Category: mental health

As your local Eternally Online Elder Millennial, I volunteer to be Social Media Envoy to the Albanese Government

I started a new Sims save today – after reinstalling windows last month I needed to get all the updates and update OBS and all the other things to make streaming possible again. And I got there. It’s cleaner because so much got purged, I’m sure I’ll add to the clutter on the screen, in my life – both Sims and IRL.

I first got online in 2000, aged 17/18. So an older teen, but still a teen. I got onto playing Neopets, chatting through ICQ and Yahoo Groups, and we started online journals and blogging. I made friends around the world. I don’t see banning teens and tweens even from social media as viable, let alone a good thing. Kids already just get their parents and older siblings to make accounts for them or watch hours of appropriate and less-appropriate content. A ban would see kids less able to speak up when things are a bit shady online, less able to know who to turn to if there’s a problem if they’re having to hide that part of their lives and learning to navigate it with less guidance than how many are now – locked down Instagram accounts with a select audience, Minecraft servers with strangers and friends, Youtube channels and Twitter bringing us the headlines more reliably than the national broadcaster.

The country doesn’t know when to actually let kids be kids, and when to criminalise them to to imposed outdated views on what kids should be doing. Access to information when growing up is important, and these days that information and social experimentation happens a lot online. People are worried that kids are being sexualised too young if they’re learning about queerness when really they’re just learning the terminology for what they’re feeling inside themselves that kids in the 90s and earlier couldn’t find out unless they were avid readers borrowing every book in the local library, or were in a very progressive pocket of town. Kids know they’re “not straight” but doesn’t have the words for it, just as trans kids exist and need families who just let them explore themselves – through playing with gender roles, names, types of clothing and more. Kids get to see that Straight, Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgender, Intersex, Asexual and other categories of people are able to grow up into happy and healthy adults and can see that positive possibility for themselves.

I’m loving that future for the kids. Let’s not take it from them.

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Coughing and Perfectionism

I coughed a lot as a child. My colds always continued on for weeks into night coughs and it was a great break mover the period of covid shut down and precautions not to have a regular cold that trailed on for weeks disturbing my sleep and just being unpleasant.

I have one horrible memory of a coughing fit. In about grade 6, I was singing in choir before and assembly. And I started coughing. Turning away to cover my face but trying to stay with it in between. That was touch enough until the strict kindergarten teacher that had taught for centuries came up and pulled me aside on the stage as the rest of the school came in for the assembly. She told me offndor turning away to cough and told me it was rude or distracting or something. And then of course I start coughing in front of her. “Don’t cough at me” she yells and I say big can’t help it I have a cough. Eventually she let’s me go and I head outside and cry. Another , also known as strict teacher sees me and I cry that I have a headache and she let’s me sit outside for the assembly and calm down.

I wonder if it was connected that this was the teacher I had in kinder when I got upset at home because I was too sick to go to school and distressed I’d fall behind.

Who knows

I used to get jealous of the kids who got kept home from school less sick than me.

But at least I was a good kid and never shut in the storeroom.

Who CAN we trust with our stories?

After the disheartening response to the Disability Royal Commission finally came out last month, advocates and many others were left in literal tears, wondering what the point of a 4 -year commission that heard the many stories of violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect of disabled Australians was. Again this week, those who gave evidence to the gambling harms enquiry are wondering the same. Why should vulnerable people who have already suffered subject themselves to rehashing their stories for the amusement of government panels who have already seemed to have decided what actions they’ll take no matter how harrowing it gets?

Of course, it’s just everyone else’s turn to learn this after the continued deaths in custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, seemingly not even slowing since the 1987 Royal Commission. The Closing the Gap figures last week were going backwards in essential areas, with the stirred up racism and disappointment of “The Voice” brushed aside by our dear leader, who can’t commit to Makarrata, to Treaty, or even to Truth Telling, which is sorely needed. We need to face the fact that we’re continuing the horrors of the Stolen Generations with child protection policies and locking up Blak kids and that more of the same isn’t getting us anywhere.

And our Governments support for Genocidal Israel is not instilling confidence in their willingness to not continue the Genocide here.

Each day I get emailed surveys to do, to share my story with another Not For Profit, or the Greens (who I’m still deciding whether I’ll renew my membership of, got another reminder text today) or news of another Senate inquiry. I don’t know what to do with these. I fill some responses out myself, when I have the spoons, but I’m reluctant to pass them on anymore. Reluctant to ask that emotional labor of people who are already battling to get through their day-to-day life when I can’t seem to offer them examples of how it will change things for them or the people they care about.

A lot of my people are burning out at the moment, running themselves thin, with family deaths and health issues themselves, wanting to ramp up to see if we can force Labor’s hand ahead of the upcoming election, but also needing to focus on self-care, on mutual aid, on trying to do some positive things too to brighten their lives in the immediate sense.

I’m down a car this week, so out of routine. Bruce’ll fix in on the weekend. But I went across the road for some sun with the dog just now and that was nice, gave me some healing warmth. I’ll catch the train into town tomorrow for group and might make some time to wander along the streets and browse the shops. There’s a few op-shops there I haven’t been to in ages I might pick up something from.

Love yas x

Blue Koala at the rest stop in Port Macquarie

Does my anxiety make you nervous?

I think this must come under unmasking as an Autistic person – making peach with some of my anxiety, especially when it doesn’t actually stop me from doing anything. Like, is my voice shaking? Sorry I mumbled, I’ll repeat myself, did I get my message across clearly this time? Awesome. 

Is my foot tapping and knee-bobbing a stim? Does it help the rest of my to focus, or have I had too much Diet Coke and need to get that out somehow? Or, have I been picking at a dry piece of skin or my scalp? That, I want to replace with something else or help calm it down because it actually can lead to other harms. I found that having 40mg of fluoxetine made those picking habits come back, but back on 60mg they’ve eased again. Not sure if that’s the only thing that I changed to make that happen, but the extra meds don’t seem to have harmful effects so I’ll run with it for now. If I notice myself starting to pick I’ll find something else to do with my hands, maybe smash out something here on on Twitter. Turn that nervous energy into words.

I still need to find a good oral stim, I do like chewing on soft drink bottle lids, and it really does bring me comfort. But they’re not always available and I chew them to death then they have to be thrown out. Gum doesn’t seem to be enough for me, it needs more resistance. Pascal Caramels when cold are great too, but since they’re full of sugar I can’t really rely on them. 

I’ve been using my under desk pedaller more, working off that need to move while I’m at my desk, especially in this cold weather. A walk is still so good, with its fresh air and sunshine, I miss running but it would take a bit to get my body back into that, especially with some residual injuries that keep nagging at me. We went bike riding on the weekend, that was good, I’m just a bit nervous on it, I did fall off before I even started, but after that I warmed into it. I’m sore though from using different muscles. Which means I need to go again soon.

Superhuman

Laying in the back of your carI’ve been thinking ’bout the ways that I took it too farIn pursuit of perfection, I lost my directionAnd now I gotta reckon with the shame of tomorrowSee I always wanted more from the world, more from myselfPiling on the good times, high from the top shelf, yeah yeah
I heard that everybody’s got a limit, manI think I hit, cuz I’mCuz I’m onlyGuess I’m only
HumanDon’t know what we’re doin’Fight because we’re stupidLife we just abuse itCrying in confusionI know I just ruinEverything I worked for now I’m sitting all aloneGuess that makes me superhumanGuess that makes me superhumanGuess that makes me superGuess that makes me super
Sitting at the top of LALooking out at all the billboards and highwaysGuess I answered the question, I’m not the exceptionAnd now I gotta reckon with nobody to blameSee I thought that I could fly to the sun, never get burnedPride is a, pride is a motherfucker
I know that everybody’s got a limitAnd one day, you’re gonna hit it, cuz you’reCuz you’re onlyYea we’re only
HumanDon’t know what we’re doin’Fight because we’re stupidLife we just abuse itCrying in confusionI know I just ruinEverything I worked for now I’m sitting all aloneGuess that makes me superhuman
a storiis screenshot of a bottle of pills for Katherine Falrety
Always have to come down from an event from a gig. At least I didn’t get strep throat like K.Flay, at least my (out of date) RATs I’ve been doing since the show in Sydney have been negative. At least all my aches and pains and stuff don’t deem to be the Covid I’d resigned myself getting after sweating it out in from of the stage. I seem to have dodged that bullet, still a chance I’ve got it of course. Or something else, but I’m back to being concerned about the bloods and ECG I had last Tuesday and the results aren’t on my health record, but at least the Medicare bulk billing’s been done for them as of yesterday.
I must be highly suggestible, or I don’t notice things that might be wrong until they’re suggested to me? I’m been listening to my heart more, paranoid it’s out of sorts because it was suggested it might be. And maybe the irregular number of beats I was hearing when I was deaf from ear wax for three weeks is something to be concerned about. But then maybe it’s nothing, maybe any of my dizziness or shaking can come down to blood sugar and general blood pressure issues and I’ll just go in for my next lot of scripts and the new GP will say it’s all fine and dandy. I’m still hoping to bring down my antidepressant levels if I can, but I still feel like routine will help me more than that. But it’s hard to get routine when things keep breaking – one car’s going in for transmission work tomorrow, Bruce needs one for work, there’s been little things breaking on the Corolla too, the door handle, the speedo, the windscreen repairs not actually repairing but making the crack worse. Just feels like we’re chasing tails. And spending a lot of time and money buying part on eBay.
Not that keeping the AU would have been much better. I hope it’s working okay for the guy that bought it, and he enjoys it before the rust becomes too fatal. We keep hearing people doing skids nearby, but it’s never been him.
Nine days til the promised NBN install. Another reason not to get covid is I really don’t want to have to cancel that time, because it’d prolly be ANOTHER six weeks after that to get a tech booked in :/ Making my little plans. I really wanna do some streaming, both because I miss my little online games (GTA, Red Dead) and I do feel like that’s something I could get into properly if I even got sorted with a few things. So add me on Twitch so you can find out when I do go live and try o help me figure all that out again. I’ve been playing with my overlays and alerts ready to go too.
So I’m doing a lot of not much, not enough of what I want to be doing, but not sure what all that it. But I’ve probably going enough lines up for once I DO get proper internet, and if I start putting up for more it’s gonna be too much.
So day by day. It’s raining again.