My babies.

Crazy vs. sick

I’ve always found it difficult to talk about my psychological disorders seriously with other people. It’s like you can feel the air solidify with discomfort when it comes into conversation. It is so much easier to laugh it off and claim insaniity than it is to explain the dynamics of mental illness. It’s easier to simply call yourself crazy than it is to call yourself sick.

When people ask why I do particular things, or why I behave in particular ways the discussion ALWAYS seems to flow better when I play the ‘crazy’ card than it does when I play the ‘serious’ card. To say ‘I’m just fucking crazy’, generates a better response than ‘I suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, anxiety, depression, mania and OCD’. When I claim to be crazy, people are comfortable, people laugh and people talk about it. But if I say I am sick, if I say I suffer from mental illness, people become tense and awkward, people seem like they just want out of the situation. It’s like responding with ‘I have an STD that is highly contagious and you’ve likely contracted it just by looking at me’. People freak out on the inside.

Why is it so hard to discuss mental illness? It is nothing novel, nothing rare, and it sure as life isn’t contagious. So why? Why do people shy away from it, or change the conversation immediately upon hearing the words ‘depression’ or ‘anxiety’ or ‘schizophrenia’?

People can claim all they like that they feel uncomfortable because they ‘just don’t understand’. But no one can never understand if they never ask the question or have the conversation.

Goal #736 – Have a secret admirer = ACHIEVED

Today my mum googled my name. She found the generics – facebook, myspace, school website, volunteer work. I continued to browse because, hey, why not? Then I found a blog about me published in 2004.

Someone loved me. Someone’s blog name was I_love_amiee_rogic. Someone was stoked that they got to touh my arse at Scienceworks when they pretended to fall over. Someone didn’t expect me to come across this 8 years later.

Fact or fiction, I am chuffed. Thank you secret admirer for brightening my life.

 

Some teenagers sicken me.

I was a teenager once. I was silly, reckless and defiant. But my goodness, I was never like the teenagers I speak of tonight.

I was told today of two girls, overheard, speaking about another girl. A girl they wanted to trick into drinking hydrochloric acid in science class so she would die. A girl they wanted to trick into looking toward them so they could burn her face with a bunsen burner. A girl they wanted to feel utmost pain and misery for their pleasure.

I am disgusted. I feel sick to my stomach. I feel like my bones have been tainted with poison.

Thoughts like that shouldn’t form in the head of any human, let alone the head of a mere adolescent.

I don’t care what the circumstances. Perhaps the girl they don’t like is an absolute ‘loser’. Perhaps she is someone that has bullied them and made their lives miserable as well. Perhaps she is a girl they’ve observed and never spoken to. Perhaps the girl is a friend who they’ve had a falling out with.

I don’t give a damn who she is.

There is no excuse. There is never an excuse.

The problem with PC.

Has society’s recent drive for rigid political correctness done more harm than good? A degree of PC is always good – I am not denying that cultural equality is a beautiful and amazing thing. On the contrary, I am a massive human rights activist, and I wish for a day where racism is no longer a problem in society. However, to what degree does being PC begin to blur the line between consideration and racism?

For instance, I am going to use the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ to describe two of my friends in this post – two friends who identify themselves as either black or white. Some people do believe that the use of these terms in itself is racism, and I apologise in advance if you are offended by the following content. I mean not to offend, but to tell a story.

Two friends of mine recently attended a costume party together. One is a young black man, and one a young white man. Both are international human rights activists, and amazing people. At this particular dress up function, however, they caused a stir with their costume choices. My black friend dressed up as a  white man – he painted his skin white and wore a blonde wig. Everyone had a good laugh with him about his costume and praised him for his cross-cultural approach. They responded differently to my white friend, however, who painted his skin black for the night. He was told that he was being culturally insensitive and that his costume choice was innapropriate by a number of people. Some people were the same people who had earlier praised my black friend who dressed as a white man. Furthermore, it was the white people at the party who had a problem with my friend being dressed as a black man, not the black people at the party.

And therein lies my main issue with PC. Upon hearing this story I was completely disappointed. How can one person be praised for pushing the boundries between cultures because they are black, and another be criticised for borderline racism for the same thing as a white person? Has society pushed PC in a direction that promotes a different kind of racism? A kind of racism where behaviours or actions are inappropriate only in one direction and not another? A kind of racism where people are so sensitive to being PC that they further highlight the differences between races without realising? Does it not create a further gap between racial and cultural equality to deem a white man dressed as a black man to be racist, but shrug at the gesture of a black man dressed as a white man?

I am not making a statement as to whether either of their costume choices was appropriate or inappropriate. Each person is entitled to their own opinion as to what is offensive. What I am pointing out is the disparity in responses to my two friends. A disparity which displays an apparent ignorance in what it means to be PC and what it means to be racist. By all means, be an activist for human rights, for racial equality, for cultural equality – just be sensible and consistent.

Who knew I could love a cat more than a human being?

Reaquainting myself with organisation.

I am both very erratic and very disorganised. My behaviour lacks consistency and regularity. Some days I am manic, some days I am motivated, some days I am lazy, some days I am happy, most days I am tired, some days I am exhausted, some days I can’t be bothered. The list goes on. My organisation skills are seriously lacking. I leave everything to last minute, I leave a whirlwind of mess everywhere I go, and I can barely organise my thoughts let alone my life. This obviously impacts on my relationships with people.

My relationships and interactions with people are perhaps the most important aspect of my life. I am someone who holds highly interpersonal aspects of life, and I would sacrifice writing a decent assignment if it meant that I wouldn’t have contact with the people I care about, if only for a day.

I know so many amazing and wonderful and beautiful people, however, with my erratic and disorganised personality, I have trouble keeping up with them all. I talk to people as often as I can, and try my best to have physical contact with most, but I find it so difficult to organise my time in a way that I can get my study done, attend uni, work and see people.

I have some very beautiful relationships, and can go for months without contact with someone and still consider them to be a close friend. There are some people that I haven’t seen for years that I still hold close. I just wish that I had the capability to see them all as often as I like.  A lot of special people to me live interstate and overseas, and by goodness I wish had the organisation capacity to visit them all. So I’ve made myself a new commitment. I am going to work ridiculously hard to make sure I can organise myself in a way that allows me to best maintain my relationships, be it allocating a certain time every day to catch up with someone, or a certain few hours a week to skype with those special people I cannot see. I’m already in the process of organising visits interstate in my holidays to see some important people to me, one of which I haven’t seen for years upon years.

It’s going to be hard for me. Organisation is my biggest weakness, followed shortly by consistency. However, I am well due for a change, and I feel that there is no better change to make right now.

Time to get reaquainted with organisation (and beautiful people in the process).

Stay tuned.