Growing up Neurodivergent in Newy

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So, Black Inc Books went and pathologised Autism and related conditions and tried to uphold the medical model and delegitimise self-diagnosis in a world where diagnosis costs thousands of dollars and the trauma of reliving your childhood to get a label you already identify with so you can access NDIS and DSP and other supports. But go off. Click through to Twitter if you want to know how well that went with the Actually Autistic Aussie community there. Apparently they’re owned by a Zionist anyway, so whatever.

I’ve had a huge week, two days at the Sydney World Pride Human rights conference and my Nanna’s funeral and just surviving in between. I’m tired, probably sick, but always up for a rant.

The conference was amazing, 1800 delegates from around the world coming together to reaffirm the fight for our human rights as LGBTQIA+ people and wondering beings. The first session started late, about 45 minutes, which had me cranky since I’d been up since 4.30am to get there. They also had lunch scheduled in for times like 1.45pm…. I know it’s only 15 minutes later, but I feel like lunch should never start later than 1.30pm, Preferably no later than 1,

There were cookies. Many cookies. I feel like I need to learn more about Intersex people and the issues that affect them, and also about how gender is described in Indigenous populations and I need to step back more as a cis white woman and stfu. We need to decolonise at every stage, We need to look at who is not in the room and see how we can bring them in. I was there on an “affordability” ticket that I had to apply to get based on being a concession card holder. It was still $120, so well out of reach for most people I know living on welfare in this country, I put it on Zippay, so it’ll be paid off at some point. There was a panel on economic inclusion which talked about offering training to people to start their own businesses, but it all came down to there needing to be capital, start up funding and grants and microloans. Queer people will continue to need to crowdfund to get their dreams.

There was a roundtable on Thursday about Autistic and Queer identities but I had to miss that for my Nanna’s funeral. It was probably for the best I didn’t travel to Sydney three days in a row, anyway. I got to nap on the trips down which was helpful. I wish the coffee stations were open before the first session! But I guess they want everyone to buy from their cafe. The funeral was fine. I got impatient with an old lady who was asking my father where some other relative was living and I’m lady talk to us at the wake, not right now right after the service. I may not get along great with my father but I’m protective of him. Rah. It’s like when my Aunt died and someone was going off on him on the phone about something and I made my mother take the phone and tell them to kindly leave him the fuck alone.

I look at my family I’ve come from and the one that’s developing. I have queer and neurdiverse niblings on my side and Bruce’s, who’ve come out into this world and what it offers and threatens. I’m here to help them how I can to protect them and celebrate them. I’m going to become a step-grandmother this year, which I’m aiming to embrace and celebrate.

I’ll leave you with two book recommendations of amazing neurodivergent women. First is Anna Spargo-Ryan’s A kind of magic and second Amy Thunig’s Tell Me Again. Two women of around my age growing up in Australia with brilliant minds but fighting their own and their family’s demons around mental health and addiction. So much from both books resonated with me. You never know what people are going through.

I’m two years sober from alcohol. And I’ve done two months straight daily Japanese practice. I like numbers.

Happy New Year?

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So, I started drafting a year in review for 2022, but then shit happened and now it’s Jan 5, so moving right along. I spent new years eve with my partner Bruce and my sister Jennie. I had planned to do that anyway, but it was kinda enforced after she took a deliberate overdose of paracetamol a few days before, had a hospital stay, and was discharged into my care. What a way to end and start the year, but I guess it’s good it wasn’t me this time and I’m in a place mentally where I can look after her to some extent, even if I’ve spent the afternoon asleep and hiding from the world to recover my spoons from over-stimulation, too much responsibility, and there just being too much noise. But I know what I needed and took this afternoon for that. So I can get back to it when I’m next needed, or maybe just take tomorrow to do housework around here and go pick up the book I have on hold at the library.

I also have started back into Japanese practice. I’m back to doing it daily through Duolingo and streaming it live to my Twitch so that I practice my pronunciations and make it less of a point and click game. I also have my new PC that Bruce built me over the last few months, the keyboard and mouse I won and new Logitech headset a twitter follower bought off my Throne Wishlist for Xmas!

As much as I didn’t wanna go into this year fighting, here we are. Bring it on!

Let the Christmas Countdown Begin!

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Apparently it’s 34 days til Xmas!! Don’t @ me for putting up my Xmas so early, it’s later than the last couple of years! I made a time with my sister and the two youngest nephews to come over and help with the tree and decorating. That was yesterday, and it was a fun long day.

The putting up of the Christmas tree means I also started wearing my Xmas clothes and earrings. Not shoes yet but tomorrow! I have skirts and tunic tops and dresses and two pairs of shoes from Rainbows and Fairies (we did the shoot for the new Xmas print Santa’s house on Tuesday and those photos have gone up!

My teeshirts are pretty much all from TeeTurtle and the earrings are from Indifferent Avocado, Burnbella and various other online places over the years.

I haven’t put my outdoor lights out yet – it was super windy yesterday and the inflatable tree and Santa tried to leave, but when that dies down I’ll string up fairy lights outside with them and the meerkats! i was very restrained on the weekend and didn’t buy two more from Woolies , but if you want to add to the #CultOfTheMeerkat, you can via my throne :p

Christmas also means summer and it looks like lotsa boat rides in Bruce new tinny!

Black Dog Institute Summit on Self-Harm #BDISummit

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Pretty obviously there’s a content note about this post for suicide and self-harm

Thanks to Livingworks, I received a bursary to attend the Black Dog Institute Summit on Self Harm in Sydney last week. It was a huge day, starting with catching the 4.51am train down, so I’ll reflect on it with prompting from the posts under the #BDISummit hashtag…

The day before, most of the experts had been at a summit organised by the Lancet on putting together the research from around the world on self-harm and suicide statistics, themes and prevention. Lots of British accents, but also people from around the world. There were people researching self harm in lower and middle income countries and how the reasons for, means, and intentions vary from high-income countries. There were also Indigenous perspectives and reminding us that all the basics, like income above the poverty line, less traumatic emergency department experiences, and compassion in general lead to such great results.

Conference mode means mentos and apparently these fancy glasses that I was so tempted to smuggle out but I was good and stuck to perishables like a banana for breakfast the next day and few tea bags.

Emergency and Inpatient Departments are not fit for purpose

Nearly everyone who has gone to the emergency department feeling suicidal or having self harmed in some way has had one or more bad experiences. If you had a good experience, that is amazing and you probably went on to seek and get treatment and didn’t end up back there. If you do survived the assessment in an unsuitable place without excusing yourself, you face a super long wait for any outpatient therapy, or if you end up in inpatient it can also be a very scary, far from healing experience :/

What use is giving CBT to someone in poverty?Β 

Well, given the long waiting lists that psychologists have in Australia, the huge gap you’re up for in most instances if you do get in to see someone, we’re not even at the point of being able to see what a good block of therapy can do while someone is subsisting on welfare in this country. Personally I was fortunate enough to do my block f DBT but I wouldn’t have gotten into that if I hadn’t been at the point of self harming and having the right diagnosis, and surviving the year you need to before the program commences. I have too many friends on Twitter (whose demise is distresses for many who have it as their lifeline quite literally when it comes to seeking emotional and financial support)Β  who saw their mental health stablise when JobSeeker was above the poverty line and mutual obligations were suspended and they were just left to be by a system that is designed to make money for providers without having to give outcomes to “participants”. argh.

Lived and LIVING experience

Interesting discussion at the podium and in the breaks about living experience of self harm and the validity of being able to live a meaningful life while still self-harming. But differentiating this from the person who appears to be well, who is going about their right daily activities, but s struggling or suffering privately. There was discussion around “protecting” the lived experience workforce from further harm as well as allowing those who are participating in research or work to be able to identify for themselves whether they are currently well enough to take part – like me coming to the summit that day and being able to identify if I needed to tap out, or knowing that I would be worn out in the following days from the experience, whether that is just from the early start, social and masking spoons used, or form any more emotional energy from such a heavy topic.

Last of all, what’s an event post with me without the food?

Breakfast was served during the initial session, with mueslie and yoghurt, and mini big breakfast (thankfully without eggs) coming to the table with pots of coffee.

Raspberry and banana bread and fresh fruit at morning tea, along with a nice cold iced tea.

There was hot food at lunch, but I had a couple of chicken rolls and some Greek Salad. I took a couple of rolls for the train ride home for dinner along with some of the fruit at morning tea.

Chocolate slices for afternoon tea – a very sense brownie for me with a little more coffee for the afternoon roll home.

Nice swift train and tram ride home – I wasn’t murdered in the dingy Star casino light rail station which was a relief!

Where to from here? I watched part of a webinar from Lived Experience Australia on how to become a peer worker on Monday, but it was the basic things like do the course and network and find out where you really want to use your skills… And I kinda know that. I also know that I looked up the peer worker course that TAFE NSW runs and immediately realised I don’t yet want to commit to formal study, and so won’t even apply for anything for first semester next year if at all. Maybe 2024. I’m finding that one external engagement outside my own appointments and anything that I take my niblings to is more than enough currently, like the summit, or a modelling day, or a Greens event. And I want to keep doing that stuff. I also don’t know if peer work as such is for me, but I’m glad being a researcher with lived experience of self harm was also modelled at the summit.

And I was also so very excited that on the same day, my blogging buddy Trae was presenting at a conference over in Perth alongside Grace Tame as someone with lived experience of mental illness. Recovery is so cool. But also seeing and hearing my friends and myself thrive after so many years surviving.

How I spent my $20

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oh, haiΒ  there. I’m Fiona. You may now know me now as the woman on Q+A with $20 who looked pained at Jim Chalmer’s response to her question about how those on fixed incomes like the disability pension are supposed to make choices between food and medicine (seriously, I better pay that chemist bill as soon as I get this posted – my Webster paks are a lifesaver both literally and metaphorically)… Why are we the ones having to suffer now to keep inflation in check?

My questions and his non-answer:

So, it’s taken me a good couple of days to recover from the trip down to Sydney – got the shuttle bus the ABC organised from Broadmeadow station at 5pm with 20 others, we got there around 7:30, then went through screening, I got handed my question on a card and was told that I was the second question and that like I had spoken to the girl on the phone about, Stan would be asking me followups and she and her chatted about my situation and such a couple of times on the phone in the previous days.

It was a bumpy ride, but to my relief a fellow local Greens member and his mate were also on the bus, so I could chat to them and calm my nerves about the whole process. And we got a photo with our idols in the foyer.

Fiona and Wylie making peach signs with big ted, little ted, jemima and humpty at the abc ultimo studio

We went in around 8pm, I got a microphone attached to me. There was a warm up stand up comic. The questioners were all run through to make sure they got our names right etc, and I was SUPER excited to see that a teacher that I often had in primary school Mrs Turner was there!

I didn’t expect a real answer from Jim, just as I didn’t expect Labor to raise welfare since they walked back their promises and demands that they had in opposition in the lead up to the election they just won. Basically they promised us nothing and we should be grateful for that!

So, back to why you’re here? After my triumphant non-answer getting on Q+A i called home to Bruce to scream into the void and get his reaction and love. Which I got. And a request for burgers on the way home, to which I lol’d “Yeah I can spend my $20 on that!” he laughed and said, don’t worry about itΒ  but then I wanted burgers, and given the rough trip back, chatting with the young liberals and eating lollies and pretzels at dinner, I totally needed those burgers by the time I was back in Tronno at 1am!

So, to all the Daily Mail commenters who commented on my food choices and my fatness, yeah, I had midnight Maccas with that $20 that PureProfile surveys had credited me during the trip down (another DM commenter had suggested them too, don’t worry, I’ve been doing them for 20 years). It was the best Big Mac I’d had in a long time, the chips were salty and fresh, like me, and I needed something in my belly because I needed to be up at 7am to get to my usual Friday appointments of pickup up FoodBank and Ozharvest to share with my sister (and much free bread because there was non in the budget for us) and then to my Antabuse rehab group where we discussed what we like about our sober selves. 20 months sober my friends!

Yeah, I’m fat. And yeah I could exercise more to lose weight, but I’m glad I’m not the bulimic, exercise obsessed skinny girl I once was, 2 hours at the gym a day, running 5kms to quiet her mine. My blood tests are always showing I’m in pretty good health considering, and while I’ve been on seroquel I’ve not been anywhere near skinny. I’m mentally pretty good at the moment, and working on my mental health and life goals, while being a good human being. Looking after myself and my family and friends and being sober and safe. Financially, I’m not making any headway, but I don’t have a credit card to go into debt on, and so long as I can pay my rent and smile, I’ll be okay. Also, so long as the politicians have a food allowance that is five times the daily JobSeeker payment, don’t police our food choices, mmkay?

So, it’s been a big few days. Glad to be home with my boys and love my family, friends and twitter crew to death. Sent Bruce off this morning to work in his little tinny, and I’ve been a good housewife, doing dishes and washing and earning my keep while rolling marbles on Twitch. I also played some Scotty Goes to Centrelink (The Albo Update) earlier, and will probably go another round soon!

The full episode can be seen on the ABC website or YouTube

Please, if you also feel that it’s ridiculous that in Australia people on welfare payments are deliberately kept below the poverty line, sign this petition to parliament to have the rate of all welfare payments raised to above the Henderson Poverty line which is currently $88 a day. The petition is an official parliamentary one so you’ll need to click the verification link in your email when it comes through to complete the process.

May be an image of text that says "signed the petition to #RaiseTheRate to #88aDay because... POOR PEOPLE DESERVE NICE THINGS UINCAPLOYEO AUWU NOINN NOINN Sign and share! auwu.org.au/petition"