ll also mention I have an out of control fear of knives, can’t look at them, can’t watch someone hold one, can’t handle slasher flicks but can cut vegetables? Weird huh? I do wish my daughter would stop asking to watch Scream, she has a love of horror I am slightly disturbed by. I on the other hand, never want to see any type of needle (or knife), I don’t watch the tattoo gun, I don’t watch when I have blood drawn and I certainly didn’t watch when I had two epidural needles plunged into my spine followed by a spinal block chaser. No Thank You. That’s the thing about anxiety, it always sends you to the worst-case possible scenario. My anxiety, Maude, loves to send me spiralling, she always makes me believe it is going to be far worse than it actually is. Except for acupuncture then Maude’s right. When I was trying to conceive my first child, I tried everything, including acupuncture. I went to see a lovely old Chinese Acupuncturist who not only stuck oodles of needles in me, but then attached wires to them and ‘gently’ electrocuted me. Perhaps this is where some of my trauma lies? But it worked, I got pregnant and had my first child. By now, if you are still here reader, you are probably thinking, why the fuck does she go then, if she is so scared, well I go because I believe it works. I’m heading in for some tests next week and Maude has me thinking worst-case again, so I am getting this old body of mines immune system pumping. If Maude is wrong, then at least my immunity has had a jump start, if she is right, then acupuncture will become a regular part of my life, so I better give Maude a Valium and settle in. I have had a gutful of trying to navigate the mental health system here in Australia. It is a complete bin fire. It blows my already fragile mind that someone who is suffering severely from mental illness cannot access help and support, now if that isn’t bad enough, imagine if it is your child.
I have a child with complex issues and quite severe mental illness. He is only just a teenager. We have been accessing different sorts of minimal support for him since he was a baby and are lucky enough to have a small amount of NDIS funding which covers a few of the supports he needs, but it isn’t a lot. He is now at the stage where he needs further, more complex help, medication and diagnosing through a psychiatrist. Sounds simple enough right? Well it’s not. I have been searching for a psychiatrist for him for longer than I can count, firstly finding a child psychiatrist where we live is impossible, we live in a smaller and very limited community, so I look further away. The next problem is everyone’s books are closed, so I look even further away, I finally found two who would take him on, I was thrilled, finally we have help. It might be a two-hour or more drive for a kid that hates getting in a car, but we can do it. Beggars can’t be choosers. Then I got the list of fees. The first one charged, $800 per hour session and I was advised the first session will probably take 2 hours, so $1600 for an extended meet and greet. Wait what? He is 13! I am a single mum, I’m lucky to have $8 spare at the end of a week let alone $1600 and if I used the little NDIS funding we have, it would be gone almost immediately. I explained to her that this was completely outside my budget, could she suggest anyone else or any other options and was swiftly shunted back to my GP (as if we hadn’t already exhausted every name he had given us) The next psychiatrist charged between $900-$1000 per hour session. I cannot understand how this is legal. We are lucky to have Medicare in this country, and there is a small rebate but I would still be out of pocket minimum $500-$1000 a session. Is this the standard? Or have child psychiatrists taken advantage of the completely limited amount of mental health professionals and exploited the system? If I was rich, then it would not be a problem but most of us are not. Most of us are mums doing it alone, trying to help our kids, trying to help keep them out of hospitals, alive and growing into amazing members of society. It is a fucking farce, I am damn angry. Prior to this ring around of hell, I contacted a local, well known community mental health organisation (that I won’t name here) and I explained that my child had depression and needed some extra support, I also explained some of his other diagnosis, none of which I wanted them to treat, I was told, ‘He is too complicated and our staff wouldn’t be able to help him.’ Seriously? An organisation where kids go to talk, and they can’t listen to him? His GP can only help so much, he can’t even prescribe some of the medications he may need. So I am stuck. He has a psychologist he sees at most fortnightly, for which we are very lucky to have but it is not enough. He is drowning. During C*vid, the mental health care plan that usually allows ten Medicare subsidised sessions was doubled to twenty, due to the overwhelming demand for mental health support, late last year it was slashed back to ten. Apparently, the increase in Medicare subsidised sessions blew up wait lists and stressed the system, clearly the whole system is problematic, especially for those in a low income household and or a low socio-economic area. Surely this swell in demand showed the government that’s its citizens are suffering, that we need more support than ever, most can barely afford to live, people can’t even keep their homes, but what do they do? Slash the funding. There are herds of people and children falling through the cracks. Schools can only do so much, they are under enough pressure but also sometimes they just don’t get it right. Sometimes they expect our kids to perform miracles when getting them to school in the first place is hard enough. Sometimes they push out the kids they can’t deal with, make it someone else’s problem. The demand for programs that cater for children with mental illness and other diagnosis is also under pressure and places are extremely hard to access. There has to be a better way, why the hell is Australia spending $368 billion to buy three nuclear powered submarines from America, while our kids are going under? Biden has approved The Willow Project, so we don’t give a shit about the planet we are leaving for our kids either. It is a cluster fuck, the whole thing. I am mad as hell. I am exhausted from fighting daily for my children but I will NEVER give up. These kids are the ones who have to mop up the mess us adults are creating, and they are mad as hell too. They have limited power, they can’t vote (yet) and although they can protest (as they should) and fight for a better future for themselves, these withering old white men are making choices that won’t impact their own lifetimes but our children’s. I am fed up. We MUST do better. I don’t have any answers, but I hope to God that our smart, resourceful children can get it right, the pity is, they shouldn’t have too. I'm a little late to the party but I am finally indulging in the US version of Shameless. Now despite my immense sadness that Jeffrey Dean Morgan was only around for one episode, I am loving this show. It kind of reminds me of my life, without the ghetto/South side part. The scrambling to make ends meet, the continual school lunches, getting kids to actually go to school, navigating everyone's mental health and needs. The moments of losing the plot, overwhelm and chaos and as a parent, surrendering a lot of what makes you tick to keep your family moving forward and of course the bipolar. William H Macy is brilliant as the alcoholic, narcissistic, manipulative, scumbag dad. The whole cast is superb, not a weak link in sight. The multi generational portrayal of bipolar disorder is heartbreaking. Monica, the absent matriarch of the Gallagher family suffers from Bipolar 1 and it is passed on to her son Ian. Her bipolar is devastating for herself and for her whole family, her choice to live without medication, (a choice easy to make when you are feeling good) leaves her vulnerable to the highest of highs and the most tragic of lows. The writers of the show choose for her to survive, so far (I am only in season 5 of 11) But this is not always the case, hence why medication is often literally life saving. Now that Ian is displaying signs of also having bipolar, such as not sleeping, hypersexuality, rapid speech, grand ideas, impulsivity and high energy contrasted by manic depression, sleeping for days, and being unable to function at all in the world and his life, we see the same battle, his resistance to getting help and taking medication. This stigma around seeking help and being medicated is very real, this is why we need to fight to remove the stigma around mental health diagnosis. It is not weak to get help, in fact it takes big ovaries to face your diagnosis. I didn't for over a decade, I mean who wants to be seen as broken? Who wants people to avoid them because of how their brain works? I don't believe these things to be true, but some do. I have chatted to men who have told me their ex was crazy, now this is a common red flag I hear when someone is trying to diminish their part in a relationship break down. When I call them on it, they say something like, 'No she was REALLY crazy, she had *insert diagnosis*' It's bollocks. My diagnosis is my superpower, it helps me to stop and take the time to take care of myself, it fuels my creative work and gives me a passion to breakdown these ignorant walls surrounding mental health. It also filters out the folk who prefer not to learn and understand mental health issues. I have some amazing people in my life who get it, surround yourself with people who get you, and people who are willing to learn. It isn't always easy, far from it. But we make the best of the hand we are dealt right? or some cliche similar to that. Now I'm going to make a cup of tea and watch the next episode, Ian has just kidnapped a baby, the drama! I'm here for it. Have a good day folks, oh and take your meds. Did you miss me? Huh? You didn't notice I was gone. Never mind, here I am. Back, refreshed, newly medicated and ready to dive in. A lot has happened in the years since I was last here, (No shit Sherlock - you think you're the only one with stuff?) Seriously though, how have you all been? I have been busy starting my son off in high school, juggling all the appointments and business that comes with having a neuro-diverse kiddo and supporting my daughter she she enters her final year in primary school. I restarted my garden for the nine hundredth time, got a new deck built so I can sit with my tea admiring the veggies growing ferociously, while dodging the branches the cockatoos hurl at me from the tree above. I have been in the studio recording several new music projects, all of which excites the fuck out of me. Can't wait to send that shit out into the world. What else? I got a new psychiatrist. Now that is exciting. New psych, new diagnosis, new meds, new me. Bloody Brilliant. And lots of writing, always lots of writing. Oh and I turned 50! Not even sure how I got here so quickly. Today is a miserable day here, even though it's summer, it is foggy, rainy and shit but I love it like this. The world quietens down for me on days like this, there is less business. Although I do have to go get some food, unless my son wants cat biscuits in his lunch tomorrow. My daughter is on camp, her first big camp. She is off snorkelling, bloody proud of her, she's an anxious kid so it was a big step going to camp. I'm hoping 2023 is a good year for us all, it's already the end of February, time keeps moving too fast for me. I'm hoping I have another 30/40 years to get all the shit done I want to do. I better get moving. Let me know what you're up to? Anyway, thanks for reading, thanks for being here, I'll be around a lot more now. Elizabeth By the way, I want to get Quails, anyone have Quails? any tips? |
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